by Sharon Page
“Denby says the Society is trying to protect her. Eugenia has been keeping the girl’s power a secret, but a slayer named James Ryder has found her.”
“Ryder,” Drake spat.
Serena swallowed hard. “I’ve never heard of a slayer named Ryder.”
“He’s rogue. For years he’s worked for himself—he offers vampires protection for a price. He’s even killed some of the demons that the Society has been protecting because he was paid to do it by other vampires. He’s driven by greed.”
“So someone wants to kill this woman?” Serena asked.
“If she can revert vampires to mortals, there are a lot of the undead who would want to see her destroyed,” Drake answered.
She shivered. She knew what it was to have both demons and the Society in pursuit of her.
“So we must go to London.” There was no other choice. She looked up at Jonathon and Drake. “But could I be made mortal? Could our children? If we are born of the undead, do we even have souls?” She looked from Drake’s silvery green eyes to Jonathon’s, as dark and reflective as jet in the low light of the fire. “Would you both choose to be mortal again?”
“I would choose to be whatever you wish to be and can be, Serena,” Drake vowed.
“As would I,” Jonathon added.
But Drake had been made by Lukos—he had never had a choice. And Jonathon had chosen to be made a vampire by Drake to save his life.
What right did she have to keep them from making the choice that was really in their hearts?
Drake waited until Serena was asleep. She lay on their large bed, turned on her side. A pillow was caught between her legs, and one partly supported her rounded belly, for this made her more comfortable when she slept.
Drake lit a cheroot and walked out to the balcony. Clouds raced past the half moon, and the peaks of the Carpathians were lost in a haziness that meant a snowstorm approached. Jonathon was leaning on the carved balustrade, also smoking.
Drake joined him. Jonathon acknowledged him with a brief nod, while not turning his gaze from the turbulent sky.
“I felt an awareness of Lukos today. Since he was my sire, I am connected to him.”
Jonathon nodded. Drake had sired Jonathon.
“For a few moments, my heartbeat changed. It slowed,” Drake sighed. “And I think it did so to match the rhythm of Lukos’s heart.”
Jonathon rubbed his jaw, withdrew his cheroot. “That would mean he’s freed.”
6
Six and Nine
“I’m looking for a whore—one who does not object to a good whipping.” Fury crackled in him, and James Ryder needed a release. He also needed information, so he would engage in two business transactions with the innkeeper.
The burly, balding innkeeper rubbed the side of his nose. “I don’t usually send any of my lasses to men who like such things.”
Once again, it all came down to money. He threw a pile of notes in front of the man. “Did you see a blond woman traveling with two unusually tall, dark-haired men? The men had long black hair and were wearing fur-lined cloaks.”
The man hesitated. Ryder added another note to the pile, then made to remove them all.
At once the innkeeper held up his thick hand. “I did, indeed, see a dark-haired gent in such a cloak. He needed direction, but asked for my discretion.”
Paid for it, Ryder knew. He left the stack and threw on another note.
The innkeeper looked anguished. “The problem is, I can’t remember where he wanted to go. It’s as familiar to me as my own name, but I can’t remember.”
“Blackthorne Castle,” Ryder offered, and the truth was enough to break through the vampire’s compulsion for a moment. The innkeeper’s eyes brightened, but almost immediately the glow faded. He looked wistfully at the money. “I’m afraid I can’t bring it to mind.”
“Well, I want to go to Blackthorne Castle. Which road would I take?”
But the man could not help him there—claimed he knew the way, but again could not remember it. Bloody vampires. So Ryder bought a woman, a seasoned whore with large breasts who liked to be spanked and tied to the bed.
She glowed with life and was moaning the instant he began to undo her dress. He wanted her naked, wanted those lush breasts to smother him as he wrestled her on the bed. “I want to tie you up but fight you to do it.”
She shrugged at that.
“Take your blinkin’ bonnet off,” he muttered. He didn’t intend to undress. “What of Blackthorne Castle, do you know it?”
