by Scott, Talyn
Cool air reached her skin instantly, reviving her. “Blythe, you are joined with Sixten. You are his. As far as the Coven is concerned, you’re one of us now. And I can smell a Were mixed-blood from a long distance. You’re not one.”
“Then why did this Bane guy say my blood…” She pushed her fingers to her temples. “Was of consequence – he said my blood was of consequence to the werewolves.”
“We haven’t figured that part out, yet,” Qudir spoke up. “But we will. They’re evasive creatures, same as us. And it’ll take a while.”
“I can’t stay under here while you figure it out, especially if it’ll take a while. You guys obviously live indefinitely. What’s a while to you? I’ll probably be dead by then.”
“There’s a chance you can become immortal, sweet Blythe,” Maestru told her. “Still, we need time to find out.”
“We have meetings to attend,” Qudir interrupted. “And if everyone cooperates. Blythe will be above ground before she misses the sun.”
“Meetings?” Her head was pounding and intense cramps were coming.
“The Weres have requested a meeting with Blythe - one where their side is represented without everyone” – he looked pointedly at Sixten – “threatening war or bodily harm in front of her. The Alpha himself called me. He insists Blythe’s been disrespected during these particular discussions and he wants a mediator between the pack and the coven sitting in to keep things in perspective and running smoothly. He’s requested that she stay on his property where she will be treated and I quote ‘as well as his queen’.”
“Representing their side?” She raised a brow at Qudir. “The only side I’m on is mine. I’m not going to any meeting with those…did you see them? They’re freaky. I think they’re freakier than you guys and that’s saying a hell of a lot.”
“Well thanks for that,” Kash deadpanned. “Blythe, at one point, you and Sixten are going to need peace. Why not meet with the Weres face to face. We’ll insist they remain in their human façade and, of course, you’ll be under our protection the whole time.”
“Human façade,” she said sarcastically, “that’ll help. It’s not like they can’t just explode into something feral and dangerous at the snap of a finger. Oh, wait, they can.”
“And so can we,” Oycher said.
“I understand you’ve known Rock for years.”
“Yeah,” she answered Qudir, “that was a shocker.”
“Your friend, Ryan, is one of us. Were you aware?”
“What?”
“He’s a Species Breed like us.” Qudir said. “He kept it from you, as he should have.”
“Well, how hard could it be to wrap my head around that, right?” She chewed her lip. “I’m thinking I’m the only human left in southwest Florida.”
“So,” Maestru explained, “when you came back to America, your friend, Rock, kept the Weres at bay as long as he could. He has influence as head of security for their pack. As your friend, he wanted you to adjust to living at home again. You were coping with your brother’s illness and working hard. He saw the strain and asked his pack leaders to give you space for as long as they could. You see; werewolves have been more aggressive in finding and protecting mixed-blood females since the Habalines began harvesting them for their nefarious purposes. Lately, for reasons I’d rather not discuss, all their males prioritize finding and protecting all Were females and mixed-bloods. It’s become their top law. Were females are their top hunt.”
She felt herself flinch.
“Whether mated or not, they now want all mixed-bloods under the pack’s protection. Since Rock recognized you long ago and revealed you to their Beta. Bane kept you on their list – a very short list. If you are mixed-blood, and I’m betting you’re not, you are extremely rare.” He pursed his sculptured lips. “Recently, when you were under Ryan’s protection, the pack was temporarily satisfied. That is, until Sixten came back.” Maestru leaned against the desk and crossed his booted legs as he spoke. “Then all bets were off. Fair game, sweet Blythe, that’s what you are as far as they’re concerned.”
Sixten was stiff like plaster, not moving or speaking. But she hadn’t lost her nerve to find out everything. “But you’re convinced I’m not a mixed-blood.”
“I’m convinced you’re an enigma.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Yes, your beauty is a given. However, I’ve never seen someone without any power to speak of so persistently sought after.”
“Lucky me.” She stared at Maestru until he started up again.
