by Mara Leigh
“Has anyone ever seen such a steed?” the barker shouts. “Have any of you ever seen such a thick, long tool, even on an actual steed?”
A few in the crowd laugh, but mostly they’ve grown silent, drawing closer to the stage. Some of them quite obviously thrust their hands into their pants.
The barker spins the apparatus holding the woman so she can see me and my fully engorged member. Her eyes fill with terror and she struggles, trying to release her bonds. I have no idea what they tell the women they hire for my show, or how they continue to find any willing in any town we visit.
Some nights the woman assumes the show is a joke, or some kind of a magic trick, and plays along, pretending to be excited, right up until the moment I ram into her.
But tonight the woman’s terrified. After she gets a look at my shame, she struggles hard against her constraints.
The barker turns the apparatus around, so her ass is toward me again, and I hear the crank of the wheel as it releases my chains to give my range another few feet.
The barker continues to rile up the crowd, although at this point, they need little encouragement. Nor do I, as I watch one of the monsters in Lily’s cage flick a bullwhip close beside her, as another man traces an electrified rod, meant for cattle, up her legs, threatening to impale her.
I will not let that happen.
I press two of my fingers inside the woman, two fingers that together have more girth than most men’s rigid cocks. The woman cries out and squeezes against me.
Gagged, I can’t tell her how sorry I am, so instead, I vigorously rub her insides, making her as aroused as possible, and then I use the lubrication from inside her to better prepare my cock. Not that any amount of lubrication could ever prepare a woman’s cunny for a giant’s cock.
The man shocks one of Lily’s inner thighs. I can’t stall any longer.
Holding the wooden apparatus for leverage, I use my other hand to hover my huge member against her entrance.
Then I thrust. I thrust and thrust, knowing the action is tearing her, knowing her blood is providing extra lubrication.
Wanting it to be over as fast as it can be, I close my eyes and grab the apparatus with both hands so I can pump hard and fast to completion. Only when I withdraw a flaccid cock will they release my Lily.
My mind returns to the present and my chest heaves with sobs. I pound my back against the dresser, relishing the pain from the knobs as they dig into my spine. It’s nothing compared to the pain I’ve caused so many.
And I did that show nightly. Nightly for years and years, until one night they accidentally killed my love.
And just as it did then, the mere idea of sex makes my stomach turn. My cock remained flaccid for decades. Until her. Until Selina.
But I can never—ever—do to Selina what I did to those women. I can never make love to her like a proper man should.
And I am falling in love with her, so hard and so quickly.
In time I feel sure I will love Selina as much as I loved my Lily. But Selina and I can never perform the act of love. And that act is a fundamental need for her species. Vampires need sex as strongly as they need blood.
I will never be able to offer her what she needs. The best I can do is protect her from all those who would harm her—especially myself.
Chapter 18
Selina
The night air is humid and cool as it fills my lungs.
I beckon to someone. Behind me, a young woman smiles at me as she follows. “Where are we going?” she asks.
I don’t answer, but she follows me anyway as I trail my hand along the back of a park bench, then round it to sit. Across from the park is a massive tree, behind that tall hedge enclosing the yard of a large brick house. The street and park are deserted. It’s very late.
As soon as the young woman sits beside me, I lean forward, grab her head and bite.
I wake on Rock’s couch, my body thrashing.
Regaining consciousness, I sit up and put my hands on my head. My mouth is so dry I can barely get the roof of my mouth to release my tongue. That dream was so vivid, like no other dream I’ve ever had.
Are nightmares another side effect of feeding from a vampire? I shake my head. If vivid dreaming is a side effect of anything, it’s more likely my sexual frustration. I stare toward Rock’s bedroom, but he made it clear he doesn’t love me and won’t give me what I want. Maybe ever.
Selina
Our sixth day in the gym, Rock charges at me full speed.
Just as he’s within arm’s reach, I tuck and roll, planning to trip him, but he anticipates my move and easily jumps over my tumbling body. He turns, then scoops me up as I stand. He pins my back against his body and my arms against my sides.
“Good try on the evasive tactics, princess,” Gray calls out from where he’s leaning against the wall. “But we need to work on your offense.”
Unable to move my arms, I roll my head back toward Rock, who still holds me. I breathe in his musky, sweaty scent, trying to touch him in any way I can with the few parts of me I can move.
He drops me to the mat.
From the side of the room, Gray chuckles, and I give him the finger.
The three of us have trained together for the past six days, at least five hours each day, but neither man will touch me. Not in the way that I want them to.
Rock’s been teaching me to wrestle and street fight, while Gray’s showing me how to use my speed and agility, and how to make the most of martial arts. While the combat training puts us in close quarters it only leaves me wanting more. More from both of them. Which is crazy. Crazy for multiple reasons.
After using his tongue to give my body the most intense pleasure imaginable, Rock broke my heart. He said he could never love me, and now he’s acting as if it never happened and refusing to even talk about what happened that night. And even worse, he’s refused to touch me again, even though we’re essentially living together with me crashing on his couch.
