A Shade of Doubt (A Shade of Vampire #12)(30)

As he was royalty, his features and physique were very different from any usual ogre’s. His frame was tall, muscular but slender. While he had brown leathery skin, his facial features were more humanoid. His nose was thin and straight, his jawline sharp, and he had no tusks. He had a regal appearance and I found him almost handsome.

“Annora.” He bowed his head, reaching out a strong hand. “A pleasure to meet you.”

I shook his hand.

“Come sit.”

I followed him to the end of the hall where there was a long table and high-backed, cushioned chairs. He drew one up for me and took a seat opposite me. He reached for a jug of blood and filled two goblets.

Now that I was a human, the idea of drinking blood was vile. I wasn’t even sure what type of blood this was—human, I suspected, since that was a favorite of the royals’. I couldn’t make him suspect anything was different about me, so I took a polite sip of the cool liquid before setting the goblet back on the table.

“What brings you here?” He flashed me a charming smile, revealing a set of surprisingly white teeth.

“On behalf of my fellow witches, and to thank you for your loyalty all these years, I have come to offer a rare gift to your majesties. A human girl whose blood is one of a kind. It will taste unlike anything you’ve had before.”

Anselm looked at me expectantly. “Well, where is she?”

“She is in the human realm, waiting for you on the island we use to trade. Not far from the other side of the gate.”

He frowned. “Why didn’t you bring her with you now?”

I gave him a gracious smile. “Well, you see, this young woman really is quite a beauty. If you have room in your harem, before you taste her, I was thinking she would make an exquisite addition.”

He smirked. “My father and I always have room in our harem.”

I chuckled. “I thought as much. Then you can understand why I wanted to leave capturing her to you. I know you royals enjoy the chase…”

He licked his lips, his deep orange eyes gleaming.

“Indeed we do.”

Chapter 20: Rose

Annora still hadn’t shown up by the time night fell. Although we’d stayed around base camp in case she returned, we both wanted to take a bath before sleeping. We climbed down the tree and walked to the edge of the lake.

My mouth fell open as Caleb dropped his pants on the grass. He dove in and resurfaced in the water, flicking his hair back and looking up at me. He cocked his head to one side.

“What are you waiting for?”

Apparently too impatient to wait for my answer, he climbed out onto the bank and stood up. My cheeks ablaze, I kept my eyes fixed on his face as he approached me. He fingered my bra straps.

“This thing is filthy,” he said, looking it over disapprovingly.

Before I could respond, he reached around my back and unclasped my bra. He’d already seen what I looked like on the boat, but I still found myself blushing as his eyes roamed me. There was a warmth in his eyes as he smiled at my bashfulness. He caught my hand, pulling me toward the water. Scooping me up in his arms, he leapt, submerging both of us in the cool water.

I resurfaced, gasping for breath. Since my panties were half off already from the contact with the water, I just discarded them completely too. I threw them on the bank near my bra.

Caleb resurfaced a foot away from me, reaching out and pulling me against him. I shivered as his palms began running up and down against my skin, scrubbing me like a sponge. He breathed deeply into my neck.

“You always smell good to me,” he whispered.

I couldn’t help but giggle at that. “Would I still smell good if Annora dropped a pile of bird poop on me?”

He laughed, and I once again found myself looking up into his gorgeous brown eyes. They sparkled as they reflected the moonlight hitting the water.

“I guessed that was you,” he muttered, looking at me with mock disdain.

I considered pointing out that the crap and the spider were both a light punishment considering she’d tried to burn me alive in the submarine. But I was in too good a mood to bring up that traumatic incident.

I twisted around and began to run my hands along his muscular arms and shoulders, taking my turn to wash him. I swam toward the bank and grabbed a handful of clean grass. Bunching it up, I used it to scrub his skin. It was more effective than my palms, which weren’t rough like Caleb’s. I moved round to his sculpted back. When he felt me slowing down around the areas he had bullets embedded, he said, “It’s okay. Those parts are numb. They don’t hurt.”

Once I’d finished making my way around his body, I let go of the grass.

“Thank you, Princess,” he whispered, gathering me to him and claiming my lips.

“A-Any time,” I replied breathlessly.

My body responding to his touch, I shivered again. Mistaking my pleasure for coldness, he sped forward and carried me out of the water, back onto the bank.

That was the thing with vampires—there was barely a second to object between the time they made a decision and the time they executed it.

Still, with images of spending the night with Caleb in his bunk floating around in my head, I didn’t mind too much leaving the water so soon.

Gathering up my dirty underwear, I bent over the water and scrubbed them clean before laying them out on a stone to dry.