“Sixten has chosen you.” His smile was marked with cynicism and Blythe thought it had more to do with his own life instead of Sixten’s. “He has a choice as far as his mate is concerned. He’s not predestined to a Bride as we are. His Habaline side was obviously in agreement.” At her raised brow, he said. “Meaning anyone that crosses him to get to you has a death wish. That’s why the Weres didn’t take you. They don’t want an overwrought Habaline on the loose…around their mates and younglings.”
“Take me?”
He lifted his hand in a vague gesture and went on, “But we have another issue besides the Weres. An issue from our side poised well above our heads in our Species hierarchy. Our royals – the Dynasty.”
Something was kicking in, sounding oddly familiar. That damned Oycher shifted in his seat. After she glared at him, he kept his mouth shut. Sixten remained quiet, eerily so, and she couldn’t see his chest move. Was he breathing? By his stance, she figured someone else was about to pull another rug out from underneath her, and she hadn’t yet had the chance to brush her knees off from the first few times.
“Donors are a rare class of humans who feed the Dynasty Vampyrs. All are immortals after the approximate age of twenty five.”
She made an ineloquent sound in the back of her throat but stifled her slew of protests. As if humans were cattle.
“And we have every reason to believe that you are one of them.”
Colors stirred in her vision. Rainbows on her right side, pulsating like carnival lights against a black velvet night followed by intense pain. A knife must have gone through her eye.
“She sees colors. Has pain.” Oycher was useful for once.
“Ocular migraine,” said the doctor.
Or just another rug, she thought, went right out from underneath her.
Chapter 19
“You respond incredibly to my touch, Pet.” He kissed her cheek and fed her another olive. Kalamata, she thought, salty, pungent, and potent on her palate. Blindfolded, she couldn’t see her vampire, but heard every rustle of cloth and every breath he took. Since he could mist anywhere at will, she never knew where he would be next. Or what he would do. “Open your mouth wider.”
Would it be his blood this time or more food? Ah, a small cube of cheese she couldn’t identify, but it was delicious. “No.” He tapped her clit with what felt like a conductor’s baton. “Chew slowly so I can watch your jaw work. Love the muscles there, pet, don’t stop.” He breathed raggedly in her ear, lips touching her sensitive lobe when he said, “That’s it.”
She obeyed, spreading her thighs further apart against the metal contraption she was hanging in when he tapped each knee. “You’re gorgeous clit is swollen like this small cherry.” The fruit touched her mouth, overly sweet yet tinged with bitterness. “Such full, red lips above and below,” he said, licking at her mouth and sipping the juices away. “Would you like some wine?”
A trick enticing her to speak, she knew better.
A second cherry, chilled and round, slid over her right nipple and then her left. A flick of tongue teasing her until Blythe almost whimpered, relieved she’d held it at bay. Another rubbed her nether lips, coaxing them open. “You can improve any flavor, Pet.” She heard him swallow, before he jammed his tongue inside her body, eating greedily. She bit her own until she tasted blood, and her vampire stiffened immediately.
A brush of wind swayed her hanging chair.
A fren
zied shark circling to strike, he was back in her mouth weaving his tongue with hers and sucking her wound frantically. He pulled away roughly, gasping for breath, wholly annoyed that she’d made him lose control first. “Humans think women have over one hundred erogenous zones.”
It was a warning.
“I beg to differ.” The baton trailed her mouth, lowered to her chin, ran along the front of her throat, carrying further and touching each nipple before sliding over her sternum. Down. Down. Down. Around her navel, twirling and twirling before he rubbed it between her soaked labia. “I’m here to show you there are more than a thousand.” His sinful tool suddenly skimmed her mouth, coating her lips with her essence before he took them again – a dangerous kiss emitting an unyielding promise.
She would cry out today.
And he would punish her for it.
“Say you love me, and you will have instantaneous pleasure. Anything you ask for will be yours.”
The same plea on a different day, but Blythe couldn’t say the words she only felt for one man. And she would never say them to a vampire.
