“And you,” was all he replied before bidding them both farewell and heading for the lift to go back down, presumably to the third floor where their offices sat side-by-side.
“He doesn’t seem too impressed that I’ve been recruited,” she asked when he’d gone and she was alone with Marcus.
“He loves me, as do the other two,” he replied with an air of nonchalance Wynter found amusing.
“Do you even care how much you affect them?”
“Them?” he countered, though not denying she was right. “You too, Wynter. You can feel it, can’t you? The devotion you have towards me. The unyielding pull that gravitates you in my direction? The other employees feel this plus the raw and powerful euphoria a bite gives them with none of the strings attached because numerous vampires take them over and over, however you’re afforded a single master. One solitary pull and one goal—to satisfy my needs. You’ll come to love me too and, like I do with the other three, I’ll let you. I’ll even entertain your whimsy if the mood takes me.”
“And how might you do that?” she asked, ignoring the nasty way he’d decided to describe the utter devotion three human beings had dedicated their lives to showing him. Instead, she decided to be selfish, focusing solely on the rewards she hoped to receive. “Money? Presents?”
“You’ll see,” he answered, giving nothing away, “I will readily give those things, but I can offer so much more as well. Money means nothing to me, Wynter. I have lived thousands of years and accrued power and wealth beyond anything a single human on Earth possesses. The only thing of worth is what runs in your veins and I am willing to give you whatever you desire in order to obtain it.”
“I don’t doubt that,” she told him honestly, “but what if I want something other than material things? What if I want my freedom or the chance to be loved in return?”
Marcus didn’t answer, much to her annoyance. Instead, Wynter sensed him call to her and felt her feet start to move in his direction against her will. She was by his side in a couple of seconds and found herself staring down into those mesmerising blue eyes again. “Well?” she tried, earning herself a sly smile from her cruel boss.
“Sit,” he commanded, and she looked around for a chair. There wasn’t one. “Here,” Marcus reiterated, pointing to the spot on his desk that sat right in front of him.
The desk was made from heavy old wood, and was high. So high she had to jump up onto it and hitch her skirt a little, but Wynter did as he had commanded and was soon sitting directly before him atop the beast of a desk.
Marcus grinned and licked his lips as he moved closer. “Open your legs,” he demanded, and Wynter quickly did as she’d been told.
In spite of what he’d told her more than once already, a spark of hope rattled through her and she hoped that maybe, just maybe, Marcus was about to give her what she so powerfully craved. She felt like begging, but the devious smile curling at his lips told her he expected that. She imagined he was far too used to dealing with humans and their pitiful desires to care that he’d led her on while delivering nothing as yet. Not a touch. Nor a single taste of him in return.
And now she was just one of the many who were under his spell. Well, the four in particular whom he favoured and yet never gave any part of himself to in return for their lifetime of servitude. Wynter thought it unfair. That deep voice inside of her reared itself and told her to run. To get away and invoke the power the probationary period gave her, if only she could find the strength to use it.
Wynter was about to try and snap her legs closed and jump down again, when Marcus lunged for her, seemingly ravenous for her blood again even though he’d already taken so much. With a hiss, he drew in a deep breath, and ran his palms across the insides of her thighs.
The moment his hands were on her, there was no need for him to pin her legs in place or still her. She obeyed his silent commands and leaned back, placing her hands flat on the desk behind while he lifted her skirt even higher.
He then took a quick glance at the clock on the wall to her right and she followed his gaze. They had ten minutes. Six hundred seconds and he’d have to leave her be for a few hours or else break his own rules. Wynter couldn’t wait. She needed some space from Marcus already. Some time to heal and to rest. And of course the chance to do the actual job he had brought her here for.
Marcus grinned up at her. “There’s plenty of time,” he said, before leaning down and closing his mouth over the inside of her right thigh. She felt the now familiar sting of his tongue against her flesh and the blessed wooziness his bite had delivered each time. Her high was imminent and Wynter welcomed it as he drank, her body arching up off the desk involuntarily while Marcus continued to devour her. He yanked her towards him, deepening his bite, and she cried out as a wave of pleasure accompanied the pain.
The sudden ‘ding’ of the elevator then snapped her back to reality, and she turned to watch as a woman sauntered through the doors without a care. She had a stone cold expression on her face, but couldn’t hide her surprise at finding their master still feeding just moments before their working day was due to begin. The woman didn’t even seem to see Wynter. She was utterly fixated on Marcus and, like her, their intruder was panting and flushed with heat Wynter knew was resonating from within her, rather than from an outside source.
“Master,” she whimpered, “it’s almost time.”
Marcus reacted quicker than Wynter could even comprehend.
One moment, he was still drinking from her, taking languid sips rather than deep gulps now, as though he were savouring every drop. And the next, he was across the room and he had the woman pinned to the wall by her throat. She was up off the floor, her stiletto heels more than two feet beneath her where she’d been yanked from them in Marcus’s grasp.
The woman was choking and sputtering, but she didn’t try and speak or fight him back. She simply let him do it, as though she knew she had done wrong and was more than willing to pay the price for her foolishness.
