Chilled to the Bone (12 page)

She felt a sharp pain in her neck. Mario was biting her. And sucking. And with each strong pull he took from her throat, she felt herself getting weaker and colder.

“Please. He’s going to die,” she said. She was probably going to die, too. She welcomed it as an alternative to the blood dripping into her mouth.

Mario lifted his head. “Don’t worry
,
Dori. When he’s drained, we’ll bring another.” He sighed. “I’m afraid I’m full, however. We’ll have to let gravity do the rest.”

“Gravity?”

A knife flashed, and then slashed across her throat in a bright ribbon of pain. Somehow she stayed alive long enough to feel the blood flow down her neck, dripping down onto the floor below through a hole in the table she was strapped to.

This isn’t happening.

But it was. She got colder, and weaker, and colder, and weaker, until finally she lost consciousness. She dimly heard Lady Macbeth saying, “
Who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?”
But it wasn’t the King of Scotland’s blood that flowed so freely. It was her own.

Charles was breathing hard, and sweat broke out on his brow. “You okay?” Doreen asked.

He nodded, putting his arms around her. “I’m so sorry.”

“You’ve nothing to be sorry about.”

“Mario’s dead.”

“So am I.”

“He’s not coming back.”

Thank God.
She nodded, smiling thinly. “Ready for more?”

He nodded.

She didn’t know how many times it had happened to her. A young woman, hale and hearty, replaced the old man, and Doreen could do nothing but watch as the life left her. She tried to stare Mario down the next time he used the knife on her neck, only to fall once again into unconsciousness. If he cared whether she stared or not, he didn’t show it.

One evening came that was different. It was not the first time she asked for a victim to be spared. But this time Mario smiled at her. Lately, Mario and the pretty vampire who worked with him had been gathering the blood that came from her in buckets.

“I’ll let him go. But you’ll do exactly as I say, until I have my revenge on the man who reduced me to this.”

“Yes.”

“Drink, then, from this cup. The blood of binding will bind any vampire to an oath she speaks. Swear you will help me until the death of Kent Carlisle is accomplished, and I am Lord of a city of my own.” He lifted a green plastic juice cup with red liquid.

Good god, if I was a vampire, I’d have a better sense of the dramatic than a juice cup.
“I swear it,” she said.
I
am
a vampire.

Mario bit his thumb and dripped a little of his own blood into the glass. He ripped the tube away from her, and poured the liquid on her lips in a thin stream. She thought of closing her lips, but she knew it would do no good, and besides, she was hungry. Her hunger was an urgent thing, far beyond anything she had felt before her world had shrunk to the basement she had been in for days, weeks, or months. She drank the blood down, and it satisfied her.

“Blood of binding,” she said, at last. “How is that made?”

Mario smirked, but didn’t answer. The other vampire took out the current captive, and she saw neither of them ever again.

“How long was it from then to when you came for Kent?” Charles asked.

“A month and a half. I didn’t have any idea who Kent Carlisle was, only that Mario hated him. I shouldn’t have promised.”

“The man’s life was at stake. You did what you could to save him.”

“Did I?” asked Doreen. “Did I save his life by promising to help Mario kill your friend? I have no idea what happened to him, not really. Mario didn’t drink his damn blood of binding, after all. And I don’t think he’d have any trouble leaving. I don’t even know if saving his life was why I really did it. Maybe I was tired of being bound to that table, and of being force-fed blood.”
If I don’t know now, I won’t ever really know. All I remember was the overwhelming feeling it all had to stop.

“No one would hold up to what you were going through forever, anyway,” Charles said. “If you’d taken much more, I think you’d have gone insane. And a crazy vampire, well, more than one person would die from that, I think.”

His words were soothing as he held her, and she leaned against him. For a long minute, they said nothing. Then Charles murmured, “Show me the rest. Show me the night you and Mario came for Kent.”

Doreen nodded, and looked up again, until their gazes met.

“Come, Dori.” Mario’s voice, again.

“I don’t want to.”

“You have no choice. You’re bound by a blood oath.”

“I think I’ll just sit here.”

“No, you won’t. The outfit I’ve selected for you is hanging on the chair. You want to break free, don’t you? This is the way to do it. This is half of your promise. And there is one there whose blood will help make you stronger.”

“I don’t want to be stronger.”

Mario smirked. “Only the strongest can stay free, Dori. You’re a bit slow in the head, aren’t you? Get dressed, and come.”

She shook her head. He walked out of the room, not sparing her another glance.
I’m not going. I’m not going.
But five minutes later, she was dressed in the leather cat suit he’d laid out for her, and sitting in the back seat of a Lincoln Town Car. The clothes made her think of Emma Peel. Another time, other circumstances, and she might have thought it was sexy. Now, it only seemed menacing. There was a zipper that could take the neckline as low as she wanted. No doubt Mario wanted it pulled up to make her look more dangerous. She pulled it down as low as she dared, out of sheer obstinacy. Mario didn’t give her a second glance. If he had, no doubt she would have pulled it up again.

Charles broke her reverie. “So then you came to Dark Xanadu the first time.”

“Yes.”

“And you say this blood bond had a hold on you?”

Her heart beat faster.
It must sound so improbable to him.
“Please, believe me. That’s what happened.”

“Until last night, I would have said magic was even less likely than the existence of vampires. So he singled out me as someone whose blood would make you stronger?”

