Chapter 3 #2
She walked barefoot across the granite court and climbed onto the slab, the stone colder than she expected, and her nipples went even harder. She bent her legs up, kept her arms loose at her sides.
His power prickled over her skin when he moved closer, and she sucked air in when cold fingers drifted down her belly, then lower, sliding through the wet heat at her center.
He pulled his fingers free, curved them under her hips, lifted and angled her, spreading her farther, and then his mouth was on her, his cool tongue licking her, savoring her, tracing her folds, circling her clit.
Her thighs trembled and she went liquid inside, heat rising, blood pulsing.
She arched her back as the pleasure built, and then screamed when he struck.
Faster than a snake, his fangs went into her clit without warning — and without any of the anesthetic vampires can put into their saliva.
Sharp pain. Fire. Agony burst behind her eyes, stealing her voice halfway through the scream.
Her body tried to jackknife on instinct, but still he held her, injecting venom that felt like acid straight into her clit until the blaze lanced through her like lightning.
She’d been bitten on her clit before, but this wasn’t the euphoric precision of a vampire aiming to please.
No, it was the raw violence of someone choosing the most sensitive nerve cluster in her entire body without any numbing agent at all, so there was only pain. Blinding, searing, venom-laced pain.
When he finally released her, she was shaking. Traumatized from the shock and the pain.
But he didn’t care. He merely rose over her and plunged into her, cold eyes unreadable, driving in with a single violent thrust. But the venom had flooded her system with adrenaline, heat, and off-the-charts arousal, so she didn’t resist. This wasn’t submission, it was a detonation, an explosion of need and hunger, and she moved her hips to fuck him back.
Her spine arched, her hands slapped at the granite, and her moans sounded like pleas.
Nothing about this vampire was soft, and his hips pistoned hard and fast, but she kept up, everything in her rising and pulsing, needing, and when she was about to break open and explode into release, he pulled out and forced himself into her ass with only the lubrication from her pussy.
She screamed again, throat raw. She hadn’t prepped, hadn’t lubed — and he didn’t fucking care.
Her hands scrabbled at the stone, nails cracking.
Tears ran hot down her temples. She couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t think. Her whole body focused on the tearing stretch and the venom burning through her blood.
He was relentless. Pounding into her with vampire speed and strength, a hole to assuage his needs.
And then his fangs struck her throat with brutal strength, sinking into flesh and muscle, venom suddenly coursing through her arteries all over again, and the vampire drank her down.
He pulled from her throat, and the combination of pain and pleasure obliterated all thought.
Her orgasm ripped free, igniting inside her in an explosion of sensation, and she came sobbing and screaming, her world an eruption of colors and sounds, her body a livewire.
A tidal wave of pleasure crashed through the pain, and her entire body writhed while the vampire emptied himself inside her.
He licked her neck at the end, as if savoring this last taste of her, and then stood, stepped into his pants, donned the sweater, stepped into his shoes, and left without looking back.
Left her wrecked on the stone slab, cunt and ass leaking, pulse still crashing in her ears, orgasm still rippling in her very being.
A dragon defiled and consumed in a garden of monsters.
Zander watched on the hidden security camera, hoping to observe Emerald’s thoughts. Her shields were excellent, but perhaps they would fall while Matthias fed from her and overcame her senses.
Little Emerald had certainly grown up. He found it hard to think of her as Emmy, the adorable child full of questions who saw the world with more clarity than most adults.
But her shields held. He considered what he knew of her. Not what he’d learned through a Drake check, of course. He’d had to go to another security company for this particular historical dossier.
Emerald Drake had lost her virginity at fourteen, six weeks away from fifteen — and once she discovered sex, she’d been a wild child.
A gorgeous undergrad at MIT until she’d had sex in the middle of the soccer field during a midnight game of capture-the-flag between dorms, and she’d been kicked out for conduct unbecoming.
She’d also been kicked out of Princeton, Yale, Oxford, Harvard, Tulane, and a string of other hallowed, prestigious colleges in other countries.
She’d finally managed to graduate with a degree in genetics at UC Berkeley, since they aren’t as bothered by public sexual activity.
But even Berkeley had its limits, and she’d pushed past them while a graduate student, and was expelled.
And then she’d managed to get herself kicked out of three more colleges during the pursuit of her postgraduate degree, and her parents had decided some tough love was in order.
Her siblings were quite successful in their fields.
Sapphire was the surgeon who’d performed the first cochlear implant — while still in her teens — and who was now working with robotic prosthetics, doing the research and study necessary to wire them directly into flesh and nerves, currently figuring out how to make robotic hands and fingers work with the human nervous system.
And Hunter had made a name for himself as a premier anthropologist, proving human fire usage to have been far before previously thought, and showing early bipedal cross-species interactions to have been both brutal and consensual, depending on circumstances.
Before, people had been in either one camp or the other, but Hunter had proven both.
He was currently on a dig high in the Andes, running the whole shebang at twenty-three.
And then there was Emerald, who Zander figured would eventually be just as successful, but she needed to grow the fuck up, first.
She’d absolutely been more spoiled than her siblings, who’d stepped back and watched her in the spotlight while they were growing up.
But she’d just been so damned adorable.
And if he was honest, she still was — but she was going to have to figure out how to enjoy life while being a responsible adult.
Zander’s best friend for around three thousand years had gone so long thinking he’d never have children, and he was now blessed with dozens of them.
