secret Of The Vampire (paperback)

My past was a cage. My freedom was a lie. And she… she is my reckoning.

 All I ever wanted was to reclaim what the cult stole from me.

Freedom.

On stage at The Purple Fang, bathed in neon and sin, I ruled. Every gaze belonged to me. Every moment, mine to control.

No one commanded me.

Until her.

With a single glance, Esme Ramirez shattered the illusion. The stunning bruja saw through my stage persona, through the armor I’d built, and straight to the monster beneath.

Vampire.

She should have run. Instead, she demanded my help. Revenge against the creature
that slaughtered her family.

I should have said no.

But I didn’t.

Because the moment I got too close, I knew the truth.

Esme is MINE.

Now, protecting my fated mate is the only thing that matters. And I will kill anyone
who dares to threaten her.

Even if the greatest threat… is me.

Brogan

I'd thrown down the glove, and now I waited to see if she was going to pick it up or just walk out the door and out of my life.

For a second, I thought for sure she was gonna choose the second option, and something sharp and unexpected twisted in my gut. But then she surprised me, as she’d been doing since the first night I saw her.

I watched, fascinated, as the uncertainty cleared from her expression and her eyes dropped to my mouth. The tip of her tongue wet her lips, making that fucking red lipstick glisten. Her chest rose and fell with quick breaths, and the blood rose to the surface of her skin, giving it a pretty pink flush. I barely held back my groan as the back of my throat began to burn with thirst.

A second later she stepped closer to me, her soft palms sliding up the outside of my forearms as her spicy sweet scent surrounded me like a cloud. I inhaled through my nose, breathing her deep into my lungs and imprinting her onto every cell in my body.

Fucking hell.

Her thumbs grazed the sensitive skin at the bend of my arms, and my knees almost buckled. Then she lifted her lashes, her dark eyes holding mine captive, and my entire fucking world tilted on its axis at the raw need I saw burning there.

Her lips touched mine, feather-light at first, then more firmly as she leaned into me. I stopped breathing entirely for a few seconds as my mind went utterly blank. I'd fed from women so many times I'd lost count, tasted their desire with a kiss designed to throw them off guard, felt their warm blood on my tongue, but never had I wanted to devour someone like I wanted to devour Esme. Despite the fact that I'd just fed, I was suddenly so fucking thirsty, like I'd been starved my whole unnatural life, and she was the richest, most decadent meal I could ever imagine. I craved this woman with my whole soul.

Unable to stop myself, I pulled her closer, my hands sliding around her waist. And as she pressed her soft curves against me, every nerve ending in my body lit up like a bonfire, my gums aching as my fangs lengthened in response to the lust rushing through my blood.

Then, as quickly as it started, it was over. She pulled away, leaving me breathless and reeling and empty. I couldn't think, couldn't speak. I could only stare at her, my eyes wide, my heart pounding hard and fast.

"Esme…" Her name escaped my mouth before I could stop it. A plea. A question. An invocation. I wanted to kiss her again. Needed to kiss her. To block out the voices in my head that were already trying to intrude on this moment. I didn't want to think. Didn't want to let them in.

Her eyes softened, and for a moment, I thought I saw something like regret flicker across her face. But it was gone before I could be sure. She stepped back, smoothing her hair and tugging on her clothes with a casual elegance that only served to heighten my confusion and arousal. The material of her blouse was stained with my body oil on the tips of her breasts where she'd pressed against me, her nipples still hard. A low groan escaped me before I could stop it. Visions of Esme naked and covered in oil beneath me flashed through my head and I blinked hard, trying to disperse them before I tackled her onto the floor.

"I—I should go." Her words were a whisper, but the determination in her eyes contradicted the hesitance in her voice.

I wanted to protest, to pull her back into my arms and kiss her until we were both senseless. But as I stood there staring at her perfect face and the lipstick smeared across her mouth, I found I couldn't move.

Women are sacred…

Only the pure will survive…

I was frozen, desire warring with uncertainty, my body and mind revolting against each other. "I don't date customers," I finally managed to get out. But my words sounded weak and unsure, even to me.

At the door, she turned, and a naughty smile played at the corners of her lips. "I'll see you when I see you," she told me. And then she was gone.

For a long time, I couldn't move as I battled a silent war inside my head that jumped back and forth between my past and my present. But eventually, I wandered over to my locker and grabbed some clean clothes, then got in the shower. I was supposed to do another performance tonight, but it wasn't going to happen. Not after that.

