Thrall of the Vampire King (Blood Fire Saga Book 4)

by Bella Klaus

  Aurora opened the door to a room flooded with daylight. Valentine stepped back and then raised his fingers to the doorway. When they didn’t burn, he took a tentative step forward. I peered up into his blank features. At least he’d retained his self-preservation.

  “Losing magic that wasn’t even yours to begin with is a small sacrifice to pay to save hundreds of innocents.” Her throat bobbed as she stepped inside. “If it were something I could do myself—”

  “Oh, save me from your bullshit.” I let Valentine sweep me into the room and deposit me on the spongy mattress of a four-poster bed.

  I rolled off its side and set my feet on the floor, looking for escape routes, hiding places, anything that might save my hide.

  Tall windows ran along its right side, each with golden blinds hanging at half-mast. Each window had its own cushioned seat and between each of them stood a side table that held an ornate clock.

  A four-poster bed took up most of the left wall with a golden pelmet, decorated with a sculpted frieze of Greek gods. The curtains hanging from it were a silk velvet that complemented the golden drapes. Even the coverlet, ivory-silk fabric embroidered in gold, looked like it belonged in a museum.

  Above a roaring fireplace hung a gold-framed picture of a shirtless man with burnt orange hair. His skin was as bronze as Valentine’s used to be, and the sun shone from behind him, bringing out the golden highlight in his hair. With the fire burning in his amber eyes, and the flames dancing from his fingertips, it looked like the artist had wanted to depict him like a god of sun or fire. My throat dried. Was this Kresnik’s true appearance?

  At a time like this, I shouldn’t have been impressed by the decor, but with Valentine standing at the window and staring out into the gardens, some of the pressure eased off my mind, and I needed to think of something.

  The room was part stately home, part museum, and part hotel suite. I walked to a drinks cabinet that displayed an array of green bottles, hoping that at least one of them contained blood. They didn’t.

  Beneath it was a refrigerator, which I opened to find it crammed with blood bags. Some of the tightness around my chest eased. If I could convince Valentine to drink from the bags instead of my veins, I might just survive for long enough to have a conversation with his soul.

  Aurora opened a door that led to a wardrobe-sized space secured by floor-to-ceiling bars. Two bare mattresses lay on the floor and a metallic toilet pan that doubled as a sink hung from the window.

  I clenched my teeth. “What the hell is this?”

  “Our vampire general will require a place to store fresh blood,” she replied.

  “People, you mean,” I blurted.

  Her lips tightened. “Don’t be a hypocrite.”

  The words hit like a backhand across the face, making me reel back. She was referring to how Valentine had stored Jonathan with a dozen other men within the mansion’s basement.

  Staring the woman full in the face, I snarled, “I released those humans the moment I found them.”

  Aurora stuck her nose in the air, reminding me a little of an academy mean girl when caught out in a lie. Disgust rippled through my insides. Not that I was a saint, but how could I have come from wretchedly evil parents?

  Valentine encircled my waist from behind, lowered his lips to my neck, and growled.

  Aurora’s haughty expression fell, and all the blood drained from her face. She turned on her heel and speed-walked to the door. “I’ll leave you to get settled.”

  “Hey,” I snapped.

  She turned but couldn’t meet my eyes.

  “If I don’t survive the night, please tell Aunt Arianna that she saved me from the Council. You don’t have to tell her how I died.”

  Aurora nodded and scampered out of the door, leaving me alone with Valentine.

  His satisfied rumble reverberated across the entire length of my back.

  How do you stop a preternatural vampire from draining you dry? I was about to find out.

  Chapter Three

  As soon as the door clicked shut, Valentine’s arms tightened around my waist. The chill from his larger body seeped into my back, sending tremors across my skin. As his lips grazed my neck, a spike of panic lanced through my heart.

  “Let go of me,” I said.

  Valentine just squeezed tighter, knocking all the air out of my lungs. Tight bands of alarm wrapped around my chest, reducing my ability to breathe. I had to stay calm. No matter what had become of him, Valentine could never be evil.

