HuntingtheSiren

by Jeffe Kennedy

  “I thought you don’t remember.”

  “I don’t.”

  Abruptly she sat up and straddled his chest, her silken pussy warm on his skin. She looked wild, fierce in the firelight and he wondered if he’d truly lost his heart to her, along with his body and his freedom.

  “Tell me who she was.”

  “Her?”

  “The one you sought.”

  “Why do you assume it was a woman?”

  She framed his face in her hands, searching his eyes. The compulsion brushed him and he steeled himself for what she might do. “A man like you is always about a woman. You can’t help yourself. I could kill you without a second thought and yet you kiss me like…”

  “Like?” he prompted, curious.

  She tilted her head, her eyes showing the age of the person within. “Like a lover. Foolish of you, Lapushka.”

  She was right. But how to explain that he had nothing left. The world had crumbled around him and here was Imogen, larger than life, gorgeously vital. Perhaps being with her would be enough. It certainly meant more than anything else in his desolate heart.

  “You kiss me back in the same way.”

  Her clever fingers pushed into the hair at his temples, brushing it back from his face. “It’s easy to be affectionate with our pets. It is an intimate relationship that brings pleasure to our lives. Have you not ever had a dog or cat you were fond of?”

  “Yes. But we didn’t have conversations.”

  “The gulf between us is the same, however. You have but a short little life. You will age and die. My life will continue. I am not as you are, Kasar Khan. You would be wise to remember that.”

  “Have you had other ‘pets’ over the years?”

  She shrugged and traced the curve of his lower lip. “Yes. Here and there. From time to time.”

  “Many?”

  “Jealous?”

  Yes, he was, he realized. Of the countless men who’d enjoyed her—and would continue to enjoy her long after he had shriveled to ash and dust.

  “How many?”

  “I told you.” She sighed with impatience now. “I don’t remember. They come and go like shadows on the wind.”

  The dark and sorrowful shadow moved over her again. “That sounds lonely.”

  “We are all lonely. We are born alone. We die alone. Anything else is a temporary illusion.”

  “Existential angst from a vampire?”

  She smiled at that. “It goes with the territory. This alone is real.” Imogen stretched, sultry, sated, her full breasts rising with the movement. “Who were you visiting? I’ve answered your questions.”

  So she had. And it was, perhaps, time to let the ghosts fade. Shadows on the wind, indeed.

  “My sister. Galeria. She was pregnant and now she’s gone. Along with our line. The last of the Khans. Along with the rest of the world.”

  Chapter Five

  The shock rocked her, stiffening her body. Consciously relaxing her face into the inscrutable mask she perfected, she climbed off Kasar’s enticing body and stood. Sweeping her hair together, she divided the mass into three sections and began braiding it. Giving herself time to think.

  “This is who you wept for?”

  He closed his eyes, his grief something she could nearly grasp in her hand.

  “And you held me responsible. Why?”

  “You were there. With her family freshly dead and her nowhere to be found. You and the nightriders.”

  He sat up, muscled chest flexing, still gleaming with the oil the girls had applied, now showing red scratches and bruising bite marks. She should heal them, but for now she liked how they looked, marks of her possession. He’d taken it all without complaint and given back, roughly and powerfully taking her in a way that she hadn’t been in… Well, she couldn’t remember.

  “Revenge would not bring her back. Nor the unborn child.”

  Kasar laughed, bitter and empty. “I know that, Imogen. No one chooses revenge because it’s a rational idea. It gave me something to live for. I told myself I was chasing you for that reason and that reason alone.”

  “And now?”

  His gaze swept her naked body, full of that same deep yearning. “Now I think it might be enough to be with you. At least you won’t die of sickness or radiation or starvation.”

  “I could fall into a volcano.”

  “Would that do it?”

  “It seems so. Wouldn’t that melt away all my flesh? Of course, my consciousness might linger, which would be truly terrible. I sometimes wonder if the spirits of vampires cling even to their dismembered bodies.”

