“Autumn.” His voice was very quiet, almost a whisper. “We’ll talk about this in the morning.”
“No! No! NO! We’re talking about this now! We’re not together, Aleksi. That was your doing not mine. You don’t get to…dictate who I date six months after you break up with me. And… and you… you don’t get to put me in and take me out of a box whenever you feel like playing with me because fucking ballerina Barbie isn’t around for you to stick your dick i—”
“Quiet!” The darkness in the room yowled in a deep dark voice that made me shake. The dresser and drawers fell to the floor, their contents rumpled and messed. “Autumn.” He breathed my name in that whisper quiet voice. “They aren’t a good fit for you. You’d grow frustrated with Evan because he can’t give you what you need. And Nikolai…” He trailed off and took a slow breath. I leaned back against the wall. “That is me being selfish. I’m not happy, Autumn. Ballerina Barbie as you so eloquently called her is a distraction. I don’t feel for her a tenth of what I feel for you, so yes I’m being selfish. I’m sorry.” He sighed and I could hear him pacing. My eyes closed and I could see him in my mind pacing around the hotel room in those bright red pajama pants, or better yet, nude. We were quiet for a while, fear and the apology had calmed me.
“Aleksi?”
“Mhm.”
“I’m…let me send you something.”
“Okay?” He was clearly puzzled but I had to show him the picture of Nikolai. He deserved to know if he didn’t already. I lowered the phone and sent him the picture of Nikolai at the airport. “What do you think of him so far?”
“I think you need to see what I sent you. But he’s nice, and fairly charming… though I think he needs to be kept at least two continents away from Elizabeta.”
“No, he needs someone like Elizabeta. Like you need someone like me.” I could almost hear the smile in his voice. “Oh, I got your message.” I heard rustling and then silence. There was a lot of silence. “Autumn, check the sheet you have. How old is he?”
“Twenty six.” I read the age off, and silence invaded again. There was a knock on the door, I opened it, Nikolai was on the other side.
“I wanted to let you know that I’m heading to bed. I’m sorry about earlier. I’m…awkward sometimes.” Nikolai flashed me that lopsided smirk.
“No, no, no, you’re fine.”
“So, things won’t be weird?”
“No, I’m flattered and fairly single.” I almost forgot I was still holding the phone in my ear—until I heard Aleksi’s breathe catch.
“Being single myself… I’d love to show you around tomorrow.” He purred with a smirk.
“No!” Aleksi hastily barked in my ear. “I’ll be there tomorrow.”
“But don’t you have Giselle tomorrow?” I asked as my eyes fell from Nikolai.
“Somethings are more important, this is one of those things. I’ll be there when you two wake up.” The end call noise beeped in my ear.
“W-we can’t tomorrow… maybe Sunday? Aleksi will be here in a few hours apparently.”
“Oh.”
“Oh…” I trailed off and sighed. “Good night, Niki.”
“Goodnight, Autumn.” He leaned in and kissed my forehead and I got a whiff of him. His scent left me lightheaded. My brows furrowed as I watched him walk from the door way. It was probably the alcohol. Right?
2
BAD DREAMS & SUBTLE SUBMISSION
“KISS HER.” ALEKSI SNAPPED, AND NIKOLAI’S LIPS CLAIMED MINE roughly as if on cue. He ate my mouth seizing my bottom lip between his teeth and pulling back to let the flesh slip away, bright fuchsia, swollen and white hot. I was in a basement somewhere—or a dungeon—raised en Pointe in the bright red expensive Pointe shoes that lasted for weeks instead of hours. “Good.” Aleksi purred in approval, his feet sticking to the stone floor with an almost wet scraping sound as he circled us like the alpha predator he was. “Now, the crop.”
Nikolai stepped back from me and I whimpered from the loss of his warmth and his mouth on mine as he slid that black leather tab at the tip of the riding crop down the center of my body. He teased me with it passing that softened leather between my nether lips, just barely grazing the most sensitive of spots as I strained towards him. He made certain to keep slipping the leather just barely over my needy nub, until I was moaning, twisting and panting.
