Appetite of a Vampire [Vampire Love and Lust 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)

by Dani April

  He put a long finger to her lips and forced her to be silent. “I know why you’re here tonight, Martha.” When he looked at her, she was certain that he must have been reading her mind. “I’m not for sure why you’ve picked this particular point in time to come to me.”

  “Because I need you so badly…”

  Again his long finger gentled her lip with its touch, bringing her to instant silence. “I know you need me. I know just how badly you need me.” Now he was up close behind her and touching her, and his voice was a whisper in her ear. “I’m your master, Martha.”

  She closed her eyes. Her whole world had been reduced to his touch. Nothing but the beautiful whisper of his voice inside her head could be heard.

  “I want to hear you say it, Martha. Acknowledge me as your master.”

  “Yes…” she whispered back to him. “You are my master. I’ll do anything you say.”

  “I own you now, Martha.” His soft whisper was like a caress, but his tone was that of authority. “I want to hear you say it. Tell me who your owner is?”

  “You own me.”

  “Do you want me to take you with me now?”

  “Yes, please. I want to go with you.”

  “Very good, I want you to follow me. Stay a few feet behind me as we go. I don’t want anyone at the club to know you’re with me. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes. I’ll do as you say.”

  “Good.” His voice never changed from the level tone. Marty knew he always got his way. Tonight he would get his way with her.

  One of the scantily clad waitresses had stopped by to see if she could assist the boss. He leaned over and whispered something in her ear. She laughed and nodded that she would do whatever he had asked her. When she left, she cast a glance over at Marty, and Marty saw that she was still laughing to herself.

  Something was starting to go wrong, but Marty had no idea what it could be.

  Thorn took the lead, and Marty followed behind, keeping a discreet several paces in back just as he had instructed. The crowd seemed to part for them as if by magic. Thorn was taking her across the dance floor and heading to the opposite end of the club. Up ahead she could see a curtain hanging from a doorway. This partitioned the club and dance floor from another side of the building just beyond.

  Thorn never even glanced back at her. He whipped back the curtain with a single hand and disappeared to the other side. Marty was three steps behind. She moved back the curtain with a timid hand and walked beneath it. On the other side was an area for the staff and the bar counter which drinks were served up at. Another bouncer came out to meet them, and Thorn said something to the man in a low voice that Marty could not catch. Then he turned back to her as if he had just remembered she was behind him.

  “Will you accompany me to the dungeon, Martha?”

  “The dungeon?” Marty knew something was going wrong with all of her plans. Things were spinning out of control. Yet everything should have been perfect now because Thorn was standing in front of her.

  “Please, Martha.” He pointed a long finger at a closed door. He opened it and held it back for her. “After you.”

  There was a short, narrow hall and then a winding flight of stairs leading down. Marty hesitated. Thorn caught her reaction and softened when he saw her fear.

  “You sure you’re ready for this?” he asked her. “If you want, you can leave.”

  Marty shook her head. She had come too far to back out now. The mention of the word “dungeon” had frightened her, as had the sight of the winding stairwell leading down, as well as Thorns words and demeanor. But if she turned around now, she would get no answers and hate herself for her fear, and there were answers to be found here. She took a big swallow, stepped past him, and started down the stairs toward the dungeon he had spoken of.

  There was no light in the stairwell, but when she got to the bottom there was a soft light that lent a view to not a dungeon but an office. There was a big, black leather chair behind a large oak desk with a computer sitting on top. Comfortable-looking visitor chairs were arranged before the desk, and plush carpeting adorned the floor. Thorn was coming down the steps right behind her, and when she got to the bottom she turned around in confusion to him and waited for an explanation.

  “Please have a seat, Martha.” Thorn offered her one of the chairs before his desk. “Could I get you anything to drink? Vodka, rum, a glass of champagne?”

  “You know I don’t drink.” Marty took a chair but was feeling very uncomfortable now. Thorn went over behind his desk and sat down. His attitude had changed three hundred sixty degrees from what it had been out in the nightclub. Instead of the demanding master, he was now a pleasant man who seemed to have a few questions of his own for Marty.

  For the first time since their meeting, Marty had a good chance to look at him. He did not look exactly as she remembered from her past. His hair was even longer, and his body seemed to be not tall, but long. The best word to describe him was “long.” His face was long, and his hair was slicked back and intensified the effect given off by his angular body. The face was very close to the one Marty remembered from the sixties but was just slightly off.

  “Thanks for playing along with me out there,” he told her. “I have to play-act a little when I’m out on the floor. It’s all for the effect, you know. That’s why people pay money to come here.”

  “I’m sorry, Thorn. I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about my club upstairs. We are a BDSM club and have a reputation to uphold. Personally, I am the best dom you’ll ever meet. Currently I don’t have any subs in training. You’re a rather attractive young lady and seemed to respond pretty quickly to all of my commands upstairs. If you’re interested, we could talk.”

  “BDSM club?” The mountain of confusion was building inside of Marty.

  “Yes. That’s what we are. The best one in the west, if I do say so myself. Don’t tell me you didn’t know.”

