Queens and Monsters: A Vampire Shifter Romance (The Blood Falls Book 1)

I felt like me again. I stretched and yawned which made my stiff muscles groan a bit, but I wasn’t tired and there was no pain. The only problem was, once again, I had no idea where I was. The room wasn’t terribly large, it was all wood: wood floors, wood walls, wood bed. There were windows everywhere and they were all open, letting the mountain air flow through. Sitting up in bed, I had a perfect view of the mountains and valley.

This had to be Dray’s room. I didn’t see any clothes, but someone at some point had cleaned me up and put me in a cream-colored nightgown, so I decided to chance it and tried the door.

Sure enough, it opened into a hallway that led to Dray’s kitchen. It too was empty, but now I heard the faint jazz music coming from the turntable and speakers. Every window in the whole house was open and there was a small fire in the fireplace because even though it was summer and fairly warm during the day, the mornings still had a damp chill.

Outside I found my mountain man fully dressed for the day in a red and blue flannel, worn jeans, and boots, like he’d just gone for a morning hike or maybe chopped some wood. A steamy cup of coffee sat on the railing next to his hand.

“Good morning.”

He spun around. “You’re awake!”

I stretched again. “Sure am.”

He came at me like a lion, but suddenly stopped when he was about to touch me, like he remembered at the last second to be careful. “How are you?” His arms came around me gently as he pulled me against his chest.

“Stiff, but good. How did I get up here?”

He grunted as a reply. I interpreted it to mean he either shifted us up here or he carried me.

“How are you?” I ran my hands over his shirt, searching for signs his transformation had left permanent damage.

“Me? I’m fine. I heal like crazy, remember?”

I wanted to look at him so I pushed my way out of his arms, but let him keep his hands on me. “It hurts you, doesn’t it?” In between my own bouts of pain I remembered feeling shadows of his, too.

“Yes. It hurts.”

“Is that why you don’t shift?”

He studied me. I loved the way his eyes roamed, loved seeing him try to fight his desire to tell me everything—and lose. “I don’t shift because once I’m that monster, I’m not really in control anymore. The longer I’m…that way…the less I’m me.”

Damn. He couldn’t even bring himself to say the word out loud. “Well thank you for putting yourself through that for me.”

His eyes kept searching. “I didn’t have much choice, Rhysa. When I felt your pain and then your move to the Nala’s…I lost it.”

“So that’s how you found me.” I smiled up at him, hoping to ease at least a little bit of the tension that gripped him, but it didn’t work.

“I told you. I always know where you are.” He lowered his forehead to mine and took a deep breath. “Why did you go there?”

He kept his eyes closed but I didn’t. It was my turn to study the lines of worry on his brow, the pinched corners of his eyes and mouth. “I don’t know. I just tried to escape. When I disintegrated the cuffs I just…went. I didn’t think about where, just about getting somewhere safe.”

He nodded, moving his head to the side so that we were now pressed together cheek to cheek. “And how is she?”

I had so many dreams about my conversation with my mother. Some were memories, others were my fever-dream distortions of reality. “She’s there. At first she was very clear minded but then I upset her and she just spiraled. But at least now I know why she is the way she is.”

He pulled back to look into my eyes. “And?”

I wanted to stay just like this for a while. Dray’s arms around me, his heart thudding steadily in his chest, his wonderful mountain man scent. I wanted to snuggle into him and let him hold me all day. “She didn’t just curse me, Dray. She cursed them all. It took everything she had and would have probably killed most people for trying.”

His frown deepened. “What kind of curse?”

This I wasn’t nearly as sure about. “She didn’t say, but I felt a lot when I was with her, combined with what I learned at the House of Axl, I think she may be why they can’t have children.”

Dray looked up at the sky but didn’t let me go. “Fuck. And they don’t know it?”

“Not that I know of. And Dray? She said all of this is their fault.” I didn’t understand this part nearly as much.

“What do you mean? All of what?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “She talked about the door opening and ripping the fabric of time and destiny. I have no idea what she meant.”

“The door…opening?” Dray said slowly. He grabbed a strand of my hair and rubbed it between his fingers again. “I need to speak with Bethany after breakfast.” He let me go and urged me toward the door.

I looked down at my gown. “I should find something to wear.”

