by Ines Johnson
Her Vampire Knight
Ines Johnson
Midnight Romance
Copyright © February 2021 by Ines Johnson and Midnight Romance, LLC
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writers’ imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction of this work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.
All rights reserved. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the authors.
This book contains descriptions of many BDSM and sexual practices, but this is a work of fiction and, as such, should not be used in any way as a guide. The author and publisher will not be responsible for any loss, harm, injury, or death resulting from use of the information contained within. In other words, don’t try this at home, folks!
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue
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Chapter 1
Virius
I shiver as I run barefoot down the streets. My nostrils fill with the foul stench of refuse, both human and animal. But the smell makes my empty stomach grumble. It hasn’t been filled in days. I don’t let that stop me as I move through the carts and the people.
Pushing my body harder, I run down the footpaths. I leap taller than I am as I hop over a newly installed drainage ditch. Once, I would have marveled at the new age invention, but there is no time. I skirt a bridlepath, narrowly avoiding horse hooves.
Finally, I reach the door. The sounds of laughter barely mute the sound of squeals and grunts. I have only been alive for ten years, maybe less. No one paid me enough attention to keep track since my birth, and I hadn’t learned my numbers until long after I’d learned to run. But even then I’d learned to keep my mouth shut. Any sums I kept, I kept in my head.
I stayed quiet with the butcher who cheated Lena Marcella. Neither truth nor a lie would have done me any good. Either a strapping would come from the butcher when the lena’s back was turned, or the lena would lash me if the madame of the house thought I’d stolen from her. I knew I couldn’t win, so I kept silent and simply dealt with whatever punishments came.
It was all I could do. Slaves had no rights, no say in their own lives, or what their masters and mistresses did with their flesh.
“No, sir. Please, wait.”
The squealing maiden is playing coy. I know because of the breathlessness in her voice and the fact that she’s not running away from the large, out of shape male. His pockets are thick, and so she will stay and pretend to resist, as many of the rich men of Rome like. Others prefer for the women to seduce them so that they can deny their baser leanings and blame it on the puellas they’ve come to patronize.
This trick is especially used when the men come seeking out other males. Men enjoying the touch of others of their sex isn’t so much as frowned upon in the streets of Rome as it is simply not discussed.
I pass by rooms where men pummel into women from behind. I peek into another where a woman has her head buried between a rich matron’s thighs as the gray-haired, married woman trembles with delight. In another room, a man and a woman service a praetor. That particular magister runs his hands through the female puella’s hair but his gaze is locked on the male’s bare member.
I finally reach the scene I ran all the way for. A large male has a woman cornered in an empty room. There is no bed here upon which to do one’s business. The customer is fully clothed, unlike the other patrons of the establishment. But the puella’s back is bare. Her skin is blood red from the flailing of his instrument.
“Please,” she begs.
Her voice isn’t breathless in calculation or desire. She fights for breath with each word she is able to utter as the lash slices into her pale skin. The man digs his meaty paws into her blonde braids and yanks her head back.
“Please,” she whimpers, barely audible as her neck strains and her wounds pulse.
There is no fight in her. She knows better. Though she doesn’t want this, she has no choice. She is a slave. This man has paid for her time, to do with her as he wishes.
It isn’t rape even though she says no. Slaves can’t say no to the use of their bodies. The only person she could report this ill-use to is the madame. Lena Marcella would bother to take the matter to court if her property was damaged beyond repair. Which may be why the brute Felix keeps his lashing to the slave’s back and not the place where her thighs split. Bright dots of red blood stain his alabaster skin.
I’d heard that Felix the albino was coming to the brothel. The man’s name, along with his unnaturally pale skin, strikes horror into the hearts of anyone who sees him. He has been in town for a month and everyone in the brothels know of his name, his features, and his proclivities.
The albino has never ventured this far from the center of town. Not many come to this brothel on the outskirts. Vera is the prettiest meretrix in the establishment. When I heard Felix was coming in this direction, I knew he would come straight to her.
With Vera’s skin rent and her spirit broken, Felix finally undoes the folds of his toga. Vera whimpers, but she does not resist. I cannot stand by any longer; I launch myself into the room.
The albino is bigger than me. Stronger than me. With a weapon in his hand that is twice the length of me. But I can’t allow him to keep up his assault. He doesn’t even register when my fist hits his flesh.
“Virius, no,” says Vera, with more strength in her voice than I thought possible. “Get out of here.”
“No,” I shout, launching another strike at the brute. “I’ll save you, Mother.”
