Vampire Master: Vampire Queen Series: Club Atlantis

by Joey W. Hill

  The other two visibly relaxed. Anwyn met Wolf’s bemused gaze. “This is Daegan,” she said. “And while the title is technically correct, he prefers you not to use it. His existence is a closely guarded secret in the vampire world, though it’s gotten out a bit more in recent years. He’s an enforcer for the Council.”

  An enforcer was sent to reinforce rules. This guy was sent to eliminate the issue. But Wolf didn’t argue. He extended a hand, just to prove to himself and this male that, though he knew his ass could be toast if this one was of a mind to go that way, Wolf wasn’t in the habit of cringing in front of anyone.

  “If Mistress Anwyn does me the honor of hiring me, her wellbeing will be the top bullet on my job description,” Wolf said.

  “Nicely spoken,” Daegan said, accepting the hand clasp. The dark irises and pupils seemed to take up more room in the eye space than was typical, increasing the intensity of his gaze. “And though your soul is true, our minds at times take us down the wrong path. Your life depends on staying on the right one. If you do not keep her wellbeing at the top of that list, you will wish you had.”

  Threats didn’t scare Wolf, but he could tell Daegan issued the ultimatum as simple fact. When a person loved someone enough to safeguard them with such certainty, Wolf respected that.

  “Not a problem,” he said.

  "What are you doing?" Gideon asked.

  Returning to the present, Wolf realized that Gideon had joined him. Wolf was leaning on the mezzanine rail, blindly watching the dance floor. The servant was braced next to him. Good thing Gideon wasn’t a vampire hunter anymore, or Wolf would have been shish kebab.

  He’d have expected Gideon to point that out himself, because he never missed an opportunity for a smartass remark. Except the stiff way he stood next to Wolf wasn’t companionable. And the question wasn’t spoken in a friendly tone.

  Since that first meeting, he’d confirmed Gideon was a fully marked servant to both vampires. Which had kind of blown his mind. While Wolf knew that the issue of sexual preference didn’t matter much to vampires—the only consistent thing about their sexuality was that they were all active Dominants—a servant had to be willing to become a servant, and that meant the whole package, especially the sexual submission. If anyone had a straight, alpha, not-submissive vibe, it was Gideon.

  Yet he remembered a joke Gideon had made about vampires once. “They’ll fuck anything that puts up a fight.” He’d said it with a glint in his eye that Wolf had realized was meant to tease someone in addition to Anwyn. What had been in his voice, his manner, had told Wolf the world’s most successful, now retired, vampire hunter, was equally devoted to both Daegan and Anwyn. Life was always stranger than fiction.

  Well, in life there were no absolutes. Hell, maybe behind closed doors, there was a submissive vampire. True submissive, that is. Vampires had a hierarchy, and if another vampire was stronger than you and compelled submission, you submitted. Sometimes that was a distasteful necessity, sometimes something else.

  From the energy between Anwyn and this other vampire, it had been clear he topped the formidable Mistress of Atlantis. But her submission had been won and earned.

  Wolf expected nothing less of the woman who never gave an inch with him, even outmatched in strength and age. It wasn’t just because she had the muscle to back her up. It took that kind of will to have a man as her servant who didn’t act like a proper one most of the time. Like right now.

  Wolf straightened. "I’m on my way to a session. I have a full schedule until two."

  "Yeah. You usually do. But you’re exceeding expectations in time management tonight. According to breakroom gossip, you managed to find time to fuck with Ella’s head. As well as the rest of her."

  Wolf turned to square off with the other male. He’d been a vampire longer than he’d been a mortal now. Which was three times longer than necessary for him not to respond well to being questioned by a human. Particularly not another vampire’s servant.

  "I expect that's none of your business."

  "I expect it is." Gideon met him toe to toe, his midnight blue eyes hard and mouth set. "She doesn't know what you are. And what was that on Puppy Night? You about lost your shit with Toby.”

  “I already had that conversation with your Mistress,” Wolf said evenly. “You should back the hell up before you get hurt.”

