I glowered at him, arms crossed over bare breasts, eyes narrowed.

  Then I huffed out a breath.

  “Your funeral,” I said.

  He threw his head back and laughed, and then he pulled me in, moving us to the bed, and just held me. Somehow, the lack of sex made the gesture more profound.

  A few minutes later, having almost fallen asleep in his arms, my cellphone chirped.

  Samson reached over the side of the bed and picked it up, handing the device to me without glancing at the screen.

  I swiped it open and read the message.

  Playtime was over.

  “An MP in Wellington has gone missing,” I said.

  “You didn’t react fast enough,” Samson murmured, sitting up.

  I frowned at him. He was the one who distracted me with his sexy, naked, rippling body.

  He glanced back, just as he picked up his jeans from the floor. “What?”

  “I’m doing the best that I can,” I growled, moving to get off the bed.

  Samson stepped in front of me. Still naked. Still rippling muscles. Still…no. Not sexy. I scowled.

  “Babe,” he said, tipping my chin up with a finger gently placed on it. “Your Sire wanted a reaction. You didn’t give him one, and so he’s moved on to the next phase in his plans. It’s not your fault. You’ve been in Álfheimr for the past week. He doesn’t know about Aliath, or he would have accounted for your absence. He thinks you’re above him, that’s why you haven’t hunted him yet; so he’s trying to bring you down to his level.”

  “By taking another MP?”

  “By bringing in the Master of Wellington City, who happens to also be the Enforcer for the Iunctio.”

  “He thinks I’ll come running because I’m scared.”

  “Yes. Because he would be scared if he were in your shoes.”

  “He’s rogue.”

  “And powerful. That power came from somewhere. Who was he before he lost control of his vampire? Someone, I’d wager, influential.”

  I didn’t know. I only knew his name was Xavier. But that could have been an alias. I had no way of knowing who my Sire was before he became batshit crazy.

  I sighed. “You’re right. But that still doesn’t mean I won’t hunt him down like the rabid dog that he is.”

  “Talking of dogs,” Samson said, starting to dress.

  For a second, I lamented the fact that we hadn’t taken advantage of our naked bodies.

  Samson kept talking as if he wasn’t still sporting a massive hard-on.

  “Xavier has control of the Taniwha. That is no small task.”

  And that was one large erection.

  “Georgia?”

  “Hmmm.”

  “If you keep staring at it, it’ll take it as a challenge.”

  “What?” I said, frowning up at him.

  He twisted his hips, making his cock sway before my eyes.

  “I feel like there should be a little, crosslegged man in the corner playing snake charming music on his flute,” I said dryly.

  “Are you calling my dick a snake?”

  “Something like that,” I muttered.

  I stood up and reached for my jeans, but Samson wrapped his arms around my body and hauled me against him. He kissed the side of my neck, licked across the pulse there, and whispered, “I want nothing more than to lose myself in your body, but if we start, I may not be able to stop until nightfall.”

  “It’s already nightfall,” I pointed out breathlessly.

  “Tomorrow’s nightfall,” he corrected and nipped my skin with his teeth.

  I moaned softly, tilting my head to the side like the wanton blood whore that I apparently was.

  “Babe,” he murmured. “Are you offering your vein?”

  Was I? Why was I?

  Mate, the Dark Shadow said and extended my neck for Samson’s perusal.

  I wanted to tell him it wasn’t me, that it was her. But admitting I didn’t have full control over my vampire-within seemed like a bad idea. Plus there was the whole bit about that statement being a lie. I did want this. I did want his bite. But for the life of me, I couldn’t understand why I wanted it now when time was not on our side.

  “Yes,” I said.

  Samson growled out a possessive sound and then his fangs parted skin. He pulled me closer, held me tightly, infused his bite with love and lust and desire and hunger. He drank me down as if I were a fine wine. His hips jerked, making his cock press up against my side.

  I reached down and wrapped a hand around its circumference.

  And then I lost myself as I stroked him and he drank from me, and the scents that wafted on the air made it damn near impossible to function.

  He came as he withdrew his fangs. A shout of surprise and release mixed up into one. He panted slightly as he licked the wound closed, and then he lowered his forehead to my shoulder and just held me; his body shaking ever so slightly.

  “Fuck,” he murmured. “Fuck,” he said again, clearly unable to say another word. Then he proved me wrong by adding, “You’re all dirty.”

  “Very dirty,” I said, and he snorted.

  “If you got any dirtier, we’d never be able to leave the house.”

  “You’d be too busy cleaning me up?” I asked with faux innocence.

  He growled at me and then snapped his teeth as I slipped out of his hold and headed toward the shower.

  “Georgia,” Samson said with a frustrated groan.

  “Won’t be a minute,” I called back.

  Wellington would still be there by the time the jet landed. My Sire would still be waiting.

  If that wasn’t enough to cool the jets, I didn’t know what would have been.

  And then Samson slipped into the shower behind me.

  “Your turn,” he said, displaying his neck for me to devour.

  Of course, he displayed the side that showed off my Sigillum the best. The side that called to me.

  “This has to stop,” I said, wrapping my arms around him and burying my face above my mark.

