Bound By Blood

by Kimberly Hoyt

  The questions rolled around and around in his mind. Sebastian’s web of deception grew tighter and more suffocating with each night that passed. His pure frustration was rivaled only by his hunger for her.

  “Sebastian … I want to sleep in your room. With you.”

  His hand paused on her spine, the zipper on her dress left at half-mast. He drew back to look at her. It was a simple request. Understandable, even, considering how long they had been seeing one another. Inside him something clenched hard and tight, provoking an ache so startling that he could only stare at her where she sat on her bed. Rumpled and weary, hair mussed around her face, she looked ready to collapse.

  Upon their return from Kansas earlier, there had been no question that she would accompany him to the house in Sperling. Given her recent trauma and exhaustion, Sebastian had seen to a quiet night to allow her to recover. Dinner had been served in the parlor and he’d spent some time playing the piano for her. Eventually they ended up before the fireplace, Laurel draped across his lap while they spoke in quiet voices. Sebastian touched her -- touches that demanded nothing more than the desire to explore; down the outside of her leg, up the length of her arm.

  Intimate moments.

  When she started to doze on his lap, Sebastian had used the shadows to carry her from the parlor to her bedroom, cradling her to his chest and repressing a shudder when she tucked her face against his neck.

  And now …

  Sebastian … I want to sleep in your room. With you.

  Like a distant echo from the past, he remembered. He remembered this feeling she stirred in him. The feeling a man gets when he knows a woman wants him, needs him. When she looks at him like he hung the stars and the moon. With an enigmatic expression, he bent to scoop her off the mattress. After all the centuries he had spent suppressing and hardening the man he had once been, he felt like a soldier finally returning home from a distant, war-torn shore.

  She was like stepping into the sun.

  Staring down at her, he carried her through the door adjoining their rooms. Even in this, there was the bitterness of deception. Although this was one of his bedrooms, it was not the room he lived in. Not his sanctuary. It was an elegant mask, like the one he wore to cover the ugly truth of his nature.

  Decorated in heavy dark woods and classic furniture, his bedroom was large with French doors that opened onto a balcony overlooking the back of the property. Sebastian bypassed the sitting area around the cold fireplace and carried her toward the bed to set her down.

  “I could use a shirt of yours to sleep in, if you don’t mind.” Looking up at him with drowsy, doe-like eyes, her arms fell away from his shoulders. The dress gaped in the front, exposing a hint of lace and the remnants of a summer tan.

  Her sweet fragility was a siren's song to his hunger. Caught up in her, he had to remind himself to say something.

  “Of course." Leaning down, he reached around to continue unzipping her dress, his hand dragging feather-light up the naked grace of her spine in the aftermath. “I love this dress on you.” He laid the murmur close to her ear. Before he straightened he scented her again, dragging the hint of her perfume in with a deep, useless breath.

  “I love wearing it for you.”

  For you. Her whisper rolled over him and he felt a surge of desire. With a crisp pivot, he struck out toward the armoire in the corner to get her a shirt.

  “It’s just like I thought it would be. Your room. Fitting for a prince,” she said, glancing around.

  Sebastian paused with a white button-down in hand. A cold knot of unease unfurled at her words.

  "Prince?"

  She smiled and tucked the edge of a nail between her teeth. "Mm, my own Prince Charming."

  The sharp spike of dread eased. She was only teasing, referring to a tale rather than his vampirism. He draped her shirt over his arm and started unbuttoning his own.

  “I am but a lowly Duke, at your service my lady." He bowed from the waist, a regal gesture that fit him all too well.

  Rewarded with her laughter, he watched as she stripped the top of her dress down, her modesty preserved by the clutch of peach silk and black lace.

