by Jaide Fox
A sharpness dragged against the inside of one thigh, up to the crease of her leg. Slowly it moved, pressure increasing until pain and pleasure exploded as he sank his fangs into her thigh.
She gasped at the ecstasy, to have him inside her, sucking her life’s essence for his own. She wanted more of him, to feel him deeper. She wanted to feel him inside the tight core of her femininity. He sensed her weakness, exploited it, moving his tongue against her to increase the languorous flow. It was wrong to want this so much, to crave his feeding. Her clit begged attention, aching at his neglect. She wanted to resist him, but she couldn’t move her body. Only over her eyes had she any power. She wanted to see him nestled between her thighs—needed to with a sudden desperation. She opened her lids to look upon her lover, her murderer.
There was no one above her. She was alone.
A sense of ease drenched her. It had only been a nightmare. Cerise mentally collapsed in relief, sighing as she closed her eyes against the proof that she was half insane. Never had a dream been so vivid. She could almost feel the heat of his touch on her skin, smell the scent of blood. Her nipples ached as though bitten, and her womb cramped with unfulfilled longing. Moreover, her entire body ached. It hurt even to think too hard.
Cerise’s eyes popped open as that realization and another dawned in the sluggish workings of her exhausted brain.
She had no canopy above her bed.
Cerise swallowed past a sudden lump in her throat, easing the covers up to her nose as if they’d protected her from devils unseen. Eyes slanted, almost closed, she peered around from her supine position, hoping the slight movements wouldn’t betray her.
Gauzy drapery surrounded her like a tent, barely checking the wash of candle light in the room.
This wasn’t her bed.
The simple, juvenile thought echoed in haunting resonance through her soul. She’d been captured by … by that … beast.
Was he in here? Had he just left her, or did he watch her even now, gauging her reactions and enjoying her terror. Strangely, she didn’t feel nearly as frightened as she should have, which only lent credence to the fact that he possessed some power over the mind. She should’ve been frightened silly, but the fact that she still lived meant he had some use for her, though what, she couldn’t imagine. Nefarious, most likely. As long as she was valuable in some way, she had hope of hanging to life. Of course, that might also mean he had no intention of allowing her to leave. The thought made her shudder.
Her peripheral vision was cut off by layers of pillows closed in on her flanks. Toward her feet through the mist of drapes, she could make out a dark, arched window beside which sat an upholstered chair, turned to face the bed rather than the window. She wondered if he’d sat there and watched her sleep, gloating over her vulnerability. She could think of no other motive for a centuries old being to possess other than wanting morbid amusements. She refused to think of the way he had looked at her in the wood, that glint in his eyes, the way he’d caused her bodice to be torn.
She frowned, giving the chair a thunderous look.
To see anything else, she’d have to sit up … and possibly alert anyone—him—that she was awake. She decided it was worth the risk and struggled up onto her elbows.
The room was empty. Candles glowed from ornate sconces resembling climbing rose vines clinging to the wood paneled walls. A candelabra sat on the bedside table, as if it had just been set down. On the far wall near the window, a tall mirror embraced the corner, reflecting the glowing light with mellow softness. To its right was a wash stand with a basin set in the rich wood and a pitcher beside it.
There was no doubt in her mind where she was and who had taken her. She startled mentally as a thought struck—had the dream merely been that, a nightmare and not real? Or had he actually done those … things to her. More disturbing than that, had she responded to him as she had in the dream?
Cerise gasped in horror even thinking about it. Her father would tan her hide if he knew. Moreover, how could she face a … man … who had such intimate knowledge of her? Cerise felt a blush creep up to her hairline. She wasn’t entirely certain, even if he had not touched her, that she could look him in the eye and not remember the dream. Why would she even dream such a thing if not inspired by actual events?
She was sore all over, from her hairline to her toes. There was no way of knowing if something had happened unless she examined herself for bite marks.
Cerise caught the curtains and flung them aside, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. A pained groan escaped her as her poor, abused muscles were put into action once more. She felt like hunting him down and hammering a stake through his heart just for chasing her into exhaustion, never mind him feeding off her.
Cerise dropped down to the floor and swayed on weak knees. Exertion never affected her thus before. The weakness worried her. How much blood had he taken to leave her this way? It couldn’t all be resultant from the running. She hated to think she was so out of sorts that she lacked any stamina.
A door stood a short distance from her bed, directly to its right. She straightened and staggered toward it, leaning heavily against the wood as she tried the knob. It was locked, of course. A pity he wasn’t more trusting of her incapacitation.
Grunting with frustration and giving the knob a final try, she turned and stumbled to the wash stand. She poured out some water and splashed her face, feeling a little more alert. It was still hot, a rare luxury indeed. He couldn’t have left her long ago, which likely meant he wouldn’t be returning for a while. That would leave her enough time to prepare some sort of ambush. But first she had to make sure she wasn’t compromised.
