Finally, the Jeep came to a halt. A moment later, she felt herself being lifted and slung over a shoulder. Boneless, Kassius had said. She did her best impression of a dead body as Arturo carried her up a couple of steps, then across a wooden floor, finally depositing her on something nice and soft. The sofa? Huh. If it were her sofa, she sure as heck wouldn’t want a body bag on it. Certainly not one that smelled like this one. But she had to appreciate the soft landing.
She heard the zipper slide, then fresh air was rushing into her lungs. Arturo’s hands slid beneath her arms, and he lifted her up and out as if she were a toddler and not a full-grown woman. They were in a living room, as she’d suspected—an old-fashioned, if decidedly masculine room, with dark wood paneling, heavy draperies, and bookshelves lining two of the walls.
Lamplight flickered over his face as he gripped her chin, tilting her head this way and that. “He didn’t hit you too hard?”
“No, I’m fine. Other than the smell that probably singed off my nose hairs.”
“I shall have a talk with Kassius about using cleaner body bags in future.” At his deadpan expression, she almost smiled. Warmth and concern lit his eyes, and he stroked her jaw. “You are safe here.”
She nodded, then pulled herself out of her misery and focused on him, lifting her hand to touch his jaw in return. He stilled, then leaned ever so slightly into her touch. “Thank you for getting me out of there.”
His fingers slid into her hair, and he dipped his head, brushing his lips against hers. The kiss felt nice, stealing a measure of her grief, if only for a moment. She wanted more. She wanted to forget. Pulling back, she slid her hands to cup the back of his neck. “I must smell like death.”
A smile lit his eyes. “You smell like sunshine, cara. You could never smell bad to me.” Then he pulled her fully into his arms and kissed her with a fierce, drugging hunger as if he understood her need to forget. His mouth opened over hers, his tongue sweeping inside to lay claim, to plunder and dance and taste. She kissed him back, lost in the heady passion, her body heating, trembling. The terrible ache in her chest eased, and she was filled with gratitude. In that moment, it didn’t matter that he was a vampire. Or that he was partly to blame for her loss. He was heat and light and life, and she needed that, needed him.
His mouth left hers, trailing kisses across her jaw, down her throat. Then he pulled back and took her hand. “Come.” As he led her to the stairs, she knew where they were going. To the bedroom. To have sex. And she was ready for it, ready to lose herself in passion and forget everything else.
His hand tight around hers, he ushered her up the stairs and to the bedroom . . . her bedroom. Opening the door, he released her hand and stood back for her to enter.
As she stepped into the room, she faltered. There was someone on the bed. Curly red hair. The blood drained from her face and she swayed. Zack. He’d brought her the body.
“He’s alive, cara,” the vampire said quietly behind her.
Alive. The tears started to roll, and she took a tentative step, then another. She reached for her brother’s bare shoulder slowly, her hand touching warm, vibrant, living flesh. “Zack.” The word came out on a sob.
Her brother moved suddenly, and she jerked back as he rolled over. He blinked sleepily. “Quinn.” The word croaked in his sleep-roughened voice. Then, unaccountably, he rolled back over, giving her his back.
She sat on the bed beside him, struggling against the tears that refused to cease, her mind stunned, her heart soaring. Zack was alive!
He wore faded, worn black pants of some kind and nothing else, his torso and feet bare, lash marks crisscrossing his back every which way, making her ache. She reached for him, her fingers in his mop of red hair.
“Go away, Quinn,” he muttered with an edge of temper that was so unlike her brother. His rejection stung, but it barely penetrated her euphoric relief.
Arturo’s hand landed lightly on her shoulder. “Come, cara. Let him sleep.”
The last thing she wanted to do was leave Zack when she’d just found him again. When she’d thought he was dead. But he clearly wanted to be alone, and she’d give him anything. Anything. Even that.
She turned away, and Arturo curled his arm around her shoulder as he walked her out the door, closing it behind them. She opened her mouth to speak, but he put a finger to his lips and led her into the room across the hall, closing the door behind him.