He gave my hand a tug and suddenly I was tucked into his side as he pressed a kiss to my temple. “Gigi popped over to your cottage and packed you some things.”

“Oh…” The idea of leaving Dray and heading back to the Wren house filled me with dread. Actually, filled was the wrong word to use. I felt empty at the idea of leaving the tree house. “I guess I should head down to the house then.”

“Why?” He set me inside and pulled the door closed. “Your things are here, where they belong.”

It took me a moment to fully process that he said something other than what I expected. “Here?”

He moved around the counter into the kitchen and got to work making breakfast. “Is that a problem?” He slid a cup of coffee my way while I stood blinking at him.

“My stuff is here?” I repeated. Again.

Dray watched me as he turned on the burner and set a pan over the flame. “Where else would it be? You belong with me when you’re on this property.”

A full body blush broke out over my skin. I wasn’t entirely sure if it was embarrassment or arousal. “Here with you is where I want to be.”

“It’s settled then. Your stuff is here where it belongs. If you want to change, your closet is the one to the left of the door. Otherwise, I enjoy looking at you in that flimsy little thing. I couldn’t stop staring at you half the night.” Half his lips pulled up in a smile. “That and I was scared shitless.”

“Scared?” I finally moved to the counter and picked up the mug, mostly to warm my hands.

“Scared, Rhysa. I don’t care what the Doctor says, until you woke up and told me for yourself you were healed, I wasn’t going to believe it.”

Oh, this sweet mountain of a man. I truly loved how protective and mushy he became when it was about me. “I’m fine now.”

He grunted again. “Doc says forty-eight hours of rest for you and I expect you to let me wait on you hand and foot.” He waved the spatula as he spoke.

“What about…”

His eyebrows rose. “About?”

I huffed. “Look, a lot of things are hazy, but I could have sworn I heard you say you were getting all the houses of the Alliance together, that you were taking the war to their doorstep and that you’d burn it all down.” I bit my lip and blushed again because thinking about Dray going scorched earth because of me was, quite frankly, hot.

“You heard that, huh?”

I nodded.

“It was the heat of the moment. I wanted someone to kill.”

“So what’s going on?”

I waited as patiently as I could while Dray dropped bacon into one pan and cracked eggs into another, clearly avoiding answering my question for as long as possible. Finally, he wiped his hands clean and leaned against the counter. “We’re meeting tonight to discuss how to proceed. My vote is still for war, but I will consider the opinions of the other Houses.” Even though he said everything evenly, the anger vibrated out of him. Dray looked like he wanted to rip the counter out of the flooring and flip it over, then smash everything to pieces.

I swallowed hard. “Uh, so, tonight then?”

One corner pulled up on his lip. “A couple of the Houses can’t shift like you and I can. It takes time to travel here. Leena, god bless her, went all the way out to the House of Heida to see if she could talk them into coming out of isolation and join us.”

“Isolation? I thought you all had to stay connected or die?”

“They’re connected to each other and males often take a mate from outside their house to keep from losing control. They live on the edge though and I worry it will one day destroy them.”

“Have you spoken to Lord Axl about what happened?” In all this talk of healing and war I hadn’t heard anything about my grandfather.

Dray grunted again.

“I don’t speak grunt. What does that mean?”

I jumped as Dray stabbed the counter with a knife and grunted again. Then he bared his fangs. “It means I have no respect for him. It means I want to kill him for letting this happen to you. It means he declined to speak to me.”

“Declined?”

His eyes locked with mine, sending a shiver down my spine from the intensity of his gaze. “I informed him that you were poisoned and escaped with your life hanging by a thread so if he was hoping you were dead, he should be disappointed. Then I reminded him you are mine to protect and if he wishes to defend himself he knows where to find me.”

Lots more shivers down my spine. I should be afraid of someone so powerful filled with this much rage, but Dray was filled with that rage because he loved me, so instead I simply found it endearing.

“And he said nothing?”

Dray pulled the knife free from the counter and went back to our food. “No.”

“Well then maybe he’s been hurt too? I have to believe Mary and Helena were working separate from him. Why would Lord Axl go to all this effort to make me the heir in front of the entire house and all their associated houses if he was just going to have me killed? It doesn’t make sense.”

“If his family wants him killed, maybe we should allow them to succeed.”

“Dray!”

