VET Vampire Romance 01 - Covet

Chapter 1
    There was one rule his kind honoured above all others: an owned human must never be touched by a vampire other than their master.
    Every vampire knew that to lay a hand on a bonded human out of desire or feed from their vein caused them immeasurable pain and suffering, and that their master would know of it and would come to act out the penalty.
    Death to the vampire who had broken the sacred law.
    Death was not something that Javier was looking for but knowledge that it awaited him should he break the law hadn’t stopped the fierce heat of desire from gripping him the moment she had arrived at the London theatre two years ago, sent to work by her master. Javier had been telling himself to forget her ever since. In the time that she had been in the service of the theatre, he had been unable to escape the torment of her presence. The simplest task had become agonizing for him. Giving her orders for the night with the other staff was torture he couldn’t endure. Two years and his need for her had only grown worse. His desire had gone from a liquid fire that threatened to make him step out of line if he were in her presence for more than a minute to a crushing need to kiss her whenever he heard the soft melody of her voice in the distance.
    It was unbearable.
    But bear it he would.
    There was no alternative. Her owner was one of the richest of Vampirerotique’s patrons and his business partners would stake him if he lost the man’s much needed money. That was, if the man didn’t kill him first. Lord Ashville was an aristocrat, a pureblood vampire, and almost three times Javier’s age and strength. As only an elite, Javier couldn’t contend with him. His death would be swift and brutal, and by law he wasn’t even allowed to defend himself. If he dared to touch her, to act out his dark urges and needs with the human female, he would have to quietly accept the consequences.
    It was madness to desire a human owned by such a man. He would easily sense the violation of the bond. It was madness.
    Javier swirled the blood in his crystal whisky glass, staring at it but not seeing it. His head was full of her, his heart rebelling against his better sense that said it was impossible and to give up on his futile desire for her. She would never be his.
    The soft lighting in the back of the black limousine turned the blood dark and uninviting. He drank it anyway, forcing it down, and poured himself another glass from the decanter in the small refrigerator built into the back of the driver’s seat. He had been drinking more and more often recently in the hope that it would stave off his growing hunger for her.
    Lilah.
    The car engine purred as they slowed and dread settled in his stomach. This was the moment he always feared whenever he was called away from the theatre. Lilah had been on his mind the whole time during his journey, and the whole month that he had been resident at his remote family home in northern Spain. He could still see her clearly in his mind, could vividly remember how she had looked at him with her beautiful golden brown eyes when he had announced to the staff that he would be leaving them in the capable hands of Callum, and how her heart had set off at a pace, colouring her cheeks when his control had slipped and he had looked directly at her. She was so beautiful, so alluring even in the plain long black dress of her uniform. She had haunted him this past month, had been waiting for him to close his eyes each morning and drift off to sleep before stepping into his dreams and ensuring his desire for her burned fiercer than ever each night he awoke.
    A month.
    The car pulled to a halt on the road outside the elegant columned Grecian façade of the theatre. Warm floodlights lit the sandstone from below. On a normal night of business, it would have looked inviting to him, his home away from home, the place that housed something so precious to him. Tonight, it looked cold and dark, ominous and frightening.
    An icy chill settled in his chest.
    What if this time his fears became real and he had returned to find that she was gone?
    A month was long enough for Lord Ashville to have decided he needed more servants in his mansion and sent for her. Callum had emailed Javier regular reports on the staff and the theatre while he had been away attending his sister’s wedding. His old friend hadn’t mentioned Lilah at all but that didn’t mean she was still here. Javier had wanted to ask about her so