Cantrips: Volume #2: Minor Magics Crafted to Amuse and Entertain

by Joey W. Hill

  He pivoted and began to walk, aware of the two of them falling in behind him. They were probably casually ambling, Kane’s arm slung around Farida’s shoulders, hers around his waist. They looked like a young, extraordinarily beautiful couple shopping at the mall. While it appeared like they were aimlessly wandering, John could feel Kane’s gaze on his back like a laser target.

  He took them to a narrow hallway with no restrooms or other public facilities on it, just a passage leading to the mall offices that were closed this time of night. A maintenance closet was nestled back in an alcove about ten feet long, shadowed and removed from view.

  Fine. He’d give Kane a drink. Farida, too, if she wanted or needed one. That would restore equilibrium. John stepped into the shadows, leaned against the wall and waited, not sure why his heart was pounding or his palms were damp. Farida slipped in ahead of Kane, giving John an unfathomable look, one that made her look far more exotic and mysterious. Then Kane was there and it was like the contrast between a dainty, sleek cougar and a saber tooth tiger. Putting his hands on the collar of John’s sweater, he curled his fingers into it, his knuckles against John’s collar bone as he leaned in. John tilted his head away, exposing the vein. He was hard and getting harder, and when Kane pressed his thigh against him, he bit back a groan.

  “I didn’t say I wanted a vein first, human.”

  John snapped startled eyes to Kane, saw the crimson licks of flame there. Kane grasped his jaw in a powerful hand and took his mouth, cupping the back of his head as he delved in, kissed John with heat, pinning his body against the wall, his arousal grinding against his own. Kane was an impressive thickness and length, almost driving thought from John’s head.

  Kane, fuck, what are you…

  It was hot, overwhelming, and then Kane broke the kiss, cruised down John’s throat. John drew a shaky breath. Okay, now on with the feeding. Sure, just a little different approach from the usual… John had thought about Kane’s mouth on him, but to have it suddenly happening and all too real was unexpected. Unbalancing.

  Slipping in under Kane’s arm, Farida wedged herself into the space Kane left when he shifted. Now they were both pressed against him, her breasts rubbing against John’s chest. Her slim hands slipped under John’s shirt as they had Kane’s, her palms likely still warm from Kane’s flesh. Her mouth was on the other side of his neck, nibbling, tiny kisses. Then Kane gripped one of John’s wrists, pulled it out to the side, holding it fast. Farida did the same to the other, the two of them pinning him, holding him helpless. She was feeding off Kane’s mastery, John could sense it, and the two of them were pulling him under, a sensual assault where it was like he was drowning and never wanted to breathe.

  Kane bit into his throat, and Farida went for his wrist. Kane’s larger fangs were a deeper invasion, but the contrast of male conqueror versus female seduction was overwhelming. John’s cock was iron against his jeans and, when Kane’s hand covered it, started to rub, and Farida straddled John’s thigh, he couldn’t control himself.

  Don’t. Not here. Christ, Kane…

  Pulling his touch back a second before it would have been over, Kane met John’s gaze. “You don’t tell me when I need blood, John.”

  John blinked. Swallowed. “Yeah. Got it.”

  Leaning down then, Kane kissed Farida with John’s blood on his mouth. She put her fingers between them, stroking Kane’s lips. When they drew back from one another, she licked her fingertips with feminine delicacy. Then she lifted on her toes and touched her mouth to John’s, let him taste himself.

  Her mouth was sweet, the tips of her fangs a prick against his lips, and he inhaled her scent, falling forever under her spell. No wonder Kane couldn’t resist her. John didn’t think anyone could, as much as he knew he and Kane would do anything to keep her safe.

  Kane drew her back then, breaking the embrace. As John watched, Kane took the decorative scarf she’d draped over her T-shirt up around her throat, a double loop he tightened in both hands as he leaned against John, pressing the point of his shoulder into one side of his chest while Farida leaned against the other. John watched her lips part, the tilt of her chin, how Kane used that restrictive hold to bring her up to his mouth for another brief kiss before he loosened it.