After that first night, Rock insisted I take the bed, but I crept out of the bedroom to join him on the sofa, so he gave up, took the bedroom and locked the door. Luckily vampires don’t need to pee, or I’d have to go up a few flights of stairs and use the ladies’ room in the bar.
And Gray… As much as I know I love Rock—I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life—I can’t fight my desire for Gray.
The vampire saunters toward me now and reaches down to help me to my feet. As I rise, I purposefully let myself go off balance and fall against him.
As he catches me, his teeth scrape the side of my neck, and he inhales audibly. He might try to hide it, but clearly the physical attraction is mutual. I arch into him, my body wanting Gray, even if my mind tells me there’s no use.
He lifts me away from him. “Nice try, princess.”
“Stop calling me that.”
He smirks.
Such a patronizing nickname from a man would normally enrage me, but with Gray it’s like motivation. It makes me want to prove that I’m not a princess, that I’m tough, that I’m not the baby he thinks I am, but a fully grown woman who knows what she wants. What she needs.
Desire stirs inside me.
Rock’s cellphone buzzes and he grabs it from a wooden bench.
He frowns. “Gotta go upstairs to take a delivery. Keep working.” He strides toward the exit that leads into the gym hidden at the back of his bar’s storage area.
Neither Malcolm nor Astrid came today and for the first time, I’m alone with Gray.
I slowly turn toward the vampire. Can I seduce him? Do I dare?
He comes at me with a twisting kick, his whole body spinning in the air so many times it’s impossible to count the revolutions. I dodge and his foot misses my head by a millimeter. He lands gracefully on the other side of me.
“Teach me how to do that.” I’m in awe of his strength and agility.
“We need to find somewhere to train with more height.” He jumps up to the ceiling.
“It’s not safe to do aerial training down here. Shit. Rock’s head nearly touches this ceiling without jumping.”
“No it doesn’t.” The ceiling is at least ten feet, high for a basement, but my instinct to defend Rock’s home did overtake my reason. Gray is right.
“I wonder how high I can jump now.” I bounce up to touch the ceiling. My palms land flat. My arms unprepared, I nearly smash my head into the concrete.
I land and turn toward Gray. “Wow. I didn’t even bend my knees! That felt as easy as raising onto my toes.”
“You haven’t even begun to tap into your potential.” Gray stands casually a few feet away, but I sense tension in his body and know from experience that he might challenge me with another attack at any second. But not the kind of attack my body craves.
I circle around him, planning a possible strike of my own. “You keep claiming I’ve got so much potential, but how do you know?”
He dives over me, his body stretching along the ceiling. He twists before landing and pins me from behind, fangs at my neck. The heat of his breath refuels my desire.
Desire to feed from him, to have him feed from me—and the overwhelming but unmistakable desire to feel him thrusting inside me.
He lets me go. “Let’s sit. There are some things you need to know. Might as well tell you a few secrets, now it’s just us vamps.”
We cross to the end of the room and he settles down on a mat there, leaning against the stone wall.
I slide down the wall beside him.
As much as I thirst for Gray, I also thirst for knowledge. I want to learn all the things my Maker should have taught me.
“How often do I need to feed?” I ask. “How often from humans and how often from… from you?” Oh, how I’d love to take his vein again, have him take mine.
“Depends. Everyone’s different. As you grow more powerful you’ll need human blood less often. Do you think you’ll need to feed tonight?”
I shake my head, then I curl toward him. “I don’t need human blood, but can I drink from you again?”
His pupils dilate, and his chest rises with a long inhale, as if his memories of that night are as fantastic as mine.
He shifts a few inches away. “None of that, princess. It’s lesson time.”
“Okay, teacher. Where do we start?” I slide my hand toward the fabric of his sweat pants, which fit his body like they were tailor made for his athletic but slender body. Even when working out, Gray looks elegant.
He pushes back his hair, but a lock falls down across his eyes. I can smell his blood, almost taste it on my tongue. I sit on my hands to keep myself from touching him.
“Why don’t you ask me some questions,” he says somewhat hoarsely. “Then we’ll go from there.”
“How old were you when you were turned?” Gray seems young—and so hot.
He raises his eyebrows. “I meant ask me general questions about vampire culture, but okay. We can start there. I was twenty-four.”
“I was twenty-two! We’re basically the same age.”
He smiles and his teeth scrape his lower lip. I can tell what he’s thinking or at least what part of him is thinking. As much as he tries to hide it, Gray wants me as badly as I want him. If he weren’t such a gentleman we’d be rolling around on this mat.
I look down, ashamed to keep thinking of Grayson in a sexual way when Rock’s the one I love. But the big man rejected me and refuses to even discuss it further.
“Who made you?” I ask. “Astrid said it was one of the Ancients. What does that even mean?”
He settles back against the wall, his eyes going someplace else for a moment, somewhere painful, and I pull one of my hands out from under my thigh to touch his fingers gently.
