Enslave

by Felicity Heaton

  Varya’s stomach clenched. Had that law been one regarding the vampires? They were dangerous to her kind. Their senses could detect things their eyes could not. Varya had known that, so when she had found the courage to enter the building and see for herself what happened inside its walls, she had tried her best glamour, a spell so intense that it had taken several feedings for her to gain enough strength to perform it.

  She could have gained the required amount of energy from only one or two feeds had she resorted to sex, but intercourse awakened her darkest hungers and resulted in her losing control and her host losing his life. It took a strong male to survive sex with her, and she feared all of them had long since left this land. Two centuries of killing her hosts had left her bored of taking that route when feeding off a weaker male. The clean up was a hassle and the sexual energy she gained left her with a bitter aftertaste. Her closest friends in the clan had told her that it was a phase all succubi went through at one time or another and that she would get over it. She hoped she did, but even then, she wasn’t sure she could recapture the enthusiasm for sex she had felt in her youth. A century of watching human and non-human couples engaging in sexual relations had caused her to wonder at the vibrancy and intensity of the passionate moments they shared, and the emotional connection that often came with them.

  But that was something beyond her reach.

  And it was something that made her experiences of sex seem hollow, lacking a vital ingredient that would always be denied her and left her drifting through life stealing kisses and watching others enjoy pleasure that she could never taste.

  Varya sighed and then growled at herself. Her species were one of the most powerful in the fae world and the most feared, and they hadn’t gained their reputation by brooding and living on a kiss-only diet.

  Her tutors scolded her enough as it was because of that. If they heard about what had happened tonight, she would be receiving lashes like the cute male in the show.

  She had thought she had stolen enough energy from kissing and taking things to a safe yet very naughty level with her hosts over the past few days that she could hold the strong glamour needed to veil her tonight. It wasn’t her fault. It had drained her faster than she had anticipated and she had been so entranced by the show that she hadn’t realised her spell had slipped.

  The vampire had seen her.

  He still sat in his box, staring across the theatre, a puzzled look on his dark handsome face.

  He was dangerous.

  Varya tried to ignore him and settled her focus back on the show. Her stomach rumbled and her tongue swept across her lips, eager for a taste of what was happening on the stage below her. She groaned as sexual energy danced around her, intoxicating and enticing. She would have to leave soon to track down a suitable male host. There was a club a few blocks away, one she had visited before, full of easy feeds and even easier fucks if she really had to go down that path to replenish her energy. Maybe her excitement from watching the show would make sex fun again, at least for tonight.

  Her gaze slid back across the theatre to the vampire and she shivered, hot all over and burning up inside.

  When he had looked at her, the strangest feeling had come over her, an unsettling sensation of need and a hunger so intense that she had almost growled. One thought had pounded through her head in the all too brief seconds that she had held his inquisitive and passionate gaze.

  Hers.

  He was hers.

  It couldn’t be.

  His aura made that clear and she had known it the moment she had seen him, before she had accidentally revealed herself. He wore shadows. Shadows were a bad sign. Clan law forbade interaction with males who wore them and pursuing him would be a grave mistake.

  Her tutors had said that men shrouded in shadows were forbidden because they tasted foul and were not an easy target. Many of her kind had fallen at their hands, lured to and destroyed by such men.

  Varya had no desire to die, only a desire to live, so why was she still staring across the theatre at him? Why did she want to reveal herself again so she could see the look that had blazed in his eyes, a look that had contradicted his aura, revealing passion and desire? Was it purely the allure of the challenge he represented?

  Or was there more to the need pounding deep in her veins?

  He rose from his seat and walked away, disappearing through a red curtain. Varya keenly felt the loss of his beauty in her soul and dragged her eyes back to the stage. There was nothing of interest there now. The female vampire was drinking from the vein of one of the males. The other stood at the foot of the bed, obedient and docile. Varya eyed him. Could she teleport there and take the male before the female vampire saw and attacked?

  She was so hungry.

  She rubbed her strapless purple bodice over her stomach. She needed to get out of this place and feed before she weakened further and was forced to bed a male to replenish her energy and stop herself from becoming vulnerable.

  Her gaze caught on the shadowed male vampire as he crossed the theatre, his dark hair and black suit causing him to blend into the darkness. He headed towards a small group below her and pointed up to her. She instinctively leaned backwards and dropped down from the wall, landing silently despite her heavy boots. She crept forwards and peered over the edge, her desire to see him again and see what was happening too great to ignore. The image of him shimmered as he spoke to the other vampires.

  What was he saying?

  There were three males with him, and the one with white hair looked up to where she hid. She ducked backwards out of sight. Her glamour wouldn’t completely work on him. He was too old and would be able to sense her if he set eyes on her. She wasn’t sure if he would be able to see her, but she wasn’t about to risk it.

  Varya peeked over the wall and found the white-haired male talking to the group again. She focused on him and the others in the group until their auras shimmered into being, creating a glow around their bodies several inches deep. An aura revealed a lot about a person’s emotions and her kind used them as a type of aid when hunting, so they knew what approach to take with a male or whether to avoid him completely and try an easier target.