  She was babbling and stopped herself. His sister was alive. The stunning urge to take him to his sister, to his continuing bloodline rocked her. It was a bad idea. It was the right thing to do—maybe enough to make up for some of her many sins. But she would have to commit him to the same rules her herd lived under. He would have to stay there permanently. No going back and forth to visit with her. She would have to give him up.

  She tied off her braid with a string of leather.

  “Your bloodline is not ended,” she pointed out, taking a cloth and dipping it into a waiting basin. She wiped the sweat and other fluids off her skin, his eyes following every movement. “We could find you a healthy human woman and you could procreate with her. Come here, Lapushka.”

  He rose and walked to her, looking amused. Remarkably, his cock stirred once again, flexing as she used the cloth to clean him thoroughly.

  “I feel like a horse being wiped down after a race.”

  “Yes.” She slapped his gorgeous ass. “My winning stallion. Why not procreate?”

  Kasar shook his head. “No stallion, I. Too much time repairing leaking nuclear power plants. I shoot blanks. I’ve known for years.”

  She’d never thought about bearing children. Not in any real way. When she was young, she’d assumed the usual for her life—marriage, children. If she’d minded, that urge had been forgotten too. She turned to hang the cloth on a hook and his hands clasped her waist, holding her in place.

  A light finger traced the mark on her hip. The one she sometimes forgot was there, even though it might be burned into her soul.

  “What is this?”

  She shrugged. “A scar.”

  “It looks like a brand. But that should have healed on you.”

  “Not if it’s done correctly.” She pulled away and resisted the urge to cover herself. She had nothing to be ashamed of.

  “It’s the same marking as on my keriss.”

  “An interesting coincidence—yes.”

  “I don’t believe in coincidences. How did you get that mark?” His dark eyes were troubled, concerned for her. It touched her and she didn’t know what to do with that.

  She kept her tone light, uncaring. “As I recall—and you know my memory is bad—you somehow obtain a pretty young woman and keep her in a golden cage, except when you take her out for fucking. Especially for parties. Pretty as the snow leopard in the cage next to her or the other exotic animals in your zoo. To remind her, you use a hot iron to burn a rune into her nubile flesh. Then you hire a wizard to make her so that she’ll never age or grow less lovely. Your eternal captive.”

  Kasar stared at her in horrified disbelief. “That’s how you became what you are?”

  Imogen shrugged. “I am myself. There are others like me. The one who branded me—he was a coward, testing out the magic on me. He did not survive.”

  He pulled her into his arms and held her close. Sympathy from her own captive. It made no sense. Kasar’s warm hands stroked down her back, soothing her as if she wept. Something she hadn’t done in centuries.

  “I’m so sorry, Imogen,” he whispered.

  “Don’t be. I told you—that girl is dead. And she was a fool who never deserved your sympathy in the first place.” She pulled away, placing distance between them. “Time for my stallion to sleep. Unless you’re hungry?”

  He studied her. “No—the
steak dinner you had them feed me was more than I’d had in months. Longer. Why do you have human food? Who bakes the bread?”

  “So many questions. Tonight, we shall talk. For now, sleep.”

  “I thought you don’t sleep.”

  “A nap for me. More for you.” She walked to the foot of the bed and picked up a leather collar chained to the post. A soft fur rug lay beneath it. “Kneel down, please.”

  His face darkened. Disappointment. Anger. Rebellion. Not easy to control at all.

  “Don’t forget your place,” she reminded him softly. Better for him to go back to hating her. “I don’t have to chain you comfortably, Lapushka.”

  Arrogantly holding her gaze, daring her to force him, Kasar strode to her, full of power. Inches away from touching her, he sank down onto his knees.

  She buckled the leather collar around his neck and clicked the lock. “Good boy.”

