by Lora Leigh
“An apt though perhaps unflattering description, for you are definitely the mate I intend to impress with my prowess. Put down your puny knives and after a suitable length of punishment I’ll let you handle something far more interesting.”
It was impossible not to laugh. She had no personal fear of him. How could she when desire coursed through her and she knew he would never hurt her?
But that didn’t diminish the tightness in her chest when her thoughts went to the fate of her family and her need to find Corinne. It didn’t lessen her resolve to return to Oakland.
Arrogant confidence made Addai careless. On their fourth circling pass around the living room, Sajia drifted backward, toward a door leading to a railless balcony she imagined served as a landing place when Addai chose to use his wings to fly rather than preen. As he’d stalked her, she’d been able to catch glimpses of what lay beneath and on either side of it, had discovered the house wasn’t perched on a sheer cliff, though the terrain below the balcony was steep and covered in rock and snow.
She’d mentally rehearsed her movements like a well-choreographed fight. There would be only one chance at victory.
A feint, as if she intended to make a running attack, had Addai backing up, hands beckoning, a come-and-get-me expression in place. If the stakes hadn’t been so high, she might well have answered him, determined to wipe the smug confidence from his face. Instead, she reached around her, opening the door and escaping the room.
The cold took her breath. It bit into her skin, battering against her in icy blasts until the urgency of her situation allowed her to block it out.
She moved to the balcony’s edge. Positioning herself close enough to jump and stand a chance of managing a handhold instead of hurtling downward in a bone-breaking rush that would only be interrupted if Addai took flight.
Addai followed, the amusement gone from his face and replaced by a terrible beauty. Enough, he said, lips that could call for adoration or herald damnation remaining closed as he spoke into her mind, demanded, Come to me.
Every cell in her body responded, trying to force her forward. His will was a cold lash of a whip across her soul, a thing of finely honed edges, carving away her own.
Come to me, he repeated, exerting more of his power.
She fought summons with summons, calling up the faces of her family members and seeing them being drained of blood, their bodies hung from the walls of the Tucci estate as a reminder to every human in San Francisco of the price to be paid for betraying an oath given to vampires. Calling up the image of Corinne and knowing she’d failed her.
The pendant Sajia wore grew hot, as if unseen, the parents who’d died in a fire aided her. Her skin burned where the scorpion lay against it, and the pain helped achieve what horrific imaginings alone couldn’t; it drove the sound of Addai’s voice from her mind.
He moved forward then, his expression ruthless, very nearly cruel. “Enough, Sajia. You won’t escape. Even if you are so foolish as to jump, I’ll merely retrieve you. What injuries you sustain can be easily healed. And tied to my bed you will soon forget why you ever wanted to leave.”
“If forgetting my family and my charge and my oath were that easy, I would be in your arms now.”
She took a small step backward, so she stood like a swimmer at the end of a diving board, with only the balls of her feet and toes keeping her on solid ground. “You might stop me this time, but what about the next? And the one after that? I would rather die attempting to get back to Oakland than live knowing I lay with you, finding pleasure while my family experienced only fear and suffering and death. Will you keep me a prisoner for all eternity, or end up killing me yourself when I grow to loathe you as much as I will myself?”
Her words encased Addai in ice. How well he knew the power hate and rage could wield. Standing among carnage and seeing her lifeless body had once filled him with those emotions. And what he’d done in the wake of her death made a vampire’s retribution seem merciful in comparison.
His gaze went to the pendant and he cursed it, guessing that it and it alone had thwarted his attempts to use his mind and his voice to bend her to his will. She was human in form, human in belief, and with that first breath forced into clay at the dawn of their creation, they’d inhaled a susceptibility to angelic influence.
Addai’s soul and body, heart and mind all screamed in protest at the thought of giving in to her demands. He would slaughter every Tucci, the scion Corinne included, if it meant Sajia would come to his bed willingly and accept the sheltered life he intended for her.
A primal scream welled up inside him, male frustration and the anguish of conflicting needs—to keep her safe from danger, yet find the scion and bargain with the Tuccis for Sajia’s release from her oath so they’d never again return to this argument.
