by I. T. Lucas
“We need my mother.”
Anandur crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t know about that. You are her daughter, so naturally, she was inclined to assist you. But Brundar is just one more clan member, no more special than the next. She will not go against Kian for him.”
Amanda smirked. “Men think so linearly. I will not ask her to come here for Brundar. I’ll ask her to come to help Kian. He needs a vacation, and she is the only one who can force him to take one.”
Anandur looked doubtful. “And who is going to run things when he is vacationing?”
“I can take time off from the university and run things for him while he is gone.”
Anandur tried to stifle his snort but failed. “With all due respect, Amanda, you’re a smart and capable woman, but you can’t fill Kian’s shoes. He’s been running this conglomerate since its creation. You wouldn’t know where to start.”
“True. But contrary to what Kian believes, the world will not come to an end if he is not holding it up on his shoulders twenty-four-seven. Our business empire will not crumble during the two weeks he is gone, and World War III will not start because he abandoned his watch.”
“Dream on, princess. You’ll be lucky if he takes the weekend off. Don’t even mention two weeks if you want your head to stay attached your shoulders.”
She shrugged. “I’m not afraid of him.”
“Yeah, that’s why you’re thinking of pulling out the big guns, meaning your mother.”
“It’s not because I’m afraid, but because I know she is the only one he is going to listen to. He has no choice.”
Anandur sighed. “I have a feeling we are getting carried away. Conspiring against Kian, asking Annani to come, it’s like we are preparing for war. I don’t want that.”
Amanda put a hand on his bicep. “I was meaning to ask my mother to come and stay with us for a while even before you told me about Brundar. Andrew and Nathalie are dragging their feet about taking little Phoenix up to Annani’s sanctuary. They are leaving that child vulnerable for no good reason. So instead of harping on at them to take their daughter up there already, so the goddess can induce her transition, I figured Annani can come for a visit and spend time with the baby, which she loves doing. Phoenix can transition right here without leaving the keep.”
“I like it. It will look less like a conspiracy if Annani comes for the baby, but then notices that Kian is at the end of his rope and needs a vacation.”
“Exactly.”
“You are a deviously brilliant woman, Amanda.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “And that’s news to you?”
He chuckled. “No, not really. But I keep forgetting that you are so much more than your gorgeous face.”
“A mistake a lot of people live to regret.”
“So let me get this straight. The goddess comes and forces Kian to take a vacation. How is it going to help Brundar’s cause?”
Amanda rolled her eyes. “Darling, did you forget already that Kian needing a vacation is only the excuse I’m going to use to lure her in?”
He frowned. “I thought it was the baby.”
“Both. She will ask what’s going on with Kian, and I’ll give Brundar’s situation as an example of Kian being unreasonable. Annani is a sucker for romance. She will intervene on your brother’s behalf.”
Anandur crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not sure you’re right. She might be a sucker for romance, but she is the one who made the rules about staying away from humans. Not that she wasn’t absolutely right to do so. I happen to believe that an exception needs to be made in Brundar’s case because it is crucial for his mental health, but I’m not sure Annani will share my opinion.”
“That might be. But do you have a better idea?”
“Can’t say that I do.”
“That’s what I thought. We will do the best we can, while praying to the Fates to smile upon us. It is better than doing nothing and hoping everything will turn out fine on its own.”
“True.”
Chapter 18: Callie
Callie applied another coat of makeup and took a step back to examine her face. The bruising was still visible. But maybe in the club’s dim light no one would notice.
As much as she enjoyed spending all day with Brundar, she needed to get back to work. The thing was, customers didn’t want their waitress to look as if someone had used her face as a punching bag. Franco would take one look at her and send her home.
“No one expects you to go back to work yet,” Brundar said from behind her.
She turned and smiled at him. “Maybe so, but I need to go grocery shopping. I have nothing to make dinner from.”
“We can order takeout.”
Callie put a hand on her chest. “Blasphemy. Do not utter the word takeout in this house.” She tried to sound stern.
“Takeout,” he deadpanned.
Frowning, she waved a finger at him. “You’re not a God-fearing man.”
“I’m not. I worship a different deity, and its temple is the Golden Palace.”
“Chinese food?”
He nodded.
“Does your brother know that you actually have a sense of humor?”
Brundar’s lips lifted in a crooked smile. “I’m experimenting with it. Am I doing it right?”
Callie giggled. He reminded her of a cyborg in one of her sci-fi romance novels. Part machine part man, the guy was trying to assimilate into human society by attempting humor and slang.
Was that what Brundar was trying to do? Assimilate?
“You’re doing it perfectly. I like dry humor. I think jokes that are told with a straight face are the funniest.”
“Then you must find me very funny.”
“Not yet. But you’re getting there.” She leaned to kiss his cheek.
Ever since Brundar’s injury, Callie had been sneaking a little touch here, a kiss there, and gauging his responses. He was either not noticing them, or humoring her. In either case, it was progress she was very pleased about.
“Are we ordering Chinese?” he asked.
