by Heather Long
His whole body shuddered as he dragged me up, and then his mouth was on mine. The fact that I could still taste his spunk—which meant he could too—amused me on some level, but it didn’t deter him in the slightest. If anything, it amplified his need.
When he shredded my panties and I climbed on him in the booth, it was a quick and furious coupling magnified by the beat of music around us. I loved the outfit, the leather dress and the sexy heels. The leather massaged my nipples as I moved, the buttery softness a fantastic counterpoint to the hardness of the cock he slammed me down on.
The guy’s technique was lacking, but fuck if he didn’t make up for it with enthusiasm. He bit my wrist after the second set of orgasms. His, not mine. He didn’t last long enough for mine, but I wasn’t here to get off so much as to just feed, and yeah, I was more than a little drunk on him.
The lust rolling off him grew more potent rather than diminishing. When he bit down on my wrist and fingered my clit until I came, I blissed out. Probably explained why I left with him, his come still sticky on my thighs, and why I let him take me back to his place.
Well that, and I wasn’t inviting him to my shitty little apartment. It might be small and cramped, but it was mine. I was saving everything to build my perfect place. I could see where I wanted it and how I wanted it to be. I was always redesigning it.
His place was much nicer and a penthouse.
Yeah, this dude was loaded.
We were three steps in the door when he was on me again, and fuck if I didn’t just go down for all that fierce snarling. He slammed me against a wall—yeah, it was kind of hot, and he had the dress pushed up as he fucked into me. When he bit my neck, I didn’t think anything about it.
Fair was fair. I was drowning in his lust, and he was getting off. But a guy had to eat. I’d just wait until the bite marks healed before seeing Elias.
Even after he came again, I was still feeling it. Fuck, it would be nice to be able to feed and get off at the same time. Pants open, he carried me into his room. It was so fucking over the top melodramatic, I started laughing.
Literally, black silk sheets, black wall hangings, black walls—if he’d had a coffin shaped bed, it would have fit right in with the aesthetic.
“What the fuck are you laughing at?” he demanded as he dumped me on the bed.
“Aww, poor baby, did I hurt you feelings?” Okay, so I was a little drunk, pointing one of my heeled feet at him and mocking him just a little. It was no reason to rip the shoe off and snap the heel.
Those were my best pair of shoes.
“I think you have too much energy,” he growled. “You need to remember who you’re here to serve.”
Really?
I slugged him.
It broke my hand, but whatever. When he ripped the dress open though, oh it was on. The problem was that I was already lust drunk, and the more I fought, the more it fanned his lust. Fuck, I didn’t care how rough he made it. Or that he half strangled me when he mounted me. The moment his teeth sank into my throat, I was groaning. I came over and over, but more from the lust pounding into me than his body.
Then the world darkened as he wouldn’t let go, and the pain pierced the pleasure. I fought to get his teeth out of me, but all he did was moan and suck harder, his hips pistoning until the world blotted out.
Then I was choking on blood. So much blood. It was pouring down my throat until I gagged.
I didn’t want it.
Didn’t he understand…
Terror clawed at me when I woke.
Blood coated my mouth.
The room was wrecked.
My clothes shredded.
Dimitri was gone. No sign of him anywhere.
I staggered into the bathroom and stared at the red eyes staring back at me.
What the fuck had he done?
Terror turned to rage.
I was going to kill me a vampire.
He’d wrecked my favorite outfit. Broken my favorite pair of shoes. Beyond all that, he’d poured his blood down my throat.
I couldn’t be a vampire, but my noodle like limbs and weakness decried all of that.
I didn’t heal from blood.
I didn’t…
Alfred lifted his head. She’d gone utterly limp in his arms. Images kept flashing through his mind. Her confrontation with Isaac, her city’s prince. That shit stain could die. Her internment. The warden. Dimitri’s face and name were imprinted. That was another shit stain. He’d tasted her power and wanted it, that was why he’d brutalized her. Taken and taken until she’d nearly died, the last of her heartbeats so sluggish, she should have, and then he’d fed her blood.
