Night's Templar: A Vampire Queen Novel (Vampire Queen Series Book 13) (25 page)

He laid his hand on Uthe’s shoulder, fingertips sliding along the base of his neck. He could feel the strength of Uthe’s feeding fueling him, and Kel wondered what it would be like, to be the one who nourished the vampire, helped keep him strong.

The thought was so unexpected he almost jerked his hand back. Instead he flexed it, strongly enough Uthe sent him a sidelong glance. “You are going to leave bruises, my lord.”

“You say that only to tease me.”

Keldwyn shifted his hand to the front of the tunic and leaned in toward Uthe’s parted lips. He had a firm, pleasurable mouth to kiss, and Keldwyn enjoyed caressing the fangs with his tongue, knowing Uthe had to exercise particular restraint not to draw blood. That day on the stairs, Keldwyn had made it clear such behavior was unacceptable and would end a kiss. Since Uthe knew that, scoring Kel wouldn’t honor the oath he’d made to willingly submit to him. Keldwyn fed off that sense of self-restraint. Behind that wall, Kel could feel the bloodlust rise in Uthe and his own body responded in kind.

Keldwyn drew back, brushed a thumb over Uthe’s mouth. “I can taste his scent on your lips.”

“Not the most pleasurable of meals. Not as sweet as Mariela, but enough to nourish. That’s all that matters.”

Keldwyn returned to the cave opening. Late afternoon was giving way to evening. “Next wave coming,” he said absently. He touched his mouth, capturing Uthe’s sensation in his fingertips. “I’ll be back.”

He slipped out before Uthe could suggest coming with him, which Keldwyn had already anticipated. The male chafed at not being able to be in both places at once, but Kel knew he needed to decipher those symbols. The quicker Keldwyn handled these threats, the less distracting they would be to the vampire.

This time, though, he set aside magic and indulged in some brutal hand-to-hand combat, no magic involved. Duck, swing, kick, break, snap. Grunt, punch. The physical effort, minor though it was, helped ease the sexual energy building inside him. Yet when he was done, one thought of Uthe staring at those symbols with that intent, bookish look brought it back in full force. It would have amused Keldwyn if he hadn’t also thought of the challenging way Uthe had looked at him as he suggested Keldwyn might leave bruises on his skin. He’d like to leave bruises on him. Teeth marks, a few stripes. He wanted to be rough with the vampire and give them both pleasure.

This time he didn’t decay his victims back into the earth. As twilight closed in, he saw the slinking shadows of coyotes, the glint off their red eyes. He tossed a couple bodies down the slope, and offered them the benefit of his labors. The sounds of their snarls, whines and snapping as they began to feed was familiar. Nature was brutal, efficient and predictable. Beautiful in a savage way, demonstrating the root of all desires in its methods of survival and order.

Dominance, submission, need, want.

One of the coyotes left the feeding, coming up the incline toward Keldwyn. The Fae Lord frowned as the creature stumbled, saliva dripping in long strings from his mouth. While Keldwyn watched, he keeled over, the brown eyes starting to glaze over in death.

No.
How foolish they had been, thinking a demon would be that simplistic in his attack. Sending a quick blast of sealing magic down to the bodies to drive off the coyotes and prevent further harm, Keldwyn pivoted and shot back up the incline. “
Uthe.
”

Bursting into the cave, he found Uthe sitting on one of Fatima’s few chairs. He was bent over, rubbing his forehead. “The answer is there. It’s just…elusive, hard to…” he tried to straighten, and Keldwyn saw his face had an unhealthy gray tinge. “Ah, bloody hell,” the vampire snarled, recognizing the same thing Keldwyn had. “I’m an idiot.”

Falling to his knees, he jammed his fingers down his throat, trying to expel the blood.

H
eat
. Unrelenting heat, the endless stretches of desert like the ripples of undyed sheets. The patterns were sculpted by the wind and limned by sparkling grains of sand. Uthe imagined those patterns as a writhing body with long fine limbs. Vulnerable, elegant fingers reached out to him. The sheets would be cool, whereas the folds of sand burned against flesh.

Flesh could burn against sheets, bringing release and relief in a way that the burn of hot sand could not.

Sand was always in everything. Heat, sand, desert. These were things one grew accustomed to enduring, accepting. That acceptance was proof of obedience to the Lord's Will. The discomfort was to be welcomed, a gift of the Lord, a way to prove devotion. Tangled sheets and burning flesh indulged the self, desires and longings. But each way brought a type of peace, so he wondered if they weren't both ways to God, in the end.

