“You know what I want.”
I sipped my champagne, let the tension stretch. “No idea. I suppose you’ll enlighten me.”
Zane’s coal black eyebrows snapped together. “I want Devin back, you whore.”
“Sticks and stones,” I murmured. Honestly, what did he expect me to do? Devin’s heart was his own, and he’d made his choice. “If Dev wants you back, I’m sure he’ll let you know.”
“He’d take me back if you weren’t around,” Zane retorted. His voice lowered to a harsh whisper. “I hear your little human left you. Fed up with the bullshit, huh?”
The cold man surged into my mind. For a moment, I thought he’d win, thought he’d roll right over me and take control. A haze descended and my vision dimmed, and then it snapped into sharp clarity. I touched a finger to Zane’s chest, used it as a point to tunnel into his mind, freeze his motor control so he couldn’t escape. Visions raced past. Zane as a child, his initial testing with Elizabet. Selena writhing in ecstasy, sinking her fangs into Zane’s inner thigh. Gianna clearing a table. I slowed the memories, focusing on the ones involving Gianna, and loosed an angry scream into his mind at what I found.
Son of a bitch.
Zane was still following Gianna, occasionally at Selena’s behest. The two of them were working together, though to what end I couldn’t tell. What I saw was damning, if I could pull it out and use it as proof, but I couldn’t. No one would ever believe I hadn’t planted those images myself, especially once word got out that I was on the verge of turning.
The part of Zane’s mind that was aware sneered at me. Elizabet would never believe me over him, not on my word alone. That wasn’t a problem. Proof I could get, with enough time and money, and I had both in a steady supply.
In the meantime, Zane needed an abject lesson in keeping his hands and eyes to himself. I squeezed his vocal chords shut, cutting off his ability to cry out, and then I had fun. Or rather, I let the cold man have fun while I watched from the sidelines. On the outside, Zane was a statue, held upright by the tip of a single finger to his chest. On the inside, fire burned through him, scraping his nerves until internally, he writhed in agony. In his mind, the flesh melted from his skin, reformed slowly, painfully, then was seared off over and over again until Zane stood on the brink of madness.
I snapped the cold man back and added a little torture of my own, stopping Zane’s heart while I gifted him with horrifying images of what I’d do to him if I ever caught him around Gianna. Flaying his skin from his body. Skewering him with meat hooks and letting him hang while I fed him his own organs.
Letting the female werewolves play. That nugget of fear popped out of Zane’s mind, surprising me with its intensity. Darien apparently let the females of his pack have their way when it came to sex, and they liked it brutally rough. If there was such a thing as a phobia of being at the mercy of a female werewolf during sex, Zane had it.
I restarted his heart before any lasting damage could be done, but it was enough. He collapsed into a sweaty heap at my feet, passing out as he dropped. I shoved him to the side where he’d be hard to notice, straightened my tux, and left the alcove, satisfied I’d made my point.
It was nice to know I was becoming a creature with which one did not fuck.
The things I’d shown Zane didn’t bother me one whit. Gianna was helpless, fragile. I was not. Protecting her wasn’t just my right, it was my duty. Because of me, her life was in danger. Putting the fear of Eric into Zane’s little pea brain was necessary. Also fun, but that was an emotion I didn’t analyze too carefully.
Devin found me a few minutes later. “The queen is coming down soon. Ready?”
I smiled, a cold, calculating gesture that startled him. “As I’ll ever be.”
A low murmur drifted through the crowd. The queen had arrived, escorted in by her favorite, with Elizabet and Marco to their rear. I couldn’t see her, though I didn’t know if it was because I was vertically challenged or she was.
Devin had explained the protocol on our last visit to Elizabet’s. The queen, Lanu, would wind through the crowd greeting Elizabet’s daughters and pets. If she found a pet she wished to taste, that pet had the right to refuse, but only one could do so. The next would have to take her. As far as Devin knew, it had never been an issue, in spite of Lanu’s occasionally brutal treatment. Apparently, it was quite an honor to be chosen for a night with the queen.
