Vampires of Moscow (Blood Web Chronicles Book 1)

by Caedis Knight

  Then his mouth parts me and I groan as I arch for the third time, held in place by the restraints. One of his incisors scrape teasingly along my labia and I moan out loud. He does it again.

  “Stop,” I whisper, my breath ragged. But I mean the opposite. What I mean to say is go on, go on, go on.

  “Want me to stop?” he asks, popping another ice cube in his mouth.

  I shake my head. “Give me everything.”

  Quick as a flash Lukka cups my ass and slips an ice cube inside of me.

  I cry out as a deep cold fills me. I glare up at him.

  “Fuck! That’s cold.”

  Lukka fetches one of the candles he lit earlier.

  “I’m cold too, little Witch,” he says over his shoulder. Then his mouth is at my ear. “And yet I think you want me inside of you too. No?”

  All I’m wearing is my bra and dress now. And it’s useless because it’s hiked up to my waist. I would be lying if I said I didn’t want Lukka right where that ice cube was moments ago, before my heat melted it. I want to reach for the sizable bulge in his pants - the only confirmation that this little game is doing it as much for him as it is for me.

  Gently, Lukka slips a hand into my bra and frees my breasts, one by one. He bends low and kisses them, licking slowly across every inch, his cold tongue making my nipples strain. I’m near screaming but I’m not going to make any more noises. Not a sound. This is a power game and I’m not about to lose.

  I arch my back so that my breast is fully in his mouth. He bites down lightly and I suppress a groan.

  OK, I’m not going to win this game. I struggle to hold back the moans of pleasure building in my core, my breasts are cold and my nipples aching. I want him, yet he’s just sitting there looking at me, knowing I can’t do anything but strain against the ropes.

  Lukka grins then tips the melted candle and pours hot wax over my breasts. I turn and moan loudly into the pillow, the heat between my legs rising.

  I can’t take this anymore. He’s won.

  “Take off my dress,” I hiss through ragged panting breaths. He pours a few more drops of wax on me and licks one of his fangs.

  I’m done with ropes and taunts, wax and ice. I want him now. Completely. Entirely.

  “Even when tied up you give commands,” Lukka smiles, then pulls something from his pocket in a flash of silver. A purple butterfly knife.

  “Is this your favorite dress?” he asks.

  “NO.”

  In a series of fluid movements, Lukka slices the spaghetti straps of my dress and bra, then cuts the remaining fabric along the middle. He pinches the fabric and drags it away from my body, as if he were unwrapping a present, making sure to drag the fabric slowly past by peaked nipples.

  I’m finally, and completely, naked.

  Lukka hovers over me, his body inches from mine, and I arch up to meet him, my wrists and ankles smarting at the bite of the ropes. I tilt my head to kiss every tattooed carved inch of him. He growls softly in response.

  “You want this?” he asks.

  But he’s no longer taunting me. He’s looking at me, his milky eyes locking on mine. His gaze is careful, genuine. He’s asking my permission.

  I writhe against him. “Yes. Now!”

  Lukka takes off his sweats and his boxers. I bite my lip at his size, and at the sight of the tattoos winding down to his groin.

  I’m done with words now. I’m done with everything except his body on mine.

  He keeps the gun holster on as he climbs between my legs, and I arch my hips toward him. Then, with a soft chuckle against my neck, he slides into me.

  Pleasure rocks through me like summer thunder. Lukka starts slowly, growling softly into my ear. For what feels like the millionth time, I hoist my body upwards, as much as I can in the restraints. His mouth lands on mine and he kisses me, deeply, his fangs clashing against my teeth. He starts thrusting harder now, matching the rhythm of his rough kisses. And I move with him, stroke for stroke, moan for moan. I bite his lip as he pulls back from me. His hands are in my hair now, bringing my mouth to his neck as he drives himself deeper. Neither of us is disguising our moans anymore. We are being loud, and the bed is rocking like a docked boat on stormy waters.

  “Untie me,” I moan. I can’t take this anymore. I want to run my hands across his body. Wrap them around his neck.

