by Amelia Elias
Ellyra raised one perfect eyebrow at her reaction. “I told you I had arranged blood for you. What were you expecting?”
“I don’t want to bite him,” Kira said, fury in every word. “And am I the only one who thinks Carlo ought to have some say about this?”
Carlo blinked and turned his head, meeting her eyes for the first time. He was handsome, tall and muscular and blessed with a face so perfect he could make the gods weep with envy, but there was something very wrong with his eyes.
They were empty, absolutely soulless.
“I live to do as my Mistress commands,” he said in a deep, emotionless voice.
Orion’s disgust filled her mind. “A bloodslave,” he spat. “You have fallen low, Ellyra.”
“You already knew that,” she replied, shrugging. “Yet my offer stands. Your fledgling must learn to feed, and Carlo wishes only to serve. He is the perfect way for her to practice the skills she needs.”
“I have a name, you know, and it’s not fledgling,” Kira interrupted. “And this entire thing is disgusting!”
The ding of the elevator indicated they’d arrived at the top floor, cutting through any reply she might have made. As Ellyra and her bloodslave exited, Kira turned to Orion. “I won’t bite him. Tell her, since I’m apparently beneath her notice.”
Orion sighed and shook his head. “She’s right,” he murmured. “You’ll have to learn to feed from others. You need to take what has been offered.”
She stared at him, astonished that he would take Ellyra’s side over her own wishes. “But I don’t want to feed from others!”
He caught her elbow and drew her gently from the elevator. “Kira, sweetheart,” he said, cupping her face in his hands and looking into her eyes. “You’re newly made. You’ll need to feed at least every night for a few months, and twice on nights you’re particularly active, such as last night. I can’t provide all the blood you need. You’ve learned a way to control the bloodlust. You have to use that knowledge to feed from humans, and the bloodslave is here and willing.”
“You mean brainwashed.” The very idea of biting Carlo disgusted her. “It’s not right and you know it.”
He brushed a kiss over her lips. “It’s not right,” he agreed softly. “But there is nothing we can do for him. For good or for ill, he is Ellyra’s creature, and only she may command or free him.” He kissed her again, tracing her lips with his tongue this time before pulling away. “Please, take what she offers. I need you to be strong, well-fed and healthy.”
Ahead of them, Carlo held the door to the suite open, waiting patiently for them to follow Ellyra inside. He showed no sign that he’d even noticed their conversation. Kira avoided his empty eyes and made sure she didn’t brush against him as she entered the suite. The scent of his cologne chased her as Carlo closed the door, letting her know that he remained just a step behind her.
So unsettled was Kira that the magnificence of their suite hardly registered. Ellyra was at the bar, pouring a glass of something from a decanter that glittered in the way that only fine crystal can. She held it out to Orion. “You look like you need this, darling.”
Trailing behind him simply because she didn’t know what else to do, she couldn’t keep herself from scowling as he took the glass without comment. Darling? What the hell was that? He bristled like a porcupine whenever Kira tried to get close to him, yet this woman who’d betrayed him a century ago called him darling and got away with it?
Ellyra turned to her before she could think of an adequately scathing way to put the vampiress in her place. “Carlo will provide for you now, young one,” she said. “Use the master bedroom if you wish. It is the finest of the rooms, and the walls are thick enough that we won’t have to hear the sounds of your… feeding.”
Orion stiffened and glared at Carlo. The bloodslave took no notice. His eyes were fixed only on Kira, and she fought not to shudder at the thought of letting the bloodlust control her as she fed on him. Worse still was the idea of using sex to keep from losing control of herself, especially if Ellyra had ulterior motives for offering him.
Locked away from Orion, anything could happen. She shuddered at the thought.
“Tell him to obey me,” she said suddenly, meeting Ellyra’s coolly amused gaze. “I won’t go anywhere with him unless he’s in my control, not yours.”
