Eternal Ever After (21 page)

“Isn’t it hard for you to resist?” I asked.

“Not anymore. I need very little blood to survive as a result.”

My lips and teeth parted as my jaw dropped. “How is that even possible?”

“I feed on psi, draining life energy without feeding on the basic life force of blood. I have not tasted blood in fifty years.”

“Then why don’t all of you feed on psi?”

Victoria smiled. “Because blood is addictive, and not all of us are strong enough to resist it. Others don’t want to resist it. It’s like questioning why some humans are vegetarian while others eat meat. Sure, it’s healthier to be a vegetarian, but who doesn’t like a good steak?”

I didn’t care for her carnivorous comparison. “If it makes you stronger, I still don’t understand.”

“It’s a matter of taste.”

“You move fast like Arie, but there’s a different quality to your movement. You’re not blurry. I don’t even see you move. You’re just there and then you’re not.”

“I can bend the flow of time, which makes our movements appear to humans so fast that we move in a blink of an eye, exceeding others my age and older. One of the many perks of my sexual celibacy. And I can walk into the subconscious dream world to manipulate or observe the fantasies of those around me with ease. Was that what you were doing to Arie? I saw you.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t mean to do anything. It was a vision, but it wasn’t like I was watching it happen. It was like I’d taken over someone else. That’s never happened before, but I’ve never been able to control the Sight no matter how it comes. It just sort of happens. Can you teach me?”

Victoria laughed. “I’ll help you when you stop being frustrated by the limitations of the reality that binds us all.”

I had no idea what she was talking about. “So do you live in one of the apartments upstairs?”

“It would be convenient, but no. I have a townhouse in West DePaul, far away from HFC, where I can keep my life separate from the club.”

The volume of the pumping music lowered before ceasing entirely. Tessa appeared on a stage next to the sound table and the DJ flashed red lighting onto the platform where she stood. Immediate applause broke out in acknowledgement of her arrival. With both hands she patted the air as if to silence them, and a hush came over the crowd.

“As most of you know, our Kindred Spirits of Darkness Gala is just around the corner. I’d like to thank Victoria, who has been instrumental in planning our annual events. She has booked some innovative entertainment for this year’s theme—Dark Romance. Details can be found on our website. If you haven’t purchased tickets already please do so, on the website. Proceeds from ticket sales are divided between two fantastic charities that we’ve chosen to sponsor this year. We look forward to having you all for an evening of dancing and draining.”

Victoria sighed.

The crowd went wild and Tessa left the stage, walking in our direction. She perched on a barstool beside me and looked over at Victoria, who toyed with an olive in the dirty martini sitting in front of her.

“Victoria, did you take care of inventory?”

“Of course. I already placed an order.”

“Excellent.” She turned toward me with an amused smirk. “Hello, pet.”

I summoned the courage to put my plan into action. “Tessa, could I talk to you in private?”

“Of course dear. We’ll take this in my office.”

Victoria narrowed her eyes at me as we left the bar. I followed Tessa onto the elevator. She didn’t wait until we reached her office to question me. “What do you want to discuss with me? I have a meeting in an hour, so cut to the chase.”

“I know about Katarina. He never got over her, did he?”

“No. And I doubt he ever will. So if you have any romantic inclinations I wouldn’t get your panties in a twist.”

“He wants me. I know he does, but he fights it. I want you to teach me how to be a submissive. I’m not sure that’s what he wants, but I’ve never been able to…” It was embarrassing talking to her about my sexual problems in an elevator. I really didn’t want to share that the only time anyone had been able to make me come was after a spanking and screwing on top of her remodeling efforts.

Tessa stepped forward. Only inches separated us within the cramped confines of the elevator. “Are you sure that’s what you want? Either way I think you’re wasting your time.”

“I’m not. I know I’m not. It has to work.”

A twisted smile curved her mouth. “If nothing else it will be an amusing diversion.”

The elevator stopped on the third floor. When we passed both Tessa’s office and her interrogation room I choked back my uncertainty. “Where are we going?”

