The Circle

by Stella Berkley

  “What we do in dreams is binding. Last night, when I asked if you were ready to open yourself to me, you said yes. You welcomed me into your life, your home and—” His hungry gaze scanned me from toes to face. “—your body.”

  In a blink, he stood before me, one hand pressed into the small of my back, the other at the nape of my neck. He sniffed at my throat, moaning as he pushed the wrap from my shoulders and dropped it to the floor.

  I pressed my hands against his hard chest as a shiver raced through me. It took a moment for me to gather enough air to speak. “Oh, God, it’s true. You’re a vampire.”

  His eyes turned hard and cold, piercing me through to my core. “Do not insult me. Vampires are vile creatures, bloodthirsty, unrefined.” He stroked my shoulder, his gaze following the path of his touch. “I am a true immortal—kill me and I shall be reborn. True, we crave blood like our more primitive cousins, but we’ve evolved to crave other…delicacies.” The last of his words sank into my body and traveled down to the hot spring between my thighs.

  I sighed, molded my body to his, and pressed my cheek against his smoothly shaven one. “Can you take sunlight? Is that how you got the package into my apartment during the day?”

  He jerked me against him, drawing a yelp from me and erasing the question from my thoughts. “Remove your necklace.”

  “Why?” The word came out as a breathy whisper.

  “Because I said so. What is it made from?”

  “Wh-white gold. Why does it matter?” Was he worried about silver?

  Gaze locked on mine, his fingers slipped along the sides of my throat in a delicate caress, leaving trails of heat in their wake. My necklace fell slack, and he caught it before it dropped into my cleavage, his knuckles brushing my breast.

  My nipples hardened and pushed against the fabric. “Where are you taking me tonight?”

  He placed a finger over my glossed lips, parting them a little as it slid along the slippery surface. “Hush. You’ll find out in due time.” His hands dropped and played along the slits in my dress while I trembled with need. “You must leave the panties behind.”

  I swallowed. “I’m not going out without under—”

  “Take them off.” A growl purred in his throat. “Or I’ll take them off for you. You must trust that I know what I’m doing. Now question me no further.” His lips glided across my shoulder and returned to my ear. “Do you wish to taste the sweetness of forbidden fruit, or do you not?”

  My brow furrowed. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Yet you want to, don’t you, Katharine with a K?”

  I hated it, but I did. Through a sigh, I said, “Turn around.”

  Devin stepped back and leaned against the arm of the sofa, but his gaze never left me. “If you delay much longer, the gates will be locked, and I’ll be forced to return you to your life as you are, ignorant of your own body.”

  I glared and turned my back to him, talking myself out of throwing something at his smug face. Cursing under my breath, I reached under the front of my skirt and slipped the panties down my legs, stepped out of them, and balled them into my hand.

  His arms came from behind, and his hand wrapped around mine. He pulled the cloth from my fingers. “Already wet.” His lips brushed the downy hairs at the back of my neck.

  I shuddered, and my knees weakened under my weight. His arms slipped around my waist and held me upright, a bewildering power passing through his body into mine. “That’s my girl. Now, come, I have much to teach you.”

  Devin wove my arm through his and led me out the door. I stumbled along beside him, drunk on the overwhelming energy radiating from him. What was I doing? I was letting an immortal take me to God knows where. Was I insane?

  I slowed, but his hand clamped over mine and tugged me along. “Please, tell me where we’re going.”

  The elevator stood open as if it waited for us to arrive. We stepped inside the mirrored car, and it descended without either of us pushing a button. Devin swung me and, with his fingers intertwined with mine, shoved me against the back wall so hard little white fairies danced in my vision. “I’ll take you wherever I please, and you’ll come. Won’t you, Katharine?”

  My name rolling from his tongue made my breath catch. His lips hovered teasingly close to mine, and his eyes flickered as if they’d burst into flame at any moment. I blinked. “Wh-what did you say?”

  A heart-stopping smile spread across his face, and he released his hold on me. “You want me, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then does it truly matter where I take you?”

