by Heather Long
“Take them off,” she ordered, and his cock pulsed with every word spilling from her lips. The fact that she reeked of another male did him no favors. He waxed and waned between homicidal rage that someone had touched her while she’d been trapped here, and the very distinct urge to override that scent with his own.
Neither was useful in their current situation. A situation, he might add, that was her fault.
Shooting a look behind him at the door to the unknown level, he gripped the chain between the shackles and tugged her from the wall. Her hiss of pain dragged his attention to the blistered and reddened skin of her wrists. The spelled shackles shouldn’t be reacting to either her succubus nature or her vampiric side.
Then again, she was a baby vamp.
Fuck, he’d have to take them off. He didn’t want her suffering. Gripping the door, he wrenched it open and glared through the opening. The shadowed hall looked identical to the one he’d pursued her from her cell to the stairwell in the first place.
Fuck Fin and his fired hurry to get in here. They should have tracked her together, gotten her out together.
Better, he should have just let Maddox do it himself. Hunting was his thing. Dragging her with him, he strode down the hall. The sealed cells all looked the same, but the magic on them was different.
Something he’d noticed on her level. The unoccupied cells didn’t have a metallic taint to the spell work on the doors. Something charged one of the doors they past and hit it hard enough to shake the whole frame. Magic flared, and yowl pierced the air.
That would probably leave a mark.
“Where are you going?”
“Be quiet,” he ordered. The last thing he needed was for his body and instincts to riot and override his common sense. The urge to strip her naked and sink his teeth into her grew with every passing moment. To his surprise, she cooperated and went silent. Instead of forcing him to drag her, she moved up alongside.
For exactly three more doors, then she clasped his forearm. The weight of her slender fingers gave him little warning for when she twisted the chain from his grasp while wrenching his arm up against his back. She tried to drive him into the wall.
Nice attempt.
Sexy little kitten.
Strong, too.
But he was stronger. He bore back on the force of her arms, not needing the leverage. Her little gasp as he whirled and caught her by the throat as he successfully slammed her against the wall did all sorts of things to his libido.
“Stop fighting me,” he ordered. “I don’t want to hurt you.” Quite the contrary, he wanted to lick her from one end of her body to the other, until he satisfied this wild craving she’d evoked.
“That’s not going to happen.” The stunning amber of her eyes dared him to retaliate. Most newborns boasted blood-red eyes their first couple of years. Something about the tissue in their body and how it adapted to the need to feed. Barely weeks old, Fiona’s eyes were as unique as she was.
Narrowing the distance, he forced himself to breathe through his mouth, though that did little to mute the stench of her lover or her far more provocative nature beneath it. Rage kindled in his blood, racing through his system with claws and teeth. Maddox wouldn’t forget that scent. “Fiona,” he focused on her eyes as he mouthed her name. This particular trick wasn’t his specialty. “You have to cooperate until we’re secure. Then I’ll remove the shackles. Tell me you understand.”
She laughed in his face, and Maddox snarled. The beast inside of him lunged forward until they were nose to nose. The humor in her expression drained away, but not the murder she promised him in her eyes.
“You want to kill me, kitten. You’re going to have to live long enough to do that. I could snap your neck and leave your corpse here as I made my way out. You’d wake up back in your cell, and you’d never find me.”
Her upper lip curled. “Fine,” she conceded. “But as long as we’re clear on the fact that I am going to fucking kill you.”
Maddox snorted, then licked her cheek from the curve of her jaw to the corner of her eye. It was a stupidly possessive and territorial gesture, but he did it anyway. “I’m pretty clear on the facts, kitten,” he whispered before jerking her away from the wall and gripping the chain once more.
“Blegh,” she grimaced. “Dick.”
“You wound me, kitten,” he snarked. Braced for any further attempts, he resumed his mad dash to find them a place to ride out the security breach. Twelve doors later, he found what he wanted. Gripping the door, he yanked it open and ignored the racket it made. Just another lovely feature of the supernatural roach motel they called Nightmare Penitentiary.
Empty.
Hauling her inside, he released her in the direction of the empty cot in the corner. This room was actually smaller than the one he’d found her in, but it would do. Pulling the door closed, he put a palm against the handle and muttered three words. Now to see if the cost of those syllables had been worth it. The spells flared, and his nose burned at the sudden icy metallic stink wafting at him. Retreating a few steps, he settled into a stance as he listened.
To his continued surprise, Fiona didn’t interrupt or say a word. It wasn’t long before the shuffle of footsteps reached his ears. Even the sound dampeners of the too thick walls and their magic infused layers could muffle it fully.
The drag and thud wasn’t shifter or troll. Sentinel.
They’d loosed them in the prison.
Not an unusual occurrence.
Fin. Hear me.
He waited a beat, but got no response. Telepathy wasn’t in his wheelhouse of skills either. That was all Fin. If the little fucker listened for him, he would be able to respond. Then again, it might be the prison itself. He was a few levels lower than planned, and escapes usually triggered stronger defenses.
Fin was on his own.
Clever bastard could figure it out.
The shuffling steps continued along the hall, but Maddox held off facing his charge until after the sentinel’s steps faded in the distance.
