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Wolf Creek Pack 11

Forever and a Day

Samuel Erickson, a human and former blood slave, hates vampires
with a vengeance. He doesn’t trust a single blood sucker, except

for maybe Sully, the vampire that saved him. But trusting
someone and giving in to the desire that burns within every time
he’s around the handsome vampire are two distinctly different

things. When their lives are threatened and they have to fight side
by side just to stay alive, the hatred Samuel harbors seems less

important.

Sully Buckley, a vampire, despises humans just as much as

Samuel hates vampires. Nothing good could ever come of their
association. Sully has been telling himself this since he first set

eyes on the frightened human. To his dismay, he was finding it
harder to remember those reasons the more time he spent with
Samuel.

Despite the issues between them, nothing can prevent Sully from
running to the rescue when they are attacked by soldiers sent by

Samuel’s father. When betrayal comes from within their ranks,
Sully knows he has to put aside his hatred and fight for his mate

or lose him forever, and he desperately wants forever and a day.

Genre: Alternative (M/M or F/F), Contemporary, Paranormal,
Vampires/Werewolves
Length: 36,234 words

FOREVER AND A DAY

Wolf Creek Pack 11

Stormy Glenn

EVERLASTING CLASSIC

MANLOVE

Siren Publishing, Inc.

www.SirenPublishing.com

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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Everlasting Classic ManLove

FOREVER AND A DAY
Copyright © 2014 by Stormy Glenn
E-book ISBN: 978-1-63258-668-1

First E-book Publication: November 2014

Cover design by Harris Channing
All art and logo copyright © 2014 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including
electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without
express written permission.

All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance
to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com

Letter to Readers

Dear Readers,

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Glenn from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you.
Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

Regarding E-book Piracy

This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or
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This is Stormy Glenn’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect
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www.SirenPublishing.com
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FOREVER AND A DAY

Wolf Creek Pack 11

STORMY GLENN

Chapter One

Samuel Erickson glanced up when he heard a soft knock on his

bedroom door. He wasn’t surprised when the door opened a moment
later, even if he didn’t invite anyone in, and Sully walked inside,
shutting the door behind him. Sully looked over at him for a moment
then stepped over to the wall next to the door and slid down until he
was sitting on the floor.

Samuel could almost predict what the vampire would do. Sullivan

Buckley had been coming into his room almost every night for nearly
three months. The only time he didn’t show was when he was on a
mission for his prince—another vampire.

Sully would search the room until he saw Samuel and then slide

down the wall to sit on the floor next to the door. He usually brought
a book or something to read, sometimes his iPad.

Sully stopped trying to get Samuel to talk after the first week.
Samuel still couldn’t figure out why the vampire continued to

come every night when he knew Samuel hated vampires. He loathed
them. Every damn last one of them needed to be staked through the
heart, slowly. Several times. Then maybe burned at the stake or drawn
and quartered.

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Well, maybe not all of them, but most of them. His brother Danny

was mated to a vampire. Prince Dominic Xavier Lucian Ruelle
seemed somewhat okay. He made Danny happy and kept him safe.
Samuel was grateful for that. The danger they were in on a daily basis
from their psychotic monster of a father never seemed to lessen.

Maybe that was why Sully visited every night.
“Why are you here?” Samuel needed to know. He was no longer

afraid of Sully, for the most part anyway. He still got a little nervous
around the vampire. Despite the fact that Sully had rescued him from
a life of hell as a blood slave and never made a single threatening
move toward him, the man was still a vampire. He still drank blood to
survive. Having been a blood slave for several months, Samuel could
honestly say that it was something he never wanted to experience
again in his life.

Sully’s eyebrows were raised as if the man was shocked to hear

Samuel speak. “You sleep better when I’m here.”

Well, that much was true. Samuel woke up screaming in the night

if Sully wasn’t there. When Samuel had been a blood slave, the
nighttime had been made of nightmares even when he was awake.
That was when the vampires would come for him, after the sun set.

Samuel didn’t remember any of his nightmares, and for that he

was thankful. But he knew they were bad. He woke screaming, and
drenched in a cold sweat. It took hours to calm down and feel like his
heart wasn’t going to jump out of his chest.

Sully’s presence made him feel like he could breathe.
“Did you feed today?”
Sully’s dark eyebrow went up, just one of them. “You know I

did.”

Samuel reached down and rubbed his stomach when it clenched.

He tried to understand that vampires needed blood to survive but he
just didn’t understand it. It was gross and terrible and humiliating.

Everyone tried to convince Samuel that it wasn’t a horrible act,

that they weren’t forcing some poor soul to bleed for them. Samuel

Forever and a Day

didn’t believe a word of it. He had seen how vampires fed. He had
experienced the excruciating pain involved with being a blood slave.
No one was going to convince him that it didn’t hurt or make him
wish he was dead. Not even the vampire that chased his nightmares
away.

“Is he alive?”
Sully’s dark eyes rolled, a smirk twisting his lips. “She is fine.”
Samuels gut tightened as Sully’s words scraped over his skin like

a razorblade. He knew enough from eavesdropping on conversations
and the things Sully said to know the man was straight as they came.
He even preferred his blood donors to be female.

Samuel turned back toward the window. His thoughts were

jumbled, sporadic. He was having a hard time pulling one together
enough to have a complete thought. It shouldn’t have bothered him
that Sully was straight, and yet it did. The man was a vampire.
Despite what Danny said, Samuel knew nothing could ever come of
the draw he felt toward Sully.

Hell, Samuel didn’t even know what the draw was. Just that it was

there. His heart always beat a little faster until he saw Sully, his
stomach knotting until the vampire was in the room with him. He
felt…something when Sully was around.

Safe, and yet afraid at the very same time.
His feelings toward Sully were confusing. He anticipated the

vampire’s arrival in his room like the coming of the sun. And yet, the
only way he could truly think of Sully was by not thinking of him as
vampire. He didn’t really think of Sully as human, either. It was
readily apparent to anyone looking at the physically imposing man
that he wasn’t human. There was something feral about him, an
uncivilized edge.

It was as attractive as it was terrifying.
Samuel’s entire body seized painfully as a series of loud pops

sounded from somewhere outside of his room. The brash bangs were

Stormy Glenn

quickly followed by an earsplitting scream and several voices raised
in volume.

Sully was on his feet and pulling the door open before Samuel

barely got turned around. “Stay here!” Sully ordered as he hurried out
of the room, slamming the door closed behind him.

Samuel pulled the edges of his blanket up to his chin. The sounds

of violence were growing louder, more dangerous. They were
growing closer.

His heart pounded faster with each sound he heard, the fear

building inside of him started to make his chest ache. Samuel jumped
up and ran across the room, turning the lock on his door. It might not
keep anyone out, but it would slow them down some.

He hoped.
Samuel backed away from the door, watching the door handle

intently. He wanted to know what was going on, and yet he didn’t.
The fear of what might be happening was almost paralyzing. Samuel
backed up until he hit the far wall, and then he wedged himself down
into the spot between the dresser and the wall, trying to make the
smallest possible target.

Samuel slapped his hand over his mouth to keep from crying out

when someone kicked at the door. Fear clogged his throat, blocking
the air trying to escape in a bloodcurdling scream. Whoever was on
the other side of the thick wood continued to kick at it until it
splintered and the door crashed open.

“Samuel!”
For a brief moment, every horrible thing that had ever happened

to him flashed before him. Samuel thought he was going to be sick.

Then the voice that was calling out for him took on a name, and

Sully’s face appeared before him. “Samuel, snap out of it,” Sully
snarled as he grabbed Samuel by the arms and yanked him to his feet.
“We need to go.”

Forever and a Day

“Go?” Samuel asked as he stumbled after Sully. He didn’t want to

leave his room. His room had been his safe haven for the last couple
of months. He never left his room. “Go where?”

“We have to go, Samuel. We’re under attack. I need to get you

somewhere safer than this. Everyone else has either headed out
already or they’re outside fighting.”

Samuel started shaking his head as he was pulled toward the door

by the grip Sully had on his arm. It was a tight grip, unrelenting.
Samuel tried to pull free but knew after the first tug that he wasn’t
going to get away unless he broke his wrist.

“Please, I can’t—”
“Samuel!”
Samuel’s teeth rattled as Sully spun around and grabbed him by

the arms, giving him a good shake.

“You’re not listening to me. We have to go. The only option you

have here is how you leave this room, on your own feet or tossed over
my shoulder. It’s up to you.”

Samuel’s eyes rounded. There was no way in hell he was going

anywhere over Sully’s shoulder. “I’ll walk.” He just wished he knew
where he was walking to.

“Grab your sweater.” Sully pointed to the dark navy-blue hooded

sweatshirt tossed over the back of a chair. “You might need it.”

Whatever.
Samuel grabbed the sweater and quickly pulled it over his head.

For good measure, he slid his feet into his tennis shoes and tied them.
If he was going to be on the run, he needed something to run in. “So,”
he said as he straightened up, “where are we headed?”

“Somewhere safe.”
Gee, that explained oh so much. Sully’s tone was about as

forthcoming as his words. Samuel realized he hadn’t tried to bridge
the gap between him and Sully in any way, shape, or form. He had
encouraged the distance. But the aloofness in Sully’s voice as he
spoke didn’t sit well with Samuel.

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It was so damn impersonal.
Before Samuel even reached the doorway, his wrist was grabbed

again. The seriousness on Sully’s chiseled face scared him as nothing
else could have.

“Keep up and keep quiet. I don’t know how many are inside the

house.”

How many what?
Samuel had his answer a moment later when they hurried out into

the hallway and rounded the first corner. Granted, Samuel didn’t
know all of the vampires living in the large estate house, but he was
pretty damn sure the ones heading for them with blood-smeared
swords were not from around here.

His belief was reaffirmed when he was pushed back so hard he

slammed into the wall. Sully made an unholy growling sound and
lunged at the two vampires. Black claws extended from his fingertips,
swinging out to swipe at the other two men. Blood sprayed the walls,
dripping down in a sickening design that reminded Samuel of paint
thrown on a blank canvas.

When one of the vampires started moving in his direction, Samuel

grabbed the closest thing to him—a blue-and-white antique-looking
vase—and tossed it at the man. When that didn’t stop the vampire, he
grabbed the picture off the wall and started swinging it back and forth
through the air.

The vampire jumped back, but an exasperated expression came

over his face, almost like he couldn’t believe someone was fighting
him off with a piece of priceless art and he just couldn’t believe
someone was fighting him off. If he expected Samuel to just lie down
and die, then he was in for a big surprise.

Samuel brought the picture down on the vampire’s head. The

vampire howled as the gilded frame came apart in Samuel’s hands.
Eyes the color of blood stared at Samuel with such hatred that he
feared he was going to burst into flames. The vampire tossed back his
head and loudly proclaimed his rage before lunging at Samuel.

Forever and a Day

Knowing he was about to die, Samuel closed his eyes and waited

for the blow to come. The impact of the vampire crashing into him
pushed him back, almost taking him to the floor. But before he was
forced down, the weight was suddenly gone.

A thick silence hung heavy in the air.
Samuel popped one eye open, fearing what he was going to see.

The other eye popped open as shock shot through him faster than a
bullet. The stupid vampire had impaled himself on the wooden frame
that had been destroyed when Samuel hit him over the head with it.

The vampire was dead.
Samuel was both elated and sick to his stomach. The whole being

sick to his stomach thing grew increasingly stronger by the second as
he watched the blood dripping on the hardwood floor from the broken
wooden frame sticking out of the vampire’s chest.

“Damn, Samuel.”
Samuel’s hands shook as he held out the rest of the picture frame

to Sully. “I hope that wasn’t an original.”

Sully sighed. “It was.”
“I’ll pay for it.”
Sully chuckled as he grabbed Samuel by the arm and started

leading him down the hallway again. “You couldn’t pay that off if
you worked twenty-four hours a day for the rest of your life. It was a
Picasso.”

Samuel grimaced. Maybe the prince would never find out?
“Move faster, Samuel. We need to get out of here before more

vampires show up.”

“More?” Samuel squeaked. He tried to turn and go back to his

room, but Sully wouldn’t allow it. He kept a tight hold on Samuel’s
arm, keeping him from running for his life. “There are vampires out
here, Sully.”

What part of that wasn’t the man… Oh right. Sully was vampire,

too. He probably wasn’t freaked out.

“I want to go back to my room.”

Stormy Glenn

“You’re room isn’t safe, Samuel.”
“I don’t care!” Samuel was going to start screaming in a moment.

He wanted to go back to his room, damn it. His room was safe. There
weren’t any vampires inside. Well, except Sully and he didn’t really
count. Maybe the prince, too, but only if Danny was around.

“Damn it, Samuel.” Samuel’s teeth rattled as Sully grabbed both

of his arms and shook him—again. He really needed to stop doing
that. “We don’t have time for you to fall apart right now. I have to get
you out of here.”

“Where’s Danny?” Samuel asked. “Why isn’t he here with us?”
“Dominic took him out through a secret entrance in their

bedroom. They’ll meet up with us once we get out of here.”

Samuel blinked then jerked his arms out of Sully’s grasp. “Well,

then what are we waiting for? Let’s go?”

Was he being unreasonable and contrary?
Probably.
Was it worth the dumbfounded look on Sully’s face?
Absolutely.
When Sully’s eyes narrowed, Samuel felt his lips twitch with

amusement. It was an emotion he hadn’t experienced in so long he
had almost forgotten what it felt like. He was kind of shocked to be
feeling it now. He didn’t even care that Sully’s glare promised
retribution.

“Move,” Sully growled through clenched teeth.
Samuel wasn’t stupid. He knew when to fight Sully and when to

give in. Now was the time to give in—before the vampire with the
really sharp fangs tried to chew his head off.

Following Sully was easier said than done. The man was fast on

his feet, but so were the vampires they kept encountering. By the time
they reached the top of the grand staircase leading down to the first
floor, Samuel was covered in blood and sweat. Luckily, only a small
amount of the blood was his.

The sweat, however, was all him.

Forever and a Day

Just as Samuel grabbed the railing and started hurrying down the

stairs, the front door flew open, crashing back so hard against the wall
that the top hinge broke and the door dangled at an odd angle. Three
sword-wielding vampires poured in through the broken door and
charged toward the stairs.

“Run, Samuel!” Sully shouted as he vaulted over the banister,

landing on the floor beneath with a resounding thud.

Samuel turned and went right back up the steps. He glanced first

one way and then the other when he reached the top. He had come
from the left. He decided to go right.

Nope.
Vampire.
Samuel spun and took off back down the hallway that led to his

bedroom. He racked his brain as he tried to think of a safe place to
hide. None came readily to mind. He was pretty sure his room was no
longer safe, and that sucked. He liked his room.

Samuel could hear footsteps following him at a rapid pace, but not

too rapid. Samuel’s steps slowed, and so did the ones behind him.
When he sped up, the footsteps sped up.

He was being played with.
Samuel ran for the remains of the picture frame he had killed the

other vampire with. If it killed one insane fang-infested guy, it might
kill the other one.

Well, he could hope anyway.
He grabbed the wooden pieces of frame on the go, refusing to stop

for anything. Just as he reached the entrance to his room, Samuel
turned and pointed the ornate sticks at the vampire.

The man stopped a few feet away, his lips starting to curl up as if

he didn’t know whether to laugh at Samuel’s pathetic attempt at
defending himself or attack.

“Stay away from me,” Samuel warned as he waved the wood out

in front of him. “I killed one of you bloodsuckers. I have no problem
killing another one.”

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The vampire’s red eyes fell to the body on the floor just down the

hallway a bit. A slow rage-filled growl began to fill the air, making
Samuel gulp and wish he had kept his mouth shut. He was poking the
proverbial bear, only this bear had fangs instead of claws.

“You’re going to die, human,” the vampire snarled as he advanced

on Samuel’s position. “And I’m going to enjoy listening to you
scream and beg as I drain you dry.”

Samuel cocked his head. “Really?” he asked, stopping the

vampire in his footsteps. “I was a blood slave for months, you idiot.
Do you really think there is anything you could do to me that hasn’t
already been done?”

Samuel had no idea where his bravado was coming from, but he

was damn tired of being scared. It seemed like he had been nothing
but afraid for longer than he could remember.

He had even been afraid growing up. His father had been a

monster before he even knew he was a real monster. The man had
been so strict and judgmental that Samuel had contemplated suicide
more than once in his teenage years.

“Go ahead.” Samuel tightened his grip around the broken frame

pieces and took a step toward the vampire. “Drain me. End my
suffering. I’ve faced vampires scarier than you before and I’ve lived
to talk about it. My father is much scarier than you. If you think you
can scare me, you’re high.”

Samuel’s world turned upside down when the blood drained out

of the vampire’s already pale face. Hell, he was practically
transparent.

He was also backing up like he had just seen the rise of the devil.
“Where are you going, you coward?” Samuel’s movements sped

up as he tried to reach the vampire before the man got away from him.
He would question why he was chasing a vampire later.

Or not.
Thinking about it just might make him puke.
The vampire turned and ran.

Stormy Glenn

Chapter Two

Sully watched the life drain out of the vampire beneath him and

then slowly pulled his fist out of the dead man’s chest. The sickening
sucking noise his hand made as it slid through guts and gore made
Sully’s stomach clench. No matter how many times he heard that
sound, he never got used to it.

Sully wiped his hands off on the guy’s shirt then stood and

glanced around. He had killed the vampires that came in the front
door but he knew there were more.

There were always more.
Sometimes, Sully thought he might have been at the enforcer

game just a little too long. Granted, he was essentially his prince’s
second-in-command, but he was still an enforcer and he suspected he
always would be. It was what he was good at. Prince Dominic just
liked to put a fancy name on it.

Of course, being the prince’s second-in-command also meant no

one argued with him when he gave out orders. They hopped to do
what he said as fast and as efficiently as they could.

Well, everyone but Samuel.
Sully frowned as he glanced up the grand staircase. Just where in

the hell was Samuel anyway? Sully knew he had told the man to go
and hide, but since when did Samuel ever listen to him?

He couldn’t leave Samuel somewhere in the mansion,

unprotected. Even if he hadn’t been given the duty of looking after the
man, he still would have gone after him.

There was just something about Samuel that intrigued him. Sully

had been trying to figure what that something was for the last three

Forever and a Day

months. It had started when Sully found Samuel being held captive in
another coven, forced to be a blood slave. It hadn’t waned even when
he purchased Samuel and brought him home to his brother.

He had spent more time sitting on the floor of Samuel’s room,

hoping the man would talk to him—and holding his breath when he
did—than he ever had in any other room in the mansion.

He just didn’t understand why.
Sully didn’t like humans as a general rule. In fact, he went out of

his way to avoid them. He had never had a good experience when
dealing with humans. Not a single one. His time with Samuel wasn’t
even anything he could consider good, and yet he couldn’t stop
thinking about the frightened man.

Maybe he had blood poisoning. Dominic had had it. It could be

contagious. That was kind of the theory Sully was going with because
nothing else explained the insane urge he had to keep the little human
all to himself.

And insanity was the only description he had for the feelings that

welled up inside of him when he spotted a vampire running past the
top of the stairs, Samuel giving a bloodcurdling scream as he chasing
after him, pieces of broken picture frame held tightly in his hands.

Sully shook his head as he started up the stairs, gaining speed with

each step. Samuel was going to get himself killed running after a
vampire, wooden stakes or not. And why in the hell was a trained
warrior running from a human?

That just didn’t make sense.
Sully rounded the corner that led to the east wing of the house and

stumbled to a stop. The vampire was on the floor, pressed back
against the wall between an antique sideboard and the wall. Samuel
stood over the top of him, the sharp edge of the broken frame aimed at
the vampire’s chest.

“Samuel, stop!” he shouted as he ran forward. He didn’t want

Samuel to taint his soul with killing. The man had enough baggage to
deal with.

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Hell, he had stock in Samsonite.
Sully grabbed the wooden stake just as Samuel started to bring it

down. He winced when several slivers embedded into his skin.
Vampire or not, that shit hurt.

“Step away, Samuel.”
“No, I—”
“Step away now, Samuel.” His harsh tone brooked no defiance.

When Samuel paled and stepped back, Sully wished he could take the
words back, and maybe explain things to Samuel in a tone that
wouldn’t frighten the human.

But he had a vampire to kill.
Sully turned, and grinned, right before he drove the wooden stake

into the vampire’s chest. He watched for a moment as the life drained
out of the vampire’s red eyes. He hated watching, but he hated getting
attacked by a vampire pretending to be dead even more. The scar that
ran down his back from his shoulder blade to his hip was enough of
an inducement to watch him die.

Once he knew the vampire was dead, Sully turned to face Samuel.
“Samuel Erickson,” Sully shouted as he scanned the empty

hallway for his charge, “I swear I will beat your ass if you don’t get
out here!”

That man gave him more headaches…
Samuel’s light brown curls preceded his face appearing around the

corner. Apprehension clouded his cocoa-brown eyes. Hesitation
slowed his movements. Resentment firmed his jaw. “You yelled at
me.”

Sully sighed. “Samuel, I didn’t want you to kill him. You

shouldn’t have to do that.”

“I killed the other one,” Samuel insisted.
“By accident.” Surely he could see that? “Admit it, Samuel. It was

pure dumb luck.”

Samuel’s arms crossed. “Maybe.”

Forever and a Day

The headache was coming fast and hard. Sully pinched the bridge

of his nose before looking at Samuel again. “Samuel, killing is my
job. Not yours. If you absolutely have to protect yourself, fine. But
don’t go chasing after vampires if you can prevent it. If the idiot runs,
let him.”

Samuel frowned as he looked down at the dead vampire,

confusion taking the place of the apprehension away in his eyes.
“Why did he run from me? I’m human. I really didn’t have a chance
at beating him, and he should have known that.”

Okay, that was confusing.
“Did he say anything to you?”
“Oh yeah.” Samuel snickered. “Something about how he was

going to enjoy listening to me scream as he drained me dry.”

Sully’s jaw dropped when Samuel shrugged like the vampire’s

threat had been no big deal when they both knew it had been.

“I told him to go ahead and try. I’ve dealt with scarier vampires

than him and lived to talk about it. And after dealing with my father,
if he thought I was going to be afraid him, he was high. That’s
basically when he took off running.” Samuel kicked at the vampire.
“Stupid coward.”