This room was decorated similarly to the one she’d been staying in, though it was slightly larger, the plain wood bed mahogany instead of maple, the floral bedspread and canopy a navy blue instead of beige.
“He’s been through a lot, piccola,” he said, turning to her. “Do not take it personally.”
She nodded, her emotions a wild tangle. She didn’t know how to feel.
“Your brother is ashamed,” Arturo said quietly.
Her gaze jerked to his. “Of what?”
“Of not being able to rescue the women he cares about.”
“But that’s ridiculous. He’s just a kid!”
“He is not a kid, cara. He is a man. And he would have died as one in the arena had I not intervened.”
“You took him from the gladiator camp?”
Arturo nodded. “I did. I’m not always the monster you believe me to be.”
Quinn pulled away. “I’m not so sure about that. You also do nothing without a reason, Vampire. Why did you free him after you told me so many times to forget about him?”
He curved his arm around her waist, pulling her back against him, hip to hip. “Perhaps I wanted your gratitude.”
“Please. If you wanted my gratitude, why did you make me think he was dead? Why did you ask me about him and let me sob with grief over him, never telling me you’d saved him?”
He looked away, which wasn’t like him.
“What aren’t you telling me, Vampire?”
With a sigh, he turned back to her. “Nothing, cara. I saved him on a whim after watching Cristoff hit you. I felt . . . guilty. But I had not yet considered betraying my master. I thought only of saving your brother, not what I was going to do with him after I did.”
“And what are you going to do with him?”
He shrugged. “Horace could use some help, perhaps.” He nudged her back against the door and nuzzled her neck. “Are you grateful?”
Her hands went reflexively to his shoulders to hold him away, though, of course, she couldn’t budge him. “You know I am.”
Lifting his head, he peered into her eyes, his own smoky hot. “Show me.”
Quinn met that smoky gaze, her emotions slowly untangling. She would never fully trust this man, but, dear God, he’d given her back her brother. At risk to himself. If that didn’t balance the scales with his betrayals, it came damned close. Closing her eyes, she released her frustration, letting her immense joy and gratitude wash over her all over again. Then sharing it with him as she cupped his face and kissed him without reservation, holding nothing back. With a deep moan of satisfaction, he pulled her tight against him, slanting his head to kiss her back, deeply, thoroughly, his tongue sweeping into her mouth, his lips drinking of her own. Picking her up, he carried her to the bed and laid her down gently. One by one, he removed her boots and dropped them to the floor, then he pulled off his shirt.
He was beautiful, his shoulders broad, his chest well muscled, his abs hard and lean. He made quick work of her clothes, leaving only her panties. Long fingers circled her thighs, caressing, teasing. “You’re mine tonight.” The faintest question laced his words. He wanted her acquiescence.
And she gave it to him. “Yes.”
The smile that lit his eyes was hot and dangerous and very, very male. He crawled between her legs, leaning over her to claim one breast in his mouth as his hands pulled her panties down off her hips, and his hand slid between her legs.
She came up off the bed at the marvelous feel of those cool fingers sliding against her most private flesh, stroking, entering, claiming. Lifting his head, he kissed the skin between her breasts, then took her other breast in his mouth, twirling the first nipple between his finger and thumb, weakening her body, making her hot and damp and needy.
Rising, he pulled off her panties completely, then spread her thighs and dipped his head, licking, sucking, stabbing inside her with his tongue as her fingers dove into his hair, silently begging him not to stop. When she was whimpering, rocking, crazed with need, he climbed off the bed and shucked off his pants to reveal strong legs, lean hips, and a long, thick, gorgeous penis.
When she glanced up at his face, she found him watching her with fangs elongated, his pupils stark white. She swallowed. He didn’t move, just stood there watching her, waiting for her to accept him or to push him away.
This was what he was. A vampire. A man. And while she felt a thrill of fear, it was only a shadow of the real thing. A scary-movie or roller-coaster fear. A safe fear. Which was a bizarre thing to think about a vampire. But she knew in her bones, this one would never hurt her, not physically.