Fuck me. I needed some time to recover.

Stepping under the hot spray, I let the water sluice over my body and wash away the sin I'd just committed. But it couldn't wash away the memory of Esme's lips, or the way her curves had felt pressed against me. I closed my eyes, leaning my forehead against the cool tile wall as I struggled to get the damning voices in my head under control.

But it was no use. As soon as my eyes closed, a memory from my past assaulted me. One I'd tried so hard to forget, and thought I had.

It slammed into me like a tidal wave, stealing my breath and making my knees give. I slid down the shower wall, the water pounding against my head and back as I pulled my knees to my chest and pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes, trying to block out the images that assaulted my mind. But it was no use.

I was suddenly thirteen and human again, standing in the middle of the compound where I was raised, my hands bound in front of me as the elders circled me like vultures. I'd been caught kissing a girl my age behind the building that served as both a school and a church. It was innocent, just a childish brush of lips born more from curiosity than anything. But in the eyes of the cult, it was a sin of the highest order.

"Brogan, you've been found guilty of the sin of lust," Elder Thomas intoned, his voice cold and unforgiving. "You've defiled yourself and the girl with your impure thoughts and actions."

I wanted to protest, to tell them that it wasn't like that, that we were just curious about what it felt like, but I knew it would be no use. In their eyes, I was already condemned. As was she.

"As punishment for your transgression, you will be cleansed," Elder Thomas continued. "You will be purified in the eyes of God."

I didn't know what that meant, but I soon found out. They dragged me to the center of the compound, where a large wooden post had been erected. They tied me to it, my back to the crowd that had gathered to watch my shame. I looked around for Clara, the girl I'd kissed, not wanting her to see. But I needn't have worried. She wasn't there.

Before I could let that thought sink in, I heard the whistle of the belt before I felt it, a sharp crack that echoed through the air. And then pain, more surprising than anything, exploded across my back. I cried out, my body jerking against the ropes that held me in place.

Again and again, the leather fell across my back and ass, until I thought it would never end. I'd never been beaten before. My parents had never once laid so much as a finger on me in anger. But even worse than the physical pain was the shame, the knowledge that everyone was watching, that they all knew what I'd done.

When it was finally over, they didn’t cut me down. They left me there, my back on fire and my shoulders aching from the ropes as I tried to hold back the tears that burned behind my eyes.

"This is the price of sin," Elder Thomas told the people watching, his voice ringing with righteous fury. "The pull of satan is strong, and must be shocked out of your system. Remember this, and keep yourselves pure."

Then they left me there for three days and three nights, exposed to the elements with no food and no water, covered in my own piss and shit for everyone to see as they took turns praying for my soul. I never saw Clara again, and I didn't dare ask anyone where she was. To this day I have no idea where she went or what happened to her.

I came back to the present with a gasp, my body shaking violently, the pain and humiliation as fresh as the day it had happened. Shaking my head, I tried to clear it of the memories that clung like cobwebs. The water had gone cold, and I was shivering. Slowly getting to my feet, I scrubbed the shame from my skin before I turned off the spray and stepped out of the shower, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around my waist.

As I passed by the mirror above the sink, I caught a glimpse of my reflection and froze. For a second, that scared, humiliated little boy stared back at me, his eyes haunted and his back striped with welts. I blinked, and the image was gone, replaced by the male I was now. My back had healed, the marks fading over time. But the emotional scars…hell. Sometimes I wondered if they'd ever go away.

Desire is a sin.

Lust is a weakness.

Women are a temptation to be avoided at all costs.

I'd lived by those words for too many years of my human life, denying myself any sort of pleasure or connection. Even after I'd left the cult, I'd held myself apart from everyone else, never letting anyone get too close, not wanting to risk my soul ever again. But it was so fucking lonely.

Until Killian found me and brought me into my new family.

Leaning closer to the mirror, I wiped at a small smudge of red lipstick with my thumb that I’d missed beneath my bottom lip.  My cock swelled beneath the towel. 

Esme...

That woman stirred up longings within me that I couldn't indulge. Desires I felt unworthy of. Yet with a single kiss, she'd upended the very depths of my self-perception and my understanding of my role in this existence.

I dried off quickly and got dressed, then headed for the door, determined to put Esme and her intoxicating kiss out of my mind. But even as I walked out into the night, I knew it was a losing battle.

She was under my skin now, and I had a feeling she wasn't going anywhere anytime soon...