by Pace, Pepper
That is something I never wish to forget.
The Land of the Happy Feelings is the most well-maintained this side of the country. Any Vampires caught forcing humans into slavery have been eradicated by my Second Lieutenant and Angel of Death—none other than Tyler. Little Tyler has found her strength in doling out punishment to those Vampires deserving of it. I hear she is scary at it, too.
Tyler’s story is interesting. She asked me if she could become a living vessel the way I had. I didn’t know if it would be possible, but I made sure she understood that she’d never be able to be turned if she desired it later. I also told her that no Vampire except maybe one or two in a thousand would ever be able to touch her. She understood but desired to be my Punisher, my Angel of Death. Tyler branded herself on the wrist as I had, but it did not turn her into a vessel. It wasn’t until approximately thirty brands and a large tattoo covering her entire back that she finally succeeded.
When she and Julie walk into a room, Vampires shudder. I hear it is quite the bloodbath. When I enter a room with them wearing my long skirt, duster, leather gloves, and black-out glasses, the minion won’t even look at me. They still believe that my touch will kill them. Since I survived the punishment by silver, they believe that I’m invincible. That I have had a love affair with an Elder has placed me in legendary status.
The Board of Council fears me, too. I usually don’t speak when there is a meeting, but I have to attend. They fear me not because I survived the torture but that I survived the pain. They don’t understand how I could have withstood the pain.
Kaniji both fears and hates me more than ever. Her tongue has completely healed although she has a slight lisp. I understand that she may have one for years. She has never spoken to anyone about her brief stint as Alexis’ pet, but she wore long sleeves for a few months afterwards. Her stump has finger nubs now, so her hand should be completely healed within the year. I’m relieved.
I’ve fallen into a comfortable routine. I’m happy that I don’t awaken each evening wondering who is trying to take my life and who I need to fight. And although Paul isn’t at my side, my “ladies in waiting”—the name I’ve given my assistants—have become not only my friends but my new family.
And of course Tony loves me despite my scars or my brief bouts of depression.
One night while making love, we opened a new link that created a bond. I tried not to think about the one Alexis and I had created or the brief stay at our beach house. It sometimes seems as if it never happened.
One day when I was feeling particularly sad, I realized I could use the links that connected me to those I cared for to see them. I knew this was like spying or looking through someone’s open window, but I told myself that my only purpose was to make sure my family was safe.
I began with Paul because I figured he would not know that I was spying. I could tell that he was alive and well in a distant land. I ended the connection before he could detect me. I linked with Tige long enough to sense he had fallen in love with a human who had come to stay in one of the safe houses that he protected.
And then I dared to follow the link that belonged to Alexis. Why I had not thought to do this before I can’t say, but I felt him turn toward me the instant I touched our connection. We regarded each other briefly before he turned away. I felt a door shut firmly between us, and it was more than I could bear. Since then I have never called for him or touched that connection, a connection I wished would shrivel up and die.
I learned so much from my time with Alexis, and he taught me one last thing: I can close the door so that no one else can look into my mind as well.
CHAPTER 2
I felt a prickling at the nape of my neck.
I knew that Tony was coming.
I don’t know how he did it, but he materialized kneeling next to the chaise where I was sitting.
His lips brushed my neck and I shivered. “Hi, baby.”
I enjoyed the feel of his lips on my flesh and especially on my extremely sensitive and delicate new skin, the result of being burned and tortured by my Council. Seldom do I ever allow myself to be exposed. Whenever I’m around others, I wear long sleeves and long pants or skirts, gloves, and blacked-out sunglasses because I am still scarred and my eyes have not completely healed. Even the smallest light hurts me at times. I will heal completely, but it may take many years.
I was wearing a satin robe and sitting in my bedroom, my favorite room. There were no lights except for the flickering of the fireplace flames, which didn’t bother me as long as I didn’t look directly into them.
I felt my man’s fingers slip into my robe to trace the lines of my breasts. I shivered. He knew how much touch meant to me because of my human memories and how much my skin was now sensitized to the slightest sensation.
He brought his lips to mine. “Kim …” he murmured into my mouth, and it made me shiver even more. His fingertips ran across my nipples as lightly as the whisper of a feather’s touch.
I gasped. My hand cupped his head, and we kissed even more passionately.
Tony slipped the robe from my shoulders and kissed down my neck. His tongue traced a particularly long scar. It was the most sensitive spot on my body, and whenever he licked it, he always brought me to climax. We joked that when the scars completely healed, we would keep reopening that one. That’s why I was so in love with Tony. He knew that the scars were a part of me and loved them, kissed them, and used his tongue on them to bring me to ecstasy.
I gripped his head and sucked in a breath. “Tony!” I screeched as his tongue left a warm, wet trail against the raised flesh of the scar. His tongue circled my nipple causing it to tighten into a hard bead. Faster than I could see, he sank his teeth into the skin circling my nipple.
My back arched. He’d never done that before. Tony watched me to make sure that he wasn’t hurting me. When the blood began to flow, he sucked at my breast, drawing in my blood as if it was sweet milk.
