Bound by the Vampire Queen (26 page)

His reaction had startled her, he could tell by the quick flash of it on her face, but then she was gone.

He howled as the tree staked him through the thigh, going through the bone. It snaked out the opposite side, ran diagonally up his bare body and pinioned him against the rough bark. She stood before him once again, her eyes flashing, teeth bared, but he was in no mood for her games or the venom she was prepared to spout.

“If you’re going to have her raped, if I can’t stop it, at least let me be there to help her get through it.” He couldn’t reach Lyssa’s mind. He was trying desperately, and nothing was getting through. Where the hell were they? He leveled a look of pure malevolence on the Fae queen. “You might as well go ahead and honor that threat to kill me, Your Majesty. Because if you harm her like this, I will kill you. I'll rip your fucking heart out from behind those superior tits and turn you into vampire meat.” Rhoswen’s elegant hands closed into fists. “I can easily kill you, vampire. And if you die, she dies.”

“She’d rather die than go through this. So I’d rather you kill me than do this to her.”

“You think she’d prefer death to some forced pleasuring by one of my court? The lilania will make sure it’s pleasurable, no matter how she feels about him.”

“So it’s emotional as well as physical rape. Good to know you’re as psychotic as any human or vampire you claim superiority over.” Jacob spat in her face, earning a glorious rage in return. The tree speared him in both arms, the other leg, through the abdomen. He screamed at the agony of it, but he was still alive. She hadn’t staked his heart yet, even though he was somewhat surprised that he didn’t black out.

Then he realized it was because it wasn’t real.

She hadn’t staked any of him.

He was on his knees on the forest floor, breathing hard. The Fae queen stood ten feet away, leaning against the same oak, its low branches rustling quietly in a tranquil wind. Reaching up, she played with a quivering cluster of leaves. Her expression was remote, the rage gone. Jacob decided she was the most schizoid female he’d ever had the displeasure of meeting.

“You cannot reach her because I stopped time,” Rhoswen said casually. “Nothing is happening to your lady, Jacob, not yet. The same second is spiraling in that chamber, and will continue to do so, as long as I will it so.”

He rose then, eyeing her. It took a few moments to wrap his mind around what she’d said and tamp down the warrior and vampire blood lust. Having felt Lyssa’s state of mind in that last moment, he didn’t like knowing that was what she was feeling, but at least his lady was not being raped as he stood here in this absurdly beautiful meadow with the Fae queen. “So what now, then? You were just in the mood for a private chat?”

“Your Irish comes out in your voice when you’re truly angry.” she noted.

“It’s appealing.”

Straightening, Rhoswen moved toward him, slipping the cloak off her shoulders so it became a bed of starlight behind her. “Lie with me, the way you lie with her. Let me feel what she feels.”

“You want to take something from her that she considers hers exclusively. The way you think she took something of yours. Your father.” The starlight disappeared, the gentle breeze and the meadow. He stood in a desolate, frozen field, naked and shivering, despite the fact a healthy vampire typically didn’t react to cold weather—not counting enchanted ice being shoved through his nipples or in his ass. He didn’t see Rhoswen but he sighed, raised his voice. “I don’t care to be on the same wavelength with that arrogant bastard, but Keldwyn’s right. Being pissed about it doesn’t change the truth. So what’s the plan? I obey you or you let Arrdol rape her?”

“If you wish to cal it that. I expected a vampire to understand such cold exchanges.”

She reappeared before him, the starlight spinning around her, making it hard to read her face. When her fingers brushed him, he realized the ice was gone. All of it. His nipples throbbed like a son of a bitch, though, telling him all of that part had been real. His cock was still stiff, but it was the lingering effects of having his lady’s cunt closed around him, not an erection forced by Fae ice magic.

He narrowed his eyes at Rhoswen. “Keldwyn was wrong. He said you were a good queen, one who could become a great one.”

She stilled. “He said that?”

“Yeah. I thought he was smart. Apparently not.” He swept his gaze over her, thorough, appraising, in a disdainful way that had her mouth tightening in anger. “I can fuck you. I’d fuck a pile of manure if that’s what it took, and I'll make it seem like you’re the only woman in the world, if you get off on forcing a man to tell you lies. But my soul belongs to my lady.

