by Eros, Marata
I opened my mouth to ask another question but he pressed a finger to my lips, the boiling heat of the contact going straight to my core. I gasped at the electricity of it and his eyes widened.
Nice to know it wasn't just me.
He snatched his finger back as if shocked but recovered, finally saying, “It is time to eat and for you to... become acquainted with your new surroundings.”
I stood, unhappy that I had half the answers to twice the questions. Maybe, in the pie in the sky dream that I had, I would escape all of this and get so far away none of them would find me.
Zach led me through a series of strange hallways which reminded me of my aunt's house back east. When I was a child, I'd spend hot summers there and the halls turned and twisted, maze-like, until you'd get lost. These were like those. Doors at every turn, the place was ginormous, the biggest old house I'd ever been in. Finally, we reached the top of a staircase, the massive newel posts standing sentinel at the apex.
Zach turned his eyes to mine, the deepest color of red, I could't believe I'd thought they were black. “Watch your step, Rachel.”
I smirked up at him, “Like I'll fall with you here. Precious-ass Druid that I am!” I laughed, thinking that I was already half-nuts for not being more scared or stunned at my situation. But the whole thing had a surreal quality to it, it was unbelievable I felt like I was going along with it, playacting, no more.
I guess it would get serious when Zach put down the sexual hammer, wanting to bang me day and night, I thought with a smile. I'd be long-gone before that happened.
My hand trailed along the smooth wood of the handrail, Zach at my elbow. “Did you know Cole before you became rogue?” I asked, keeping his mind on questions instead of breeding me like a prize mule.
His face hardened and as we got to the last step, he took my elbow, frowning slightly, “You grow too thin, I can feel your bones.”
I shrugged, gently removing my elbow from the bigness of his hand. “It's been an exciting few days. I haven't had proper rest or food since before I was taken.” I looked down, rolling my lip between my teeth, biting softly, trying not to let that sadness over the loss of my old life overtake me.
Zach turned me and put a hand underneath my chin, lifting my gaze to meet his. “It will all work out toward the best end, Rachel.”
I held his gaze. “So you say.”
We turned together on a sigh and headed to the large kitchen. My body needed more than physical sustenance.
I realized he'd never answered my question about Cole.
*
Cole
Cole let the body slide away from his grasp, licking the blood splatter around his mouth where he could. Drinking was a messy, yet necessary, task.
Cole gazed down at the already-cooling corpse at his feet and reveled in the luck of finding this one. Criminal as he was. Cole knew that he could find a victim that needed to pass into the Other by just cruising certain likely establishments. Like this one.
His gaze traveled to the neon sign. “Kodiak,” it read. It was a known hang-out for the edgy young crowd that liked to dabble. Cole had found there was always enough of a certain element that wish to do wrong. They were normally in large enough numbers for Cole to satisfy his blood lust.
He toed the male's body like so much garbage. He'd been forcing a human female in the dark recesses of the alley, her glazed eyes and soft pleas for him to stop loud in Cole's acute hearing. The male never knew what hit him. The female's eyes widening was the only warning before he struck.
“Run!” Cole had hissed at her when she stood like a deer in the headlights. The body of the male thrashed underneath fangs that had sunk deep into its carotid artery. The sweet nectar of his neck pulsed directly into Cole's mouth. A burning highway of fuel he greedily gulped.
The female's eyes latched onto the sight, then found Cole's. Thinking faster than she had but moments before she scrambled away, falling twice as she raced to safety. Cole was not usually viewed as a savior, he thought with mirth. No matter that her assault in progress would have been a terrible ordeal and vile memory for years to come, his mouth pressed on the male as he succumbed to the blood letting would not be easily forgotten by her.
Or believed.
He turned on his heel, thinking that the rogue would be blamed for his hasty feeding. Already he could feel the blaze of power feeding an energy pipeline to his extremities. He lifted his nose to the air, scenting.
Catching something very faint, he spun in that direction.
He ran.
****
Zach made me laugh again and I was struck that I was laughing with my kidnapper. My smile faded, my appetite lessening.
He saw my expression and put hair that had fallen forward across my face behind my ear, his touch lingering at my temple.
I pulled back and his hand fell.
“I will not hurt you,” Zach said.
I shrugged. “Having a hard time convincing myself of that with how things went in the glade... “
He nodded his head as if he understood. “Sometimes my comrades can be overzealous.”
Overzealous my ass, I thought. My shoulder still throbbed if I moved it wrong. I unconsciously touched it and his eyes tracked my movement. As heat rose to my face I immediately scolded myself. I was not some blushing virgin to be intimidated by his touch. Still, it was so different than what I knew. And I was pretty inexperienced. I thought of Michelle and immediately set those thoughts aside. She was not here. I wouldn't see her again. As soon as I got outta here, they'd go straight to my old digs and try to reacquire me.
Zach stood, pushing my half-eaten food away. “Does your shoulder still hurt you?”
I nodded silently as he moved closer, his hand a burning flame when it began to knead the skin that lay at the base of my neck.
“Here?” he asked in a whisper.
