Cake (26 page)

“
How about a cup of blood?”

That statement in itself would be so wrong, if it had been said a few days ago. As it was, Marcus reached up, grabbed a mug off the headboard, and held it out for me, and I was eager to take it from him.

I pushed myself over onto my ass, and suddenly remembering the awkwardness of those damned wings, I braced myself, waiting for and expecting pain to hit me. Wait a minute…I touched my back. They were gone! Where the hell were they?

Marcus caught my puzzled expression. “You have two parallel scars on your back where the wings were attached,” he told me as he slowly reached out and traced each one with his finger. “I do not know where your wings have gone, Xavier. Somehow they retracted while you lay exhausted. We will have to talk to Armanita. I do not have any answers for you. I was not birthed until well after the Blue House’s demise.”

I hunched my shoulders forward, stretching all the muscles there. They ached, but it was nothing remotely like the day before. I stretched fully, making little grunting noises in my throat, and sat up, long, red hair swinging forward as I reached for the offered coffee mug of blood. Wait…long, red hair?

“
Look at what else has happened while you were sleeping,” Marcus said, and I watched warily as he reached out and ran his fingers through my hair. He pulled the strands forward and just kept pulling and pulling.

Now that feathers weren’t my primary concern, I reached behind me and found that my hair now extended all the way down to my waist.

What the hell?

“
I cannot wait to have you riding me, with all of this hair draped around us,” Marcus enthused as he lifted a large hank of it to his nose and inhaled, his eyes flaring red for a flash of a second. What was I, his wonder drug?

I snatched my hair back out of his hand as he leaned in to me. I didn’t need a guide book to understand the expression he wore on his face. Ah…er. Another big stop sign here. “We need to do some talking first, Marcus,” I told him.

“
I can multitask.” Marcus the octopus was back.

Gack!

He’d tweaked a nipple just as I had taken a nervous sip of my drink, and now I had spilt blood all over my chest. Marcus took the mug away and then crawled over me, lapping up the spillage, a little too damn enthusiastically for my…

Oh my God. What did you do? Do that again.

I grabbed him, but I didn’t know if it was to push him off of me or to pull him closer, but as my fingers closed on him, the bed rumbled.

Now I definitely wanted Marcus off of me. I didn’t want whoever it was coming up the hidden stairs to see this. It didn’t matter that I had been rolling around shamelessly with two men yesterday; I was not into public displays…at least not when the Flame wasn’t on me, that is.

Marcus grabbed one of my upper arms and pulled it upwards to the mountain of pillows at the head of the bed as he continued letting his tongue lick up the blood trails that ran off my chest. He tickled my underarm with his tongue, and I burst out laughing, loudly, slapping a hand over my mouth as Marcus pulled back, startled for a moment. And then a wide grin illuminated his face.

“
Your laughter is like music, Xavier. I have never heard it before.”

He moved fast, and I ended up completely flat on my back, his forehead pressed to mine as he settled on me, using only just enough weight to keep me pinned to the mattress. Considerate.

I was starting to notice stuff like that, things which he had not done before. He had been lightening the “you-are-my-slave-so-just-bend-over-and-take-it” restrictions and resorting to this more touchy side. I had just never recognized it or realized what it was. He had started to treat me like a lover, even before he’d fanged my neck open.

Feeling his hand squeezing on mine, my smile faded as I looked back up into his brown eyes. “I never had much to laugh at before,” I admitted.

“
Was the past year with me so horrible, Little One?”

“
Fuck, yes,” I exclaimed. He had a hurt look in his eyes and made a move to get off me. I grabbed him by his ears and pulled myself up into a sitting position so I could face him properly. He needed to be told a few things, and I wasn’t going to lie to him. He deserved the truth from me, as I understood it.

“
Marcus, if you hadn’t done all those things to me, I wouldn’t be here now. I’d be dead.” I kissed his nose, trying to express the gratitude I felt for not ending up that way. “But, if you ever try those things again, I will really kick your ass, now that I am able to. Look at what I did to you when I was human…just think of the damage I could cause you now.”

“
Yes, you are destruction personified. You should see what you did to the living room,” Marcus answered, pressing me back down on the bed and pushing his erection into my thigh as he flicked his tongue at my lips.

“
I wasn’t in the right frame of mind at the time, you horny, vampire bastard,” I said with laughter in my voice.

He stopped his teasing kiss. “You cannot call me that,” he protested.

“
What, horny? But you are.” I frowned up at him.

“
I am,” he admitted, a wry smile playing his lips.

“
Vampire?”

“
I am that also.” The smile moved to his eyes.

“
Then, you must mean bastard?”

Everything in Marcus just shut down. I blinked, and I watched his eyes as he shuttered everything away. He released me and sat up, moving away from me towards the edge of the bed.

“
I was the third son of a nobleman, as useless as tits on a boar, according to my father,” he informed me. “I am the combination of my father and my mother. I have his build, but my mother’s coloring and temperament, or so I have been told. Neither one of them had much to do with me or wanted me around, but I
was
born in wedlock, though I would rather not talk about it, if you please.”

