I lifted his fingers to my lips and kissed them, and caught a fleeting wisp of something else. I tried to chase it back, following it into his mind, but he withdrew too quickly, hiding it from me. He turned his head and met my gaze steadily as Marco shuddered and came, and I saw not passion or affection there, but determination.
Marco rolled off of Jason onto his back, and Jason followed him, taking Marco in much the same way he’d been taken, scraping his sharpened canines, not quite fangs, along Marco’s neck until blood welled up, and then his mouth latched on and sucked while his hips bucked against Marco’s ass.
I closed my eyes against it. What Jason was doing wasn’t a sacrifice on his part. He enjoyed the roughness of Marco’s touch, the ability to let go without fear of hurting his lover, but it still hurt to watch. My heart throbbed and ached with envy, so I shrugged it off and tightened the muscles of my ass around Devin’s dick and shoved back until he came in me.
Later, I took Marco’s blood, and Devin’s and Jason’s, but Marco never followed through on his threat to have sex with me. I guess fucking my favorite was enough. I’d benefit either way, but at the end of the night, after we were all sated and tired, after Marco and Devin took showers and Devin drove us back to my apartment, after Marco left and Jason and I cleaned up, a tiny worm of regret ate its way through me. Jason was mine, mine and Gianna’s. I didn’t like sharing him with Elizabet’s favorite, no matter how good the cause. The irony of that wasn’t lost on me. As Jason and Dev and I fell into my tiny bed together, I swore to never play down Devin’s concerns over Marco’s interest in me again.
Chapter Five
When I woke the next morning, I was hot and sweaty and trapped between two heavy furnaces. I blinked against the cheerfully thin sunlight streaming in through the windows.
Dammit, I’d forgotten to close the curtains again. Why had I bothered with thermal, light-blocking curtains when I forgot to use them?
I tried to move and discovered the furnaces were Jason and Dev snuggled around me. Devin spooned me with an arm thrown over my waist, while Jason faced us and rested a heavy thigh across both of us.
Yup, good and trapped.
I tried wiggling out and huffed out a sigh when Devin’s arm tightened. Jason shifted on the mattress a moment before his eyes slitted open. He smiled and took my hand. “We’re getting married today.”
My heart went full and light at the same time and I grinned back at him. “Yeah, we are.”
Devin nuzzled my neck and skimmed his hand down my stomach. “Y’all aren’t gonna get sappy, are you?”
Jason laughed and tugged me out of Devin’s embrace, rolling me onto my stomach with my hands above my head, held firmly against the mattress at the wrist by one of his hands. The other drifted down my back until it rested on my lower back. Something wet and cold landed between the cheeks of my ass.
I tried to shift around, see what was going on, and was stopped by Devin’s hand on my head, stroking me tenderly. “What are y’all doing?”
“What has to be done,” Jason said. Something pressed against the opening of my anus as Jason’s thighs warmed the backs of mine. “Our bond needs to be in place before the ceremony.”
My laugh sounded weak and thready, even to my own ears. I hissed in a breath as Jason pressed forward, stretching me uncomfortably, filling me more gently than Marco had, but just as insistently. “C’mon, Jase. Our bond is fine, about what you’d expect of a new pet.”
“No.” His voice was hard against my ear. He licked there, blew, and I shivered as heat raced down my skin. Another inch of his cock disappeared into my ass. “You’re too strong not to have a favorite bound to you. You have to accept me now, Eric, for yourself, for the family we’re building.”
Family. God, yes, my new family, him and Gianna and the as-yet-unborn baby. But did he have to fuck me to build that bond?
“Yes, I do.”
I jolted, startled. “When did you…?”
“Last night. Marco crammed an awful lot into me in a short time.”
I grimaced into the sheet. That was one way of putting it. Damned if I’d let them do that again, though.
Jason’s laugh rumbled through me, raising tingles of pleasure and heat and rightness in its wake.
“You were already reading me,” I said.
“Before, I could sense things, pluck something from your mind if you were thinking about it, but now you’re mostly an open book.” With one last push, he sheathed himself fully inside me, so tightly I could feel a pulse throbbing through his cock. “There now. That’s not so bad, is it?”
