Vampire Master: Vampire Queen Series: Club Atlantis

by Joey W. Hill

  He sat down on the edge of the tub, putting his feet in the water. It reached his knees. Since she wasn’t inclined to let go of him, he adjusted to cradle her in his arms. She could see the burns healing on his flesh, the bruises and cuts. Another bolstering reminder that her blood had helped him.

  “It did. Now it’s time for mine to help you.” He tightened the arm around her back, which allowed him to bring his wrist to his mouth. He sliced the vein with one sharp fang and took the welling blood to her mouth, cupping her head with his broad palm. Her hands, trembling again, curled over his forearm, holding onto it.

  As she put her lips over the wound, his taste filled her mouth. She wondered if this was how blood smelled and tasted to wild animal carnivores, who ate their food raw with such eager pleasure. She was glad for it, because a long time ago when such things mattered, she’d worried that the taste would repulse her.

  Instead, the aroma of her Master’s blood was like a favorite memory, triggered by scent. Or like when she smelled vanilla and it made her want to eat cake.

  A couple times in her life, she’d been so hungry, the need for food had actually shut down so it didn’t overwhelm other survival priorities. But then a shelter volunteer had offered her a peanut butter sandwich. She’d fallen on it like the proverbial wolf, almost swallowing it whole, the hunger surging up like a bear coming out of hibernation. This was like that. She suddenly couldn’t drink fast enough. When his hand tightened on her hair, trying to slow her down, she was shocked to hear a small growl come from her lips.

  “Easy, fierce kitten. Don’t make your Master get rough with you. Slow it down, or you’ll make yourself sick. You’ve had all you need. I promise.”

  She reluctantly let him go, licking her lips as he brought his wrist back to his mouth, passed his tongue over the puncture wounds a couple times, which apparently helped speed the clotting and kept him from dripping into the tub. However, he missed one drop, which splashed high on his chest. When he put his arm back around her, she put her mouth there, licking, scraping him with her teeth.

  She was weak, but suddenly something else was raging up in her. Needing him…but not until…oh Goddess…

  It flooded into her, Robert on top of her, shoving into her, the cruel look in his eyes. More than being forced to have sex with him against her will, it was that look that twisted her insides, made her feel dirty. His darkness had infected her. What if it never left?

  She was hyperventilating. Wolf eased her into the heated waters of the tub, turned her so she had her arms hooked over the edge, her forehead pressed to the coolness as she tried to get her breath. His hand was on her back, rubbing. Dropping to caress her third mark, that phoenix, reminding her that she was alive. That she was with her Master.

  I’m here. He’s not. You killed him, Ella.

  She had killed the man, but not what he’d left inside her soul.

  “I’ll take care of that,” Wolf said, with a dangerous note to his voice that told her if she hadn’t killed the man, her Master would have. Three times over if he could. He gave her that reaction, surrounded her scattered, fragile feelings about it, gathered them up. Outside that boundary, she sensed his deep rage, something he was protecting her from as much as anything else. It reminded her of what Anwyn had said, about Wolf having an exceptional level of control for a vampire. She suspected it was possible because when the right moment called for it, he could unleash and vent it in terrible, terrifying ways.

  He stepped into the tub behind her, knelt over her, sheltering her, putting his face against her hair, crossing his arms in front of her, another form of cocoon. “Sweet girl. I’m here.”

  A stack of washcloths and towels had been left on the wide edge, and when her face pressed there, absorbing her tears, she felt how plush-soft they were.

  Anwyn had done all this. Anwyn was a Mistress who understood that delegation gave submissives the chance to exercise that deep service yearning. But when something happened to one of her people, she cared for them herself. A reminder that she was there, and she would do whatever she could to fix it, make it better.

  She wasn’t the only Dom who had shown that side to Ella. And both of them were vampires.

  Ella was just free-flow crying now. Please, Wolf. I need you, Master. I need you now. Before anything else. Please?

