His Lover's Fangs Read Online Free Page B

glared at
him but didn’t say a word and attacked. It was his turn to parry,
counter-attack, defend, and they continued to move around the room,
circling each other, destroying the furniture, breaking a window,
chipping the tiles they had laid out together around the fireplace.
Neither of them was gaining the upper hand.
    As she struck at him, Olivia kept having
flashbacks of the many hours they had spent training together. They
had sparred together at the Academy sometimes, but it had always
been by chance, even after they had started enjoying each other’s
company. The instructors paired the trainees up with different
partners for each lesson, and there were enough trainees that they
didn’t train with the same partner more than two or three times a
month.
    After they had graduated, though, when they
had funded their own agency together, sparring had become part of
their daily regimen. Most sessions finished with kisses at the very
least, shared showers usually, and when they pushed each other to
their limits and beyond, they always ended things with a lot more
than kissing.
    In the end, it wasn’t really a mistake on his
part that finally allowed her to trap him beneath her. Instead, it
was her intimate knowledge of how he moved and breathed, of the
rhythm his blows followed. She knew him just as well as he knew
her, and while he had always had the advantage of power over her,
she had made up for it with her speed and agility. Becoming a
vampire had accentuated her strengths, but it had also given her
more power—enough to match Logan’s. Hand to hand, with nothing but
a stake, he had been doomed from the start—just like she had been
when Ann had confronted her.
    Had she really been trying to kill him, it
might not have taken her so long to take him down, but she couldn’t
afford to hurt him too badly.
    Instincts drew her down until her mouth was
only a couple inches from his throat. She could see his skin pulse
with life, with blood, and it made her fangs itch.
    The same instinct caused her to freeze when
she felt the tip of the stake press against her chest. Everything
inside her screamed for her to move back, away from that piece of
wood that meant death. Away from the man who had meant so much to
her. She forced herself to remain very still and waited. Moments
ago, she had wished for a last fuck before it all ended; now, she
could only regret that she would never get a last kiss.
     
    * * * *
     
    For years, the feel of wood in his closed
hand had been as familiar to Logan as the feel of his own skin. He
had staked vampires without hesitating, knowing that each of them
was guilty, knowing that each kill meant saved human lives.
    But now… He couldn’t do it.
    Memories assaulted his mind, freezing him in
a stalemate with the ghost of a woman he had loved—would love until
he died, whether that was that moments or years away.
    He remembered the night she had shown up at
his dorm at the Academy. He had noticed her before, like he had
noticed the fifty or so other students in his class, each of whom
he had been paired with for training at one point or another. But
until she had stood in front of him, he had never noticed how clear
her eyes were, like perfect jade stones, almost translucent.
    He remembered another night, just weeks
later. She had shown up at his dorm window that time, in the middle
of the night, and simply said he was distracting her too much
during class. Her solution was for them to sleep together—expulsion
risks notwithstanding—and get it out of their systems. “And don’t
pretend you don’t want me,” she had added with a wicked grin. “I’m
not blind, and neither are you.” It had only been the first of many
times they broke that particular rule together.
    He remembered… so much. So many smiles, so
many laughs. So much love. So many dreams. All of it replayed in
his mind, and he wondered if that was what people meant when they
said their lives flashed before their eyes when