by Joey W. Hill
She’d become so used to women bringing her to climax, the relentless force of a male energy was like plunging into a whole new world, one full of power and heat and demands that couldn’t be denied.
Or maybe that was simply the effect Alistair had upon her.
By the time the climax started to ebb, it seemed the universe had been through a few rotations. She released the cushion, her restrained hands dropping to his shoulder. She dug in, pushed, everything so sensitive, too sensitive.
He reached up, gripped the belt, wrapping the strap around his hand, his fingers tightening over hers and holding her there. But he didn’t stop.
I will taste my fill until I wish to stop, sweet nurse.
The right of a Master.
She continued to dig into his shoulder, but now it was to help her bear it, ride those crazy sensations. He’d used the strength of his hands to hold her open when she resisted him, but in time he let them slide to her hips, her waist, and she kept her legs open wide, the rest of her still and shuddering until he finished. Lesson learned. And there was an additional reward for learning it.
He pushed up, bringing his mouth to hers. Oh God. For all the things he could do to her body, this intimacy drove away so much, let in other things she needed. She tasted herself on his mouth, which roused the same primal satisfaction she’d felt when he’d overpowered Stanley.
He sucked on her lips, nipped, and at last drew back to stare into her eyes. Then he sat on his heels, putting distance between them.
He’d allowed her to access a carousel of emotions from him in the bare few hours she’d been here, but now there was a mix she couldn’t decipher. It held her still, her heart thudding in her throat, as he kept looking at her. Until he spoke, his voice a rasp yet oddly formal. Responding at last to her formal greeting.
“That’s all I require from you now, Nina. You’ll sleep upstairs tonight. I’ll seek you out when I need you. Until then, you can devote your time to figuring out how you fit into the household.”
Chapter Twelve
He’d confused her. Maybe hurt her. Alistair wanted to feel something about that. How fucked was wanting to feel something? Seemed contradictory, since wanting was a feeling, wasn’t it?
He should have scooped her up, taken her to his bedroom and enjoyed giving her the third and final mark, taking her virginity. His cock became rigid as a hammer at the mere thought of being the first to break through the barrier, bury himself to the hilt in her wet heat. He’d go easy, arouse her until she was pleading for release in her throaty voice, so the pain would be fleeting. Like sinking his fangs into her neck, another penetration.
But after spending himself in Stanley’s arse, his mood had changed. She’d seen what he hadn’t wanted anyone to see. And she thought he was beautiful. It had unlocked that door in him that closed others off.
He wasn’t going to leave her hurting for it, though, so he’d taken care of that. Lost himself for a few blissful moments in the wet heat of her pussy, steeping himself in her scent, her cries. The bite of her nails into his shoulder was a savage pleasure. He’d regretted the healing power of vampires that made the little crescent marks disappear too soon. She’d drawn blood, a little tiger, and he’d rubbed his fingers over it, tasted himself.
When she’d lost herself to him, he’d felt the fierce drug of having that impact on someone, on getting them to let go of control and feel something real. Something not fleeting, something that didn’t disappear only moments after it happened, as if it was illusion. A mind trick on oneself. Living on pretense.
His cock wasn’t happy with him in the slightest. Vampires were like cats, in that ninety percent of their day could easily be spent doing one thing. But it sure as hell wasn’t napping.
Christ. Why had he insisted on her? He needed a fully trained InhServ, one who would perform as expected, be a credit to his household. He’d made a mistake. He’d made enough of them in his life, he knew what one felt like. He never should have done this, to either one of them.
During the months following Singapore, Alistair had reached a couple epiphanies. He was no longer human. Hadn’t been, for nearly three centuries, but apparently he was one of those blokes who took a lot longer than others to get the hint. His place was no longer elbow-to-elbow with humans. On the battle field, or the footy field. He’d turned his attention to being a vampire. With a single-minded ferocity that he knew was an escape from other things, but bugger it. Self-reflection wasn’t his thing.
His sire, Lady Lyssa, hadn’t bothered to conceal her relief with his change of course. He imagined she’d done a whole series of cartwheels, at least in her head. He couldn’t see the formidable female doing them in real life, but if she ever did, the shock would probably shatter the rigid foundation of the vampire world.
He’d been an overlord for some time. Years ago, she’d prodded him into it, telling him he had a penchant for leadership, and the vampire world needed that, particularly from its made vampires. He’d have sworn she was blowing smoke up his arse, except she was less likely to do that than she was to do cartwheels. He suspected the real reason she’d pushed him to do it was to try and break some of those human ties that concerned her so much.
Initially that plan hadn’t worked out too well. Being an overlord in Queensland hadn’t required too much of him. Australia didn’t have a lot of vampires, but he watched over the few in his territory, did what needed to be done, and divided his time between those responsibilities and what he considered far more interesting things in the human world.
The Region Master over him, Luigi, wasn’t a bad sort, but he was a lazy Italian pretty boy. The Council had thought sending the born vampire to rule a strategically unimportant Region in Australia was the best way to placate his Italian Region Master mother, who probably knew he was worthless and didn’t disagree overly much with the choice.