  “There will be many times in our life together where I will take deep pleasure in hearing you beg, and beg hard, baby girl. Not right now. You don’t need to beg for anything from me tonight. It’s all yours.”

  She was so glad they were in the sleeping quarters of a BDSM club, because one of those bottles held an oil that allowed lubrication in bath water. In her peripheral vision, she saw Wolf pick it up. But she wanted to see more, even as she knew he wanted her to stay in the position she was in. So she ventured shyly to the doorway of his mind.

  May I…see what you’re doing?

  A blink, and a window opened. Her heart accelerated as she watched him stand behind her, grip his cock, work the oil on it as the shaft stiffened, thickened, grew. She drank in every detail. Her heart constricted over the healing wounds on his body. Someone had harmed him. But they couldn’t change the beauty of his form, the muscled long limbs, the graceful curves of back, shoulder, chest.

  As he grew even more aroused, he let her feel how that reaction was feeding not only on the physical stimulation and anticipation of being inside her, but the hunger he felt growing within her.

  Her cunt contracted, her lower belly tightened, and she gripped the edge of the tub to make herself wait on her Master’s pleasure. Now that she knew he would take her, she needed him before another breath passed. She pressed her forehead to her knuckles, squeezed her eyes shut. Would he understand what she was feeling now, something that lived close to that rage that was always within her?

  “Say it, Ella,” he said. “Don’t be afraid to be everything you are with me.”

  Please don’t be gentle, Wolf. Remind me that I’m yours, and no male touches what’s yours.

  She was remembering how he’d taken her after the punishment Lord Richard had required. It had been another Master’s punishment, which translated into a claim that Wolf had erased, by taking her so thoroughly, almost brutally.

  If he hadn’t been in her mind seeing that was what she genuinely, urgently needed, she doubted he would do it, since up until now he’d been handling her like a cracked egg in danger of losing structural integrity.

  But he saw the need, the scream inside her head that was so close to ripping loose from her. All of it was crowding in, and she needed it driven away, to restore order and balance, serenity within her again.

  He dropped to one knee behind her with a ripple of water that lapped against her buttocks and thighs. His powerful hand curled in her hair. She felt the pull against his fist as he leaned in and spoke against her ear with quiet menace.

  “Who’s been in this pussy, little girl?”

  “Someone…not you.” Her voice was choked up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want them there. Didn’t invite them.”

  “Then you’re not to blame, are you? Tell me.” He sharpened his voice, and she heard something beneath it, an ache that told her they were sharing this pain together, no matter that he was dealing with it as a Master, while she handled it as a submissive.

  “No, sir. I’m not to blame. But it all belongs to you. So I’m still ashamed.”

  “I’d expect nothing less of a submissive as precious as you are. Lift your ass out of the water. Show me what’s mine to fuck. Show me that mark that says you belong to me.”

  She did, leaning further over the edge of the tub. A moan vibrated out of her as he fitted the oiled head of his cock to the mouth of her sex. He folded his body over hers, once more taking a tight grip on her hair. “Careful what you wish for, little girl. Because you just unleashed the monster inside your Master that wants the same thing. To pummel him away so even his memory is driven out of your head.”

  “Please.” Ple
ase, Goddess, yes. That was what she wanted, too.

  He thrust in, hard enough to wrench a cry from her. She grabbed the pain with both hands, the way she held the tub wall, and embraced it, making pitiful whimpers as her Master hammered into her.

  He also put his mouth down to her throat as he fucked her. She cried out as he drove his fangs into her as well. Not to drink, but to pin her there, like he was doing with his cock.

  “Please…” She kept saying it. Never demanding, but the harder and deeper he went, the more she needed.

  He was rough, as she craved, but he refused to be as cruel as she thought she needed. He had other ideas, a decision that proved why he was her Master. The one she’d wanted for so long. The only one she’d ever want.

  He was in her head, then her heart, then farther. Spiraling down, down and down, twisting, weaving, tangling with and surrounding every part of her soul. She could feel the clasp of his will around it, a tight binding more welcome than any she’d ever experienced.

