Bound by Her Passion Read online

  Bound by her Passion

  Bound by her Blood Book 2

  Mara Leigh

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Also By Mara Leigh

  A Note to Readers

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Selina

  I wake in the dark, head thick, mouth dry, and my entire body craving blood.

  My night vision reveals concrete walls that seem to go up forever, like I’m at the bottom of a deep shaft. No windows are visible, but the air is fresh and I sense the faint sound and vibrations of the city, high in the distance.

  I’m trapped. Underground. Again.

  Kidnapped by Pike, the monster that tortured me for over a year when I was King Xavier’s captive fiancée.

  Xavier’s not even a king, not a real one, I know that now, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’ve been captured by the most vicious member of his Guard.

  Pike’s not here now, at least I can’t see him, but the entire space is thick with his presence as if the walls are painted in his blood.

  I sit and my hip sinks into an unexpectedly soft and clean mattress, and chains rattle as I brush back hairs from my face. Shit. My wrists are shackled, so are my ankles.

  This part’s more expected than the soft mattress. More like Pike.

  Gathering my diminished strength, I tug against my constraints, but the chains are securely bolted to the concrete floor.

  I’m bound, captive, trapped. But I am a vampire—and more powerful than the one Pike remembers, strengthened after feeding from my lover, the elegant Gray.

  Even hungry as I am now, needing to feed after being unconscious, I’m no longer the weak, baby vampire that Xavier and Pike held captive.

  Standing, I tug on all four restraints at once, but they’re spread out, and I can’t get enough force on any single bolt. Concentrating on my right arm, I punch forward with the force of my entire body—over and over. The chains clank as I thrust back and forth, but my only accomplishments are making my wrist ache and further exhausting myself.

  I kick with my left leg, working on that bolt for a while, then try my last two limbs, but make no headway.

  All the bolts are well secured, but I will not give up.

  Deciding to focus on one bolt, I choose the right arm, then fight and fight. I move close to the wall, surprised that the ceramic tiles next to the bed are covered in soft padding, and then I charge forward, combining my strength and speed with a sudden burst of power.

  My wrist snaps.

  My right hand hangs limp and useless, so I shift to the left arm. But on my eighteenth punch with the left, that wrist breaks too.

  I gingerly cushion my hands as my bones knit back together, but even the first one’s not healed. There are too many little bones in a wrist and hand for it to recover very quickly.

  Resting my arms, I kick forward, but I don’t have as much slack with my legs and it feels fruitless.

  Not fruitless. I will not give up. I can’t. I won’t sit here like prey, a passive victim hoping compliance might make my punishments less brutal. Never again.

  With every ounce of energy inside me, I kick and kick with my left leg. A splintering crack and searing pain joins the sound of the chain as I break my shinbone, possibly my femur, too.

  I can fight through the pain while I heal, but can’t kick without a strong base.

  Trying the right arm again, I wince as sharp pain shoots through me, and I collapse to the mattress.

  “Enough!” A loud male voice echoes through the cavernous space.

  My body freezes. My heart gallops. Pike is here.

  “Let me go!” I shout.

  He steps from behind a tiled pillar. Above his massive and powerful frame, his amber eyes glare from his scarred face and I choke back a gasp, not wanting to reveal my fear. His worn leather pants, the uniform of Xavier’s King’s Guard, cling to his hips and the mounds of his thighs like the garment grew there, like the leather’s his skin. A simple black T-shirt hides the scars I know slash across his chest to terminate at some mysterious place beneath his leather waistband.

  “I will never marry him,” I shout as strongly as I can through my weakened condition. “Not ever. There is no use in holding me. I’ll die first.”

  “That’s not why you’re here.” His deep voice crosses the twenty feet that separate us.

  Goosebumps rise on my arms like I was bathed in the sound. “You’re a monster.”

  He grunts. If I didn’t know better, I’d think my words had hurt him, but if Pike ever had human feelings, he lost them long ago. If he had emotions, a hint of morality, he could never have served an evil sadist like Xavier, or tortured and violated me in that dungeon.

  “No matter what you do to me,” I shout, “you won’t break me. I’ll fight you. I’ll escape. And my friends will come for me. They will find me and push a stake through your heart. Assuming you have one.”

  He leans back against the pillar, casually crossing one leg over the other. “You need blood?”

  “Not yours!” My blood lust rises, pulsing with need. “Never.”

  He shakes his head slowly. “I meant from a human.”

  “I won’t let you kill an innocent person.”

  “Who said anything about killing?” His chest rises and falls, and I’m mesmerized by the movement, knowing too well the power in his body, fearing what he no doubt plans to do to mine.

  My fear, this anticipation, might be as bad as the actual torture, but I shiver imagining being raped by this vampire monster. Now that I’ve experienced the pleasures of consensual sex, rape will be so much worse.

