by Joey W. Hill
“I’m so pleased for them. Unfortunately, it all happened centuries ago, so I wasn’t present for the family discussion about it.”
Why did no one else see how unfair this all was? To bind her to a promise that she’d had no say about?
“You can tear yourself apart over it, or accept that it is what it is. But know this, Nina.” He touched her face again, one fingertip tracing the line of her jaw with slow purpose as his blue eyes bored into hers. “What I take, I promise—you will give it willingly.”
Before she could process that, his manner changed. He rose, lifting her to stand by his side again. As he looked out into the night, he curled his hands over the rail.
“But I know what it is to feel helpless. To need to be in control of something, even if it’s a temporary respite from the chaos of knowing you have none.”
He glanced down at her. “Stanley hurt your feelings. I’d whip him until he bled just for that, but the poor sod’s messed up in the head.”
She struggled to tamp down her emotions, keep up with where he was going. “What happened to him? I saw his scar.”
“And here I was, thinking you were ogling his manly bits.”
“He hadn’t removed his pants yet. You arrived and shut the peephole before then.”
Alistair’s gaze glinted as she blinked at him. “You have a clever tongue. Sharp and sweet. I expect that will give me some excellent reasons to punish you.” He sobered. “Stanley was a boy whore, as I said. Some blokes who found man-love unnatural jumped him and a customer in an alley. Disemboweled the customer, made short work of him. Left him there with his cock stuffed in his mouth and ‘sodomite’ written across his chest, to ensure the police didn’t expend much effort on an investigation.
“But Stanley was too pretty. Probably made them have thoughts they didn’t want to have about a man. Took him into an abandoned building and spent more time on him. Carved him up good before they pulled out his guts and left him there. As luck would have it—I won’t say whether it was good or bad—a female vampire happened on the scene. She tucked it all back in, turned him, which she’s not supposed to do without Council approval, but they allowed it. She batted her eyes, explained he was too grievously wounded and too close to death’s door for him to survive the servant marking process.”
“So it was an act of compassion.”
“No.” Alistair said. “She just presented it that way. A true act of compassion would have been to kill him humanely, end his suffering. But Gellana is not on the warm and fuzzy side of the sociopath spectrum. The Council was none-too-pleased, since Stanley is quite obviously not vampire material, but since done was done, and our rules say that a fledgling is not punished for the crimes of the sire, they decided the best territory for him would be mine. Primarily because they want me to fail as Region Master here. Giving me a bloke who has as much business being a vampire as a half-wit does being a brain surgeon, offers me another excellent opportunity to cack this up.”
He took them back to the subject of Stanley. “She did stay with him the proper amount of time a sire is supposed to do, but her mentoring was sloppy at best. She didn’t value the gift that lies within him. Now no one will, because he’s a vampire, and we’re not allowed to submit, except to vampires stronger than us, and only within the boundaries of protocol. What happens between him and me here isn’t exactly protocol, but that’s no one business but his and mine…and maybe yours, if you’re game.”
He looked down at her, capturing her in that close, assessing way of his that could be flattering or unsettling, depending. “I don’t understand,” she said.
“He needs a woman’s touch. I could ram my dick into him all day, and he’d get off, because his cock is only slightly less simple minded than the rest of him, but what he really wants is a woman pounding some manners in him. Want to hold the upper hand over this blighter who treated you so shabbily? Want to help me with his schooling?”
She blinked. “They didn’t… I don’t know…”
“They didn’t let you have that, did they?” His gaze swept her. “While I could say it was a training thing, part of it was reading you down to the core. You’re not a Mistress. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have topping abilities. You were a nurse, after all, having to keep unruly boys in line.”
“You don’t believe much in pleasantries, do you?” she managed. “Tea first, catch up on the past three years. That kind of thing.”
“When was the last time you were able to sit and have tea with someone, and not have your mind wander off into fields of blood? Paths to oblivion are far better than stagnant rituals we both know mean fucking nothing,” he said.
