As two of the humans were ordered to move and claim the baggage of another vampire who had just arrived, he noticed something else. The men’s cocks were hard and erect in the caged wires that pressed the engorged shafts against their bellies. The women’s eyes were wide and flared, their bodies obviously being kept in a stimulated state, the wires over their pussies wet with their arousal. As they turned, bent, he saw the chastity belts were fitted with dildos inserted into all available openings, depending on gender. It was the type of discomfort that vampires enjoyed inflicting, allowing them to inhale the scent of human arousal to stoke their own desires.
He pulled his attention away from that back to his lady. Accustomed enough to the internal stratus of vampire society not to expect an introduction, he nevertheless was conscious of a penetrating assessment by each vampire who stepped forward and greeted his lady. They’d gone over each member of the Council thoroughly, so he had no problem recognizing each one. He’d also gotten impressions of them through his many communications with their servants over the past month on his lady’s behalf. He noted names, body language, the shift of eyes, the level of deference exhibited and his lady’s reaction to each.
The last one who stepped forward was Belizar, the head of the Council and obviously of Russian Cossack stock. With steel gray eyes and swept-back hair streaked with silver, he had an aura that said he had no problem removing the body parts of anyone who crossed him. He had a throbbing power hard to ignore. His gaze swept over Jacob, then again to Lyssa as he stepped back but retained her hand.
“Lady Lyssa, you do us great honor by being here. I’m pleased to see you’ve at last overcome your grief to take another servant. May it please you one day to feel the same about another mate.”
From the grip he had on her hand, there was no doubt who Belizar felt that should be. And of course an allegiance between the head of the Vampire Council and the last Far Eastern vampire of royal blood would make logical sense to everyone present. No one would think it an inappropriate implication.
No one except Jacob, who knew the wound in her heart from Thomas’s loss and Rex’s betrayal was still deep. Not to mention the fact it had resulted in a death sentence hanging over her. From the ripple of feeling he picked up from her, he wondered if this was what she’d dreaded the most. Not the life- and-death politics and the worry that the disease would make itself known here, but the reminder of what she’d lost to reach this point. She’d had a lot to deal with since it had all happened, but when all was said and done, she was still a grieving widow, on several levels. He had to quell the urge to take a step closer behind her, to let her feel the reassurance of him at her back.
Lyssa drew her hand away with an easy, light smile that betrayed none of that ripple of reaction. “I’ve no plans in that direction right now, Belizar, but your kind wishes are much appreciated. It’s lovely to be back at Mason’s home again. Will we be honored by his presence?”
“With Mason, nothing is ever certain.” This dry comment from one of the female Council members. Lady Carola from Germany. “Often we don’t know if he’s alive or dead.”
“Break into his private wine stock and we’ll know. I think he’s injected a drop of his blood into each bottle so he’ll know if it’s disturbed.” This from Lord Uthe, a tall, ascetic-looking denizen of the night with dark eyes that looked toward Lyssa with a friendly, reserved affection that did not raise Jacob’s hackles the way that Belizar had. Uthe was the unofficial second in command of the Council, bringing a razor-sharp shrewdness to augment Belizar’s charismatic, volatile style.
Belizar glanced toward Jacob. “Take your lady’s things to her room. These servants will take you there.”
Jacob executed a slight bow. “The offer of assistance is appreciated, but I take orders only from my Mistress, my lord.”
Based on his experience with Carnal, he supposed he could have been more diplomatic about it, using his mind link with Lyssa to verify this was what she wanted him to do, but Jacob wanted no misunderstandings about whom he served.
Belizar’s eyes flashed. In them Jacob saw he had the arrogance and sense of superiority possessed by vampires Jacob and Gideon had fought in the past. Only in his case, his superiority was likely justified, bolstered by experience. The experience of ripping off the arms of humans who’d annoyed him.
