by Tricia Owens
The sex in his voice was her undoing. She dropped her head and caught his mouth with his. At the same moment, Vellum sank his fangs into her.
It was a perfect storm of desire and hunger. Mariel moaned into Clay's mouth as Vellum sucked rhythmically on her throat. The familiar, welcome lust invaded her veins like an army. She rolled her hips against the large bulge in Clay's trousers, pressing her throbbing core to it in entreaty. Clay was quick to toss her skirts up and out of the way and tug her knickers down so he could run his large, hot hands up the insides of her thighs. He slid one long finger up between her legs and lightly grazed her nether lips, causing her entire body to twist in reaction. Grinning, he slowly eased two fingers between her lips and caressed her sleek flesh. The touch made her shiver and whine in her throat. She ground down against his fingers as he teasingly stroked up and down her flesh, spreading her wetness, before sensually circling her swollen clit.
Shudders rolled through her. The need to be filled was an ache in her body. In her soul.
Behind her, Vellum moved so he straddled them both, his own cock riding the swell of Mariel's buttocks. Having his maleness against her with Clay beneath her was maddening. She could have them both. She wanted them both. Would they be willing to share her?
Taking a chance, she fumbled blindly for one of Vellum's cool hands. When she had it she pulled it around her and pushed it beneath her blouse. His fingers immediately curved around her breast. She shuddered when his fingers found her nipple and pinched it.
"V-Vellum," she gasped.
Beneath her, Clay shivered violently.
Taking that as a positive sign, she yanked open Clay's trousers and freed his cock. He growled in response and thrust his hips up, driving himself up the inside of her thigh where the tip of him slid through her wet folds.
"Take me, Clay," she pleaded. "Please."
"I love to hear you beg," he growled back. Holding himself by the base, he aimed for her core and drove himself inside her.
She cried out and sank fully down on him, legs spreading on the ground so she could swallow every stone hard inch of him. He was big, nearly too big, and the sensation of being completely possessed by him was dizzying. When Vellum's other hand come around to fondle her neglected breast, Mariel cried out again and began to rock on the cock that impaled her.
Vellum's lips continued to suck at her throat as he drank from her in long, sensuous gulps. Mariel rolled her head to the side, giving him more room to do as he liked. Evidently the alpha in Vellum loved that, for he snarled against her throat and yanked her back against his chest with the grip he had on her breasts. He thrust against her tailbone, letting her feel a cock that was every bit as rigid as the one piercing her core.
Clay's hands on her hips began to slide up. Mariel opened eyes she hadn't realized had fallen closed and watched him, wondering what he would do when he encountered Vellum's hands in the way. The solution made her moan: Clay covered the vampire's hands with his own and squeezed so that both males fondled her breasts at the same time.
Vellum hissed against her throat and raised his head. Mariel couldn't see his expression but she could see Clay's as the Marshal stared over her shoulder at the vampire.
"Seems like we're sharing territory," Clay said at last, his hips stilling. "What do you think about that, vampire?"
Vellum thrust against Mariel's buttocks. "I think we have an obligation to please."
Clay's grin was pure sex. "You're more human than you realize, Vellum."
Vellum muttered something that Mariel couldn't understand before he attacked her bare shoulders with his warm lips and hot, slithering tongue. He lapped at her collarbones, all the while squeezing her breasts with Clay to help.
Clay began to thrust up into her again, this time with an expression on his face that made Mariel weak. He drove up into her with pure power, stealing her breath, and probably trying to impress Vellum as much as her. Mariel was duly impressed. She was a keg of dynamite ready to explode.
Vellum suddenly slid his hands out from under Clay's, but only so he could glide them down her stomach to the V of her spread legs.
"Vellum," Mariel gasped as the vampire dug beneath the folds of her skirt to reach her bare skin. He ground against her buttocks, revealing his hunger, as he spread her lips apart and traced her hot, throbbing clit. He dipped his fingers farther back and Clay startled when the vampire's fingertips traced Mariel's opening where the Marshal penetrated her.
