Secret Of The Vampire (paperback)

🩸Fated Mates

🖤Touch Her and Die

💔Emotionally Wounded
Heroine / Guarded Vampire Hero

🔥Forbidden Desire
& Magic-Bound Lovers

💀He’d burn the world
for her

He built his world on order. She was born of chaos.

And fate just bound them by blood. 🩸

Elias Noire has survived a century through control—routine, discipline, and silence. But the moment the witch with the haunted green eyes walks into his bar, his walls start to crumble.

 Talin Moss is everything he swore to avoid: wild, wounded, and wrapped in dangerous magic.

She needs his help to Threadwalk—a forbidden power that could save her cousin from a djinn or destroy them all.

 But every time she touches him, her magic flares. Every time he resists, the bond between them tightens.

 When an ancient evil threatens to claim her, Elias faces the one truth he can’t tidy away:

The witch isn’t just his weakness. She’s his fate.

 And to save her, he’ll have to surrender his immortality… and maybe his soul.

Elias

She should have said no. Should have pushed me away. Should have recognized the danger of a vampire on the edge of losing all control.

Instead, she tilted her head to the side, baring her throat to me.

I didn't let myself think. Didn't let myself question. I just struck.

Faster than a striking snake, my fangs sank into the soft flesh where her neck met her shoulder, and her blood hit my tongue like liquid fire.

Oh, GODS.

The moment it hit my tongue, the world around us shattered into fragments of light and sensation until time stood perfectly still.

Better than the finest whiskey, it poured down my throat and burned through me like molten gold, every nerve ending in my body lighting up at once in a symphony of pleasure so intense it bordered on pain. My vision went white, then sharpened with brutal clarity. Sharper than it had ever been before. I could see everything. The individual strands of her hair. The faint sheen of sweat on her skin. The sparkling threads tangling around us. I could feel everything. Her heartbeat. The pulse of her life beneath my lips. The tension in her muscles. The heat radiating from her core. I could taste everything. Her fear. Her desire. Her power flowing into me.

And gods, the taste. The fucking taste of her.

Cinnamon and wildfire. Dark sin and bright magic. Something fundamentally Talin that I'd never experienced with anyone else. It wasn't just blood. It was essence, soul, every part of her distilled into something so perfect I nearly collapsed under the weight of it.

And as I drank, the mate bond slammed into place with the force of a freight train.

I knew. Absolutely. Irrevocably. That she was MINE.

Every possessive instinct I had roared to life. She was mine to protect. Mine to claim. Mine to keep.

Forever.

I drank deeper. I couldn't help it. I needed more. Needed all of her. My hands tightened on her waist, pulling her harder against me. She made a sound—pleasure, pain, I couldn't tell—and the combination nearly undid me.

My cock was so hard it felt like it was going to fucking explode, my entire body shaking. Trembling with the strain of not giving in to every dark, possessive urge currently shredding me apart.

Talin's fingers dug into my shoulders, her legs tightening around my waist as she made small, desperate sounds that nearly broke me. I could feel her pleasure through the connection of blood and magic, could taste it on my tongue, and it was the most erotic thing I'd ever experienced.

More. Need more. Need everything.

The thought barely registered as rational. It was pure vampire instinct, ancient and absolute, demanding I complete the bond. Demanding I claim her in every way possible until there was no question, no doubt, no possibility of her ever belonging to anyone else. To give her my blood in return so I'll have her forever.

My free hand slid to her throat, tilting her head further back, and another pull of blood sent a wave of pleasure through my system so intense that my knees nearly buckled.

Perfect. She's perfect. Mine. Always mine.

Somewhere beneath the overwhelming need, a tiny voice of reason was screaming at me. Warning me. Telling me I was losing control in a way I'd never lost it before. That I was dangerously close to taking too much…

With a monumental effort that cost me everything, I forced my fangs to retract. Forced myself to pull back even though every instinct I possessed screamed in protest. I sealed the wounds with my tongue, something between a caress and a claiming, delighting in the way Talin shuddered against me as I did.

I stumbled backward. Put distance between us before I lost what little control I'd managed to cling to. When I finally raised my head to look at her, a low, satisfied growl rose within my chest.

Her eyes were glazed with pleasure, her lips swollen from my kisses. She was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

Slowly, she raised her hand and pressed it against her throat where I'd bitten her.

I tracked every tiny movement.

"Elias? Are you okay? You're shaking."

I was. My entire body trembled with aftershocks of pleasure and need and absolute, terrifying knowledge. I opened my mouth to answer her, but no words came, because how could I explain what I'd just experienced?

How could I form words past the overwhelming certainty, the bone-deep knowledge that had taken root in my chest.

She was MINE.

My fated mate.

And I'd just tasted her.

There was no going back from this now. No pretending it was anything else. For me, the bond was sealed, permanent, irrevocable. I could still taste her on my tongue, could still feel her essence singing through my veins. Could feel the place where our souls had recognized each other and locked together like pieces of a puzzle.

I would never be able to feed from anyone else. Not after this. My body wouldn't accept anyone else now. Not after knowing what she tasted like. She'd ruined me for anyone else in a single moment, and the possessive satisfaction that thought brought should have terrified me.

It did fucking terrify me.

But more than that—gods help me—it felt right.

And that was so wrong.

"I..." I stepped back from her, and the separation felt like I was tearing off my own skin with every inch. I couldn't stop shaking.

"You're scaring me." She slid off the bar on unsteady legs.

Gods, I'd taken too much. Why did I take so much?

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong." Everything was wrong. Everything had changed in the space of a heartbeat, and I had no idea how to process it. "I just... I need… I have to go." The words tore out of me.

"What? No. Elias, wait—"

But I was already moving. Already heading for the door. If I stayed, I would do something irrevocable. Would pull her back into my arms and never let go. Would claim her so thoroughly that the whole city would know she was mine.

And she deserved better than that. Better than a vampire who couldn't control his own instincts. Who'd nearly lost himself in the taste of her blood.

I made it to the alley before my knees gave out.

Slumped against the brick wall, I pressed my palms to my eyes and tried to breathe through the overwhelming sensations still flooding my system. Her taste. Her scent. The feel of her in my arms.

MINE.

The word pulsed through me like a heartbeat. Like the one truth I'd ever known.

My fangs ached. My cock was painfully swollen. My instincts urging me to go back inside, to finish what we'd started.

But I couldn't. Not yet. Not until I had some control back. Not until I could look at her without seeing prey and possession and mine written in every thought.

I'd spent over a century building walls. Creating order. Maintaining control.

She'd shattered it all in less than a week.

And I didn't know whether to worship her for it, or run as fast and far as I could.