by Elena Lawson
Ethan’s what?
“But that’s only if I get what I need.”
Were they talking about…about sharing me? Like I was goods to be traded and haggled over?
Men…
I sighed, but I wasn’t about to complain. A joint-custody arrangement was more than I’d dared to hope for.
I could be a good little girl, couldn’t I? I glanced at the smug face of Azrael and almost snarled. It wouldn’t be easy, that was for sure.
Azrael didn’t wait to answer any more questions, he continued across the road to the waiting hearse on the other side. “Time to go,” he called back and I stiffened under Blake’s grasp, turning to bury my face in his chest.
I inhaled his clean linen and suede scent—the hint of vanilla bringing me a measure of peace. He wrapped his arms around me tightly. “Come back to us,” he whispered in my hair. “Soon or I might go mad.”
I tilted my head up to find him glaring down into my eyes, the gray of his irises near black—his jaw set and his lips in a firm line. I went up on tip toe and kissed him. He stiffened for a moment before he kissed me back. “I will,” I promised.
He fixed me with a sad smile.
“And when I do, you can tie me up however you like,” I added with a wink and lick of my lips.
I felt Blake’s cock twitch beneath his jeans and was glad to find that some of the creasing in his forehead had lessened.
Then I turned to Frost, who was growling instructions at Ethan, his voice low.
Ethan was nodding and then stepped away from Frost to speak with Blake.
I took his place in front of Frost and opened my arms. “Come here, big guy,” I said with my best smile.
Frost grunted, but did as I requested, wrapping me up in his huge, warm embrace. He nuzzled into my hair, breathing deeply. His leather and clove scent enveloped me, and it was so hard to let go. When I did, Frost placed two fingers beneath my chin and lifted my face to him. He kissed me swiftly and then pulled away, staring intently at me with his bright green eyes. “Be careful, Rosie.”
I nodded and Frost gritted his teeth as he released me. “Now go before I lose it,” he added, and I could see by how his face reddened, that he was far from joking.
I stepped back two feet and grabbed Ethan by the elbow, cutting his conversation with Blake short. “Come on,” I told Ethan. “We have to go.”
Seeing the reason why, Ethan nodded and stepped away. “If I have anything to do with it,” he said to the other two of our puzzle of four. “We’ll be back sooner than you think.”
“Go,” Frost ground out, and Blake moved into a cautionary position halfway in front of him…just in case.
“Come on, man,” Blake was saying to Frost as we finally turned away. “Let’s go inside. I don’t know about you, but I could use a drink.”
Ethan took my hand as we followed Azrael over to the back of the hearse where the compelled driver was waiting. As I heard the door shut on a still seething Frost across the street, I remembered something. I glanced up at the sky. I had no idea what time it was, but I knew for certain the sun would rise in less than six hours.
“So, how are we going to do this?” I asked Azrael. “There’s only one coffin.”
“I suppose I get to snuggle with your mate, then,” he replied. “Since you’re the only one immune to sunlight.”
I cocked my head at him, confused for a moment before he stepped in and locked eyes on me. “Sleep,” he commanded, and I felt my eyelids flutter and my legs buckle beneath me. I tried to fight it, but it was no use, my body sagged under the immense pressure of his compulsion. The last thing I heard before I fell into strong arms and the scents of white birch and rain filled my nose was Ethan cursing.
When I awoke, I found myself in the front seat of the hearse, next to an empty driver’s seat. My mouth was dry as hell and there was a gooey substance in the corners of my eyes. I wiped the corner of my mouth and the back of my hand came away slick with drool.
Ugh.
Nasty.
“I’m glad to see you had a nice rest,” a voice said from the open window next to me. I jumped and turned, trying to draw a stake from between my legs with clumsy fingers.
“Fuck!” I exclaimed, blinking as my vision and mind focused, remembering where I was and what had happened. I let go of the tight breath in a sigh and set my stake back down in my lap. “You compelled me,” I said accusingly to Azrael, shoving open the passenger side door to make him move out of the way as I stretched out my back. It was sore from my Katana pressing into it the whole drive. “Stop doing that,” I growled.