She smiled. “So distrustful, after what I’ve done to aid you,” she murmured. “But I would expect no less from Orion’s progeny.”
“Not Kira,” Orion interrupted. “Have him answer to me, Ellyra. Not her.”
Ellyra’s laugh sounded utterly out of place in the tense room. “Why not her? Afraid she’ll command him to perform some sexual act you can’t match? Do you wish to order him to remain impotent?”
He glowered, but Kira answered before he could draw breath. “Unless you’re coming in that room with us, he’d better obey me,” she snapped. “And if you’re in that room I’m biting you, not him.”
Ellyra laughed again. “Go, fledgling,” she said. “Carlo will do your bidding while you remain in the bedroom. Once he returns, he is mine again. Do what you will with him so long as you don’t damage him beyond repair. I have no desire to train a new bloodslave.”
“Thank you.” It took all her control to force the words past her lips. She couldn’t even look at Orion as Carlo strode to one of the closed doors to open it for her. Dread swamped her as she remembered their conversation above Club Nighthawk and she couldn’t stop the plea from coming out. “Don’t leave while I’m in there, please, Orion?”
His growl was the only warning she had before Orion pulled her hard against him and kissed her fiercely. Her squeak of surprise was muffled against his mouth. Tongue thrusting deep, branding her with his taste and his passion, she could only cling to his shoulders as his heat burned her entire body. Her fangs lengthened and throbbed in time to her racing heartbeat. Kissing him back with every bit of passion and lust inside her, her pussy growing wet and her body hungering for his in every way, she felt the bloodlust roar and writhe inside her. Need, hunger, desire fused and demanded more.
“You think of that,” he growled against her lips when he finally broke the kiss. “You just fucking keep that in mind, Kira, you understand me?”
Breathless and burning, all she could do was nod as she stepped out of his embrace.
Orion glared at the bloodslave as she forced herself to walk to his side. She had just stepped into the opulent master bedroom when she heard him snarl at Carlo. “You harm her and I will tear you limb from limb,” he vowed.
And then the door closed behind her, locking her in and bringing Carlo fully under her control.
He turned and smiled at her, giving her a little half-bow. “How may I please you, mistress?” he asked. “Command me, I beg you.”
Chapter Five
Orion watched the door close and fought against the red tide of fury threatening to choke him. He tossed back his liquor in one swallow and hurled the glass into the fireplace just for the satisfaction of watching it shatter.
“Such a temper,” Ellyra murmured behind him. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you lose it before.”
“Then you weren’t paying attention,” he growled. The master bedroom was just as soundproof as Ellyra had claimed; even his hypersensitive hearing couldn’t detect any voices from within.
“Perhaps they aren’t talking,” she suggested.
“Get the fuck out of my mind,” he snarled. “I don’t care what they’re doing.”
She laughed, throwing back her head and crowing with amusement. “Orion, you are the worst liar I have ever met. You’re going mad from wondering if he’s going to fuck her. How he’s going to fuck her. If she’ll come for him as passionately as she does for you and if she’ll want more. Why didn’t you just feed her yourself if the thought of her biting another man makes you this furious?”
Her stark words forced him to picture it -- Kira’s gloriously naked body writhing beneath Carlo
’s, her legs locked around his waist, urging him on as he thrust his cock deep in her cunt, sinking her fangs into his throat and drinking him down as she came and came and came. He clenched his fists and bit his cheek hard, hoping the pain would drive the terrible image from his mind.
Only when he was certain he could speak calmly did he reply. “I fed her twice last night. I have nothing else for her now. Besides, she has to feed on her own sometime,” he said. The words felt like broken glass in his mouth. The thought of her going willingly into that abomination’s arms, letting the bloodslave arouse and fuck her to keep her from losing control of the blood hunger, was sheer torture. He couldn’t shove the maddening image from his mind no matter how hard he tried. “Damn it, I need another drink.”
“That’s not what you need.”