Doreen nodded. “Maybe because of your magical ability. You were really great last night in the basement, and I have noticed something. You taste better to me.”

“Are you biased?” His eyes glittered with amusement. Maybe he believed her after all.

“Absolutely. And becoming more so all the time. But, I’m afraid it’s not only you. The woman who had the wand tasted extra good too, and I suspect it was because she could do magic as well, had magical potential, or whatever it is. I may be biased, but a gourmet meal tastes good even when it’s made by an enemy. Or in this case, made of an enemy.” She turned away from him.
He watched me feed on them. He knows what I really am. A hungry, bloodsucking animal.
“If I could live on nothing but you, I would.”

“So why didn’t you jump on me and start feeding?”

Doreen thought about that. “That was what Mario expected, I think. He made sure I hadn’t had anything to drink for a while, so I was definitely hungry. But he’d have made me drain you dry, Charles. If I could seduce you first—hold you under the sway of my gaze—then I could easily make you forget everything that happened, and then we could leave you alive.”

Charles nodded. “But maybe Mario was lying.”

“Excuse me?”

“He could have made up the whole business about me being the right person to make you stronger. He wanted to take me out, and he used you—as the weakest of his team in combat at least—to take out the enemy’s weakest piece.” Charles paced the floor. “I suppose his motives don’t matter a lot now. Kent sent him straight to hell.”

“You think I’ll go to hell when I die, too?”

“Hmm?” It took Charles a moment, and then he chuckled. “No, I don’t think so. I was using a metaphor. I don’t really believe in heaven and hell. Still, if there’s vampires and magic, who knows?” He reached up to brush a lock of hair that had fallen over her eye and sighed. “I think you’re heavenly.”

“I’m all yours.” She shifted her legs, until they were under her, and her bottom was resting on them in a kneeling position.

“Holy—“

“What?”

“You don’t know what the sight of you kneeling does to me.” He let out his breath and then took air swiftly back in again.

She glanced down where his pants bulged.
Now that’s what I call a package.
“I have an idea, Master.”

He leaned over her. “So you have fantasies about wearing something daring?” His hand was soft on the side of her cheek.

There was a downside to letting him into my mind. Trust him to latch onto that.
“Not since then.”

“But before?”

“Yes.”

“I think it’s time for a healing session.”

What does he mean?
“Master?”

“We’re going to go clothes shopping.”

She blinked. “What am I going to wear?”

“For now, that shirt. It’s plenty long enough on you, as long as you don’t bend over too far. Once you find something you like—something we both like—then you can wear that instead. It will be my treat.”

She looked down. The shirt
was
long enough, barely. She also felt like the whole world would know she wasn’t wearing anything else beneath it. Especially with her nipples feeling like two little rocks making sharp points in the fabric.

Her apprehension must have been evident on her face, because he told her, “I’ll let you wear my leather jacket.”

Well, wearing the jacket wouldn’t change the fact that she was wearing an oversized T-shirt as a dress, but at least it solved the nipple problem. She realized he was waiting for a response. “Yes, Master.”

If nothing else, it gave her an incentive to find some clothes she liked, so she could change as soon as possible.

* * * * *

An hour later, she was still wearing the T-shirt and jacket. They had stopped by a shoe store, where Charles had bought her a pair of very high heeled black sandals. Now they were in a small boutique called the Pleasure Palace, and she was beginning to seriously doubt she was going to find anything decent enough to wear. There was plenty of lingerie—in lace, latex, and leather—but the other clothes had something missing. Like a back, in the case of one skirt. She had picked up a latex top off a rack that might otherwise be about as conservative as latex clothing could be, if it weren’t for two holes cut out where her breasts would go.

“Lovely,” said Charles. “But not quite your style.”

“I’m glad we agree.”

“The area back in the corner has more discreet clothes.”

She followed him back. She was grateful to be out of sight of the butch cashier; it had felt like the woman was watching her every move. She didn’t mind being ogled by a woman, but she was afraid the woman was eyeing her as a potential shoplifter.

Charles was right; in the corner were leather dresses, skirts, and tops one wouldn’t get arrested for wearing. She pulled out a plain black leather skirt that would reach nearly to her knees.

“You could get in a mall,” Charles observed. “But if it’s what you want, I’ll get it for you. You’ll look lovely in it.”

She searched his face for a hint of disapproval, but there wasn’t any. At the same time, he was right. She probably could find something like that in a mall. As she handed him the hangar the skirt was on, she resolved to find a sexier top.

But when she turned back, she wondered how many women he’d bought clothes for. “You seem to know this store pretty well,” she said.

“I’ve been here a few times,” he admitted.

“Nothing girls love better than shopping.” She couldn’t quite keep the cattiness out of her voice, as she thumbed vacantly through various leather bras, corsets, and bizarrely fashioned clothes she didn’t know what to call.

“Oh!” He chuckled.

“Hmm? What’s so funny?”

“You think I’ve brought women here before?”

“Well, I don’t see any men’s clothing.”

“There is a little. But the gay leather shop down the street has better leather jeans.”

The thought of him with another guy flashed through her mind and sent little ripples down to her core. But no, he’d shown no interest in guys and lots in her. Maybe he had the confidence to be the one straight guy in a gay crowd. That kind of confidence was at least as sexy as any man-on-man fantasies she might have.