by Talyn Scott
Kash glanced at Sixten, both remembering how Anthony had died before they had tortured anything pertinent out of him. Kash’s eyes dropped in shame. That night at Anthony’s, Sixten had to send him away, facing more than ten pure blood shifters on his own. Kash would not have had a chance against that many pure bloods and Sixten had refused to risk him. No Species, Vojak or not, could fight that many and live to brag about it. There was no shame in what happened, but this was not the time to remind his friend of that, especially in front of the others.
“Shifters killed Anthony before he could spill anything, and his sister Blythe was taken by freed shifters.”
“If the hunters truly have her now, I cannot believe they caught her scent before I did,” Sixten seethed.
“That’s their birthright, Six,” Oycher said. “Scenting Donors is in their blood, their vampiric trait. Just as our Vojak lineage is in ours. That said, I’m wondering how they took on a group of shifters who nearly kicked our asses, to supposedly save her.”
Sixten felt his bile rise, forming no words.
“So many unanswered questions,” Kash said, staring straight on at Sixten, chewing his bottom lip.
“We are in agreement about one thing, then?” Qudir asked. “We’re assuming rogues are taking the Donors from underneath the Dynasty Empire?”
“Yes, at least I can notify them of some progress.” Maestru sounded relieved.
“Upon notifying the monarchy of our cementing theory,” Qudir continued, “tell me how you want me to play this, Six.”
“I’m running out of time, Qudir,” Sixten said, not believing this was happening. “Tell me how I have a choice.”
“I’m not supposed to give you a choice on this, but I consider her yours, man,” Qudir replied, his voice so soft yet his words sparked the beginnings of another fire. “Lovci found her easily. We have to rely on the law abiding ones to help get her back from the rogues.”
“And back to her Dynasty Vampyr.” His irises kicked up. “A fucker who bonded with her so she would be dependent upon him.”
“They’ll trace whomever she belonged too.” Maestru explained, placing a hand on Sixten’s shoulder. “Maybe he’ll oblige your claim, only putting her under his protection.”
“The protection I didn’t give her.” Sixten jerked back, not in the mood for a comforting touch. A male accepting comfort meant he could not endure pain. He could endure pain, and he could inflict it even better. And right now, Sixten longed to kill something…slowly. “Tell me the minute those flight plans are traced, Qudir. I want my turn with the shifter. And when you find the name of her Dynasty Vampyr - ”
“I know what you want, Six.” Qudir took a breath. “Just don’t kill him yet. No one’s pulled a thing from him.”
Maestru watched them leave through the corridor and then ordered Oycher and Qudir, “You two keep me posted.”
He walked toward his office while putting his phone to his ear, mentally sorting his mounting responsibilities. Blythe and Dru’s brother-n-law weren’t the only ones pictured on that hard drive. “Ryan,” he spoke evenly, adjusting the phone between his neck and shoulder, “how is our human patient? Uh-huh. And yourself? Perfect, just what I want to hear. Plans have changed. Dakota will stay in the facility until I deem otherwise. She’s not to go topside for any reason,” he continued, “and if any vampire fang fucks her, they will die by their Master’s hands. That includes you.”
Chapter Twelve
A Desperate Captor
Gianni inhaled between her breasts, leisurely tracing a stiffed nipple with the back of his claw. Around and around. Her womb clenched with every trace, her body completely naked against the cool air. “You make me so hungry,” he groaned. A slight prick of his fang, a trace of bittersweet endorphins laced her bloodstream. She flattened her feet on the wood, trying to bring her knees together.
They would never close in this position.
“Need me.” A nibble across her collarbone plumped her breasts. “Want me.” A kiss pressed to each eye, his lips warm through her silken blindfold. “Please me.” Cold steel tipped with something prickly soft and round trailed down her right thigh, curving inside, stopping behind her knee. “Love me.”
“I can do none of those, Gianni.” A cool trace across her soaked opening, so quick she thought she imagined it. “I’m taken.”