Cupping her face, Alfred murmured, “You will have your vengeance, hellion. I give you my word.”
Then he lifted her and carried her inside. Her heart beat so slow. Almost too slow. But he had time. He had to get her right to the very brink to break the last shadow chain. His brothers had done their best, but they didn’t fully comprehend demons—or the fact that they tangled deeper than blood.
“Alfred,” Fin called him as he passed by, striding toward the stairs to his own wing.
“Not now,” he answered. Not while he had her on his tongue and in his mind. He saw every moment from her death to her awakening to her confrontations to when Maddox arrived in her cell.
The warden’s visits were particularly colorful, and he planned to remove every inch of his taint. Of course, he’d known what she was, he couldn’t have mistaken her for anything else. To control one like her would have given him enormous power.
“You drained her?” Maddox was in his way. The dragon’s eyes furious, battle-readiness etched into his every muscle. Rogue stepped between them, but he couldn’t contain the dragon’s growl. “She wasn’t ready for that.”
“Later, Maddox,” Alfred ordered him. “She’s mine now.”
His until he purged the taint, then his brothers could have at her again. The danger to them was more real than they’d realized. They’d done well to split her blood between them, to flush her with theirs. Smart.
The blood had sustained her. But the taint, no matter how minute, was still there.
Maddox lunged forward, and Rogue barely caught him. “Hold off,” Rogue told him. “He’s helping her.”
“She’s mine,” Maddox challenged him, and the dragon’s eyes were incensed. Cradling Fiona to him, Alfred met his stare and waited. The dragon was powerful. Had always been among one of the strongest creatures he’d ever encountered.
But he would fight his brother and his brother’s fire if he demanded it. “I am not taking her from you forever,” he told him. “You know this. Control yourself.”
The dragon shuddered as he dropped his gaze to the woman in Alfred’s arms and then up again. The mark on his throat drew Alfred like a laser.
“You bit her throat,” Maddox snarled. “She doesn’t want anyone at her throat.”
He understood. “It was necessary.”
“You scared her.”
“I do not have time for this argument.” Her heart grew more sluggish with each passing second. The brink of death drew closer. “I will speak to you all later.” He nodded to Rogue, then continued.
Whatever debate occurred between the others, he tuned out. His focus was solely on the way her heart beat.
His rooms were open, a fire burning in the hearth and the bed made. The windows had been unshuttered, and everything aired out. Fresh furniture filled in the open spaces.
It was not the black coffin of Dimitri.
Satisfied with Rogue’s choices, Alfred set her on the bed and then stripped away the robe that smelled of Fin and his brothers. Bite marks littered her chest. Two more on her thighs. They had been thorough in their choices.
Divesting his own clothes, he ignored the dust on them and then examined his skin. He needed a bath, but it would have to wait. He bit down on his wrist to get the blood flowing before he slid onto the bed and pulled her limp form into his lap. Her mo
uth opened as he drew his wrist closer, the scent of his blood rousing her.
When her heart beat stuttered and finally faded, only then did he press his wrist to her mouth. Maddox’s roar punched through the near silence in the keep. Fin’s mind reached out to him, but Alfred batted it away. Of the three, only Rogue didn’t question him, yet his concern was there, a palpable force.
For all that he had held himself in reserve, the frost elf had already succumbed to the attraction. Hardly surprising, and Alfred wouldn’t fight the need to be there. At first, nothing happened, but he waited as his blood trickled between her lips.
The silence. The absolute lack of a heartbeat.
Death hung like a curtain.
Then it shredded as she gripped his arm, and her mouth closed over the wound. The scrape of her teeth forced at his skin, trying to widen the slash. Stroking her hair away from her face, Alfred smiled down at her. “Feed, little hellion,” he murmured. His whole body stirred to the contact with hers, but he focused on the gulps she took and the way color flushed across her breasts.