  He seized her then, large hands clasping her ass and pulling her tight so his mouth could fasten on her pussy. Fierce and strong, his tongue thrust into her. She allowed him this. A reward for obedience, not because of the delicious pleasure he gave her. She spread her thighs for him and he eagerly pressed in, fastening on her clit with nearly painful suction and flicking it with his tongue, so that the climax took her fast and strong, like a spring rain passing through, leaving her purged, free of those uneasy memories he’d, against all probability, dragged out of her.

  Kasar held her steady until she regained her footing. She leaned down and kissed him, holding his face while she licked her juices from his lips.

  “On all fours,” she whispered.

  His expression dark, he obeyed her. His cock rode high and pulsing again, tempting her. She straddled his back, reaching beneath to stroke his shaft, hard and fast. Would his desire for her flag if she did what she must to reunite him with his sister?

  Likely so. But she would pay that price. The responsibility, like so many that bore her down, was hers.

  He bucked under her firm grip and she leaned down, pressing her breasts against his back. Winding her fingers into his hair, she pulled his head back, turning it so his masculine throat stretched up, exposed to her. He resisted, a little, then gave in to her strength with a shuddering breath.

  She licked his pulse point, tasting the rich salt of his skin, waiting for his climax. The tension in him built, his breath panting out, anticipating the pain and pleasure. When his cock flexed in her hand, she bit, sinking her fangs deep into his flesh, drinking in the hot pumping blood while his semen poured over her hand.

  This time she only took a little. It would take days of drinking from him to restore herself. If she had the opportunity.

  He moaned and she let go, quickly sealing the wound and letting him collapse onto the fur. Turning him over, she sucked up the last of his juices. It tasted no emptier to her than any other man’s. His hand brushed over her head and tugged at the braid, so she looked up to find him watching her with sleepy affection.

  Then his eyes drifted closed and he slept.

  * * * * *

  Kasar woke, fully and abruptly, as had always been his habit. The surroundings confused him though. The yurt, the fur he slept on, the ache in his balls from far too much sex.

  Imogen.

  She’d fed from him, messed with his head, fucked him senseless and collared him to sleep at the foot of her bed.

  And he felt more alive than he had in years. Maybe ever.

  The engineer in him, the endless analyzer, wanted to scrutinize the emotional steps that had led him to this place. Survivor’s guilt pushing him to abase himself to a woman who saw him as nothing more than a pet to be enjoyed and discarded. Perhaps some latent desire to be punished and humiliated that drove him into a frenzy of desire when she buckled the collar on his throat and made him kneel at her feet. His waking erection hardened at the thought.

  The brutally aware and alive part of him didn’t care. He just wanted to taste her again, bury himself in the most magnificent woman he’d ever heard of. A woman of legend. Fit for a king, his ancestors would have said. He would be happy to be her blood pet, if that was the way for him to have her.

  “Awake, Lapushka?”

  He rolled his head and watched her stride into the tent. Gods help him, she wore thigh-high white fur boots that revealed several inches of tawny thigh before a buff leather skirt cut off the view. A white-furred vest over a silk shirt hid her enticing breasts from view, but he grinned at the memory of them. Her hair looked freshly washed, even a little damp at the ends yet, cascading around her slim figure.

  “What do you have on under that skirt?” he asked her, pushing down the blanket she must have tucked over him and fisting his cock for her viewing pleasure.

  “Enticing, but I have no time to play.” She briskly unlocked the collar from the bedpost and gestured to a screen. “You may relieve your human needs over there. Sasha and Skye will bring you a meal, some clothes, and then to join me in the central yurt. There is an important meeting.”

  He stood and she tilted up her chin to keep his gaze.

  “What’s wrong?” He studied her.

  “You don’t ask me questions, Lapushka. You simply obey. Get used to it.”

  “Or you’ll make me?”

  “If necessary,” she answered, evenly, remote. All vampire queen and none of the woman who’d become his lover. “You don’t have to enjoy it, Kasar. But you must do it.”

  “I hear and obey, my Queen.” He kept his tone quiet, but her eyes flickered at the darkness in it. “But when we are next together, perhaps it is you who will be chained on all fours for me, so I can fuck you from behind while you scream in pleasure.”

