Pursued: A Vampire Syndicate Paranormal Romance (The Vampire Syndicate Book 1) Read online

  Pursued

  The Vampire Syndicate

  Rebecca Rivard

  Wild Hearts Press

  Contents

  The Vampire Syndicate Series

  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

  Epilogue

  Also by Rebecca Rivard

  About Rebecca Rivard

  The Vampire Syndicate Series

  They call us the Dark Angels: Gabriel, Zaquiel and Rafael.

  We’re brothers. Princes. Billionaires.

  The richer-than-sin heirs to one of the world’s most powerful vampires.

  But we’re not vampires, we’re dhampirs. Half-human, half-vampire, with panty-melting good looks.

  The media love us.

  Vampires hate us.

  And Slayers, Inc. will do anything to take us down.

  The Dark Angel Trilogy starts with Gabriel and Mila’s story, Pursued.

  Want to be the first to hear about Rebecca Rivard’s vampire romances and other steamy paranormal books?

  Sign up for her newsletter at her website (rebeccarivard.com) or at this link:

  http://www.subscribepage.com/i6x3j1

  1

  Mila

  I’d been running so long that when they finally caught me, I almost welcomed it.

  Almost.

  I slipped around a burly shopper in neon-green board shorts to examine the avocados. But as I reached for one, a man’s hand lashed out, ensnaring my wrist.

  I twisted and tried to jerk away, but he squeezed so tight I gasped in pain. I stopped fighting, and with my other hand, slid the switchblade from my back pocket.

  Cool lips touched my ear. “I wouldn’t, if I were you, cher. Security would be very interested in what you have in that backpack.”

  I stilled, heart thumping. Ahead of us, the man in the board shorts rattled down the aisle with his loaded cart, oblivious. In the next aisle over, a woman with a flat Midwest accent asked where the wine was.

  I lifted my chin. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

  “No?” He started to unzip my backpack.

  Busted in the produce aisle for three chocolate bars, a can of sardines, a hunk of cheddar and a bag of peaches.

  “Stop it!” I hissed and tried again to twist away, but he clamped powerful fingers on my arms, controlling me easily.

  “Then you’ll come with me.”

  His hands were cool, inhumanly strong. A vampire, with a touch of New Orleans in his voice.

  I licked my lips. A vampire can hear your pounding heart, turn your fear against you. I took a deep breath, forcing myself to calm down. “What’s this about?”

  Like I didn’t know. Syndicate vampires had been hunting me for three years. But if I could throw him off guard, I might still be able to escape.

  “You’ll see.” The vampire turned me to face him. He was blond and startlingly beautiful, with dark brows and a lean, sculpted face.

  My gaze went to the black wolf tattoo on the side of his neck. An enforcer.

  The blood chunked to ice in my veins.

  A woman trailed by a curly-haired kid in a dance leotard turned into our aisle.

  The blond vampire’s mouth curved in a predatory smile. “Say you’ll come, Camila. Or that pretty lady with the little girl in the tutu”—he jerked his chin at the woman and the kid—”will be food for me and my colleague.”

  Bile filled my throat. One thing I’d learned in three years on the run was that vampires tended to underestimate humans. I hunched my shoulders, made my tone sullen. “I’ll come.” For now.

  The vampire’s hum of satisfaction raised fine hairs all over my body.

  He removed my backpack and dropped it on the floor. “You won’t need that.”

  A peach fell out and rolled across the aisle. I stifled a moan.

  Insane, right? To be worried about fruit when you’re being kidnapped. But I’d lusted after those peaches like a teenager craves the one boy she can’t have, my shrunken stomach grinding at the sight of the sweet, juicy fruit.

  The enforcer put an arm around my shoulder and walked me out of the store. His scent was dark and earthy, like the deepest part of a forest. I swallowed hard. I didn’t want this man close to me—he made my skin crawl—but that familiar forest aroma made my insides knot with yearning.

  As he urged me out the sliding doors, I furtively palmed the switchblade again. Dusk spread like a great, malevolent bat over the parking lot. The humid July air pressed on my skin, gluing my thick, wavy hair to my nape.

  My gaze locked on the limo with tinted windows idling at the curb. God, I’d been stupid to let myself get caught out this close to dusk, but it had been weeks since I’d seen one of the undead.

  My captor hooked a finger into the waistband of my too-loose shorts. I’d lost weight, the last few months.

  “You know what I am, right?”

  I jerked my chin in assent.

  “Then you know I can outrun you without breaking a sweat.”

  “You can’t sweat,” I muttered.

  “Exactly.”

  The vampire caught my wrist in a tight grip and with his other hand, opened the limo door to usher me inside. Polite and slick as hell.

  A frazzled mom, juggling two toddlers and a bag of groceries, sent me an envious look.

