She was about to tell him to stop when there was a loud crash that had them both jumping apart. Vito was suddenly hurled off of her and thrown against the wall. Larissa screamed as a flash of movement caught her eye followed by a feral growl. Vito grunted and shut his eyes, surely about to slump to the floor in a heap from the impact his body had taken, when suddenly in another flash, he was being held in place by a tall, broad body.
“Bishop King, no!” she screamed, but it was too late. The bishop pulled his head back for a brief second, exposing his sharp, pearly fangs, then plunged his teeth into Vito’s throat.
Vito’s legs twitched. This could not be happening. “No!” Larissa screamed again and the bishop, as if coming out of a haze, stilled. Larissa was on her knees in front of her couch. She did not recall when she had started to cry, but she was sobbing. The bishop turned and faced her, Vito’s blood trickling down his chin. She clenched her hands together and begged, “Please, Bishop King, do not hurt him. He is my friend. I will go with you. Just let him go.”
He gave her a look of such hatred. She did not understand why the bishop had never approved of her. She had always been an obedient member of The Order up until recently. “You will come with me?” he asked as if he did not believe her.
“Yes,” she cried. “Just don’t hurt my friend. Let him go and I will go home. I will be a good wife to Silus and never leave again. Just don’t kill my friend.”
Bishop King looked back at Vito, who was terrified. “What are you to her?”
“Just a friend,” Vito wheezed as the bishop held him in place with his muscled forearm pressed into his windpipe. “We work together.”
“Ah, yes, the doorman. Tell me, doorman, what were you planning on doing with your body pressed over Larissa’s?”
He pronounced her name Lar-ees-ah.
“Nothing. I swear, man, I was just kissing her. I had been a Boy Scout up until about thirty seconds before you showed up. I never planned anything. She started kissing my neck and well…”
Bishop King growled. His head jerked toward her, his eyes sending her such a withering look she actually trembled. “Feeding, Bishop King. I was only going to feed. My hunger pains…they’re…frequent.”
The bishop released Vito, causing the big man to crumble to the floor like a wilted dishrag. Vito grasped his throat and began to cough. Larissa wanted to go to him, but the bishop stilled her advances with a mere look. When Vito slightly recovered, the bishop dropped down to his haunches and tipped the other man’s chin up.
“You will leave this place and never recall being here. You will forget ever having met Larissa or me. Whatever happened tonight, any recollections you may have will be labeled as nothing more than a dream. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” Vito said in a monotone voice, lacking any of his normal enthusiasm.
“Leave now and do not look back.”
Vito stood and began to walk to the door. Always the grizzly-on-the-outside, softy-on-the-inside gentleman, he paused when he noticed her on the ground crying. “Miss, are you okay?”
“Do not speak to her!” the bishop hissed and Vito quickly continued on his way out of her apartment, out of her life.
Larissa dropped her head and surrendered to her tears. When she heard the bishop approach her, she opened her eyes and saw his clean, black boots standing before her. In a softer voice than she had ever heard him speak, he said, “Come off the floor, child.”
He reached for her shoulder and she flinched. “Don’t touch me.”
“Larissa—”
“I did not give you permission to use my first name.”
“Fine,” he said through gritted teeth, “Ms. Hartzler—”
She gave him her coldest look. “My name is Mrs. Hostetler. It is the name of my husband who you are determined to return me to. Mrs. Hostetler is all I will ever be in this life, so I suggest you remember it, Bishop.” She stood without his assistance and lifted her chin. “I am ready when you are. None of this stuff is any use to me as Silus’s wife. Why, I doubt I will have all of my fingers by the end of the week. So you will excuse me, Bishop, if when I see you on the farm, I do not wave.” She could tell she hit a nerve. Good. “Shall we go?”
He glowered at her. What had she ever done to this man? “Just like that?”
“I told you if you let my friend go, I would go with you peacefully. I am a woman of my word.” When he simply stood there watching her for several minutes, Larissa prompted, “Bishop King?”
“You need to feed. I can feel your hunger.”
“Wha—I assure you I am fine. I will have my husband feed me when I return to the farm.”
“You will feed now.”
“I can’t.”
“You can and you will.”
“Silus would have issue with my feeding from another male of The Order.”
“So let him. I am his elder and his bishop among other things.”
“It is not right.”
The bishop let out an uncharacteristic huff of exasperation. “Larissa, were you or were you not prepared to feed from the man that just left.”
“Yes, but he was my friend.”
He actually dropped his eyes to the ground. It almost seemed as if she had hurt the bishop’s feelings. “But I am your bishop.”
She felt her forehead crinkle. Why did this matter so much to him? Her hunger was not so bad it could not wait until she returned home. “Be that as it may, Bishop, I am not comfortable with men in close proximity. While Vito was my friend, he was also mortal, therefore not a threat to my well-being.”
“You are threatened by me?” He said it as if the idea that she should find him threatening was ludicrous.
“I am threatened by all men of The Order. Now, can we please go?”
“I want you to feed.”
She threw her hands up in the air and rolled her eyes. “I told you I was fine.”
“And you lied.”
“No, I have some cramping, but I will survive the trip home without feeding.”