She shook her head. “No, but there’s those who work for Mrs. Coventry that do. She’s got a place in the next village along the road—Witherby on the Marsh.”
Ryder tackled her then, shoving her onto the sagging bed. She laughed as though she’d never been so carefree and excited. Women who’d done this for a while, who were used to haste and indifference, were the most eager to play.
He had her wrists pinned to the mattress when she asked, “You a friend of Lord Blackthorne’s? Is that why you want to play this game? ’E holds the wildest orgies. Dozens of girls are brought in for ’is pleasures. Some girls have never come back. Are ye one of them, then?”
So Miss Miranda Bond was racing to a pervert who murdered some of the tarts he slept with?
“I’m no friend of his,” he snapped.
“Oh.” Her strength flowed surprisingly and she flipped him onto the bed. Her large breasts covered his nose and mouth, and he coughed for breath. Her flesh was hot, her nipples large and hard. He was reaching for one plump teat with his lips when moonlight caught them both and he saw it—the sharp tips of newly made fangs. She was laughing wildly, her eyes gleaming, the light flying off their reflective surface. “You are young and beautiful,” she cooed. Though lined with dark paint and wrinkles, her eyes glittered.
Vampire eyes.
He would have to stake her after their bout.
She suddenly reared back. “You mean me harm,” she gasped. She scrambled off him and the bed. Her dress gaped open, hanging off her shoulders, but she ran for the door.
He was up and in pursuit, but she reached the door first and wrenched it so hard the hinges gave out. She tossed it back toward him and leapt through the opening.
He let the door hit the bed and followed his fleeing vampire. She was newly made. Had she been made by the damned vampire who had attacked him to save Miranda Bond?
He could run as quickly as a vampire—he’d made a pact with one of the queens once to spare her life and in return she’d given him the speed of a demon.
But his vampiress had vanished in the hallway. A door swung sharply, caught by a gust of wind. Stake at the ready, Ryder went to the room. The curtains blew in from the open window. He was at the sill in an instant.
A red cloud swirled below him. He glanced around, perplexed. He couldn’t see the vampire. She wasn’t in the red haze roiling below. And there wasn’t any red light that could cast that hellish colored glow on the fog.
Damnation, she couldn’t have gone this way.
He had to let her go. He had to go on to the next village and find his route to Blackthorne Castle. Once he’d destroyed Miranda, he could return for this vampire.
Miranda was his ticket to wealth, to power, to the realization of his dream to crush his damned father.
The pleasure of staking a heart through a set of plump tits wasn’t worth losing everything.
She was trapped again.
Miranda sat at Zayan’s side and moonlight flickered into the carriage as the wheels raced beneath the trees. Branches reached across the road and clacked together in the crisp spring wind. The horses drove hell-bent for leather, and they overtook other carriages, rocking and jostling on the uneven road.
Miranda’s heart was in her throat. She sat opposite Zayan and Lukos—and of course could not help a quickening of her heart as she looked on Lukos. But her breath also came hurriedly as she glanced to Zayan. Moonlight turned both into men of unearthly beauty. The b
luish light painted their rugged faces, highlighting the sharp lines of cheekbones, the full curves of their sensual mouths. Their eyes glowed like silver. And when each man looked at her, he did so with a possessiveness that made her shiver.
She had just stopped them from tearing each other apart. She had, entirely by accident, used their magic against them to stop the fight. And once again the magic had dipped into dark fantasies she had no idea she even had.
What it had forced the vampires to do had stunned her…
Even now their chests were still heaving. Vampires, it appeared, also became short of breath when they had intense climaxes. And what she had done had left the vampires speechless.
She shivered. They sat across from her. She had insisted she wanted to sit alone, and after what she’d done to them, they allowed it.
Watching her beneath his dark brows, Zayan undid the jeweled clasp at the neck of his cloak. He offered it to her, but she shook her head. She would rather be cold than accept a gift and provoke the two men again.
They might be vampires, but they were also posturing men. Impossible to deal with.