  He slices through the restraints at my arms and feet with the knife, and flips me so that I’m on top. I’m startled by the sudden power of having him below me, and still inside me. I push him into the bed, palms against his chest and ride him. Bucking, writhing, grinding into him as hard and deep as I can take it. I hook my hands around the straps of his gun holster and use it to my advantage, riding him harder and faster. Lukka gives me that lopsided grin of his and pinches my nipples as he groans my name.

  I forget he’s a Vampire, a lead I’m investigating, someone I’m meant to be scared of. Right now, he’s simply mine. I pin his arms down above his head, my breasts inches from his mouth. My prisoner. The pressure is mounting and I’m not sure I can keep it at bay much longer. Lukka sits up, driving himself deeper into me. Hands on my waist, he kisses my neck and I slow my movements.

  Lukka’s mouth brushes my ear. “Come for me, little Witch.”

  The phrase is nearly enough to set me off. But I’m not done.

  I won’t be told when to come, he’ll be begging for it when I’m done with him.

  “I wish you could bite me,” I say. I make my movements much slower and more deliberate than before, teasing him. I tilt sideways to expose my neck to him. “But I don’t want to kill you.”

  I think of the vials of antidote I have, but there’s nothing sexy about having a naked man between your legs gasping for air.

  He looks up at me, his gaze intent. “How about you bite me.”

  I slow down.

  “What?”

  “Drink from me. You might even like it.”

  I clench, pushing him deeper inside me. Oh, I know I will like it. That’s if he tastes anything like his brother.

  He tips his head to one side, exposing his neck and the assortment of ink he has climbing from his shoulder to behind his ear.

  “You can’t hurt me, little Witch,” he says, placing his hands on my waist and pushing me harder against him. “I want to see you with my blood around your mouth.”

  I don’t wait for him to ask again. I run my tongue up his neck and then bite him. He jerks against me, and I feel him swell inside me. He likes the pain.

  I bite again, this time breaking his flesh. At the first taste of his blood every hair on my arm stands on end and I nearly climax. His blood isn’t dry sherry, it’s pure nectar.

  I suck hungrily, my left hand at his throat while the other pulls at his hair. His hands are on my ass, pushing me into him as I drink.

  His thrusts grow faster as I move along the full length of him, his neck crimson red and my mouth slippery with his blood.

  He’s moaning up at the ceiling and I kiss him, his cries of pleasure mixing with my own. His blood on both our lips.

  “Saskia,” he cries into my mouth.

  His nails dig into my back as I swallow down his blood and ride him faster and faster until he’s shuddering in my arms and waves rock through me. My entire body tightens before pure pleasure flashes through it. Again, and again, and again.

  We collapse on the bed. A knot of blankets and limbs. Blood and champagne. Both of us panting.

  Silence follows. Blissful silence.

  “You never finished your story about the Witch.” I say after a while.

  Lukka runs a hand across my hip bone and I lick his blood off my hand like a cat. It’s too soon to think about doing it again, but I am. I could do it twenty more times if it feels like that again.

  He rolls over on his side and stares at me, eyes white like fog, before answering. “I can’t finish my story,” he says. “Because I don’t know how it ends yet.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three />
  The shutters are still down and I stretch out in the bed. Lukka isn’t beside me. Sometimes he stays in my bed, sometimes he goes back to his room. Lukka told Konstantin I was ill three days ago and I turned both my phones off. And all we’ve done since our night at the club is fuck. And even during the occasional snatched hours of sleep, I’ve dreamed of fucking him, which we then re-enact as soon as we wake. Vamp blood is one horny trip.

  I don’t care about work or the missed calls from Jackson and my mom, and as much as I’ve been meaning to talk to her I don’t even care about Ansel. I should, but once I got a taste of Lukka’s blood he’s all I’ve been able to think about...and he’s hardly left my side since.

  I switch on my phone and note the time. 3.45 pm. Neither brother will be up and about yet. Sometimes Konstantin goes for a run after the sun sets, or hits the gym downstairs. Lukka, on the other hand, has to be pushed out of bed most evenings to get ready for work.