The muscles of his arms stood out as he kept himself from lifting them. Were he not standing on the balcony of the home he’d had built for her, he would have raised a hand to the sky and brought forth a sword of retribution, using it to call down lightning and reduce the chalet to rubble and smoldering ash.
He would not leave Sajia here unguarded. Nor did he want to leave her with anyone else. She was too precious, too long away from him to bear parting from again, even temporarily.
“Promise you will not leave me to go off hunting on your own,” he said, as close to an admission of defeat as he was willing to give.
“Promise that you will obey if danger arises and I give you a command.” A salve to his pride.
The capitulation cost him. It wasn’t visible in his face or his voice or in the lines of his rigidly held body, but Sajia knew it regardless.
She moved from her precarious position at the balcony edge before a gust of wind could take her over. Closed the distance between them, willing to lessen the torment her victory caused him. Needing to with a depth that hinted at what they’d once been to each other, husband and wife.
It seemed natural to step into his arms, to spear her fingers into black hair as she lifted her face for his kiss. She welcomed the press of his body to hers and thrilled at the feel of his thick erection, the security of steel-muscled arms and feather-soft wings as he wrapped her in a sensual embrace.
“Promise,” he said, a command ringing in her ears and mind.
“I do.”
He claimed victory in defeat, his lips taking hers aggressively, his tongue thrusting into her mouth, giving no quarter as he overwhelmed her with sensation. Mine, his kiss claimed, and in that instant she couldn’t fight it, couldn’t deny it.
Heat poured into her, the clash of wills forgotten as lust coursed through her veins like lava running down a mountainside, scorching and consuming everything in its path.
Need didn’t accurately define what she felt. Even lust was too tame a word.
A moan escaped and the sound fed his hunger. Arms and wings tightened around her. Carnal images flooded her mind, scenes of them together, his memories or her own pulled from the depths of her subconscious, she couldn’t be sure, only that they made her shiver and crave the feel of naked skin to naked skin, hunger to have his body joined to hers.
She whimpered when his lips left hers, a protest against the loss of them. His eyes glittered, his features once again arrogant and commanding. “Do you still wish to leave our home, Sajia?”
“Yes,” she said, despite the desperate ache of desire.
“Then we will go to the red zone. But rather than looking for the man who made the charm and trying to bargain with him for his client’s name, there’s a better way to locate the scion.”
“How?”
She wouldn’t have thought Addai could appear more dangerous than she’d already seen him, more hardened and ruthless and forbidding, but whatever he had in mind made it so.
After a long pause, he said, “I know of a Finder, but getting access to her will require dealing with the vice lord Rimmon. He’s not quite my enemy, though neither is he an ally.”
Addai�
��s hand once again cupped her cheek, his thumb rubbing over lips swollen from their kiss. “We’ll go to him, but only if you let me handle the negotiations, Sajia.”
His voice held no possibility of compromise. She acquiesced with a nod. “Where will he be?”
“His club.” Addai’s sharp smile returned. “He calls it Temptation.”
FOUR
Temptation. The club stood with the other Victorians on a street lined with them. Sajia knew of them, of course. But even if she hadn’t, their nature and the kinds of people drawn to them were revealed in names like Sinners and Greed and Envy.
Bouncers guarded their entrances. Some of the clubs were member-only, reserved for the elite and wealthy, while others served a broader public. The vices they catered to varied, but all of them closed at dark, locking their patrons in for the night.
Vampires hunted these streets after the sun set. As did Weres and feral dogs, ghouls and any number of supernatural beings.
Her attention returned to the immaculately restored home in front of her. Even in the days before The Last War, this would have belonged to someone wealthy, someone with the money and inclination to preserve a historical building designed by a famous architect.
Unlike the thick-necked men in leather or jeans who guarded the entrances of the other clubs, the men on either side of the doorway here wore expensive suits. They looked like elegant gentlemen, though Sajia didn’t doubt for a moment that they were armed and very, very deadly.
