by Willa Okati
Dante’s World 3: Tale of the Night
Willa Okati
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2006 Willa Okati
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ISBN (10) 1-59596-166-6
ISBN (13) 978-1-59596-166-2
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Editor: Katriena Knights
Cover Artist: Fabiano Fabris
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Prologue
From the minute Darien laid eyes on Aydn he wanted to fuck him. That was bad in so many ways he couldn’t begin to count them. And then, looking down on Aydn and his friends in the cellar of the vampire’s house, he realized afresh just how much trouble he was already in.
He didn’t think he could stop himself from taking what he wanted from Aydn. Not when Aydn wanted him to have it. Flaunted it at him. Tried to draw him out of hiding.
Hiding, yeah. Big men weren’t meant to fit into small spaces. And Darien was a big man -- he always had been. He’d been a guard at the shuttle ports for years. Before that, when he was still in his mid teens, he’d been a champion in the more or less illegal street fights. Each and every muscle had been earned, and he’d never lost the solid shoulders or powerful arms and legs that helped him win his prizes.
Trying his best to hide in a cramped space, he couldn’t help feeling some part of himself was peeking out. It was an uncomfortable feeling. Like he’d be seen at any minute.
He couldn’t -- no, he wouldn’t -- let that happen.
Not when what was going on down in the cellar was still going on.
He couldn’t explain why he crouched there, watching, any more than he could have figured out how Aydn had gotten under his skin in the first place. Sick fascination? Dangerously inappropriate lust? The ache in his groin argued “yes” to both questions, making his stomach twist and his head hurt.
Darien shifted uncomfortably, trying to ease the ache between his legs. He shouldn’t have been watching Aydn play his little games. But he was. And Gods help him, he couldn’t look away.
He had no clue why Aydn and his friends hadn’t figured out he was there. He might have been hidden beyond the turn of the stairs, but his breath was coming in low, shallow gasps and even he could hear his heartbeat rattle-banging in his ears like a bass drumbeat. No telling what a vampire would pick up on. His cock, already painfully stiff, made his thin-worn trousers rustle as it pushed on the lacings. Wanting out. Wanting to play.
With Aydn. But not with the others. He wanted Aydn all for himself. Damn him to the hell, where he would surely go, but Aydn probably knew it, too. It would be why Aydn had decided to do this tonight. Showing off what Darien was afraid of taking. Giving it to others and letting them enjoy.
Three beautiful vampires, thinking they were safely hidden in this cellar bedroom. Well, maybe not Aydn. He’d probably known exactly how Darien would react and was showing off for his audience.
Three naked bodies -- one male and two female -- writhed and twined together in one gorgeous knot of lust. The vampire’s swollen, red cock slid in and out of drenched pink pussies. Breasts pressed against Aydn’s chest and back as he fucked one, and the other draped herself around him, her fangs sunk deep into his shoulder. Judging by the working of her cheeks, she was sucking down mouthfuls of blood with each crimson kiss.
Each one greedily swallowed the other’s cries through kisses. Gorgeous, eternally young and hungry mouths devoured flesh and sound with crazed enthusiasm.
Two women, both lavishing love and sex and using their teeth on the vampire Darien was supposed to be guarding. Keeping safe… from -- what? He almost laughed. This vampire needed a jailer more than he did a Guardian!
Why he’d been asked to watch out for Aydn was painfully clear. Oh, hells, he was watching, all right.
A light sheen of sweat broke out on his forehead. If they didn’t finish soon Darien knew he would, without so much as a finger laid on him. All he needed to get so hot and bothered that he’d come in his pants was seeing and wanting those lustful, naked creatures of the night.
He wanted to hide his face. There was no part of this that wasn’t wrong. Lusting after vampires was forbidden. Looking on three of them together? The law had forbidden Aydn’s kind from gathering in unlicensed packs. But for all that, he couldn’t look away, dirty bastard that he was.
They had him caught.
As Darien thought those things, Aydn flashed a glance up to the stairs. He avoided one full, red kiss on his lips to take the look. Then, he arched his neck as the breathtaking brunette vampire he was fucking latched onto his throat. As she sucked, Aydn grinned at where Darien was hiding.
He knew. The damned prick knew.
He’d known from the moment Darien entered his house that this would happen.
Chapter One
Twenty-four hours before…
Darien was just finishing a shift. His muscles ached from exertion, and he wanted nothing more than a hot shower and a sexy lover to go home to. Sad to say, he’d have neither. The water in the Guardsman’s Guild was tepid at best, he couldn’t afford a boiler where he lived, and as for the lover…
Well, he hadn’t been able to afford the time and effort to keep him either, had he? Rohan had packed up and gone because Darien hadn’t spent any time with him. Darien never spent anything at all, he’d said, but Darien knew it was only because he didn’t have anything to spend. Not even time -- a few hours with the man he loved.
