Chapter 8
Chapter
Eight
Lucian
Oh fuck. She’s fucking tight, squeezing my dick hard. I pump into her, holding her down, making her skitter on the grass and dirt. The only thing holding her is my hands as I slam into her over and over again. Harder and harder, pushing every limit, losing all of my control, myself, in this woman.
Elliot is climaxing around me, making it almost impossible to hold back my own orgasm.
The way her eyes shine and blood covers her skin is the hottest fucking thing.
Her pussy is narrow, stretching to accommodate my brutal invasion as the thunder above cracks and booms. The heavens open, rain beating down on us, and I fall over her as the dirt turns to mud, still thrusting, one hand on her hip as I grab at the ground with the other.
It’s not enough. I need more. I want her to know who I am to her, who she is to me, and how she’ll never fucking be free. Now that I have her, I’ll never let her go.
Seeing Santiago with her—too close, with his fingers brushing where they had no right to be—burned my last remnants of restraint to ash.
I know why he did it. He dragged her into the open, surrounded by humans, counting on my own rules to hold me back.
Santiago always calculates, and if it were with anyone else, it might have worked.
But not with Elliot.
She’s mine.
I pound into her. Her blood’s still in my mouth, glorious in the added sweetness her change had brought. It’s like an aphrodisiac, spurring me on, making me harder, thicker, more hungry for her than ever before.
She hates me. It beats in every hard thrust. But right now, I fucking hate her, too. As much as I love her.
It’s as though Monty reaches into me and unleashes the dormant creature within, the thing that sleeps beneath my surface. The part I’ve kept locked away for decades.
With her, we could rule the world if we wanted. My queen of ruin by my side.
The fantasy is so achingly delicious.
We’re soaked to the bone as I keep fucking her, keep her on that edge of too much. It’s there in every groan and moan from her, in every whispered fuck and more.
She shatters around me again, and this time I can’t stop my own orgasm. My balls rise, the power consuming me as my cock twitches and I empty inside her.
Once the tremors recede, I pull out and bend down to kiss her, deep and carnal.
She kisses me back, a wild animal, a creature who both despises and desires me with feral levels of intensity.
Then I stand and pull her up to her feet.
Her dress is ripped completely in two, and the small cuts from her fall in the bush have already healed into faint pink specks on otherwise pristine pale skin.
As I put my dick away and try to fix my suit as best I can, I consider making her walk out of the park naked.
But…
I shrug off my jacket and toss it at her. She put it on without a fuss.
The rain pours down, making my hair stick to the sides of my face. My jaw where Elliot socked me is still a little tender, but it’s better already. It surprised me more than anything.
“So, you and Santiago share a master?” Elliot asks as she pulls the jacket tighter around her. She appears smaller in it, more like the human version of herself, and it make me smile.
“Yes,” I reply. “But that’s a story for another day.”
“I want the truth, Lucian. No more bent truths.”
I nod then pull her to me so that I can brush her lips tenderly with mine. “Do you still hate me for what I’ve done?”
I mean changing her into a vampire, of course. Not the sex.
She pauses, seeming to be thinking it over, but then whispers, “No. I don’t think I do anymore.”
Good. Because I’ll never regret it.
With that, I lead her out of the park.
Monty sits on the sofa in my bedroom.
She’s the first lover I’ve had here.
Nell would have freaked out at this place. She liked the normal side of things, and even if my empire existed at the height of our love affair, I don’t think she would have approved. Too modern for her tastes.
I like it all, even though there’s that old-fashioned part of me hidden deep, the gentleman who likes intelligent conversations with exquisite beauties most men only wanted for their bodies. The man who likes the opera and theater and has dined with the greats, human and vampire alike.
This place is both a low-key shrine to my long un-life and to nothing at all. I have beautiful antiques dotted around, both here and in my office. I like beauty, I like value, I like interesting pieces.
I like Monty.
Fuck that. I love her. The ugly and the beautiful. The easy and the difficult. They are only facets of her, the most complex of creatures ever.
I doubt I’d be bored of her in a thousand years.
I stare at her sitting there, then go into the living room and start writing her a note. On Monday we need to get back to work properly. Maybe that’s what we need. Structure. Some kind of normalcy.
I’m aware some of the older vampires have gone silent, retracting down behind thick walls wherever they are, carefully selecting those to feed from, and some take blood from our stores as they wait for a revolution.
Then there are the young ones like the Rogues who are itching for a different kind of revolution, one based on coexisting and harmony instead of blood.
But I’m trying to stop any so-called revolutions from happening. The status quo is important, which is why even when I’ve had cravings and urges to take it all down, I don’t.
