by Eve Newton
CK just looks at him in that mildly infuriating way of his and says, “Don’t then. But don’t come crying to me when Liv ends up dead because you didn’t help her.”
“Constantine!” I say in automatic response to him calling me Liv, “That’s not a very nice thing to say.”
“Just making a point, my dear,” he says, still in the same tone.
Xane just glares at him but nods.
“See?” CK says to me.
“Liv,” Cole pulls me to the side and hugs me. “Will you be okay? What if this thing comes back in your dreams later? I can’t lose you.”
“You won’t lose me. I know Its game now. I will be careful. I promise,” I whisper to him and he gives me a very thorough, lingering kiss, which sets CK’s blood boiling.
Devon and Lincoln, also in need of some reassurance, give me a quick cuddle each and between Sebastian and Xane they ship everyone back to Canada.
“Alone again,” CK says to me, pulling me in for a kiss to erase Cole’s lips from mine. Jerk.
“Ahem,” Cade clears his throat. “Not quite. Can you wait for me to leave before you go at it?”
I pull away from CK and say, “Can you see what you can dig up on this Thirteen business? We have access to every lore, there must be something in the Regency databases or the old Council records archives.” Most of our systems have been updated since I came to Power, but there are still thousands of files sitting in the old Council HQ in Milan.
“Serena will be able to help,” Nico says suddenly. He has been so quiet and unassuming; I had forgotten he was even there.
“Who is Serena?” I ask, curiosity getting the best of me.
“She was the records archivist at The Council. Very clever and knowledgeable. If anyone can help, she can,” Nico says.
Oh. Yawn.
“Come now, my love. Our time together is running short.” CK grabs my hand and without another word Teleports us back to his bedroom.
“Erm, I want to go to my bedroom,” I tell him hesitantly.
“Why?”
I shrug. “I like it there.”
“Oh, well I can understand that, after all, it is yours. However, I was hoping that you would think of this room as yours as well. Ours.”
I blink at him. “Ours,” I say, weighing it up. “There is nothing of mine in here.”
“I can fix that,” he says quickly. “Just use ‘our bedroom’ when you think or speak of this room, please.”
“Okaaay,” I say, drawing it out. This is just too freaky. He has done a complete one-eighty, from no commitment at all, to handing me just about everything he owns. I am a little overwhelmed, what with everything that has gone on, so I just turn and walk down the hallway to my room. He follows and opens the door for me and ushers me in, closing the door quietly. The candles are still burning but I light some more and soon the room has a hazy glow that I kind of miss since the invention of electric lighting.
He sits on the bed, his mood serious. “We need to talk.”
Oh, I do not like the sound of that.
“Come and sit.” He pats the space next to him.
I walk over slowly and sit next to him, instinctively angling myself towards him.
He smiles. “I never get tired of that reaction,” he mutters as he takes my hand. “First things, you need to feed, my love, the Vampire way.”
As if on cue, there is a knock on the door. “Enter,” he calls.
The gorgeous Ramon walks in. I take in his good looks with appreciation. Oh yes, I definitely want to feed the Vampire way with him. He walks over slowly and warily. I don’t blame the poor guy: last time I saw him I was naked and offering him a three-way with myself and my sire (not that I followed through though, remember?).
He kneels in front of me and I drop my fangs. I roughly pull him towards me with one hand as CK laces his fingers through my others.
Mm, AB Neg, delicious, is the only thought going through my head as I drink from him. CK squeezes my fingers to let go and I pull back. I retract my fangs and give Ramon a chaste kiss on the mouth. “Thank you,” I mutter.
“You may leave now,” CK says, not happy with my kiss. Ramon does as he is told, and I turn to my sire.
“Now if you could arrange to have him follow me around to remind me to feed, I would be a good girl. A very good girl,” I say seductively. He tries to grimace at me but his eyes light up at my tone and the fact that my hand is now inching up his thigh. I reach his enormous erection; it makes me shiver as I think how turned on he gets watching me feed. I kick off my shoes, what is it about this place that makes me want to go barefoot? I slip my hand into the waistband of his pants.
