Blood and Bondage

by Annalynne Russo

  The twins looked back and forth between them, then Savannah shot him a sly smile and spoke up. “She got the sexy little hints you sent her. I’m almost positive she’s in one of the three private rooms in the back waiting for you.”

  Sexy little hints? What on earth was she talking about? Before he could open his mouth to ask, he noticed a scuffle that had broken out a short distance away. Two male vampires stood peering at one another, an eerie red haze of anger surrounded them. Their broad, hulking chests stood fluffed up, ready to battle for proper pecking order. A petite blonde with a pixie haircut was flanked between them, trying to dissipate the tension.

  “Let’s get you two to safety,” Oliver said, ushering them toward the exit. “It looks like things are about to become a bit precarious in here.” He escorted the twins to the door, throwing Bobby a silent peace sign when he saw that the vampire was still engaged in conversation.

  Oliver walked the perimeter of the night club, doing his damnedest to look inconspicuous and avoid the confrontation that brewed in the middle of the floor. Still, he felt a roomful of eyes focused on his bare, oily chest and the wound Anaïs had left on his partially exposed throat. She’d used her saliva to jump start the healing process. But the two pinpricks that marred the flesh there still left a visible mark on his skin. The spiked collar and leash around his neck didn’t help much to conceal it. Nonetheless, he tried to ignore their blatant stares, while winding through the maze to the far end of the building.

  A few feet past the restrooms, there was a long hallway. Oliver followed the elaborate pattern of twists and turns until he came to three doors set in a row, one right after the other. Each room was labeled with its own snazzy, sadomasochistic catch phrase: Tunnel of Torture, Sadist Salon, and Bondage Boudoir, respectively. If only Oliver knew which one Anaïs had ventured into.

  After their public display earlier, it didn’t seem entirely farfetched that Anaïs would invite him to partake in the pleasures of the flesh inside one of the private suites. Still, he remained somewhat puzzled. What sexy little hints had Savannah been referring to? Oliver prayed to the gods that Pierre Gaucher hadn’t cooked up some charade to get the female vamp alone. It did, after all, seem a bit fishy that Anaïs had disappeared at about the same time his cell phone came up missing. Maybe it was more than a coincidence.

  Nonetheless, Anaïs could certainly take care of herself. She’d established that the other day with her attempt to flee the Four Seasons Hotel. She’d knocked one of his men out cold, then stabbed Bobby in the throat with the spike of her boot. If she got caught up in Pierre’s maniacal web, she’d have a decent shot at survival.

  Thus far, Anaïs had turned out to be a complicated patchwork, one Oliver yearned to unravel. He’d expected the vampire to project certain innate characteristics common to her breed. Sharp as nails wit and off the charts sensual prowess to name just two. But those were the personality traits she wanted everyone to see. Deep down, she emanated warmth and emotional sensitivity that as far as Oliver was concerned, no other bloodsucker he’d met had ever possessed. Considering that Oliver had gone toe to toe with hundreds of members of the undead race, that fact proved rather impressive.

  Anaïs had turned out to be something he hadn’t expected. In all frankness, Oliver liked her. Both in and out of a bed. But at that moment, his hormones had to take a back seat. He was worried for her safety and needed to concentrate on pinpointing her exact location.

  Oliver tried the knob on all three doors, although each of them was locked tight. The only way to access the interior would be to enter a numeric code into the keypad to trigger the release of its security mechanism. More crucial than that, he didn’t know which threshold Anaïs had passed. If she’d intended to rendezvous with Oliver, she’d have no doubt told him which one and provided the digits necessary to gain access inside.

  The more Oliver stood there, the antsier he became. Resting his forehead against the door frame, he tried to hone in on the unique telepathic connection he shared with Anaïs. As long as she allowed him to, he could pick up fleeting thoughts that popped into her mind. In general, proximity didn’t matter. However, the fact that Oliver hadn’t detected a single snippet of her unequivocal voice for close to half an hour didn’t bode well for her safety.