Uthe lifted his head. He was not alone. His sacred mission, the one that Hugh had given him, was attended in solitude. Understanding the wisdom of it, he’d obeyed. Which meant this being had to be a demon come to taunt him. No man was this beautiful and mortal. Not here in the stark desert, where fellow travelers almost always stank of perspiration and unwashed clothing.

 "You say nothing?" the beautiful male asked.

"Idle words generate sin. You have asked no question, and you are too fair to be anything but temptation."

"But I am male. I thought only women could provide temptation in your Order.” The voice of the beautiful creature changed, became smooth. Too smooth. “There is a reason your Rule requires you to leave a candle lit through the night, to stave off the temptations that a man sleeping nearby might provoke. Especially for one like you. Sodomite."

Uthe blinked. "Taunt me not, demon."

“But I must taunt you. Defeat you. It will not be as difficult now. Perhaps that is why my time has come at last.” The beauty of that face disappeared. Instead Uthe stared into the face of a disembodied head floating in front of him. The skin was pale, the eyes staring, empty. “You are turning into a child again,” the voice said. “You will be weak, easy to command. In the end, you will take my place in this prison, and I will be the free one, because you have lost the part of your mind that knew what to do, how to do it. You should have attended this a decade ago, when you had a chance. Now you have none.”

He surged up to strike at the head with his mailed fist, but it jerked out of range like a balloon caught on a wind current, the mouth stretching outward in an obscene laugh. “Varick, you cur. You know now what true power is, and you lack the courage to capture it.”

He fumbled for his sword, drew it, slashed at the head. “Yes, pierce me through. The innocent no longer matter. Only ending it does. It has gone on long enough, hasn’t it? This prison, your life…”

He leaped, thrust. The head disappeared and became a beautiful black-haired child. Blood dripped from his throat, his sorrowful, accusing blue eyes on Uthe. “You are damned forever.”

He struggled to reach out and help, to staunch the blood, but the child was gone. The world spun, rock and stone surrounding him, and suddenly he was on the floor of a cave, once again gasping for air he didn’t need.

“It is all right, Varick. You’re with me. You expelled the poison.”

“Don’t call me that. Not right now.”

As Uthe's mind cleared, he realized his upper body was propped against Keldwyn, who sat behind him, holding him. But what made him wonder if he was still caught in illusion was he had Keldwyn’s wrist grasped in both hands, the pulsing vein near his mouth. Keldwyn wasn’t pulling away. He was stroking Uthe’s hair.

“You have my permission to take the blood you need, my lord. I expect it is better than what you just had.”

Uthe squeezed his eyes shut. Pushing away from Keldwyn, refusing that vein, was like removing one of his internal organs with a rusty knife, but he was no stranger to severe deprivation. He rolled to his hands and knees. He couldn’t get to his feet, but snarled at Keldwyn when he tried to help. He accomplished it after two stumbles, and propped against a wall full of symbols. “Don’t touch me. Stay away for a few moments.” He had to get the bloodlust under control.

“I offered you nourishment, Lord Uthe. Is Fae blood not good enough for you now?” The expression on Keldwyn’s face was ominous. In it he saw the formidable opponent Uthe had always known him to be.

“You consider a Fae feeding a vampire…like humans fucking animals,” Uthe rasped. “I won’t…I won’t take your blood when you feel that way. Even if I have to starve.”

To not take what was offered, even if to do so risked the success of his quest—that was nothing but pride. Which invited the taunt of that hated voice.
You are already halfway mine, Lord Uthe. Cling not to your illusion of God. For that was all it ever was. A way to save you from the darkness that is inevitable, because it was born inside you. You will never be rid of it, no matter how you deceive those around you.

Shit. He’d fallen to one knee again. He should take it as a mandate to pray. To focus, to sacrifice his pride. No, not a sacrifice. It wasn’t a sacrifice to give away something worthless, and his pride was certainly that. To decipher those symbols, he needed clarity of mind. That was far more important.

“Varick.” Keldwyn’s voice was quiet, firm. He was kneeling next to Uthe, his hand curved over his shoulder, fingertips once again resting on the back of his neck.

“I told you not to call me that.”

“You will have to become used to it. It fits you far better, and there is something in your eyes when I say it that makes me want to keep doing so. Your expression says you are listening to me, focusing on me, in a way I quite prefer. Look at me, Varick.”

