by Jo Carlisle
He found Aldric at breakfast, chowing down on Nikki’s blueberry muffins and sipping milk while reading the morning newspaper. So normal and good. For a moment he stopped in the doorway and watched, a lump growing in his throat. He’d risked his family for his own selfish quest. If only he had it to do over . . . Would he do anything differently?
The witch had led him to Harley, who might or might not be descended from Helena’s family. The two females appeared as opposite as night and day, and he still wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed. Honestly, he was a fool for thinking they might be one and the same, or that he’d be happy if they were. Wasn’t it time to make new memories?
“Are you going to stand there all day or come sit down and eat?”
Soren blinked and pushed from the doorway, giving Aldric a wan smile. “Sorry. I’m not quite myself this morning.” Understatement of a thousand lifetimes.
“What’s wrong?” His brother’s sharp gaze pierced his, studying him. No idiot, his sibling.
“Female trouble.” He reached for a muffin.
“If you’re out of tampons, I’m not going to the store.”
“Fuck you,” Soren muttered, taking a bite of the fluffy breakfast treat. “Mmm. Nikki’s outdone himself.”
“Yeah. I think Alasdair’s going to give him more training as a pastry chef. Kid seems to have a knack for sweets.”
“I’ll say.” He polished it off, licked his fingers, and reached for another.
“So, what gives?” Aldric glanced around, making certain no one else was within earshot. “Leila giving you problems?”
“Yeah, you could say that.”
“How?”
Careful, vampire.
“Shut the fuck up!”
His brother blinked. “What?”
“No, no, not you.” His appetite gone, he set the second muffin down and buried his face in his hands. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
“O-kaay,” his brother drawled. “Then who were you talking to?”
“I don’t know who or what he is,” Soren whispered. “I just call him the beast.”
Aldric fell silent for a long moment. Lowering his hands, Soren raised his head to see his brother gazing at him with naked worry, all traces of teasing vanished. “Is this connected to the thing you said was growing inside you since you drank from the witch? The darkness?”
Do not, vampire.
“Yes. It’s more accurate to say the beast is the darkness.” He gave a bitter laugh. “It’s meshing with me, taking over my mind. She and my beast want me to do horrible, evil things, and I want to do them. Long to do them so badly it hurts.”
I warned you! Instantly, razor-sharp agony ripped through his head. With a cry, he slumped sideways, barely aware of falling from his chair to land in a heap on the floor.
“Oh, gods! Soren?”
Aldric was at his side in an instant, pulling Soren into his arms, cradling him. Shouting words Soren couldn’t understand because his brain was being skewered and turned inside out. “Help me,” he rasped. Or thought he did, but couldn’t be sure.
Footsteps came running. More shouts. Someone yelled for a towel, but that didn’t make sense. The pain was too much. His body shook, and vaguely he realized he was convulsing, the shudders racking him from head to toe. Strong arms held him close, kept him from moving too much, and the soft towel was pressed under his nose.
“Come on, bro. Come back to us.” Luc’s strained voice penetrated the thick fog of pain, and Soren looked up, trying to focus on his younger brother’s face. Gradually, his blurred vision began to clear. Blue eyes and short, spiky blond hair came into view, and Soren realized Luc was the one holding the towel.
“Easy,” Luc said softly. “You got a helluva nosebleed. What happened?”
His voice was a pathetic croak. “My head. Thought it was being torn apart.”
“The beast?” Aldric guessed.
“Yeah. I pissed it off by running my mouth.”
“Beast?” Luc frowned, glancing between them.
“I’ll explain it to you later,” Aldric said, shaking his head. He smoothed a strand of hair from Soren’s face. “I promise we’ll find a way to fix this. Can you sit up?”
“I think so.”
He pushed upright with his brothers’ help, but had to pause to wait out a wave of dizziness. When it passed, he nodded, and they pulled him to his feet. “Thanks. You guys, I don’t deserve your—”
“Knock that shit off before you even start,” Aldric growled. “We’ve always had each other’s backs, and we’re not going to let some two-bit whore bring us down. Speaking of her, where is the witch?”
