“Hey, Nicolette, your usual?” The woman had read Nicole’s given name off her credit card one day, and Nicole hadn’t bothered to correct her with the less formal version she went by. Nicolette was a nice change. It made her feel sophisticated and mysterious. It fit the atmosphere of the place.
The barista was a rotund redhead who made overweight elegant. If Nicole were the same size, she was sure she wouldn’t look so amazing.
She sighed. “Yes, we are boring people.”
The barista laughed and rang up the order.
That was when Nicole sensed the man behind her. How she knew it was a man, she couldn’t be sure. Was he wearing a touch of cologne or aftershave she’d picked up on? Had she heard heavier footfalls behind her that had faded into the background of her awareness? But no, he’d been silent as a ghost.
The hair on the back of her neck stood up, and unable to stand it any longer, she turned to find out who was crowding her space. She feared she’d discover no one there—a sure sign of going crazy, but a man was there. He stood no closer to her than was appropriate in any coffee line. It had only felt like an invasion of her personal bubble.
The man wore dark jeans and a gray sports jacket. A Rolex glinted at his wrist. Whereas Dominic had light brown hair, this man’s hair was so black it was as if he colored it with a bottle of pure evil. His eyes were a light hazel that almost glowed against his swarthy skin. There was something sad in his smile, but also something dangerous.
The silver cross around his neck advertised piety. But the religious jewelry did nothing to assuage her anxiety or convince her of his inherent goodness. Those eyes were too empty for that.
“Turn around and get your coffee,” he ordered, obviously used to being obeyed. Who the hell did he think he was?
“Excuse me? You’re a little rude, aren’t you? Did they not cover charm in the charm school you attended?”
“What’s your name?” He didn’t seem aware of the non sequitur or the continued inappropriate rudeness. The man didn’t have an ounce of social grace.
When she didn’t answer, he grabbed her arm. His grip wasn’t harsh, but somehow it still burned. There was something wild and frightening about this man.
“WHAT is your name? Tell me.”
“No. Hands off!” She pulled her arm from his grasp.
Panic entered his eyes as he looked around the coffee shop for reactions, but aside from the two of them and the barista, the place was vacant.
He regrouped. “I apologize. I don’t know what… it’s… you remind me of someone I once knew. I’m August.”
He offered a hand for her to shake, but it was too late to be disarming. Nicole couldn’t bring herself to touch him. Instead she deflected with, “That’s a name?”
“Augustine, but people look at you funny with that name.”
People probably looked at him funny with August.
He was trying to relax her, trying to charm her with his smooth smile and now twinkling eyes. And maybe if she were someone else, it would have worked. But she was immune to what passed for charming from the majority of the local assholes. No doubt he’d left a long line of destroyed women in his wake, their wounded hearts laid out to shrivel and die in the hot sun.
She turned back to the barista, working to ignore the deep gut instinct that said turning her back on this man was dangerous. Predator, her mind screamed in the same tone one might shout idiot or don’t go down that dark hallway. She wondered if her senses would have been this finely tuned if she were alone and seeking a man. Empirically, he was hot. This one would have wrecked her, maybe in the find-your-bones-seven-months-later-in-a-ravine way.
“Here you are, Nicolette.” The barista passed her the two coffee beverages, one cold, one hot.
She took the drinks and made a beeline out the door.
The bell over the door rang again, and she knew he’d followed. Her heart thudded in her throat. Another block to her car and everything would be fine. It was bright and sunny out. There were people. He wasn’t going to take her. And what? Fling her down in the middle of the street and have his way with her? She was oversexed. Imagining things.
“Nicolette, wait!”
That stupid barista and her first-name basis with regulars. It was a great reason to pay cash.
The melancholy in his tone caught her off guard and made her turn. She was surprised he’d moved as fast as he had without getting winded. He didn’t just seem in great shape. If he decided to chase her, she couldn’t outrun him. She tried not to look terrified. Dominic would forgive her for throwing his coffee in this man’s face if it would keep her safe.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what was wrong with me back there. I didn’t mean to frighten you or make you uncomfortable. I’m having a weird day.” He offered a sheepish grin.
The alarm bells rang so loud they vibrated out of her. Everything inside her warned that she must put as much distance between herself and this man as possible. And fast.
“It’s okay,” she said, trying to disengage the conversation, backing toward her silver Lexus as she spoke.
“Perhaps we could get coffee sometime.”
“I’m afraid I can’t. I’m married.”
His gaze lingered too long on her ring before he looked back into her eyes with a naked hope that scared Nicole in still more ways.
“Happily?” he ventured.
“Yes, very. I’m sorry, I have to go. My husband’s coffee will get cold.” She forced herself to turn away, fighting every instinct that considered it unwise.
She held her breath until she was locked inside her car and had pulled safely onto the street. She regretted glancing into the rear view mirror to find him standing in the road, a determined expression on his dark face.
Chapter Two
August’s mind raced as he got into the black Bugatti to follow her. Could she be… ? No, of course not. It was a fairy tale. It wasn’t real. But there was no denying that Nicolette had resisted thrall. He’d been annoyed when she’d stared as if he were a museum piece.