  The audience began to file out and another male entered from below her, joining the small group.

  Varya hid now, barely peeking over the curved wall.

  The blond spiky-haired newcomer would easily spot her. The strongest glamour couldn’t hide her from his eyes. She sneered and bared her small sharp canines at him even though he couldn’t see the threat and didn’t seem to have even noticed her.

  Cobalt blue surrounded him, tinged with gold in places. That aura frightened her more than the black one of his companion.

  The female in the group had an aura bathed in shades of red, pink and gold. She looked like a sunset, a beautiful sight, as did the man holding her with her back against his chest. Love. The man who looked similar to the one who had seen her had the same colours in his aura. He smiled as he spoke to the couple, radiating warmth and affection. The white-haired male who now prowled the theatre away from the others had the aura of a beast, all shades of green and icy blue. He was old, ancient, and her fae magic wouldn’t work on him.

  The one who had seen her…

  Varya leaned her forearms along the top of the wall, settled her chin on them and stared down at him.

  The cold edge to his aura at times, tinting it purple in places, was bad enough, a sign of an empty heart. That didn’t bother her kind. Love was an emotion that she couldn’t experience. It was the shimmering dark shades that clung to him like black smoke that warned her away. Forbidden. When she had looked at him, and he at her, those curling ribbons of darkness hadn’t changed to show signs of passion or desire, but his eyes had revealed such carnal hungers. Why couldn’t she read it in his aura? Was that why shadowed males were dangerous? Did his aura hide his true emotions?

  She had never seen such a man before tonight.

  Curiosity kept her gaze fi
xed on him, had her remaining even though hunger gnawed at her insides, pushing her to feed.

  She didn’t want to leave.

  She wanted to know why he was so dangerous that he was forbidden.

  She wanted a taste of that fruit.

  He said something to the man who was similar to him. A brother? The two seemed close and the other male showed signs of affection in his aura whenever he spoke to her vampire.

  Her vampire?

  He was just a target.

  A host.

  She would have her taste and then she would leave this place and never return.

  The group below broke apart. The female remained with the male who was clearly her lover, a pale-eyed man with dark hair who seemed close to the white-haired dangerous one. They crossed the theatre to the other side and he held the door for her. The beast stalked away in the opposite direction, heading back out of the door he had entered through. Her vampire and the one she had decided was his brother split up and combed the stalls before disappearing through the rear exits.

  The blond vampire remained standing below her long after everyone had left the theatre.

  He raked long fingers over the spikes of his hair and then let his hand fall to his side. His head snapped up and he smiled straight at her, his dark eyes flashing with sparks of blue and gold.

  Varya gasped and disappeared.

  Her panic cost her. She ended up in an unfamiliar area of the theatre and had lost her quarry in the process.

  “Bastard,” she muttered. It was just like his kind to take pleasure from scaring hers. She fumbled around in the small dark room.

  It smelled like a store cupboard. The sharp tang of cleaning products stung her delicate nose and she grimaced at the tacky feel of the bottles beneath her questing fingers. A cool flat panel brought hope of escape and her heart lifted. She shifted her hands downwards, searching for the knob. Her fingers closed around the cold metal and she twisted it and pushed the door open. It banged against something that grunted.

  Varya poked her head around the door, the bright room shimmering in her vision, and then down at what she had hit.

  A nude male. Human and delirious. She recognised him as one of the men from the stage.

  She grinned. Maybe tonight wouldn’t be so bad after all. She could have a quick snack to replenish her strength so her glamour held and then she could find the vampire.

  Vampires moved around the room, dressing and talking, some of them sitting in front of mirrors surrounded by softly glowing bulbs and others moving between the showers and a row of lockers that lined one wall. Varya recognised a few of the vampires from the show, in particular a tall broad male with close-cropped hair that revealed scars on his scalp. The females in the audience had been most enamoured with him. His aura shone burgundy and deepest blue, colours of confidence and contentment. He would make a good feed, but charming him would prove difficult since he was already so deeply in love with himself.

  Varya crouched beside the sleepy human thrall instead. He was handsome enough, although a little bloodstained and hurt.

  She cast a quick glance around to make sure no one was watching him and then pressed her lips to his. He moaned and she kissed him, tasting all the pleasure he had experienced in the past hour on stage. Gods. He was an intoxicating cocktail. She delved her tongue between his lips, hungry for more, desperate to get a taste of everything he had felt. Pleasure so intense that it still rocked him now drifted in his veins like a drug, keeping him out of his head. Varya drank it down in her kiss, feeling stronger with each sweep of her lips over his. Her head spun.

  “Why is that human acting like a goldfish?” a female said and Varya quickly peeled her lips from the man’s and froze, turning fearful eyes on the vampire who had spoken.

  It was not the woman from the stage. This one was a diminutive brunette wrapped tightly in a crimson robe that was too long for her.

  “Something is here,” the huge shaven-headed male said and Varya cursed him. She hadn’t expected him to be old enough to sense her.

