My demon…my master vampire.
Inari’s voice whispered through his mind, the fevered words of a woman claimed by utter release and pleasure.
My overlord…give it to me…yes, that’s it, that’s it.
The whisper grew louder. Fiercer. She dug her short nails into his shoulders. Her hot, tight pussy squeezed his cock. Milked his seed.
Give it to me. Give it all to me…all of it…all of you.
An icy fist slammed into Ezryn’s chest and he reeled backward, breaking their most intimate of connections, her words—thrumming with rapturous bliss—shearing into his sanity. Words of possession, of ravenous hunger.
“Ezryn?”
Inari’s husky moan jerked his stare to her face. She stood slumped against the wall, her features softened with obvious bliss, a sated smile on her lips even as a small frown began to pull at her eyebrows.
Sated.
He forced his fangs to retract.
Sated. Well fed.
She’d fed from him. She’d—
“What’s going on, Ezryn?” She took a step forward, her frown growing darker, her hands going to her bare hips. She looked delicious and sublime, her eyes shining, her breasts heaving, a tiny line of blood trickling down the smooth column of her neck. Dark Ones, if he didn’t know better, he’d slam her to the wall and sink his cock and fangs into her once more. He was ready. Fuck, more than ready. His balls ached with a swollen weight he could barely believe possible given the force of his orgasm but a moment ago.
Sated. Succubus. My master vampire.
Give it to me.
All of it.
All of you.
All.
His gut churned at the possessive nature of the word and he glared at her, hands curling into fists. “Dark Ones, how could I let you do this to me again?”
An uncertain expression flickered over her face. “Do what?”
He snarled and closed the distance his backward step had created between them. “Don’t play the innocent here, Inari.” He flashed her a cold smirk, raking his stare over her naked form. “It doesn’t suit you.”
Waves of stunned shock rolled through him, followed by searing contempt—Inari’s contempt—and he bit back a sharp hiss. The bonding. Curse it, he could feel her every emotion.
She was pissed off. Royally pissed off. She bared her teeth at him. Her perfectly even, white teeth. “Fuck off, vampire.”
He took another step closer to her, fisting his hands into balls to stop himself grabbing her. If he did, if he touched her, he had no idea what he would do. “What did you do to me?”
Her eyes sparked icy hate. “Nothing you didn’t want me to.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
She glared at him, her face set in indignant anger. But underneath the rage he felt radiating from her, underneath her absolute fury he sensed not just in his core but in his blood, something else simmered. Something cold. Something fragile. Something that made him pause, made him hesitate. Something like…
Fear?
“It means you got everything you deserve.”
Her venomous statement killed Ezryn’s wavering conflict. He straightened, towering over her. Forcing her to tilt her head back to meet his glare. “And I should have known better.”
An unreadable light shimmered in her eyes and she curled her lip. “That’s right. A master vampire should know better than to fuck with a succubus.”
His balls rose up, her words like a shard of garlic-dipped silver spearing into his chest. “So you are admitting it?”
She narrowed her eyes and bunched her jaw. “I’m admitting nothing. I’m stating you are an idiot.”
It was too much. The hate in her voice, the contempt in her eyes, the indefinable something that threaded through each smoldering emotion. He snatched her wrists, yanked her arms behind her back and jerked her against his body with brutal force. She gasped, the sound altogether too surprised, too frightened for his peace of mind, her body altogether too warm and soft and crushable. He bit back a harsh growl. She was driving him insane. “So, succubus,” he hissed. “What are your plans for this idiot now?”
She stared at him, motionless in his cruel hold, her heat seeping into his cold body. “Nothing.” She turned her head away, the bowed column of her neck exposed to him in vulnerable perfection. “I’ve had my fill of you, and you’ve left a bad taste in my mouth.”
