Chapter 3
“Oh, there are these theme nights,” Rhea said.
“Daywalkers and vampire staff on stage acting out some play or opera, or faerie tale, with flock and guest vampires set up in the audience to follow along, and they’re dressed in the same kind of clothes.
There’s a themed feeding frenzy every night, and then every other week there’s a themed ball, and those are the ones where he’s like, the reigning whatever.
The whole three months are about excess for the super-rich and super-powerful vampires. ”
“You get coded,” Toby said. “There are three levels, and most every level three gets accepted, and a lot of level twos. Threes have no limits, twos have a limited number of things that can be used on them. Neither have safewords. Level ones are only a feed-and-fuck, and there aren’t a lot of them let in most years. ”
“Everyone has to take part in the daily feeding frenzies. No days off, so a lot of us have to change pretty often to keep our stamina up,” Rhea said. “Rumor has it you’re on the schedule every day for the next two weeks.”
Emmy shrugged. “I’m strong enough to handle daily feedings without needing to change. I may switch that to every other day after classes start. I’ll have to see how things go.”
She made a whole lot more money feeding daily, and it gave her daily sex. If she got tired of it, she’d back off, but only after she had a decent cushion in her bank account.
“There are temporary tattoos that show your level,” Rhea said. “Collars aren’t practical because your neck has to be available, and armbands don’t always show under costumes.”
“I’m allowed to be level one for the feeding frenzies,” Toby said, “but I have to be level three for the balls. Zander makes it so I can’t remember what happens at them, though — at my request.”
“I asked him to make me forget something once,” Rhea said.
“An event here where I offered myself at a higher level and then regretted it. At Mordnik, if your hair can be pulled out of the way, the mark goes on your forehead so you can’t cry it off.
If you have bangs that can’t be easily moved out of the way, it goes on your cheek.
I have these wispy bangs, but I cut them off so the mark can go on my forehead.
I mean, I change once or twice a week up there, may as well simplify things so it can go on my forehead. ”
Emmy shook her head, unsure of what to think of this new information.
Had he had crazy nights like that as Abbott?
It was highly possible. No way would her parents have let her or her siblings know about that kind of thing.
They were pretty good at snooping and finding out secrets, though, and nothing like that had ever hit their radar.
Toby chuckled. “On a lighter note, Zander pulled strings and we’ll have a private showing of the latest superhero flick tonight. There’s a theater in the underground, and the movie starts at nine. Lots of salty popcorn with real butter.”
“Yes,” Rhea said. “I’ll come get you and walk you down with us.
You’re sharing a bathroom with Felix.” She rolled her eyes.
“He’s … unusual. Hares don’t join flocks, right?
He reeks of fear, and I guess that’s part of what the vampires enjoy about him, but he’ll fight back if you corner him, so don’t mistake him for a rabbit.
He’s smart, speaks several languages — don’t underestimate him. ”
Rabbits stay mostly in Faerie, but she didn’t actually know anything about hares. She’d never met one, as far as she could remember. The scent in the bathroom made sense now, and she made a mental note to research hares.
The next day, she met a few more shifters on their little expedition into Anchorage.
She enjoyed cutting up with a red panda shifter named Lana, who had a sarcastic streak and a messy bun that bounced with every joke.
A lynx named Davien annoyed the bejeebers out of her until Toby, bless his heart, reminded the damned cat that dragons bite annoying fucktards.
Okay, he didn’t use those words, but thankfully, the cat backed off after Emmy promised to leave plenty of marks if he truly wanted naked time with her.
It was an odd crowd, people brought together by circumstance, but there was laughter and camaraderie.
But then she arrived home as the sun was setting, and her phone buzzed with a message from Matthias. “Statue Garden in fifteen minutes. Ten if you’ll need more than a few minutes to undress. Don’t shower first.”
No room number this time, and an outdoor setting.
No directions, because apparently she was expected to know where the hell the Statue Garden was.
She showed the message to Rhea, who gave her a long, wordless look before motioning off to the right.
“Go back outside to the driveway and follow the walkway. You can’t miss all the naked statues when you get there.
He’ll probably want you in the stone court, in the center.