Life suffused her, and her scent curled around him until he wanted to sink his teeth into her again. But he had patience, he had to let her drain him, then he would drain her again.
More and more, she sucked, pulling harder, and his cock grew stiffer with every healthy pull. It defied logic, but then the idea that a mate existed for all four of them had always defied it.
When she fluttered open her lashes and looked up at him with near green eyes, Alfred smiled.
A queen.
Finally.
Chapter 15
“You have escaped the cage. Your wings are stretched out. Now fly.” - Rumi
In its purest form, the act of retribution offered symmetry. It offered payment for a crime. The danger, however, was that retaliation often only furthered the cycle of violence. Yet, what else could I do when the greater offense would be to let a crime go unpunished?
Those thoughts filtered through my foggy brain as I roused to the taste of aged blood. The flavor was beyond anything I’d ever experienced. The effervescence of Fin, the spice of Maddox, and the cool fire of Rogue had become somewhat familiar to me. I wouldn’t say I craved their blood, so much as I craved them.
This? The flavor sent spots of gold flickering like a flipbook of images played on fast forward. Intense aromas of brown sugar, toffee, and lime teased my palate as I rode horses, raced armies, faced the sun, and conquered my enemies. Battle and I were old friends, but I was always alone.
Others wanted to follow me, and I allowed it, but I never encouraged it. When Rogue came into my life, he had his own agenda. He fit, and when battle nearly took him, I saved his life. He did not thank me for it.
No, quite the opposite, he tried to kill me. It says something for our friendship that he tried to kill me for five years before he considered forgiving me.
He has been my friend ever since. My constant companion.
The images raced away, almost too fast for me to hold onto. I gasped when he pulled his wrist from my mouth and then tucked his face down to my throat.
“No,” I tried to squirm, but his arms locked around me.
“Yes, my hellion. I am removing all trace of him from you.” The rasp of his voice was a dark promise all its own, and my whole body seemed to go liquid. Then his teeth sank in, and I wanted to scream. Panic clawed its way up, but he didn’t tear away or rend. His arms tightened, a hug not pinning me down, and with care, he began to stroke my hair.
I was in the shop. I loved this shop so much. We’d worked hard to cultivate the clientele. Mundane and supernatural, they all came to us. I didn’t own the place, no, I just worked there, but I loved it. I loved the feeling infused into every part of the place.
“What’s your favorite part?” The whisper of his voice against my ear had me turning. No one was there, but I looked to the wall of crystals. In the afternoon, when the sun hit them, it became a wall of light. Part of why my perfect house would be one with floor to ceiling windows where I could see the whole world, not some dark, cramped little apartment that faced the brick wall of the building next door.
“It’s beautiful.” Like a ghost, he trailed his fingers down my arm to take my hand. “Show me your house?”
It wasn’t mine yet. Just a place. An idea.
“Show me.” Command and request. Seduction and demand.
With a roll of my eyes, I retreated from the shop and walked out onto the deck of my cliff house. I could see it so perfectly. The salty air blew in from the west. The thrum of the waves a soothing soundtrack, even as birds called in the distance. He was indistinct, but he stood next to me as I leaned against the railing.
“Open…not very defensible.”
I snorted. “I don’t want to hide behind walls,” I confessed. “I’ve lived in the shadows for so long. I want light. I want—this.” Open skies. Open air. Light everywhere.
“Who kept you in the shadows, hellion?”
Life. What I was. Succubi didn’t even want to be around their own kind. We separated from our families as soon as we could survive on our own. We dared not get too close. It was why I had to go.
“Shh…you don’t have to do anything. Show me more.”
I should tell him no. I really should. This was my place. I’d built it for me.
“Please.”
