by Renee George
“Blood.” She breathed the word. “And sex. Tyr, when he was still himself, told me. He’d been suffering, impotent, because he’d stopped mixing blood with sex. When he stopped getting both together from you, it made him less. If this is what it takes to make him more…” She unzipped the fly and rubbed Nathan’s cock.
“We shouldn’t.”
Kissing his ear, Nadine shushed him. “I used to think I’d rather die than share Tyr with you. Or share him with anyone, but especially you. Now, I’d rather die than have him live, or not live, like this.” She pulled his face around to hers. “I thought you were the enemy. I was wrong. So wrong, Nathan. You were what held us all together. We lost it, everything, when you disappeared.” Her lips touched his, soft. “I never hated you, Nathan. I hated me. I hated the way I felt around you. Inferior. But I don’t anymore. I want things back the way they were. I want Tyr back. I don’t care about anything else.”
A moan sounded from beneath them as Tyr stirred. Nathan still couldn’t hear anything coherent from his mind, but Nadine dipped her head and kissed his lips, and Tyr responded. “Nathan.” She stood and undressed, the piercings gone, her lithe body pale and unadorned. “Please. I think it’s working.”
Nathan hesitantly slid his pants off and lay half over Tyr, feathering kisses across his chest. Physically, Tyr reacted, his long, hard erection pressed against Nathan’s thigh, his body shaking, fevered with intense need, his arms pulling at the shackles as his hips thrust upward. Nadine slid herself behind Nathan, sliding her chest up his back, her nipples tugging against his skin.
A flood of desire, hungry and intense, both for Tyr and Nadine, filled Nathan and he couldn’t tell whether it was from Tyr or himself. The idea of having sex with Nadine hadn’t been high on his list of things he wanted to do, but that had been an hour ago, or twenty-five years…
He couldn’t get his mind around the fact that he’d actually been gone that long. This was a different world, a different Nadine, and it seemed she’d become an ally. Can I really trust her?
Another surge of need rushed through Nathan. He began to see Nadine through Tyr’s eyes, somewhere in the midst of the pain, willing himself to die daily. He knew she’d been there, caring for him, loving him, wanting more than anything to have him back in her arms. Flashes of her spending nights trying to comfort Tyr, crawling in next to him to sleep the day, only to wake and start again.
Nathan clenched his eyes shut to the horror that had been their lives without him. The images wouldn’t go away and he knew what he had to do. He owed Tyr, and most of all, he knew now he owed Nadine. She hadn’t given up on Tyr, and neither would Nathan.
Supple lips pressed against the base of his neck sending a shiver of pleasure washing down his spine and Nathan opened his eyes. He moved forward, Nadine moving with him, his cock brushing against Tyr’s causing a spark of static. Tyr moaned again, wriggling his hips. Nathan licked at the drying blood on Tyr’s lower lip. He ran his fingers through the blond man’s shorn hair, missing the length. Tyr’s clear blue eyes fixed on Nathan’s face, his pupils no longer dilated with drugs.
“Release me,” came a hoarse whisper. “Master.”
“Tyr?” Nathan captured his lips, pulling him into a deep kiss, as the larger man’s tongue darted to meet his own. Nadine reacted swiftly, unlocking the shackles on Tyr’s ankles and wrists. His massive arms moved just as quickly, his hands tangling into Nathan’s hair, his powerful thigh wrapping Nathan’s leg, as the kiss lengthened, grew more forceful. It took a moment for Nathan to realize that Nadine was no longer touching him, them. He pulled his face back from Tyr’s, breaking the kiss.
Next to the bed, Nadine stood, naked, pale, beautiful, her long red hair framing the curves of her shoulders and waist. Nathan expected to see jealousy, anger, even hatred. Instead, he saw unshed tears of joy and love as she watched the two men in their tangled embrace. Nathan held out his hand, inviting, welcoming, and she took it.
“My Tyr, my magnificent Tyr,” she said in a hushed voice as she lay next to them, her leg crossing over Tyr’s. She pressed both of their faces with her palms, urging them back into a kiss as her lips joined theirs.
“Nadine.” Tyr’s voice caught as he said her name. “You’ve suffered so much.”
