Free Captured (Vampire King Book 2) by Kenya Wright

there.
“You must be hearing things. It was nothing. You can go back. I’m fine.”
    “I
can smell your blood in here. What happened?” Samuel prowled my way. Black
claws pushed out of his fingertips. “I heard a noise from within here. It
sounded like a man moaning.”
    “It
was nothing.”
    Don’t think about it. Don’t think
about it. Don’t think about it.
    “Don’t
think about what?” Samuel leaped on the bed. The movement made me fall back.
Pillows bounced around me. He climbed my way until he hovered over me. His
nostrils flared as he breathed me in. “What don’t you want to think about?”
    “May
Ambi damn you! Get out of my head.”
    He
sniffed again. “Someone else was here!”
    The
level of his voice rose to scary. He had never yelled at me like this before.
    “First,
you have to calm down.” I put my shaking hands to his chest. His skin’s
temperature warmed to boiling hot. Swallowing down my trembling fright, I
cleared my throat. “I can explain everything to you, but you have to calm
down.”
    “Someone
else was here and in this bed!” His eyes lit up like the two moons, so bright I
gasped. He emitted a wild growl that caused the bed to rock. “Dust? I smell
lots of dust. It’s on your chest, and your blood, I can smell it all over the
room. Why?”
    “I
won’t tell you until you calm down.” My voice cracked.
    “I
think you’ll tell me regardless.” His voice shifted from a loud yell to a low
tone that was dark with a murderous edge. Two black lines sprouted from his
forehead and then continued to push through the skin. My breath caught in my
throat as those two lines traveled out of his forehead. They grew and
thickened. I’d never witnessed anything like this in my life. And when the
lines stopped moving, two long black horns at least a foot long remained. They
had sharp points, curved backward at the tips and reminded me of a wild ram’s
horns, but deadlier.
    “Samuel?”
    “Who
was here?” His voice was unfamiliar. The mass of his arms enlarged into twice
the size they normally were. The muscles ballooned and swelled. “Queen?”
    “Y-you
bully me with this new size and then call me your queen?”
    He
lowered himself over me until his face was only an inch away from mine. “This
form that you see isn’t for you. It’s for your lover. The one that’s been
making love to you tonight and drinking your blood.”
    My
mouth opened in shock for a second and then a delirious laugh captured me. I
just couldn’t help it. Maybe it was Samuel’s horrific image before me that
pushed me into the realm of insanity or maybe it was due to the preposterous
notion that I would ever think to sneak a lover into Samuel’s bed and have sex
with this person as Samuel slept next door.
    “You
laugh at me?”
    “I
have no lover.” I grinned. “I find it crazy that you think I would disrespect
you like that.”
    “But
someone was in my bed with you.”
    “Not
really.”
    “Explain.”
    “He
sat on the bed next to me.” I shoved at Samuel’s chest to get him to move away.
“Nothing happened.”
    “Who
is he? Ty?” Samuel’s skin rippled with power.
    I
frowned and lifted my hand to touch his right horn. “Please relax.”
    “And
then will you tell me?”
    “Yes.”
    He
closed his eyes and exhaled as my finger slid up the smooth texture of his
horns. It reminded me of polished mahogany—so rich with dark color and shiny
like they were brand new. A humming noise vibrated from his chest as I stroked
the other horn.
    “How
long have you had these horns?”
    “This
is the first time they’ve appeared. I’ve always felt something hard around my
forehead,” he confessed. “But I’m shocked that I have horns too, I’m just too
mad right now to be in awe.”
    “You
have no reason to be mad. Nothing happened.” I slid my finger over the curve of
his horn. “Why do you think the horns came just now?”
    “I
think my rage speeds up my maturity.” Moving his horns away from