by Joey W. Hill
It was startling, though she told herself there was no reason it should be. Hadn’t they proved to her, over and over, that skilled touch could do that to anyone? No emotions necessary. But she didn’t deny it fascinated her, watching the vampire lift and fall at her stimulation. That The Mistress was allowing her desire to show, she had no doubt. But the desire was genuine.
Nina grazed the full curve beneath her knuckles, spread her fingers out over the round expanse, and slowly brought the knuckles together to squeeze one taut nipple.
The female arched, the tip of her tongue touching her full lip. Nina squeezed harder, and won a moan. As well as an increase in the moisture between her own legs. She’d shifted close enough that The Mistress could reach that, and the female vampire’s hand slid beneath and between Nina’s folded thighs. She cupped her sex, her thumb rubbing through Nina’s wet folds.
Nina hovered over the pinched nipple, and slowly, slowly, licked it. She stifled her own moan as The Mistress pushed the tips of three fingers inside her, holding her there. Nina did it again, then swirled her tongue around the nipple, moving her fingers out of the way to allow her to suckle.
The Mistress gripped her hip, her other hand sliding free so she could shift Nina. It allowed Nina to rest on her side, draped over The Mistress, her head dipped over her breast, her hand kneading the other one.
“There you are, you sweet, wonderful girl. So lovely.” The Mistress’s words were breathy and yet still very much in control, in a way that inspired a different kind of tears. Nina had stopped trying to identify what all the emotions meant that they summoned from her. She’d shed a hundred kinds of tears here, for a hundred reasons, known and unknown. She just suckled and savored, held The Mistress to her, and experienced the throb of her own aroused body as she brought pleasure to another, an odd stasis of aroused tranquility.
In time, she moved to the other breast, gave it equal attention. She shifted so her body lay between The Mistress’s legs, and The Mistress locked them over Nina’s arse, pressing her to her core in an unmistakable rhythm. It pushed Nina’s mound into the carpet, a distracting friction that had her pulling harder on the firm points, and then The Mistress was pushing her down even further.
She took a circuitous route there, not because she wasn’t eager to sample the honey between the female vampire’s legs, but because she didn’t want to overlook tasting any part of The Mistress’s skin. Her flat stomach, the navel that winked with a jeweled bead pierced through the thin skin on the rim. Nina gripped it with her teeth, pulled, and discovered another erogenous zone as she won another quick breath from The Mistress, a pull on her hair.
Then on to the tops of her thighs, the smooth skin over her mound. Nina inhaled deep and found the scent of tropical flowers and sex.
“Does Steele rub cream into you here?” she asked, lifting her head. It was an amazing view, from The Mistress’s smooth sex, up the slope of her torso, between her breasts. To the swanlike throat and intent, heartbreakingly beautiful visage of the female vampire.
“He does. He has the most adept fingers.” The Mistress dropped her head back, obviously relishing the thought of Steele’s skills as much as Nina’s ministrations. “And tongue. It’s difficult to choose between the two, so I usually just avail myself of both. Why have a servant if you are going to deny yourself anything and everything he can provide?”
“He knows how to be a sadist.”
“He is a sadist, at times. Steele has a very interesting past.”
Nina rested her chin lightly on The Mistress’s upper thighs, studying her. “Do you love him?”
The Mistress angled her head, so she was gazing down her body at Nina. “No. Not like you mean, Nina. What is between a vampire and a servant—”
“Has no frame of reference in the human world. We’ve had slavery. Still do in some places. Indentured servitude.”
“Careful,” The Mistress warned. “I am giving you room here, Nina. But it does not permit you to interrupt me and be disrespectful. Your training still applies to this situation, even if the reins are loosened somewhat.”
Bugger. Nina knew what was required when that tone and admonishment were used. Her body was practically doing it before her mind instructed it. She sat back on her heels, adjusted so she could put her palms on the floor, forehead in between. “My apologies, Mistress.”