  “No. Not really.” The words whispered from my lips.

  I fisted my hands in his collar and tugged to bring him closer, but he resisted and moved away. The farther he went, the greater the ache in my abdomen grew, as if he’d formed a link directly to my pussy and teased me from afar. I rubbed my stomach and begged him with my eyes. “Why won’t you kiss me?”

  He leaned against the wall and devoured me with his stare. “Because you want me to.”

  The doors opened. Devin held his hand out, and I took it without hesitation. We walked into the damp summer night and climbed into a shining black limousine. A small voice shouted at me from the recesses of my mind, but I didn’t want to hear the warning. My desire had grown to explosive levels, and I couldn’t bear to let anything stand in my way of getting what I needed. I wondered if that was how addiction felt before the thought slipped my mind again.

  Instead of sitting beside me, Devin sat in the opposite seat, facing me.

  I held my knees together and pondered his rejection. Did the dress not look as he’d expected? I considered sniffing my underarms to see if my deodorant had failed, but he didn’t look away for a moment to give me the chance.

  “Don’t look so forlorn, my Katharine. I sit here because there are things you must know and I don’t want to distract you right now.”

  Relief removed the claws from my chest so I could breathe.

  He shifted forward in his seat with a grin. “We don’t have long before we’ll arrive at The Circle.”

  “The Circle?” My eyes flew wide, and my fingers dug into the leather upholstery beside me. “Are you saying you’re taking me to meet more…immortals? More like you?”

  He nodded, leaned back, and spread his arms along the top of the seat on either side of him.

  I rewet my dry lips and tried to swallow past the Sahara Desert my throat had become. “Are you Raymond from my book?”

  His head tipped back, and a laugh rumbled out. “I think, rather, he is me.”

  I stared out the window in a daze, watched the lights of the city blur past. “But that would mean I met you before I wrote the books.” I shook my head and looked at him again. “I would have remembered.”

  “Unless I didn’t want you to.” He took a deep breath and clasped his fingers behind his head then settled down in the seat. “We met ten years ago in Grimm’s Bookstore on a Sunday afternoon. We both reached for a copy of The Long Walk at the same time. When our fingers touched, I knew you were the one I’d been searching for, but you weren’t yet ready for me.”

  I rubbed my temples, my brain on the verge of implosion. “So… you stole my memory? And what do you mean about searching for me?”

  “I blocked your memory, yes.” He sat forward, adjusting his tie at his throat. “For each immortal, only a few mortal souls are compatible mates, from which both mortal and immortal can achieve a higher state of being. When we’re eventually bonded, we’ll share unimaginable experiences and pleasure, mind, body and soul.”

  “Bonded? What do you mean?” Although a tinge of terror lit up in my head, the thought of being tied to such a powerful man intrigued me.

  “Would you like a small taste of what we can be together?”

  I swallowed and nodded, finding no air to speak.

  The world tilted and spun. I landed on my back on the seat with Devin on top of me. His lips crushed down on mine. Nothing
else existed. His cool mouth. His lips, soft and insistent. His tongue wet as it darted out to find mine. He turned my body into a live wire, and he was the energy source.

  “You feel the pull as I do, my Katharine. I see it in your eyes.” His fierce gaze locked onto mine, a tiny smile on his lips. The certainty in his voice startled me. “Do not fear me. After tonight, I hope you will understand better what I offer you.”

  With his hands on my waist to steady me, I sat up with a smile stretching my lips wide, lost in a white fog of ecstasy.

  “Listen closely to me now.” Devin gripped my chin in his fingers and angled my face toward his. “It will be obvious which of the guests are immortals and which are not. You are my submissive and must act as such. Do not raise your eyes to anyone.”

  My eyebrows bunched together as I fought the mental cobwebs. “Obvious how?”

  “No questions. We’re here, and we must go in now. Do not speak. While in the presence of others, you will do what I say without question, or I may be forced to punish you whether or not I want to.” His fingers tightened their grip on my jaw. “Do you understand?”

