Chapter 21 #2
Then he looked up, dismissing her as if she were nothing, and told the vampire behind her, “Another time, but thanks for the offer. I look forward to sharing with you later.”
He turned, wings folding slightly as he walked away, the crowd swallowing him like a tide. Emmy’s heart lurched, her mind spinning with what she’d seen — his flare of want, and then the sudden shuttering of his emotions, like a door slamming shut.
The vampire behind her chuckled, oblivious to the storm in her head, and resumed his rhythm, harder now, his cock slamming into her raw asshole with a force that made her gasp.
The other one wrapped his hand around the back of her head and pressed into her mouth again, going deep and fast from the start this time, and Emmy let herself sink into the sensation, trying to drown out those moments of being seen by Zander.
The body dye and the extreme facial makeup had let him appreciate her before he realized who she was.
And clearly, he still wasn’t comfortable with the fact she’s a woman now, and no longer a little girl. Fuck, everyone in this room had once been a small child, and they weren’t being outcast for it.
And okay, he hadn’t outcast her, he’d accepted her into his home as flock, as food for his people, but then he fucking avoided her like she was poison.
The vampire behind her leaned in and interrupted her thoughts.
Her entire body shuddered when fangs pierced her skin, and venom flooded her veins like liquid fire.
Her thoughts shattered, all memories fading as lust consumed her.
Her body arched, her clit throbbed, and her ass clenched hard around the cock inside her.
Nothing existed except the cocks moving and fucking her, using her until she became need and want, yet another sexual creature lost in the inferno of the ballroom’s hell.
Emmy’s body was a furnace, her hips pinned by the vampire’s strong fingers, her knees aching from the movement as he drove into her raw asshole with relentless precision.
Each thrust sent a jolt of searing pleasure through her.
Hours of constant use, one cock after another, had left her raw and trembling, but still aching for more.
Her clit throbbed in time with the ballroom’s subsonic, primal bass.
Whips snapped all around her, chains clinked, but she surrendered to it, trapped between two cocks, used as a vessel for pleasure.
The vampire behind her growled, driving into her with brutal thrusts, each stripping away a little more skin, making her more and more raw, and yet, her desire was a wildfire, uncontained, her clit pulsing with every slam, every grunt.
Her heart stalled when a different kind of scream tore through the haze, sharp and jagged. There had been screams all night, but this wasn’t erotic pain, it was a bone-deep, terror-filled pain that had nothing to do with sex.
And it was Felix.
She was already fighting to get away from the two vampires when she heard him scream, “RED! RED! RED!”
Safewords weren’t allowed for level three people, so the fact he was screaming it, his voice frantic and high, sent adrenaline flooding into her veins.
Her body reacted, muscles tensing, straining against the vampires’ hold. The one behind her faltered, his cock still buried deep, his hands gripping her hips; the one in her mouth tightened his grip, confused by her sudden resistance.
She didn’t think — she fought. Her arms pushed against the table, legs kicking, a snarl ripping from her throat.
The vampire at her head cursed, his cool hand slipping as she twisted, spitting his cock out.
The one behind her tried to push down on her back to hold her in place, but she thrashed and rose to her knees, elbows slamming into his ribs, her shifter strength surging in a desperate, primal burst.
She leapt from the table and ran to Felix’s screams, dodging people and equipment.
He was hanging upside down by his widespread ankles, angry crop marks on his inner thighs and cock, and his asshole looked as if it’d been cropped plenty, too.
Whip marks streaked his body in bloody rips, and bruises bloomed all over.
But Felix was staring at his arm, frantic with pain, and Emmy immediately saw what looked like a lowercase e burned into his flesh.
Emmy’s heart slammed against her ribs, and she leaned down, settled her arms around his torso, and lifted him into her arms, adjusting her stance so she could cradle his body with his legs still suspended.
“It burns!” Felix screamed. “Fuck! It’s like it burns all the way into me!”
She got a better look at his arm. She’d lifted him so it wouldn’t be against her body, and since he was holding it so he could look at it. Her up-close view told her it was likely a rash rather than a burn — an angry red, raised bumps, the edges fading rather than sharp and crisp.
She ran through the possibilities. Not acid, not silver. She leaned in and breathed, smelled something, but didn’t recognize it.
Mostly, she scented Felix’s pain and fear.
“I have you,” she told him, and looked around. One of the black-suited monitors was near, and she ordered, “This isn’t a sexual thing. It’s a rash. Let his fucking legs down!”
No one moved, and she cradled Felix’s body a little better. The vampire holding the crop stepped forward, but then Zander was approaching, folded wings framing his face, black feathers ruffling with his movement. He ignored Emmy and focused on Felix.
“What happened?”
Felix shook his head and held his arm so Zander could see. “I don’t know! It burns! Please make it stop!”
Zander looked to the monitor. “Release him.”
Emmy stayed silent. She didn’t want to be sent away, so silence was probably the best option.
Zander’s gaze flicked to her, and the electric tension from before sparked again, his blue eyes piercing, unreadable, but heavy with something unspoken. She didn’t look away, but her focus was on figuring out the problem with Felix’s arm. What would he have reacted to?
She had no idea, and she told Zander. “I smell something but can’t identify what it is.”
Zander leaned down, sniffed, and stood. Ten seconds later, another monitor arrived, this one a bear shifter — likely the best nose in the place.
