Chapter 13
Zander knew the moment Spencer returned, and telepathed, Downstairs. Now. My office.
Of course, Sir. Just a stop in the bathroom and I’ll be down.
A peek in Spencer’s head told him he needed to pee, but he also needed to lube his asshole. The rule was for Spencer to always be ready to take a dick up his ass, but it made sense he hadn’t been able to on the trip.
Make it fast. Disrobe and lean against the wall upon entering.
Yes, Sir.
Spencer gave instructions to the flock while security parked, and then told them his attention was required downstairs, and left as soon as the doors opened.
As promised, a quick stop in the bathroom, and then he was in Zander’s office, undressing with quick efficiency.
Zander waited until Spencer was turned toward the wall, his waist at a one-hundred-and-twenty-degree angle, arms over his head, palms flat against the wall.
He ran a hand down his boy’s side, over his flank. “Missed you today. I can see the highlights in your head. I look forward to seeing pictures.”
“I love you, Sir. I wished you could be there with me.”
Zander removed his pants, lined up behind his boy, and thrust in hard enough to make Spencer gasp, reveling in the way Spencer’s asshole spasmed and relaxed, trying to accept the invasion. He pulled back and shoved in again, forcing Spencer to brace hard.
“Who do you belong to?”
“You, Sir! I’m yours!”
“Damned straight you are. Fuck, I’ve needed your warmth.”
He fucked his boy a good ten minutes before slowing enough to lean forward and sink his teeth into the side of his neck and drink him down. He had access to dozens of exotic flavors, but nothing beat the taste of his own private werewolf, the man who held his heart.
He drank deeply, the flavors of salt air, sunshine, and happiness mingling with the kind soul and wild, loving spice that was his Spencer.
No anesthetic in his saliva today, no venom at all. Any pleasure Spencer got would be from the act of being fucked and drank down. Of being touched and consumed by the man he loved.
Zander telepathed, Permission, boy, and he snapped his hips harder, chasing his own climax while Spencer shook with the mix of pain and pleasure, and caught his come in his hand.
When it was over, Zander licked the holes to heal them, pulled out and slid a handy plug into Spencer so he wouldn’t leak, and then turned him around and watched him lick the come from his Master’s hand.
“Good boy. I love you. Now go upstairs and eat. I’ll see you in a few hours.”
“Thank you, Sir. I needed that.” He leaned in for a hug, and Zander just held his boy. No time limit, he held him until he pulled away and reached for his clothes. Never did he want his boy to think hugs were doled out or needed permission.
Another kiss before Spencer left to go upstairs, and Zander returned to his desk, sated in every way, with a smile on his face.
Alone, Zander scrolled through the photos loaded from the day. Wildlife, glaciers, sea spray, sunshine. He appreciated the artistry, but there were so many pictures of Emerald.
Candid shots of her laughing beside Felix, their heads tipped toward each other in private conversation.
A close-up of her smirking at the camera with her tongue pressed to a shard of glacier ice, with Felix pointing and clearly egging her on.
One taken from a distance, the two of them under a blanket on the upper deck, shoulder to shoulder, their expressions turned inward in a way that felt almost tender.
Zander studied that one too long. The angle wasn’t ideal, but the mood was unmistakable. Intimate in the way only shared stillness could be.
And Emerald was clearly holding Felix. She was the dominant, he the submissive. She’s stronger, more powerful. More magical.
Fuck. She’s a damned princess, second in line behind King of the Dragons. First of the triplets to hatch.
What would it take for a man to hold her as the dominant? Had it ever happened, he wondered? He’d seen hints of it when he scanned Chase’s memories, but only during the feeding portion of their evenings. Once that was over, the two were mostly equals.
He knew the Rabbit King would have been in control. Rumors had her spending a lot of time with the Owl King, where maybe she didn’t submit, but she wouldn’t have been in charge. Same with the Eagle King.
Damn, the girl had fucked her way through the animal kingdom.
No, not a girl anymore. A woman.
He exhaled slowly, then moved to the next. More laughter. More touches. Her eyes soft in a way they rarely were.
There was nothing inappropriate. No kissing. No pawing. Just closeness.
Zander told himself he wasn’t uncomfortable.
He was cautious. It was one thing to see a child grow into adulthood, to mark their age in years and milestones.
It was another to confront them fully changed after nearly a decade, to find no trace of the small, sharp girl who once demanded his attention like she had a right to it.
Now she carried herself with weight. With intent. And worse, he couldn’t read her.
Felix’s mind was an open book. The boy’s thoughts spilled over with adoration, lust, and the thrill of being wanted.
Every flicker of affection, every bolt of masochistic need, every moment of pride he felt at making her laugh.
He wasn’t in love with her, but he adored her.
And in bed, he’d do anything she ordered.
Every detail of what they shared was laid bare to Zander, and it left him unsettled.
But Emmy’s mind was secure as a vault, and that frustrated him more than he cared to admit.
He could see what Felix felt when he was with her, but had no idea of her thoughts. The boy thought he understood her, and maybe he did. Maybe that was what scraped at Zander the most.
He clicked forward in the folder to a shot of Emmy with Rhea, both mid-laugh, windblown and squinting against the sun. Then one of her at the railing alone, hair tangled, eyes on the water, a look on her face that stirred something old and uneasy in his chest.
He told himself it was curiosity. Discomfort with change. That she’d grown up too fast.
Humans aged. Baby shapeshifters grew into adults. He knew this. He accepted it. He just hadn’t expected it to make her so … opaque.
He closed the folder, sat back, and steepled his fingers. She wasn’t human, she was a dragon. She was through aging physically in human form.
But it seemed she’d been a toddler only a handful of years ago, and now she was a fucking woman. Literally.
