Eric bowed his head. A faint flush spread along his cheeks as his fingers worked the buttons of his shirt. He yanked it out of his slacks and shrugged it off, baring his torso to our gazes.
Pop hissed in a breath. “Charity mentioned your scars. She never said how bad they were.”
“They’ll heal,” Eric said softly.
“Scars like that don’t heal, son. You’re lucky to be alive.”
Marco grunted. “Turn around. Let me see the rest.”
Eric obediently shifted around in a half circle. Marco traced a single finger over the scars crisscrossing Eric’s back, and the memory of Fen’s knife flashing through the air slithered into my mind. The metallic stench of blood, Eric’s sharply inhaled breaths, the greasy roil of Fen’s malicious pleasure writhing around us. I swallowed down the bile coating my throat and clenched my hands into fists against my thighs. Me, helpless to stop him, helpless to free Eric and save us both.
Marco’s frigid gaze landed on me. “This was not your doing, pet.”
Pop’s head swung toward me. Whatever he was going to say was interrupted by Ma’s footsteps ringing through the hallway. A minute later, she rounded the newel marking the halfway point up the stairs and came into view.
“Where else?” Marco said.
Eric glanced at Ma, then dropped his gaze to the floor. “Mostly my thighs, and no, I’m not taking my pants off for you.”
“Later.” Marco lifted one of Eric’s arms and skimmed his fingertips down Eric’s ribs. “Did they rape you?”
Ma paled and sank onto a riser near the bottom of the staircase. “Oh, my goodness.”
“They didn’t rape me.”
I barked out a laugh. “Yeah, right. Fen forced you to have sex.”
“I conceded to sex in order to gain the upper hand. That’s not rape.”
Ma pressed a shaky hand to her chest and a tear streaked down her cheek. “Yes, it is, Eric. Oh, my. I can’t believe you didn’t tell us about this. I can’t believe those people hurt you, and for what? Your luggage, your rings, some cash?”
Marco’s gaze sharpened on Eric. “They took your rings?”
“Oriana found them offensive.” I flexed my left hand. Christ, I missed their weight on my fingers, missed the memories imbed in the flash of gold and platinum under moonlight. “We’re getting them back.”
“Not without me.” The flat finality in Marco’s voice brooked no argument, not that anybody who knew him would dare offer one. “I leave for my meeting in three hours. That gives us plenty of time to discuss possible strategies.”
I choked on a laugh. Yeah, he really wanted to spend three hours chatting about Oriana’s downfall while his favorite pet was within easy reach. “You guys go have fun with that.”
Eric’s mouth twisted into grimace. “Thanks, Jase.”
“Hey, what’re friends for.” I wrapped my hands around the tops of my chair’s wheels. “I told her there’d be consequences, but she was determined to punish him. I’d like to know why.”
“Consequences?” Ma shook her head. “It sounds like you knew these people.”
Eric tugged his shirt on and buttoned it closed, his hands not quite steady on the fabric. “We didn’t know they would do this.”
“They shouldn’t have,” Marco said bluntly. “Lanu guaranteed their cooperation. She’s put out over their treatment of you and Jason.”
I winced. The queen, put out? That couldn’t be good. “I tried to warn Oriana.”
“She’s entrenched herself too deeply in her own hubris.” Marco crouched beside me, one hand splayed across my lifeless knees. “Did she hurt you?”
“Other than not feeding me, no.”
Ma pushed herself off the riser and glared at me. “You boys have hidden entirely too much from us. First, your relationship, and now this? What else are you keeping back?”
“Ma,” I said.
Pop crossed the hallway in two strides and stopped beside her. “Don’t nag, Kathy. These boys know what they’ve gotten into and they’re learning how to handle themselves. Isn’t that right, Marco?”
Marco turned a surprisingly complacent stare on Pop. “Yes. If it helps, they’re under my personal protection.”
“That didn’t keep them from being attacked.”
“It should have.”
“Should haves don’t count much when your son’s life is on the line.” Pop draped an arm around Ma’s shoulders and guided her up the stairs, his gruff voice trailing after them. “Take better care of him.”