“Ha. Yes, it is.”
No, it wasn’t. In fact, it was almost nice having him there. Not quite comfortable, but…nice. As long as he didn’t move, I’d be fine.
He pulled out a fraction and slid back into me on a low moan, and I winced. So much for not moving.
“That is… Your ass is so tight. God, Eric.” He let go of my hands and moved to cover me completely. “Give me your throat. I need your blood.”
I rolled my head to the side and lifted up as much as I could, and then he struck, digging his not-quite-fangs into my throat and drawing blood. I moaned and wiggled against him as he sucked and fucked, and laughed weakly. Suck and fuck. The life of a vampire and his pet. My laugh turned into a full-blown, out-loud chuckle, and I laughed and laughed, so hard my eyes teared up.
His mind brushed against mine. Cut it out.
I caught the hint of amusement, and then the pleasure, and tightened the muscles of my ass around him, savoring the slow slide of his dick in and out of my ass, the brush of his tongue against my throat, the weight of him pushing me into the mattress. I projected to him, me holding him down like this, fucking him hard, and was completely unsurprised when he thrust harder into me and came, ejaculating into me and cementing our bond.
He closed the scrapes he’d made on my neck. “You did that on purpose.”
“I would never…”
He pushed into me, still firm enough to fuck me, and I moaned. God, yes, that was good. Why had I held back for so long, forbidden him to take me this way?
My eyes popped open when the answer hit me. “Where’s Devin?”
“He left.” Jason slid out of me, shifted onto the bed, and pulled me back against him. “We’ll see him later, at the ceremony.”
“I know.”
“You’re worried. I can feel it,” he said when I opened my mouth to protest. “You’ve gotta stop trying to hide things from me, lying to me, denying things.”
“You’re one to talk.” I shifted so I could meet his gaze. “What were you hiding from me last night when Marco was fucking you?”
His expression hardened. “That was private.”
“You just said…”
His mouth came down on mine and his hand found my dick, and the conversation slid from my mind as he pushed me up the peak of arousal so hard and fast, my head spun and my breath caught, and then I came, spurting cum over his hand. He pushed me onto my back and made love to me with the weak light spilling down around us through the still-open curtains.
Hours later, I stood at the front of the small chapel Gianna’s family had rented for our wedding. My hands were clenched tightly together in front of my groin. I’d never understood why that was a polite place for a man to keep his hands, but there you go. That’s where mine were and I was doing everything I could to keep them there, to keep myself there, standing at the front of the chapel, waiting on Gianna to walk down the aisle.
All I wanted was her.
Jason and Devin stood beside me dressed in plain black tuxes, my favorite and my…favorite. I moved one hand long enough to cough into it, covering the hysterical laughter bubbling up from my gut.
A few people had come to see us married off. My parents, Gianna’s. Marco and Elizabet. Jason’s friend Gregory. Devin’s girlfriend Cassie. A handful or so of aunts and uncles and friends. We’d deliberately kept the invitation list small, the ceremony and recepti
on informal, or as informal as we could. It wasn’t from Gianna’s pregnancy or the hurried nature of the ceremony so much as from a desire to honor the most important people in our lives.
I blinked and fidgeted as we waited for the ceremony to start. Had to start remembering to close the curtains at night. The light didn’t bother me too much, but it had been bright enough in the bedroom that morning, and Jason had stayed at it long enough (Stayed. Ha. That was a man with staying power.), that we’d both been a little flushed from sunburn and our eyes a tad dry by the end of our play.
The pianist took her place and a moment later, a sweet melody filled the chapel. I didn’t recognize it and, frankly, didn’t care. It was time. At last.
Gianna’s baby sister, Emily, stepped through the doors at the other end of the room wearing a floaty pale pink dress with her curly hair piled on top of her head and decorated with fresh flowers. She beamed at me, the only one of her family who’d really taken a shine to me.
Possibly because her parents were still pissed I’d gotten their eldest daughter pregnant without the prior benefit of the marital sacrament.