The words had more than a jagged edge. Warmth, polite emptiness, cynicism; that mix was gone in a blink. Now all she saw in his gaze was an abyss, where Alistair, if he was there, was down deep in the well. No charm evident, not even frosty politeness. It was empty. Desolate.
He’d turned to her when he spoke, put his hands on her biceps. Gripped her to the point of bruising. Now his attention snapped to the painful hold. As quickly as it had happened, he let her go and stepped back, the empty, dispassionate look on his face again. “Never mind. I’ll handle Stanley. You should return to your duties.”
She wasn’t sure what was going on with him, but the decision for the immediate moment was simple. The alternative was wandering through the house aimlessly with little to do until she had enough of an understanding of his needs to occupy herself. He kept her on her toes enough she wasn’t getting lost in her own head, a boon for sure. Seeing the mercurial changes in his mood, she wondered if she might be serving a similar purpose. Her ability to read a patient had been augmented by InhServ training. That radar said Alistair didn’t want to handle Stanley on his own.
“I have no duties other than serving you. My lord. Allow me to help you with your guest.”
The formal words came from the lessons she learned. The dry tone was all her own, one she’d used in the past to goad a doctor into better humor, particularly one with an overblown god-complex who had difficulty accepting not everything revolved around him—or was in his control. It was why other nurses at the Sydney hospital had often maneuvered her into working with the more difficult physicians.
“You have this way about you,” she recalled Misty Brown saying. “You’re so helpful, he can’t get cranky with you. If he does, you turn a mirror on him, so he realizes he’s being a bit of a bastard and steps back. Even feels a bit remorseful, something they school out of most of them.”
She didn’t think Alistair was feeling remorse, but the expression on his face was no longer empty. The corner of his mouth turned up, a dangerously sexy expression that made her heart skip a beat.
He blinked once, slow. “Think you can manage me, Nina? Keep this unruly lad in line?”
Before she could think of a response, he’d closed the distance between them, holding her once more. Not bruising this time, but in a way that made it clear she couldn’t get away. Then he dipped his head, laid his mouth on hers, and she couldn’t even think of escape. She kept her eyes open, looking into his, but they fell shut when he spoke in her mind.
I have an order for you, Nina. You won’t call me Master until I say you can. No matter how much you wish to do so.
She wanted to be outraged, annoyed. She didn’t want to call any man Master. He deepened the kiss and she swayed into his body, her own arching into his grip as it tightened on her upper arms, pulling her onto her toes. It was a physical response. They’d taught her physical response, hammered it into her, so her body could respond, even if her mind wasn’t on board.
She knew that wasn’t entirely true. Yes, InhServ training turned sexual arousal into a muscle memory response, like riding a bike. But it had also tapped into a longing inside her that connected to what she’d imagined wanting from the man with whom she’d share her life. She hadn’t been able to define it. But Alistair seemed to know what it was.
A blatant desire t
o serve… You have it in you, Nina…
God, what she would give to get out of her own fucking head for ten minutes.
He eased her back to her heels, but his face stayed close, his eyes heated. “Wish granted. Would you like a taste of The Mistress’s power?” he asked, low. “I’ll help you.”
“Managing an unruly boy?” She managed it, narrowing her gaze at him. “Turning him over my knee?”
The flash of a smile was devastating, as much because the heat in his eyes was something far from humor.
“Watch yourself, sweet nurse,” he said. “Else you’ll be the one over my knee before this night is over.”
Her traitorous mind could have conjured an immediate and very provocative image to go with that, but she discovered Alistair could inject a detailed and graphic one that made hers pale in comparison.
Him, in his bedroom near dawn. Wearing his slacks, unhooked at the waist, no shoes and no shirt. Sitting propped up on his pillows, with her draped over his lap. He’d ordered her there, after he made her undress, except for black lace knickers. He’d had her come to him on all fours, across the mattress. Once she got there, he stopped her, loosened her hair so it tumbled over her shoulders. He scraped his fingers through it, tugging, bringing her forehead down to his thigh as he ran his other broad palm over the curve of her back.
