Retribution (Book 3 of The Dominion Series)

by Lund, S. E.

  I sigh. I don’t want this. I don’t want him to touch me there.

  "Eve, turn around, bend over as I commanded. Do it now."

  "I just…"

  He puts a finger to my lips. "No argument, Eve. You agreed to this. This is part of pushing your limits."

  I take in a deep breath and comply, turning around, bending down but I feel terribly embarrassed that my ass is so exposed to his gaze, right in his face.

  "Spread your legs," he orders and I do with extreme reluctance. I'm glad I don't have to look in his face when he does this and grimace, squeezing my eyes shut. He rubs the shaving brush against me and I flinch for it both tickles and makes me embarrassed. Then, horror of horrors, he spreads my cheeks with the fingers of one hand and shaves me with the other, carefully, and I try not to think of what I must look like, but then I can't help it. I burst out in a stifled laugh, almost snorting because I try to hold it in and fail.

  He stops for a moment. "You find this amusing, Eve?" he says, his voice light, a touch of humor in it. "Does it tickle?"

  "No, my Lord, it just must look so," I say and struggle for words, tears blurring my vision. "So ridiculous. It’s just so … embarrassing."

  "Believe me," he says and I can almost hear his smile even though I can't see it. "It doesn’t look at all ridiculous from where I'm sitting. It looks inviting."

  I snort again, the notion that my spread ass cheeks are inviting almost unbearably funny to me and I wipe away the tears off my cheeks. When he's done, he washes off the area with a wet cloth and then dries me off. I try to stand up but he refuses to let me, pressing his hand on my back to stop me.

  "Stay like that. You shouldn’t feel embarrassed, Eve. It's actually very erotic to me."

  I cover my mouth with a hand, giggling, unable to control myself now. I try to stop laughing, taking in a deep breath, but it's just under the surface.

  "You actually find my ass erotic?"

  "Very," he says, his voice serious.

  I burst out laughing at that, covering my face as I try to stop my laughter. "Please, don’t make me stand like this any longer. I can't take it."

  "No, I think I’d like you to stay like that for a while. Don’t move. I have to get something."

  He leaves me, and I glance around to see where he's going. He's at a large bureau and opens a drawer, removing a box of some design. He returns and then sits down again, and does nothing. I wonder – that better not be a sex toy…

  I wait, but he just sits there, staring at my ass.

  "Are you just going to sit there and stare at me?"

  "I think I might. You're being quite disrespectful. I could spank you right now, Eve, based on our agreement and your lack of respect. Instead, I think I'll just make you stand like that for a while longer. Besides, I can see your pussy so well from this position. All nice and pink and bare."

  He runs a finger between my lips to the entrance to my body and I gasp at the sensation. It feels so good and seems to stifle my need to laugh, my mirth replaced by lust.

  "That’s better."

  I close my eyes and just allow myself to feel the sensations as he strokes me. Finally, without speaking, he turns me around and pushes me back onto the bed, then lies on top of me, my hands above my head grasped in one of his. He kisses his bite mark, licks the skin there, and despite everything, despite my anxiety, my embarrassment, and my fear, I respond to the feel of his tongue on my skin.

  "Here," he says and stands up, pulling me up with him so that I sit on the edge of the bed. He reaches for the box and opens it to reveal a thin black leather choker with a small black and white cameo pendant. "This is your collar – the symbol of your slavery to me. You have to wear it all the time."

  I take it from him and examine it. The cameo is beautiful, made from what looks like Onyx, and in the shape of a white fleur-de-lis against a black background. It's about the size of a nickel and delicate. He fastens it behind my neck and positions it so that the cameo falls just at the base of my throat.

  "Beautiful."

  He takes my hand and leads me to the antique bureau with a large mirror and stands me in front of it so I can see what it looks like on me. I stand there with the cameo choker around my neck, my breasts bare and pubic area shaved. He pulls my hair away from my face, holding it up in a loose ponytail so that long tendrils fall around the nape of my neck. He bends down and places his mouth over his bite mark possessively.