She held out her arms to him, and he came to her, covering her body with his longer, harder one. Brushing her hair off her shoulder, she tilted her neck, giving him access. And he took it, dipping his head and sliding his fangs into her neck as he slid that thick erection into her body.
A low moan escaped her throat as the twin pleasures, his pull on her blood and his thrusting cock, shot her straight to orgasm.
Arturo thrust into Quinn’s welcoming body, her sweet blood flooding his mouth, his pleasure mounting at an alarming rate, ripping through his senses. Warmth spread up into his body until he could swear he felt the sun on his back—not the burning, flesh-eating heat of his vampire existence, but the balmy caress he’d known for too short a time in his human youth. He smelled sunshine and summer on Quinn’s flesh, in her hair, and tasted it in her blood.
Her arms curled around him, her fingernails digging into his back as she met his thrusts with low, sweet cries, her body rising for a second time, right along with his.
Despite the glorious sweetness of her blood, he forced himself to pull away from her neck before he took too much. His fangs retracting, he lifted his head, needing to see her face as he drove into her.
Lovely, her brow damp, her mouth open and gasping, she was angel and siren, sweetness and raw, carnal pleasure, and watching her nearly sent him over the edge. At his change in position, her lashes fluttered up, and she met his gaze, a smile, at once sexy as sin and sweetly delighted, lifting the corners of her mouth. How she pleased him! A well of tenderness flooded his mind and chest as she began to cry out with her climax, her body squeezing his until he leaped over that sensual cliff, flying with her straight into the warm embrace of the sun.
Slowly, they settled back to earth, and he kissed her, unwilling to be parted from her even now, loving the way she slid her fingers into his hair and held him as if she, too, didn’t want to let him go. If only she were merely human. If only he could make her a simple slave and keep her, always, in his house. In his bed. But she was a sorceress, one claimed by Cristoff. There was nothing simple about Quinn Lennox. And she could quickly become an addiction he could ill afford.
With a sigh of regret, he rolled off her, pulling away, shoving his hands into his hair. The woman had been a problem since the moment she first entered Vamp City. A problem he had no idea how to solve.
Quinn was pulling on her boots when a rap on the door had Arturo striding across the room to open it. Looking at him, at that long, muscular body, once more dressed, at that devilishly handsome mouth, at those sexy eyes, only made her flush all over again with a heat that had barely begun to recede. After two orgasms, she should be replete. Boneless. Done. Instead, she felt energized. Incredible. And ready to go at it all over again.
It didn’t hurt that her heart was light with the joy of Zack’s rescue. Still, the sex had been outstanding. Was it always like this with vampires? Or only Arturo?
“Kassius is here, Master,” the slave said, as Arturo opened the door.
“Thank you, Horace.”
When she’d finished tying her bootlaces, Quinn rose and joined Arturo at the door. Instead of ushering her out, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her thoroughly one more time, as if he’d read her thoughts as she watched him walk across the room. As if he’d enjoyed the interlude as much as she had. Finally, he ushered her out of the room and down the stairs to the living room.
Kassius waited for them, his body still, yet radiating a coiled tension that had Quinn’s trouble sirens blaring. “Cristoff has already discovered that the sorceress is missing,” he said without preamble. “He’s on a rampage, every guard ordered to search for her.”
Arturo spat something she didn’t catch, something that sounded a lot like an Italian curse word, then turned toward the door. “Ernesta!” The moment the Slava appeared in the doorway, he said, “Take Quinn. Darken her hair. At once!”
Quinn gaped at him. “What?”
“A disguise, cara,” he said impatiently, waving her away. “Go!”
Her pulse skittered as she hurried down the hall after Ernesta. If Arturo and Kassius were this worried, she should be absolutely terrified. What would Cristoff do to her if he found her? And what if he found Zack? Of course, he didn’t know Zack was her brother. Yet. But once he figured it out . . . She couldn’t finish the thought. He wouldn’t find out. But if Cristoff found her here, he’d know Arturo was involved in taking her. Would he kill his snake?
