Thirty-Eight
I stood before the mirror, in nothing but a deep red robe which brushed the floor, my hair unbound, rubies dangling from my ears, heavy and shining. I was unsettled, my movements jittery, unable to keep my bare feet still.
It was the same robe Sinclair had worn that night, a night that felt so long ago now. The same dark maroon, crushed velvet, with only a single sash around my waist to keep my modesty.
My stomach fluttered, butterflies brushing their wings against the bars of their cage.
Vince had given the robe to me after Flora left. Instructed me to remain bare—no clothes, no makeup.
I pushed my hair behind my ear, staring at the girl in the mirror. My hips swelled, my figure difficult to hide beneath the fabric of the robe, revealing a scandalous amount of cleavage. No worse than the dress I’d worn the other night, I supposed .
And yet I still wondered what Mother would think—how likely she was to curse me and call me a whore, just like Lucas would, if they saw me now.
That one million dollar reward was not for concern—it was because Lucas wanted me back, wanted me under control again, to move around and play with as he pleased. And he was willing to do anything, pay any price.
I took a breath.
This was the evening. I would watch the bloodletting tonight, really watch it. My fingers crept up to my neck, as though to guard the spot I’d seen where the others were bitten. The tender flesh of my neck.
Would Vince let me participate? Would he want me to participate ?
What was it like to have your blood sucked out of you? To be bitten—truly bitten, through the skin—on the neck, your flesh parting around razor-sharp teeth, and your life-force pulled from you? What was it to offer such a part of yourself to someone?
The only fangs I wanted in my flesh were Vince’s, and even then, I was not sure if I was prepared.
How does one prepare?
How do you ready yourself to be in a room full of monsters that could eat you? That want to eat you?
I took a steadying breath, letting everything roll off me in waves. Lucas’ message. Flora’s worry. My fears.
Vince had me. He’d catch me if I fell.
I didn’t know what to expect. That nervousness grew in my belly, a fear that radiated out of my muscles. But there was also curiosity there, else I wouldn’t have donned the robe .
Were not prey drawn to their predators in nature?
And I was in love with one of them, the only creatures that preyed on human beings.
A knock came at the door, the muffled sound of Veronica’s voice from the other side. “It’s time.”
Below, other humans were beginning to gather. The foyer and halls and lawns were filled with men and women, oblivious to what really went on inside the house at these events—oblivious to the true purpose of these gatherings. I had never felt so disconnected from humanity. In a transient space—not one of them, but not a vampire, either.
I cleared my throat, pushing down my apprehension, and came out to the hall where Veronica waited. To my surprise, she was not dressed for the blood party. She must have seen the question on my face, because she explained, “Someone has to oversee things.”
I was beginning to understand that this was Veronica’s role—to take the lead when Vince wanted to lean back.
“Come,” she said, leading me down the hall.
There were already people milling about the main halls, wandering down corridors and into rooms. Curious gazes staring at the surrounding opulence. That had been me, once.
I glanced down at myself. “Should I not hide?”
“For what?” she asked, looking over at me as we walked. “None of them will remember the party in the morning.”
I said nothing else, and neither did she, her expression unenthusiastic as we went on. She looked straight ahead, either oblivious to my inspection or ignoring it, her nose straight, eyes high on her face, the black of her dress accentuating the soft tan of her skin. I had yet to see her smile.
At this point, I knew the way to the devilish double doors. When we turned the corner, my stomach dropped, but I tried not to show it. I held my head high, walking with a confidence I did not feel.
“Keep your head on straight,” Veronica said as we stopped before the door. I didn’t hear anything from behind, only a silence that seemed to listen back.
She waited for me.
I squared my shoulders, letting the chill of the marble floor beneath my feet tether me, ground me. And I pushed open the heavy wooden doors and stepped into the world of vampires.
In a moment, I was surrounded by a hundred sets of predatory eyes, all flicking in my direction at the interruption of the doors opening. The room was dim, the lights soft like candles, and every surface was plush and deep red. Truly a den of monsters, bodies writhing over each other like snakes, over every surface; the sounding of hissing, of groans, of ecstasy.
The vampires soon returned to their drinking, their fucking, only a choice few remaining staring at me. The strange human who’d interrupted.
Last time, I hadn’t passed the threshold.
Tonight, I joined them.
The rug was plush beneath my feet, the temperature of the room slightly raised from the hall. Maybe it was all the body heat, but it felt like a caress, an invitation to shed my robe. But glancing around, I suddenly felt conscious of my body and how it measured up to these women. Their hip bones jut against pale skin, swollen breasts moving with the rest of them; the curves of their bodies worshiped by large hands, by more feminine hands.