  Then he pulls away and lets my hair drop. "Now to the last rite of possession. The brand."

  I grimace, for I know it will hurt. He turns me around in a pirouette and then sits on a chair in front of me.

  "Where should I mark you?" he says, eyeing my body closely. "Perhaps on the outside curve of your breast just under your arm? I love the way your breast swells there," he says, pulling me closer, licking the area before taking my nipple in his mouth for a brief suck. My muscles clench at that.

  Then he turns me around so my ass is towards him.

  "Perhaps here," he says, touching the base of my spine between my cheeks. He licks the spot and then kisses each cheek. I tense.

  Then he turns me around again and leans down to stroke my naked pussy with his tongue. "Maybe here," he says and licks just to the side of my pubic mound, between it and my inner thigh.

  "It would really hurt there," I say.

  He glances up at me and raises his eyebrows. It’s then I realize I haven't been using the proper form of address with him. "I'm sorry," I say. "My Lord."

  He doesn't respond. "I think I'd like it here," he says and kisses the spot beside my pubic mound. "That way, when I eat you, I can see my mark as a constant reminder of the fact I possess you. All of you. Every inch."

  I take in a deep breath, a bit anxious about the pain. I'm used to pain that I self-administer. Somehow it isn’t as bad when you do it yourself. When someone else does, you don't control it. It feels more intense.

  He goes to the fireplace and removes a tiny metal rod with a wooden handle. At one end is a brand that now glows red-hot. It's pretty small – no more than the size of a quarter. A circle with a fleur-de-lis in the center. From his family coat of arms, the fleur-de-lis signifying Occitan nobility.

  "Go lie on the bed," he says and I do, lying on my back with my legs hanging off the edge. He leans over me with the branding iron but first, he touches where he wants to place the mark with a finger, then he presses the brand against my skin and oh, my God it hurts like hell. Worse than anything I've done to myself. The pain sears me and I flinch away from him until he finally removes it. There's already a real mark, blistering, red, where the brand was. He returns the poker to the fire and then comes back to me.

  "OW, ow, ow!" I say, my breath drawn in between my clenched teeth. "Ow. That hurts so much!"

  "I know, " he says. "I have to leave it so that it takes. I'll stop the burn in a few seconds." Then he leans down and licks me over the brand, and the sensation is nice and distracts me momentarily from the pain. "The burn won't get any worse due to the healing properties in my saliva."

  I nod and sit up to examine my new mark.

  "You are so lovely," he says and pushes me back, lying on top of me. "Naked, shaved, my collar on you, now my brand. You are truly all mine. Keats never had Fanny the way he wanted, Eve, but I have you. I've always thought how tragic was his love story with Fanny. He so capable of loving her entirely and completely and unable to have her that way. I've wanted you so long and now you are mine. Every inch of you."

  "My Lord," I say, enjoying his weight on top of me. "We've only known each other for four months. You haven't waited long at all."

  "I feel like I've known you for eight hundred years."

  I frown. "What do you mean?"

  "I was there when you were conceived, Eve," Michel says and strokes my cheek. "I saw your mother's ultrasound at eighteen weeks when we discovered your siblings had all died in utero. I was there when you were born, waiting outside the delivery room. I saw you
r first recital. I saw your last recital before your mother died."

  He kisses me and I can feel his erection pressing against my groin, causing an instant response in my body, despite the pain from the brand and my confusion about what he's saying.

  "You were there when I was conceived?"

  "Soren's scientists used your mother's egg and father's sperm. They infused the fertilized egg with selected DNA that had been manipulated to include some from an Ancient, and some from another human."

  "What other human?" I say, a sense of dread filling me.

  "You have some of your mother in you – what we needed. Your fight skills, your telepathy. You have some Ancient DNA that gives you the ability to act as a conduit between vampires and Ancients."