  I swallowed and nodded. “Yes.”

  Chapter Four

  A heavy silence crowded around me as I climbed out of the limo. No city sounds of honking horns, not even a cricket sent a creak into the night.

  I clung to Devin’s arm as we approached the largest estate house I’d ever seen. Wide and rectangular, the hotel-style roof overhung the front of the sandstone structure, supported by four giant white pillars. Floodlights splashed bright beams across the pale, vine-coated walls and highlighted two turrets that stabbed into the star-lit sky on either end. My steps slowed as I gaped up at the tall structure. Every window was dark save for the glass doors beyond the white pillars where yellow light flickered within.

  Not a single car other than our limousine graced the circular paved driveway, though a crowd of people stood beyond the entrance bathed in what appeared to be candlelight.

  “Where is this place?” I held my teeth steady so they wouldn’t chatter. “I know we turned east from my apartment, but—”

  “Nobody will find this place unless we wish them to,” Devin said. “That is all you need to know.”

  He slid his arm around my waist and guided me, not to the front door, but to one around the side of the building.

  I glanced at his perfect profile, at the tiny smile forming on his lips. “Why are—”

  “Hush.”

  I put on the brakes, digging my heels into the asphalt. “I’m really getting tired of you cutting me off.”

  Devin yanked me toward him and stared at me. “If you wish to have your eyes opened, then come with me without another word. Have you changed your mind?” The look in his eyes made me think he wanted me to back out.

  I erased the scowl from my face. “Let’s go.”

  “Are you sure?”

  No, I thought, but I said, “Yes.”

  He snickered and brushed his mouth against my ear, triggering a sigh from my depths. “Come, then. We’re late.”

  Devin pulled open a heavy glass door and ushered me inside. We stood in a dim corridor scented with jasmine. Glass chandeliers the size of small cars dangled from the ceiling two stories up. The murmur of echoed voices met my ears from farther along to my right. Devin leaned forward and peered down the hallway, his eyes narrowed and jaw flexing. If I hadn’t known what he was, I’d have said something in that place scared him.

  No, that couldn’t be right.

  With a hand on my lower back, Devin directed me to a narrow staircase to my left, and we made a quick ascent. Giant paintings lined the walls. The gilded frames and muted colors made them appear centuries old. At the top, he tugged me along the corridor and through a heavy oak door. After another scan of the hallway, he eased the door closed.

  I wanted to ask if something was wrong, but he’d asked me not to speak, so I kept my trap shut.

  The room, though walled on three sides, opened to a large ballroom below. I edged closer to the low railing separating me from the drop-off. Spotlights shone over a platform at the opposite side of the room from where I stood, highlighting what appeared to be ropes hanging from the ceiling. On closer inspection of the space, given the plush sofas arranged in the shadow-veiled edges of the circular space, the leather covered tables, and the washable tile, I thought maybe it was an arena for entertainment of the carnal sort.

  I licked moisture onto my lips. “What is this place?” I whirled on my heels. My eyes flew wide, and words flew out in a shriek. “Why did you bring me here?”

  Devin pressed his palm against my mouth and urged me against him with his other arm around my waist. His intense stare pierced me. “Silence. While here, you will call me Dom, as that is what I am, your Dominant, and you are my submissive. You will ask permission to speak and to touch me, or there will be consequences. Blink if you understand.”

  Arrogant much? I glared at him and blinked my response. If I hadn’t wanted to ride him like a horny nympho, I’d have left him where he stood. To become a better writer, a better lover, I’d play his little game.

  He released me and glanced around before sitting on a white chaise positioned parallel with the railing. Why was he doing that? Had he snuck in and was afraid of being caught? Perhaps it was me who wasn’t supposed to be there.

  “Come.” He leaned against the back of the white leather and patted the seat between his legs.

  I smoothed hands down my skirt, hyper aware how short it was and how little I wore underneath.

  “Don’t keep your Dom waiting, Katharine.”