Again, that ambiguous something threaded through everything he sensed in her, a disturbing undercurrent of restless fear that pushed his anger to an emotion he could not fathom. He lowered his head and brushed his parted lips over her cheek, down to her jaw and up to her ear. “Funny,” he whispered, closing his grip harder on her wrists, drawing her closer to his body. “Your willingly offered blood has had the opposite effect on me. I feel rejuvenated. Invigorated. Like I’ve fed on pure energy.” He scraped the tip of his right incisor down the velvet curve of her ear and nipped once on her earlobe. She sucked in a hitching breath and he chuckled, using her own imprisoned wrists to push her hips harder to his. “I feel powerful enough to pull the wings from—” he nipped her earlobe again, “—a Principatus.”
Her low, throaty laugh took him by surprise. He raised his head from her neck and studied her with a cocked eyebrow.
She gave him a wide grin, her eyes green chips of ice. “You think you’re a match for me, master vampire?” She laughed again, the sound husky and full of smug conceit. “I’ve been destroying your kind for decades. It’s like swatting a mosquito.” Her smile vanished, and she stared at him with even colder eyes. “Go. Before I kill you where you stand.”
He ran his gaze over her face, knowing the mounting pressure in the pit of his loins had little to do with rage. “Kill me, Inari, and you will be killing yourself.”
She stiffened against him, every muscle in her body coiling. “What does that mean?”
He touched the tip of his tongue to his right fang. “Oh, Inari. I’m sure you can feel what that means.”
She stared at him, her eyes searching his. She shifted slightly, her shoulder muscles flexing as she tried to move her left arm. He relaxed his hold a fraction, enough to let her wrist slip from his imprisoning grip, and watched her raise her hand to her neck.
Her fingertips hovered over the still-weeping wound in her neck where his fangs had punctured her skin, as if she were afraid to touch the blood seeping from each hole. A slight frown pulled at her eyebrows, her breath quickened and, with barely any contact at all between her fingers and her neck, he saw realization flood through her. He felt it flow through their bond. A wall of blistering heat and sinking cold.
Her eyes widened and she shook her head. “You bastard.”
For a split second, the urge to fold his arms around her with gentle care and beg her forgiveness for his cruel treatment consumed him. To hold her and stroke her hair and murmur soothing sounds against her temple that meant nothing and said everything. And then she slapped her palm against the side of his face so hard his head snapped to the side and the vampire he was took back control. He captured her wrist again, jerked her arm back behind her body and smiled down at her. “That may be, Inari, but it doesn’t change the fact you are bound to me for the rest of eternity. Mine and mine alone. Mine to feed from whenever I choose.” He touched his tongue to the tip of his fang again, holding her eyes with his gaze. “Mine to use however I want, when I want.”
Their bond surged through him, and even as he felt her hate and anger, he tasted the potent force of her arousal. She hated him, of that he had no doubt, but she wanted him. And he wanted her. Fuck, did he want her.
He crushed her lips with his, plunged his tongue into her mouth, yanked her harder against his stiff, straining cock. She fought him, writhing in his arms, struggling against his invading tongue, his assaulting mouth. He didn’t care. He knew what she wanted—her desire heated her blood and turned the ice in his to lava. She would never be able to deny him her want now. He knew it. He fel
t it. He lived it.
He growled into her mouth and hauled her closer still, biting her lip, sucking her tongue. Heat pooled in his groin, his heart, and suddenly she was kissing him back, as he’d known she would, her groans as wild as his, her hips rolling up and down as she ground the curve of her sex against his engorged shaft. He tore his mouth from her lips, dragging them to her jaw, her neck. “I am a lucky vampire,” he murmured against the small puncture wounds just below her ear, the taste of her skin and sweat and blood a heady mix that filled his mouth with saliva and his balls with swollen hunger. “A succubus pet and a Principatus blood source all rolled into one delicious little package.”
Inari became still in his arms. “Get out.”
The words fell from her lips in a guttural snarl. He lifted his head and stared down at her. His body seemed to be on fire, a scalding heat that burned away all possibility of rational thought and fed the demonic beast he was at the same time. “Make me.”
A look of absolute grief flashed across Inari’s face, followed by a shudder that wracked her body with such force he felt it in the pit of his stomach. She looked up at him, another shudder claiming her body, her eyes shining.