Devin didn’t think there was a chance either one of us would be chosen, but he’d been careful to school me on my options. If I thought the cold man would break free, I needed to refuse. On the off chance we were picked and I lost control, the queen would have me executed on the spot, and it wouldn’t be pretty.
My little interlude in Zane’s mind was tame compared to what the queen would do to me.
I carefully closed off my mind, bringing down the equivalent of reinforced steel walls, smooth, seamless, and impenetrable. Lanu drew near, her ancient mind an icy weight among the brilliantly warm minds of Elizabet’s pets.
I sipped my champagne, tried to be unobtrusive, and must’ve slipped up. As soon as she drew near, Lanu’s flat, black gaze zeroed in on me. Her mind felt like a sledgehammer as she battered my shield. I eyed her calmly and did the only thing I could. Without lifting my walls, I sent a tendril of my own mind out and wormed through a nearly invisible crack in her defenses, not enough to learn anything, only enough to get her attention. She stopped hammering at me immediately and folded her delicate hands at her waist, the alabaster skin a stark contrast to the elaborately rich burnt umber gown she wore.
“Elizabet.” Lanu’s soft voice whispered across the room between us. “Who is this pet?”
A shaft of worry slid along the bond between me and Elizabet. “This is Eric, a new addition to my stable. If you would come this way, my queen…”
Lanu waved an elegant hand, dismissing Elizabet’s attempt at distraction. “He shall do, he and his roster mate. Devin, I believe?”
Devin bowed formally, a perfect, respectful dip from the waist. “Yes, my queen.”
“I have not yet tasted you.” Lanu’s eyes drifted from me to Devin and back again. “A fitting pair for the night’s entertainment.”
Marco dispassionate gaze met mine. “What say you, pet?”
I considered it carefully, weighed my options. And perceived a slight uptick in the queen’s heartbeat. She thought I’d refuse. I nearly smiled. Refusal was my best option, but something pushed me to accept, something wiggling up from deep within me. The queen would make a good ally. Even Devin had acknowledged that.
I was very close to the time when I’d need what passed for friends among the Vampyr.
I bowed deeply and said, “It would be an honor.”
Beside me, Devin stiffened. I ignored him, ignored the sharp concern radiating through my bond with Elizabet, and offered Lanu my arm, escorting her to the rooms set aside for her use during her stay.
Lanu’s favorite and Devin trailed behind us, silent escorts. When we reached the room, I asked the favorite, whose name I never did catch, to leave us, though I knew he’d go no farther than the hallway.
I opened the door and stopped dead in my tracks. My breath whistled out in a harsh exhale when I saw the naked man bound to the end of the bed, much as I’d been bound more than a month before. He sagged against his bonds with his head bowed and his long, black hair falling forward to hide his face.
“What has he done?” I demanded in a thick voice.
“He displeased me.” Lanu offered her back to me. “You may undo my dress now, pet.”
I jerked my head at Devin, a silent plea for him to check on the pet while my fingers fumbled with the tiny buttons holding Lanu’s dress together. When I was finished, I slid the dress from her shoulders and helped her step out of it, then assisted her out of a dizzying array of undergarments.
Elizabet seldom wore more than panties under her gowns when she came to us, and usually not even that. Lanu, on the other ha
nd, had girded herself with enough cloth to clothe a Jason-sized family of four.
By the time I’d helped her out of her clothes and undressed myself, Devin had disrobed and was talking quietly to the pet. The anger returned in full force, anger and a choking fear that Elizabet would do that to me again. Not bind me. I hadn’t minded that, wouldn’t mind trying it again, but what came after. The ceaseless pain. The unending pleasure.
The cold man biding his time in my mind.
I lifted the queen up and slammed her onto the bed, straddling her waist and holding her to the mattress with a warning hand wrapped around her throat.
“Eric,” Devin hissed.
I ignored him and met Lanu’s flat gaze. She and I both knew she could throw me off in a heartbeat if she wished, and there was the rub. She didn’t wish, and since I wasn’t hurting her, she let me be. I tunneled into her mind through the crack I’d widened earlier.
