by Sophie Avett
Yes, she now had the immediate power. That much was true and he would allow her that illusion of control for now. But make no mistake, he was a particularly creative brand of conniving and it would only take one misstep on her part. Just…one. And then, he’d have her caught, bound, stripped at his mercy. What mercy?
It was a couple of hours before Elsa’s breathing changed, stirring to life somewhere in the suite. She was quiet, Elsa. Even for as clumsy and as graceless as she normally seemed. Even though she seemed to prefer to stomp wherever she went, when she wanted to be, she could be very, very quiet. And she was that now. So quiet, standing in the shadow of the balcony doors he’d left open. She was watching him, as if him naked, reclined in the shadows with sketch pad and a smirk, was the true picture of him in his natural environment.
“Vampire,” she rasped.
Her voice. Goddamn it. His eyebrow quirked in annoyance and he shook his hair out of his eyes. “Did you sleep well?”
“Aye, did you?”
He flipped the page, accessing a draft. “With all due respect, are you experiencing any physical discomfort? I took the liberty of having some items sent up.” She did not immediately answer and his pencil ground to a halt, his eyes locked on the impenetrable ocean. “I can have another room arranged, Elsa.”
“No.” There was no doubt in the command in her tone, though her gravelly purr was softer than usual. “Don’t press the subject any more, vampire. You will stay here until I decide otherwise. You are to respect my judgment in all things.”
His grip tightened around his pencil. “I see you’ve immediately taken to exercising power over someone else, Ms. Karr.”
“Your intent, vampire?” It was much more a command than a question.
His throat worked as he shaded the curve of a generous hip. “You know I need you. Without your…charm it would be very difficult for me to hunt Madame Mari. And you’re using that power to force me to submit to your will simply because it suits your desires, Ms. Karr.” How are we any different?
“It would be foolish of me to let you continue to lead. You show poor restraint, utterly ruthless in your pursuit. I find your methods of seduction sorely lacking.”
Suddenly, he wasn’t sure what they were talking about. His sexual prowess or his competency as an advertising executive—but either one was a kick in the fangs. He raised an eyebrow and sought her gaze over the brim of the sketch pad. Her murky green eyes betrayed nothing in their depths but a sparkle of vague amusement.
A muscle in his jaw ticked. “My methods may be crass, unethical even, but they are effective, Ms. Karr.” Or didn’t I make your pussy shake, little witch?
Red beams spiked through green irises as if she’d heard his unspoken thought, and he eased back into the shadows, retreating from the suspicion that she could somehow read his mind. The moment stretched on and he waited in the silence for something, anything—the pencil’s graphite point bearing down on the mermaid’s scale a fine hair from snapping off like a gunshot in the wind. And then, nothing—Elsa shifted her eyes to the ocean stretching toward the horizon in an angry, wrinkled sheet.
He waited for what seemed like an eternity. Would she step out onto the balcony? Would she not? Was that fear tightening her eyes? Or was he imagining the minuscule reaction? Perhaps she was truly as unaffected as she seemed. Or maybe, there was more going on behind her slated expression. He….couldn’t tell. She was a fucking mystery. How…rare. And annoying.
Elsa held him spellbound, hanging off of her plump bottom lip for every word. And she said nothing. Soon, he realized that she would not say anything. Marshall bit the inside of his cheek and dropped his attention back to his draft only to have her part the silence.
“Your methods of seduction are not seduction at all. Seduction is instigating someone into doing what they secretly already want to. It is not manipulating them by their desires. It is not crippling their self-respect when you do finally coerce them into submitting to your will. It is a secret, vampire, and it is freely taken.”
Her words were a melody the knife in his heart could dance to and he blocked out the unwanted shame and censure threatening to seep through the cracks of his composure. He opened his mouth with every intention of telling her to go fuck herself.
“Are you seducing me now, Elsa?” he said instead, raw and quiet, nearly lost on the wind.
“Many thanks for the cake.” She disappeared into the suite.