Tessa smirked at me over her shoulder. “Don’t ask questions. That’s your first lesson in submission, my pet. This is not your conventional BDSM club where the inexperienced are initiated into scenes. And I have a meeting. I don’t have time to figure out your threshold for pain and certainly won’t have time after. You get an intro at best and then you’re on your own.”

I gulped.

“Are we clear?”

“Crystal.”

CHAPTER 15

Tessa stopped in the hallway in front of a red door. We entered a room unlike any I had ever imagined, but I’d seen it before in my vision.
This is where Arie and Tessa were feeding on Isla.
Sounds of opera music filled the space with a beautiful melody. I only wished I knew the language that drifted from the speakers overhead.

The walls were brick like Arie’s loft apartment, except these walls were painted black. Its floors were a contrasting white marble that my boots squeaked across. The soft yellow lighting lent a romantic ambiance despite the starkness of a room that spoke of desires that had nothing to do with sappy sentiment.

A saltire cross with cuff restraints on each steel cross-arm was bolted to the far wall, while a mahogany table covered in a white lace tablecloth stood next to the cross. Its surface had all manner of equipment including riding crops, floggers with leather strands, a cat o’ nine tails, and a feather duster with red and black feathers. The smell of leather assaulted my senses, and I gulped at the sight of the exotic spread.

Against the wall to the left stood a large armoire occupied with unseen delights. Next to it hung a large wooden paddle just like the one that hung over my elementary school principal’s desk. Although it had been out of use for some time when I’d entered kindergarten it still held the power to scare the shit out of students.

Along a wall to the right I saw a large bed. It had an oval mirror inlayed in the center of a complex steel headboard with twisting black rungs. A maroon fitted sheet covered its expanse, and it was enclosed by sheer black canopy netting.

In the center of the room sat a beautiful dark wooden queening stool with black padding. Tessa stopped in front of it and gestured for me to approach.

“Take your clothes off.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re a slow learner, aren’t you? I said no questions. Do you want this or not?”

“Yes.”

“Then take your goddamn clothes off.”

I dropped my army satchel on the floor and began peeling off my clothes layer by layer. I hesitated when I got down to my cotton underwear and bra.

“All of them,” she said in a commanding tone.

Standing naked except for the silver locket around my neck, I waited for further direction. She walked around me in a circle, looking me up and down appraisingly.

“Not bad. Have a seat,” she said, pointing toward the queening stool.

I sat obediently, feeling a bit apprehensive and uncharacteristically shy. “What are you going to do?”

“Again with the questions. Think of it as fishing. You’re the lure and we’re going to tease him until he breaks.”

“What? You think he’ll go for that?”

“Why? Because he slips into chivalry out of habit? Holly, he’s a vampire and he’s still a man. He won’t be able to resist your blood.”

I gulped. “My blood?”

“A word of advice—don’t look him in the eye. Look at the ground, and by all means scream all you like.”

“You mean don’t scream, right?”

Tessa smiled and ran her tongue over the tips of her fangs. “No, scream as loud as you want to. He gets off on that. And no one will help you no matter how much you beg. We’re used to it around here.”

“What else does he get off on?”

“You wanted to know what it means to submit. It means no questions. No hesitation. You will do everything to the letter immediately.”

Her words were making me think of how I submitted to Arie spanking me. It still surprised me a little. Both his request and that I would oblige without much of an argument. But if I was being honest with myself I was curious from the moment I’d set foot in HFC and I wanted to receive his spanking as much as he wanted to give it. Thinking of his hand lingering on my ass before peppering it with sharp, stinging spanks was already making me wet.

“I think I can do that.”

“You will also address him as sir and speak only when spoken to.”

This didn’t surprise me when I remembered Arie commanding me to address him that way in the apartment. “Okay, I get it.”

She walked across the white marble to the armoire and opened the doors to reveal an assortment of bondage apparatus on shelves to one side. The other side was lined with drawers, and I wondered what they contained.
Do you really want to know?
Plucking something black from the shelf, she crossed the room and without words hooked black leather cuffs to both my wrists. They were hooked to another set of cuffs which she buckled to the arms of the queening stool. I didn’t have time for second thoughts. Tessa walked over to an intercom by the red door and pushed a button.