“Good, but now that you’ve shown her pleasure; it’s time to show her pain.” Aleksi’s voice seemed to sound from everywhere as he stepped in front of my vision again, smirking as Nikolai reared his hand back.
I felt weightless. I opened my eyes in a panic looked around to find that the bed was a good four feet off of the floor, saved from going any higher by the top of the canopy and I was four feet above that. I shrieked as the bed and my body fell back. It wasn’t a cascade effect. I hit the bed long after it had touched the floor and the force sent the air from my lungs.
By the time I was able to breathe again I was panting as much from the breathlessness as I was from the dream. Oh that dream. I certainly didn’t want Freud in my head. That’s because you’re a pervert. I covered my face to hide from Miss Manner’s judgment. I stayed laying back in the bed staring at the ceiling for a few minutes before the door opened and Aleksi walked in.
“Good morning.” I sighed out as I rubbed my temples as the hangover slowly crept up behind me and gave me a nice big hug that initiated the pounding headache. Aleksi was actually dressed in something other than his normal hoodie. He had on a thick black pea coat that had an oversized hood and bright metal buttons.
“Autumn.” He growled out. Oh, he was certainly not happy. Because you yelled at him on the phone last night, and you showed him Nikolai’s picture. No. Yes. No, I didn’t. There’s no way. Yes, you most certainly did. Fuck, I did.
“I’m sorry about last night.” I murmured as I slid out of bed. I was hung over enough that the tank top and panties I wore didn’t bother me enough to want to cover up.
“Sorry? What do you have to be sorry for? You told me the truth. Which is more than anyone has done for the last twenty six...” His words turned to Russian for what I imagined was a long string of expletives. I let him rant as I wobbled my way to the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet.
Everything was in Cyrillic. Not a single thing had any English on its label. I moaned and sunk to my knees, practically sobbing. This had to be a dream. Either this was a very bad dream or I had really died in my sleep and this was hell. My head pounded in my hands as I knelt on the soft rug and whimpered shutting my eyes tight against the light. The expletives stopped and I heard footsteps, the opening of a pill bottle and the closing of a cabinet. Fingers ran back through my hair, drawing my attention subtly upwards. Aleksi held out his hand to me which had in it two small white pills. Aspirin, be still my heart.
“I’ll get you a water.” He whispered, mindful of my hangover as he left the room. He came back seconds later with a small water bottle already uncapped. I didn’t even reach for it until he held it out to me. We were subtly reassuring each other of our continuation in our previous roles. We might not be having sex, but I was still submissive to him in many ways—and content to be. I took the pills and set the half empty bottle of water on the sink. My tongue was fuzzy from the wine. I could taste the sticky sweetness still lingering on my taste buds.
“So I take it I should treat the tap water like Mexico?” I asked closing my eyes again.
“Mhm.” Was his only clipped answer.
“Have you met Nikolai in person yet?”
“He’s still sleeping. I went in and saw him though…” He trailed off and sighed, I heard him slide to the floor beside me. “The resemblance worries me. I have to turn him.” He laughed, and that bitter laugh almost made me cringe. “Maybe Vlad was talking about him?”
“Maybe.”
“I’m going to wait a while, let him have another few months.” He sighed heavily and leaned his head against mine. It always felt so right t
o be this close to him, even as his body cooled it was comforting to be close.
“I’m sorry about last night.” I whispered.
“You were right to be angry. I was being a dick. And I did mess up your life, which hardly seems fair now that we’re not together.” He sighed again, long and heavy before drumming his fingers on the tile floor. “I had plans. You were supposed to be it, my beautiful companion for eternity. So perfectly instinctually submissive, so intelligent…kind.” He sighed again. “So frustrating.” He snickered. “If you want Nikolai, and he wants you, I won’t stand in your way. I want you to be happy, Autumn. Or to find something that resembles happiness.” He brushed some of my hair behind my ear. The headache abated and I let my eyes slowly open and adjust to the dull overcast light. He kissed my forehead, and let his lips linger between my brows. I felt his fangs graze against the skin before he pulled away. Don’t trust him, he’s lying.
