21 The ice cold ex pays a visit

Rose had called Blake back into the office and had intentions of taking him somewhere special. Perhaps she was being too hard on herself and wanted to "unwind" a little.

However as Blake returned, she noticed something different about him. She could hear the irregularity in his heart beat, his eyes appeared sunken with dark circles around them.

"Have you been getting sleep? You look Ill," Rose observed as she placed her hand on Blake's forehead.

Drawing nearer to him, she could see he already blushed from her touch.

"I'm fine. Where are we going tonight, my lord?" Blake asked.

"You know what? It's fine if you call me anything you want to. Also, plans have been cancelled. You will go home and have a good rest and I will leave, soon. There's a few things I have to sort out," Rose said, placing a finger on Blake's chest.

Blake didn't particularly mind the fact that Rose was very confrontational and sometimes blurred the lines between business and personal interests.

He thought she probably didn't see her actions as any big of a deal.

'She's just a vibe,' he thought to himself, coarsing his mind into being grounded and not getting overly excited over things that may not be.

He knew how painful that could turn out first hand.

"I'll see you tomorrow then," Blake said, bidding Rose farewell as she walked him to the elevator and down to the car garage where his driver waited with his car.

As soon as he left, Rose went back to her office.

The day for some was done but for her, it was only beginning. She needed next to no sleep so what better way to spend the night than getting drunk and fantasizing Blake wrapped in her grips.

It was simply too tantalizing!

*************

Damien Durello ruled the vampires of Ancroft with an icy fist from his sleek glass fortress rising over the frozen city. His word was law for all immortal kind across the territory.

At over 300 years old, Damien controlled the largest vampire brood in the Northern Realm and answered only to the reclusive Original Elders seldom seen outside their mountain keep. Even the most savage turned vampires bowed before him.

Damien's lethally elegant features further set him apart - crown of raven hair framing an aquiline face of regal bone structure. Eyes like blue flame that saw through to the very soul. His permanent pallor came from maintaining an aura always several degrees below freezing. Vast power thrummed inside his wiry warrior's frame.

Once the famous ceo of a certain Shelly technologies, Rose Shelly, had reveled drunkenly in that cruel splendor. Desired nothing more than to bask in Damien's radiance for eternity, her ambitions eclipsed. Until his dark side drove them apart.

In the centuries since she escaped the ice-locked kingdom to build her own empire in the South, Rose avoided risk of ever crossing paths with her volatile ex-lover again. Even her network of spies knew not to utter Damien Durello's name in her presence. The very whisper of it sent her into fits of rage or despair.

Yet Damien had ways of tracking those who fled his piercing sight. Whispers from terrified underlings that the Southern CEO Rose Shelley seemed...changed of late. Softer, distracted almost. Damien read the signs instantly - his Rose had gradually started giving her heart to another at last,Intolerable!

Within an hour, his Gulfstream banked over glittering skyscrapers fanged into the night clouds and Damien's immortal senses locked onto the unique energy signature of his one true bride's power. Mimicking mortal air travel was trivial when he could turn to mist and ride the high altitude jet stream himself.

But sometimes the hunt required patience. No matter - he and Rose had centuries ahead for him to remind her no others existed but each other...

He would freeze this southern interloper to bloody ice shards and reclaim what was rightfully his. Rose would howl and fight initially...before surrendering forevermore to his unyielding embrace.

Rose gazed out the floor-to-ceiling windows of her sleek penthouse office, brow furrowed. Since spending so much time with Blake, her undead heart felt dangerously warm and content. Was she growing soft?

A cold shudder down her spine banished the thought. Rose whirled, hissing as the temperature plunged below.

Tendrils of icy mist seeped under the door. No mortal could wield such chilling power - this was the harbinger of one being alone who thawed Rose's blood to ice.

"Damien," she whispered.

The doors blew open, frost crinkling across glass and steel. He strode through, a vision of malevolence and grace. Over six feet tall with ruthless blue eyes that pierced through tangled raven black hair. His bone-white skin glinted like fresh snow in moonlight, mere degrees from emitting its own cold glow.

Once she had craved to drown gloriously in that lethal radiance. Now Rose hardened herself against the frozen blast of Damien's aura - and the razor memories of loving a monster.

"Rose," Damien purred, the syllables serrated steel sheathing velvet.

"Did you think you could escape me forever?" His gaze raked her body possessively.

Swallowing bitter history, Rose lifted her chin. "I owe you nothing, Damien. My domain lies here far from your wretched city,"

His laugh held no warmth, only cruel delight. "Such spirit still. But you forget yourself, my queen. I am Lord of Ancroft. My reach is vast." He caressed her desk, frost flowering across the wood. "As you well know..."

Rose turned her throat's instinctive pulse point away from him.

"State your business then depart. I have no time for wasted past."

His bared fangs were diamond shards of temptation and terror. "You always did value your precious time. But eternity affords patience when reclaiming a treasured consort."

He was suddenly behind her, his breath arctic gale on her neck. "Particularly one whose passion once burned so… exquisite."

Only by clinging to memories of Blake's delicate human warmth did Rose master the urge not to surrender to his ruthless chill once more.

Chest tight, she slipped away out of his reach. This spoiled son of vampire aristocracy would not sway her with beauty and fear again.

"My passions no longer concern you, lord." She twisted his formal title mockingly. "Return North. This southern city state suits me now."

His hoarfrost eyes narrowed. When Damien spoke again, his rich tone held razor edges. "Do not dare dismiss me, Rose. You think your position here makes you my equal suddenly?"

In a blink he had her by the throat, glacial power snuffing her undead breath.

"Have you forgotten who schooled a feral upstart in the privileges of our blood? The ecstasies within your grasp?"

Rose clawed frantically at his unrelenting grip but her vision already darkened under the ancient might of an Original vampire. Just before losing consciousness, he released her.

Rose crumpled, gasping raggedly. Frost-rimed tears burned her cheeks. She kept her stare rooted to icy marble floor.

"As I thought," Damien sneered softly. "Learn your place once more at my side...where you truly belong." A trailing cold caress along her jawline tilted Rose's face upward reluctantly.

His beauty always devastated more than his cruelty. Handsome death in merciless living flesh. Rose despised and craved with every frozen fiber.

"You will regret leaving me, my queen." A cruel promise edged Damien's velvet tone.

"Our forever barely began before you betrayed my gift...and love." His blue eyes glittered dangerously. "Now watch all you've built here turn to ashes."

In a swirl of sleet and mist he was gone. Rose hugged herself tightly, shuddering in his creeping absence for hours. She had to protect Blake before Damien's havoc and wrath enveloped them all.

But her fear soon gave way to rage. She picked her phone and the caller ID was Reggie.

"Tell me Reggie, am I surrounded by fools?"