Vampire Mistress (Vampire Queen #5)

Even wounded, a third-mark's response time was as predictable as a rutting stag's—with the right stimulation, he could practically be ready to fuck on his deathbed. Daegan hoped to God that wasn't what was happening now.

She was half-draped on the couch between Gideon's now splayed thighs, one of his booted feet braced on the floor. Her soft ass pushing against Daegan, her pussy gripping him, was all it took. Daegan released then, spilling his seed inside of her, knocking her knees apart farther so she had to grip Gideon's arms harder.

He didn't spend time on a tender aftermath, even though he could tell he'd called her back from the savagery that had claimed her. Too much was swirling in the air between them, and he had a different purpose from tenderness. Bitting her sharply on the neck, he left a mark. She responded with a mewl like an angry, exhausted kitten. “You don't shower until I tell you that you can. You keep his blood on your clothes, and my seed trickling down your legs, your pussy damp and musky, so you remember who you answer to.”

He lifted her, took her to the cross. She was frothing at the mouth, her crimson eyes spewing hate and betrayal in equal measure. When she landed a lucky strike to his groin that made his vision gray, he took it as his due. But he got her back in the manacles, left them loose enough she could move around, then slid the couch out of the cell, taking Gideon out of harm's way in case she had another seizure.

As he closed the cell door, he made himself close his ears to the broken weeping that finally swept away the remnants of the savage attack. Closed his eyes to the way she fell limply to the floor at the base of the cross. He'd accomplished what he'd intended. The foundation that circumstances had laid in the past few days had come to fruition. Or maybe, he thought bleakly, it had been growing for far longer than that.

Her self-loathing, her sense of self-destruction, had been replaced by hatred for him.

He wanted to hold on to the combination of fury, frustration and soul-deep terror at how close she'd come to taking her own life. But even during the marking, as she struggled and screamed, fighting an enemy inside of her he couldn't touch, he'd had a dangerous need to make exactly the same mistake Gideon had. To hold her, touch her, give her whatever reassurance he could that she could still be what she'd always been, in the hopes that some of it might reach her embattled spirit, give her strength. If he turned around now, he'd do just that. And she'd never become what she needed to be.

Her growing impatience with her situation that had prompted this ill-advised outing wasn't going to abate, and now she'd faced the very real possibility that this wouldn't get any better. He'd always known her so well. At the center of Anwyn's soul, there was a tough, hard streak, one that understood the need for cruelty as well as mercy. She needed his cruelty to survive, Gideon's love to live. He intended to deliver both to her. So he slid Gideon out of the dungeon area and into the sitting room, where he could keep an eye on him but not be tempted to go to her aid. Anwyn would want him to sit by her new servant, watch over him, until she'd regained her composure. That much, he could do for her.

Gideon was still breathing, but mercifully had subsided into full unconsciousness. The energy required to knit bones and recover from his near brush with death, process the changes the mark would make within him, would keep him out for a while. That was probably for the best. With the marks in place, Anwyn could now be inside his heart, soul or mind, but wouldn't have any control of that connection during her seizures. If he was conscious, Gideon might think he'd died and gone to Hell, surrounded by the shrieking thoughts of some she-demon. Of course, the more sobering question was whether he would regain consciousness at all. As yet, Daegan saw no indication the wounds in his throat or his broken bones were knitting, though the brief span of convulsions might mean his spine was mending.

Now away from anyone's scrutiny but the disapproving gods, Daegan sank down in a chair next to the man, briefly rubbing a hand over his face, distantly recognizing a slight tremor in his fingers.Holy Mother of Christ, bless His name. He felt sick, a rare occurrence for a vampire.

Years ago, he'd seen a dog run down by an SUV. The driver hadn't stopped, and it had been late at night. Daegan had carried the poor creature out of the road, found a quiet hill to lay the dog down and sat by him. He'd known the wound was mortal, that the life would die out of his liquid brown eyes in a matter of moments. From the condition of the skinny, feral animal, he could tell he'd had few options in a cruel human world. Daegan had given him some of his blood, which the dog had lapped at for a few minutes and then subsided into semiconscious-ness. He'd died with Daegan stroking his coat, his head.

What did it say about him, that he recalled that moment as one of the few times he'd felt truly connected to another? Until he met Anwyn. All those years alone, then he'd met her. And what were the chances that, remarkably, within the same five years, he'd started tracking a hunter who always hunted alone . . .