Aleksi left the bathroom, and I was able to take my shower and get dressed in the in the small bathroom. I wore another sweater dress, this one was Aleksi’s bright red color and had a cowl neck collar that over emphasized my breasts. I loved it how it hugged my body and added emphasis without me having to bare any cleavage at all. Under the dress I wore black leggings, because Russia was cold. A dress with pants? I sighed as I looked at myself in the mirror. Miss Manners’ scrutiny got the best of me. I slipped the leggings off before I got started on my hair and makeup. Two hours after I got in the shower I left the bathroom perfectly coiffed, and adorned. I folded my leggings and put them back in the drawer before I pulled out a pair of black thigh highs with a seam up the back I pulled them up and smoothed the lace over my thighs. I was going to freeze my ass off, but I would look killer doing it. I slipped on my black heels and stretched tall.
The moment I stepped into the room, the soft conversation between Nikolai and Aleksi died to nothingness and they stared at me. That primal heat in their eyes made me lift my chin and walk across the glossy bamboo floors with a little sway in my hips. I felt powerful, powerful because I knew Aleksi wanted me on my knees for him in that instant, and because I knew Nikolai wanted me too. The dream came back to me and I shivered. Aleksi said something in Russian and Nikolai answered. When speaking their native language both of them had remarkably similar voices. It was interesting because when speaking English their tone differed completely. Aleksi’s voice was darker, whereas Nikolai’s was light and playful. The conversation got heated, and Nikolai stood and walked back to the bedroom and slammed the door.
“She certainly put her hooks into him.” Aleksi growled crossing his arms.
“Who?”
“Galina.” He practically spat the name as he pushed to standing. “Go talk to him—I have a visit to make.”
“I’m sure you could talk to him.” My words made him shake his head.
“I don’t want to.” He shrugged and pulled his hood up over his head and wrapped the muffler around his lower face. “I want to deal with this other more pressing problem. If he throws himself off of the fucking roof that’s one less problem for me to deal with.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Everything, Autumn. Fucking everything.” He grumbled as he left slamming the door behind him. Moody Aleksi I could deal with, I knew he just needed time. He didn’t do emotional well and he just had a lot suddenly dropped on him.
After dealing with Aleksi, I didn’t have the energy to see how much father and son were alike in the temper tantrum department. So I stood in the living room and stared out of the window and across the street because there wasn’t much of a view. I watched Aleksi stalk down the street as the people instinctually parted to avoid him.
Four hours and three minutes, that’s how long I had been awake and I could feel the exhaustion settling in. He had every right to throw a temper tantrum though—they both did. Running my fingers through my perfect loose curls I walked back to that other bedroom and knocked on the door.
“Nikol—Niki, can I come in?” I asked softly, there was shuffling behind the door.
“Minute.” He called and more shuffling ensued and then the door opened. He looked on the outside how I knew Aleksi felt on the inside.
“Are you okay?” My words made his lips twitch into that lopsided smirk.
“As well as can be expected I’d imagine.” He laughed that rueful, bitter laugh—that Aleksi laugh—and held the door open wider. “You can come in if you’d like.”
I peeked around him, the room was tiny. It had a twin bed on a simple platform frame with drawers. There was a dresser whose top was cluttered with ballet slippers in all hues, and a desk that had a laptop on it with a rolling desk chair in front of it. There were no real personal touches in the room, it reminded me of when I first saw Aleksi’s place. They were both afraid of living in their own homes. The bed was made so I couldn’t help but wonder what he had been doing that took so long to open the door.
“Aleksi has—” I stopped and walked in the room, taking a seat on the bed. It was extraordinarily uncomfortable, the bed in the other room was far softer. “He went to go take care of some business. What were you guys talking about?”
“He asked me…” He trailed off and shook his head. I knew that look in his eyes, that look that said he would answer even if he didn’t really want to. “He asked me about my tattoos and scars…when I got the first one…why.” He pursed his lips and sat on the bed beside me. “I told him about Galina, and he got quiet. Then he told me that she used me to get back at him for something that happened over one hundred years ago. Annnd then I yelled at him. He yelled back. Angry things were said and I stormed off.” He laughed again and I closed my eyes. I would never get over hearing Aleksi’s laugh come out of someone else’s mouth.