Her chains rattled as her chair swung, he was moving again, thrusting thick, lubricated fingers inside, scissoring them – opening her up for his ultimate invasion. “You stay so tight here, no matter what toys we use. But I’m your toy today: flesh and blood.” A third blunt finger pushed against the other two. “Are you ready?”
She said nothing, still in control.
Until he whirled around her body in supernatural speed, touching each and every erogenous zone known to man and creature. Three times, four times, he worked every needy part of her until she clenched her eyes shut and pulsated for him. Until she was lost, she had lost. Blythe floundered, crying out repeatedly while he continued to conduct her body, his orchestra, with his wicked baton. But he wouldn’t allow her release.
He panted heavily, visibly relieved she’d lost her control and whispered, “Ah, yes, it would appear you need to be punished.”
She turned her face away.
“Say you love me.”
Blythe pulled at her restraints.
“Say you love me,” he repeated.”
“I won’t, Gianni.”
“Say you love me and I’ll refrain.”
“NO!”
“Blythe, I just want to hear it,” said a familiar voice. “Please, throw me a fucking bone. Just once, moja láska, say you love me.”
“Sixten?” She clutched the arms wrapped around her, feeling his familiar warmth. It was dark, but Blythe knew they were still underground. Not that it was damp, stinky, or moldy – far from it. She sensed the earth around her, closing in on her. She moved her legs, sliding on luxurious sheets.
I’m in a bed.
Sixten’s warm, heady body moved behind hers. “How’s your head?” Lips made their way up her naked spine. A strong hand moved across her flesh, thrumming her sensitive nerves until she arched back to capture a kiss. I’m so horny and wet. Her mouth pressed against fangs.
Large fangs.
“I still haven’t forgiven you for trying to suck me dry.” She drew away. “Are you using your evil powers on me, because I’m way too calm and horny around you?”
“Dru actually gave you potent herbals. Some helped you sleep off the migraine and the others…well, stopped your menses for the month.”
“Was it that bad?”
“Not to me.” He murmured, sliding his tongue across her hip. “Like I said earlier, you were attracting the wrong attention. We’ll figure out how to stop that soon…or I’ll just kill everything that circles you.”
“Kill everything?”
“You have my word, angel.” He was over her, skimming his lips over her eyelids, and then to her ear. “I love you.” She said nothing, so he continued. “I’d like to be myself as much as possible. I hate hiding from you. I want to use my abilities to give you pleasure.” It was a breathless plea. “Can I?”
“Since when do you ask?”
“I feel like you’ve been pushed around a lot lately, and I thought about the bullying remark you made to Oycher.” A hand under her bottom pressed her to him intimately. “So, yeah, unless it determines your safety, I’m going to try to remember to ask first. Can’t always guarantee it, though, I am what I am: entirely controlling when it comes to you.”
She had much more to say, but held her thoughts when he pushed his fingers between her thighs and made those tiny diabolical circles around her clitoris. Orgasms launched themselves from this man’s hands alone. Right now, Sixten had more patience than she did.
“Damn, you are so wet for me, and I am so hungry for you.”
“Want it in.” She demanded, “Now.”
“I was just going to use my mouth on you, angel.” Blythe shivered at the thought of his mouth working her. “Are you feeling up for more?”
She tried to move his fingers inside, wanting those little circles rolling over her g-spot, but he wouldn’t cooperate. “You have inhuman techniques you’ve never used on me.” She dug her fingers in his broad shoulders. “And since I know you’re not human…”
“Perhaps we’ll build up to those,” a tight, guttural whisper. “You’ve been frightened enough.”
“Now, Six.” She twisted a hand in his hair when his hands moved away from her slick core, pulling his face to hers, staring in the low light at his thick, dark blond lashes, his straight elegant nose, and stern shadowed jaw. “I need to escape.” Her lips touched his perfect ones. “I need you.”
“Okay, I’ll concede to one major sexpertise I’ve never used on you.” Yet he kept his hands away. “All you have to do is say you love me. And you won’t regret it.”
