by Jory Strong
Terach entered the large room with a deep red circle set in the tile. As did Diarmid.
Amadeus followed with Israel, shutting the door and preventing the slaves and unbound humans from witnessing what transpired.
Oversized couches and chairs provided seating for some. Scattered among them was dungeon furniture. Steel loops with restraints tethered to them were set in the floor and adorned the walls.
Amadeus guided Israel into the center of the circle. His jeweled hand dropped away from Israel’s arm. Excitement and anticipation swelled among the gathered, the fever pitch of it breaking when Amadeus pulled a blood-red case from the cloak’s folds.
He opened it to reveal twin daggers, black-handled, sharp-edged on both sides. “The winner must claim his prize before leaving this circle.”
The announcement was met with murmurs of approval, with gasps and cries as lovers were fondled.
Terach stepped closer, his nail beds tingling as though this fight would require wickedly curved talons. “I protest.”
“Noted. The rules remain in effect. Should the prize be inadvertently killed before the contest is concluded, those gathered will determine the challenge winner and what he might claim as reparation.”
Amadeus offered Diarmid the first choice of daggers.
Terach lifted the remaining weapon from its red-velvet resting place.
With a dramatic snap of his wrist, Amadeus closed the case. “To the death. Upon my exit of the circle.”
Diarmid’s smile was a savage slash of white. He moved, circling behind Israel.
Terach’s heart beat in his throat, not fear for himself, but fear for Israel. He spared a glance at the man he’d once thought himself falling in love with. Dark eyes met his, Israel’s desire and hope intensifying the determination to win.
His fingertips burned to rake over taut masculine flesh. His cock throbbed with the need to plunge into Israel’s ass in a primal claiming of what belonged to him. His gums ached in anticipation of fangs buried in Israel’s throat, the rich taste of blood more heady than any other drink.
He angled away from Israel, hoping to distract, to draw Diarmid’s focus, to reduce the risk to Israel. But the instant Amadeus crossed the circle, Diarmid’s arm whipped out, slashing, opening Israel’s skin and filling the air with the scent of blood.
Somewhere behind Terach a companion’s cry matched Israel’s, but where one was pain, the other was ecstasy at being pierced by fangs.
“Down,” he ordered, and Israel obeyed, crouching.
Terach lunged.
Diarmid danced away, laughing. “So there’s history between the two of you. I’ll remember that when he’s mine.”
They circled, Terach keeping himself between Diarmid and Israel.
The crowd grew restless. Frustrated. Their craving for violence escalated.
It was translated by some into the tethering of their companions and the application of bare hands or crops or belts.
Terach attempted to force Diarmid out of the circle to end the fight.
Diarmid lunged.
Terach countered. With the dagger. With a kick aimed at propelling Diarmid backward.
Diarmid slipped past him like an eel, plunged the blade into Israel’s back.
Israel’s scream became a panicked thrashing with the dagger’s withdrawal.
Red filled Terach’s vision. His very being. It washed over him in a furious tide.
Caution disappeared.
Kill.
Kill.
Kill.
He swung.
Lunged.
Swung.
Lunged.
Fast and furious. Uncaring about the hits he took, the deep slashes and dripping blood.
The need to finish this became more desperate with Israel’s escalating struggle to breathe.
Terach took a risk, driving Diarmid toward Israel, anticipating that the other vampire wouldn’t be able to resist delivering additional pain.
An eye-blink distraction.
Terach saw it.
Used it.
Leapt and thrust in a clean strike to the heart, delivering instantaneous death.
He rode Diarmid to the floor.
Released the dagger still embedded in the other vampire and rushed to kneel next to Israel.
He forced Israel onto his stomach to get at the place where Diarmid had plunged his blade and hit a lung. Blood poured off Terach as a result of the weapons being spelled, though the loss was starting to slow. He used his fingers to spread Israel’s wound and held his forearm just above it so his blood filled the wound, beginning the healing process.
Israel gasped. Fought for a second breath, then a third before shuddering, his normalized breathing bringing the room around them into focus with a whispered, “Thanks for the save.”
The sounds of discipline and punishment had given way to the slap of flesh against flesh. To moans and whimpers, to pleas for more, deeper. Harder. Faster.
Terach bit into his own wrist, opening it and shoving it against Israel’s lips.
Israel grasped the offering, his hands vise-tight.
He drank. Gorged with the hunger of a nearly starved blood slave. His cock hardened, hips lifting off the floor with the need to be touched, to have Terach’s hand on him.
And Terach couldn’t refuse.
He gripped Israel’s cock. Mine.
The word pulsed through him. Deepened when beads of arousal escaped to glisten on the satiny head.
Terach rubbed them into petal-soft skin. Fed on Israel’s low moans of pleasure as thoroughly as Israel did on blood.
The sucking at his wrist became a fierce need to have that same mouth wrapped around his cock, taking his come.
Driven by a need he hadn’t given into in centuries, to fuck a man’s mouth, to have a male lover, to experience this particular thrill, Terach rose to his feet, Israel following, but only onto his knees.
Terach unsnapped, unzipped, freeing his own erection.
Israel’s hunger changed.