That had suited Alistair fine for a good long time. He preferred a place where no one was telling him what to do. However, the problem was the overlords in Queensland had no competent oversight. Problems with that started to mount, particularly because of one megalomaniac, consummate prick, Queensland overlord.
Donovan.
That change came along with more aggressive moves outside their Region. Ruskin, the Region Master of the Northwest Territory, covered Northern and Western Australia, a geographically larger area, but less vampire-populated. The ruthless bastard felt Australia should be run by one Region Master. By astonishing coincidence, he considered himself the man for the job.
Then there was the South Australia Region Master, who kept suggesting to anyone on the Council who would listen that Queensland would make more sense as an overlordship under her auspices. Which would be fine if Catalina was interested in truly managing Queensland. Her main interest was having Alistair—and his considerable amassed wealth—under her thumb.
His fortune wasn’t Alistair’s main concern about those strategic movements, however. Over the decades, Queensland had become the dumping ground for vampires like Stanley, misfits who could cause enough problems to get themselves executed by Council decree, or just as bad, easily become the prey of stronger vampires.
Born vampires didn’t seem to care much about that. Survival of the fittest was their guiding philosophy. But Alistair had discovered he was still human enough for it to matter. His response to bullies hadn’t changed in three hundred years. Not from the first time he’d taken up a weapon to defend a village from a half dozen raiders. He’d been thirteen years old, out riding his parents’ lands. He’d shamed the men of the small hamlet into halting their headlong fleeing into the woods and joining him in repelling the attack.
He’d never forgotten the way that felt, protecting their homes, sending bad men to hell, or running away with such fear in their hearts they’d never think to come back. But war was a lot more complicated than that. Just like its despicable bedfellow, politics.
When the problems started to develop with Donovan, and the other
Region Masters, Alistair had found himself putting in his two cents on the situations. Once. Twice. He got more embedded with Luigi, helping the bloke keep Ruskin and Catalina at bay. Somewhere along the way, he realized Luigi wouldn’t be up for the increased responsibilities that were coming with those threats from North and Southwest.
He wasn’t a bad bloke; Alistair and he became mates of a sort. Luigi just didn’t really want to do anything but drink and play and be the center of some doting female’s world. A momma’s boy to the end.
The overlord in Mackay, Lady Bertrice, liked pretty boys. Being Italian, Luigi fit the bill. Alistair engineered a few key meets between them. Before long, Luigi was spending far more time in her territory, at her side. He also liked the milder temperatures north of Brisbane. With Luigi’s blessing, Alistair became the acting Region Master during his increasingly prolonged absences.
Lady Lyssa had suggested to the Council that, once some of the European unrest was over, a propitious time for transition, Alistair should take over the Region Master role. Luigi had formally endorsed Alistair as his successor and was willing to abdicate the role. He’d share overlordship with Lady Bertrice as long as she wanted his “assistance.”
The Council’s lack of attention to Australia could be as helpful as it was sometimes not. No one objected. Except maybe Alistair, but even he realized it was time to shit or get off the pot. If he didn’t like the way things were going, he needed to step up.
It was probably the least volatile change of leadership a Region had ever experienced. Which could be considered good, except it likely confirmed to Council that Australia and its vampire population had the political importance of a flock of ducks.
He himself had honestly never thought it would happen. Made vampires didn’t ascend to Region Master. But then he had his epiphanies. Three years ago, overcome with the need to escape things he didn’t want to remember, he’d suddenly turned himself into the most ambitious vampire in all of Australia. As he saw signs of the war’s conclusion, he worked even closer with Luigi, sorted the things he was supposed to be doing, was actually doing, and what needed to be changed.
In hindsight, Lyssa’s patience with him had been remarkable, since she’d been pushing him in this direction for years. But to a woman over a thousand years old, a few decades wasn’t more than a few months to the rest of them.
Then the war ended, and he received the official notice. He was Region Master. It was done.
Luigi had broken open a bottle of his finest champagne and he and Lady Bertrice toasted his success. Afterwards, they left him nursing his drink by their opulent fireplace while they went to enjoy one another and their servants. Alistair was warmly invited to be part of the dogpile, but he abstained.
As he stared into the fire, he kept his mind on the things he needed to do, to handle. His might not be an important Region politically, but it would be the best run of any Region there was. No vampire in it would worry that they’d be treated unfairly. He would start by visiting every one of the hundred and two vampires in the Region, he decided. He’d sit down with them, go over any concerns with his overlords. He’d already submitted and had approved the vampire he’d recommended to take his overlordship, so that one’s loyalty was assured. Truth, he wasn’t really concerned about the others, with the exception of Donovan. He’d have to stay on his toes with him.
It might be easier to go ahead and kill the bastard.
He took a swallow of his drink. At his elbow was a satchel of files he’d made. His gaze fell on the folder in the middle, the bold dark ink highlighted by a strategic fall of the flickering firelight. InhServ Reports.