Uthe lifted his head. Keldwyn touched his face. “Find that calm you do so well. Shut out everything else.” Drawing the dagger from Uthe’s belt, Keldwyn lifted his arm before Uthe’s face, showing his intent to open a vein.

Uthe seized his wrist, startling the Fae. “Not that dagger,” he said hoarsely. “Except for that one time, to save my squire’s life, I have never used it for harm. It seemed…a sacrilege.”

Keldwyn’s gaze flickered. “I understand. Be easy, my lord. I will honor that.”

Uthe loosened his grip, dropping his hand back to the ground to support his swaying body. The Fae Lord slid the blade back in the sheath at Uthe’s belt, fingers curving there for a brief tug. He extended his wrist to Uthe again. “Do it with your fangs, then.” At Uthe’s hesitation, Kel’s mouth tightened. “I command you to feed, my lord. Our journey is long and important, you have told me so. I feel no revulsion at nourishing you. It is…a peculiar honor to me, to care for you thus.”

Uthe raised his gaze from that tempting meal to Keldwyn’s face, and saw the truth of it there. “Most Fae don’t feel that way. You didn’t feel that way, just a few days ago.”

“Many things have changed. Are changing.” Keldwyn stroked his head once more. “Take what I have offered, Varick. Take it as a gift, and do not offend me with your refusal.”

Watching Uthe mull it over, Keldwyn restrained the urge to push, to command him more sternly than he already had. He was still concerned about the vampire’s pallor. More than that, there was a curious anticipation in him, now that the decision was made. He wanted Uthe to get on with it, before that feeling abated, before the mores of a lifetime kicked in and made Keldwyn rethink a decision that he was sure was going to change things irrevocably between them.

The vampire’s eyes slowly focused on Keldwyn’s wrist. Even more slowly, he lifted his hands, closed both over it. One over Keldwyn’s hand, the other over his forearm, so Keldwyn could feel the beat of his own pulse against Uthe’s strong grip. Then Uthe put his head down and bit.

It was painful, as was to be expected when a pair of fangs as sizeable as a wolf’s penetrated flesh. Keldwyn could claim not to have anticipated anything beyond the pain, but the way he held his own breath right before Uthe did it, the tight coil of need in his lower belly that seemed to affect both heart and cock, belied that indifference.

He’d had a mix of feelings about offering Uthe his blood, the beliefs of his people conflicting with his own conscience and desires. That mix expanded into something different as Uthe drew on his vein, as his throat moved to swallow Keldwyn’s blood. He still had his hand on the back of Uthe’s head and used that contact to draw Uthe closer. The male was half reclined, one elbow hooked over Keldwyn’s thigh, the other pressed close to his groin, his shoulder against Keldwyn’s torso. Keldwyn dropped his touch, sliding it along Uthe’s back, down to the curve of hip and buttock. He’d been able to sense the vampire’s arousal from his most casual touch for some time. Right now it gave him a sense of power so heady, Keldwyn wanted to turn him as soon as he finished feeding and take him here, in a cave where death overshadowed everything.

This vampire filled his mind, was so large in his thoughts, Keldwyn realized the idea of possessing him, calling him his own, almost superseded the urgency of anything else, at least in this moment. Rhoswen had mocked Keldwyn’s Dominant tendencies when she’d appointed him as liaison for the Vampire Council.

“Perhaps you will like being closer to your own kind, Lord Keldwyn. Those who enjoy overpowering the will of others for sexual pleasure.”

It was an empty taunt, for she was well aware it wasn’t about overpowering the will at all. Not exactly. He used his dominance to get other things out of the way so that the will could be freed. When that happened, a gift could occur. A male surrendering to his own desires, feeding on Keldwyn like this.

In the vampire world, Jacob was Lyssa’s possession, to do with as she pleased. At least until the latest policy introduced by Lord Mason was passed. If it passed. But anyone with eyes knew the relationship between vampire queen and servant was far more complex than that. No matter the inequity of the relationship on the surface, it wasn’t the surface that mattered. Unjustly treated servants like Alanna or Jessica needed the laws, the policies. Servants like Jacob never would.

In the eyes of his Council and the vampire world, and even himself, Lord Uthe was as Dominant as any other of his kind. He wouldn’t have made it to the top ranks of that world without proving his ability to take the upper hand. When Uthe so desired, he could level an opponent with nothing more than a look. It wasn’t the threat of violence simmering in his dark eyes that did that, though Uthe could certainly back it up with that if necessary. In most every race and species, there was an intuitive recognition of hierarchy, of dominance and submission.