by Joey W. Hill
When he’d joined her staff, and Daegan had confirmed they could trust him, Wolf had solved several problems. First, he eased Daegan’s concerns, and her own, about not having vampire backup on her seizures when Council work took Daegan away from the club. Gideon was vital to helping her manage them, but if one came on her full blown, she could cause her servant a great deal of damage while in the throes of her convulsions and mindless rage. Possibly even kill him. Not having to worry about harming one of the two men she loved best in the world significantly reduced one of the stressors that could ironically bring on the seizures.
Though he’d initially balked on it for her sake, having Wolf here had also given Gideon the chance to join Daegan on his more difficult assignments, something that put her and Gideon’s minds both more at ease. While Daegan might think he was invincible, he meant too much to both of them. She liked knowing Gideon had his Master’s back on jobs that were more challenging than the norm.
Finally, least important but still a nice perk to her businesswoman side, she’d acquired a staff member who brought in a lucrative income. Wolf’s paid session times stayed routinely booked because the male was an incomparable Dom. He did his therapy sessions for free, and she fully agreed with that, allowing him to do them whenever they worked best for those clients, even if during his work hours.
Vampires didn’t experience trauma the way humans did, one beneficial side effect to the personality changes that came with the transformation. But as a human, and during her turning, she’d had a front row seat with trauma. If her club could help victims of violence deal with what they’d seen, endured and done, maybe it would balance some of the violent acts she herself had to perpetuate in this strange world she now inhabited.
Wolf stayed to himself, speaking little of his past, always deflecting to get others to talk about themselves. He gave generously of his time and knowledge to anyone on staff who needed it. She didn’t know where he went when he left the club before dawn. She was sure Daegan did, but she’d respected Wolf’s privacy and hadn’t asked Daegan to tell her, unless it was something that endangered her club. It wasn’t. She’d been speaking the truth. She’d grown to like the big male and care a great deal for him. He was a member of her Atlantis family.
“So, he likes her.” Gideon was back at her elbow, scowling. “And he doesn’t realize how much. Which means he might trample her heart.”
Anwyn curled her arm through the crook of his as he leaned against the rail with her. She rested her chin on the point of his broad shoulder. “You don't have to protect everyone in the whole world,” she reminded him. “We have to get our hearts broken to live and love. It’s part of the deal.”
“A part that sucks.” Gideon shook his head. “I know she’s tough. But she’s also fragile. It’s the way you girls work.”
“It’s the way we all work,” she said, with a soft smile. She feathered his dark hair back from his strong face.
“He might break her heart. But just maybe, he’ll mend it with the broken pieces of his own.”
Chapter Nine
Autumn in Atlanta could alternate between temps in the eighties and the more traditional coolness. Tonight cooperatively went with the latter. It was a crisp fall night, the kind that made blood and hope stir in a nebulous but not unpleasant way. After his conversation with Anwyn, Wolf had thought about cancelling the carnival trip, but in the end, he hadn’t. So here he was, approaching the front doors of Club Atlantis an hour after dark on Thursday.
Ella was waiting for him. The club wasn’t open until eight, so no one was at the front security desk, though he knew the one on the admin corridor was staffed twenty-four seven. Ella flipped the locks to come out to him. As she moved away from the doors, he saw Mavis emerge from the recesses of the lobby to lock them after her.
He returned Mavis’s wave, but her secretive smile made him want to scowl. It felt uncomfortably like, “you kids have a good time.” A reminder that this could be construed all kinds of wrong ways, and not just by Ella, Anwyn, Gideon or whoever the hell else at the club was going to weigh in on it.
Still, as Ella came skipping toward him, her enthusiasm made it hard for him to stick with those storm clouds. She wore a pale turquoise shirt with white birds printed across it, and a black knit skirt whose hemline was just above her knees. She had on white ankle socks with her turquoise-colored canvas sneakers. She wore a Wiccan pentagram and long earrings, a few rings. To match the shirt and shoes, she’d painted a turquoise streak in her hair, which was loose and tangled around her shoulders and elbows, except for one thin braid wrapped in silver that hung parallel to that turquoise streak.