At my touch, he turns toward me with a sad smile. But he pulls his hand away from mine.
“The Ancients is the name given to the original vampires.”
“From Transylvania?”
He laughs. “No. The Middle East and northern Africa. From the places Western historians call the cradle of civilization.”
“And you were made by one of the first ones?”
He nods.
I suck in a sharp breath, imagining how many centuries, perhaps millennia, Gray must have lived. How much he’s experienced. No wonder he calls me a baby.
“How…how was the first vampire made?” From what little I know about human to vampire transitions, it seems like a chicken and egg problem.
“No one knows for certain,” he says. “My Maker taught me that the original vampires were a product of evolution, like any other living thing on Earth.” He shrugs. “But vampires remain rare.”
“Why?”
“The process to create progeny is complicated and risky. Only the most powerful vampires are able to complete it without killing themselves or the human they are hoping to turn.”
A million questions run through my mind. “If it’s so difficult, then how do I exist?”
“A mystery for the ages.”
I frown. “And my Maker must have been very powerful.”
He shrugs. “Another mystery.” He looks at me intently, as if he’s looking for something specific. Then he pulls his gaze away. “And there’s another reason vampires are rare.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s so difficult to procreate.”
“To make babies?”
He nods. “It doesn’t happen often. Vampire couples have a one in a hundred chance of conceiving once every hundred years.”
I try to get my head around that number. “So even if a vampire couple is together for hundreds of years…”
“They might never have children.”
“That’s sad.”
“Some think so. Me?” He shoots me a mischievous smile. “I like to take full advantage of unlimited, consequence-free shagging.”
My blood heats with desire and jealousy at the idea of Gray having sex with so many partners. “How many?” I ask softly.
“How many what?”
I fiddle with my leggings, tugging on the fabric over my thigh and letting it snap back. “How many women.”
“How many women have I…shagged? Is that what you want to know?” His tone is mocking.
Biting my lower lip, I nod.
“You jealous, princess?”
“What if I am?” Gathering my courage, I arch, pushing forward my chest and moving toward him a few inches.
His eyes darken in response, his pupils widening with obvious desire. Again, I’m equal parts glad and frustrated that he’s restraining himself, not doing what he so obviously wants. My body wants him so badly, even if my heart wants Rock.
Gray maintains eye contact, but his expression softens. “I’ve had my fair share.”
“But you’ve never taken a mate?’
He shakes his head. “Don’t see the point of tying myself down.”
“Can vampires have children with…with non-vampires?” I wonder about me and Rock and how badly I want to spend my life with him. Could we raise a child together some day?
“There are rumors of interspecies conception, but most think it’s rubbish.” His posture makes me think he’s holding something back. But then he shakes his finger at me. “You, young lady, have completely changed the subject.”
“What was the subject?”
“You asked me about your potential. How I know you have more. The night we met…” Licking his lower lip, he draws a long breath. “When you drank from me…” He lifts my hand from the mat where I’d slid it dangerously close to his leg and sets it down on my own thigh, shaking his head like I’m naughty.
“What about it?” My heart rate quickens, remembering the powerful feelings I had that night and wanting to feel that way again.
“I’ve never experienced anything like that before,” he says.
My cheeks heat, remembering my reaction to the taste of his blood, how I almost rubbed through our clothing, humping him on that couch. “Astrid said what happened b
etween us was normal.”
He shakes his head. “There was nothing normal about that. In fact, there’s nothing normal about you.”
“Gee, way to make a girl feel great about herself.” He’s made me feel like a horny teenager, and I suppose that in many ways I am.
“Nothing to be ashamed of, princess.”
“You just said I’m not normal.”
“But that’s a good thing. Or at least an interesting thing.” He turns slightly toward me, bending the long leg closest to my body so that his knee comes within millimeters of touching mine. “When you drank from me, the effect it had…” He sucks in a breath.
“I could tell.” I look at his crotch. “And I can tell now.” My breathing accelerates.
“Yes that.” He chuckles, slowly shaking his head. “But my wood isn’t what I mean. What you made me feel. Princess, it was far more than a hard cock.” He brushes his hand over his package, and his breath catches.
My heart pounds. “What do you mean?”
“What was extraordinary that night was the power transfer. I haven’t felt anything like it. Certainly not when someone was taking my blood. Never.”
“Power transfer?”
“Yes.” He looks at me quizzically. “Malcolm and Astrid must have told you about that. No? Vampires need human blood for food, but we also need to feed from each other. Vampire-to-vampire feedings are less about food and more about sharing.”
“Sharing what?”
“Power and…”
“And what?”
“And power.”
Clearly there’s something else he doesn’t want to say.
“And you shared some of your…your power with me?” I ask. That explains why I’ve felt stronger ever since. Like I could jump twenty feet in the air without effort. My newfound strength isn’t just from the physical training. It’s more that that. Some of the power came from Gray and I like that.
“That’s what I mean about your potential.” He brushes back his hair. “As a baby—”
