VET Vampire Romance 01 - Covet

breathe. He stared at her, mesmerised, lost in the black abyss of her dilated pupils.
    Enthralled.
    She didn’t take her eyes away from his as expected. She held his gaze, steady and unafraid, no trace of fear in her scent. The way she looked at him spoke of desire and he had a hard time telling himself that he had to be imagining it. Her bond with her master made it impossible for her to feel anything for Javier. The gentle rhythm of her heartbeat called to him, luring his gaze down to her cleavage, and he fought his desire to step closer so he could reach out and run a lone finger over the luscious curves of her breasts. Touching her would only bring her pain. He couldn’t. No matter how much he needed to have her warm soft skin beneath his fingertips and know the feel of her at last. It would hurt her. He didn’t care. No. He did care. If it hurt her, he would stop. He would never harm Lilah. To pain her was to pain himself. He cared about her too much.
    “Are you coming?” Callum’s voice shattered the spell she had cast on Javier and he glanced at him and nodded.
    When he looked back, the door was closing and Lilah was gone.
    He rubbed the bridge of his nose, drew in a long deep breath, catching the enticing scent of her in the air, and followed Callum backstage.
    Later.
    He would be in her presence. Alone.
    And he wouldn’t be able to resist her any longer.
    If it hurt her, he would stop, but he needed to touch her.
    He needed to know the feel of her and her taste.
    Even if that one taste was all he could ever have.
    Even if it signed his death sentence.

Chapter 2
    Lilah didn’t pause to watch the show as she cleaned the boxes, preparing the red velvet seats for the coming week. She pulled another of the covers off the plush soft seats and hit it with the palm of her hand to beat out any dust that had managed to creep under the protective cream material. The murmur of the crowd below drew her attention to them. She pressed her hands into the small of her back, stretching her spine, and sighed. Preparations for the new season were always tiring but she had been working harder than ever tonight, hoping that Callum would notice and that Javier’s punishment would be less severe because of it.
    She wasn’t sorry that she had hit Victor. She was surprised.
    She had expected him to stop her or evade her fist. He must have been more caught up in what he had been doing than she had thought.
    Lilah removed the cover off the final chair in the elegant gold and red box, folded it and set it down on the pile near the red velvet curtain that shielded the private area from the corridor that ran between all the boxes. During the main season, the aristocrat vampires used the boxes, separating themselves from the elite who sat in the rows of seats filling the theatre below. She had never cleaned the boxes before.
    She ran her fingers over the carved wooden top of the hip-height wall around the box. Antoine had arranged the cleaning of the exterior and repainting of the interior during the closed period so the cream paint was perfect, highlighted with beautiful gold that one of the decorators had told her was real. Only the best for the aristocrats.
    Lilah leaned against the edge of the box and looked down at the crowd as they watched the show on the grand stage to her left. How did the aristocrats feel when they sat up here, looking down on their weaker kin? Was that why they preferred the boxes? So they could look down on vampires they believed were weaker and less worthy than they were? She had never understood the sense of separation between them. To her, it didn’t matter how pure their blood was or what lineage they were from. They were all vampires.
    She had never believed in their existence until Lord Ashville had found her on the streets and forced his blood down her throat, bonding with her and claiming her as a sort of slave. His blood in her veins linked her to him but she hadn’t seen him in a long time and she didn’t care. She hated him and wished she could break free of his rule, had tried to escape his mansion many times, so many that he had grown tired of her and sent her here along with another of his humans. She hadn’t realised what sort of place the theatre was until she had caught her first glimpse of the show. She had blushed a thousand shades of red and hadn’t been able to take her eyes off the stage, watching the perversion playing out on it, the bloodletting and debauched erotic