“I’ll say that I don’t understand why I can’t keep my hands off you. I’ll admit that I grow wet at the sound of your voice and want to drop my panties the minute you walk into the room.”
He regarded her a moment, searching for something. “Tell me what you were dreaming about,” he asked softly, but it was a command nonetheless.
“No point,” she grumbled, angry that she couldn’t get a much-needed distraction. “I can’t remember any of them when I wake up. If I do, it’s only for a few minutes and then my brain goes foggy.”
He looked as though he didn’t like the sound of that, but instead said, “Feel up to breakfast?”
She gaped. “I’m hot and horny, not hungry.” He tilted his head, listening to something she couldn’t hear. “Someone’s talking in your head,” she surmised, “and it’s not due to schizophrenia.”
“Something like that.” His heated gaze took in her nudity. “A summons.”
Suddenly she was up, dressed in jeans, sneakers, a red t-shirt, and a simple grey hoodie.
“Are those clothes warm enough?” His body faded in and out, and then was fully clothed. “Even though we’re in the tropics, it can get cold down here.” He added, “At least, for you.”
“Did we shower, too?” Blythe had her hands on her hips, shaking her head as usual. His supernatural speed could get her into a heap of trouble.
“No, didn’t have time.” He adjusted a gold watch around his wrist. “Maestru wants to meet with me.”
“Okay, but I’m not really hungry for breakfast. So, I’ll hang back.”
“Blythe, you’re not meeting with Maestru again.” He turned the knob and clasped her hand. “Come on. I can hear your stomach grumbling.”
She counted three left turns and one right before they came to another utilitarian room. Gray again with rows and rows of ancient books nestled among a lot of current science fiction.
“We’re you looking for a romance novel?”
“Oycher,” she groaned. “What an unpleasant surprise.”
“Don’t worry, Six.” Sprawled in an oversized, black leather chair with his long leg hanging over one side, he sat with a book in his lap – the picture of relaxed innocence. “I don’t think she’ll hurt me too badly.” An orange eye winked in the dim lighting. “At least, I think we’ll be
okay until you get back.”
“Oycher’s going to keep you company while you eat your breakfast.” Sixten waved a hand over at a card table filled with takeout containers of every breakfast food they could cram on it. “And I’ll be back shortly.”
“After you two went rounds last night,” she asked in disbelief, “he’s my new babysitter?”
“Fights are commonplace with vampires.” Oycher laughed, “Our spat is water over the bridge.”
“Under,” she corrected.
“I still don’t have those human adages right.” He sucked his lower lip between his teeth and went back to his book.
“If things go the way I think they are.” Sixten drew her to his chest, wrapping his heavy arms around her. “We’ll hop around both islands later, just like the old days. We’ll shop, buy you some clothes, and, maybe, pick out things to start updating the house. It’s been closed up for so long, it could use some attention.” He pecked her lips. “We’ll make it our own, again.”
“Hanging out is fine, but there’s no need to buy stuff.” She reached between them and zipped her jacket. “And you’re still assuming with the house…and, uh, living arrangements.”
He didn’t address that comment, but said, “Afterwards, hopefully, we’ll go on a real date. Delicious food, overpriced wine, candlelight, live jazz, dancing, and whatever it takes to get inside your panties later,” he whispered, though she knew Oycher could hear or read it from her thoughts. “Doesn’t that sound romantically tempting?”
“Everything with you is tempting.” She gnawed on her lip, gripping the phone in her pocket. “I haven’t heard from Tony.”
“I called him from your cell phone while you were sleeping.” He brought her palm to his lips, kissed it. “Your brother may see you tomorrow or the next day, alright?”
Oycher suddenly had a coughing fit.
“He sounded okay, Six?”
“Um, as okay as Anthony ever does,” he replied with a wobbly smile.
She glanced over at the door and back, feeling suddenly anxious. “You brought me down here after the werewolf fiasco, and your weird brother put me in his car. What’s changed so quickly enabling us to go above ground?”