Women displayed a morbid fascination with him, which would last until they were in his cellar. Then it would be gone unless he enthralled them to prolong the illusion. And such wasted magic required him to feed more.
He’d slipped the command into his words, his eyes boring holes into hers as he’d told her to turn around. When that awful zombie-robot thing hadn’t happened to her face and she hadn’t obeyed his order, everything stopped. All the sounds he could hear miles away silenced. The smells muted. The colors grew fuzzy. All that existed was her, glowing brilliantly like the one shining star on an otherwise cloudy night.
Hope. Salvation. He could stop hurting people. He could stop suffering. He’d tried again, not yet daring to believe. He’d put every ounce of force he could into demanding she obey him. He’d touched her to forge a stronger connection, but no, she couldn’t be controlled by a vampire’s thrall. At least not his thrall.
It had taken a few moments to collect himself. He didn’t remember how to deal with human beings without controlling their minds, how to persuade or gain what he wanted without that touch of black art that made them fall into his arms.
She had blonde hair that fell in delicate waves halfway down her back. He imagined she was gorgeous getting out of bed in the morning with that hair tousled and in disarray, falling forward to conceal her breasts from a hungry male gaze. Her skin was luminescent. Her eyes were the color of blue topaz, fringed with dark lashes. She was willowy and delicate but with enough curve to not be boyish. She was, in a word, beautiful.
But none of that mattered. Her beauty, though appealing, wasn’t what made her special. She could have been thirty pounds overweight and frumpy with dull, brown hair and eyes the color of dishwater. She could have been fifty-five with deep crow’s feet and a bad knee. Nothing mattered to him but the fact that he couldn’t control her mind, that she could save him if she were willing. She could have been somebody’s grandmother, and he would have dedicated t
he rest of his eternity to her because nothing was more attractive than salvation to a man condemned forever.
But she was perfect, except for that one detail.
Married. Happily.
August’s mind went back to the woman he’d released the night before, the one who would have stayed with him, who felt bad for him. He didn’t care that her strongest emotion for him had been pity, she would have saved him. She could have been his blood mate if her mind weren’t so weak against vampire thrall. As angry as it had made him, as unfair as it had been, he couldn’t bring himself to punish the one soul in centuries who’d seen the truth of his suffering and shown him compassion.
Nicolette, on the other hand, would not be easy. It would have been too much to hope to find a single woman, or one whose husband was unkind so that she would fall into the seduction, crave his attention and love. Though August had given up on the story centuries ago, he’d always known that whether he loved her or not, she would have to love him. He couldn’t imagine another scenario in which any woman would give herself over to him for eternity to be fed on every night, not unless he found a non-magical way to coerce her.
If only she were unhappy with her marriage.
He gripped the steering wheel. He couldn’t control her mind, but he could control the husband’s. It might not be fair play, but as long as the curse didn’t prohibit it, he’d use any tool available to him to make this all end.
***
August followed them to a small, upscale French restaurant, careful to stay a good distance back. Even hidden in a throng of chatting, waiting people, he heard the maître d’ greet them.
“Mr. and Mrs. Rose, we have a nice table out of the way beside the fountain as you requested. Come with me, please.”
August pushed through the bodies, holding back the hunger, and followed at a distance behind them. He picked a table several yards away where he could watch and hear the conversation unnoticed and undisturbed. It was quick work to suggest to an elderly couple that they were finished eating, had already paid, and needed to leave right away. He took their spot, grateful most of the food was gone. He drank beverages like coffee and wine, but solid food, he found distasteful.
The waiter’s approach was tentative. “Um, sir, what happened to the couple at this table?”
The vampire smiled up at him, capturing the waiter’s gaze in his own. “My wife and I have been here the whole evening.” August imagined the brunette that had been in his cellar the previous night, the one he’d released. He indicated the seat across from him.
The waiter turned toward the vacant chair and laughed. “I’m sorry, ma’am, I don’t know where my head is or why I didn’t see you sitting there.”
August cleared his throat and the man turned back to him. “Please don’t bother us again. Forget this table exists until I’ve left the restaurant.”
“Oh, yes, sir,” he said, his expression glazed and robotic, convinced this was a normal request and he was acting of his own free will.
August shifted his attention to Nicolette and her husband several tables away. He’d picked a viewing perch where the woman’s back would be to him. She’d gone stiff in the coffee shop just before she’d turned around. If she did that now, he wasn’t sure how he’d handle her—or the witnesses. If she knew he was watching, he’d have to take her, and that would be a messy event—hard to clean up with so many people around. And it would do little to convince her to become his mate.
August watched the husband slide a black velvet box across the linen. The vampire filtered the noise around him to hear their table. It sounded hollow and tinny, but the content of the conversation was easy enough to pick up.
“Happy anniversary, sweetheart.”
She opened the box to reveal a diamond bracelet. Even from such a distance, August knew the man had good taste. And money. Guilt stabbed at him for what he was about to do. But it didn’t matter. There was no price too high to pay, no evil as great as the one he had to do each night to fulfill the demands of the curse. She would come to understand. She’d grow to love him so that it would make it all less horrible for her. Eventually her husband would fade from her mind. Some day it wouldn’t hurt anymore.
