This dream is weird. It’s too real. His scent is in my nose. I feel everything so clear, as if it is happening for real.
“If I die in my dream, will I die for real?”
He lowers his head to my breast again, biting down, pricking my skin once more. I gasp. It stings but at the same time the light pain makes my insides burn. Kissing his way down along my stomach, he lets go of my throat and wrists. I clutch his hair, trembling beneath him as he reaches the lowest part of my belly. He must be able to smell my arousal and his growl confirms it.
Would death be so bad?
He nudges my thighs apart and licks along my wet seam. I gasp and arch up almost violently. He’s so calm and collected, so careful and yet so forceful. I have no choice but to be here and he won’t let me choose whether I live or die. My fate rests with his will and it feels surprisingly all right. Especially when he does that!
“Oh God,” I mewl as his tongue spreads my nether lips and finds my slick core. He latches on to my clit, sucking hard, flicking it, as his fingers find their way into my tight channel.
There is no God, Kat.
He licks along my slit, then kisses the inside of my thigh, spreading my legs further apart. I sense the danger but have no time to react, and I have no leverage against this creature anyway. The pain is sharp, a deep stab, sending needles of agony to the depths of my belly. His fangs pierce my femoral artery and then his mouth latches onto my skin. His fingers still thrust in my pussy, sliding in and out with ease, the pace increasing. He sucks my blood and the sucking sensation is unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. He’s remorseless, feral, and if I ever thought I saw anything human in him, it’s gone. I want to stay, and I want to free myself and save my life. The vessel he has pierced is as thick as my pinky and the blood pumps through it at a high pressure. Even if he lets go, I’ll bleed out.
My helplessness, paired with his fingers filling my pussy, ravaging me, and the raw sensualism of being devoured, makes for a perfect storm.
“I want you,” I gasp.
He answers with a growl and pulls harder. I clutch his thick hair, holding on as life leaves me with every gush of blood that hits his tongue. My head feels increasingly lighter, my belly tenses, tingles spread along the insides of my thighs and all my senses focus to the area between my legs.
“I’m yours!” I scream as my muscles contract and I convulse with a release so strong that my vision wavers. He thrusts through my orgasm and it never seems to end. My consciousness hangs on by a thread, all I feel is him.
Then I soar and I feel nothing.
Lou
I shoot to my feet. The doctor's cries echo around me as if she was here. My heart pounds wildly and I look around the old crypt, expecting to see her delicate features contorted in bliss.
No one is here. There’s no threat, no sweet smelling beauty. The sun hasn’t set yet, and still I woke.
Her scent is in my nose, as if I had just held her in my arms.
I don’t dream. I never dream. And still...
She burns in me. In all my long life, I’ve never found my other half, a submissive suited to my dominant side, the perfect one for me.
She could be my north. My perfect submissive. My pet. The one.
Sweetbloods, they call them—humans who willingly submit to vampires.
I have played the games, learned how to balance pleasure with pain and make a human’s blood sizzle with endorphins, but no one has kicked my heart alive like young Doctor Donovan. No one has left an impression that lasted even five minutes after I wiped their minds.
I have urgent matters to tend to. My every cell roars with hunger, and I need to see where my attackers came from - if it was a coincidence, or if I’ve been followed.
In the shady bars of el Mercado district in Tucson, I find willing throats, warm blood. But with every body I push against a wall, with every gush of blood that hits my tongue, my thirst grows. They all taste wrong. She would struggle so sweetly. She would be an exquisite hunt, a worthy prey.
Her scent still lingers on my skin, in the fabric of my clothes. I need to see her again, feel her, smell her, and to do that, I need to sort out who attacked me the other night.
The local king in Louisiana sicced his assassins on me in New Orleans, and then sent a group of local shifters to the crypt I had chosen as my safe resting place here in Tucson. I may sleep like the dead during the day, but my years make me strong. I woke. They didn’t make it out alive. I wasn’t looking for power and I don’t care about petty local politics, but I also bow to no one.