“Fine. But don’t get used to that. Tomorrow morning I’m going grocery shopping, and you’re going to eat what I make for you—healthy food your body needs in order to heal. Not crap that is loaded with MSG and oil.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She liked it when he obeyed so nicely. In some small way, it evened the score between them a little.
Callie loved submitting to Brundar sexually, but despite all her self-talk and the famous love as thy wilt that she’d adopted as her mantra, it still bothered her on some level that she did.
That was why hearing him saying ‘yes, ma’am’ felt so good. It made her feel better about saying ‘yes, sir’ during their play time.
“Do you have their number?”
“On speed dial.”
She waved a hand. “Then dial away.”
“What would you like?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know what’s on their menu, and I’m not a big fan of Chinese food. Order what you like, and I’ll nibble.”
“I can order from somewhere else.”
“No. If you find their food worth worship, I have to check it out. Just make sure there are some veggies in there, not only meat.”
Brundar cast her an amused glance. “Why don’t you go online and check out their menu and decide what you want?”
She sauntered toward him, braced her hands on his wheelchair’s armrests and leaned forward, giving him a good glimpse of her cleavage. “I want you to order for me, and later order me.”
“Order you what?” His tone got deeper.
“Order me to strip, order me to pleasure you with my mouth or my hands, or both. You decide.”
His hands closed on her ass and squeezed. “I would like to reverse the order.”
“You would?”
“You first, Chinese later.”
“Hmm, that’s not a bad idea. We can work up an appetite.”
“Are you re
ady for your first order?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get the blindfold and bring it to me.”
Crap. She’d been hoping he would forget about the damn blindfold for once. Not that it wasn’t a turn-on for her, it was, but she wanted to see Brundar’s face while he climaxed, at least once. After that, he wouldn’t even have to remind her to put on the blindfold.
He followed her to the bedroom, watching as she pulled out the scarf from the nightstand’s drawer. The condom packets peeked at her from under the other scarfs. Callie reached for one then paused.
It hadn’t been a week yet, and Brundar hadn’t provided her with a clean bill of health like he’d promised, but she’d seen the doctor treat him without gloves. If Bridget deemed his blood safe to handle with her bare hands, then she must’ve known he was clean.
She could still get pregnant, though, and as someone who’d experienced an unwanted pregnancy and its consequences, Callie knew better.
With a sigh, she closed her hand around the packet.
“What’s the matter, sweetling?”
“Nothing.” She turned around with a smile and handed him the scarf, then dropped the packet on the bed where he could see it and remember to use it.
Brundar’s eyes followed the plastic square. “Right. I don’t know why I keep forgetting to ask Bridget for that letter.”
“I’m not worried about that. It hasn’t been seven days yet. I can still get pregnant.”
He looked like he was about to say something but then changed his mind. Brundar did that a lot, and she always wondered what he was about to say and why he decided not to.
If only she could read minds.
Yeah. Life would’ve been so much easier.
She would’ve known not to marry Shawn despite the pregnancy. It would’ve been infinitely better to be a single parent than to tie herself to a monster.
If she were a mind reader, she would know what Brundar was hiding from her and maybe avoid making another catastrophic mistake. In her gut and in her heart she knew Brundar was a good man, but Callie didn’t trust her instincts. Not fully. Not after they had led her astray before.
Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Her instincts had screamed at her not to marry Shawn, but she’d chosen to ignore them and do what everyone had expected her to.
It seemed her heart and her gut were better judges of character than her mind because they didn’t have the capacity to come up with excuses and lies.
“Bed or couch?” Brundar asked.
“Bed.”
Chapter 19: Brundar
After three days in the damned wheelchair, Brundar was a pro at getting himself out of the thing and onto the bed.
That didn’t make it any less of a turn-off, though, for him as well as for Calypso. His usually graceful movements were clumsy and laborious.
Regrettably, he couldn’t blindfold her yet to keep her from watching him perform those maneuvers. It would’ve been counterproductive to do so while he still needed her help to pull off his pants.
Everything had to be done with utmost care not to disturb his knees—a task impossible to do blindfold. Hopefully, when Bridget got there later, she would approve more freedom of movement for him and replace his knee braces with ones that were more flexible.
Sensing his discomfort, Calypso got busy taking off her clothes, letting him watch her instead of her watching him.
And what a sight she was. Even battered and bruised, she was perfection.
Thankfully, the pain was keeping his arousal at bay. Without her blindfold on, he had to be mindful of his eyes starting to glow and his fangs starting to grow, which was difficult while watching Calypso’s beautiful, nude body.
He removed his shirt and folded it on the nightstand beside him, then popped the button on the wide, carpenter-style jeans Anandur had gotten for him from Walmart, of course, and lowered the zipper. When Calypso got in position, he braced on his arms and lifted himself off the bed a couple of inches, while she carefully pulled his pants and boxers down to his thighs.
Her eyes lingering on his shaft, she paused. It twitched in greeting, lifting away from his belly.
