Kissed by a Dark Prince (Eternal Mates Series Book 1) - Sample by Felicity Heaton (best romantic novels to read .txt) 📕

“Olivia?” Bleu rasped, his hands going lax against Loren’s arm.

Loren lowered him to his feet and peeled his hand away from his throat. He forced himself back a few steps, giving Bleu some room, still battling his heightened emotions. He didn’t want to hurt his friend, but he would if Bleu dared to speak of killing her again. He wouldn’t be able to stop himself. He might want to break the bond, might not have been looking to form one with Olivia in the first place, but he was still a slave to the effects of it. He would defend Olivia from anyone who sought to harm her, male or female, and he would kill any male who dared to attempt to take her from him.

“My female is called Olivia,” Loren said and Bleu bent over, grasping his knees and wheezing as he tried to breathe normally. “It is a good name. Beautiful.”

Bleu looked up at him, his black hair strewn across his forehead and wild around his pointed ears. The look in his purple eyes told Loren that he was dying to ask if he truly wanted to break the bond, but that sagacity that Loren admired in him won out, and Bleu held his tongue.

Loren knew he didn’t sound as though he wanted to undo what had happened. He could understand Bleu’s difficulty believing him.  He would put his friend’s mind at rest.

Bleu straightened, swept his hair back out of his face, and exhaled hard.

“Sorry about that.” Loren wasn’t used to issuing apologies and he had done it twice this day. Once to Olivia and now to Bleu. Maybe the bond changed him in ways other than awakening his lust and making him volatile.

Bleu casually shrugged. Loren continued along the hall, banking left when he reached an intersection and heading down the stone staircase to the next level. This one was made of paler stone that glittered in the white lights, far brighter than the level where his rooms were.

“Olivia is going to work on finding a way to break this bond too, so you see, you have nothing to worry about, Bleu.” Loren turned right at the bottom of the pale staircase, heading along the grand hallway, past towering white statues of the former kings and queens of his bloodline. Vail had a statue once, opposite his at the end of the hallway, close to the throne room.

Someone had destroyed it.

“How is the female able to help?” Bleu sounded sceptical again.

Understandable.

Loren had felt the same way when the female had offered to help, but his lack of belief in her had frustrated her and then she had said a lot of words he hadn’t understood. They had all sounded very technical. He had also felt her belief in herself and her abilities, and that was the reason he had decided to grant her request. She felt she could find a way to break the bond by studying their blood. It sounded fascinating and he was almost looking forward to being with her while she worked on it.

“Olivia is a scientist. It would appear modern science is rather incredible. She is apparently able to study our blood and something to do with things called genomes, and other things I have no clue about. She is confident she can discern from it whether our link is a physical change that she may be able to reverse.” It still sounded incredible, even when he still wasn’t quite sure what those things were.

Bleu raised an eyebrow.

“You know they have cloned things... creating a duplicate of a living creature.” Bleu motioned with his rigid index fingers, holding them with their full lengths pressed against each other at first, and then moving them apart but keeping them identical. “Some of their science seems dangerous to me.”

Loren frowned. “How is it you know about things I do not?”

Bleu smiled at last. “The benefits of being able to travel freely to the mortal world whenever the mood strikes me. I think I had relations with a doctor once... or a journalist who was writing about cloning. I cannot remember.”

Loren wasn’t surprised. Whenever the ‘mood’ struck him, Bleu took off for a night to the mortal world to satisfy himself with loose women all too willing to give up their bodies, and their blood. The mood struck Bleu often, at least three or four times in a lunar month.

He was probably the most well-versed in human affairs of all of Loren’s staff, yet he was also the one with the lowest opinion of that species. Perhaps spending so much time in the company of females who slept freely with strangers affected Bleu’s opinion of the species in general.

“I am looking forward to discovering more about the advances in science when I spend time with Olivia at Archangel.” Loren banked left, past the statue of his mother, and pushed the first set of arched dark wooden doors on his right open.

“What?” Bleu reached for him, stopping just short of grabbing his arm, the volume of his voice causing the five males in the library to stop their work and stare at him.

Loren looked across his shoulder at Bleu. “I mean to spend time with Olivia in her world. She needs laboratory equipment in order to do her research.”

“Bring it here. We will build her a laboratory.” Bleu had that look again. The one that Loren had often seen in their four thousand years together. He thought Loren crazy.

