Cake (30 page)

His hand came up and traced over my forehead, rubbing at my frown lines. He was a good-looking man, when he wasn’t raping me. “Xavier? You wanted to talk to me?”

I blinked stupidly for a moment, before pulling myself back together. “Uh…yeah. I have some vital questions like, do we burn up in sunlight?”

“
You have been watching too many Hollywood movies, my Little One,” he answered, his smile growing. “We can go out into the sun; however, exposure has to be limited. It would be like laying a wet sponge out on a sunny day; we would just evaporate. There would be nothing left but a mummified shell. Not a pleasant way to die, especially for fledglings like yourself. Ancients like Claudius can handle the sun. I am close to being strong enough, but I must still keep a careful watch on my exposure. You…must stay out of the sun.” He pressed more of his weight on me, grinding his erection up against my hip. His hand dipped under the black sweater I was wearing, touching the bare skin between my t-shirt and my jeans.

“
Do we eat solid food?” He was making it hard to think again, as a thumb swirled on my skin, circling around my navel. I shivered. I could tell from the expression in his eyes that he wanted to be circling another puckered opening, somewhere a little lower and more towards the rear of me.

“
Solids are necessary about once a week. Our bodies still function but at much a slower rate,” he told me, dragging his thumbnail lazily across my flesh. “The nutrients we need still come from solid food. That is why we still perform bodily functions. Usually one large meal more often than not, such as dinner at a fine restaurant, will take care of this need for the week. You will have to drink lots and lots of water, Xavier.”

His thumb dipped into my navel, and I blurted out the first thing that came into my head. “Are you an alcoholic?” I asked. That got him off of me in a hurry.

“
Claudius told you that!” he exclaimed, sitting back on his heels.

“
Should you be going to AA meetings?” I pressed.

“
I am
not
an alcoholic.” Marcus’s tone implied that I’d stuck a raw nerve. “Claudius is almost a Puritan now. No spirits of any kind. He used to be a larger libertine than I could ever hope to be, with his wine, women, and song. Now he is so refined, it is hard to imagine that he was once a scoundrel.”

He reached out and ruffled my hair like I was a dog that needed petting, almost knocking me off the couch with his over-exuberant display of affection. “Xavier, I do not use drugs. I smoke on occasion, yes. And I enjoy a drink, most certainly. And there are times when I overindulge in both those vices, but that only happens far and in between decades. However,” his voice became teasing. “I do have another particular vice that I like to wallow in. You see, I have, from time to time, been known to kidnap, ravish, and mate with my victim.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Are you calling me a victim?”

“
No. I am calling you mine.”

I was about to open my mouth to start arguing over points of ownership when a familiar green plastic card popped up in his fingers.

“
Now, do you want to fight, or do you want to go shopping?” he asked as he leaned back in close to me, slipping his hand under my sweater again, tripping his fingers lightly over the bare skin of my torso before sliding them towards the waistband of my pants. “Or,” he breathed huskily, “do you want to return upstairs so we can finish what we’ve started?”

“
Shopping!” The word popped out of my mouth before I could stop it, and Marcus smiled as he sighed and handed over the credit card.

“
You are still keeping the clothes you have now,” he told me. “You can wear them around the manor, even if you do feel uncomfortable about wearing them outside. I like to see you in them; I insist that you indulge me in that much. Now, get your sunglasses, Little One, and meet me at the entry way when you are ready.”

Out. I was going out, and I was so happy about it that I practically skipped back upstairs to Sanctuary.

It still took a bit of concentration, or concentrated lack of concentration, to get my vision to shift, but eventually I found the Blood mark and opened my closet, rummaging around in a drawer until I found a cool pair of black Wayfarer sunglasses. Snatching them up, I turned to make my way back to Marcus but found Claudius leaning against the opened door jam of the bedroom closet. He had his arms wrapped around his chest, and his raven hair hung heavily in front of his face. He looked like the epitome of a portrait of pain.

“
What’s wrong?” I asked, nervously.

He shook his head slightly. “We have put off Armanita for probably a year, but she will be persistent.”

“
She strikes me as being as dogged as a pit bull,” I replied, making my way to move around him. Claudius put up his hand in a halt gesture, and so I stopped and regarded him warily. He had something to say, and I had a gut feeling that I wouldn’t like it.

“
When the time comes for you to leave him, make the break quick and never look back,” he said, earnestly. “Marcus has many faults, but he is still my son, and I would prefer his pain be kept to a minimum.”

I stood there, stunned. “What?”

Claudius’s arctic blue eyes stared at me through the black strands of his hair as if he were looking right through me and into the near future. His expression was bleak and flat, and scary.

“
You are confused right now, Xavier. You cling to Marcus because he has become a constant in your life. Things are changing around you so quickly that you grasp him to you tightly in order to keep from being swept away. But you do not love him, and you could never be the mate he craves. You endure his touch because that is what he has trained you to do so. And while you will stay with him out of duty, he will see it as love. But when the Blood Line is finally revealed, you will belong to the Nation, and you will have to leave him behind.”

“
Marcus almost died for me,” I argued. Why was Claudius giving me this lecture?

“
And you protected him at the cost of almost losing your own life. It is because of that I am allowing this relationship of yours to continue, until it reaches its natural conclusion.”

