Page 37 of Little Mate
Gabriella needs answers. To learn the truth.
I’ll give that to her today.
Nuzzling her cheek, I lay a kiss on her jaw. “Time to get up, sleepyhead. I have a gift for you.”
“Hmmm.” That’s all I get, accompanied by a noncommittal grunt as she tries to burrow deeper under the covers. It’s a little after five in the evening, and those who work in the castle are up and getting their days started—making sure everything is ready for my mate.
Because my people know and are ready to receive their queen.
“You’ll enjoy it.”
“More sleep.” Her beautiful face is a bit pinched, lips in a pout. “I’m not immortal.”
At that, I throw my head back and laugh. The sound reverberates through the room, shaking the windows a bit. “I like you a little petulant. Bratty.”
She cracks one eye open, glaring at me. “Sleeping is being bratty?”
“Anything you do without me is.” Gripping the sheet over her, I lift it and crawl underneath. Like the predator I am, I hold myself above her, one hand to the left of her head while the other moves her hair back, exposing a long and graceful neck. The vein there thrums in time with her racing heart, yet it’s the scent of her arousal that I’m most infatuated by.
It’s sweet. Like cherries and fresh cream.
More so with her body bare and warm.
I breathe in deeply, and a rumbled groan of satisfaction builds in the back of my throat; it makes her shake a little, a whimper escaping, but I also don’t miss the way her ass lifts up to present both holes to me.
Dirty little girl.
“Do you want a gift, or reward?” Her heat sears me. Her pink pussy tempts me.
I want to sink in deep. To feel her body break under mine.
“How about you eat while I nap?” That earns Gabriella a quick smack to her right asscheek. The flesh bounces, lighting into a glowing pink where my fingerprints adorn her skin. “Hey!”
“Tempting offer, but later. Right now, I need you to get up and be ready in fifteen minutes.”
“What’s the rush? Are we going somewhere?” My pretty girl sits up and I let her, moving back just enough so she can turn and get comfortable. “Is everything okay?”
I nod, my mouth lifting into a grin. “I have a present for you.”
Her perfectly sculpted brow arches. “Not that I’m not grateful, Theo, but this couldn’t wait another hour?”
“Do you wish to meet the man who killed your mother later?”
At once, the room grows colder, and hisses can be heard throughout my lands as vampires feel her anger—a wrath that pulsates between us, and it’s because they’ve accepted her. They’ll always have a bond with her. Obey her.
“Where?”
“In my dungeon.”
“Take me to him.” Not a request, but a demand as her ire morphs with her beauty, gifting me a tiny demon sprite. Small. Delicate. Lethal. “I’m owed his blood.”
“Your wish is my command, my Queen.”
Her small hand is in mine as we walk inside the tall tower that houses my prisoners and their guards. They’re held below the ground while my men have dormitories in the upper levels, giving them a resting place when on duty that is occupied only by those on a specific shift.
The lower ones, however, are only accessible down a narrow set of stairs lit by an eternal flame gifted by an old mage seventy years ago that owed me a favor. I spared her cocky son, and she secured this structure.
“What the?” Gabby mutters under her breath, body visibly shaking as we enter the lowest level. I’m not going to deny the smell is unpleasant, the crying of those inside annoying, but I don’t think that's quite what she’s referring to. “Who did this?”