  “I will require much snuggling this evening, lowly duke,” she said, the words slurred from exhaustion and the wine she'd been drinking downstairs. Languid and unhurried, she leaned back in artful repose and he could have sworn he heard her release a tiny sigh as she watched him shrug the shirt from his broad shoulders. Her pale hair fanned across his bed like the hem of her dress, a smear of femininity lacking in his masculine surroundings for too long. If he’d had the breath to steal, she would have made a fine thief. Popping the button on his trousers, he shed them along with his shoes and socks. In nothing more than a pair of black boxers, he approached the bed.

  “Do you know how they address a Duke?” He stood above her, looking down over the graceful line of her body.

  “Your Grace.” Sebastian answered his own question as he slinked up and over her, his knee braced on the bed. His mouth grazed the flat of her belly on his way to her throat where he brushed a kiss over the maddening blip of her pulse. He loomed above her, broad shoulders blotting out the dim light behind him. Her gasp delighted his senses and he saw the stark appreciation in her eyes.

  "Thank you for the shirt, your Grace," she said, but didn't reach for the garment. He tossed it aside.

  Scouring her with his gaze, he traced the full curves of her breasts, the slim line of her stomach, the gentle flare of her hips under the material of the dress. Her heart rate picked up and her cheeks flushed in reaction.

  “Have you ever slept in the bed of a Duke, my lady?” He sounded all too authentic, radiating power with his presence and his voice.

  “I have never slept in the bed of a Duke, your grace, but I have slept in the bed of a Prince” she whispered, playing her part in the game to perfection.

  Sebastian knew he should have contented himself with admiring her from a distance. Knew it the second he hovered over her and she arched her back, like the pass of his gaze was a physical touch. Goose bumps raced over her skin and her nipples tightened in anticipation. He had to resist the urge to lower his head and suck one through the material until she squirmed. Using both hands, he coaxed her arms above her head and urged her to roll onto her stomach.

  “Does that excite you, my lady? To lay with Princes?” Sebastian whispered just behind her ear, holding himself over her in a perpetual muscle-tensing push-up. His accent had thickened like the fantasy from another era -- not just an English twist on his words, but an old English slant. He dragged the tip of his index finger down the line of her spine, and she shuddered.

  “Yes,” she said, voice muffled against the pillow. “He excites me. I don’t imagine lying with a Duke could be half as tempting. Half as enticing.”

  “Do you not, my lady? Perhaps I should meet this Prince in the lists. The winner receives my lady’s favor.”

  He flexed the impression of his hips against her bottom just once, a light dip that hinted at the hardness she provoked him to. When he heard her breath turn ragged, felt her shiver in response to the finger that rimmed the elastic of her panties, Sebastian bit back a growl.

  “You cannot be--st him.” The tease hitched on her tongue as he touched her, riling and prodding him.

  Perhaps it was her goading that provoked him to do what he did. Maybe it was something more complex at work, a true desire for her to see. Whatever the case, Sebastian built a slow image in his thoughts, slipping easily past the barrier of her mortal will to let it play out against her minds-eye. Imagery and sound began to brushstroke itself into existence.

  The thunder of hooves, a grandstand filled with nobles and ladies, trumpets announcing the arrival of knights. Posies, tossed from a lady in a blue dress, caught in a gauntlet covered hand.

  Sebastian’s hand drifted up to her hair, tangling there. Beneath him, Laurel writhed, inciting his passion. His possession. She hitched a breath, and he kept the i
magery coming, taking her back and forth between fantasy and reality.

  Charging, horses snorting, lances leveled to strike, the knights came together with a thunderous crash. Both lances hit their marks, sending dangerous slivers of wood flying into the bright afternoon air. Only one knight remained astride at the end. Proud and victorious, he thrust his fist into the air, making a triumphant lap around the arena to the roar of the crowd. “His Grace, the Duke of Darkthorne wins the day! Three cheers for his Grace, huzzah .. Huzzah …”

  The Knight rounded the field until he reached the lady who’s favors he carried, snapping his visor up to regard the pale haired beauty in the stands. Plucking the posy from his breastplate, he kissed the blooms, held them to the sky, and inclined his head to his lady.

