His laugh was soft and low and sent a shiver of heat down my spine. “You know I can’t say no, not to that.”
That wasn’t precisely true. Jason’s discipline was normally formidable. When he focused on something, be it studying or basketball or sex, it was almost as if his concentration on the task at hand was so strong, stray thoughts bounced away. I don’t know how he did it, but believe me, he kept himself well in hand.
Tonight, I could feel his scattered thoughts jumping through his mind willy-nilly. Bless his heart, he really was nervous. I scooted up on the bed and captured his mouth in a gentle kiss, exploring its sweetness with my tongue. He moaned as he opened for me, heart and soul and body, and I felt as much as sensed everything in him coalescing into a single, forceful idea.
Loveprotectfamily.
Gianna’s mind brushed against ours, melded briefly, then pulled away as gently as she’d come. I could still sense her through one and our separate bond, could feel her contentment and the echo of Emily’s vibrant laughter and the tiny, tiny life that would one day be our child.
The door to the Red Room opened. Jason tensed beneath me. I broke off the kiss and whispered, “Relax. It’s just Elizabet and Marco. Nothing to worry about.”
Through we came, Says you. I grinned at his groused thought/feeling.
“Look at my beautiful playmates.” Elizabet’s voice was light over the rustle of satin. “Eric, dearling, would you mind if I took the first turn with Jason? I have been eager to taste him again, I confess, as has Marco. Is that not so, my love?”
Marco grunted softly. He never talked if a grunt would do.
In this instance, talking would’ve been superfluous. Marco projected a series of images to me and Jason both, naughty vignettes of my favorite bound to the bed, his back crisscrossed with thin, raised welts, and Marco, mouth red with Jason’s blood and his dick buried deep in my favorite’s ass.
I flinched away. Jesus. Did they really want to do that kind of thing together? I mean, the sex I could understand, but was a beating really necessary?
I glanced up. A small smile played around Jason’s mouth and his cornflower blue eyes held a deep glow. A niggle of worry wormed its way through my gut. Be careful. I brushed the thought across his mind, strong enough for Marco to catch.
Jason’s hand found mine and squeezed. I won’t let him hurt me.
That’s what worried me. Marco did pretty much as he pleased. The only person I knew whom he obeyed was Elizabet, and sometimes I wondered if he wasn’t the one pulling the strings there as well.
Elizabet circled the bed and crawled onto it from the side opposite the door. “Come now, Jason. Have you a kiss for your master’s maker?”
Jason’s smile turned into a full-fledged grin and his nervousness fell away. Here was one thing he knew how to do really well. I slid off of him and settled onto my side, watching as he rolled Elizabet onto her back and entered her sweet little pussy in one smooth move. Her eyes fluttered closed as his hips found a good pace. The muscles of his ass flexed and bunched with each thrust, and desire stirred low in my gut. I loved watching him fuck, loved it even more when I was the one fucking him.
The bed dipped behind me and then Marco’s warm, hard body pressed against mine. His lips brushed over my ear. “Our turn, little pet.”
“Not until you quit calling me little,” I said, but it was already too late. He rolled me forward onto my stomach and straddled my thighs, and then his hand came down on my ass in a firm slap. I buried my face in the sheets and bit back a moan. Why had I ever shown him how much I enjoyed that?
My dick twitched and hardened with every light blow until I writhed under Marco’s attention. By the time he stopped, my ass was on fire and I was ready to beg him to take me. He licked his way up my spine, then settled over me, a steady, firm weight.
“For the love of God, Marco, get the lube,” I said.
His soft laugh tickled across my nape. “Eager, are we?”
“Not one bit.” Though I would endure whatever he threw my way, and he knew it. Damn the man, but he was right. I needed his strength as much as he needed me to grow strong. “Just get it over with already.”
“It’s not nearly as much fun when you agree to it, little one.”
I rolled my eyes. Honestly. “Oh, Marco, please don’t take me.”
