Need (23 page)

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Authors: Todd Gregory

BOOK: Need
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So what happened to a vampire who drank witch blood? The fire in my veins—was it actually a new power I was feeling, a strange hybrid mixture of vampire and witch? Maybe it wasn't my vampire powers developing faster than they were supposed to—maybe it was witch power. Or the witch blood was working as an accelerant. My muscles definitely felt stronger, more powerful, and were getting stronger with each passing second. I could sense their strength increasing; every muscle in my body felt like it was coiled, waiting to unleash itself.
Surely Nico knew the effect his blood would have on me?
He had to. Sebastian had been their master; they had been his seconds in command. They'd known what he was trying to do.
Nico had given me his blood deliberately so this would happen.
“Of course I did,”
Nico's voice cooed inside my head.
“I told you—Sebastian was a fool. He never really understood. . . . Shhh, Lorenzo is waking. He doesn't know, and I don't want him to know anything just yet.”
Lorenzo moved under my arm, shifting again. He pushed my arm away as he sat up. I opened my eyes, focusing on him. His broad shoulders tapering down to his narrow waist, the hard fullness of his muscular ass—
I wanted to grab him, force him down on the bed and shove myself into him, pound his ass until tears came out of his eyes, use him as contemptuously and as thoroughly as he had used me, teach him that no witch can be the master of a vampire—
“Control yourself. There will be time enough for Lorenzo's humiliation later. And believe me, I've been waiting for
that
for many years. So be patient. We can both wait a little while longer. Our vengeance on him will be that much sweeter for the waiting. Trust me, my darling vampire, on this.”
Lorenzo stood up, stretching to his full height with his arms going above his head as he went up on his toes. I wondered how delicious his blood would taste in my mouth. My cock ached even more as I imagined his blood gushing into my mouth, his muscles going slack in my arms as he became submissive to my needs and my desires—
“Ease up, Cord! Patience!”
I shook my head, trying to calm myself as Lorenzo dressed, and I felt Nico's arm tighten somewhat around me. His hand slid down to my cock and wrapped around it. I closed my eyes.
“Once he's gone I will relieve you, okay? But stop thinking about him, stop thinking about the power—I don't know how much he can sense from you. He may not be able to sense anything, but I don't want to take the risk. I'm not as strong as he is, but together he will be easy prey for us.”
Lorenzo pulled his shirt on and turned back to the bed, fastening the buttons over his broad hairy chest. He smiled, but it wasn't a pleasant smile. “I will go down and see to our guests,” he said, his voice sneering, and I knew then he was cruel; he enjoyed dominance because he was arrogant and superior and liked to inflict pain.
And I could see a man tied by the wrists to two posts, his arms stretched out and his shoulders aching from the strain. His back was to me, and his skin glistened with sweat and oil in the light from two burning torches. He was wearing a leather thong that dropped between the two marble globes of his ass, and he was pleading, almost whimpering, for mercy.
Lorenzo's face was a cruel mask as he snapped the whip, and its tip licked at the skin of the man's lower back, an angry welt forming where it had touched him. The man's entire body tensed and trembled with the pain from the lash, and Lorenzo coiled the whip in his hand again, and I turned my head to watch him.
Lorenzo was wearing only tight calfskin pants, and the bulge in his crotch gave away how much he was enjoying whipping the man—
“And remember, dear Cord, we have some entertainment for you—and our guests—in just a little while.” Lorenzo walked back over to the bed and put his fingers beneath my chin, and despite myself I trembled with desire at his electrifying touch, the tips of his fingers burning the flesh beneath my chin. “And don't think you can escape, my pretty young vampire. I have bound you to this room.” He snapped his fingers in my face. “And only I can release you from it. Vampires are strong, but no vampire is strong enough to defeat magic.”
He lightly slapped my face, nothing more than a tap, yet blinding pain seared through me. My eyes filled with tears that I blinked away, and I felt a rage building inside me. I saw myself twisting his neck until it snapped, and the sound gave me pleasure.
What the hell was wrong with me?
I could hear the music still coming from downstairs. It seemed crazy that all that had happened in this room could have, yet all the while the musicale continued below our feet. While their guests remained in the music room, perched on their chairs and sipping wine from crystal, giving their full attention to the young woman at the piano, just above their heads the twins had gratified their lusts and desires with me.
I found that thought to be completely and utterly gratifying.
Lorenzo smirked down at me. “You belong to us now, vampire, but don't worry your pretty little head about it. You will enjoy your stay with us. I'll make sure of that.” He stepped back from the bed and finished buttoning the silk shirt.
I felt Nico shift behind me and sit up. “You'll get everything ready?” he asked.
Lorenzo walked over to the door and looked back at the bed. “Yes, brother, I'll take care of everything—like always.” His tone was mocking, and it filled me with rage. Again, I envisioned myself crossing the room in a second, slamming him against the wall, lashing at his face until it dripped with blood and gore, sinking my teeth into his neck and draining him until he was nothing more than an empty husk to be tossed into the trash.
Nico's hand touched my shoulder—again, I felt as though electricity coursed through my body at the touch—but he squeezed softly, and the strange rage left me.
The door shut behind Lorenzo, and I heard his mocking laughter as he walked away.
“What have you done to me?” I whispered, turning so that I could see Nico.
He turned his back to me and walked over to the French doors. He wrapped his arms around himself as he stood on the threshold leading out to the veranda, his round butt and milky skin almost aglow in the moonlight. “Sebastian wanted to drink your blood, and he thought it would make him a god,” Nico said softly. “It has been forbidden from earliest times for a witch to become a vampire, or for a vampire to feed from a witch.”
Great,
I thought,
yet another rule I didn't know about and have broken.
