by R. B. Fields
And more than that, I felt powerful.
“You need to be near her? Like she’s a drug?” Markula stalks to the middle of the kitchen and crosses his arms, glaring at Draynor. “There are no vices for us, no real dangers for addiction. We can’t invite that in, especially when we have no frame of reference for what kind of addiction this might be.”
“We can invite it in if it helps us,” Silas says, his violet eyes glistening in the dim, all the more vibrant shining from the deep hollows beneath his brows. He rises from the sofa again, and this time, he heads to the kitchen, squaring off with Markula. “If it enhances our powers, if we can use it against other hives when we need to … perhaps it will turn us into better versions of what we are.”
“There is no better version!” Markula roars, jabbing a finger in Silas’s direction. “We’re vampires! This is what we are — who we’ll always be.”
“Then why are you so afraid?” Silas steps forward, toe to toe with our leader. The air in the room goes tight. “I’ve never been able to read you well, but now every thought in your head is spiraling through me. I’ve never had power like this. I don’t know how or why, but she gave it to me. She … woke it up.”
Markula stills, staring Silas down. Draynor crosses his arms, his black eyes solemn. The silence stretches. “We need a test,” Markula says finally.
“A test?” I push myself off the counter. I can’t fathom what he might mean. “We can tell witches by getting inside their heads; we can feel and smell other vampires. But … ”
Draynor’s staring at Markula. Silas, too, hasn’t taken his eyes off him. They’re not breathing. People think vampires don’t breathe, but we do — we have to keep our meat fresh. You can drown a vampire if you hold them down long enough, but it takes years. People don’t know that either. And …
I smell her. Sweet. Like honey. Like flowers.
We all turn.
Dawn stands on the stairway, nude, her flesh pale. The wounds on her side are still covered in bandages, but that only makes her more beautiful — more human. Her nipples are already hard. The hair between her legs is shiny — soft.
She strides into the living room, unabashed, her dark hair swinging. “I don’t know what’s going on,” she says, padding toward Markula. “I don’t know why this is happening to me. But I want to figure it out as much as you do.”
Silas backs up, watching her. I can’t look away either. Her head only comes to Markula’s ribs, but she cranes her neck and levels her gaze at him, not an ounce of fear in her — no wincing at the sight of his craggy face, no shrinking back from his enormous frame. She crosses her arms, though it has to hurt like hell with that wound on her elbow.
Markula smiles, but it’s more like a sneer, as if he’d rather devour her than speak to her. A challenge. “If you’re so special, perhaps it’s time you prove it.”
Silas goes rigid. He turns, looking at me.
At me. I’m not a mind reader, but he doesn’t have to say it.
I’m the test.
24
Dawn
They’re not positive I won’t hurt them. Markula still doesn’t seem convinced I won’t turn.
But he’s willing to risk Kain.
Draynor approaches with the leather cuff in his hand. No longer fastened to the bedpost, the long chain drags the ground. “Are you ready?”
I nod. At least they’ve set the mood this time: candles cover nearly every surface of the room, casting shuddering yellow along the walls, the floor, my flesh. Perhaps I should be more self-conscious — I am standing in front of four men, naked aside from the gauze that covers rather horrific vampire bites — but I’m not. For the first time ever, I feel like I belong, that every inch of my flesh was made to be worshipped here. I don’t know why that word pops into my head — worshipped — but that’s the best way I can describe how Silas is looking at me now, adoration in those violet irises. And Draynor …
He kneels slowly, letting his fingers drag along the planes of my ribs, pausing briefly at the apex of my thighs. Unlike the night before, my flesh doesn’t hurt — maybe I’m healing. Maybe it’s the nerves. What does a test like this mean for me anyway? Will Markula try to throw me out if I don’t pass?
But it feels as if they’re testing themselves, not me. I’m a pawn. Yet I don’t feel used. I feel … oddly powerful. Draynor fastens the leather cuff around my ankle. He hands the other end of the tether to Markula.
I point to the bed. “Lie down.”