Ezryn’s throat slammed shut and his fingers slipped from her wrists. Tears. Dark Ones, he’d made her cry.
“Get out, Ezryn,” Inari growled through gritted teeth, her eyes erupting in an inferno of green fury. Another tremble rocked her. Another. Another. “Go. Or I swear we both shall perish.”
He stumbled back from her, his sanity slipping, his desire and hunger for her taking over his mind. It pushed him to fever point until he wavered on his feet, unable to tear his gaze from her.
“Go.”
The cry burst from her in a voice he didn’t recognize, a voice, resonating with endless fury, tortured grief and indescribable power.
He staggered back another step, raw confusion fisting in his gut. He stared at the woman bound to him forever.
“Go!” she cried.
He turned, leaving her apartment in a sprint that sheared time and space, Inari’s tortured cry piercing his ears as he did so.
He did not stop nor slow until he arrived at his home, the hot night air scouring him as he tore through its humid density, a physical touch he’d never once paid heed to until tonight. Now its sultry, inescapable heat reminded him of the very woman whose tortured cry had sent him from her home.
He stood at his front door, fangs digging into his bottom lip, nails digging into his palms. Dark Ones, what the fuck was going on?
An image of Inari ripped through his head and he closed his eyes. His throat squeezed tight, his chest tighter. Bound to a Principatus succubus? Had he gone mad?
Mad with lust, Ezryn? Or is it something else? Something you won’t let yourself consider?
He couldn’t consider it. It served no purpose here. What was relevant, at least to him, was her sexual control of his actions and mind. Curse it, he was bound to a succubus.
Cold anger flooded him. He shoved open the front door to his home and stormed through the foyer. Inari was right about one thing—he was an idiot. But for all his seething rage, he could not undo his idiocy. The binding bite was irreversible. Inari was bound to him just as he was bound to her. Master vampire to succubus. Succubus to master vampire.
Are you sure she is a succubus? Remember exactly how Ven Watkins described her. Ex-succubus. No one truly knows if a Principatus retains their original force and power. It’s all conjecture and speculation. Perhaps how you feel about her, how undeniably you are drawn to her has nothing to do with demon magic and everything to do with—
He refused to let the thought finish. It was not important. He was Ezryn Navarr, first born of the First Family. He would bend her to his will and make her his on every level imaginable. Succubus or Principatus or lowly human, he was stronger than she and he would own her and possess her and control her. She was now his sex slave, his food source, his pleasure, his entertainment, his…
He froze, staring at the night sky beyond the windows of his living room. A sinking sensation of contempt settled in his stomach. Dark Ones, what was he thinking? He was insane. And as callous and ruthless as his egomaniacal brother. As unhinged as his long-dead father.
Releasing a sharp sigh, he moved to the bar and splashed some single malt into a squat glass. He wasn’t thirsty—not for alcohol anyway—but he needed something to burn away the lingering taste of Inari on his tongue.
Ha. And you really think whiskey is going to do that?
With a disgusted grunt, he threw back the liquor and slammed the empty glass onto the bar counter. Before he even swallowed, he knew the woman would still haunt him. Not just her taste, but everything. Her scent was in his nose, her warmth on his flesh, her image in his head, the sound of her voice, her moans and her laughter still caressed his ears.
“Fuck.” The curse burst from him like a guttural bark. He turned from the vista of Sydney Harbor at night and crossed the room to the wide, glass table he used as his desk. He didn’t need an office, but despite his removal from the position of overlord and being on the other side of the world, he still kept a close watch on the vampire race. To the rest of his kind, he was disconnected from the politics of the court, but he knew everything that needed to be known.
Except what the hell Inari Chayse had done to him.
He lowered himself into the high-back chair and opened his laptop, the brushed steel casing warm under his fingers.
