“You go pee behind the bush, and I’ll wait here,” he told her.
She went around the bush right back to him. Ann yanked on his hand. “No pot.”
“You don’t need a pot, just drop your drawers and pee.”
Ann frowned. “I’ll fall over.”
Rhett thought she had a point. Girls were definitely at a disadvantage in the waste area needing to squat. Looking around Rhett dragged two logs together. Ann still looked up at him.
“Just drop your drawers and sit between the logs.”
“I’ll fall in.”
“You won’t fall in,” Rhett said and became exasperated. Perhaps he should have brought the child’s mother. Ann still continued to stare up at him.
“Pee’s coming.”
Oh shit, that’s a warning if I ever heard one.
Rhett turned her around and covered his eyes with one hand while fumbling with her leather pants. He sat her down and sighed with relief when he heard a stream of liquid hit the ground. He waited a few moments. He knew little girls needed a little longer than boys.
“Are you done?”
“No.”
Rhett waited. “Done now?”
“No.”
“Do you think you’ll be done by dinner?”
Ann giggled. “I’m done.”
She stood up and Rhett peeked through his fingers as she spun in a tight circle tugging her leather back into place. After her potty dance Rhett fixed her clothes. Rhett lifted Ann into his arms. Cuddling her to his chest he took to the sky. Ann was wide-eyed but said nothing except to ask for another drink. Before long the coven came into view. Tavish and Caine were waiting to greet him.
“Well, who do we have here?” Caine asked, all smiles for the child.
“This is Ann. She would like some water, but maybe you can introduce her to something that would put some color in her face and add some poundage to her little arms. I need to head back for her mother, oh and Dooder.” Rhett placed Ann into the doctor’s care and tweaked her nose. Any human arriving was checked over with a fine tooth comb before being allowed to mingle with the healthy flock.
“Dooder?” Tavish asked.
Rhett grinned. “Her doll, silly.”
Chuckling at Tavish’s raised eyebrows, Rhett headed back to the glacier. Hopefully, he had the mother’s complete attention.
* * * *
For seven years, Hope had kept Ann safe from harm. When Hope conceived illegally and realized she was pregnant she had fled her home. She had broken the law which meant her death, which meant her unborn child’s death. She had eluded every hunting party until they stopped hunting her. Hope guessed they thought she died. She almost had. Surviving alone in a wasteland of ice was hell. Before giving birth, Hope had come across an elderly man living in a cave. With hesitance she had peeked behind a leather door. The startled man had offered her a sweet smile and Hope was captivated. Her feet shuffled into the diminutive space, her fleeting glance at everything was fear fueled, yet hopeful. Dirk looked like he was a thousand and ten. But the man was crafty, and handy, and the kindest man she ever had the privilege of knowing, besides her father.
Dirk had helped Hope when she gave birth. It was a terrifying experience. Hope never knew of anyone who had a child. It was a painful delivery and for a while she could see Dirk thought he might lose her. The many creases and grooves in his face gave testimony to that. After the birth, she lay quiet, weak. Many days Hope had drifted in and out of consciousness, only waking when her baby cried to feed from her.
Dirk looked after Ann, he was wonderful with her. He said not a word about Ann’s features. Truthfully Hope had never seen a baby before and thought nothing was wrong. Dirk had crooned to the child she was beautiful. Hope thought so too. Ann, named after Dirk’s, mother, was different, but wasn’t everyone? Dirk had provided food and skins and warm furs. For a year they looked after one another as a family until one morning Dirk didn’t wake up. Hope and Ann were alone. Hope had dragged Dirk out into the cold and gathered enough rocks to make a resting place over him.
For years, Hope and Ann had been happy in the little cave. It was easy to keep warm with the small amount of kindling she found. Food was scarce but Hope found enough to live on. Ann wasn’t in the best of health and ate little enough. The child’s thought process was different. Hope didn’t think the girl was slow, Ann was special. Hope had no other child to compare her to. The child saw things a certain way that made Hope smile. Born mentally handicapped, as Dirk had said, was both a blessing and a curse. Ann was always happy. At seven, Ann was tiny, but lack of food was a contributor, though Hope tried.