“You are confused.” A sweet berry dipped in her arousal rolled across her bottom lip, his thumb thrusting it on her tongue. A mouth slanted over hers in a bruising kiss, widening her jaw as Gianni took possession. Abruptly, he pulled away, panting, rubbing the tip of her nose with his. “Brainwashed by a creature who should not exist. Any being with Sixten Kovac’s genetics is an abomination to our race, dangerous.”
“So you keep saying by the hour, brainwash much?” She couldn’t let that go, risking a punishment, she reminded him, “He serves your race, risking his life daily.”
“Pet, the only risk to him would be if he were to come after you.”
“Never threaten his life,” she gritted out, fire rushing her veins. Not from his touch, but from something savage buried deep inside, wanting to break free.
“Very well,” he sounded sad. “For that: topping me from the bottom. I promise to keep you wet and aroused for hours. I hope you find it satisfying when you are not satisfied. And if you come?” His cheek was against hers, the bone sharp, cutting. A pointed finger across her ass squeezed between the globes.
“I know,” she whispered. “I know what you’ll do.”
His face moved down. An unshaven jaw rested in the crook of her neck and shoulder. “I cannot wait to pin you here, the way a vampire holds down his true mate. Yes,” he groaned, the sound vibrating through her, “yes, you make me so… so hungry. I need you to feed more.” He licked the front of her throat, circling his tongue underneath her chin. “So I will have to feed during your punishment.” When she stiffened, he added, “Your care is the epitome of my existence now.” Fangs scraped her jugular. “To preserve you, I must.” Another pinprick aimed with frightening accuracy. “Relax, pet, I have another Donor here. After you take in more of my essence, growing stronger, I promise I will only feed from you.” A longer groan at the taste of her blood, his stomach rumbled a response. “And never worry, this Donor and I do not have sex. I will wait for you, pet, only you.”
A thin chain similar to her ankle leash coiled around the back of her throat.
“Only you forever.”
The first clamp bit down, sending a throbbing sizzle from her nipple to the tip of her aching clitoris. The second clamp bit down, doubling that sizzle until it burned.
“Does that not sound so appealing?”
Another set of footsteps, lighter.
Try as she might, with their shared bond and those few blasts of endorphins, Blythe was having a hard time of it…. Today? Tonight? She had no clue what time it was, what day it was. She tried to catch anyone in her room so she could make a run for the door. Her dreams of slamming someone over the head with something heavily tangible and then searching for keys or a phone were a long shot. But after a thorough investigation of her accommodations from top to bottom, nothing else had panned out.
Sixten. Her hands curled into fists, tightening beneath her bonds. I have to get back to you. Tears threatened, but she bit them back the same way she did most of her unsolicited orgasms. She remembered the drill. Gianni wanted to strip her bare, her life only dependent on his, her everything only dependent on him. His goal? Lay her wide open in more ways than one, so he could reconstruct her back into the caste he wanted her to be, while he resumed as her Master. I am no longer his subjugate, no matter what these bonds say. Easily, she would be Sixten’s, but he would never want that from her.
Sixten only wanted her heart.
Gianni would never have it.
So when he connected her nipple clamps by that thin chain, dragging a longer piece down her stomach, its tip conveniently tickling her needy clitoris, she pretend
ed it was her real man – her male. Because right now, Gianni may have her body, but that was all he was getting.
A stop over her navel, a small round object connected to the chain pressed inside, the chain split around her waist and connected at the cleft of her ass. His fingers took their time placing both smaller chains in the creases on either side of her pussy before connecting them over her hardened nub. A small click and it joined the device in her navel.
No doubt, she was in for it.
He released a despondent sigh. “Remember our reunion in front of the fire on the chaise? I do. I had my tongue deep inside your delicious pussy, my fingers stroking your most sensitive place. I just want to come inside you. Make love to you this…”
Day? Night? He wouldn’t say. “Making love involves two people who love each other.” He twisted her nipple clamp, making her wince in pleasure-pain. “That’s… not us.”
“Then I’ll settle for seeing your eyes when you come. But your love is what I crave the most.” He eased off her silken blindfold.