  When I finally got to talk to him about the men he had kept in the basement, he explained that he only fed on those he had caught hurting others. I turned my head, tried to plead with him to stay calm, but my gaze caught on those crimson eyes. Crimson eyes whose pupils expanded… All the better to see you, my dear.

  I slapped away all thoughts of big bad predators and focussed.

  My throat bobbed. Did Valentine see me as a villain like he did the men he abducted and kept in that closet? When he came to London to help me with my assassin problem, I had brushed him off and rejected his attempts at rekindling our relationship. Or he could be too hungry to care. My throat dried. If I was going to save myself, I needed to promise him something he might enjoy better than blood.

  “Don’t you want to do this face to face?” I said, trying to keep the tremble out of my voice. “Feeding is much more intimate that way.”

  Valentine relaxed his grip, letting me twist around within his arms. I met red eyes that shone brighter than before, telegraphing the depth of his thirst. Sunlight streamed from the tall windows, bringing out the gray pallor in his skin and harshening the contours of the skeleton beneath his dry flesh.

  Terror reached into my lungs and emptied out their contents. It was a surprise he hadn’t set upon me already at this level of advanced hunger.

  “Do you remember me, Valentine?” I placed a trembling hand on his cool cheek. It felt like touching stone.

  He stared back at me, tilting his head to the side, as though he hadn’t understood my words.

  “I’m your Innamorata,” I murmured. “It’s my blood that runs through your veins. You rose from the dead to save me from your brothers.”

  His brows made a slight furrow.

  A blip of hope made my heart skip. Maybe if I talked a little more, tried to jog his memory, he might remember that I wasn’t his meal, no matter what Kresnik said. “I know there’s a part of you in there that still loves me.”

  Valentine’s arms tightened around my back, and he held me close. One of his hands cradled the back of my neck, and I melted into his touch, letting my eyes flutter shut. Maybe I was wrong about him being under the control of Kresnik. Even if Kresnik was controlling him to some extent, he didn’t appear to be completely under his influence the way he had been when the Mage King had woven shadows through his heart. Maybe he was but I just needed to fight harder.

  “We’re both in danger,” I murmured into his ear. “Kresnik just found a way to crawl out of Hell, and now he wants you to work for him like he did with your father.”

  A low growl reverberated from Valentine’s throat, making all the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. My heart accelerated. I tried flinching away, but his grip was too tight. I clamped my mouth shut. That growl was both a warning for me to stop talking treason and a promise of what he would do if I tried to encourage any disloyalty to his master.

  “No,” I squeaked. “I wasn’t suggesting we do anything. I’m just saying we need to do our best.”

  The growling receded, and Valentine swept my hair off my neck. He ran his cool tongue along my jugular, the lengths of his fangs sliding over my skin. My pulse quickened, and I sucked in a sharp breath through my teeth. If I so much as flinched, those sharp tips would be in my veins.

  “Don’t you want to have sex?” I blurted.

  Valentine drew back, his eyes glittering with an intense curiosity. My gaze dropped to the fangs, which seemed longer and thicker than before. Beads
of sweat gathered on my brow, which had nothing to do with the crackling fire. I’d better make this good, or else.

  “You once told me you needed blood to climax. Well, you probably need a bit to get an erection, too.” The words tumbled from my mouth in sync with my rapid pulse. I wasn’t quite sure where this was going, but he’d stopped trying to bite me to listen. Now, I needed to get his mind off my blood… At least for now.

  His lips spread into a grin of sharp fangs, and he inclined his head a fraction as though to agree.

  I placed a hand over his unmoving chest. “Not my blood. I’m…” My mind stuttered. “I’m dessert. No, I’m more like the sip of cognac you take after a large meal. Better still, an after-dinner mint.”

  Valentine went stiller than usual. Even in this advanced state of deprivation, he’d probably already worked out that I was trying to talk him out of drinking my blood.

