Vampire Trinity (37 page)

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Authors: Joey W. Hill

BOOK: Vampire Trinity
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“You fight me when I do things like this to you, because you hate the fact that you let go when I push you hard enough. I push you into a place where it’s not about anything but pleasing me, getting lost in the pleasure of being mine. You think you have to fight because it’s your nature. And it is.” She allowed herself a soft smile, running her fingers through his hair. “But this isn’t about that kind of fighting. You don’t want me to think I can push you around all the time, and I know that. But your overwhelming desire to give yourself to a Mistress, that’s in your heart. I feel it.”
He shook his head, but before she thought she’d failed, his voice came into her head.
Not to a Mistress . . . Plenty of clubs, plenty of places. Only to you. Only serve you.
His expression was filled with old pain and new, but a yearning so strong, she couldn’t help but respond to it. She slid the gag free but bade him remain silent with fingers to his lips. Bending down, she pressed her mouth to his left eye, held there, conveying all the tenderness she had for him. Daegan touched her hair and in her peripheral vision she saw him grip Gideon’s shoulder. He was moved as well, telling her Daegan was in her mind, hearing Gideon’s words to her.
“Then do this for me,” she whispered. “I’ve put marks on you with my own hands.” Her fingers slid across one of the welts, and he shivered at the pain. “You bear my third mark.” Now she passed under his shoulder, finding the deep crimson scar high on his pectoral. “Tonight, I want you to do what a submissive does. Release everything, know that everything you do is for my pleasure and your own. Only you and I exist in that room. The Council is no more significant than this whip, that gag, or the lovely cross we have in our playroom at home. They’re props, Gideon. They’re not what’s real, and I want you to remember you have every right to be proud and strong and defiant. Because you belong to me. And because every damn one of those bastards knows you can take down a vampire.”
Unfortunately that’s why his life is in danger.
A quiet reminder from Daegan. She lifted her gaze, let them both hear her savage retort.
And it’s what burns their asses to the bone, knowing he could do it to any one of them. Fuck them all.
Gideon closed his eyes then, nodded his head once, his shoulders releasing tension as if he’d let go of a burden. Whether or not she could keep him from picking it up again would depend a lot on what happened tonight and going forward, but Anwyn realized she’d just released a burden of her own. Barnabus had turned her into a vampire, but she’d always been in control of her destiny. For the first time she accepted and believed that all that had changed was she was now a
vampire
Mistress. All Henry Barnabus had done was give rocket fuel to the skills she already possessed in full measure.
Maybe she’d always have the voices, the occasional nightmare, or carry deep-seated fears from what had happened to her in that alley, but tonight was a reminder that she’d sworn never to let fear run her life. She’d made that oath long before that alley. Back in childhood, a memory she’d partially shared with Gideon during the early days of her transition. Closing her eyes, she willed the thought away. Tonight was not about that either.
What was important was now. When the nightmares came, Gideon would be there. He was hers.
She looked up again, met Daegan’s eyes. Reaching out a hand, he touched her cheek.
I as well,
cher
. We will both keep your nightmares away.
14
S
HE’D taken great pleasure in cleaning Gideon up and tucking him into his trousers. She’d strapped a codpiece over the sleek latex shell, a handsome silver accessory with linked chains on the hips that matched the collar and wrist chains. It gave the outfit a medieval look with the polished calf boots she’d put with it. She left the dildo in his ass, so that when she and Daegan helped him up, he was moving stiffly. His cock had been impressively semierect before she cupped the codpiece over it, gaining another spark of fire from those blue eyes at her teasing fingers.
Once she was done with that, she used a linen handkerchief to clean the saliva around his mouth from the gag. His hands were still tethered behind his head, and she ran her hands over his biceps, down his chest, enjoying all of him while he watched her, saying nothing but simply feeling.
Moving in, she slid her arms around him, traced the firm meat of his buttocks, and then smiled as Daegan slid an arm around her waist from behind, pressing his body to hers, so he and Gideon had her sandwiched between them. Daegan was also impressively large, and she toyed with the idea of asking him to fuck her while she held on to Gideon, making him her anchor point, making him suffer, imagining how long he would have to wait for her willing pussy.
No time, regretfully. The knock on the door came, the servant’s call to dinner. Gideon’s gaze dropped, however, as Daegan’s hands molded over her breasts, flicking her nipples so even through the corset they beaded up, hard. When she arched her neck, Daegan gave her a quick bite, scoring the skin but not breaking through.
“Let’s go,” he said. “You might want to give him back the use of his arms,
cher
.”
When she did, releasing the tether, Gideon brought his arms down around her, over top of Daegan’s, so they had her in a pair of interlocking rings. “Don’t take any unnecessary risks tonight,” her servant said, giving her a hard, searching look. “I’m glad you’re in a kick-ass mood, but be careful. Mistress.”
It sent a thrill through her, because he said it with full knowledge that she’d made calling her that a requirement. He could have ignored it, now that the moment had passed, but he hadn’t. He’d embraced it for himself as well as for her.
“You’re both being far too serious.” She tilted her head to see Daegan giving her the same protective frown. “This is like Saturday night in Atlantis, corralling CEs and high-powered lawyers, making them beg for their mommies.”
Ducking beneath their hold, she went toward the door as the servant knocked again, looking for acknowledgment. “Are you two coming with me, or am I going to have to entertain the Council by myself ?”