“I cannot. I brought this upon her—”

“You will be too vulnerable there,” Bleu interjected, shocking the five males in the room and Loren too.

Bleu had never dared to speak over him before.

They were friends, but Loren was still a prince. The flicker of nerves in Bleu’s purple eyes was apology enough for Loren. He knew his friend meant well, but he couldn’t speak to him in such a way in front of others. He didn’t want to have to punish Bleu for such a thing. He valued what they shared and never wanted the difference in their statuses to come between them. If the council heard of Bleu’s disrespectful behaviour, they would demand Loren punish him.

“Forgive me.” Bleu lowered his head and Loren placed his hand on his shoulder and gently squeezed it to let him know that he forgave him. Bleu lifted his head. “You will be vulnerable there... both to your brother and to an attack from the hunters within that place. You know I cannot allow you to venture there, and neither will the council.”

Loren intended to visit them next. The moment he had agreed to Olivia’s plan and had offered to be her escort, he had known he would need to convince the council of elders to agree to it too. They were not going to be happy with him. He was going to pull rank on them.

“I will speak with them and make them see that my mind is made up on this matter and I will not be swayed.” Loren stepped into the expansive double-height room that served as the library. There were two levels, although the upper floor didn’t cover the entire length of the room. There was an open rectangular space above him with a balcony running around it. White oak bookshelves lined every inch of wall space and elegantly carved stacks filled the area to his left on both floors.

Above the open area, rainbow colours swirled across the sheer crystal roof, softly illuminating the room.

“I still believe you should bring the female here.” Bleu wasn’t going to let this one go, was he?

Loren sighed. “Olivia needs her laboratory to conduct her research and I cannot leave her alone and vulnerable.” He held his hand up to silence Bleu when he went to speak. “And I will not bring her here, where she feels afraid and unsafe, or allow any other to protect her in my stead.”

He turned to face his friend, wishing for all of his kingdom that Bleu would see in his eyes that his mind was truly made up and no one was going to change it.

“I disrupted her life, Bleu. I caused this problem for both of us, and I will deal with it.”

“Your brother is to blame here.” Bleu’s frown returned, turning his eyes cold and dark. “Meaning your brother plans to attack her. I cannot allow you to place yourself in danger—”

“What do you suggest then?” Loren shoved his fingers through his black hair, his frustration mounting and getting the better of him.

He was going in circles with Bleu and he wanted to break the cycle almost as much as he wanted to break his bond to Olivia. His heart whispered that was a lie and he knew it. Loren ignored it and stared at Bleu, his gaze narrowed and demanding the male offer a solution that would stop him from constantly harassing Loren about his plans.

Bleu looked deadly serious. “I will go with you.”

Some of Loren’s frustration faded on hearing those words leave Bleu’s lips. Loren appreciated his friend’s support and his desire to protect him. The council would be more likely to allow him to go to the mortal world to assist the female if Bleu were with him and he would be safer from his brother too.

The only downside Loren could see was that Bleu would be hard to control around people he evidently viewed as a threat to Loren, but even that wasn’t dampening Loren’s spirit. He would be glad to have Bleu with him.

If only to keep Loren in check and stop him from fulfilling a desire that had seized him with both hands several times this day.

He wanted to kiss Olivia.

Chapter 6

Olivia wasn’t making any progress at all. Mark stared back at her from behind his large black wooden desk, his grey eyes narrowed, causing crow’s feet to form beside them. She had known him for almost ten years now, and he had been caring towards her, taking her under his wing and giving her so much freedom and opportunity within Archangel. That had all changed the night she had royally messed up and her demon boyfriend had gone on a rampage, attempting to bring down Archangel’s headquarters in London. Since then, Mark had held her at arm’s length and rarely agreed to meet with her. He didn’t even acknowledge her if they passed each other in the hallways or were present in the same meeting.

Mark leaned back in his mahogany leather executive chair, the deep red colour setting off his crisp black suit and almost matching his silk tie. He tunnelled his fingers through his sandy hair, a tell that she knew well. He was having difficulty taking in what she was asking him to do, and even more difficulty bringing himself to find a shred of the trust he had once shown to her.

“Please. You’ve read my report on the specimen that the team brought in.” Olivia leaned over the black desk, planting her palms on the surface. She