  With his brow still pressed against the partition, Oliver’s temples started to throb. The tempo mimicked the loud bass of the acid rock that shook the plaster off the walls. Pain shot through him, from the middle of his forehead to the back of his skull, a consequence of trying too hard to decipher her signature siren call. He needed to find somewhere quiet to think. Only then would Oliver have a chance at finding his mate.

  Mate? How that particular word had woven its way through his subconscious, Oliver couldn’t tell. Was that what Anaïs was to him? In that instant, he didn’t have the luxury of dwelling on the possibility. If what he feared most turned out to be reality, he had precious minutes to locate her before Pierre taught her the true meaning of torture. Then, it wouldn’t matter what he felt for her; she’d be long dead.

  Glancing to the right, Oliver spied another door down the corridor. The word Exit hovered above it in bright red lights. He needed to get away in order to drown out all the other noise and listen for Anaïs’s voice. Oliver shoved open the door, emerging from the shadows and into the dark, empty alley behind the club. For a few minutes, he paced the short distance between Blood & Bondage and the building next to it, trying to clear his head. Then, he hunkered down next to a dumpster and closed his eyes. Taking in several deep inhalations of air through his nose, he attempted to ignore the pleas of pleasure coming from the patrons inside.

  Fuck me. Feed me. Free me. A chorus of desperate murmurs tunneled through his mind. They overpowered his ability to distinguish the myriad of sounds that echoed around him. But the slow, deliberate breaths soon helped. He felt the tightness in his shoulders relinquish its unwavering grip. The convoluted chaos of his thoughts subsided too, allowing him to focus his energy on the frequency of Anaïs’s familiar pitch.

  Go fuck yourself! I’ll never submit. I’d rather die first. His lover’s angry tirade came through loud and clear. Even now, there are powerful people looking for me. My godson is the leader of the New York City coven. He won’t let you get away with this.

  Fuck! Pierre had gotten to her. Oliver pressed his hands to his eyes as her words blinded him with rage. His gut instinct had been to spring to his feet and bust down all three doors until he’d rescued the damsel in distress. But he knew that would never work. The vampires in the club would pounce on him in a heartbeat.

  The only option Oliver had left was to try and communicate with Anaïs through the power of thought. Maybe the tendrils of desire they’d fed these last two weeks had forged a bridge between them, one that enabled silent communication to run both ways. Because Anaïs had tasted his blood, there was a slim possibility that she might hear his thoughts. It was a risky move and he had no guarantee that it would work. By letting their stream of consciousness run rampant, others who shared his telepathic gift could intercept their thoughts and use that information for their own gain. Nonetheless, Anaïs was worth the threat of exposure.

  Oliver rested the back of his head against the brick building behind him. He tuned into the once-stilted speech that now flowed from his lover.

  Anaïs, baby. Can you hear me? Tell me where you are. Several nerve shattering seconds passed. Oliver couldn’t pick up on anything, not even the slew of four letter words she’d spewed earlier at Pierre. For a while, he didn’t think the connection was working.

  Then a single word whispered through his mind, making the hairs on his neck stand on edge. Torture. She must be trapped in the Tunnel of Torture.

  I’m coming for you. What’s the code for the door?

  Again, not even a hint of his lover’s weak, labored articulation could be heard. Instead, a spasm in his brain triggered an agonizing pain. It rendered him almost completely immobile. His muscles flexe
d and his vocal cords seized up. He dropped to his knees, clutching his head in his hands as an unimaginable affliction stole his ability to move, let alone speak.

  Suddenly, a series of digits zipped through his mind one after the other, like the film strip of a silent motion picture. As each number flashed before his eyes, the soul-wrenching sting forced him to cower into a ball, then collapse on top of a heap of smelly, discarded trash.

  7, 5, 4, 8, 1.

  Oliver leapt to his feet, ignoring the excruciating sensation that consumed him to the core. On his way to the Tunnel of Torture, he managed to find a pay phone. He called Adam and put in an urgent request for reinforcements. Then, he ran to the door in the center of the hallway and punched in the five-digit code. Once inside the tiny receiving room, he hesitated, counting backwards from ten to one. He couldn’t do much to free Anaïs with a pounding headache. Perhaps if he calmed down a bit and let his adrenaline kick in, the ache in his head would subside.