Cerise faced the full length mirror and gaped at herself. That blackguard had removed her clothing! Of all the—! No doubt it had been drenched by her own blood. Then again, her gown was irreparably torn from briars. Her hair was a mess too, though not as bad as she’d supposed. He’d taken a comb to it, for there were no leaves or sticks in her hair, and she distinctly remembered picking some up along the way.
The thought of a vampire lord doing something so mundane as brushing her hair while she slept did odd little things to her belly, invoking unpleasant memories of his hands touching her neck, her jaw, her breasts. Cerise pushed the annoyance to the back of her mind. He’d probably been stuck by a bramble and removed them only for his own comfort. She was certain he’d enjoyed seeing her displayed naked and vulnerable before him.
That villain.
Anger was better. It would keep her alive. She had to focus so she’d have some chance of fighting him.
The gown, she saw when she finally looked, fastened in the front, and she quickly shrugged out of it. She was surprised to find her own undergarments beneath. He still had no honor, but it made her feel a little better to know he hadn’t seen her without them.
Unless, he’d taken them off and put them on again.
Cerise felt a glimmer of panic. She stood closer to the mirror, lifting the heavy mass of her hair from her neck as she examined her skin. There was nothing but a few mild scratches. She rubbed the back of her neck, but the results were the same.
In the dream, he’d touched her all over.
She sucked in a deep breath and unfastened her corset with effort, dropping it to the floor along with her shift. Her skin itched from its confinement, and she absently scratched herself as she searched. She rubbed her hands over her breasts and belly, checking her sides for the slightest wound. She saw nothing.
He’d gone down there though.
She shuddered, feeling his hot breath between her thighs all over again. It had seemed so real…. Cerise looked at herself in the mirror, swallowing hard. Surely to god he wouldn’t have done anything there. She flushed pink all over just thinking about it. She had no choice but to proceed.
Slowly, she peeled her garters and stockings off, checking her legs, finding nothing. Which left one place….
Steeling her nerves for horror, Cerise widened h
er stance, but it wasn’t enough, and she was certain she looked wholly ridiculous in the position. Face aflame with embarrassment, she propped one foot on the wash stand. It put her too far from the mirror to really get a good look, however.
Cerise blew out a frustrated breath, planted a hand on each inner thigh, and bent over. She couldn’t … quite … see. Just a little more. Cerise tipped her bottom higher, pressing her hands to spread her lips, carefully maintaining her balance.
Two black booted feet came into her line of sight, one propped against the baseboard in a casual stance
Cerise screamed and straightened from her precarious position, covering her privates futilely as she whirled around to see if her mind had split and was playing tricks on her.
It was him!
Wearing snug breeches and a billowing black silk shirt that hung open far down his chest, he looked the epitome of the rogue. And his interest was centered wholly on her nakedness. Arms crossed over his chest, emphasizing the muscles exposed by the slit of his neckline, he arched one brow, dragging a leisurely gaze down her body. He looked as if he’d been standing at the bed for quite a while, enjoying the show.
Cerise flashed at least three shades of red, frozen in place, unable to move for fear she’d expose herself more, but more so because shock had paralyzed her muscles. Her hair covered her breasts, but it left far too much exposed to risk movement. Cerise thought she would die from mortification on the spot. That she didn’t proved the gods favored mankind over women.
* * * *
Daegon watched every emotion flit across her face. He couldn’t look away, couldn’t move. Neither fear or surprise held him rooted. His inability to move stemmed from an unwillingness to risk breaking his control by allowing himself to come near her. He skated the edge, caught between desire and need. A step closer to her, to the subtle, blossoming scent of her lingering arousal, the flame of her embarrassment, and he could slip.
Swift, searing lust had rushed his groin the moment he’d walked in and saw her stripping her stockings off in a way that suggested she teased knowingly. He knew she did not, for he’d used his power as was habit and disguised his entrance into her room. She’d had no way of knowing he watched her from behind and in the mirror, groaned internally as she’d rubbed her hands up and down her legs. The soft shake of her breasts mesmerized him. The shape of her buttocks beckoned the slip of his cock between her cheeks, beguiling formed like the halves of a heart. He burned to taste those sweet curves and bury his tongue into her from behind, to smear her cream over her lips and lick the dew from her core.
She was a fierce creature, lithe and strong, unlike any woman he’d ever known, for she did not fear him as she should, and it was not a matter of a lack of intelligence. One look into her eyes confirmed she was quick-witted—a survivor. He could not remember being so intrigued by a woman before, so mentally stimulated. Her fire amused him, and he yearned to know how brightly it would burn.
His blood swarmed thinking of diving into her heat.