“I don’t know,” Soren told him, taking the towel and wiping the last of the blood from under his nose. For now, the beast had subsided. “She’s been disappearing for a couple of hours or more right before dawn every morning. I have no idea where she goes or what she does.”
“Well, we’ll find out and put a stop to whatever she’s doing.”
“She may succeed, thanks to me.”
Aldric opened his mouth to answer, then stopped, noticing the small gathering of anxious Chosen and other house staff. “Let’s finish this in my office.”
He and Luc followed the vampire leader down the hall and into the office, where Luc closed the door behind them. None of them bothered to sit. This wouldn’t take long.
Soren spoke quietly, hoping the presence inside him didn’t rip into his brain again. “My beast is strong and becoming more difficult to suppress with each passing day. He has no empathy for others and is not reluctant to kill to further Leila’s aims—whatever they are. In fact, I don’t believe he really cares about her goal as much as he does killing for the erotic pleasure of the act itself.”
“Blazing Hades.” Luc’s eyes were wide. “He’s appealing to your predatory nature as a vampire, urging you to go feral.”
“Yeah, that’s a pretty accurate summary.” He wanted to be sick as he made his final request. “I swear, I am trying to fight it, but if all else fails—”
“Don’t even say it,” Aldric hissed. “I’m not going to consider failure an option.”
“You have to. Promise me that if this thing takes over before we can stop her and there’s no hope of redemption for me . . .” He couldn’t finish. But he didn’t have to.
Aldric’s face was pale, lines of stress bracketing his mouth as he nodded. “I promise. But I won’t give up on you easily.”
“Neither will I.”
Gods, how he loved his brothers. “I know.”
“Now get out of here, both of you! Can’t you see how fucking busy I am?” He swept a hand toward the top of his desk . . . where there wasn’t a single paper in sight.
Luc gave a terse nod, turned, and stalked out—but not before Soren had seen the suspicious moisture in his eyes. He followed, closing the door to the office, and stopped dead. His vampire hearing picked up a faint, telltale sniffle, the sound of his big, badass brother giving in to his emotions. Guilt hit Soren hard, threatened to cut him off at the knees.
Taking a deep breath, he turned the corner.
And ran smack into Jordy, who blinked big brown eyes at him, looking very much like a deer in the headlights of a speeding car. A tantalizing deer that awoke his slumbering predator.
“Lord Soren,” Jordy greeted him cautiously, his usual bubbly self not in evidence. “I was just about to see if Lord Aldric needed anything from me this morning and—”
“I think my brother would prefer not to be disturbed,” Soren said, his voice low. It wasn’t really lying, was it? “He just ordered me and Luc out of his office.”
“Oh.” The boy looked away, obviously ill at ease.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”
He should send Jordy away now, before it was too late.
Instead, Soren took his arm, squeezing. “Don’t lie to me,” he warned. “I can smell it.” Jordy gazed up at him in trepidation, and the beast reveled i
n his fear.
“Leila told me to meet you this morning but wouldn’t say why,” the young man blurted, his gaze darting around as though to make sure no one else listened. “She’s weird and she scares me. So I wanted to talk to Aldric.”
No, the beast said. That won’t do. Rein in the boy, and take what’s yours.
Soren hardly recognized the seductive purr as his own voice. “Now, why didn’t you just ask me? I’m sorry she alarmed you, but there’s no need to worry. I just haven’t fed, is all, and Leila and I hoped you could take care of that for me.”
Big doe eyes rounded. “But I serve Lord Aldric, and you know your brother is pretty possessive.” Realizing his blunder, he stammered. “Not that I’m really anything special to him or that I’m refusing you! I’d never do that.”
“Good. You know that as a Chosen, you’re expected to serve any of us, however we require.” Technically the truth, but he knew that Aldric had a big soft spot for Jordy. Taking him would enrage his brother—and please his inner predator. “Come with me.”