Devin’s hands came to my shoulders, a warm weight I easily shrugged off as I ferreted through the centuries of fascinating tidbits inside the queen’s head. Memories of people she’d loved and places long buried by the march of time. Sadness and loss, love and gain, and a deep, irrational fear of losing her place among the Vampyr. I sorted through everything until I found the information I wanted, the whys of the pet’s punishment, and nearly choked her when I did. Foolish woman. Instead, I eased my grip on her throat and pulled her hands up over her head, holding them there.
“Let the pet go, Devin,” I said, though my gaze never left Lanu’s.
“Are you out of your ever-loving mind?” Devin said. “She’ll kill you for that.”
A small smile played around the queen’s mouth. No, she wouldn’t kill me. I was going to give her exactly what she needed, the very thing that had caused her to lash out and punish her pet. My dick hardened in anticipation of fulfilling the naughty wishes I pulled from the queen’s mind, and those she gave me willingly.
“I’ll be fine,” I assured him. “Turn the pet over to Lanu’s favorite with instructions for him to be fed and cared for, then come back. Lanu wishes to play. Is this not so, my queen?”
“It is so, pet,” she said.
“Eric.” I scooted forward on the bed and pressed the tip of my dick to her lips, pushing through them until I was surrounded by the moist heat of her mouth. “My name is Eric.”
Her eyes closed as she suckled me and I rocked gently, fucking her mouth. Behind me, Devin muttered, “I hope you know what you’re doing,” and released the pet from his bonds.
Chapter Six
Devin crawled back onto the bed about the time Lanu dug her fangs into my dick, letting the pain of her bite linger far longer than Elizabet ever had. I clenched my jaw and held on to the arousal with an iron grip until the pain eased into the pleasure of a woman sucking hard on my dick. My hips pumped gently, pushing my erection into and out of her mouth, not hard enough to hurt or choke her, but enough to dominate.
Domination. The sin her pet had committed.
Devin settled between her legs. I didn’t have to look back or pluck our bond to know what he was doing. The queen’s eyelids fluttered and her body jerked as she moaned.
“He’s got a great mouth, doesn’t he?” I stroked into and out of hers, pushing the desire higher for both of us, and braced a hand against the wall, lifting myself off of her so she could move. “The way he uses his tongue and his lips, sucking and licking. Does he have your clit in his mouth?”
She blinked, the only acknowledgment I’d get, I figured. Her cheeks hollowed and her breaths came heavily through her nose and her hips rolled under Devin’s mouth, the movement rippling upward along her body so that the tops of her breasts brushed against my ass.
Her mind whispered to mine. Let my hands free. I wish to touch you.
I am the master, I replied. You may not touch me until I wish it.
She struggled against the hand that held hers down, but we both knew it was a token resistance and nothing more, just as we both knew she would’ve been disappointed if I’d given in to her.
The peak I was riding sharpened and grabbed. “I’m gonna come now, right down your throat,” and then I did, ejaculating into her mouth, letting the cum mingle with my blood as waves of pleasure washed over me. She swallowed greedily, laved my cock with her tongue, and sucked down every single drop.
“Don’t let her come, Dev.” I popped my dick out of her mouth. “Time to service Devin.”
I flipped her over onto her stomach and straddled her thighs, holding her gently to the bed with one hand against the middle of her back. I looked around, saw Devin gazing at me with such horror I had to laugh. “Come on, Dev. It’s not that bad.”
“You’re manhandling the queen.” His voice cracked on the last word. “Jesus, Eric. Elizabet will kill you if the queen doesn’t.”
Lanu shifted under my hand and peered at me over her shoulder. “Is your roster mate always so uptight?”
“’Fraid so.” I skimmed my hand down her back and slapped her ass hard enough to leave a handprint that faded almost immediately. The healing power of vampires. Even rough sex wasn’t that rough. “Did I say you could speak?”