They had vacated the cave recently and wandered into the glacier. While scavenging for food Hope had seen polar bears moving closer. Worried they had caught hers and Ann’s scent, the two reluctantly fled. Too late, Hope realized the polar bears were being hunted by a male hunting party. A man had spied Hope. In desperation, she had left her child in the deep cavern of ice, hoping to lead the men away.
Now her baby was gone. The vampire had taken her. He had killed her child already, a mere snack. Hope curled into a small ball and watched as the last of her fire died down. Hungry, alone and smelling as vile as a human could get she would sleep, and then join her little one in death.
“There you are.” Boomed an unwanted voice. Hope sat up. She glared at the vampire.
“Go ahead, do your worst, you monster. Oh wait, you already did that by killing my baby.”
The vampire came closer, scrunched his nose then tossed more wood onto the fire from a distance.
“Poor little Ann. Have other children teased her about her mother’s stench?”
“How do you know her name?” Hope crouched onto her knees and felt her heart begin to pound.
“She asked me to bring back Dooder.” He leaned in a little closer. “That’s her doll.”
“She’s alive?”
“No, I just told you; Dooder is a doll.”
“Ann, my Ann is alive?”
“Actually my Ann is alive. And she wants her doll.”
Hope looked at him in confusion. He was keeping her child. Oh God. “Please, she needs me. Don’t hurt her.”
The vampire circled her as though pondering. Hope swallowed hard. “You’ll give her some noxious disease smelling like that.”
“I only did it because the men came. I saw them coming. I was trying to repulse them.”
“So you don’t have some shit fetish?”
“I don’t have some shit fetish,” she ground out through gnashed teeth.
“I might be persuaded to take you to Ann. If you bathe and behave yourself.”
Hope became concerned. “It will take forever to completely bathe. I might freeze.”
The vampire crouched down in front of her, still he kept his distance. “I’m certain we can come to some understanding.”
Swallowing her pride Hope looked at him as demur as possible, needing to hold her baby in her arms. “I’ll do what you want. Anything, I swear.”
“Good,” he said and rose to his feet. He went to a dark corner and grabbed a huge white polar bear skin. “We keep skins in certain areas for when we catch prey we want to keep,” the vampire explained. “Now strip.”
“Huh?”
“Get naked.”
“But, but.”
“Yes I’d love to see your butt.”
“I’ll freeze to death.”
“As soon as the shit covered furs are dropped I’ll wrap you in this nice clean fur.”
“And do what?” she whispered.
“Compel you to shut up. Then take you to a hot spring where you can wash.”
“My poor baby,” Hope said feeling her tears wet her eyes.
“Your poor baby is no doubt having a pony back ride from the good doctor Caine and eating her veggies and drinking her milk.”
“A doctor?” Hope squealed. A healer. Oh God. She raced towards him. The vampire stuck out his palm which smacked into her forehead keeping her at
a distance.
“My God woman, ten day old dead fish guts baked in the sun smell better than you.”
Hope didn’t care how it looked, she stripped naked to bare feet and stood shivering before him before he changed his mind. The vampire walked around her. She felt smaller than ever. He was a huge bastard. He lifted a strand of her greasy hair.
“You’re as thin as your daughter, woman.”
Was that pity in his voice?
“My name is Hope.” The last of their food had gone to Ann; Hope hadn’t eaten in two days.
“My name is Rhett. I’m your master or whatever floats your boat. You can call me Rhett. You belong to me. For now. Don’t piss me off.”
In a single action, Hope felt herself grabbed as the fur wrapped around her entire body, skin side out. Rhett was staring into her eyes. The white glow scared the crap out of her. She gasped.
“I may or may not hurt you. For now you will sleep. You will wake when I decide…and you will never cover yourself in shit of any kind again. Got it?”
For some reason, Hope nodded. She wanted to smack him one. While she was pondering, she fell asleep.