She turned nervously to the window. As they had hurtled out of the inn’s yard, she’d given them the wrong directions to Blackthorne’s castle. She had no idea where they were headed and at what point the men would guess that she’d lied. She could not take them to Blackthorne and put him at risk. And she could not go to him herself, not after what she had done with Lukos and Zayan….
How could two enormous males brawl in a carriage without tearing it apart? Zayan had jumped into the carriage and, after taking one look at her and one deep breath of the erotic scents hanging in the air, he had slammed his fist into Lukos’s face. He accused Lukos of seducing her with magic against her will.
Lukos’s fists had collided with Zayan’s strong jaw and his gut, and he fell back against the carriage wall. “I wasn’t using magic at the end,” Lukos said. “She was putting me into a most wicked fantasy, and doing it willingly.” His grin was mocking, making him look more like a young man of barely twenty-one. “I’ve seduced her first,” he goaded. “She’s mine.”
What had she done by being so wanton? Miranda couldn’t even escape—she’d likely be crushed by the two fighting men if she tried to get to the door. Or perhaps, whispered a voice, she didn’t want to escape.
Fists flew as the men pounded each other and paced in a tight circle, looking for a chance to plunge fangs. One body, then another, would fly into the opposite seat or smash against the wall. The carriage rocked with each slam.
“Stop this!” she shouted at them. Her brother Simon had fought like this when he was a child—stubbornly, stupidly, without thought to safety or sanity. These vampires were like two thirteen-year-old boys throwing punches while tumbling down a hill together, heedless of the cliff they’d fly off at the bottom.
“People are going to notice this carriage is rocking on its wheels and is about to tip over,” she cried.
And then, amidst the mad fighting, they began to undress. Zayan’s fur-lined cape flew off first and landed on top of her. Then Lukos tossed his and pulled off his shirt. Zayan did the same, so they were now grappling on the floor, bare-chested. Apparently they’d stripped, as it made it easier to swing punches.
The fight became more of a scramble, the men wrestling and shouting curses.
“Roman bastard,” Lukos snarled.
“Saxon garbage,” Zayan spit.
Miranda almost began to laugh. Then she saw Lukos’s firm buttocks sticking up in the air, and his back muscles bunching as he struggled to pin Zayan. Her heart hammered. The blue light began to zip about in the carriage again.
Had she summoned it?
Her hand strayed to her throat. Zayan threw Lukos off, then jumped on top of him. His crotch ground against Lukos’s breeches-clad thigh as they struggled. His back was beautiful, a broad-shouldered sculpture of muscle, each exquisitely defined.
And this fighting looked almost like what she and Lukos had done together….
“Christ Jesus, what happened?”
Zayan was sprawled on the floor, with Lukos on top. But Zayan’s head was in line with Lukos’s crotch, which meant Lukos was in the same position on Zayan.
Lukos’s head jerked up. His gleaming eyes caught hers. “This is your fantasy, angel?”
She knew her eyes had gone saucer wide. “What do you mean?”
“You want us sucking each other’s cocks. Just as I made you come with my mouth.”
She was stunned but could picture it perfectly.
Her face flamed. “I—I don’t know what you mean. I just wanted you to stop fighting.”
But Lukos grinned. He had already seen a side to her she hadn’t even known about. Just looking at his full, delectable mouth made her grow hot and molten. And after what she had shared with him, she should be…be willing to pledge fidelity, shouldn’t she? She was confused. She was supposed to be intimate only with a husband.
Zayan stared at her in amazement, from between Lukos’s thighs. Both men looked not…angry, but intrigued. Almost amused. And their eyes seemed to be glowing gold. But she hadn’t thought of anything sexual between the men—
No, she had. She’d thought the fighting looked sensual, and next thing she’d known they’d been thrown into this position. And heaven help her, she was…worked up by the idea that Lukos would put his mouth to Zayan’s crotch. And Zayan would do the same.