She was a beautiful, enchanting young woman, girlishly excited about being taken to the carnival. Her eyes, which hadn’t left him yet, were sparkling. Everything about her, head to toe, appealed to him, made him feel good.
He should be discouraging this at every level.
Yet Anwyn was right. Her eyes might be shining, but Ella wasn’t starry-eyed. She was the type of person who tended to embrace the unknown and see where it would go, because she wasn’t afraid to fall on her ass. She’d just dust herself off, wipe her own tears, and get on with it.
He wouldn’t mind being the one to wipe her tears, or even keep her from falling on her ass.
He’d enjoyed the Daddy-little girl workshop with her. With a fierceness that reminded him the protective Master side of him had been a part of his makeup before he’d been turned. He hadn’t known what to call it back then. Too young and stupid, not enough time to know what it meant.
But Ella’s personality reminded him, brought it back to life, and let him explore it. Hell, even gave him the chance to be playful with it in a way he hadn’t expected, letting loose things in him he’d had buried for a hell of a long time.
Yeah, this was a total mistake. Still, as she skipped the last two steps to him and did an enthusiastic little hop, he caught her so she wrapped her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist.
Ella pressed her very not-little-girl body warmly against his. That knit shirt was getting a workout over her full breasts, making him wonder what kind of underwear was beneath it and the skirt, and whether he’d make her take it off before they reached the carnival.
“I’m so looking forward to this,” Ella said, her cheeks flushed. She started to get down, perhaps thinking that was what he wanted, greeting done, but he tightened his hold on her waist, telling her he wanted her right where she was. He dropped one hand down and put it under the skirt. Christ, she was wearing only a lacy thong. If a good breeze hit the fairway, a lot of teenage boys would be nursing hard-ons. And maybe a few not-teenage boys, present company included. He cupped the exposed buttock, nice and soft, and took a healthy squeeze that had her lips parting.
“Me, too,” he said honestly. He let her down, though he kept her hand as he guided her to the parking lot. Her smile stayed in place, and had him grinning at her like an idiot. Jesus.
As he reached the vehicle, her widened eyes and thoughtful expression told him she hadn’t known what he drove. The restored 1968 Ford Ranger Styleside pickup was painted in black on the upper body, gray on the lower panels.
“It suits you,” she said. “Older and kind of scary.”
He snorted. “How old do you think I am?”
“Maybe thirty-five,” she said. “Unless you look into your eyes, or watch how you act around everyone, the things you know, how calm you stay about most things. Then I’d say you’re about eighty years old.”
She said it with a mischievous grin. Though she was teasing him, she’d come within a handful of years of being exactly right.
“Good guess.” Opening the passenger door, he lifted her onto the high seat. Reaching over, he drew the seatbelt across her ample breasts.
Then, because he could, he dipped his head and put his mouth over one, cupping it through the cloth to make that even easier, and bit the nipple through her bra cup. She gripped his shoulder, but she didn’t
squirm away, his good girl, even as he increased the clamp.
She took the pain, held onto him, digging into his muscle as he flicked his tongue rapidly over the captive peak. The immediate moan that escaped her lips told him she’d come out the starting gate ready for him, thinking of him.
He’d jacked off twice in the shower before he left his place to come get her. Knowing her body was already prepped for him wasn’t going to make the fit of his jeans any more comfortable tonight. He’d worn his button-down shirt loose over them. Good choice.
“You have really sharp canines,” she managed when he drew back.
“I do.” Too sharp. He noted something, not by sight, but by scent. They were alone in the parking lot and it was dark, so he didn’t hesitate to draw up the hem of her shirt, deftly lowering the bra cup in almost the same motion.