Okay, that seemed to be a touchy subject. I groaned and rolled over to my side, propping my head on my hand and digging my elbow into the mattress to support me. “So, I can call you horny vampire?”

He turned his head back to me. Whatever it was that had darkened his mood was gone. His smile came back. “Yes. You can call me your horny vampire, my Little One.”

There was an “ahem” from the stairwell. Marcus leaned forward and looked down into it.

“
Excuse me, Masters Marcus, Xavier. Lord Claudius has asked that you join him and Councilor Armanita in the lower drawing room as soon as you are both ready.”

Marcus sighed, and stood up unashamedly in all his naked glory. “Very well, Chesterton. We will be down shortly,” he replied.

“
Why do I have a feeling that I won’t like this?” I asked, flopping back down on the bed and arching an arm across my eyes to block out the light.

“
Because, it is a life-changing event once again,” Marcus answered.

“
Crap, just how many life-changing events am I expected to go through in, what…is this day three?”

“
It is day two. Never forget, Little One, I am with you. What affects your life affects mine. I will not allow them to make your life any more difficult than it needs to be.”

Marcus ruined the tenderness of his words by grabbing my ankle and dragging me across the bed towards him, spreading my thighs wide and lying in between them. I felt my cock begin stirring to life as he humped his hip against me, and I moved to shove him off me. He caught my wrist and placed a long kiss to the pulse point, his tongue lapping at it. I think my heart skipped a beat.

“
Thank you, Xavier, for saving my life. I will never forget the sight of your wings enveloping me while you sheltered me in your arms. I would like to suck you. Please give me your consent.”

“
What about Claudius?”

“
He can go suck someone else.”

I was stunned. Marcus had a sense of humor? Since when?

“
Uh…that’s not what I meant,” I said, hesitantly.

“
I know, Little One, but this is my house, and no one tells me what to do in it, except you. So, may I have your consent?”

How the hell can you say no to someone who almost died for you, especially when the heat of his gaze was ready to erupt into a full flame?

Marcus skimmed his hands along the inside of my thighs, but the prize, my stiff little soldier, ready and willing for duty, went unmolested. He’d meant it when he said that I would have to start something.

“
Do you want…?” I felt my face flush red.

“
Do nothing but enjoy, Beautiful. Yes?”

“
Yes.”

He gave me a bright smile and pulled me to the edge of the bed with him until he was kneeling on the floor, and my feet were braced at forty-five degree angles against the side of the mattress. I hid my face in the crook of my elbow as I waited…and waited.

I opened my eyes and looked at him. He was sitting on his haunches staring at me. His eyes, usually that warm chocolate brown that could express so much, were burning red right now with lust and possession.

“
You are mine, my little fledgling,” he breathed huskily.

“
Yes, Father.”

Holy crap! He engulfed my cock in one swift motion, and I lost all coherent thought.

Marcus had taught me that he could be a very scary individual. I’d been on the wrong side of his anger quite a number of times in the past year. But now I realized that he had pulled his punches. He would have had to, or I would have been left critically injured. Even then, he had been training my body to accept him, to desire what he did to me against my will.

I hadn’t appreciated it at the time, but all his brutality against me was tempered with double the amount of gentleness. A vicious rape would be followed by hours of cuddling and coddling, even though at the time I wanted nothing more than to crawl into a corner and disappear.

Even after I’d torn his nose and he had head butted me, he’d crawled into the bed and spooned against me, his lips kissing the back of my neck along the hairline, letting me know that he was there, that he would always be there…for eternity.

At the time, he fucking terrified me. But now, all this kindness, this tenderness, this…love…was confusing me. I knew what he was capable of, so why was he being nice to me now? Because I was turned? Because now that I was a vampire, I had nowhere else to go? Because I was stuck with him? Or was it because, now that I was his son he could track me anywhere in the world? Father and son…grandfather and fathers…

Don’t go there. Don’t go there.

I felt a thumb rub along my forehead, and I opened my eyes to see Marcus looking up at me with concern written all over his face. “I want you to enjoy this, and yet here you are, thinking too much.”

I burst into tears, which surprised him. I’d surprised myself, suddenly sobbing like a child. He caught me up in a tight embrace and began to rock me as I blubbered. “I’m sorry…” My voice was broken.

“
Do not apologize for your tears, Xavier. They are there for a reason. I just want you to feel and not think so much.”

“
I’m sorry…I don’t think I’m built that way.” I lightly knuckled my head. “I can’t shut it down.”

“
That simply means I have to learn how to engage your mind too. I know what your body wants. You’ll have to work with me to discover what your beautiful, tempting mind craves,” Marcus said soothingly. “I find you beautiful in Flame, but I want you outside of that period as well. This is my fault, Little One. I should have realized this when you were human. I concentrated on your body and left your mind and soul to flounder alone. I am the one who owes
you
an apology.”