As soon as he cleared the threshold, a family member rounded the corner.
The woman was young.
She was barely a fledgling.
Jolie felt bad.
“Mistress,” whispered the female vampyre as she bowed and dropped to her knees. “What can I do for you?”
Jolie looked down at her and felt pity.
It had been the vampyre’s parents who had voted against her and not this poor child. Because of them, she was now forced to work for Balzac as what was equivalent to his handmaid.
“Portia, are you well?”
“Yes.. Mistress, I guess,” she said still staring down at Jolie’s feet.
“Do you wish to come home?”
The girl looked up at her with big tears in her eyes. “He will not let us come back to you, Mistress. A few of us have wanted to leave, but it angers the Master. He thinks it would shame him, and he has vowed our death if we betray him.”
Jolie touched her chin and forced her to stand.
“You can come back. I’ll protect you.”
“He killed my parents. He hates humans,” she whispered, glancing over at Flynn. “If he finds him here…”
Fury washed through Jolie.
“Since our excommunication, he’s been hell bent on destroying humans. He’s holding a grudge.”
She wasn’t surprised.
Jolie had gifted him humans and vampyres not to abuse, but to teach Balzac a lesson.
She wanted to hurt him.
“Do you want to come home?”
“God, yes! Please help me escape. There are more like me. He’s beginning to acquire young vampyres.”
She knew why.
It was like Delina all over again, only without the sexual abuse. That wouldn’t end well.
It never did.
“Go get your things, Portia. I will handle Balzac. You may lay low until I am ready to leave. I will be out shortly. Spread the word that I’m taking the loyal home with me.”
“Yes, Mistress, and thank you.”
She raced away.
Jacques touched her arm. “You didn’t have to do that. They made their stand.”
“She’s just a child, Jacques. She shouldn’t have to be Balzac’s slave. No one is property,” she stated.
“He’s out of control,” Flynn offered. “I can taste the fear here. They’re watching us. The vampyres here are curious. They expect us to slaughter them. Some of them are hoping we do. That says a lot about the situation.”
She was aware.
“Then let’s find Balzac. I would hate to let them down.”
They moved quietly through the house, scanning for the vampyre in charge of it all. Jolie felt him in what was once the great kitchen of the plantation. She moved silently into the room and waited for him to feel her there.
He was clueless.
When he finally turned, she spoke, “You’re getting slow, my old friend. We could have had your throat ripped out before you would have had the chance to defend yourself.”
He was horrified.
It was clearly on his face.
“How did you get in?”
“I walked in.”
He got angry.
Jolie continued, before he could bitch and moan. “Isn’t being the head of a family a royal pain in the ass?” she asked, gliding over to a table to take a seat.
“No, we’re fine. I run my family better than you ever did. There’s no stress at all.”
They all knew he was lying.
“Yes, you’re miserable. You look like you’ve aged,” Jacques stated. “That’s ironic.”
“Be quiet, Jacques. You’re nothing more than her trained lap dog. You got lucky and mated up in life. You’ve earned nothing,” he spat with pure venom. “She picked poorly. I still say it to this day.”
Flynn hissed.
“You will not speak to my mates like that. You will not degrade the people I love. I will end you.”
The man glanced over, as a wave of darkness moved toward him. The room became chilly, and their breath was clearly visible.
“You have a cold heart,” Flynn stated.
Balzac clutched his chest.
Then he dropped to his knees.
“We need him alive, Flynn, my love,” Jolie stated. “Let him live for now.”
As quickly as it started, it stopped. “Yes, my love.”
Balzac blinked, trying to recover his composure. “What are you?” he asked in horror.
He began backing away as he stood.
“What do you want?”
“Who went to the Tueur about my pregnancy?” asked Jolie.
She was angry.
“How should I know?”
They could hear it in his voice.
He was lying.
Flynn moved closer to him. His eyes bled black, and his fangs slid ominously into his mouth. He wasn’t happy that this vampyre had risked his family.
His woman.
His mate.
His children.
The growl began low in his gut, and soon, it was heard by everyone in the room. Balzac went to move away, but he found himself trapped.
“What is he? What have you made him with your evilness?” he accused Jolie.
She laughed.
As Flynn morphed into the darkness, it pulled Jolie’s from her. The tendrils licked along the floor until they crawled up Flynn’s body.
They seemed to absorb into him—as if he was an extension of the harbinger, and he was.
He was her killer.
Flynn growled and it sounded like thunder booming in the room. As his demon and her death combined, Balzac has signed his death warrant.
“Tell me the truth,” he hissed, holding out his hand.
They watched as Balzac’s veins all began opening on his exposed body. The blood began running.
He began panicking.
It only hurt him more. As his heart picked up the pace, so did the bleeding.
“I did it. I contacted them. You’re carrying an abomination, and you needed to be spayed.”
Jacques was up and out of his seat from beside Jolie. He also went all vamp-y in his anger.
Jolie didn’t move.