Oh my god, his hand felt so good, the smoothness of it rubbing and gently grabbing my flesh, stroking and bunching it at the junction where my neck connected to the injured shoulder. I couldn't help it, my head fell back and my lips parted. His hand tightened and drew me into the cradle of his body and my legs began to tremble as I felt his mouth a hair's breadth over mine. “Tell me not to kiss you and I will not.”
The words stuck in my throat, I thought of my past life, Cole, whatever I could, but in the end, biology won out and with a soft groan I wound my arms around the vampire rogue who had kidnapped me from another, pressing my body against his.
With our bodies married hip to head he moved his mouth over mine, flattening his huge hands at the small of my back and pressing me against his hips. His shaft pressed against me and I involuntarily ground against it.
His sharp intake of breath startled me but he swung me into his arms and sprinted up the stairs as if the burden of me was light.
Things were moving too quickly and I struggled, out of breath and he fell on me as I became pinned beneath him. He clasped my wrists and held them over my head, blazing a trail of hot kisses from my mouth then pecking his way down to my nipple. Aggressively sucking it through my thin tee, it hardened and became a stiff pebble of aroused flesh in his mouth and I groaned at the assault. As his fangs maneuvered around the delicate area, the barest thread that led from my nipple to my core throbbed with each pull of his mouth, each suckling. I was soon panting and out of breath. My resolve weakened, my resistance, gone.
He spread my legs and tore off my jeans with a jerk. I began to close them when he pressed them open again. I struggled against his hands. “No... I'm not ready for this...”
His eyes met mine, my fingers driven into his hair and straining to keep his head away from my pussy. Which in no time he'd find was soaking wet from his foreplay. What defense would I have then?
“I but wish to taste you, give you pleasure. I do not ask for sex yet.”
I dropped my head back, beaten.
He dipped his head down, moving a finger along the lace of the panties I wore. Bac
k and forth that blunt finger worked until I was about nuts. Just as I thought I'd beg for him to stop or do more, he slid my panties to the side and planted the flat of his tongue on my clit. My body shuddered and I moved the slightest bit against his seeking mouth, all the while feeling ashamed at my behavior. I meant to leave, not lie here, legs spread, shoving my pussy in a vampire's face. But oh... what he did to me. Zach knew female anatomy and lifted his head to ask me what I liked.
“Do you like my tongue like this?” he asked as he stabbed it inside my wet hole. My hips jumped and he put a forearm down on my belly to hold me in place as he fucked me with his tongue.
“Tell me you like it,” he purred against my ripe opening and the vibration of his voice reverberated against me as I got closer to orgasm. A small part of me felt like I should say no, get away... something. But my blood roared to meet his in a heated call I couldn't ignore. I didn't know him, but my blood did. He felt the same, groaning as he licked and sucked along my delicate folds of flesh.
When I felt his finger enter me I arched my back and grabbed his copper hair again, jerking his face off me even as his fingers dove in and out of my channel, pulling rhythmically, getting me closer to that delicious explosion I was helpless to stop.
“Please... “ I began.
“Please what?” he murmured. My hands fisted in his hair did nothing to stop his motions. If he'd wanted to go down on me again he could have. His eyes were deep and drowning obsidian pools, liquid and heated.
“Please more,” he whispered. I nodded even as my brain said no.
I nodded yes.
He plunged his mouth into my pussy and tore his hands out of me and shoved them underneath the small of my back, lifting my hips to get better access to my pussy. Spreading me wide, he rubbed his face back and forth across my sensitive skin and with a final plunge of his tongue I orgasmed. In his face.
Again and again.
*
We lay together afterward, Zach spooning me from behind as I cried my frustration into his muscular arm.
“What is it? Did I not pleasure you?” he asked, tenderly kissing the side of my face while the tears soaked him.
“You did! That's not the point!” I wailed.
“What is wrong then?”
“I am not like... that. I don't do those things with everyone, anyone.”
“It is not your fault. Think of it as a biological imperative. You are drawn to us sexually. It was what you were made to do. Females of Druid blood are the only humans with whom we may breed. It is true that we can have sex with any human female.”
The caveat hung in the air.
I turned to look at him. “But what?”
He looked a little embarrassed and that was saying something. None of the vamps I met seemed to lack confidence.
“It is always pleasurable but it is so much more with a breeder. And a pureblood?” His eyebrows shot up and he sighed, dipping his head into the crook of my neck. “With a human female, we wish only to relieve our needs, take what is necessary.”
I scowled at him and he laughed. “It is true, I dare say. But with the Druid, it is our biological imperative to give pleasure. It is in the fabric of our very design.”
His lips lay a trail on my neck, then went to my collarbone and as he sat up, he moved to the dip at my waist. Finally, he landed at my hip, his lips spreading and kissing a hot circle where the bone met the roundness of the side.
“Stop,” I whispered, the heat flaring like an ember brought to life between us.
His eyes rolled to mine and in one fluid motion he carried me to the bath, giving the tap a viscous jerk to the left. The water sprayed out, steaming as it landed in the porcelain. His eyes grew dark as he said, “I have patience aplenty. But I do mean to have you. And do not think that Cole does not seek you even now.”
