by Joey W. Hill
She was trying to distract herself, she knew. Distract herself from that screaming black hole in her mind. Distract herself from the guilt that wasn’t enough to keep her from hoping he would kiss her again, hold her body so hard and tight, so demanding, against his. Guilt couldn’t touch the need to do something that would allow her not to think of anything, take away her fear of falling into that hole.
He paused. She saw the tilt of his head, his chin toward his shoulder as he considered it, then shrugged.
“A servant is mine even deeper than that,” he said. “Her soul is bound to mine, throughout eternity.”
He closed a side hatch of the plane and turned to her. “Let’s get moving, sweet nurse. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”
Because it was her first experience in a two-seater airplane, she didn’t expect she’d sleep. But that was exactly what she did, the rhythmic roar of the engine like being in the warm belly of a dragon. Before they got in, Alistair offered her socks to warm her feet, and she found her skirt and underwear were almost dry at this point, so she could be mostly clothed, except for the absence of shoes. He wrapped her in the blanket anew when he settled her in the seat before him.
She twisted around enough to see him after he had the plane in the air and leveled out. He had his attention on his controls and the world around them, but at her regard, he’d met her gaze, nodded. She simply stared at him a while, until her head began to droop. She sank back into the seat, and soon into the grip of oblivion.
Extreme trauma exhausted the body, put a person in a stupor. A full orchestra playing “God Save the King” might not rouse them. That stupor came when there was no strength left for fear or vigilance…or when they were safe. Sleep was the subconscious acknowledgment that they were where no further harm could reach them.
His gaze held that surety, when she would have sworn she’d never feel safe again. He gave that back to her, if only for the short time they were together.
When she surfaced, it was because he woke her. They were on the ground. She was astonished to find he’d made a stop for fuel and taken off again, all without waking her. It was still night time, though perhaps not far from dawn.
“We’re in Timor, sweet nurse,” Alistair said. “Things are getting worse fast here, but they tell me they’re still squeezing some supply transports in and out. You’ll be going out on the next one. Don’t worry; these are good lads. You can trust them.”
He was unbuckling her seat belt as he spoke. She watched his deft fingers move over her body, and then they were touching her chin, her cheek, a light caress that drew her eyes back to his face. The jewel-like quality of his eyes seemed less human. She wondered if that happened closer to dawn.
She thought about getting on a boat where she’d once again be at the mercy of Japanese air attacks. His gaze dropped, and she realized she’d clutched his shirt, her fingers digging into the man beneath. Flushing a little, she let him go and struggled to find some dignity. Her nap hadn’t refilled her reserve of backbone entirely, but she found enough to straighten it.
“I understand. I’m grateful to you, in so many ways. Thank you, Alistair.” Her voice only broke once. She considered that a victory.
He cupped her face, stroking his thumb along her lips. What might have been intended as a casual reassurance became more on the second pass, when he slowed the track, teasing her mouth so her lips parted. As he traced the upper and lower, he applied enough pressure she felt the moisture of her mouth ease the slide, encourage him to keep doing it. Her nerve endings responded to his touch like feathers to the wind, lifting toward the caress of it.
His other fingers stretched along the side of her throat, so they both registered her increased pulse rate. When she lifted her chin, giving him greater access, his eyes darkened. His lips moved in a silent oath. “I’d stay with you all the way if I could,” he said. “But sunrise isn’t so far off, and my situation might be a bit tricky to explain.”
“They’d just sigh and say, ‘Not another bloody vampire. We’ve had three of them through here in the past week.’” She attempted a smile. The effort caused her eyes to fill, several tears tumbling forth.
When he stroked them off her cheeks, she shook her head. “All I need is a proper tea. With a full dozen biscuits.”
“That would fix anything,” he said gravely. She firmed her lips, tried to get a lock on everything quivering inside her.
“How old are you?”
He considered it, as if calculating in his head. “Somewhere around three centuries, I think. I was sired when I was barely in my twenties.”
“Do made vampires count their age from birth or from when they become a vampire?”
“Depends on the vampire. I expect the female ones leave that off. You sheilas don’t like admitting your age after a certain point. ‘Oh, darling, I’m only two hundred and fifty-eight, you know.’”
She shook her head at him. A loud report made her startle, start to scramble down into the plane’s cockpit, but he held her fast. “Just the chaps loading up a truck. Tailgate slammed.”
She closed her eyes, tried to loosen her fists. “Of course. You need to go. I’m sorry for holding you. Just tell me where I need to wait for the transport and I’ll be fine.”
“I appear to be the one holding you,” he said mildly. “And I’m not sorry at all. Come on. I’ll show you where you’re supposed to be. I’ve got a little time. I can wait with you for a while.”
She wasn’t sure if that was true, but she wasn’t going to argue with him. She saw what he meant, when he helped her from the plane. The airfield was a hive of activity, but the organized chaos and number of soldiers were familiar and reassuring.
He took her to a tent where a handful of men were typing up reports, counting things in large metal boxes, and shooting comments at one another. A radio barked with frequent communications, answered by a thin young man with red hair sitting next to it. He barely filled out his uniform.
