Blood Rising

by Amber Anthony

  “What do you want? What do you want to give me a lifetime supply of this stuff?”

  “Just in case you asked,” Veronique cajoled with a slow smile, “I have the documents right here.” She reached for some legal papers, and handed them to him.

  It took all Matt’s willpower to ignore the new sensations rampaging through his body and concentrate on the legalese before him. She wanted the charges against her dismissed, immunity from any further prosecution, and no claims upon her person or her future earnings. She must believe this Humanité would bring in the dough. Hell, he didn’t care about all that.

  Matt studied her. She amped up the sex appeal, and he doubted it had anything to do with affection for him. No, this was Veronique looking for a fast fuck, as usual.

  “I’m not opposed to signing this,” he agreed, but held up a warning hand when she produced a pen. “When we’ve come to a complete agreement. I’ll be writing a document of my own. My attorney won’t be able to look it over, but I’ve signed enough legal papers to know it will hold up in a court of the Vampire Nation.”

  She sized him up in return. “What will it say?”

  “It will specify that you will give me, free of charge, enough Humanité to keep me human for the next…ninety years. It will also state if, in the next seventy-five years the formula stops working for some reason, you will pay me…fifty thousand dollars per day, for every day it doesn’t work.”

  She glared at him. “Fine. You can use the computer in there.” She nodded at a doorway. “Draw it up, and I’ll sign it.”

  “You don’t have a conscription gang waiting for me in there, do you?”

  “Darling,” she smirked, “if I wanted that you’d already be in the hold.”

  Matt escaped into a fully appointed office and shut the door, trying to contain his delight, trying to think straight despite the surging physicality in every cell of his body. The room felt too cold, the seat too rough, the desk without the lights, too dim. His blood rushed and his heart beat. He pinched himself hard and exalted in feeling the pain. He was human, at least for the next four hours.

  After he emerged from the office, document in hand, he found Veronique standing next to the couch naked as the day she was born, pouring two flutes of champagne.

  “What the fuck are you doing?”

  “Celebrating.” She looked up, smiled and re-offered the pen. “I have one more demand. Well, a request, really.”

  Matt raised a cautious brow. Veronique was nothing, if not predictable. “Yeah?”

  “The night I turned you, we never got to…close the deal. Let’s have that closure,” she emphasized with a thrust of her breasts, her stiletto-shod feet sliding wide, revealing everything. “Now.”

  He stared at her for a beat. Veronique wanted not just his pardon, she wanted his sex. Matt felt zero desire for her, but he wasn’t going to pass up the chance to get a little of his own back while securing the mortality he coveted.

  “You sign the document first. Then we’ll consider any…closure.”

  She shrugged and drew her knees closer together. “Fine.” She laid both documents on the table, and then hurriedly signed.

  “You and I need to go back to my place.” Matt announced. “I have a copier there, and I want to be on my own turf – just in case.”

  She sidled close. “Copies can wait. Love now.”

  “Love?” Matt snorted. “Sure. Whatever you want to call it, but not here. My place or nothing.”

  She narrowed her eyes. Matt smirked. He’d been working with submissives a long time. He knew one when he saw one, and Veronique was submissive right down to her open-toed, spiked heels.

  He didn’t yield. “My way or the highway.”

  “Oh, very well.” She fluttered her lashes, and Matt’s stomach sickened. “But after that…” she moved closer. “The heart wants what the heart wants.” She gazed at him, full-throttling her version of sex appeal. “Let me sweeten the deal.”

  As beautiful as she was, and she had always been stunning, Matt was revolted. What the hell, to be human again, he’d give her what she needed, though not necessarily what she wanted. She’d bring him those goddamn pills on her tongue by the time he was through with her.

  He managed to hold her advances to a few hot kisses in the limo. She nailed him with another hot one just outside his door, grabbing his sex and rubbing until he couldn’t help growing hard. Matt gritted his teeth. She wailed her protest when he dragged her hand away, but she was docile enough when he led her through the door and into his living room.