“You damned our children. You turned Flynn into Rinnon . You’ve caused all this out of jealousy and anger. You caused my family to be hunted. You have to pay, Balzac.”
The man looked panicked at the name.
Apparently, he knew his vampyre legend.
Jacques touched his mate’s shoulder. “I want to end him. He’s mine. For all the years he’s made me suffer, I want to be the one who takes his life.”
Flynn was fine with that.
“Baby, is it time?”
“It is, my loves. He’s sentenced to death for betrayal.”
“The council will punish you!” he blurted. “They’ll hear about this and sentence you to death.”
Flynn laughed. “We answer to no one. I answer only to Death.”
When he said the name, the tendrils ebbed from his body in wave after wave of inkiness.
He pointed at Balzac, and he knelt in front of Jacques.
Then he called for Balzac’s mate.
They waited.
As she came, it was clear that she was fighting the call, but she didn’t have a choice.
“NO!” his mate wept.
“Let her go,” Balzac said. “She’s innocent in all this. Don’t you kill her!”
Flynn laughed.
“You didn’t seem to mind trying to kill my mate.”
But just to be sure…
Flynn touched the female on the head. “She knew. He spoke of it to her.”
Jolie made a tsking sound.
“Then there you go.”
“Kill her first,” Jacques ordered.
Balzac looked horrified.
Flynn snapped his fingers and the female’s head twisted off. The room was filled with the sound of popping bones and rendering flesh.
Balz
ac wept. “No!”
Jacques pulled a blade from his boot. “I want you to die in the most painful way possible. You may have cost us our children. In the end, we may lose Jolie. For that, I have to have your death.”
He couldn’t move as Jacques sliced across his throat. There was enough blood to cause him to exsanguinate slowly.
Jolie had no sympathy.
She didn’t have any love lost.
Balzac had brought this on himself, and they were now fighting the battle for their lives.
Flynn had already succumbed to it.
When he stared at her with dying eyes, Jolie had enough. “Flynn, I don’t want to see them anymore.”
He snapped and they burst into flames. Death slid from his body in the wicked tendrils to drink in what was left of them both.
Flynn let them drop as he headed back toward his mate.
Jacques followed.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’re more than welcome, baby. Anything for you.”
His eyes were back to normal, and there wasn’t any sign of what he’d become.
He could turn it on and off easily.
“We should go,” Jacques stated.
Jolie agreed.
She was sick of that place. For now, she wanted to go home.
As they headed out, all three of them could hear the whispers of the family. She knew they were distraught.
“Come out,” she said softly as she stepped into the dilapidated foyer. A few children and young vampyres exited from the shadows.
The sight of them spoke volumes.
Balzac had eliminated all the older ones in the hopes of molding the youngest ones into his army.
She was glad he was dead.
“Who here wasn’t involved in the vote to remove Mathew from being my guardian those weeks ago?”
She watched as half the hands lifted.
“Come here.”
They slowly walked out of the shadows and toward her. Obviously, they were wary of the two mates who stood behind her.
“Would you like to come home?” she asked, taking in their faces.
They nodded, and then dropped to their knees.
Jolie’s heart was breaking.
They were the innocents, forced to leave because of the bad decisions of their parents.
“Where are your mothers and fathers?” Flynn asked.
“Dead,” one stated. “They’re all dead.”
They didn’t lie.
“They’re telling the truth, Jolie, baby.”
That was all she had to hear.
Jolie lowered herself to the floor and opened her arms to them. They moved toward her quickly and wrapped themselves around her body in a tight embrace.
They were only children.
Sinless.
Jacques leaned down to pick up one of the younger children who was now tugging at his pants. She couldn’t be more than four years old. When he picked her up, she laid her head on his shoulder.
One even crossed to Flynn, and he cuddled her.
“It is fine now, little ones. You’ll go home to the playroom, and everything will be okay. We’ll find you a new surrogate mother, and you’ll be safe.”
There was a collective sigh.
“We need Vanth.”
Flynn knew why. He called for her.
When she appeared beside him, there was a fluttering of wings.
His and hers.
Apparently, Flynn being near other demons made his other side come out.
“Yes, Master?” she asked.
“Can you get all of these children home?”
She nodded.
“Yes, Master.”
“Flynn.”
“Yes, Master Flynn.”
“Vanth!”
She laughed, and then all of them disappeared.
“What about the house?” Jacques asked. They wanted to make sure any of the vampyres who weren’t home, and loyal to Balzac would have no trail to track.
“I say we destroy it,” Flynn offered.
Jolie had already begun walking out, but she was pretty much thinking the same thing.
“Flynn? Handle it.”
He grinned wickedly. “Now, this was what I was talking about,” he admitted. Once they were in the Hummer, and pulling away, there was one hell of an explosion and very high flames.
Jacques stared at it.
“Overkill perhaps?”
Jolie simply grabbed her vampyre/demon mate by the front of the shirt and kissed him for all she was worth.
