"I need to start the markings, Natalia. I can make it fast with Samantha if you wish?" It is early morning and soon the sun will rise.

"No, I want to see everything. I need..." Natalia trails off blushing furiously. She's never even seen porn.

Nikolai loves her blush, but it makes it hard for him to control his desire to drink from her. "Go wait in your room then, unless you'd prefer I take Samantha in her room?"

"No, it's fine. I'll go in my room." Natalia says and slides off of Nikolai's lap. She slips into her room rapidly not looking at either of them.

"Samantha, come here." Nikolai orders as he stands up. Samantha willingly goes over to him. He slides his arms around her. "Are you sure you wish to do this?"

Samantha looks up at him and smiles brightly. "Other than you sharing me with other vampires nothing much will change between us." Nikolai kisses her neck as she talks.

"Oh, a great deal will change, but that isn't something that can be explained." Nikolai takes her into Natalia's room. "Once more, I ask without any coercion. Are you willing to be my pet?"

"Yes," with that Nikolai starts his seduction.

Natalia watches wide eyed. She had no idea that people kissed like that or touched like that.

By the time Nikolai is done with Samantha, Natalia is more than ready for him to do the same to her.

Nikolai kisses Samantha one last time then sends the tired woman off to her own bed.

He faces Natalia and can smell her arousal.

"Natalia, come here." Her arousal makes him aroused as well.

Natalia goes over to him. "I ask one last time without constraint. Do you wish to take my mark? Do you wish to be my mate?"

Natalia smiles at him and caresses his face. "Yes, of course."

"I wanted to do this after the wedding, but father's interference has changed all that. I'm sorry." Nikolai tells her.

"It's okay, Nikolai. I've wanted this for some time. Well, not the marking, that's something new, but the other." She'd been wondering why he hasn't taken her to bed. She was beginning to think that something is wrong with her.

"Nikolai, why haven't you taken me to bed before this? We've been dating for over a year." This has been bothering her, she just never had the guts to question him about it before.

"Why? Because I've respected you and to tell you the truth, I wanted our first time to be after the wedding."

"Is there going to be a wedding?" Natalia asks. Everything is going so crazy.

"Yes. One week from tomorrow, we'll get married. So I want you and Samantha to take work off today and buy your dresses, get flowers and whatever else you want." Nikolai says taking his wallet out of his pants pocket. He takes out a credit card and sets it on the nightstand next to her bed. 

"Use that card to pay for everything. How big do you want the wedding? I'll ask Sebastian to be my best man."

"Small, lets just go to the justice and get married that way." Natalia shrugs. Any dreams of weddings she had when she was younger were destroyed when her family...

"Natalia, before I do this, I need to tell you something." Nikolai can't read thoughts, but he's gotten pretty good at reading Natalia.

He sits on the bed and pulls her onto his naked self. Her breathing becomes erratic being this close to him unclothed. "Natalia, look at me." Nikolai waits until her eyes make contact with his. Once she does she calms down. "If you hate me after this I won't blame you." 

Natalia looks at him confused. She's not sure that she could hate him. "I'm the reason your family is dead." Natalia blinks at him as she absorbs this piece of news.

"You killed my family?" Nikolai nods. "Why?"

"Your brother had come to us looking to have us assassinate his ex lover and their child. In total your brother had gotten three girls pregnant. One girl and the baby died in child birth. He wanted the other two killed so that he wouldn't be sued for child support.

"I was bored and his request interested me. I wanted to see more about him. So I followed him. That's when I saw you for the first time.

"Once I saw you I, well you could say that I stalked you. I never did anything to interfere with your life, but I did watch over you."

"You kept vampires from me?" Natalia asks fascinated.

"I would have, but I didn't have to. My father had made your parents his pets. Although I hadn't known that at the time. So you and your brother were protected by that.

"But I was there when they kicked you out of the house. I could smell the blood. They'd beaten you pretty bad. I wasn't going to let that pass. I didn't care if they were father's pets.

"Fortunately you were already friends with Samantha and gone to her for help. After that it was easy for her to introduce us.

"Once I knew that you would have an alibi, I made sure that your family was killed. I did manage to salvage some of your things and a few of your mother's as well."

"I wondered how those things made it to me." The things had just been there one morning when she woke up. That night her family's house caught fire and all her family died.

"You killed them?" Somehow that doesn't horrify her like it should.

Now Nikolai is looking at her like she's a puzzle he's trying to figure out. "Yes."

Natalia is crying, "I went to the police and they wouldn't do anything. They didn't believe me."

"Natalia, what happened that day?" Nikolai has long wanted to know what happened, but has never dared ask before.

"My sleaze bag brother decided he wanted to add me to his list of conquests. I managed to get away from him but when I told my parents they didn't believe me. Their perfect little son wouldn't do that. My perfect mother was the first one to slap me. My perfect father slugged me when I wouldn't take it back. Then my perfect brother kicked me, he was angry that I didn't let him have his way. By the time they were done, I lost track who did what, I could barely stand up and walk.

"The police wouldn't even consider what I was saying to be true. I had nowhere to go before I remembered Samantha. We hadn't been friends for long and I knew that she could get in trouble for helping me, but I was desperate."

 "I saw the damage done, you could have died from your injuries." Nikolai is still angry over that.

Natalia shrugs, "The next morning it hardly even hurt."

"Natalia, that's because I had you drink some of my blood. If I hadn't you would've died." Nikolai says remembering that day all over again.

"Why don't I remember that then?" Natalia asks confused.

"Because I removed those memories, just like I removed the memories of Samantha about how we met."