I couldn’t walk far into the room before my way was blocked by a trio on the ground. Two men and a woman—one man in the middle, receiving and giving, while the woman speared herself on his cock, and the other male behind him shoved himself inside. She had raw bites on her throat, blood dripping down her collarbone, in between her breasts. The man in the back looked at me, a devilish glint in his eye as he pumped himself in and out.
Heat rose to my cheeks.
Was it my body they wanted? Or my blood?
And I wasn’t sure which was better.
As I walked, I felt a soft hand on my calf, sliding up until it disappeared, and when I whirled around, a woman on her hands and knees grinned up at me, her sharp teeth piercing her lip, a dark red stain at the corners of her mouth.
She didn’t have to say it; I knew she wanted to play with me. And the electricity of her cold touch on my leg sent a curiosity through me, an urge I’d never felt before.
But Vince had told me, find me , and that’s what I intended to do.
The room was so full of bodies, I struggled to find any familiar faces. Or, they were face down, or pleasuring someone with their mouths, or perhaps so unrecognizable in this animalistic mass of bodies. They all became one, their movements connecting them together, even from opposite sides of the room.
I spotted Sinclair at a couch near the wall, where he sat—this time, not with another couple, but with Séra. Her robe was falling off her shoulder, her light brown skin exposed to the dim lamplight. He fisted his hand in her hair as she licked a stripe up his neck, then bit down. I saw the flash of pain in his eyes, then the influx of lust. His pupils growing until his eyes were black. She moved to straddle him, the robe parting for her as she feasted on his blood.
Seeing them, watching the others, brought a maddening dampness between my legs. I squeezed my thighs together, my muscles clenching involuntarily.
I wanted that. I wanted to be feasted on.
It turned my blood hot, all my thoughts directed to finding Vince, to wanting to climb on top of him, no matter who watched.
And then I saw him.
Across the room, almost too dark to find in the shadows, he stood, pushing off from a large black chair—a throne, of sorts—where he’d been watching, observing his court of the damned, in his own blood red robe. It was like that first night, when he found me amongst the crowd of humans downstairs, when I’d wandered into his web, and he had zeroed in on me amidst all the other souls. Like our souls called to each other.
And as he stood, the whole room seemed to realize it.
Their fervor lessened, and though they didn’t stop their feeding and fucking, they became attentive to his movements. Glazed eyes watching as he stepped toward me, one foot after the other, the crowd parting around him.
When he reached me, his eyes were pitch-dark. He gazed at me hungrily. The frenzy of those around us had left him wanting.
And here I was.
He towered over me, and I reached up for his chest, his broad shoulders. He remained still, waiting for my every move. We had a silent conversation, his feelings clear in his eyes, that he wanted me to make the choice, to make the move. He wanted me to choose him, to choose this world.
I swallowed a lump in my throat as my hands met the planes of his bare chest under the velvet. His neck was bare, the white skin unblemished, unbroken, unscarred—as though no one had drank from him there. When everyone else in the room was scarred with bites, the evidence of feeding visible in the right light.
My hands moved up to his shoulders, and in doing so, his robe fell, cascading down his back, exposing him to the whole room. His arousal pressed against my stomach, and I had half a mind to kneel, to take him into my mouth and show him just how much I wanted to be part of him forever.
But he grabbed my elbows before I could touch him further, before I could move.
I nearly melted when he grabbed me, almost weeping with want.
“Take me,” I whispered, only loud enough for him to hear.
He darkened, and suddenly his hands were beneath my thighs, hoisting me up in the air, my legs around his waist. I gasped as his arousal found me beneath my robe, brushing against that sensitive part of me that made me shiver. I almost cried. But he didn’t enter me. He teased me, building my neediness, the tip of his cock nestling in between my legs, but never inside.
I threw my head back as he carried me, his strong hands supporting all my weight, his robe forgotten on the ground. He brought me back to that dark chair in the shadows. And he sat, pulling me onto his lap, my knees on either side of his hips.
“This is my domain,” he breathed, his nose tracing along my jawline. He gripped my thighs roughly, pulling me down onto him, his cock stuck between our bodies, rubbing against the apex of my thighs, drawing that dampness out of me. Readying me.
“These are my people,” he continued. He watched me writhe, watched me succumb to my lust, just like everyone else in the room. But they were forgotten. He only had eyes for me, his pupils zeroing in on the pulse at my neck. His nostrils flared. “And now they are your people,” he said.
He lifted me just enough to adjust himself, to position himself at my entrance.
I wept.
“I Made them, they bow to me. And now, to you .” He pushed on my hips until his cock speared me, one inch at a time, before I was fully seated on his lap, my muscles crying in protest at the intrusion.
It was all too much—the eyes of so many on me, watching me with him, while they all fed on each other.