“Oh, Dominic, it’s beautiful. Thank you!” She held out her delicate wrist, and he deftly worked the clasp to put it on her. “I’ll be right back. I want to see it in a mirror against my dress.” She excused herself to go to the restroom, and August turned away until she was gone, then he blazed a path to her vacated seat.
“Excuse me, but my wife is… ”
August took the man’s hand and captured his gaze, putting the full force of his power into the thrall. There could be no margin for error. “Listen to me. You are indifferent to your wife. She annoys you. You wish she’d go away.”
Dominic nodded his agreement, his face taking on that blank stare before clearing, but August was out the door before he could notice him again.
***
Nicole admired the reflection of the bracelet in the mirror. It sparkled so much more this way. She smiled as she watched the brilliant diamonds dance in the light. Although it was their tenth anniversary, she hadn’t expected something so extravagant.
He’d had it inscribed. The engraved script on the underside read: So lucky to have found my soul mate. Many never do. — D
Dominic’s case load had been intense these past few months, and she’d assumed dinner would be it. When had he found time to go to a jewelry store? She washed her hands, fussed with her hair a second, and swiped a wand of gloss across her lips. When she was satisfied that everything was in place, she returned to the table.
“I ordered for you,” Dominic said, his eyes trained on his phone.
“I, uh… okay, I guess.” She often ordered the same thing at Au Soleil, but not always. He knew her preferences, but it wasn’t like him to order for her. It was such an arrogant, controlling, and condescending thing to do that wasn’t like her husband at all. Outside of a few light games in the bedroom, he was the most egalitarian man she’d ever met.
One of the things she’d always loved about him was that although he was used to getting what he wanted, he never treated her like she was a trophy on his arm. Ordering for her crossed a line where he saw her as a pretty thing to be seen with rather than a person to be heard.
She pulled out her chair and sat, staring at the goblet of water in front of her. “Dominic… ” she paused, trying to find a way to say it without sounding like some nagging shrew. She’d never been a nag with him. Their relationship had hummed along, with both of them being considerate to the other most of the time. “Dominic, I don’t like when people order for me.” After a decade together, shouldn’t he know that?
He was still preoccupied with his phone. “Are you kidding, Nicole? You order the same damn thing everywhere we go. After ten years, I know what you like.”
She reeled back as if he’d slapped her, her throat tight. “Did something happen while I was gone? Did you get a call from the firm? Did they find out you took a day off for our anniversary?”
Annoyance creased his brow. “Not everything is about you, dear. Maybe it’s time you learned that.” He went back to his phone and she gaped at him, feeling as if he’d punched her in the gut.
The bracelet became a heavy weight, its sparkles and engraved endearments hollow and empty.
Her Poulet aux Porto finally arrived, giving her something else to focus on. Dominic shoveled food into his mouth as if he couldn’t wait to get out of the restaurant. His behavior was more befitting of a linebacker at a family-style buffet than a husband on a dinner date at a fancy restaurant with his wife.
Maybe something had gone wrong with a case. But he’d never taken things like that out on her before. He’d always treated her like she was his world. She’d never believed in soul mates, but her husband had convinced her it was a true phenomenon and that he was hers. She’d thought herself lucky.
And now that she had the smallest taste of
what the wives of many busy attorneys lived with, she found she couldn’t stomach it.
She choked down her dinner and tried to stem the flow of tears. How often did they fight or have unpleasantness like this? He was under a lot of pressure, that was all. So it was their anniversary. It was an inopportune time, but these things happened, she was sure of it.
Dominic didn’t tease her or make jokes on the way home. He didn’t speak at all. It was as if they were strangers sharing a cab. When they got home, he locked himself in his study and didn’t come out again. She waited up until two in the morning, when she drifted off in a fitful sleep.
Chapter Three
August had watched Nicolette for the past month. Each day she’d become more haggard and bereft than the day before. He’d thought if he could take the shine off of Dominic Rose that she would be his, but now that it was time to make his move, he realized kidnapping her that first day would have been the more merciful decision.
It was cruel to manipulate her heart in this way, but if she knew what he’d suffered… in time she would understand. And now that Dominic was no prize, wouldn’t that understanding come that much sooner? All August had wanted was for her to come to him without ever having to see his ugliness, without ever having to fear him, but though he couldn’t control her mind, he was controlling her.
The curse was specific. There was nothing about normal, non-magical coercion or force. All that mattered was that she agreed—however he got her to that point—to be his blood mate and take this all away.
He took a deep breath and followed her into the grocery store. In the produce section, he bumped into her between the romaine lettuce and the zucchini.
“Oh, excuse me,” he said, turning on the charm, pushing remorse into the background. If she saw his unease she’d run like a scared rabbit—she was far more observant than the women he was used to dealing with.
His heart broke for her. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. She might fall apart right there in the grocery store. August reached out, needing to comfort the most valuable person in his world, the one he would protect at all costs but right now was hurting for the greater good.