Nathan suddenly felt as if he was intruding, maybe he didn’t belong, but he didn’t want to leave. We stay, the all-too-familiar voice of his inner Beast snarled.
“Stay,” Tyr echoed.
Nadine smiled and stroked his cheek. “Stay.”
Moving aside, Nathan made room for Nadine atop Tyr, who was nearly broad enough to carry them both. Nadine’s slender fingers met Nathan’s and intertwined around Tyr’s rigid shaft.
“I need…” Tyr squirmed beneath them, thrusting his hips forward. “Fuck.” He groaned, his eyes pleading. “Make me real again.”
“I…” Nathan started. Tyr’s thoughts were clear to him now -- undeniable need to fuck and be fucked.
Nadine opened a bottle of scented oil. “I use it to massage him. It should suit your purpose.”
Wrapping a hand around Nadine’s neck, Nathan pulled her into a kiss. “Our purpose.” She was gentle, soft, more than he could ever imagine. So unlike the Nadine he knew just moments before arriving.
“Together then.” Pouring the oil onto her palms, she rubbed her hands together, the friction warming. Nadine stroked both Nathan and Tyr’s cocks, the slick lubricant coating their shafts. Static snapped her fingertip as it made contact with the small opening on the head of Nathan’s cock. “I used to think that was the thing that made you different. The reason I couldn’t compete.”
“Nadine…”
“It’s okay.” Her tongue flickered across his earlobe before she moved in front of him to straddle Tyr’s hips. Her back, beautifully curved, slender, bowed forward.
Using his knee, Nathan parted Tyr’s thighs and knelt between them. The fog in his servant’s mind cleared even more. Nathan could see Nadine through Tyr’s eyes; feel her wet pussy as it slid over his shaft. Pouring the oil onto his fingertips, he reached around Nadine’s waist and slipped his fingers down between her swollen folds. His other hand slid down the crack of Tyr’s buttocks, rimming the muscle, loosening, relaxing the tight ring with one finger, then two.
Don’t make me wait, he heard Tyr’s voice in his head.
“Don’t make me wait,” Nadine echoed.
“Do you…”
“Yes, I hear him.” Her pussy glided over the large, rigid cock, squeezing as she rocked her hips forward.
Nadine’s movements were controlled, deliberate, not like the night she’d turned Nathan. That night she’d been wild, frenzied, but now… sleek, sensual, sexy as hell. She is sexy as hell, Tyr echoed. The Viking raised his buttocks up, allowing Nathan to shift beneath him. Now fuck me.
Nathan obliged, pressing the thick head of his cock against Tyr’s anus. He pushed forward, sinking his shaft deep. Tyr moaned his pleasure. Nadine moaned, her rocking becoming more insistent. The bond allowed him to see and feel what Tyr did and the sensation was strange. Nathan was bombarded with stimuli -- Tyr’s hot channel gripping his cock, Nadine’s pussy sliding up and down Tyr’s shaft, while feeling his own cock, buried deep in Tyr, filling his own ass. “Oh God.”
“Yes,” Tyr murmured.
“Shit,” Nadine squealed. They were both feeling it as well. The bond had managed to tie them all together, bombarding their senses.
Surging forward, Nathan leaned against Nadine’s back, sandwiching her between them. Tyr roared, feral, ferocious. His long arms wrapped around Nadine and Nathan and he rolled them over, still joined with both. He pushed his ass down, taking Nathan even deeper inside him, then thrusting forward into Nadine’s slick channel.
Reaching behind with one hand, Tyr’s fingers found Nathan’s anus. He pushed in one finger, then two. His other hand slipped beneath Nadine, probing, pushing until all three of them were fucking and being fucked, writhing, thrusting.
Tyr’s eyes, wide with passion, alive with pleasure, raked across Nathan and Nadine. “Thank you, thank you,” he mumbled before crying out as wave after wave of orgasm spilled through his body triggering Nathan and Nadine to come with him -- bodies jerking, spasms, wriggling above and below.
They lay, one on top of the other, Nathan at the bottom, and if he’d needed to breath to survive, he’d have suffocated. Instead, he smiled under their weight. When Tyr pulled himself off Nathan, Nathan realized he hadn’t physically come, but it had felt like he had. Strange.