Chapter 3
Wake.
Hope heard the word in her mind. It was a gentle tug in her conscious. Hope didn’t want to wake up. She was wonderfully warm. Hope had never been this warm in her life. Heat soaked into her bones making them tingle in a delight unheard of. In her young life Hope had known cold and freezing, this was incredible; she heard her groan of delight. Her inhaled breath was warm; Hope was used to the sensation of cold. She wanted a little longer to explore this invasion. But the word was spoken as a command the second time.
Wake.
Reluctantly Hope stirred. Her surroundings were dimly lit. She was in some type of cave where the interior smelt funny. For a second, she worried the odor was coming from her and Rhett would be pissed and not take her to Ann. Although, it wasn’t an offensive odor, just different.
Another thought occurred to Hope. She was up to her neck in water. The water was steaming. It reminded her of when she cooked food. Was she being cooked? It was a scary thought. Hope had never once been submerged in water. She couldn’t swim, it was death. Her arms flailed for a brief moment before being subdued. Gasping in terror she looked at Rhett who had her pressed to his chest. She could feel his naked skin against hers. He couldn’t be cooking her if he was in the same pot of water. He was grinning at her, enjoying her fear. She was being cradled like a baby, her hair was soaked. He had washed her while she slept.
If she gave in to terror, she would be doomed. The cave was quiet, they were alone. Only the sound of her heartbeat resounded in her ears. She couldn’t beg for mercy, men had none, vampires probably had less. Her thoughts collided within her mind. She had to speak or panic would consume her.
“What’s a master?” Since Hope didn’t know where to begin she thought the question a good place to start.
“It means you are to obey me.”
“If I don’t?”
“You used to live with men at one time. You gave birth. What happened when the women there didn’t obey?”
They were killed.
“They didn’t call themselves masters. The men in my ice home.”
“They were the masters of your fate. Did you run or did they kick you out, little seal?”
“I ran. I had no choice. They hunted me until they thought I was dead.” Hope’s words were barely a whisper. She hated thinking of that time. Alone and heavy with child she had stumbled her way through the freezing cold wondering each day if she would die. Worse was the thought of giving birth then dying to leave her baby all alone.
“You must have run before you gave birth.”
“I did,” she whispered.
“How did you survive?”
His words caressed her cheek. His breath bathed her face and she scented his heat. Hope’s heart pounded. He was too close, men shouldn’t be so close. Hope tried to struggle from his grip. She had never had a naked man close to her in her life. Even when she and her husband, wed in secret, had sex one time only before they were discovered and he was killed, there were, for the most part, furs between them. She had only felt Ben’s furs rub across the small patch exposing her behind. Hope had never placed her bare hands onto a man’s bare chest. She never knew a man was so large under his pelt.
Rhett’s cock pressed against her ass. She continued to struggle until Rhett simply released her. Hope went under the water. Terror gripped her. She screamed but heard only a muttered sound. If she couldn’t hear her screams neither would Rhett. He wouldn’t know she was drowning. The human pot Rhett placed her in would be her death.
Her arms didn’t flail, she didn’t kick her feet. Her body gently slipped lower until her world became dark, her behind rested on the bottom of the pool. She was alone. There was no sound. A whimper tore from her throat. Her entire being screamed at her to save herself but she didn’t know how. She didn’t need to build a fire for warmth; she didn’t need to hunt to fill her belly. This much water was a danger she had never encountered.
Hands roughly gripped her under her arms and hauled her to the surface. Hope gasped in air. Her clawed hands tried to shove the water away. Her mouth opened wide to suck in air she thought she’d never breathe again. She gasped and coughed.
“I suppose teaching you to swim will be on my to-do list.”
“No, no more water, ever,” Hope gasped.
“Sorry little seal. Although the nick name is a bit redundant now. There are too many ponds and lakes where I’m taking you. Both you and little Andra-Ann will learn to love it.”
“Andra?”
“Ann, her nick name Andra means strong and courageous.”