“There’s plenty of time yet,” he growled, “especially if there are no more interruptions.”
Marcus dropped her and the woman then took off for the lift, which was thankfully lying open in wait from when she’d arrived. And all without even retrieving her shoes.
Wynter began to tremble and suddenly felt cold. She looked down at her thigh and saw that blood was oozing from the wound Marcus had made there. He had yet to close it so her blood was pooling on the desk beneath her, making her head spin.
“M-m-m Marcus?” she sputtered, watching as a drop fell over the edge of the desk and onto the floor. The sight of the blood turned Wynter’s stomach and she felt her arms begin to give way beneath her. No, don’t pass out, she told herself. Stay alert. Stay strong.
It was no use. By the time Marcus was back and he was cleaning her up, as well as the puddle on the table top, Wynter was losing consciousness fast and felt herself fall back on the desk. She turned her head to look at the clock and watched as the hour came to an end.
Three seconds to go… Marcus took his final draw and Wynter felt her body roar with heat.
Two seconds to go… With a dark laugh, he licked her clean and whispered about how she was such a lucky girl.
One second to go… Wynter exploded in an immense and unbridled climax that emanated from deep within her core and took her breath away. It was like a million fireworks were going off inside of her. Every nerve ending was alive and exploding with pleasure. But the most immense pleasure was where it mattered most. And all without him even having touched her.
By the time she’d come back down, six o’clock had arrived and Wynter was a wreck. She was hot and then cold. Light and then heavy. Awake and then being dragged into forced sleep. No, she thought. I can’t sleep now! I need to start work.
But it was no use. It took her by force and without a care. Nothing but blackness and ice.
Five
Marcus watched Wynter sink into oblivion and then listened as her heartbeat slowed to a speed
that was actually rather dangerous to her life, and yet he did nothing to rectify the situation. It intrigued him to see whether she’d survive her first day of work with him. Not even a day, in fact. Just a few hours in and she was already on the brink of death. What a fascinating little thing she’d turned out to be. He knew he should get to work, but he couldn’t tear himself away. All he wanted was to watch her. To see the soft rise and fall of her chest as she breathed precious air into her lungs. To listen as her heart fought hard to keep on beating.
She was pale and beautiful. And his. The newest prized jewel in his crown.
Like all the others he’d ensnared to work for him, Wynter had succumbed to the curse her signature and blood oath on that piece of hexed paper had brought upon her, but she was still fighting his complete control over her and Marcus liked it. The game was on and he was more than willing to play. Even if that meant her calling his bluff here and there.
It had almost always disgusted him to so much as think of having sex with a human, but couldn’t deny that when she’d propositioned him it’d taken every ounce of his strength to refuse her. And now, when she’d climaxed just after he’d drunk more of her life force down, it’d broken him entirely. If Wynter hadn’t passed out afterwards he was sure he would’ve been inside of her a second later. Fucking her over his desk while the evening’s work started beneath them, like some uncouth young fool who couldn’t keep his dick in his pants.
But, thanks to whatever forces had taken her into the abyss of unconsciousness, he’d been saved the hassle of sex and intimacy. She would be sure to fall even deeper in love with him if he ever let her near his naked body, and the thought of her having the sort of power over him a lover instinctually possessed made Marcus want to strike her. But instead, he shut himself off to her lure. Forced himself to feel nothing at all. No rage. No lust. No desire. Only necessity.
His kind didn’t fornicate with humans anyway. Not unless they were planning to turn them into one of their kind and mate with them. That was their law. One he himself had helped the vampire elders write hundreds of years before when it was decided by all that he, along with a chosen few, would govern the lives of their immortal peers. The rules they created had been put into place and forcefully adhered to, even centuries later. The system worked, and so Marcus backed away from the sleeping woman atop his desk, lest he find her once again calling to him.
He instead plucked his phone from the cradle and dialled his assistant, whom he knew would have clocked in at six-pm sharp and was undoubtedly already following up on his emails and admin. But tonight he had another sort of task for him.
“Bryn,” he barked when the young man answered. “Get one of the nurses and then come up here. And inform Joanna I will be visiting her office presently.” Marcus hung up before Bryn even had the chance to respond, but knew his subordinate would do exactly as he had instructed and without delay.
As he waited, he considered again how Joanna had dared come up and offend him so. His Finance Manager had pushed her luck walking into his office unannounced and Marcus was still reeling from her foolish display of jealousy she had offered his new employee. He was going to see to it that she knew to treat Wynter with nothing but the utmost kindness in the future, and wasn’t against delivering her a punishment or two to prove just how much he meant it. He had endured Joanna for long enough. Her undying love and reckless abandon when it came to offering herself to him. She had quickly become his most obsessive of the three managers and he’d always put it down to her girlish whims. He’d often left her to her fantasies, but after today, he was raging.
Marcus had gone so far as to entertain those notions of hers and encourage her to remain celibate because, as Joanna had always told him, if she couldn’t have him then she’d have no one at all. It had been a fun game to toy with her emotions and the consistently horny high she had never let herself come down from. But not now that she’d gotten above her station. Joanna needed to be put back in her place and Marcus was more than ready to make sure of it.