Vellum touched both of them, measuring the strength and speed of Clay's thrusts into her. The thought of the two males comparing who fucked her better was overwhelming. Mariel felt herself climbing that final peak to orgasm. Beneath her, Clay had reached his own peak. He cursed and quickly lifted her up enough that he could pull out of her. Just in time. His eyes rolled back into his head as his cock spurted with his release.
"All too human," Vellum whispered with a dark chuckle.
He released her breasts. Still behind her, he hooked his arms beneath her quivering thighs and effortlessly lifted her up far enough for him to slot his own cock against her sensitive entrance. He let her drop. Mariel's body weight forced her to be instantly impaled on the vampire's cock. The shock of the penetration tore a scream of ecstasy from her. Vellum fucked her hard, forcing her body to clench around his pumping organ. She moaned as she hit her final release. Vellum, hearing and feeling her, groaned against her ear, thrust twice more, and then stiffened as his own orgasm washed through him.
As Mariel, stunned and delirious, slumped against him while still straddling Clay, Vellum swept a finger through her intimate folds, inspiring aftershocks. He then dragged that same finger through the puddle of whiteness on Clay's belly. Both Mariel and Clay watched Vellum raise the finger. Though Mariel wasn't in a position to see it happen, she could tell by Clay's face that the vampire tasted them.
Vellum smacked his lips and purred, "Delicious."
~~~~~
After that, things changed.
It wasn't a change that centered around Mariel. She observed it happening between her two male companions. The tension in the air whenever they passed by each other or even when they exchanged words was enough to make her nervous. She knew why it was happening. Vellum had crossed a line for Clay when he had tasted the Marshal's release.
But what to do about it?
Clay looked like he was back to thinking up ways for him and Mariel to escape. While escape wasn't a bad thing, she thought it was dangerous to attempt. Vellum would be forced to capture them and worse, he'd have to change the way he handled them, treating them not as companions but as a resistant food source. Mariel didn't like imagining that scenario. Not one bit.
So she kept an eye on Clay and interrupted him when he tried to goad the vampire. If Vellum knew the motive behind Clay's change of attitude and sudden animosity, he didn't show it. If anything, he acted as though he didn't notice it at all. But Mariel knew he was aware of it. Once, she had caught him looking after the Marshal after the other male had made a point of walking a wide circle around Vellum to reach his horse. Vellum was curious for the moment, but how far would he need to be pushed to become irritated with the Marshal's behavior?
That sunrise, after Vellum closed his box lid over himself beneath Clay's baleful eye, Mariel decided to confront Clay.
"What's gotten into you?" she demanded.
The two of them sat beneath a rocky overhang that was part of a small outcropping they'd been fortunate to find in an area otherwise as flat as hotcakes. The sky was orange and rapidly brightening with a new day.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he muttered and tipped his head to rest it against the rock at their backs. He closed his eyes and rested his arms on his drawn-up knees. "You should get some sleep, Mariel."
"Don't tell me to sleep, Clay. Not while you're stirring up trouble for all three of us with your pig-headed behavior!"
That prompted him to crack open a golden eye. "Pig-headed? Now, that's mighty hars
h."
"And appropriate. Along with cowardly."
Both eyes snapped open to glare at her. "Be careful what you say, Mariel. You don't accuse a man of being a coward. Not lightly."
But she wasn't intimidated by him. "My accusation wasn't made lightly. You're afraid and lashing out at Vellum. Why? Because he touched you? He did so before, when he drank from you."
"He didn't do then what he did—" Clay broke off, a flush streaking across his cheeks. "Taking a bite out of my neck is one thing. But what he did when all three of us were together was wrong. He went too far."
"How so?"
"Because he made it intimate. Between me and him." Clay muttered the last and turned his face away, though Mariel could still see his blush deepening. "He makes me feel things I don't want to feel with that bite of his. If you're there and we're focusing on you then it's alright. More than alright. I want it. But me and him together—it can't happen."
She laid a hand on his shoulder. "I understand that this is difficult."