It was easy enough to avoid her, but he’d have to get used to being in the same room with her if she went to Mordnik, and being able to offer dragon blood was a huge perk, even if it was from a level one.
Not to mention she had some serious acting skills, though that presented another problem because it would put them both on stage at the same time, and not merely in the same room.
But he was millennia old. He’d deal with a twenty-three-year-old dragon.
Later, after Lucien had fed from and thoroughly tortured one of the flock masochists, the two met in the statue garden to watch a contest between two of the lesser vampires.
Not really a hierarchy competition, because that low in the coterie, exact numbers weren’t important, and yet, it would mean something to the two vampires.
Zander put them in a circle that would keep them from drawing on his power, made sure they understood the rules — no claws or teeth, no major injuries — and went to sit with Lucien.
I still feel as if we should consider alternating years for Concilio and Senatus vampires. We invite trouble by having both there at the same time. It’s too late to make changes this year, but we should consider announcing the rules during this season, to prepare everyone.
Lucien shook his head. A dozen vampires have reservations every third year, the most often your predecessor allowed them to return. There are contracts.
Zander sighed. Vampires had to sign a contract in blood to not engage in hierarchical displays or contests, and to get along without discord, but he still foresaw problems.
You’re right, of course. However, if there are problems, I’ll have recourse to make changes to future contracts.
Zander glanced at Lucien and then back to the two vampires wrestling on the tile.
Zander preferred fists, but however they wanted to do this was fine within the rules.
We can’t keep the two factions separate in the public areas, but let’s put them on different floors on the guest levels.
Lucien inclined his head as if acknowledging a move in a long game of chess. “Practical. Keeping the hours they’re together down can only help. I’ll see to it.”
Thursday afternoon, Emmy lingered after class to discuss a paper recently published by the idiots working on DNA recovered from frozen tissues they claimed dated back to the Cretaceous. The boneheads had visions of bringing dinosaurs to life à la Jurassic Park.
It was a productive conversation. Not only did Professor Chen offer to let her view some unpublished lab notes from a rival team, he also invited her to sit on a debate panel around ethical lines in emerging, transformative technologies the following semester.
They had several bioethicists on the panel, but the professor thought a panelist who could speak to the whole CRISPR subject from the viewpoint of someone who’d used it would be beneficial.
Emmy told the professor her sister was a surgeon currently implanting synthetic biology, so she could speak to that as well, and she would love to participate — assuming the date was before she left to go north on her winter expedition.
Zander had written a letter explaining she’d be on an expedition to gather field data on the impact of extreme cold and light-cycle variation on mammalian biological rhythms. He’d said they needed her experience in field collection and biological sample preservation under difficult conditions in order to preserve data integrity, and that her real-time observations and early-stage analysis would be considered valuable.
It was all bullshit, of course, but it’d done the trick, so she had permission to handle her classes and thesis work over the internet, and would check in via video calls every other week, or more often if necessary.
She didn’t need actual rabbits just yet.
She had all the cell samples and DNA sequences she needed to begin the process, and would hopefully be ready to begin breeding actual rabbits by the time she returned.
While they were talking, she asked the professor a question about her thesis topic, and the two talked for fifteen minutes about chromosomal divergence and gene splicing ethics.
“This could be a publication,” the professor said finally. “If you keep this level of rigor, you’ll be presenting at national conferences.”
Emmy felt a flush of pride. “That’s the goal.”
Delaney was waiting for her just outside the classroom, and the two walked toward the exit together.
“We have an hour and a half until I meet up with Rhea and the others,” she told her guard. “I’m guessing you don’t want to do a food truck. We mostly like the same kind of food, and you know the off-campus options better than me, so you pick the restaurant.”
“There’s a great barbecue place between here and the park. Decent brisket, smoked pulled pork, ribs.”
“Sold, lead the way.”
“You really aren’t the pain in the ass everyone warned me about. Thanks for that.”
Emmy sighed. “In part, that’s because you aren’t a pain in the ass, but it’s also because I mostly get enough sex at home these days, so I’m not out looking for it in frat houses, and ditching my security so I can have fun.”
She blew out a breath. “Also, my security when I first went away to college were all my dad’s employees, and I knew they reported shit back to him.
I was fourteen, so I pretty much had to ditch them to have fun.
Zander can’t get into my head, but he can get into the heads of everyone around me, so he can pretty much see what he wants, whether I ditch you or not. ”
“I love your logic, and I’ve come to respect your outlook on life. I’m glad the situation has worked out so we can work together to keep you safe.”
“Mostly, I’m strong enough and smart enough to defend myself, but I get that there are vulnerabilities, especially the poison thing, and bullets from a mile-plus away.”
“In this city, they’d be more likely to come from less than a quarter mile away, but it’s believed the greatest threat would be in kidnapping you rather than killing you, at this time.”
Emmy nodded. “Unfortunately for them, my parents aren’t throwing any more money my way, so I doubt a ransom would be paid.”
“I’m pretty sure you’re wrong about that. Not giving you money to party with isn’t the same as not doing whatever is necessary to get their oldest daughter back, who happens to be next in line to the throne.”
“It isn’t like anything’s going to happen to my dad. The odds I’ll one day be Dragon Queen are pretty much zero, and to be honest, I’m pretty relieved about that.”
After they ate, they made their way to the venue, and Emmy was happy to see vendor tables set up.
They were still early, so the two strolled past booths selling beadwork, fireweed honey, and small-batch skincare.
Emmy bought a copper snake ear wrap from an older gentleman, and some unscented lotion from a sweet and knowledgeable young bear shifter — one who landed more on the teddy-bear end of the spectrum than raging crack-bear, but she had a feeling it would be a bad idea to piss her off.