The fluttering between my thighs turned into an all-out pounding. I climaxed violently as Tony watched me, drinking from my breast, drawing the fluid from my nipple in gentle yet insistent pulls.
After I stopped panting, he sealed the wound with his tongue, and that brought another jolt of pleasure. He then released the swollen nub.
“You are so easy.” He smiled.
I rolled my eyes and grinned. “I know. You don’t have to do any work to make me come. A few minutes of kissing, some licking, and I’m like butter.”
He kissed me again then relaxed beside me on the chaise. “How are your eyes, baby?”
“Fine.”
“Did you feed today?”
I sighed. Everybody was always reminding me to feed. I needed to do it more often since I was still healing, but I didn’t want blood every day. Sure, it was great while it was sliding down my throat, but otherwise it had little appeal. I knew how important it was for me to feed, however, and I needed to do it more often.
“Tyler’s on a job,” I said. “She’ll visit me when it’s complete.”
Tony raised a brow. He never stayed around when Tyler was on the premises. She was my Angel of Death.
Tyler is a human, but she gave Vampires the willies because she had turned herself into a religious vessel. Any Vampire who so much as touched her would burn as if he or she had touched a religious icon or relic. She had gotten the idea from me. I had burned two crucifixes into my wrists to brand anyone who attacked me. A Vampire branded by a crucifix earned an instant death sentence—except for me and a handful of others. Religious items have no effect on me.
Seeing me brand myself and become completely untouchable by other Vampires made Tyler desire the same effect. She covered her back and arms with tattoos and brands of every type of religious artifact imaginable be it Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Judaic, or Confucian. She has a full body suit, and if Tyler touches the average Vampire skin to skin, they will die—no if’s, and’s, or but’s about it.
Tyler loved the power. Whe
n we had first met, she was a thin, quiet waif of a woman because she had been abused by her Master, Johan.
I enjoyed killing Johan.
If you kill a Vampire in a fair fight, all of his or her property reverts to you. I owned Johan’s house, his blood donors, and his seat on the Vampire Council. I’d gone from a lowly Third Generation illegally turned by a Rogue and set to be put to death to become a Master Vampire and a Council member because of a broken piece of wood. But we don’t talk about that …
A year after Johan’s demise, Tyler was transformed. Gone were the revealing dresses that Johan had forced his women to wear. She had worked out until her tall slim body was taut with wiry muscles. She kept her black hair short in a boy cut and mainly wore T-shirts and black leather pants. She looked like a biker chick gone Goth, especially when she tooled around on her motorcycle. I don’t know much about bikes, but Tyler rode an old school bike that I hear is supposed to be pretty uncomfortable. Women seldom chose the bike because it left you wide open. The driver has to sit with his or her legs splayed out in front and has to reach for the handlebars. But Tyler loves it. If you were a Vampire that had fucked up, you didn’t want to hear her motorcycle coming!
As thin as she was, Tyler was my primary donor … well, since Paul left.
I kept my mind carefully blank on that subject.
Tyler’s metabolism was seriously screwed up. As thin as she was it was surprising that she could give me so much blood and so often. And because of her metabolism, her body wanted the rush that my bite brought much more often than my other blood donors. It was perfect because my bite was helping her to become superhuman—faster, stronger, and healthier than the average woman would ever be on her own.
“Don’t forget there’s a Council meeting at three AM.,” Tony said.
If I could burn down the Council house, I would. I hated that place and the Vampires that sat on the Council. My blood still ran cold whenever I entered it, and it has been more than a year since I was wrapped in silver as punishment. I hadn’t done anything wrong, but Tige, the Vampire who had turned me, was to be put to death for an unauthorized turning, and I couldn’t let that happen. How could I allow Tige to die when he had turned me to save me?
I found a way to save Tige by taking his punishment. He was to be placed in the sun until he turned to ash, but since sun wouldn’t kill me and the Elder Council didn’t want it broadcast to other Vampires that some could withstand the sun while most couldn’t, they gave me a different punishment.
Something much worse.
Silver blankets suck.
To prevent me from dying, Alexis, my estranged husband, bound us with bites. It caused him to be in me, and that saved my un-life since silver could not kill him. When I awoke from the wonderful dream world he had sent us for the first few months after the punishment, I was in a world where I had no fingers, toes, skin, eyelids, and barely any eyes—and a pain that still sends me into a panic when I think about it hard enough.
If it hadn’t been for Tony feeding me and keeping me in a hypnotic coma, I probably would have staked myself.
Since then it’s difficult for me to go to the Council house. On top of that, I don’t like the other members, and I especially dislike Kaniji, Tony’s ex-lover and the one who created him. I detested Kaniji, and the feeling was intensely mutual.
The Council generally met once a week, and the Elder who had has replaced Alexis reported back to the Elder Council.
That’s pretty much how the Vampire nation runs smoothly.
Tony gave me a reassuring peck on my cheek and stood. “I need to keep some appointments before the meeting.”
I tugged his hand and made a kissing motion with my lips.