When they broke away, they could all feel the death around them. It wasn’t unpleasant.
Not at all.
“When we get home, you can thank me repeatedly.”
Jolie was more than fine with that.
“That’s a promise I can willingly keep.”
And she would.
∞ Chapter Thirty ∞
While they wanted to call it a night, they couldn’t. There were still a few loose ends to handle. After Jolie had been attacked, they’d left Doctor Tome’s body in the office. They couldn’t leave him there to rot.
That would bring up uncomfortable questions.
And some jail time for someone.
So, as they dropped Jolie at the house, to deal with the children and get them settled, Flynn and Jacques opted to handle the mess.
What choice did they have?
Percy had been notified to lock down the house, and Tommy Gress was on patrol duty too. The men were feeling pretty secure that, together, they could hold down the fort.
As they drove toward Jolie’s office building, Flynn behind the wheel, Jacques was anxious.
“What’s wrong?” Flynn finally asked.
“Nothing.”
“You just lied.”
“I did not…”
He glanced over. “You did again. I can smell a lie.”
“I was thinking about blood.”
Flynn drove into the parking garage and pulled into a spot reserved for Jolie.
“What about it?”
“I want some of yours.”
Flynn shrugged. “Okay.”
“That’s it? No questions asked?”
“Did you want foreplay?” he asked. “Jacques, you big sexy blood sucker, come chew on my neck. How was that?”
He laughed. “You suck at foreplay.”
Flynn grinned. “Yeah, our girl doesn’t think so.”
Jacques went serious.
“I can’t help it. I really want some of your blood. I’m curious. Jolie was able to walk into the house without being invited in. I want to have that skill. I want to feel like I’m part of this. Then, I feel like I’m using you. I’m torn.”
Flynn got it. Only, Jacques was forgetting one thing.
“We’re mates. My blood is yours. If you need to be fed, or need to use me, you’re welcome to it. I thought we decided this already.”
They had, but Jacques still felt awkward about it. He wasn’t accustomed to coming out and asking for something like this.
“It’s just…”
“It’s okay.”
Flynn tugged his shirt open, revealing his throat.
Jacques admitted, “It’s a good thing these windows are tinted. This could raise some speculation.”
“I’m not worried what people think. If they think we’re screwing around, it’s not really their business. I love you, and I want you to be happy. You and Jolie are my life.”
Jacques could feel his heart kicking up.
“I’m ready when you are,” Flynn said.
Jacques turned to face him. He could pick up Flynn’s cologne and Jolie’s scent on his skin. It made him hungry for what the man was offering.
“Don’t let me take too much,” he said, knowing that he wasn’t going to have much control.
“You can’t. I’m endless. It’s part of the gift.”
He grinned. “That I can get behind.”
Flynn didn’t move. Instead, he
watched Jacques eyes bleed black, and his fangs appear.
Then Jacques struck.
He wasn’t gentle or easy like he was when he fed from Jolie. Instead, he was ravenous. Jacques was practically on top of him.
As his fangs pierced his flesh, both men moaned. Flynn hit the seat release to make more room for his mate as he fed. Together, they fell backward.
Jacques held on. His fangs were in Flynn’s flesh, as his one hand was buried in his hair.
The more he drank, the more he wanted.
It was like heaven.
The heat rolled through them both. While Flynn was in control, Jacques wasn’t. Flynn’s blood called to him. As he sucked and sucked, the pleasure threatened to pull him under.
Jacques couldn’t help himself.
He became so hungry, that he forgot that the man beneath him was supplying him. All Jacques wanted was to forget it all.
Then, he teetered on the edge.
The sudden wave of pleasure was there, out of nowhere. He began to panic.
Flynn whispered into his mind. ‘I have you. Fall.’
Jacques couldn’t contain the explosion. The pleasure overwhelmed him, and before he knew it, he was slipping beneath the wave of orgasm.
He’d lost total control, all because of the feeding. In over seven hundred years, he’d always been in control.
Until now.
He was shocked.
When he finally surfaced, he was resting against Flynn’s body, and he was breathing heavily.
It was…awkward.
“I’m sorry,” he said, embarrassed that he’d reacted to the feeding like that. It had never happened before.
Not with Jolie.
Not with him.
With no one.
He lifted his head to have Flynn brush his hair from his cheek.
“I’m not upset,” he offered. “This is new for all of us. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
He stared at him. “We just had a discussion about boundaries between us.”
Flynn stopped him.
“New rules. New game. Technically, we didn’t have sex, Jacques. You reacted to my blood. You can’t help it, and neither can I. It’s part of it.”
Jacques relaxed.
“Did you get enough blood?”
“More than enough—thank you.”
Jacques moved back into his seat. He searched for evidence of his orgasm, but there was none.
“It was in your head. I was in there controlling it. You were safe. I only want you and Jolie safe.”
He swallowed.
Dangerous Influence (The Harcourte Vampyre Society Book 5) Page 37