“Did you mention your father by name?”
“Hell no,” Samuel snapped, the anger in his voice so real it almost

took form in the air. “I never want to hear that monster’s name again
as long as I live.”

Sully knew Samuel hated his father, and he had good reason to.

But they had never talked about it. This was the first time Samuel had
ever mentioned the man to him. Hell, this was the first time Samuel
had a complete conversation with him.

“If there’s a chance that Prince Von Byrne knows you are here,

then his men might be under orders not to harm you. We do know the
prince was trying to repopulate the world with his spawn.”

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Sully’s head snapped back when Samuel punched him square in

the mouth. He glared at the human as he rubbed his jawline. “What’d
you do that for?”

“I am not a spawn.”
“Do you even know what spawn means?”
Samuel shrugged. “I know it’s not nice.”
“Spawn simply means to produce young, especially in large

numbers as your father has done.” Sully’s eyes narrowed. “Humans
were the ones that turned it into a disrespectful term.”

“Oh.” Samuel probably would have flushed, but his face was too

pale for that at the moment. “Sorry.”

“All right, look.” Sully shoved his hand through his hair,

frustrated and snarly, and he knew it. “We still need to— Hey!” he
shouted when Samuel shoved him into the wall and darted past him.
He was growing ever closer to paddling that man’s ass until it glowed
so red they would be able to see it in outer space. “What do you think
you are d— Shit!”

Sully’s mouth dropped as he spun around just in time to see

Samuel pull a stake out of the dead vampire’s chest and shove it into a
live vampire that was running right at him. The vampire went down
like a dropped rock.

Samuel had splatters of blood on his face when he turned to glare

at Sully. “Where in the fuck are they coming from?”

“Samuel, watch out!” Sully shouted as another vampire came

running down the corridor. He leapt toward Samuel, reaching the
human just as he grabbed a picture hanging on the wall, smacked it
against the plaster until it broke, and then turned to drive a broken
piece into the vampire’s chest.

Damn.
He was good.
Hell, he was a fucking natural.

Forever and a Day

Samuel stood there with the remaining piece of picture frame

hanging limply in one hand, wiping the blood off his face with the
other one. “Was that a Picasso, too?”

“Nope.” Sully exhaled slowly. “Cézanne.”
Samuel nodded. “Of course it was.”
Dominic was going to shit kittens.
“Your prince really needs to think about hanging cheaper art on

the walls.”

“Or you could just not stab vampires with picture frames.” Sully

shrugged when Samuel glared at him. “I’m just saying.”

“Until I find something better to defend myself with…” Samuel’s

words trailed off without him finishing that thought, but Sully knew
what the man meant.

He also knew Samuel was right. Until they knew for sure what

they were up against, Samuel needed a way to protect himself. Sully
wished he could hide Samuel away at some undisclosed location
where no one could get to him and wrap him in bubble wrap, but that
just wasn’t practical at the moment.

“All right, come with me.” Sully had a few things hidden away for

days like this. He shook his finger at Samuel as the man started
walking beside him. “If the prince asks, you didn’t get these from
me.”

“Get what?”
“Exactly.”
Samuel frowned. “No, seriously. Get what from you?”
“Well, since you seem to be so good at stabbing people through

the heart, I have some toys for you.” Sully’s eyes narrowed. “And if
you come anywhere near me with them, I’ll shove them up your ass.”

Samuel’s cocoa-brown eyes twinkled for the first time Sully had

ever seen. “Kinky.”

Sully rolled his eyes. Samuel was proving to be just as much of a

pain in the butt as his brother, maybe more. And for some reason he
couldn’t fathom, Sully was finding this new Samuel sexy as hell.

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They made it to Sully’s quarters without any more interruptions.

In fact, the mansion had gone quiet, not something that made Sully
feel any better. The lack of noise was actually kind of eerie.

“Hurry up.” Sully held his bedroom door open and waited for

Samuel to walk inside. He wanted to get Samuel somewhere safe. He
didn’t think it was inside this house. Their perimeter had been
breached. They were no longer safe in their home territory.

Once Samuel was inside the room, Sully stepped in and closed the

door, locking it behind him. It wouldn’t keep a vampire out for long,
but it might be long enough for them to escape through another
entrance. There were only a couple—two windows, a door to the
bathroom, and a false wall in his closet that led to a hidden staircase
and tunnel leading way from mansion.

God, he loved old houses and paranoid builders.
Sully walked over to his dresser and pulled out a clean shirt,

tossing it to Samuel. “You might want to put that on. It’ll be a little
big, but at least it’s not covered in blood. You kind of stink right
now.”

Sully didn’t want to tell the man that any vampire worth his salt

could smell the drying blood on his shirt from yards away. The stink
was so thick they’d be able to smell it right through the plaster walls.
A strong wind would blow the scent to every vampire within a half-
mile radius.

He grabbed a clean shirt for himself just in case and then threw a

few items into a bag. He had no idea how long it would be before they
found a safe place to hide. He also grabbed a spare battery for his cell
phone, his cell phone, and a couple of nutrient bars for Samuel. He
could find his sustenance pretty much anywhere. Samuel could not.

“So.” Samuel glanced around the room with such curiosity that

Sully wondered what he was looking at. Nothing seemed out of place.
Sully was kind of anal about having his room clean and organized. It
was a throwback from his days in the service when he was only
allowed a footlocker and a duffle bag—and that was in the modern

Forever and a Day

army. A hundred years ago, he would have been lucky to have a
knapsack. “Where’s this surprise you have for me?”

“Ah.” Now he knew what Samuel was looking for. He walked

over to one of the wood panels on his wall. He turned to watch
Samuel’s reaction as he tapped the panel three times and it swung
open.

Samuel just stared. His jaw didn’t drop. His eyebrows didn’t shoot

up. Nothing. He just stared. “Not surprised?” he asked, shocked
himself by Samuel’s lack of reaction.

“Not really.” Samuel shrugged. “I doubt your prince would have

made you his second-in-command if you weren’t sneaky.” He waved
his hand to the cache of weapons hanging inside the hidden recess
behind the wooden wall panel. “That’s sneaky.”

Sully rolled his eyes as he grabbed the stake vest he had been after

and held it out to Samuel. This time, Samuel’s jaw did drop.

“And that’s creepy,” he said. “Why would a vampire have

weapons aimed at killing vampires?”

“Samuel, there are three really good ways to kill a vampire. Cut

off his head.” Sully grabbed a sword out of the weapons locker and
handed it to Samuel.

“Burn him.” He grabbed a bag filled with small, round, golf-ball-

sized clay spheres and handed them over. “Each one of these little
clay balls are filled with Greek fire. You throw them at the feet of
your enemy. When the clay breaks and the chemicals inside are
exposed to oxygen, it ignites. And water only makes them burn hotter.

“Or stab them through the heart.” He gestured to the vest Samuel

was holding. “Garlic, holy water, and sunlight mean nothing to us.
Poisoning works on occasion, but it’s kind of iffy. Other than that,
dropping a truck on them might get the job done.”

Samuel just stood there, his eyebrows drawn together as he looked

at all of the items Sully had pointed out to him.

“I was an enforcer long before I became Dominic’s second-in-

command. I’ve tracked down hundreds of vampires that were deemed

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rogue and I eliminated them. I didn’t like doing it, but someone had to
ensure that those of us breaking our laws paid the price. That is why I
have weapons that kill other vampires.”

Samuel’s eyes were stormy, turbulent. “You’re a killer,” he

whispered.

“I am.” Sully wasn’t going to lie about it.
Samuel’s lips firmed as he started pulling the vest on. “Good.

Now, show me how these damn things work.”

Sully shook his head. He was never going to understand humans.

He had to be out of his mind to even consider arming Samuel, and yet
he was. And it had kind of been his idea.

Yep, insane.
“Whatever you do, don’t swing the sword when you’re standing

close to me. I kind of like my head attached to my shoulders.”

Samuel’s lip curled under as he stared down at the large sword in

his hand. Sully instantly saw the problem. The human could barely lift
the damn thing.

“Hold on, I might have something a little smaller.” Sully turned

and looked at his hidden cache of weapons. He always had weapons
of different sizes and calibers. He found that it paid to be diverse.

He grabbed another sword. It was basically a short tactical ninja

sword. The end of the blade was curved up with the section near the
handle serrated. It would effectively cut off the head of a vampire,
and hurt while doing it. Sully specifically liked this one because it
came with a fitted sheath.

“Here.” He held it out to Samuel. “Try this one.”
Samuel took the sword, stepping back to swing it with surprising

skill. Sully was positive that someone had trained Samuel. It was on
only way he could explain how well the man wielded the sword.
Someone that had never handled a blade wouldn’t do it as well as
Samuel was doing.

“This will do.”
Sully grimaced. “I’m so glad.”

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He helped Samuel attached the sheath to his belt buckle. He grew

a little uncomfortable when he had to drop down to one knee so he
could tie the strings at the bottom of the sheath around Samuel’s
thigh.

He had a really nice thigh, all muscular and shit.
Damn it.
Sully pushed away his unwarranted thoughts and quickly finished

the job before standing up to help Samuel into the vest. “I think we’re
going to need a hood or something to hide these. The less people that
know about them, the better.” Especially for him. Dominic was going
to string him up when he learned that Sully had armed Samuel.

The bag of fireballs went into the pocket of the hoody Sully dug

out of the back of his closet. He couldn’t remember the last time he
had worn the thing, but it had seen better days. It would actually make
Samuel blend in a little better. No one would suspect a young human
in torn jeans and a faded hoody to be armed to the teeth.

They might see the sword. It was kind of hard not to. But in the

dark, Samuel would blend into the darkness. It just might give him the
edge he needed to stay alive.

Sully added a sharp knife to Samuel’s ensemble before leaning

back and looking him up and down. “Okay, you’re good to go.” And
he was incredibly fucked. If Samuel didn’t kill him, Dominic would.
“Just give me a minute to get a few things and we’ll head out.”

Samuel nodded and ambled over to the window. Sully watched

him for a moment, wondering what had that pensive expression on his
face, and then turned and grabbed a few weapons for himself,
including the sword he had offered Samuel the first time. He was
large enough to use it. It just hoped he didn’t have to.

It wasn’t looking good.

Stormy Glenn

Chapter Three

Samuel coughed to hide the rumbling of his stomach. He was

starving. He just didn’t want Sully to know that. He had been a big
enough burden already. He was sure the man was just counting the
minutes until he could pawn Samuel off to someone else.

The situation he had found himself in was one that boggled the

imagination. Hollywood couldn’t write this shit. It was too freaking
bizarre.

He and his brother had been given life by a man that turned out to

be the biggest monster in the history of monsters. Instead of just being
a lousy father, the man had taken to trying to populate the world with
children in every species known, and probably a few that weren’t
known. It was beginning to look like he had children all over the
world.

Samuel and his brother Danny were just two. They had recently

discovered that they had a brother named Justin, who turned out to be
a vampire even though he thought he was human. So far he seemed
like an okay dude, even if he was mated to two men.

To top everything off, Samuel was starting to have feelings for a

man that was the very essence of everything he despised in the world.
If that didn’t beat all, he didn’t know what did.

Samuel would pretty much sell his soul to not even acknowledge

Sully. And yet he knew every move the man made, every breath he
inhaled. He could hear Sully’s heart beat. He thought vampires didn’t
have hearts but he was learning something new about them almost
every day.

Like, they weren’t all bad.

Forever and a Day

Samuel was still coming to terms with that earth-shattering

revelation. After everything he had gone through with vampires,
every sick depravity that had been forced upon him, he never thought
to see vampires as anything other than evil.

Some were. Some weren’t. Just like humans.
“Okay, you ready to go, Samuel?”
“Yeah.” Samuel started to push away from the window when a

flash of red caught his eye. It was there and gone before he could
figure out what it was.

“Sully, did you—” Samuel’s blood ran cold when he saw the red

dot high up on Sully’s chest, the left side of his chest—right where his
heart was located. “Get down!” he shouted as he dove toward the
vampire, crashing into him at the same time that the window he had
been standing next to shattered.

“Are you hit?” Sully was up off the floor and crouched next to the

wall before Samuel could even get his bearings. “Samuel, are you
hit?”

“No, I don’t think so.”
“I want you to crawl toward the closet.”
“Why?”
“Just do it, Samuel.” Sully’s voice was brisk and rough. The

vampire obviously meant business.

Samuel grabbed the bag Sully had filled, knowing the man would

want it, and then began scooting across the floor toward the closet
door. If Sully thought he could shove Samuel into the closet and go
out to fight without him, he had another thing coming. Samuel didn’t
necessarily want to fight, but he would if he had to.

“Sully—” Samuel almost squealed when he turned and Sully was

right behind him.

“Open the door, Samuel, but keep your head down.”
Not a problem.

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Samuel turned back around and reached up to turn the handle on

the closet door. The door swung open easy enough. Samuel just stared
inside. Shoes, clothes, the usual.

“I’m not hiding in the closet, Sully.”
Sully chuckled, a sound Samuel would never have associated with

the man. “I didn’t expect you to.” Sully pointed to the back of the
closet. “See that pile of shoes in the back?”

“Yeah?”
“There’s a blue running shoe at the bottom of the pile. Pull on it.”
Samuel stared at Sully for a moment, frowning. Sully did not look

like the jogging type. Wrestler maybe, or leap tall buildings in a
single bound, but he just wasn’t a jogger. Samuel shook his head, and
then he turned and leaned into the closet, digging through the pile
until he saw the blue running shoe.

He pulled on the shoe, his jaw dropping when the entire bottom

panel of the closet swung open.

And then he screamed and scrambled back. He pulled at one of

the wooden stakes strapped to his chest and started to stab at the
vampire that had been waiting on the other side of the panel. When
his wrist was grabbed, he went for another stake.

“Samuel!”
“What?”
“It’s just Dominic.”
Samuel lifted his eyes to the dark-haired vampire staring at him

from the hidden passage. Yep. It was his brother-in-law. For just a
brief moment he considered… Naw.

Samuel chuckled when Dominic’s eyes narrowed. “Get over

yourself already, fang boy.”

“That’s Prince Fang Boy, thank you very much,” Dominic replied

without missing a beat.

And Samuel started to like him just a little bit more. Or maybe he

just hated him a little less. Whatever it was, it was enough for Samuel

Forever and a Day

to slide his stakes back into their holders instead of embedding them
in the vampire’s chest.

“Where’s Danny?” Samuel asked the prince when he didn’t see

his brother.

“My mate is safely hidden away under a unit of armed guards,

which is where you should be.”

“Yeah, not happening. I wouldn’t trust a unit of unarmed

vampires. What makes you think I’m going to like them any more just
because they have weapons?”

“Unbelievable.” Dominic’s face tightened as if he was fighting a

scowl. “You are so different from your brother.”

“Gee.” Samuel’s face deadpanned. “There’s a shocker.”
Danny had been virtually ignored by their father. Samuel had not.

He was supposed to be the golden boy, the son that took over the
family business from their father. Now that he knew what the family
business was, he wanted no part of it.

He hadn’t really wanted a part of it back before he knew what a

monster his father was, but disagreeing with his father had more
consequences than it did benefits. He had learned early on to just do
what the man said. It was less painful that way.

Of course, there had been times when he disobeyed or tried to get

away, but they were few and far between. His father had kept a pretty
close eye on him over the years.

Now, looking back, he wondered if his father had intended him to

inherit everything or not. He suspected, and had for some time, that he
had merely been trained to follow orders so that he would be a good
blood slave when the time came.

“I hate to break up the party,” Sully said as he crowded in behind

Samuel, “but we need to get going. I can hear footsteps coming down
the hallway.”

Samuel’s heart lodged in his throat as he scrambled across the

closet floor in Dominic’s direction. Vampire or not, he was the lesser
of two evils. And he was pretty sure that being related—even by a

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marriage, or mating, or whatever it was called—meant Dominic
couldn’t drain him dry.

Samuel wasn’t so sure of the vampire at his back. They had no

real connection, but Samuel didn’t think Sully would feed from him
without permission, and he did not have permission. Samuel would
destroy the next vampire that dropped a fang around him.

And thanks to Sully, he now had the weapons to do that.
Samuel cringed when the closet door closed and plunged the

secret passage into darkness. Vampires might be able to see in the
dark, but he was as blind as a bat.

“Just keep going, Samuel,” Sully said. His voice held a calm

reassuring tone. “I’m right behind you.”

Easier said than done.
The passage just wasn’t that damn big. It was basically a crawl

space. Samuel was scurrying along on his hands and knees. And as
slight as he was, he had no idea how Samuel was getting through. His
shoulders were as wide as a barn.

Samuel didn’t know how far he crawled, but it felt like forever.

When Dominic stopped, Samuel blew out a breath and slid to one hip
so he could turn and look at Sully. “How much farther?”

“We should just about be there.”
Samuel nodded, glancing up toward Dominic for just a moment,

and then back at Sully. “Have you ever considered making this
passage just a little bit bigger?”

“Believe me, I have.” Sully chuckled as he wiggled closer, and he

did have to wiggle. His shoulders were brushing against the sides of
the passage. “The issue is finding someone who can do the work
without putting it all over the Internet. A secret passage is supposed to
be secret.”

That made sense, in a weird paranoid sort of way.
“Besides,” Sully said, “the passage opens up just a little farther

down the way.”

Forever and a Day

“Good to know.” Really good to know. Besides the fact that he

had Dominic’s ass in his face every time he looked up, his ass was
right in Sully’s face. Samuel was man enough to admit that it wasn’t
that great of an ass. Unless his jeans were can’t breathe tight, he had
no ass to speak of.

When Dominic started moving again, Samuel sighed and then

went back to crawling after the vampire prince. Sully said the thing
would open up soon. He hoped that was true. Being trapped between
two vampires was not his idea of a fun time.

He really wanted out of there.
Dominic stopped and then swung around—a very interesting

procedure—and climbed down a ladder. When Samuel scooted
forward, he found the Dominic had climbed down into a large room.

Cool.
Samuel scooted his feet out in front of him and then wiggled

around until he felt the top rung of the ladder. He slowly climbed
down until his feet hit the hard stone floor.

Samuel’s jaw dropped as he looked around the room he found

himself in. It looked like it had been dug right out of the side of a
cliff. The walls were chipped stone, the floor hard, dusty rock.
Cobwebs blanketed every corner, and Samuel didn’t want to even
envision the spiders that must be in the place.

“This used to be a pirate hideout,” Dominic explained. He pointed

off toward a tunnel that led away from the small room they were in.
“That leads out to a small hidden cove where the pirates used to bring
in their ill-gotten gains.”

Samuel arched an eyebrow. “Pirate booty?”
Dominic chuckled. “Definitely.”
Samuel regarded the vampire prince thoughtfully, taking in the

amusement dancing in the man’s eyes. “And you wouldn’t know
anything about these pirates, would you?”

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He knew Dominic was a lot older than he looked. He remembered

Danny saying something about Dominic being born during the French
Revolution. He was certainly old enough to be a pirate.

“No. Of course not.” The huge grin on Dominic’s face belied his

words.

Samuel lost interest in pursuing that line of questioning when

Sully slid into the room. The man didn’t seem awed by the room like
Samuel, which meant he had probably been in here once or twice.

“What now?” he asked. He really wanted to know how they were

going to get out of this mess. Hidden passages and vampire killing kit
were all well and good, but they were still incredibly vulnerable.
Samuel didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to know that.

“Now,” Dominic said, “we get you to your brother where you’ll

be safe, and then me and my men are going to take back my
mansion.”

“I can help.” Samuel snapped his lips closed the second he uttered

those words. He really needed to keep his mouth shut. The astonished
look on Dominic and Sully’s faces said they thought the same thing.
Samuel gulped. “Or not.”

“I appreciate the offer, Samuel,” Dominic said. “But the safest

place for you is under armed guard with your brother.”

Samuel wasn’t sure that was exactly true, but he wasn’t going to

argue it, not with a vampire prince. He had some sense of self
preservation, even if it seemed to have been missing in the last couple
of hours.

Besides, he wanted to see for himself that his brother was okay.

Dominic was obsessive about Danny’s safety, so he was pretty sure
his brother was fine. He just had to be sure.

“So.” He gazed around the large cavern. “How do we get out of

here then?”

“That way.” Dominic pointed toward the cove.
Okay, then.

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Samuel waited until Dominic started down the stone carved

corridor before following. He could hear Sully’s footsteps on the hard
rock as the man walked behind him.

He grew more fascinated with the place with each step he took.

The walls looked like they had been carved right out of the bedrock.
He could even see little chip marks in the gray rock walls. The narrow
corridor wove one way and then the other like someone had
intentionally dug out a snake pattern to confuse people.

He knew he was confused.
“Where does this lead to again?” Samuel asked as he followed

Dominic around a corner. “Wow. Never mind.” Samuel was truly in
awe of what Dominic had been able to do with the place. “Was this
cavern here or did you carve it out yourself?”

Dominic’s lips twitched. “What makes you think I’d know?”
Samuel just started at him.
“Okay, okay.” Dominic chuckled. “The cavern was already here.

We just made it a little more accessible and then dug out the corridor
leading up to the house.”

“You really were a pirate?”
“I like to think we were more like independent sea scavengers.”

“You were a pirate.” And Samuel was fascinated. He had so many

questions.

And he wished he had time to ask them, but Sully grabbed his arm

and started propelling him down the stone steps that led to the lower
level of the cavern. Samuel’s eyes rounded when he realized that
there was another entire level under the one he had been on, this one
right on the edge of the water.

Samuel suspected that way was their escape route. He just wasn’t

sure where they were going to escape to. Where did a vampire go
when he was running from other vampires? Samuel was pretty sure
not even the prince was safe from attack.

“Samuel!”

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Samuel’s head snapped up when he heard his brother call out to

him. He looked toward the back of the cavern and spotted Danny
standing there, surrounded by several very large and very armed men.
Samuel recognized some of them, so he wasn’t surprised when they
parted as he ran up. They must have recognized him as well.

There was a sense of relief in feeling Danny’s arms wrap around

him, one that Samuel hadn’t felt in a very long time. Things had been
strained between them for lot of years. Some of it came from the hell
their father put them through. But some of it had come from Samuel’s
resentment that Danny got to go live the life he wanted when Samuel
lived under their father’s thumb.

“Are you okay?” After a moment, he stepped back into the

waiting arms of his vampire prince. His eyes looked Samuel up and
down, a frown of worry marring his face.