Gideon muttered, his voice tinged with a fear he'd never heard when the man was conscious. They all had their nightmares.

He could give Gideon what he couldn't give Anwyn right now. Laying a hand on Gideon's brow, he murmured to him. “Easy, vampire hunter. You're safe. And you're all hers. Go to a good dream now. A good memory.”

It wasn't a bad idea. From the sounds he detected in the next room, Anwyn's tears had mercifully given way to a menacing series of hisses and threatening mutters, another seizure coming on the heels of the earlier one. Moving to the sofa arm and bracing a leg up near Gideon's shoulder, his fingers still drifting across the man's feverish brow, he let himself visit one of the best memories of his life. One he desperately needed right now.

The night he'd met Anwyn.

25

VAMPIRES tended to like upscale BDSM clubs. They were open at night, and they catered to vampires' unique sexual tastes, though it was rare a vampire indulged in an actual session. Most clubs didn't allow bloodplay, and many vampires didn't have the control to maintain the human façade in such a stimulating environment. Daegan was one who did, but he'd gone in only for a drink, liking the environment and the quality vodka. He'd had an assignment in the area, but had finished it up early. The following day he'd head for New Zealand.

He needed to start making some time for other things. He was getting too grim, too tightfisted on his emotions, so that they were growing hard and dull inside his heart. It was too easy for an assassin to become a cold-blooded killer. Though of course, only an assassin probably knew the difference. It was also too easy for a vampire to lose touch with his emotions. When he did, he could succumb to the dangerous apathy of the Ennui.

What would he do with more time, though? He didn't consort with his own kind, and the human world had too many dangers. He could afford the occasional seductive evening with a pretty female he'd see only once, but in truth, he thought maybe he should return to Tibet for a while. Spend time in one of the monasteries. There they asked no questions, each man seeking his own answers and peace from the silence.

The fact he was here, though, suggested his carnal appetities were more urgent this evening than his meditative ones. He scanned the assortment of submissives available for play with a discerning eye, feeling like Goldilocks, not finding anything that was exactly right.

Then he saw her.

She was moving among the crowd of Friday night guests. She missed nothing, the aura of energy around her a silent but powerful force that drew every eye, yet warned even the Doms from speaking to her uninvited. The blue-green corset and tight black skirt with matching stilettos molded her figure, moving with the graceful sway of her body. Her hair had been piled on her head. Around her neck had been stenciled a complicated henna tattoo collar the color of old blood.

There might have been a hundred feet between them, filled with more than two hundred people in the crowded bar and dance floor area, yet she stopped, turned and met his gaze squarely, dead on target.

Things moved faster for vampires. He didn't need time to vacillate or contemplate. The minute she made that extraordinary connection, responding to his energy even through the crowd, he was on his feet and moving. People instinctively shifted out of his way. She watched him, every step, until he reached her.

When he stopped, his feet were planted so close they were practically on the outsides of her slender heels. His coat slid against her forearm as he stared into her eyes. He moved from them to the curve of her lips, the pale skin and bone structure of her face. He'd seen beauty before, countless versions of it, but this . . .

Less than an hour before, someone had begged him for her life. A female vampire. He'd closed his ears to it, because he had to do so, because her crimes required her death. Most begged for life at the end, because fear of the unknown, of saying good-bye to everything they'd ever known, was the greatest fear of all. Just as finding the place that felt truly like your own, your home, what you were bound and connected to, was the greatest need.

“I want you,” he said.

No compulsion, nothing but the driving beat in his cock, his heart, his soul. When she reached up to touch his face, he closed his hand on her wrist, a warning that he was not to be touched without permission. But she pushed against his hold, her smile telling him she knew she couldn't battle his strength, but that she would have her way regardless. Remarkably, he let her win, let that delicate forearm he could snap slide through the closed circle of his fingers so she touched his hair, her silky skin grazing his temple. Then she drifted down his cheek, the line of his jaw.

A large man had stepped up behind her. This was her security, come to make sure she was in control of the situation. He had to block an absurd desire to bare his fangs and snarl, send him skittering back.

Instead, she made a motion with her other hand, a subtle signal, and the man nodded, moving off, though he kept a wary eye on Daegan.

“I have a feeling that what you want may be more than I have to give,” she murmured. “Can you accept that?”

“No.” He bent and touched his lips to the tender underside of her forearm, grazing his fang over her wrist, letting her feel the sharp prick. A shudder ran through her.