Immortals After Dark 01 - The Warlord Wants Forever

burial sites. Even at this distance, shrieks could be heard coming from within. The Valkyrie often screamed. If Annika got angry enough, car alarms in three parishes would blare.

    Okay, it might be a bit hellish.

    “It’s time you had someone take you from here,” he bit out as he continued closer.

    She frowned at him. “You forget. This is where I belong. I’m as much monster as what lies within.”

    “You’re a lot of things, Bride. But you’re not a monster.”

    “You’re right. I’m what monsters like you fear beneath their beds.”

    “But now you’re in my bed where you belong.”

    “So in this life of ours that your crazed mind envisions, I’m not going to fight?”

    He shook his head as he parked down the gravel drive. “No. I’m well aware that you’re deceptively strong. I know that other beings would rather die than risk your wrath. But I won’t ever allow you to put yourself in danger again.”

    She batted her eyelashes at him and in a syrupy voice said, “Because I’m just so darn precious to you?”

    “Yes,” he answered simply, making her roll her eyes. He got out of the car, and she followed, but he quickly traced to open it for her, looking at her as if she was crazy not to wait for him to assist her.

    Perfect. A gentleman warrior. Which she was discovering she might have a weakness for.

    As they walked the drive, he said, “Hold my hand.”

    “Big vampire scared the wittle Valkyrie will get away?”

    He turned to her with his brows drawn. “I just want to hold your hand.”

    What was that flutter in her stomach? And why didn’t she mind that her hand was slipping into his big, rough one to be completely enveloped and secured? They walked like this to the side of the cavernous thirty-room mansion.

    He was tense here, ready to trace them away in a split second, and she almost felt sorry for him when she realized he’d never seen anything like her home before. He was of the Lore, and yet in so many ways he was as human as he’d once been.

    When he made her point out the window to her room, showing him a destination, he was able to trace them again. Inside, he scanned the lace and silk filled space with those discerning eyes, studying everything within. She was the girlie-girl of the coven with her candles and silk sheets, her room and lifestyle the most human-like of any of them.

    Her room was next to Cara’s, which housed only a spartan sleeping mat, her ancient winged helmets, and a string of vampire fangs she’d taken as trophies. Across the gallery was the room of petite, timid Emmaline. Though she was part Valkyrie, she was a vampire through and through and made her little nest on the floor under her unused bed.

    It could be argued that Emma proved that not all vampires were evil and that the coven could coexist with one. Yet Emma had been the daughter of a beloved Valkyrie, and that half was believed to “temper” the other. An exception had been made for her, but Myst often wondered if she was the only one who noticed Emma flinch and tremble, her big blue eyes glinting with apprehension whenever the coven shrieked and railed about killing leeches. “Present company excepted” really was a weak statement when one thought about it.

    “So what do you want me to pack?” Myst asked.

    He raised an eyebrow. “You should be used to this. Choose clothes as if you were going away with your lover.”

    Her hands clenched as she crossed to her drawers that housed her Agent Provocateur, Strumpet & Pink, and Jillian Sherry collections, and those were mass purchases from just last week. “Depends on which lover.” She plucked out a red leather quarter-cup bra and a baby-doll teddy that was completely translucent, then held them up for him.

    “Both,” he rasped, his expression pained. She saw he was getting hard again. He noticed her noticing and his eyes darkened.

    Assuming a brisk manner, she crossed to the closet to gather a weekender bag, but he picked her up bodily by the waist and set her out of the way to gather a four-foot-long moving case. He dropped it at her feet. “Fill it, because you’re never coming back to this place.”

    At his words, she nodded, making it somehow sarcastic, and he knew she was thinking to herself how wrong he was. He exhaled wearily. If he had to battle against her for the rest of their lives, he would.

    He moved to assist her, but every drawer in her room was full of thongs, hose, lace and little silk