Kain raises an eyebrow accentuating the deep broody look in his brown eyes. Musician’s eyes — the kind that see your curves as poetry. I can’t tell what he’s thinking when he looks at me, but he sure doesn’t seem upset about this. Just … confused.
“If I’m going to be chained to him” — I jerk my thumb in Markula’s direction — “you’re going to be tied up, too.” Maybe it’s a power move, maybe not, but there is something about Kain … I don’t fully trust him, though I can’t put a finger on why. Something in the analytical way he watches me. As if he’s trying to figure out my secrets. But my lower abdomen warms as I watch him remove his shirt and unbuckle his jeans. He leaves his clothes in a puddle on the floor.
Draynor and Silas chuckle. “He doesn’t mind the restraints,” Silas says, walking toward the headboard.
Markula’s not smiling. He stares at me from the bottom of the bed and grips the chain that holds my leg tighter as if to say, Hurt him, and I’ll kill you myself.
My back tenses, but only for a second — it’s okay. If I suddenly go into vampire metamorphosis, they won’t let me hurt Kain. And Silas and Draynor won’t let Markula hurt me — I don’t really believe he wants to harm me, I realize. But I do believe I frighten him. This whole vampire-immunity thing is more intense than a normal first date.
Silas chuckles again. I approach the bed and watch the man — the vampire — before me.
Kain is not as bulky as Draynor or Silas — and no one I’ve ever met is as huge as Markula — but he’s tightly muscled, with well-defined abdominals and chiseled biceps. The body of an athlete. Unlike Draynor, his chest is almost bare, slick-looking, but he has a thatch of close-cropped hair that begins just below his belly button. Every inch of him is slick and hard.
Silas attaches Kain’s wrist to the right bedpost — metal. I did not notice it before, but the only part of the restraints that are leather are those that touch flesh. Draynor attaches Kain’s other wrist. I feel their eyes on me, a massaging type of sensation that loosens the ropy muscles between my shoulders. Draynor lowers himself into the chair on the left side of the bed, Silas on the right. Ready in case of trouble.
But there is no fear. There is no pain. I climb on top of Kain, the tugging of the bandages on my ribs and over my elbow an annoyance, but not agony.
And soon I don’t feel it at all. The buzzing in my flesh begins the moment I make contact with Kain’s skin. My inner thighs are on fire where they touch his legs, so I stay on my hands and knees, keeping my vagina higher — where his skin can’t reach. It’s not unpleasant, not like, say, being stung by a hive of buzzing wasps or tased by a security guard with an itchy trigger finger. It’s subtler, gentler, like the steady vibration of a massage chair. Different from the sting in his fingers, though I’d written that off to the stinging from my injuries. Had it really been his fingertips causing that sensation?
I turn to Draynor. “Touch his hand.”
Draynor raises an eyebrow. “Why?” But he grabs Kain’s tethered hand as if shaking it.
“Do you feel anything … weird?”
Draynor shakes his head, frowning, his long black hair almost indigo in the candlelight. “Do … you?”
I nod. “He feels almost … electric.”
“What does that mean?” Silas asks. He takes Kain’s other hand, but soon he’s shaking his head as Draynor had. But Kain’s thighs are still buzzing beneath me. I have no doubt that if I touch his hand, I’ll get shocked. I almost jumped out of my skin
when he snaked his fingers between my legs earlier — I came immediately, almost painfully, as if his finger was a vibrator five settings too high. And that was just a touch.
And this … this is a test. I brace myself and finally lower my hips. I don’t even need to touch him to feel the vibration there — even a few inches away, it’s like someone humming against my clit.
Kain closes his eyes.
My nipples graze his chest and it feels as if static is leaping from him to me and back again. He breathes softly into my mouth as I ease myself lower, closer, and then … contact. His skin vibrates harder against me, the head of his dick slipping against my opening — he vibrates there, too, and the sensation spreads out in buzzing pulses, up through my abdomen and down toward my toes. I gasp with him. He grinds his teeth.
“Do you feel a difference yet?” Markula says. I turn to look at him over my shoulder, his golden hair glittering in the candlelight, his red eyes like lasers, but it’s Silas who answers. “I can hear her, yes. Very clearly. Kain, too. And … well … ”
Markula frowns.
