Taking pleasure for myself, for my inner omega, and beingselfishdidn’t mean I’d stop trying to get the fuck out of here—break the chains at long last. Be a realperson. Make my own way in the world. Live as large as alphas and free as betas.
“Y-yes,” I stammered, answering with a strained breath, one that might have been barely audible to anyone else but made all three vampires perk up and rumble.
“Excellent.” Ambrose smoothed his hands over my shoulders and jerked me back into his steely body. “Let’s get started, then.”
Chapter3
Ambrose
What are you, little omega?
What goddess-blessedthingareyou—to smell so sublime, the sweetest of sins wrapped in such delectable packaging?
Whoare you—really?
At your core…
Any simpleton could see that she was beautiful. Short but curvaceous like many omegas, with an hourglass figure and weighted breasts, full and delicious, crowned with dusky rose nipples the same shade I imagined lurked under her red lipstick. A generous swell to her hips. Strong, womanly thighs.
I longed to sketch her, the hobby abandoned nearly a century ago when models stopped being muses and were just…objects. Things to draw. Boring. Lifeless. Vacant.
But then here was Hollis with hair black as midnight styled in magnificent waves and eyes such a dark,darkgreen that they harkened back to the days of old. Something ancient. Something primal. Somethingrawand greatly missing from the world today.
And…fire.
Hollis.
Holly.
Trapping her in my arms, her body a wildfire compared to our diseased flesh, I despised how very aware I was that there was so much more to her than beauty.
And what I loathed more was that I was getting dragged into the mystery behind those moody greens.
Tonight was our last on Mistletoe, Aldo’s business done and dusted, another alliance forged and a mutual enemy targeted. This little visit before we boarded his sunproof yacht was supposed to be simple. Fun. I adored fucking a woman with my bonds, absolutely destroying her withpleasure, ruining all other alphas for her.
But one whiff of Hollis’s perfume, all honeyed and rich, like snowdrops in the spring thaw, and it feltcomplicated.
Our lives were complicated enough.
I lifted my head upon realizing I’d nuzzled into her hair, then gritted my teeth and shook off thisfeeling, this desperation to keep her in my arms.
“Now,Hollis…” Ah,yes, she bristled so beautifully when I addressed her by her full name, the ancestral title listed on her scent card. “I’m going to taste you shortly.” My mouth watered at the thought; if her omega perfume smelled this exquisite, I could only imagine her blood.
My cock twitched, swelling, the start of a knot tightening in my slacks. Her throat bobbed through a gulp when it nudged at her lower back, and I stroked her bare arms, smitten with the goose bumps that raced after my fingers. “But have no fear… A vampire’s bite isblissin its purest form.”
Fear doused her perfume, the faintest spritz—and usually, we all enjoyed that in our own ways. For me, it was a green light, encouragement to torment the omega a little more, high on the power, winding her all the way up so Kane could do what he did best and reallybreakher down.
But I…
The acidic spritz of Hollis’s fear mingling with those beautiful snowdrops made me growl, the sound instinctive and unwelcome, alpha possessiveness, perhaps even protectiveness, urging me to wrap her in all available blankets and sit her on my lap until dawn.
No.
Snap out of it, you old fool.
Inner conflict suited Laszlo better, my bond refusing to go full dark even centuries after receiving our curse. For me, as head of our small coven, there simply wasn’t room for indecisiveness and uncertainty. I needed to know, in my marrow, that every decision I made was right.
And some pretty Mistletoe omega wouldnotthrow me for a godsdamn loop.