I thought I understood it, then. The biting, the sucking, the drawing pleasure from each other, all at once—it was a cycle of life, of energy, of giving and taking. Giving your life-force in more ways than one.
My hips ached with the need to move, to show Vince he was my life-force.
That only he could take me in a room of vampires .
I felt the hunger all around me, the need for blood, the monstrous eyes around me wanting my blood, but not able to have it.
He could have it. He gave me my pleasure, and in return I gave him his.
“Don’t you like it?” he hissed at me, barely able to restrain himself. I’d never seen him so taken by his blood lust. “Show them—you own me. Show them who’s in control.”
My breaths came shallow as I lifted myself, my muscles barely able to move, and came back down on him. “But—”
“Let them know it’s you .” He thrust upward into me harshly, his breath hot on my neck.
Our joining was hidden behind fabric, but anyone who looked would know.
They would all know what we were to each other.
“Show them just why they’re all damned.” He licked that spot beneath my ear, laving at the flesh, right where my pulse pressed against my skin.
“Who are you?” I whispered, rising to my knees. The friction as his cock left me drove me mad. My hands rested on his shoulders, his cold skin warming with our movements.
He roughly shoved me back down, and his mouth was on mine in a second, drawing my shout into him. He forced his tongue between my lips, dancing with mine, as he moved my hips, stretching my muscles with his size.
I burned.
I burned for him.
“I am their god,” he growled, pulling away long enough to nip at my neck. His teeth were sharp, a moment’s press away from ripping my flesh, but he held back. “And you are mine,” he mumbled against my skin.
The word Sire broke through the jumbled haze of my mind. If he Made them, he was their Sire.
I squirmed on his cock, the sensation too much for me. He leaned back in his seat, hungry eyes watching as I moved to ride him, as I lifted myself, spearing myself down on him, over and over again. He removed his hands, watching, getting all his pleasure from seeing me use him to pleasure myself.
“They worship you?” I asked, breathless, my hands falling to the muscles of his stomach, moving my hips back and forth.
“They live, breathe, and they die because of me,” he said, steel in his voice. His features turned harsh.
He exuded the power of a Sire, a vampire who created and ruled above others—how had I not seen it before?—and I was suddenly shattering, my muscles clenching around him, the electricity shooting through me from nowhere.
He groaned, his hands falling to me again, forcing my hips to still. My heat gripped him, wanting more of him, wanting him deeper .
I couldn’t get enough.
I couldn’t breathe, my body so flushed with pleasure, that when he stood, holding me up, I knew if he let go my legs would buckle. He held me steady, and he looked about the room, catching the eyes of many of the vampires, who quickly looked away. Watching us as they continued their own fucking.
He found Veronica, standing with her arms crossed off to the side, overlooking the movements of the vampires, and nodded once. Some unsaid message .
“Follow me,” he whispered, his arm around me. I could do nothing but obey as he led me to a recessed door, and suddenly the blood party was shut away, and we were alone.
I dropped the robe as soon as the door closed, and Vince’s eyes darkened. “I will never tire of looking at you, my darling.”
I grinned, my lust for him still burning through me. And I knew he wasn’t done either, his arousal still hard. I grabbed him, feeling the wetness of my own arousal on him, and stroked. He groaned.
“Why does it seem like Veronica is in charge?” I asked, continuing my movements. Feeling the ridges of him against my fingers, wondering at how something so big could fit inside me.
His predator eyes landed on me, and were he anyone else, I would know to be afraid.
“Because,” he said through gritted teeth, “no one becomes immortal without our approval.”
“Both of you?” I asked, moving my hand slower, enjoying the hard softness of him in my palm.
“The change comes through her, not me,” he admitted, so easily, as though nothing could be a secret if his cock were in my hand. I could ask him anything, and he’d answer. “She was my first changeling, my first true companion. Because I am her Sire, they are all my changelings. It is me at the center of it all.”
I leaned over and kissed his jaw, tasting the sweet salt of his sweat. A pang of jealousy went through me—He had bitten someone else, had changed someone else, and it had not been me.
But before I could dwell on it, he lifted me again, and suddenly, my back was flat on cool stone, immediately sending shivers through my body. He pushed my legs apart, and I realized I was on a table—an altar of sorts. Reminiscent of the original use of this building.
He grinned at me from between my thighs, his arousal nearing me. “You’re the sacrifice tonight,” he said, and then he climbed up on the cold stone.
Heat coursed through me, my skin on fire. I needed him, needed him to put it out, to end my misery. I wrapped my arms around the back of his neck, his face inches from mine. My legs splayed open, waiting.
“Do you want to change me?” I asked, lifting my hips just enough to feel him, urging him on.
He hesitated, keeping himself just out of reach.