She watched a muscle jump in his jaw as he held back what he wanted to say. Mariel wasn't just shining him on when she'd claimed to understand his confusion and discomfort. Not only was Vellum a man, he was a vampire, a potential killer of men. How Clay was expected to reconcile that, she wasn't sure. What she was sure of was that Vellum wanted to breach the Marshal's defenses. As Vellum had told her, he found pleasure in domination. An alpha Marshal of the Empire would be the ultimate conquest.
In realizing that, she began to reassess their situation here. What if Vellum refused to back down? Clay would resist and they'd likely fight. At the very least, Clay would refuse to continue to feeding him, which would render him useless to Vellum unless the vampire fed from him by force. The situation was too volatile and unpredictable to her liking.
Too dangerous.
"Maybe you shouldn't stay," she heard herself say. When he turned and gave her a look of surprise she forced herself not to back down. "He wants things from you that you're not prepared to give him. He's told me so." She nodded when he paled. "If you're not comfortable with that, then you should go."
"Mariel, there's no chance in Hell that I'm leaving you alone with him. He's a monster."
"If I stay, he might not pursue you. He might decide that I'm enough to sustain him if he also drinks from saberwolves."
"Mariel, no! I'm not leaving you behind as some sort of diversion or sacrifice. What kind of man do you think I am?"
"If you stay," she said distinctly, "you'll have to submit to him."
His eyes widened, but only for a moment. He firmed his jaw and a steely determination filled his gaze. "My job is to protect you, Mariel. I swore an oath to do that and I won't break it no matter what is required of me."
"If that's true, and I believe it is, then you'll have to find a way to accept what he wants from you."
He didn't look away. "I'll do what I must."
"I think you're the strongest man I know," she murmured. "I don't know of any other man who would sacrifice himself this way to keep me safe."
"If Vellum's any good at being what he is, this won't be too much of a sacrifice," Clay quipped.
Mariel smiled, but she could see that the Marshal was frustrated and angry. This was new territory for him. For both of them. But she meant what she'd told him: what he was doing for her was more than she'd expect of any man, and it touched her heart.
"I won't leave you," he went on. He shifted sideways and then rose up to his knees beside her. "We're in this together, Mariel. No matter what."
She closed her eyes as his warm, rough hands cupped her cheeks. "You're a good man, Marshal Clay."
"I'm your man," he murmured.
But she thought, That might not be enough.
~~~~
Vellum arrived with sunset. He stood beside the fire they had built, his dark eyes studying Mariel and Clay as if searching for something.
"We still have wolf from yesterday," Clay said from where he squatted beside the fire, stirring the wood, "so you don't need to hunt again."
Mariel watched from the corner of her eye as Vellum walked to the Marshal's side of the fire and stopped directly beside him. He stood so close that the fabric of his duster rested against Clay's side.
"Sometimes I enjoy the hunt," Vellum murmured.
Clay tensed, but then visibly relaxed. He twisted his neck around so he could look up at the vampire. "A good hunter knows to conserve his strength. For when it's truly required." He went back to tending the fire. "It's not required right now."
Vellum looked down at him, the barest hint of surprise slackening his features. Then he turned on his heel and walked out into the night.
"See?" Clay said to Mariel without raising his eyes from the fire. "I can play along."
"Something tells me you're the type to play him," Mariel said with a grin.
He grinned back, but she wasn't fooled; this wouldn't be easy. Clay was a natural alpha. However, Vellum was the ultimate alpha.
While Vellum was away, she and Clay finished off the saberwolf from yesterday and cleared the camp.
"There's water ahead," Clay noted as he came up beside her at her horse. "I saw a depression, full of green. We might make it by morning, maybe a little earlier, if we keep to a good pace."
"Water," she breathed. All at once she could feel how much trail dust had accumulated on her limbs and in her hair. "You think there'll be enough for washing?"
"I do. And I've got my fingers crossed that you'll be in need of an extra hand or two when washing your hair," he said with a wink.
She gave him an arch look. "Among other parts of my body?"
