A Vampire’s Mistress Read Online Free Page A

lying in wait for her.
    “Let me go,” she muttered, her tone low and grating.
    “Not when Nick’s men are waiting across the street to snatch you up and haul you back down there.”
    Marina’s eyes narrowed. He was right. There, across the street, were four of the goons Nick’s business associates employed to enforce their own brand of rules on everyone else. Her stomach shriveled out of sheer terror.
    She’d found out the hard way that Nick had no compunction or morals when it came to taking what he wanted. A spoiled vampire prince through and through, being undead had only encouraged him to use his power to get what he wanted, when and how he wanted it.
    Nick handed her over to the vampire hunters to sweeten the deal he’d cooked up with his business partner Vane to sell ichor internationally as the new wonder drug that would revolutionize medicine. Never mind that the poor saps using it didn’t have a clue that overusing it would turn them into vampires. Or that eventually being drained of their ichor would kill the vampire host.
    The sight of Edgar, Onslo, Victor and Palo, Nick’s four horsemen of the apocalypse, made her take an involuntary step back, causing her shoulder blades to dig into the plaster wall behind her. A firm hand settled at the base of her spine and she gasped when she fluxed back to invisible, as Gabe channeled his powers through her.
    Being invisible wouldn’t stop the four horsemen. Nick kept them on a steady diet of ichor, not enough to transform them into true vampires so they could still be his loyal Shyelds , but enough to give them amplified awareness of the vampires around them and hunt them down.
    The instant she vanished, they started across the street, snaking between traffic.
    “Looks like we’ve got trouble.”
    “You have no idea,” Marina muttered in reply.
    Gabe chuckled. “You forget. This time I’m the vampire and I know all the tricks to being a Shyeld .”
    She glanced in his direction but saw nothing. He squeezed her hand twice and it went all the way to her heart.
    “Trust me.”
    It wasn’t trusting him that was the problem; it was being able to trust herself. She’d been wrong so many times she’d lost count. Being wrong once more would just about break her.
    “What are you going to do?”
    “Transport us where they can’t follow.”
    She sucked in a breath, starting to shake as she weighed her options. If she didn’t tell Gabe the truth, he wouldn’t understand how deep the shit was about to get, and he wouldn’t be able to protect her. Then again, once she told him, would he still want to?
    “Gabe, I’ve gotta tell you something.”
    “Not now.”
    The familiar sucking and pulling sensation of a transport began to loop about her middle. She clung to his hand, not knowing where he was taking her, but too afraid to let go. Inside, something screamed at her to tell him and tell him now.
    Her words faded into nothingness as the transport took her. “Nick’s not really dead.”

Chapter Three
    The scent of salt and brine and the whisper of waves filled the air as they materialized in the cool, star-studded darkness half a world away. Over the water the distant snowcapped peaks of a tall mountain range glittered like icing-topped cakes under the moonlight.
    Standing at the water’s edge on a wooden wharf formed from wide planks, Marina shivered at the sudden drop of temperature and glanced back at the city, tracking the skyline for something familiar to figure out where she was. The saucer-like disk and spire of Seattle’s famed Space Needle glowed white against the inky dark night sky.
    “Seattle?” Rubbing her arms for warmth, she glanced up at Gabriel. “Why here?” Not that she wasn’t grateful to be away from Italy and Nick’s goons, but a world away seemed a little extreme.
    Gabe’s face was hard, his eyes so dark they looked nearly black in the glow of the moon. The smell of pepper in the air— hot and fiery—indicated he was pissed.