He rounded on Ellyra, fangs bared. “Who are you to presume you know what I need?” he demanded. “Make no mistake, Ellyra. I am here with you because I have to be, not because I want to be.”
She shrugged. “I would expect nothing less,” she agreed. “Orion, I’m sorry you were hurt when I went to Gregori, but you wouldn’t give me what I wanted. He would.” She leaned gracefully against the bar. “I regret the pain I caused you, but I have never regretted what I became.”
“Depraved,” he growled.
“Immortal,” Ellyra corrected. “Powerful. I depend on no one, Orion. Even Gregori never controlled me. Do you know what it was like for a woman in my time? You have always had freedom -- I had none! Should I have meekly given my life to marriage and children I never wanted? When I met you, I knew there was another way to live, one that would allow me to truly live instead of just existing. Can you blame me for taking it?”
He grabbed the decanter and raised it to his lips, drinking deep as if the burn of the alcohol would sear away his rioting emotions. In all the time Ellyra had spent with him, she’d never voiced any of this. Had never once asked him to make her a vampire. How could he have been unaware that her life had been so miserable?
“And did you get what you wanted?” he said, trying to force himself not to stare at that closed door. “Is Carlo the man you always desired, or was it Gregori you desired as your mate?”
“I desire no man as my mate. I never have.”
Her soft declaration made him spin around. Ellyra smiled at his disbelief and shrugged. “Your fledgling is a beautiful woman,” she murmured. “She worries that you’ll leave her alone. I would care for her, if you --”
Her offer broke him free from his shock and the sudden realization of why she had always spurned his advances -- she’d never come to his bed because she desired women, not men!
And now she wanted Kira? His Kira? He glared at her, infuriated beyond reason. “She might not be mine, but she’s not a slave to be given away, either.”
“I already have a slave,” she countered. “I have no need for another one. I lost my lover to Gregori, Orion, and I’ve not been alone since my mortal death. Let me --”
“Damn it, you can’t have her!”
She sat back and crossed her arms over her chest. A long moment passed while she regarded him coolly before finally speaking again. “I have always been able to see into the minds of others,” she said softly. “Even when I was mortal you knew this, and still you think to lie to me now. You have never loved anyone the way you love her, yet you deny that she is yours. You claim not to care for her and seem determined to break your own heart by leaving her. Why do this to yourself? You won’t have her for yourself, yet you refuse to allow me to take your place as her guardian -- and I would cherish her, not enslave her. What do you want, Orion? I don’t understand you. Do you truly crave pain and solitude that much?”
He found he couldn’t meet her eyes and took another swig from the decanter to avoid her too-knowing gaze. “I want her to be self-sufficient,” he said, staring at the play of light through the crystal and liquor.
She waved toward the door. “She’s in there becoming self-sufficient,” she countered. “And you’re miserable. Tell me what you want, not what you think you can have.”
He put the decanter down with exaggerated care. What did he want? He wanted Kira, of course -- he always had. He wanted her with a passion that left every obsession he’d ever had in the dust, but she’d never chosen him. She’d chosen that thrice-damned mortal vampire slayer and would have left without a backward glance to be with her lover. Would’ve betrayed him and gone to the Nighthawks, just as Ellyra had. So what did he want?
The same thing he’d always wanted. The impossible.
Most of all, he wanted to tell Ellyra to stop this damned questioning. But if she could truly see inside him -- and everything she’d said proved she could -- it would do no good. No matter what had changed about her when she’d gone to Gregori, Ellyra had always been and always would be persistent.
That meant he had to find some kind of answer that would put her off.
She shook her head and spoke again before he could think of anything to say. “Has it never entered your mind,” she said, “that Kira was harmed by that attack even more than you?”
His head snapped around and he bared his fangs at her. “Why must you reopen this wound?” he demanded.
“To distract you,” she replied, giving him honesty when he least expected it. “Otherwise you’d have broken down the door by now, no matter what you say. You’re thinking of the slayer who destroyed your home, yet nowhere in your mind do I find the smallest shred of sympathy for Kira.”