“No don’t fool yourself.” The room slowly came into focus. She stood attached to a strange cross contraption, spread out into an x-formation, manacled at the wrists and ankles. She glanced at the male Donor standing next to Gianni, pretending she and her Master weren’t completely naked before him. He was a beautiful human. Not in the way of Gianni, his casual good looks contrasted Gianni’s darkly chilling erotica. “You crave me to crave you the most. I’m not coming, so put away your stick, belt, or whip.” She got a good look at the chrome stick in his hand. No punishments needed. Not in the mood for that, Gianni.”
“You always come, and you find the ‘mood’, as you put it, quite easily.” He whipped his hair over his thick shoulder. “I finally find what I’ve wanted all along, and you refuse me. Why? Why can my name not leave your lips when they cry out in ecstasy?”
He may be stronger than she was, and probably far more intelligent, but she knew when to keep her mouth shut. And that time was now.
“Very well. You want me to treat you as a possession. I will show you the difference.” His hand came up, curling his fingers toward the Donor. The man was roughly six feet tall, so he reached Gianni’s chin. “Take a long look, Benka. I will not punish you for admiring her this time. It is a Dynasty Vampyr’s nature to obtain all things beautiful, and Blythe is the most beautiful. You may speak.”
“I would love to paint her, milord, but not on canvas. I would brush her body with earthen colors and watch it dry.”
Gianni’s erection shot straight up, bobbing as he turned. “A delicious thought, but how can you paint the very definition of ecstasy?” His chest widened with his deep breath and a stream left his cock, running down over his balls.
Benka looked between them, fixating on her darkened nipples. “I offer freely, milord.”
Of course he did, she thought, he was addicted to the bite, and he wanted play time with her. She watched Gianni position him in front, and, oh joy, the man faced her in all her glory. His head arched to the side, his lips parted in anticipation. And she watched Gianni slowly sink his fangs into the man’s neck, his arm coming around his waist to hold him when his knees buckled. A gasp left him and a larger bulge formed behind his zipper. Benka tried so hard to stay focused on her, but his eyes fluttered.
That’s when Gianni lifted a tiny, white remote and aimed it at her. Slow pulsations started, moving between four devices. Left nipple sizzled. Right nipple tingled. Swollen clit shocked with a slow current. Navel reverberated, sending aftershocks through her stomach and back to her pussy.
She swallowed hard, shaking her head.
Just as she thought, she was in for it.
Gianni watched her as he fed, rolling his finger over that remote and picking up the pace. Static charges went up her spine, every device feeding the other. Mini orgasms were hitting from all sides, but she held back her scream, maybe he wouldn’t notice if she could fight it.
But, no. Maximum speed hit before she could tamp down another wave of torture-pleasure. “Mmmm.”
Now she had both their attentions. Benka palming his covered erection with the heel of his hand, Gianni fixed on her eyes, not looking at anything else while he fed.
“MMMM.”
“She’s trembling,” Benka said in a thick accent, his eyes staring with molten desire. “Her nipples are darkening right…in front of me.”
Gianni groaned, drinking deeply, tossing the remote and grabbing his cock. He worked it up and down until his hand blurred, but she knew he wouldn’t come in that way. And when she gave up, opening her mouth to ease her chattering teeth, she screamed until she lost her voice.
Blythe had no idea how much time passed, but when she came to, she was resting on her bed, limp, whimpering. Benka was gone. Gianni’s hand was threading through her hair, his voice at her ear. “That was incredible, pet.” His chrome stick, tipped by a softly spiked ball, worked up her body, rolling over her sore clit. “Shall we begin?”
Chapter Thirteen
Collecting Hearts
“Basically, I’m known to be quite the recreational torturer.” Sixten eyed Adam up and down, marveling at the ancient runes Maestru had in place to imprison him without bars. “Now, once I set my mind to it, I can go from quirky to downright nasty without taking a single breath. The mind’s whacked out right now, so bear with me.” He extended a claw, tapping the freshly ragged flesh over Adam’s chest. “All you had to do was play nicely. Now, attacking the good doctor was a no-no, therefore; you didn’t even try to play nicely.”