  "Which Ancient?" I say, alarm filling me. "Not Soren…"

  "Yes," Michel says. "You are his creature."

  I can't even think at this point. Soren is not my father. I have some of his DNA – that's all.

  "Who else? What other human?"

  Michel doesn't say anything for a while. Finally, he takes a lock of my hair between his fingers and holds it up to his nose. "Danielle."

  Danielle? "But," I say and can't speak for a moment, confused. "She died… You killed her!"

  "We dug up her bones and used her DNA. There are techniques, Eve, that never existed until now to extract DNA from hip bones. There was enough to use to make you look like her. Your hair. Your eyes. Your build. The shape of your nose. Your chin. Your long neck. But your dimples, they're your mother's. Your freckles? They're from your father."

  My eyes widen.

  "But why?"

  "Soren promised me that if I was at his side, he'd make you for me. You see, he played us both, Julien and I. Promising us both a copy of you in return for our obedience and compliance with his plan. Then, your siblings died in utero and there was only one of you. He thought that was even better – to have us both enslaved to him, fighting over you."

  I lie there, unable to speak or even think, while he starts to move his mouth and tongue all over me, from my neck to my breasts and then down, licking me all over. I try to understand – I'm not Danielle. I look like her, but I'm my mother's daughter. I'm my father's daughter. I have her dimples. I have his freckles.

  Michel calms me and I don't cry although tears threaten at the corners of my eyes.

  "Soren created me for you?"

  "His scientists created three of you, one for me and one for Julien and one spare. You were the only one to survive."

  "Why are you telling me this now? You should have told me before!"

  "Would it have made a difference?" he says, stopping his motions. "Would you have felt differently?"

  I don't know if I would. All I know is that my hatred for Soren is growing so great, I feel as if I might explode. Michel kisses my belly and releases more endorphins to calm me and my body relaxes but my mind won't shut down.

  "So you and Julien were waiting for me to grow up to see which one I’d choose?"

  "No," Michel says. "I lost you on purpose so neither of us would have you. So Soren wouldn't use you. Then, you had to get those files from the university. I had no idea where you were or that you'd try. I had no idea that Julien gave that manuscript to your mother. I did everything I could to stop this from happening. Fate had other plans for us, Eve."

  I just lay there and let the knowledge wash over me. No wonder he and Julien are unwilling to give me up. They both wanted Danielle when they were human. Now, here I am, looking so much like her, with even with some of her DNA in me. Soren is such a bastard to manipulate them through me…

  I close my eyes and try to shut my brain off. When Michel feels me give in, he starts kissing me again, his mouth moving lower, over my hips and thighs. I just lie there and try to not think for the thoughts are still too confusing and upsetting.

  Then, he starts licking my now-naked pubic mound and he's right – without hair, it feels incredible. After a while, with him just licking the outer lips, I'm so ready for him I think I could almost come just like this. He finally spreads my thighs and starts to lick me all over, deeper and finally, slips two fingers inside of me and starts stroking me. I feel the sweetness start in my groin.

  "My Lord, I think I…"

  My orgasm starts, heat rising to my cheeks, my body tensing.

  "I can tell, Eve." Then he continues licking and sucking and I come, my body clenching around his fingers, the pleasure so intense. He keeps licking the entire time and it becomes too much, but he holds me there at the peak for what seems like an eternity.

  Before I can even think, he rolls off me, removing his robe and then moves up so that he sits up against the wooden headboard. He holds his erection in his hand.

  "Now, fuck me."

  I crawl over to him as he commands and mount him, my arms around his shoulders, and when I sink onto him, I'm still so swollen that I know I can come again soon. He grasps my hips and helps me for my legs are a little shaky. He draws a thin line down the side of his neck below his ear and I lean down and suck and after a while, the combination of his blood and his thumb on my clit, his hardness filling me, makes me come once more. It's even more shattering than my first orgasm because he fills me up so well.

  This is bliss.

