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“Does it matter?” she finally answered, deftly rounding out of my closing embrace and shifting herself away from me, our positions nearly switched. Her hands rose to her body, a finger ran from her full, bottom lip, then dragged down the edge of her neck,slowly, teasingly. Her voice dipped, grew huskier thanbefore, more sultry as she fluttered her long lashes. “Why don’t we get started already?”
I chuckled. The sound grumbling from my chest in a way that did nothing to ease the stiffness she tried to hide in her posture. I felt the smile that stretched over my teeth, flashing my fangs in all of their full glory. “As ye wish, love.”
Her lips parted in a smile, one that looked nearly as sinister as the one on my face. A wise man would have paused, knowing that any woman with a look like that on her face was up to no good.
But I’m no man.
And when my breath had grunted from my lungs, my eyes dropping to see her little hand wrapped around a wooden stake she had embedded in my left shoulder,shewas brutally aware of that fact. Her eyes went wide and I knew it was because she didn’t know how she’d missed her mark. If I were any other common Abhartach, she would have mortally impaled me. But much to her dismay, I was still alive and well, having seen her rip it from the front of her bodysuit, where it was smartly concealed in the confines of her large tits.
Little minx.
At my humored smile, she jerked back from me, watching with loud, shaking breaths as I yanked it from my flesh and threw it so hard it impaled the wall. “Come now, love. Surely tha daughter o’ Mattia can do better t’an dat.”
The room filled with the scent of her fear, her heart pounding a million miles a second, so loud I could mistake it for the music playing outside of the door. She looked shocked, like she didn’t expect me to know who she was.
She insults my intelligence.
Stalking forward, far faster than she anticipated, I rushed her, my breath blowing the now loose pieces of hair that fell around her face. “Let’s try tha’ again, eh?”
Her brow furrowed, anger melding with her fear as she scowled up at me, a wicked tilt to her lips. “Let’s.”
Ottavia
Chapter Eight
The vampire rushed me, shoving into me with bruising force. Even as my body flew through the air, I was reaching behind me to yank the second stake out of my ponytail. I landed on the desk with a gasp of pain and in a scattering of items. I had the stake in my hand, ready to strike by the time he was on me again. But it’s curving arc was halted before it connected with anything vital, and I grunted against the crushing strength of Eoin’s fist wrapped around my wrist.
He yanked me up from the desk and shoved me against the wall, leaving me breathless, as he slammed my hand into the hard plaster repeatedly until my fingers gave way and I dropped the stake, where it rolled harmlessly on the ground.
“Let go!” I shouted, impotent and useless and scared, despite myself. I brought my other hand up to grip his wrist and jerked against him, but no amount of tugging freed me. I even resorted to pinching and clawing, which resulted in bloodying him, but Eoin’s grip just squeezed harder and I cried out against the pain.
Oddly, the pain helped to steady me.
“Yer a feisty one, ain’t ye?” The vampire sounded amused rather than concerned, which pissed me off. Blood from the first stake wound stained his shirt.
The anger ate through my fear, dissolving it. Suddenly I wasawakeagain, and my body was alive, knowing what to do when under attack. I dropped all of my weight to the floor while wrapping a leg around his, crushing the back of his knee in a move he wasn’t expecting, and the sudden motion forced him off balance and made him topple forward. At the same time his forehead collided with the wall, his grip loosened on my wrist, and I scuttled out from between his legs.
I knew I wouldn’t have time to turn aroundandstand up, so as I raced across the floor to the desk, desperate to get something in between us for a moment, I was throwing any object at him that I could get my hands on. The office was clean, but when he had thrown me onto his desk, items had scattered and I used them as projectiles now—scissors, pencils, a hole punch. Anything and everything that could buy me half a second.
Finally, I scrambled behind the desk and allowed myself just a moment to breathe. And panic.
Becausefuck, I was out of my league.
All of that training, all of those kills… andnone of it helped.
None of it prepared me for the reality of the power held by a centuries-old vampire.
Clamping my eyes closed, I strained my ears, desperate for any sound. Beyond the rushing of static in my ears and the panting of my breaths, the room was silent.
But I knew he was there. Waiting. Stalking. Letting the anticipation of the hunt grow and my dread build.
Both of my stakes were gone, flung somewhere in the room. I debated on removing the square heel of my boot and utilizingit as a weapon, but figured it would do more damage when attached to my kicking leg than if I attempted to punch with it.
When a hand suddenly gripped a fistful of my ponytail and yanked me backward, I let out a primal scream. I hoped someone outside the office would hear me, but I knew it was useless.
Eoin Ó Ceallaigh answered to no one. He was a law unto himself.
The vampire tsked under his breath as he hauled me up onto his desk. He captured both of my wrists in one hand behind my back and leaned forward against me, spreading my thighs wide with his waist. I was off-balance and unsteady, but instead of allowing myself to rest against him, I reared back and attempted to headbutt him. Eoin caught the edge of my ponytail in his free hand and knotted it before jerking it, hard. The action sent a throbbing pain through the base of my skull.