“You gave me too much of your blood, master.” Tyr kissed his lips, softly, and then curled next to Nadine. “It’s not unusual that you didn’t come.”
“Oh, I came.” Nathan smiled. “Whether I popped the cork or not, I came.”
Nadine laughed, rich and vibrant, pulling Tyr’s arms even closer to her body. “That was fan-fucking-spectacular.”
“Nathan.” Tyr struggled as he sat up and put his feet over the edge of the bed. Nadine moved behind him and braced his back. “I was lost, for so long, lost. Thank you for finding me again.”
Rubbing his hands over his eyes, Nathan grimaced. “Don’t. It’s my fault. I should have been here.”
“If the sun doesn’t rise tomorrow, is that your fault?” The blond turned to face his master. “It’s the stones. We should never have brought them back.”
“The stones?” Nathan remembered the yellow one in his pant’s pocket. Sudden alarm raced through him. “Didn’t they work? Nadine said Rebekah was okay. She’s okay? Right?”
Chapter Four
The hover-taxi, which Nathan still couldn’t believe existed, dropped Nathan off in front of the club. Nadine had said hover cars had been around for nearly six years, developed after Jon Dorsen, an ecology friendly president, got a bill passed banning the use of fossil fuels. First all the vehicles went electric, then eventually an engineer developed a clean propellant system that allowed for safe travel above the ground.
The ride in the floating car had been smooth and quiet, which Nathan found totally freaky. Even when the vehicle stopped and set down on the street, there wasn’t even the slightest jerk or jolt. Too weird.
Nathan paid the cab driver with credits Nadine had given him, then stood outside Corazon de la Muerte, Guillermo’s nightclub. Tyr had wanted to come along, but Nathan and Nadine insisted he stay behind. As the door opened and Nathan walked in, the hard beat of techno music thumped in his chest. He did a double take at the hostess, who reminded him of Nadine -- the Nadine of his time. Only her hair was long and blonde instead of the vibrant red. Bodies shoved against one another, jumping, hopping, dancing to the heavy beat in a manic choreography.
In other words, the more things changed, the more they stayed the same.
As he brushed past the hostess, her slender fingers grasped his wrist. “Dead sexy.” She flashed a fang. “Wanna play, lover?”
“Not tonight.” It took Nathan a moment to realize the fangs were fake. When did Guillermo start hiring humans? “Is Gui in?”
“Oh, you know our master vampire. His hot ass is always in. But he’s by appointment only.” She grabbed Nathan’s crotch and gave it a squeeze. “Unlike myself, who’s willing to accommodate the occasional weary soul.”
The woman’s attitude irked Nathan’s beast. He let his eyes slip and extended his fangs. “Where the fuck is Guillermo?”
“Oh shit. Not again.” She pushed a button and four men quickly moved in on Nathan.
The largest stepped between Nathan and the crowd. “Trouble?” he asked the woman but kept his glare on Nathan.
“This guy says he looking for Guillermo.” She straightened her black whalebone corset and finger-combed her hair. “He just totally vamped out on me.”
The security guard crossed his arms, and his blue eyes began to glow iridescent and his forehead ridged. “What business do you have with the boss?”
Nathan growled. He was hungry, the beast was hungry, and this guy was looking more and more like a meal. “None of your fucking business.” The man reeked of fresh blood, he’d fed recently. Nathan flashed fangs. “If you want to keep you dinner down, get out of my way.”
“In a pissing contest, I always bet on the bigger dick. That would be me.” The security guard grabbed his cock.
“Yeah, you are a dick. If you want to keep it, you’ll back the fuck off.” Nathan kept his eye on the leader, but made note of the other three men getting into position around him. These guys wanted a fight, and he was about to give them one.
The hostess stepped off to the side, trying to stay out of the way as the men circled around. Growling, Nathan lunged forward then felt a sharp pain jolt through him, driving him to his knees.
One of the other guys, a blond, short and broad, chuckled. “You like the wand?” He hit Nathan again with what looked like a telescopic metal pole. The pain seared as he collapsed flat onto the floor. Turning his head to look at the guy, to tell him to stop if only he could find his voice, he saw the man draw back the pole once more, ready to strike. Nathan closed his eyes to the blow.