Now it was up to The Mistress to choose to punish, dismiss, or order her to proceed. Nina realized she found the dismissal idea the least favorable. Even if she was punished, The Mistress might still allow her to ask more questions afterward. And do other things.
What she’d said in bitterness and The Mistress had framed a different way was simple truth. Gender didn’t matter when it came to pleasure.
She wanted to put her mouth back on The Mistress. If The Mistress put her head on Nina’s lap, let Nina stroke her hair as The Mistress touched her how she wished, Nina suspected she would find that same zone of stillness she found while kneeling in a submissive posture.
She didn’t ask herself why anymore. A month was a very long time here. A whole lifetime, and still too short, especially when she was once again thinking of tomorrow and leaving the school.
She had to be hopeful, optimistic. Going to him could be a good thing. Nothing to dread. Alistair might help her, she reminded herself. Though getting her hopes up might merely be setting herself up for a very sharp, painful fall.
“Does this truly seem like slavery to you?” The Mistress asked, after letting her rest on her hands and knees for a few unnerving moments.
“Some parts of it,” Nina said honestly, speaking to the floor. “Because I have no choices that don’t belong to my Master.”
“Hmm. If I ask you that question in several months, you may be surprised to find you have a different answer.”
“Will you be surprised if it’s not?”
The Mistress touched her bowed head. Nina had to force herself to be still, because the caress was so disturbingly welcome, tender and yet firm, in control. Reassuring, though it shouldn’t be. Brainwashing, she told herself. Or she was lying to herself. Either way, it still felt good.
“You have a clever tongue, Nina. It will help you, or it may get you into endless amounts of trouble. Learn the difference. I will allow you one more question, and then you will employ your tongue in different ways.”
So, no punishment, and no dismissal. Anticipation tightened her thighs.
“I thought you said I could do as I wish.”
“I did. I never said I would not do as I wish as well.”
“Has Steele ever…do you order him to use his sadistic side on you?”
“You are learning,” The Mistress purred approvingly. “You were going to ask if he has ever dominated me, and that is something a human never does to a vampire. If any vampire would allow it, he or she would forfeit both their lives, for that human would have been given a stature in our world that is not permitted. But I have on occasion allowed him to mark my flesh.”
That purr became a near growl. “On the condition that, whatever he does to mine, I get to do three times as intensely to his. In the same session. Some of the scars he bears come from me. I marked them with my blood, so they become permanent.”
The words gave Nina images of Steele put through some of the same rigors she’d had inflicted upon herself. “He wears them with pride,” The Mistress continued, “but he is only allowed to touch them, beyond functional cleaning, when I command. So when I allow him to stroke them, he gets hard, remembering the many ways I have marked him.”
Nina thought about that. The only vampire-servant relationship she’d witnessed firsthand so far was The Mistress and Steele. At the beginning, so much of this had dismayed and frightened her. Some of it still did, but familiarity, repetition, helped dull that edge, gave her space to think about it. If she asked Steele if he loved his Mistress, Nina wondered what he would say.
She was certain he would say he did and, though he likely would
n’t say it, she suspected he believed The Mistress loved him, and in certain ways that did have a human world context. Because Nina felt it between them. It was not a truth found with words.
“It is time to put that mouth to better use, Nina. Show me the devotion you will show to your Master’s care.”
Nina lifted her head. Not enough to meet The Mistress’s gaze, but enough to focus on her destination. She scattered kisses once again over her thighs, savoring, caressing, taking her time so that the female could get the maximum response from the stroked nerve endings, awakening sensation from knees to hips.
As The Mistress had pointed out, Nina hadn’t brought a woman pleasure this way. However, the conversation over, she found she did want to do so. She wanted to feel The Mistress writhe beneath her touch, from the thrust of her tongue, the way she had for Chele, Edith, Melanie…hell, they’d all had a go. Good thing communicable disease wasn’t a worry for vampires or their servants. She’d been told Alistair’s geographical mark alone would make her immune to that.
“Oh, Gods and Goddesses…” The Mistress sighed as Nina found her, began to kiss, lick, explore. “That’s it, lovely servant.”