Samuel knew what he was looking for. “I’m fine, Danny.” He

rolled his eyes when Danny continued to look worried. He’d probably
start chewing on his fingernails at any moment. “Seriously, Danny.
I’m fine. Not a scratch on me.”

“Dominic wouldn’t let me go get you when the house was

attacked.”

“And he was right to do that.” Samuel shivered just thinking about

what might have happened if Danny had come looking for him. “You
never would have survived being attacked by all those vampires.”

“You did.”
Samuel grinned and pulled the zipper down on his hood, pulling

one edge of the fabric aside. “Yeah, but I’m armed.” Samuel
rethought the merits of showing Danny what he was wearing when
the blood drained out of his face. “Now, Danny—”

“I know you haven’t had very good experiences with vampires but

this—” Danny waved his hand toward the vest Samuel wore under the
hood. “This is not the answer, Samuel.”

“Danny—”
“You’re not a killer, Samuel.”

Forever and a Day

“Actually,” Sully said as he stepped up beside Samuel, “he was

saving my life.”

Danny’s eyebrows shot up, his surprise readily apparent on his

pale face. “Samuel saved you from a vampire?”

“A couple of times.” Samuel shuddered when he felt Sully’s arm

wrap around his shoulders, but it wasn’t attack of nerves or fear. It
was something entirely different that he didn’t want to address at the
moment. “Your brother is quite talented at taking vampires out with
picture frames.”

“Picture frames?” Dominic frowned. “What picture frames?”
Oh damn.

Stormy Glenn

Chapter Four

Sully leaned back against the cold rock wall and watched Samuel

try to sleep. Not even his presence seemed to be keeping the man’s
nightmares at bay tonight. The guilt Sully had been feeling doubled as
he wondered if it was the memories of the vampires Samuel had been
forced to kill that were preventing him from sleeping.

He should have been taking better care of Samuel. He hadn’t been

ordered to watch over Samuel like he had Danny, but he felt an
obligation to the man nonetheless. He had been the one that found
Samuel and bought him from the coven using him as a blood slave.
He had been the one to bring Samuel home. It just made sense that he
should be the one to watch over Samuel.

Sully had been trying to convince himself that the obligation he

felt was natural since the very beginning. Samuel had been through
hell. He needed someone to watch over him. He needed someone in
his corner when the demons invaded his dreams.

It had nothing to do with the fact that Sully couldn’t stop thinking

about Samuel, even when he was out on a mission. It had nothing to
do with how hot Samuel looked all decked out with weapons. Sully
had been shocked when he realized that Samuel had a bad boy aura
about him when he was fighting vampires that was sexy as hell.

Watching Samuel sleep had become a guilty pleasure for Sully.

Watching him kick vampire butt was just as amazing. Sully respected
brute strength. He admired strategic planning. He venerated a human
that refused to be a chew toy for a pack of rogue vampires.

When Samuel whimpered in his sleep, his face scrunching up as if

he was frightened, and maybe in pain, Sully couldn’t stand it. He got

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up and moved over to the wall where Samuel lay, sliding down to sit
on the hard stone where Samuel’s head lay.

He gently lifted Samuel’s head, resting it on his thigh. Samuel

wiggled around for a moment, but then seemed to settle when Sully
rubbed a hand over his shoulder and down his arm. The more he
stroked Samuel, the more the man calmed. Sully sighed and leaned
back against the wall, keeping his hand on Samuel’s warm skin.

When he looked up, he grimaced at finding Dominic staring at

him from across the small room. Danny was curled up on the floor
between the prince’s legs, fast asleep. Except for the guards at the
entrances to the underground cavern, everyone was asleep except
Dominic and Sully.

And Sully really didn’t like the knowing look his prince was

giving him. “What?” he asked, afraid he already knew why Dominic
was staring at him.

“When are you going to tell him?”
Sully’s eyebrows drew together. For just a moment, confusion

ruled his thoughts. And then he watched Dominic’s eyes drop to
where he was stroking Samuel’s arm, and he knew what the prince
was referring to. Even thinking about it was something Sully had been
avoiding since the moment he met Samuel.

Samuel was his.
He was also human, a former blood slave.
He hated vampires with a passion.
And Sully hated humans just as much.
They both had their reasons.
Nothing good could ever come of their association. Sully had been

telling himself that since the second he set eyes on the frightened
man. He was just finding it harder to understand why. The more time
he spent with Samuel, the less the obstacles between them seemed to
matter.

“I’m not.” It just wasn’t a good idea.
“Don’t you think that’s up to Samuel?”

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“It’s what’s best for him,” Sully insisted.
“Is it?” Dominic nodded toward the man lying peacefully on

Sully’s lap. “He might feel differently.”

Sully glanced down. It stunned him to watch Samuel lean toward

his touch as if he needed it to breathe. The movement had to be
subconscious. Samuel was asleep. But he grew restless when Sully
lifted his hand away, moaning a low protest as he turned his face
toward Sully and tried to scoot closer.

“And I believe that’s your answer right there.”
“It can’t happen,” Sully argued, but his reasoning was growing

thinner with each passing moment. “It can never happen.”

“Sully, I’ve known you a lot of years. I was there when your

family was wiped out by humans. But that was over a hundred years
ago. Maybe it’s time to let it go.”

“They killed my wife, Dominic. They drove a stake through her

heart and set her on fire.” He snarled quietly so he wouldn’t disturb
Samuel. “They left my son crying in his cradle as they burned my
house down with him in it. They murdered my family simply because
we were different. How am I supposed to let that go?”

Sully still had nightmares of coming home and finding his entire

world destroyed. His house was still smoldering when he arrived
home. The scent of burnt flesh had been so strong in the air Sully had
almost missed the smell of the humans that had taken his family from
him.

It had taken him years to track down the humans that killed his

family, but he hadn’t rested until he put every last one of them in the
ground. They were just lucky he had some sense of honor and hadn’t
gone after their families as they had his.

“I’m not saying you have to forget what happened, Sully, but

maybe you need to stop holding the entire human race to blame for
what those assholes did to your wife and son. Samuel wasn’t even
born then and yet you blame him like he was the one that lit the fire.”

Forever and a Day

“I don’t blame him,” Sully insisted, but even he had to wonder if

his words were true. He would never forget what humans had taken
from him and he didn’t know if he could allow someone into his life
that was the very thing he despised.

“Then why haven’t you told him that he’s your mate?”
Sully didn’t really have an answer for Dominic. Sully swallowed

hard as he looked down at the man asleep on his lap—except Samuel
wasn’t asleep. He was staring up at Sully, his cocoa-brown eyes
rounded wide with shock.

“I’m your mate?” Samuel whispered.
“Samuel.” He so did not want to have this conversation with

Samuel.

Samuel sat up. His eyes darted over to Dominic for a moment.

They were filled with a smoldering anger when they came back to
Sully. “How long have you known?”

“Sam—”
“How long?” Samuel shouted.
Sully’s shoulders slumped. This wasn’t going to end well. “From

the beginning.”

Samuel’s face darkened with anger as he pushed away from Sully

and climbed to his feet. He took a few steps and then spun and glared
down at Sully. There was so much anger in Samuel’s face that Sully
felt like his skin was singed.

“You knew we were mates from the very beginning and yet you

never said anything to me?”

Sully kept his lips pressed together. There was nothing he could

say that would make this situation any better.

“Did you ever intend to tell me?” Samuel’s voice was a mere

whisper as if the words had been ripped out of his very soul.

Sully didn’t know what Samuel saw on his face, but it obviously

wasn’t good. His jaw firmed like he had to clamp it shut to keep from
shouting. Sully had just a second to spot the tears in Samuel’s eyes
before the man spun and stormed away.

Stormy Glenn

“That went well.”
Sully glared at Dominic, not appreciating his words. That had not

gone well. Samuel wasn’t just pissed, there had been hurt in his
cocoa-brown eyes.

And Sully put it there.
Sully ignored self-righteous smirk on his prince’s face as he got

up and went after Samuel. He needed to stop the guy before he got
lost. He knew exactly how extensive the underground tunnels were.
He had helped dig them out when Dominic bought the place a couple
of hundred years previous. Anyone that didn’t know the layout could
easily take a wrong turn and never be heard from again.

He also needed to explain to Samuel why he had kept things to

himself, and he would. Just as soon as he figured it out himself. He
knew logically that he did it because they didn’t really have anything
in common. He was a vampire, and Samuel was human. That right
there was reason enough to keep his mouth shut.

When Sully reached the stone passageway that led back the way

they had come, he had to stop and listen for Samuel’s footsteps. He
heard them heading off away from the room they had arrived in,
which meant Samuel was going to get lost.

Sully shook his head as he started after the man, moving quickly

into a light jog. There were a few dead ends in the place, and more
than one bobby trap. He didn’t want Samuel running blindly through
the corridors and falling into one of the pits he had dug to catch
people that trespassed.

“Samuel, stop,” he said loudly as when he rounded a corner and

saw the man running up ahead of him.

The stubborn bastard sped up.
But Sully was a vampire. He was much faster. He easily overcame

Samuel. Stopping was another story, though. The second he grabbed
onto Samuel’s arm, the man started swinging.

“Damn it, Samuel.” It took all of Sully’s brute strength to keep

Samuel from hitting him. He finally just wrestled the man against the

Forever and a Day

hard stone all, pinning him there with his arms restrained behind him.
“That is enough!”

“Get off me!” Samuel snapped.
“Not until you calm down.”
“Fuck you!” Samuel growled.
“Don’t tempt me.”
Samuel froze. Not a muscle moved. If Sully didn’t smell the blood

rushing through his veins or didn’t hear the man’s heart thundering in
his chest, he might have thought Samuel was a mannequin.

“You don’t like men,” Samuel whispered. “You don’t even feed

from them.”

Sully frowned as he released Samuel’s wrists and spun the man

around. Samuel leaned back as if he needed the wall to help him stay
standing. Sully wasn’t sure discussing his feeding habits with Samuel
was such a good idea, but he didn’t want the man to get the wrong
idea about him either. For some reason, he wanted Samuel to think
good things about him.

“I like men and women, Samuel, but I tend to lean toward men,

which is why I usually choose women to feed from. Feeding can be
very intimate, and I don’t want to cross that line with someone that is
just there to feed me.”

Sully’s eyes followed the movement of Samuel’s tongue as the

man licked his lips. He knew he needed to keep his name in the game
because this was a very serious conversation, but damn. That was one
of the most erotic things he had ever seen.

“I thought you chose women to feed from because you preferred

women.”

“No.” Sully shook his head. “Many of my kind believe sex and

feeding go hand in hand. I don’t. I believe it can, but only if both
parties agree. I’ve seen too many vampires feed and go into a frenzy
where they didn’t even hear the word no, let alone listen to it. I refuse
to go there so I feed from women who, most of the time, don’t arouse
me like men do.”

Stormy Glenn

Samuel’s eyes narrowed to little slits of anger. “What men?”

Almost as quickly as he had spoken the words, Samuel’s eyebrows
shot up his forehead and he slapped a hand over his mouth. It was
obvious he hadn’t meant to speak those words, but he had.

And Sully could no more have prevented the grin that spread over

his lips than he could have stopped breathing. He moved a little
closer, pressing his body against Samuel’s. “Does that bother you,
Samuel, knowing I become aroused when feeding from other men?”

“No, of course not,” Samuel whispered, but the deep anger

burning in his eyes said otherwise.

Sully inhaled sharply at the instant lust that filled him when the

heady scent of Samuel’s arousal seeped into his skin, curling around
his senses.

Samuel made Sully forget…everything.
Sully’s eyes locked onto Samuel’s tempting lips. They were made

for kissing, for licking. They were made for him. Sully grabbed
Samuel and slanted his mouth over his, trying his best to devour the
man.

He wrapped his hand around the back of Samuel’s neck, curling

his fingers in soft wavy curls, holding him close. Sully’s other hand
slid up Samuel’s side, wrapping around him and pulling his body
closer as he tilted his head for better access.

Samuel opened, allowing Sully’s tongue to do whatever the hell it

wanted to. He explored the warm, wet cavern of Samuel’s mouth,
luxuriating in Samuel’s sweet little moans.

Samuel’s hips cradled Sully’s thick cock. Arousal spiraled

through Sully like a bullet ricocheting through a rubber room when he
felt Samuel’s hard cock bush against his own.

Sully broke the kiss and inhaled the human’s enticing scent into

his lungs. He unzipped the hoody and slid it off Samuel’s shoulders,
followed by the weapon’s vest. Samuel didn’t need to be armed for
what Sully had in mind.

Forever and a Day

He pushed Samuel’s shirt up to his armpits and ran his hand down

the man’s slim chest. He let the warm pleasure of just being able to
touch Samuel roll over him in waves as he began to trace patterns
across Samuel’s stomach.

When he reached the waistline of Samuel’s jeans, he moved just a

little lower and pressed the palm of his hand over Samuel’s erection.
A course of lust shot through Sully’s groin when Samuel’s lips parted
and a moan escaped his lips. Sully was fascinated by the sight, his
dick throbbing in anticipation of what was to come.

Hell, his cock was about to explode in his jeans.
“Sully,” Samuel groaned words Sully never thought to hear come

out of the human. “I need, Sully.”

Sully tugged hard at the waistband of Samuel’s pants, and the

buttons gave way. He pushed them down Samuel’s legs until the man
could step out of them. With nothing beneath but skin, it was easy for
Sully to cup Samuel’s cock, stroke him, make him want and need.

He slid Samuel’s shirt up farther, pulling it up and over Samuel’s

head. Samuel raised his arms and allowed Sully to undress him. He
tossed the shirt aside and then he ran his hands down Samuel’s chest,
his thumbs playing at Samuel’s beautiful brown-hued nipples.

Sully’s fingers tightened, squeezing the tight little buds, rolling

them between his fingertips. Samuel bucked against him, pressing his
chest harder into Sully’s hands. It was the most erotic thing Sully had
ever seen.

He stood there, swallowing hard.
Samuel might not know he was doing it, but Sully was fully aware

of the lust filling Samuel’s eyes. Sully watched them darken as he ran
his hands over Samuel’s stomach, and then traveled down to his
thighs, his fingers grazing over Samuel’s hypersensitive skin.

“So pretty,” he whispered as Samuel spread his legs apart, giving

Sully all the room he needed. Sully leaned forward, inhaling Samuel’s
sweet scent from collarbone to ear, taking in the raw aroma of man.
The scent rushed into Sully in a wave of intoxication.

Stormy Glenn

He could feel small pants of Samuel’s breath tickling his cheek. It

was coming out raggedly, softly though. Then Samuel groaned. Pure
raw need slammed into Sully at the needy sound.

Sully tugged at Samuel’s cheek until their mouths were only an

inch apart, and then moved in to capture Samuel’s lips. He shuddered
and then nipped Samuel on his bottom lip. Sully’s body tightened
involuntarily, every bone and muscle in him reaching for the hot draw
of Samuel’s lips and the moist wash of his tongue.

Samuel tasted so damn good. Eagerly, Samuel’s tongue mated

with his, the spicy taste of man making Sully grow harder. Samuel
clung to Sully’s shoulders, leaning up into the kiss.

Sully’s teeth grazed Samuel’s lower lip. Samuel bit back, sharp,

almost painful, drawing a few drops of blood. The erotic gesture only
aroused Sully more. One moment the kiss was all soft and gentle. The
next, it was pure, raw sex.

“Sully, please,” Samuel breathlessly begged against his lips.
Sully leaned back and stared down at Samuel. The man’s mouth

was hanging slightly open, soft little moans filling the air. Samuel’s
breath was catching, his chest rising and falling rapidly.

Sully quickly grabbed the tube of lube from his pocket and tore it

open. He couldn’t explain why he had started carrying it all those
months ago when he found Samuel, but he was grateful he had.

He lathered up his fingers before reaching around Samuel and

pushing one into the man’s ass up to the knuckle. The only things
coming from Samuel were groans and whimpers, his fingers opening
and closing as they clenched at Sully’s shoulders.

Two fingers pushed through the tight ring of muscles, eliciting a

deep groan from Samuel. After a moment, Sully slid another finger in,
driving all three in and out of the gorgeous little human. Sully pulled
his fingers free and opened his pants, pushing them down his thighs.
He applied a liberal amount of lube to the length of his cock until he
reached the head.

Forever and a Day

“S–Sully,” Samuel stammered when Sully spun him around to

face the wall.

Sully pulled Samuel’s ass cheeks apart. His hips involuntarily

hitched at the sight of that little puckered hole twinkling up at him. He
shuddered and pressed the head of his cock against that sweet hole.
Exhaling slowly, Sully pushed forward, breaching Samuel’s tight
entrance. He could feel the head of his cock pop past the ring of
muscles, squeezing him like a vise grip.

“That’s it, Sammy love,” Sully crooned as he pushed in the rest of

the way, inch by slow inch. His head dropped back at the sheer
pleasure sizzling through his veins and making them feel as though
they were on fire. Sully was lost in the feeling Samuel was drawing
out of him.

“You feel so damn good.” He gazed down at Samuel. “Are you

ready, Samuel?” Sully asked as he began to move inside Samuel,
slowly at first, pulling almost completely out and then pushing back
in.

“Harder, Sully. Make me feel you,” Samuel pleaded as he raised

his lower body into the thrusts, giving Sully a deeper penetration.

The next time Sully pulled back, he slammed forward. Waves of

indescribable ecstasy washed over him as Samuel’s tight ass
welcomed him. Sully began to thrust harder, and soon he was
ramming his cock hard and deep. It was the most amazing feeling in
the world. Sully could die that very second and know that he had
visited heaven already.

Samuel shouted, whimpered, and cried out Sully’s name as Sully

began to fuck him like a man possessed. Samuel swiveled his hips,
impaling himself on Sully’s cock over and over again. Sully was
coming unglued, falling apart at the seams as Samuel took what he
wanted, what he needed.

And then Sully almost lost his mind when Samuel clenched his

inner muscles, encasing Sully’s cock in a tight silken heat. He

Stormy Glenn

growled, looking to where their bodies joined together, watching his
cock slide in and out of Samuel’s giving flesh.

Sully pounded his cock into Samuel's ass with a single-minded

purpose at that point—to drive Samuel totally out of his mind. Every
time Sully slammed inside of Samuel, the man let out a whimper and
tried to pull him in deeper. His pants and moans were getting louder,
and his inner muscles were starting to spasm around Sully’s aching
cock, adding to their pleasure.

Sully kept going.
Samuel’s ass was pulsing, milking Sully’s cock with a ferocity

that rocked him to his very core. Sully felt a primal growl building in
his throat, the need to possess Samuel overwhelming everything. It
was a powerful feeling and one he had never felt before.

He wanted to possess Samuel, to claim him, and let his mate know

that he was playing for keeps. He wanted to bite, the need so intense
that his gums ached, his teeth hurting so badly with the need to claim
his mate that it damn near drove him crazy.

Instead, Sully reached around and grabbed Samuel’s cock and

pumped it fiercely. His mate’s head dropped back on Sully’s
shoulder. His legs slid further apart in an attempt to get Sully deeper.
Ropes of pearly white cum shot up into the air and splattered against
the stone wall as Samuel cried out his release.

Giving his hips a few more thrusts, Sully clenched his jaw and

growled through his teeth as the world exploded around him. His
mind fragmented, his body jerking at the force of his release as he
shot pulse after pulse of cum into Samuel’s tight ass.

When he finally got his breathing under control, Sully lifted his

head and looked down at the man that had just changed his life
forever. Samuel's face was turned, his cheek pressed against the rock
wall. His eyes were closed, his mouth slightly parted, his face flushed
with fading desire.

He was stunning.
“Samuel, I—”

Forever and a Day

Chapter Five

“Boat’s here, Sully.”
Samuel stiffened at the words shouted down the corridor,

interrupting what Sully had been about to say. Samuel was pretty sure
he had a good idea anyway. He was mortified by what he had just
done, and with a man he barely knew. He had practically thrown
himself at Sully. The vampire probably thought he was a complete
slut.

He wiggled a bit until Sully released him then went for the clothes

that he had so easily allowed the vampire to strip from his body. He
was even more embarrassed when he realized he was stark-ass naked
and Sully had merely pushed his pants out of the way. If that didn’t
say cheap whore, he didn’t know what did.

“Samuel.”
“We need to go,” Samuel whispered, refusing to look at Sully as

he pulled his clothes back on. He couldn’t face what he knew he
would see in the man’s eyes.

He had ignored the man for months and the first time Sully

crooked his finger, he had bent over like he couldn’t get the guy’s
dick in his ass fast enough. He hadn’t even tried to resist. He had
begged for it.

Sully was perfectly aware of what had happened to Samuel when

he had been a blood slave. The vampire had been the one to rescue
him. He had seen the depravity Samuel had endured. He knew Samuel
had been used to the point that he was broken. It didn’t take a genius
to see that Sully was merely taking what Samuel tossed out there,
what so many others had taken already.

Stormy Glenn

He was just being nice about it.
Samuel glanced at Sully through the fall of his curls once he was

dressed. He could still smell Sully’s earthy scent on his skin. He
imagined anyone that got within a foot of him would know exactly
what they had been doing.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered as he stared down at his hands. While it

had only been sex, he felt the need to apologize. He had pulled Sully
down to his level, and everyone was going to know. “You can tell
them that I…well…you didn’t have to but you did and I know I
begged you to, so I would understand if—”

God, he wasn’t saying this right. Samuel licked his lips before

trying again. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

“Do you regret what we just did, Samuel?”
Samuel blinked at Sully. “Don’t you?”
“No.”
What?
“But—” Samuel frowned. How could Sully not regret what they

just did? Not only was he a vampire, but he was one that hated
humans. Samuel was human. That wasn’t going to change anytime
soon, and neither was the fact that he had been a blood slave and
whore for a coven of vampires.

Samuel squeaked when he was suddenly grabbed and slammed

against the nearest wall. He felt the hard rock scrap against his back.
If it wasn’t for the hood and vest he wore, he’d probably be bleeding.

And then Sully was right there in his face, nose-to-nose.
“Now, you listen to me, and you listen good, Samuel Erickson.”

Sully’s voice was all hard and growly, and oh so hot. “I might not
have been ready for a human mate. It might even take me a little
while to wrap my mind around it. But make no mistake. You are my
mate and I will be claiming you in the ways of my people just as soon
as we’re safe.”