  “What are you waiting for?” I tug on the chains.

  “You are hungry,” he says softly. “You can barely move those chains.”

  “No I’m not! Well, yes.” There’s no point denying the obvious. “But stop toying with me. If you’re going to kill me, get on with it.” If he comes close enough, maybe I can use the chains to my advantage, get one around his neck and cut off his air supply. I’d still need to find a stake to finish the job, and a way to break free from the chains, but at least it would be progress, at least it would be something.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” Pike says, his voice deep but gentle.

  “Liar.”

  He shrugs. “I would never hurt you.”

  “Never hurt me?” A burst of laughter erupts from inside me. “Are you kidding me? What kind of sadistic game are you playing? Do you think that if you feign kindness, I’ll let you use me for your sick pleasure?”

  I shake my chains. “That will never happen. Never. I hate you. I will always hate you.”

  He sucks in a sharp breath, and I’m momentarily confused. Is it possible he did capture me for himself, rather than his so-called king?

&n
bsp; The words he said to me the day I escaped Xavier’s dungeon flash through my mind. They ripple through my body with fear and revulsion. He said that one day he’d fuck me. That I’d want it. That I’d ask for it.

  Was this his plan all along? To capture me and hold me until I gave in like a victim of Stockholm Syndrome?

  I sneer. “You’re a disgusting animal. A monster. More repugnant than even the worst myths humans have imagined about vampires.”

  Eyes narrowing, he strides toward me. “You have no idea how right you are.”

  I leap to my feet, but my leg bones aren’t yet fully healed and the pain is blinding. I fall back to the mattress and he’s instantly at my side, catching me before I hit and crouching beside me.

  His hand softly strokes my shoulder.

  I shrug it off. “Don’t touch me.”

  He places his wrist near my face. “Drink.”

  Holding my lips tight, I shake my head. But like it did the first time he offered his vein, my powerful blood lust invades. A lust so consuming I don’t dare part my lips. My mouth and cheeks, my entire body starts to shake from the effort of keeping my fangs contained.

  Coursing through Pike’s veins, his blood calls to me with a song so alluring I can barely think of anything else. The force is like the rush of Niagara Falls pounding down, but instead of sounding like water, his blood is a chorus of voices, singing the most beautiful music in existence, so beautiful it could never actually exist except in the best of dreams.

  My hunger is too strong. I can’t fight my need for long. Suddenly I don’t only need blood, I need his blood—Pike’s blood. And so much worse than that, I’m wet. Desire pools between my legs.

  He can probably sense it, and anger and humiliation rise inside my chest.

  I suck short breaths through my nose, my jaw aching with the effort of keeping my fangs out of his vein.

  This feeling—this deep, primal need—is even more powerful than what I felt that night in the club when I took Grayson’s vein. The night I had my first taste of Gray’s blood, I understood, for the first time, the power I could gain from feeding from another vampire. I understood, too, how my twin hungers for blood and sex are so tightly bound.

  But it made slightly more sense that I wanted Gray. My body needed his blood, and even though I’d just met him, I had no reason to hate him. In fact, I liked Gray right from the start.

  On the other hand, Pike is repulsive. He must be using some kind of evil trick to make me feel this way, some vampire power no one has told me about yet.

  His hand cups the back of my head, gently holding my lips against his other wrist. “Feed, Selina. Please.”

  As I shake my head, my lips brush over his skin, amplifying my desire to do as he asks.

  I force my mind to concentrate on Rock, my giant, my love, my protector. And on Grayson, my passionate lover.

  Some day I might love Gray too, if he ever shows me a glimpse of who he is deep inside. Beyond handsome, Gray’s look is elegant and refined, even given his slightly long hair and sideburns, out of another time. And Gray’s deep blue eyes dance with humor and wit, never able to disguise the mischievous, fun-loving young man he was before his transition, no matter how many years he may have walked the Earth since then.

  But his appearance is nothing compared to the way Gray makes me feel when he’s inside me… Or the experience of feeding from his vein.

  Desire pulses through me, and my tongue pushes between my lips, its tip grazing Pike’s rough skin.

  “Yes.” The word escapes from his lips in a long hiss. “Feed. Take my blood.”

  My mind snaps back to the present and I struggle against Pike’s hold, pushing on the hand behind my head.

  He lets me go and I fall to the mattress as he backs away.

  Finally able to safely open my mouth, I gulp in air like I’ve been underwater for hours. My entire body’s involved in each breath as I lie on my side, watching as Pike turns away from me, his expression seeming more sad than angry. What is he up to?

  “Why?” I ask on a hard exhale.

  “Why what?” he asks, his massive back to me.

  “Why kidnap me? If you didn’t take me for Xavier, why are you holding me here?”