“She betrayed me,” he growled.
“She was used!” Ellyra snapped. “Come on, Orion, you’ve never been stupid. Don’t start now. Do you really think it was a coincidence that Gregori’s own Associate sought her out and romanced her? Yes, Barrett really is a Nighthawk Associate, the highest-ranking of them all,” she added when he stared at her in stark disbelief. “She wasn’t fooled -- he told her the truth at all times, about all things but his love. She was merely a means to an end. His orders weren’t to kill you, Orion. His orders were to end your rebellion and bring you back to the Clan, either on your feet or in a body bag.”
For the second time since Kira and the bloodslave had vanished, Orion’s mind reeled. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Gregori had been furious when he’d left the Clan -- it reflected badly on his authority that he was unable to control his own fledgling. The longer Orion stayed away, immune to the Master’s influence as he grew strong in his own right, the more Gregori would burn to bring him to heel.
He’d probably been waiting for decades for Orion to make the mistake of caring for anyone. As soon as he had, Gregori had attacked -- not to kill, but to make him embrace his Clan again. Powerful as he’d become, Orion was far more useful alive than dead.
The night of the attack played again in his mind and he saw the truth of it. From the moment Kira had walked into his office and given her notice, Orion was knocked off his guard. Every ounce of his attention had been focused on her. Barrett could have struck at any time if his intent had been to kill, and as much as it shamed Orion to admit it, he would not have recognized their danger until it was too late.
Instead Barrett had given warning, first by calling Kira, then by the gunfire that had ultimately led to her mortal wound -- but bullets weren’t enough to kill a vampire. No wise vampire would be without a means of escape from their home, and they’d been given ample time to reach his escape tunnel before Barrett had blown up the house.
All this pointed to the work of a vampire’s servant, not a vampire hunter.
He shook his head, stunned he hadn’t seen it before. “How did you know all this?” he whispered.
“Because Carlo is more than my bloodslave,” she replied. “He acts as my Associate, and Barrett’s plan was no secret.”
A thousand questions flooded Orion’s mind. How long had this been planned? What exactly did Gregori want from him? What would it take to get the Master to back off and leave him and Kira in peace? Fighting the
entire Clan wasn’t a possibility. Could he force himself to negotiate with Gregori if it meant keeping Kira safe? Was bargaining for his freedom even possible?
But before he could sort through them all and find one question to ask, the bedroom door flew open. Carlo stumbled out, pale as a ghost and clutching his bloodstained wrist. “Carlo!” Ellyra cried, rushing to catch him as he collapsed.
“I am unharmed, Mistress,” he reassured her even as he allowed her to support him. Then he looked up and focused on Orion with obvious difficulty. “She needs you,” he groaned, and passed out.
Orion was across the room and through the door before the bloodslave even finished speaking, his heart in his throat. If that bastard had so much as scratched her -- “Kira, are you all right?” he asked, anxiously searching the dark room for her.
The door slammed shut behind him an instant before her bare arms slid around his waist. “You are so overdressed,” she purred, running her hands up his chest and nipping the back of his neck. She grasped two fistfuls of his shirt and yanked.
The material ripped from his body. Orion spun to find Kira behind him, clad only in a pair of lacy red panties that accented the well-fed flush of her skin. He only had a second to appreciate the glorious sight of her -- black curls rioting over her shoulders, high, firm breasts tipped with tempting pink nipples, glistening white fangs just visible in her sexy smile -- before she launched herself into his arms, her momentum tumbling them back onto the bed.
And when he sucked in a sharp breath at the heavenly softness of her breasts colliding with his now-bare chest, he could discern no scent of sex in the air.
“You didn’t --” he began, wild joy rising up inside him at the evidence that Carlo hadn’t touched her, hadn’t ridden her, hadn’t felt the tight clasp of her sweet pussy, but she cut him off before he could finish the sentence.