  My other palm shot out and pressed against his chest, trying to hold him at bay. “I know what you’re thinking. It’s daylight out there and you’re not going to leave me alone to hunt someone when you can drink my blood and then have sex with me after.”

  His eyes narrowed, and he gave me a slight nod.

  “But there’s blood in the refrigerator.” I jerked my head toward the drinks cabinet. “All the sustenance a vampire needs to both maintain a healthy hard-on and achieve a satisfying climax.”

  Valentine’s expression sharpened, making ripples of terror skitter up my spine. The old Valentine would have chuckled at my words or asked if I thought I was in a commercial. This one looked at me as though I was making excuses for not letting him have my blood.

  My breath came in shallow pants, clouds drifting into my head. The ceiling suddenly became too low, the room too narrow, and the windows seemed to shift to the left. This felt like the beginnings of a panic attack. I gulped hard, and tried to draw the oxygen deep into my lungs. The last thing I needed was to hyperventilate, fall into a faint, and wake up with a vampire attached to my neck.

  Been there, did that, didn’t enjoy the consequences.

  “Come on.” I slid my hands down his chest and over his six-pack, cringing at how thin he’d become beneath his clothes. It was worse than groping a statue. Maybe a bit of dirty talk might distract him from my blood? “It’s been ages since we were last together. Why don’t you show a girl a good time?”

  Valentine’s eyes flashed, and his chest made a pleased rumble. With a look that told me there had better be fresh blood in that refrigerator or else, he walked us to the drinks cabinet and grunted.

  “You want me to bring out the blood?”

  Valentine nodded.

  “You’re not very trusting, are you?”

  Amusement glimmered in his eyes. It was a surprise that he was exercising so much self-control, but then my most concentrated experience of predators was with cats. In all the time I’d been friends with Macavity, I’d never once seen him eat any of the mice or birds he’d caught.

  Maybe Valentine wanted to play with me for a bit before pinning me down and taking my blood. That wasn’t going to happen. He was stronger, faster, and determined as hell. At this level of his hunger, the only advantage I had over him was the ability to think.

  “Alright.” Still holding Valentine’s gaze, I slid my hands down his body and lowered myself onto my knees.

  I swear the corners of his lips curled into a smile. He’d better not be getting any ideas. With a suppressed shudder, I fumbled behind me and managed to ease the refrigerator door open. Frigid air fanned against my skin, feeling nearly as cold as Valentine’s body. Reaching into the appliance’s depths, I slid my fingers over something plastic and plucked out a pack.

  “Here.” I glanced at the packet before holding it up. “O negative. I’ve heard it’s the choice of all discerning vampires these days.”

  His gaze flickered from the blood pack to my eyes.

  “You want me to open it?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  The tight band of panic that had squeezed my lungs loosened, allowing me to exhale. But it was too early to feel relief. I rose to my feet, my ass shutting the refrigerator door, and stared at the pack. Two tubes protruded from its bottom, looking like they were meant to be connected to an intravenous drip. I pulled at them, but they held fast.

  “Ummm.” My gaze drifted up to meet Valentine’s eyes. “Can I borrow a fang?”

  His eyelids lowered into a slow blink, which in cat language meant either affection or trust. In a hungry vampire, it could mean anything.

  I held the blood pack to his lips, letting him pierce through its plastic with the tip of his incisor. As soon as the blood spilled from the pack, Valentine’s eyes left mine.

  Relief loosened my muscles and I reeled forward, nearly falling into the vampire draining that blood faster than humanly possible. I drew in a calming breath through my nose and returned to the refrigerator to extract a handful of packets.

  My fingers trembled over the piles of blood, and I forced myself not to think about which hospital had just been deprived. Each pack contained a unit of blood, which was about five hundred milliliters or a pint. As the human body contained on average five and a half liters, it would take Valentine eleven to regain his ability to speak and to stop looking so deathly. Double the amount if I wanted him to return to being himself.

  As soon as that first pack drifted to the wooden floor, I held up another and another and another, watching Valentine consume more and more until he growled loud enough to make me tremble.