He shucked off his protective gear, stifling groans as stiff leather peeled away from sweaty flesh. Why had he decided to be a City Guard when it meant that much frustration and aggravation? Night after night of chasing down rogue vampires, risking being bitten, and keeping the peace in their quadrant of the city?
Oh… yes. Money, and his lack thereof. He’d been young and stupid after Morgan and Creed turned the city on its ear and a call had gone out for guards. With a new King and Queen of their ranks, the bloodsuckers were growing bold. Didn’t matter that their Highnesses only drank from animals or each other. The rest of the vampires had taken it as free license to make meals of any humans they chose.
Besides, he’d just fallen in with Rohan, and he’d needed coin -- fast. When the senior officer in charge of keeping vampire peace had chosen him to be a guardsman with the chance of studying for a transfer into a higher position, he’d jumped at the offer.
If only he’d known.
Darien had often heard mages say that loving money was at the heart of all the evils in the world. Love of money would lead you straight down into hell. Darien understood that. However, he’d lived so long as a poor man that he thought he’d rather burn than go on to Paradise.
Just then, his own hell boiled down to it being a bitch to be twenty-nine and flat broke. He was so close to either moving ahead to a higher salary, one he could actually live on, or falling into total poverty that he didn’t know which one was going to catch up to him first.
He did what he coul
d to stay ahead. He worked harder than anyone else in his shift at keeping the peace. Stayed up studying and practicing fighting techniques until almost dawn and started again after only an hour or two of sleep. Volunteered to teach classes of rookies for a minimal fee, in the hopes of catching a superior’s eye with his talent for leadership. Hunted rogue vampires and killed them, sometimes saving innocent lives.
It still wasn’t enough to earn his daily bread. So, in the little spare time he had left, he took on odd jobs. Sweeping. Polishing brass rails in a shuttle port. Anything that would get him ahead or earn him a copper or two, he did.
Maybe, on occasion, he might see the place he called his home. A small house made out of hard packed clay and mud in one of the poorest neighborhoods, with no windows. His doors were painted with symbols protecting him against vampires, and that was the only decoration.
The place was too stark and bare, and made him uncomfortable. He’d never had time to buy anything more than a bed and a blanket, not that he could have afforded anything to make the place look cozy. Home wasn’t where he went to relax -- it was where he snatched dabs of sleep. The place he paid way too much for but never got a chance to appreciate.
It hadn’t always been that way.
Once, Darien had dared to dream he and Rohan would be getting back together. Then, he’d learned better, once he’d seen Rohan with another man, laughing in a tavern, sharing a mug of hot ale. He’d known then, no matter what, Rohan wasn’t coming back.
It had been his plan to keep pushing along until someday, someone noticed him in the rank and file and said, “There’s a man who needs a promotion.” It might have been a fool’s dream, but it was the most he could have hoped for.
“Darien!” one of his fellows called as he tugged off the last of his armbands. “You’re wanted in the Captain’s office.”
A chorus of hoots and catcalls broke out. Darien winced. Oh… shit. “Did they say why?” he asked, automatically reaching for his clean uniform.
The messenger shook his head. “Nuh-uh. They just wanted you to move it, double-quick time.” He reached Darien and wrinkled his nose. “I’d wash first though. Real fast. You smell like a horse.”
“Gods, thanks,” Darien said, swiping at his comrade but aiming to miss. “I’ve been out there all night risking my life, and this is the thanks I get? Mockery. What’s the world coming to?” He swiped again, then jumped back away from a playful counter strike.
The man, a slim messenger retired from the ranks of active duty, fell back laughing when he managed to graze Darien’s skin with his blow. “You’re in for it now,” he teased. “It’s Yanof who wants you.”
More howls went up. Yanof, their single female commander. The toughest bitch ever put on the face of the world, and Darien included Morgan, the Vampire Queen, among their ranks. He sobered. “What did I do?”
The man’s own smile was fading. “I don’t know. But if I were you I’d get in there fast. Get it over with.”
Darien nodded and headed off to the showers. No one else was in there, which suited him just fine. Lathering himself down with the sickly scented squashy orange soap which reminded him of pumpkin pulp, he paused for just a moment over his cock, hanging heavy between his legs. His fingers wanted to linger and caress. One last definite joy before dying.
Except… it wouldn’t be joy. A man got tired of his own hand after a while. Plus, with the thought of Yanof hanging over his head, he didn’t think he’d even be able to get it up. He couldn’t face her cowering like a mouse though, so Darien swallowed down his fears and kept washing, gathering himself up into the stolid, stone-faced picture of a guard that the commanders liked best.
If he was going to be punished, or executed, he’d take it like a man. He wouldn’t run or plead for his life like a… a… a vampire.
He tried to comfort himself with the idea that this might be the call he’d been waiting for, even though he doubted it. Although, truly, no one ever knew why a superior called them into a private meeting. They could either be in trouble, or they were about to get very lucky.