Jordy was visibly startled by Soren’s abrupt order, but could do nothing but obey as his master led him away. Soren caught his fearful look at Aldric’s closed office door, and was gratified when the boy didn’t call out.
He’s ours. A juicy little morsel who’ll scream for you.
How he longed for that. Jordy’s lithe young body succumbing to him, a pleasure formerly denied anyone but his older brother. Well, that selfishness ended right now. If Aldric wanted the boy to himself, he should’ve claimed him off-limits long before today.
Excellent, vampire. No one has the right to keep this pleasure from you.
Picking up the pace, he dragged Jordy down the hall, away from the office and past a housekeeper, who gave them a sidelong look but wisely refrained from comment. Near the end of the corridor, he opened a door and shoved Jordy inside the room, which happened to be a conference room reserved for important meetings. No one would need it today. Except Soren.
Jordy stumbled, catching himself on the edge of the long table. Gripping it, he turned to face the vampire. “Lord Soren, I don’t think—”
“We don’t employ you to think,” he said, advancing on the trembling young man. The unmistakable scent of fear and desire from his prey spurred him on. “So unless you’re voicing your unbridled ecstasy, be silent.”
“Y-yes, sir.”
Grabbing Jordy’s arm, he spun the boy around to face the table and pressed into his back. The slight form under him was warm and pulsing with the very life he wanted to devour. It was wrong to want to take that life, but the power of it held him in thrall. He could make it good for both of them. So good.
He nuzzled the soft skin of Jordy’s neck, grazing it with the tip of one fang. The body under his shivered, driving him on. Reaching around, he slid his palm over the boy’s hip to cup the telltale hardness at his crotch and chuckled darkly. His for the taking, this one. So vulnerable and fragile.
Working swiftly, Soren opened the young man’s jeans. Freed him and stroked the silky cock, grinding his own erection into the pert, firm ass. He didn’t need to fuck the boy to ensure that he remained under his thrall. But he would. Simply because it pleased him and his beast.
And it would drive oh-so-uptight Aldric mad with anger.
He pushed Jordy’s jeans to his thighs, then kicked the boy’s feet apart as far as the constriction of his pants would allow. Then he unzipped his own jeans and released his cock and rubbed it into the crack of that fantastic butt. His prey whimpered and backed into him, proof that he wanted this as much as his captor.
Holding Jordy close, he probed between the splendid cheeks and encountered the base of a butt plug. He’d been ready for Aldric’s desires, had he? Well, too fucking bad for his older brother. He held the sweet thing now, and he wasn’t letting go until he’d drained every drop of blood and cum from the Chosen.
Removing the plug, he tossed it aside and replaced it with his fingers. Worked them inside the hot channel to find it slick and ready. He sawed three fingers in and out just to drive the boy mindless. The slender body bowed backward, his tousled blond head on Soren’s shoulder.
“Please, master,” Jordy breathed.
“Yes? What do you want? Tell me.”
“F-fuck me. Drink from me. Please.”
“With pleasure.”
That’s all he needed. The boy had asked for this out loud. No one could fault him for what he did to the gorgeous Chosen. With a hiss, he pressed the head of his swollen, aching cock past the tight star, into the equally snug passage that gripped his cock with spine-tingling friction. He began to pump slowly, making sure to angle his thrusts to hit the boy’s gland, drawing the sweet thing deeper under his spell.
“Ohh,” Jordy moaned, melting in Soren’s arms. “I always wondered what this would feel like, giving myself to you.”
“Good?” Thrust.
“Yes, master! Oh, please . . .”
“Please what?” Glide, so slow. In to the balls.
“Bite me,” he rasped. “Drink.”
“How much?”
“As much as you want.” Jordy’s hand reached back, buried itself in Soren’s hair, pulled his head down.
Taking his cue, Soren struck. Sank his fangs into the delicate throat and moaned as the rich blood gushed over his tongue. Jordy cried out, his cock jerking in his captor’s hand, spilling his seed in a rush. He came again and again as Soren took his life’s blood in great draws.