“Is she really alright?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t like this pot of water. I’ve never been in so much; are you going to eat me? I never sat in a pot with my food.”
Rhett chuckled as he lifted them both from the water. She didn’t know what he found so amusing. Hope stood dripping wet and when Rhett turned to leave the cave, she followed him. Hope watched the vampire walk. He was the largest man she had ever seen. He had a broad back that tapered to a slimmer waist. His butt was, well, it was a butt. She had never seen a naked man. Hope had never seen her own ass except in the reflection of the ice when she went to do her business. It was too cold in her world to ponder, to look.
Hope stopped dead when they reached the mouth of the cave and gasped. Nothing was familiar. The air was warm not frigid. Her world was gone. Everywhere she looked there was color. There were the greens of sea weed, blood reds, sky blues. In the sky were fluffy white clouds. Browns, all kinds of familiar varying color she would call brown. Trees, tall standing trees reached towards the clouds. There were colors she had never seen. Amazing breathtaking colors.
Beneath her feet was a soft substance instead of ice. Hope had never gone barefoot. Only a fool walked without shoes. Rhett turned and she noted his clothing had been draped over parts of the trees. He turned to face her as he donned the black shirt he wore, leaving her to stare at his cock. Hope knew what it was, hardly had she seen Ben’s before he had bent her over. Her hand had traced it only seconds under his skins. It was so big, this vampire’s cock.
She was naked and vulnerable. Alone with this huge being. Ben had seen her naked ass, at least some of it; the ice cavern was fairly dark. Ben was the only man who had seen any of her exposed flesh—except now there stood Rhett, watching her as he slipped his pants on. Leg by leg, his grin smug as she watched him.
Hope tried to hide behind the entrance of the cave. Rhett sat down to put his foot coverings on. The things he slipped into were strange, not the fur coverings she was used to. He laced them up and stood clothed before her. Hope’s breath increased. There always seemed to be a sinister grin on his face that never reached his blue eyes. As though he were soulless. Perhaps vampires were soulless. His dark hair glistened in the sun, still damp. He was a handso
me devil as well as a frightful sight.
“Come to me,” he demanded.
Hope didn’t want to. She wanted to hide. She wanted to wake from this nightmare with Ann by her side. Hope was used to ice and snow, she liked her home. Out where she looked was too busy. Things moved on the ground, in the air, in the trees. Things she had never seen before. It was so strange. Had Ann cried when he brought her here? She must have been so scared to be with such a cruel vampire.
Come to me.
Hope heard the command in her mind as Rhett gazed into her eyes. He was doing something to her, something he had done before. It was mind control, and Hope had no idea how to stop him. Her feet began to move as she stepped away from the mouth of the cave. Tiny steps brought her close to him. He waited patiently. Small stones hurt her feet as she moved forward, dry vegetation clung to her heel. The sole of her feet had never touched anything but snow, ice and the skin footwear. When she stopped in front of him he tilted her chin up so he could stare into her face.
“I can hear your heart pounding in fear, little seal. You will obey me. You have no choice.”
“I—don’t—want—to.” Her words were dragged from her mouth, as though she fought a battle for each one.
Rhett chuckled and cupped her face with his palm. “Very good. You have spirit. It will be fun to see if you can be compelled to do things you don’t want to do, and still know you are doing them against your will.”
Hope released the breath she had been holding as his intense gaze set her free. “Why are you doing this? It’s obvious you don’t like me. Why take us to your home? Why not just return us?”
“You will see.”
Rhett scooped her into his arms, grabbed Dooder the doll from the ground and took to the air. Hope struggled to be free then looked down. Never before had she clung to anyone the way she wrapped her arms around Rhett’s neck. It was a long way to the ground. Her fingers gripped his shirt, her legs wrapped around his waist. She pressed her face into his neck as she battled for air.
“Shit, commando seal. Loosen your grip.” Rhett was laughing as he said this. “I wouldn’t bring you this far to watch you fall to the ground.”
Vampire Coven Book 3: A Vampire's Embrace Page 4
