by Heather Long
That was dangerous. I tucked that errant thought away before it could escape.
“Where’s Rogue?” I hadn’t imagined that, he was here earlier, right? I swore I could taste him on my tongue still. I could taste all of them, individually distinctive and heady.
“He’s doing some things,” Fin said with an airy wave. “Just rest, Beautiful. After you’ve napped, you can look at the things I bought you.”
Oh, clothes. Right.
“Hmm. We’re spending a lot of time in the bath.”
“Complaining?” Maddox asked as he nipped my ear. I could barely work up the energy to swat him.
“Nope. Just this frigid mausoleum has to have more than two interesting rooms.” Granted, I really hadn’t done much more in that bedroom than get gloriously laid and sleep. Could say the same thing about the bathing room for that matter.
“We’ve got to open it back up,” Maddox rumbled. “It will take some time. Just indulge us for now. I promise, we won’t let you get bored.” He stroked his hand over my belly and up to cup a breast.
No, boredom would not be an issue. Desire stirred, even as he began to toy with my nipple. Seriously, what the hell? I covered his hand with mine and tugged it away.
“Sore, Kitten?” Laughter underscored his concern, and he shifted his hands to resting on my thighs. The swirls of hot water were definitely helping, still…
“Yes,” I said. While true, it wasn’t totally true. I could quite happily straddle another one of their cocks. The fact I wanted to bugged the ever-loving shit out of me though. Fin studied me from half-closed eyes, but he didn’t call me on my comment. So either I wasn’t projecting, or he was letting me get away with my white lie.
The brush of Maddox’s cock against my ass sent another curl of desire to stir through me, and I pushed off his lap. I half-expected him to drag me back, but he didn’t. Instead, he draped his arms against the side as I moved to another seat.
They were both relaxed, comfortable with the fact they’d drained me for a second time and I’d fed off all three of them. More than comfortable, I was almost looking forward to Fin having his turn to feed on me.
And enough of that. I rose and climbed out of the water, ignoring the sting of cooler air against my thoroughly ravaged pussy. And yes, out of the water, it made sure to let me know it had been well-used and stretched.
The tingle of desire grew as I padded, dripping, over to the fire and reclaimed the heavy robe. Dragging it on, I stared at the flames. Getting comfortable here would be a mistake.
The table was still there, the food definitely absent, but a thermos sat in the middle, and when I popped it open, the scent of still hot coffee filled my nostrils. Oh, good.
I needed to wash the taste of them out. Playing along and letting them get relaxed while I worked out my next step made the most logical sense. They were powerful allies, but they showed every sign that they wanted to keep me, and I was no one’s pet or prize.
Despite Fin’s claims when he visited in my cell and Maddox’s insistence on calling me Kitten, I refused to be owned. Even if the nickname had begun to grow on me. I’d known them what? Three days? Maybe four? I’d lost all track of time, first in the prison and now here. After taking a swallow of coffee, I looked up and around. There were no windows in this room.
That made sense, it was below ground.
Was it even still daytime out there?
How long had I actually been fucking them and getting fed on before they fed me?
Would the sun still be up?
“Beautiful,” Fin said quietly. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”
Not glancing over my shoulder, I focused on the fire. “Can’t you tell?”
“At the moment?” Something different shifted in his voice. “No. But you’re concentrating very hard.”
Good. As fun as he was, I didn’t want to fall for that charm. There was no place for it in my world. Once I got this sorted out, I had to go.
Long-term things just weren’t my jam. A weird little seesaw tug pulled in my belly at the thought of leaving.
“I was just wondering if I could go see the sun…I haven’t seen it in weeks.”
Then I held my breath, not sure what I wanted the answer to be, but that disquieting sensation over leaving them? Yeah, that could fuck right off.
They weren’t mine, and I wasn’t theirs.
Chapter 11
“Deadly is the tongue that only curls and doesn’t stab.” - Unknown
Rogue
Pulling open the heavy iron doors, Rogue let himself inside before sealing the entrance behind him. Fin and Maddox had the female in the bathing room. It was warmest there for now. He often forgot about the temperatures here, so after he’d let her feed on him and he’d satisfied her demanding need to fuck her—and his own need to do it for that matter—he’d left her in their hands while he took care of getting the keep more habitable.
Fin would bring in furnishings and had already summoned several pieces from his place on the isles. It was enough to add to the bedroom. They were using his for now, but he would pull the other pieces from storage, including their own beds. No need to sleep in a pile once they smoothed her transition through.
The faint taint of shadow demon lingered on her. The beast had pounded himself into her cells. Hybrids scared most of the vampire lines. They traced their lineages by how close they were to the seven, the original seven. The closer the links to the seven sires who made all vampires, the more important they considered themselves.
Pompous jackasses, the lot of them.
Hybrids were myths as far as most of them were concerned. Rogue, Fin, Maddox, and Alfred had long since faded from the public. They kept to themselves, and those that decided to hunt myths were usually never seen again. Descending the long flight into the hold buried within the mountain, Rogue didn’t need torches to light his way.