Put yourself over my lap. Elbows on the mattress. Legs spread and arse lifted.
She raised her head, and didn’t recognize her face, the fire in her eyes, the hunger in the parted, moist lips. Her hair was a sultry curtain around her taut, aroused features.
The image disappeared, and she started. She’d forgotten she was a member of the audience, not on the stage itself. Alistair was still so close, his heat and energy. He was gripping her hand. The saltiness of the night air was on her lips, the sea breeze cooling her heated cheeks but not what was going on inside her body.
“Keep that memory in mind,” he said, low, “because it might be what you’ll be doing right before I go to sleep at dawn. And you should recognize that face in my mind.” He touched her mouth with a light finger of the other hand, and she realized her lips were parted. “It’s the expression you have right now.”
Chapter Eleven
Alistair’s grip on her hand was strong, his fingers insinuating between hers to hold them in a firm lock, as if they were about to leap into something together that might require a tight hold to keep from being separated. He kept them connected that way as they returned to the first floor.
She’d noted a curious lack of servants on their way back to the study, and wondered if he had certain prearranged signals for Nero to keep them out of the way. Maybe they were on a dinner break. She hadn’t really thought about food, and realized she should be hungry. Maybe the second mark had taken her appetite.
It usually increases it, temporarily. But perhaps that’s just with men.
Did that mean his two earlier servants had been men? So why had he wanted her, then? Uneasily, she remembered Stanley’s implication. Obviously, he could enjoy women when the moment required it, but if in his relationships, Alistair preferred men…
Why should that give her a sinking feeling? It could provide her more freedom if he did.
He could be listening to all this. He didn’t seem as if he were, though. Or if he was, he was choosing not to comment. Maybe that was what he’d meant about a made vampire learning how to filter over the decades. It would give a servant a semblance of privacy in her own thoughts. Until he spoke and reminded her it was only a semblance, not the actual thing.
They’d reached the study door. She suffered a moment of uncertainty, realizing she might have volunteered herself for something she knew nothing about. He had an answer for that, though.
Follow my lead. Until you find your own path with it. I want you to do that.
He put a finger to his lips, telling her to stay silent, and opened the door, drawing her into the room with him.
She’d seen a lot of shocking things at InhServ school, so what was before her wasn’t unfamiliar. But she’d viewed the training center like a carnival, where outlandish things were expected. Seeing Stanley presented as he was now took some mental adjustment.
The younger vampire was standing in the center of the room. What looked like a metal wagon wheel, turned on its side, had been lowered from the ceiling. Chains dropped down from that wheel were attached to manacles, and Stanley had put them on his wrists, the chains slack enough to allow him to do both arms. His head was dropped into a resting state, because lifting it to look around the room would have been a useless occupation. He wore a laced eye mask, bound tight to ensure he couldn’t see anything.
He was also gagged. Beneath the eye mask, a thick piece of leather was strapped over his mouth, fully concealing it. From the set of his jaw, the working of his throat, she knew there was something attached to that piece that was filling his mouth, holding down his tongue. They’d had gags like that at the training center. She’d had one put in her mouth when she couldn’t hold her tongue. The depression piece had been like a man’s shaft, only much thicker, stretching her lips and working her jaw muscles.
Stanley had removed all his clothes, and now she could see the manly bits she’d tartly teased Alistair about. That insidiously meandering scar had come perilously close to taking off his male organ, and she wondered that the brutal sadists who’d attacked him had left it.
Maybe they had preferred to taunt him with the possibility of it being removed. Or maybe his vampire sire had interrupted them before they could do it.
Stanley was erect and, despite Alistair’s prolonged absence, she understood that. Alistair’s last words to him had been, “Prepare yourself for me.” The Mistress and all the InhServs had showed Nina the mind could become the most potent of erotic weapons, keeping arousal endlessly on high alert. Especially when it had nothing to do but occupy itself with thoughts of what was to come.