He pulled it out, balanced it on his knee as he opened it, flipped through the pages of the official reports. Lyssa had earmarked an InhServ for him long before even he’d decided on this path. The female was uncanny. And had the influence of the Devil, since he had no idea how she’d managed to get an InhServ committed to him long before the Council had grudgingly acknowledged they would back him in the Region Master position.
What’s more, she’d made sure it was a woman. He’d questioned that, saying if he was going to have an InhServ, a male would make more sense.
“No,” she’d said. “Men are too easy for you, Alistair. A woman is better for your temperament.”
God help the man who thought he could argue with the damn female. Lyssa had known he didn’t want another servant. Not for another century or more, if ever again. He’d had two, and he routinely pushed their faces out of his mind because they were lumped in with the other faces he didn’t want to think about, see in his head.
He’d dealt with it by not dealing with it. Over the years, when he received periodic communications about “his” InhServ, he mostly ignored the communications or passed them off to Nero to handle responses. A few years back, he’d even told Nero to request the extended training, to give the InhServ a double helping of her supposedly awesome skillset. Lyssa had called him an idiot at the time, since she was sure the InhServ would get him to a Region Master title sooner, but he’d stubbornly held out.
He’d thought a lot more about having a fully marked servant again since meeting Nina, though. If her sister was his InhServ, he could be magnanimous, let her invite Nina for visits. Yeah, that had had some interesting and provocative possibilities.
Except Nina wasn’t an InhServ. Despite her practical nature and amazing generosity, her submissive nature, which was as obvious as her soft breast nestled in his palm, so too was her innocence, her traditional view of the world. His sweet nurse was destined for a husband and children, a mortal life.
She wasn’t for him.
He would be getting someone who had some of her qualities, he reminded himself. He’d focus on that, no matter that something felt strained about it. He was still resisting having a full servant. That was all.
Lyssa was right. He was being an idiot. As he flipped through the latest report on the woman assigned to him, he made the effort to read the details. Of course her skills and marks were top notch.
Then he lifted her picture from the file, studying it. Nina was right, in a sense. Her twin was the more physically stunning sister.
But she’d been groomed for it, the preparation of skin, hair and body all part of the same program. She hadn’t trained to be a nurse since she was sixteen years old, done her three years of required hands-on learning in the hospital before she was twenty. Yeah, he’d looked into Nina’s history after he returned to Brisbane, then shut the information in a drawer. A temptation he couldn’t afford, but something he could draw out now and again, to remember. Like he needed the help.
Nina’s face had possessed a compelling mix of exhaustion and resilience. What was in her eyes had reflected the steady calm and broken heart of a woman working in a war zone. Her hair had been scraped up and held by pins. She’d had a scratch on her arm, her nails broken and a few smears of blood and other more unappealing things on her apron.
Yet when she’d knelt between his legs and brought her wrist to his mouth, her gaze sliding up to touch his briefly, his reaction to her was the same as if she’d knelt before him in transparent lace, surrounded by a haunting, feminine bedroom fragrance of perfume and arousal.
Oddly, though, he found the memory of her in blood and darkness more real, more appealing, than the fantasy of her in lace and flowers.
Her sister was exceptional, and she was Nina’s twin. He was on the rise in the vampire world. He needed someone who understood how important that achievement was.
No matter that another part of him hungered for at least one person in his life who knew how really unimportant it was. Before he forgot it himself. Before he forgot himself entirely.
Returning to the present, he remembered when he’d been notified of his assigned InhServ’s death. He’d been given the choice of a new, fully trained InhServ.
He was aware enough of how the InhServ program worked to ask how the death would impact the girl’s family. The Mistress had confi
rmed they would be required to present the next oldest child for the training program. She would be given a few years of accelerated training, followed by another vampire assignment.
“She will not be as polished as some InhServs, but with several years, we can do much, as long as her age doesn’t make her too unmalleable.”
“Do I have the option of choosing her?”
She paused. “Your butler informed me you had an interest in this. Which is why I called to discuss this directly, to ensure you understand the situation. You already extended the training on your assigned InhServ. You are at the maximum allowed time you can delay before accepting the InhServ honor. If you wish to wait upon her training, it would have to be put to a Council vote for reconfirmation in three years.”
Which meant he’d be trusting her fate to what mood the Council was in that day. “Can I have her now?”
The Mistress’s silent shock was practically palpable through the phone connection. “My lord,” she said carefully. “She would be coming to you with little more preparation than a Random, a servant a vampire chooses for him or herself from the general human population.”
“I’m aware of what a Random is. I’ve had two of them. I asked if it was allowed.”
“It is allowed,” The Mistress said coolly. “But if you hope for your InhServ to be a credit to you politically, that outcome will not be assured. Allow me to send you information on the other options we have available. You have several days to consider. You can choose.”
The idea of the spirited nurse, who’d been through so much, in the hands of a born vampire like Donovan? Just no.
“I want her. I want the second oldest daughter.”
There was no reason to pretend, at least to himself, that his motives had been so selfless. He’d hungered for a connection, to feel, hadn’t he? The last time he’d really felt something, it had been with her. Pathetic, how his memory had latched onto that and wouldn’t let it go.