Bound by the Vampire Queen Read Online Free Page B

woman’s eyes had only helped the decision.
    His hair had once possessed copper highlights from the sun, but as a vampire, the reddish brown had become a deeper bronze color. Loose, it fell to his shoulders. When she met him, he’d also had a trimmed moustache and short beard, so like the medieval knight’s she’d shivered, remembering the feel of them and his firm lips against her skin.
    Jacob’s nose had been broken at least once and retained that interesting shape even after she turned him, but of course it was his eyes that arrested. Fine, reddish-blond lashes framing the vivid blue color. A
stubborn
, vivid blue.
    When he spoke like he did now, she could do nothing to change his mind. It overwhelmed her with anger, despair and love for him, all at once. As he moved back in her direction, recognizing it, she wouldn’t let the last take precedence, not when she had a point to prove.
    She backed away from him. The still ness that entered his gaze warned he could leap forward, use vampire speed to catch her. But he didn’t. Not yet.
    He slowed his steps, matching her pace. It was a deliberate tracking maneuver, guaranteed to bring another element into their shared tension. She had no problem using the irresistible attraction between them to make her case, though she didn’t deny there was far more to it. Just as his determination to follow her no matter where she went could go hand in hand with the sexual predator taking him over now.
    Moving out of the low hedge garden in which they’d been arguing, she stepped into a sculpted maze that had been created out of lattice walls taller than Jacob. Along the edges of the winding gravel paths were a variety of whimsical ground flowers.
    Occasionally an oval window opening allowed her to get a better view of the other paths. Otherwise, the walls were solidly covered by lush vines coated with dark, shiny leaves and white trumpet-shaped blooms as wide as her hand.
    As she turned a corner and moved out of view, he followed her with those unhurried steps, his booted feet crunching the gravel.
    For many years, she’d been able to transform into the winged gargoyle creature that proved her Fae blood. Each time she did that, the Fae magic had stirred within her soul, but she hadn’t recognized its potential. It had been like starlight she could see, but too far out of her reach to comprehend its true essence, the heat and power signified by that glimmering light.
    That had been fine. Dormant Fae power meant that it had never attracted the attention of the purist-minded Vampire Council.
    Then things had changed. Jacob had been human, her third-marked servant. She’d illegally turned him to save his life. In doing so, she’d dumped most of her considerable vampire powers into him by accident. The thirty-year-old male, who should have had only a fledgling’s grasp of a vampire’s strength and speed, had instead acquired the skills of a thousand-year-old one. And Lady Lyssa’s Fae powers had started to wake, with wild and unpredictable results.
    Such energy had a mind of its own, and a way of pulling the soul into its purpose. As she stayed one turn ahead of him, glimpsing him for a breath each time, that primitive desire kept growing.
    At the center of the maze, she found a carved trellis of heavy oak. The archway piece looked like a pair of muscular stallions leaping in opposite directions. The four posts had been driven deep into the ground to stand fast against the pressure of the thick root stalks that twined around them. As the foliage reached the top of the trellis, the vines twisted along wood pieces that created a starburst of symmetrical spokes connecting to the closest set of maze walls. This was the anchor point and birthplace of all the foliage that covered the maze.
    When she stopped on the other side of the trellis, she could feel the energy of such a place, a tangle of nature and symbols, the circle, the wheel, the deep rooting into the earth. It unfurled a