  I’ve been awake for hours thinking. No, not thinking…worrying. I’ve been wondering whether I should be reporting on the drug information Lukka shared with me. Whether I should look into it more. Pill-popping Vamps would make an interesting story, as would the crazy nightclub Lukka took me to. But what Jackson sent me here for was to investigate murders. Are all these things connected?

  Lukka mentioned his brother has a lab. I think back to the holding cells I spotted in the club’s private parking lot the night Lukka took me to meet his brother, and the man in the white lab coat I’d seen talking to Konstantin in his office the night before the theatre. All these alarm bells have gotten louder since discovering Konstantin likes making fancy drugs for his Vamp friends.

  It doesn’t make sense; the pieces don’t add up, yet they keep spinning around in my head like smashed-up houses in a typhoon. And in the center of it all is Lukka, and the feel of his lips on mine as I licked that pill off his tongue and what we did straight after that. And what we’ve not been able to stop doing since. Does Konstantin know what we’ve been up to? Does he care?

  All this time in Russia and still no story.

  My phone rings, Ansel’s name is flashing eagerly. Guilt hammers straight into the pit of my stomach. I haven’t been to work. I haven’t seen her.

  My finger hovers over the red circle on the screen, then I mentally slap myself.

  What’s the fucking matter with you, Saskia? She’s young, and her boyfriend just got murdered, and you’re an investigator. Speak to her.

  “Hi, Ansel,” I say, forcing a grin on my face. My mother always says to act happy when on the phone. She swears people can hear you smile. But before the MA my mother used to charge people six-hundred bucks an hour to tell them their future, or to hex their former lovers. With those exuberant phone rates, I’d be smiling too. “I’ve been meaning to call you but I’ve been a bit tied up lately.” I grin at my lame joke, then feel guilty about that too. “How have you been?”

  “Oh, thank god you answered,” she says in one shaky breath. “I’m not great. I really need to speak to you.”

  I close my eyes. I’m a shitty friend. Probably because I have zero experience in being a friend. Ansel doesn’t deserve my pathetic excuses.

  “Do you want to meet up?” I ask.

  I look at the time on my phone again. There’s still a couple of hours before either brother will wonder where I am. It’s not like I’m a prisoner here, I’m allowed to leave whenever I want.

  “Good idea. I don’t trust phones,” she says, her voice thick with tears. “There’s so much I have to tell you. Bad stuff.”

  Of course, it’s ‘bad’ stuff. I know all about loss and the darkness that comes with it. There’s nothing ‘good’ about your boyfriend being murdered and being so far from home.

  “Can we meet at the café near the club?” she asks.

  “Where we had breakfast last time?”

  “Yes. I’m so scared, Saskia. Things are bad.” Her voice starts to wobble, and I feel it like a rock in my lungs. She needed me and all I’ve been worried about is my next orgasm.

  “Of course,” I say. “Shall we meet at six? We can head on to the club together after our chat?”

  “I would love that.” My mother was right. I can hear the smile in her voice. “Thank you, Saskia. You’re a true friend.”

  I’m not. But I should be.

  I shower, apply some bright red lipstick and run my fingers through my hair. I’m meeting her in an hour – but first I need to satisfy that itch. The club is about forty minutes away, which will leave me plenty of time to see what the hell is going on in the Black Rabbit’s creepy parking lot before meeting Ansel. My first chance to slip away without Lukka pinning me down and doing amazingly bad things to me.

  I head down the hallway towards the flight of stairs leading to the front door. I pass a side table. There are ornate bowls and vases dotted all over this house. Some look like Ming dynasty pieces, all look expensive. The bowl I pass is inexplicably full of expensive fruit no one is going to eat, and nestled beside an orange is a bunch of keys. Lukka is always forgetting his keys to the club and his brother is always cutting him new sets. I was planning on sneaking into the parking lot via the club, but this makes my life much easier. I swipe them and drop the garage keys into my purse where I already put my passport and paperwork.