“Does she … like this?” Kain’s words are a feathery kiss against my neck.
Silas says, “She does.” But when I turn back, he’s still staring at Markula, his face pensive.
I pause. “Is something wron — ”
Markula jerks the chain, and my ankle along with it. My body is no longer my own — I’m sliding down over Kain’s legs against my will and collapse between his thighs when Markula releases the tether.
“Hey, watch it, asshole!” I push myself to my knees, ready to massage my injured ribs, my shredded elbow, but there’s no pain. None at all. And I’m too agitated to consider the reason.
“Why are you such a giant fuckhead?” I glare at Markula, but my rage is tempered by my desire. My insides are still quivering, my abdominal muscles painfully tight. If I don’t get some relief, I might actually haul off and punch Markula in his stupid chiseled jaw.
I turn my attention back to Kain, lying obediently on the mattress. Watching. Waiting. I shoot one more murderous look at Markula, then lower my face between Kain’s legs. His skin is soft, but his dick is hard, and he tastes inexplicably sweet — vanilla. My tastebuds vibrate as I take him deeply into my mouth, but it’s too much; it feels like he’s rattling my fillings. I wonder how he’ll feel thrusting into my pussy. Will I be able to stand the sensation of him inside me?
Silas chuckles from the candlelit corner: “He’d like to know, too, my love. But Kain has not had a female since he turned, so he may not last long.”
I stop. Not had a female since he turned? So he’s a vampire … virgin? I wrap my fingers around Kain’s shaft and prop myself up on my injured arm until I’m looking down at his face. I’m trembling. I want him, god I want him, but I can’t be his first, not like this with him tied to the bedpost. And if I’m being really honest about it … I’m scared of what might happen if I fuck him. Scared he might rattle my insides the way he rattled my teeth. “I … Kain, I can’t — ”
I was going to say “do this,” but Silas is already removing the cuff on Kain’s wrist. The energy in the room has changed, too — tense.
“Mikael’s hive — they’re coming,” Silas says. “And there are many of them. Too many.” He looks past me, at Markula. “They’re multiplying under a new leader.”
Markula’s face has darkened, and in the candlelight, he looks far older than he usually does, though he’s still somehow beautiful. But I can hardly breathe.
I have to fight vampires again? My mouth goes dry. Where the fuck is my knife?
Markula glowers as if it’s my fault, and for a moment, I worry he might leave, or maybe he’ll throw me out into the yard, a sacrifice for a hundred hungry vamps; maybe he’ll bare his teeth, tear my heart out the way he did to the doctor. But … he’s not looking at my face.
I follow his gaze. My knees are on the bed, the sheets crinkled under my weight, my ankle encased in leather, Kain’s feet on either side of me. The bandage on my side has come askew, the cotton gauze hanging by a wide strip of tape. And beneath …
I reach for the bandage, but Markula is already there. He tears the wrapping off with a sharp rip that I barely feel because I’m staring at my side. Blood stains my flesh, brown, congealed — dry. But the wounds on my ribs … .
They’re gone.
Markula lifts my elbow and tears the pad from that wound as well, but I know what lies beneath before he frees my skin. The flesh is shiny, a little angry perhaps, the jagged indentations still visible like a scar left by a dog bite. But no wound. No hole. No blood.
It’s as if I was never attacked at all.
“What the fuck are you?” Markula hisses.
“We’ll have to figure that out later, Markula.” Kain’s already on his feet, tugging his jeans over his hips.
“How long do we have?” Markula asks.
Silas frowns. “Three hours or so.”
Markula shakes his head — his eyes bore into mine. “Leave us.”
I cross my arms, still sitting on my knees on the bed. “So you can plan without me? I’m a part of this, whether you want me to be or not, and I deserve a little goddamn respec — ”
Silas touches my arm. “He’s not talking to you.” Then they’re gone, leaving me alone with their leader.
My eyes widen as Markula closes the door behind them.