It never came. When Nathan opened his eyes again, Guillermo had his hand around the security guard’s wrist, staring down at Nathan, his eyes wide with shock and disbelief. Nathan felt a little shocked as well. Guillermo had grown out his hair over the years -- long, soft black waves, just below his shoulders.
As the shock wore off, Guillermo’s mouth tensed, his face cold with anger as he bellowed his frustration and turned on his man. The master vampire plunged his hand into the stout guy’s stomach and pulled out his entrails. “Pick him up off the ground and take him to my quarters.”
Quarters? When had Guillermo started sleeping at the club again?
Nathan tried to stand on his own, but his legs wouldn’t work. Something in that metal pole had left him paralyzed from the neck down. Gui sounded distant, cold, angry, as he barked orders to his men. The hostess began to protest, but a raised hand stopped her short. The first security guy and the other one who wasn’t lying on the ground trying to put his intestines back into his abdomen, grabbed Nathan by the shoulders and legs, lifting him from the ground.
* * *
Guillermo fumed with anger and confusion as he stalked back and forth in his office. There was a man in his bedroom that looked like Nathan -- his Nathan! Of all the tricks the Brotherhood had pulled over the years to get close to him, this was the cruelest. I will kill them all. I swear it.
Swinging his arm around, he planted his fist in the nearest wall, the dry wall sticking in a fine powder over his bloody, unwashed hand as he pulled it from the new hole. He’d been harsh with Deacon. Too harsh, but the young vamp would heal.
What he couldn’t understand was the how. How did the Brotherhood manufacture a look-alike of his dead lover? The ability to do magick had died with the original twelve when Bekah was a baby. She’d effectively killed them all in a single blink of an eye. The new Brotherhood was just a bunch of paranoid, deluded vampires. No real power among them, even if their numbers were growing.
That was the reason the wand had been developed. Guillermo had gotten tired of the killings. The wand crippled a vampire quickly and with extreme prejudice for a short period of time. Long enough for Gui’s men to escort them out of the city with a warning to never come back. A few did, and died for their troubles, but at least they’d had a choice.
Worry raced through Guillermo. If Rebekah found out about the imposter, she’d go crazy with rage. He couldn’t afford for her to find out. Better just to kill him before she took out half his club. Sometimes he wished he’d killed the child while he had the chance, taken the Brotherhood more seriously -- but no one had except for a few true believers. Nathan had died that morning though, died in some ether of intangible time. He had known it to be true -- Rebekah had said it was true.
What if… He couldn’t afford “what ifs” now. She had become an uncontrollable force. Taking what she wanted, when she wanted, and killing any v
ampire that got in her way. Guillermo knew the right thing, even twenty-some odd years ago, would have been to find a way to destroy her, but she was his last thread to Nathan. He had loved the child she’d been and Gui couldn’t bring himself to destroy what Nathaniel, his amante, had loved.
Soon the tranquilizer from the wand would wear off the newcomer. Guillermo knew he should face the vampire before that, but he feared his emotions would cloud his judgment. Gathering his nerve, and composure, Gui straightened his clothing, smoothed his hair, and left the sanctuary of his office.
* * *
Concentrating on moving, Nathan managed to wiggle his toes. The music from the club grew loud then distant. Someone had entered the room. He turned his head, the only part of his body he was in control of, trying to catch a glimpse of whoever was there. “Gui?”
“You know who I am. Now let’s find out who you are.” There was a hard edge to Guillermo’s voice.
“Uhm, a little help would be nice. I can’t seem to move my arms and legs. And damn it, why’d they have to put me on my stomach?”
Guillermo kept his distance from Nathan, looking him over from head to toe. “A very convincing doppelganger. Where did the Brotherhood find you? Or better yet, how did they create you?”
Doppelganger? “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The fingers on his right hand twitched. Good. Now if the rest of the body would follow suit. “The Brotherhood never found me anywhere. Not since the night they all…” He remembered the horror and relief he felt when his little Bekah had sent out a blinding flash that killed all the members of that ancient faction.
“The night they all what?” Guillermo paced around the bed, still keeping his distance. “The night they taught you all you need to get close to me? Do they think me so stupid as to fall for one of their tricks?”
Guillermo’s hands, Nathan noted, were trembling. He couldn’t imagine what must have happened to him to make him so suspicious. “You’re shaking.”