Claudius stalked forward, and I instinctively backed away. I could feel the menace emanating from him. Unfortunately, I’d backed into a shelving unit and had nowhere to go. His hands held on to each side of my head, and he lowered his forehead to mine.

“
I like you, Grandson, though I really did not want to like you. You were simply Marcus’s assignment. But I knew you had to be more than that to him because he changed. He changed precisely a year ago. No one else would notice it, but a father knows. You have been a challenge to him since the day he took you, and you will continue to be a challenge to him until the day he dies. I knew him as a human boy, and he has a fragile heart because of how they made him live. And against my council, he has given his heart to you.”

He backed away from me and dropped to one knee at my feet, his head bowing as his hand pressed knuckle first into the floor. “My Lord Emperor, please do not destroy my son,” he implored.

“
I don’t…I’m not…Get up.
Get up
!” I was mortified.

Claudius looked up at me, his ice blue eyes burning with a tint of red. “Tell me honestly, Xavier. Do you love him?”

“
I don’t know. Nobody is giving me time to think. I simply don’t know,” I answered, my voice sounding cracked and lost. There was a burning in my chest that felt like a serious case of heartburn. Claudius really believed all this crap he was spewing at me? I clenched my fists, unwittingly breaking the sunglasses I held in my hand, crushing the credit card.

Claudius remained on one knee. “The High Council knows you are a Blue. You could leave Marcus now, before he gives even more of himself to you. You could run away. No one would stop you. There are fledgling covens all over the city. You could disappear into one of them. You could learn from them how to be a Red.”

“
Shut up. Shut up. Shut up,” I yelled, throwing the balled up credit card at him in temper before pushing past him and running down the stairs.

I must have looked pretty upset as I approached Marcus because he took one look at me and then narrowed his eyes at his Sire who was standing at the top of the steps. “What have you done to him, Claudius?” he asked, his tone guarded.

“
I only voiced my concerns, all of which you have heard before.”

“
Let’s go,” I urged, tugging on Marcus’s forearm. He resisted for a moment, and then he gave way to my pulling, dragging me back towards him until I found myself standing in front of him with my shoulders pressed tightly against his chest, his forearm wrapped across me protectively, pinning me in place.

“
I will be taking Xavier hunting later tonight,” he said coldly, addressing Claudius. “Will you be here to join us?”

“
Do you wish to have my company?”

“
I do, Father.”

“
Then I will be here,” Claudius replied equally as coldly, watching stolidly as Marcus turned from him and proceeded to drag me along like a toy sailboat in his wake.

We walked down another flight of stairs that opened out into an underground parking lot, and a limousine pulled up as soon as the outer door opened to the Manor. More evidence of just how rich Marcus was.

The chauffeur climbed out of the car and held the door open, and as Marcus stepped in, he said, “Thank you, Darius.”

I still must have looked like hell because Darius, someone I hadn’t met before, flicked me a look of concern as I followed Marcus inside the car. My hands were a little shaky as I climbed in and flopped down on the leather seat beside him, and somehow, going shopping now just didn’t seem as exciting to me as it had five minutes before.

Marcus, catching up one of my hands, stroked his thumb across my knuckles as he urged me up onto his lap. “What did Claudius say to you, my Little One? Whatever it was, it took the color right out of your face.”

I pulled my hand back and tried to shift off his thighs. I was about as successful as the last time, and simply resigned myself to a bumpy ride as I answered, “That was a private conversation, Marcus. If he’d wanted you to hear what he said, he would have spoken in front of you.” I stopped berating him and looked down at my unheld hand, the one that had been holding the sunglasses, and I finally noticed the broken pieces of plastic. Oh shit. “Um…I um…”

“
You are bleeding!” Marcus exclaimed, knocking the plastic bits to the floor and brushing my hand clean. He was right. There were pinpricks of blood all across my palm from where the pointed jagged pieces of plastic had dug into me sharply. “Claudius obviously upset you enough to cause you to harm yourself,” he growled.

I tried to snatch my hand back, but Marcus refused to let go, lifting my wounded palm and pressing a kiss to the center of it. His warm tongue lapped at my injury, which sent quivering sensations running down my spine, and those chocolate brown eyes of his stared up at my face intently as he continued with his oral ministries of healing.

“
Marcus, the bleeding’s stopped now.” My voice was a low whisper as his tongue swirled up my palm towards my wrist, licking along the vein pulsing there. That licking was stimulating somewhere else, and I panted as I stammered, “Marcus…that’s…that’s enough.”

“
Darius, give us some privacy,” was his response.

The black window between the back of the limo and the driver whined up into place, and I soon found myself on my back again, with Marcus looming over me. Both of his hands were on either side of my head, and he pressed his pelvis between my legs, letting me feel him as he stiffened against me. I guess it didn’t take much to get him all horny.

Picking up my kissed hand he examined it closely before pressing it against his heart and badgering me again. “My beautiful Xavier, what did Claudius tell you? What did he say that was so upsetting?”

What was he doing? Why was he being all concerned and nice? Was it just to get an answer out of me? I hardened my expression.

“
He said that you will never see me as anything other than a bedroom accessory, and if I wanted more than what you’re offering, I should head out to a coven.” I’ve found it’s easier to remember lies when they are mixed in with the truth.