right beside Ramses and Eveline.
Ramses raised a hand to still his guards.
They all looked at the object on the marble floor a few feet away from Eveline at the bottom of the dais.
It was a scroll.
Eli retrieved it from the ground and unrolled it carefully.
When he looked back at Ramses after skimming the contents of the scroll, a foreboding shudder shook Eveline’s entire body.
“It is a Challenge for your rule of the New England hive,” the shadow warrior said in a low voice that everyone nevertheless heard clearly, perhaps because everyone was eerily silent in the throne room, as if holding their collective breath.
“A Challenge to the death.”
*** *** *** ***
Click, click, click, click.
That was the sound of Eveline’s slippers as she hastened to keep up with Ramses’ lengthy strides while he dragged her by the arm down the short corridor behind the throne room to his chambers.
She didn’t protest, he was pleased to note. If only she’d been equally quiet during the gathering.
How dared she touch him in such a way in front of a formal audience! How dared she claim him so blatantly!
But because there was an audience, and he had a point to make, he couldn’t in any way verbally or physically gainsay her. He didn’t want to pretend that she was his Blood Slave for reasons he’d shared with her. By demonstrating the dual-binding nature of their Contract, however, Eveline had made him look weak.
He detested weakness of any kind, especially when it pertained to himself.
Even so, he knew that nothing would have prevented Anya from tossing down the Challenge. He knew from the moment their eyes met when she’d stepped forth that she was pursuing a specific course of action no matter what he did.
He’d expected it. He even welcomed it.
But he hadn’t expected the rash boldness of his supposedly level-headed little librarian.
When they were in his apartment and the heavy doors were closed, he literally tossed her onto his bed with a mere flick of his wrist.
She landed on top of the covers with a startled squeak, as if she hadn’t been prepared for so much strength. After all, he’d only had her by one arm. She had not even an inkling of the power he possessed.
She’d soon learn.
Dazedly, she blinked at him, but otherwise remained silent.
He stood glaring at her with hands on hips, chest slightly heaving as he took deep breaths to calm his temper.
She stared back.
After long minutes, he uttered, “Sausage muffin.”
Slowly, she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth.
Why did she have to look so fucking adorable when she did that?
Something like amusement warred with his anger.
“Well…you called me little sprite. I told you I don’t like it.”
Her voice was quivering and on the high end of her range, so he knew that she felt nervous. But the stubborn tilt of her chin told him that she was far from cowed.
“Would you prefer I called you Stud Muffin instead?”
There it was. She was definitely not cowed.
“Or Sugar Bear?”
He drew in a deep, deep breath.
“King Kong?”
He let it out slowly.
“You don’t like gorillas?”
Enough!
“You put your hand on me,” he barked out.
“You made me sit at your feet,” she retorted.
“We have a Contract. You agreed to behave accordingly.”
“Which does not include being reduced to a pet at your feet.”
“So you grab my cock in front of court instead?” he exclaimed with incredulity.
“I barely grazed it,” she sniffed. “Queen Anya was looking at your crotch like it was hers, and I was just reminding her that for the duration of our Contract, it’s not.”
“No part of my body is yours either,” he reminded her, advancing upon the bed. “We do not have that kind of Contract.”
“Well, she didn’t know, did she?” the Pure One had the gall to look pleased at this.
Ramses stopped at the foot of the bed, both confounded and amazed.
Again, he stared at her for long moments, trying to make sense of her actions and words.
And then he asked, “What do you hope to accomplish by claiming me in public?”
She scrunched her nose—again—adorably.
“I wasn’t trying to accomplish anything,” she muttered. “I wasn’t claiming you, as you say. I was just warding off presumptuous hussies like the gaudy blondie.”
“Gaudy blondie,” Ramses echoed disbelievingly.
Anya was widely known as one of the most beautiful vampire queens in the world, second only to Jade Cicada.
“Really, she should invest in some push-up bras,” Eveline said as she cupped her own meager chest in demonstration. “All that hanging out there so freely could give her back