Free Immortally Theirs by Ann Cory Page B

love.” His voice echoed deep and seductive.
    Her pulse sped up. If she could purr, she would have. “Evening,” she replied.
    His glance heated her body from the inside out. “I don’t suppose you’ve made your decision early?”
    His self-serving question quickly tempered the blaze in her belly. It was the last thing she wanted to discuss.
    “I’m afraid not.” Her clipped tone came out harsher than she’d planned. Still, she wanted him to know the decision caused her nothing but anguish.
    Armand raised a brow. “It has been a year, my sweet.”
    “ Almost , a year,” she corrected. “It will be one year tomorrow. I still have time to choose.”
    He sighed. “You know the life I can offer you. Riches. Luxuries. Anything your heart desires.”
    “Yes, and Bastian offers the same,” she countered.
    He chuckled. “Bastian doesn’t come from the same bloodline as I.”
    She knew Armand meant well, but sometimes his words came out downright arrogant. Bastian was every bit as handsome and debonair, but without the theatrics and conceit. At the same time, she knew Armand couldn’t help the way he was, and in the end she wouldn’t change anything about him.
    “I don’t mean royalty and riches,” she explained. “Just that he offers an immortal life with all the perks, and then some. The same as you do.”
    “But I only have eyes for you,” the vampire asserted.
    “As does he.”
    Armand clicked his tongue. “So he claims.”
    “With the same fierce determination and loyalty as you,” she added.
    Annoyance streaked his handsome features. “Then he steals my lines.”
    She laughed and shook her head. “Always the actor.”
    He reached out and traced a finger along her cheekbone. Her nipples instantly hardened. “Not when it comes to my love for you.” His expression turned serious. “That is all me. No acting required.”
    Shayla exhaled and felt her entire body weaken at his touch. Sometimes she hated that her body responded so easily. Especially now when she wanted to be mad at them. Didn’t they understand what they were putting her through ? How it ate her up inside? The stress was wearing heavy on her.
    “It isn’t easy to have two men swear their undying love and have to choose between them,” she said softly. Her eyes blurred with the onset of tears, but she refused to let them show.
    Armand waved his hand. “Bastian doesn’t even know the meaning of love.”
    She narrowed her gaze and tilted her head. “Don’t say that.”
    On cue, Bastian walked into the room with one brow raised. Shayla wondered how much he’d heard. Judging by the glare, he’d heard enough.
    Bastian moved with a slow, sexy gait to the fireplace and stood in front of it. His long ice-blond hair and pale blue eyes were such a striking contrast to Armand’s darker features. He wore an artist’s shirt that showed off the planes of his chest, and leather pants practically painted on. The nomadic vampire’s preference was for swordplay and games. He too shared a passion for Shakespeare, but more for the darker side of love and the physical fighting than the poetic romance. He had a commanding approach, which is why she deemed him the fighter and Armand the lover. Though Bastian didn’t need any lessons in how to pleasure a woman.
    Bastian nodded her way and then directed another heated glare at Armand. “Have you nothing better to do than hound her?”
    “I’d hardly call it hounding,” the dark-haired vampire retorted. “Besides, this is my time to be with her.”
    Bastian shook his head and propped his body against the fireplace mantle. “Please, you all but summoned me here with your incessant whining. It interrupted my reading.”
    Armand chortled. “Ah, I see. Trying to win her over by pretending to care about literature and the fine arts? I know you envy me, but must you mimic everything I do?”
    The blond vampire scowled and turned his attention back to her. “My dear, you look lovely this evening.