Forever and a Day

Samuel’s breath caught when Sully’s raging eyes dropped to the

pulse beating rapidly in his throat. “And that includes taking your
blood to insure our bond.”

“You can’t mean that,” Samuel murmured.
Sully’s eyes snapped up, his features grim but firm. “Try me.”
“But—” Samuel’s throat clogged with an emotion he couldn’t

identify when Sully nuzzled the underside of his jawline, rubbing his
nose down Samuel’s neck to the soft skin at the base of his throat.
“Sully,” he groaned when his cock started to react to the closeness of
the handsome vampire.

He shuddered when he felt a wet, warm tongue stroke across his

skin.

“This is where I’m going to bite you, Sammy love.” Samuel cried

out and gripped Sully’s wide shoulders to keep from collapsing on the
floor when he man’s teeth raked over his skin, too soft to break the
skin but hard enough that Samuel felt them pressing against him.
“And once I claim you as mine, you’ll be the only one I feed from.”

Samuel whimpered. He didn’t know if the desperate and needy

sound came from the knowledge that he would be the only one to feed
the powerful vampire, or from the fact that he couldn’t deny it was
going to happen.

“I don’t know why fate decided to mate me with a human after all

the things they’ve done to me over the centuries, but I won’t give up
my chance to be with my mate, not even for you.”

Samuel felt like his jaw was unhinged as he watched Sully step

away and then walk down the passageway as if he hadn’t just turned
Samuel’s world upside down. Samuel stood there, unsure of what to
do. He didn’t even know if he was supposed to follow after Sully or
stay where he was.

He was pretty sure he had just been informed that Sully would

take him any way he could get him, simply because they were mates.
He didn’t even seem to care what had happened to Samuel.

Great.

Stormy Glenn

Fantastic.
Perfect.
Wonderful.
And Samuel didn’t believe a word of it.
He righted his clothes and then pushed away from the wall and

headed down the corridor after Sully. Samuel had no idea how things
were going to play out, but he knew he had a say in what happened.
Sully didn’t get to make all the decisions, mate or not.

There was a lot of activity when he reached the main room. A

speedboat had been tied up at the small wooden dock on the lower
level of the cavern. People were rushing around, loading black bags
onto the boat. Danny already sat on the boat, but he sat alone. Sully
and Dominic were standing on the dock, talking and giving orders.

Samuel walked right past them and climbed onto the boat,

wobbling over to sit down on the bench seat next to Danny. It was a
fancy speedboat. The bench seat had really nice cushions. At least
he’d be comfortable while they escaped from a horde of killer
vampires.

“Do you know where we’re going?” he asked as he glanced at his

baby brother.

Danny shook his head. “Dominic hasn’t told me yet.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?” It was driving Samuel insane not

knowing what was going on. He already felt like his world was being
pulled apart. He didn’t need it to explode.

“No. Should it?” Danny asked. “Dominic will tell me when he

wants to.”

“He’s a vampire,” Samuel insisted, although his words were just a

little less vehement than they had been just a day before. “How can
you be naive enough to think that they—” Samuel frowned as he
watched Danny roll his eyes. There was something… He sucked in
his breath. “You have fangs.”

Danny shrugged. “It happens.”

Forever and a Day

“It happens?” Samuel snapped as he sat forward. “It happens?

You say that like it means nothing.”

Danny huffed but sat up straighter, closer. “Look. Any human that

mates with a paranormal has the chance of taking on some of his
mate’s tendencies.”

Samuel’s eyebrows shot up. “Tendencies? That’s what you’re

calling it? Tendencies? You have fangs, Danny.”

“I don’t drink blood, Samuel.” When his eyebrows drew together,

Samuel knew his brother had just lied. “Well, I drink blood from
Dominic, but that’s just a sexual kink thing. Other than that I don’t
really feed.”

“Gee. That’s so great. My brother is a bloodsucking vampire.”
“No.” Danny shook his head. “I am still human. I don’t have the

gene needed to be transformed into a vampire, remember?”

Actually, Samuel had forgotten that part. “Do I have the gene?”
Danny shrugged again. “I have no idea.”
Samuel’s head tilted. He scanned his brother from head to toe.

“Did you get any other of Dominic’s tendencies?”

“Not exactly.”
Samuel just waited for his baby brother to say something more

because there was enough of a hesitation in those words to pique his
interest and keep him quiet.

“Something happened to my blood when I mated Dominic.”
Dread clogged Samuel’s throat. They had never been particularly

close, but after everything he had been through, he didn’t think he
could lose his brother. “Are you sick?”

“Oh, no.” Danny’s eyes sparkled as he laughed. “Quite the

opposite, actually. Only Dominic can feed from me. It’s like my
blood has turned to acid for anyone else that tries to take my blood.
Killed the last guy to attack me, burned him right up from the inside
out like he drank acid instead of my blood.”

“But it doesn’t hurt your mate?”

Stormy Glenn

Danny’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t have to sound so

disappointed.”

“No, no, that was a legitimate question, nothing against Dominic.”

Samuel was actually starting to grow used to Dominic being in his
brother’s life. It was apparent to anyone that took the time to look that
Prince Dominic Ruelle adored Danny, and that was all Samuel wanted
for his brother.

“Well, then, no, it doesn’t hurt Dominic. It actually seems to be

better for him, heals him faster, and makes him stronger. And every
time he feeds from me, it strengthens our bond.”

Samuel wanted that. His blood had been taken from against his

will. He wanted it to mean something more than feeding a coven of
vicious vampires. He wanted what Danny had with his prince.

He glanced away so that Danny didn’t see the emotions he knew

were on his face only to encounter a set of rugged dark eyes watching
him from the end of the dock. Samuel swallowed hard, unable to look
away. Sully was a vampire. Could Samuel find something like what
Dominic and Danny had with a vampire? With this vampire?

Samuel ripped his gaze away from Sully when something buzzed

by his face. He swatted at whatever it was until Danny screamed. The
fear on his brother’s face made Samuel realize that it wasn’t a bug,
but a bullet shooting past his head.

As he grabbed Danny and pushed him down to the floor of the

boat, Samuel could hear chaos erupt in the cavern. The sounds of
gunfire filled the air, almost drowned out by the screams, but not
quite.

Samuel wrapped his body around his brother, trying to keep him

from being hit. At one point, he felt the boat rock and start moving
and he knew they were getting under way. He stayed where he was,
pinning Danny to the floor.

When someone grabbed him from behind, Samuel turned and

growled, then snapped his mouth closed when he saw Prince Dominic
standing there. “Sorry.”

Forever and a Day

Dominic nodded as if he was barely paying attention. His eyes

were only for the man underneath Samuel. When he reached for
Daniel, Samuel quickly scooted out of the way. His heart clenched
when Dominic drew Danny into his arms, the vampire’s eyes sliding
closed as Danny burrowed into his embrace.

Feeling like he was in the way, Samuel turned away only to find

the same set of intense dark eyes that had been staring at him before
still staring at him.

“Thank you.”
Samuel turned back at the sound of Dominic’s voice. The prince

was smiling, his arms still wrapped around Danny. He shrugged
nonchalantly. “He’s my brother.”

“He’s my world.”
Samuel nodded, knowing Dominic’s claim on Danny trumped his.

And maybe that was the way it was supposed to be. His experience
with married people wasn’t that stellar. His father was a ruthless
dictator that ruled his household with an iron fist. His mother never
raised her voice or contradicted her husband. And while he had never
seen any bruises, he had always suspected that his father beat his
mother.

Since being freed from the coven his father had sold him to,

Samuel had witnessed the mating between several people. He was
starting to believe that a mating was much stronger than a simple
human marriage. The bond between mates seemed to go all the way
down to the soul, not just what was on a piece of paper.

Samuel knew without asking that Dominic would give his life for

Danny without a thought. The same was true of Danny where the
prince was concerned. That kind of commitment wasn’t something he
had encountered before, and it intrigued him to no end.

Samuel glanced back at Sully. According to what he had heard,

what Sully had said to him, and what he had put together, he was
supposed to be mated to the powerful vampire.

What did that mean for him?

Stormy Glenn

Samuel sucked in a deep breath and tried to move across the floor

of the boat without rocking it too much. His eyes narrowed down to
the splotch of red he could see darkening the sleeve of Sully’s shirt.

“You’re hurt,” he explained when Sully arched an eyebrow at

him. Samuel dropped down to his knees next to Sully and reached for
the torn edges of his shirt. He chewed on his bottom lip as he
carefully grabbed the edges of the fabric and ripped them open just a
bit more.

Samuel’s stomach rolled when he saw the jagged edges of flesh

that had been torn into Sully’s arm. “You’ve been shot.” His fingers
shook as he probed the ragged edges of the wound. “It looks like the
bullet went right through.”

“I’ll live.”
Samuel nodded, the relief he felt forming a lump in his throat. A

few inches to the left and Sully would have been shot right through
the heart, ending any chance Samuel had of ever learning more about
the intriguing man.

“I need a first aid kit.” He had to do something to make Sully

better.

Sully laid his hand over Samuel’s. “It’s fine, Samuel. I’ll heal.”
“But—”
“Samuel.”
Samuel’s heart pounded out a staccato beat in his throat as he

raised his eyes to meet Sully’s. The vampire’s eyes were so intense,
staring right at him, as if he could see right down into Samuel’s soul
and dig up his innermost wants and desires.

“I said I’ll heal.” Sully’s face darkened, and for a fleeting

moment, Samuel thought he saw uncertainty in his eyes. “I just need
some blood.”

Samuel inhaled a slow heavy breath, one that filled every inch of

his chest. “You…” His eyes dropped to Sully’s mouth. “You need
blood?”

“I’ll heal faster if I have blood.”

Forever and a Day

The pressure on Samuel’s chest intensified to the point that he

needed to take small, shallow breaths rather than fill his lungs up with
air. “You need blood?” he whispered.

“Yes.”
One word, one simple word, and it plunged Samuel back into the

hell he had lived in for so many months. He remembered every attack,
every set of fangs that had sunk into his flesh and taken his life-giving
blood without his permission. He remembered all of the vampires that
had taken more than his blood, laughing at his screams.

And then he remembered that Sully had rescued him from all of

that. Drawing in an easier breath, Samuel held out his arm, his wrist
right under Sully’s nose. “You can have mine.”

Sully’s eyes flickered with something Samuel couldn’t identify.

Instead of protesting what Samuel was offering, he gently grabbed
Samuel’s arm and brought it to his mouth. Samuel’s breath hitched in
his throat when he felt Sully’s lips move against his skin, almost a
kiss. Instead of crying out in fear as he thought he might, Samuel
could barely keep his moan of ecstasy sealed behind his lips.

Was this how it was supposed to be, or was it just Sully?
His gaze was locked with Sully’s, seeing everything—the pleasure

the man felt as he held Samuel’s wrist to his mouth, the delight that
Samuel had offered. He could even see the arousal smoldering in
Sully’s dark eyes.

When Sully’s fangs sank into his flesh, Samuel gasped as his body

reacted to the bite in a way he never could have imagined. His cock
hardened, his ass pulsing with the need to be filled.

He couldn’t breathe. But he couldn’t look away from Sully’s

piercing eyes either. It was like falling over a waterfall. He knew it
was happening. He could see it happening. He could even feel it
happening. He just couldn’t stop it.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to.

Stormy Glenn

Chapter Six

Sully kept his eyes locked with Samuel’s as he withdrew his fangs

and then licked the bite wound closed. His saliva would help the
healing process, leaving no trace behind that he had even pierced the
silky skin.

When he lowered Samuel’s arm, the man’s eyes flickered to the

healing bite mark then up to Sully’s fangs. Sully didn’t try to hide
from Samuel’s inquisitive gaze. What would be the point? Samuel
knew he was a vampire. That wasn’t going to change.

“Are you afraid of me now, Samuel?” Sully suspected he was.
He was shaking.
Samuel’s eyes dropped to his wrist again. When he raised it, Sully

saw that the bite mark had almost totally healed. There was just a
little red around the twin pinpricks. He knew in a matter of minutes,
even those would be gone, leaving nothing behind but unblemished
flesh.

“Can I touch them?”
Sully’s eyes rounded as they shot back to Samuel’s. “Touch

them?” But he knew. Samuel was staring directly at his fangs. Sully
just couldn’t figure out why Samuel would want to touch his fangs if
he hated them so much.

Sully opened his mouth wide and waited to see what Samuel

would do. His heart seemed to hold a beat as Samuel reached out with
his finger and stroked one sharp white tooth. His eyes betrayed
nothing as his finger moved from one fang to another, and then
another and another until he had stroked each of them, top and
bottom.

Forever and a Day

“Do you eat real food?”
“I can.”
“Do you ever bite your own lip?”
Sully smiled. “It’s happened.” Not something he readily wanted to

admit, especially not to someone he wanted to impress. While
everyone did it at some point in their lives, vampires that accidently
bit their lip were usually ridiculed by others.

But he wouldn’t lie to his mate.
“What happens to vampires that lose their fangs?”
“As long as we can continue to consume blood, we’re fine. It’s

not very comfortable drinking from a glass, but it’s better than
starving to death.”

Samuel’s eyes dropped back down to his wrist. His brow furrowed

as he rubbed his thumb over the healed skin. “They would laugh when
they fed from me,” Samuel whispered. “The more I screamed, the
louder they laughed.”

Sully snapped his mouth shut to hide his growl. This was the first

time Samuel had talked about his time as a blood slave, and as much
as he didn’t like it, Samuel needed someone to tell his tale to. Better
him than a stranger.

“They seemed to get off on creating as much pain as possible.”

Samuel’s chest moved heavily as he looked up and met Sully’s eyes.
“If they needed blood to live, and I provided that blood, why would
they try to destroy me?”

“I think they knew you were more than just a blood slave.”
Samuel’s frown deepened, his eyebrows pulling so low over his

eyes that they almost overshadowed them. “You think my father told
them who I was when he sold me?”

“Your father is a monster, Samuel. He considered you useless to

him. Since he couldn’t turn you into a super soldier, you no longer
held any value. And that made him angry. I believe he blames you
and he wanted you to feel his rage.”

“So he ordered them to torture me?”

Stormy Glenn

Sully sighed. There were things he had witnessed at the coven

where he found Samuel that he had never shared with anyone, not
even his prince. They had been too terrible, too horrific. He never
wanted anyone to know just how bad things had been for Samuel.

Sully grabbed Samuel’s hand and held it, rubbing his thumb over

the top in a soothing gesture. “When I bought you, I was given
explicit instructions to insure you suffered before you died. I wasn’t
told that the orders came from your father, but I knew anyway.”

Samuel sucked in a shaky breath. “I don’t understand why he

hates me so much.”

“I don’t think he hates you, Samuel. I just—”
“No, he hates me.” Samuel sounded positive. Sully wasn’t.
“I don’t believe he really feels anything for you, Samuel. You and

Danny were means to an end, that’s all. Just like the other children he
has created. He is trying to create an army of mindless super soldiers.
He wants to rule the paranormal world.”

“And what do I have to do with that?”
“You weren’t there when we met with Jasper and the others so

you didn’t hear what we discussed, so I’ll give you the basics. Many
of us have abilities that we are born with, but there are some who gain
stronger abilities after they are mated. We believe Prince Von Byrne
is looking for a way to transfer those abilities to himself. We think
that’s what he was doing when he had Philip Spencer experiment on
Elliot.”

“But Elliot’s not my brother.”
“No, that’s true, but we think that somewhere along the line, the

prince discovered his children took on some of their mate’s abilities
once they mated. For some reason, Prince Von Byrne believes that his
children have special abilities that will make him stronger but only
after they mate.”

“That’s what happened to Jasper, isn’t it?” Samuel asked. “That

why my father was so happy when Jasper’s blood turned blue.”

Forever and a Day

“Right. It showed that he had mated. The prince wanted to get his

hands on Justin after he mated, and he was trying to use Jasper and
Marc to get him.”

Samuel’s gulp was audible. “Do you think those vampires that

attacked the mansion work for my father?”

“I do.” But he hated to admit it. He still hadn’t figured out how

they had gotten onto the estate grounds, let alone breached the
perimeter of the house. It never should have happened and a few
heads were going to roll when he found out who allowed it.

“Do you think they were coming for me?”
“No, I think they were after your brother.”
“Why him and not me?”
“He is mated. You are not.” Sully knew he was damning himself

even as he spoke, but he refused to sugar coat things for Samuel. The
man had been lied too enough. “He won’t come for you until after we
mate.”

Samuel’s beautiful cocoa-brown eyes rounded on his face. “You

say that like it’s a foregone conclusion that we’re going to mate.”

“It is.” Sully spoke with complete conviction. He reached up and

twisted one of Samuel’s light-brown curls around his finger. “I told
you back in the corridor, Samuel. You’re mine.” And nothing in this
world was going to prevent him from claiming his mate.

Instead of refuting his claim, as Sully thought he would do,

Samuel’s head cocked to one side, confusion pulling at his brows.
“Why now? You’ve been coming to my room almost every night for
months. Why now?”

“You weren’t ready to hear that you were my mate.” Sully sighed.

“And honestly, neither was I.”

“Because I’m human?”
“Yes.” Again, Sully refused to lie to Samuel, even if it put him in

a bad light. “Humans have taken everything from me.”

“Vampires have taken everything from me.”

Stormy Glenn

Sully chuckled. Samuel had him there. “Fair enough, mate.” He

pulled Samuel’s head down to his chest, surprised when the man went
so easily. Sully brushed his lips over Samuel’s soft hair. “I’m still not
giving you up.”

Samuel’s amused laugh floated softly up to Sully, a sound he had

never heard before but promised himself he would hear again.
“You’re insane,” Samuel said as he lifted his head just enough to stare
up at Sully. “We’re up to our eyeballs in shit and you want to bring
more down on top of us?”

“The one thing I have learned from watching Dominic and Danny

together, as well as our friends and allies, is that we are stronger
together than we are apart. Only by working together can we defeat
your father.”

“Working together, yes, but mating is something altogether

different.”

“Bullshit!” Sully growled.
“Then why did you deny me for so long?” Samuel snapped as he

pushed back from Sully. “If mating me is so important, why am I only
finding out about it now?”

Sully wondered if Samuel was trying to get revenge on all

vampires by dragging him through hell. “Her name was Juliette, and
she was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. I met her
when I attended one of the coven convocations that happen every
hundred years. She was from a coven on the East Coast. I knew the
moment I saw her that she was meant to be mine.”

Sully had the same sort of feeling deep in his chest when he had

spotted Samuel. Dominic said it was the mate bond, but Sully always
suspected it was something more.

“We were mated a few months after we met and we settled in a

coven outside of Charleston, North Carolina. Our life was simple, but
we were happy. Juliette was magic with a needle and thread and could
sew anything. Her gowns were the envy of every woman in the
coven.”

Forever and a Day

“What happened to her?”
“About two years after we mated, we welcomed a son into the

world. His name was Jeremiah.” Sully swallowed hard as tears filled
his eyes. “He was so smart, Samuel. You could see it in his eyes. He
was sitting up on his own by the time he was three months old.”

There was a hallow ache in Sully’s chest, one he knew would

never be filled. He grieved for his lost wife, and always would, but
the loss of his child would be something he would never recover
from. No matter how his life went in the future, he would never be
able to relieve the grief that held him in a tight grasp every time he
thought about his dead son.

“One night, I was away on business for the coven when word

came down that a band of thugs—humans—were sweeping the
countryside, burning down homes and killing anyone they deemed
different. I… I was too late to save them. Juliette and Jeremiah were
gone by the time I got home.”

“Did you kill them?”
Sully didn’t have to ask Samuel who he was referring to. He could

hear the anger in the man’s voice. “It took me a few years to locate all
of them, but yes, I killed them. I made them pay for what they had
taken from me.”

Samuel’s head rested on Sully’s shoulder again. His fingers

plucked at the edges of Sully’s shirt for a moment before lying flat
over his heart. “Would you make them pay if they took me?”
Samuel’s words were a mere whisper.

Sully tightened his arms around his mate, holding Samuel as close

to his chest as he could without crawling under his skin. “I wouldn’t
stop until I made them all pay for taking you from me.”

He had resisted the draw he felt toward Samuel from the very

beginning. Samuel was too traumatized by what had been done to him
by a coven of vampires to understand the bond they could have
together.

Stormy Glenn

Sully also didn’t want to admit that he was scared. He had lost his

family once, far too easily. The thought of losing Samuel filled him
with a terror he hadn’t felt in over a hundred years, not since the night
he had received word that his family was in danger.

Sully knew he would never survive losing his family again, which

was another reason why he had denied his bond with Samuel for so
very long. He just couldn’t go through that again.

But he could teach Samuel everything he knew so that the man

could better defend himself against vampires and humans alike.
Samuel seemed to have a weird kind of natural ability to fight, and
while Sully didn’t want to encourage it, he would exploit it to keep
his mate alive.

“Heads up, Sully,” Dominic shouted from the front of the boat.
Sully tucked Samuel close to his side and sat up straight, peering

around then looking toward the bow. A pier was coming into view on
the far side of the lake. Cameron, Prince Zacarius’s security
lieutenant, and several armed men stood next to two large SUVs.

Sully waited until Dominic had brought the boat to a stop next to

the wooden dock and then released Samuel so he could hop off the
boat and tie it off. Once the boat was secure, he reached back and held
his hand out to his mate.

“Who are those men?” Samuel whispered as he stepped onto the

dock.

“Prince Zacarius’s security detail. I suspect that Dominic called

them when the house got attacked.”

“I thought covens weren’t supposed to have anything to do with

each other.” Samuel was frowning when he glanced at Sully. “Isn’t it
some sort of rule or something?”

“It is a rule, one Dominic and Prince Zacarius are trying to

overturn. In the meantime, we’re ignoring it.”

“Because only by working together can we defeat my father?”
Sully grinned. “Exactly.”
“They don’t look very friendly.”

Forever and a Day

Sully chuckled. “They’re not supposed to.”
“Then they’re doing a great job.”
Sully had a grin on his face as he walked up and shook Cameron’s

hand. He was constantly surprised by Samuel’s dry wit. “Cameron,
I’d like you to meet my mate, Samuel.”

Cameron’s eyebrow arched. “Your mate?”
Sully growled when Cameron’s eyes dropped to Samuel’s neck.