Dragons collect treasures of gold, jewels, property, and other valuables, so Aaron had plenty to give as large trust funds to every child, but he’d made it so they didn’t get the full trust fund until thirty-five, with him doling it out until then.
And he’d cut Emmy off. Completely.
Zander approved, and he’d do what he could to help his best friend get his prodigal child in line.
Though he had a feeling Emerald’s mother was never going to understand her daughter.
She loved her, absolutely, but Sophia had led a criminally sheltered life, and had been a virgin at twenty-four.
Sophia’s father, the Swan King at the time, had kept her imprisoned in a castle all her life, and only allowed her to read Victorian-era books, with no internet or television.
Now forty-eight, she lived a full life with one exception — she’d only ever had sex with her husband.
No, Sophia would never understand her oldest child, but she still desperately loved her. He lifted his phone and called her. She’d call him soon for an update if he didn’t.
“She’s getting along well with the flock members she’s met,” he told her. “She’s fed two vampires and, so far, has followed most of the instructions.” And he figured she wouldn’t skip lubing her asshole a second time, but that probably wasn’t information Sophia needed.
“Most of them?”
“All but one, and it backfired, so she isn’t likely to skip it again. She’s here and she’s safe, Sophia.”
“Thanks for checking in. I appreciate it. I worry about her so much.”
He talked to her another couple of minutes before disconnecting. Spencer stepped into his office, and Zander’s cold vampire heart went all warm.
“Dearest.” He stood and walked to him, drew him into a hug.
“I’m going to eat dinner with the flock,” Spencer told him.
“Maren’s going to have some scheduling issues this summer.
She has an opportunity to go on an excursion as the WEMT.
I approved it, but told her to be prepared to do daily feedings for at least three weeks after she returns.
The deal you worked with Kendric will give us a dozen more masochists at Mordnik, but we really need some more here. ”
Zander released his boy from the hug and sat in a chair. Spencer sat across from him and blew out a breath. “I knew Emmy when she was three. I can’t wrap my brain around it.”
“She isn’t three anymore, Dearest. We have to let her decide who she wants to be when she grows up.
Right now, she’s part of our flock. If she gets back in good graces with her parents, maybe they’ll release enough of her trust fund so she won’t need a place to live and a salary from us.
Until then, I’d rather she be here where we can keep an eye on her, rather than off in some random man’s bed, which is where she was before she arrived here.
Someone she knew at Tulane. She’s been shacking up with him since Mardi Gras. ”
“I know you’re probably right, but it’s still…” he shrugged. “Weird.”
“Dragons have impressive shields, and Emerald was raised by the best shield builder I’ve ever met.
I can’t get into her head, so we’re flying a little blind, but we’ll figure it out.
Best I can tell, if we can keep her sexually sated, we might have a chance of her not getting kicked out of yet another postgraduate program. ”
“She’ll have to take undergrad classes this summer and suck up to at least two professors who’ll back her before she’ll even get into a program.”
Zander nodded. “We have enough connections to make it happen, assuming she behaves over the summer. How many more flock members do we need to balance things out for the summer?”
“Three at a minimum, but four or five would be better.”
Seven were graduating, and four were immediately moving away to accept job offers. He figured they’d lose the other three sooner rather than later, so he added to Spence’s numbers to account for losing them.
“Gavin has two who want to come north for the summer,” he told his boy, “and August has three.”
Spencer nodded. “Assuming at least three are masochists, that should get us through until school starts back.”
“Tomorrow, you’ll need to take Emerald to the Atrium so she can change after you drain her. Enough blood for me, Kendra, and Eric.”
Spencer rolled his eyes, and Zander understood why. A new vampire didn’t need dragon blood, but Kendra was responsible for Eric, and Zander was letting her make the decisions about her neophyte. He’d been an extraordinary human, and he promised to eventually be an extraordinary vampire.
“Eric has handled the other predator bloods okay,” Zander told him. “I believe she’s going to mix it with some of Toby’s blood, so Eric doesn’t get it full strength.”
His boy felt it wisest to change the subject. “You only have three professors at the university watching for potential flock members. You had nearly a dozen watching out for potentials in Chattanooga, plus people stationed at the on-campus restaurants we owned.”
“Kendra is talking to someone tonight about a store that’s about to go out of business right beside campus.
I’m thinking of putting in the old video games — Pac-Man, Galaga, etc.
— along with simple bar foods and beer. Should give us another place to spot them, if Kendra can make it happen.
Meanwhile, let’s create a contest for Chase and Sabrina.
Hell, make it open to anyone. The person who recruits the most flock members who stay at least nine months gets an invitation to attend one ball at Mordnik next year, their choice which.
Room and board in the bed-and-breakfast in town. ”
Spencer made some notes on his phone and nodded. “Excellent plan. Have you decided yet who’ll be assigned as Emmy’s security?”
And that was another problem, because it needed to be someone Emmy would like and respect.
“Male or female?” Zander asked. “What’s your take?”
“Male if they’re fucking, or if she knows the male is in a serious relationship and off-limits. A female might work better though, someone to have coffee with, compare outfits. A built-in friend so she isn’t alone on campus. Would need to back off when she’s making actual friends though.”
“We’ll put her with a few people over the coming days to see how things shake out, so I have a better idea before school starts. Have Anton added to your usual security tomorrow for the trip to the Atrium.”