  Gideon’s lip curled in a half smile that wasn’t a smile at all. He started to say something else, but he was interrupted.

  "Gideon." Anwyn had materialized out of the shadows, with a tantalizing waft of perfume and femininity. She put her hand on her servant’s shoulder. "I need to speak to Wolf. Please go make the rounds."

  When she gave Gideon a direct look, a thought that was obviously on the heavy side of I mean it, his jaw flexed. At length, he inclined his head. Wolf wondered what had been said and answered in their minds, because Gideon wasn’t easily ordered around, even by his Mistress, though she was one of the few who could do it effectively. As he left, Gideon shot him a passing "Don't make me kick your ass look.” On another day, that would have made Wolf smile in violent invitation, but then Anwyn was in his field of vision.

  Anwyn clasped her hands and leaned an elbow against the railing. It turned her body into an attractive sinuous S, garbed as it was in latex leggings and a gossamer dark purple top drifting down to her upper thighs. Her hair was swept up so her silver dangling earrings caressed the swan-like column of her throat.

  In this section of the club, there were clear panels and curtains placed strategically to filter noise. So she didn’t have to raise her voice, a melodious purr with an attention-grabbing mix of female softness and implacable steel. The dark eyeliner she wore enhanced the laser sharpness of her gaze.

  "He's rough-mannered, Wolf, you know that. But he cares about her, as do I. And while yes, we addressed the bloodlust you called back on Puppy Night, I did not discuss then what motivated it. I think the time has come for that question.”

  He was aware that his possessiveness toward Ella that night had been way out of proportion with the normal professional protectiveness he exercised toward any submissive within the club walls. In the aftermath, he’d said the right things to Anwyn to smooth out the situation. She’d listened to him, accepted it with a short nod and surprisingly little commentary. However, she’d watched him talk as if she was hearing the things he wasn’t saying, things he hadn’t sorted out for himself. He shouldn’t be surprised that she’d returned to the subject, far more directly.

  “I'm asking you, as a peer, your intentions toward her."

  "You're a fledgling, not a peer," he said shortly, turning back to the rail. Yeah, he was being an ass, but he wasn’t in the mood to be questioned, not when he couldn’t figure this out himself.

  "Okay.” Her voice hardened. "I'm also the one who owns and runs this place. I can throw you out on your ass if you don't drop the attitude. I have the resources to make that happen with a simple toss, or by shoving you through a meat grinder first."

  Fair enough. Still, he had to let her know he wasn’t going to fall in line at a snap of her fingers. That was the Master and vampire in him. "Calling in reinforcements? Calling Daddy?"

  She laughed, a sharp sound. "You know that's not the shape of my relationship with him. But my ego isn’t so big that I won't put it aside to protect a girl I care about deeply. Her scent is on you. You’ve had her. You're arrogant as hell and you don't like to be questioned, but you're a good man. So stop making me want to hurt you, and tell me what’s going on.”

  Her expression altered subtly, and she laid her hand on his arm, reinforcing the change of tone. “I’m a far better friend than enemy, Wolf. I care about both of you.”

  “I know that.” He dropped his head down, shoulders lifting in an impatient sigh. “The impression I got from you and Gideon was if Ella had someone pick up the reins on her, at least here at the club, it would help her be happier, safer. A sweet, fucked-up little girl looking for a Daddy.”r />
  “Hmm.” Anwyn produced her phone and tapped into it. “Shortly before you came here, Ella was in a CNC session. Consensual non-consent. She only had one hard limit. The Dom didn’t respect it, didn’t respond to her safe word.”

  “I hope you threw his or her ass into the street.”

  “We would have, but he required medical attention first.” She paused, scrolled. Wolf saw she was going through archived video footage. He knew most sessions in the private rooms were recorded, but the sessions without incident were deleted after a prescribed period of time. The ones with incidents were kept indefinitely.

  “James or one of his guys taught him a lesson.”

  “No. Not them.” She offered him the phone, reached over his thicker wrist to press the play button. “I fast forwarded it to the relevant part.”