He knew the man was looking for proof of his claim. He’d find none.
That did not mean Samuel wasn’t his.

Samuel cringed when Cameron leaned forward and sniffed he air

in front of him, his upper lip curling back. “He is human?” There was
pure disdain in Cameron’s voice, something Sully hadn’t expected
from the vampire.

But maybe he should have. Cameron wasn’t Prince Zacarius's

security lieutenant for nothing. The man had seen some stuff over the
years, and fought in more than one battle against humans and
vampires alike. Still, Sully couldn’t—and wouldn’t—allow anyone to
disrespect his mate.

“Careful, Cameron, the goodwill garnered from our previous

associations does not extend to my mate. Disrespect him and you are
disrespecting me.”

“And me,” Dominic said as he stepped up beside Sully and

Samuel, Danny at his side. “The human you hold so much contempt
for is not only my brother-in-law, he also saved my mate’s life by
putting himself in the line of fire when we were being shot at.”

“Don’t discount him because he is human, Cameron,” Sully said.

“He took down three vampires back at the mansion using broken
pieces of a picture frame.”

Dominic turned and took a step closer, his head cocked to the

side. “What broken picture frames?”

Sully felt the blood drain from his face. He was really hoping his

prince had forgotten about that.

Oops.

Stormy Glenn

“What is he doing?”
Sully was thankfully stopped from having to answer his prince

when Samuel voiced his question. He glanced down at his mate then
followed the direction of his gaze to the back of one of the SUVs. One
of the guards was on his cell phone, slowly edging around the back of
the vehicle until he was out of sight.

What was he doing?
Before Sully could voice that question, Samuel took off, running

toward the soldier. Something dark clenched in Sully’s stomach when
Samuel pulled out two of his wooden stakes. This wasn’t going to end
well.

“What the hell?” Cameron snapped as he took a step.
“No.” Sully grabbed Cameron’s arm. “Just watch.”
“Watch?” Cameron’s head swung around. “He’s going to get his

head handed to him. Barrett is a trained soldier. He’s also a vampire.
He’ll wipe the floor with your little human.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.” Sully wasn’t so sure either, but

he’d never let Cameron or anyone else hear doubt in his voice. He
was terrified but he refused to show it. Still, he couldn’t stop watching
as Samuel confronted the soldier talking on his cell phone.

The sight was almost awe inspiring. Samuel ran full tilt as if he

had no fear in him at all. Which made total sense. Sully had an
overabundance.

Just as Samuel reached the soldier, the guy spun and took off

toward the tree line. Before Sully could stop him, Samuel took off
after the vampire.

“No!” Sully couldn’t let Samuel fight this battle on his own, not

when the tree line suddenly came alive. “Shit!”

Soldiers were walking out of the woods, armed to the teeth. Sully

could tell just by looking that not all of them were vampires. Some
were werewolves and some were human. There were even a couple
that Sully wasn’t quite sure what species they were. They smelled
funny.

Forever and a Day

“Get Danny out of here!” Sully shouted as he took off after his

mate. He pulled out the first sword he had offered Samuel and started
swinging it, lopping off the head of the first vampire he reached.

Maybe attacking first and asking questions later wasn’t the

politically correct way to fight, but Sully never claimed to be
politically correct. He didn’t even vote. He was a soldier, plain and
simple. He was tasked with protecting those that could not protect
themselves, and that included his fierce little mate.

Sully glance over his shoulder when he heard the speedboat rev

up. Dominic had Danny pinned down in the boat while another
soldier drove the boat away from the dock. Satisfied that Dominic
was getting Danny out of there, he turned back to the battle just
forming.

His heart thudded painfully when he spotted Samuel, smack dab

in the middle of it all. He was fighting several vampires at the same
time—and he was winning.

Sully stopped for a moment, awed by the show in front of him.

Samuel moved like music, flowing and sure. The stakes he had
grabbed when he ran into battle currently protruded out of the chests
of the two dead vampires at Samuel’s feet. He had taken to using the
tactical ninja sword Sully had given him, and he swung it like a
master.

“Are you sure he’s human?”
Sully snickered when he turned and found Cameron standing

beside him, the man’s mouth hanging open as he watched Samuel
kick vampire butt.

“He’s human.”
“He gets his abilities from you then.” Cameron was trying to

justify what he was seeing and Sully knew it.

“Nope, that’s all him.” Sully’s lips started to spread into a wide

grin. “We haven’t mated yet.”

“Sweet mother of mercy!” Cameron gasped. “If you haven’t

mated yet, can you imagine what he will be like once you do?”

Forever and a Day

Chapter Seven

Samuel panted heavily as he swung the short sword Sully had

given him. Bile backed up in his throat when the sharp blade
effortlessly took off the head of the vampire he was fighting.

He didn’t like killing but he liked his family being in danger even

less. He’d fight and kill every damn last one of the fuckers attacking
them if it meant Danny got to live a happy life with his prince, or that
Sully was safe. Samuel couldn’t think of much he wouldn’t do to keep
Sully safe.

He swung his sword out wide, slicing through the throat of

another vampire. The soldier’s head wasn’t chopped off, but enough
of his throat had been severed that he wasn’t going to get back off the
ground.

Samuel pulled the sword in tight to his chest and then crouched

down as he spun in the dirt, looking for another opponent. He slowly
stood as he realized the enemy was dead or running for the hills—or
at least back into the forest.

Samuel turned quickly and scanned the area behind him for the

people he was protecting. Sully was patting down one of the men that
had attacked them, pulling items out of the guy’s pockets. For the
briefest of moments, Samuel wanted to rage at the vampire for
robbing the dead. And then he realized that the items Sully was
stripping off the body might lead them to whoever had attacked them.

He turned to do the same to the vampires he had cut down, and

promptly lost his lunch when he saw all the blood and gore. There
was so much carnage and it surrounded him at every turn.

Stormy Glenn

“Hey.” Samuel wiped his hand over his mouth as he glanced up to

see Sully standing next to him. “It’s okay, babe,” the man said.

“No, it’s not.” Killing was never okay.
“You did what you had to do to protect those you care about.”

Sully inhaled slowly, his chest rising as the early morning air filled
his lungs. “We often have to do things we don’t agree with to protect
those we care about.”

Samuel’s head cocked to the side as he played Sully’s words over

and over again in his head. For some reason he couldn’t fathom, he
couldn’t simply dismiss them. They bounced around in his brain until
he thought he would scream.

“Who are you trying to protect?”
Sully smirked. “You.”
Something warm deep inside Samuel’s gut seemed to open up and

start to blossom at Sully’s words. “I don’t want you to have to do
something you don’t want to do, Sully.”

Sully’s grin grew rueful. He reached out and snaked a hand

around the nape of Samuel’s neck, drawing him close. “I don’t think
there is anything I wouldn’t do for you, Samuel.”

“But—”
“Just accept it, mate.”
Samuel chuckled. “If you promise to get me a shower and some

clean clothes, I might think about it.” He had never been so grungy in
his life.

“Only if I get to share the shower with you.”
Samuel inhaled sharply when his body tightened, arousal spiraling

through him like a bullet. “Okay.”

Sully leaned down and rubbed his nose along the underside of

Samuel’s jawline, drawing in a deep breath. “God, baby, I can smell
your arousal,” he whispered.

Samuel’s face flamed.
“You can’t believe how much I want to feel your sweet little ass

wrapped around my cock again.”

Forever and a Day

Samuel slapped a hand over Sully’s mouth and shot a look around

to see if anyone had overheard the vulgar man. “Shh!” he hissed.
“Stop talking like that.”

“Why?” Sully murmured against Samuel’s hand. His eyes

twinkled with amusement. “You like me talking like that.”

He did. He just didn’t want Sully talking like that where everyone

could hear him. There were some things he wanted to keep between
them. And his physical reaction to the way Sully talked to him was
one of them. Each word seemed to make his cock throb even more.

“Please, Sully.” He’d beg if he had to.
“Oh, mate.” Sully sighed before reaching over and rubbing his

knuckles over Samuel’s cheek. “Didn’t I just say that there wasn’t
much that I wouldn’t do for you?”

Samuel licked his lips as he looked back at Sully, swallowing hard

at the lust he could see burning in the man’s dark eyes. “Maybe
later?”

Sully’s grin was all the affirmation Samuel needed to know he had

pleased the handsome vampire. “Later then, mate.”

Sully’s expression grew more serious when he turned to look at

the bodies littering the ground. His eyes jumped from one dead body
to the next until the fell on a vampire several yards away. “Cameron,
could you tell me why one of your soldiers would sell us out?”

“We don’t know that he did,” Cameron insisted. “He could have

been calling his mother.” Not even Cameron sounded convinced by
his words.

Sully arched an eyebrow. “Does he have a mother?”
Cameron glared as he pulled out his cell phone and started to dial.

“I need to call this in.”

“Where’s Danny?” Samuel said when he realized his baby brother

was missing. His heart climbed into his throat as he gripped the front
of Sully’s shirt. “Sully, where’s my brother?”

“Dominic took him away from the fighting.”

Stormy Glenn

Samuel sagged against Sully, pressing his forehead against Sully’s

chest. “I saw that man talking on his phone and I just knew he was
giving us away to the enemy.” Samuel’s head snapped up. “How did I
know that, Sully?”

“I think that your father finally did the one thing he has been

working toward since this whole mess started.”

Samuel waited for Sully to explain what he was talking about but

as he watched the hesitation come to life in the man’s eyes, he
wondered if he really wanted to know.

“Samuel, you seem to have a natural ability to fight.”
“So?”
“So, I believe you’ve somehow become exactly what your father

has been trying to create.” Samuel felt like he couldn’t breathe. The
grim look on Sully’s face was damning him to hell. “You have the
fighting skills of someone that has been in training your entire life,
and yet I know for a fact that this is the first time you’ve ever wielded
a sword. The same thing with the wooden stakes and the knife. You
brandish them like you were born with them in your hands.”

Samuel’s stomach rolled with fear and revulsion at the words

Sully was saying to him. “What are you trying to say, Sully?”

“You’re not going to like it.”
“No, I’m pretty sure I won’t, but say it anyway.”
“You’re a natural killer, baby.”
Samuel pressed his hand against his mouth and pushed away from

Sully. He had been expecting it so he didn’t know why the words hurt
so damn much to hear. He felt sick to his stomach. He didn’t want to
be a killer. He hated it, in fact.

“Samuel, listen to me.”
“No.” Samuel could feel tears clogging his throat, making it hard

to breath. He needed to get away. He needed to shower. He was
covered in blood and gore and…and… god, he didn’t know what all
he was covered in but he knew he needed to be clean.

“Baby, stop.”

Forever and a Day

When Sully pulled him to a stop and swung him around, Samuel

growled and slammed his palm into the middle of Sully’s chest. His
jaw unhinged when Sully flew backward several feet, slamming into a
tree before falling silently to the ground.

“Sully?” he whispered as he stared at the unmoving man in the

dirt. He shuffled forward a couple of steps. “Sully?”

“Get away from him, you freak!”
Samuel jumped back when Cameron darted in between him and

Sully, the man’s sword raised high. “Please, he…I didn’t mean it. I
just—”

“Don’t come any closer!” Cameron warned as he swung his sword

through the air, his threat readily apparent. “Stay right where you
are.”

Samuel took step back and then another. The repulsion on

Cameron’s face was the same one he had seen on the faces of the
vampires that haunted his nightmares. He knew what the disgusted
glare meant. Cameron wouldn’t even blink at cutting him down. He
was human, beneath the man. His death would mean nothing to the
vampire. It might even be welcome.

It certainly would be welcome for Samuel because it meant the

dream he had lived in for just a few moments was over. And he
wasn’t really sure how he was going to survive without Sully there to
keep his demons at bay.

At the warning glare in Cameron’s eyes, Samuel backed up until

he felt the SUV behind him. Apparently, putting distance between
them was all Cameron needed. Keeping an eye on Samuel, the
vampire squatted down next to Sully and shook him.

Samuel’s heart started to ache when Sully didn’t move. He didn’t

even groan. “Is he—?”

He held his breath as Cameron reached down and felt for a pulse.

When Cameron’s eyes slid closed and his shoulders slumped, Samuel
thought his heart might stop beating. “Sully?”

Stormy Glenn

Cameron’s clawed at him like talons, his anger a scalding fury.

“He’s dead!”

“No,” Samuel whispered, shaking his head in denial. Sully

couldn’t be dead. There was just no way. There was too much life in
the man for it to be snuffed out so easily.

“When Prince Dominic finds out what you’ve done, your time as

a blood slave will seem like a walk in the park. You’ll pray that you
die quick.”

“I didn’t mean it,” Samuel insisted although he wondered if that

was true. He hated vampires. Had he subconsciously tried to hurt
Sully? To kill him because he was a vampire? “I…”

“I saw how you took down these vampires,” Cameron sneered.

“You truly are your father’s son. It’s in your genes. You’re a killer
just like him.”

You’re a killer…so close to the words that Sully had spoken to

him that they might as well have been the same. He was a killer. Sully
said it. Cameron said it. The proof lay on the ground all around him.

He was a killer.
Just like his father.
Samuel didn’t bother trying to defend himself. What would be the

point? Cameron was right. He was just like his father. A monster. A
cold-blooded murderer.

He had killed Sully.
He might as well be back at the coven his father had sold him to.

Samuel deserved nothing less than to be tortured until he begged for
death, and then tortured some more.

When Cameron turned his attention back toward Sully, Samuel

simply walked away. He knew the vampire probably heard him
leaving. Vampires were reported to have excellent hearing. He just
didn’t think Cameron cared.

Samuel walked. He walked through the trees and meadows, over

creeks and streams. He walked past rows of houses and small-town

Forever and a Day

markets. He walked over pavement, down gravel roads, and through
the dirt. He walked until his feet hurt, and then he walked some more.

He walked until he couldn’t lift one foot in front of another, and

then he found a patch of dirt and simply sat down. He didn’t know
where he was and he didn’t care.

When the daylight turned to darkness and a chill filled the air, he

pulled his feet up to his chest and rested his head on his knees. When
the rain started, he pressed his face in between his knees and waited
for it to end.

The coldness seeped into his skin, and then sank deeper, numbing

him to everything around him. When sounds reached him, voices
calling out his name in the darkness, Samuel continued to sit where he
was. He sat there even when the voices slowly faded, moving away
from him.

Leaving him alone.
He was always alone, but better alone than a danger to others. He

had killed the one person in the world that could have made his life
worth living, the one person that didn’t care that he was a monster.

Over the course of the sun setting and rising again, sometime after

the drizzle had stopped and his shivers had settled to the occasional
shudder, Samuel realized that he was the killer his father wanted him
to be.

And if he was going to be a killer, then he was going to get as

many of the bastards that made him that way as he possibly could.

When the sun finally rose high enough in the sky that Samuel

could see where he was, he stretched out his arms and legs, groaning
at the pain that shot through every nerve in his body. He had sat too
long.

Samuel didn’t know how long he sat there trying to get his

muscles to work, but he had a fine sheen of sweat on his brow by the
time he finally climbed to his feet and started walking—again.

Forever and a Day

Chapter Eight

Sully’s eyes shot to the door when it opened and one of Prince

Dominic’s soldiers walked in. His heart held a beat until the soldier
shook his head. It started beating again but not enough to keep the
ache from his chest.

“It’s been three weeks, Dominic.” Each day had been a nightmare,

growing steadily worse when every mission to find Samuel failed. No
one knew where he was.

“We know he’s alive, Sully.”
Knowing Samuel was alive was little comfort when he couldn’t

hold his mate in his arms. The reports that in came from covens all
around the country weren’t enough to assuage Sully’s need to see his
mate with his own eyes.

Samuel had been spotted, but no one had ever gotten close enough

to talk to the man. There was one picture taken of him on a security
camera as he entered his father’s former estate right before it burned
to the ground. Sully was devastated until word reached him that
Samuel had been spotted a hundred miles away three days later,
entering another estate thought to belong to Prince Von Byrne.

It, too, had burned to the ground, but only after the blood slaves

being held there were freed. They had told stories of the warrior that
came in the night to save them, a warrior that fought with a bravery
unparalleled to anything they had ever seen. He had no fear,
destroying anyone preventing him from reaching his objective.
Unfortunately, no one had been able to figure out exactly what that
object was.

Sully knew that warrior was his Samuel.

Stormy Glenn

He just had to find him.
Sully glanced over when the door opened again. His upper lip

curled back and a slow growl began when he saw Cameron walk in. If
he had his way, the vampire would have been drawn and quartered,
his body parts thrown to the four winds to be eaten by buzzards.

“What do you want?”
“I am still Prince Zacarius’s security lieutenant,” Cameron

replied, “whether you like it or not.”

Sully was kept from replying by the hand that came down on his

shoulder. He knew that hand and he knew it meant he had to keep his
response to himself, as well as his sword. But that didn’t keep him
from glaring at the man that had had a hand in destroying the life he
had been trying to build with Samuel.

“Was there something you wished to report, Cameron?” Dominic

asked.

“Yes, sir.” Cameron’s eyes flickered to Dominic, but his stance

stayed ready as if he knew Sully was just waiting for the right
moment to attack him.

He was.
“We’ve located another one of Prince Von Byrne’s estates about

three hours from here. There’s indication that the prince is holding
several blood slaves there. Prince Zacarius asked that you join him in
his study so we can plan our assault on the estate.”

“Very well,” Dominic replied, his hand staying on Sully’s

shoulder. “Tell your prince we’ll be along in a moment.”

“Yes, sir.” Cameron nodded then headed for the door, giving

Sully a wide berth.

Dominic’s hand stayed on Sully’s shoulder until the door closed

behind Cameron. And then the man sighed, deeply. “Sully, you can’t
keep threatening to go after Cameron. He’s apologized for what he
did, and while it’s not an excuse, you know how tense things are
between humans and vampires.”

Forever and a Day

“He told Samuel I was dead.” What part of that scenario didn’t

Dominic understand? “He convinced Samuel that he had killed me. In
what universe is that okay?”

Sully still remembered the abject fear that had slammed into him

when he regained consciousness and realized that Samuel was gone.
He had gotten in one good punch before Dominic had returned with
more soldiers and prevented him from killing Cameron.

That fear had been a close friend ever since.
“I’m not saying it is okay, Sully,” Dominic replied. “His fear and

prejudice made him do something he never should have done. We
can’t go back in time and undo what has already been done, but we
can endeavor to make sure it never happens again.”

“Oh good, that means I get to kill Cameron.”
“No.” Dominic chuckled. “It means that we need to find Samuel

and make sure he understands that he is not a killer.”

Sully wasn’t so sure that that was possible. Samuel was a killer,

the perfect example of what his father had been trying to create all of
this time. And from the reports they had been receiving, Samuel was
damn good at it.

He had decimated Prince Von Byrne’s forces at every turn. He

had effectively cut off the blood supply for the prince’s soldiers and
inner circle by freeing the man’s blood slaves before destroying
whatever property he found them on.

A warrior that came in the night to save those being held prisoner,

he was becoming a folk hero to those that fought the prince, and more
than just a nuisance to those fighting for the prince.

As good as he was, Sully knew Samuel’s luck couldn’t continue,

not when the man fought on his own. It took an army with a good
leader to bring down a monster. Sully had the army. He just needed
Samuel to help lead the way.

“Come on. We’d better go see what Zacarius has come up with.

Maybe tonight will be your lucky night and we’ll get there before
Samuel does.”

Stormy Glenn

Sully doubted it. He didn’t know if Samuel had some sort of sixth

sense or what, but the man was always gone from the scene by the
time they arrived, sometimes within minutes of him disappearing.

It was infuriating as much as it was impressive. Samuel left death

and destruction in his wake. He also left every damn blood slave alive
and free—with hero worship in their eyes.

They were still trying to find covens to accept all of the freed

slaves. After what they had witnessed and been through, none of them
could ever return to the normal lives that they had before they had
been captured and sold to feed an army of bloodsucking vampires.

Against his better judgment—because he knew Cameron was

going to be there and no one was going to let him kill the man—Sully
followed Dominic out of the room and then down the hallway to the
prince’s study.

Just as he suspected, Cameron was in the room, standing beside

his prince and slightly behind him. His arms were folded casually
behind his back, and he watched with a dispassionate eye as the
people in the room talked.

Sully started for the man only to veer off in the other direction

when Dominic cuffed him on the back of the head. His prince didn’t
even say a word, just went right on greeting Prince Zacarius and his
consort. Sully made his way to a chair in the corner and sat.

Before anyone could get started, there was a tap at the door. When

it opened, Danny walked in, going straight to Dominic. His eyes were
red and puffy, and Sully knew Danny was suffering the loss of
Samuel just as much as he was.

“Before we get started,” Prince Zacarius started, “I wanted to let

you know that we’ve found three more soldiers with burn phones.”

Sully growled.
The man that Samuel attacked back at the lake had a burn phone.

Since it was untraceable, they had no way of knowing where he got it,
and the number he had been talking to was disconnected when they
dialed it. That right there made them suspicious.

Forever and a Day

“We’re holding them downstairs for now. Devlin is going to be

questioning them later, but I wanted him here for this meeting.”

Sully wanted to question them now. It was all he could do to stay

in his chair. “Just how many traitors do we have here?” The number
seemed to be getting higher every time he turned around. “We need to
figure out a way to stop them.”

“I think Von Byrne has had five hundred years to learn how to

intimidate people or convince them to his way of thinking.” Prince
Zacarius sighed as he walked over to sit in one of the chairs around a
small seating area. It was kind of nice that the man wasn’t lording his
royal title over them by sitting behind his desk. He sat right there in
the thick of things like they were all on an equal footing. “He’s very
good at what he does.”

That much was true. While vampire covens and wolf packs were

getting along more now than they had in centuries, there were still
those that gave in to pressure from Prince Von Byrne and betrayed
their people. The three men in cells downstairs in the dungeon were a
perfect example. Like a few of the others they had weeded out over
the last three weeks, the soldiers probably thought that Prince Von
Byrne was some sort of god and could elevate them to supreme
beings.

They were wrong, and Sully would be more than happy to show

just how much. No one would let him near a single cell.

“Apparently, so is your Samuel.”
Sully sat up. “What about Samuel?”
Zacarius got up and walked over to his desk, picking up a tablet

before turning back. “It seems your Samuel has been a very busy
man.”