The Mistress was right. Nina was dedicated to service. It could make her despair, even as it made her hope that her willingness to serve would lead to an avenue where she could embrace something of what she’d been. Even if the other servants had exchanged glances when she’d said such a thing aloud. Glances full of pity, but she refused to think of that right now.
She gripped The Mistress’s hips, really settled into the business of driving her wild. She didn’t have to think about it. She just keyed into the woman’s movements, her cries, and moved along on that tide with her. Intuition, just as The Mistress had said.
Nina turned her head to The Mistress’s thigh, bit her, hard. The female vampire strangled on a moan and a half chuckle, and her fingers tightened in Nina’s hair. Nina bit her harder, then started biting her along the inside of the thighs, sharp, hard snaps that left red marks, then she was back into her cunt, suckling, playing, swirling. The female vampire was bucking beneath Nina’s mouth. Nina wanted to see her come, feel her muscles contract on Nina’s tongue, taste the heated flood of her juices as she climaxed.
But The Mistress had another plan. She pulled on Nina, gripped her, turned her with those strong vampire hands and arms so Nina was straddling The Mistress’s shoulders, and then The Mistress let her go back to pleasuring her orally. As she did, The Mistress put her mouth between Nina’s legs.
Nina cried out against the female vampire’s moist flesh. The Mistress reached down, tangled her fingers in Nina’s hair and jerked back roughly, breaking the contact between Nina’s mouth and her sex.
“Stay like that.” The Mistress eased her grip, but her order was clear. “I’ll let you go back to eating pussy soon. Maybe. Look down at what will be yours again if I say so.”
The Mistress was sliding slippery fingers between Nina’s arse cheeks, stroking as she put her mouth on Nina again. Nina realized she was collecting the honey from Nina’s cunt to allow her to push on that rear opening, put just the tips of her fingers in, parting the cheeks with other digits to increase the sense of invasion.
She’d had more than one tongue play in that area, mortifying her initially, and then taking her even deeper into that mortification when the sensations that spiraled through her had her making odd, keening noises and clawing the bedding.
“Lord Alistair is quite fond of arse-fucking,” The Mistress said against her. “It’s why he enjoys men as well as women. I would love to be a voyeur the first time he bends you over and thrusts his substantial cock into your tight arse. Put your mouth on my cunt again, sweet Nina. If you work hard enough, I might just give you my climax. What’s the lesson, my little dove?”
Nina’s voice came out breathless. “No matter what freedoms he gives you, he never stops being your Master. Never. His will always comes first.”
It came to her without thought. Though she still fought it, resented it, they’d forced her to internalize it to levels of her subconscious she wouldn’t have thought possible at the beginning of her time here.
When a vampire gave a servant freedom, it was the freedom given a pet. Never did the servant step out of the boundaries of the Master’s control.
Torn between despair and violent arousal, Nina dipped her head back to The Mistress’s body. She pushed the darker things away and immersed herself in teasing, sampling. Being awed by the countless reactions the simple contact of her mouth on those sensitive tissues could bring. And groaned, undulated, experienced those reactions herself, as The Mistress used her own mouth and fingers to drive Nina to the edge of sanity.
Her words made Nina think of Alistair pushing into her arse. She’d been told when she opened to him fully, relaxed, trusted him completely, she would be able to take him there, all the way. If she trusted enough, it could be a sudden, deep slide, filling her.
“Beautiful. You are imagining him, I can tell.”
The Mistress raised Nina up enough to put her mouth fully back on her pussy. She tightened an arm over Nina’s hips as Nina tried her best to keep up, licking, nipping, suckling, thrusting. The Mistress lifted and locked her legs over Nina’s head and shoulders, holding her against her sex, grinding her face in it, as she worked her with her mouth.
Slick, heated skin and musk on the inside, soft, sweet-smelling silk and flowers on the outside. The strength of The Mistress’s arms and legs were like the bars of a cage wrapped around her, holding Nina in place to service her, and that bondage took away further thought. There was only now, and this.