This whole cavern boasted hints of ice along the rocks lining the way. Mid-winter, the temperatures were sub-zero. Maddox hated it down here, but Fin didn’t mind it so much, though neither ventured too deep anymore.
It had been more than a hundred years since Alfred went to sleep again after only being awake a year. The oldest of them all, he had grown weary of the world, the politics among the councils, and the foolishness of young vampires wanting to cut their teeth on other species.
Old pacts and alliances lay in half-forgotten tatters as younger generations jockeyed for position. Rogue could care less, but it was those same politics that landed the turned succubus in Nightmare Penitentiary and right into the hands of a shadow demon.
At the end of the long cavern, he ran his fingers around the edging of the door, removing the ice locking it closed before he pumped the handle and pulled the door open. Inside the shadowed chamber, he paused.
Nothing moved. The heart beating inside beat sluggishly. One beat for every few minutes. Legend said vampires slept in coffins. Stories to delight and horrify the masses. While they didn’t actually sleep in a coffin, those who went to ground often buried themselves far away from civilization, to avoid the sights, the sounds, and the distractions that might wake them early.
Deep in the hold beneath the keep, they were as far from others as they could get. If Rogue tilted his head and focused, he could catch the three beating hearts above. Fiona’s beat far faster than Maddox’s or Fin’s. It had been racing when he sank into her earlier while she fed on Maddox. Rogue’s own body had thrummed with renewed vigor since draining her. The shadow taint wouldn’t survive within him, just as it wouldn’t in the others.
They were old enough in his case, magical enough in Fin’s, and just pure stubborn in Maddox’s, that it couldn’t warp them as it would and had been in her. So far, she’d impressed Rogue with her willfulness and independence. He supposed she’d needed those traits to survive, as her kind were often dismissed as hedonists. It might make fitting her into their lives a challenge.
Fin put too much stock in old pro
phecies and tales told over many cups of ale. She might not even survive her transition in the long-run.
The reason hybrids were so rare was they often died, a victim to their own dual natures tearing each other apart.
Quieting his mind, he pulled from that darkened pathway and focused on the draped chamber ahead of him where Alfred slept.
“Fin believes she’s here,” he told him.
There was no response, not that he expected one. The heart pulsed once, then went quiet again.
“I am only telling you because she was in Nightmare,” Rogue said quietly, aware his words would echo back to Alfred when he woke. “She may not survive her transition. We may not have gotten to her in time. If they come for her, we will lead them away. If we must flee the keep, they will never get in here, but you will find us in Fin’s lands.”
The chances they couldn’t hold the keep were slim. They would likely have a much harder time holding on to her. Maddox and Fin might be lost in their lust for the red-haired, red-eyed vixen, but Rogue understood the need to assert authority flaring within her.
She would run.
Everyone ran.
Maddox had, though he may not remember it anymore.
As had Fin.
They’d actively sought to become hybrids.
Well, Maddox had. His had been a conscious choice. Fin’s had been a matter of his survival.
Still—they all ran.
“We’ll protect her,” he said finally. “Rest well, brother.”
With those words, he turned and left the room, sealing it behind him before he began the long walk back to the stairs and up.
He closed off the iron doors again, then returned to the baths. She’d been out again when he’d left them. Her words reached him just as he got to the doors.
“I was just wondering if I could go see the sun…I haven’t seen it in weeks.”
The sun didn’t affect all vampires. The naturally born had some immunity, but the turned? They all tolerated to varying levels. It was the longing in her voice that tugged at Rogue. She’d fed on all three of them for a second and in some cases a third time. The blood in her was older now, hurrying the transition along.
Did the sun bother succubi in general? Unfortunately, he knew little about the species.
“Maybe not yet,” Fin answered into the silence. “It’s better if we take the next steps slowly.”
“There are places we can go that you can see it,” Maddox added, though neither sounded certain.
Rogue scowled at her slow sigh. Disappointment curved through the sound. They weren’t giving her definitive answers. Fin had definitely hedged his in uncertainty while Maddox immediately sought a way to soothe her. She required neither coddling nor lies.
Fin didn’t know the answer nor did Maddox. The only way to know was to go into the sun and find out what it did. Hauling the door open, Rogue strode inside. The hot humid air billowing in the room wrapped around him. While he preferred it cooler, the heat was also tolerable.
Fiona stood near one of the large hearths, backlit by the flames. Though damp, her rich, red hair seemed to glow as it curled at the ends. A large dressing gown dwarfed her figure, and even though she was backlit, there was no mistaking her crimson eyes for anything other than her transitioning state. They were brighter though.
That was at least a positive.
“Come with me, little sváss,” he ordered.
“Woah,” Fin said as he stood. “Rogue…”
Maddox was already sloshing out of the pool. If Rogue possessed more patience, he would have rolled his eyes. As it was, he met the rebellion in Fiona’s gaze head on. “Unless you want to wait for them to decide what you can or can’t do.”
Predictable. She pursed her lips, shot a glance toward the others, then to him. Weighing. Measuring. Who was the greater threat?
Who could she get what she wanted out of?
Did she even know what she wanted?