“The legends always said that it wasn't possible,” he went on. “That such a creature would be an abomination and would go mad and destroy itself.” He turned back to me with a sweet smile on his face. “Yet Sebastian didn't die from drinking your blood, did he?”
“My blood wasn't fully vampiric,” I replied, rising from the bed and walking across the room. I felt like I could fly, like for some reason the law of gravity no longer applied to my body. I grabbed at the carpet with my toes, scrunching them up, grabbing carpet with them. I was trying to tether myself to the floor because I felt like I was going to float off if I didn't. “I was still partly human, was only transitioning.”
“Of course. He hoped that the blood would continue to transition inside him—it had never been tried before. That's why he had to have you.” Nico didn't turn even as I came up beside him. “What were the odds he'd ever have access to a transitioning vampire again?” He laughed bitterly. “It was much safer—and easier—you see. Vampires are too strong for us. Our magic and spells can hold them for a little while, but not for long.”
“Lorenzo said I couldn't defy his magic,” I said.
He laughed. “He wants you to think that. If you believe it, you won't try to escape.” He sighed. “No, we can hold a vampire for only a short time. And imagine the anger of a vampire, to come out of a spell and discover a witch had drank from him! No, it had to be you.” He tilted his head to one side. “Besides, the stories always said that a witch would go mad and would be consumed if he drank the blood of a fully developed vampire. Sebastian was very brave, but very foolish.” His voice sounded sad.
“I thought it was Lorenzo who loved him,” I said, putting my hand on his bare shoulder.
The instant our skin came into contact, there was a flash of something, but I could see that Nico felt nothing; only I had felt the rush of power from him.
And I felt even stronger now.
Nico smiled at me, and I felt a rush of love for him, the emotion just as powerful as the rage that had coursed through me earlier. “I have made you a god.” He reached out a hand, and his fingertips ran down the center of my chest, making my entire body tingle and tremble. “I gave you my blood to drink, and it has changed you—is changing you. Can you feel the power within you now?”
“Yes.” I lay back down on the bed, resting my back against some lace-edged pillows that cushioned my weight. “You said you've made me a god. Why would you do something like that?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “Isn't it forbidden ?”
“Rules.” He waved his hand contemptuously. “What use have we for rules? Rules that were made only to keep us from achieving our true potential? Rules that keep us hidden, cowering in the shadows, while humans destroy themselves, refusing to learn, making the same mistakes over and over again?” His white body gleamed in the moonlight. “Councils of witches, councils of vampires and other creatures, all with their stupid petty rules and petty politics, all threatening us with destruction if we don't conform and go along with their idiocies.” He turned back around, his arms folded across his chest. “Sebastian was a genius, you know. He saw how stupid it all was, how for millennia we have all denied our true natures rather than developed our abilities and our potential, all because of some stupid rules made when humans still hadn't figured out how to wipe their asses.” His lip curled in scorn. “Sebastian's mistake was that he thought
he
was the one who would be able to combine the powers of a vampire with a witch.” He shook his head. “He was a genius in many ways, but his own ambitions blinded him.”
“The key was to give a vampire witch blood to drink,” I said slowly.
He nodded. “Vampires are practically immortal; witches are not. You feel the power, don't you?” Nico stepped back over to me. “Your body is already changing.” He reached out and grasped my right bicep muscle. Again, it felt like a current flowed through his hand through my skin and into my arm. “Your muscles feel harder, bigger.” He smiled. “Together we can rule the world.”
I pulled my arm away from him. “The Nightwatchers will never sit still for this.”
He laughed, and it sounded harsh to my ears. “The Nightwatchers are fools whose time is past. It is time they were overthrown and destroyed.” His lips grazed my cheek in a kiss. “I will teach you how to be a witch, and you are already immortal. Together we can destroy anyone or anything that stands in our way.” He put his mouth to my ear. “And admit it—you want to destroy Lorenzo, don't you?”
“Yes,” I replied, feeling the urge growing within me. “I want to punish him. I want to fuck him and humiliate him before I kill him.”
His eyelids came down about halfway. “I've had a lifetime of humiliations at his hands,” he smiled nastily. “I will help you.”
He put his arms around me and dropped to his knees in front of me, taking my cock into his mouth.
As he began to worship me, it was as though his mind opened to me, and images began rushing through my head.
I saw myself walking down Bourbon Street, eyes wide open as I walked around people. Beads were flying down into the crowds gathered beneath balconies, and I could hear the sound of a marching band and crowds yelling behind me, back at Canal Street.
It was the night I met Jean-Paul.
And I saw myself bumping into the vampire I would later know as Clint, shirtless in the intersection at Bourbon and St. Ann, dance music competing from the bars on opposite sides of the street, and as Clint looked me over, with what I thought then was attraction to my body but I know now was simply the lust for my blood as well as for my body, and he led me inside to where the rest of the coven was dancing in the midst of the crowded dance floor, and I knew later that evening Jean-Paul was going to feed from me and give me some of his own blood to drink, starting the process that turned me into what I am now.
And then I was back, lashed to the bed in Sebastian's house as he lit candles and chanted an incantation, preparing me for some ritual going back to ancient times, a ritual he'd discovered, some spell he could cast to protect himself from dying from ingesting vampire blood and then the others were bursting into the house to protect me, to rescue me, and destroy Sebastian for his great sin.
Only this time, I watched as Sebastian was tortured by my vampire brothers. I saw Jean-Paul carry my limp and naked form, wrapped in a blanket, out of the house and across the street, where he gave me more of his blood to revive me and finish the transformation.

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