  An unearthly, hoarse shrieking blasted from the phone. He’d been picking up most of the buffered club sounds with his vampire hearing, but suddenly all other noise disappeared for him.

  Ella had been strapped to a chair for the CNC session. As the tape began, she was surging up from it with an adrenaline-fueled show of strength. The chair had I-bolts to hold cuffs. While it was a secure enough hold for someone her size, she popped them loose from the wood like they were nothing. A side table with implements the Dom had been using crashed over on its side, scattering them.

  She leaped onto the guy, driving him back. He was a tall male in his thirties, not overly muscular, but likely stronger than Ella. Normally.

  He stumbled and went down. She was all over him, screaming, punching. Wolf had seen Ella irritated, but he’d never seen her angry like this, in a way he recognized far too personally. This was rage, called from a bottomless, boiling well of it. When blood bloomed on the Dom’s arms, held up defensively before him, he realized she’d grabbed one of the items on the floor. A scalpel.

  “Christ.” Wolf sharpened his attention, realizing those hoarse screams were words.

  “I said no. No. One thing. No.”

  Anwyn reached over, clicked stop and darkened the screen, so he wasn’t looking at Ella’s frozen, fury-distorted features.

  “She knows how to take care of herself, Wolf,” Anwyn said. “If she makes a decision, she makes it. She doesn’t let it be made for her. It took me a while to realize it, too, because she is such a natural submissive, and there is a true fragility to her that calls to the protective side of our nature. She loves to serve, and will do anything to take care of others, give them pleasure. But she does have her lines in the sand. She’s also not looking for just any Dom willing to have her. Three Doms have wanted to collar her. She's turned all three down, told them she's not what they're looking for.” An amused look crossed Anwyn’s lovely face. “Then she found each one of them exactly the kind of submissive they needed. She could be a matchmaker.

  “In terms of endurance and stamina, she's physically tougher than a lot of our male subs, and more emotionally resilient than most submissives I’ve seen here.” She took the phone back. “So going back to your fucked-up little girl comment, any Dom who spends more than ten minutes with her knows there’s a lot more than that going on with her. Including you. What’s been happening between the two of you is making you defensive.”

  Anwyn said it as a quiet observation, making it hard for his hackles to rise. Especially when he knew she was right. “I may not want to argue those points, but it doesn’t change the fact I don't want anything outside this structure. I’ve been upfront and honest with her about that, Anwyn. I promise. There are plenty of relationships that happen only within these walls. They're satisfying, intense.” Manageable.

  “That’s true.” Anwyn’s tone was neutral, her eyes doing that thoughtful thing, as if she was weighing the additional, invisible weight his words carried. He hated how women did that.

  "Eventually, you'll need a servant."

  He blinked. "Did we just take a left at the Grand Canyon and jump? That was quite a segue."

  Her full lips pursed. She was wearing some kind of wet lipstick on them tonight the color of plums. He could even detect the scent. "Not really. Surely you knew this day would come, when you'd choose one.”

  “That is not what’s going on here,” he said, straightening from the rail once more to face her. Realizing he’d spoken more forcefully than intended, he dialed it back, continued more steadily. “This is the twenty-first century. With the Internet and twenty-four hour open everything, particularly in cities, there are plenty of ways to handle our needs. Blood is as plentiful as fast food restaurants. Grab a person, pull them into an alley, dinner is served. Use some compulsion on them, they’re fuzzy about the whole thing. Or I can mask it as rough consensual sex play, no muss, no fuss. There’s some risk in random blood donors, but not if you take precautions to make sure it’s not a vampire hunter plant.”

  “There are other, deeper reasons a vampire takes a servant. You’d do better to tell me the truth; that it’s those reasons you’re avoiding, not some bullshit about convenience. No offense.”

  She said the last with a mild amusement that didn’t reach her eyes, reminding him that, no matter the tone of this conversation, she hadn’t forgotten what it was about. Who it was about.

  “As far as those other, deeper reasons,” she continued, “Ella is a better choice than most. She is a strong service submissive, obedient to a fault, but with the intelligence to stand up for herself in charming, inoffensive but entirely effective ways. Those qualities make her versatile, adaptable. She keeps her wits about her, even when she’s rattled. She’s not going to balk at the sexual games that happen between vampires. If she has a Master guiding her, the more violent and political encounters won’t get the better of her.”