25
Dawn
Markula looks ten times bigger once we’re alone, though his blood-red eyes aren’t off-putting, more a conscious fashion choice to go with the decorations on his flesh. He towers over me, his head almost touching the ceiling. It doesn’t help that I’m still kneeling on the bed.
“You have some power over us,” he says. “You make them feel, make them hear far more than they used to. But you’re making my senses dull — useless. And to protect this hive, we need to have a Warrior better than the ones that are coming.”
“I’m not doing anything to you,” I say. “I want to help, I want to fix this, but I don’t know why it’s happening.”
“I don’t believe you,” he says, and rage heats my chest — with Draynor gone, there is no one to temper it. My blood is boiling.
“I don’t give a fuck if you believe it or not, it’s the truth.”
Markula steps to the foot of the bed, his arms like tree trunks. He bends double, and I almost flinch when he reaches for me — is he going to hit me? — but he only presses his enormous hand against my cheek. Calloused fingers, far rougher than Kain’s flesh — far rougher than any of them. “Whether you’re doing it on purpose or not, there’s strong magic in you.”
His hissed growly whisper lights my insides on fire. Granted, he probably could have told me a knock-knock joke to get me off right now; my body is quivering with unrequited desire, a tinderbox of sexual tension.
He holds my cheek as if deciding what to do with me. He still grips the tether in his hand — my ankle is still encased in leather. I glance at the chain.
He smiles. He pulls.
I gasp, my feet flying out from under me, my body careening off the bed, but he grabs me, his thick arms catching me under the knees and around the back. His chest is warm against my side — hot even. Feverish.
He throws me onto the bed like a sack of potatoes, my head on the pillow where Kain’s was just moments ago. And … his shirt has vanished. Vibrant red tattoos cover his mammoth chest; even his nipples are painted in lines of ruby.
“Not especially chivalrous, are you?”
“If you want chivalry, you’ll be disappointed.” He climbs onto the bottom of the bed and spreads my legs, forcing my knees wide, and the rough feel of his fingers on my thighs sends ribbons of gooseflesh up over my belly. I gasp, trying not to moan, but I sigh deeply as he tests me with one thick finger, then another — he rams his thumb inside me, then draws it up over my clit. Slippery, so slippery. His eyes never leave my face, as if gauging whether I’m enjoying myself, or, more likely, he’s
trying to figure out at what point this “magic” starts to happen.
Hopefully, not until he makes me come. If I walk away from this as unsatisfied as I was walking away from Kain, I might literally explode.
Markula cocks his head, frowning, then nods as if he’s made some decision I’m not privy to.
“What?” I say.
It’s his hand that answers. Sex with the others was slower, maybe because they made an effort to slow their movements, but Markula has no such qualms. His fingers are practically vibrating inside me, a speed I’ve never experienced in anything non-mechanical — a sex toy made of flesh, but rougher than the electric buzzing of Kain’s skin. I blink, and by the time I open my eyes again, his mouth is on my clit, tasting me, sucking at me — fast, so fast. I blink again, and he’s above me, his thick arms on either side of my shoulders. His heavy body is not touching me, but I feel his heat, and I can sense his weight. He’ll crush me if he lets go.
He lowers his nose to my hair — is he smelling me? His cock presses against my opening. I can feel the girth of him. Testing me. Every part of him is enormous.
Now, he slows. He eases into me carefully, just an inch, trying not to hurt me, but I’m wet, I’m so wet. I moan and spread my legs wider, my body stretching to accommodate him, and it’s an exquisitely beautiful kind of pain — pressure that has been building for what feels like an eternity grips his cock and sends pleasure all the way down to my toes. He stops, his head against my G-spot — he doesn’t even have to try to hit it — and I gasp, my legs shaking, and then I’m bucking against him, trying to pull him deeper, but he just stares down into my face — the red in his eyes has softened to a beautiful ruby hue. The planes of his face are rugged but symmetrical. A gorgeous man. A gorgeous warrior.
“You’re so beautiful,” I say.
He blinks as if shocked, though he can’t possibly be. Surely in life, he was a playboy — he could have had any woman he wanted.
