“I’m sorry that I had to sleep,” he says. “The sun’s pull on me is too great. I fought as long as I could to stay awake and protect you.”
Protect me? “You do realize that you’re a captive here?”
He looks around the room as though it’s the first time he’s seeing it. The rumors about him all indicate that Virius… isn’t quite right in the head. Something about the vampire who turned him being a sadistic Dominatrix from the old world.
“I’m holding you captive,” I say slowly. “So, I don’t need your protection. You’re under mine.”
Virius grins at that. For a creature who is allergic to the sun, his smile would be that star’s greatest rival. “You are wee but mighty.”
He called me that the other day.
Wee.
Like he’s some Scottish highlander and I’m his lass.
I know he was a Roman soldier who’d later gotten his kicks in the Spanish Inquisition by first torturing and then drinking the blood of prisoners. And now he is squatting on my family’s ancestral land. But once I am with child, the gods will see fit to right that wrong the American government thought they could erase with paper and pen. Which means there is no time like the present to get down to business.
“Listen, here’s the deal,” I say. “I’m holding you here until the eclipse, which is in a couple of days.”
Virius nods, but I get the feeling he’s not listening. His gaze is on my lips. His golden gaze flitting up, down, and across as I form words.
Subconsciously, I wet them. The tip of my tongue sneaks out and curls over my top lip. At the move, his nostrils flare. Something inside me heats, making my next words easy to say.
“We’re going to have sex then. On the night of the eclipse.”
Virius blinks. Then he frowns. He had been leaning slightly forward, towards me. Now he leans back, as far away from me as he can get.
That doesn’t seem right. I’m sure he’s into me. Most guys are into me. If they’re not from my tribe, they look at me like I’m some exotic, brown treat they want to go slumming with.
Not Virius. He looks horrified at the thought of getting busy with me. Maybe vampires are immune to the magic sparking between my thighs?
“It’s not my idea,” I hurry to say. My wounded pride is doing backflips to put some distance between us. “It’s part of the prophecy.”
The prophecy that will break the curse of the land and return its rightful ownership to my people. Not that I truly care about that.
I mean, of course I want to claim my birthright. But what I want more is to stay here in the States. Arizona has nothing on the beauty of Guatemala’s rainforest. But the educational opportunities of these northerners are something that makes my mouth water.
“Is someone forcing you?” Virius asks, his voice going to a low register that warns of danger.
I like the way it rumbles through me. It coils and uncoils like a snake. The weight of it wraps around me, and something inside of me shivers.
“Because I will pull out his entrails through his arse and feed them to the bastard.”
Well, that was certainly visual. At least I see that Virius’s distaste has less to do with me than with the thought that I may be in danger.
“No,” I say. “No one’s forcing me. It’s my destiny.”
“Your destiny?”
“Yes.”
Virius considers that. The hand he raked through his hair now scratches at the day’s worth of stubble on his chin. “My answer is still no.”
The dagger I forgot I was holding slips from my grasp. It clatters on the bed with a thud, resting between us. “No?” I ask.
“No,” he confirms. “I will not have sex with you.”
So, let me get this straight: I’m finally about to bag a guy who is not in my tribe, who doesn’t look at my vagina like it’s the holy grail, and he’s telling me no?
Hunh?
Maybe I’m the one who is cursed.
Chapter 3
Virius
I’ve known many women over my life. Thousands upon thousands. Though I haven’t seen many of their actual faces. My memories of the women I’ve fucked are all of their cunts and asses.
All those pussies were pink; only the shade differed. Each woman’s pussy had two lips that split open as they grinned at my cock. Some lips were full and plump. Others were flat and saggy. Not all came with a pearl at the center. Some had been mutilated due to sacred rites of gods or legal rights of men.
None of these women cared to see my face. Each cunt came to me for one purpose only: to be filled and stretched by the monster that prowls between my thighs.
For nearly two centuries the beast below has lain in a quiet slumber, rarely stirring. I haven’t been forced to fuck since Domitia walked into the sun. I do not seek pleasure with my hand, not having the desires that normal males do. And so, it slept.
Until just this moment. Until Zahara called to it with those pretty lips of hers.
For the first time in nearly two hundred years, the beast lifts its head. The massive twin sacks it rests between stir. A bead of interest forms, dripping from the single eye of the twisted creature hidden in my pants.
“I will not have sex with you,” I say again.
My dick pulses, calling me a liar. It has always been the only part of my body that ignores the fact that I do not lie. It has fucked women time and again—against my will. All at the behest of the one who changed me into the blood-sucking whore that I am.
My mind was rarely interested in the cunts and asses and mouths open to my cock. My thoughts and
