Kissed by a Dark Prince (Eternal Mates Series Book 1) - Sample - Felicity Heaton (read novels website txt) 📗

armour, but his helmet was gone, revealing black-blue overlong wild hair. Did all of their species have the same hair and eye colour? He stared at her, purple eyes dark and cold, but laced with a touch of surprise.

“I sensed your agitation.” He switched his focus to the man who had bitten and kidnapped her. “Is everything well, my prince?”

Prince. Oh my. She had been right on the money. Her kidnapper was a prince. A prince of what though?

The other male’s eerie gaze slid back to her and narrowed, and Olivia had the dreadful feeling that he would be all too willing to kill her if she was upsetting the man he had referred to as his prince.

The prince in question shook his head and waved regally, dismissing the male. “That action will not be necessary, Bleu. The female is not a threat to me.”

Olivia bristled at that. She could have killed him when she’d had him unconscious on her inspection table. Not a threat her ass.

Both men slid deadly looks her way and Olivia realised she had said it all aloud. She shrank back, trying to make herself look as small and nonthreatening as possible.

The prince dismissed the male again. This time, he obeyed and left. Olivia waited until he had closed the wooden door before she moved her attention back to the prince and relaxed a fraction. The man in the room with her had bitten and kidnapped her, but had said he wouldn’t hurt her. If she had to choose between him and the one he had called Bleu, who had looked at her as if she were a pest to be eradicated, she would choose her blood-drinking captor over the homicidal maniac.

“Continue,” he said and she half expected him to use that regal wave on her. If he tried it, she might be inclined to relocate his testicles after all. She might be human, but she wasn’t going to let anyone order her around, not even a powerful immortal prince. She had enough of that from her superiors. “What condition did you find me in?”

“You’d taken one hell of a beating... don’t you remember fighting?” she said and he shook his head and sat on the edge of his bed. Rumpled purple covers. Barely dressed male. She could do the math. He had woken and come to take her shortly afterwards, because he couldn’t recall the fight and how he had ended up at Archangel. He looked like the sort of man who liked to be in control and hated weakness, and not remembering the events that had seen him dumped unconscious at a demon-hunting organisation were probably driving him mad. “It must have been epic.”

The light in his eyes faded and he looked off to his right, staring at the foot of the row of wardrobes.

“My battles with this particular enemy always are.” Something drifted in his rich purple eyes, a shadow of remorse that left her feeling he would rather not fight this enemy.

He cursed again, pushed to his feet and paced, taking long agitated strides up and down the room.

Olivia leaned back against the wall and studied him in silence, giving him time to think and beginning to relax.

He was beautiful, his tall lean figure shifting sensually with each stride, working his muscles like a symphony. Every so often, the markings she had followed with her fingers would flash into existence and he would growl, seemingly irritated by them, and glare at her, as if she were to blame.

Olivia lost track of time, her fear melting away and her guard dropping with it. What was he thinking? He looked melancholy at times, pained, but angry at others. Feelings flitted across his handsome face, rapidly changing his expression, drawing her to him all the more.

He seemed sad for some reason, a terrible sorrow that shone in his eyes, fathomless and painful. Mixed in with that sadness was a sense of lethalness though, the danger she had originally felt in his presence, a feeling he exuded like an aura. It should have warned her away from him. Instead, she found herself moving away from the wall and towards him, lured by an inexplicable need to comfort him and ease the pain she swore she could feel in him.

“Are you okay?”

He stopped dead and looked across at her, his expression open and blank, as though her question had caught him off guard. His look hardened again a second later and he pivoted on his heel and crossed the room to her. He halted inches from her, towering over her, making her feel nervous and unsure of herself. The longer he stood there studying her with those intense purple eyes without saying anything, the more on edge she felt, until her insides had twisted into tight knots and she couldn’t bear it anymore.

“Have you finished questioning me now?” she blurted out.

He nodded.

“I can go home?”

“I am sorry but I cannot allow that to happen.” He looked beyond her left shoulder, towards the blue curtains and the doors. “My enemy has made you a target, a well played move on his part and one I did not predict or even consider.”

Her anger came back to a rolling boil and she opened her mouth to give him hell, but he stole her voice. His eyes came back to meet hers and he lifted his hand, slowly reached towards her and brushed aside the collar of her white coat. He caressed the marks on the left side of her throat, sending a hot achy shiver through her.