Fiona took a step toward him as Maddox cleared the edge of the pool. Uncaring of their nudity, they were across the room to catch her, but not before Rogue swept her up and then he raced her away.
Their curses followed him.
He really didn’t want to have the argument with them. As it was, the armful of soft curves cuddled up to them had already brought them more than her weight in trouble. The keep’s layout was oblong, tucked against a mountainside and preeminently defensible. A barrier wall and proud gates along with natural obstacles made them difficult to approach overland.
Most of their enemies who would seek them out were not human, however, and those defenses were mostly for show.
The true defenses were soaked into the stones and grown in the cracks between when they’d built the fortress. Magic, power, and blood inlaid all of the spellwork. From the most complicated and delicate to the most basic and plain spells for discouragement, the keep warded them against those who didn’t belong with a giant fuck off essentially that turned away all but the most determined.
Hence the message he’d left for Alfred. Fiona had already begun to corrupt his brothers, even as she aroused Rogue in a manner he’d never experienced before. Already, the craving for her had begun to wind its insidious grip through him. He could still resist the influence.
Maddox and Fin hadn’t even tried.
Still, the keep also had two courtyards. The outer near the main walls and the inner, where Alfred had once cultivated a garden. It was to that one he took Fiona. When the keep was closed up, most of the exterior windows were sealed and shuttered. Eventually, they might concede to install the generator Fin wanted to add, but for now, torches and candles more than sufficed his need for any light.
Fiona scowled at him when he stopped before the garden doors.
“Fuck that’s cold,” she complained, and he glanced down to see her bare feet against the stone.
If the stone was cold, the garden would likely be even worse. It was still late winter in the mountains. Frigid, even when the sun was high.
With one hand braced to keep the doors closed, he reached down and removed one of his boots, then the other, and set them in front of her.
Carelessly pushing a lock of her hair behind an ear, Fiona glanced from him to the boots, then back. Rogue said nothing, he only waited.
It was her move.
Touching her tongue to her teeth, she put a hand on the door for balance, then picked up one far too delicate foot and shoved it into one boot. It dwarfed her, so she would be hard pressed to move in those.
Might make running a little more challenging for her.
Intrigued, he waited until she had the second boot on and shuffled a step. A snorting laugh escaped her. “You know what they say about men with big feet.”
“No,” he said plainly. “I don’t. What do they say?”
Amusement flickered across her face as she tilted her head up. Intrigued, Rogue studied her, uncertain of what her next words might be.
“They have huge shoes,” she murmured, almost daring him to dispute her.
“That’s not what they say.” But he wasn’t going to ask her to tell him. She had to learn to trust one way or the other. For now, he gripped the handle of the door and yanked it open. Cold air rushed in, and he straightened at the rush of fresh coolness. Fiona tucked the robe tighter against her naked body and shuddered.
The sudden wash of wintry sunlight blinded him momentarily. The light itself didn’t quite reach inside the door, though the radiance brightened the gloom so intensely, he almost found himself reconsidering the generator idea of Fin’s. Maybe more light would make Fiona more comfortable. While she would run, perhaps they could delay it.
She started forward a step, and he gripped the doorframe, blocking her. “Be aware,” he told her. “It may burn.”
Suspicion roused in her narrow-eyed gaze. “May?”
“May.”
“That’s very non-specific.”
“As are we all,” he reminded her.
&nbs
p; “Oh, so you’re a hybrid, too?” A smirk flirted with her mouth. “Vampire and what?”
“Older.” It wasn’t the answer she wanted, and the perfect symmetry of her face coupled with the husky laughter as she shook her head teased him. There was just a hint of green circling her red irises. They had likely been the color of a forest in full spring. Green, rich, and verdant… The sound of his brothers approaching reached him. If he wanted to test the baby vamp’s survival skills, now was the time to do it before her erstwhile and self-appointed protectors arrived.
Removing his hand, he straightened and then motioned for her to precede him. He was fast enough to snatch her back inside if she began to burn. Unlike the ridiculous films Fin took him to see, they did not fall to ash in seconds. Burning someone alive took considerably more effort.
Most of them could survive it, even if it wasn’t pleasant. And only someone suicidal or an idiot stayed where they were on fire without trying to put it out.
Instead of rushing through the open door, she hesitated.
Smart.
His admiration climbed a notch.
“What’s the catch?”
Leaning against the open door, he folded his arms. “You wanted to know if you could see the sun. There it is.”
“But it may hurt.”
Another nod.
“You don’t know if it will burn me or not.”
He shook his head.
“You’re very not hyper-verbal.”
“I say what I need to say. Your lips are going to turn blue, are you going out or not?”
The shivers had been subtle at first, but she fisted her hands and folded her arms, hiding them. The cold air pouring in was not doing her any favors. She’d end up back in the bathing room until they chased away the chill.
“Wait,” Fin called.
“Too late,” Rogue murmured. “Your keepers are here.” It was an unkind jab, but instead of rushing out to flout the possessiveness of his assessment and acting predictably, she glanced from him to where Fin and Maddox had slowed only a few steps away. The pair had taken the time to find clothing, though Maddox skipped any boots and Fin had found his coat.