“Will we be able to get in to see Rimmon?” she asked.
Addai laughed, his hand moving from its possessive grip on her upper arm to settle at the center of her back like a heated brand. “Of course.”
He urged her forward with a stroke to her spine. “Don’t forget your promise, beloved. Allow me to handle things here, and regardless of any perceived danger, keep your knives sheathed. A threat of harm to you and it would be nothing for me to slaughter everyone in the club if that’s what it took to assure myself you were safe.”
Heat flowed through her, mixed equally with icy fear. She glanced at his face with its stunning beauty, savored the endearment and the depth of his feelings even as spikes of primal terror skittered through her at having such a ruthless, powerful being lay claim to her.
The bouncers remained on either side of the doors until she and Addai were nearly at the entrance. Then they each took a step, as though they would block them from entering rather than admit them.
“We will pass unchallenged,” Addai said in a tone that slid through Sajia’s mind like a faint echo.
The men turned simultaneously. In a synchronized movement, they opened the doors, saying nothing as Addai and Sajia stepped into the club.
Hashish and burning opium scented the air. A beautiful woman in an elegant gown and wearing gloves that reached her elbows left her place on a spiraling staircase. “Take us to Rimmon,” Addai told her, and like the bouncers outside the club, she obeyed without protest.
Sajia shivered, glad she was immune to his command. Glad he wasn’t able to enthrall her with his voice.
The woman’s dress left her back bare. A slit in the skirt revealed glimpses of her labia with each step she took.
Temptation, Sajia thought, unable to keep from glancing at Addai to see if his attention was riveted to the part of the woman’s skirt and the flash of her nether lips.
His eyes met hers, and he laughed before visually caressing her, scorching her as his gaze traveled the length of her body. I have not waited thousands of years for your return to settle for transitory pleasure now, he said, the words as clear in her mind as if he’d spoken them out loud.
“How are you able to do that?”
“We are all born with gifts.” And you are my wife.
Denial sprang to her lips. He prevented it from taking form in the spoken word by halting and covering her mouth with his, his tongue thrusting, his hunger stealing her breath, stealing her will, her very soul.
Carnal images slid into her mind, serving as temptation and enticement. Not memories of a past she couldn’t remember, but of the future he intended, where the distinction between the worshipped and the one who did so was blurred and indistinct.
Her breasts swelled and nipples tightened. Arousal flowed from her slit, wetting her inner thighs as her cunt clenched and unclenched.
The sound of clapping brought her back to reality with a jolt. She wanted to blame her loss of awareness on the decadent environment, the insidious lure of air scented with opium and sex. But she wasn’t an accomplished liar, and she’d never practiced it on herself.
Addai released Sajia, reluctantly, regretting the impulse to silence her with passion. It would prove to be a mistake on his part, of that he was positive as he turned toward one of the Fallen, acknowledging the man’s presence with the use of his name, “Rimmon.”
“Lord Rimmon.”
Addai laughed. With a sweeping gesture of his arm to encompass the humans lingering in the hallway and visible through the doorways of the rooms lining it, he said, “Perhaps to those who come here to worship in your temple.”
“Are you not one of them, Addai?” The single emerald green eye in the Fallen’s burn-scarred face settled on Sajia, though nothing of his gaze revealed whether or not he could see the angelic script written on her skin. “She is quite lovely. Do you intend to join me in my sin, or did you bring her as a gift and then think to make me hunger to take possession of her?”
Rimmon’s smile became sly. “I am not averse to sharing her with you if you don’t want to give up your prize completely. It would be like the days of old, though if my memory serves, you preferred to wield a sword of a different kind than I, and the screams arising from your presence stemmed from terror instead of ecstasy.”
Addai fought against issuing a threat he couldn’t deliver on. There were repercussions for killing his kind, even one of the Fallen. “Did your burning plunge from grace lead to this?” he asked, taking the offensive, once again indicating the mass of humans with a sweep of his arm. “Do you now conduct all your business with an audience present? If so, I’m happy to accommodate you. Saril is the reason I’m here.”