He snorted out a laugh a moment before his fangs dug into the juncture of my neck and shoulder. I hissed in a breath and held myself still through the searing agony of the bite, and then his mouth latched over the wounds and I lost myself in the pleasure of his feeding. He shifted onto his side as he drew deeply of my blood, ran his free hand over my back, down to my pleasurably tender ass, and nudged my thighs apart. His fingers found my scrotum and rubbed over my balls, fondling them. I moaned at the pleasure of his touch, gasped when his fingers stroked upward and found the pucker of my anus. He toyed with it as his mouth suckled at my skin, touching me lightly, pulling my ass cheeks apart with his fingers, stretching me in slow increments.
Beside us, Elizabet and Jason panted out twin orgasms. His echoed through our bond, supplementing the passion writhing through every cell in my body. I burned with it, smoldered under Marco’s practiced touch, and bit my lip, willing it not to spill, not yet.
Marco’s tongue laved over the wounds he’d made. He braced himself above me, turned me over, and resettled himself with my face pressed into his throat and his massive hand on my dick, stroking it insistently, firmly. My hips arched into his touch and my muscles tensed, anticipating the release of the pressure building in my balls. My canines lengthened into fangs and I struck, digging my way past his skin into the rich flow of blood pulsing through him. He moaned, a hoarse sound that vibrated against my lips, and his hand tightened on my dick, moving faster and harder. I fucked him as I drank him down, fucked up into his tightly fisted hand and took his strength and power into me, and with them the memories and knowledge he wished me to have. The pleasure built and built, higher and higher, licking at me with a familiar, terrible heat, and then I hit the pinnacle and came, spilling my release across his hand.
I withdrew my fangs and closed the puncture marks with my tongue, leaving as little trace of myself behind as possible. Marco’s grip relaxed and he released my cock, still hard and throbbing with the pleasure he’d given me. His mouth found mine and eased me down gently, down, down, until I remembered where I was and how much I hated it when he mastered me.
He laughed into my mouth, nipped at my lower lip as he withdrew. “If you dislike my attention so much, little one, you have only to say no.”
I pulled a sour face. Gee, why hadn’t I thought of that? Oh, right. I had and he’d roundly ignored me. Someday I’d be grateful for that, though probably not for a long, long time.
He wrapped me in his massive arms. “Will you ease me now?”
I went stock still in his embrace, shocked to the core. “Wow. I didn’t know you knew how to ask.”
His arms tightened around me. “I ask only when I know I’ll hear the answer I need.”
“So you think I’m just gonna blow you or something?”
“That or allow me to take your ass.” A heavy sigh blew across the top of my head. “Is relieving me such a hardship?”
“No,” I said softly. Of course it wasn’t. It was just a lot easier to do when he gave me a choice and a lot more pleasurable, for me anyway. “Wait. I meant yes. Yes, it’s hard. Don’t make me do that Marco, for the love of God, don’t do it.”
He threw back his head and laughed in great guffaws that shook the bed. Elizabet’s lighter giggle joined his, and then Jason said, “The hell?” I peeked over Marco’s shoulder. Jason was sitting with his back against the headboard. Elizabet straddled him, no doubt with his cock buried deep inside her pussy. A thin rivulet of blood rolled down Jason’s chest from the scratch at his throat.
“I apologize, Jason.” Elizabet bent her head and licked the blood away. “Your master can be quite droll.”
> “Yeah, droll.” Jason rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “That’s the word I’d…”
His body stiffened as his eyes continued to roll back in his head. Unease whispered through me and then I felt it, too. Gianna. My heart seized into a tight knot and then galloped as I reached for her, stretching, stretching. I slammed into her mind as terror raced through her. Claws dug into her arms. I fell away from Marco, only dimly aware of him bending over me as I twisted on the bed and brushed at my arms with unsteady hands, trying to dislodge a grip that wasn’t there.
Racing, dodging. Claws tearing through her/my/Jason’s back, arching away from the searing agony. The baby, the baby! Stumbling fall, scrambling along blood soaked carpeting. She/I/Jason popped into one with a painful suddenness. A firm hand clamped down on one’s ankle and reeled the little fishy in, flipped one over and stared down with malevolent greed. Selena. Her mouth opened wide on sharp, glittering fangs and she struck, hard and fast and vicious, tearing at one’s throat, ripping through skin and muscle and bone to release the life force pulsing through one.