  Then he blinked, startled as Kane took it off of her and covered John’s eyes with it, tying it behind his head. He spoke in John’s ear, a sensual rasp. “You know I’m very particular about who looks at her, John. Usually it doesn’t bother me if it’s you, but I’m feeling particularly possessive.”

  Pulling John’s arms up behind him, Kane boxed them and bound his wrists with the excess from the scarf. “Now she can do whatever she likes to you, and I don’t have to break all your fingers for having them on her. A win-win.”

  Kane had definitely never moved into this territory before, but hell, being around vampires and their propensity for bondage games, it wasn’t a total surprise. What was a surprise was the leap in his own arousal as Kane increased the sense of restraint by closing his hand over John’s overlapped forearms and bit his neck again. He pressed against the vampire’s hold, more aware of his second mark strength than he’d ever been. Kane gave a half chuckle and responded by shoving John harder against the wall, increasing that grip on his arms and increasing the penetration of the bite. John fought not to spew inside his pants like a kid, but he was fast losing the battle.

  Especially since Farida had her lips on his neck, her thigh wrapped around his hip, rubbing her core against him. “I want one of his hands, Kane.”

  The vampire obliged her, freeing one from the scarf, and she captured it, bringing it back down and then between her thighs. The denim was thin, barely thick enough to be considered leggings. He could feel the satiny give of her panties beneath as she rubbed his fingertips over herself. Her breath came out in a short gasp that tightened his balls.

  Bring her to climax, John, Kane ordered. Satisfy her.

  He didn’t have to do much of anything, the two of them pretty much in control of all of it, but he mustered enough brain cells to massage her, learning the shape of her beneath her clothes, sensing the damp heat there, for him and Kane. Or just for Kane. He was the intermediary.

  No. She’s wanted you to touch her too. It’s both of us, John.

  Yes and no. He knew how it was with vampires and servants. In Farida’s mind, whether or not it was true, she saw John as Kane’s servant, an extension of him. The obvious inevitability of his fate sent a shot of despair through him. He couldn’t resist it, or them.

  Her breath was on his neck as she drew closer. “You were wrong,” she murmured in his other ear. “Sex isn’t like breathing for us. It’s like blood. It’s drawing in life, and everything about it. It nourishes us, body, heart and soul.”

  The climax took her then, an orgasm much like Farida herself. Soft and feminine, overwhelming and intense. She caressed John’s cock, which was as hard as what Kane had pressed against him. He wanted to come, Christ he did, but in some ways this stasis was even more pleasurably excruciating. It didn’t matter, anyway. They were in control of all of it.

  * * *

  “Fuck this.” Kane slid his hand around Farida’s waist and clamped his other hand over John’s nape. “I want you both. Now. Let’s go home and whatever the hell happens tomorrow happens.”

  At least he’d have this done and over with, this confusion of want and need. He didn’t think there was such a thing as erectile dysfunction for vampires, but he wasn’t going to wait to see if the general impotence he was feeling in all other aspects of his life would infect his dick as well.

  He saw that flash of shadows in John’s eyes, but knew his second mark wouldn’t deny him. John wouldn’t ever deny him. The thought came with a hard twist of guilt, but before he could silence it with an inward snarl, something far more critical interrupted him.

  His head snapped up and he pivoted, releasing his hold. In the time he’d assumed a protective stance before them, Farida had detected t
he same threat and moved shoulder to shoulder with him. When he opened his mouth to demand that she step back, she set her chin, her eyes shooting sparks that said she’d protect him just as readily as he would do the same for her and John.

  He’d opened his mind to John automatically, so John already knew what they were facing. The human male vibrated with the desire to step into line with the two of them, like they were the Three Musketeers, but his second mark suppressed the urge. Unlike Kane, John always thought through his emotions before acting. From a lifetime in Lady Lyssa’s household, the young man knew there was nothing a servant could do to endanger and undermine his vampire master worse than trying to appear as his equal. Especially in front of another vampire.

  “What a delightful surprise.”

  The vampire’s voice was faintly accented, but Kane couldn’t place his origins. From the scent that had preceded him, Kane already knew he wasn’t someone familiar. As the vampire came into view, Kane saw the male was wiry, knotted, giving the appearance of salted rope, unbreakable. He wore jeans and T-shirt, not much different from many of the other twenty-somethings in the mall, but Kane guessed he’d stuck to the shadows, because humans would have instinctively shied from him, or turned around and stared, as if he was a homeless person who’d wandered in. There was something off about him, different from other vampires he’d met.