Somehow the magic had put the thought into her head. It created fantasies that excited her, but that she would never think of on her own. Or was it the men? They were vampires—she was being drawn under their spell, and she, fool that she was, didn’t even want to fight.
The most erotic thoughts surged through her—of being able to command both men to do what she wished.
She had to escape. But as she forced her shaky, desire-weakened legs to straighten, an invisible force pushed her abruptly down to the seat. Was this part of the magic of the blue lights? They were almost acting on their own.
Join us. Zayan held out his hand.
She stared. This was madness.
Women love to be shared by two men. I have delighted many women by taking them with another man. Don’t deny yourself the fun, my angel.
“No!”
Laughing, Lukos ran his fangs along the bulge in Zayan’s breeches. His gaze held her the entire time, and she was certain her face had colored from merely pink to flaming red. Zayan ripped open the falls of Lukos’s trousers. Lukos’s long, heavy member dropped free, and she almost melted on the spot as Zayan’s mouth slowly approached the head.
She’d only ever seen male equipage on statues. Soft ones tucked demurely against male bodies. Lukos’s was long, straight as a sword, and topped with a thick, bulbous head that looked just like a plum. A big, ripe, succulent one, tempting her to put her mouth there and taste—
But Lukos had ground his crotch into Zayan’s face, and she had lost her breath at the sight of one man’s lips pressed to the other’s shaft. She should be stunned. Shocked.
But she was caught up in the heated magic of it. They made such an exquisite picture, two pairs of long legs stretched out to touch the carriage walls, two muscled abdomens curved, mirroring each other. Biceps bulged as each man leaned toward the other’s cock. Her heart stuttered as Lukos stuck his tongue out and laved the head of Zayan’s member. A growl came from deep in his chest. He grazed his teeth over the taut flesh, as though preparing to bite. Then Zayan sucked Lukos’s ballocks into his mouth, and Lukos retreated to moan harshly, to shudder at the sensation.
Miranda found her fingers had crept down and were pressing her skirts into the vee between her legs. She ached there, ached for relief.
Men, it appeared, knew how to please each other. Obviously they knew how those things—their cocks—worked and knew where the most sensitive places were. She gaped in fascination as Lukos opened his mouth wide and took Zayan’s large, thick shaft in deeply. The entire thing disappe
ared inside. It amazed her how hard and fast their hips moved, how fiercely they thrust their cocks into each other’s mouths.
Steam seemed to fill the carriage. It even beaded on the glass windows. The men panted fiercely between fevered sucking. Miranda had to pull up her skirts to bare her legs, because it became too intensely hot. She saw how fast they moved their hips now.
They were straining for climax, racing toward them.
You’ll die first, Zayan growled.
She heard his thoughts as though he’d shouted them.
No, damn you, it’ll be you who surrenders first, Lukos threw back.
There was anger behind the passion. And Miranda feared what she’d done. But Zayan bucked suddenly and she glimpsed his thoughts for one moment—
She felt a burst of pleasure that shot through every nerve, that sang through every muscle, that blanked his brain and took away his control. She felt the way it sapped his strength, and the burst of sheer, intense delight it gave him. She flopped limply back on the seat as he had to sink to the floor of the carriage.
Then Lukos came, and she shared his remarkable pleasure. But felt the edge beneath it, the anger he had over surrendering. Anger that made the final explosion so intense she feared she’d melt into the velvet-cushioned seat.
Lukos retreated off Zayan’s cock as Zayan did the same. At once, after his body had stopped jerking, Lukos pulled away and flung himself into the seat. He snarled like an angered wolf, retreating in the shadows in the corner.
Miranda’s heart pounded so hard, she was surprised it didn’t rattle the windows. What had she done…?
The carriage stopped. Miranda felt the lurch. Felt her head bounce gently against the velvet seat.
“Where are we?” She’d murmured it before she’d remembered who she was asking. For one bleary minute she thought she was traveling with Simon and Caroline. She must have gone to sleep while remembering the fight between the men and the carnal aftermath.