Azrael’s brows raised. “I don’t enjoy it,” he replied, deadpan as I stepped out of the vehicle. He waved an arm toward where Ethan was standing next to the coffin, examining his surroundings. “However, I think you’ll find the reward equal to the price.”
I grinned and went to Ethan, catching him by surprise with a tackle hug. He was really here.
Yeah, a prisoner in this fucking cave with you, the more rational part of me chided. Good job, Rose.
I told that part to take a hike and enjoyed the moment.
“Hey,” Ethan whispered, kissing the top of my head before maneuvering me to stand at his side with his arm around me. He nodded to Azrael. “Thank you,” he said, and I could tell it took a great deal of restraint to eek out those two words. “For allowing me to accompany her.”
“Don’t make me regret it,” Azrael replied, his eyes darkening. With a snap of his fingers the woman who’d tended me in my room appeared out of one of the darkened channels across the cavern and curtseyed to her master.
“Take Rose back to her chamber and see that she’s well fed. I’ll be needing her in the lab within the hour.”
I gulped, clutching tighter to Ethan.
Ethan rubbed some warmth back into my arm and looked between the woman and Azrael. “May I go with her?”
“No,” Azrael said plainly. “You will accompany me to the lab.”
Ethan’s jaw twitched, but he did not argue. “As you wish.”
Azrael regarded Ethan a peculiar look, as though measuring his sincerity and perhaps liking what he saw. It made my skin crawl and I shuddered.
My inner lioness roared, back the fuck off! He’s mine.
Azrael inclined his head to my golden knight. “Hmmmm,” he said, the sound low and throaty. “I think we’ll get along after all.”
13
Though the first few bites were difficult to get down, I managed to finish the entire tray of lavish food. Chicken in a peppery cream sauce with fresh bread and a small mountain of steamed vegetables. The woman, whose name I learned was Estelle, had sat in the chair by the fire and watched me consume the entire thing.
Azrael had said to be sure I got something to eat and it seemed she took her orders very seriously. I wondered how many times he’d compelled her? If her mind was even her own anymore or if she was just an empty, dried husk of the woman she used to be.
It was sad, really. With her round red cheeks, kind eyes, and occasionally saucy attitude, I thought she would make a great auntie or grandmother.
“Do you have any family?” I hedged as I polished off the last bite of the bread and refilled my water glass.
Her eyes narrowed. “No.”
“None at all?”
Her mouth tightened, deepening the wrinkles around her chin and cheeks. “Are you quite finished?” she snapped, rising from the seat to remove the tray from my bed.
Yeah, I wasn’t going to get anywhere with this one. She had very likely been compelled to forget her previous life. I’d seen it done before, though mostly the tactic was used to create human blood slaves. A vampire would erase all of their memories and implant new ones for them. Telling them that their only purpose in life was to be a blood-bag for their master. In those cases, only the vampire who placed the compulsion on the slave could remove it.
I couldn’t help Estelle. Even if I were strong enough to battle against Azrae
l’s compulsion.
Not strong enough yet, I corrected the thought. If what Azrael said was true about my mother—that her compulsion had been stronger than Azrael’s brother’s, then I supposed one day it would be possible.
I just had to survive long enough.
I snorted. Yeah, right. There was a reason no one in the entire history of our family had ever lived past forty…
“Up with you,” Estelle said as she collected the crumbs from my bed onto the tray. “The master waits for no one.”
“Yeah,” I scoffed. “I noticed.”
Like a good little Rose, I followed Estelle through the stone corridors, this time committing every turn to memory. If I did it every time she took me out of the room, eventually I would have the place figured out. That way if Azrael didn’t keep his word in the end, I would at least stand a chance at finding my own way out.