If someone had told her this morning that her night would be spent fucking the vampire upstairs, she would’ve smacked them in the bloody gob on principle. The plush carpet sank beneath her bare feet as she padded across the room, holding a fraying violet scarf around her shoulders. Was she sore? Was she sore? Ha! She was a mouse caught in a Yeti’s armpit. Limbs and organs compacted, warm only because they were on fucking fire. Her lungs burning still, her voice raw and hoarse from cries.
As she neared the refreshments arranged on the coffee table next to her carpet bag, her thighs dragged against one another, and she was aware of every tendon in her legs from hip to ankle. Her center was aching. Pulsing. Pleasurably abused. So pleasurable, she’d been mesmerized by the sensations when she’d first stirred to consciousness. Sitting there, aware he was not there, but sensing his nearness all the same, she’d honed in on the little pulse fluttering between her legs and clenched her inner muscles experimentally, her aching channel hollow. Grateful for reprieve and so empty—missing him as if he’d managed to imprint himself as the only thing that would ever be able to fill her.
Odin’s flaming cock, he is but a man. She snatched up one of the cupcakes tiered on a crystal platter, carefully ignoring the silver tea tray threatening to lull her into a fucking stupor. Again. It’d taken her nearly five whole minutes to unhook her Greed from the shiny piece of tin, and if the vampire propped up on the banister with the sketchbook hadn’t been naked, his reflection in the silver kettle might not have been enough to save her from one of the many bloody joys of being her.
Her fingers dug into the festive red and green foil wrapped around the fluffy almond vanilla cake and she frowned at the plastic bat perched on the swath of whipped chocolate frosting. I curse him…and his cupcake. She shoved the whole thing into her gob and crunched the plastic with satisfaction between her molars.
Wind swept across the oceans, dancing with the pale gray curtains, sending wisps of curls licking at her face. Chilly zephyrs played with the hem of her tunic and every hair on her body lifted as she shivered. Nerve endings rattling and rattling, she was suddenly very aware of her skin and she touched her hips, wondering whether the vampire’s hand prints were glowing to life on her skin. The chocolate was suddenly bland, and she swallowed and drew her scarf around her shoulders as she drifted closer to the doors, creeping toward the ocean that disturbed her so.
He’d climbed from his hammock of shadows and taken a seat in a white bistro chair on the balcony, the rebellious schoolboy with his feet propped up on the banister. He was drawing in a different pad than the one he’d used for his marketing concepts. It was clear while he held a pencil, he was a servant to it, bespelled by the heady tonic of creativity. And even though his face was tense, drawn in concentration, he almost looked at peace with himself. Almost.
Painted white in the moonlight, his skin was perfection, his stomach muscles flexed by his slouch. Oh, but he was a beautiful creature, her vampire. Especially now. More so now than ever. He sketched, switching back and forth between the drawing he was working on and a previous draft.
The right corner of her mouth curved in her first true smile—it was a lopsided, timid, little thing.
“I can feel you watching me, Ms. Karr.”
Clinging to the door frame, she stifled the disturbing urge to ease up on her tiptoes in order to better glean his work. “What are you drawing, vampire?”
He chuckled dryly as he treaded the pencil in a downward wisp. “Will you command it out of me, Elsa?”
“If I have to.�
� Her stomach clenched with excitement as an unfamiliar thrill inked her veins.
Crisp ocean water banked against the ship, dousing them with a mist, salting the tension pulsing between them. Not the base drum of the hunt. The sultry vibrations of something wholly new, something that had cast her vampire in stone beneath the pale moonlight.
“Show me, vampire,” she whispered, suddenly breathless, reaching to touch the other side of the frame, exposing herself and barring his entry in a five-pointed star. Shadows slithered up the side of his chair and hooked gently in his skin, drawing him to stand like a gothic puppet on a string. “Show me, vampire.”
If he was incensed by the perversion of his power, his expression didn’t show it. He simply stood, a man peering out into the ocean as if every gentle lap of water was a secret language only he could understand.
“You must understand, Ms. Karr…” He pinned her with a fierce expression. It was not anger. It was not rage. Or indignation. His snow blue eyes were intense, sharp, and so wholly sad she nearly drowned in them. “I will not be anyone’s puppet.”