With a massive shove and the last of her strength, Gianna separated herself from one and severed our bond. I snapped back into my body with a painful thud. Lights flashed behind my eyes and a steady tremble ran through my bones, jittering me until I shook uncontrollably. The bond that had been one ricocheted and rebounded, lashing between my consciousness and Jason’s, whipping at us until it dissipated in the mad cacophony of Gianna’s departure from our minds, leaving a gaping maw that swallowed us whole.
Chapter Seven
When I came to, Marco was bent over me, slapping lightly at my cheeks. I shoved his hands away, or intended to. I was so weak I could barely lift them. The bed shook slightly. I summoned every ounce of strength I could find and turned toward Jason, seeking his light and warmth.
His huge, beautiful body trembled from head to toe, locked in a seizure. A nude Elizabet straddled his waist with her knees on his forearms and her hands on his shoulders, holding him to the bed while a man I didn’t recognize forced Jason’s ankles into the mattress. Another man was stroking his hand over Jason’s sweat soaked brow, murmuring softly.
I closed my eyes and reached for one, reached for we, reached frantically for any sign of the bonds between me and my wife and my favorite.
And found nothing.
I couldn’t help them, hadn’t protected them. Gianna. The baby. I had to get to them, had to see if the images lingering like sharp tacks in my mind had really happened or if I’d dreamed them all in some sort of twisted, evil parody of reality. “Gianna…”
“We know.” Marco steadied me as I pushed myself up off the bed on trembling arms. “Where is she?”
My head spun and my vision dimmed at the edges. I flopped back onto the bed. “Her parents’. Marietta.”
“Sit tight.”
He whipped out a cell phone and punched in numbers, barking out orders as he strode around the room gathering clothing. At some point between Gianna’s call and Marco rousing me, he’d redressed. I rubbed a shaky hand over my face. How long had I been out?
Behind me, Jason grew still. Marco stalked toward me, tossed my clothes onto the bed beside me. Elizabet and the men began a quiet conversation I could barely hear over the buzz in my head. Gianna. Had to get to her.
Marco slammed his phone shut and tucked it into the front pocket of his slacks before yanking me up. “We have to go, Eric. The police are on their way to the Bradys. We need to get there as soon as they do.”
I knew why. God, did I ever. I’d felt the damage Selena had done to Gianna’s soft throat, felt the blood run from the wound even as she pushed me out of her head. “Jason,” I whispered.
“Gianna needs you more right now.” Marco pulled my undershirt over my head and tucked my unresisting hands through the sleeves. “Elizabet will take care of him until we can get back.”
He finished helping me dress just as Alice burst through the door to the Red Room, her face as pale as a sheet bleached white under the harsh rays of the sun. “Marlena and Therese have left.”
Marco spared her a hard stare and something passed between them. I wasn’t so out of it that I didn’t catch a glimpse.
Find Selena. Bring her here. Kill her, if she won’t come willingly.
Elizabet’s wrist appeared in front of my mouth, blood welling up from a small cut in her delicate skin. “Drink. You need the strength.”
As if she knew I couldn’t do it on my own, she pressed the cut to my mouth. I lapped at it, stiffened as the thick liquid hit my tongue and lights zinged behind my eyes again. When I found myself and forced them open, I was curled onto the back seat of a car with my head in someone’s lap.
A gentle hand stroked my hair. “You’re back.”
“Alice.” I maneuvered a hand under my body, pushed with all my strength against the car’s seat, and managed to make it about an inch off of her thigh before the effort drained me. “Jason?”
“Elizabet’s caring for him. You mustn’t worry, brother.”
“Can’t help it,” I croaked out.
“I know.” She expelled a breath in a quiet rush. “We’re almost there. Would you like to take from me?”
I shook my head gingerly, afraid of too much movement, afraid to take any more blood. I didn’t want to pass out again and Gianna might need all the blood we had to spare.
If she wasn’t already dead.
I refused to entertain that thought. I couldn’t feel her anymore, true, but I knew she wasn’t dead. She couldn’t be. She just couldn’t. What would Jase and I do without her?