The single word shocked me. I’d already wanted to show him, but now… Fine. I took his hand, threading my fingers with his, and guided him inside. The bedroom was exactly as I envisioned it. Huge, like the room I shared with Rogue, Maddox, and Fin. The bed was much bigger, too. So it was the same with a few tweaks.
He chuckled at the description as we moved toward the windows and looked out over the ocean. “Magnificent.”
I thought so, too. It was why I wanted to be able to look over it. Always. “Just imagine the sunset over the water…” The light changed and played exactly as I’d wanted it to be.
“Show me more?”
The bathroom, the sunken tub and the oversized shower. Though images of the pools in the bathing room flickered in and out. Downstairs, I showed him the kitchen and dining areas, but they were the library. Piece by piece, my house turned into the keep and then changed back.
“It’s all right, Fiona. Trust me.”
Why should I? But he didn’t answer the question as darkness crowded my vision, and then I was gasping as he lifted his head. We were in some room I’d never been in before, and Alfred gazed down at me, his lips red with my blood. He rolled me over so I lay breast to chest, and then he tucked my head to his throat. I knew what he wanted but I was so tired.
I didn’t want to do this anymore.
“It hurts.” It did. Everything hurt. Breathing hurt.
“You have almost no blood left,” he told me as he stroked the hair from my face. “It is like pulling poison from a wound, Fiona. I have to cleanse it all, and I will cleanse it through me.”
That didn’t even make sense.
“You must trust me.”
“Why? You bit me.”
He smiled. “And you may bite me, hellion.”
I didn’t even know him.
“Not true,” he whispered, cradling my face when I couldn’t hold my own head up. My vision dimmed as my heart slowed. Somewhere, a roar punched through the hum in my ears.
Maddox.
“Will be fine. Fin and Rogue are with him. This is hard on the dragon,” Alfred warned me. “Don’t fight me too long, hellion, it hurts him.”
I frowned. How was it hurting him? I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask for any of this.
“No,” Alfred told me. “You didn’t…now you must feed.”
I hated him.
I hated all of them.
“I know,” he soothed, rubbing my back as he nestled my face to his throat. The pound of his heart vibrated against my chest, and I licked at the skin. Just a trace of my tongue to gather the salt there, but it was far more decadent than salt, and I
sank my teeth in. It took real effort to clamp down, and the hand on the back of my head urged me to keep going, even if it had to be hurting him.
The first gush of blood filled my mouth, and I closed my eyes, losing myself to the ecstasy. The pain receded as I drank.
Rogue led the way down the hillside. We had to move fast. The barbed spear fired by the ballista had hit the golden dragon’s wing. It had crashed to the earth. There were so few of them left. If we didn’t get there fast enough…
I had never moved so fast, only to seem like it wasn’t fast enough. The dragon’s heart thundered in my ears. Pain echoed in his roar, and the clash of steel reached us before we made it to the clearing, leaping the downed trees he’d ripped out as he tumbled from the sky.
Ahead of me by two steps, Rogue unleashed a deadly volley of ice daggers. They sliced right through the opponents, and I continued on. There were easier ways to kill, but I wanted to get to the dragon before further harm had been done to him. My blade cleaved through necks and severed heads. I was already on to the next before the first body fell.
The dragon’s wing dragged the ground, the spear having torn the delicate membrane of the wing. He snapped and ripped one soldier in half with a chomp of his teeth and consumed the two past them with a flash of white-hot fire. Their screams rent the air and then faded as they tumbled, burnt and blackened to the ground.
When the dragon swung his head to face me, I raised my hands, sword angled down. In my grip it was still dangerous, but my posture was non-threatening.
“I’ve come to help you,” I told him. “You can kill me.” Or try anyway. “Or you can let me free you. There are more of them coming. They’ve gotten very skilled at killing your kind.”
The dragon glared, rage and pain radiated from him. The sound of running steps behind me had me twisting, and the head of the latest raider sailed from his shoulders as I stepped up to meet the assault. Rogue was soon at my side as we cut through the attackers.