  “I know what you’re trying to do,” he snarled.

  My eyes bulged. I clutched the extra blood packs to my chest and backed toward the drinks cabinet. “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s not going to work.” Valentine grabbed my arm, letting the blood packs fall to the floor with several splats.

  “Hey,” I snapped. “That’s a waste of—”

  “I will eat them later,” he said with a smile that reached his eyes but radiated absolutely no warmth. “But first, I will eat you.”

  Every muscle in my body stiffened. My gaze darted to the closed door, which now seemed an entire lifetime away. Why didn’t I try sneaking out when he was busy drinking the blood? Now that his brain was working, he was impossible to distract.

  Half-full Valentine was even more feral than his near-dead counterpart. I couldn’t reason with him, couldn’t bargain with him, couldn’t make him change his mind.

  Valentine scooped me into his arms and stared down at me with glittering eyes that made all the blood drain from my face. “You’re mine.”

  “Valentine…” I placed a hand on his chest. “Please don’t—”

  “Silence.” The command in his voice had a bite of magic.

  I clamped my mouth shut. This was the same version of Valentine that liked to punish me for my transgressions. The same version of Valentine who had tried to lock me in the penthouse for my own safety. Even if I wanted to fight against his magic, arguing with him would only backfire.

  He crossed the room, staring down at me as though he would take everything I believed was mine and there wasn’t a thing I could do to stop him. When we reached the bed, he deposited me on the mattress and stared down at me through darkened eyes.

  “Remove your clothes,” he drawled.

  I curled my hands into fists. “You just broke free from the Supernatural Council. Kresnik has risen from the dead. Lamia is under lockdown, and the vampires have to pay taxes. Don’t you think we should discuss—”

  “Now.” The command in his voice made my heart flip.

  My gaze travelled from his glowing eyes, over the black enforcer uniform that was still embedded with dust from his fight with the Demon King, and settled on the erection straining against his pants.

  A different thrill rippled through my insides, and the pulse between my legs quickened.

  “If you insist…” I shouldered off the reaper’s cloak, exposing the thin gown I’d borrowed after turni
ng into the phoenix had burned my clothes. My gaze wandered back up his body as I waited for his next instructions.

  Valentine’s eyes lingered on my tightened nipples, and he drifted forward, drinking the rest of me in with ravenous eyes.

  The fullness had returned to his flesh, which was still paler than usual but had lost that deathly gray pallor. His cupid-bow lips had returned to their usual roundness, setting me at ease.

  “What next?” I asked.

  Valentine’s lips pulled into a wicked smile that made my heart flip. “You’re drawing this out,” he said in a voice he used to chastise servants. “You know what happens to girls who disobey.”

  I bristled at the implication that there were other girls, then mentally slapped myself upside the head. He was still a preternatural vampire, still hungry, and still wanting to drain me of my blood. Who cared if he talked about women in the plural?

  Valentine was under Kresnik’s control. Kresnik, who was now inhabiting the body of my birth father and had just handed me to Valentine as a reward for good work. By anyone’s rules, I was his to do with as he wished. If I was going to survive this encounter, I needed to give Valentine an incentive to keep me alive.

  “Alright.” Licking my lips, I shifted on the bed and pulled out my gown from beneath my calves.

  Valentine’s eyes tracked the movement, and excitement rippled through my insides. Right now, he was the right kind of predator. With a bit of dirty talk, I might be able to get through this without being bitten… much.

  “Are you going to help me out of this gown?” I said with a pout.

  He climbed onto the bed and slipped his hands beneath the cotton fabric. His fingers brushed over my bare thighs, sending tingles of pleasure to my sensitive bundle of nerves. A whimper caught in the back of my throat as my core muscles clenched. Why did his touch have such a seductive effect in the face of danger?

  Why couldn’t I just stop trying to analyze things and focus on pleasing the vampire? His hands were now halfway up my thighs. With fingers that wouldn’t stop trembling, I unfastened the buttons on his enforcer jacket.