I had no beef with the Louisiana king. I do now. He’s a frightened little man, and I won’t forget.
It may take a year, or a hundred, but when I’m ready, I will go back and hunt him down.
Right now, I need to deal with the shifters. I find the leader of the biggest local pack of coyote shifters in an office of a dingy old nightclub in the shadier part of Tucson. He has four huge shifter bodyguards. Yellow glints in their eyes and it’s obvious how every cell in them aches to shift. They’re stronger than humans in their human shape, but in their animal form, they can do serious damage even to me.
I could tear into them and they’d never see me coming. These four men could be dead within a second. They think their muscles, their fur, and their teeth could save them. They have no idea who they’re dealing with.
“I need a word with your pack leader.” I turn to the shifter in charge, a tall and broad man in his early thirties, a thick mane of curly black hair cascading down his back. It’s easy to picture his coyote.
“There is nothing for you here, vampire,” he spits and takes a step forward, squaring his shoulders.
“If you want to live to see another day, I suggest you let me in.”
“What’s to stop us from ripping you apart here and now?”
“I am a guest in your city. I was wrongfully attacked by rabid animals. I am a patient man, but even I have my limits. I will tear you all apart, limb by limb, faster than it takes me to say it, then I’ll annihilate the rest of your pack, pup. Do you want to try me?”
The guards look at each other, two of them shudder, their edges blurring, fighting their instincts to shift.
“I come in peace,” I say and raise an eyebrow, snickering inwardly. These younglings are so afraid, so upset. I might have been wounded the other night, they caught me by complete surprise, but it takes a lot to rattle me. ”I have been told that your leader is an honorable man, despite his unfortunate nature. He owes me an apology.”
”He owes you nothing, devil,” snarls one of the other guards.
I let my fangs down and hiss as I slam him up against a wall, my hand clutching his throat, ready to rip it out. Behind me the others tense, ready to pounce.
”Ah-ah,” I say and hold up my free hand. ”You’re making this harder than it has to be. I will see your leader no matter what. You choose if you will still be alive, or in pieces, when I step through that door.” I cock my head toward the end of the hallway.
”Chief,” croaks the coyote I have a hold on. Delicious fear radiates off him, but he reeks of dog, and it dilutes the sweetness of the scent. His eyes are wild, involuntary tears forming, and his feet kick, not quite touching the floor.
”I believe we started on the wrong foot,” says the chief, clearing his throat.
”I agree,” I say, letting the dog down, correcting his tie before I pat his cheek.
The leader guard clenches his jaw as he fights his instincts. He knows he’s met a strength far superior to theirs, and that my words ring true.
“One moment,” he grits out and strides toward the end of the hallway, disappearing through the only door.
Seth Bowden is surprisingly unprotected. I could have jumped in through a window and finished this before his guards ever knew. There are guards everywhere, and maybe that is enough against normal threats.
It’s been a long time since I was normal, though.
Heat, fear, and fury o
ozes off of the three remaining shifters. I ignore them and focus on the door, taking a step toward it as it opens again.
“Mr. Bowden will see you now,” says the black-haired shifter.
“You’ve been most forthcoming,” I say with a slight smirk as I pass him, eyeing his throat just to rattle him.
“Right,” he mutters and closes the door behind me. “Fucking leech.” My ears catch his words with ease even through the closed door.
“I heard that,” I say and grin as I hear him curse.
I stride through another long corridor, lots of doors on both sides, but I can smell my target. As the narrow corridor opens up into a giant room that would have been bright as the sun, had it been day, I speed up and become a blur as I cross it, abruptly appearing before the shifters’ leader. He jumps back, but remains seated, tenting his fingers.
“You’re a brave man, Mr. Bowden. Meeting me alone.”
His Adam’s apple bobs up and down as he swallows. He’s apprehensive, but it’s clear that’s all he’ll ever show me. He’d die without a plead if it came to that. He’s a proud man, and he may be worthy of my respect, depending on how this goes.