“How so?” If one person said a bad word about Samuel, Sully was

going to rip their head off.

“We knew following the money was the way to track Von Byrne,”

Zacarius said. “It looks like Samuel spent enough time with his father

Stormy Glenn

to know that as well, and he is systematically wiping out every money
source Von Byrne has.”

It was all Sully could do to keep still when he really wanted to

pump his fist into the air and shout hoorah at what Samuel had done.
“I’d say we need to keep track of the money sources as well. A
pattern will emerge at some point.”

“And it has.” Zacarius slid his finger across the tablet in his hand

and then set the electronic device down on the coffee table. “This is a
map of an estate about three hours from here. We’ve tracked
ownership of two of the warehouse Samuel burned down to a human
that owns that estate.”

Sully’s eyebrows shot up. “A human?”
“Sylvester James, a well-known importer with a legitimate—and

I’d say fairly lucrative—business. He imports merchandise from all
over the country, most of it high-end stuff that he sells to clients that
have the money to pay the exuberant fees he charges.”

Sully’s head cocked to the side. “You sound like you speak from

experience.”

“No, but I’ve dealt with men like him before. Relatively speaking,

Mr. James has tapped into a business that few people are able to
adequately keep afloat. Most high-end importers like this either slide
into dealing on the black market or go bankrupt within the first year.
Mr. James seems to have not only done fairly well for himself, but his
nose is clean as far as we can tell. Joe Nash ran a background check
on him and the man doesn’t even have a parking ticket.”

Zacarius glanced up, meeting the eyes of every man there. “In

fact, before ten years ago, there was no record of Sylvester James at
all. No security number. No birth certificate. No criminal record.
Nothing. It’s like the man suddenly appeared in the world, a full-
grown businessman.”

Sully’s hands clenched. “Von Byrne.”
Zacarius sat back, pressing his fingertips together. “I believe so,

yes.”

Forever and a Day

Sully shot to his feet and walked over to stare out the window.

The landscape beyond the glass was perfect. Manicured lawn, bright
vibrant flowers along stone-stepped pathways. It was beautiful.

And Sully couldn’t have cared less.
The weight in his chest was getting even heavier. Pretty soon,

breathing was going to be an issue. His chest ached like his heart was
slowly being pulled out. The process was torturous, but not knowing
where Samuel was or if he was okay was even worse.

“How soon can we leave?” Sully asked as he rubbed the center of

his chest.

“Daniel Nash is sending some of his enforcers to assist us,”

Zacarius explained. “We’re just waiting on them to arrive.”

Sully turned. “Why can’t they just catch up with us?” He wanted

to leave right that minute. This was the first solid lead they had
received on Samuel—assuming the man had put the clues together
and figured out that Sylvester James was his father. Sully was pretty
sure he had.

“Under the circumstances, and considering recent events, Dominic

and I believe that taking an entire contingent of vampires into battle is
not in our best interest.” The prince’s lips thinned as he pressed them
together for a moment, a gesture that said the man was clearly not
pleased. “Until we can truly tell who we can trust, we need all of the
backup we can get our hands on.”

“You know he’s right, Sully,” Dominic said. “We can’t do this

alone. We’re not just going after Samuel here. We’re headed into a
battle against one of the most ruthless leaders the paranormal world
has ever seen.”

Sully leaned back against the window frame, rubbing his hands

down over his face. He knew Dominic and Zacarius were right.
Waiting was the best choice, the safer choice. It just grated on his
nerves to not go running to Samuel that very second.

Stormy Glenn

“And if Samuel’s not there when we arrive?” he asked. It went

without saying that they had been one step behind Samuel for weeks,
always arriving too late. “What then?”

“Then we keep putting the clues together until we find him.”
Sully was just afraid they were going to run out of clues.

* * * *

Samuel crouched on the tree branch he had found cover on. He

didn’t understand why none of the guards that patrolled the grounds
of the places he attacked never looked up into the trees, but they
didn’t. He figured that out around the third place he had infiltrated.
Since then, he spent hours in the trees, going from branch to branch as
he watched and waited.

He was watching and waiting once again.
A black van had arrived earlier. Samuel suspected blood slaves

were being delivered to the estate. There had been enough guards to
launch an invasion for a small country. Samuel had considered the
merits of infiltrating the place for about half a second—right up until
he saw the three young teens in chains being forced into the house.
His father had sunk pretty low if he was going after teenagers to
provide blood to his inner circle.

As night settled in, Samuel made his way through the tops of the

trees until he reached the last one in the line to reach the house. There
was a fair amount of open ground between him and the house. He’d
have to climb down and sprint across the yard to get to his
destination.

Getting down the trunk of the tree was easy enough. Insuring that

the leaves didn’t rustle and the branches didn’t shake was no easy
feat, but Samuel had a lot of practice. He had lost count of how many
of his father’s estates and business locations he had infiltrated, but
there had been a lot of them.

Forever and a Day

Samuel’s initial goal had been to locate his father and his minions

and destroy as many of them as he possibly could. The first house he
had snuck into had a basement full of blood slaves. After freeing
them, and then the ones from the next location and then the next,
Samuel had started to realize a new goal.

In freeing his father’s blood slaves, he was not only preventing

others from suffering through the hell he had lived in for so many
months, but he was sticking it to his father in the worst way possible.
He was taking way the man’s life-giving blood. Maybe he would be
lucky and Prince Laurent Von Byrne would die of starvation.

He could hope.
Samuel slid down the bark until his feet touched the ground. He

hugged the tree trunk until the guard two feet from his position
walked on. When the guard disappeared into the darkness, Samuel
slipped through the shadows, moving to toward the house.

Most of the windows on the first floor of the large house were lit

up as were a few on the second floor. But it was the light Samuel
could see coming out of the small window closest to the ground that
had his interest. That had to be where his father was keeping his new
blood slaves.

Samuel worked his way through the shrubs and flower beds to the

side of the house. He crept along the wall until he reached a window
and then peered through the glass. Three men in suits sat in the room.
It looked like they were casually conversing and drinking their
evening night caps. Samuel had no idea who they were and he
couldn’t have cared less.

Samuel dropped down and scooted along the wall beneath the

window frame. He froze, drawing in a calming breath and holding it
when someone opened the window just above him. He closed his eyes
for moment then tilted his head back and stared up at the edge of the
window ledge.

Stormy Glenn

When he didn’t see anything, and no one shouted “gotcha,”

Samuel sank back down. He started to move away when the voices
from inside the room reached him. Once again, he froze in his spot.

“He has to be stopped, Von Byrne,” someone said.
“Arnold is right,” another voce said. “He’s a threat to our way of

life.”

“He’s magnificent and you know it.” Samuel shivered in

revulsion. He knew that voice all too well. “I want him
captured…alive.”

“Von Byrne, how can—”
Samuel jumped when he heard flesh hitting flesh. He knew that

sound just as well as he knew his father’s voice. Whoever was
arguing with Von Byrne was an idiot.

“I won’t repeat myself again. I want Samuel caught and I want

him caught alive. His genetics have turned out to be far superior than
any other subject we’ve created. He’s going to be the basis for our
entire army.”

Samuel gritted his teeth. The hell I am.
“You’re insane,” someone said. “You’ll destroy us all.”
Samuel closed his eyes, just knowing whoever said that was about

to die. No one put his father down and walked away unscathed.

Samuel’s eyes snapped open when the window above him

shattered. They rounded as he watched a body crash to the ground in
front of him. The man rolled several times before coming to a stop in
some bushes.

That was gonna leave a mark.
Bits of broken glass cascaded down on top of Samuel’s head. Fear

lodged in his heart as the sense of being watched floated over him.
Samuel swallowed hard and then slowly tilted his head back.

“Hello, Samuel,” said the man leaning out the window, staring

down at him with very satisfied grin on his face.

“Hello, Father.”

Forever and a Day

Chapter Nine

Sully tapped his foot as he watched the scenery go by him at a

very high rate of speed. He knew their destination was three hours
away. He had no idea the plan was to take a helicopter there until he
was standing in front of the damn thing.

He didn’t fly. If god had meant for him to fly, he would have been

born with a parachute in his ass. Since he wasn’t, he wanted to be on
the ground. Like right the fuck now.

Letting anyone know he was so scared he was about to puke

wasn’t going to happen. He was surrounded by men he had gone into
battle with, men he respected, and just a few men that he’d like to
beat over the head if they didn’t stop smirking at him.

“How much longer?” he shouted into the mouthpiece attached to

his earphones.

Quilliam Reece, a werewolf and former alpha, leaned toward him.

“We should be landing in about twenty minutes. Once we’re on the
ground, we’ll need to hike in a couple of miles. We didn’t want Von
Byrne to know we were coming, and if we land too close, he’ll hear
the chopper.”

Sully knew the man was shouting because he heard him. The

noise from the helicopter engines and propellers were so loud that
Sully could barely hear his own thoughts, let alone anyone else.

Luckily, there really didn’t seem to be all that much to talk about.

The plan had been hammered out until Sully was pretty much sure he
could do his part in his sleep. His only job was to try to find Samuel
and make sure he was safe.

Stormy Glenn

If he had to kill a few vampires along the way, so be it, although

Prince Zacarius would prefer it if he kept the killing to a minimum.
Apparently, he thought questioning some of these assholes would be
beneficial to their cause. Sully was of the mindset that anyone that got
in his way was going to die.

As simple as that.
When the helicopter shook and dropped down, Sully gripped his

seat until his knuckles hurt, praying he wasn’t plummeting to his
death. His stomach seemed to be trying to climb out of his mouth—
the hard way.

Reece bumped shoulders with him. “Almost there, man. We’ll

have you on the ground before you know it.”

“I don’t fly.”
Reece laughed. “Who does?”
“You seem okay with it.”
Reece shrugged his massive shoulders. “My mate has

premonitions. He said I had to come so here I am. I’ve learned to
listen to the man.”

Sully tried to keep from looking surprised, but he could feel his

eyebrows climbing up his face. “Your mate has premonitions?”

“From what I’ve heard, your mate is pretty spectacular as well.”
“He’s…something.” Sully just wasn’t sure what. The reports that

had received pretty much told the story of avenging angel that came
in the middle of the night to free those being subjugated by Prince
Von Byrne. Sully wasn’t so sure there was anything left of the sweet
man he had fallen for.

“Whoa!” Sully’s stomach rolled when the helicopter lurched and

started dropping. “We’re going down, right?”

“Yep.”
“Are we landing or crashing?”
Reece grinned. “I’ll let you know when we get on the ground.”
Sully’s world twirled and bucked for the next several minutes. If it

wasn’t for the fact that he knew this was the quickest way to get to

Forever and a Day

Samuel, he would have bailed long ago. He wasn’t sure he was going
to make it to the ground in one piece. He wasn’t sure any of them
were. The helicopter was dropping like it had no propulsion to keep it
in the air.

Sully closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the

bulkhead behind him, praying like he had never prayed before. He
wasn’t a particularly religious man, mostly because he had never
found a religion that explained the paranormal world. But he could
learn to be.

“Hey, man.” Someone tapped Sully on the arm. “You can open

your eyes now. We’re on the ground.”

Sully cautiously opened one eye, then the other. “Are we in one

piece?”

Reece chuckled. “Yeah, man, we’re all good.”
Sully unbuckled his safety belt and stood, grabbing the tactical

pack that Reece held out to him. “Thanks.”

“It’s no problem.”
Sully wouldn’t feel like his old self until both of his feet were on

firm ground. He followed Reece out of the helicopter and then several
yards away. The helicopter had shut down, but one could never be too
careful.

“Is everyone ready to go?” he asked as he looked around at those

that had agreed to come along for the trip.

“We’re going to head out in two four-man teams,” Reece said.

“Devlin explained to me the little problem you all were having with
cell phone use, so everyone is going to leave their cell phones here in
the helicopter.” Reece held out a black bag. Sully didn’t like it but he
knew it was a good idea. He dropped his into the bag, and then
watched as everyone else did the same.

“You know Marc Duggon, Prince Jasper’s mate,” Reece said as

he indicated the sandy-blond-haired man. “And Chase Foyt-Ried,
mate to Justin and Taylor.”

Sully nodded.

Stormy Glenn

“I’m not sure you’ve had the chance to meet our head enforcer,

Benjamin Nobles. One of his mates, Stefan, was raised as Von
Byrne’s stepson.”

Sully winced. He could just imagine what special kind of hell that

must have been.

“This rather tall fellow here”—Reece indicated a tall light-brown-

haired man standing next to Chase—“is another one of the famous
Morgan brothers, Donovan Morgan, mate to James Nash and son-in-
law to Daniel Nash.”

That was quite the résumé.
The man nodded at Sully when their eyes met. “My mate would

have been here to assist, but one of our little girls is down with a
cold.”

And that endeared Sully to the man more than his family

connections ever could have. “How old is she?”

Donovan grinned. “Carrie is three going on thirteen. If she ever

learns that she has Jim and I wrapped around her little finger, Wolf
Creek will never be the same.”

“She knows,” Chase said. “I told her.”
“Now why would you go and do a thing like that?” Donovan

snapped.

Chase’s grin was almost as big as Donovan’s had been. “Because

I’m her favorite uncle.”

“Gentlemen—and I use that term loosely—if we could get back to

the matter at hand?” Reece asked. “Daylight is going to be here soon.
We need to get to the estate two miles west of here before then.”

“I want radio silence for as long as possible.” Reece handed out an

earpiece to everyone as well as a small black bag. Inside, Sully found
a can of shoe polish and a number written on a piece of paper.

He was confused about the polish and the number, but the ear

piece made perfect sense. Sully put the small black device in his ear.
The less noise they made, even on the radio, and the less chance they
had of being discovered.

Forever and a Day

“Sully, Marc, Cameron, and I will make up alpha team. Ben,

Chase, Donovan, and Marcus will make up beta team. You’ve all
been assigned a team designation and number. Learn it and become
used to it. It could save your life, and the lives of those we care
about.”

Sully was a little sketchy on those details, and he must have

shown it because Reece kept talking like he hadn’t stopped.

“We do not want names used if at all possible. The forest has ears,

as do the walls of the estate we’re about to infiltrate. Until we know
for sure we will be able to capture everyone we are after, our families
can be used against us. We don’t want that.”

Now the contents of the small black bag made sense.
He was number three.
Alpha team three.
Got it.
“Samuel Erickson is the prize. If he is found, you are to

immediately inform Sully and hold Samuel until Sully arrives to take
over.”

“And Von Byrne?” Marc asked.
“Kill him,” Reece said without missing a beat.
“Works for me,” Marc replied.
Sully agreed with the man one hundred percent, only he wanted to

be the one to kill the monster that had fathered his mate. He wanted to
watch Von Byrne scream just as he made Samuel scream. Revenge
wasn’t always right, but sometimes it was the only choice a man had.

“You need to know that if this is the place Samuel is hitting then

there are most likely blood slaves being held here.” Sully wasn’t sure
how much information Reece and the others knew. “All of our reports
say he’s going after places where Von Byrne keeps his blood supply,
and he’s destroying those places after he frees the slaves.”

Reece’s eyebrow raised in query. “He’s not going after Von Byrne

directly?”

Stormy Glenn

“I think at first he was but that changed somewhere along the

way.” Sully rubbed the back of his neck, the slow burning ache a sign
of the tension he was feeling. “He knows what it is to be a blood slave
to one of Von Byrne’s covens. I think the need to ensure no one goes
through what he went through is driving him far more than getting
revenge on the man that put him there.”

Sully’s lips tightened as he met the steel resolve in each man’s

face. “My top priority is getting my mate back, but I won’t turn down
the opportunity to see Von Byrne pay for his crimes. If I see him, I
will kill him.”

The men that had volunteered to go in with him and rescue his

mate all nodded. All but two of them had mates of their own, many of
them victims of Von Byrne’s tyranny. They knew how Sully felt.

Sully opened the can of shoe polish and started applying it to his

skin. He felt kind of ridiculous putting shoe goop on his face but he
knew it was needed if he hoped to mix in to his surroundings. They
were going in under the darkness of night. They needed to blend.

“Let’s head out,” Reece said as he started for the thick trees off to

the west of them. Sully slid everything into his pockets, checked his
weapons, and then followed after the wolf-shifter.

The two miles to the estate belonging to Sylvester James was

through a thick den of trees and underbrush. Trained as he was,
moving through the woods was easy enough. Not making a sound
while doing it was nearly impossible. It took them nearly thirty
minutes to reach the edge of the property line.

Sully squatted down next to Reece, Marc and Cameron taking up

spots next to them. If things had gone according to plan, the second
team should have made it to the other side of the estate and taken up a
spot on the edge of the estate lawns just like they had.

“Report,” Reece whispered almost silently.
“In place and ready to go,” came the quiet reply. Sully thought it

might have been Marcus. “Just give the word.”

“Have you seen any activity?”

Forever and a Day

“No, sir.” Yep, it was Marcus. “There’s a black van in the

driveway, but I haven’t seen so much as a sentry patrolling the
grounds.”

Sully sat up a little straighter, scanning the vast lawn in front of

them. The moonlight was bright but waning as dawn was coming
soon. Still, the area around the house was fairly lit up. Sully couldn’t
spot a single sentry either. No sentries. No dogs. No cameras. There
was nothing that would indicate that those inside were trying to
protect themselves.

And that didn’t make sense.
“Something isn’t right.” Sully’s years of training as well as his gut

instinct was telling him that the whole situation was off. And yet he
knew he couldn’t leave until he knew for sure if Samuel was here or
not. “Warn the others,” Sully said. “I’m going to head in.”

“Are you insane?” Reece snapped as he grabbed Sully’s arm and

kept him from leaving. “We need to go for reinforcements.”

“I can’t leave until I know if Samuel is inside or not.”
Reece grimaced but released Sully’s arm. “We’ll be back by dawn

with an army of reinforcements.” Reece shook his finger at Sully.
“Don’t get caught.”

Sully grinned. “I’m not making any promises.”
Reece shook his head as he stood and backed into the thickness of

the trees, Marcus going with him. “Pull back to the LZ. I repeat, pull
back to the LZ.” Reece saluted, and then he and Marcus disappeared
into the darkness.

Sully glanced at Cameron, wondering why he had stayed. He still

wasn’t happy with the vampire. “You can leave with the others.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so.” The tone of the words was snippy,

sarcastic. Sully was surprised the man didn’t flip him off.

“Fine, but interfere in my getting Samuel back and I will fry your

ass.” Sully arched an eyebrow, giving Cameron his sternest glare.
“Clear?”

Cameron’s lip curled. “Crystal.”

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Sully still wasn’t pleased, but he couldn’t force the man to leave if

he really didn’t want to. Cameron worked for Prince Zacarius. Sully
worked for Prince Dominic. They shouldn’t even be talking to each
other, much less going on the same rescue mission.

Deciding that fighting with Cameron wasn’t going to get him to

Samuel any faster, Sully pushed his misgivings to the back of his
mind. He didn’t trust the man, but he had more important things to
worry about.

Namely, finding his mate.
Sully moved, sliding silently through the darkness toward the

house. His goal was a second-floor balcony on the side of the house.
Whoever built the place probably wasn’t planning on it being invaded
by well-trained vampires.

When he got within a couple of feet of the balcony, he took a

running jump, grabbing onto the bottom of the balcony floor with his
hands. It took a fair amount of strength, but he slowly pulled himself
up onto the ledge of the balcony then climbed over the wrought iron
railing.

Sully silently snarled when Cameron lifted himself up and

climbed over the railing beside him. Why couldn’t the man find
another entrance into the mansion? Did he really have to follow Sully
everywhere?

Not happy, but having no other choice, Sully walked over to the

double doors leading into the house. The glass windows in the doors
were covered with a curtain, but if he laid his head against the wall,
he could just barely see inside through the small slit between the
curtain and the window.

This was one of the rooms that had no light, but Sully’s eyesight

was such that darkness didn’t bother him. He actually saw better at
night than he did during the daylight. The room seemed empty from
his vantage point. Sully could only pray it was as he reached down
and slowly grabbed the handle.

Unlocked.

Forever and a Day

Once again, Sully got the feeling that something was horribly off

about this whole situation. Who left their door unlocked in this day
and age?

“Stop!” Cameron growled as he grabbed Sully’s wrist.
Sully glanced sharply at the man.
“You could trigger an alarm.”
“You don’t think we already have?” Sully was almost positive

they had. He just didn’t understand why the guards hadn’t come
running. Sully and Cameron should be surrounded by now, on their
way to the dungeon.

Sully released his grip on the door handle and let his arm fall back

to his side. “You need to go, Cameron.”

“I’m not leaving.”
“This is a trap, Cameron. I can feel it in my gut. They want us

here.”

“No,” Cameron replied. “They want you here.”
“Wha—” Sully’s hands fisted when he turned and saw the gun in

Cameron’s hand—the gun pointed directly at him.

Shit!
He knew he never should have trusted the vampire. Dominic was

too far away for him to contact, so he was on his own against the
traitor. “Why, Cameron? You know Von Byrne is trying to destroy
us. Why would you betray us like this?”

Sully heard the barest creak of a sound behind him. His heart

dropped down into the pit of his stomach when he swung back around
and found the balcony doors open, Prince Laurent Von Byrne
standing there with a sardonic expression on his face.

“Because he would be a fool to betray me.”

Stormy Glenn

Chapter Ten

Samuel kept his head lowered and his eyes narrowed to tiny slits

but watched the happenings around him through the fall of his hair.
For once, he was glad he hadn’t seen a barber in several months.

He didn’t know exactly how long he had been there, but it was

long enough that he had forgotten what day it was. The only reason he
knew it was nighttime was because of the darkness outside the
windows. And because Von Byrne’s vampires came out of the
woodwork at night. They loved to embrace the Hollywood myths
about vampires. They found it amusing.

Samuel found it disgusting.
He also found himself feeling thankful for his time spent as a

blood slave—something he never thought to feel. It enabled him to
remain sane when the world around him became insane. His body
ached from the numerous bite marks that marred his flesh. They hurt
nearly as much as the bruises from the beatings he’d received when
he refused to give in to his father’s demands.

He had been lucky so far. The vampires were merely feeding from

him. Samuel knew that wouldn’t last. His father was keeping a leash
on his minions for now, using them as a threat if Samuel didn’t give
him what he wanted. He would rather die a slow agonizing death than
give his father the means to create a super soldier for his insane bid to
rule the paranormal world.

