William huffed but obeyed. He let go of Evan with a small nip to her bottom lip. She sat back, her head spinning. What the hell was going on? The flip flop from the William just hours before to the William now had her ready to shout for joy and burst into tears at the same time.
Mason stormed to the side of the bed. “You aren’t to use your power on anyone.”
William smiled. “But why? There are so many women waiting for me to show them the pleasure they are capable of experiencing. And this one is incredibly beautiful.”
“Still. You will not use your powers here. Do you understand?”
William pouted. Actually pouted. Making a chill run through Evan. She didn’t like this side of him. It was false, manipulative. Two things she’d never known William to be.
“Fine. But can I use them outside this room?” asked William.
“No,” said Evan.
“Why?”
“Because you’re mine,” Evan said.
William’s head whipped back to meet her gaze. “I belong to no one.”
Evan glanced around the room and swallowed hard. “What’s my name?” she asked.
William flashed her a toothy smile. “Does it matter?”
“Yes.” Evan’s voice hardened as anger flushed her skin. “It does.”
“Is it… Jane?” he teased.
“No.”
“Prudence?”
Evan glared at him and he chuckled.
“Okay, not Prudence. How about Candy? Or Cindy? MaryAnn? Trisha?”
“Shut up!” Her entire body shook. He didn’t remember her. She’d been prepared for anything. Anything but that.
“I’m sorry,” said Mason. “I didn’t realize he’d forget his former life. The memories are in there. I’m sure they are. He just has to find them.”
“Give him some time,” Danika said gently. “He’s only just become… Just give him some time.”
Evan nodded but said nothing. The walls of her newly built world seemed to be crumbling down around her, toppling her and crushing her from the inside out.
“Come on,” said Mason. “This is between them.”
“No way,” said Tommy. “I won’t let him hurt her.”
Evan looked to her cousin. “He won’t hurt me.”
William took a fake nip at her arm and smiled. “I might. I like biting. And tying up and being tied up and—”
“Come on.” Mason rolled his eyes and wrapped his arm around Danika’s waist.
Tommy looked to Evan and she nodded.
“I’ll wait in the hall.”
“It’s okay. Why don’t you go check on Sue?”
“Sue?” said William. “Is she the tasty little brunette?”
Tommy’s expression darkened and he left without a word.
So William remembered Sue but not her? She sat next to him unable to look at him. His body temperature now rivaled that of her own.
William brushed her hair from her shoulder. “I feel like I know you but I can’t quite place you. Are we lovers?”
The sentence sounded so strange. He looked like William, sort of, yet he wasn’t William.
Determination set inside her. She was going to have to take the initiative. Make him remember. She straddled his hips and he purred in delight.
“You remember what you asked me last night?”
His brows furrowed and he gave her a gleaming smile. “To engage in a night full of endless pleasure?”
“No. You asked me to marry you.”
He laughed. “Such a simple concept. Marriage. Two people committing to each other and none else for the entirety of their lives. But there are too many females in this world worth having to settle with just one.”
“Oh really?” Evan asked, trying to keep her cool.
“One female could never satisfy my needs. And I can be so much to so many. There are so many pleasures and desires and fantasies to fulfill.” His hands roamed up her body but she refused to give in to his touch. “Mason says I’m not allowed to compel you with my talents, but I don’t think I’ll need them.”
She smacked his hands away and he chuckled. “Oooohhh. I like you, feisty.”
“Feisty is not the word you should be using to describe me right now,” she countered.
“I’ve offended you.” He thought for a moment and an adorable set of wrinkles creased between his eyebrows. “Because I said I don’t want to marry you?”
“No.” She hopped off him and he groaned.
“Don’t be like that.”
She was nose to nose with him in a flash. “Until you are ready to commit to me and no one else, you do not get to talk to me.”
He smiled seductively. “I can smell the way you want me. You can’t resist me. No woman can.”
“Watch me.” Rage heated Evan so deeply she was surprised her hair hadn’t caught fire yet.
“Evan,” he called as she strode from the room. “Evan!”
She slammed the door and stood in the hall, head in her hands. She’d expected bloodlust, murder, anger even. This wasn’t not what she’d expected of him. Not at all.
“Are you okay?” asked Danika.
Evan’s head whipped up, and she wrapped her arms around herself. “Not really.”
“It’s not what I expected either.” Danika walked toward her slowly. “I should have though. As soon as Mason said his deepest desire would define him, I should have known what would happen. All William has ever wanted was to belong and have people like him. This was a natural progression.”
“He doesn’t want me anymore,” said Evan.
“Not true,” Danika replied.
“He wants everyone now.”
Danika nodded. “Yes. But even someone who wants everyone still wants a special someone to come home to. When Maelstrom first woke up he almost killed me. He didn’t remember me either. But eventually he did.”
“So you think I should indulge him. Share him with other women?”
“Hell no.” Danika and Evan laughed. “What I mean is what happens in his thoughts and his pants are not something you are going to be able to control. What you do to keep him in your bedroom is up to you.”