All amusement left Rimmon. In a blink the look in his eye was as cold as his origins, the light glinting off it providing a glimpse of the power he’d once commanded. “Come,” he said, turning his back and walking away.
He led them past rooms where men and women engaged in sexual acts while others watched, past those with rail-thin humans who favored the touch of an opium pipe against their lips to flesh or food, and still more where the occupants crowded around gaming tables.
They passed through an area serving drink and vicarious violence via television before entering a private room, a parlor decorated in furniture to match the age of the Victorian, though Addai doubted the view through the glassed wall would have been common in any house save a brothel.
“Your private dungeon?” he asked.
“Ecstasy achieved through the redemptive power of punishment—surely you can understand how such a thing might appeal to me.”
Addai guided Sajia to a couch upholstered in French silk moiré, urging her to sit and taking up a position next to her. He draped his arm along the couch back in a casual gesture, though he felt far from calm at having Sajia with him in this place and this company.
Rimmon claimed the chair across from her, pulling it closer and making Addai ball his hand into a fist against the urge to call his sword to him. With privacy restored, Rimmon probably intended to taunt with a slow visual study of Sajia, but his eye settled on her arm and the vampire scarring there, then lifted to meet Addai’s. “You keep interesting company.”
Addai didn’t rise to the bait. Instead he said, “What’s your price for access to Saril? I have need of a Finder.”
The emerald green eye narrowed, pulling on the scar tissue around it before the sly smile returned. “Seeing you makes me think of another of my recent visitors. Tir, he called himself. Th
ere’s a certain similarity in look.”
Rimmon’s eye flicked to Sajia. “And situation. A brother of yours, perhaps? Though it could be argued we are all brothers even if some of us have so much further to fall and become forgotten. When last I saw him, he wore a collar of enslavement. I wonder if you believe his punishment fits his crime.”
“He is free of it now.”
“Ah. That explains how you know of Saril. He healed her in exchange for something I could provide. And now you want something from her. Divine intervention, I wonder? Or the vagaries of fate?”
Rimmon lifted a hand to his scarred face. “Had my daughter’s life not hung in the balance between life and death, I might have asked Tir to restore me to my former glory. But from you . . . I have never heard it said that you offer anything but death.”
His good eye returned to Sajia, this time undressing her, clearly imagining her in his bed.
Addai wasn’t able to stop himself. He opened clenched fingers and his sword was there, hungry for the blood of the Fallen. “Death is still mine to offer.”
Rimmon’s smile was victorious, as if goading Addai into acting had been part of his price. “So she is aware of your nature. Good. Then let us discuss terms.”
He paused, a silent command for Addai to put away his weapon before they continued. Addai complied, jaw clenched.
“One search,” Rimmon said. “Assuming of course that Saril agrees to perform it for you. Done in my presence. And in return, I will give you a choice of payments.”
He gestured to the room on the other side of the glass. “If death is still yours to deliver, then show me one given with pleasure and survived in ecstasy. Strip your companion and bind her to any piece of equipment, then attend her until her screams cease and she falls silent in la petite morte.”
Addai’s cock throbbed at the images Rimmon’s words created. Desire burned through him, and he fought against revealing just how much he longed to join his body to hers. What Rimmon described was tame compared to the fantasies he harbored, the things he wanted to do with Sajia.
Next to him she sat ramrod straight, bristling with resistance and rebellion, seething in her silence but managing to keep her promise to allow him to negotiate with the vice lord. Had Rimmon’s terms allowed for privacy . . .
She was safe from this particular bargain. He would never allow another to look at her naked form or witness her in pleasure and live to dream about it.
“And the second choice?”
“If you don’t prefer pleasure, then there is only one other. Pain. The terms for access to Saril are the same, only it will be you who is bound, and your companion who selects which of my toys will be applied to your back.”
Sajia jerked in denial, a small sound of distress escaping. Addai’s hand moved from the back of the couch to her arm, his fingers lightly tracing the vampire marks, reminding her of what there was to lose if something happened to the scion, or if he decided to end their truce and risk her hatred by taking her back to the chalet and holding her there.