Alice comforted me as Marco drove, going faster than I ever would’ve dared. Thank God for Elizabet’s favorite and his superhuman reflexes.
The police had already cordoned off the yard around my in-laws’ house when we arrived. As soon as Marco brought his Bentley to a stop, I stumbled out behind Alice. She supported me with a hand on my elbow until we found a cop, a slender young man with a high and tight haircut who didn’t look old enough to shave. I glanced at his nametag. Officer Plemmons was pale under his ruddy tan and his hands shook slightly when he lifted the police tape and ducked under it.
“Help you?” he said.
Marco stepped forward, held out his hand, and introduced himself. “And this is Eric Logan, the Bradys’ son-in-law. We came as soon as we heard.”
“Musta been pretty damn quick.” Officer Plemmons rubbed his forehead with the back of one hand. “I been here five, maybe six minutes.”
“You were the first on the scene?”
“No, sir. First on the scene’s in there with one of the women, trying to hold her neck together.”
“Gianna,” I breathed. “Is it Gianna?”
“Dunno, sir. Respectfully, we ain’t had time to check IDs yet. Lotta blood in there.” Officer Plemmons swallowed, coughed into his hand. “Sorry. We got people coming soon who’ll do that. Can’t disturb the scene ‘til they get here, ‘cept for trying to save the woman.”
The buzz in my head intensified and separated into two distinct noises, the roar of loss and the wail of a siren. An ambulance pulled up to the house and backed up to the police tape. Two paramedics hopped out, retrieved a stretcher, and raced up the sidewalk into the house.
Marco grabbed Officer Plemmons’ elbow and caught his gaze. “Eric and I need to ride in the ambulance with whoever’s alive. Make sure it happens.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll do that.” Officer Plemmons staggered back when Marco released his arm and made his way unsteadily into the house.
“Alice, stay here in case Selena comes back.” Marco grabbed my elbow in a gentler grip than the one he’d used on the hapless police officer and helped me walk toward the ambulance. “The police will have questions for you. Follow my lead. Listen through Elizabet’s bond, if you have to.”
I turned my head in a futile attempt to shake it. “Can’t find it. ‘S all gone.”
“It’s there. You have to focus on it.”
<
br /> It didn’t matter anyway. What could I tell the police, that a half-crazed vampire had killed my wife’s family? Yeah. That would go over well, especially when we didn’t know the whys, or at least, I didn’t.
By the time the paramedics rushed back out of the house with their stretcher full of someone, a light rain pattered down around us. I hunched my shoulders against it, though truth be told, I couldn’t feel it. I was numb to the bone, had been since I’d come to in the car. The paramedics fiddled with the stretcher’s undercarriage and raised it gently into the back of the ambulance. Marco and I followed it in, and I collapsed on the floor next to Gianna. Thank God, thank you God, was all I could think, and then immediately on its heels, Emily’s smiling face popped into my head.
I couldn’t think about that, not yet, even as tears welled up and my throat clogged and the sorrow came rushing in. I couldn’t bring myself to think about sweet Emily and the way she’d died, the way her and Gianna’s parents had died, under the rip of claws and fangs wielded by a mad woman.
The back doors to the ambulance slammed shut. The paramedics slid into the seats up front, and then we were off, racing through the quiet suburban neighborhood toward the hospital.
Gianna’s skin was as thin as paper and nearly as white. A large bandage covered her throat. Blood seeped through it and covered her tattered clothes in huge, asymmetrical splotches from head to toe. One shoe was missing. The other was eerily blood free, even the sole.
I placed a hand on her stomach, pushed the remnants of her t-shirt up, and curved my fingers against the soft swell of her skin. Nothing. Panic clawed its way through my gut, rolling upward in a shockingly cold wave of nausea and fear. I dropped my head to my hand and tried again, reached out for the baby’s life force, and cursed through the tears running down my cheeks.
Nothing.
Marco laid a gentle, solid hand on my shoulder. “I can feel her, Eric. The baby’s fine. Scared, but fine.”
I breathed out a laugh. Thank God.
“You have to heal Gianna now.”
The Vampire's Pet (The Vampyr Book 1) Page 30