“Wait,” he chokes out. “We still need to talk.”
I pout. “Don’t reject me. It hurts,” I say in a small voice while undoing the button and zip to get him free.
“Aefre. Please,” he says. “I am not rejecting you; we just need to talk about something. It’s important to me.”
I huff at him and remove my hand and say, “CK, what is this about?”
He ponders that for a while, then he lets go of my hand and stands up, doing up his pants in the process.
Huh, curious. And quite frankly, a little insulting.
He walks a few feet away and turning back to me, says, “Sebastian.”
I feel myself pale. Oh crap. He knows.
I open my mouth to start doing damage control, but he speaks first. “Do you know how much I love you?” he asks me to my surprise.
“Yes, of course,” I reply straight away.
“I don’t mean romantically; I mean as your sire. Do you know how much I love you as my charge?”
I pause as I have no clue where he is going with this. “Err, yes. About the same as I love Devon and Cole, I guess.”
He looks relieved and says, “Good, yes, that’s good. Draw on your own feelings. You love them and would do anything for them even if it meant putting your own feelings aside to make them happy?”
I nod. “Of course.”
“That is how I feel about you.”
“Okay.”
“It is also how I feel about Sebastian,” he says uncertainly. “It is important that you know that.”
“Good. I’m glad,” I say, and he looks at me in surprise. “Your comments in Vegas about how you don’t feel anything for most of your charges concerned me,” I add.
“Oh,” he pauses now, taking that in.
“I wish you had told me about him before he turned up in New York. He is such a huge part of your life and I never even knew,” I say cautiously.
He peers at me warily and I sigh. As much as he has changed, he is still the same cagey tiger he has always been.
“He is hurting,” he says quietly.
“Why?”
“Because of his secret. He is hurting and I can’t do anything to help him.”
“Oh.” I see now where this is going. I have a mild sense of not déjà vu, but something else. Like I was expecting it. Like somehow, I knew it was coming.
I start to shake my head at him as he says, “But you can.”
“No, CK, no.”
“Liv, please.” I start at the use of Liv. “He needs you to help him. I need you to help him.”
“No. I said that when we were in the past, you should just try and find someone you trust to help him.”
“Don’t you think we have tried that? Hundreds of times over the last two thousand, seven hundred and sixty years, and it always ends the same. In betrayal and certain death.”
“That’s a bit dramatic, isn’t it?” I ask with a frown. “Just throw some money at someone to keep their trap shut.”
“Aefre, I don’t think you really get the enormity of this.” He sighs.
“I do. I get that his blood is the cure for our limitations.”
“Yes. For all of us,” he presses.
I nod. “Yes, I know.”
“All of us, Aefre. Not just the top four, but everyone.”
“What? I tho
ught anything below a Lesser Immortal couldn’t withstand sunlight even with the Faerie Silver?”
“Not if they drink from Sebastian,” he snaps at me, getting irritated with my apparent denseness. “And it isn’t a cure if they drink from him, it’s temporary without the Silver and the spell. Do you get it now? If they knew, he would be used as a Feeder for the weak. Imprisoned and used.”
I gulp. “Oh,” I say, realization dawning that it would be a hideous fate to endure. “I see now.”
“Very well. So, you see the problem we face? Even if we threw money at someone, as you so succinctly put it, what is to stop them from using him to make even more money by charging for feeding?”
That is a massive reality check mixed in with a big old dose of disgust.
“Fine. I get it. But what about Jess? They are married in the future. Why not clue her in? I’m sure we could trust her, with her being so close and all.”
“They are married in the future?” he asks incredulously. “She drinks from him?”