But Jacob had been sure to have nothing in his voice to suggest the comment was anything but obliging the directives of his Mistress. Belizar was picking up the subtle male undercurrent, but Jacob’s tone was courteous enough to make him uncertain if he was being challenged by a mere human. That arrogance was working in Jacob’s favor.
And you said I didn’t know how to play politics, my lady.
While she didn’t respond, he thought he felt a flicker of amusement from her. It certainly wasn’t coming from Belizar. The head of the Council shifted his gaze back to Lyssa, a dismissive gesture.
“You are far more fortunate in the loyalty of this servant than that murderous traitor.”
“In more ways than one,” Carola murmured, giving Jacob a thorough appraisal that reminded him uncomfortably of old charcoal drawings of Jamaican slave auctions. If she reached out to check his teeth, she was going to pull back a stump. “There’s entertainment and sport in the resort area until dawn, Lady Lyssa. Once he’s settled your things, perhaps your servant could join in for the viewing pleasure of us all.”
“After our meeting,” Belizar reminded her. “We have quite a full agenda. I hate to rush you when you’ve only just arrived, Lady Lyssa, but I want you fully briefed on what we will be addressing over the next several days.”
“Let us proceed to it now, then.” Lyssa turned to Jacob. “Take my things to my room; get us settled in. I’ll meet you in the resort area when we are done.”
“If you wish your servant to participate in the games, Lady Lyssa, he will need to be suitably attired,” Belizar said. “My servant, Malachi, is already there. As you’ll recall, there’s none that can match his skill. It’s been a while since he’s had a worthy new opponent. Would your servant be worth his time?”
Standing behind his lady, Jacob couldn’t see her face, but he saw her shoulder lift in an indifferent shrug. “I think it far more likely that Malachi will not be worth Jacob’s.”
The Council members shifted, feral smiles showing their appreciation. Belizar’s eyes sparked at the challenge.
Lyssa turned to Jacob again. “It should take you less than an hour to settle us in our rooms. After that, I expect you to strip off everything and go to the resort area, passing your time there until I join you.”
Jacob put his hand on the door latch, took a deep breath. His mind told him to turn the bronze handle, but he decided to give himself the liberty of ten more seconds before he strode out into the palatial hallways of Mason’s castle in nothing but his skin. Maybe another ten minutes. Would ten hours be pushing it?
An hour earlier, as he’d traveled to this room with his escort of masked servants, they’d passed a variety of vampires and higherranked human servants. Most of the humans were clothed. Though some were in fairly sensual and accessible garments, it was still clothing. The vampires of course were fully dressed.
He realized quickly the chastity belts were a protective rule of sorts for the domestic servants. They were apparently required to submit to the liberties any random vampire wished to take with them. He passed one outdoor lounge area by a pool where a masked servant was on her knees being made to stroke a standing male vampire to climax. At the same time the vampire suckled on the breasts of another servant who was straddling the shoulders of the one servicing his cock.
Jacob remembered Debra’s admonition that some servants believed they were the same rank as their Master or Mistress, rather than just property to use as they wished. If a Master or Mistress, regardless of rank, wished to subject their own servant to a masked servant’s status, they could. He supposed what he was seeing was a damn good reason for servants attached
to higher-ranked vampires to toe the line, to avoid such a fate.
Even so, many vampires, male and female, gave him openly speculative looks as they passed, examining him as a piece of attractive flesh they might get the opportunity to sample. He forced himself not to flinch from the whispering touch of fingers along his hip, the curve of his buttock. Despite the body language protests of his trio of female porters, he’d insisted on taking two of the heaviest suitcases. Their bulk allowed him to innocently fend off some of the more adventurous vampire hands he encountered.
He realized again just how vital Lyssa’s protection and name were to him as he saw a vampire casually catch hold of a porter’s harness straps and jerk her around to tease her generous breasts to hard points for the amusement of another female vamp. The servant stood docilely, though he was sure she was a total stranger to both vampires.