  “You want me, Veronique?” he taunted, and she advanced on him eagerly, kicking off her shoes and dropping the slinky dress as she went. “Okay, only just fucking is too vanilla. I’m a vampire now—thanks to you—and my tastes have become a little more…exotic.”

  “Whatever you want.” She purred.

  “Good.” His voice deepened into a Dom’s growl, and he assumed a commanding stance. “Kneel.”

  “What?”

  “Kneel. At my feet. And wait.”

  Matt pulled off his belt. It whistled through the loops. Snapping it together to make the leather crack like a whip, he walked a slow circle around her. Veronique flinched. Yeah, this will work.

  “Give me your hands,” he demanded, standing in front of her. He pulled a plastic wrist restraint from his pocket, acknowledging to himself the irony of always having one available.

  Matt was excited, almost agitated, by the power he held over her. She wanted him to sign those papers, she needed him to recant his story to the responders. Having her in such a vulnerable state pumped exultation through him like nothing before.

  Veronique nervously licked her lips. Matt felt her excitement. She hesitated for just a moment before she offered her hands up to him as if in supplication.

  “Very good,” he praised perfunctorily, and then secured her wrists together.

  Matt wanted her miserable, and realized vengeance was an emotion he’d never truly experienced before. The subs at the Gaoler thought he was a boring Dom? He’d prove them wrong tonight. Maybe it wasn’t that he didn’t want to be a Dominant, maybe he never encountered someone he genuinely wanted to submit. Now, he had the perfect candidate. He wanted Veronique to suffer as he had. He wanted to strip her of pride and hope as she had stripped him. If her flushed face and dilated eyes were any indication, she was ripe for humiliation. He continued snapping the belt around her like a whip, watching her cower from it.

  “Straighten up,” he commanded. “Stop flinching.”

  “Wha…what?” Her round-eyed gaze slid from fixation on the ominous belt up to him.

  “You’re avoiding the belt. I decide if the strap strikes you. You have no say in it. Stop flinching.”

  Veronique swallowed hard. “All right.”

  “Eyes down,” Matt ground out, “on the floor, and the proper response is, yes, sir.”

  Veronique shook with desire. “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s better.”

  He stalled, dragging out long moments without another word, making her anticipate and wonder. He studied her, walking around and around her in maddeningly slow circles. Desperation and lust poured off her like radiation from a nuclear meltdown.

  Veronique was unacquainted with “no” and “abide.” She’d lived in a world of “yes” and “now.” When an answer was anything less than she desired, she forced the required response on hundreds, maybe thousands of unwitting mortals, just as she’d forced it on Matt. Well, now, she needed something—release from a jail sentence—and she’d be required to work for it.

  “Are you wet for me, Ronnie?” Matt taunted in a voice as sultry and seductive as a rock star singing a ballad.

  She moaned low. “Yes, sir.”

  “Yes, I thought as much.”

  Her moans grew louder.

  “And your nipples,” Matt continued, “are they hard for me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Pinch them.” She did. “Hard.” S
he increased the pressure. “Harder.” She whimpered at the erotic pain.

  “I said hard,” he ordered harshly, and she squealed at the self-inflicted pain she delivered in an effort to please him.

  Matt glowered at her, tsking as if she were unworthy. “Hmm. I need something…more…” he complained fractiously, frowning displeasure.

  Veronique groaned. “Matt…”

  “How about your clit? Is that little nub throbbing for me? Do you want me to rub it? Get you off?”

  “Yes!” Her eagerness was sickening to Matt. “Please! Please, Matt! Make me come!” she pleaded, her entreaty ending on a keening note.

  Matt watched her dispassionately. “No,” he pronounced slowly and shook his head. He sliced his gaze down at her, displeased. “You know what? I’m just not feelin’ it…”

  “What? Why not?”

  “I don’t know.” He pretended to consider. He opened his eyes wide as if he’d had an epiphany. “Maybe if you were…better somehow…you could make me want you.”