She opened the door, met Vincent’s eyes, and then it hit her.
No warning, full force, as if those shadow creatures had been planning an ambush all evening. It drove her to her knees. The nausea clamped her stomach in a painful vise. Before she could stop herself, she’d expelled what looked like a gallon of blood, splattering the servant’s immaculate trouser legs.
Her mind was seized, pulled away, kicking and screaming. Barnabus’s insanity took the forefront, contorting her mouth with his dire rants. She wished she couldn’t hear them in her mind, a stark echo of how the words tore from her throat in harsh screams.
Another demon. Bathe it in blood. Then we can always find it. Death and dying, that’s our way.
God, like a singsong nursery rhyme. Stupid, pointless gibberish. She was on the floor, a broken chair beside her where it had toppled when she grabbed it. But that was just a vague impression, because the room was swallowed by darkness. She was in her mind, surrounded by those shadow creatures. They’d never been like this. So much larger, a physical presence grabbing her limbs, her throat, their heated breath in her face. Fangs dripping, fingers clutching, like the alley. She screamed for help, no shame.
Daegan, Gideon.
They’d promised to protect her. Where were they?
Was it possible for her to conjure them so they landed fully formed onto her brainpan? Gideon was suddenly there, shoving through the dark, fearsome bodies, scooping her up. She heard Daegan’s snarl, even more frightening than all those creatures combined. But another one grabbed her away from Gideon, filthy hands and fetid breath. It was going to tumble her into an abyss from which there would be no return. She could see it, a hole in her mind so deep and dark it would be a living death. It was where Henry Barnabus had cowered in his childhood closet, his own personal hell.
“Gideon,” she cried.
He spun, wrapping his arms around her waist, heedless of the demons beating on his shoulders and back. He refused to let her go, even to defend himself. Instead, he tried to cover her with as much of his body as he could.
“Daegan,” he bellowed.
What came out of the darkness toward them was what she imagined the Grim Reaper must look like. His eyes flashed bloodred as he loosed something silver and wicked from his hand, a blade that sliced through the air toward the creature still trying to drag her from Gideon’s grip. The blade severed the creature’s throat, inches from her face. It fell away, tumbling into that darkness, but she was falling, too. She’d been too close to the edge.
Gideon was holding her, though, and he didn’t let go. As they fell together, his whisper was in her mind, his body sure and unafraid under her frightened grasp.
You’ll never be alone. I won’t leave you alone. Not now, not ever. And wherever we fall, Daegan will find us.
Fucking A, it was a good thing Anwyn had encouraged them to play computer games on the plane, because the idea had sparked to the forefront of Gideon’s mind when she went down. The darkness rose up in her mind in a way it never had before, like an invading army, and he’d reacted on instinct. Plunging into her mind, fighting those shadows as if they were flesh-and-blood enemies, had been a split-second decision, as abrupt as her seizure, and motivated solely by his gut. Thank the indifferent gods, it had taken Daegan less than a second to catch on and join him.
Now, moments later, he emerged from the astounding experience of putting his mind fully into hers. He’d seen those shadow creatures up close and personal. Freakishly, they’d
seen
him, recognized him as an enemy. Unfortunately, Gideon had no time to marvel at it.
Daegan turned her over to him, now that it was down to shakes and quivers rather than hard convulsions. As reluctantly impressed as Gideon was by many of the vampire’s skills, his ability in this moment to appear unperturbed bordered on loaves-and-fishes miraculous. Gideon was still dumbfounded by the fact there wasn’t a mark on either of them, though he’d felt the fists and teeth of those shadow creatures as if he’d been under attack by wolves.
Daegan turned his attention to the flustered servant, who’d been firing questions throughout as to what he could do. Of course, all he’d seen was the two of them on the floor with her, Daegan containing her stronger movements, Gideon with both hands on her head, trying to hold that connection. The servant didn’t realize they’d been off playing World of Warcraft in her brain.
“She’s fine. Just part of her transition. Before long, she’ll be good as new.” Daegan kept his expression aloof, that fuck-off-I’m-a-vampire-and-you’re-a-lowly-human frosty politeness. “Please tell the Council we’ll be there in a half hour. I apologize for the delay.”
“Very good, my lord. Are you . . . are you sure I can’t get anything for you?”
“No. Her servant will take care of cleaning up.”
Gideon didn’t mind being treated like a janitor. Neither of them wanted to give anyone an excuse to pry around their rooms.
“Fuck, we had no warning of that one at all,” Gideon hissed as the door closed behind the servant.
“Yes, we did. I was careless,” Daegan said grimly. “We both were. She’s just too damn good at internalizing stress. I should have known from how she was acting on the plane, like she was going to a fucking cocktail party. I should have warned you to stay at a deeper level of her mind. Those damned things in her brain knew. The very absence of them was a warning to us.”
He was right. He’d thought it himself on the plane. It made Gideon just as pissed off for overlooking what now seemed obvious. But, like Daegan, he knew there was no time for guilt. “I think she threw up her last three meals. Is she going to need more blood?”
“It works differently for vampires. She absorbed the nutrients, which is what she needed. She’ll be a little weak, but she should be all right. We’ll get her cleaned up.” He glanced at Gideon’s pants. “At least you were wearing latex. Easy enough to wipe clean.”
“Yeah, I’m Teflon.” A muscle in his jaw twitched, but Daegan laid a hand on his shoulder.
“You did well, Gideon.”
They both regarded the woman in his arms. “I’ve never seen or felt anything like that,” Gideon murmured. “Does that . . . Is it getting worse, or is it like the darkest-before-the-dawn shit?”

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