When she’d finished examining her legs and bent over, tilting those pink lips up for his eyes, he thought he’d explode. Now she stood, covering herself ashamedly, her pretty nipples peeking from the glorious cascade of her red hair. The brilliant, deep red enhanced the pale luminescence of her skin, striking contrast with the delicate blue lacework of veins on her flesh. Her nipples were small, untouched by man, never suckled and plucked by a man’s ravenous mouth. His salivary glands spasmed with sharp pain as the need to taste took hold, resonated in the swift flow of blood to his cock. His breeches were too tight to contain him, and he longed to free the beast and satisfy its appetite.
Needs surfaced, restrained for longer than he could remember. A hunger lit inside him, a hunger unappeased by mortal woman. Had she that power, the power to calm the rage of his mind and bring fruit to the emptiness of his soul?
She looked at him now, unafraid, anger blooming in her cheeks and darkening her emerald eyes. He wanted that fire to burn in desire, to have her look on him not in fear or hate, but in desire. Lust burned brighter, consumed all in its path. The temptation to succumb to human carnality was great.
It took an effort not to cross the room and fling her to the floor, to free his cock and ram it inside her. Every instinct hummed with the need to take, commanded to conquer. He dug his fingers into his arms, drawing blood to the surface of his skin, bruising his own flesh as he fought to control himself. How long had he lived alone? How long had it been since he’d fed the gnawing hunger that consumed his black soul? The questions left him as frustrated as the pain in his groin.
He could not remember and knew that he must seek to appease the raging want or risk hurting her unintentionally.
With ease born from centuries of use, he covered the ravenous need with amusement. He would not give her to know how dangerous he was in this mood.
“Quite the picture you make,” he drawled, lazily perusing her as if she were a buffet of tempting morsels.
* * * *
There was a hungry intent in his eyes, shadowed with humor, but unmistakably there.
Cerise pulsed all over with heat. She bent and quickly snatched up her shift, outrage slowly replacing mortification. “How dare you come in here! Have I no privacy?”
Daegon ignored her remarks as if she had not even uttered them. “What, pray tell, were you doing? Besides so lovely exposing your pert bottom for my amusement?”
“You should know,” she said accusingly, feeling quite like there wasn’t enough fabric in the world that could keep his burning stare from searing her flesh. The shift draped in front of her legs, but she dared not lift her hands to put it on.
“I do not.”
Cerise glared at him. “I was checking for bite marks.”
A black brow arched with intrigue. “Oh? And did you find any?”
“I don’t know. That is, I was interrupted.”
His mouth quirked in a way that made her stomach tighten. “Do not stop on my behalf. Pray, continue.”
Chapter Three
Cerise gasped indignantly. “I will not!” She couldn’t believe he would suggest something so … so obscene. She couldn’t believe he would even jest about such a thing.
“Pity.” His eyes flickered with something indistinct. She saw now they were a deep blue, the color a fair man would have, not one dark as he, and certainly not red or a soulless black as she’d imagined. She’d known some fair-haired men whose hair had turned dark with age. Had he once been a child? It was hard to imagine him as a boy. And then she was angry at herself for even noticing the color of his eyes and forgetting what position she’d been put in by his actions.
“Get out of my room,” she said in a quietly demanding voice.
He made no move to comply. “Why should I?”
Because a gentleman would do so. “So that I may dress.”
One corner of his lips twitched. “This is my room.”
“Then I shall leave.” She bent and snatched her garments from the floor, watching him with half an eye. She was too angry to care if he saw anything. Hadn’t he seen it all already? And in any case, she didn’t care what he thought of her, or how he looked at her with those eyes that made her blood sizzle.
Arms full, she stopped when she came abreast of him, not missing his gaze as it raked down her one final time. Still, he hadn’t moved, hadn’t so much as straightened from his casual stance against the bed post. “You’re not going to stop me?”
He gestured toward the door with one sweeping arm. “By all means, go.”
Knowing she showed her surprise in her eyes, Cerise tossed her head haughtily and strode from the room, feigning more confidence than she held at that moment. She felt his eyes scorch her backside as she left and put an extra sway in her step for meanness. She passed through the doorway into a hall, and immediately felt the difference in the air and on the floor.
Without breaking stride, she checked her pile of clothing for her stockings and located o
ne, stopping to roll it up one leg. She picked through the pile for her other stocking, but she’d somehow managed to leave it behind, and she was not going back.
Cerise slipped the one off again and dropped her bundle to the floor as she pulled her shift over her head. She felt immediately better now that she was covered once more. Pulling the ends of her hair free from the shift, she stooped and pushed through the pile, looking for her corset.
It wasn’t there. She was certain she’d picked it up. Instead, she found the missing stocking underneath the gown.
Cerise blew out a frustrated breath and hopped on one foot at a time as she slipped her stockings up each leg. Her garters were gone too, she found, and nothing stopped the tops from rolling down to her knees. She reached beneath her shift and pushed them back up, clamping her thighs together to hold them in place.
Looking down at the floor, she was dismayed to see the gown gone and her corset in its place.