When Emily was halfway down the aisle, Faith, Gianna’s roommate stepped through the doors and scowled at me.
Because ditto.
The number of people I had pissed off was rising faster than the number who owed me favors. Had to rectify that soon.
And then Faith was at the front and the music changed to the bridal march and Gianna stepped carefully through the doors, her slim hand tucked into her father’s elbow, her sweet beauty encased in her grandmother’s antique lace wedding dress. I barely noticed people rising, the gentle gasps from the crowd at her beauty, her mother Lucia’s quiet sniffles. Her eyes met mine across the room and her face bloomed into a smile, and everything else faded away, everything but her and the love I held for her, and Jason, sharing that love through the connection we’d finally forged.
I felt his presence as a light weight in my mind, almost like an anchor, but not quite. We hadn’t had time to build the rapport Dev and I had as roster mates, or the one Elizabet and I had as vampire and pet, but it was getting there. Already, I could feel the shared joy. He/I loved Gianna. She would welcome him/me into her bed, and later, he/I would fill her, bringing her into the bond to share it with him/me. I blinked as my mind shifted and stretched, and a small part of the separate entities of Jason and Eric merged into we.
We loved her, separately, distinctly, but also together. We.
My hand went to the rings in my pocket, one for Gianna to celebrate our union, and one for Jason, a surprise I’d planned on giving him after the reception, also a symbol of our bond and his importance in our lives.
We would make a life with Gianna and help her bring our child into the world. We.
And then Jason would give her another child and our circle would be complete.
William Brady halted with Gianna three feet from where I stood. His dark eyes bored into me and I met them steadily, with my own strength of purpose, with the echo of Jason’s blended into my essence.
“Who gives this woman?” the judge said.
“Her mother and I.”
William’s smooth voice echoed slightly in the room. I took Gianna’s hand from him and said, “I’ll take good care of her, sir.”
The corners of his mouth tilted ever so slightly, not enough for his teeth to flash against the dark sobriety of his skin, but enough for me to feel his good humor. “See that you do.”
Titters broke out among the guests in the front row. Gianna’s smile widened as she blinked against tears. “Daddy,” she said in a soft voice. He brushed a kiss across her cheek and her mother sniffed again, and then she and we were alone in front of the judge, about to begin our life together.
What happened next was a rush of light and sound and emotion, laughter and tears and love. All I really remember is the judge asking me if I would take Gianna as my wife, the emphatic tone of, “Yes, absolutely. Are we finished yet?” that brought more laughter from our guests, and the exchange of rings, simple gold bands, hers etched on the inside with the words Forever my heart in tiny script. And then she was my wife, this sweet, beautiful woman, and I held her close and touched her soft lips with my own. Gianna’s hands came to my face and her heart reached out and grabbed me all over again, and it was the best thing I’d ever felt in my life, her and we and the tiny echo of life embedded in her womb.
It filled me, lifting me up until I felt like I was walking on air. Gianna tucked her hand into my elbow and we led our wedding party out of the chapel into the tiny attached reception hall. We weathered the congratulations, the first dance made to the rhythm of a slow jazzy number, the cutting of the cake, and the sly innuendo and questions from well-meaning family and friends.
A photographer made the rounds and I made nice with Gianna’s parents, flirted lightly with Emily, who at fifteen was just feeling her way toward the woman she would become.
The sister of my heart. I’d never thought to have one, but now that I’d met Emily, I couldn’t imagine having a better one. She was so much like Gianna, sweet and charming and lovely with her eyes shining brightly and her hands resting lightly on my shoulders as we danced. In one day, I’d gained a beautiful wife who loved me in spite of my flaws, another set of parents, and the sibling I’d always wanted. How lucky could one man be?
Chapter Six
After what felt like an eternity, we slipped away, Gianna and me and Jason, Dev and Cassie, Elizabet and Marco, for the binding ceremony that would mark Jason and Gianna as a part of Elizabet’s family.
Just until I was strong enough to protect them myself. That wouldn’t be for a year or two, if I could stave off my change for that long, but until then, we could rest easy under Elizabet’s steady guidance.