  A feral quality. Kane inhaled again and noticed his scent was wild like forest, pure nature, untouched by the world of humans. Kane had been around the Fae, and they could be like that, but this vampire was no Fae.

  Could he be a Trad? One of those vampires who eschewed Vampire Council, human servants and the comforts of industrial society, living on the fringes of human and vampire existence? He’d never met one, but in the tales he had heard, they were always far more unkempt and unpleasantly pungent than this.

  This male seemed clean, and his dark brown hair was in a smooth, thick braid to his waist. His face was unrelenting stone, his flat eyes chilling Kane. Then they sent his blood boiling, because they turned quite deliberately toward Farida, and coursed over her with obvious, covetous intent.

  Kane shifted to block his view, bumping Farida back behind him with his shoulder. He’d usually act toward her with a sense of fairness, but not in a situation like this. He curled his lip back in a warning growl at the vampire. The male leveled that dead gaze back on him, and his lip peeled back as well, only in a smile as real as plastic flowers stuck into the mound of a fresh grave.

  “A lovely girl-child. With the lineage of a born vampire, and a born vampire herself. Quite a prize. All alone.”

  “Not alone.” Kane held his position, thankful that Farida didn’t fight him on this, though her breath skittered along the outside of his arm, her fingers brushing his back, then curling into his shirt. She was scared. Fuck, so was he, but feeling her fear stomped his into dust, replacing it with other, far more aggressive feelings.

  Kane, John warned. He’s trying to—

  “It takes so little to push a young vampire to mindless bloodlust. You can actually see it start to boil up, like blood out of a fresh kill. I like young males. It’s a pleasure to see the savagery you should embrace as your birthright still so blatant in you. Unlike your older counterparts, who neuter themselves with the illusion of impulse control.”

  He cocked his head, studying Kane. “You’re old enough to have taken an annual kill, youngling. You know what it’s really supposed to be like. Not feeding yourself from nice, tidy little servants like this one.” He nodded toward John. “We could kill him together and, while part of you would be horrified, another part of you would revel in it. Finally off the leash, the yoke forever gone. We could paint this pretty girl child in his blood, take her together, and she would let her own bloodlust take over. You would see me as no threat then, but as destiny.”

  Curling his lip back, he showed fully elongated fangs. Farida’s hand spasmed on Kane’s shirt as his own curled into fists. The Trad’s attention never left Kane, measuring, waiting. Knowing. A smile played on his lips. He knew all he had to do was shift that avaricious gaze back to Farida, who was standing too far outside the shield of Kane’s body…

  His response to Earl hadn’t been even close to this. John reached into him, lent him the energy he could, and Kane took it, no room for pride or argument. Christ, he wished John was his third mark, to give him even more stability. As it was, John’s cool rational mind in his own, as well as his own logic, distant though it was behind that rising, roaring wall, told him the Trad could play him too easily. The only thing in their favor was the Trad’s desire to toy with them.

  I can control this. I can.

  No, he couldn’t. He needed to reach out to his mother, call for help.

  Every ounce of pride rejected the idea, but Kane yanked his pride out of the way with the same violent force he’d pull out one of his own teeth with a pair of pliers. Fast, to get the agony of it out of the way.

  My lady, I have a problem.

  He felt her presence in his mind instantly, and didn’t waste any time, showing her the situation. Her flood of annoyance—not at him—brought a surge of relief. It was what he expected of his mother when she had things well in hand. Though she might be covering her real feelings to help steady him, he’d take the mummery, because it infused his bloodlust with a shot of calm, temporary though it might be.

  Help is on its way. Do not leave that spot, no matter what threat he issues. Do not let Farida leave your side. Hold onto her. Both of you.

  Reaching back, he caught one of Farida’s wrists as John closed ranks behind him and grasped her other one, both of them shielded by him. Yeah, he might lose control, but he would channel the bloodlust, use it to fight this bastard back with whatever he could. Like the sharp wit he’d inherited from his mother. No. On second thought, he’d channel his uncle.