“That’s my job,” Eric murmured.
“It’s a mutual thing,” I countered. “I’m heading to bed. What time will you be back?”
Marco flipped his hand over and checked the time on the black diver’s watch strapped around his wrist. “Before midnight. I’ll see him safely home.”
“You do that.”
“Watch your tongue, Adonis, or I’ll watch it for you.” Marco rose to his full height, not much shorter than I was. “You’re welcome to join us.”
I shook my head. “Eric needs you way more than I do.”
Eric stuffed his hands into his pants pockets, rocked onto the balls of his feet. “I’m doing ok.”
“You’re low, and you.” Marco slashed the pad of his thumb across one fang and offered it to me. “Drink.”
I didn’t need to be told twice. Only a fool denied Marco when he was in a dudgeon, and I was no fool. Besides, I needed the boost. No telling when I’d get a chance to feed on somebody other than Eric again.
I wrapped my hand around Marco’s wrist and lifted his hand to my mouth. “Straddle my legs.”
“Send you home and you get cocky.” He planted one foot solidly on either side of mine, bracketing my legs with his. “It’s coagulating.”
I licked the slender line of blood strung along the pad of his thumb, then sucked him into my mouth. Rich, thick fluid splashed across my tongue and heat speared down my throat, straight into my groin. Fuck, he was good. His power bled into me, one coppery drop at a time, and I shuddered.
Eric stroked a narrow hand over my head. “Give him something, Marco.”
Marco unfastened his jeans one-handed and shoved down his underwear, baring his thick, half-erect cock. “Will it work for control?”
“Mostly. It’s not as good as full-blown sex.”
“Nothing is.” Marco snagged my other hand and placed it on top of his hardening dick. “A little more, Adonis. Elizabet was worried when she realized you couldn’t reach us on your own.”
I wasn’t in a rush to hurry my transformation into a full-blown pet along just to get better reception. Too far and I’d miss the sweet spot, the half-human, half-vampire point most pets aimed for, where they’d gain extended youth without the threat of their beasts overpowering them. Eric had unknowingly gone too far, too fast, prodded into transforming by the man whose blood I now absorbed. Marco had had his reasons, good ones, as far as I could tell. What man didn’t want to protect the woman he loved? He’d hand-selected Eric as his successor at Elizabet’s side, only things hadn’t worked out exactly the way anybody had expected.
I caressed Marco’s cock, reacquainting myself with its length and breadth, with the soft, sensitive head and its velvety texture. The more of his blood I swallowed, the more aware I became of the world around me. The weight of Eric’s hand on my head, the sweet hitches in his breathing. The low rumble of Marco’s pleasure, the rustle of his hand moving under Eric’s shirt. The overwhelming din of the crickets chirping in the yard and the wind whipping around the house.
My nipples pebbled into tight points of ecstasy and I gasped, losing my grip on Marco’s thumb.
He tugged it gently out of my grasp, pried my hand off his deliciously hard cock. “I’ll carry him to bed.”
His voice echoed to me from a long way away. My head rolled back on my shoulders and I traced my gaze over the fine lines in the ceiling’s paint, each jagged crack vividly clear. It wasn’t like Pop to let the house go li
ke that. I’d have to talk with him about it, maybe get Eric to help me fix it.
I soared through the air and soft laughter tickled my ear.
“He’s high as a kite,” Marco said.
“The consequences of separating sex and blood.”
Eric’s voice was only marginally closer than Marco’s. I groped for him, missed, and let my hand dangle in midair as I bounced along.
I liked bouncing.
The bouncing stopped and my clothes slid away, stolen by gentle hands.
Eric kissed my mouth, sweet Eric, beautiful lover. “I’ll be back soon. Get some sleep.”
“Love you,” I mumbled, but he was already gone, lost in the wispy clouds surrounding me.
Something hot and wet engulfed my dick, waking me from a deep sleep. Every cell in my groin roared to tingling, heart-pounding life. I opened my eyes. The room was dark, the shadows deep. A soft breath blew across my lower abs, tickling me.