“I see no reason to display my power. You come to talk. I’m listening.”
“Very well.”
“Please, sit. Can I offer you something? A whiskey?”
“I’ll be brief. Two coyote shifters attacked me two nights ago, on my first night in this city. I find it hurtful. I demand they be punished.”
Bowden looks down, taps his index fingers against each other. “It wasn’t our pack. Us and the vamps, we’re not exactly invited to each other’s weddings, but we have no beef.”
“I don’t care what kind of shifter you are or who you’re friends with. To me you’re all the same with your fur and your claws and your unreliable temper. You have pull in the community and I’ve had enough of them coming after me. If this happens again, I will wipe out your entire clan. Do we understand each other? I mean to find a residence here, and I’m not looking for trouble, but if any shifter wages war against me, you will regret it. Are we clear?”
Bowden is silent, his gaze flickering to something behind me, then to a frame on his desk. I grab it and turn it toward me. In the picture is a woman and a young child.
“Beautiful family.” I let the unspoken threat hang between us.
His lips tighten. “No shifter from my clan will bother you, Mr.—”
I don’t answer him. I have no answer. I’m Lou. That’s all I know.
Bowden clears his throat. “I’ll have the word spread that anyone who comes here with ill intent will be facing death by vampire, and again, this wasn’t done by my people.”
“I’ll hold you to it. Good night, Mr. Bowden.”
I make my way past the guards. No one speaks and the tension is palpable as I leave for my second appointment tonight.
Chapter 4
Lou
When I came to Tucson, it was only to stay a couple of nights. In all my years, I have never been here before, and Louisiana had gotten… tense. Now, though, I want to know what the doctor is up to. I need to see how she lives, who she spends her free time with, if she’s taken. I want to smell her again, and this sudden need to explore everything that is Doctor Donovan overshadows my nomadic streak.
I plan to stick around and it is time I present myself to the local royalty. I do not want a repeat of history, and I don’t know if the rumor of the events has spread here yet.
The door to Lucius Frangelico’s home smells like shifters and my hackles rise. I’ve never encountered so many shifters in so few days before, and they’re just wrong. I might be unnatural, but shifting shape from human to animal? Inconceivable. They also tend to be volatile and as unreliable as their form.
This mansion is clearly a vampire’s home, though, an old vampire. I sense the presence of a man who has lived for at the very least a millennium, if not more. Why does he have shifters employed when he could surround himself with sired minions?
Before I can raise my hand to knock at the door, a quiet voice speaks to my right.
“I was wondering when you would make your presence known.”
I grin and turn. Not many can sneak up on me, but the vampire king lives up to his reputation. He’s a tall man, impeccably groomed. His pose is casual but his eyes bore into mine, intelligent, searching.
“Mr. Frangelico.”
“Welcome to Tucson, Mr—?”
“Lou.”
Frangelico raises a brow. “Just Lou?”
“Just Lou.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Just Lou.” The vampire king studies me a moment before taking a hand from his pocket to invite me inside his home. I follow him into a spacious living room with a lounge area before a fireplace. There are Persian rugs on the floor and lit candles seemingly everywhere. The room has a quiet feel to it, intimate despite its vastness. Beyond the glass doors is a large patio and behind that the desert, its colors cool in the night.
Once we’ve settled onto dark leather couches, Frangelico asks, “May I offer you a drink?”
He doesn't mean whiskey. I nod. “Yes, please.”
His eyes glint. “Do you want it sweetened? It will take a few minutes extra.”
Two days ago, I would have reveled in whipping a young woman into a submissive trance before I tore into her throat. Now, the only sweet blood I want on my tongue is the doctor’s. “Just regular.”
Lucius snaps his fingers and it takes but a moment for a young man to appear. A human. He’s holding a glass and approaches Lucius who gestures for him to move up to me instead. His blue eyes flicker between mine, wary, curious, excited. I invite him to sit next to me, take the glass, pierce open the skin on his wrist and let it drain. He closes his eyes and arousal radiates off him.