The seven of us opted to squeeze into a Sunday school room. Marco arranged Gianna, Jason, and I into a semi-circle in front of him with me in the middle, Jason on my right, and Gianna on my left. Dev and Cassie took positions behind and to either side of Marco while Elizabet stood behind me.
To my surprise, Elizabet’s favorite pulled out a small, well-worn book, about the size of a Gideon Bible, and began to recite from it.
“The journey from human to vampire is a long one, fraught with danger. A man who undertakes such a journey should do so well prepared to face the future, with the company of his bride and his favorite. Thus do we gather today, to celebrate the binding of these three into one, the vampire, the bride, and the favorite, forever joined in protection and love…”
Hunh. Who’da thunk the Vampyr had actual rituals?
And that Marco would be the one performing them?
Jason’s amusement pinged through our connection. He’d arranged this, bless him. I hadn’t even known to ask about it, but he had.
Or maybe that was one of the things Marco had “shown” him the night before while they were pawing one another.
I tried to ignore the sharp memories of the two of them fucking like animals, drawing pleasure and strength from one another as their seed spilled out and was absorbed. Gianna’s hand squeezed mine just as temper roiled through my gut and I brought my mind back to the ceremony, ignoring the smirk splashed across the hard planes and angles of Marco’s face.
Finally, he finished speaking and brought out an ancient looking awl with a thin point. He pricked Jason’s thumb and Gianna’s and I licked the drops of blood that spurted up, Gianna’s bright and fresh, Jason’s deeper, rich and sultry. Marco pricked my thumb and I shared blood with them in turn, and then we did the same with Elizabet and Marco. Sharp pricks all around, small dabs of blood, quick flicks of tongues.
When we were finished, I said, “That’s it?”
Elizabet’s laugh tinkled lightly through the tiny room. “Almost, dearling. Your favorite and I have a small amount of business and then, yes, the binding is complete.”
“Wait.” I patted around in my pocket and pulled out the ring I’d had made for Jason, a platinu
m band with intricate loops of Celtic knots etched into the face, as close as I could get to the forever etched on the inside of Gianna’s band without raising anyone’s suspicions. I caught his left hand and slid my ring onto his thumb. “To seal the deal.”
He stared down at the ring for long moments, his face inscrutable, his big body still, and then his hand went to his own pocket and he pulled out two platinum rings, one a delicate band flatter than a traditional wedding band, and the other wider but no less delicate. “Funny you should do that. I had these made for the two of you. Was going to wait until later to give them to you, but…”
Gianna and I looked at each other. Her full mouth turned up into a smile as she pulled a bracelet out of the sleeve of her dress. Dangling from it was a thick, gold wedding band. I helped her take it off so she could slide it onto the ring finger of Jason’s left hand. He slid the rings he’d had made for us onto our thumbs, and we all stood around looking at one another, surprised speechless by the way our thoughts had collided, each of us choosing a ring to symbolize the commitment we’d made to one another. A gold band for the heart, a platinum band for our friendship, though who could’ve said how deeply our hearts were already entangled, and how much deeper the coming years would take us?
“Well,” Dev said, his drawl dry with amusement, “Great minds really must think alike. Either that or you’re all insane.”
We all laughed, even Marco, who only rarely showed amusement.
Strangely, he’d been doing that a lot lately.
I shrugged it off as I led my bride back to the reception hall with Devin and Cassie trailing behind us hand in hand, whispering to one another. Marco worked in mysterious ways I didn’t like delving into.
Half an hour later, just when I was beginning to get worried, Jason staggered into the room and righted himself with a shake of his head. His eyes had a dazed, dreamy look and satiety echoed through our bond. He and Elizabet’s business had evidently involved blood and sex, and a lot of both. I sniffed delicately when Jason drew near and pressed my lips into a thin line as Marco’s scent clogged my head. Damn the favorite. He’d taken Jason again, just to spite me I was sure, and probably with Elizabet looking on in approval.
The Vampire's Pet (The Vampyr Book 1) Page 24