The screen illuminated into instant life, the familiar home page of the Lamia Cruor Libri—The Blood Books—open before him. He keyed in his brother’s password, shaking his head as he always did at how easy it was to access the overlord’s personal database. Haral’s password—oracle—was a joke. However, Ezryn was not in the mood to be humored by his twin’s predictable ineptness. While it may be risky hacking The Blood Books, he needed more information than what he had, and unless he felt like having another conversation with Ven Watkins, which he didn’t, he knew no other way. The Lamia Cruor Libri contained the sum total knowledge of the vampire race and all known paranormal elements impacting on it, including all information gathered on active Principatus. If anything had been noted about Inari Chayse, it would be in here.
Keying her name into the search field, he hit enter, impatient irritation spearing into him when the colorful pinwheel replaced his cursor on the screen. He didn’t want to wait, curse it. Not even a few seconds. He needed information now. Surely he wasn’t being unreasonable, was—
The screen changed before he could finish the thought, flashing to a white page with five lines of text.
Teeth clenched, muscles tense, Ezryn read each line.
Inari Chayse: Principatus rebirth date unknown. Possibly mid to late twentieth century.
Demon species before rebirth: Unknown. Likely second-order. Rumor linked her to the First Horseman of the Apocalypse before rebirth. This is unconfirmed.
No known associates or affiliations.
Last known vampire termination: Aldus Hichstette. Brussels.
Current location: Sydney, Australia
That was it. Nothing else, not even an image.
Ezryn bit back a disgusted grunt. Nothing. It was as if the Dark Ones plotted with the Powers to frustrate him.
Well, almost nothing. The name Hichstette was the maiden name of Haral’s new wife. Obviously the cousin Haral had mentioned and was so readily eager to avenge.
Sitting back in his chair, he raked his fingers through his hair, staring at those five annoying lines.
What did you expect to find, Ezryn? Detailed files? An essay about Inari filling in all the blanks?
He slammed his laptop shut and curled his hand into a fist on its lid. He should have known he was grasping at straws. Why would the Lamia Cruor Libri contain any information of any use to him anyway? What was he looking for? Something to prove Ven Watkins a liar? Noted evidence telling him Inari was a water demon before her rebirth? A dark elf? A sprite?
> You were hoping to find something, anything that would prove you weren’t controlled by your dick, weren’t you? Something to convince you she didn’t use her succubus force on you. Something to convince you not to carry out Haral’s command.
He scrubbed at his face, teeth clenched. That’s exactly what he was doing. And just as he had failed his brother’s order to kill her, he’d failed to find anything tonight to keep her alive.
Except his own lust.
The memory of the first moment he’d heard her moans in the Pleasure Pussy tickled at his senses, and he let out a low growl. Moans of wanton release and raw hunger. He should have known what she was then—a creature of sex and power. Why hadn’t he killed her there and then?
Because your dick was in control.
No, it wasn’t his dick. Lust had been in control. The succubus had been in control. What better food source for a sex demon than a master vampire, and not just any master vampire but the first born of the First Family, the twin son born to be overlord.
So who was playing whom here? Were the Dark Ones so bored they must use him as a toy now? Why would fate place him in Inari’s sexual control when he’d sacrificed so much for his cursed bloodline? When he’d already committed himself to the ultimate sacrifice? The ultimate end to his existence?
Closing his eyes, he let the memory of the night he’d found her in the Pleasure Pussy roll through him. He’d felt drawn to her. Powerfully. Inexplicably. He wanted her, needed her on a level he couldn’t fathom and didn’t question. Not then, at least. He’d smelled her, felt her and wanted her. Period.
“Fuck.” He opened his eyes and stared at the words, seeing Inari instead. “Fuck.”
There was one simple answer from this revelation. The sexual connection he could not deny between him and Inari Chayse had nothing to do with real desire, real attraction. What he felt for her was nothing but the direct result of her succubus magic.
“Fuck.”
Cold anger surged through him, and he shoved his laptop away. This was getting him nowhere. He was wasting time when he had a decision to make. He either carried out his brother’s command to kill her, thereby destroying himself, or he didn’t kill her and bore the blood of those loyal to him as Haral began slaughtering them.
Dark Embrace (Principatus) Page 23