Her breath drew in, raising the breast toward his mouth as he dipped his head once more, this time to put his mouth over the wound his piercing fang had made. He sucked it gently, using the clotting agents in his saliva to stop the flow before it could do more than leave the tiny stain inside the soft foam cup. The bra was a mix of turquoise lace and shimmering mesh, telling him what color the thong had to be.
He wondered if she’d look at the drop of blood later, pass her fingers over the puncture wound in her flesh, and remember this moment. Then he didn’t have to wonder.
As he drew back, she was looking down, the hair falling along her cheek brushing his forehead. She studied the wound, passed her fingertips over it. Once, twice. She swallowed, looked up at him, touched his mouth, as if she knew he’d licked away the blood.
“Master,” she said softly.
Anwyn was right about that, too. He might have some Daddy Dom in him, and Ella some little girl, but the word Ella uttered now was the umbrella over it all. Master. He was her Master. And she was his. Period.
“We’re going to the carnival,” he told her. Firmly. And shut the door.
When he came to the driver’s side, Ella had that impish look on her face again. “Who are you trying to convince? You or me?”
“Misbehaving will not get you a funnel cake,” he said.
“How about one with powdered sugar?”
“Definitely not. I’ll tell them to sprinkle it with hot pepper and make you eat every bite.”
“You’re so mean,” she said, a twinkle in her eye, and laughed, squealing and pressing herself to the side of the truck as he grabbed for her knee.
But then she slid over and wrapped her arms around his upper torso, her head on his chest, and pressed her lips to his heart. “Thank you for taking me to the carnival,” she said.
He put his arm around her, holding her close, and looked down at her. She made him hurt. She fucking made him hurt in a way he didn’t know how to handle. And he was smiling like an idiot again.
He bought her a funnel cake with powdered sugar. Later, when he tasted her skin, he knew he was going to taste the sugar, since that shit got all over everything, her fingers, her clothes, down the front of her shirt. He wanted to taste her there, right in front of everyone, but he restrained himself.
As expected, there was a lot of cheerful noise, bright lights and noisy people, but he could handle that in small doses. Working in clubs like Atlantis helped him maintain those coping skills. There were made vampires who got antsy around that much fresh blood, who couldn’t handle it. He’d worked hard to make sure he could, knowing adaptability was key to survival.
It didn’t help with his reaction to Ella, though. He was edgier around her than expected amid all that noise. He was far more aware of the heated course of her blood through her throat, her thighs, her wrists. Saliva gathered in his mouth as he imagined tasting her blood with the sugar. Drawing both into his mouth while she melted into his arms, allowing him to nourish himself upon her.
For a male who’d worked hard at avoiding triggers to bloodlust, he seemed to be hitting them all, like one of those guys trying to ring the bell with a really big hammer to impress their girls. He was fighting temptation while keeping it within arm’s reach. And, even more precariously, within the reach of his fangs.
But he found a way to settle himself, doing what he suspected neither of them did too often. Having some good, clean family fun.
He rode the scrambler with her, the octopus, the bumper cars—where she clearly outdrove him and took far too much delight in that fact. Then there was the Ferris wheel, the merry-go-round, the caterpillar, the teacups…
He would have lost count, if he was keeping count. Instead, he was enjoying the way she grabbed his hand and pulled him toward each ride, a fistful of tickets in her other hand, fluttering against her forearm. It had been so long since he’d smiled this much, the muscles were going to hurt tomorrow from the workout.
When they finally took a break, they wandered through the arcade area. She had a huge purple ball of cotton candy on a stick, and offered pieces of it to him in fluffy bites. When he finally decided to have one mouthful, she turned toward him, teetered up on her tiptoes to taste the sugar on his lips, lick it off with easy abandon as she braced her hand on his chest.
He made a grab for her, and she was skipping away, tossing him a teasing look over her shoulder, sashaying that cute backside back and forth. The skirt swished enough from a passing breeze he was granted a nano-second view of those pale buttocks.