“How many strikes?” Addai asked. Compared to the agony of Sajia’s death so long ago, physical pain was easily endured.
“As many as it takes for your back to resemble the bloody mess of mine when flesh and wings were burned away.” Rimmon leaned forward abruptly, the cold eye alight with fire. “You are no less guilty than I was judged to be, and I would argue that your transgressions are greater.”
“True enough,” Addai said, following it by restating the terms, modifying them. “And for this, there will be one search, done before sunset on this day, in your presence and accompanied by your vow not to use what you learn in any way, or reveal it to another.”
“Agreed.”
Addai stood, and with a thought his shirt disappeared. “Let us begin then.”
No! Sajia silently screamed as Addai tugged her to her feet. But she couldn’t force herself to give voice to it, not with the lives of her family, and possibly Corinne’s, at stake.
Rimmon touched a place on the wall, and it slid open to reveal a doorway into the dungeon. He didn’t bother to close it after they entered.
She hadn’t been able to see it from her seat in his parlor, but one wall was done fully in mirrors, and anchored to it was a saltire. Though she had never been bound spread-eagle for punishment, carnal or otherwise, she was well familiar with its use. No vampire estate housing servants or progeny was without one. In private or in public, in play or in deadly seriousness, vampires enjoyed torment and drawing blood.
“Perhaps you’d like me to assist you in choosing the best tool for the task,” Rimmon said as he led them to a wall where whips and floggers and paddles hung from hooks, while canes and switches lay in narrow, ornate cradles.
Sajia shuddered at the thought of applying any of them to Addai. Of willfully cutting his skin and making him bleed.
Her reaction didn’t go unnoticed. Rimmon laughed and said, “It’s not too late to choose pleasure over pain.”
Addai reached out, plucking a cat-o’-nines from the wall. Sajia’s heart cried out at the sight of the thin strips of leather, the tails braided to form sharp edges.
“Use this one,” he said. “It will make our stay here shorter.”
Rimmon laughed again. “But far more painful. I’m not sure whether to feel pleased or cheated by your choice. But if you’ve made it, then we’ll adjourn to the crux decussata.”
He preceded them to the St. Andrew’s Cross. The single eye shone like a multifaceted gem as he turned it on Sajia. “You’ll have to do the honors of binding him.”
Sajia’s heart pounded in her chest, horror building there as Addai faced the mirrored wall. At the chalet, she’d claimed the past had no relevance, but as he lifted his arms and allowed her to place a manacle around his wrist, the first tender shoots of love took root in her soul. It humbled her that he would subject himself to such torment all because they’d once lived as man and wife.
She secured the buckles with trembling fingers. He turned his head and their eyes met, his holding a depth of commitment almost beyond her imagining.
Emotions flooded her, joy and tenderness and hope—all overlaid by a rising despair at what this bargain demanded. She knelt at his feet and a glimmer of the future they might have together once Corinne was found worked its way into her thoughts. Yet even as images of home and children came, part of her feared that one day he would decide he loved a memory, not her.
“The rest of it or our agreement is null,” Rimmon said.
Addai’s pants slid into nonexistence, and she bound his ankles. Regardless of the pose and the restraints, there was no diminishment of his innate arrogance and pride.
Looking up the line of his body, Sajia swallowed tears at the thought of marring perfection, of using the flogger to cut his skin and make him bleed when in that moment, all she wanted was to give him pleasure, to press kisses to his flesh and stroke him with her hands.
She forced herself to pick up the cat-o’-nines he’d dropped to the floor before placing his arms against the smooth wood and steel of the saltire. Rimmon moved a short distance away, taking a seat on what looked like a throne.
Sajia stepped back. She couldn’t suppress the tears then, or the whimper, as she raised her arm and delivered the first strike.
Pain streaked through Addai. Wrapped in flesh, he felt it as a human might, though unlike a human, all he had to do was give up any pretense of mortality to be free of it.
A second blow followed the first, and then a third. He didn’t bother to count beyond th