Darien half-hoped for luck, but he didn’t count on it. Still trying desperately to think of what he might have screwed up, Darien dressed himself from head to toe in the plain khaki uniform of a City Guard and made his way past the rank and file of guards coming off and going on duty without saying a word. He kept it up all the way to the offices and managed to walk into Captain Yanof’s office with a flat, but not insolent, accept-anything expression on his face.
Just like he’d been trained.
An older woman and the daughter of a minor lord, Captain Yanof was one hell of a commanding officer. She’d won her rank decades ago and settled there. Her primary duties were assigning the beats for the guards and meting out punishment for those who broke the rules. A hard-boiled, tough-ass old bird, she took no guff from anyone and suffered absolutely no fools.
Was she upset about his lifestyle choice? Darien had never made a secret of the fact that he preferred men to women. Most accepted that. Some didn’t. He’d never known where Yanof stood on the matter. He half-wondered if one of his fellow guards had brought it to her attention, or she’d finally decided it was time to put him back on a narrow path. Oh, Gods, he hoped not.
Hardly anyone enforced the law about men lying with men. There were too many private and public folk who bent and broke it. Things were different with the City Guard. They had policies of not asking and not telling, but if he were discovered, a man could die for the offense of liking his own gender better than women.
When Darien walked into Captain Yanof’s office and saw her toying with a silver letter opener, turning it over and over again in her hands, light glinting off the sharp edge, he choked back a wave of fear. On-the-spot executions weren’t unheard of. A letter opener would be painful, but if they thought he deserved it… well, there was nothing he could do, was there?
He stood at attention while Yanof silently whetted the slim knife against the leather of her cuff. Then, not looking up at him, she said, “I hear good things about you, Guardsman.”
“Ma’am. Yes, ma’am,” he replied, standing at attention. Some officers might have ordered him to be at ease, but not Yanof. She liked her peons standing up at attention.
“Are you as skilled as people tell me you are? Are you just that damn talented and devoted?”
Darien swallowed hard. A tricky question. “I do my duty to the best of my ability, Captain,” was what he settled on.
She nodded. For a long moment, she seemed lost in the shine of her silver weapon. Finally, she said, without looking up, “Do you think you could take on a special duty? One particular assignment. I don’t want anyone but the best, but from what I hear, that would be you. Are you up to it?”
Another tough riddle. “I do my duty, Captain. I would be glad to accept any assignment you choose to give me.”
She finally looked up. “I understand the rote bullshit, Guardsman. What I want to know is this. Would you succeed?”
Darien’s muscles twitched. He managed to keep them under control. “I would never fail you if I could help it.” More scripted lines, but it was as close as he could come to promising success. Inspiration struck briefly. “A good Guard never fails his leader.” There, that was better.
“Mmm.” Yanof nodded. Finally, she put her letter opener down. Looking up at him at last, she ran her gaze over Darien’s from head to foot. Her expression was neutral, but he knew she’d have been judging him. Taking in how strong he was. Measuring him up against whatever she had in mind.
She must have been pleased, or at least satisfied with what she saw, because she nodded. “All right then, Guardsman, consider yourself temporarily promoted to Special Agent.”
Darien was barely able to stop himself from breaking into a huge grin. He kept his face blank, waiting for orders even as he mentally calculated how much more Agents were paid than Guardsmen and how he might even be able to splurge like he hadn’t done in ages and ea
t out that night. Rich hot stew and mulled ale at a tavern instead of a hasty sandwich gulped down in the Guild’s tiny Mess.
“I will follow my orders,” was all he said in the end, though. “I am at your service, Commander.”
“Orders. Yes.” Yanof took a deep breath. “This job will last for three days. I need you to watch over a ‘tame’ vampire in a private home.”
Darien wasn’t able to stop his eyes from widening. A tame vampire? One who had not been herded into their shady corner of the town or proved themselves worthy of being licensed to operate a business? One with a label that proved he hadn’t hunted humans for at least ten years? He’d heard of such creatures, but he’d almost believed they were myths, they were so few and far between.
His forehead creased despite himself. Yanof had put an odd emphasis on the key word ‘tame.’ He chose his words with care. “Will this assignment require weapons?”
“No.” She shook her head. “No weapons. Only one thing. Your wits. This vampire isn’t a hunter, but he is dangerous. He likes to play games.”
“Yes, Commander.”
“Be careful around him. He may try to trick you.”
“Yes, Commander.”
“You won’t be able to contact me for backup during the three days. Also, you won’t be permitted any other guardsmen. The Guild would rather keep this vampire’s existence… a secret.” She tapped her desk, and he could see her looking for words.
Darien stood still, waiting for the worst. His head swam. Three days with a vampire, without any weapons? Gods! He’d be lucky to come out of it alive. But what a story it would make down at the bars, if he survived and kept his new ranking.
He might even meet another man, someone like but not like Rohan, lured in by the title and the story. Someone lean and lithe, hard-working and good-humored, a person he could laugh and drink with. He’d have hard limbs that would twine around him in bed, which he’d use to hang on tight, and, oh, shit, Yanof had been speaking again and he hadn’t heard what she’d said.