“Well, no,” I admit. “He said he spelled her to not bite him.” I am getting very confused here so I ask, “Why can’t he just spell someone to forget after they’ve fed from him? And furthermore, if someone does drink from him, how do they even know what he is? What his blood can do?”
He looks at me like I am thick, and I wonder if perhaps I am, as I just don’t get it.
“Don’t you feel it? When you drink from him, don’t you feel it?” he asks.
“Feel what?” And err, present tense? As far as he knows, I only drank from him the one time. Oh crap, he does know. Sebastian must have spilled the beans. He is so dead. But no, CK hasn’t come at me with accusations about Xane so…ah, forget it. Freudian slip.
“The power rush,” he says and frowns at me.
“Oh that, well, yes, it was mildly boosting,” I say, drawing out the word “was” for his benefit and he looks at me somewhere between confused and amused.
“Mildly boosting? Is that all?”
“Well, more so than the average Vampire,” I say, now frowning at him. “It is supposed to be more?”
“Aefre, the rush is incredible,” he says with a look of wonder on his face. “The feeling of being invincible. And that is for me. For Lesser Vampires, it is so much more.”
“Oh, well I am clearly not a Lesser Vampire,” I say haughtily. “What’s this got to do with anything?” I have lost the plot and I want to fuck him now. Not talk about Sebastian.
“Hm, interesting. It must be your Queen status that makes it so. Normally anyone who drinks from him knows there is something different about him. All it would take is for someone to explore it further and…” he holds his hands up.
“And what about spelling them to forget then?” I ask, more than irked by now.
“He doesn’t have the power to make people forget, Aefre. It is suggestion. You can’t suggest to someone they forget something.”
Why not? I think to myself, but refrain from saying it out loud at the risk of sounding even dumber.
“Fine,” I say. “I get that you obviously know what you are talking about, having been dealing with it for thousands of years,” to which he looks relieved, “but I can’t do anything about it,” to which he looks annoyed.
“You can. You can be with him in the way that he wants, that he needs.”
I just stare at him, so he tries a different tactic. “How would you feel if you could have sex and feed, but not be fed from?”
“I do, all the time. With Lincoln,” I say and then really, really wish that I hadn’t.
“With your VAMPIRES!” he roars at me and I jump to my feet, hand over my racing heart.
“All right!” I snap. “Keep your pants on.” Although, I could really do with him losing his pants right about now.
He visibly calms himself and tries again, “I know you love it, Aefre. I know that you can’t live without it.”
Well, he has me there. He must see he is finally getting through to me as he continues, “He doesn’t even risk being intimate with other Vampires because of it. Apart from Vivienne, who he spells, he hasn’t been with another Vampire in centuries.”
Now he has my undivided attention. If I couldn’t be with another Vampire, I would probably lose my mind. Vamp and Human sex is fantastic, Vamp and Shifter sex is incredible, but Vamp on Vamp action beats them off with a very big stick. A tree even. Those big Redwoods you find on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada.
“Finally,” he says, crossing over to me.
“No but wait. Future him said he spells Jess not to bite him. Why not just do that?”
He sighs, a long-suffering sigh, as clearly, I still don’t get it. “Because he wants to be bitten. Aren’t you listening to a word I am saying? And it is a chore for him. It isn’t enjoyable. You know firsthand that your mind gets lost to his suggestions and your body takes over. He doesn’t want to be stuck with a mindless fuck – literally. He wants passion and intimacy, to make love and to feed from his lover as she does to him. All of the things that we want. That we all want.”
I gulp. “And you are asking me to do that with him?”
He closes his eyes in pain. “Yes.”
“Oh, Constantine, I can’t. You know that I can’t because of Cole. He would be devastated, and he wouldn’t understand. And you…” I grab his hand.
“He doesn’t have to know.”
“I’m not lying to him.”
“Aefre, you already are lying to him.”
Gee, thanks for the reminder there. “And you want me to add to it?”
“My only concern is for Sebastian,” he says shortly.