Lust can be enchanted. Your honey-on-the-eyes trick is all about infatuation, that mistaken idea that lust is a soul-deep feeling. You could make it work for you, I’m sure. I’m not invincible. Eventually, every torturer finds a way to break her victim, because we aren’t alive if we don’t have vulnerabilities.” He took a steadying breath. “But it would still all be fake, because I love Lady Elyssa Amaterasu Yamato Wentworth, last Queen of the Far East Clan, with every cell of who I am. I was created, and have been reborn three times, to serve her. That gift comes from a power far greater than you, Your Majesty. If you act to destroy it, or mask it, or hide it, there are consequences. It tears a hole in the fabric of all our worlds. You live by rules, I can tell. And I’m believing what you’re doing now is outside the boundaries of those rules. In fact, from what I’ve picked up from your captain of the guard, I think the way you’ve been acting all along toward my lady isn’t the person you normally are.”

He stopped, setting his jaw. She’d left him naked, the same as herself, as if they were Adam and Eve standing at odds in the middle of Eden, making a decision to decide their ultimate fate. He wasn’t one to wait. Taking himself in hand, he gave himself a lewd stroke, cupping his bal's. “So what'll it be, Your Majesty? What do you want to do?”

“You’re impertinent,” she said quietly.

Jacob gave a bitter half chuckle. Letting go of his cock, he shifted to a more aggressive stance before her, crossing his arms over his chest, unabashed by his nakedness. “I serve a true queen,” he said.

“That means I cal it like I see it. She deserves nothing less from me.”

“Then you will do as you said. If you will not love me as you love her, you will still lie with me, give me pleasure. And I will spare her Arrdol’s attentions and release her.”

Their surroundings had once again become the meadow, soft colors, fragrant smells, romantic atmosphere. The cloak was back on her body, veiling and revealing it at once. “No,” he said. “Not here.”

He studied her, the long fall of her blond hair, the mesmerizing eyes, the generous body beneath that shimmering cloth. Shifting forward, he moved into her until he was almost stepping on her toes. She tilted her head back, staring up into his face, a frozen ice princess. He thought princess instead of queen, because there was something younger, more inexperienced about her right now.

Lyssa had said he understood things intuitively, things that allowed him to get the measure of someone in a way others couldn’t. And as Rhoswen stared up at him, he felt that click into place.

His Mistress had vulnerability, but she was a Mistress through and through. She let him take care of her, protect her, but there was a constant element of permission to it. It was why no physical or emotional circumstances had changed that relationship. She could be a mere human, and he the most powerful vampire or Fae, and he would be her servant. As her servant, he would do his level best to care for her however necessary, even if he had to override her will , but there were consequences to that, her will always part of the equation. In Rhoswen’s face, in her words, in her actions, he sensed something different… conflicted.

He’d seen the question in his lady’s mind as well, unable to determine what had driven Rhoswen in the chamber, if the Fae queen truly enjoyed the pleasure of restraining a man or if it was all about the politics, her warring feelings about Lyssa.

Now, with just the two of them here, despite all the other things roiling in his gut, he followed that intuition. Putting his hands on her shoulders, he dropped to her wrists, gripped them hard. When he pul ed them behind her, he clasped them at the small of her back with one hand so he could jerk open the tie to the cloak, let it drop. Wrapping his hand in her hair, he made it tight, let her feel the pul . Her lips parted, a dangerous shimmer going through her. A tremble. Her eyes went opaque, and the emotional swirl that came from her was enough to send a cloud of disturbed butterflies surging up around her and fluttering away.

Son of a bitch.
He stared down at her. Suddenly, it was as if she were ice in truth, the brittle, delicate kind that formed in the corners of windowpanes, or edged the slender branches of trees.

“If not here, then where?” Her voice was a whisper.

“Somewhere dark. A place of stone and steel.” A blink, and it was done. They were in an armory, surrounded by swords and crossbows, shields.

Jacob had nursed the hope of a fully equipped dungeon where he could strap her down to a St.

Andrew’s cross and beat her within an inch of her life. However, since she had magical powers that could easily slip such bindings and malevolent vengeance, this would do.