  Veronique’s eyes grew wild. She squirmed with rage. “Better! What do you mean, better? You bastard!

  “Ah, ah,” he warned, a dangerous stare quelling her. “You don’t want to challenge me, Ronnie. It will not get you fucked. It also won’t provide you a get-out-of-jail-free card. Ask me nicely and I might sign your agreement.”

  “Fuck you!”

  Matt whipped his hand out and dove into her long hair, gathering it tightly at the nape and tilting her head back in a posture that had to hurt. “Really?” He growled, watching her shudder with pleasure at his touch. “That’s the best you can do? It’s not very nice.” He kneeled to confront her nose to nose. “Your freedom is entirely conditional on the Humanité. That’s your only chance, Ronnie.” He released her hair as if it burned his fingers. “Forget the sex. You’ll never make me hot. Bring me the drug, that’s all I want. Then, if it works, I’ll sign.”

  “My God, Matt!” she screamed in frustration. “What are you doing to me?”

  “Get up,” he ordered, and after tearing off her wrist restraint, he threw the dress her way. “Put your clothes on, sit down and wait for me. I need a shower.” He strode away without another word.

  * * * *

  Matt glanced at the clock as he left the bathroom and noticed it was twelve thirty in the morning, almost four hours exactly since he took the Humanité sample. He felt himself growing colder, his heart slowing, his vampire senses returning. There was no doubt about it. The party drug worked, at least for now. Who knew about long term? He knew this, though. If Veronique failed to live up to her end of the bargain, he’d more than stake her. He’d cut her fucking head off and watch her die.

  He walked into the living room, wearing jeans and a forced smile. Veronique, dressed in her fuck-me dress and heels, sat composed, hands clasped in her lap, eyes down as he entered, looking no worse for wear. Her desires were carefully hidden again, for the moment.

  “Are you convinced of Humanité’s effectiveness?” she asked pleasantly.

  “Yeah,” he agreed just as pleasantly. “I want the drug sent over tomorrow. Does that give you enough time?”

  She smiled and nodded slowly. “Tomorrow will be fine. I’ll need you to sign the document after it arrives.”

  “I’ll have it checked out, make sure it’s actually the right drug, and then I’ll be happy to sign and send you on your way for good.”

  “All will be as agreed. My attorney will present your new statement to the court, and by tomorrow night, we’ll both have exactly what we want. Well, almost. Are you sure I can’t persuade you to remain a vampire? We have great chemistry together, you know. We could be a power couple.”

  He studied her somberly. “Veronique, there are a number of vamp psychiatrists. You really should look into treatment.” He opened the door to usher her out. “I’ll expect your delivery tomorrow afternoon. If it doesn’t arrive, expect to feel the wrath of the entire Vampire Nation on your ass by tomorrow night.”

  “It won’t be a problem, lover. Until tomorrow.”

  She kissed his cheek before stepping into the hallway, jerking back slightly when he shut the door in her face.

  * * * *

  Cat leaned against the door, stunned to see the ravishing fire-and-ice brunette emerge from Matt’s apartment. She thought she had dreamed the cries and moans, reliving the terror in the bank, or maybe from her childhood. No, she realized, they were real, and not cries of terror or pain, but rather cries of passion. How could she ever compete with a woman like that? No wonder Matt wanted to keep things platonic. Next to that exquisite, sophisticated beauty, she felt like a convent-sheltered hayseed. Well, she was headed for Brooklyn tomorrow, and probably out of Matt Brenner’s life for good. He was just a guy, a unique guy, who’d been very kind to her once, and that was how it would have to stay.

  * * * *

  Veronique half-bribed/half-thralled the guard at the Park Central Building to let her onto the roof long past closing time. In 1922 this was the tallest building in LA, and a place she often visited to get her thoughts together. She needed clarity now.

