Page 89 of Sold to the Dark Vampire Prince

She gasped, arching her back as the circling of his tongue drew a soft fluttering orgasm from her hips.

“I very much like knowing that I am your first.” He dragged his tongue slowly through her sex one final time, then crawled back up her body. Reaching over to the sofa for a pillow and a soft throw, he draped the blanket across their bare legs, moving behind her to spoon her.

Dani craned her head back, seeking his lips. “Maybe I’m not as sore as I thought.”

He kissed her deeply. “I doubt either of us is going to get much sleep tonight. But let’s try to get in a nap and I’ll send down to the kitchen for more juice before you have your way with me again.”

“Promise me you’ll be here in the morning.” Her voice was already slurred with sleep.

He kissed the back of her neck, their fingers entwined on top of the blankets, twin mating marks visible on their wrists.

“Sleep, my Dani. I’ll be here.”

CHAPTER 13

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Dani had Alex drop her back at her apartment before dawn so that she could get Ava off to school and he could see to the various press engagements that needed to be attended to following the bombings.

There were the traditional visits the royal family needed to make to the local hospitals and first responder stations where it was customary to show support after any major emergency. Add on the official statements that Alex might not have to write, but would certainly want to look over before agreeing to issue to the press, and she could see why he was getting anxious every time his phone buzzed.

After kissing him soundly in her kitchen, she started breakfast and went to wake her sister.

“Where’s Evan?” Ava asked over a plate of scrambled eggs and toast.

“I think she was able to pick up an extra shift at the canning plant,” Dani lied, knowing full well Evan had been out the night before close to the borderlands. She hated the nights when the resistance sent her there, couldn’t help but think every time of the assignment their father had been on when his truck had been bombed and he hadn’t come home.

“Are you going in to work today, or is the shipping center closed?”

Forcing a smile, Dani smoothed her sister’s hair. “It will take them a few days to sort everything out, but don’t worry. That’s the biggest distribution center in the sector. They’ll get it back up and running soon.”

She didn’t know how to tell Ava that it was very likely she no longer had a job and that the factory was shut down for the foreseeable future. Luciano Cavalieri’s only statement to the press on the subject had been that there would be no talks of reopening as long as there were bombings and civil resistance, putting thousands out of work.

Her phone buzzed. She swiped to read the text.

Evan: The pharmacist on 14th street texted to say they’re supposed to be getting in an order this morning.

Dani: Insulin?

Evan: They can’t confirm anything until they open the crates, but it was on the shipping manifest.

Which meant every other desperate family who’d just gotten the same automated text would be scrambling to be first in line.

“Get your coat,” she said to Ava. “We have to get to school now. There’s an errand I need to run.”

The December morning was crisp and bright as she made the mile walk from Ava’s school towards the pharmacy. The city trucks had just been through, leaving the roads freshly plowed. Dani shoved her hands into her coat pockets, walking faster past dilapidated buildings and burned-out cars. She put the chances that they would actually have insulin in this shipment at about one in five, probably less with the ongoing shortages. But if they did, and she could buy a vial—

She noticed the vampire following her when she turned a corner. He was average height and wore a dark jacket and pressed jeans, absolutely out of place in a neighborhood where anyone you encountered was likely either passed out in a doorway, high on something, or skulking in an alley waiting to mug you.

In fact, he looked familiar. Her heart pounded. Had she seen him at the auction house?

She pulled out her phone, starting to text Alex.

At the cross street in front of her, a shiny black SUV pulled up. The door opened. Someone grabbed her arm, knocking the phone from her hand and sending it skidding across the ice.

Dani screamed, clawing and kicking. The person behind her fell to the ground. She had just enough time to recognize the man in the black jacket before another vampire wrapped her in a viselike grip. She focused her power, concentrating on wiping his mind blank. His arms slid from around her and she heard the sickening crack as his head hit the pavement.

A second black SUV screeched up behind the first. Dani frantically searched the filthy, slushy snow for her phone. There was no outrunning vampires. Her only hope was to text Alex, to pray that he could somehow get here in time.

Just as she was thinking this, two more vampires grabbed her. She gritted her teeth, trying to blank out their minds just as she had before. But her hands were shaking from the power she’d used, and they didn’t even twitch.