  It’s not what you think, I wanted to scream as she took in the sexy blond vampire in the ten-thousand-dollar suit ushering me into the limo like I was his pampered thrall, not his prisoner.

  Fuck that.

  With a sudden, vicious movement, I released the switchblade and jabbed the silver point into the vampire’s rib cage. He swore and loosened his grip enough for me to wrench free. I sprinted across the access road right into the path of a huge double-cab truck. Just in time, I threw myself out of the way and continued my dash across the parking lot, dodging shopping carts and gawking onlookers.

  My car was unlocked—always. I’d learned the hard way that even seconds could make a difference.

  Yanking the door open, I scrambled inside. I hit the lock and started the car at the same time.

  The ancient engine jerked, hesitated.

  I turned the key again. “Come on,” I begged. “You can do it.”

  I glanced wildly around, lungs working in short, panicked bursts. Even though I couldn’t see the blond vampire, I knew he was out there. A Syndicate enforcer would never let me go this easy.

  The engine stuttered.

  I drew a sobbing breath. “Please, please, please…”

  The engine ground to life just as fingers clamped on the rim of the door. The vampire’s face appeared on the other side of the window like something out of a horror movie. Dark eyes with a glowing blue rim. Long white fangs fully extended.

  A sharp jerk, and the rusted door gave with an earsplit
ting screech.

  I slammed the car into gear, but it was too late. He plucked me out by the nape of my neck like I was a runaway kitten, reaching over me to shove the gearshift back into park. I only just managed to grab the switchblade off the seat.

  He set me on the pavement in front of him. I planted my feet and we faced off.

  Blue-rimmed eyes captured mine. “Come with me, Camila.” His voice held the force of compulsion.

  I strained backward, resisting with everything I had, but I couldn’t drag my gaze from his.

  “Now,” he commanded. “Drop the knife and take my hand.”

  “No,” I rasped, but he was too powerful for me. The switchblade clattered to the pavement as I took his outstretched hand like a fucking zombie.

  Forgetting my car. Forgetting the switchblade at my feet. Forgetting everything but the compulsion to obey.

  He speared his other hand in my hair, dragging my head back. He shoved his face into mine. “No more fighting. You will come with us.”

  Somewhere deep inside, I screamed no, but my head bobbed up and down. “Yes.”

  The limo pulled up next to us. Inside were two other men: a human at the wheel with a boxer’s bent nose and beefy arms, and another vampire, this one with dark hair and sleepy eyes, sprawled on the leather seat, long legs stretched out before him.

  “Get in.” My captor shoved me into the back seat.

  The sleepy-eyed vampire shifted his body enough to allow me space on the seat beside him. “Camila.”

  I growled.

  “I am Stefan,” he said. He had an accent, too, but his was Central European—Russian, or some other Slavic country. “And that is Martin.” He looked at the blond, who’d taken the seat on my other side, a hand to his ribs. “What happened?”

  “Bitch stabbed me with a silver blade. Hurts like a motherfucker.”

  Stefan chuckled. “You will live.”

  Martin sent me a dark look. “No thanks to her. Lucky it didn’t go deep.”

  The limo pulled out, leaving me sandwiched between the two lean, inhumanly beautiful males. The forest scent filled the limo’s interior. A vampire’s way of enticing us poor, stupid humans to come closer.

  I crossed my arms over my stomach, fighting down panic. I was weaponless, my only clothes my hoodie, T-shirt and cargo shorts. On the other hand, I was still alive. Maybe these weren’t the same vampires who’d been trying to kill me for three years?

  “What do you want?” I demanded as we pulled onto the highway.

  “The crown prince has never forgotten you,” said Stefan.

  The crown prince? I went stock-still. It was Gabriel who’d sent them, not his father?

  “Yeah?” My heart skipped a beat. Longing twisted through me. I scowled to hide it. “Then why scare the crap out of me by sending you two to snatch me? Why not just ask politely—you know, in the usual way—a phone call? A text?”

  “Would you have come?” asked Stefan.

  “No,” I said flatly.

  Silence. You just didn’t say no to a vampire syndicate prince. Especially the crown prince.

  “Besides,” Martin said, “you’re using a burner phone.”

  “Like you don’t know the number.” The fact that they even knew I had a burner phone proved my point. “So. What does he want?”

  “Our orders were to pick you up,” Martin said.

  “And take me where?”

  “New York.”

  I swallowed. The Kral Vampire Syndicate headquarters were in Manhattan.

  “What if I don’t want to go?”

  Martin’s smile was white. “What makes you think you have a choice?”

  “Fuck you, too,” I said, but fell silent as the limo took the exit for the airport.

  There was no use arguing. They wouldn’t let me go. I might as well save my energy for the coming confrontation with Gabriel.

  Because I couldn’t stay with him, no matter how much I might want it.