He broke skin, slicing the shifter’s chest. “Did you, Adam? That’s alright.” He pushed in, fracturing a bone here and there. “I can see that you need to think over your answer.” Heart located. “I’ll keep going, so stop me if anything gets too complicated. I don’t mind repeating what’s necessary.” He shrugged. “In the vampire world, one you are just now becoming familiar with, nothing goes unpunished.” An easygoing squeeze, careful of the claws, put him into arrhythmia. “Notice I am not repeating the human adage: no good deed. Of course, you’re probably unfamiliar with human adages so, in general, nothing - good or bad - goes unpunished. For future reference, if you even live to see tomorrow, your motives make no difference.”
“We need him alive, Six,” Kash pleaded half-heartedly, the merciful good cop. “Maybe he’ll come around.”
“I’m an ambassador and he told Dru he formed a faction.” Six sighed, “Why am I always the last to know about these things?”
“Why should you hunt us?” Adam asked.
“Why did you openly hunt females when you were freed, causing chaos in a human world wholly ignorant of our kind?” He continued to put the squeeze to his heart since the shifter healed nearly instantly, even his flesh was growing around Sixten’s wrist at an alarming rate.
“I had no control over the others.”
“So…you took control just today? Come on, Adam; give me a little credit here.” Sixten hated when one assumed his intelligence inferior. “Sure you’re bred from creatures that - more than anything else - use magic better than other immortals.” He turned to Kash and mouthed sorry. Truth was truth. “But my brother wasn’t a halfling such as you and I. And although I found him the antithesis to everything I believe in, he wasn’t that dumb. He had you kids locked up nice and tight. So I’m guessing an insider arranged your escape, a mole on Rave’s team looking to topple him. Branch out, if you will. There’s always one of those in the crowd. So, to bottom line it, your little jailbreak was premeditated.”
“So you’re the brother that killed him.”
“Word travels, huh?”
“I’d rather die than to answer to another of you, brother of Rave.”
Sixten really hated having that thrown at him. He was nothing like Rave. “I could make it happen, Adam, laughing as your eyes cloud in death.”
“So what? I harmed the doctor when he wouldn’t aid my injured.”
“He would have aided the
m at an approved faction facility, or met them with appropriate guards in place. Your approach was all wrong, my friend.” He pointed out. “Why wouldn’t our doctor want to watch his own back?”
“I didn’t kill him.”
“No, but he’s still recovering,” Kash interjected. “If our Coven Master hadn’t stepped in, what would have happened?” he asked softly. “I want to see you rehabilitated, man. Part of you is Species, one of us.”
“I would have transported the doctor where he needed to go.”
There was no deception in his words, but still. “He’s not a piece of luggage circling on a terminal, asshole.” Sixten frowned. “He’s a renowned doctor, a Species vampire with rights.”
“Rights we deserve. Rights we want,” Adam spat. “Many were injured trying to escape a life forever spent in a minuscule cell, being fed like animals.”
“And what happens the minute you break free?” He nodded. “You act like animals.”
“You have no idea what it was like for us.”
To that, Sixten replied, “That brings us back to insider jobs.” This would not go by trial and error. Sixten smelled something. “You were at the airport. Donor hunters were at the airport. You remember Donors, don’t you? The delicious humans you savored daily. Ones, I’m thinking, Rave used to keep you in need of a good fix.” A deep inhale at the shifter’s throat and Sixten cracked with sudden and immense knowledge. “My mate was at the airport after she was taken from me!” Before he realized what was happening, Adam’s heart sat inside his palm. And it was still beating. Pump. Pump. Pump. He threw it on the floor, kicking it. “By you!”
At Adam’s gargled groan, Kash replied casually, “Now see what you made him do.”
“You think I cannot scent what’s mine?” He dragged his nose across Adam’s throat. “You think I cannot match your scent with one I found in a bedchamber down the hall? The very place where you must have abducted my wife,” he hissed the same as a thousand pygmy rattlers, wielding electrical surges throughout the Sanctuary by sheer force of will. Lights flickered on and off, but that didn’t matter when they all could see just as well in the dark. And as quick as any deadly snake, Adam bit him, administering lethal poison that still had Dr. Holt flat on his back. Sixten pulled back, laughing. “Ah, Poison is your daddy, small world.”