  She pressed her mouth to the human male’s, gifting him with strength and some of her own healing power, and then stood. The wounds on his chest closed and he shot to his feet. The room erupted into pandemonium and Varya slipped out of the door and into a double-height black-walled room.

  Stairs led upwards.

  Varya focused, trying to sense where her vampire had gone even as part of her, the more sensible side that had always listened to her tutors and always reminded her what they had said in their lessons, told her to get her backside out of the theatre and never come back.

  She would, just not yet.

  Once she had seen the vampire again and had let him see her, she would leave. She couldn’t go yet. She had to see if that strange sensation came upon her again and upon him. She needed to know if the shadows he wore obscured his true feelings.

  She needed a taste.

  A taste would tell her whether he held passion in his veins and whether it matched the fire that had shone in his eyes, or whether she was mistaken and he was black and empty right down to his soul.

  The limited radius of her senses made tracking him difficult. He wasn’t nearby. Where had he gone?

  Energy from her stolen kiss pulsed in her veins, leaving her feeling slightly hazy. Not the best of conditions for hunting while evading. The strength she had taken from the human gave her a much-needed power boost that rendered her invisible to most of the vampires in the theatre, but there were three who would easily detect her, and unfortunately they were three of the vampires who were searching for her.

  The white-haired beast, the one with the icy eyes and a female constantly on his arm, and the blue-aura-carrying bastard.

  When she had first sensed the bastard’s presence when passing the theatre, she had expected to find him enjoying the show and the excitement of its audience. It was why she had dared to enter the theatre. She had figured it would be safe for her because it was safe for him.

  She definitely hadn’t expected him to know the vampires and now be a part of the group hunting her. Did he work for the theatre? How her clan would laugh at her if she told them that! They would think she had been imagining things.

  Varya focused on her surroundings. The icy-eyed male had gone upstairs. His aura left a brilliant red trail that said he had found a more pressing matter that required his attention. His female. Varya shivered with the thought of them together. He was a powerful male, old and dark, and the female had a wicked edge to her eyes sometimes when she looked at her male. The two of them coupling would probably make what had happened tonight on stage look like a Disney movie, all cute and sweet. That was a performance she wanted to see for herself.

  Varya licked her lips, tasting the human on them, and yanked her focus back to her hunt. She didn’t want to play voyeur any more tonight. She wanted to find her own plaything.

  The beast prowled past her, flicking a glance in her direction, and she ducked behind a wall at the bottom of the stairs, pressing herself flat against it and holding her breath.

  “I know you’re here,” he snarled, voice thick and dark, laced with venom. Her heart did a fluttering flip in her chest and her legs trembled in a bad way. “When I find you, I will kill you… slowly.”

  The grim note of amusement in his final word said he would come good on that threat and he would enjoy it too. Varya swallowed. She had no desire to become this man’s ragdoll. He didn’t need to threaten her aloud for her to know that her demise at his hands would indeed be bloody, painful, and nothing short of Hell.

  It would make Hell look like Heaven.

  He growled and stalked closer.

  A door opened and closed.

  Her senses popped and the hairs on the back of her neck prickled, sending a shiver dancing down her spine.

  “Found anything?” That deep masculine voice was pure honey, accented in a way that was ambrosia to her ears and had her melting against the wall.

  Gods.
He sounded more delicious than she could ever have prepared herself for. She closed her eyes and willed him to speak again.

  “Nothing,” the beast growled and huffed, snorting like a wild dragon. “I will find it, and rip it limb from limb.”

  “Antoine wants it alive, whatever it is. We’re not allowed to kill it, Snow.”

  It? That stung. He had set eyes on her, had clearly felt the same intense jolt that had rocked her, yet he was calling her an ‘it’.

  She had half a mind to step out from her hiding place and confront him, but her self-preservation instincts ran too deeply for her to ignore them and do anything so foolish. She pressed the back of her head against the wall.

  “It is in here somewhere.” The one called Snow moved again and she tracked him with her senses, fearing he would find her. Snow. A strange name for one so impure and evil.

  “I have this. Check in with Payne and Javier. Tell them we know where it is. Payne said he knew a way of flushing it out.”

  Oh, Hell, he wouldn’t. If Payne was the bastard she thought he was, she wasn’t going to wait for him to show up. Snow grunted and the door opened and closed again.

  “I know you’re in here, so you might as well just show yourself, whatever you are. You understand, Chica?” Her vampire’s sexy voice rumbled through her, making her shivery and hazy, and his words took a few seconds to register.

  She did understand. He wanted her out in the open and visible to him so he could go ahead and take her into custody for the one he had called Antoine.

  She wouldn’t let him take her in, refused to let anyone capture and enslave her, but she did want to see him again, and with Snow gone to fetch the bastard and the one she suspected was this man’s brother, she only had a limited window in which to do that, get her taste, and get out.

  Varya stepped out from behind the wall.

  The vampire stood in the middle of the double-height black-walled room, his deep blue eyes scanning the area around him. He was searching for her still. She let her glamour slip just enough that she would grow stronger on his acute senses but not enough that he would see her.