Sweeping an array of helmets off a bench, he shoved her down on it, face forward. Her hair was a curtain around her body, but it parted like silk, showing him the pale buttocks, the pink sex. She was all cream. It was no wonder she drove Cayden to distraction. The Fae male exuded the dominant vibe as strong as any vampire master Jacob had met, no matter that he served as captain of the Queen’s Guard. He’d probably endured the torment of it because he sensed this elusive trait in her, like a wolf on a hard-to-track but irresistible scent. Given Rhoswen’s unpredictable nature, Jacob was sure he hadn’t run her to ground yet.

He plucked a bridle off the wall, detached the reins. Pulling her wrists up to the top edge of the table, he tied them and wound the straps around the hook there. It stretched her upper torso along the table, her hips at the edge.

“Spread your legs,” he ordered, his tone harsh.

“Show me your cunt.”

It was a weighted moment, but then she shifted, spread them farther. She was wet, heated. That shudder went through her again, punctuated by a tiny tremor. He remembered what Lyssa had said about Rhoswen’s powers over the mind. She’d made time stop, so he expected it would be easy for her to wipe this from his memory afterward, keeping it all to herself. Was the queen figuring out how she wanted life to go, discarding the frames she didn’t want, piecing together the history of her life, her kingdom?

No. There had to be a thread of reality she couldn’t alter, and a limit to her magic. There were rules, as Keldwyn had said.

“Fuck me,” she demanded, her fingers twisting in the reins.

Jacob hefted a short sword and swung, the flat of the blade striking both buttocks with a smart slap that elicited a shocked yelp. She tossed her hair to the side, stared at him. He twirled the blade expertly over his wrist, cocked his brow. “Care to try that again?”

She could annihilate him with a blink. Instead, she moistened her lips. The blade had left a red stain over her white cheeks, and as he watched, more honey flowed from her pussy. “Please,” she whispered. Tears gathered in her eyes, a flash before she turned her head swiftly away, spoke to the table. “Do it, or I'll release the time frame. He'll fuck her like a common whore and make her love it so much she'll never get over hating herself afterward.”

He hit her again, and though he wanted to use the edge, he stayed with the flat, tossing it away with an oath. He was hard enough, because repulsed or not, his cock was going to respond to a restrained woman, wet from getting her fuckable ass spanked.

Male and simple, after all. But still…

He’d taken women before, at vampire dinners. At Lyssa’s command and direction. But this—a rival, one who was manipulating the stakes, and not even making all that clear what the ultimate stakes were— that was a different matter altogether.

The armory wall shimmered, and he had a window back into that upper chamber. Rhoswen had unfrozen the moment. Arrdol was stroking Lyssa’s hair back from her shoulders, enjoying the weight and feel of it. She was alone there, bound to that frame as he’d been, while the Fae Lord bent to put his mouth on her flesh—her throat—goddamn it all.

As he did, he was pressing a cock that looked like a fucking baseball bat under his tight hose up against her ass.

“Freeze it, now.”

“Fuck me, now.”

“Lady, you are one fucked-up piece of work.” Fine.

Goddamn it twice over. With a strangled oath, Jacob put his hands on her reddened ass, squeezed the cheeks hard enough to convey his displeasure, and slammed into her. Not her pussy. He went for her ass, and shoved in hard, despite the lack of lubrication. She cried out and he leaned over her, gripping her hair and pulling her head up so she could glare at him through those tears, though her breasts were heaving and the nipples tight from arousal.

“Bad girls get it up the ass, honey. You weren’t specific about where you wanted to be fucked.

Gentleman’s choice.”

“You’re no… gentleman,” she retorted.

“I’m vampire scum, beneath your notice, remember? But not too beneath you to fuck, as my lady said. Now hold on for the ride, because I’m hoping like hell it’s going to hurt. Freeze the damn thing.”

“Make me come first. I stop it when you make me come.” She flashed him a look of triumph.

Snarling every curse he knew, Jacob pul ed out of her, flipped her over and shoved back into her wet pussy, caring less about the usual hygienics. He hoped they had infections in the Fae world, and that he gave her one that made her itch like a dog infested by fleas. As he changed positions, he clamped a large hand around her slender throat.

That restraint hit the right note. To a powerful woman who craved submission, a collaring, even if it was just a male’s ruthless hand, was sometimes enough to accelerate her toward climax. He began to stroke into her, smooth and relentless, his other hand going to work on her clit. He made sure she saw the way his gaze devoured the provocative wobble of those magnificent breasts as he pounded into her, again and again.