His death was coming. He could feel it in the tiredness of his

body. He just had to hold out until he could get his revenge on the
people making him kneel naked in the corner of a cold room, waiting
for the next vampire to come along and feed from him.

Forever and a Day

Samuel stilled when his father walked into the room. He

controlled his breathing as he had learned to do when he was hiding in
the trees, slowing it until just the barest puff of air moved past his
lips. He tracked he older vampire’s movements, watching as he came
closer.

He was nearly paralyzed with fear but he refused to show even

that when his father stopped right in front of him. His father wasn’t
going to get anything from him, not even his fear.

Samuel winced when a handful of his hair was grabbed and his

head was yanked back. Nothing could have prevented the small growl
that left his lips when he glared up at his father.

“Still alive, I see.” He smirked as if vastly amused by the thought.

“Well, we’ll take care of that soon enough.”

Von Byrne released him so roughly Samuel flew back and hit the

floor. He tasted blood on his lip and knew the scent had hit the air
when several vampires in the room started to hiss.

His father just laughed. “Bring him.”
Before Samuel could get up he was yanked up by his hair and

dragged across the room. He scrambled to get up, falling down a few
times before he was able to gain his feet. The moment he was
standing, he was pushed forward, slamming into a wall. Hot heavy
breath blew across the back of his neck as a hard body pinned him to
the wall.

“I’ve missed you, slave.”
Samuel shuddered in revulsion.
“I see you’ve missed me, too.”
Bile rose in Samuel’s throat when the vampire pinning him to the

wall ran a hand over his ass. Garcina was his father’s muscle. He did
all the dirty work his father wouldn’t lower himself to do—like beat
the crap out of his son. Garcina enjoyed inflicting pain. He got off on
hearing Samuel scream.

Of all the vampires that Samuel hated—besides the man that had

donated sperm so he could live—Garcina was at the top of his list.

Stormy Glenn

“Your father is going to give you to me,” Garcina said. “He told

me so. And this time I will make sure you never leave.”

Samuel was afraid of that. It was a threat that his father often

used. “I’d rather be fucked by a wolf.” Well, not really, but
considering how much Garcina hated wolf-shifters, that was the worst
insult Samuel could think of to give the man.

And he apparently thought the same thing. Samuel winced and

pressed his lips together to keep from crying out when Garcina
slammed him into the wall repeatedly, his head smacking against the
hard plaster. He would not make a noise and give the monster the
satisfaction of hearing his pain.

“I’m going to make you scream, slave.”
Gee, there was a news flash.
Samuel swallowed to keep from throwing up when Garcina’s

rancid breath blew at him. He didn’t know if the horrid scent came
from the darkness of the man’s soul or from the fact that he probably
never brushed his fangs, but he needed a breath mint.

“Garcina!” The name was shouted from the other room. It was

Von Byrne, and he wasn’t happy.

Samuel knew he was going to pay in some manner for getting

Garcina in trouble, even if he didn’t do anything. Garcina was really
good at knocking people around, but he sucked at taking
responsibility for his actions.

Garcina grabbed Samuel by the back of the neck and forced him

through the archway out of the salon they were in and down the
hallway to where Von Byrne was standing, talking with another man,
one that looked vaguely familiar to Samuel, but he just didn’t know
where from.

And he really didn’t care when he got a good look at the glint of

insanity burning in his father’s eyes. Something other than handing
him over to Garcina was in the works, and Samuel was more terrified
than he’d ever been.

“And here’s the guest of honor,” Von Byrne said.

Forever and a Day

Something flashed in the other man’s eyes when he looked at

Samuel, something Samuel couldn’t identify. It was gone too quickly,
a mask of indifference falling over the man’s face.

Samuel almost breathed a sigh of relief when his father turned and

walked into the room he was standing in front of. The stranger
followed, and then Samuel was pushed inside and forced to his knees.

“Do you truly believe this is the way to go, Prince Von Byrne?”

the stranger asked.

“It is the only way to go,” Von Byrne replied. “We need soldiers

that are faster and stronger than vampires and werewolves combined.
We need a soldier that is invincible. I believe we’ve found one in
Samuel.”

Samuel was able to lift his head enough to see his father holding a

book in his hands. It was old, faded. Even from his position across the
room on his knees he could smell the must and rot from the book. It
smelled like it had been buried in the bowels of hell.

“It took me nearly two hundred years to track this tome down,”

Von Byrne said. “Once Samuel has mated his vampire, he will be
stronger than ever.”

“And how do you intend to control him if he’s going to be so

strong?” the stranger asked.

“I’ve always been able to control Samuel.”
Samuel almost dropped his jaw in surprise.
“He escaped,” the other man insisted.
Von Byrne’s eyebrow arched. “Did he?”
When his father grinned, Samuel began to get the feeling that his

escape had been the plan all along. He just didn’t understand how.
How could his father know that Sully would show up and buy him?
How could he know that Sully had been his mate? How did he even
know who Sully was?

Samuel glanced at the stranger again, a very bad feeling beginning

to curl in his belly. Just who was this man? Where did he know him
from?

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“I have everything assembled downstairs,” Von Byrne said as he

glanced up from the book and looked toward the stranger.

The man nodded.
Samuel bowed his head again and narrowed his eyes, watching

through the fall of his bangs. He racked his brain trying to figure out
where he had met this man because he was positive that he had. He
might not remember immediately but he never forgot a face
permanently. A little something he had learned while he was a blood
slave—always know the face of your enemy.

Obviously the book was something important. Von Byrne used

great care as he closed it and then wrapped it in red silk before
placing it in a very ornately carved silver box. He closed the lid and
locked it, pulling the key out and placing it on a delicate chain around
his neck.

“Get the book,” he ordered as he started for the door.
The stranger picked up the silver box and followed Von Byrne out

the door without protest. Samuel grunted as he was once again forced
to his feet and escorted out of a room. He had no idea where they
were going or what his father meant by ceremony. He wasn’t sure he
wanted to know either, not if mating someone was involved. There
was only one man he would ever mate.

And he was dead.

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101

Chapter Eleven

Sully twisted his wrists around, yanking on them, testing strength

of the chains wrapped around them. They wouldn’t budge. He wasn’t
going to escape them any time soon. Sully huffed and dropped his
wrists back to the stone slab he was chained down to. He drew in a
breath as he turned his head and glanced around the room he had been
put in. The walls were made of smooth gray stone as were the floors.
The ceiling was wooden beamed.

From where he lay, he could see just a portion of the room around

him, but what he could see made him think he had just walked into
some sort of medieval cathedral chamber. As there were no windows,
he strongly suspected that he was underground.

He remembered trying to get inside Von Byrne’s mansion. He

remembered the balcony and Cameron betraying him to the prince.
He did not remember how he got where he was.

The ache in the back of his head explained a lot.
The fact that he was naked didn’t.
There was something really unnerving about being stark-ass

naked and chained down to a cold hard slab of stone. If Samuel had
been there, he might have enjoyed it. Alone, with no knowledge of
what was going to happen, he wasn’t enjoying a thing.

And he was cold. His balls were about to shrivel up inside of him.

Sully shivered, wishing he had some way to ward off the chill in the
massive room. Even with no breeze blowing through the place, lying
on the stone slab with nothing between him and the stone sucked big
hairy donkey dicks.

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He hoped that Reece was able to do what he said he was and bring

back reinforcements. He didn’t know how long he would last down
there without any clothes. Hell, he didn’t even know how long he had
been down here.

What Sully found strange was that there were no guards. He

seemed to be all by himself. He hadn’t seen a single soul since he
woke up. If he wasn’t connected to the slab by chains attached to his
wrists and ankles, he would have explored more of his surroundings
and maybe found a way to escape. As it was, he could barely lift his
head.

Sully stiffened when he heard footsteps, straightening his

shoulders and lifting his head as much as he could while chained on
his back. He wished he had something to cover all his bits and pieces
he didn’t want flashing around, but all he could do was wait to see
who was coming into the room.

Voices were muted, but Sully counted at least two of them. He

counted more footsteps, which made him wonder if another prisoner
was being bought in and if he truly was in some sort of dungeon.

Sully’s lip curled back when Von Byrne stepped into his view. He

swore to himself that he was going to get free, one way or the other,
and he was going to beat that smirk right off Von Byrne’s face.

“I’ve brought you a friend to play with.”
Sully gulped as Von Byrne stepped back and Sully’s world turned

into a nightmare. “Samuel.”

The cocoa-brown eyes that stared at him from several feet away

were dazed, and maybe just a bit horrified. Even as he watched, they
slowly filled with tears.

“You’re dead,” Samuel whispered. A sudden chill hung on the

edge of his words. “I killed you.”

Sully’s eyes narrowed as they snapped to the man standing behind

Samuel. “No, you didn’t kill me, Samuel. You just winded me.”

“But…but he said—”
“He lied,” he said, his voice bridled with anger.

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103

“Why?” Samuel cried out as he spun around to face Cameron. His

cries were so heartbreaking Sully felt tears come to his own eyes.
“Why would you do that?”

Cameron said nothing. He didn’t even look down at Samuel or

acknowledge he was being talked to. He simply stared straight ahead,
almost as if he was in some sort of trance.

Sully roared and pulled at his chains when Samuel was pulled

away from Cameron and forced to his knees in front of Von Byrne.
The vampire prince grabbed a handful of Samuel’s light-brown curls
and yanked his head back.

“I don’t have a lot of time, Samuel. I’m sure your friends are

headed here even as we speak.”

Sully’s eyes snapped to Cameron again, realizing that the traitor

must have given away Reece’s plans to bring in reinforcements. He
was going to rip the fucker’s head off the first chance he got.

“The moon will be at its highest point in twenty minutes. You

have until then to forge the bond with your mate or he dies.”

“No!” Samuel cried out so loud that Sully winced. If he hadn’t

seen the fear in Samuel’s eyes, he might have been worried.

Von Byrne yanked on Samuel’s hair again. “You’re not listening

to me, Samuel.”

Von Byrne jerked his head toward Sully. A tall bulky guy that had

been standing there looking totally bored walked over to stand next to
Sully. Things grew precarious when the man pulled out a switchblade
knife and flipped it open, holding the sharp blade to Sully’s throat.

“You will mate with Sullivan because if you don’t, then he has no

value to me and I don’t need to keep him around.”

Sully gulped when he felt the blade cut into his skin. He didn’t

think the damage was too bad because he could still breathe but he
could feel something wet drip down his throat and he had no problem
guessing what it was.

“I…I can’t,” Samuel whispered.

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Von Byrne nodded, and the knife sank in deeper. Sully started to

grow worried. He didn’t exactly want to mate with Samuel under the
circumstance but he was concerned that Samuel’s refusal was going
to damn them both.

“No, no!” Samuel said quickly. “Wait, please. Don’t.”
Sully felt the pressure of the blade lessen but just a little. It was

enough that he could lower his head and stare across the chasm
between him and Samuel.

“It’s okay, Samuel.”
A chill black silence surrounded them as Samuel turned to look at

him. The pain in Samuel’s eyes wasn’t due to the numerous bites or
bruises marring his skin. It came from the decision he knew was
weighing so heavily on Samuel. If they mated, Samuel would gain
some of Sully’s abilities, which was exactly what Von Byrne wanted.
If they didn’t mate, Sully would most certainly die, and probably
Samuel as well.

Sully would willingly give his life for Samuel. That was never

even a question for him. If he thought his death would insure
Samuel’s safety, he’d make sure the blade at his throat went deep. He
just didn’t think it would work. Von Byrne had clear plans for
Samuel, and they involved Sully in some sick and twisted manner.
The trap that had been set for him was a clear indication of that.

“I’m waiting, Samuel.”
The man beside him with the knife moved out of the way as

Samuel shuffled forward. Sully caught the lecherous sneer on the
man’s face out of the corner of his eye, and that was when he realized
that Samuel was as naked as he was. How he had missed that when
Samuel walked into the room, he would never know. He could only
chalk it up to being so glad to see his mate and the fear of the
situation they were in.

The moment Samuel got within touching distance, he dove at

Sully, burying his face in Sully’s neck. He didn’t care that three other
men watched him. He didn’t care that their plans for them probably

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105

meant their death. He didn’t even care that the one with the knife was
becoming aroused by watching them.

All he cared about was that he finally had Samuel back. Samuel

seemed to fold in on himself as he curled into Sully’s chest. The silent
sobs that racked his body were heart wrenching and so unlike the
fierce little man his mate had become that Sully wanted to rage
against the world.

“I’ve got you, Samuel,” Sully whispered against Samuel’s curls.

He might be restrained and unable to hold his mate, but he could still
hold his mate. “I’m here, baby.”

The weight of the eyes watching them was heavy, oppressing.

Sully glanced up at the four men. All had different expressions on
their faces, all of them dangerous in their own way.

The stranger with the knife was getting off on what he was seeing.

Sully detected bit of jealousy as well and knew without asking that he
was one of the men that had abused Samuel.

Cameron’s eyes kept darting from the silver box he held in his

hands to Von Byrne. There was something calculating in his eyes, but
also desperate.

The fanatical glee in Von Byrne’s face worried Sully the most.

His stare wasn’t sexual but just as intense. He watched every
movement between Sully and Samuel like a voyeur watching a live
sex show…or a scientist watching an experiment. Sully expected him
to start drooling at any moment.

Sully pressed his lips to Samuel’s ear, whispering so low he was

barely a murmur. “Baby, we need to finish cementing our bond.”

“We can’t,” Samuel sobbed. “You know what he’s going to do if

we mate. He wants to make me into some sort of super soldier.”

“I do,” Sully admitted, “but I don’t think he understands that he’s

already created a super soldier. You’re going to be even stronger if we
mate, and right now, we need that strength if we want to get out of
here alive.”

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Sully didn’t have the heart to tell Samuel that he seriously doubted

they would escape alive. If they truly were in a dungeon as he
suspected, then not only did they have to fight Von Byrne, Cameron,
and the idiot with the knife, they would have to fight with all of Von
Byrne’s soldiers.

Not even Samuel was that strong.
Knowing that, Sully wanted to make Samuel’s last moments

special. He wanted the man to be his mate before they left the earth.

“Baby, please,” Sully whispered in Samuel’s ear, not one ounce of

guilt filling him at his simple pleading. “Do this for me.”

Samuel sniffled then slowly raised his head, nodding at the same

time. A little frown formed between his eyebrows when he looked at
the chains restraining Sully. “How…”

“We have to—”
Sully grimaced when Samuel’s face drained of what little color it

had in it. Samuel’s eyes nervously darted to the three men standing
there watching them with a vast amount of interest. “In front of
them?”

Sully didn’t like it any more than Samuel did, but for a true bond

to form between them, they needed to exchange blood while having
sex. It was the most intimate two people could be. Besides, Sully had
one more trick up his sleeve, something that might give them the extra
strength they needed to get out of there.

“Samuel, look at me.” The fear was so vivid in Samuel’s eyes as

he turned to look at Sully that it almost drowned out the color. “I want
you to concentrate on me and only me.”

An almost impossible feat considering the situation, but he swore

he was going to make this a good experience for Samuel, or at least
not a horrible one.

“No one else is here, just you and me.”
“Yeah, okay.” Samuel sniffled again then pushed his curls back

from his face. “What do I do?”

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107

“We need some oil.” Sully burned with anger, the knowledge that

he had to claim his mate in front of others making his stomach knot.
But not claiming Samuel was even worse. “Look around and see what
you can find.”

Samuel nodded and slid off the stone slab.
“We don’t have time for this,” Von Byrne snapped. “Just fuck him

and get it over with.”

Sully growled when Samuel whimpered and dropped his head.

“You know both of us have to be willing in order for this to work.
Keep interfering and I’ll let you kill me before I mate him.”

Von Byrne’s eyes narrowed, but the man couldn’t argue. Both

parties did have to be willing in order for the bond to form. Sully was
more than willing, but he would rather die than cause Samuel pain.

“Some privacy wouldn’t hurt either.” It wasn’t like this was the

only time in his life that Sully had performed in front of others, but
doing it willingly versus being forced were two different things.

“Do not push me, Sullivan.”
Sully’s jaw almost dropped when Von Byrne gestured with his

head and the three men walked to the far side of the room. He really
hadn’t expected that to work.

“Will this work?”
Sully glanced at Samuel to see him holding a small tube of lube.

“Yeah.” He frowned in confusion. They were in a dungeon, weren’t
they? “Where did you find that?”

Samuel kept his lips pressed together until he had climbed up onto

the stone slab. He leaned down close to whisper. “The blond-haired
vampire dropped it on the floor and kicked it over to me.”

Blond-haired— “Cameron?”
Samuel nodded.
Now, why in the hell would he do that? Sully lifted his head and

tried to spot the other vampire, but the three men had moved beyond
his line of vision. He didn’t know why Cameron was providing them
with lube unless it was all part of Von Byrne’s plan to get them to

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mate. Although, why Von Byrne would care if they eased the way for
Samuel, Sully didn’t know. As evil as the man was, he would think
Von Byrne would enjoy the pain Samuel would go through if claimed
without lube.

“Have you ever stretched yourself out, Samuel?”
Samuel’s face flushed as he nodded, putting color back into his

cheeks.

“Good.” Sully grinned. “I want you to straddle my chest.”
The frown was back between Samuel’s eyes, but he did as Sully

directed. Sully blew out a heavy breath when Samuel’s semihard cock
bounced in front of his face. Even as he breathed out, his breath
blowing over Samuel’s cock, it hardened, coming to life right before
Sully’s eyes.

“You like that, baby?” he asked before blowing again, this time

with a little more force. Sully could feel his own cock reacting to
Samuel’s presence, hardening and starting to ache.

“Ye–yeah.”
“Lube up your fingers, Samuel. Get yourself ready. I want your

ass good and stretched for me when it’s time.”

Samuel’s breathing hitched, his eyes dilating. The sweet smell of

his arousal permeated the air. Samuel’s fingers shook as he ripped the
tube of lube open and squirted some out on his fingers. He dropped
the packet down on the slab next to Sully then reached back behind
him.

Sully knew the exact moment Samuel’s fingers started to stretch

his ass out. The man’s eyes widened and a small moan fell from his
lips. “That’s it, baby. Get yourself nice and stretched.” Sully tried to
draw in a deep breath, but his body felt like it was going to explode
when Samuel moved, his body brushing over the top of Sully’s aching
cock.

“Up on your knees, Samuel. I want your cock.”

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109

Samuel’s eyes widened even more than they had before. His

movements were awkward and jerky as he pushed up onto his knees
and leaned his hips down toward Sully.

Sully kept his eyes locked with Samuel’s as he stuck out his

tongue and licked away the drops of pre-cum pooling on the head of
Samuel’s cock.

Samuel’s hips twitched.
Sully grinned as he did it again, stroking his tongue over the

bulbous head and down around the edge of the crown. Samuel’s
breathing increased, his breaths coming out in little rapid pants. His
hips started jerking.

“Do you like that, baby?”
Cocoa-brown eyes dazed with lust blinked down at him.
Sully grinned. “Then you’re going to love this.” He tilted his head

and engulfed Samuel’s straining cock down his throat, swallowing as
much of it as he could get in his mouth at that angle. Samuel’s high-
pitched cry echoes through the room, the sound a delight to Sully’s
ears. He wanted Samuel mindless with passion.

Sully used his throat muscles to milk Samuel’s erection. He traced

the veins of Samuel’s cock with his tongue, his cheeks hollowing. He
sucked hard, fast, and ferociously. His head bobbed back and forth,
taking Samuel deeper down his throat as Samuel leaned heavier into
him, his knees beginning to shake.

With their eyes focused on each other, Sully pulled his lips tight

over the head of Samuel’s cock. He licked a path up one side of
Samuel’s thick erection before swallowing him down, teasing and
stroking Sully’s cock.

Sully groaned as he felt the cock in his mouth swell. Samuel cried

out as his cum splashed down the back of Sully’s throat. Sully pressed
his face into Samuel’s groin, drinking down every last drop, and then
pulled back, lapping at the head until Samuel twitched.

“Are you ready for me, baby?”
Samuel nodded, his throat working hard as he swallowed.

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Sully’s head cocked to the side. “Do you want this, Samuel?”
“I do. I just—” Samuel’s eyes dropped as he shrugged.
“Look at me, mate.”
Samuel’s eyes were hesitant as he raised them to meet Sully’s.
“I want this, Samuel. I want this more than anything I’ve ever

wanted in my life. And I don’t care if I have only a few minutes with
you as my mate or a few centuries. I want to know I experienced the
wonder of having you as mine before I die.”

Samuel’s eyes watered, tears slowly trailing down his ashen face.

“Do you mean that?”

Sully smiled at the light he could see coming to life in Samuel’s

beautiful eyes. “I mean it, Samuel. You are my mate, and I will love
you in this world and the next.”

A half sob burst from Samuel’s lips before he fell against Sully’s

chest. “I love you so much,” Samuel cried. “I never thought you
would… I’m not a vampire so I didn’t think you would ever…but you
did and now… I thought I had lost you once before and I wanted to
die, but you’re here now and I’m going to lose you before…”

“You’re not going to lose me, Samuel.” There was a hard edge to

Sully’s voice as he replied, pressing his lips against the top of
Samuel’s head. “You’re never going to lose me.”

Sully almost swallowed his tongue when Samuel suddenly sat up,

his hips lifting into the air before coming back down, Sully’s cock
sliding between his ass cheeks.

“Oh, fuck!” Sully’s entire body clenched as Samuel sank down on

his cock until nothing remained between them, not even a slip of air.
“Sweet, sweet baby.”

Had anything ever felt so good?
Samuel moved a fraction of an inch, and Sully thought his entire

body was going to seize. “That’s it, Samuel, fuck yourself on my
cock. Let me feel you,” Sully said, concentrating on keeping his seed
from bursting from his balls. He was on the verge, so close to the

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111

edge that he could see the jagged rocks at the bottom. Sully was
fighting with all his might not to come.

Samuel took in deep and ragged breaths, biting hard into his

bottom lip. He looked pensive, as if trying to decide something
important.

“Samuel!” Sully shouted as Samuel slammed back, taking every

last inch of Sully’s thick cock up his ass. Samuel ignored Sully’s
surprised protest as he slammed back once more. He began to rock
back and forth on his hand and knees.