On a moan he released Terach’s wrist and took possession of Terach’s cock, sending molten ecstasy rushing upward.
“Now.” Terach panted, shuddering when Israel complied.
Pleasure engulfed him with the press and swirl of Israel’s tongue, with the firm grip on his testicles.
Israel took him into the wet, heated depths of his mouth, sucking desperately, feverishly. Crowding close to Terach’s body so there was no recourse for Terach other than to tangle his fingers in long black hair, hips thrusting, trying to get deeper and managing only just enough restraint to prevent physical harm.
Too long.
It’d been too long.
And before Israel had disappeared from his life altogether, he’d lusted, wanted, denied himself this.
He pumped faster. Buttocks clamping. Hands clenching. His head going back and eyes closing, exquisite sensation coalescing in searing bliss with the hot escape of jetted semen.
He moaned and pulled Israel more tightly against him, forcing him to swallow, denying him even breath in the totality of possession.
Israel embraced rather than struggle. His arms wrapped around Terach’s waist, survival instinct subsumed by a slave’s need for his master.
Slave.
Master.
The reality of it was enough to free Terach from vampiric euphoria.
He pulled Israel’s face away from his groin, a shudder of renewed need going through him when his cock slid free.
Amadeus entered the circle. He was followed by two male vampires who easily carried a wide lounger with high sides.
They maneuvered it into position between Terach and Diarmid’s knife-impaled corpse. Amadeus said, “Several have volunteered their companions to prepare him for your claiming.”
Possessiveness surged through Terach. “No.”
He couldn’t tolerate anyone touching Israel.
Except for Cia.
The thought drenched his skin in heat, fo
llowed immediately by icy chill.
Don’t think about her. Or Gian’s edict. Or what my sire’s reaction to this will be.
He urged Israel to stand, anxious to be done and gone from Wyldfyres.
Sex wasn’t required for the making of a slave, only blood. But when he pulled Israel’s naked body against his and his cock pressed to Israel’s buttocks, he wasn’t sure he could take the one without the other. And then Israel bent forward, grasping the high side of the lounger, spreading his legs and rocking backward, making denial impossible.
Amadeus produced a small bottle of lubricant from his cloak.
Terach took it. Coated his fingers and applied it to the tight rosette of Israel’s ass.
“Yes, god yes,” Israel said as Terach’s fingers slipped in. Stretching him. Preparing him.
He trembled when Terach breached him, the sounds he made becoming a roar in Terach’s head. A ferociousness fed by the sight of his vanquished foe lying on the floor, heart stopped by the blade he’d driven into it.
Slow and gentle thrusts gave way to faster. Harder. Until Israel’s cries of pleasure weren’t enough, until the yielding of flesh alone didn’t satisfy.
He grasped Israel’s cock. Forced Israel upright with an arm around his chest, both of them coming with the slide of Terach’s fangs into vulnerable human neck.
Waves of pleasure overtook Terach, holding him down with intimate connection. There was no thought of taking too much, of going too far.
Only when Israel’s heart stuttered in warning did he stop. He lifted his mouth, tongue darting out to close and heal the bite.
Fierce protectiveness gripped him, at odds with the words he reviled, though he said them. “Do you choose to belong to me as a slave?”
“Yes.”
Terach opened his wrist, once again pressing the wound to Israel’s lips, his cock hardening inside Israel’s body as blood flowed and the bond between master and slave snapped into place.
Around them the orgy of sex and feeding continued. But the instant Israel regained his strength, Terach let him go, separating their bodies.
“I can provide you with temporary slave bands,” Amadeus said.
“We’re leaving.”
Amadeus walked over to where Diarmid lay. He retrieved the dagger that had fallen from Diarmid’s hand, then grasped the one piercing Diarmid’s heart. A yank and green eyes popped open. A laugh followed, not totally devoid of amusement.
“There will be other prizes,” Diarmid said, gaze moving to Israel before returning to Terach. “The one you’ve ended up with is no loss, considering just what he might cost you.”
Censure. Alienation. My companion.
“If we fight again, it’ll be to true death,” Terach said, dismissing Diarmid from his thoughts with the first step toward the exit.
The slightest mental touch and he found Gian at Fangs. There was no recourse now but to go to his sire’s club, to present himself and explain in person how it was he’d come to own a slave.
* * *
Cia surrendered. She put the book down on the table next to the recliner.
It was a great story, one she’d been looking forward to getting back into after tutoring at the shelter, but now it couldn’t hold her interest. She couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t even zone out watching TV.
Terach continued to invade her thoughts. She glanced at the bouquet of flowers, then the medallion on the table next to it, the silver chain it hung from coiled like a snake ready to strike.
He stood for the very things that were anathema to her, as evidenced by his working at Fangs. How could he not be bothered by the waste of life fostered there? By the sight of young people caught in a fantasy where they truly believed vampires existed and if they got lucky, they would serve or be made one?
She shouldn’t want him. Couldn’t. But with every encounter, whether it was in person or a message left on her cell phone, her body made a lie of that conviction.
What happened between us was a mistake I won’t repeat.
Her stomach cramped. Her chest tightened and palms dampened as the question that now haunted her returned.