My mother straightens on her elbows. Blood drips down her back as she does so. “Do not call me that,” she hisses.
Vera’s eyes glare into mine. We have the same face. The same mouth. The same eyes. But she doesn’t claim me as hers. I’d often wondered if I came into her belly like this, by a man forcing his way into her. I later realized she likely didn’t know who my father was as she’d been spreading her thighs for food and shelter since she was my age.
“Oh, look at that,” trills a voice as gay as a bird’s. “You have a valiant little knight.”
I turn to the corner of the room. I hadn’t noticed that there was a witness to Felix’s brutality. A woman sits upon a cushioned chair.
Her beauty is beyond Vera’s. She is something otherworldly. Her skin is pale, but not as translucent as Felix’s. Her dark eyes tilt upward like a cat’s. Her hair is long and white and hangs about her cherub-like face in a shimmering curtain. She smiles at me, and I am transfixed by her blood-red lips.
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“He’s nothing,” says my mother, steel coming into her voice. “Send him away, and let’s continue our fun.”
But the woman’s gaze is latched onto me. “A man who comes to a woman’s rescue even though the odds are against him. Aren’t you precious?”
“He does not need to beat her,” I say. “She will lie with him willingly.”
“But darling, it’s the beating that will make her taste so sweet.”
I know that sex is had not just with the parts between a person’s legs but with the mouth as well. It was something else I cataloged away, as I knew this would be my life one day. Likely sooner rather than later, I would be filling my belly and keeping a roof over my head by lying on my back, bending over, and kneeling down. I was born a slave, the property of Lena Marcella to her most prized and highly paid meretrix.
“Don’t worry about her, little one,” says the white-haired woman. “She won’t remember a thing when she wakes up. But you… I think I’ll take you with me. I’ve never had a pet.”
She beckons me to her. I have not been taught that I have any choices. So, I go to her.
“N-no, wait.”
I’m shocked that any sound of protest comes from my mother. But I do not glance back at her. The white-haired woman’s gaze holds me transfixed.
“How much?” she says.
The silence in the room is so loud that I can hear the soft inhale from my mother’s shock, and then her throat working as she swallows down any of the care she may have had for me as a child of her loins.
I do turn then, and I see my mother calculating. The blood on her back is ignored. The open wounds are forgotten. She names a sum.
“Done.” The white-haired woman turns my face back to hers. “Wait outside, darling knight.”
I look at my mother, but she isn’t looking at me any longer. Her eyes have glazed over in that look the puellas get when they have a particularly hard client to deal with. Felix goes back to his toga folds. He drops the flail and removes the instrument between his thighs. I see a flash of sharp teeth as he looks down at the blood on my mother’s back.
There’s a crack against my face. I have been slapped before. Never before have I seen stars behind my eyelids. I open my eyes to find the white-haired goddess looking down at me as though a demon lives behind her dark gaze.
“Outside, I said. You belong to me now, and I do not take any disobedience.”
I am shoved out the door on unsteady legs. When the door slams shut, all I hear are the sounds of a man grunting. Then I hear my mother scream.
My eyes snap awake as I go from the nightmare of my youth to the present day. Four hundred years later, and the pain is still raw in my chest. But it’s not my mother I see looking down at me in the corner. It’s not my sire who made my life a misery for two centuries.
In the corner sits a woman with fire in her eyes. She stares not at my dick, which has for centuries been the only thing of use on me to women. She stares at my mouth. I can’t tell if it’s because she wants to lick my fangs, or if she is contemplating ripping them out.
I am no longer a slave. I am no longer a boy. I could snap this woman’s neck with little effort. But I’m curious to know what she desires of me. Because for the first time in my centuries of a half-life, the desire is returned.
Chapter 2
Zahara
I stare at the beast’s body as he stirs from his day’s long sleep. He’s not hairy like many of the four-legged prey I’ve hunted in the rainforests of Central America. But he is the biggest game I’ve taken down. Because Virius Serrano is a big male.
One of his arms is thrown over his forehead, holding back his thick blond curls. His other hand is flung out to the side, fingers flexing and curling as though lying in wait for a would-be attacker to come upon him. Little does he know he is already caught.
He walked into my trap just a half-day ago. In fact, he willingly offered himself up to me in exchange for his brother’s life. I’d say it was an honorable move, but I know better. There is no honor in the still hearts of vampires.
My gaze remains transfixed on my quarry. Virius wears a t-shirt featuring the Sioux warrior Crazy Horse. On his strong thighs, he wears cowboy chaps over the jeans that are molded to his form.