“Eric?” I asked.
“Mmm.”
The hummed sound reverberated through my dick and I gasped. God in Heaven, that was good. “You’re back from meeting with Marco.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“He didn’t satisfy you?”
My dick popped out of Eric’s mouth and immediately reverted to a lifeless appendage, devoid of feeling. “He did, more than once. I’m still a little…frisky.”
“His blood made you horny.”
“Doesn’t it always?” The mattress shifted beneath me and Eric nipped the skin above my bellybutton. “Mmm. You taste so good, buttery warm and a little salty.”
I raked my fingers gently through his short, silky hair, undoubtedly mussing it even worse than normal. “Is that the cold man speaking or Eric?”
“Why can’t it be both?”
It could be in a couple of years, once Eric learned how to control that part of himself. “Do I need to step in?”
He laughed, low and easy, and kissed his way down my lower abs, his fingers feather-light along my hips.
I took that as a no.
He folded a hand around the base of my dick and slid it up the shaft, meeting his lips at the tip. “Ready?”
Oh, hell, was I ever.
He licked the slit along the head, then blew gently, and a well of sensation fluttered along my skin. I could feel him. My God, I could feel all of him, his tongue flicking lightly against my frenulum, his fingers massaging my balls, his palm twisting up and down the shaft of my engorged cock. I knotted my hands into fists around the sheet and rode the waves of pleasure radiating through me as his head bobbed up and down, sucking me deep into his mouth one moment, releasing me the next.
Our bond stretched and tightened, and abruptly, we sank into we, the blissful union of me and him. Everything was right there, our minds one, our bodies working in tandem, and his heart, so full of the most desperate kind of love I’d ever touched.
For me.
It wrapped itself around me, a pulsating brightness, complex and nuanced, his very essence in its purest form. I’d never known love could be like that, all-consuming and brutally frank. I’d never known it would seek me so eagerly and fill me with the wonder of another man’s soul.
“Eric,” I gasped out. “Christ.”
I cupped the back of his head and measured the quickening of his touch against the need swirling ever higher within me, carrying me exactly where Eric wanted me to be. I shared it with him, all of it, leaving nothing behind. What else could I do? How else could I be with him, the man I loved more than any other? I opened my heart to him fully for the first time since Gianna’s fall, and his rushed in, mingling with mine until there was no space he didn’t fill.
And for a brief moment as my body rushed toward the crest of a climax and we were united into one, I was whole again. My hips arched up, shoving me deeper into his mouth, and I came on a frenetic burst of seething ecstasy.
Eric held me inside his mouth for long moments afterward, swallowing me down, gentling me out of we and back into reality, and I felt every inch of him, inside and out, all the way down to my toes.
I laughed and wiggled them, and they brushed against the cotton sheets. Sweet, merciful God, I could feel again.
Eric released his hold on my cock and stretched out beside me, one hand circling over my abs. “What is it?”
“My legs. I can feel them.”
“Oh, my God.” He sat straight up and leaned over me, and the bedside lamp flicked on. “Show me.”
I wiggled my toes again, expecting to feel the sheets. Nothing happened. I tried again, focusing my will on my toes, my ankles, my knees, hell, anything. I managed to flex one thigh muscle about a second before it went numb. Slowly, the throbbing pleasure Eric had given me ebbed away, taking hope with it, leaving me achingly empty where he’d filled me so well.
I clapped a hand over my eyes, hiding the tears gathering there. “Sorry. False alarm.”
“No, there was something.” He eased my hand away and cupped my jaw, a gentle reassurance. “We’ll figure out what triggered the feeling coming back and we’ll get it back, I swear.”
I knew he’d try, understood it better now than I ever had before. “Is that really how you feel about me?”
His mouth curved into a small smile. “If you have to ask—”
“No, I don’t.” Not now that I’d been immersed in it. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“You know.” I skimmed my fingertips along the smooth skin of his arm, willing myself to feel him again. “It’s your turn.”
“Tomorrow.”
“No, now, in my mouth. I’ve waited long enough to have you like that.”
