by Talyn Scott
She felt cornered, asking warily, “How?”
“Donors are rare and precious, primarily to the Dynasty.”
“Lucky me,” she muttered, pulling back and meeting his eyes. The firelight played back and forth across his golden eyes. By the look on his glorious face, Gianni was a raging fire headed her way.
“If you were truly mated under our laws, you would not have experienced a blood tie with me, where you needed my essence in order to live.”
She didn’t believe that for a minute. Still, he shouldn’t have bonded them in the first place. His selfishness knew no bounds. “You did this to me,” she spat, scrambling to get away from him, but he tightened his hold. “Egocentric bastard, you made my life dependent on yours.”
“It is true, and although I have guilt for this,” he admitted, without a trace of remorse that she could see. “I cannot say I am sorry, for that would be a lie.”
She had so many things to say, but she sat fuming, staring down at her hands as they gripped her dress. You’re stronger than this. Get ahold of yourself! Sidetracking her mental energy would not grant her freedom. She needed to concentrate, control her anger better.
“This Vojak Kovac is a newly appointed ambassador, is he not?”
“Yep.”
“Then you would have met his Coven Master by now. Was he aware that you needed my blood?”
“Yes,” she whispered, her cognac eyes still flaring with righteous anger. “I was given blood transfusions from Species blood.”
“I wonder. How many blood transfusions would it take before they turned you into a deranged Undead?” His unusual eyes narrowed, his accent thickened. For a second, he looked even more dangerous, if that were possible.
“That could happen?” She asked cautiously.
“You are human mixed with immortal, after all,” he expressed steadily as he rolled tension from his wide shoulders.
More lies? “Part human,” she repeated in disbelief. Still marveling how different her life would have been if her brother had not ‘sold’ her.
“Well, all of that transfusion nonsense is over now,” said Gianni in a relieved tone she could not share. “You have me to care for you, and you will live a long and happy life.”
“An immortal life?”
“Yes, as long as you drink from me, you will stay alive,” he said, his explanation laced by threats.
“Well, I thought I heard it all, but I was clearly mistaken.” Anger took a strange nosedive. Blythe could now categorize her thoughts into equal thirds. There was shock, shock, and more shock. In her mind, she did not want Gianni. Her love for Sixten was all she saw. Unfortunately, the blood rushing her body had other ideas. “Somehow, I got away from you before.”
“At the present, you realize you’ll die without me.” One long figure curled around her manacle, tugging. “I never imagined you would leave me, would want to leave me. Foolishly, I trusted your brother to uphold our bargain.” He adjusted his leg, pushing his hard length against her. “There is no trust between us now, my Blythe.”
“If you want me to like you,” Blythe whispered, her eyes burning with unshed tears, “you’re not helping your cause.”
“To like me?” he asked passionately. “In the way you like your favorite chocolates? Or perhaps how you like watching the sunrise wash over slumbering Venice when you have stayed up all night and are too giddy to sleep?” He tilted his head in question. “Do you recall our holiday there?”
A memory crept forward. Gianni laughing down at her, bringing her body inside the warmth of his long, white coat when a chilly breeze brought gooseflesh across her arms. A magnificent sunrise sparked ahead, stretching above the Venetian horizon and painting the awakening sky with life. Gianni never took his eyes from her face, thoroughly enjoying her appreciation over a sunrise he must have witnessed for centuries, his smile radiant in the morning light.
“Oh…we were there,” she admitted her memory, pressing her trembling fingers to her temples. At least at some point, in another life, she shared genuine happiness with this vampire.
“So…what is like? I wish I could simply like you, or better yet, hate you.” He looked away, staring into the fire with grave intensity. “In regard to humans, declaring unrequited love is devastating within itself. Even so, for an immortal of my station, a declaration such as that can destroy.”
One thing Blythe truly knew, Gianni was saying he loved her. That admission obviously pained him, because she could never return his love. More than that, by baring himself, he admitted she held power over him. In her minimal understanding of the immortal world, no one with his range of power allowed another to dominate. “So you’re breaking me because you think I’m breaking you?”