Alistair offered them all a brief nod before he directed Nina to the far side of the tent, which had a cot sequestered behind a wall of those boxes. She deduced it was a place for the men to take turns catching cat naps during long shifts.
She was used to the affable ogling of diggers, their outrageous yet harmless flirting. They did none of that. Their glances were curious but not unkind.
“Did you tell them…” She wasn’t sure how to finish that, but Alistair understood. He eased her to a seated position on the canvas and pulled up a chair beside her.
“No. I had to fill in the blanks for the chap who’ll be transporting you, so he could justify you to his commander, but they have so much else going on, his main concern was confirming you weren’t Japanese. Most of them know that look.”
He nodded toward a mirror hung on the side of the metal boxes, directly across from her. When she looked, she nearly started back again. It took several moments to realize the pale woman in a man’s oversized shirt, with bedraggled hair and haunted eyes, was her.
“I look like I dug myself out of my own grave.” Her voice startled her with its hollowness.
“That you did, sweet nurse.”
“Ma’am?” One of the men was standing at the opening formed by the boxes. He was a tall, broader bloke with friendly blue eyes, but deeper lines around his mouth and forehead than a young man should have. “I’m Yates. We’ve got some tea. It tastes like pee, but it’s hot and we’ve got some sugar and a little milk. Would you like some?”
She stared at him. Yes, of course. But suddenly, such a normal question had her throat tightening as if there was a screw there. The compulsion to laugh hysterically was so strong she felt a wave of panic.
“Yes, she would,” Alistair said firmly. Yates nodded and disappeared.
She started to shake. Alistair moved next to her on the narrow cot, pulling her against him, cocooning her in heat. When she burrowed into him, he shifted, stretching out on his side and sandwiching her between him and the wall. He
hooked a leg over her hip, pulling her in closer, almost beneath the shelter of his body. It could have been so there’d be enough room for them both on the cot, but it worked fine.
“It’s okay, Nina,” he said. “You will not believe it. Not today or for a long time, but life goes on. Life endures all the bollocksed-up shit we can think to do to it, and to one another. A good heart like yours will shine again, brighter than the sun.”
“Not strong enough,” she said to his chest, to the comforting darkness he’d just given her.
“Bugger that,” he said. “You’re strong enough. If you think you’re not, I’ll beat your arse until you realize you are.”
She snuffled. His chin had a rock hardness against the crown of her head. “You sound like one of our Matrons,” she said. “Only they’d threaten to put a foot up our arse.”
“There are other, better things I’d like to put up your sweet arse.”
He said that in a whisper against her ear. It surprised her enough that she would have drawn back, but he was holding her too closely, her face pressed to his throat and chest, her arms curled over his sides, her fingers hooked in the waistband of his trousers.
Though she was a virgin, she knew how sex was done. She had never contemplated other methods than the usual way of doing it, though. She had overheard some of the soldiers talk about such things in their adventures with paid women. She just hadn’t thought of it as something…
She tilted her head up, and narrowed her eyes. “That was a vulgar distraction.”
“Well, you were about to get weepy and female, and I knew you’d never get over the embarrassment of that. But it doesn’t make the statement any less true.” His smile didn’t reach his eyes as he threaded his fingers through her tangled hair, stroked, smoothed. “You make it difficult to remember that you’re in distress and I’m not a total bastard. Sex is a wondrous balm on the evils of the world.”
She thought of that sudden odd surge of lust that had taken her over when they reached the beach, and she knew what he meant. But though his regard kindled things in her lower belly, made her long for that distraction he was offering, she wasn’t so far gone that she’d lose her virtue in a tent where a handful of men were within earshot.
However, as his gaze steadied on hers, the things she might do to put him off disappeared, particularly when he dipped his head and spoke in her ear so only she could hear.
“You think you could refuse me, Nina, if I decided to take you here. But you would not. And you wouldn’t regret my claim on your body, heart and soul. You’d embrace it.”
His speech had become more formal, increasing the power of the words. He’d said he was three hundred years old. Did that cadence, the authority, come from an earlier part of his life?
A consideration for another time, far distant, because he brought her sharply into the present when he dipped his head below her ear, set his fangs to her throat. Her hands moved, curled over his biceps, tightened and dug in as he penetrated her flesh, the flash of pain intense enough to strangle a gasp from her, but she embraced that, too, bringing her body more tightly against his. She pressed the bridge of her nose against his shoulder, trying not to make further incriminating noises.
His hand dropped, cupped her buttock. His long fingers would have nestled between the cheeks if the fabric hadn’t been so detestably sturdy. As it was, he pressed firmly enough there the nerve endings in that valley tingled. She bit back a moan as he rubbed a steel erection against her mound in the front, teasing a shudder through her as he swallowed a brief taste of her blood before he slowly withdrew from her throat, a nuzzling lick helping to close the punctures.
“When you get back home, the demons from that beach may chase you there,” he said in quiet voice. “If they do, I’m going to give you something to help protect you in my absence.”