He touched his nose to mine and his sigh feathered over my lips. “Just be careful with my ass. Marco was a little rough and he spanked me right before he sent me home.”
“So that’s why you’re so horny.”
Eric grimaced. “He’s knows every button and doesn’t hesitate to push them all, whenever he feels like it.”
“He cares about you.”
“That’s what everybody says. While we’re on the subject of Marco, take some of my blood. I’m flush right now, full of him. You could use the boost.”
He straddled by stomach and gave me his neck, and I dug in deep, savoring every drop of his essence tinted with Marco’s. One thing led to another and before we fell asleep, Eric came in my mouth, satisfying me as much with his submission as he had when he’d mastered me.
Chapter Sixteen
Mike called two days later and arranged to meet us at my parents’ house that weekend, during my family’s planned afternoon at the movies.
Which seemed like an odd thing for my parents to do, with or without their kids tagging along. Pop hated being around people for long periods of time and he especially hated being cooped up. I couldn’t even remember the last time he’d voluntarily gone to the movies.
Then again, he and Ma had been acting funny all week. I’d caught them necking in the kitchen early Tuesday morning and had to bite my tongue against a laugh. Pop had his hand on Ma’s ass, and she had a leg hooked around one of his. I’d tried to back out, to give them a little peace, but Ma had heard me and flushed so red, her cheeks glowed. Pop wore a satisfied grin the rest of the week and he hardly ever smiled two days in a row.
Whatever was behind it, it was none of my business, but I was happy for them. God knew, I understood exactly how important intimacy was to a relationship.
Mine and Eric’s was chugging right along, so smoothly, I almost hated to examine it too closely. We stayed up late at night, talking and touching, hashing out plans we’d already settled, about our lives and school and the house we wanted to buy. It had to be big enough for the four of us, me and him and Gianna and Willow, and it had to have a yard. A basement, too, for emergency shelter and a playroom.
For us, not Willow.
The feeling came back in my legs twice more, never as fully as that first time, just enough to tease me with what had bee
n. Another man might’ve cursed and raged and embraced the bitter defeat zinging through me, but I was so grateful for the tiniest stinging sensation, I shunted it all aside and focused on the details of every encounter. What we were doing, what we were saying, how much I’d been able to move and for how long, exactly how it had felt to be free again. Somewhere in there, surely there was an answer to what was wrong with me, if I could just pinpoint the confluence of circumstances that would make me fully whole again, permanently.
Mike arrived that Saturday afternoon not long after my parents left, taking my sisters with them. I answered his knock and invited him in. He left his umbrella on the porch, propped against the side of the house. The sky had burst open an hour ago, soaking the earth with its precious fluid, and the scent of sweet, wet dirt lingered in the hallway.
Eric padded out of the living room on bare feet and paused in the doorway. “Pet.”
Mike bowed at the waist. “Master.”
Normally, only a fully transformed vampire merited the title. Eric didn’t correct him, and neither did I. It wouldn’t hurt at all for Mike to understand how outgunned he was.
We retreated to the living room. Mike took Pop’s recliner, Eric the far end of the couch, and I eased to a stop beside him in my chair. Thunder boomed in the distance, breaking the silence, and Mike exhaled an aspirated breath.
“I’m not currently affiliated with a specific stable,” he said.
Eric inclined his head. “So you said. Were you when you tested Jason?”
“I was. A favorite named Fen approached me when Jason turned fifteen and asked me to recruit him into the stable of his mistress Oriana, the vampire holding Minneapolis-St. Paul.”
“We’re acquainted with Oriana and her stable.”
“Then you know what she’s like. Insistent, spoiled, demanding. I managed to put Fen off for nearly a year.” Mike swallowed hard and his gaze slid away from Eric’s, landing somewhere near the TV. “He showed up at school one day with an envelope full of surveillance pictures of my fiancé.”
“He threatened her?” I asked.
“Not directly, no, but I understood his intent. Bring you into the fold or lose her to the worst sort of torture a woman could endure. Fen’s good at hurting people.”
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