For His Dark Desire (The Vampire’s Embrace, Book 3)

By Emma Rose

Alyssa bonds with her vampire lover, bringing conflicting emotions from a past that she’s not completely sure is hers. However, with this bond, Bran’s presence has attracted the attention of a rogue band of vampires who look down on the intermingling of vampire with human, and won’t hesitate to kill in order to preserve their order.

In a race against the arrival of these predators, Bran must reach out to old friends and Alyssa is forced to change herself in ways she never knew possible...

Will the lovers escape unharmed or will the pressures to survive change their relationship forever?

FOR HIS DARK DESIRE is the third and final novella in the adult paranormal romance series THE VAMPIRE’s EMBRACE by Emma Rose

• Language: English
• Publisher: Emma Rose
• Release date: Sep 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310704154

Emma Rose

As a full-time independent author, Emma Rose delights in giving you stories that draw you in and characters who captivate your imagination.

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The Vampire's Embrace Book 3: For His Dark Desire

By

Emma Rose

Copyright © 2014 by Emma Rose

Smashwords Edition

*****

PUBLISHED BY:

Crave Romance

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All characters in this book are eighteen years or older.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author except where permitted by law.

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The Vampire's Embrace Book 3: For His Dark Desire

She was running. Her bare feet slapped the wet pavement as she splashed through a puddle. The water was slimy and cold around her ankles. Her skirts tangled around her legs. She tried to lift them higher but they were heavy and damp. It was dark. So dark. The only light came from a single streetlamp at the end of the road, and it flickered and sputtered as she lurched toward its dubious protection. It was useless. She could hear the the flap of the monster’s coat and the leisurely tap of his cane on the cobblestones.

Her breath sobbed out between trembling lips. He’d kissed them, not an hour before. His kisses were sweet and drugging, better than any she’d tasted before. And the rest! Her skin tingled and her sex still throbbed from his sensual ministrations. But entrance to the warm, wet places of her body was not all he wanted from her.

So she ran, desperate to get away from those cold eyes and the vicious smile. Her heart pounded in her chest and the chill wind chapped her cheeks. The fiend whistled as he strode along steadily behind her. He pace was sedate and yet each time she cast a frantic glance over her shoulder, he was closer.

Please, she pleaded.

His chuckled thickly. Come now, dolly. Don’t carry on so. It needn’t be painful.

The streetlight was just there. Only a few more running paces and she’d be in the small, warm circle of light. The constables always stopped here before crossing the street and they usually threatened to take her in and she waved ‘em off but tonight she’d be grateful for it, oh yes.

He was on her in a second, hands like steel clamps on her shoulders as he spun her to face him. His arms banded around her back, pinning her to his chest. His cold, empty eyes sparkled down at her.

Her fingers clutched at the lapels of his heavy canvas greatcoat convulsively. It won’t hurt? she asked, hopefully.

Fangs glinted in the flickering light of the nearby lamp as he laughed. Oh, dolly. I said it doesn’t have to, which is true. The thing is... I like it to. She felt when he tore into the soft flesh of her throat and began slurping her blood.

Alyssa jerked awake, sweaty and shaking. Her eyes scanned the dark room frantically. When a cool hand touched her cheek, she screamed and struck out. The startled ‘oof’ and resigned sigh that greeted her attack were enough to still her movements.

Bran?

A light clicked on beside the bed. He sat up, covers puddled around his trim waist, broad chest mouth-wateringly bare. His dark hair was adorably mussed. He shoved a hand through it, which probably accounted for some of the disarray. Another one?

Her shoulders were painfully tense as she nodded. Was Jack the Ripper a vampire?

"Possibly. I don’t know. I’m not that old." His sculpted lips quirked. Alyssa pounced on the information. Bad dreams or no bad dreams, Bran offering information about his age was rare.

So, less than, what, two hundred? Huh. That’s comforting, kind of.

He dragged her into his arms and snuggled them both back beneath the covers. Comforting enough to forget the dream?

Maybe. She wriggled against his tall, lean body. Pressing against his cool, naked length helped to take her mind off the pulse pounding terror she’d felt in the dream. It’s been two months. Shouldn’t the dreams be... I don’t know, fading or something?

At first, she’d assumed the nightmares, always involving a vampire attack of some sort, where just a weird post-traumatic stress reaction to Bran biting her for the first time. But as time went on it seemed more and more as if what she was experiencing weren’t merely dreams. What they were , neither of them was really sure.

I told you, a chuisle, it’s hard to say. He smoothed her hair back from her forehead and kissed the smooth skin with warm lips. What we’ve done is... not common.

Humans and vampires shacking up, you mean. She trailed her fingers lightly over the sculpted plane of his abdomen, stroking along the dips and ridges of muscle. Bran had the sleekly muscled body of a swimmer. Or an underwear model.

As you say. Among my kind, the widely held feeling is that humans are merely food. Nothing more. The majority would view what I’ve done the way humans would look at a man marrying his cow.

She poked his belly. Are you calling me a cow? But she was grinning. Bran slid a hand up to cup one round breast in his hand, thumb tracing slow circles around her areola.

You do have lovely big udders.

Brandon Campbell! The gasp had more to do with the squeeze he’d given her now achingly hard nipple than the bad joke. Wait. So, does that mean you’re like... into bestiality? She quirked a rufous brow at him.

Bran’s sculpted lips twitched. No, mo cridhe. Though we are a minority among our people, there are those of us who think differently about you mortals. We did, after all, come from you. The butterfly doesn’t view the caterpillar as an unworthy life-form, I would think.

Now I’m a caterpillar? She harrumphed. I think I liked it better when I was a cow.

His fingers snaked down to her naked belly, stroking over the soft skin. You are neither, my sweet. But my point is that, given the overriding sentiment toward humans, not many vampires build relationships with them.

So they just... suck and blow? Like you do with the patrons at the bar?

Did, he corrected.

A hungry vampire was a dangerous vampire. Normally, he needed to feed on several people a day in order to drink his fill and not harm the human ‘Donors’. If he took everything he needed from Alyssa alone, it would kill her. So when she’d awoken from the mind-shattered daze she’d fallen into after he’d first drunk from her, they’d discussed how he would need to feed on others still.

His usual style of feed was to use a weak form of mind-control to make the victim docile, then he drank, and fogged their memories so all they remembered was the feeling of pleasure and a vague accident that had led to their wound. The idea of Bran feeding off of other humans and giving them pleasure made her a bit uncomfortable, but she knew it wasn’t really a sexual thing for him. Or, it didn’t have to be. So she’d agreed he would continue to feed at Dusty Mud’s, the bar she worked at in the Faubourg Marigny district of New Orleans.

But it turned out he didn’t need to. One of the perks to their bond, they’d discovered, was that Alyssa’s blood became somehow more potent to Bran. He didn’t need to feed as much, or as often. It had something to do with the mystical nature of his kind. There was no science to what Bran was. And, seemingly, a component of ‘the magic part’ as Bran would say, of their bond was that her blood now had an extra kick. She was the