  “I didn’t know that. That’s not why I came here. I came here to see you.”

  “You said we had met before.” Thorn was piercing her with his stare, obviously trying to place her face. The blank look that came over his countenance told her he did not remember. “I meet a great deal of pretty, young women in my line of work. Forgive me if I can’t remember you.”

  Marty sat forward in her chair. “I didn’t know you by the name of Thornton when we were together.”

  Now he looked more confused than she had a few moments before, up in the club. He was shaking his head as if her words were not jarring his memory. “When did we meet?” he asked her.

  “Nineteen sixty-two was the first year we met.”

  Thorn threw his head back and laughed. “Honey, I wasn’t even born in nineteen sixty-two.”

  “You went by the name of Robert Fair back then,” Marty pleaded with him.

  “Did you say Robert Fair?” Now Thorn was sitting forward. She had ignited his interest.

  “Yes. Robert Fair and I were lovers in college.”

  “Robert Fair was my uncle.”

  Then Marty began reading Thorn’s thoughts, and it all finally made sense to her. Thorn was no vampire. He was a very human man, and he was not her maker.

  * * * *

  “I never met my Uncle Robert. He died more than ten years before I was even born,” Thorn was explaining to her. He seemed to enjoy talking about his family. “Uncle Robert was famous in my family. He was a war hero. He was awarded a bunch of medals for saving his platoon during an ambush and risking his own life. I don’t think he and my dad ever got along too well, but then after he died, dad worshiped his memory. I think he regretted he never got to make up with him before he went off to the war.”

  Marty’s heart sunk. “You said Robert is dead. How did he die?”

  “He was killed in the ambush where he saved his platoon. Even though I never met him when I was growing up, I always wanted to be just like him. People in my family s
ay I look kind of like him.”

  “You do.”

  Thorn leaned across his desk and took a good, long look at her. She could see he did not know whether he should believe all she had to say or not. Of course, she knew what he was seeing. She was a young woman, and they were talking about a man who had been dead almost fifty years.

  “How could you have known my Uncle Robert, Martha?” he asked her.

  “Don’t ask,” she said. “It’s a very long story. I don’t have the strength to tell it right now, and even if I did, you would never believe me anyway.”

  He seemed to accept her response. “So you came here to talk about my uncle?”

  “Yes. Only I…” Marty broke off for a moment and looked back at his face which reminded her so much of Robert’s. “I thought you were Robert.”

  Thorn shook his head. “Too bad. I thought you came here to be trained as a sub.”

  Marty found herself actually laughing at this. Thorn was probably not a bad guy once you saw past his scary nightclub. It was good to meet someone who could talk with her about Robert.

  “No,” she told him, still laughing at the images he had conjured in her mind. “I already have four boyfriends. They keep me pretty well in my place most of the time.”

  “Well, that’s cool. Sorry I couldn’t be more help to you.”

  She got up, and he rose to show her out. She took a last look at his face. “Thank you for talking to me tonight, Thorn. You have actually helped me a lot. I can now close a painful chapter on my life and try and move on.”

  He held out his business card to her. “Glad to be of assistance, Martha. Give this to your boyfriends. Have them give me a call if you ever get out of line. I’ll keep one of our dungeons open for you guys. You’re welcome anytime, day or night.”

  She took the card and then stood on her toes to reach him and give him a kiss on the cheek. “You’ve been very kind to me, Thorn. We’ll promise to keep you in mind if we ever decide to experiment, but it’d have to be at night.”

  Leaving the club was so much easier than entering it had been. Marty actually felt good that she had been able to spend a few minutes, and talk about Robert, and discover what his destiny had been. She had too much to think about now and still had to get back home before the sun rose, but she knew at some point she would cry for Robert, and when she finally did, her tears would be bittersweet.

  Derrick and Barry were standing outside the truck. Derrick was pacing around the vehicle like a madman, and Barry was leaning against the side, reaching in the open window and playing with the radio. When they saw her walking down the street to them, they both sprang forward as if someone had just shot at them. Both men were talking at once. Derrick was grabbing her in his arms, and Barry was leaning down to kiss her lips. Marty had never felt more loved in her life. The men kept asking her the same question over and over.

  “I’m all right now that you guys are here to hold me,” she told them. Derrick practically carried her back to the truck and then helped her get inside. “I’ve made a complete fool out of myself. I’m so sorry to put you guys through all this worry.”

  Barry started the truck and drove them out of the lot and then back onto the freeway that would take them home. The men didn’t press her for any details. Derrick made a call back to Aaron and Owen at the house to let them know they were headed back and that everything was okay.

  Marty owed her men an explanation for her actions, but she waited until they were back in the safety of her home where she gave all four of them a blow-by-blow description of the events that had unfolded at the club that night.

  “So there weren’t any vampires in that place?” Barry almost sounded disappointed when he asked her this.

  “I guess vampires are harder to find than I thought,” Marty said.

  “So Robert Fair was killed in Vietnam?” Owen asked.

  “Yes,” Marty answered sadly. “He was not a vampire any more than I was at that time. He was just a brave and very gentle man who loved me once a long time ago. He wasn’t anything more than that.”

