Kinlye jerked trying to force her way out of Rafe's arms. "No, let me go!" There was horror in her voice and on her face as she clawed at Rafe to get free.
"Nikky, take her," Rafe shouted, pushing her toward his mate. He barely saw Nikky catch her before turning toward the door. His brother was in there, facing the wolf of a man who wasn't sane. He opened the door, ducking back as the huge body of the beast hit the wall next to him. Christian stood, his legs a shoulder's width apart, his eyes on the beast.
"Christian," Rafe yelled. "Are you alright?"
Matthew didn't give Christian time to answer; he came up at him from the floor with huge claw-like hands reaching for his throat. He drove him backward and against the wall, huge puffs of plaster and chunks of the wall falling to the floor at their feet. Christian broke Matthew's hold with a loud grunt and then grabbed his arm, using the monster's weight to pull him over his hip to land, once more, on the floor.
Christian was ready when the beast rose again and he easily moved aside, ducking under Matthew's arm. He turned and let Matthew run himself into the wall. The beast sank down, his hand going to a bleeding wound upon his forehead. "Are you ready to listen?"
"What's there to listen too? You giving your men orders to have me taken out and tied to a tree so that you can beat me?
"Matthew, I have no intentions to hurt you. I do not believe in whipping a man as punishment for some imagined crime. You've done all of this to protect Kinlye, to protect the woman that I love beyond my own life. I won't punish you for doing something I myself would do as well."
"But...but you're...you're a vampire?"
"Yes, as are my brother and his mate, Matthew. But we don't kill, we don't indiscriminatingly recreate our kind. As you feel about your own mate, I feel for Kinlye. I want her to feel a part of me; I want her in my life forever. I also want you to understand this. We will only have this conversation once, Matthew. Come after her again and I won't be quite so understanding. Do you understand me?"
Christian's eyes didn't move from the big beast that sat on the floor in front of him. He didn't move, not until he heard the beast's answer.
"You won't hurt her, or kill her? You don't know the horrors I've seen in the home of a master vampire." Christian took two steps closer to the beast, laying his hand over the eyes of the shrinking Matthew.
"Relax," he murmured. "Let me in, let me see." For a moment there was nothing behind Matthew's eyes but a kaleidoscope of colors, flowing and changing with no sense of reason behind them. But slowly, they changed and Christian could see into Matthew's thought, see the things that had horrified him so much about vampires.
The girl wasn't much older than eighteen, her mother one of the castle's maids. She was playing in the wide maze of the garden while she waited for her mother to finish her day. With a soft sigh, she bent over the open bud of a rose, breathing in its beautiful scent.
"What are you doing here?"
The girl jumped away from the flowers, falling into a quick curtsey as she saw the man waiting for an answer from her. "I...I was waiting for...my mother..."
"Speak up, girl!"
The girl, her name was Annalisa stuttered her answer again, this time managing to make it a bit louder.
"Do you know who I am, girl?"
"Lord Dansmith, sir. You are in charge of the castle guard." She glanced up at his face, trying to gauge his reaction. His face was like a mask of stone, unmoving, uncaring. It terrified her even more and she felt the unnerving need to run
"And you are Annalisa. We've heard of you, girl. You're old enough, why haven't you applied for a position in the castle?"
"Uh, sir, I am innocent of men. My mother fears that I will become debauched if I apply for a position here." She glanced up and for the first time saw a smile form on Dansmith's face. It made him even scarier looking and Annalisa wanted to run from the gardens. She wanted to find her mother and bury her face in the softness of her mother's bosom and forget meeting this strange and evil man. Her eyes grew ever larger as he walked toward her, taking a stray strand of brilliant red hair in his hand, wrapping the length around his wrist, forcing her to move closer to him.
"Debauched? Hmm, probably so. You are a pretty one, Annalisa, a rare treat for myself and my men to share. Come with me, I will show you things you'd only guessed about or dreamed could be true." He didn't let go of the girl's hair, feeling her urge to run, to be away from him and the dangers that he represented. The emotions running from her body were delicious and he looked forward to more. He forced her to walk in front of him, his hands moving from her breasts to her thighs, ignoring her cries. He opened a door she'd never noticed in the wall that surrounded the gardens, pushing her through first before following behind her.
Annalisa struggled to get away from him, even tearing hunks out of her hair that he'd wrapped around his hand. But he was too strong and he turned and locked the door behind them after pushing her through. His hand squeezed her breast and she screamed. He slapped her face. "No screaming, girl. You'll find that our kind hears screams and find them to be something of an aphrodisiac to our demonic natures." He yanked her back against him, shoving his hand down the front of her loose fitting blouse. Her bare breasts were there for his enjoyment and he did, squeezing and kneading, pulling on her nipples, twisting and plucking on them until she struggled to be away, more screams falling from her lips.
He pushed her through another doorway, grabbing hold of her blouse and ripping it in half. He pushed it from her shoulders, baring her beautiful breasts to the enjoyment of the men in the room they'd entered.
"Oh look, Dansmith brought us a treat." Another man stood, standing in front of Annalisa, his hands coming up to touch her face. "You look scared, little girl. Are you afraid of us?"
"Please don't let him do this to me. Help me! Please!"