“And yet, you play the master every chance you get, vampire,” she offered quietly.
She urged him nearer with the shade. He did not fight her as she’d expected him to, slowly closing the distance between them with long, lean legs. He could’ve veered. He could’ve risked it and gone for the second set of doors to her right. He did not. He came to stand before her. Blocking out the moon with his presence. Hushing them in darkness.
Tilting his head like a predator, he leaned closer and their breaths mingled. “Tell me, witch, why should I show you?”
Fenris. The wolf. He was intoxicating, powerful. And suddenly, she was a will o’ wisp caught in his net, unable and unwilling to escape. His. Elsa’s tongue darted out across her bottom lip, her mouth suddenly dry. She was a stout woman, her fingers barely brushed each end of the French doors and though she reigned over his shadows, she knew her next words would decide whether she’d ever be able to hold him again.
“Submission is not about being used. It is not being of use. It is not about what is done to you. It is about what you are willing to do for others.” She lifted her chin, repeating Ingrid’s mantra like it was tattooed across her throat. “So, vampire,” her eyes fell to his mouth, “show me.”
Time extended between them and they lingered. Would he give in to the desire to kiss her? If he did, she would be within her right to punish him. He knew that. Just like he knew she would not deny him the kiss or anything else he felt the need to take with the exception of entry into her mind. But punish him, she would. Hard. The certainty hummed to life in her veins and she peered back at the wolf without fear.
Finally, he lifted the pad, offering it to her, his hooded expression unwavering. “Be kind, Elsa.”
She snapped the shadows out of his skin and accepted the smooth leather-bound journal graciously. “I won’t betray your trust, vampire.”
Marshall slipped past her into the room. She opened the pad to where the pencil was marking the bind.
She was a beauty. Elfish cheekbones and narrow, sloping, delicate features. She had the head and the body of a woman. Her legs were not legs, but nor was she bottomed with a fin. It was a marriage of the two. Sapphire blue diamond-shaped scales and webbed fingers and toes. Lush lemon-shaped bottomless black orbs for eyes. Sitting on a slick monolith, she pulled her opal comb through lustrous white coils.
The mermaid could have been real. She could’ve poured from the page in a wash of sensual glory. Every curve, line—every stroke was meticulous. His attention to detail was painful, labored. She flipped through the sketches. She’d expected to see many different variations of the single mermaid, or several other mermaids. Nay. Just one. Same pose. Over and over again. Each drawing more precise, more meticulous than the last. More obsessive. More demanding.
“I took the liberty of having some tea sent up. Would you care for some, Ms. Karr?” The mini-bar door shut, the bottles on the racks rattling. Marshall twisted a cap off and something popped. “Bastards forgot the milk.”
“Yes, many thanks. Hold the blood, please.” She hovered her fingertips over the curve of the mermaid’s shoulder, afraid to dirty the page with her touch.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Ms. Karr. I couldn’t pervert my tea if I wanted to. My mother would bring the British Navy down on me in a fit.”
The corner of her mouth twitched. Impertinent.
Splashes in the ocean drew her attention and she caught a glimpse of a silvery, scaled fin. And then, nothing. Had she imagined it? Elsa’s eyes widened as she hugged the journal to her chest, stepping out on the balcony before the shock of the cool, damp wood sent her back-peddling back into the safety of the doorway. “Was that a—”
“—a mermaid,” he finished quietly.
“Mermaid,” she murmured, her nails biting into the leather as she eased up on the balls of her feet, searching the inky black surface. “I…I…the ocean is very strange to me. I never…” She struggled to keep her train of thought as her brows knitted, disappointment weighing. Where did she go? Was she gone forever?
Suddenly, he was at her back, not close enough to merit punishment, but it didn’t matter. Every inch of his smooth, toned chest might as well have been pressed against her naked back. And she wasn’t even naked.
“You’re not going to see her from here.”
She slanted an arched look over her shoulder. “I’d rather drink a foot.”