  I’ve got you, Ella. Always. Never doubt it.

  He had one arm across her chest and now he adjusted so his hand was over her heart, the way he’d done that night when she’d told him that was where it hurt. He’d filled that first, and then expanded to all corners, driving out anything that didn’t serve him. She was crying again, damn it, but it was okay. One climax. Two. He didn’t stop, and he didn’t release himself. He just kept working that steel cock into her, pushing her past her physical limits. As he did, he drove away everything on the inside that didn’t serve him, leaving only her. His property, his submissive, his slave, his little girl.

  His servant.

  Another climax roared up on her, this one more intense than all the others. It took her by surprise, but he had his hand on her clit, was rubbing it in an irresistible rhythm with the thrusts. It swamped her with desperate power, rushing her forward on the wave of pleasure. She screamed as he kept thrusting, and then he was bucking, shoving her against the side of the tub forcefully as he came, bathing her inside with the hot jet of his semen, the final cleansing, burning out anything else.

  They slowed together, her heart thundering in her chest. Somewhere along the way he’d given her his hand. She’d locked it against her chest with the help of both sets of fingers fisted around it. She was still curved forward, her breasts quivering over the lip of the tub. It was a good position for him to grip one with his free hand, lazily fondle it, while she shuddered with the aftershock that the stimulation rocketed through her, her pussy clenching him tighter.

  “Good baby,” he muttered in that voice that made her think of deep caves in the earth, rich brown earth and fiery lava flows. His breath was ragged, his mouth against her ear. “When they were hurting you, I would have sold out the universe to get you away from them.”

  She thought of the indifference of the scientists as they’d left the voltage rocketing through his body. The agonized arch of his spine, the rigidity of his muscles, his eyes rolling up in his head, his fangs jerking jagged wounds across his sensual mouth. “I never want to see anyone hurt you again, either,” she said.

  “Sssh. Don’t go there. I have a better place for you to go.”

  “Where?” She’d learned how to handle putting away bad memories on her own, but right now she didn’t have the strength.

  “That’s why you can rely on your Master’s will entirely right now. Yours is resting.” He paused. “You remember when you said if you ever had someone love you, the way you longed to be loved, you would make that Master proud to call you his?”

  She nodded.

  “Good. Then listen. I am very, very proud to call you mine."

  He was telling her he loved her. Not in the heat of the moment in the lab when he thought they were going to die. Now, when everything was going to be okay, he was telling her. In a way she believed, all the way to her soul.

  He loved her.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  They lay in the tub for a long while. She found that vampires didn’t get pruny toes, but servants did. Then Wolf toweled her off, took her to the king-sized bed. They rested, slept together. As dawn approached, he kept his arms firmly around her, making it clear she wasn’t to leave the bed until he gave her that permission. She was okay with that. She was content to lie quietly in his arms while he slept.

  However, before dawn claimed him, he asked her a question.

  “Do you remember, the first night you asked to touch me, and I started claiming each part of you?”

  Her nipple ached in Pavlovian response, her answer. She felt his surge of male satisfaction. He passed his fingers over it, a gentle flick. “You seemed almost hesitant to approach me that night.”

  “You’re Wolf. One of the most intimidating male Doms at Atlantis. No one approaches you without invitation.”

  “That’s general Dom/sub 101. Your response was personal.”

  She smiled. It still felt weak, not her usual wattage, but that was okay, too. It would get there. “When you let me touch you, I felt like the nerd freshman being asked to dance by the hottest guy at the prom. There had to be a mistake.”

  He played with the nipple, toying, stroking, making her body start to quiver. It didn’t matter how exhausted she was. If he wanted her again, she would take him, however he wanted her.

  “My sweet servant. All mine. You’re right. I’ll want to be in you once more before I go to sleep, and I plan to thoroughly fuck you when I wake up, which is why you’ll keep your ass in this bed, resting with me, throughout the daylight. But back to that night…”

  Sure, now that he’d scattered her concentration entirely.