She didn’t do it in a practiced way, knowing just what the hell she was doing to him, but as a girl enjoying showing her lover what was his. It made his chest tighten up again.
He didn’t want it to happen, but it did. It was inevitable.
For a moment, just a moment, he didn’t see Ella. He saw another woman, laughing at him over her shoulder like that. Her dark hair curled in a bob at her shoulders, her brown hand and warm dark eyes beckoning to him. “Let’s ride the roller coaster next…”
Nobody had been able to take him all the way back there, not in a long time. He didn’t mean back before he was a vampire. He meant a far more important before.
“Leroy?”
“Wolf?”
He snapped back to the present, to Ella’s curious, concerned eyes, as she walked back to him, put her hand out to touch—
“Don’t.”
She froze in mid-motion, slowly withdrew, watching him closely. He took a breath he suddenly needed, no matter that vampires didn’t. That wasn’t entirely true, he’d found out. They didn’t need to breathe to live. But they needed it to speak, or to sometimes do this. Draw a breath in, let it out, a rhythm that matched the pulse of the earth and helped center them on it. Maybe made vampires needed it more than born ones, since it was a memory of human life.
A staccato of sharp shots had him seizing her arm, putting her behind him as he spun toward the noise. His fangs snapped out. Just in time, he managed to cover them, swiping his free hand across his mouth, tucking his lips over them. Numerous times as a fledgling he’d had to conceal the reaction, because it took decades to control it, and that repetition helped him now.
But the loss of control rattled him. The people blurred, the colors swallowed by green, too damn much green. He drew humid jungle into his lungs, cigarette smoke.
He knew how to climb out of this. Choose a focus. And for once, that focus was easy.
Ella brought him back to the present, one sense at a time. Her thin wrist in his grip. Her scent. He reached out to the others around it, gathering them in. None of them belonged to that jungle, that time of his life. Cotton candy, popcorn, laughing children…not children in a village, but children at a carnival, with clothes from The Gap and sneakers from Nike. Carrying cell phones, taking selfies…
He closed his eyes. Ella’s free hand lay on his lower back, a comforting pressure point. “I’m here,” she said quietly. “It’s okay.”
The shooting gallery, he remembered. They’d passed it on the way to the teacup ride. She’d crowed over the little stuffed hedgehogs; how much she wanted one, and would he consider comin
g back to win one for her? The staccato sounds were the BB-like pings against the metal targets. They were a mere shadow of real gunfire. He wouldn’t have even gone there without that other memory, overlapping Ella, making her disappear for that harrowing moment.
“Wolf,” she said.
He registered the strain in her voice, and awareness snapped back fully. “Shit.”
He loosened his grip and saw involuntary relief flood her pale features. As she swayed into him, he cradled the quivering wrist he’d squeezed so hard. Damn it, had he broken any of those little bones? He could have, way too easily.
“It’s okay,” she said. “It hurt, but I didn’t hear anything break. You have such a strong grip.”
Christ, baby girl, you have no idea. He could crush every bone in her wrist like crackers in a plastic bag. “Let’s sit down. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she repeated, placing her other hand on his face, drawing his eyes to her. “Seriously, it is. You’re not the only one who’s done the therapy sessions. I get it. Is whatever triggered it still happening? Do we need to get out of here? Or do you want to manage it a different way?”
So calm and steady. Not the least bit flustered. Versatile, adaptable and she keeps her wits about her, even when she’s rattled.
If he’d ever had any doubt that Anwyn was a damnably good Mistress, he wouldn’t anymore, because she was getting into his head. Annoying female.
He found a bench. It was occupied by a group of teenage boys, but he evacuated them with a thunderous look as he bore down on them, barely restraining the urge to carry Ella there. He realized she was under his arm, which he had wrapped around her like a protective hawk around his chick. Her arms were circling his chest and waist, providing him reassurance. They sank down together, and he didn’t care how it looked. He scooped her up and put her in his lap. He needed to feel as much of her body against him as possible.