They’d have to sit it out for a few hours at least.
Pivoting, he met the baleful glare of his charge. Instead of saying anything, she merely raised her eyebrows, then held out her wrists. The rich tang of copper hit his nose at the same instant, and saliva flooded his mouth. Concern drenched his earlier rage as the blood ran in rivulets from her savaged wrists.
“Fuck,” he swore and reached for the first shackle. Pressure applied in the right spot should release them, but they refused to budge. The metal itself had begun to sink into her wrists.
Lips compressed to a thin white line, she stared at him with fiery retribution in her eyes. The shackle didn’t release as he continued to press into it, and the blood slicking her arms began to pool on the floor. The overwhelming fragrance with its sensuous notes of bourbon soaked vanilla stoked a hunger he hadn’t experienced in well over five hundred years.
The magic in the shackles wouldn’t release. Renewed anger flooded him. So far, this retrieval had turned into a clusterfuck. “You shouldn’t have run,” he growled at her, and she shifted her fingers, curling three of them and her thumb, leaving only her middle fingers extended at him. “Very cute, Kitten.”
“Stop calling me that.”
He considered it for a beat before he gave her a smile that was more grimace than grin. “Sorry, Kitten, no can do.” He didn’t mean the apology about her name but about the fact he had to grip and tear the shackles. The metal screamed and fought him as he wrenched the first one open. The magic zapped along his arms, and the unpleasant odor of singed hair polluted the air.
Fiona didn’t make a sound as he ripped the first shackle off. The horror of her flesh would haunt him for a while. Blood dripped steadily, even after he removed it. Fortunately the second one didn’t fight him and responded to the correct pressure points, popping open.
“What the fuck are those things?”
Maddox stared at the dwarven-forged cuffs. They’d cost him
his weight in gold and had held everything from a mad troll to a wild vampire in a feeding frenzy without ever breaking.
And he’d had to use the fact they were keyed to him to destroy them.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, tossing them into the sink to be cleaned. Maybe he could fix the other cuff later. Doubtful, but worth a try. He went to take her hands and lift her bloodied wrists to his lips, but she pulled free.
“Let me help,” he ordered, and she rolled her eyes.
“I’ve had enough of your help. You know, I was having a really lovely day before you showed up with your bitching, snarling, and moaning—not to mention your murder bracelets. I don’t mind kink, hot stuff, but I draw the line at fire games.”
Fire…
“They weren’t fire-infused, but cold forged. They shouldn’t have done that.” They’d never responded to any thing or person he’d shackled before like that. “If you won’t let me lick them, Kitten, then you should.”
“Why the fuck am I going to lick my bloody and mangled wrists?”
Because they were still bleeding, even if sluggishly, and she had grown paler. The puddle grew wider as well as deeper. Done with the argument—all the arguments—he pounced. Tossing her onto the narrow cot, he dropped down to pin her, even as her eyes blazed. He narrowly caught her forearms before she clawed him with her hooked fingers.
Running his tongue over her ravaged flesh, he damn near moaned aloud. Despite the stench of the other male, her blood tasted sweeter than nectar and twice as potent. Even the lingering hints of magical steel decorating the wounds couldn’t detract from its potency.
Hunger ripped through his beast with a kind of ferocity he hadn’t experienced since he’d settled into his first true transformation. Man, animal, and vampire lived in harmony, but right now, both vampire and beast fought to lap up every drop. Her musk deepened, grew more refined, and even as the wounds closed on one wrist, he turned to suck gently against the other.
Cock painfully swollen, he ground his hips at hers, and she arched her head back as a low moan vibrated from her throat. Fierce desire fisted him, and he gazed at the slender column of her throat as he cleaned her wrists and hands of every drop and scrap of blood. He sucked on her fingers, and she let out another of those delicious moans that vibrated from her throat like a true purr.
Definitely his kitten. Only when her hands and wrists were clean and the skin shiny and pink from fusing closed, did he push her arms up and shackle her wrists with his hands this time—one hand to be precise. With his free hand, he caught her chin and tilted her face so he could see the color in her lips. Still too pale, but there.
She opened her eyes. The amber color of them drowned out by fat, blown pupils, and her scent grew all the more intoxicating.
“You need to feed.” His voice came out too animalistic, rough, and raw. The rumble of his beast stalking through each word.
“No,” she husked the word, and he reared his head back. Her languid smile taunted him. “I don’t. Trust me, I’m well-sated.”
He’d kill the bastard. It wasn’t just about territory anymore. Whoever that male was, he’d never live to whisper about having touched her, much less think about it. The only one who would be sating her from now on would be him.
When her purr turned to a laugh, he glared at her. “You might have been sated.” He refused to use the word ‘well.’ “But you’re still a newborn. Blood is vital to you, you need to drink plenty and often. The stronger the blood, the less you’ll have to feed.”
“I’m not a vampire,” she informed him. “I’m a succubus. I’ve always been a succubus. I don’t feed on blood.”
She hitched her thighs around his hips, and one minute, he blanketed her, and the next, he was on his back on the hard stone floor. His skull rapped against the surface with a blow that stunned him. His kitten straddled him, grinding against his aching cock even as she gave him a vicious smile.