“We both know there is no need to break you,” he said, his pulse thudding in his throat. “Simply, you had freedom before that you do not now.”
In a blurring movement, he flipped her, tossing the damask pillows to the floor. Her back sank into the soft chaise. Delicate cushioning cradled her on one side, his hard-planed frame pressing the other. Not a human’s body at all, his length honed from a creature that should not be of this world. Her heavy breasts flattened against him, the edges straining under her arms. His hand came up, massaging the extra flesh, expertly kneading her. Ancient eyes narrowed on her with frightening intimacy, a stare that felt excessively personal.
“This is heading somewhere we cannot go, Gianni.” His thumb and index finger found her right nipple, plucking until it mirrored within her womb.
“A place we have already been, enjoyed, and need to get back to.”
“Gianni, we no longer have a physical relationship.”
“It feels like we do,” he whispered against the side of her throat, his body settling between her thighs, though she did not remember spreading them this way. “I sense the human part of your mind spiraling, trying to figure out how to escape me for good…or even sidetrack me from this.” Fabric moved up her thighs, her dress lifting.
“I don’t belong with you.”
“How do you know you were not coerced by Maestru or this Sixten?” A warm, wet tongue drifted up her throat, twirling when it reached the dip below her bottom lip. Somehow, she could feel that movement across her clitoris. It hardened against the silk of her panties, waiting for more. “Why assume I am the villain?”
“You’re the one manipulating me.”
He brought himself up by bracing his hands on either side of her face. “Perhaps, it is time for you to remember more. You’ve been gone a long six months, Blythe. I want you to remember what we shared right before you left. Think back…”
Blythe felt cold and then hot…tingling. As though another mind crowded hers, Gianni’s will pushed her current thoughts to the side and pulled memories from hidden mental tombs. Crashing waves pummeled her, again and again, rolling water drowning her until she finally pushed to the surface and took a steady gasp. She shook her head to clear it, and the past unfolded:
“Are you comfortable in your restraints?” Gianni was too hungry today; she heard it in his voice. Powerful hands stroked the globes of her ass, massaging on the down stroke.
A long chain hung from the ceiling, securing her by lined wrist cuffs. “Yes.”
A whip across her thighs, it breached the point of pain without going over the line.
“Yes, Sir.” A cool bead of perspiration dripped down her nape, similar to the moisture now saturating her inner thighs. He lowered his naked body down her front, scraping flesh on flesh. “Master, I am so alive with you.”
“As I am with you, pet.” He lowered completely, a royal at her feet. “Since birth, I have never knelt before another, not even my father.” His knees touched the floor, hands spreading her ankles wide with massaging hands. One snap secured her shackle to the floor, followed by the second one. Some days his erotic obsession, his obsession with her, demanded he completed this in vampiric speed. Other days, like today, he savored his possession of her – moving eve
r so slowly.
His long hair wrapped her foot. A wet tongue curled around her toes, suckling each one until he moved up and kissed the inside of her arch. “Everything adored; I leave nothing untouched. For you see me as your master, yet you hold the power of my release.”
Her breath rushed out when his tongue slid up her leg, nibbling on curves before delivering open mouth kisses to her fleshy thighs. Her nipples hardened impossibly, darkening around her sharp clamps. She shook her chains, prone to his mercy. And on this day, he would give her nothing before he wrung everything from her first.
“Good girls stay perfectly still.” He delivered a bite to her thigh. “Naughty girls are gagged. Do not make me gag you, my Blythe. I want to hear those throaty moans without obstruction.” He looked up at her through those sooty lashes, blinking slowly. His sculptured mouth spread into a wicked smile. “How many times can you near the pinnacle of release without going over? Should you count for me?” he asked shamelessly, rolling his fingertip over the edge of her feminine hood, stiffening her nub.