The boy weakens. He’s yours! Finish him!
Yes. Soren’s balls drew up and his release exploded, filling the boy’s ass with his cum as he drank. The throb of his cock pulsed in time to the human heartbeat under his palm. Growing less and less strong. Fluttering, struggling to beat.
“Soren, the maid said you were—”
Jerking his fangs from Jordy’s neck, he turned to snarl at the intruder. Harley.
“Oh, gods,” she cried, sprinting forward. “What are you doing? Get off him!”
With more strength than Soren would’ve thought possible, Harley grabbed his shirt and yanked him backward. Then she stepped around him and shoved, disengaging him from his prey and sending him stumbling back several steps as Jordy slumped to the floor, unconscious.
“What the blazing hell are you doing?” she shouted, getting in his face. “Drinking that poor boy to death? What’s wrong with you? This isn’t the kind, caring vampire I thought I was getting to know!”
He stared at her, his brain a whirl of lust and confusion. “Harley. I was just . . . I don’t know what came over me.” His gaze went to the slight form crumpled on the floor. “Oh no.”
“What the fuck is going on in here?” Aldric yelled, striding into the room. Spotting the Chosen, he rushed over to kneel at the young man’s side. “Jordan? Fuck!”
“What have I done?” Soren whispered, pulling at his hair. “Will he be all right?”
Aldric didn’t answer for several minutes as he slit his wrist and gave the young man a few drops of his blood. When at last Jordy stirred and opened his glazed eyes, Aldric turned his furious gaze to his younger brother. “He’ll recover, no thanks to you. Touch him again, ever, and I’ll rip your lungs out. Do I need to contain you?”
“No,” he croaked. “It won’t happen again.”
Scooping a limp Jordy into his arms, Aldric stood, his expression forbidding. “Keep a tight rein on that thing inside you until we know what we’re dealing with, or I won’t have a choice.”
“I understand.” Soren hung his head in shame as Aldric strode from the room.
“What thing is he talking about?” Harley asked.
“Not now, okay? I need to think.”
Gods, he’d nearly killed that sweet boy. And he’d loved the dark thrill. What the hell was he going to do?
“If that’s what you want,” she said quietly. “Just know I’m here for you.”
“Thank you.”
She nodded and walked out, leaving hi
m alone and bereft in his own horrible company. If it hadn’t been for Harley, he would’ve murdered an innocent. She’d been so brave, hadn’t hesitated to jump him and shove his ass off Jordy. Then she’d gotten right in his face.
Something Helena never would have done.
They weren’t the same. If he’d had any doubt, he didn’t anymore. But where did that leave the two of them?
He laughed bitterly. It left Harley with the short end of the stick. He shouldn’t have brought her home. It wasn’t fair for her to have to face his madness, but he was too selfish a son of a bitch to send her away.
Whatever might come, Harley belonged to him.
And he had a sneaking feeling she was his in ways no piece of paper could name.
Harley stalked through the mansion, at loose ends. Everyone she’d met had been beyond nice, including the stern Aldric and sunny Luc, but Soren’s vanishing act since the incident with the too-cute Jordy had her on edge. She wasn’t sure why. Soren was responsible for her, but that wasn’t the reason she was crawling in her own skin. Not totally.
He’d said she was his Chosen, but he hadn’t come for her today. What if he did, and lost control as he had with Jordy? His brothers and the staff had been walking around with grim faces, but no one had said a word to Harley as to where her new master might be. She was worried, and prepared to get nasty if that’s what it took to gain an answer as to his whereabouts.
Rounding a corner, she ran smack into a broad chest and looked up. Well, speak of the devil.
“Oh! I’m so sorry, Lord Soren,” Harley said as he steadied her. “I was looking for you, but I didn’t mean to run you over.”
“It looks like I’ll survive.”
His smile made her weak in the knees, and she fumbled for a reply that would sound halfway intelligent. Saints, he was gorgeous. She’d always been a sucker for a man with long, silky hair, and she wondered what it would look and feel like draped over her body as he made love to her.