  After a few tumultuous seconds, Oliver could finally think. He palmed his hip and felt the full-size stake taped to his side. Next, he undid a strap holstered to his ankle. It held the twin vials of serum that would temporarily anesthetize his opponent. If for some reason, he wasn’t able to kill the son of a bitch, at least he could hold him off until back up arrived.

  The element of surprise was on Oliver’s side. Instead of flinging open the door of the chamber, he slid through the heavy metal barrier, leaving only a tiny crack exposed. Peering inside, he couldn’t see much other than a fathomless cavern filled with red desert rock. But what he heard had been enough to make his blood run hot. It was his lover’s desperate plea. His eyes glazed over, all he could envision was a deep, crimson haze of fury.

  Creeping on the balls of his feet, Oliver tiptoed through the dim lit cave. His back remained pressed firm against the smooth stone wall. He looked from left to right, making sure that no one sprang from the shadows and tried to attack. With the stake firmly in his grip, he’d be ready to retaliate.

  Crouched down low, Oliver made it to the end of the tunnel that opened up into an expansive underground grotto. In addition to the manmade beauty of his surroundings, he could see Anaïs’s half-naked frame manacled to a guillotine. His lover’s head and hands were fastened to the contraption, making it damn near impossible for her to budge. Deep, bloody gashes lacerated the normally-pristine skin of her back and buttocks.

  “Pierre, why don’t you just kill me and get it over with?” Anaïs pleaded with him.

  “Darling, killing you is the last thing I want,” Pierre laughed, grinning maniacally. “Those other girls were merely bait, a strategy I used to reel you in.”

  “What is it that you want from me?”

  “I’ll take nothing less than your heart and soul.” The madman ground out the words with another crack of the whip. “And this time, you’ll obey me. Now and when we get back home. If not, more people will die. Maybe even your boyfriend. What’s his name again?”

  “Don’t touch a hair on Oliver’s head,” Anaïs shouted, yanking on the chains that kept her held in place. “You’ll pay if you do.”

  “Tsk. Tsk. Somebody’s fallen head over heels for her food.” Pierre moved closer. He wrapped his arms around her waist, then used two fingers to pinch the tips of her puckered nipples. “For that, you’ve earned another thirty blistering lashes.”

  Pierre had his back turned as he leaned over their lover’s naked flesh. It was the perfect time to pounce. Light on his feet, Oliver lunged for the cage, hurling open the door with barely a sound. Still, the vampire employed superpower speed and agility to react on instinct. Like a fly, he swatted the human away. The stake went flailing through the air as his body flew back, ricocheting against the barbed wire mesh of the cage.

  “You’re a dead man!” Pierre screamed as he lifted Oliver’s limp frame above his head, then tossed it nonchalantly over the top of the roofless metal enclosure. He landed with a thump on the cold, stone tile. Every inch of his body ached something fierce. No doubt, the bastard had shattered several of his bones.

  Shrugging off the pain, Oliver stood and re-entered the cage, ready for the start of round two. Thus far, his opponent had won round one, but no matter what, he’d push through the agony until he had the vampire’s head in a sling.

  As he stalked toward the brutal murderer, he heard Anaïs’s weak, breathless voice. “Please. Don’t hurt him, Pierre. I’ll do whatever you say.”

  “Too late, my sweet. I let your other playmates live. This one, I’m sending to hell.”

  He threw Oliver against the fence, holding him suspended off the ground with the sheer magnitude of his grip. Eviscerating pain shot through the right half of his body, and he realized his shoulder had been lodged against one of the jutting barbs. As blood gushed from the wound, the vampire’s eyes froze, shifting from obsidian to red, then back again. The claws on his fingers elongated, piercing the skin around his victim’s neck. In the next second, Pierre’s incisors emerged, inches from his enemy’s pulsating jugular.

  The vampire’s proximity was crucial, even if it meant letting him take a bite out of his flesh. Otherwise, Oliver wouldn’t get close enough to stab him in the heart with the tranquilizer he’d stuffed into the pocket of his jeans. Even though bloodsuckers were technically considered dead, the organ in their chest was an anomaly. It proved to be the only area on their bodies that wasn’t impenetrable.