I knew we were coming up on the lab as the appearance of artificial light began to brighten the stone around us, and then eventually, I could see the opening that would lead us inside. I clenched my jaw, nervous. Would he be making vamps feed off me? Or would he just be extracting some of my blood to test on? I seriously hoped it was the latter.
The idea of letting any vamp outside of my guys feed off me made me feel instantly disgusted and my stomach rolled.
Estelle showed me inside and then without a word vanished back the way she’d come.
The lab was bustling with activity—a much different sight to when Azrael first brought me here to set the bones in my leg. Azrael and Ethan were speaking near a bank of monitors along the far wall. Azrael caught sight of me out of the corner of his eye, but didn’t pause his conversation.
There were three others in the lab now, too. All of them human if I wasn’t mistaken. I couldn’t feel their energies. The two men and one woman wore lab coats and blue latex gloves as they made ready for my arrival. Each had that glazed look in their eyes as they worked, telling me they’d all been compelled.
My fury spiked and I had to clench my fists to keep myself from drawing my stakes. I set my sights on Azrael as he finished his conversation with Ethan, even going so far as to pat him on the shoulder as he turned to me.
I didn’t like to see him touching Ethan. I immediately wanted to break his hands and pull Ethan away, but I stopped myself.
“Thought you didn’t like compelling people,” I said through clenched teeth as Azrael and Ethan approached.
“I don’t.”
My gaze flitted to the three humans in the lab. “Doesn’t fucking look like it…”
“Does she ever stop cursing?” Azrael posed the question to Ethan with a raised brow.
Ethan shrugged. “No. Afraid you’ll just have to get used to it.”
Azrael held out a hand to me. “Come,” he said, not a command, but a request. A test to see if I would obey.
My stomach soured as I placed my hand in his. I almost gagged as he wrapped his long fingers around my hand and tugged me toward what looked like a gurney. His hand was ice cold and smooth, like worn leather. The fucker didn’t even feel like a living being. He felt like what he was—a monster.
“Sit,” Azrael gestured to the gurney and I was all too eager to let go of his hand so I sat, positioning myself in the middle of the slim cushion.
“Now what?” I demanded, eyeing the doctors or scientists or whoever they were. My heart ached for them.
Before Azrael could answer me, I blurted, “Are you going to let these people go after you’re through with them or are you going to turn them into blood slaves?” My hands gripped the gurney with knuckles as I waited for his response.
I couldn’t just sit here and not say anything. How could Ethan? I glanced at him with pain-filled eyes. His expression was without feeling, and I wondered what he was thinking behind the mask of calm he wore. Seeing my distress, however, he reached out and put a steadying hand on my shoulder.
Still, I couldn’t relax. “Well?” I demanded, glaring up into Azrael’s mismatched eyes again.
He looked more severe with his long brown hair tied back with a strip of leather at the nape of his neck. Somehow it made his cheekbones seem sharper and his jawline stronger. His eyes flashed as he seemed to contemplate a response. His lips pursed. “I won’t make them blood slaves,” he offered, not giving me any other insight into his insidious plans.
“Will you kill them, then?”
“No.”
I groaned at his inability to answer a question properly. All I seemed to ever get from him were half-truths and partial answers. It was getting old already.
“Satisfied?” He asked, clasping his hands behind his back, making his chest seem wider.
“Hardly,” I grumbled, but it wasn’t like I could do anything about it. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Azrael lifted a hand to signal the humans in the room and they began to wheel over trays of equipment and put masks on their faces.
I focused on Ethan as the people formed a ring around me. Although there was a crease of worry between his brows, he looked…fascinated. This was his element, I realized. It was a place like this—well, not in a cave—where he might’ve eventually worked if he hadn’t turned himself.
Now, I could see the strain in the muscles in his neck and how he moved an extra foot back from the humans as they began cleaning a spot at the crease of my elbow. He twitched and his chest stopped moving.
Frost said he had the most difficult time with control. I hoped his most recent feeding was still enough to keep him from doing anything he might regret.