What was the truth about that night?
The disconnect grew stronger every day.
She’d fought with Rico over Skye in the parking lot of Fangs before joining the girl she’d come to intercept in line. Inside the club, she’d discovered an unexpected empathy for Marina.
Keeping the girl from ending up dead like Brittany Armstrong had become more than just doing her job. She still felt the satisfaction that came with having convinced Marina to give up her belief in vampires and return to Los Angeles.
But when Marina left, she’d remained. And instead of running as far and as fast as she could from Fangs, she’d accepted Terach’s touches, his kisses. She’d allowed him to lead her to his bedroom beyond the public area of the club…
Why would she do that? Why, when all she’d wanted to do was get away from the waste of life and the weirdness?
Even though she’d reacted physically to Terach when she’d first seen him, remaining at Fangs and becoming involved with him went against everything she believed about herself. Maybe that’s why a different series of events invaded her dreams each night.
They were so real that she woke confused about what had actually happened. In them, Marina rushed from the club and she raced after her, intent on saving her, only to be struck by an SUV. In them, she knew she was dying, and above her an arrogant masculine voice bargained as if she were little more than a game piece to be sacrificed or saved depending on what advantage could be gained.
Even if she lives, her spine is crushed in several places. She may never do more than breathe on her own. A trade, Skye? Her life thrown into the mix of justice?
Healed—not enslaved, Brann.
Done. She’ll be healed, not enslaved.
Then Terach’s voice. I’ll do it, Sire.
She shivered and forced the thoughts away, unwilling to let the memory run its course. To grow wetter as she imagined herself waking in Terach’s bed time and time again, drinking from a wound slashed above his heart or at his wrist while he stroked her hair.
Cia’s gaze crept to the medallion with its odd script. She’d woken in Terach’s bed wearing it.
Agree to be my companion. Murmured as Terach used lips and hands and cock to drive her toward climax, withholding it until she said yes.
Vampire dreams. Dreams of power and seduction. They were the commodity sold at Fangs.
I had a one-night stand. That’s all. Probably because of the argument with Rico. Probably because I finally got it that there’s no hope he’ll ever see me as anything more than a tight-assed partner he got stuck with.
Ache blossomed in her chest. Get over him, already!
But the draw remained. Until he’d hooked up with Skye, Rico was everything she’d always wanted in a man.
He was gorgeous, a cop with a big family, a lot of them also in law enforcement. The captain was practically an uncle to him. And now…
Her lips tugged downward. Now Rico was sucked into Skye Delano’s orbit.
Cia picked up the book, a romantic suspense story—and wouldn’t the cops at the station tease her mercilessly if they knew that’s what she liked to read—but the words on the page blurred together. She wanted things to go back to the way they’d been before the Armstrong case, before she’d killed a man intent on murdering Skye.
Skye, who’d hypnotized a little girl during the course of that investigation so the child relived memories of the terrifying night her cousin disappeared, then had those same memories rewritten so she left the interrogation room unburdened—
Cia’s mouth dried. Her heart raced.
No! No way had she been hypnotized.
Reality was the dancing, the going back to Terach’s room for a one-night stand. The other was the result of post-traumatic stress, from using her weapon in the line of duty and taking a life. That’s all.
The b
ook trembled, drawing Cia’s attention to her gun hand. The shooting had been deemed righteous, but the department shrink hadn’t cleared her for duty.
What if he wouldn’t until she’d gotten rid of the disconnect, until the dreams stopped clashing with reality?
Her skin turned clammy. She stood, dropping the book onto the recliner.
A step from the chair she halted, heartbeat ratcheting up with the compulsion to snag the necklace and put it on.
Leave it.
Another step.
She couldn’t. And that fueled her determination for the truth.
She’d go to Fangs tonight. She’d get the answers she needed so she could go back to work and put Terach and that night behind her.
Chapter Three
Terach parked in the spot reserved for him at Fangs. Despite the late hour, or early, if time was marked by the approach of the sun, the lot was full of humans. They no longer formed a standing line snaking through the automobiles, but by unspoken accord they knew their place in it should someone leave the club and they be allowed in.
“It’s like LA,” Israel said, laughing, and the sound of his happiness had Terach’s heart stumbling like someone lovesick.
They’d met in a bar a short distance from a club like this one, where the standard dress was black. Where skin was often pierced and studded with silver, and a flashed smile might well reveal canines lengthened by enterprising dentists.
Terach rubbed his chest as if he could massage the deepened guilt away. That original meeting hadn’t been accidental. He’d known it was a gay bar when he’d entered it, but centuries old memories had made it impossible to ignore the urge to pursue.
In the hell of his years of slavery, there’d been one bright spot, a brief span of time when he’d been fifteen, where he’d loved and been loved in return. When he’d not only willingly allowed someone of the same sex to touch him sexually, but had craved that intimacy and returned it with the desperation only those who face the constant threat of separation and death experience.
Anguish and rage still had the power to reach through the centuries and grip him. He remembered that morning he’d discovered Soren’s body on the refuse pile as soldiers broke down their tents in preparation for invading and destroying another village.