5
Tarnley
Ireland 1675
Flames flicker from lanterns hung near the doorways of the homes and businesses lining the main streets of Dublin. Beside me, Elijah waits, watching the human women laughing just ahead as they move toward us.
Even from here, I can smell the blood pumping through their veins. It’s divine, the scent of the copper. And already, I can imagine it sliding down the back of my throat as I drink deeply, taking every drop from the veins of the blonde woman to the left of the other.
I focus only on her, on the way her slender throat will feel beneath my hands— Pain unlike anything I’ve ever experienced drops me to my knees. I clench my hands to my ears, trying to block out the high-pitched screech.
Beside me, Elijah crumples as well, and I can barely see as the women we’ve been watching for hours now move past us, not paying any notice to the two vampires agonizing in the shadows of the nearby building.
“What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?” The stern voice of a stranger—a woman—pulls me from my pain, and the sound steadily recedes.
I tip my face up and meet the most gorgeous emerald gaze I have ever witnessed. Her stare makes me want to remain on my knees, begging her to let me serve her whatever the fuck she wants.
I’ll do anything.
Everything, if only at her discretion.
“Why did you do that?” Elijah is on his feet, in her face in the blink of an eye. I force myself up, standing beside him when really, I want to step between them.
“What did I tell you about hunting in my village? You’re going to bring the local hunters right to our doorstep!” Her voice is a loud whisper, the power in it resonating with the part of me that recognizes just what she is.
“You’re a witch.”
Her face whips toward me, and she narrows her eyes, glaring at me while her power steals the breath from my lungs. “Yes, I am. And you two jackasses are going to get us all killed. The last thing we need are hunters bearing down on our home.”
“I have to eat,” Elijah insists.
“Then hunt the woods. Plenty of humans wander into the trees. But leave those who remain in the city unscathed.”
Elijah reaches up to trail a finger over her jaw. “Yes, my lady,” he purrs.
The urge to reach out and snap his digit is real, and I force it back down. “This is Bronywyn, then? The witch you’ve been going on and on about?”
He grins at me then turns back to her. “This is her. Bronywyn, my dear, this is Tarnley.”
She shifts her emerald gaze to me. “Good to meet you.”
Pinned beneath her attention yet again, I can do nothing but nod as my chest tightens, my heart realizing that hers will never belong to me.
* * *
Bronywyn shifts in my lap,pulling me from the dream that is a memory forever branded in my brain.
She groans and stretches, and my hand slips from her hair to her shoulder. I open my eyes and stare down at her. All of the sleep vanishes from my brain as I get an up-close visual of the swell of her breast where the shirt has slipped away.
I can’t look away—can’t tear my gaze from it, even as I know it’s wrong to look. My canines slide down as my cock hardens in the soft fabric of my slacks. As painful as it is, I force my focus away and reach down to adjust myself, trying to not move her around, and also trying to prevent her from feeling her effect on me.
That would be one hell of a way for her to wake up.
“Tarnley?” She yawns and sits up, her blonde hair a mess around her shoulders.
“How are you?”
Her green eyes are rimmed in black, but it’s thin now, and I breathe a sigh of relief. She’s back. “Fine, why?”