She buried her face in the bedspread with a choked laugh and arched her firm little ass up into my hand. I smacked her again and then again, keeping the blows light and sharp, until her round cheeks were rosy. She wiggled under me, moaning, silently begging me to continue. I was pretty sure she wasn’t supposed to do that, but what did I know? Even at my best, I was still a geeky kid from the ‘burbs. I didn’t know a thing about BDSM outside of what others had shown me, Devin the month before when Elizabet had had me punished, Jason more recently when he’d held me down…
My dick sprang to life, begging for more as surely as the queen’s silent pleas were. Jason had an honest talent for pushing sexual limits. Maybe I should introduce him to the queen.
Then again, if I did that, he’d probably end up like her pet, bound to the bed and punished because he’d dared to play master to the most powerful vampire in North America.
Kind of like what I was doing now.
“Dev, give her your dick.”
I shifted backward along her legs and parted her ass cheeks, opening the pucker of her anus. I pushed a finger inside, deliberately going too fast. Her muscles pulsed around it, rhythmically clenching my finger as I shoved it into her. I added a second and scissored my fingers, stretching her. Her fists clenched the bedspread and the short pants of her breath filled the room.
Devin sat rooted to the spot behind me, his mouth pressed into a thin line and his heart hammering loud enough that I had no problem picking up the beats.
“It’s ok, Dev. Trust me.” I jerked my chin toward the top of the bed. “Get comfortable and let her service you.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose, then scrubbed a shaky hand over the crown of his head before he climbed around me and sat with his legs spread, scooting down until his erection was inches from Lanu’s head. She raised up and sucked him into her mouth in one long draw, bobbing up and down on his long, hard shaft.
Be gentle, I told her.
A not-quite-warm amusement brushed against my mind.
Well, there was only so much domination a powerful vampire would take. I shrugged it off and yanked my fingers out of her anus, leaned forward and pressed the tip of my dick there instead, pushing through the natural resistance until I was fully sheathed in the tight hole. It squeezed around me like a tightly fisted hand. I laid down on her, bracing myself up on my forearms, and began to move, fucking her ass hard while her mind begged for more.
Harder, she whispered. Please, harder.
I ignored her. Any harder and I was pretty sure I’d hurt her. Domination was ok, or what I knew of it, a little pain acceptable if that’s what she wanted. Out and out harm was not.
The pleasure of the firm hold around my dick built slowly. I nudged her hair out of the way and nipped the skin of her shoulder with my fangs. Blood welled up,
a slow trickle of coppery goodness. I licked the excess away and stiffened as power roared through me, sweeping me along in its wake.
The cold man surged forward and wrapped himself around me. Kill her! His scream raked across every nerve in my body, crawling under my skin. Take the queen and her kingdom.
Sweat broke out on my forehead and my muscles strained as I grappled with him for control. He squeezed slowly, pushing me out of my own mind. I pushed back with everything I had, slipping along the edges of grime and muck as I sought a way to root him out.
A hand came to the back of my head. I felt it distantly, a quiet reassurance.
“Eric, love,” a man said.
Devin. His serene strength swelled forward, engulfing the part of me that fought. I wrested it from him, shored up my own strength, and threw it all at the cold man, slamming him abruptly into the corner of my mind where he belonged.
I sagged against the queen, panting. I’d won. A laugh welled up and I chuckled into the queen’s back.
“You ok?” Devin said.
“Yeah. Just a little problem I had to take care of.”
The queen’s mind brushed mine. I caught a brief glimpse of unconcern. Her solid faith astounded me. This is why she’d chosen me. Even through the barrier of my mind, she’d sensed that I was on the verge of turning and bedded me for… I probed again. Domination. Goddamn it. She’d known the cold man would seep out as soon as I tasted her blood, and wanted it, wanted to be overpowered, as much as she could be.
I reopened the marks on her shoulder and latched on to them, sucking as I fucked her. The cold man rattled and jeered, and I ignored him. Goddamn vampire games. I’d deal with that part of me later.
The queen shifted under me, urging me to take from her, but I was careful not to take more than I needed to enrich my own blood. I wanted some of her strength and power, probably needed it. I shuddered with the need to consume her, all of her, to make her an eternal part of my being and snuff out the burning flame of her soul. It would be so easy, so simple, and it would make me unstoppable.
The Vampire's Pet (The Vampyr Book 1) Page 19