He laughed. Breathy, smooth, and so utterly boyish it transformed him, rare humor infusing his eyes. And for a moment, she wondered what those merry eyes would look like when age and wisdom had finally overtaken his unnatural blood and wrinkled the corners. Don’t, Elsa, her mind cautioned and she frowned at the ocean. “Forget it, vampire. She is probably long gone already.”
His breath burned her ear. “I won’t betray your trust, Ms. Karr.”
She rolled her eyes heavenwards like she could peer into Asgard and burn Frigga’s hide—he doesn’t even make it hard for you, does he? Wench. Another splash, the source gone before she could track it across the water. Elsa clenched her teeth together, knowing well he was enjoying every minute of this, and unhooked one of her hands from the journal, offering it to him. He took it without hesitation and wrapped his arm around her waist, drawing her against him.
Bracing her hand over his, she tilted her head back and whispered. “If I fall into the water, I will bring Ragnarok upon your head and there are no names for the condition proper authorities will find your shapely ass in.”
Marshall threaded his fingers through hers, his attention weighted on her bottom lip. “I promise, Elsa.” His breath smelled of citrus, leaves, and jasmine, and she opened her mouth to sample a bit of that English tea when the shadows whisked them forward, out of the door into the open ocean air of the balcony. He didn’t stop them until her thighs were mashed against the wood banister, and the ocean was peering back at her like a bubbling black void.
“Too fast.” Elsa scrabbled back against the solid stake at her back. “Vampire.”
“Sh-sh…” His voice was husky—cool, hypnotic. Odd. She went still and cocked her ear. Thick and sweet, a new scent struck the air. Musky. She filled her lungs, sensual heat warming, seeping into her pores, threading its milky fingertips through her body. It plunged between her thighs. “What…” She jerked back.
“Hush.” The thrum of arousal died down. He guided her hand to the left and the mist parted to reveal a jut of rocks standing proud in the distance. “Behold, Ms. Karr.”
Lounging on the slick, black cliffs was a school of mermaids. Twice as elusive as the fey and just as snooty, it was very rare for merfolk to show themselves. They claimed no allegiance to any surface race or government. Masters unto themselves. Ruled by no one but the Triton they claimed as their king. Most humans were not even aware of their actual existence. Even with the Dante Act, they remained legend.
He’d pulled an entire school to t
he surface effortlessly. She gaped at him in askance and he pocketed his hands and lowered his chin, shielding his eyes from her with his disheveled fringe. “My father was an incubus, Ms. Karr. I tend to attract…attention wherever I go. If I’ve been properly fed, I can do so at will.”
He almost looked…shy.
Odd. She would’ve never thought her vampire shy before.
In that private moment in time, she felt like she was bearing witness to the true creature beneath the shadow and fang. He seemed so…gentle. So rare.
“Beautiful.”
The word fell from her lips unbidden and his thick lashes fluttered as his gaze found hers, held, and then he drew her back into the shadows and safety of the doorway. Elsa wheeled in his arms to face him in the middle of the suite. The boyish lure was gone, replaced by Victorian steel worthy of being called vampire.
What had twisted him? What was driving every stroke of his pencil? There was love in each line, but there was more. Something bordering the edge of fanatical. She squeezed the supple leather journal and wondered what she might feel if she were an empath.
“Tea, Ms. Karr?”
She swallowed hard and offered him the pad. “Many thanks, vampire. For everything.”
He accepted the sketchbook, lingered for a moment longer before he eased back into the room and melted into a sensual slouch in one of the high-backed jacquard chairs.
Eyeing her over the brim of his tea cup, he sipped the boiling amber liquid. Reminding her of all the naughty things that mouth, and those hands, had done to her just a few hours ago. That mouth was relentless and the slender hands carefully cradling the delicate china concealed bone-crushing strength. Strength he’d barely curbed as he’d held her to the floor, thrusting in and out of her like he was trying to fuck every cell in her body at once.
Since then, he’d managed a pair of slacks and she wondered whether he would shed them and free that beautiful cock at her word. He was blessed in that and so many other things. Heat pulsed between her abused thighs and she barely managed to stifle the urge to ease back from the charge escalating between them. No, she was a mountain. And she was mighty. She would not be cowed and she would not fall.