“I love this sight,” she said. “Do you realize that this is the first time you let me see it? I always had a blindfold on before.” She smoothed a finger from the tip down to the base. “Perfect, like the rest of you.”
Damnation. Having her look at his shaft with such admiration in her eyes was hotter than hell, but if he didn’t blindfold her in the next second, she would get an eyeful of much more than his dick.
He could just imagine the horror replacing that reverent expression.
“Come closer,” he commanded, lifting the scarf.
Calypso wasn’t happy about that, her beautiful, expressive face showing her disappointment, but she obeyed.
“Can I at least touch you?” she asked when he finished tying the scarf around her eyes.
“You may.” It would be a first for him. No woman had ever touched his manhood with her hands or her tongue. To allow it required trust he hadn’t felt toward anyone.
But he trusted Calypso, deeply, implicitly. In fact, he couldn’t wait to feel her hands and her mouth on him. Should he tell her that she was going to be the first?
He fisted his cock. “No one but me has ever held it. No one has tongued it either. You’re the first.” He wanted to add that she would also be the last, but she wouldn’t believe him.
For a moment, Calypso remained speechless, but then she smiled. “Good, because with no one to compare me to you’ll think I’m amazing.”
“You are incomparable.”
“I hope so.” Starting from his thigh, she smoothed her palm up to his groin.
He let go of his erection, relinquishing control.
She cupped it gently. Her palm soft and warm on his skin, she leaned down from her kneeling position at his side and gave him a tentative lick, then another, and another. Emboldened, she swirled her tongue around the bulbous head, pulling a ragged groan from his throat.
It felt good. Better than good, but the taste she’d given him only whetted his appetite for more. Cupping the back of her head, he pulled her a little lower.
Calypso didn’t need any further encouragement. Taking him into her mouth, she sunk lower to envelop as much of his length as she could before retreating back up and swirling her tongue around the tip.
His eyes rolled back in their sockets. He threaded his fingers in her hair, fanning it out so he could watch his cock going in and out of her hot, wet mouth. The sight was so erotic he could’ve climaxed just from that. But he didn’t want it to end, not yet.
Unhurried, Calypso bobbed her head in a steady rhythm, prolonging his pleasure and not pushing for his release. Did she love pleasuring him with her mouth as much as he loved eating her up?
Given the intensifying scent of her arousal, she did.
Which was good, because he never wanted her to do anything just to please him. If she didn’t find pleasure in whatever he wanted to do to her, or her to do to him, then he couldn’t find pleasure in it either.
“This is so good, sweetling.”
She moaned around him, sending another electrical pulse through his nervous system, priming his balls and his venom glands for action.
Brundar didn’t want to come in her mouth, and he definitely didn’t want to come before she did.
He cupped her cheek. “That’s enough, love.”
She let his cock slip out of her mouth. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No, you were perfect. But I can’t wait any longer to have my mouth on you. Turn around and straddle me, then bend down and lift your sweet ass up so I can eat you up.”
She smiled. “I like the way you think.”
Careful around his knees, she did exactly as he’d asked, but the moment her ass was in the right position, she leaned down and took him back in her mouth.
He chuckled as he clamped his hands on her butt cheeks, his thumbs see
king her entrance. “I like the way you think even better.”
She was drenched as if he’d been the one pleasuring her and not the other way around. He was one lucky bastard to have a woman who enjoyed giving as much as she enjoyed receiving. In that, they were perfectly matched.
He squeezed her buttocks and pulled her closer to him, so he could lap all that nectar up.
She moaned against his shaft again.
If he didn’t hurry, Calypso would have him climax before she did, and that was unacceptable.
It was a catch-22. The more excited Calypso became, the more she moaned, and the more she moaned, the more excited he became. If he weren’t injured, he would’ve flipped her around and fucked her, but that was not on the cards.
Shite. He couldn’t pull on her hair to let go of him either because her scalp was still very sensitive. The only option was to grit his teeth and hold back while giving it all he had so she could reach the finish line first.
Chapter 20: Losham
Losham paced the spacious living room of his hotel suite, listening to his assistant’s report while his mind was racing ahead.
“Any news from Grud?” he interrupted Rami.
“No, sir. He is still MIA.”
That wasn’t good. First, the human they had chosen to lead their so-called cult hadn’t shown up to a meeting, and then the next one, and he wasn’t responding to phone calls either.
Now one of his men had gone missing too.
No one had heard from Grud since he’d gone out last night to search for a suitable victim.
Grud was a good man, not the type Losham would have suspected of desertion. Not that any Doomer was stupid enough to attempt it. The warriors’ lives might not have been perfect, but they were much better than what they could’ve hoped for on the outside.
Besides, the men knew they would be hunted until found and then tortured horrifically and publicly as a deterrent to others.
No. Doomers didn’t desert. Something must have happened to Grud. Somehow he had met with misfortune.
Since fangs were all that was needed for the nightly missions, the men didn’t carry firearms with them. Grud could have succumbed to a group of humans. But unless they had shot him execution style, emptying a chamber straight into his head or his heart, he wouldn’t have died.