“Have Arie meet me in my dungeon.”

A broken reply came through the static on the intercom but I couldn’t make out the garbled response. Tessa crossed the room and came to a stop in front of the queening stool. She reclined in front of me with her ankles crossed neatly. Without preamble she extended her fangs and bit into my thigh. She did it so suddenly that I didn’t have time to protest. An involuntary gasp escaped my lips.

Tessa raised her head and licked the blood that trickled from her lips as she acknowledged Arie’s entrance. I didn’t even hear him at the door. A slow smile formed on her lips. I could see her skin beneath the sheer white blouse she wore with a black leather corset skirt. When she stood to greet him her black spike heels clicked on the marble.

“Arie, how good of you to join us.”

Arie glanced at me but seemed to look through me, fury burning his eyes as he turned to Tessa. “What are you doing? Holly belongs to me.”

“What does it look like I’m doing? Interviewing her—I do like to sample my employees and make sure they’re up to snuff.”

“I told you before. Holly belongs to me. I thought we had an agreement,” Arie said through clenched teeth.

“Join us. There’s plenty to go around. You’re too pale. We are only pale when we haven’t fed. You have not fed today,” Tessa said.

I smiled, looking through my lashes toward the ground. An unruly strand of hair dangled over my shoulder, brushing my breast. The temptation of my smile seemed to be his undoing. His nostrils flared at the sweet copper smell of the blood that dripped down my thigh. He watched the single drop as it rolled down my leg, falling to the white marble below like an angel from the heavens. I could feel him holding back the thirst that burned in his veins.

Arie crossed the open expanse, his movement so swift that it left an indistinct outline trailing behind him. He knelt in front of the queening stool as he lapped up the blood running down my leg. His tongue trailed from the tip of my toe up my calf, and to my thigh until he latched his mouth around the punctures.

Desire comingled with his unquenchable thirst. I wouldn’t have even fantasized of this, let alone acted on it, without Tessa. All the dismal thoughts crowding my brain were easily forgotten. Arie’s mouth closed around the punctures in a passionate haze as his hand trailed up my other thigh. Restrained to the queening stool, I’d never felt so alive. It had nothing to do with Arie being a vampire and everything to do with how I felt with the leather around my wrists, holding me in place. I felt his fingers brush across my satin folds before separating them and pushing two fingers inside of me.

I let out a moan and glanced up.

Tessa stood watching like a proctor would oversee an exam. She lowered herself to lounge beside her pupil. My lips parted, my head tilted sideways with knees splayed wide. Tessa looked once more at Arie, who still drank while slowly moving his fingers in and out of me as he stroked my clit with his thumb. Tessa caressed the inside of my other thigh. Thrusting her fangs into the soft awaiting flesh with fierceness, I didn’t have to fake the scream that released from my throat with primal force. It surprised me even though it shouldn’t have as I thought about Isla. What did surprise me was the level of arousal I felt with Arie’s fingers stroking my pussy as they both fed from me.

But Arie released the punctures, inhaling like one would whiff the bouquet when decanting a fine wine. Tessa released my thigh; her smile at Arie dripped with my blood. Arie leaned toward her and kissed the blood from her mouth as he trailed his tongue across her lips. Still his fingers continued their torturous assault as he kissed Tessa. The way he kissed her wasn’t passionate, but as if he was simply cleaning my blood from her lips. And it didn’t make me jealous like the other women who’d lavished their attentions on him. I felt him push a third finger inside of me and groaned with need to feel his weight on top of my body, his cock thrusting inside of me like his fingers did now.

Tessa moved away from him, licking her lips.

“Leave us,” Arie said.

Tessa rose from where she knelt next to him and winked at me as she exited the room. As she left us alone in her elaborate dungeon, Arie removed his fingers and I shivered when he withdrew his touch. The smell of the leather, wood, and hint of orange from the polish used to clean it were overridden in my mind by the faint metallic smell of my own blood. I turned, and Arie regarded me, his expression unreadable.