I take my time as my gaze takes in his package. Not because I find his form pleasing. I find the whole get-up offensive. Cowboys and Indians, really?
My father’s people are of the Tohono Oodom tribe. My mother hails from the ancient Maya of Central America. It’s not my indigenous tailfeathers that are ruffled. What flutters through my head like a butterfly flapping its wings on its nascent flight is how the man’s chest fills out his shirt.
With each inhale, the hem of the t-shirt rises up higher and higher, giving me a view of the man’s eight-pack. There is a tiny dusting of dark blond hair that extends from his belly button and disappears down the waistband of his jeans. The bulge there is clear through the fabric.
I’m supposed to make a baby with him.
The thought makes me cross my legs where I sit on the edge of the cot. The thought and the sight of the bulge in his pants are overwhelming. Yes, Virius Serrano is a very, very big boy.
I wouldn’t call myself petite. But beside this golden-haired lion, I might as well be a house cat. I have no idea how this will work.
Yes, of course I know how sex works. I grew up around animals. I read a couple of romance novels. And I have Wi-Fi on my cell phone, though the little screen doesn’t allow as much detail as I would like.
I know the mechanics of the textbook, step by step instructions. But I haven’t followed the steps yet, mainly because none of the boys I grew up with would dare come near my sacred womb—or rather, my magical pussy as I started calling it after reading romance novels.
I place my hand over my flat belly. In just a few days’ time, a baby will begin to grow in there. A child with even more responsibility than me. My womb is the vessel to break a curse.
I thought I’d had a rough time, being part American Indian and part Indigenous Mayan. Being raised with the traditional values of my people while lending an ear to modern feminist values. Being a human female with an animal living inside of her.
My unborn son will exist between two worlds as well. But his existence will be in the middle of two supernatural worlds. My son will be part jaguar shifter and part vampire.
There has never been such a pairing. It is completely unfathomable. But it was prophesied, and that prophecy is due to come to fruition in just a few nights.
In just a few nights, I will have to take this big man into my body. Have him move inside me like I’ve seen animals do in the field, pictures in textbooks, couples in movies.
I huff out an impatient breath. I’ve waited twenty-two years for this moment. All this build-up for nearly two decades. Then, in a matter of a couple of days, it will be over in a few moments, if the animals’ couplings have taught me anything.
As though he could hear my thoughts, Virius jolts awake. His gaze immediately tracks to mine. Those honey-colored eyes hold me in place, leaving me in a situation I have never faced in my entire life. His gaze makes me feel as though I am the caught prey.
Which is ridiculous. He’s my captive. He’s about to bend to my will.
And then all I can think of is bending. Him bending me over and taking me from behind as I’ve seen it done in nature.
Virius’s blond brow lifts. In amusement? In challenge? In acceptance?
I have the presence of mind to blush. Vampires can get into people’s heads. Has he seen what I’ve been thinking about him?
His lips part. The top one, shaped in the bending curve of a heart, loosens from the lush bottom one. That bottom lip looks like the plumpest pillow I’ve ever seen. I want to lay my mouth against it—that is, until I see the bright gleam of fangs.
I shift on the cot, crouching into a fighting stance. A dagger is in my palm.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
; His voice is like the low grumble of a lion. I would have thought he was roaring at me before charging and taking me with those pointed teeth. The more shocking move is that I hold still.
Not because I want him to bite me, but because I’ve never before heard the words he’s said; definitely not from a male.
“Did you just apologize?” I ask, not lowering my blade.
Virius takes a deep breath. He rubs his hands over his face, closing his eyes and leaning his head back. His jugular is exposed. He’s presenting the most sensitive part of himself to my blade as though he isn’t in the least afraid of me. When he pulls his hand away and straightens his head, the fangs are gone.
“I would never do anything to harm you, Zahara,” he says.
It’s the first time he’s said my name. The way he forms the Z makes it trill like a string pulled on a guitar. It hums through me, making me vibrate until it reaches the R in my name. That becomes a caress that pulsates all the way down to my fingertips and toes.
He holds me still once more with those eyes. They shine so brightly that I can see everything in him. Does the man not know how to shutter his gaze? The eyes are truly the window to the soul, and he has left the door wide open for me.
Or maybe it’s a trick. Maybe he’s trying to mesmerize me. I blink and look away. But I still feel drawn to him, wanting to look back up and seek the heat of his gaze.
“I’m sorry that I had to sleep,” he says. “The sun’s pull on me is too great. I fought as long as I could to stay awake and protect you.”