He might not kill him, but he’d probably make Arturo wish he had.
By the time she entered the kitchen, she was shaking.
Ernesta pulled her to a chair and pushed her down, then hurried out of the kitchen, returning moments later with a towel, a comb, and . . . shoe polish? Quinn closed her eyes, trying to remain calm, as Ernesta combed the thick polish through her hair, strand after strand.
“Ernesta . . . I’m sorry I hit you.”
The woman didn’t reply, just began to rub Quinn’s blackened hair dry with the towel. Finally, the Slava pulled Quinn’s hair back into a braid with quick, nimble fingers. “There. None will know you, now.”
Quinn was kind of glad there were no mirrors around. She wasn’t sure she wanted to see what she looked like. Would this dye job really fool anyone? Certainly not Cristoff, but perhaps someone searching for a blonde would look right past her. She could only hope.
Quinn turned to go, but Ernesta stopped her. “Wait. You need a dress.” She grabbed one from a hanger in a small alcove off the kitchen, then opened the skirt as if she intended to dress Quinn right there.
Quinn looked at her doubtfully. “Shouldn’t I take off my clothes first?”
“No. There is no time.” With that, she lifted the dress over Quinn’s head.
Okay.
“Now return to the master.”
Quinn buttoned the front of the dress as she retraced her steps down the hallway. The men were still talking when she returned.
“I would prefer to take the Jeep”—Arturo glanced at her, his eyes lighting with surprise and satisfaction, before he continued—“but someone will hear the engine. We’ll take the horses.”
“And if we’re stopped?”
“Cristoff most likely believes she’s either run to find another sunbeam or been snatched by a rival kovena. It shouldn’t be a problem. And if it is . . .” Arturo shrugged. “I’ll think of something.” He turned back to her. “Get your brother, cara. We’re leaving. You cannot be caught here.”
She’d figured that much. It was way too dangerous for Arturo though she wondered where he’d take them. The only part of his and Kassius’s conversation she’d understood was the part about her having to ride another damned horse.
Lifting the awkw
ard skirt, she hurried up the stairs to the room where she’d first found herself tied to the bed . . . was it just a week and a half ago? The room where Zack now rested.
She rapped lightly on the door, then opened it and went in when he didn’t respond. He remained as she’d left him, his bare, scarred back to the door. “Zack, get up. We have to leave.”
When he didn’t respond, she bit down her frustration and circled the bed to find him staring morosely at the wall.
“Zack, I know you’ve been through hell. I get it. But a really nasty vampire is hunting us, and we have to go.”
“Leave me here.”
“You don’t mean that.”
Her easygoing brother speared her with hard, angry eyes. “You don’t get it. I don’t fucking care.”
She stared at him, feeling bruised and hurt. But dammit . . . “Zack, get your sorry ass off that bed. We’re going. Now.”
But her brother still didn’t move.
“Is there a problem?” Arturo stood in the doorway.
“Could you take his memories of what happened?”
Zack reared up. “No.”
“Zack, think about it. He can make you forget.”
“I don’t want to forget.”
“Are you sure?”
“I said no!” He glared at her. “Will you move so I can piss in the pot?”
Quinn jumped off the bed, getting out of his way, storming out of the room. Where in the hell had her Zack gone? Because this angry, depressed man was not he.
In the hallway, Arturo touched her arm. “He is not the child he was when he arrived here. Do not expect him to be. But if he can accept what has happened, he’ll be better off than he would be if he knew there were large chunks of his memory gone. Sometimes, wondering about the things you have forgotten is worse than knowing.” His fingers slid into her hair, his eyes gentle and sympathetic. “He will be okay, cara. Give him time. It will be good for you to get him home.”
She blinked. “Home?”
“I am sending both of you through the Boundary Circle. Back to the sunshine.”
A Blood Seduction Page 26