  Hunger clawed and twisted deep in his gut, erupting his canines. He shuddered hard and taut above her with the effort it took to resist sinking in deep, driven by the imagery juxtaposed against their rising sexual need. Seduced by the beat of her heart, his voice thickened.

  “There isn’t a man alive I wouldn't crush to possess you,” he said, voice a dark rasp.

  “Sebastian...” She shivered.

  Was it fantasy or reality? Was he Duke, Prince, man, or monster? It was hard to separate the elements in those moments.

  As the imagery faded, he could only be aware of the points where their bodies touched, how they roiled together until Sebastian was rigid with want. He all but snarled his need against her back, steeped in an emotional and sexual black hole with a pull he couldn’t resist.

  His hips rode her harder, tighter, pinning her to the bed until she gasped with desire. Nothing more than a rutting beast with the desire to sink everything he had into her -- his teeth, his cock. In some rational part of his head, he knew he had to withdraw. His control was dangling by a fraying thread.

  With a wounded snarl, he levered up and away from her, turning to ram both his fists against the wall with a frustrated growl. His momentary fury shook the house around them, rattled the windows in their casements.

  On the bed, he was aware that Laurel had flipped over and sat up, her hand splayed across her collarbone. He heard her try to bring her breathing under control.

  “… Sebastian? What … what is it?” She seemed dazed, like she'd just woken up from a dream.

  With his dark head bowed against the wall, Sebastian ventured a sidelong glance at her. Skin flushed and hot with blood, hair tousled, she looked like he had already taken her. The sound he made wasn't quite human. He maintained his distance out of necessity, body rock hard with tension.

  “I want you too much.”

  Sebastian glanced right and left as he climbed the steps of the quaint Victorian guesthouse tucked back on the grounds of the mansion. As though it existed in a world apart, the house was situated in a clearing surrounded by a ring of trees. Oaks lined the path, overhanging the stone walkway like a long arbor.

  Dawn would be upon him soon, but despite the hour pale light shone behind the curtained windows. As he waited for an answer to the bell, he glanced back, barely able to make out the silhouette of the mansion through the spidery branches overhead.

  Laurel.

  He had left her sleeping in the aftermath of their passionate interlude. Had gone before he could be tempted to do more than show her visions. He wanted to taste more than her skin. But Sebastian knew only too well what could happen when a vampire lost control of his hunger--no.

  He wouldn't let his thoughts stray down that path.

  Agitated, he gave a stern tug on the sleeve of his suit coat to straighten it, bringing his attention back to the door when it opened.

  “Sebastian,” said the woman on the other side, surprise coloring her voice.

  “Sara. I hope I am not interrupting.” Waving a hand, he indicated the spattered white smock she had on. Sara appeared to be in her early thirties. Petite, she had wispy blond hair and soulful blue eyes. The delicacy of her features gave her an ethereal appeal, and it was not hard to tell she was beautiful even through the smudges of paint on her cheek. She reached up to smear at one self-consciously as she stepped back to invite him in.

  “Of course not. You’re always welcome.” She smiled, and there was something very genuine about the expression and her warmth.

  Once inside, Sebastian paused to kiss her on both cheeks after the European fashion. “Good evening, Sara.” He clicked the door shut behind him as she clasped his forearm, gentle in her return of his kisses.

  “And to you, Sebastian. Come in,” she invited, turning to lead him down the narrow hallway and into a doorway on the left. She lifted a hand while she walked, smoothing her hair where it had fallen from the clip she wore to keep it back from her face. Sebastian noticed and smiled behind her.

  The room, what once would have been a receiving parlor, was rounded where the bay window overlooked the grounds. It created a charming nook and Sara had her easel set on the broad window ledge where she had apparently been painting before he interrupted her. On the canvas, a street scene on a dark and foggy night was beginning to take shape beneath her talented brushstrokes. Sara slanted him an apologetic smile as she pulled a loose sheet down over the unfinished work.