  “Why?”

  “This isn’t me,” I said in answer and bit.

  “No,” he murmured, wrapping my legs around his hips as I drank him down.

  He pressed me into the shower wall, and as the water came down all around us and the steam rose up to kiss us, he sank his thick cock deep inside.

  I moaned.

  He groaned.

  And then he started to rock.

  I came as my fangs slid out from above my mark. He shouted his release not long afterwards. The shower sprayed down all around us as we caught our breaths and he whispered in my ear, “Mate. This is mating. It has begun.”

  It has begun, he said, but it sounded more like, God help us.

  18

  Trapped

  Did this mean our vampires had made the decision for us? The Dark Shadow and Black Dog finally taking the lust and love that we still felt for each other as a sign that we wanted more?

  I knew Samson wanted more. I knew my Dark Shadow did. I assumed the Black Dog was the same; Samson’s vampire-within would have fought him otherwise.

  But I wasn’t sure if this was what I wanted.

  Sure, I wanted sex. I wanted hot and sweaty, dirty and possibly even debauched. But not debauched like the MP and his girlfriend earlier tonight.

  I shook my head. The shower still sprayed down. Samson still held me as if he was frightened I’d run, and by running, I’d doom him to a fate worse than death.

  I didn’t know enough about vampire mating. I didn’t know enough about anything, I realised.

  Shit.

  Why did Lucinda have to move away?

  I muttered a few choice swearwords inside my head and reached up and ran my fingers through Samson’s hair.

  “Hey,” I said. He clung harder. “It’s OK,” I whispered, my words almost drowned out by the shower spray. “It’s all right.”

  “You didn’t want this,” he said into my neck where his face was buried. “I’m sorry.”

  “So, it’s a done deal, then,” I murmured. But he heard me.

  “All but the actual deed,” Samson confirmed.

  “And what is the actual deed?”

  He pulled back and looked down at me. “Sex. My vampire-within claiming you as his mate. A sharing of blood.”

  “Haven’t we already done that?”

  He shook his head and then brushed his wet hair off his face. He looked shattered. Not like a man who had got his own way. That was Samson, I realised. He was capable of great feats of compassion in a world that seemed filled with Darkness.

  He wanted me as his mate. But he wanted me to want it, too.

  “It’s the way it’s done.”

  He slanted me a look and offered a small smile. It didn’t quite reach his eyes, which I noted were completely chocolate; his Black Dog had retreated, letting us come to terms with what was going to happen.

  “I’d have to take you from behind,” Samson announced, and didn’t that set up a movie reel inside my mind? “My vampire would bite into your neck.” He lifted a finger and laid it on the skin above my fluttering pulse on the side of my neck. “You would feed from my wrist, where it would be wrapped around your chest. My other hand would hold you securely to me.”

  His eyes glinted on that last sentence and darted down to my breasts.

  OK. “So, we avoid that position,” I said.

  “Georgia,” he murmured, stroking a finger down my cheek and cupping my jaw, “once we start to get…intimate, nothing will stop my vampire-within from claiming you as his mate.”

  I stared at him.

  “And your vampire-within,” he added, “will be compelled to submit to him for claiming.”

  Is that true? I asked the Dark Shadow. I couldn’t see her as the submitting type. My vampire-within was badass.

  Yes, she said but didn’t elaborate.

  You’re OK with this? I demanded.

  Mate, she said and retreated.

  “What did she say?” Samson asked.

  “How did you know she..?”

  “Your eyes changed colour. I saw her watching me.”

  And that wasn’t freaky at all. I could tell when others’ vampires-within peeked out; I just hadn’t thought about mine doing the same and someone recognising her.

  “What did she say?” Samson repeated.

  I reached up and ran my hands through my hair and then gripped the strands and tugged hard.

  “I see,” Samson said. “Well, we can always avoid physical contact altogether.”

  He did not sound happy about that in the slightest.

  “Would that work?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  Samson smiled at me, his hand already reaching to touch my face. He stopped midway, hand hovering in the air between us. And then lowered it.

  “We can try,” he offered.

  I sighed and stepped out of the shower.

  “Maybe you should stay behind in Auckland,” I suggested.

  “Not a chance,” he growled, and gone was the compassion. In its place was just a pissed off vampire.

  “We’ll be too busy to get all hot and heavy, anyway,” I said; I didn’t really want him to stay behind. And wasn’t that a revelation?

  Whether that was the new Georgia speaking or the new mate induced attraction between us, I couldn’t say.

  Samson turned the shower off and began to towel down. It took a second for me to realise I was watching him and almost salivating. I turned around and gave him my back. And then walked out of the bathroom completely, because the urge to look back was too much.

  He followed me into the bedroom a few seconds later, towel firmly wrapped around his waist.

  I dressed, using some of his deodorant, and then walked downstairs to wait in the lounge. I was rather proud of myself for that until I realised I was sniffing my armpit trying to scent Samson.

  I tipped my head back, eyes closed, and growled.

  “I’ve advised the pilots,” Samson said suddenly from the doorway, breaking into my mini-meltdown. “They’ll be ready by the time we get to the airport. Have you told Jett?”