“Rhysa,” he shot back. “Do you want to stay here with me or do you want to go back into that house of the dead?”

Oh. Well. He had me there. But still…

He sighed. “We can’t control what’s happening in that family and you need two days of healing before you can do anything. If they implode, they implode. Risking your life to talk isn’t going to stop Destiny.”

It’s all their fault. Destiny. Maybe nothing I did mattered anyway.

“Eat.” He placed a plate in front of me.

I dug in with a scowl. Seriously. This man! He could turn me on or confound me at any given moment. I was definitely hungry but my stomach wasn’t ready for a lot of food, so I ate slowly and stopped when I felt full even though I knew I wasn’t and would probably be hungry again in an hour.

Dray kept to his side of the counter stewing in his anger until the record stopped. The static silence followed by the soft whir of the arm automatically returning to the rest pulled him out of his stupor.

“You have quite the record collection.” So many shelves filled with albums. Were they all old originals from when Dray listened to them new? Or were there some newer records in there too?

“Digital music is convenient.” He pulled the record off the turntable and slid it back into the sleeve. “But there’s something about vinyl that gets under my skin. Do you have an opinion on what we should listen to next?”

I liked the way his shoulders relaxed when he talked about music and it made me want to run my hands over the muscles to relax them even more. So that’s exactly what I did. With his back to me, his full attention on the records, I wrapped myself around him. “How about something we can dance to.”

“Mmm.” He moved with me around him, selecting a new record, removing it from the sleeve, and then gingerly setting it on the turntable. A moment later a saxophone began crooning a new jazz tune.

Dray peeled my hands off his chest and spun me around into his arms where he pulled me against his hard body. The heat of the fire warmed my bare feet almost as much as Dray’s dark eyes heated my insides.

“Like this?” His voice rumbled so low I felt it more than I heard it.

“Just like this.” Then I laid my cheek against his shoulder. His arm moved further around my waist and held me tighter. Then he tucked our hands against his other shoulder as he lowered his cheek to my temple and swayed to the dueling trumpet and saxophone.

“This right here is heaven.” The cool breeze, the sights, the fire, the music, and being held by Dray…it was so magical it barely felt real. “I wish we could stay like this.”

“Don’t,” he whispered.

The pain in his voice made me pull back for a closer look at his furrowed brow and frown. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t think about what comes next. Just stay in the moment for a change. Let’s enjoy this.” His hands pressed into me.

“Okay. I can do that.” When his face relaxed, I tucked back into his chest and did exactly as he asked. How was it so easy for me to list all the external things about this moment I loved, but not the most intimate of all? Dray.

There was a musky scent that clung to his clothes. Was it deodorant or body wash, or maybe a cologne? The scruff on his chin was scratchy, but at some point this morning he’d shave it off and I wanted to be there when it happened so I could run my fingers over the soft skin. Then there was the way he held me. Close but gentle. Protective, like I was precious to him.

I never realized dancing could be so erotic. Just two people holding each other, moving to a beat. No kissing. No groping. But everything about it made my head spin and my insides swoop.

“I love it here.”

He made a noise of acknowledgement.

“I always, always wanted a treehouse. I was desperate for one, but never had one. And now…you live in a real, grown up one.”

That got him chuckling and boy, oh boy was the sound magical. Deep and carefree. “We live in a real, grown up one.”

The firmness with which he said that sent a shiver down my spine. I looked up in time to catch his soft smile and my gaze caught on the curl of his hair. It was longer than when we first met. I didn’t really think about what I was doing as I pulled my hand free of his to run my fingers through the longer locks. But as Dray softly moaned, I realized how much I wanted to kiss him.

So I pulled him down to my lips until his began to tease mine. As much as I enjoyed his hard, desperate kisses, these soft brushes were just as intoxicating. Maybe more so. Plus his smile?

Damn. Just damn. So hot!

“We’re supposed to wait forty-eight hours, Rhysa.” He kept kissing me.

“No one said anything about kissing.”

“It was implied.” And yet his kisses grew deeper anyway.

“I believe the Doctor requested I get forty-eight hours of healing. I can’t think of anything more healing than your lips, Draygus Wren.”

With a growl he swept me up into his arms. “You’re a very smart woman.” He lowered his lips to my ear and whispered, “A very smart woman indeed.”