“Your pain is unacceptable to me.”
“My pain is none of your business. If you cared so much about my damn pain you would have left me alone!” she shouted, then, realizing what she had said, slapped both her hands over her mouth. “I’m sorry,” she whispered through her fingers.
He looked away and made a sound Larissa would assume was a laugh coming from anyone else, but the bishop did not laugh. “What if I allowed you to stay another night? Would you feed then?”
She gave him a sideways glance. “Is this a trick?”
“No. I let you stay here another twenty-four hours in exchange for you feeding from me now.”
“How do I know you won’t change your mind?”
“I also am a person of my word. I would not lie to you, Larissa.”
“Couldn’t we just go hunt? There are some trees down the street that usually have rabbits—”
“No, from my vein. My blood is strong. It will do you well. No amount of rabbits’ blood could match it.” He stepped forward and she stepped back. “Either feed now, Larissa, or we go.”
“So if I don’t feed from you now, I get to leave anyway, which was what I had originally suggested.”
“Is feeding from me so repulsive to you that you would sacrifice the reprieve I offer? I thought you did not want to return home.”
She suddenly did not care if she fed from the bishop or starved to death. She dropped onto the couch, her hands dangling between her legs as she numbly stared at the floor. “It doesn’t matter anyway. If I feed from you now or Silus later, it is all just me moving by strings controlled by another’s hand. I am nothing more than a puppet. That is all I will ever be. Sit up, Larissa. Do not argue, Larissa. Wear the maroon dress, Larissa. Lay still, Larissa. What a tragic existence my life has become.”
She wiped a tear away from her eye and laughed without humor. “Do you know what it feels like, Bishop, to never even have permission to show your hair? Femal
es on the farm are taught from day one that pride is a vice, yet it is acceptable for every male to wander around prouder than peacocks, making laws for the rest of us to follow. God gave me my hair, yet it has been ingrained in me since birth to be ashamed of its beauty. What is the difference between admiring my hair and admiring a flower in the spring, I’d like to know?”
“Your hair is more beautiful than any spring flower,” the bishop surprised her by saying. “I believe that if the other females on the farm were forced to see your hair flowing free day after day, their jealousy would drive them to distraction and every male would covet what should be seen by only your mate.”
“And what mate is that, Bishop? The mate that you elders assigned me to?”
“I am speaking of your true mate.”
“And how will I ever find my true mate when I have the autonomy of an infant on the farm?”
“He will come to you.”
“Oh, okay, then I’ll just go back to the farm and wait around with bated breath until another man shows up in my life and tells me what to do. Forget it. I do not even know why I allowed myself to hope that my life could be different. It’s useless. If you don’t mind, I would rather just leave now.”
He was suddenly kneeling before her. She leaned back to provide some space between them. This was altogether too weird. The bishop did not stand this close to others. Ever. His eyes were as dark as a tomb waiting to be filled. She looked into those hollow depths and wondered what it must be like to live over half a millennia. His hands rested on her knees and she turned from his black eyes to look where he touched her. Great big, unfamiliar male hands rested upon her thighs.
“Larissa.” He said her name softly, placing the same accent on the I as he did before. “A true mate would never want a partner that acts as nothing more than a puppet tied to strings. God has given us the gift of callings because he recognizes that we are all imperfect, incomplete without our other half. You are given to a mate who needs only what you can provide for him. To silence your gifts and not allow you to express yourself would be a crime against God himself. You are as necessary to your mate as he is to you. Together you will teach one another and learn and grow together for all eawichkeit, for all eternity.”
“If it is such a sacrament to be called to one’s mate then why, Bishop, did the council just give me away to a male that hates me?”
“Silus does not hate you, my dear. He has been going mad waiting for you to come home.”
“I have no doubt he will be mad as a rabid dog when he sees me.”
“I will not allow him to harm you.”
“You have no say in it. Bishop or no, he is protected by family law to treat me as he sees fit.”
“He will not harm you,” he said again, and Larissa suddenly realized how close he was to her. He had somehow fit his large body between her knees so they were at eye level, their mouths only a breath apart.
“Have you always been this arrogant?”
“No, I believe there was a brief moment of my youth when I was quite humble. It was short-lived and resolved before I reached my thirties.”
Was that a joke? Did the bishop have a sense of humor? “And what was that? Eight, nine hundred years ago?”
He smiled. It was the first time in her entire life that she could ever recall seeing Bishop King smile. He had always worn the same stuffy expression even when she was merely a child carrying her primer to school. She still recalled her first day when he visited the schoolhouse. He had terrified her. To see this man smile now was like suddenly declaring that the color blue was yellow. It changed certain absolutes she was not sure she could accept.
“You are a bold girl, Larissa Hartzler. It was five hundred years ago.”
“Hostetler.”
“We’ll see.” She frowned at him, but he continued to look into her eyes. She was very tired all of a sudden. It must have been all the excitement of the last hour. She was probably in shock and it was just now wearing off. “Larissa, are you hungry?”
“Yes,” she replied quietly, barely opening her mouth for the word and finding it impossible to blink her eyes.