  “Maybe I just don’t want someone up in my space all the time.”

  “Interesting.” Her sable hair tumbled over her shoulder as she tilted her head, considering him. “That’s a male reaction to a committed human relationship. Your servant is there for you. If you want to see her five minutes a day for blood, if you want her to kneel in a corner for hours waiting on your needs, that is what she does.”

  “Why, Mistress Anwyn. That sounds pretty damn cruel.” He shifted. It was time to bring this conversation to a close.

  “I’m making a point.” She ignored his poised-for-exit body language. “For a servant truly dedicated to their Master or Mistress, it isn't cruel at all. Not that way. You've seen subs who are that devoted to service, who are fulfilled as long as they know they're doing whatever their Master wants them to do. Ella has a great deal of that in her, and something more.”

  Anwyn sobered. “I haven’t been a vampire long, Wolf, but even I’ve realized there’s something…different, about the humans who embrace the life of a vampire’s servant. There are 24/7 subs within these walls who don’t have that something. Gideon has it, the most unlikely candidate ever to embrace the role.”

  “Embrace is a strong word.” Wolf snorted. “It doesn’t have anything to do with him being suitable to be a servant, and everything to do with you. What he’ll do for you.”

  “Yes. Exactly.” She met his gaze. “And that’s the root of it.”

  The riposte speared his gut, right on target, because yeah, he’d seen that in Ella. Felt it. He wanted to say it wasn’t anything unique, that she showed it with all different kinds of Doms. But he remembered her words, modified for their meaning in his head.

  I need someone who can find me in that darkness at the bottom of my soul.

  He sighed, scowled. "If I eventually choose a servant, it will be a man."

  "Someone you don't have to feel so protective about, being the old-fashioned guy that you are." Anwyn tossed him a grimly amused look. "You were born in 1946. You don't have to act like it. Women aren’t nearly as helpless as you want to think we are. And not to get too repetitious, but having a servant is more than that. It's about what you need, too. Emotionally. "

  “Do you know why there aren’t any Daddy Doms among
vampires?” he asked. Time to turn the tables here.

  From the flicker of her gaze, the shadowing in her face, he knew she knew the answer. Same as he did. But he spoke it anyway.

  “First rule of being a Daddy Dom is take care of your sub. Servants are the property of a vampire, subject to whatever they want from them, and want to do to them, regardless of how the servant feels about it.”

  Anwyn nodded. “No argument. I’m not saying there isn’t a little girl side to Ella’s submission, but that’s only one component to it. You’re a Master first and foremost, so it’s not the Daddy side alone drawing her to you. But it does still exist inside you. Here’s a prime example.”

  She laid a hand on his arm again, drawing his gaze, and spoke firmly. “I’ve known Ella far longer than you. If I told you to back off this thing with her, because I don’t think it’s a good idea, would you listen to me?’

  He looked out at the dance floor. This late, most people were in scenes in private rooms or the public play areas, but there were a few couples dancing, in manners from primal to graceful, to outright sexual. Different ways of expressing what they wanted from one another. “Is that what you’re doing?”

  “Interesting again. Not a yes or no.” She turned so they were shoulder to shoulder. At length, she spoke. “Tell me the truth, Wolf. What can you give me on this?”

  He thought it through, and she waited on him. At length he looked toward her again, met her gaze squarely. “I can be a cruel and ruthless bastard when the moment calls for it. But I’m not so far from being human that I’ve forgotten how to be kind. I’ll have a care for her feelings.”

  She straightened, gave him a nod. “See that you do. Cleaning that meat grinder is very time consuming.”

  Wolf gave her a tight smile. Then he picked up her hand and brushed a kiss over it, a courtly gesture that bemused Anwyn. As he strode away, the mantle of a Master was as evident as a cloak thrown over his wide shoulders. Billowing outward, it affected the very air around him. Eyes followed him from all corners.