  “But, Marty.” Aaron handed her a glass of red concoction and brought her down to sit on his lap where he held her tightly. “Don’t all vampires have to have a maker vampire who bites them and turns them from being human? Isn’t that how it works, even for cute, little vampires like you?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly how it works.” Marty took a heavy swallow of the by-now-familiar liquid. It somehow was losing its kick, and she was going to have to check with Owen. Perhaps he had made a bad batch of the stuff. No longer did it seem to supply the needed nutrients in her bloodstream. However, as she sat on the couch with her men, she felt loved. She had not felt so much love in that house since she had been a child, and her dad had been alive.

  “Then we’re back to square one again!” Barry exclaimed. He seemed more despondent than even she was.

  She reached out and took Barry’s hand. “I know what you’re thinking, Barry,” she told him. “You still want to be a vampire with me.”

  “You’re right. That’s what I am always thinking about now.” He sighed and looked ashamed. “Sorry if I drive you crazy, Marty.”

  “Don’t feel bad. We’re going to keep looking.”

  Owen was seated on the other side of the couch from her and Aaron. His analytical mind was working overtime. “Did you have any other boyfriends, Marty? Maybe a neighbor or someone at college you were close to?”

  “There wasn’t anyone. Guys, we may have to face the fact that it could have been a random attack by a vampire who I didn’t even know. He could have been someone I never met. Maybe he was just passing through town, and I was unlucky enough to be in the right place for his next meal. I’m starting to think this vampire who was my maker was a total stranger to me.”

  Owen shook his head in disagreement. “That doesn’t make any sense, Marty. You’re a vampire. We’ve all had sex with you, and you’ve bitten all of us more than once. Yet none of us have any symptoms of vampirism. If what you say is true and you were attacked by a stranger, he would have just drank your blood. He might have had intercourse with you, but after it was all over, you would have just been left weakened for a few days. You would have recovered and led the normal life of a normal nurse in nineteen sixty-five.”

  “The doc’s right, honey,” Aaron said, brushing back her hair off her shoulder and still cuddling her in his arms. “Whoever did this to you did it for a reason. I don’t think it was just an accident. They drained your blood to the point of killing you and then replaced it with vampire blood. You were chosen by somebody out there to be a vampire. We just don’t know who that somebody is yet or why they choose you.”

  Derrick had been silent all this time, and he was seated off in the corner by himself. When he finally spoke, Marty knew he was still afraid for her. “Didn’t that female vampire warn you about going out to look for your maker?”

  “Yes she did.”

  “You told me her exact words were that ‘you may not like what you find.’”

  “Yes, that’s what she told me.”

  “Maybe you should heed her words then, Marty.” Derrick scooted over to the couch and picked her up off Aaron’s lap and brought her over onto his own. “I don’t care that you’re a vampire. None of the other guys care about that, either. Why should it matter who made you one or why they did?”

  Marty wasn’t going to let him get away that easy. “Derrick, when we first made love, you called me a monster,” she told him.

  “Don’t do that, Marty,” he warned her. “Don’t bring up the past like that. I’m telling you now that I’m in love with you, and I don’t care how you got turned into a vampire. Take the female vampire’s advice, and give up your search before you really do get into some trouble you can’t get out of.”

  “Fuck that old bitch!” Marty shouted at him. She still hated that female monstrosity with all her might. “I’m not going to let her win, Derrick. Whether you want to help me or not,
I swear to you I will find out why I won’t ever be able to see the sunlight again. And I don’t care if searching for the truth kills me. I will find out what the truth is.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Marty was researching vampires on her laptop. She hadn’t slept all day. She sat alone in her hideaway clicking link after link on the various search engines and coming up with nothing other than fables and fantasy.

  She realized the time had gotten away from her when Derrick pulled up the floorboard over her head and leaned into the dark space of her sleeping quarters. “You overslept tonight. Time to get up, the sun’s been down for an hour.”

  “I’m just going to stay down here for a little longer. I’m determined to find at least one useful bit of information before I leave this damn machine.”

  “What about your job?”

  “I already called the hospital. I told them I’m taking tonight off sick.”

  “Owen will go crazy there by himself without his favorite nurse.”

  “I already called him, too. I left him a voice message.” Marty held up her cell phone, which she kept next to the laptop on the mattress. She had lost herself in the online search. Derrick left the crawl space open but moved away from her. She loved him because he had learned to give her space when she needed it, and now was a time she most definitely needed to be alone with her computer.

  She stuck her head out from under the floor and found him watching the news on the TV over on the couch. “Thanks for understanding,” she called up to him from the floor.

  “Let me know if you find anything important, baby.” He smiled down at her. “If you want anything to drink, just holler.”

  “Owen hasn’t made this week’s supply yet. I don’t think there’s any left in the fridge. Anyway, the last batch tasted funny and didn’t really do much for me. I think I’m starting to grow immune to its effects. It’s like I need more now.”

  “I know. I was thinking about that. I was going to climb down there with you and let you drink me.”