  Looking toward his condo building on Wilshire, Veronique considered the problem of Matt Brenner. She wanted him, now more than ever. He’d become a formidable Dom in the years since they’d last met. Even then, she’d recognized his alpha qualities, but now, she shivered. He’d come into his own. Why did he continue to fight his vampire nature? He should be past all that by now. Why did he long to become human again?

  Humanité didn’t serve her where Matt was concerned. If he were human again, he’d be useless in her plan to reunite them. She would have to do something about that. She would consult with her sire. Hadn’t Papa said for decades that it was time she settled down, took a mate and became part of the family business? She knew just the vamp to fill the bill. She had eventually topped every Dom who had set out to tame her. Maybe Matt would be the one who finally mastered her for good.

  Chapter 8

  Between the nightmares and disappointment warring for her attention, Cat tossed and turned the rest of the night until the alarm went off at seven. She couldn’t get the picture of the gorgeous woman she saw exiting Matt’s apartment out of her mind, nor banish the cries from her ears. What must that be like to have such an irresistible, powerful man make love to you?

  She, on the other hand, was hopeless. What in the world was she thinking, anyway? She was going to have an affair with a vampire? Really? What, he was going to switch to some magical vegan blood, join hands with humanity and sing Kumbaya? They’d move to the suburbs and she’d be Mrs. True-Crime Writer while he ran a bar in the neighborhood? This wasn’t some fantasy. In real life, she paused for a moment, considering in her world real life contained the word vampire in a serious way. In real life, sweet little convent-raised virgins did not attract that kind of man, vampire or not. Maybe the sisters were right, and she should have given herself to God. It was a cinch no red-blooded (or cold-blooded) guy would have her.

  On limbs made heavy by lack of sleep and paralyzing inferiority, she climbed out of bed and then into the shower. I’ll dress sensibly, pack, sign the police statement and be gone. She and Matt would never have to deal with one another again.

  * * * *

  Matt actually had to bring an alarm clock into the mausoleum to be sure he awakened on time. He couldn’t imagine being more hopeful, or looking forward to the day with more glee. He’d grab a quick shower, and then get himself and Cat down to the police station. With any luck, her stay in Brooklyn would be briefer than she ever imagined.

  Slow down, buddy. Make sure this drug works consistently. You know how undependable Veronique is. As soon as he got his hands on the stuff, he’d have it down to the lab for analysis. If it was possible to make this formula permanent, or at least something chronic, but manageable, they’d begin work on it immediately. God, he’d spend everything he owned or could borrow to make it happen.

  And then? If he could make hims
elf reasonably human, then what? He’d seek out Cat. He didn’t have a whole plan, but he knew that for damn sure. He’d seek her out and make her his. You must be crazy! He grinned dementedly at himself in the mirror as he toweled dry. He barely knew the woman, but somehow, right down to the marrow of his bones, he knew she was the one for him.

  And if, in the end, the Humanité didn’t work? What then? That was why he had to be cautious. He couldn’t let Cat know his true feelings, not until he’d had… a month? Yeah, a good solid month of humanity and some indications from the scientists this was going to be a permanent solution.

  Until then, well, there was a visit to Brooklyn for Cat, and maybe a nice exchange semester at New York University. No, no, Columbia! Yeah, Columbia University was the place for her. An all-expenses-paid final semester at Columbia in their advanced writing program. She’d be in heaven, and safely sequestered away while he straightened out his mess of a life.

  * * * *

  Matt was perplexed by Cat’s cool reception at the door. She was usually happy to see him, not today. She stood with her bags packed on the doorstep, arms protectively crossed over her chest, barely making eye contact. Any attempt at conversation netted him monosyllables in reply. Shit! What’s going on? Was she merely drained by yesterday’s events? His gut told him there was something more.

  As they took the elevator to the garage, Cat let him have it. “You must have had a late night.” Her gaze raked him. “I saw your friend leave.” Matt shut his eyes and groaned inwardly. “Of course, that was after her cries woke me up. I thought I was having a flashback. Who knew it was just…” She searched for the word, and when she found it, acid dripped from it. “Romance.”