He put his nose an inch away from the mark, sniffed, and then lurched to the side, dry-heaving, his massive frame shuddering like he’d tasted death.
Zander’s eyes narrowed, a muscle in his jaw twitched, and he turned to the vampire who’d been working Felix over, crop still dangling from his hand. “What did you use on him?” Zander’s voice was a blade, sharp and cold, cutting through the ballroom’s bass thrum.
The vampire was wiry, with horns curling from his brow.
He wore a ripped mesh bodysuit with a huge rip for his cock and balls.
He met Zander’s gaze and told him, “Just the crop. He was already suspended when I started on him. I went to my knees and fucked his mouth, then caned his cock, his asshole, and I was working on his inner thighs.”
Emmy stepped a little closer to him and breathed in his scent as he talked, but she didn’t scent any deception. That didn’t necessarily mean anything with ancient vampires, but it was all she had.
Felix was sobbing in her arms now, clinging to her. Her arms tightened around him, and she leaned her head down to kiss his forehead.
Zander looked to the first black-suited monitor a good twenty seconds, and then looked around in silence again.
Spence stepped close to Emmy and told her, “He went into the heads of all the monitors, and has a list of every vampire who touched Felix. He’ll have them brought to him one-by-one, so he can question them. ”
Meanwhile, someone erected a round wall of curtains around them, so the activity in the rest of the room wasn’t affected.
Emmy took a deep breath to slow her pulse after the adrenaline dump. It no longer did her any good. She needed her brain in full functioning order now. Her body ached in all the best ways, but she put it all out of her mind and focused on how the vampires answered Zander’s questions.
The first was clipped and defensive, and she noted the hawk shifter standing just behind Zander — yet another kind of lie detector, this one visual rather than scent. She approved.
Spence moved a padded table into the curtained area, but Emmy held onto Felix. His back was a mess from the whips, but he didn’t seem to notice them. Only his arm.
A female vampire was next, draped in rubies. She’d whipped him when he was on the wooden pony but hadn’t actually touched him.
The next, also female, had ridden his cock while he was flat on his back on the bondage table. She’d bitten his neck to deny him an orgasm, and she’d probably had her hands all over his upper body, but she hadn’t done anything to create this burn.
Another panicked scream tore through the ballroom, and she followed Spence and Zander out of the curtained area to see Toby in a pillory, screaming, “My shoulder! God, it burns! Fuck, someone help me!”
Emmy’s gaze snapped to his shoulder and she saw the same lowercase e, red and raised, just like Felix’s.
Zander took control, having him released, bringing him back into the curtained area, and then another scream came.
Zander looked at Spence. “Lights on. Music off. Take a team to see who this is and get them in here.”
She walked back into the curtained-off room, still holding Felix, and a few minutes later, Maren was brought in.
Emmy’s brain catalogued that the three were mammals, and were affected in the order of how sensitive their nervous systems are — hare, deer, wolverine.
The latter, being basically a weasel, might be fierce, but it was still more susceptible to poisons than hardier mammals.
This didn’t bode well, and she explained it to Spence.
Zander came through the curtain and met her gaze with a nod. No emotion this time. They were in a crisis, and he was acknowledging her contribution.
Rhea had come in, and she was talking Toby through deep breaths. Spence went to Maren and held her while she sobbed.
Emmy kissed Felix’s forehead, and held her cheek to it while she tried to figure out what was going on.
Lucien stepped in a few minutes later, walked to her, and leaned in to smell Felix’s arm. He turned to Zander and said, “Fucking wolfsbane!? What the fuck?”
Everything clicked into place. Someone was targeting the mammal shifters, but why?
She glanced at Toby, then Maren, their screams quieter now, but their bodies shaking. The ballroom’s decadence felt sour, now. Someone had turned this playground into weaponized betrayal.
She looked at Zander, and when his gaze turned to her, she told him, “We need to know whether it’s safe for them to change, or whether we get them to the showers and wash off what we can with soap and water.”
“Changing won’t help,” Lucien said. “It’ll have to work out of their system. Soap and water is good, to get whatever is still on their skin off, but most of the damage is done at this point.”
Zander nodded toward the staircase. “Go. Take him to the shower. I’ll see to it the rest get cleaned. We’ve never needed an infirmary before. I’ll have something set up in the theater. Bring him there once he’s clean and dressed. The vampires in here need to feed, and then the evening is over.”
“Let Maren get a sample from her own arm,” she told Zander. “She’ll know what she needs, and what to do. If you happen to have a good microscope on the premises, I’d like a look. If not, get the plane to fly the sample to Anchorage. We need to know how this was delivered.”
It came out like an order, but she didn’t apologize and didn’t stop. “Unless Lucien is certain it’ll be fine, don’t let the vampires feed from someone with a rash.”
Zander nodded, and she walked out with Felix still in her arms, sobbing. Zander hadn’t blocked his pain, and she agreed with his reasoning, even though he hadn’t explained. Pain is an important indicator. If it grew worse, or spread, they needed to know.
Felix’s breaths were shallow, his scent a sour agony she hated.
“Hang on,” she told him on the way down the steps, since there was no way to slide down the pole with him in her arms. “Try to take deeper breaths. Do you think ice might help? If so, I’ll get some from the cafeteria on the way back up, after we get you cleaned up. ”
“Maybe. Fuck, it hurts, and I think I might need to puke.”