Being around vampires in the human world could be perilous, certainly. But here where the turf was all theirs, their dominance as Masters was undeniable, the charged, barely leashed energy of their sexual cravings feeding the undercurrent of violence that was inseparable from a vampire’s nature. It gave Jacob a heavily compressed sense of uneasiness in the vitals, despite the irony of the event’s main purpose being to honor the Council, a symbolic bow to their success in creating a “civilized” vampire society.
At the same time, he couldn’t help comparing the structure of the Vampire Council with that of business conferences held for human professions. Away from home and the typical settings of their day-to-day life, people tended to have lower inhibitions. Like those conventions, this one would conduct business, but play would occur as well. With human servants half-clad or pretty much unclad everywhere one looked, the play was bound to get pretty intense.
The palace itself stoked such imaginings. It was something out of Arabian Nights. Huge urns overflowing with flowers in passionate colors, fountains with erotic and often disturbing statuary. In an open courtyard, they’d passed one over eight feet tall. Demons raping a nymph, penetrating her with organs that appeared to be of a life-threatening size. Her hand pressed against the nearest one’s fanged and deformed face, trying to stave off the inevitable. It was horrible, but having been around vampires long enough, he knew the idea of her resis tance was what made it erotic to them. The water artfully trickled over her thighs, as if despite her repugnance and resis tance, her body was lubricating itself for them. For surrender.
Given all that, could he be blamed for the fact that, once in the room, he’d dawdled? He had to set out his lady’s toiletries, arranging them in accordance with her needs over the next several days. Freshen her clothes with the ridiculously mundane items of steamer and iron, sprinkling the lavender she liked into the fabric. Set out her makeup and brushes where he’d have them readily to hand.
He’d removed his clothes, but done a quick run through the shower, touched up his shave and beard and brushed his hair. Even though he’d rather smear himself with pig manure to keep all those strange hands as far from him as possible, he knew he had to be presentable to honor his Mistress. Now he stood at the door, his hand on the latch, and he wasn’t sure if he could do it.
Jacob, you have not obeyed my will.
Her voice was a soft breath in his mind, the barest of whispers.
I’m just fortifying my courage, my lady. I find it a little more difficult to do this when you’re absent. Humiliating to admit, but there it was. Too many vampires appreciative of a tight ass around here.
He sensed her smile, but an intensity of purpose, too. I’ve never known your courage to falter. You shall conduct yourself well. However, I’m referring to what we discussed in the car. What I commanded you to do when you got to my room.
Jacob withdrew his hand from the door. “Now, my lady?”
I am sitting in one of the most boring and self-pretentious gatherings you can imagine. Carnal, for all he is a monster, is at least interesting. It appears it will go on for at least another two hours. What do you think? Her voice turned to a purr and he suddenly, vividly, imagined her hands on his cock, her moist lips opening to take him in.
Stroke yourself for me, Jacob. Go back into the shower and turn on the water. I want to see it run over your muscles as they tense, as your very tight ass clenches and you pump yourself with your hand. I want to see the images in your mind, your fantasizing about me…A pause. And I would suggest, at least for this, you do indeed fantasize about me.
He grinned despite himself at her dry tone, and some of the tension lessened. “I would not dream of doing otherwise, my lady.”
I like it when you speak aloud like that. You come through even more strongly. I can feel your voice vibrating through my body. Go to the shower, Jacob. I need to feel your desire.
He complied, moving through the large suite of rooms, past the canopy bed draped with velvet. With his cock already hardening, it was easy to imagine lying upon the mattress with her, rolling her under him, spreading her white legs, sinking into her as he wrapped his hands in her miles of hair.
Yes…When the shuddering sigh ran through her mind, it rippled across his skin. I’d like that.
The bathroom also had its share of sensual offerings. A large Jacuzzi tub big enough for three or four people, a double-headed shower and jets that came out of the walls. He adjusted the temperature and stepped in.
Get your hair wet.