“Not until I come,” The Mistress said. “Or no matter what your Master ordered, I’ll let every bloke in these halls take your arse during the daylight hours.” She laughed against Nina’s flesh. “You tightened on my tongue there, little one. I think you like the idea. Lord Alistair is getting a gem. A fucking gem.”
“I…I can’t…” Nina fought as hard as she could not to come, but The Mistress didn’t give her any respite, working her with her mouth. Nina tried as best as she could to make The Mistress come first. She failed, but only by a matter of seconds.
Nina screamed out her climax as The Mistress moaned hers, their bodies locked in a sensual combat, rocking, writhing, honey spilling forth on the tongue.
The flames leaped, spiraled, and the heat in the room increased, or so it seemed to Nina as things took on a haze, so powerful and uncontrolled. She was hoarse when she stopped, though she kept making little bleats as The Mistress teased over-sensitized tissues with her mouth. She had her own mouth pressed to The Mistress’s sex and thigh, her temple resting there. Slick heat and rigid muscles gave way to dampness and languid limbs, caressing touches.
At length, The Mistress let her shift and brought her up to cuddle, pressing Nina’s head down on her breast. Nina, in an idle drift, closed her mouth on the softened nipple, squeezed, played her tongue over it. The Mistress stroked her head, her shoulder. Nina felt too heavy to even lift her body.
She was just…done. She had no fight left for it. There was no point to it, anyway. Not here. The Mistress had done all she’d said she’d do to Nina. Tomorrow night, her part was done. Nina would be on her way to Alistair’s home.
At least in a post-climactic fog, she wasn’t as anxious about that. With no more than a poignant twinge in her heart, Nina could even give up on hope, as an unnecessary expenditure of energy.
For now.
“One final lesson, little one.” The Mistress spoke against her brow. “One you’re smart enough to learn for yourself. The heart can be dominated, broken down. Owned. But it can never be forced.”
Her fingers tightened with bruising force, as if sensing Nina’s surprise was going to make her lift her head, and The Mistress wanted the pain to remind her of the boundaries that such words didn’t remove. Not exactly.
“Even an InhServ has that choice. It matters not the cage you think yourself in.
The ability to love, to serve because that is what you genuinely wish to do, is the treasure every vampire of worth desires from his servant. You think you have been stripped of all control. But no matter how out of your depth you feel, I have given you the tools and the paths to be a true InhServ. The core of it was already inside you. And that is not merely the submission you embrace so readily. You have a connection to Lord Alistair. Do not deny yourself the strength it can bring you.”
Nina squeezed her eyes tight. She knew that, only her view of it was far different from The Mistress’s. It was that connection to Alistair that made all of this so confusing, that could rip her mind to shreds.
She was tired of all of this. She’d just stay here. She’d rather stay here than face one more dreadful challenge, laden with uncertainty.
The Mistress stroked her hair. “You wondered why we didn’t make you say it. Calling Lord Alistair your Master. It is because that is his lesson to teach, to enforce however he wishes. My hope for you is that you realize sooner than later your devotion and willingness to embrace his ownership is the key to everything you truly want.”
Her voice dropped to a whisper, and her teeth scored Nina’s ear, savage and playful. “Even if you’re saying bollocks to me right now, I know it to be true. So did Lord Alistair.”
She raised her eyes to The Mistress’s face, another disobedience, but The Mistress allowed it this time. She looked at Nina with her usual impenetrable mask. But then she leaned in, brushed her lips against Nina’s mouth, her cheek. Her voice was a murmur against her flesh.
“Killara is my name. My father was Maori, my mother European. Do not be so focused on what you have lost as to ignore what treasures may lie ahead. Good luck, Nina. Help him, and you will help yourself.”
Chapter Nine
It had ended as it had begun, in The Mistress’s drawing room study. Now Nina sat in the backseat of a shiny Hudson, being driven to her new Master’s home as she stared down at the still throbbing mark on the inside of her wrist.