Creepy as fuck, and I’m pretty sure whoever put the obfuscation spell around the garden did so with the intention of making it feel creepy.
Just breathe through it. You’ll be fine.
” She blew out a breath. “Probably. Matthias can be rough, but if your contract is solid, he can’t hurt you. ”
The walkway was light-colored granite flagstones on gravel quartz, but once she was inside the garden, the granite was in dark shades on a bed of black basalt. Yeah. Creepy, indeed.
And as Rhea said, the statues were naked.
A man being thrashed by a steel-barbed whip.
A woman on hands and knees, mouth stretched grotesquely around the cock choking her throat, eyes opened blaringly wide in frozen, animal terror as five men used her: one buried deep in her ass, one driving into her pussy, two latched onto her nipples, and the fifth forcing himself down her throat while marble tears streaked her carved cheeks forever.
Emmy walked past quickly before her own arousal could grow, and the vampire would think she wanted … what? To be used by five men at once? Her record was four, with three holes filled while she jacked a fourth with her hand.
She rounded a corner and saw a stone vampire with fangs buried in a too-young girl’s thigh, her legs spread so you could see the details of a tight, virginal-looking pussy.
Next up was a naked, chained Aos Sí on her knees, obviously in pain at the touch of the steel. The Fae can’t stand steel, but thankfully, Emmy didn’t have that problem. Silver could be an issue, but gold was fine.
Her boots crunched over the gravel as she walked deeper, each statue worse than the last. Hunger, violence, ecstasy, despair — it felt like a museum of the monstrous.
And in the center, it changed.
A circle of smooth, dark granite marked the court, hemmed by columns that reminded her of ancient Greek ruins, complete with Ionic columns. The stone altar at its heart was rectangular, waist-height, and flanked by braziers that weren’t lit.
Matthias sat on an elaborate throne carved from stone at the outer edge, whittling a length of pale wood, long curls peeling off and falling like paper shavings.
His expression was unreadable when he looked up to meet her gaze, folded the knife without looking at it, and tossed the wood off to the side.
“Juvenile dragon. What a delicacy Zander has brought to us. And a princess, to boot. Undress while I consider how I want you, now that I’ve seen your beauty and felt your aura.”
Emmy had worn black canvas pants and a salmon-colored hoodie.
She sat and pulled her boots off along with the socks, and settled them just outside the structure on the statue base of a woman speared à la Vlad the Impaler.
She stripped her pants and panties off all at once, folded them beside her boots, and then pulled her hoodie off and folded it on top of the pants. She hadn’t bothered with a bra.
It was cold enough to make her nipples hard, but she ignored them.
The garden held few plants, mostly wind-stunted evergreens that smelled of resin and cold earth, their twisted limbs reaching like fingers frozen mid-scream.
Most stayed low, as if afraid to draw attention in a place meant for suffering.
She recognized the juniper scent but couldn’t name the others.
Not pine, but in the same family. The scents should’ve felt fresh, but here it just made the place feel colder, as if the garden had been scrubbed raw and left to freeze.
She considered the vampire. Even seated, she could tell he was tall and muscled.
His steel-blue eyes were cold and calculating, and his dark blond hair made her wonder where he’d lived when human.
It wasn’t hard to see him as a Viking, complete with skulls hanging from his belt.
His nose had been broken as a human and hadn’t healed right, but along with the high cheekbones and the angular jaw, the look absolutely worked for him.
He was wearing navy Patagonia corduroy pants and a charcoal Fjallraven sweater, neither meant for the extreme cold.
“I’ve read your contract,” he said when she turned to him, naked and awaiting further instructions. “No pain simply for the sake of it. You enjoy doling it out rather than receiving it.”
He stood, tall and elegant, and efficiently removed his pants to show he was commando underneath — and was well-endowed.
Next came the sweater, every movement refined violence layered over brute strength.
This man had been a powerhouse as a human and would be a nightmare with all the raw power she could feel flowing from him.
Not as much as Abbott or Kendra, but still scary-powerful.
He didn’t speak again. Just watched her in silence before he finally gestured toward the altar. “On your back.”