“Aleksi is nothing if not…hyper aware of his legacy. I’ve only known Aleksi for a year and a few months, but I knew the moment I saw you. I knew whose child you were. Everyone around you who is connected to a vampire knew—you look too much like him.”
“The moment I saw him… I knew. I wanted to deny it. I tried to rationalize it away, but you’re right I look too much like him. It was weird seeing someone who looked so much like me but different.”
“Aleksi is known as the heir of House Dracul.”
“Dracula?” Nikolai blinked at me.
“Is your thirteenth great grandfather.”
“That’s cool, I’m the blood of Dracula.” He snickered.
“You’re the progeny of House Dracul, the—” I stopped myself. He wasn’t the last living progeny of House Dracul that would be Margot in a few months. “The only living male, which is something you don’t want a lot of people to know.” I furrowed my brows as I thought about Aleksi, and the mediocrity he craved and was unable to obtain because he was forced to be extraordinary. If he hadn’t been the heir of House Dracul we wouldn’t have had any impediments to being together. I let my eyes dart over Nikolai. He’d have to deal with the same thing.
“Why?”
“Vlad’s been asleep for a little over one hundred years, and people want his power. They believe it comes from his lineage…” I trailed off. “I’ll let Aleksi tell you the rest.” I pulled my hair over my shoulder and his eyes went to the scar on my neck.
“What does it feel like?”
“What?” I furrowed my brows.
“Feeding a vampire.” Galina was protecting him.
“You’ve never fed a vampire?”
“No, I…” He fell quiet and shifted uncomfortably.
“Well it feels… the feeding doesn’t really feel like much of anything at all. It’s less suction than a hickey. Bite varies by vampire”—I sighed remembering Evan’s soft bite, and Aleksi’s normal forceful bite, and then the last time he fed from me—“I could show you.”
He swallowed and nodded slowly. “Okay.” The one word of consent made the sexual tension in the room solid and tangible enough to walk on. I knelt on the bed beside him and slipped off my heels.
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When I put my hand on his t-shirt covered bicep I realized that was the first time I had really touched him. And here you are about to bite him. Didn’t they try to curb that problem in Kindergarten? Swallowing I slipped behind him. My pulse picked up, and my breathing became those slow, drawn out deep breaths that accompanied arousal as my hands slipped over his shoulders. My hand reached up and slid into his hair. He took a shaky breath as I gripped that handful of golden brown locks tight and pulled his head to the side so that graceful neck of his was stretched almost impossibly long. I could actually see his pulse leaping like something small and caged wanting to be freed.
“You should tilt your chin to the side. The tauter your neck is and the closer to the shoulder the less it hurts, like this.” I slowly lowered my lips to that exquisite throat and seized a mouthful between my teeth. I didn’t bite hard, but I felt his whole body stiffen with the pain. I expected a whimper, a little sound of pain. Instead he moaned softly and I felt his hips twist. “Aleksi, feeds from me like this.” My fingers released his hair. I let one hand slide down his tight fluttering cobblestone stomach to his lower abs. I let the fingers of my other hand flutter over his jaw guiding his neck to the side. And then I struck. My teeth seized his throat far enough up his throat that his breath caught and he stifled a moan between clenched teeth. I didn’t let go. I worried the flesh delighting in the sensation of that shifting tension in his body and the small pleading noises he made.
When I released his flesh he groaned. I didn’t pull back from him. I traced the dips and indentations my teeth left behind slowly with my tongue, savoring the texture of every little divot.
I felt something I couldn’t quite put my finger on and looked up to find Aleksi standing in the open doorway. I didn’t stop tracing the wound with my tongue. Nikolai shivered with every pass. See, you’re a deviant now. This is a stranger you just bit into. I released him. Miss Manners wasn’t half as enamored with Nikolai as she was with Aleksi. Nikolai panted heavily with those pale blue eyes glassy as Aleksi and I stared each other down. I knew the set of his jaw. He was pissed, and something deep down inside of me loved it. The moment I realized that I just enjoyed causing both physical and emotional pain I quickly slipped off of the bed and grabbed my shoes. I tried to leave the room, I tried to step around Aleksi but he grabbed me by the shoulders.
Dark Awakenings (Danse Macabre Book 2) Page 3