  I’m about to go a lot deeper into this investigation, and I’m not prepared to have to come back for anything if it goes wrong.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  There was traffic on the way to the Black Rabbit and now I’m stressed I won’t meet Ansel in time. I squeeze the keys I stole from the Volkov mansion so hard they leave metal indents in my fingers. As instructed, the Uber driver drops me off at the back entrance.

  As silently as possible I open the garage and pray that anyone watching the security cameras won’t find it strange that Konstantin’s new employee has let herself in. It’s early evening and I could just be fetching something for the Volkov’s who can’t do so themselves during dusk hours.

  I make my way across the garage. The two holding cells loom in front of me like the gaping mouths of a two-headed dragon, all metal bars and concrete. I take a deep breath but walk over anyway. Based on my journalism experience, the stuff my gut tells me to keep away from is normally the first place I find my answers.

  It’s dark in the underground parking lot. The space fits about ten cars, I imagine they all belong to the brothers. I spot the dank cells, poorly lit by one singular bulb, and between them, I locate another door. A heavy grey door that camouflages effortlessly against the concrete walls. The lab is underneath the Black Rabbit, Lukka told me, and I’m willing to bet it’s behind this very door.

  My burner phone buzzes in my pocket. It’s Ansel. Shit! I’m meant to be at the café soon. I press the red button. She’ll have to wait. It’s not like me turning up late is going to make her feel any worse than she does already.

  I turn the handle and enter a large room that looks like an underground security office. There are desks drowning in paperwork, coat hangers, a tea station, and a TV with flickering security feeds. Mercifully, none of the security staff is here. I imagine running into Dimitri the bouncer bear in these confined quarters and shudder. My sneakers stick lightly to the floor, as if I’m crossing an ice cream parlor. What the fuck? The room is dark too, lit only by a solitary lamp in the corner, but I can still see oil-like streaks by my feet. I bend down to touch them when a booming voice stops me cold in my tracks.

  “Make it possible!”

  My head whips around at the sound of a familiar deep male voice shouting in Russian. I scan the room, but there’s no one there. Voices rise again behind me. Where the hell are they? They can’t be upstairs in the club - I wouldn’t be able to hear them from all the way down here. There are two more doors nearby, one has a keypad and the other doesn’t. The man I’m hearing must be behind one of them. I place my ear against the first door and listen.

  “I’ve told Konstantin, I need more ti
me to perfect the product,” says a second voice, more nasal and whinier than the first.

  “Well, you’re out of time, Vassily.” I recognize that man’s voice, but I can’t place it. “It fucking stinks in here. Let’s go. You can be the one to tell Konstantin you need two weeks instead of one. I’m not getting defanged over your lack of professionalism.”

  Wait! He’s talking to Dr. Vassily? Wasn’t that the doctor Lukka mentioned?

  Footsteps follow, and they’re heading straight at me. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  I skitter backward and cower behind a nearby desk as two men enter the office. From my vantage point, I can just make out the flash of a lab as they let the door shut behind them. I was right - that’s where Konstantin makes his secret drugs.

  I peek from behind the desk and finally get a look at the two men speaking. The first voice belonged to Rada, the homophobic shipping magnate that Konstantin thought was messing up his business. Well, he’s clearly not so innocent as I (and his own son) thought. I guess Rada and Konstantin are working together now.

  “He can’t defang you,” a man in a lab coat moans. He has to be Dr. Vassily. “You’re his new business partner. But me? I'm about as disposable as a Blood Bunny. You could delay the shipment, or tell him we need more time for logistics. Lie. If the sun pill formula isn't perfect when we ship there could be Vampire casualties.”

  “Konstantin doesn’t see business partners as his superiors, Vasya. And I'm not about to make the same mistakes Boris made and go behind his back. If I'm running the business side, I’m going to do this right. No bodies. No lies. No late deliveries.”

  Rada’s fangs grow menacingly, his face stern. He’s decided. Rada is a man who gets things done.

  Dr. Vassily looks away and pours them both a cup of tea.