by J. R. Ward
Something soft stroked her cheek. His thumb, brushing over her skin.
“I won’t leave you,” he said. “No matter how long, no matter how many times. I’ll serve you and let you take my vein until it’s over. I will not abandon you.”
Staring up into his face, she knew without asking that this would be their only time together. The resolve was in his eyes. She could see it clearly.
One night and no other.
Abruptly he lifted his body from hers and reached for the bedside table. His tremendous erection stood out straight from his hips, and just as he came back with a syringe, she grasped his hard flesh.
He hissed and swayed before catching himself by throwing a hand down to the mattress.
“You,” she whispered. “Not the drug. I want you.”
He dropped the needle on the floor and kissed her, spreading her thighs with his knees. She guided him into her body and felt a glorious rush as he filled her. With a mighty swell her pleasure rose and then broke into two separate needs, one for his sex, one for his blood. Her fangs elongated as she eyed the thick vein at the side of his neck.
As if he sensed what she needed, he twisted his body around so he could stay inside of her while giving her access to his throat.
“Feed,” he said hoarsely, his body moving into her and pulling back. “Take what you need.”
She bit him without hesitation, piercing right through the slave band, going deep into his skin. As his taste hit her tongue, she heard a roar leave him. And then the strength and the power of him washed over her, through her.
O fell still over his captive, unsure he’d heard right.
The vampire he’d caught downtown and brought to the shed behind the cabin was strapped to the table, a butterfly mounted. He’d captured the male only with plans to work out his frustration. He’d never imagined he’d learn anything useful.
“What was that?” O put his ear down closer to the civilian’s mouth.
“She is called…Bella. The one…the female who was taken…her name…Bella.”
O straightened, a heady, balmy bloom flowing across his skin. “Do you know if she’s alive?”
“I thought she was dead.” The civilian coughed weakly. “She’s been gone so long.”
“Where does her family live?” When there was no immediate answer, O did something guaranteed to open the male’s mouth. After the scream faded, O said, “Where is her family?”
“I don’t know. I…don’t honestly know. Her family…I don’t know…. I don’t know….”
Babble, babble, babble. The civilian slid into the diarrhea-of-the-mouth stage of interrogation, becoming all but useless.
O slapped the thing into silence. “Address. I want an address.”
When there was no reply, he provided another source of encouragement. The male gasped under the fresh onslaught, and then blurted, “Twenty-seven Formann Lane.”
O’s heart started pumping, but he leaned over the vampire casually. “I’m going to go there right now. If you’ve told the truth I’ll set you free. If you haven’t I’ll kill you slowly as soon as I get back. Now, do you want to change anything?”
The civilian’s eyes darted away. Came back.
“Hello?” O said. “You hear me?”
To hurry the civilian up, he applied pressure to a sensitive area. The thing yelped like a dog.
“Tell me,” O said softly. “And I’ll let you go. This will all stop.”
The male’s face squeezed into itself, his mouth peeling up and revealing gritted teeth. A tear snaked down his bruised cheek. Though there was the temptation to add another shot of agony as inducement, O decided not to upset the battle between conscience and self-preservation.
“Twenty-seven Thorne.”
“Avenue, right?”
“Yes.”
O wiped off the tear. Then slit the civilian’s throat wide-open.
“You are such a liar,” he said as the vampire bled out.
O didn’t hang around, just grabbed his jacket full of weapons and left. He was damn sure the addresses were nothing. That was the problem with persuasion. You really couldn’t trust the information you got.
He’d check out whatever was there on both streets, but he was clearly being jerked around.
Waste of fucking time.
Chapter Thirty-two
Butch swirled the last inch of coffee around the bottom of the mug, thinking that the stuff was the color of Scotch. As he tossed the cold swill back, he wished it were some high-test Lagavulin.
He checked his watch. Six minutes till seven. God, he hoped the session was only an hour. If everything went smooth, he could drop John at Tohr and Wellsie’s and be sitting on his couch with a shot glass at his elbow before CSI came on.
He winced. No wonder Marissa wouldn’t see him. What a frickin’ catch. High-functioning alcoholic living in a world that wasn’t his own.
Yay. Let’s beat feet for the altar.
As he pictured himself at home, he had a passing thought about V’s warning to get away from the compound. Trouble was, being out at a bar or on the streets alone was not a good plan, not with the mood he was in. He was as raw as the weather.
A few minutes later, voices drifted down the corridor, and John came around the corner with an older woman. The poor kid looked like he’d been pulled through a ringer. His hair was standing up like weeds, as if he’d been shoving his hands into it, and his eyes were glued to the floor. That notebook was clutched to his chest as though the thing were a bulletproof vest.
“So we’ll see about the next appointment, John,” the female said softly. “After you’ve thought about it.”
John didn’t respond, and Butch forgot about all his own whiny crap. Whatever had come out in that office was still out, and the boy needed a buddy. He put his arm around the kid tentatively, and when John leaned into him, all of Butch’s protective instincts reared up and snarled. He didn’t care that the therapist looked like Mary Poppins; he wanted to yell at her for upsetting the little guy.