Bryn, his scrawny but strangely strong assistant, arrived within mere moments of Marcus having ended the call, and as soon as he walked into the room he took one look at Wynter’s unconscious body on his desk and nodded. The boy had worked for Marcus for over ten years, and ninety per-cent of the time he knew exactly what his boss needed and when without having to ask. This was one of those times.
He lifted Wynter into his arms and took her back to the room behind where the glass partition would hide her from view. The nurse Bryn had enlisted followed him, and Marcus could hear them getting to work on making Wynter comfortable and hooking her up to an IV. She was going to be late in getting started on her real work, but really, he couldn’t be angry.
Marcus knew he’d taken too much. That he should’ve shown more restraint, but she’d tasted too good. Even now, he could still taste her on his lips. Could still smell her blood from when it’d dripped down onto his desk.
It was intoxicating.
His eyes scanned the old wood and he located the small smear of it she had left behind. With a grin, he then leaned down and licked it clean. He lapped at the remnants of her until it was all gone and then Marcus straightened, made sure his suit and tie were perfect, and strode to the lift. He then took it down one floor to where the majority of his minions worked.
It was time to get the working day officially started.
***
When she awoke, Wynter found herself back on the sofa where she had napped a while before. This time though, she woke with a pounding headache and a general sense of exhaustion that her short rest hadn’t even remotely cured. Her arm also stung and she looked down at it, discovering that an IV had been put in and a bag of fluids was being administered via it.
“Ah, you’re awake,” a new voice told her, and Wynter looked up to find a man standing guard over her by the open end of the frosted glass wall. “And alive.”
Wynter took him in. He was tall and broad, and she could see in the dim light how he was older than her. Maybe in his early forties. He had dark hair with grey all down the sides over his ears and a warm enough smile that she didn’t feel too threatened at waking up to find him there.
“Just about. Although I think our boss was going for the alternative,” she croaked, and was pleased to see him chuckle at her lame joke. He might be another stuffy guy in a suit, but at least he appeared to have a sense of humour.
“No way. He hasn’t lost an employee in more than twenty years, although it is unlike him to take three bites in such a short space of time. You clearly are his new favourite,” the guy teased before dropping his smile and turning serious. “Mr Cole has had to step out on some business but he asked me to watch over you and make sure you’re okay. If I didn’t know him better I’d think he was actually concerned,” he then added as he approached and took a seat on the chair beside her.
The notion that Marcus could possibly care intrigued her, but Wynter already knew better than to get her hopes up. Right now, she’d settle for just getting her arse up off that sofa without keeling over. She managed to sit and figured it’d do for now.
“I’m late for work, right?” she asked, looking out the window at the dark sky.
“Yeah, it’s already after nine. You’ve been out of it a while,” the man replied, but he didn’t imply that she was in any trouble for it, which made her feel somewhat better. “I’m Jack. The HR Manager,” he then told her. “Here to do my bit and make sure the humans are well cared for.”
“Wynter, the new Marketing Manager,” she replied with a small laugh.
“Oh, I know,” Jack said with a sly smile, “you’re quite the talk of the town this evening, Wynter. Hired on a whim and then took up the boss’s entire afternoon since. Highly unusual. Plus, Joanna’s in deep shit for coming up here unannounced and interrupting his feed.”
Wynter gulped and cringed. So that was the woman’s name.
“Will he punish her?” she asked, and then let out a g
roan when he nodded his head yes. “How?”
“Put it this way, our master happily drinks from us on our chosen days without much scheming or nonsense. He takes what he needs and only toys with us if he thinks we deserve it. But on the days we aren’t his to have, he takes what he wants in other ways. And he isn’t shy when it comes to making sure we remember who’s boss. How much has Mr Cole told you about his preferences with his chosen Blood Slaves?”
“Mostly that, given the chance, he likes them desolate and full of despair,” she answered.
“And terror. Fear is one of his most favourite tastes, and so he will instil it in Joanna in droves until he is satisfied she has learned her lesson.”
“Poor woman,” she whispered to herself, but Jack shook his head and leaned closer.
“She deserves it,” he demanded, his face holding no hint of emotion, “she came up knowing that today was not her feeding day. She knew you were here and wanted to intrude so she could come between the pair of you.”
“Why?”
“Because she loves him, of course,” Jack sniggered. “We are both blessed and cursed to be his chosen ones, Wynter. The four of us are some of the only humans who get to have just one master. We’re saved the humility of giving ourselves to one vampire after another and falling foolishly under their spells thanks to the power each one has to seduce humans into letting them feed. And all without so much as an afterthought about how they’re left feeling once the feeding is over.”
“I can’t tell if we’re lucky or not…”
“It doesn’t matter. This life is what it is, and it’s all you have to live for now. Patrick has worked for Mr Cole for more than fifty years. Myself and Joanna have been here for around twenty. We both fell in love with him before the end of our first week. You’ll be the same.”
“I hate how he can control us so much. How susceptible we are to his power,” Wynter replied quietly, being careful in case they were being listened in on. “But at the same time, I crave his touch. I want him to bite me. I even propositioned him for sex.”
The Beginning Page 5