  “Kind of surprised you Trads are after some of us civilized vampires.” He eyed the other male. “What? You need someone to teach you how to brush your teeth? Wipe your ass with something other than poison ivy leaves? Is that why you’re skulking around a mall rather than coming out in the open where the Council can catch you?”

  Kane was gratified to see a flash of surprise from the Trad before it was quickly masked. I can think past my rage, asshole. Maybe not for long. Just long enough.

  Farida jumped in then, her expression cool. “Maybe instead of talking about blood and death like a cheesy horror movie, you could go get a frozen yogurt and chill out. Leave us the hell alone.”

  “Or what?” The vampire looked around himself, emphasizing the seclusion of their surroundings. “What would you do, cry rape? Attract police attention? Would you like to see what would happen if they tried to put cuffs on me? Or him?” The Trad nodded to Kane. “He would slaughter as many as I did. You don’t restrain a young vampire, unless you know what you’re doing. And the police won’t.” The vampire’s eyes were mocking. “But I would. I could take him to the floor and stake him in an instant.”

  “Lady Lyssa’s son?” Tossing her hair back, Farida leveled a contemptuous gaze on him. Suddenly she was every inch the aristocrat her father was. Kane could still feel her fear, held below the surface, but her amber eyes were filled with fire, her chin up as she didn’t flinch from the vampire’s gaze. While a part of him wanted to admonish her to stay quiet, not attract attention, another part of him was fiercely proud of her. She wouldn’t cower. Not in this lifetime. “There’d be nowhere in our world you could hide,” she added firmly.

  “Your world, perhaps not. But we Trads inhabit a wholly different world from you ‘civilized’ vampire folk.” His dark gaze glittered again. “We need females with pureblood breeding potential to increase our ranks. We will take you into shadows so deep, little girl, you will never be found. And if your parents ever catch up to you, by the time you’re found, you will no longer embrace these ways.” His attention shifted to Kane, pinned him. “She will carry my scent, not yours. I will make sure o
f it. Personally. Every night.”

  Kane, steady, steady.

  John’s thought was almost a shout in his mind. Kane felt his other hand latch into his shirt next to Farida’s, forming a triangle of contact between them.

  Though they were both behind him, he knew every detail of Farida’s face without looking at it. Her scent was in his nose, her touch upon him. And John. He knew the sculpted lines of John’s graceful body, the exceptional intellect, the smooth way he had of talking, the troubled look in his eyes as he fought with himself over where he and Kane were now. They were two friends at a cross roads. Yet he wanted him to have time to figure out things, both of them to figure out things. He wanted to go home with them tonight, be with both of them.

  Yet ironically, the same thing that could steady him was starting to turn against him, because he couldn’t stop himself from imagining this Trad harming either one of them.

  “Yes. It’s starting to boil up in you even now, isn’t it?” The Trad’s expression became colder. “It makes it so easy for a vampire my age to overpower you. Like taking candy from a baby.”

  “You never had to take candy from him as a baby,” John muttered.

  John, shut up. He thought if he drew the vampire’s wrath, he might give Kane an opening. It might, but Kane didn’t want him risking himself like that. “‘We need females’?” Kane gritted, bringing the Trad’s attention back to him. “What is that? Delusions of grandeur, the royal ‘we’ shit?”

  “No.” The Trad was done waiting. Kane could see him gathering himself, measuring the distance to Farida, and Kane tensed, getting ready. “I am not alone.”

  “Neither are they.”

  The Trad let out a startled half snarl and pivoted. In his frustrated expression, Kane saw a flash of the same violence that had been boiling up inside of him. That part the Trad had praised, even as he threatened to use it against Kane.

  He wanted to leap forward onto the Trad’s back, take advantage of the moment. Control was a thin thread, but the conflict had moved to a different playing field and he knew his best move was remaining motionless, fighting to maintain control. You never attack when you are not in control of yourself. His mother and Daegan had both taught him that. They’d hammered such lessons into him to the point he’d wondered a couple times if the two of them had thought he was mentally defective. But that repetition helped him hold his ground now, focus on finding that balance as the Trad faced the newest arrival.