“I have made you a target.” Those words sent a different sort of shiver through her. This one not at all pleasant.

She raised her hand to touch her throat and ended up covering his hand instead. His skin was cool beneath hers. His nostrils flared, his eyes brightened and the pointed tips of his ears extended and sharpened. He bared his fangs at her and shifted back, pulling his hand away from her touch.

Olivia’s heart leaped into overdrive, thundering against her ribs, and her hand shook, fear freezing her feet in place.

The prince looked ill but, at the same time, there was an unmistakable spark of desire in his eyes.

It might have flattered her if she hadn’t been clinging to what he had said, repeating it in her head and growing increasingly angry with each cycle. She was a target for a maniac who had beaten this immortal male close to death?

“What the hell is going on here?” she snapped and advanced on him, surprised when he actually retreated, as if he feared her. No way a powerful male like him would fear a little woman like her. He hadn’t liked it when she had touched him. He had reacted strongly to it. Maybe he feared she would touch him again if he let her get close enough. She wanted to touch him alright. She wanted to crack his nose with her fist. “I want to know what’s happening because I have the feeling my life is on the line and I didn’t sign up for this shit. You bit me... I damned well didn’t ask you to violate me... and I want to know how your abuse of my body and my rights has made me a target.”

The prince held his hands up and she halted, breathing hard to settle her volatile feelings. Getting angry with him probably wouldn’t solve anything. If she was in danger, she was probably going to need his help. He had dragged her into this. He could damn well get her out of it unscathed.

“The reason your comrades found me so close to your facility is because my enemy left me there... it is a twisted game... he could have killed me but I would not have suffered.” He sounded too damn calm and he looked it too.

Olivia couldn’t see how he could be so relaxed about all of this. Some psychopath had beaten him close to death and dropped him on her doorstep, and it was all a game? That wasn’t a game. That was sick.

“And he wants you to suffer... why?” She couldn’t hold the angry note from her voice. He had wanted answers and had brought her here. Well, now she wanted some damn answers of her own.

“It is not for you to know,” he said quietly.

It damned well was. “Why did he dump you with us? Did he think Archangel would torture you?”

He shook his head, the solemn look returning to his eyes. “No. He knew you would torture me.”

Olivia frowned. “I don’t get it. What do you mean? I said did he think we would torture you and you said no, and then you said he knew we would... that doesn’t make sense. I warn you, I am liable to relocate your testicles if I don’t start getting some straight answers.”

He took a step back. “It was a straight answer. Not we... you... he knew you would torture me.”

“Me?” Her eyes shot wide and indignation joined the ranks of her feelings. “I’m a doctor. I know I work for a demon-hunting group, but that doesn’t mean I would torture one.”

He glanced down at his boots and then back at her, his expression troubled. He growled, exposing his fangs, and shoved his fingers through his black hair.

“He knew what you were when he dropped me there and he knew what I would do,” he barked the words at her, his expression wild and desperate, the look of a man firmly on the edge. He stepped towards her and reached for her, and then let his hands fall to his sides and cursed.

“What... bite me?” She touched the marks on her neck, feeling the pronounced bumps where his fangs had punctured her. What had he done by biting her?

The prince closed the distance between them and she tipped her head back, holding his gaze. He frowned and she gasped as his fingers settled against her jaw. He slid his hand along it to cup her cheek, his eyes locked on hers, drawing her into their purple depths until she felt lost.

“Bind you to me.”

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Olivia couldn’t breathe, and it wasn’t only because she was drowning in his eyes and lost in the feel of his gentle touch.

Bind. Her. To. Him.

Bind her. To him.

It gradually sank in, leaving her feeling numb and dazed.

The man had beaten him unconscious and dumped him on her doorstep. Specifically. The prince had come around, injured and weak, and had bitten her. That bite had bound them together.

His enemy had known the whole thing would happen.

He had orchestrated it to make the prince suffer and make her a target.

Olivia changed her mind. It wasn’t sinking in at all.

“What the hell do you mean?” she snapped and glared up at the prince.

His hand was still against her face. Dangerous. She pulled her barriers up, more afraid of him now than she had ever been. She was bound to him. That couldn’t be a good thing. It sounded distinctly intimate and she was not doing intimate with a demon. Never again. She had learned her lesson. You couldn’t trust a demon.

“Under normal circumstances, my biting you would not have been a problem. Your blood would have