He slid his belt out and she pulled at the waistband until his pants slipped down his legs and he stepped out of them, taking her down to the deck in one smooth movement. “I’m changing the rules, Gemma.”

She froze for a second until his mouth latched on to her neck and her body arched in need. “What?”

Gemma could barely hear his low, rough voice when he said, “I want more.”

How did she knew he didn’t mean sex? She gulped. “You knew what I was offering when I agreed to this.”

“I know.” His fangs scraped along the sensitive skin between her breasts, not breaking the skin, but causing her to shiver. Her blood welled just beneath the surface, aching for his mouth. His fingers reached down, testing and teasing before he slid into her with a slow thrust that almost brought tears to her eyes. “I’ve decided I want more. And I’m going to get it.”

How could he do this to her? Gemma wanted to scream from pleasure and fury, all at the same time. She hated him. She wanted him. She loved—no, she didn’t love Terry. She couldn’t. Still, even as she raged on the inside, he controlled her body, moving slowly, wrapping her legs around him as he played her with perfect control.

“Not fair,” she cried. “You’re not playing—”

“Fuck fair,” he growled, suddenly speeding up. “This isn’t a game.”

Close, she was so close. “Terry, don’t—”

“I lied, stole, and killed to win the power I wield now, Gemma.” She wrapped her hands around his wrists and came with violent shudder, but Terry didn’t stop. He only bent down to whisper in her ear, “What makes you think I would do any less to win you?”

“I can’t—”

Though her mind was screaming, he stopped her mouth with a furious kiss, holding Gemma to his chest as her mind and heart raced around what he was saying. Then Terry’s lips softened; he shifted over her and smiled. “Again.”

Chapter Five

London, 1923

He could hear the drip, drip, drip of the blood as it fell into the canal leading from the river to his sire’s underground residence beneath the Temple. Terry ignored the fetid smell of the Thames and tossed the body into the pile ringed by wide-eyed vampires from London’s elite. He spit the last of the traitor’s blood to the ground, flicking his knife as he walked around the gaping immortal populace.

“Bring in the next one.”

Denton and Max muscled in another of his late brother’s conspirators. This one he recognized.

“Burke. Nice of you to come by the old place.” The chambers north of the Thames didn’t see much activity. No, his sire had maintained more luxurious houses in fashionable parts of town. He’d thrown lavish parties that the aristocracy had attended. Francis Winthrop had been a gentleman—a powerful vampire—but one who saw the more civilized of their kind as his peers. That had been what killed him.

The pain screamed from his chest. His sire was dead, killed by a traitor with the face of a friend. Even Terry had been taken in by his deception. And to discover that his own brother—Winthrop’s only other child—had been behind it…

Terry gripped the shivering earth vampire by the hair. “Do you have anything to say to this lot?”

“You’re a monster.”

“Aye, that I am.” He pulled the vampire close, whispering in his ear as he slowly slit Burke’s throat. “And none of them will forget it.”

The assassin was dead, killed within minutes of Winthrop’s death. But it hadn’t brought his sire back. Terry, along with his first, Roger, had ordered Winthrop’s men to scour the black streets of London, their fury matched only by their loyalty to their fallen leader. The vampires who hadn’t been able to flee were snatched from the streets, even taken by Terry’s human staff during the daytime, then woken in the old basement fortress to watch as Terry systematically killed every suspect in his sire’s death. Slowly. He extracted each bit of information for the benefit of his glittering, sophisticated audience. Even the oldest of them appeared horrified at his brutality.

Which was exactly as Terry had wanted it.

By the third night, none of them appeared squeamish anymore. None of them met his eye in challenge. None of them batted an eye when he called himself their lord.

The blood poured down the chest of the traitor, dripping onto Terry’s shoes. The ground was thick with blood, earth, and ash, turned to a fetid mud by the water drawn into the room with Terry’s cold fury. With a quick snap, his knife dug into the back of the vampire’s neck, severing the spine as Terry watched the amnis flicker out. A fleck of blood hit his cheek as his victim heaved a last rattling breath through his severed windpipe.

Terry tossed the body onto the pile. The first of his public executions, including his own brother, were disintegrating at the base of the pile, returning to whatever element had sustained them. A slow seep of water was the last trace of the man who had once been his closest friend.

“Next.”

Before another traitor could be brought before him, Roger slipped over and whispered in his ear. “Boss, you have a visitor.”

“Not the best time, Roger.”

“Pardon me presuming, but I think you’ll want to see this one.”

Their eyes met for a moment before Terry nodded. If Roger had interrupted him, it had to be important.

He strode from the room, grabbing his grey jacket which hung on the arm of another of his brutes. “Keep them here. If they get hungry, let them feed on the prisoners.”