  He chuckled, but then his tone became more serious. “Your reaction that night suggests you don’t know how remarkable you are. Another trait the most precious of subs has.”

  “There are plenty like me.”

  “No.” He shifted, gripped her under both of her arms and lifted her with that impressive strength she thought might be as much Wolf as vampire. He guided her to straddle him so he could more easily cradle her breasts in his hands, look at her intently.

  “We were trapped in that maintenance closet,” he said. “With fire all around us, something that terrifies you. We’d been tortured for hours, and in that moment, we weren’t sure if we’d get out. You offered me half of the last chocolate you might ever have.”

  “Well...yes. Of course.” Not sure where he was going with that, she spread her fingers out on his chest and upper abdomen. To balance herself, of course. Though there was no harm in stroking the firm muscle beneath her touch. Her Master didn’t seem to mind. “If you’d had a can of your favorite beer on you, you would have offered me half,” she pointed out.

  “You don’t like beer. Why would I have wasted half of a perfectly good brew?”

  At her mock offended expression, he chuckled, a sound as soothing as the bath water they’d just shared. But she sniffed. “All right, bad example. But you would have given me something vital to you. Like your middle name.”

  “Nope. I would have died with that one.”

  It should have made her laugh, but just the opposite happened. Why was everything making her overflow like a fountain?

  “Oh baby.” His voice broke a little, too, a sound she hadn’t expected. She had a brief glimpse of his face, the tight jaw and eyes full of emotions. He brought her back down to lie upon him. She rested between his thighs, his cock and testicles nested intimately against her abdomen. He kept his arms around her, and she had both her hands laced with one of his, her head tucked down over it. It was like she was the yolk of a boiled egg, wanting to stay surrounded by the protective outer white. Or...brown, in this case.

  He chuckled again, held her tighter. “Ella, I will never tire of listening to your mind. My mother would have loved you.”

  A lump grew in her throat. Maybe that was another thing that connected her and Wolf. That all these years later, he still remembered the pull of home, the familiar sense of it. And to say his
mother would have loved her...

  “Would it have mattered to her? That I’m not black?”

  She sensed he was surprised by the question. Then he considered. “Maybe at first. But she’d have gotten past that quick, especially these days. It’s been so long since I thought of skin color that way. With vampires, superiority is based entirely in power, the brain behind it. If you can fight your way up the ladder, then your place is respected, as long as you maintain that strength. Probably the closest thing we have to discrimination in our own species is between born and made vampires.” He smiled against her temple. “Born vampires can be snooty about that sometimes.”

  “Is she one of those?”

  “Who?”

  “Lady Lyssa.”

  “Oh, Christ. I forgot about her being here. Other priorities.” He tightened his grip on her. “I’ve only met her once, when she was visiting my overlord during his annual meet with vampires in his territory. It was a few years back, when she still had a monk as a servant, and she was married to another Council member, Lord Rex. I’d only been a vampire for a few years at that point. She’s not snooty...not that way. But anyone with any sense doesn’t disrespect her. Even though we’re not under a monarchy anymore, she’s the last of us with full royal blood, a queen, supposedly over a thousand years old. She’s also the first to do something that no other vampire has. Not one of her rank.”

  “What’s that?” She tilted her head up as he remained quiet. He traced her lips with his thumb, her chin, the curve of her cheek. She stilled, because the way he was looking at her, she didn’t want to do anything to make him stop.

  “She publicly declared her love for her servant,” he said, his eyes on her face. “In the past, a vampire who did that faced severe punishment. And the servant was put to death.”

  She swallowed. “Oh my God. Why?”

  But she thought she knew. Everything she’d just endured, coupled to what Gideon had told her, what she’d pieced together about the relationship of vampires to humans, gave her a sense of the terrible truth. But she wanted to hear Wolf’s version of it. His view of it.