  Doors in the room below opened, and cloaked, hooded figures entered. None spoke. I climbed onto the chaise and allowed Devin to pull me back against his chest to settle between his legs. My thighs pressed together as my hands arranged the skirt to cover as much as possible.

  A clang sounded the opening of another door at the other end of the cavernous arena. A cool breeze swirled into the space, sent ribbons of my hair against my cheek, and brought a plethora of scents to my nose: perfume, flowers, and something I couldn’t identify, something that begged to be inhaled deeply.

  Devin brushed his face against my throat. “That’s the scent of desire. Consume it. Remember it. Use every sense while you watch.”

  I filled my lungs again and again and melted back into his body. Vibrations traveled through me, but I didn’t know where they came from. Below, through the second entrance, women and men filtered in. The women wore mostly red dresses, some short, some long, had no jewelry and had their hair pinned up. The men were attired in black leather pants, suit pants, or nothing but clingy boxers.

  Chills walked the length of my spine. What would happen down there? Was it some sort of immortal key party? A little voice screamed at me to avert my eyes, to flee, that I shouldn’t be watching something so dirty and wrong. Instincts deeper than rational thought kept my stare glued to the scene as the cloaked ones herded the others into the center of the black tiled floor. Were the hooded ones like Devin?

  “May I ask a question?”

  His arms encircled me, and he squeezed. “That’s my good girl. You may.”

  “Please tell me there isn’t going to be any biting by…you know.”

  “Mmm. There will be biting, but mostly for pleasure.”

  “But…” Tension sang down my arms.

  “Nobody will lose their life here tonight.” His tone held petulance, and the muscles in his chest hardened against my back. “I told you, we’re not slaves to our hunger.”

  “I-I’m sorry.”

  His posture softened, and he hugged me tighter. “I forget this is all new for you. You must understand…it’s a sensitive subject for us. Murder is not a pastime we enjoy.” His palms stroked my arms.

  I nodded, a knot twisting in my stomach. “Are you afraid I’ll embarrass you in front of your people? Is that why you’re sneaking around?”

  “No, never. I wish to ease you into my
world, and there are…others, whom I’d prefer you not meet quite yet.”

  “Why?”

  “Hush. Watch.” He turned my head so I faced the horde, his arms still confining mine.

  The hooded figures stood in a circle around the others. Two walked around the inner perimeter until they reached a woman with long red hair. Her skin, pale like porcelain, had no blemishes, only a light smattering of freckles around her nose. She had a fresh, new quality about her though I judged her age to be early thirties.

  The woman stared forward with wide eyes, but even from the distance, I could see how badly her hands shook as the two cloaked ones circled her in opposite directions. What were they going to do to her? I couldn’t tell if she trembled from fear or anticipation. Possibly both. My heart thumped for her. I squirmed in the seat as much as Devin would allow.

  Down below, a hand shot out from within the robes and grasped the woman by the throat. A deep male voice boomed into the room and brushed along my thighs like a velvet caress. “You are mine tonight, Caroline. Bow to your Dom if you accept my offer.” He released her and stepped back.

  The other circling figure stopped beside her and dropped his hood back. Light blond hair tumbled down to his shoulders, and amber eyes glared warnings at her. Even I shifted under the danger in his stare, something told me she didn’t have a choice but to accept.

  I turned and dropped my voice to a whisper. “What happens if she doesn’t?”

  Devin’s hand gripped my chin and forced it forward. “This is your last warning. Speak again, and you will not enjoy what comes next.” His fractious tone iced my veins.

  What could I do? I returned my attention to the woman and worked my tongue around my dry mouth.

  She dipped her head in a tiny bow before dropping to her knees before the blond Adonis, tucking her red skirt beneath her. Her shaking worsened, radiating down her whole body in ripples. Her small breasts jittered in their confinement. My fingers wove together and clenched tight to prevent my own telltale signs of unease.

  “You honor me.” Adonis slid a finger beneath her chin and lifted until she gazed up at him. “Rise and greet he who offers you enlightenment this night.”