She arched out, thrusting her mound against his hand. Considering the games that he always played in this room, when he pulled back before she climaxed, it never surprised her. But it sure as hell pissed her off. She groaned angrily, wanting satisfaction. “Please, Sir.”
“Please me, Blythe.”
“What else can I do?”
“Return my love.” His silky hair brushed her thighs; his tongue stroking up to her center, barely circling her throbbing clit. A whisper of a movement that caused her body to throb, demanding with an intolerable urgency. The wetness rushed down, glistening streams of her arousal.
Those crashing waves came down, drowning her until she skimmed the surface. She was back in the present and Gianni was looking up at her from between her thighs, the firelight glittering across his face. Mimicking what he was doing in her memories, he thoroughly licked her with long laps sending her toward another heady escape. Her lips stayed parted, and to Blythe’s embarrassment, she was mewling…almost purring for him. She told her legs to close, but they refused. A thick finger followed his tongue, curling around her clitoris before probing inside her opening. Her eyes were blinking, and she fought to close them, but could not stop watching the way he enjoyed her flavor.
When she bucked, his large hand settled her stomach into place, as his mouth and deft fingers remained relentless. Coaxing her until she screamed out, clawing his hair, the strands wrapping around her fingers. Only after her second climax hit, he slowed. He positioned himself over her and she pushed at him. "No."
"You still refuse me?" He had the arrogance to look affronted. "You prefer punishments over this?" He rubbed his hardness against her.
"I'm not letting you in."
"Time will change your mind," he growled. "You are weary, I suppose. Or, perhaps, you prefer dark games over lovemaking. We will see how long you last before begging me to take you."
“I just want to go home, Gianni.”
“After our ceremony, we will go home.”
“Ceremony?”
“As you find importance in ceremonies, allow me to enlighten you,” he explained, delivering hot, moist kisses across her stomach. “The Species were born long after the Dynasty.”
“Your peasants?”
“No, the Undead would be more like peasants, and the Species considered upper commoners.” He pulled her dress over her thighs, covering her. Then, he moved up her body, slowly snaking his expert tongue across his own glistening lips. Still tasting her release, she realized.
“Go on,” she said, tensing with understanding. Something worse headed her way.
“As we discussed, pure blood Species have given Brides,” he continued, cupping her face between his palms. “However, a member of the Dynasty can choose.” He brushed her lips with his. She tasted herself on him, but when she moved to pull away, he held firm. “My cousin, The Dynasty Vampyr Prince, and prime members of his court will meet us by the end of the week.”
Swallowing the acid now burning her throat, Blythe asked slowly, “The prince of vampires?”
“It is customary for another monarch to be present.” He nodded, studying her. “Tradition, I suppose.”
“For?” Pointless in asking since Blythe already knew Gianni’s answer.
“Witness our joining as one,” he answered, curving his lush lips, “for eternity.”
Chapter Four
A Facility For The Damned
A faint breeze floated around Captiva Island. Sixten inhaled again, breathing in the brackish air from the only place he truly called home. Although their hunt moved rapidly, the dawn had quickly turned into afternoon, and strangely, Sixten felt a chill far colder than customary at this time of the year. More than likely, it was not the weather at all, but his body dying from the inside out, his heartache piling up on him with a crippling pain far more excruciating than dying at his enemies’ hands. If he had ever endured a night longer than this, he certainly could not remember it now. No, not now. That was saying a hell of a lot, considering the vilest creatures unknown to man had intermittently tortured Sixten throughout his service as a Vojak. In pain, a warrior always thrived.
Not this time.
Not in this way.
Dead palm fronds crunched under Kash’s heavy feet as he came behind Sixten. “Do you detect anything?” he asked in a rumbling voice tight with emotions, which after their girly chat down in the Sanctuary, Sixten could now name. No male wanted to discuss any feelings, much less a vampire, so props to Kash for not emasculating himself in the process. Although Sixten still had not decided if he was going to castrate him. Time would tell.
