Blood Vow (Black Dagger Legacy #2)(3)

None of them knew that he was an actual vampire. And not as in a neo-Victorian Dracula-wannabe with cosmetically altered canines, high-heeled boots, and a fake black rinse through his already dark hair.

As in the real deal. Different DNA. Different traditions and language. Different biological imperative that, yes, involved drinking blood from a vampire of the opposite sex.

Different sex drive.

“Yeah, I’ll take her first,” he said.

As the staff member whistled loudly and put his hand up to summon the rolling scaffolding, a rush tripped and fell over the crowd, excitement building for the first show. And for a split second, Axe considered materializing up there just to freak them all out, just because he could, just because he liked creating chaos.

Instead, he scaled the front of the metal framework with the ease of a spider over its web.

When he was up at the woman’s level, her body responded in a starving arch, her head falling back, her mouth opening, her eyes begging him. She wasn’t drugged. She was achingly aware, the scent of her sex flaring, her flesh calling out for release.

She’d wanted him. Out of the many below, she’d wanted him specifically.

“Take me,” she said. “Take—”

He reached out his gloved hand and closed her mouth with his fingertips. Bending over her, he bared his canines and went for her throat. But he didn’t bite her. He ran the tip of one fang up her jugular.

With a jerk against the chains she had volunteered for, she or-gasmed for him right then and there, the alchemy of the public display, the danger he represented, the kind of sex she needed, coalescing into a release that flushed her face and made her moan as she thrashed.

Down below, the pleasure she felt rippled through the teeming bodies.

And he was aroused, yes. But not like they were. Not like she was.

Never as any of them.

However, the screaming voice in his head that told him he was a piece of shit was dimmed down by the sex. The fire of his rage against himself was doused by the distraction. The packed house of recriminations under his real skull were, momentarily, displaced.

So yes, this worked for everyone.

Reaching up to his own throat, he released the cord of his cloak and dropped the heavy weight from his shoulders. He had black leathers on and nothing else but his tattoos and piercings.

Axe’s hands went to her body and traveled, with his mouth, everywhere.

And the storm he was deliberately creating raked over the decimated landscape of his soul, obscuring the ragged, desolated mess he was.

She was getting what she required, and so was he.

Good thing. He needed to be at the Black Dagger Brotherhood training center in about an hour, in some kind of shape to continue his education. Being a soldier in the fight against the Lessening Society? Walking the line between life and death?

Now that was finally going to get him what he was after.

Inner peace through acts of war: Because he had to believe if you were facing off with the undead, surely you were too busy trying to stay alive to worry about anything else.

Fucking perfect.

STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK, CALDWELL CAMPUS

Elise, blooded daughter of the Princeps Felixe the Younger, smiled at the human male across the library table from her. “Of course I’d stay late. I’m not going to leave you to deal with all this by yourself.”

“All this” was a debris field of final papers sufficient to cover every square inch of surface except for two feet in front of her and two feet in front of Professor Troy Becke. Although the submissions for Psych 342 had been filed electronically, Troy believed in printing them out for grading purposes—and after having been through midterms with the man, Elise had to agree. There was something different about holding the work in your hands and being able to write your thoughts down. It had to do with the lack of speed, she’d decided.

Too easy to scan if you were doing things electronically, and she was such a quick typist; having to handwrite things gave her time to really think things through.

Troy sat back and stretched. “Well, considering it’s ten o’clock at night only days before Christmas, I’d say it’s yeoman’s duty.”

As he smiled at her, she measured him. He was tall for a human, and he had bright blue eyes and the sort of face that was so open and friendly, it could make you forget that you were a stranger posing in a strange land, a foreigner who had come to visit and stayed because they were captivated by the freedom that was enjoyed by the natives.

“So that was my last one.” She put the printout on her stack of graded papers on the left and twisted in the chair to crack her spine, a little sunburst of relief easing at her waist. “You know, this was a good group of students. They really got it—”

“I’m sorry,” he interjected.

Elise frowned. “Why? I’m your teaching assistant. This is my job. Besides, I’m learning even more now.…”

She let her voice trail off because she was pretty sure Troy wasn’t hearing a thing she was saying. He was looking around at the stacks that bracketed them in their alcove, his eyes not really focused.

As a vampire among humans, Elise was always a little twitchy, and she hopped on the scan train, glancing about in case Troy had sensed something she had not.

The Foster Newmann library was a place where students went to study even though print was dead and notes were now taken on laptops and chalk no longer existed in classrooms. Four stories high, and marked by stretches of shelving that were broken up by sitting areas, the facility was a place where she always felt safe, with nothing but her studies and her ambitions before her.