  Flames popped and crackled in the fireplace built into the far wall, casting a glow over the polished hardwood floors. The furniture was all antique reproduction, a white and red floral motif prominent throughout. Low music played from an out-of-sight stereo. The remains of a tea service sat on a chipped antique tray near where Sara had laid her paintbrush to answer the door.

  “Scotch?”

  She gestured him to a wing-back chair near the fire, moving to scoop up a stack of newspapers and magazines she had left there. Sebastian watched her while he removed his suit coat and took the offered seat, his forearms on his spread knees. His hair glinted blue-black in the firelight.

  “Yes, thank you, Sara.”

  While she moved to pour the scotch, Sebastian glanced around, noting the quietude. It tugged on him in a strange way, her lonesomeness. But then, there had always been a sense of responsibility in Sebastian where Sara was concerned.

  He was drawn from his thoughts when she returned with a tumbler of single-malt, and he accepted the glass with a smile, leaning back in the chair to sip. She took the seat across from him, perching on the arm rather than the cushion.

  “It has been a long time,” she said after a pause, her voice quiet. It was an observation that concealed a question, and Sebastian was sharp enough to intuit it. Why had he come? He had not sought her out in private in many months, though she lived on his property and was often at the house.

  This was different, and she knew it.

  “I brought you a gift.” Removing a small box from his inside coat pocket, he leaned forward to hand it to her.

  Rising from the arm of the chair, she stepped closer so she could take the box from his hand.

  He caught the glimpse of a haunted expression in her eyes, there and gone.

  She smiled. “Thank you, Sebastian. You are always so thoughtful.”

  Sara turned the small box between her hands, passing what appeared to Sebastian as an awkward moment in trying to decide whether to open it or not.

  He settled the debate for her. “Wait until I’m gone.”

  She nodded, a look of relief passing through her eyes.

  Both he and Sara lapsed silent as she rose to put the wrapped box on the mantle of the fireplace. Her discomfort was easily discerned, though she tried to hide it, and Sebastian made an attempt to put her at ease through conversation.

  “You have been well? Working on a new project, I see,” he said, indicating the covered painting with a wave of his scotch glass.

  “I have,” she said with a gentle smile as she settled again on the arm of the chair. There was a low, soft quality to her voice that had always struck him as highly feminine. It was the era in which she had been born, he speculated, that gave her such genteel manners.

  Sara had been b
orn in the Victorian era, though she looked no older than twenty-five. She had spent centuries as William's lover and thrall, his supernatural blood preventing her from aging. A cessation of that blood would have meant certain death for her, and after William died Sebastian thought more than once that she would have been content with that.

  Nevertheless, William had left behind a cache of vampiric blood with which to keep her alive, and Sebastian saw to her welfare otherwise. He allowed her to stay in the guest house that William had built for her, and he employed her as part of his household staff.

  “And you, I think, I have been very well,” she countered, watching him with a complex expression in her eyes.

  “Mm.” It was a sound that communicated his ambiguity over his present circumstances, and he had no doubt she knew the root of his unease. Swallowing a mouthful of scotch, he swirled the tumbler in his hand idly.

  “William used to tell me that there could only be peace within when a person followed their heart.” Her words were laced with bitter-sweetness at the memory of her former lover. “He worried for you sometimes,” she added, surprising him. His dark brows arched as he regarded her.

  “Worried for me? Why?”

  “Because you were so alone. He thought you worked so hard to close off your human emotions that you might some day lose your humanity.”

  Sebastian made another vague noise, though her revelation gave him a thoughtful expression.

  “I am worried, too, Sebastian. I've heard that Luceph has been asking questions about you, and making comments about your ability to rule.”

  “Luceph is no danger to me. His ego is overlarge, but he lacks the power to match,” he reassured her, not as surprised over her news of Luceph as he had been in hearing about William's words.

  “Please, be cautious Sebastian. He is unpredictable.”

  As a general rule, no human would have had the temerity to advise him, but Sara held a special place in his esteem, and she had been a valuable sounding board for his maker in all their years together. Sebastian conceded the point and inclined his dark head.