“I want to walk the west side,” answered Sixten, glancing at the other three. No matter how tired they were, Oycher and Qudir remained nervous with warrior’s excitement over any impending battle, a natural occurrence at the thought of doing what they were born to do, which jacked up their adrenalin. Kash, on the other hand, seemed older. His fingers remained closer to his weapons, his moves strongly calculated. “Her trail is getting colder by the second. I never thought they were stupid.” He was half Habaline. He should know by his own incredible intelligence. “But the way they’ve covered up her scent…it's…”
“As though her abduction was highly premeditated,” Kash finished. Tight lines stretched from the corners of his mouth, lavender eyes washing silver in the sunlight while glancing furtively at Sixten. “I picked up a faint trail to the right of that Black Mangrove patch.” He shifted on his feet as another cool breeze flittered through, pushing his leather coat against his thick thighs. “A human female, though it wasn’t Blythe, and other.”
Sixten stared downward, following with his body, his long legs making short work of the trail his friend indicated. Kash always scented creatures better than he did, whereas Sixten felt his shapeshifter cousins in a manner, a unique connection, no Species vampire could ever. In a physical way down to his bone marrow and he hated it, could not embrace it if he tried.
As Sixten neared them, the Black Mangroves definitely caught his attention. Something multidimensional lingered there. A pulling ensued, a disjointed lulling coaxing him to move his body forward. But where? What was he sensing? Instead, he stopped, cautiously lowering himself on his haunches and trailing his fingertips across the loose dirt mixed with powdery sand. Another peculiar, though familiar, sense rushed him, much the way those scrolls did on Marco Island. “Then show me,” he growled with exasperation, standing up and walking forward, “…wasting time here.”
“What’s going on?” Oycher’s voice came through another breeze, this one stronger.
“Don’t know.” In a slow blink of his ice-green eyes, he caught it, a narrow trail opened for him to follow. He motioned for the others, though by their bewildered expressions, they could not see what Sixten was noticing. Ten scant feet and there it was, pushing outward from the ground. An opening so large, he wondered how anyone missed it. By the gasps that he heard from behind him
, they were thinking the same thing.
“You’re like a key, Six,” Qudir said in horrified awe, “a freaking key opening their hidden lair.”
Sixten pushed out his inherent senses and caught a shimmer morphing into a crystalline wall. Then, boom, the same way the others had appeared during the night, a vision Sixten could touch suddenly stood right in front of him. He scanned the sight, amazed that he uncovered it, and at his fellow aliens for hiding this location so incredibly well. As though an underground garage would be commonplace to a small, tropical island, three rolling doors hung off their tracks, waiting to crash for the final time. “Tricky, this will take some careful maneuvering.” Even for those who could mist their bodies and reform them elsewhere.
He heard the others drawing in the new scents, an olfactory search for any of his alien brethren. It was iffy, maybe they were here…maybe not. A chance they had to take. All Species and Weres easily scented most of the Habalines, but there were stronger breeds, which Sixten had never encountered and legends spoke for themselves. Meaning Habaline power, at times, seemed limitless.
Led by instinct, he motioned for his fellow Vojaks to take the middle tunnel, and that particular door dangled precariously over its entryway. Ocher bared his fangs at him, suddenly irritable and ready to kill. “You scared?” Sixten taunted him. “Wanna quit before we even hit it?” They worked through the night. Since dawn, they had investigated five more underground locations, and everyone needed to feed, including Sixten. Ocher retracted his fangs, deciding he had nothing to say. Usually, male vampires knew better than to fight another male who had lost his mate. Since the suffering vampire had nothing to lose, it was a fight his opponent would never win. Ocher was powerful, even a touch larger than Sixten, but he was no dummy.
“Girls, before we lose it hard, remember why we are here.” Qudir said in a commanding voice brooking no argument while pulling a flying blade from his leathers. “The same way we moved through the other stops, we rip this lovely little abode from floor to ceiling, find anything we can.” Not said, through the long night, nothing had turned up to help in their search. “Giving up is never an option, and we’re not starting this day.”