  I stared out the window as night fell over the flat Ohio countryside. In the past few years, I’d lived in four different states, always in small, out-of-the way towns with none of the money and glitz that attracts a vampire. Three months ago I landed in this ageing suburb near Cleveland, and taken yet another dead-end, low-income job.

  I’d barely saved enough to move into a basement apartment—a room, really, with a tiny kitchen at one end and a single pint-size closet—when the store manager called me into his windowless beige office and ordered me to shut and lock the door. He’d moved closer, licked his thin lips.

  I’d known what was coming, and God help me, I’d almost said yes. This job had taken me almost a month to find and I was down to my last fifty dollars.

  But I’d refused and stood by the open door as I told him to go to hell, saying it loud enough that the ladies out front would hear me. Two days later, he fired me for being five minutes late to work.

  The vampires were still scrutinizing me. Another wave of longing washed over me. There was something so seductive about how a vampire watched a human.

  Gabriel Kral had watched me like that, his green eyes hungry, and I’d fallen into his lap like a ripe plum.

  But I’d been young, then. Barely out of my teens and starry-eyed with love. I was older now, and harder.

  My shoulders curved inward, the adrenalin surge that had carried me across the parking lot gone. Almost too exhausted and hungry to be afraid, and mourning the loss of those damn peaches nearly as much as the switchblade, my only silver weapon.

  “Fine.” I forced my spine to straighten. “Just tell me there’s going to be food on this jet.”

  They did feed me on the flight to New York.

  And I ate, even if I felt like beef-on-the-hoof being fattened for the butcher.

  A pretty flight attendant handed me a menu and invited me to order anything I wanted. I started with three appetizers, then moved on to a salad of tender greens topped with cranberries and candied pecans. Next was crab-stuffed flounder with a side of herbed red potatoes that I washed down with what was probably an expensive white wine, given I was on a private jet.

  The vampires slouched on leather couches, sipping wine and speaking in undertones to each other.

  I was full now, but I stubbornly kept eating, only because I caught Martin’s envious glance. A vampire can drink a glass of wine and maybe have a bite of food once every few days or so. Other than that, they have to stick to blood.

  After a while, I’ll bet it gets pretty damn boring.

  A chocolate mud pie topped with whipped cream and shaved chocolate rounded out my meal. I held Martin’s gaze as I forked up a large bite.

  Eat your heart out, blood sucker.

  We landed at La Guardia well after dark, and took another limo into Manhattan. My palms were sweaty now, all that rich food churning in my stomach.

  Another limo conveyed us to the Upper East Side, a street right on Central Park that reeked of old money and behind-the-scenes power. Prewar apartment buildings. Carefully trimmed trees. Small rectangles of annuals surrounded by miniature black-iron fences. Even the trash cans were brand-new and of coated green steel.

  The heat was still stifling as I exited the limo flanked by Stefan and Martin. They were silent now, cold-eyed. They marched me between two potted orange trees. One doorman let us in, and another pushed the elevator button.

  The ride up was so quiet I could hear the frantic pounding of my heart. I pushed my back against the brass bar and stared unseeingly at the shiny metal doors.

  Gabriel.

  Ironic, that a vampire prince had an angel’s name. And not just any angel, but God’s left hand man. Protector—and destroyer.

  I should hate him for dragging me back to him like this. He’d sworn the decision was up to me.

  But a small, secret part of me was excited. The part that still wanted him, no matter how wrong it was for both of us.

  The elevator reached the top floor. We stepped out into an apartment with high cei
lings and a parquet floor polished to a golden sheen. The tall windows were made of that special dark glass that allows vampires to see out even on a sunny day. Right now, though, the view was of Central Park at night, its winding wooded paths dotted by lights.

  Stefan and Martin escorted me through a big-ass foyer into a living room. The lighting was dim—vampires have eyes like cats—and the furniture elegant but comfortable. Butter-soft black leather, a plush red-and-black carpet, black metal lamps with shades shaped like tulips and lilies. I suppose if you live as long as vampires do, you appreciate comfort as much as beauty.

  Four women in skimpy black dresses lounged on the couches or on velvet pillows near an unlit fireplace. Their necks were bare, the tiny marks from a vampire feeding barely visible. They would’ve been beautiful if not for their empty eyes. They smiled a greeting at the two vampires with me but remained where they were like the obedient thralls they were.

  We entered a long gallery hung with dark, moody paintings that together were probably worth as much as the entire apartment building. I glimpsed the name Degas scrawled in the corner of a painting of a woman drinking alone in a bar. Another depicted a hazy river at sunset that even I recognized as a Monet.

  We turned into a library filled with wall-to-wall bookshelves. A tall, dark-haired man stood near the windows, looking out at the busy street below.

  A tingle went up my spine.

  Gabriel Kral.

  My lover. My vampire prince…and the heir to the Kral Vampire Syndicate.

  Then I froze. Backed up.

  But Stefan and Martin had ranged themselves behind me, a solid, immovable wall.