“Very good. Are you going to be a good girl and do as you are told?”
“Yes.”
“Very good, bellissima.”
She frowned and tilted her head, but still did not blink her eyes despite how heavy they felt. “What is this word, bellissima?”
“It is a word I learned when I lived in Spain. Do not fret. It is not an insult, I assure you. Are you ready to drink?”
She nodded. Somewhat detached from what was happening, she watched as the bishop slowly undid the buttons of his crisp, black shirt. The bit of sculpted muscle he exposed at his chest surprised her. She didn’t want to acknowledge that more absolutes were changing. He slowly reached up and slid his palm under the curtain of her hair and cupped the back of her head, pulling her closer. “Drink now, bellissima,” he instructed and she easily bit into his flesh.
The warm, potent tang of his blood shocked her system. She supposed like wine, a vampyre’s blood grew stronger with age. She sipped greedily from him, feeling for the first time in weeks that her hunger could possibly be sated. She shut her eyes and felt herself being lifted. She wrapped her legs around the bishop’s waist for support. The heat of his palm seeped through her denim pants into her round bottom as he lowered himself to the couch.
Not realizing her actions, she began to rock her body over the bishop. Her nipples hardened from the friction of his body scraping against her shirt and flesh. She had never had such a reaction from feeding before.
The hand he held at the back of her neck was warm. His thumb moved in soothing circles over the soft skin beneath her hair. “That’s it, Larissa, let me feed you. Take what you need.”
She moaned and felt a fire start to burn in the pit of her stomach. She needed something more, but did not know what. Her mouth began to pull harder at his vein. Her hips began to rock faster. She felt his hands grip her hips and begin to guide her motions, slowing them at precisely the right moment. Contact was made with a nerve Larissa could not identify and a deep, keening moan formed in her throat. “A little more, bellissima. A little more and I will give you everything you need.”
She licked at his throat and pressed her face into the curve of his broad shoulder. His black hair was soft and he smelled of some unnamable richness she did not recognize, yet she wanted to rub up against him until she herself smelled like him. She let out a stuttering breath. Something was going to happen very soon, she just didn’t know what. The bishop’s lips slowly coasted over her neck, softer than the petals of a flower. He continued to pull her hips back and forth, dragging her center over his hard—
Larissa stilled. What was happening? The moment she realized what she was doing, she flew off the bishop’s lap so fast, the coffee table flipped over in her wake. Mortified, she pressed her back into the far wall, wishing her apartment were slightly bigger so she could get even farther from him. What had she done?
“Larissa, you did nothing wrong.”
Her trembling fingers went to her lips, where she could still taste his potent blood. She smelled his rich scent on her fingertips and quickly dropped her hand. “You made me drink from you.”
“You needed to feed.”
“You compelled me.”
“Only so you would do what was necessary.”
She could feel an unfamiliar moistness between her thighs where her legs still trembled, but she could not think about that at the moment. “Only so I could do exactly as you wanted.”
“It was for your own good, Larissa.”
“For my own good. My own good. My own good!” Larissa repeated the statement, growing angrier as her words echoed back to her. “My own good? Get out of my house!”
If she were not so angry, she would have laughed at the look of shock on his face.
“Larissa—”
“I said leave!” Not knowing how it happened, the door to her
home suddenly propelled open.
“I will not. We had a deal. You feed and I give you another day. You have fed—”
“And now you will go. Nowhere in our deal did you say you would remain under my roof for those hours.”
Giving her a look as if she were acting completely irrational, he said, “Did you honestly think I would go?”
“It doesn’t matter. You’re leaving! All of you males are alike. We women are nothing more than puppets, our strings in your hands, bodies for your entertainment.”
“Larissa, that is not what happened here.”
“I am a married woman!”
“You don’t even love your husband!” he bellowed.
He was right. She felt her anger slip away, leaving her only hurt. “He never loved me,” she whispered. “I was a good wife. I did everything he asked without ever even receiving a thank-you or an endearing look.”
“Silus Hostetler is an aesel, a jackass. A man of worth would be grateful to have you as his female and spend every day thanking God for blessing his life with such beauty and uncensored sweetness.”
“Well, I guess I’ll never know. I suppose I have you to thank for that. It was, after all, in your hands to object to my marriage when Silus used his relatives to so unfairly sway the council’s vote. Thank you, Bishop, for making me feel as worthless as a sow at an auction. Now get out.”
“If I had known how Silus would be as a husband, I never would have agreed. I assumed you wanted the union. You never voiced any objections.”
“And why would I? I was only doing what my elders said was for ‘my own good.’”
“I’m sorry, Larissa. I did not know what your life had become.”
She clenched her teeth together and breathed deeply through her nose. When she had her emotions contained enough to speak, she gritted, “Yet you have every intention of returning with me to the farm when my twenty-four hours are up.”
“It is your home. You cannot continue to live here among the English. It is not safe.”
“It was until you showed up!”
“You were starving when I arrived!”
“Because I was too afraid you would find me if I left to hunt. Leave me alone and I will feast like a queen.”
Calling for a Miracle [The Order of Vampyres 2] (Siren Publishing Classic) Page 12