“Is he compelled?”
My host shakes his head. “We have many voluntary humans in our service, eager to please.”
“They hope you will turn them?”
Lucius shrugs. “Some. Some are just in it for the kink.”
I grin. Oh, I know. It’s not difficult to find willing food. When I’m happy with the amount, I prick my finger with a fang and stroke a drop of blood along his wound, watching it heal.
Lucius dismisses him with a wave. “That’d be all, Ramone.”
“Sirs,” he says and bows before he disappears out of the room.
I sip the blood and am taken aback by the unexpected sweetness. Lucius grins and raises an eyebrow. “They’re conditioned, down at my club. After a while a vampire’s mere presence makes them produce the endorphins.”
“Club Toxic. Your club, am I right?”
Lucius nods. “You have heard of it?”
“Of course. You have quite the reputation.
He smiles. “That pleases me. Now, what brings you to my town?”
I hear the suspicion in his voice, clear as night. He’s asking if I’m here to challenge him. “I’m just passing through. I had a run-in with some coyotes, slept in a sewer. I need to find a place to lie low for a few days.”
“So that’s why you reek of dog?”
I grin. “I paid a visit to the leader of the pack right before I came here. Pardon the stink.”
“And how did that go? I find it hard to believe that any of his boys attacked you the way things have unfolded between them and us. But maybe things are changing?”
“Perhaps,” I say and clench my jaw. I’m not keen on telling him that I might be bringing trouble to his doorstep. “I said that I would wipe out his entire race if I see even a tooth again. He promised to keep them in check and I think we came to an agreement.”
Lucius barks out a laugh and eases back. “An agreement without bloodshed. Very good. I appreciate that. It makes my life easier. Did you say you need a place to stay?”
“I do.”
“And you like to whip humans into submission?”
“That, I do.”
“I think I have the place for you.�
�
Club Toxic is unlike anything I’ve ever visited. The upper floor is a bar and a dance floor. Vampires mingle with the unaware humans. The restricted basement is a haven filled with tools for torture and pleasure. Sweaty, writhing bodies of both men and women are strapped to crosses, Sybians, benches. Whips swish through the air, their light hiss intermingled with moans of excitement and screams of pain.
My cock thickens and my throat is suddenly parched, the sweet essence of humans in ecstasy overwhelming. “You have a good arrangement here.”
An athletic young woman with long, white-blonde hair appears out of nowhere and slides up next to Lucius who wraps an arm around her waist and gives her a kiss on the head. “Selene, dear. This is Lou. Just Lou. He is a guest in our town. Can you please show him to the room in the back? He needs a bed.”
“Of course,” she says softly and gestures for me to come with her.
The heat between them - their bond - is almost physical in its strength. Her scent is off, though. She’s a newly turned vampire, at most a couple of years old, but she is also something else.
“I am also a shifter,” she says, as if she’s reading my mind. “The scent should wear off with time.”
I realize, with a start, it makes her more powerful than vampire or shifter. She’s a sort of super-breed, more powerful, even, than her sire.
“You’re very observant.”
“You were very obvious with your sniffing. Why are you in our territory? Do we have to worry?” She leads me past a set of closed doors, moans are heard from behind most of them, adrenaline, sweat, and lust permeating the air.
“I have no interest in stirring trouble. I am interested in this establishment, though. As a guest,” I add when she gives me a quick glance, filled with suspicion.
“I sense honor in you, so does Lucius. He is offering for you to stay with us until you decide if you want to get your own place in Tucson, or if you’ll keep traveling.”
“That is very generous. I’m surprised. Most ruling vampires are ruthless and harsh.”
Selene smiles. She’s not afraid of him. She’s more than his equal. I think of the young doctor again, wondering what it feels like to find the one you know you want to spend eternity with. I want to ask her what happened between them, but I’ve never been nosy and decide against it.
Her Vampire Hero (Midnight Doms Book 4) Page 3