“Clearly, as you don’t seem to have a problem with pimping me out to take care of him,” I sneer at him, now quite put out that he has basically just tried to guilt me into complying with his request.
His pained expression returns. “I don’t mean it to come across that way. I love you, Aefre, but you are the only one who can help him. I have to put my own feelings aside about this.”
“What about my feelings? Have you not even bothered with those?”
“Of course, I have. I know you want him. I can see the way you look at him.”
What? Is he seriously trying to turn this back around on me now?
Of course, he is. It’s his biggest talent. Well, that and making me orgasm intensely without even having to try. Speaking of, I am getting pissed off with this conversation now, so I make a declaration that will draw it to a close swiftly, so the fucking can commence.
“This is something so completely out there, I am struggling to get my head around it. However, I have heard everything you have said to me. I am in no position to comply with your request but when I am free to do so, we will revisit. End of story. I want to hear no more about this.”
“Done,” he says straight away.
Err, that was easy. Too easy. Why go through all of this drama for such an easy roll over?
“It will give him hope,” he says quietly.
Oh. Now I really feel like crap. “Can we fuck now?” I ask him, desperate to change the subject.
He chuckles, humor restored, “Oh yes, my sweet. We can definitely fuck now.” I throw myself at him before he has stopped speaking and kiss him with exuberance forgetting all about whatever it was, we were talking about.
Chapter 11
Things got very naked and very sweaty soon after I launched myself at my sire and after my third orgasm (see, he doesn’t have to try very hard at all), I straddle him and pull him up, wrapping my legs around him. He drops his fangs and feeds from me extra slowly, I think to make his point even clearer about how much I love this and would die without it. He pulls on my hips to get me to move over him again, when we are rudely interrupted by an unexpected and very unwelcome visitor.
“Oops, so sorry to interrupt,” her stupid tinkly voice says as she pops in from nowhere.
I glare at her from the middle of the very rumpled bed, where I am still fucking my sire.
“What the fuck do you want? And hello? Heard of knocking, or texting, even?”
She bats her eyelashes at me, well, no, probably not at me, probably at CK. His head is that close to mine, it’s hard to tell who she is looking at. “Can I have a word?” she asks.
“What do you want, Vivienne? We are kind of busy here in case you hadn’t noticed,” he snaps at her but with an undertone of caution.
“I lost something,” she says and holds up her right arm. “I desperately need it back.”
He sighs that world-weary sigh I often get and looks at me apologetically. “Fine, I will help you look.” He loosens his grip on me.
Uh-uh. Does he really think I am going to let him swan off naked with this woman to look for missing objects, that she obviously misplaced while they were going at it? Oh! He brought her here? I glare at him with something close to loathing. Well, the “I still love you” kind of loathing, and he has the grace to look ashamed as he realizes I know.
“I will take you,” I say to her, climbing off my sire and making a big show of throwing the covers over his naked self. I magick myself a robe and add, “This is, after all, my home as well.” I quickly look back at CK and he is pleased, but not that I have taken ownership under these circumstances.
“Wait here,” I snap at him. He has the good sense to obey me. Obey me? Christ, that’s a first.
I grab Vivienne by the arm and lead her out into the hallway. She is staring at me in awe and something else.
“What?” I ask her.
“You…he…you get away with talking to him like that?” she asks, amazed.
Oh, when will people learn?
I ignore her and ask, “What did you lose and where do you expect to find it?”
“He has asked you to share his castle?” she presses, not moving forward.
“Yes,” I say shortly, “not that it is anything to do with you. Now, if you please? I would like to get back to what you interrupted.”
“I’m sure you do,” she mumbles and steps forward, leading me to a room not far from my own. “Erm,” she hesitates.
“I know you were together here with Sebastian,” I tell her, although I was not informed it was actually here, which is a very bad move on CK’s part. A very, very bad move. “Please go and see if you can find what you lost,” I say, opening the door and she steps in hesitantly.