“More than anything,” he said, and entered me in one rough thrust. My back arched off the altar, a groan dying in my throat, and he grinned at the sound. One strong hand was planted next to my head, gripping the stone, the other holding my hip flush to him. Having me a second time, in the span of minutes, brought an ache, a soreness that was delicious. He moved in me, grinding our hips together down onto the surface beneath me.
I sighed as he moved. A moment later, he retreated, and I cried out at the absence of him. But with his unnatural strength he flipped me over so the cold was against my chest, pressing into my beaded nipples, my navel. My rear was exposed to the air. In a second, he was in me again, the new angle hitting more sensitive spots within me that had me suppressing a scream. My body was stuck between him and the stone, completely at his mercy.
He covered my mouth with his hand, his breaths hot against my ear, muffling the foul sounds that came out of me. He moved with a frenzy, like he was reaching a peak, but couldn’t quite make that final climb.
I pressed the back of my skull against him, opening up my neck, eyes rolling back into my head.
He growled, a truly animalistic sound, and I felt him near the tender flesh of my throat. Anticipation just made me wetter, slickening my core, easing his movements.
“God,” he groaned, smelling sharply at my neck. “I can’t wait any longer.”
The beast took over. Suddenly, his teeth pierced the flesh of my throat, tearing right under my ear. I cried out, the pain like a knife, a slash. Hot and sharp, piercing deep into my skin.
Vince was a vampire, a creature meant to kill humans. And he had his teeth in me.
I shattered immediately, my core spasming on his cock at the bite of pain and pleasure all at once. My orgasm came from nowhere, without any effort, like the puncture of his teeth was an aphrodisiac.
Quivering, my hands came to the stone in an attempt to push myself up, but I was wholly at his mercy as he came into me from behind, pinning me down with his mouth.
My heart fluttered, overwhelmed with the lovemaking and with fear, and I had the brief thought that he would kill me. Vince would kill me—and then what? What was all this for?
His thrusts became more vigorous, the skin of my hips scraping against the rough edge of the stone. And the pain, like a jagged hot knife at my neck, began to subside. The warmth subdued, turned to a comfortable, if pleasurable, sensation. His teeth still in me, his cock still rutting into me, he drank, and drank, his fingers like claws against my mouth, holding me still. I couldn’t move, only succumb to his want and lust.
And the fear disappeared, as though I were drunk, and the warmth made me pliant. I ached, spent, and there was a comfort in letting go, in giving up control. My vision became fuzzy, the dark of the room growing.
He pulled away from my neck, the pain now nonexistent. I didn’t want him to leave me. I wanted to tell him to take more . To drain me, to use all of me to strengthen himself.
“I can’t even begin to describe to you how you taste,” he growled in my ear, both hands finding my hips. The sound of his hips slapping against mine echoed in the stone room. He moved with such strength, and I was so weak, deliciously so, I couldn’t move. He had taken enough to leave me whole, alive, well, but also enough to nourish himself, to feed the animal in him. I was lightheaded, submissive to the sensations of him pistoning in and out.
When he came, he shuddered against me, and I felt his heart beating rapidly, faster than I’d ever felt from him. Like he was alive again. Wetness seeped down my thighs, mingling with the sweat between us, warmth against the cold of the stone.
I turned, my cheek smushed, my heart slow, still breathless. “You didn’t change me.”
I felt like I had offered all that I was and a god had deemed me worthy enough to accept.
He straightened, still hard within me, his hands against my spine to keep me down. The darkness of his eyes seemed satiated, the wildness dissipating. “I didn’t,” he said .
A pang of hurt tried to break through the ecstasy of my exhausted body. “You said—”
“I cannot Make you when I have only just tasted you.” He licked his lips, his elongated sharp teeth stained a deep red. He struggled to catch his breath, his chest still heaving, his body playing at being alive, as he’d been six years ago.
He pulled away from me then, his release dripping down my legs. I sighed, shutting my eyes at the sensation. His large but soft hands came to my shoulders.
“It will wear off,” he said, his voice lower than before. He inspected my face, as though to make sure I was alright.
“I don’t want it to wear off,” I sighed dreamily again. “I want you to bite me.”
He swallowed. A trail of red ran down his chin. My blood.
He drank my blood.
“I will not kill you. If I drink too much from you, you will die.”
I turned, using all my strength to brush my lips against his. “Then you can Make me.”
He pressed his lips against mine firmly, and the tang of my blood spread on my tongue. I half-expected it to taste as ambrosial as he said, but I tasted only iron, like I’d bitten my lip too hard. He was careful not to graze his teeth against my lips, his kiss gentle, his animal fed and sated. Pressing his forehead to mine, he loosed a breath, his big hand caressing my cheek with a tenderness I hadn’t realized I missed.
“In time,” he whispered.