In a chamber nearly a quarter mile away on the extensive palace’s grounds, Lyssa sat at a twenty-foot-long ornately carved table that had once graced the hall of a Celtic king. The full Council and two other high-ranking guests, including her, listened as Belizar ran down the agenda of business that would be covered in more detail over the three-day Gathering. Since she was already well aware of most of the items, listening with only partial attention was not detrimental. However, as Jacob filled the screen of her mind, she hoped Belizar wouldn’t stop to ask her any questions.
As the water poured over Jacob’s skull, his hands rose, the automatic gesture to slick his hair back. She could see him in full, delicious detail, blocking out everything else. The long muscular body, the running water sculpting each muscle of his curved biceps and chest. The sectioned stomach muscles, the flex of his buttocks as he shifted. His cock was erect now from her soft persuasion and the vision of what she wanted him to do. She lingered over every detail of his body, down to the arches of his feet. The toes she’d curled her own around to warm her feet when she let him stay with her at night. Too few times.
For the past hundred years, perhaps two hundred, she’d never let her mind be distracted from a meeting such as this. There’d been too much at stake. Too many vampires testing the oligarchy of the Council. Too many battles, both political and physical, for her and Rex to fight. When those were past, there had been Rex himself to fight.
She’d heard the songs about living in the moment, living as if there were only one day to live. A lovely sentiment, but if everyone acted as if they were dying, chaos would result. Life was meant to be lived in all its frenetic activity.
But somehow a gift was given to the subconscious of someone whose days were truly numbered. For the first time in centuries, she had the overwhelming sense of having a free pass to slow down as the world kept speeding up around her. To open the senses, the mind and soul to all the things she hadn’t had time to enjoy as fully as she wished. She hadn’t indulged such thinking since the days when she was young and believed she would live forever.
Jacob, I want you to sleep with me. From here forward, whenever possible, when you complete your duties, you will come lie with me in the day and sleep.
His hands stilled, his head bowed, cocked slightly as if listening to her with his ears. “What ever you wish, my lady. It would be my honor. You’re all right?”
Yes. Warmth gripped her at his automatic reaction. To protect. To care. Put your hand on yourself. Bring yourself to climax for me. But do it the way you would if you were alone, doing it without my command.
&n
bsp; Bracing a hand on the opposite wall of the shower caused the muscles along his back to ripple delightfully, drawing her gaze to the slope of his hip and the straight line of thigh. The ends of his hair were wet silk along the line of his shoulders. It had gotten a little longer this past month and often he’d kept it tied back, too busy to get it trimmed. She could have done it for him, she realized. Would have if she hadn’t liked the look of it, blowing around his face when he worked the grounds, or when she threaded her hands through it as dawn approached, a way to soothe herself to sleep.
How easy it had been to get used to him in her life. To want him present in every moment. When she’d sent him away on the two-day trip to verify the condition of several safe houses, she’d wandered the grounds with Bran like a ghost, restless spirits needing his grounding presence.
She could admit it, as long as she was only admitting it to herself.
He took hold of himself, curling his hand around the thick length, and began to stroke. He’d put soap in his palm to give it lubrication, and also to goad the vision which filled her mind now. Driving into her slick heat, her pussy taking him deep and snug, a hot, wet fist, her hands reaching for his ass to pull him closer, her nails digging in.
She loved the way men thought about sex, rough and unromantic in their minds. Something so vulgar when shouted from a construction site could be so sexy when it was a husky, guttural demand heard in the female mind.
Another example of the dichotomous nature of women.
Thomas taught you that word. She hid a smile.
Not just the word, my lady. The whole sentence. It came up often during my training. I can’t imagine why.
But the uninterrupted flow of his imaginings distracted her from his teasing. In his vision, her nails dug in hard enough to draw blood. He liked that, liked to feel her savagery. He had no fear of her strength. He trusted her.
VQ 02 - The Mark of the Vampire Queen Page 21