  “No,” I said, glad we’d switched to business matters. “If I tell him, he’ll send someone with us.”

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  “The more people who know Xavier is my Sire, the worse it’ll be.”

  Samson just nodded his head and then picked up a leather jacket and pulled it on.

  “Ready?” he asked, once he’d located his car keys.

  I nodded and followed him into the garage. This time we took the BMW, not the Land Rover. I gathered it was Lucinda’s car, but Samson drove it as if he stole it, and hadn’t just borrowed it from his Mistress. We made good time to the airport, neither of us saying a thing. Probably because of the close quarters and the constant effort it took not to reach out and touch one another. I spent a good portion of the journey staring at Samson’s thigh. At the way the material of his jeans stretched over the muscle. At the long length of his leg as it lay just within reach.

  “Will this go away if we ignore it?” I asked as the hangar came into view.

  “No,” Samson said, understanding my oblique conversation starter. “It might get worse.”

  Great.

  Mate, the Dark Shadow said.

  Go to hell, I spat back.

  You chose. Not I.

  Damn.

  Samson pulled the BMW into the hangar itself, parking it up near a private jet that looked different from the last one.

  “Whose plane is this?” I asked.

  “Part of the fleet the company uses.”

  “What company?”

  “Jett’s.”

  “So, he’ll know we’ve taken it?”

  Samson offered me a tight smile. I took that as a yes. Maybe I should have warned the Master of Auckland City before nabbing one of his private jets. And who has more than one private jet, anyway?

  “He rents them out,” Samson said as if he read my mind.

  I rolled my head on my shoulders and walked up the steps to the jet. The pilots greeted us from the cockpit, and Samson shut the door. Like he’d done the last time. I half expected Jett to appear on the tarmac as we taxied out, but if he knew, he was giving me some leeway. Or allowing me a false sense of security.

  Thinking of Jett made me think of Gregor.

  “Does Gregor know we’re coming?” I asked.

  “He will expect it.”

  “Don’t you think we should let him know, anyway?”

  “Do you want to call him? I sure as hell don’t.”

  “Coward,” I muttered under my breath.

  Samson offered me his signature smile; all straight white teeth and square-jawed pretty. No, I thought, he wasn’t pretty. He was stunning.

  I looked away but only lasted a minute or so before I found myself looking back at him.

  Samson watched me from his side of the plane. We took off. No one moved. The tension increased. I silently willed him to look away. I loudly begged myself in my head to do the same. Neither of us moved an inch.

  I’m not sure how we managed it, but somehow we didn’t shift positions for the entire flight to Wellington. We barely breathed. But not breathing, meant not inhaling each other’s scent.

  Fuck. This was bad.

  The jet landed, and the pilots told us a car from the Master of Wellington City was waiting in the hangar. That broke the spell, and we both scowled, unbuckling our belts so we’d be ready to face whatever Gregor threw at us.

  I patted my stake in my jacket pocket. The fact that he’d returned it to me had to mean something.

  The fact that he’d had an MP abducted after he’d done that might cancel out any goodwill we had between us.

  He was still the Enforcer for the Iunctio. I couldn’t forget that.

  The plane came to a stop inside Michel’s hangar, and we disembarked. A different vampire than the one who had driven us up into the Rimutakas stood beside the long, black limousine. I was pretty sure the other one was dead. Dead dead. But I could have been wrong.

  I realised as I got into the vehicle that I hadn’t asked Samson about what had happened after I’d been whisked off to Álfheimr. Clearly, he and Gregor had got out alive, but what about the shapeshifters?

  “What happened up in the ranges?” I asked as the car smoothly pulled out of the airport and headed toward the CBD.

  “I woke up inside the car and Gregor’s vampires were everywhere. He was issuing orders and snapping at everyone. And not a Taniwha was in sight.”

  Pretty much what I would have expected.

  I nodded my head and looked out of the window at the harbour.

  “If Gregor attacks,” Samson said quietly, “I won’t be able to stop my vampire-within from defending you.”

  I glanced back at him.

  “If anyone attacks,” he amended. “He is strong, Georgia.”

  I nodded my head slowly, not sure what to say to that.

  “The Dark Shadow is strong, too,” I whispered.

  “I know,” he said and reached for my hand. It was a simple movement. An unconscious one. And he gripped my hand, fingers laced before either of us realised what we had allowed to happen.

  A jolt of electricity swept through me. A low hum started in the back of my head. The car disappeared. Wellington disappeared. I looked into Samson’s cinnamon and taupe eyes and lost several minutes.

  It wasn’t until the door opened at my side, the driver already having exited the vehicle, that I was able to look away and detach myself from Samson’s body.

  My hand tingled as I slid out of the car. A part of me left behind until Samson stepped up to my side and let his heat engulf me. He didn’t reach for me again, so it wasn’t quite what I wanted, but it was enough.

  We had a Master vampire to meet, and we both needed to be in charge of our faculties.

  The door opened, and we stepped through to the darkened interior. Light farther ahead let us know that Gregor was waiting. The powerful swell of Sanguis Vitam that greeted us let us know the Enforcer was.