I looked around, naked in his arms, thinking Cole would come through a crevice in the house.
His eyes lightened and he chuckled. “He does not come through walls, even him.”
I looked into Zach's eyes. “We have shared this together, you know.”
I watched his face as the knowledge that Cole had tasted me also cloaked him. His expression grew fierce.
He drew me closer and said, “Has he buried his flesh in yours, Breeder?”
He scared me and the truth flew out of my mouth, “No!”
He relaxed his hold on me. “I will not rape you. But, know this, if I can have you when you are fertile, I may be able to bond you to me and me only, then Cole would be out of the race for you as mate.”
Wow, this was looking bad. I couldn't even think of when I had my period last or anything. The bonding thing seemed pretty permanent.
“Am I... ?”
He shook his head. “No... but soon.” He turned the spigot off and placed me in the tub slowly, the almost hot water moving in around me like a wet shroud of warmth.
He pinched one of my nipples and I shivered underneath his touch. My core blossomed for him, opening like a wet and ripe flower. My lip trembled. I was hating how weak I was to the vampires.
I had to get out of here. But first I had a question.
He saw it on my face. “What do you wish to ask?”
“So... I'll just lay there and spread my legs for any vampire because of having Druid blood? I have no protection against any of you?” A hot tear rolled out of my eye. I didn't care that he said it wasn't rape. I knew what I didn't want intellectually but my body chose for me.
Therefore, zero choice.
Zach shook his head. “No, vampires with Druid blood, Reapers. Those two groups. Lowly Vampire, no. We would, none of us, ever waste a Druid on degenerate Vampire stock. And,” he swiped the tears on my face away with the gentlest of strokes, “your blood knows which to choose. Those reactions you had to me while I …” a hot blush rode to my face and he sucked in his breath, watching that enticing blood bloom underneath the surface of my skin. He took a shuddering exhale and began again, “Were it me to take you. Take you then. Your blood knows which it calls to most. It will decide for you.”
“What of rape?” I asked, thinking of that vampire that had nearly torn my arm off.
He shrugged. “It can happen. Any vampire will want you more than any other female, vampire females included. Our blood knows which female will ripen when she takes our seed within her body.”
I slid down into the tub. I thought about being raped by one of them. It wasn't something I'd survive. I knew it.
He saw my barely concealed fear and spoke again, “You are well guarded, a treasure. The rogue understand your importance very well. Without the Druid, we will be no more.” He spread his hands wide as if defeated. “We need you, you are too important. Only the derelict would assault a Druid and live to tell about it.”
“Has it happened?”
He nodded, expression somber. “It has.”
“What... what happened?”
Zach didn't answer immediately, but slid a long, tapered finger along the rolled rim of the tub. Finally he looked up, his wine-colored eyes boring into mine. “He was rough with her... he shattered her pelvis and broke her jaw.”
I gasped in a breath, covering my mouth, my eyes widening.
“Why would he hurt her?”
“He held her face and used a hand on her hip to hold her still while he...” his eyes flicked to mine and when he saw I understood he went on, “We were unable to save her.”
“What about him!” I cried, the water lapping the edges of the tub with my movement.
He smiled. It wasn't a smile of pleasure but one of retribution. “The rogue pulled him apart while his heart still beat. The Druid female watched even as her life bled out of her,” he finished softly.
I realized he cared. He had cared about the female.
“Who was she? Who was she to you... ?”
His eyes never left hers.
“My sister.”
CHAPTER 4
Cole
Cole slow
ed his run to a jog. He was very near the coordinates that Nathan had given him but dawn was close. He must find shelter and resume his search, make it finer.
Looking around he spied a heap of rocks. After exploring it thoroughly, he saw that it was but a covering for an old mine shaft, plentiful in this area. They thought nothing of blasting whatever piece of the environment would yield a resource of value to exploit. Especially in the era he was most familiar with, post WWII. That is when he had been turned.
And needed for his task. The harvest of Druids.
There were few Reapers. Many recruited, few chosen. There was a certain component for successful acquisition. He had done very well. Alexander had been pleased.
Until Rachel.
He burrowed under the earth, dreamless sleep sucking him under, thoughts of finding her in the next twenty-four hours foremost on his mind.
*
Nathan paced back and forth in his cell, already his face was healing from the damage Alexander had meted out through his low Vampire. Drones, really. But they were still effective when it was one against four. There was no way to warn Cole. They would drag him out to the place he had been forced to reveal. It was the true coordinates. Although the rogue was near, they would kill Cole. Likely kill himself, and kidnap the Druid breeder, forcing her to breed with at least three of the Reapers. They would be on the mission to reacquire her.
He remembered Rachel's fire. The taste of her blood, the feel of her skin beneath his fingers. It was better that Cole have her than he. He had a debt to his warrior friend, and he intended to keep it.
*
I stared at him after that proclamation. I didn't know what to say but said what I could, “I'm so sorry.”
“It has been many years,” he looked up at me sharply and continued, “but I have not forgotten the lesson taught therein.”