“You think I need to keep him satisfied to keep him? That he doesn’t need to do anything to keep me?”
“Oh no, dear. I’d never say that. You need to show him who’s in charge. You need to lead. Remind him of who you are and make him remember you.” Danika looked Evan up and down and then put her arm around Evan’s shoulder. “Come on. I think I can help with this a bit.”
Chapter 23
William had been stuck in the room for the last three days with only Danika or Mason coming to see him. The craze of being locked in the room was starting to set him on edge. He craved the company of someone else. Preferably a willing female. His brain and crotch had both almost exploded with thoughts and desires over his time of imprisonment. There were so many things he wanted to try. So many pleasures he wanted to experience. So many women he wanted to test out.
He lay on his bed staring at the ceiling listening to the sounds of the house. Every heartbeat of a human, every sigh of a vampire was audible and made him want to do and explore and entice. But something about Evan conflicted with the need inside to tease and flirt and conquer every woman within a hundred miles. Vampire, vampyr, human, it didn’t matter. But somehow her face lingered just below the surface as a memory he could not seem to shake.
He wished Evan would come to see him. He was sure if he could talk to her, she’d fall in bed with him willingly. Any female would.
Flashes of a woman in a blue flower dress pulling him through the dark woods interrupted his thoughts. Her stern yet loving face filled his mind.
“Selfishness is an ugly trait William Scott.” Fear and dread washed over him. He couldn’t place the woman but she was important and her words stung in to the core. He shook his head and took a deep breath.
Like flashes from an incomplete film, memories had plagued him over the past day
s. But none as much as the memories of making love to Evan. The feel of her soft skin on his, the sweet scent of her sweat slicked body. William groaned and threw his hands over his face. He needed to screw someone. Or a whole room full of someones.
A knock pulled him from his thoughts.
“You need to get up,” said Mason. “Dinner is being served downstairs for everyone to mingle. We won’t have many opportunities left, and Danika wants everyone to enjoy themselves.”
“Wonderful. Are there women down there?”
“You are to keep your hands and your mouth to yourself.”
William smiled. “I can do many things without using either.”
Mason pointed at him. “Your junk stays in your pants.”
William sighed. “What a bore. I might as well stay here.”
Mason shrugged. “Suit yourself. But you aren’t allowed to entice anyone as long as you live under this roof.”
“So I can leave?”
Mason ground his teeth together. “After my father comes and things are decided, you can go where you please.”
William found the connection to Mason strange and new. As if some part of who he was now was bound to obey Mason’s commands. Almost like an oppressive aura, William felt that Mason was superior to himself. He could not resist Mason’s commands, even though he wanted to.
“You don’t like me,” William said.
“I like who you used to be.”
“I can’t help who I am now.”
“And that is where you are wrong,” said Mason. “You have a choice like all of us do. Like you did when you were a vampyr. You can choose to give in to your baser instincts or you can choose to be more.”
Why be more when being himself could be so pleasurable?
“I’ll dress and be down in a minute,” William finally said.
Mason nodded. “Know that the only reason I’m letting you out of this room is because Danika requested it. If it was up to me you’d stay locked in here until you learned some manners. I know being a new demi-demon can be hard on this plane, but it doesn’t give you the right to be a dick to those who care about you.”
Mason left without another word. The thought stabbed William somewhere he couldn’t place. He and Mason had been friends, but now… William frowned. He didn’t like the feeling that Mason no longer cared for him.
The rejection hit William harder than he liked to admit.
* * * *
“You look beautiful,” said Danika.
Evan didn’t feel beautiful, she felt naked and queasy and alone. It’d been three agonizing days since she’d seen William. Part of her wanted to go to him and force him to remember her. Part of her couldn’t bear the pain of seeing those vacant red eyes that didn’t remember her.
Instead, she’d spent her time trying to recuperate from her ordeal. It surprised her how much the last weeks had fatigued her both mentally and physically. Her leg had healed completely, but every once and a while it would still ache. She found that even though she once again had all the food she could want, nothing sounded appetizing.
“Do I really have to do this?” she asked.
Danika turned from her jewelry box while putting on her earrings. “Nope. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. But I’m telling you, William has been asking for you every time I see him. He’s remembering, and seeing you like this may very well be the thing he needs to knock those memories loose and bring him back to us.”
Evan nodded and fought the urge to wrap her arms around herself. She wasn’t just doing this for herself, she was doing it for all of them. More than anything in the last three days, she’d seen the pain that William’s change had brought to so many people. Danika and Mason especially.
She looked at herself in the mirror and swallowed hard. She had to do this. She just hoped it worked.
* * * *
William descended the staircase, feasting on the spectacle before him. Swarms of people mingled in the foyer. Vampires, vampyr, and humans alike. The sights and sounds and smells of it had him turned on and ready to party, and he’d not even made it to the last step. So many women to pleasure and be pleasured by. So many men to have groveling at his feet. It was a feast for the senses.
He scanned the crowd trying to find familiar faces. His eyes landed on a tall blond vampyr holding a baby. The sadness that radiated from her slammed into him from all the way across the room. Sinya.