“John?” she said. “You’ll get back in touch with me about the next—”
“Yeah, we’ll call you,” Butch muttered. Uh-huh, right.
“I told him there was no rush. But I do think he should come again.”
Butch glanced over at the woman, thoroughly annoyed…. only to have her eyes scare the shit out of him. They were so damned serious, so very grave. What the hell had gone down in that session?
Butch looked at the top of John’s head. “Let’s go, J-man.”
John didn’t move, so Butch gave him a little push, and led the way out of the clinic, his arm still on the kid’s thin shoulders. When they got to the car John climbed into the seat, but didn’t put his belt on. He just stared straight ahead.
Butch shut his door and locked the SUV up tight. Then he turned and stared at John.
“I’m not even going to ask what’s doing. The only thing I need to know is where you want to go. You feel like heading home, I’ll take you to Tohr and Wellsie’s. You want to hang at the Pit with me, we’ll go over to the compound. You just want to drive, I’ll take you to Canada and back. I’m up for anything, so you just say the word. And if you don’t want to decide now, I’ll tool around town until you figure it out.”
John’s little chest expanded and then contracted. He flipped open the notebook and took out his pen. There was a pause, and then he wrote something and flipped the paper around to Butch.
1189 Seventh Street.
Butch frowned. That was a really shitty part of town.
He opened his mouth to ask why there of all places, but then shut his yap. The kid had clearly had enough questions thrown at him tonight. Besides, Butch was armed, and it was where John wanted to go. A promise was a promise.
“Okay, buddy. Seventh Street coming up.”
But drive around for a while first, the kid wrote.
“No problem. We’ll just chill.”
Butch started the engine. Just
as he put the Escalade into reverse, he saw a flash of something behind them. A car was pulling up to the back of the mansion, a very large, very expensive Bentley. He hit the brakes so it could pass and—
Forgot how to breathe.
Marissa came out of the house from a side door. Her hip-length blond hair blew in the wind, and she huddled into the black cape she was wearing. Moving quickly across the back parking lot, she dodged chunks of snow, leaping from asphalt spot to asphalt spot.
The security lights picked up the refined lines of her face and her gorgeous pale hair and her perfectly white skin. He remembered what it had felt like to kiss her, that one time he had, and his chest stung like his lungs were being crushed. Overcome, he wanted to rush out of the car, throw himself down in the slush, and beg like the dog he was.
Except she was heading for the Bentley. He watched as the door opened for her, as if the driver had leaned across and popped the handle. When the lights came on in the interior Butch couldn’t see much, only enough to tell him that it was a man, or male, who was behind the wheel. Shoulders that big didn’t come on female bodies.
Marissa gathered her cape with her hands and slid inside, shutting the door.
The light went off.
Dimly Butch heard some kind of shuffling next to him, and he glanced at John. The kid had shrunk back against the far window and was looking across the seats with fear in his eyes. That was when Butch realized he had palmed his gun and was growling.
Totally creeped out by the insane reaction, he took his foot off the Escalade’s brake and stomped on the gas pedal.
“Don’t worry, son. Nothing doing.”
As he spun them around he looked in the rearview mirror at the Bentley. It was moving now, doing its own turn in the parking lot. With a grim curse Butch tore off down the driveway, his hands gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles stung.
Rehvenge frowned as Marissa got into his Bentley. God, he’d forgotten how beautiful she was. And she smelled just as good…the clean scent of the ocean filling his nose.
“Why won’t you let me come to the front door?” he said, taking in her fair hair and her flawless skin. “You should have let me pick you up properly.”
“You know how Havers is.” The door shut with a solid sound. “He’ll want us mated.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“And you’re not the same way with your sister?”
“No comment.”
As he waited for an Escalade to clear out of the parking lot, Marissa laid a hand on his sable sleeve. “I know I said this before, but I’m so sorry for everything that happened to Bella. How is she?”
How the hell would he know? “I’d rather not talk about her. No offense, but I’m just…Yeah, I don’t want to go there.”
“Rehv, tonight doesn’t have to happen. I know you’ve been through a lot, and frankly I was surprised you would see me at all.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m glad you called on me.” He reached out and squeezed her hand. The bones under her skin were so delicate that he reminded himself he was going to have to be very gentle with her. She was not what he was used to.
As he drove them downtown, he could sense her nerves tightening. “It’s going to be all right. I really am cool that you called.”
“I’m rather embarrassed, actually. I just don’t know what to do.”
“We’ll take it slow.”
“I’ve only ever been with Wrath.”
“I know. That’s why I wanted to pick you up in the car. I thought you’d be too nervous to dematerialize.”
“I am.”
As they came up to a stoplight, he smiled at her. “I’m going to take good care of you.”
Her pale blue eyes looked over at him. “You are a good male, Rehvenge.”
He ignored that miscalculation and concentrated on the traffic.
Twenty minutes later they were stepping out of a high-tech elevator and into the vestibule of his penthouse apartment. His place took up half of the thirty-story building’s top floor, overlooking the Hudson River and all of Caldwell. With the vast blocks of windows, he never used the place during the day. But it was perfect for the night.