  This is what I wrote about in my journal – how I wanted him. When my orgasm recedes, he rolls me over onto my back and pulls me to the edge of the bed and starts to fuck me, leaning over me, his face over mine, his arms cradling my head. When he comes, he has this expression on his face – a grimace of pleasure so intense that looks as if he's caught somewhere between heaven and hell. Our connection makes it all the more intense as I feel what he feels, and it's like fulfillment to him, this fuck with me the way I am – with his collar, his mark and his willing slave.

  I'm what he's waited for since he saw me in the Linguistics Building – that day which feels as if it never happened and even before that, when Soren first proposed the deal that would have Michel and Julien as his slaves.

  Once he's secure that I can obey him fully and without question, we'll kill Soren.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  "True strength lies in submission which permits one to dedicate his life, through devotion, to something beyond himself."

  Henry Miller

  He kisses me one last time before he blows out the candle.

  "Good night, Eve," he says, his face nestled in the crook of my neck.

  "Good night, Michel."

  I feel his smile against my neck. I'm going to call him Michel when I'm off duty. I don't want to forget that I'm not a slave every hour of the day.

  I'm me.

  We're Master and slave for a reason – not just because it titillates me, or makes him ecstatic, but because we have a mission. I turn over and face him and he adjusts his head on the pillow. Despite the darkness, I can see his face with my hunter vision and because of the moonlight flooding in from the window.

  "When we kill Soren," I say and tuck his hair behind his ear, "Will we go back to being an ordinary couple?"

  "Whatever you wish, Eve."

  "Have you seen it?" I ask. "Us being normal?"

  He clucks his tongue. "You don’t believe I can see the future."

  I say nothing for a moment. I don't believe it. But still…

  "In your," I say and hesitate. "Visions, or whatever they are, are we together after we kill Soren?"

  "Yes. After a fashion. Not like this in every possible future."

  "Not as Master and slave in every one? In some, we're normal?"

  He shakes his head. "We could never be normal, Eve."

  "Does that upset you? That in some, we're not Master and slave?"

  He smiles softly. "It's enough that you're alive and that I'm with you."

  I just look at his face, at his eyes – those thick black lashes that belong on a woman, not a man. That square jaw that's all man.

  "What about Julien?"

  "What about him?" Michel
says, his words clipped.

  "You know what I mean. You said he was expecting to have me. It explains a lot."

  "Forget about that. I don’t want to talk about Julien, Eve. I just want to be with you. And right now, I want to sleep," he says and closes his eyes.

  He doesn’t want a future with Julien in it, at least, not one with Julien trying to get me back. I can't help but wonder how Julien is and I feel traitorous. How can I think of Julien when I'm here with Michel and am so happy? I feel so possessed. So wanted. So desired.

  I sigh and turn over so that my back's toward Michel and close my eyes, trying to shut my mind off. Michel squeezes me, his naked skin against me. He must do something to me for I finally relax and stop thinking, just listen instead to the sound of his breathing.

  When I wake, I catch a glimpse of Michel through the open door to the bathroom. He's dressed in his robe while servants pour buckets of hot water into the tub. I sit up and keep the blankets around me, watching as Michel pours some bath salts into the water. He turns back to the room and sees me sitting on the bed. He smiles and I can't help but smile back at him, a little shy because I know what this means. He said I could expect to be fucked morning and night and to expect multiple orgasms each time. Already my body warms to the thought.

  Before he can come to get me, another servant enters the room and goes to his side. They speak briefly and then Michel shakes his head as if upset. He speaks to the other servants and then comes into the bedroom.

  "Eve," he says. "I'm called out to see Soren. I have to go right away, but you go ahead and have a bath, then eat your breakfast. Wear something from the clothes I've provided for you. I've picked them out myself. I'll see what he wants and then be back."

  "Yes, my Lord," I say because one of the servants is in the room, stoking the fire, and I don't want to show disrespect even though my eight hours of freedom are not yet officially up.