He leaned down to kiss my lips, and I slipped my hands into his pants.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
I unzipped him and continued to kiss him while he chuckled. I slipped his pants down over his muscular ass. He wore black boxer briefs, and the sight of him in his underwear always made me pant. That’s right. Even though I don’t need to breathe, I can still pant.
“Too many quickies,” I whispered against his lips. “I need to feel you inside me.”
“Tyler will be here …” Tony cupped my breast and grew hard within my grasp.
I stroked him through his underwear as his tongue entered my mouth. I sucked at his tongue and teased his erection with my nails. He shivered. I rose up to my knees to meet him, losing the robe completely.
I felt his hands go up to that pesky scar of mine, and I stopped him. I wasn’t taking any chances that he’d bring me to climax too soon. I had to feel him inside me first.
I pushed him onto his back and removed his rock hard cock from his underwear. I leaned down to run my tongue around it.
We played for a few moments, but when I felt his muscles tighten, I pulled him into my mouth. Thank God I don’t need to breathe because Tony is huge! I joke that I need to unhinge my jaw to accommodate him.
After months of trial and error I’ve learned to deep throat him. I’ve also learned the embarrassing way that Vampires still have gag reflexes.
He gripped my head fiercely. “Damn, baby. How do you do that so good?” He flexed his pelvis rhythmically against me. I knew it took a lot of control for him not to pump wildly into my mouth. I think it made him come even harder because he had to be so careful not to hurt me.
He threw his head back and growled like something you’d never heard this side of earth. It was a sound that belonged completely in the spirit world.
I nipped the large vein on the underside of his shaft, just enough to bring a few drops of blood. Then I sucked all the harder!
I felt him spasm. His muscles expanded, and I thought he was going to explode through his skin! It was taking everything he had not to thrust wildly into my mouth. I loved him even more for his gentleness.
“Kim!” he cried.
I continued to suck until he was deflated and only then did I allow him to slip from my lips.
After a few last shudders he fell back onto the chaise in exhaustion. His eyes were half closed as he watched me. “How the hell do you do that?”
I smiled. “Just aiming to please.”
~***~
Tony cleaned up and left shortly thereafter. Since I was going to a Council meeting I showered again. Vampires were notorious for smelling sex on you and then telling you about it. I dressed in red. The Council had no sense of style so I liked to show them a thing or two. I wore a red, sleeveless turtleneck and red pants that were super tight over my ass and thighs but flared out gradually at the knees until they showed only the tip of a red snakeskin shoes. A red duster completed the ensemble. I wore a gold watch encrusted with rubies and two of my favorite rings.
Of course I also wore my crucifix hidden beneath my shirt.
I wasn’t going into the Council house without a weapon.
I donned black, framed glasses that had red lenses. They were so dark that I don’t think a human would have been able to see out of them.
I walked out of the bedroom to an appreciate audience of three—Tyler, Karen, and Monica.
“Ooh, girl,” Karen said. “You look good!” Karen was one of my human donors. She had been Johan’s foreign affairs coordinator, spoke a number of languages, and handled any overseas dealings. Karen was a petite ebony brown sister with long natural hair who didn’t look a day over twenty-two though she was in her late forties. Staying young is a definite perk to donating your blood.
I sashayed and did a runway model walk until we all cracked up. Monica, my secretary, informed me that Mara and Kat were completing another safe house. No sooner did we have one completed then it filled up.
Originally the safe houses were meant to be protection from Vampires who forced their human prostitutes into slavery. Now they were for any human who needed to get away from any abusive Vampire. We had plenty of men in our safe houses, and Tyler had honed her killing skills by policing them.
“Got a new tat,” Tyler said while slipping off her jacket and hanging it on a peg by the door.
“Girl, where do you have room for another one?” Karen asked.
Tyler lifted her shirt to expose her six-pack abs.
“Wow,” I whispered, and I hadn’t even seen the tat yet. Tyler had really honed her muscles. I had gained a preternatural beauty by becoming a Vampire, but her muscles had me beat.
Tyler showed us her back, and I saw a Venus fly trap over her kidney. A vine snaked its way over her side to creep across her tummy. It was really cool. I wanted a tattoo, but my skin was too new and fragile. Besides, any tattoo on my skin would eventually heal and disappear.
Tyler lowered her shirt and gestured for me to follow her into the living room.
We hardly ever go into the living room, and I knew Tyler wasn’t shy about giving me a feeding in front of the others. The living room was nice, but it was more of a receiving room than anything else. Whenever we had to meet with our minions, they waited in this room. I know, as archaic as it sounds, I’m the Master and my subjects are my minions.
The room was decorated in bold colors. Kat, my interior designer, took my vision and made it work. Prior to my colorful touches, the house had been boring and stuffy. Now it was hip.
“What’s up?” I asked while sitting in a comfy wingchair sheathed in African print fabric.
Tyler sat on the loveseat and sighed. “I met someone.”
“Really? Who is she?”
Tyler rolled her eyes. “Will you stop it! I’m not gay!” But she was hiding a smile.
I chuckled. “Tats, biker, muscles …”
Tyler leaned forward. “Will you be serious?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “What’s up?”
She licked her lips. I knew she was nervous, and because my Angel of Death was nervous, I got serious.