  “I could break any chains you put on me,” she whispered, clearly moved. There she was. Imogen.

  He reached up and slid a hand into her hair to cup her skull. When she didn’t stop him, he put the other hand on her thigh and stroked up the velvet flesh and cupped her fabulous little ass, his finger moving over the brand burned into her flesh so long ago. Together, they might find a way to exorcise the pain she denied she still felt.

  “You wouldn’t if I told you not to,” he murmured, and bent to kiss her soft, luscious mouth. So melting hot.

  A steel band wrapped around his wrist. No, just her hand, so strong she could crush his bones with a slight flex. She smiled against his mouth, then levered him away. “Such a nice fantasy for you. You must earn such things.”

  “How?”

  “This is important, so listen closely. In this meeting, you will wear your collar and I shall hold your leash. You will be obedient to me in all things. Do you understand?”

  “Will you put a leash around my cock too—lead me around by that?”

  “I could.” She turned away, straightened her skirt. “And no one would blink. Don’t push me, Lapushka.”

  “I see,” he gritted out.

  She glanced over her shoulder. “In return, I shall give you your greatest desire. I promise that.”

  “Now wait. I can cook up a better fantasy than that for my greatest desire.”

  She didn’t laugh, but regarded him with sober deliberation. “Not that. Obey me in all things tonight. Follow my lead. And I will give you what you truly want.”

  With that she left, in a swirl of hair and tension. The blonde twins—Sasha and Skye—bustled in, setting out breakfast and cheerfully grooming him, taking no more notice of his sentience than they had before.

  He’d steeled himself to be decked out like a cabana boy again, and so was pleasantly surprised at the clothes they handed him. After sponge bathing and oiling him. At least they let him dress himself. The black leather pants fit tightly, showing off the bulge of his package in uncomfortable detail. But the black-furred boots and matching fur-lined vest looked like something out of a movie about the Mongol hordes. Especially since he wore nothing beneath the vest but the black leather collar.

  That he echoed Imogen’s outfit didn’t escape him.

 
; She had some sort of strategy in mind and he didn’t much like going in blind. Over time he’d persuade her to take him into her confidence. He could advise her, perhaps.

  Be more than just a blood pet.

  The twins fed him bacon and eggs. More bread with fresh butter. Then they locked black leather bands on his wrists and attached a chain to them that fed through a ring in his collar. One—Sasha, he thought—clipped a leash to the same ring and tugged, hard enough that he lurched on his feet.

  Kasar narrowed his eyes at her and she giggled.

  He followed, giving the appearance of obedience, out into the night. He’d missed the day entirely. The promising storm had blown through, leaving unusual cold air behind. The grasses whispered, a soft susurrus of vague foreboding.

  Imogen sat in her chair, idly tapping her glossy red nails on the arm. She appeared to be lounging indolently, but already he knew her body well enough to read the irritation riding her. Her golden eyes caught his in a look of wordless warning.

  “Ah, my pet is fed and watered. Kneel here, Lapushka.” She held out a languid hand and Sasha gave her the leash. Kasar knelt and, on impulse, pressed his lips to the toe of her furry boot in a fervent kiss.

  “Nicely trained in such a short time, my queen,” the Italian vampire who’d been there yesterday commented. “Will you be loaning him out?”

  Imogen’s fingers wound into Kasar’s oiled curls and he leaned his head against her knee. “Perhaps. When I tire of him. But first, we were discussing asylum with our new visitors.”

  Kasar studied the two vampires arrogantly posing before Imogen. Surely, with their London hipster outfits and avid eyes, they could be nothing else. But London—all of the UK—was long gone. One of the females eyed him with such unconcealed hunger that his fingers itched for his keriss.

  What had Imogen done with it?

  “We’re hungry,” the female declared.

  “That is not my responsibility.” Imogen examined her nails, looking bored.

  “We understand you keep a herd of humans in captivity,” one of the males bit out. “If this one is an example, then you have plenty to share.”