“You don’t have to stay in here,” I told him as one of the humans jabbed a needle into my skin and bright red liquid began pumping out of my body and into a bag.
Ethan shook his head. “I’m staying.”
Azrael lifted a brow at the pair of us but said nothing. He would likely get all the information he needed from both mine and Ethan’s thoughts.
As my blood drained out of me, another of the doctors pulled out a pair of scissors and cut a small bit of hair from my head. The third doctor person, a woman, drew yet another pair of scissors and when I realized what she was about to do, I all but jumped from the table. “Whoa,” I said, craning my neck to Azrael. “Why’s she trying to cut off my clothes?”
These were my hunting leathers. There was not a damned chance I was letting anybody at them with scissors, deal or not.
“Bone marrow sample,” Azrael explained without emotion. “They need access to your back to extract it.
“Bone…what?”
Ethan’s brows lowered. “You didn’t say anything about needing a marrow sample,” Ethan said to Azrael, his tone accusatory and his face growing pale.
“Didn’t I?” Azrael replied offhandedly.
“Well they aren’t cutting off my clothes,” I said. “Do you have like a hospital gown or something I can change into?”
Azrael lips pressed together. “Afraid not. It wasn’t high on my list of priorities.”
Dick.
I unzipped the top part of my top and undid the clasps, glad I was wearing a bra beneath it. I pulled off the whole top and handed it to Ethan, who’s ears tinged pink as the sight of me without a shirt. I shook my head at him. It was only hours ago that he’d fucked me with that incredible mammoth cock of his while Frost fucked him from behind. My pussy tightened at the still-fresh memory, and I smiled at him. Even now he averted his gaze, always the gentleman.
I loved that about him.
Azrael, however, seemed less like he cared about my state of nudity. He watched as I sat back down and listened to the doctor’s gentle prodding as they asked me to lay on my side facing Azrael and Ethan.
Something cold was painted onto my back and I shivered, reaching out to hold on to the metal rail.
Ethan’s face turned a shade of green as he looked away, his entire body going rigid. I wondered for a fraction of a second why he seemed to be so distraught before they rammed something big and sharp into my b
ack. It knocked the breath out of me and my hands tightened on the metal rail. My body tried to shy away from the pain, but the two other doctors held me firmly in place.
Stars exploded behind my eyelids as whatever horrid tool they were using broke through bone, puncturing my spine.
“Fuck,” I cursed.
“Try not to move,” Azrael said, his tone indifferent. “One wrong move here could turn you into a vegetable.”
I let loose a string of curses that would have had the devil blushing, my body shaking as my nerve-endings screamed from the pain. A warm hand brought me out of the momentary misery and I glanced up to see Ethan, pale and pained himself from being this close to so much human blood, but somehow, he had a small, reassuring smile on his lips. “It’s almost over,” he told me, and I felt the thick needle retracting from my back.
My body slumped as it exited my flesh and I bit back the urge to barf as I felt warm liquid roll out from the puncture mark and down to the gurney.
I really hoped it was just blood and not some weird fluid. Blood I could deal with. Hell, I’d spilled more of it than any known serial killer in the world. But there was something about other fluids that grossed me the fuck out.
“That’s all for today,” Azrael announced as the human doctors patched me up. The pain receded quickly as my body began its natural healing process.
I sat back up as the doctors moved away and sighed. That wasn’t so bad, I thought to myself.
The following days had me second guessing my choices.
They passed with more of the same. Drawing blood. More marrow and hair samples. Some swabs of saliva. Skin samples. I drew the line at removing a tooth. No way was I going to walk around with a missing tooth for the rest of life. I was sure my body would reject a dental implant, so that was a major no-go.
Azrael started keeping me in the lab for most of each day. He even began testing me in other ways. Testing my mental barriers. He would ask me to try to resist his compulsion. So far, I’d hadn’t ever been able to. Then he would ask me to try to compel him. Other than a pinched face, Azrael showed no signs of strain in resisting me.