She greeted the well-wishers and those consoling her with a pasted-on smile that didn’t reach her eyes. A memory surfaced of Lance and Sinya standing by him as they stood up for Danika and Mason against the three kings. He swallowed hard against the sadness that her pain awakened in him.
A tinkle of familiar laughter perked his interest. He looked to his left and stopped dead in his tracks. His gut clenched and every nerve in his body lit on fire. Evan stood in the corner of the foyer, near the atrium. She wore a tight black dress cut almost to her belly button in the front. Her wheat-colored hair had been swept up in an elegant chignon exposing her long, slender throat. She laughed again and laid her hand on the arm of one of the Vampires she spoke to.
Her bright blue eyes flicked his direction. His arousal grew, making his already tight suit pants even tighter. She spotted him and turned pointedly away, sipping her champagne and exposing her entire back down to the hollow of her spine. He gripped the railing of the stairs so tight it groaned under his fingers. It took all of his control to keep from rushing to Evan and kneeling behind her while running his tongue over that southern-most indent of her spine.
He envisioned running his hands up her perfectly shaped calves and silken, exposed thighs that were pushed up from the crimson red heels she wore. A memory triggered of her in black cargo pants and T-shirts. He liked this outfit much more.
“William.”
His gaze whipped to see Danika walking toward him.
“How are you feeling?”
He turned back to watch Evan. “Hungry.”
“Wonderful.” Danika linked her arm with his. “Come. I’ve arranged companionship for you tonight.”
He looked to Danika. “I want Evan.”
“She’s off limits.” Danika pulled him the other direction, and he craned his neck but could no longer see Evan.
“Why?” he asked.
“As I’ve told you for the last three days, she isn’t much for sharing. And as you have expressed the desire to be with more than one female, she’s decided to find herself another benefactor tonight.”
“What?” William pulled his arm from Danika and stopped. “She couldn’t— She wouldn’t do that. She said she wants to marry me.”
Danika nodded as if talking to a small child. “Yes. She did want to marry you, before.”
“Before? But I’m better now. Look at me.”
“True, you are better to look at somewhat. But looks aren’t everything. More than anything she wants a family of her own. You should know that.”
“Oh.” His talents and passions were to take pleasure and give pleasure. It was what he was. What he was born for. Yet those he’d met so far didn’t seem to want that. They were all happy being with just one person.
Danika walked him to the back conference room. She opened the door and inside stood two vampyr and two humans awaiting him. The vampyr were drinking from the humans and the very sight sent William into a tailspin of desire.
“Ooohhh, he’s finally arrived,” said an Asian human.
“Wow! He’s big,” said the other with black hair cut into a bob.
The two vampyr stopped and looked over to William.
“Wow, you’re amazing.” The brunette slid across the conference table.
“I’ll leave you to it.” Danika patted him on the chest and closed the door behind him.
William swallowed hard and smiled. A smorgasbord of pleasure just waiting for him. The brunette crawled toward him, followed by the redhead. They backed him into the wall, each running their hands over his body.
William closed his eyes and purred as the redhead unzipped his pants and knelt in front of him.
The brunette turned his head, so he looked at her and smiled.
“I’ve been told I’m delicious.” She pulled her hair away from her neck and leaned into him.
He snaked his hand around her slim waist. It was slightly smaller than Evan’s. He ran his hand down her rear, cupping her too flat bottom. Evan’s was nicely round and curvy. The thought annoyed and surprised him.
The redhead slid her hand inside his pants, and he strained to keep his wits about him. He bit into the brunette and took a long draw from her. The taste was sweet and salty, but not quite right. Her blood was like wine for his senses. Not at all something needed but a delicate pleasure nonetheless.
The redhead’s hand on his shaft was soft but too small. His frowned at the thought. He should be enjoying himself, but somehow all of it seemed off. Wrong even. All of it. The blood, the women. Evan’s face passed through his mind. The picture of her resting her hand on the other Vampire’s arm made his anger spike.
He retracted his fangs from the brunette’s neck.
“What’s the matter, lover?”
“I’m sorry.” William reached down and zipped his pants. “I apologize, ladies, but I’m afraid this isn’t what I need.”
The redhead giggled. “How’s that possible? We’re every man’s fantasy.”
“Yes.” He nodded. “You sure are. Unfortunately, I’m not a man anymore. If you’ll excuse me.”
“But—”
William opened the door quickly and then shut it behind himself. He took a deep breath and blew it out again. He looked around the family room and kitchen area. Everywhere he looked humans, Vampires, and vampyr mingled together. Taunting him, teasing him. But he didn’t want them. There was only one person he wanted. Why? Why her?
He strode out to the foyer. Evan was nowhere in sight. Anxiety gnawed at his gut. Why did he need her? A room full of willing females, and all he wanted was the blonde that had spurned him.
“Done already?” Danika walked to him quickly.
“I couldn’t… I didn’t…” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Where’s Evan? I need Evan.”
Vengeance of the Demons Page 22