He gripped her wrist and pulled her arm behind her. With the other hand he had wrapped around her, he freed the fastener on the skirt, so it loosened. He pushed her hand inside it, over the curve of her backside in the practical knickers, then lower. He was insistent about his destination, which arched her back, made her feel as if her arms were bound behind her. She bit her lip as he cupped her fingers over the lips of her sex, the heel of her hand pressed between that and the opening to her backside he’d threatened in such an unexpected way. Further surprise, it sent shards of arousal shooting through her lower belly and chest. Her buttocks clenched over the sensation it sent between them.
Alistair’s eyes glowed with approval when she tipped her head back, stared into them. “Put your other hand on your throat,” he growled.
She somehow got her hand between them. “Do it as I would do it,” he ordered. “Grip yourself as if it’s the hand of the man who claims you as his.”
She wet her lips. A lot of things were going through her mind right now, but none were louder or more compelling than his command, the piercing hold of his gaze.
“If those demons come, you will touch yourself like this. You will remember you belong to me and they have no right to you. You will put your fingers between your legs, stroke your cunt, make yourself wet, and wetter, until you are shuddering with the need to release. Then you will imagine me commanding you to climax. But only when you are past the point you think you can bear any more. I want you begging me to let you release. Nothing in your mind but your need for that permission. If you get too close, you tighten your grip here as a reminder of whose will you serve.”
He dipped his head, nipped at her hand on her throat. “You’ll know when I would speak the words. Because you know what I am, and you know I can be ruthless. I’m far scarier than anything you saw on that beach.”
More ruthless, yes. But not more heartless or soulless. She had to believe that, because she was mesmerized. If she thought of this moment later, she might scoff that any man could own her, could command her in such a way without her laughing in his face. But right now…it wasn’t laughter she felt when she stared into his.
“If I heard the words ‘Yes, Master’ from your lips, I could die with no other needs in the world,” he observed in that same dangerous, husky tone. “But it’s only in this you belong to me. So say ‘Yes, Alistair,’ and I’ll know I have your obedience, at least on this.”
“Yes, Alistair,” she said, and his mouth was on hers. He still had her wrist in that grip resting on her arse, his fingers tightening, drawing her tauter so her breasts pressed into his chest, her hips rocking forward. Her heart thudded as his erection stroked her sex, making crazy swirls of sensation, spreading upward and outward.
“Would I let you release now?” he said, breaking the kiss to whisper in her ear again. She shook her head, his hair brushing her temple, his mouth grazing her throat.
“Why?”
“You want me to beg.”
Her breath caught as he nipped her throat again, more sharply. She didn’t think anything would stop him if she did beg. He wouldn’t care that the men would hear. She’d already guessed that about him. What startled her was knowing she might not either. Not enough to do anything to stop him, that is.
Later, she would say it was the circumstances, the trauma. But right now the truth was impossible to deny.
She was pulled out of her head by the sudden loss of his body against hers. He sat on the chair, leaning forward, holding her hand in tight fingers. Footsteps were approaching their secluded nook. She drew her legs up, her other arm folded across her upper abdomen, her gaze locked in his, as Yates returned.
“We managed to hunt up a couple biscuits the others hadn’t eaten yet, as close a thing to a miracle as we get around here. They’re likely stale, but at least they make for a proper tea.”
She nodded, perhaps formed the words “thank you,” but she didn’t think any sound came out. With a squeeze of her hand, Alistair rose. He took the tea and brought it to the crate that served as a bedside table.
Kneeling beside her, Alistair helped her to a sitting position, his grip firm and
strong. Yates remained leaning on the stack of crates, studying her.
“It’s closer to dawn,” she said to Alistair.
“I know.”
Bemused, she watched him pick up the tea, blow on it, take a sip, nod. “Pee is a good description. But hot takes the edge off it, makes it damn near comforting.”
Yates chuckled. “Yeah.”
Alistair wrapped her hands around the sturdy black mug and those inexplicable tears almost rose anew at the familiar feel of a hot cup of tea between her palms. As she raised it to her mouth, it began to shake alarmingly.
Alistair cupped his broader palms over her knuckles, steadied her grip, so she made it. She took a small sip, and the faint burning on her tongue and lips was welcome. She closed her eyes.
“Does she need a doc, mate? We’ve got one here who could look her over.”
“If there’s time, that would be good.”
“No, I’m fine,” Nina said, but Alistair helped her lower the tea and set it aside before he framed her face and gave her that look which inspired such odd flutterings in her stomach.
“If there’s time, that would be good,” he repeated. “She was shot. She says it was a graze, but she hasn’t done a thorough accounting of her injuries. Bastard transporting her was keeping her on the move. Gave her no time for it.”
“Inconsiderate of him,” Yates said dryly.
Alistair straightened. “Drink the tea and let someone take care of you for a change,” he told her. “You remember what I said about those demons.”
Nina felt her cheeks warm and didn’t dare look toward the other man. “Thank you, Alistair,” she repeated. The feeling in her stomach became far less pleasant as she realized he was leaving her. But he needed to do so. Dawn was coming, and his task was done. He’d gotten her to safety.
One more squeeze of her hand, and he let her go. As he moved out of the space, he stopped next to Yates. “You’ll take right good care of her.”