“Be mine, Samuel,” Sully whispered into Samuel’s mouth as his

tongue traced along Samuel’s bottom lip. “Let me claim you.”

“Yes.” It was that easy.
When his body dropped down, Sully nibbled his way over

Samuel’s neck before sinking his fangs in deep.

The sweet taste of

Samuel’s blood hit him like a freight train. His thrusts increased in
both speed and intensity as his mouth pulled on Samuel’s neck. He
didn’t start out slow, instead going straight to pounding into Samuel
as fast and as hard as he could.

“Damn, you are so responsive,” Sully whispered as he pulled his

fangs free and began to move, thrusting his hips up, driving his cock
deep inside Samuel’s ass. It was maddening. His body shivered with
his lover’s touch, his kiss, and his very presence. Sully wanted to sink
inside of Samuel and never resurface.

It was the greatest feeling ever.
But he needed just a bit more.
He didn’t know if the words would mean anything to the powers

that be if the ancient ritual wasn’t performed as it had been with
Prince Dominic and Danny, but he had to try. He wanted more than
just a mating bond with Samuel.

He wanted forever, and then maybe a little more.
“I accept you, Samuel Erickson, as my mate from here to

eternity,” Sully whispered as he locked eyes with Samuel. “I swear

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upon my life to protect you from all harm and put your life above my
own.”

Samuel’s eye filled.
“Do you, Samuel Erickson, accept me as your mate from here to

eternity? Do you swear upon your life to give me life and take into
yourself the life that I give you?”

“Ye–yes,” Samuel whispered.
“Then take from me, Samuel.” Sully tilted his head back. “From

this time forward, may our souls remain entwined with each other for
all eternity, not even to be separated in death. May the blood we share
give life to each other, and may the power of both keep us safe.”

The seconds ticked by faster than light, and yet as slow as a

breath. Would Samuel accept this final thing, this bond that would
maybe stand the test of time? Did he want forever?

“Samuel!” Sully shouted when Samuel leaned forward and licked

at the knife wound in his neck, swiping away the thin trail of blood
with his tongue.

Something deep inside of Sully snapped into place when he felt

his life thread intertwining with Samuel’s. No longer would he be
alone. His heart wouldn’t ache with loneliness.

Samuel was his.
The look in Samuel’s eyes stole the breath from Sully’s lungs. In

that span of time, that single moment, Sully would have given Samuel
his soul if he had asked for it. Samuel looked at him as if Sully was
his whole world.

Samuel’s fingers ghosted over Sully’s face, his lips slowly

capturing Sully’s. Sully growled softly as he allowed Samuel to kiss
him. Sully opened, finally tasting man and desire as Samuel’s tongue
swept through his mouth, making him want things he thought he
would never be allowed to have.

Sully gasped when Samuel lifted up and then pushed back down

on Sully’s cock. Sweat trickled down Sully’s body as he thrust into
Samuel and then stiffened, his head falling back as he roared. His

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113

mind splintered as his cock exploded, pulling his balls so tight up to
his body as they emptied that Sully thought they would stay that way
permanently.

Samuel cried out as cum coated the space between them before he

collapsed down on top of Sully.

“You’re mine now, Samuel,” Sully whispered in his mind, praying

that they had been granted that special connection.

“And you’re mine,” Samuel whispered right back. He brushed his

lips over Sully’s and then gave him the greatest smile Sully had ever
witnessed in his life. “Forever.”

Sully swallowed past the tears clogging his throat. “Forever and a

day, mate.”

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Chapter Twelve

“I’m ready to go home now.” Samuel used the same mental link

Sully had used to talk to him. He knew Danny could talk to Dominic
in that manner, and he knew Sully and Dominic could talk the same
way. He just never expected to have the same bond.

He was glad they did.
“I need to get out of these chains, baby.”
Samuel winced as he lifted up just enough that Sully’s softening

cock slid from his ass. They both moaned at the sensation. Samuel
hated to lose the connection to his mate, but the telepathy helped.

“I think I can get you out of them, but it’s going to be fast,”

Samuel warned. “The second they figure out what we’re doing, they
are going to be on us.”

Sully drew in a deep breath and then nodded. “I know, but it’s the

only way, Samuel. I’ll die before I let him abuse you again.”

Except for his brother, Samuel couldn’t remember the last time

someone had cared for him like Sully did. Hell, no one had ever cared
for him like Sully did. He was the first one good thing in Samuel’s
life.

“In case I didn’t say it before,” Samuel said even though he knew

he had. “I want to spend forever with you.”

“You’ll get it,” Sully replied without missing a beat.
Samuel stiffened when he heard movement behind him. He lifted

his head and glanced back over his shoulder. His father was moving
toward them. Garcina walked right behind him. Cameron just stood
there by the doorway holding that stupid silver box.

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115

“Time to go, Sully.” Samuel turned. Using his body to block the

view, he reached up and pulled on the chains holding Sully down to
the stone slab. His heart started beating faster as he pulled and pulled
and nothing happened.

Just as he heard footsteps stop behind him, the chains snapped.

Samuel roared as he jumped up, landing on his feet between Sully’s
legs. He used the flat stone slab to launch himself at his father.

Samuel wished that he had his stakes or his sword, but when he

swung at his father and four deep tears appeared in the man’s
immaculate suit, he realized he didn’t need a weapon to fight with.

He was a weapon.
Screams of pain and horror filled the chamber, drowned out only

by the roars of two very pissed off vampires. Samuel swiped at his
father again and again, all the anger and rage and hurt he had bottled
up since the day of his birth came rushing out.

When his father went down and soldiers swarmed into the room,

Samuel growled and turned to face the new threat. When two of the
soldiers headed in Sully’s direction, Samuel put himself between the
enemy and his mate, hissing as he flashed his newfound claws.

“Touch my mate and die!” It wasn’t an idle threat. He would kill

anyone that touched a hair on Sully’s head.

The two men froze and then slowly raised their hands in a

submissive gesture, backing up until the hit the edge of the stairs. And
then they just stood there, watching Samuel warily.

Samuel took a step back, and then another and another until he

could feel Sully’s fingers brush his. “Mate?”

“I’m okay, Samuel,” Sully said out loud. “That asshole with your

father got in a good shot to my ribs before I ripped his head off. I’m
just a little winded.”

Samuel desperately wanted to look, but he refused to take his eyes

off the soldiers standing near the stairs leading out of the chamber.
Instead, he took another step back until he could crouch down in front
of Sully, one hand dropping down to rest on Sully’s leg.

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“We still need to get past those guards.”
Samuel saw Sully’s head out of the corner of his eyes as the man

leaned forward and looked around him. When Sully started laughing,
Samuel turned and looked at his mate, confused by his amusement.
He got it that he was supposed to be some sort of super soldier thing
but he didn’t find it amusing at all to be in a fight. In fact, he’d prefer
if he could avoid them.

“Sully?”
“Relax, love.” Sully nodded his head toward the men standing

there. “That’s our rescue.”

Samuel’s eyebrows shot up as he looked back at the two massive

men. “Them?” His lip curled back in warning when one of the men
smirked at him. He could take them.

“Reece, Marcus,” Sully called out. “Meet my mate, Samuel.”
The man with the collar-length wavy black hair tipped his hand,

nodding. The other man just arched an eyebrow. Samuel knew
instantly that he was a vampire. He had that haughty way about them
that all vampires seemed to have.

“I thought you said Samuel was human,” Reece said.
“He is,” Sully replied. “But he’s something else, too.”
“What?”
“Mine.” One word, one simple word with four letters in it and

Samuel melted. He scooted back until he felt Sully’s arms wrap
around him.

Samuel kept his eyes locked on the men across the room, not

trusting them one damn bit, and then tilted his head to the side, giving
Sully access to his throat.

“Sam—”
“Don’t make me hurt you!”
Sully’s warm chuckle floated through his mind as sharp fangs

pierced his skin. Samuel groaned, his body tightening as Sully fed
from him. If someone had told him a month ago he would be aroused

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117

by feeding a vampire, he would have laughed himself silly, and then
maybe kicked them for saying something so horribly wrong.

Now, he could think of very few things that brought him more

pleasure than the feel of Sully’ fangs embedded in his throat, drawing
life giving blood from him.

“Hey, how are you?” Sully asked once he had extracted his fangs

and licked the bite wound closed. “Are you hurt anywhere?”

Samuel glanced up into the face staring down at him with such

love and concern, and, as much as his body ached and his stomach
turned with the smell of the blood spilled in the room, his soul
lightened. “I’m perfect.”

* * * *

Samuel growled as he swatted Danny’s hand away from his

mouth. “Would you knock it off?”

“I just want to feel them.”
“Feel your own damn fangs,” Samuel snapped as he moved his

head back away from his brother. “These are mine.”

Danny snickered as he leaned back against the headboard of the

bed they were stretched out on. “Bet you never thought you’d say
that.”

That much was true.
Samuel shrugged. “It’s not so bad.”
“Did the doc say whether you have the vampire gene or not?”
Samuel nodded. “I do.”
“So?” Danny’s eyes rounded purposely. “Are you going to have

Sully covert you?”

“Maybe, one day. Right now, I’m still trying to get used to all the

changes I’m already experiencing.”

And there were a lot of them.
Samuel rolled over onto his back and stared up at the ceiling.

“Sully loves the fact that I can bite him even if I don’t really need to

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feed from him. He says he can feel our bond strengthening every time
I do it.”

“Yeah, Dominic says the same thing. Personally, I think it’s just a

kink thing for them.”

No, Samuel and Sully had discovered an entirely different kink,

one that surprised both of them. Samuel smiled as he glanced at the
thick wrought iron headboard, remembering how sexy Sully had
looked handcuffed to the solid bars.

They had searched for two weeks to find a bed Sully couldn’t

break in the throes of passion…after breaking three of them. The
results had been spectacular. Samuel’s ass still ached from the
previous night’s activities.

Samuel tilted his head back when the bedroom door opened. His

heart skipped a beat when Sully walked into the room, heading
straight for him. The man didn’t even say a word. He just leaned
down and captured Samuel’s mouth in a kiss that curled his toes and
nearly set the sheets on fire. By the time he lifted his head, Samuel
could barely breathe.

Sully’s fingers brushed over his cheek, the man’s eyebrows

pulling low as his expression grew serious. “I need you to come down
to Dominic’s office.”

Dread stole the lighthearted feeling Samuel had been basking in.

He rolled over to his stomach and then pushed himself up into a
kneeling position.

“Why?”
“Dominic and Prince Zacarius need to speak to you.”
A deathly chill wrapped around Samuel, making him shiver.

“They’re not going to sell me, are they?”

“What?” Sully shouted. “No!” He stood, rubbing his hand down

over his face before glancing at Danny. “Can I have a moment with
my mate, your highness?”

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119

Samuel blinked in surprise at Sully’s formal address. He never

referred to Danny in that manner unless they were in front of others.
They weren’t. They were in their own bedroom.

Danny got up without word and left the room, the door closing

quietly behind him.

“Do you remember what happened when we were in your father’s

dungeon?” Sully asked as he sat down on the side of the bed. “Do you
remember the words we spoke to each other?”

Samuel nodded. Remember them? He couldn’t forget them. In his

mind, the words they spoken to each other had been as good as
marriage vows.

“There are a lot of things that go into that ancient ritual. Due to

our circumstances, I didn’t think it would work, but it seems that I
was wrong. Part of the ritual requires that we claim each other in front
of witnesses including the prince of another coven. Since your father
was there as well as Garcina and Cameron, we fulfilled that part of
the ritual. We also exchanged blood during sex, as is required by the
ritual.”

“Why is this ritual so important?”
“Because it binds us together in a way that goes back thousands of

years. No one, not even a prince of a coven, can separate us. We are
mated for all eternity and no one can take that away from us. No one
can take you away from me. Ever.”

Sully’s words were spoken so vehemently that Samuel had to

believe them. He blew out the breath he didn’t know he had been
holding. “When I thought I had killed you, I…I didn’t want to live. I
wanted to be wherever you were. I can’t go back to that.”

“Oh, baby.” Samuel yelped when he was suddenly picked up and

settled in Sully’s lap. “Now, you listen to me, Samuel Erickson. We
are mated, bonded deeper than even most paranormal matings. Our
souls have entwined. No matter where we go, here or in the hereafter,
we will always be together.”

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Samuel sighed as he keened into his mate, drawing in a deep

breath to fill his lungs with Sully’s heady scent. It calmed him as it
had since the day they met. He stroked his hand down the man’s
chest, rubbing the side of his face against his shirt.

“I need you, Sully.”
Samuel’s eyes fluttered closed when he felt Sully’s fingers twine

in his hair. A moment later, the man’s lips pressed against the top of
his head. “Not nearly as much as I need you, Samuel.”

Samuel couldn’t think of a thing that Sully needed from him, but

he wasn’t going to argue with the man. He opened his eyes and tilted
his head back. “I guess we’d better head on down to Dominic’s office,
huh?”

Sully’s mouth split into a grin. “It’s not a good idea to keep your

prince waiting. They get testy.” Sully set Samuel on his feet and then
stood. “Get your vest, baby.”

Samuel’s eyebrows peaked. “Am I going to need it?”
“You should never assume you won’t. A warrior is always

prepared for anything.”

Samuel rolled his eyes when Sully reached into the nightstand and

grabbed a tube of lube, sliding it into his pocket.

“Like I said”—Sully grinned, wiggling his eyebrows until Samuel

laughed— “always prepared.”

Samuel laughed as he grabbed his vest off the dresser and pulled it

on. He took the hood Sully held out to him and slid it on over the vest,
zipping it up halfway. He needed to be able to get to his stakes
quickly.

He smiled and took the hand Sully held out to him, following the

man out of their bedroom and down the hallway.

As they passed a painting being rehung on the wall, Samuel

couldn’t help but stare. Dominic had been so pissed when he found
out that Samuel had destroyed the antique wooden frames on the
paintings. There had been a little damage to the panting, but Sully
assured him it could be fixed. Samuel wasn’t so sure.

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“Not to worry love,” Sully whispered in his mind. “That’s a

replica. Dominic had the real ones locked away in his vault.”

“Is he still mad at me?”
“I wouldn’t bring it up anytime soon.”
Samuel winced. That was a yes.
When they reached Dominic’s office, Samuel felt hesitation slow

his steps. “Who’s in there?” He could hear voices from inside the
large gentlemen’s study.

“Come on, love.” Sully tugged until Samuel started walking

again.

Samuel’s heartbeat seemed to be on hold as he stepped inside the

room. It settled and started to beat again when he saw Danny sitting
on Dominic’s lap as the large man lounged in a chair in the sitting
area in front of the fireplace. Dominic would never allow Danny to be
anywhere he wasn’t safe.

As Sully pulled him toward the sitting area, Samuel’s eyes darted

to the other occupants in the room. A low growl ripped from his chest
when he saw Cameron standing beside Prince Zacarius. He reached
into his hoody to grab a stake.

“No!” Samuel looked up Sully in confusion when the man

grabbed his wrist. “No, baby. Put it away.”

“But—” His eyes went to the man standing across the room again.
“Please,” Prince Zacarius said as he stood, bowing slightly, which

was weird in itself. What prince in his right mind would bow to him?
“Give us a chance to explain.”

Samuel glanced at the others in the room only to find them all

staring right back at him. There was a hesitant breath in the air almost
as if everyone was waiting to see what he would do.

“If he comes near Sully, he’s a dead man.”
“Fair enough.” Prince Zacarius nodded, and then waved his hand

to the empty loveseat across from him. “Please, join us.”

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Samuel made sure he placed himself between Sully and the man

that had betrayed them. He didn’t understand why Cameron wasn’t in
chains…or dead.

Samuel preferred dead.
“First,” Dominic said, “we want to let you know that your father

has been taken to council headquarters. Once he heals from his
injuries, he will stand trial for the things he’s done.”

“I apologize for not killing him,” Samuel said. “I won’t make that

mistake again.”

Dominic’s jaw dropped. “Samuel, it’s not your responsibility to

administer justice to Von Byrne.”

“He tried to hurt Sully.” That was all the reason Samuel needed.
Dominic stared.
Samuel’s eyes slid to the tall, brown-haired man standing behind

Prince Zacarius. If he remembered right, the man was a wolf-shifter
and the prince’s royal consort. His mate.

“I like him,” the man said.
“Of course you do, darling.” The prince patted his mate’s hand.

“He speaks to your inner beast.”

Devlin snorted. “You speak to my inner beast, my love. He speaks

to my sense of fair play.”

Dominic drew Samuel’s attention when he cleared his throat. “As

I was saying, your father will stand trial for the things he does. I
suspect that the council will want you and Danny to testify to what
you both know. Are you okay with that?”

“Can Sully come with me?”
Dominic blinked as if surprised. “Of course. He is your mate.”
“Then I am fine with it.”
Dominic nodded. “I’ll let you know when the council contacts

us.”

“Thank you.” Samuel started to stand, but Sully pulled him back

down. “What?” he asked as he looked up at his mate.

“We’re not done, baby.”

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Damn.
He was hoping to skip this part.
“Cameron didn’t betray us, Samuel.”
Samuel heard Sully’s words, but he didn’t believe them. “He

works for my father.”

“No,” Prince Zacarius said, “he actually works for me.”
Samuel was confused. “He’s your security lieutenant.”
“True, but he was on a mission when you met up with him, sent

by me.”

“What sort of mission?”
“The secret kind.”
Prince Zacarius waved his hand. Samuel watched as Cameron

leaned walked over to the sideboard, coming back a moment later
with a silver box—the same ornate silver box he had seen his father
with. He set it down on the coffee table in front of his prince.

Prince Zacarius pulled a key out of his pocket and unlocked the

box, flipping the lid back. He didn’t pull the book out, but he did pull
the red silk back, revealing the ancient tome.

“This book has been a myth my entire life, and I’m older than

most. No one ever believed it was real until recently. I started to
receive reports that your father was looking for it, and then when we
raided the compound where Jasper was being held, we found
indication that your father might have found it.”

“What is it?” Samuel asked.
“It’s a book of ancient rituals, forbidden rituals.”
Everyone seemed so serious and Samuel didn’t understand why.

“And?”

“Most of the ancient rituals are forbidden to us because of how

dangerous they are. And very few people know how to perform then
anyway.”

“My father seemed to.”
“And that is why I sent Cameron in. We needed to get that book

out of your father’s hands. Your father and I are probably two of a

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very small handful of people that can actually perform these ancient
rituals. In the wrong hands—including your father’s—these rituals
could destroy the paranormal world.”

Samuel shivered with a chill that he suspected no one felt but him.

“Then why not destroy it?”

“Because there are also rituals in there that work for the greater

good and it would be a travesty to destroy them.” Prince Zacarius
gestured to Dominic and Danny. “The ritual we used to save Danny’s
life when he was poisoned, bonding him to his prince, is one of the
rituals in that book.”

“It’s the same ritual we used, baby,” Sully said.
Samuel’s shoulders slumped. “So, we can’t destroy it.”
Prince Zacarius shook his head. “No, but it will be under lock and

key.”

“And him?” Samuel nodded toward Cameron.
“He was under orders, Samuel,” Dominic insisted.
“To make me believe I had killed Sully?”
Cameron sighed, his shoulders dropping. “You were in danger

from Von Byrne. I knew he was coming. I just didn’t know when. I
was trying to get you out of there.”

“You could have just said something.”
“Cameron was under orders not to tell anyone of his mission. If

word got out that this book actually existed, paranormals the world
over would be searching for it. He had to stay undercover until he had
that book.”

Samuel couldn’t fault their logic, but he wasn’t quite ready to let

go of his anger. “That doesn’t explain why he—”

The rest of Samuel’s words were muffled under Sully’s hand.

“Baby, let it go. It all worked out in the end.”

“Quite right, Sullivan,” Prince Zacarius replied. “We’ve gotten the

book away from Prince Von Byrne before anyone could learn of it.
Von Byrne has been captured and will now stand trial for the things
he did. And the paranormal world can once again breathe easy.”

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“You believe it is over?” Samuel asked.
The prince’s smile was rueful. “I’m afraid I am far too old to

believe things are over until they are truly over. When I witness
Prince Laurent Von Byrne’s head leave his shoulders, I will believe it
is over.”

“I’d be happy to take care of it for you.” Samuel didn’t hold one

ounce of guilt for his words. Von Byrne had stopped being his father
long before the man sold him as a blood slave. And after the things he
had done to the world—paranormal and human—ending the man’s
existence wouldn’t be a hardship.

“While I appreciate the sentiment, Samuel,” the prince replied, “I

believe it is best if this is handled by the council. There are those out
there that still follow your father, and we would not want them
coming after you or Danny.”

Samuel knew the prince was right. “So, now what? Do we just go

on with our lives and pretend this never happened or what?”

“I believe…” Prince Zacarius glanced at Dominic.
“I believe,” Dominic said, “that Sully intends to train you to be a

warrior.”

Samuel’s heart jumped as he swung around to look at his mate.

“Really?”

“Something happened to you when we mated, Samuel, something

special. Just like something happened to Danny.” Sully smiled as he
stroked his fingers through Samuel’s curls, but it was almost a sad
smile. “Just like Danny is different because he mated with Dominic,
you are different because you mated with me.”

“What does that mean?”
“How do you feel about helping me be Prince Dominic’s second-

in-command?”

Samuel’s eyes rounded. “Can we do that?”
Sully smiled as he waved his hand toward Dominic. “Ask our

prince.”

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Dominic was smiling when Samuel turned to look at him. “I once

asked Sully to be Danny’s guardian, his Sàssari, because I trusted no
one more to keep my mate safe. I can’t think of anyone that would
want more at Sully’s side keeping Danny safe as well as my entire
coven. I have no doubt that you will be an excellent warrior.”

Samuel’s eyes burned a little as he turned back to his mate,

leaning into Sully’s side. “I guess I’m going to be sticking around
then.”

“I should hope so, mate.” Sully brushed their lips together. “You

promised me forever and day.”

THE END

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stormy believes the only thing sexier than a man in cowboy boots

is two or three men in cowboy boots. She also believes in love at first
sight, soul mates, true love, and happy endings.

You can usually find her cuddled in bed with a book in her hand

and a puppy in her lap, or on her laptop, creating the next sexy man
for one of her stories. Stormy welcomes comments from readers. You
can find her website at www.stormyglenn.com.

For all titles by Stormy Glenn, please visit