Nina saw no resistance in Stanley’s posture. He needed, wanted, what was happening in this room.
Alistair shrugged out of his coat, draped it on a rack. The casual movement only emphasized his command of the situation. Before he went to Stanley, he moved to switches on the wall. An electronic hum, and the chains retracted up toward the wagon wheel with a clink, clink, clink of noise, a slight rocking of the wheel. As Stanley’s arms were lifted, his body was stretched. Alistair kept the chains going until Stanley’s heels left the floor. He stopped him when he was balanced on his toes. It defined all the fine, lean muscle, from Stanley’s working jaw and throat, to his quivering abdomen and thighs.
As Stanley tipped back his head, even with so much of his face covered, she could see what Alistair meant. The jaunty hat had shadowed his face, downplaying what she could see now, an androgynous loveliness to his jaw and sharp line of cheekbone, full lips. His body, so lean and angular, was nevertheless an artistic play of muscle and sinew that moved with a dancer’s grace against his bonds, the muscles of his taut arse and thighs tempting a person to stroke. Touch.
She glanced at Alistair and saw he was admiring the same terrain that she was examining. Beautiful, isn’t he? He’s all ours, Nina. Think of that. What it means. What it feels like.
Leaving her with that remarkable thought, he moved across the room to Stanley. Standing close, Alistair touched his captive, gliding his knuckles down Stanley’s side, to his hip.
Stanley’s body swayed, and his body strained for that touch. Alistair took it away, circling him. He pulled the area rug out from beneath Stanley, folded and shoved it to the wall with one foot.
“Won’t have you making a mess on my carpet.”
The removal served another purpose. Now as Alistair circled him, his hard-soled shoes made precise, crisp noises against the wood, telegraphing to Stanley what he was doing. Studying. Evaluating. Enjoying what was his to enjoy, however and at the pace he liked.
Women enjoyed flesh, too, but there were other things equally engaging to them. As pro
vocative as it was to see a finely made naked male on display, Nina watched Alistair. How he walked. The turn of his head, the sharp focus as he studied something he wanted. The firm set of his lips. How his clothes molded to his strong body. The flex of his fingers as they stroked Stanley’s side in a deceptively casual way.
Then casual disappeared as Alistair shifted so he was pressed against Stanley’s back. His hand curved over his hip, fingers curling around Stanley’s cock. When he squeezed, hard, the bound vampire made a noise against the gag and dropped his head back to Alistair’s shoulder. Alistair was having none of it. He seized Stanley’s thick, unruly hair and wrenched his head to the side.
His fangs shot forth, fully visible to Nina’s gaze for a blink before he sank them into Stanley’s shoulder. The view through the peephole hadn’t done them justice. Those monstrous things had been in her neck. The pain had been followed by that rush of sensual pleasure, which had eased the discomfort.
Alistair wasn’t using the stimulant on Stanley. She was sure of it. Yet he rocked against Alistair’s hold, a moan escaping around the gag. It made her wonder what it would have felt like when Alistair had fed from her, if he hadn’t used that aphrodisiac in his fangs.
Alistair made a quelling, fierce noise at his captive. “You want to be fucked, but you’ll get what I give you and thank me. Come into my house and act like a little shit. Say you’re sorry.”
Stanley said something against the gag. There was contrition in it, but also a challenge. He tilted his head away, toward Nina, showing he was aware of her presence.
“Yes, she’s here. When we’re done with you, when she’s done with you, that apology will be sincere. She has no training with my toys, so she can practice on you until she sorts out how to use them. It doesn’t take too long to learn a stockman’s whip, does it? Only a few months, maybe a year of practice, before she won’t cut flesh when she wields it.”
Nina blanched. She’d been intrigued by Alistair’s offer to help with Stanley, but she hadn’t imagined he would pull her into the sadistic side of things. She didn’t want to cause true harm to someone. Not like that.