He kept the lights low and waited as Marissa walked around and looked at things a decorator had bought for his lair. He didn’t care about the stuff or the views or the fancy gadgets. He cared about the privacy from his family. Bella had never been here, and neither had their mother. In fact, neither knew he had the penthouse.
As if realizing she was wasting time, Marissa turned and faced him. Under the lights her beauty was absolutely stunning, and he was grateful for the extra hit of dopamine he’d pumped into his system about an hour ago. In symphaths, the drug had an opposite effect than when it was administered to humans or vampires. The chemical increased certain neurotransmitter activity and reception, ensuring that the symphath patient could feel no pleasure, no…nothing. With Rehv’s sense of touch gone, his brain could better control the rest of his impulses.
Which was the only reason Marissa was safe to be alone with him, considering what they were going to do.
Rehv removed his coat, then walked over to her, relying on his cane more than usual because he could not take his eyes off her. Balancing the staff against his thighs, he slowly undid the bow that held her cape together. She stared down at his hands, trembling as he slid the folds of black wool from her shoulders. He smiled as he slung the weight over a chair. Her dress was the kind of thing his mother would wear and exactly what he wished his sister would put on more often: a pale blue satin gown that was fitted perfectly. It was Dior. It had to be.
“Come here, Marissa.”
He drew her over to a leather sofa and pulled her down beside him. In the glow from the windows, her blond hair was like a shawl of silk, and he took some between his fingers. Her hunger was so strong, he could feel it clearly.
“You’ve waited for a long time, haven’t you?”
She nodded and looked at her hands. They were knotted together in her lap, ivory against the light blue satin.
“How long?”
“Months,” she whispered.
“Then you’ll need a lot, won’t you?” As she blushed, he pushed her. “Won’t you, Marissa?”
“Yes,” she breathed, obviously uncomfortable with her hunger.
Rehv smiled fiercely. It was good to be around a female of worth. Her modesty and her gentleness were damned appealing.
He took off his jacket and unknotted his tie. He’d been prepared to offer her his wrist, but now that she was in front of him, he wanted her at his neck. It had been forever since he’d allowed a female to feed from him, and he was surprised by how excited he was at the prospect.
He popped the buttons of his collar and undid the rest of them, all the way down his chest. With a surge of anticipation he yanked the shirt free and opened it wide.
Her eyes went round as she looked at his bare chest and his tattoos.
“I didn’t know you were marked,” she murmured, her voice shaking along with her body.
He eased himself back into the sofa, spreading his arms out, bringing one of his legs up. “Come here, Marissa. Take what you need.”
She looked at his wrist, which was covered by a French cuff.
“No,” he said. “This is the way I want you to do it. At my throat. It’s the only thing I ask.”
As she hesitated, he knew the rumors about her were true. She was indeed untouched by any male. And the purity of her was…something to be taken.
He squeezed his eyes shut as the darkness in him shifted and breathed, a beast locked in a cage of medication. Christ, maybe this wasn’t a good idea.
But then she was moving on him slowly, crawling up his body, her smell so like the ocean’s. He cracked his eyelids to see her face and knew he was helpless to stop the feeding. And he was not going to miss this; he had to let a few sensations come to him. Slipping loose his discipline, he opened the channel to his sense of touch,
and it received with greed even with the drug, all kinds of heady information surging through the dopamine fog.
The satin of her gown was soft against his skin, and he felt the warmth of her body mingling with his own heat. Her slight weight was braced on his shoulder and…yes, her knee was between his thighs.
Her mouth parted and her fangs unsheathed.
For a split second the evil in him howled, and he called on his mind in a panic. Thank the Virgin, the damn thing came to the rescue, the rational side of him rushing forward, chaining his instincts, quieting the very sexual need to dominate her.
She wobbled as she leaned down toward his throat, unsteady as she held herself above him.
“Lie on me,” he said in a guttural voice. “Lay yourself…upon me.”
With a wince she let the lower half of her body sink into the cradle of his hips. Clearly she was worried about bumping up against an erection, and when she encountered nothing of the sort she glanced between their bodies, as if thinking she’d hit the wrong place.
“You don’t have to worry about that,” he murmured, running his hands up her slender arms. “Not from me.” Her relief was so palpable he was offended. “Would laying with me be such a chore?”
“Oh, no, Rehvenge. No.” She glanced down at the thick muscles of his chest. “You are…quite lovely. It’s just…there is another. For me, there is another.”
“You still love Wrath.”
She shook her head. “No, but I cannot think of the one I want. Not…now.”
Rehv tilted her chin up. “What kind of idiot wouldn’t feed you when you needed it?”
“Please. No more talk like that.” Abruptly, her eyes fixated on his neck and dilated.
“Such hunger,” he growled, thrilled to be used. “Go ahead. And don’t worry about being gentle. Take me. The harder the better.”
Marissa bared her fangs and bit him. The two sharp penetrations shot through the drug haze, and the sweet pain speared into his body. As he moaned, he thought that he’d never been grateful for his impotence before, but he was now. If his cock had worked at all, sure as hell he’d have pushed that gown out of the way, parted her legs, and had her nice and deep as she fed.