He brushed against her as he passed her. "Never said I had any self-control when it comes to you, Mariel."
She shivered at his murmured warning. Or was it a promise? She could take it as either.
Vellum emerged from the darkness moments later, his steady gaze moving over the camp, then the two of them. "You're efficient tonight."
"There's water ahead," Clay told him. "We could make it there before sunrise if that's something that interests you."
"Of course. We could use the water." Vellum hitched up his sleeping box. "And I wouldn't mind cleaning off." He looked back at them. "I'll make my feeding quick then, so we can be on our way."
"You can feed from me," Clay spoke up before Mariel had the chance. She held her tongue, understanding that he needed to do this. It probably helped that Vellum didn't intend to play with them this time. No doubt Clay was hoping to get through this with minimal contact between him and the vampire.
"That's very generous of you, Marshal." Vellum stood stock still, only his lips curving slightly at the corners. "I admire a man who's willing to shoulder his share of the burden. Though I hope that in this case, neither of you consider what I need from you to be a burden."
"It's fine," Clay muttered, rolling his head on his neck.
"Not a burden then?" the vampire purred.
Mariel clutched her saddle as she looked to Clay.
But the whiskey-eyed man only smiled at Vellum. "We all do what we must. You should understand that, hmm, vampire? Bloodsucking wasn't your choice."
Mariel sucked in her breath. Vellum heard, his obsidian gaze moving to her before settling once again on Clay. "The loss of choice is an unfortunate thing," he agreed softly.
Did he dislike drinking from them? She had always assumed it didn't bother him, that he might actually glean a great deal of pleasure from the act since it also fed his nature's need to dominate.
He drew his duster around him, and suddenly his imposing figure was no longer as imposing. "I'll take from your wrist this time, Marshal. That will be the least invasive for you."
Clay cocked an eyebrow, clearly surprised. "Thank you."
He rolled up the sleeve of his left arm as he approached the vampire. When he was within reach he held out his bare arm.
Vellum took hold of it at wrist and elbow but instead of raising the limb
to his mouth, he contemplated it. "Men will never understand the appeal of their blood to my kind," he murmured. He brushed his thumb over the tracery of veins in Clay's wrist. "Imagine a hunger that is so keen that it feels like an obsession." He used two fingers to trace the veins up the underside of the Marshal's forearm, eliciting a shiver from Clay. "To want something doesn't mean you wish to destroy it. You can want something because it appeals to you. Because the thought of possessing it makes you feel fulfilled."
"Lots of pretty talk about sucking my blood," Clay said tightly. "Just get on with it."
"If I were speaking only of your blood, you wouldn't be so nervous," Vellum said with a flash of fang. The next moment, his dark head bent over Clay's wrist and Mariel saw the Marshal shudder.
Vellum drank relatively quickly. If Clay experienced any of the vampire's effects after the initial bite, he didn't reveal it to Mariel. When Vellum finally lifted his head, he gazed up at Clay and licked his damp lips. "Sometimes the hunger can be a leash, as well. You're not the only one who's collared, Marshal. Remember that."
He strode away and mounted up. After a moment's hesitation, Clay buttoned up his sleeve and did likewise. In silence, they began their ride across the starlit desert.
However, Mariel doubted it was a silence that would last, and she was proven right.
"So vampires do care about some of the things the rest of us do," Clay said after some time.
"We share a great deal in common, Marshal. You'd be surprise."
"So surprise me."
There was challenge in his voice, but Mariel could see Vellum hadn't taken it as antagonism.
Vellum settled his hands atop his pommel, a picture of relaxation. "There's the matter of a good steak. I can still appreciate the smell and taste of one, even if my body is no longer capable of ingesting the flesh."
"You mean all this time we should have saved some for you?" Mariel asked, feeling bad about the fact she'd never once offered him a taste of their meals.
"Not at all. As I said, I'm unable to digest bulk matter." He leaned forward slightly in his saddle so he could see her beyond Clay. "Though I would have enjoyed licking your fingers clean."