Without structure, we’re animals. Pure and simple.
I grab my jacket, straighten my tie, and head to the elevator.
Elliot and I need to discuss what happened last night, I know, but first I need to talk to Vittoria about it. Even though I’m sure it’s either the Rogues or Santiago who want to move into de Santis’s spot, both parties with their own agendas.
There’s a chance, of course, that it’s the humans and their messy greed.
As of now I don’t care who. I just want to know, in case I need to deal with it in swift, deadly strokes. Especially if it’s Santiago and he wants to bring his brand of chaos to my city.
That I won’t allow.
“Where are you going?” Elliot asks from behind me.
I turn, taking in the black pants and top she’s changed into. Things that came from Vittoria. Things Vittoria would never wear.
But Monty…fuck, does she look good. I never thought much of human trends, like yoga pants, but—
I stop myself before I get erect and take her hard against the wall.
“Work,” I say. “I do still do that.”
“You don’t need to.”
She has no idea. “There’s a lot to do in running this place, along with my other ventures.”
“Like finding my friend?”
I bite back the sigh. “Like finding your friend.”
“And what am I supposed to do?”
“Try to escape,” I say. “And fail. Snoop? Whatever you want. This is where you’ll be living for the foreseeable future.”
“That,” she says, “is a long time.”
I don’t answer, just slide my phone into my pocket.
“And if I don’t want to be here?”
I call the elevator, punching in the code. “That’s too bad. You’re still too young to be autonomous.”
“You’re trying to protect me?” she asks.
The elevator dings, and I step inside. “No. The world.”
The doors shut, and I head down to my office. Give her enough time and she’ll escape. It’d be stupid to think she wouldn’t.
In my office, it feels untouched, like I haven’t been here in centuries. I was in here yesterday. It’s just that with each passing minute I can feel the gap between lifetimes widen. Life with Elliot the human. And now Elliot the vampire.
With a shake of my head, I dislodge the ridiculous thought, and I go to my computer. Once there, I log into the private records, the ones with employees, the farmed, and the blood givers who trade their ruby blood for euphoric sex. Slaves, I guess, but willing ones.
As I go through it all, I don’t find this Kayla Evans.
It could be as easy as she lied to her friend and she never worked here at all, but Elliot is sure she did. If she was an employee, the files should be here, even if she was fired, relocated, mind-wiped, or…erased.
It could be that the files got wiped from the computer to exist only in paper form, down in the bowels of VMR. Except that’s not how things are run. We’re efficient. I doubt it was just a glitch or clerical error.
Everyone who works here is recorded until they leave.
This time, I click around until I reach the application take-ins. I find hers immediately. Rather, one of many.
Then I read the name at the top, the person who hires in that department.
“Fuck.”
I call Vittoria.
“Get your ass in my office now,” I tell her.
She, of course, takes her sweet time, and when she opens my door, she looks perfect as usual.
A femme fatale with red hair that cascades over one shoulder and a dress in black that’s cut in a deep V at her chest. The cold hunter in her eyes, the vicious turn to her mouth, the fact she’s a predator and a walking weapon and perhaps cares only for me and a few others.
I lean back in my desk chair.
“Sit, Vittoria.”
She doesn’t.
I don’t move. “I said sit.”
With a slight, fleeting frown she finally does. “Is this about your rumble with Santiago at the engagement party? Or maybe your tumble with Ms. Montague after? I’ll take the details of the former rather than the latter.”
“No,” I say, aware she’s trying to deflect what I want to talk to her about. “This isn’t about last night.”
“Then what is it, Lucian?” She studies her pointed red-painted nails. “I’m busy.”
I look at her closely. “I want to know why Adriadne is on the list of interviewing and hiring some employees. It isn’t her job.”
She pauses briefly, so briefly that another person may have missed it. But to me, it speaks volumes.
“Maybe I promoted her,” she says.
Adriadne is the only human Vittoria ever changed, and she has been working as her personal assistant ever since, meant to do the mundane things like water the plants when needed or alphabetize paperwork.
“What, Lucian?”
The shortness of her tone tells me everything I want to know.
“Why did she at first reject and then finally approve an internship for Kayla Evans? And why is that the end of her paper trail?”
She stares at me, this time with a serving of loathing.
“I’ll call Adriadne up here and ask her myself—”
“Dead,” Vittoria snaps, crossing her arms. “That’s because Kayla is dead.”
I close my eyes for a moment. “Fuck, Vittoria. Are you sure?”
“Of course I am sure. She’s dead.”
“How?” I clench my jaw.
She just smiles. “Because I ate her.”