When he would have gripped her hips, she smirked and then stood. His whole body shook with want of her. Not even the other male’s stench was a deterrent. More, it served as enticement to remove it and replace it with his own, until he branded her with it.
His beast snarled as she looked down at him, her expression almost disdainful.
“Your lust is a magnificent thing, hot stuff. But as I said earlier, I’m full.” Then she casually stepped over him like he wasn’t even there. Skirting the pool of blood she paced over to the sink where she lifted the shackles up and out with two fingers and dropped them on the floor like they were a distasteful.
Disbelief rocked through him as she cranked on the water and began to wash her hands. Before he could growl or even summon his language skills, she stripped off her top, giving him an eyeful of her slender back and the fresh bruises littering her flesh.
His mind stuttered to a halt as she raised her damp hands to her wild tumble of red hair and then began to twist it up, tucking it into itself in a knot.
The fact that she shed her pants nearly made him swallow his tongue. What fresh hell was this? With cupped hands, she splashed water over herself, and he tracked every droplet as it skated over her soft flesh.
Until he zeroed in on the very present, deeply imbedded handprints bruising those hips he’d wanted to hold while he fucked into her.
Their presence doused his lust in ice water.
The hot rage turned cold. Every little thing he learned just made him want to kill this asshole more. But now…now he wanted to make him suffer while he died. He’d put his hands on what was not his.
“You should stop growling so much,” she commented in that low, sex-drenched voice. “It’s very unattractive.”
Maddox snorted. He didn’t need any of his senses to confirm the mistruth. “Liar.”
She glanced over her shoulder as she worked water down her arms, sluicing away any last minute traces of the blood—and his saliva. Still, Maddox sat up and didn’t move to interfere.
The show was definitely worth it, and if she managed to rinse herself of that stench, it would be much better for both of them. He didn’t need to be battling with his urges to erase it himself, and it would settle his beast. His vampire had given up trying.
Not many understood the clear lines of distinction he experienced with his aspects. It was a delicate balance, one he’d maintained for centuries.
Until today.
The hellion utterly ignoring him as she bathed from the sink captivated him in a way he’d never experienced. Instead of plotting their way out, he debated the different ways he could lure her back over to the bed. Dominating her was definitely one way, but she had too much fight in her to submit to him yet.
Begging wasn’t an option.
He would never take without permission, no matter how badly he wanted her. Even aware she’d stripped for the sole purpose of punishing him wouldn’t make him breach that inviolable wall.
He murdered men who did that.
No, Maddox had only one choice. He would have to seduce her and earn her trust. Then convince her she wanted to submit to him. That she wanted him to claim her. It would be much sweeter for both of them that way.
He was a hunter, and he’d never failed to get his prey. They couldn’t hide her deep enough in this dungeon turned prison to escape him. He could be patient.
It would have been nice to know before the shackles, though.
His beast settled, and his vampire surged, even as the man took his place at the peak of the pyramid. Once they had the nature of the hunt, nothing stopped them.
“You’re smiling,” Fiona said, half-turned and revealing the spectacular curve of her breasts. They were crowned with strawberry shaded nipples that made him hungry for summer.
“I’m enjoying the view, Kitten,” he told her honestly.
She rolled her eyes and turned away, leaving him with her glorious ass on display and the occasional glimpse of pink lips when she bent over. Yes, he had the taste of this hunt, and while she might think she
was denying him, he would lap up every single moment.
Where are you? Fin’s voice pinged against him.
It was about damn time. In Hell with a nymph. Where the fuck are you?
Where I’m supposed to be. Why haven’t you rendezvoused? The guards are everywhere, and they’re about to let out the warden’s corspesnare.
That could be bad.
Course, it also meant they’d just have to stay in this cell.
Are you safe?
His only response was a mental snort followed by Do you have her?
Not quite yet. Yes.
We’ll adjust the plan.
They were going to have to.
“You’re still smiling,” Fiona challenged as she faced him a split-second before she pulled her top back on. The color didn’t suit her in the least, and yet, she turned the drab fabric into something glorious because it touched her skin.
“We might be here a while,” he said as he rose and then sprawled on the cot, stretching out. He’d slept on stone that was more comfortable. Even with his eyelids half-lowered, he didn’t miss her stepping into her pants and pulling them up.
No panties.
At all.
He approved.
“So you’re just going to nap?”
He patted the cot next to him. “Plenty of room, you can sleep on me if you like.”
“Generous,” she deadpanned.
“I can be.”
Arms folded, she glanced from him to the door. “Some rescue plan.”
“Not done yet, Kitten. Now sheathe your claws and come give us a cuddle.”
She flipped him off and moved to the far corner where she sat down with her back to the wall and her eyes half-closed.
Eh, it was worth a try.
Maddox? Fin reached out.
Hmm?
Is it true? Hope and anticipation curled in Fin’s mental voice.
Was she a hybrid like them?
Yes. He confirmed. She’s ours.
Fin didn’t respond in words, but the enormous satisfaction swelling through the connection made Maddox smile again.
“Keep smiling over there, hot stuff. You’re still in a cell.”