  He shakes his head slowly.

  I push up to sit, glad to find my wrists are once again ready to support me without pain. “Even if you kill me, you’ll be hunted, you know. Others will avenge my death. I’m no longer the lone baby vamp who got lured into Xavier’s court. I have friends now. Lovers. People who care about me.”

  “Good.”

  The word comes softly but nearly knocks me back down. “Good?” Wincing against the pain of my nearly healed leg, I stand, putting my hands on my hips. “Why did you kidnap me? Tell me.”

  “I didn’t kidnap you.”

  I shake the chains. “What the fuck do you call these, then?”

  “I rescued you.”

  “Rescued me?” I tug on the chains, letting them clang. “Rescued me from my friends? From the men that I love?”

  “I’ll go get you some food.” He strides into the darkness, turns a corner and disappears.

  Chapter 2

  Gray

  Astrid—my friend and head of security for FJS, the centuries old vampire-run corporation we both work for—walks the prisoner into the interrogation room as I watch from the other side of a one-way mirror. My body’s shaking inside, both from the adrenaline of the battle and the shock of Selina’s kidnapping.

  I raise my hand to confirm that I’m keeping the trembling inside. Keep calm and carry on.

  After Selina was taken, Rock and I pursued, leaving Astrid and Malcolm to deal with the remaining vampires and dispose of the corpses of those we killed in self-defense.

  But neither Rock nor I found any trace of Selina or the vampire who took her. They evaporated into the city.

  Behind me in the viewing area, Rock clomps, pacing across the room for what must be the hundredth time in the less than five minutes we’ve been here, and each of the giant’s steps vibrates through my body, exacerbating my tension.

  I grab his arm as he passes, and his momentum pulls me along for a few fumbling steps before he stops.

  “Take some deep breaths, mate,” I say. “Your pacing is making the building shake.”

  Rock draws a long breath, and I can sense both of his hearts beating at a ferocious rate, like we’re still in battle.

  “You’re acting like a caged animal.” I state the obvious.

  He grunts, and pain and anger flash in his eyes.

  “How can you be so calm?” he asks. “Selina was taken, kidnapped by that monster who tortured and raped her, that means to kill her.” His voice breaks.

  “Hey.” I clap his upper arm. “I am not calm. This is not what calm looks like. But your pacing won’t help find her.” I nod toward the one-way mirror. “Right now, Astrid and her team are our best bet.”

  I close my eyes for a moment, thinking of the lovely, lavender-haired Selina, and try to focus on her face, her smell, her taste, rather than thoughts of what that monster could be doing to her.

  Selina is strong but she’s already been through so much, and under enough pressure, even the strongest branch snaps.

  Rock turns his massive body toward the one-way mirror and leans against it, arms overhead. His fingers rest at the intersection of the wall and the ceiling. Bloke’s got to be over seven feet tall.

  He presses his forehead against the glass. “Can you turn up the sound?”

  “Sure, mate.” I adjust a knob, low on the wall. “I forgot you have a hearing deficiency.”

  “Deficiency?” Turning toward me, he frowns.

  I lightly punch his arm. “Compared to a vampire you’re practically deaf.”

  He grunts. “In that case, you have a height deficiency.”

  “Not to mention a weight one.” I wink.

  His eyes narrow. “Did you just call me fat?”

  “Walks like a duck…” I
can’t tell if he’s amused or angry, but I’m betting on amused, so I grin. “Or should I say—walks like a mountain.”

  He chuckles as he turns back to the glass.

  The woman I love loves this giant, but instead of harboring resentment or jealousy, I’m growing to like him more and more every day. It’s not hard to understand what Selina sees in Rock, and although he can’t provide everything a vampire needs in a mate, I understand why Rock makes her feel safe.

  I pull over a chair, sit and lean back, trying to keep calm so I can concentrate as Astrid and her team work. They’re skilled at interrogations, but Selina told me some of what went on while she was held in Xavier’s dungeon, and I suspect she’s told Rock even more. The two of us need to listen for clues—catch things Astrid and her team might miss.

  Moments after Pike kidnapped Selina, Astrid’s team from FJS arrived and arrested the two vampires who were still alive on charges of attempted murder and kidnapping.

  The one who was badly burned by the silver net is healing, and the second is on the other side of the glass. One of Astrid’s staff directs her into a cast-iron chair that’s bolted to the floor—bolted into the skyscraper’s foundation, if I had to guess.

  Two of the security team members fasten clamps around the captured vampire’s wrists, ankles and waist, and curved bars descend to rest over her shoulders, like she’s strapped into a roller coaster chair.

  “Will that hold her?” Rock asks.

  I nod. “The clamps are made from a titanium alloy that even the strongest vampire can’t break. And look. They’re so tight she can’t move.”