  Without warning, Oliver felt the vampire’s fangs sink deep. The loud sound of the suction pumped through his veins, reverberating in his ears like the wail of a siren. His eyes fluttered shut as a heady, intoxicating sensation rolled over him. On the verge of unconsciousness, Oliver reached into his pants and pulled out the vial of paralyzing serum. The tips of his fingers crawled up Pierre’s cool, shirtless flesh, until they hovered over the muscle directly above his heart.

  A moment before his body grew limp, he raised a weak, shaky hand, then jabbed the shard of glass into the bloodsucker’s chest. After that, everything else went black.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Coming Home

  Oliver squinted as the early morning glint from the sun shone through the grates of the plantation shutters. A glimpse around him confirmed that he’d slept in an unfamiliar bed. The walls of the room had been sprayed with a pale shade of blue. Puffy marshmallow-white clouds painted on top of the base coat, complimenting the tranquility of the luxurious space.

  Oliver pulled himself up into a seated position, the motion of which forced him to grab hold of his upper arm and wince. The pain in his shoulder made him spasm and moan. He must’ve been asleep for quite a while, long enough to make him temporarily forget about the injury that Pierre had inflicted. As he leaned back against the cushions on the bed, a knock sounded at the door.

  “Hey there, boss man.” Eva poked her head in through a crack in the door. “How you feeling?” Her sympathetic half-smile made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Damn, he’d missed his best friend the last couple of weeks. With his emotions all jumbled up inside, especially when it came to Anaïs, he needed her to help him sort everything out.

  “Doing alright, considering I was bitten by a vampire,” Oliver said with a slight shrug of the shoulders. It was a natural reaction. Still, it made the ache in that area infinitely worse. “Where am I?”

  “Miravale.” Eva said, her body cringing as the word rolled off her tongue. She had to know that the last place Oliver would want to be holed up was inside Andreas’ lair. The sprawling Connecticut mansion owned by the Kristopolous family hadn’t been where he’d expected to spend his recovery. Eva must have sensed his obvious discomfort.

  “Don’t give me that look,” Eva said, wagging her finger in his face in admonishment. “Andreas felt responsible for your injuries. He wanted to help.”

  With a beleaguered sigh, Oliver finally relented. “I know. It’s just tough to accept so much change happening at once. First, you marry the leader of the New York City coven. Then I meet
Anaïs…”

  The corners of the huntress’ mouth turned up again and her eyes twinkled brightly. He could almost see the wheels spinning in her head. “What’s going on between the two of you? It seems to have gone farther than your run of the mill vampire investigation. You like her, don’t you?”

  A bundle of nervous energy, Oliver rubbed at his stubbly jaw. I thought I was the one with psychic abilities?

  Eva had been able to read him so well, a result of working together side by side for so many years. When it came to her, he couldn’t keep anything a secret.

  “Okay, I’ll admit it. The blasted woman found a way to crawl underneath my skin,” Oliver said, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “Truth is, I can’t stop thinking about her.”

  “You slept with her. I knew it!” Eva shouted, jumping up and down on the bed. The movement caused the agony in his arm to flare.

  “Yes,” Oliver confessed as he averted his gaze. “But it’s more than sex. I think I’ve developed feelings for her.”

  Taking both of his hands between hers, she forced Oliver to stare into her eyes. The depth of her sincerity apparent with each gentle stroke of her fingers over the palm of his hand. “If that’s the case, you must go to her. Tell her how you feel.”

  “What do you mean? Where is she?” Oliver asked as if perplexed.

  “She’s gone. She left for Paris on Andreas’ private jet a few hours after Adam took Gaucher into custody.” This time, the pity reflected in her dark brown eyes made Oliver want to shrink away and hide.

  “Speaking of Gaucher, where is the bastard?” Oliver said, seamlessly changing the subject.

  “Currently still alive. The coven’s board of trustees is convening early next week to decide his fate. I’m pretty sure he’s gonna fry.”

  “Thanks for the update.” Oliver squeezed her hand, then pulled away. “Now if you’ll excuse me, my dear. My bladder’s full and I need to change the dressing on my wound.”