Finding the Blood Assassin [Lords of the Expanse 3] (Siren Publishing Allure) (4 page)

“How long until we reach Castitas?” he asked. Castitas was his home planet, a world where he could control the happenings around him. He was purposefully ignoring her question even as he turned his head slightly to see her. At her look he rolled his eyes. “I hate flying, I hate space travel, and I cannot feed while on a ship.” Which caused issues sometimes and he ended up in medical under drugs and being line fed. He thought to himself and then to her said, “The sooner you get us back, the sooner I can feed. Until then I suggest you avoid me as much as possible.” Whoever the hell she was.

“We will be there in a week, and as for avoiding you—” She shrugged and gestured vaguely. “Unless you want me to ride outside of the ship and believe me when I tell you that even as a Vampire I won’t make that one. Even as a Vampire I, too, still need to breathe oxygen and the vacuum of space would just be bad all around.” Letting out a breath, she shook her head. “Do you need me to drug you, my lord? I don’t carry a lot on board, but I should have enough to make you sleep for a few days if you need.”

Shaking his head, he pushed slowly to his feet. “Unless I come at you, I wouldn’t,” he said. “I will be fine for a week.” One way or another he would have to be. “I will remain in here as much as possible, my lady. That way we will limit our contact with one another,” he said before looking to the small bathing chamber. “If you will excuse me, I should bathe before I sleep,” he told her quietly.

“Of course.” She stepped back. “Should you need anything, simply ask.” And with that she left the room, leaving him to his thoughts. She was right and he had no idea how the hell he would avoid her with her ship being as small as it was. Hopefully she would do whatever was needed as well to help him out with that.

He half regretted running her off and half wished she’d left sooner. Her scent in the small space had only reminded him sharply that he was near starved. Moving to the bathing room, he stepped into the sonic shower and set it for the highest setting and the longest he could get the computer to allow. Leaning his forehead against the wall, he let out a shaky breath and just stood there. The invisible waves worked out the smaller kinks in his body and helped to relax every part of him.

When the timer went off, he jerked awake and shook his head, blinking as he looked around. When he remembered where he was, he stumbled from the shower as he pulled his clothing off, dropping them where they fell from his fingers. Falling onto his face on the bed, he shifted only enough to get closer to the center before he let himself fall into a deep sleep, naked as the day he’d been born but with a few new accessories.

* * * *

It had been far too long since she heard a peep from him. She was pacing outside of his doors and finally gave in to the urge. Pressing her hand to the release switch for the door, she walked into the darkened room. “Raven?” she asked and stepped in. The door closed behind her, and as her eyes adjusted she saw him. He was perfection, and damn he made her mouth water. 

She didn’t know how it came to be, but she soon found herself standing at the side of his bed. Her mouth began to water as she looked down at the semi-erect cock nestled in dark curls. Not even the piercings on the underside deterred her. In fact, they made her more curious, more everything.

There was someone in the room with him, and without thinking he shot out his hand and tugged at the leg he caught. Catching the body that fell against his, he rolled over to use his larger mass to hold down the small form. Only the scent kept him from tearing out her throat. “What are you doing here?” he asked with a growl.

“I was worried,” she stated simply. “You have been asleep for nearly a full day cycle.” He inhaled sharply at her words and felt his body react to her scent. There was no way she could miss the semi-flaccid cock go from being partially hard to full-on ready to pound into a willing pussy hard. When she bit her lip, he knew she’d definitely felt it. “Now that I know you are not dead, I can leave you where you were.”

“And if I decide not to let you go?” he asked in a rough tone as he held her tightly under him. He was in full bloodlust, the need a driving pain in his gut, and the throb of his pulse harsh in his skull. Shaking his head sharply, he let out a breath and rolled to his back, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. “Get out of here before I do something we’ll both severely regret, my lady, and I would recommend doing it now.”

“You are in bloodlust,” she whispered, her eyes going wide in realization. “You need blood, Raven.” She was using his given name now. Apparently the polite phase was over. “You have to feed.” She then did the stupidest thing possible. She pulled the cooler of blood open and began to feed on it. Keeping her eyes locked with his, she opened a slit in her throat as she tossed the first bag aside. “Feed, Raven.”

Moving fast, Raven was up and across the room and pulling on a pair of pants in nearly one movement. “Get the hell out of here,” he told her in a sharp and not at all pleasant tone. He felt his stomach heave even as he pressed a hand to his gut. His incisors were fully extended and aching, but even the lust and need for sustenance couldn’t override the nausea at the mere thought of being in flight.

She looked at him and frowned. She was going to be not only locked in a small ship with a man who was deadly, but one afraid to fly and in bloodlust. Wonderful. If that didn’t give her all kinds of good feelings she didn’t know what would. 

Holding her hand over the wound, she nodded. “I will land so that you can be on terra firma and feed. I will not be in a small vessel with a man in bloodlust. I’m not that stupid.” She stood. “Close, but really not that dumb.” She strode out of the room and eyed him. “I know of a planet not on the charts. We will be there in an hour. Can you hold out?”

“Just get me home,” he said, fighting his instincts with every ounce of self-control. “No stops, no detours, get us back. Lock me in if you will feel safer, but I do not need to go through this again for any reason.” He just wanted his feet on solid ground for a good long while, years if he could manage it, but knew he’d not be that lucky. They’d let him heal for a time and then he’d be back doing what he did so well, if only so he could avoid the bitch that had sired him.

Chapter 4

She frowned and nodded. “All right.” She was moving for the door when she paused and looked back at him. “I assume you don’t want to go to your lady Mother, so where do you call home? That information was never relayed to me.”

“Not if you want to survive the encounter,” he told her quietly, no threat, just a very clear warning. “In the northeast Regency,” he said, closing his eyes, and shook his head. “Head for the main shuttle launch at the edge of the military area,” he added before he clamped his teeth together with a distinctive click, his face tight and paler than before.

She nodded. “That will cut three days from our trip.” She wondered why he lived on the very edges of their space, but didn’t ask. “I won’t be far,” she murmured before closing the door behind her and moving to the console to readjust their headings. 

Leaning back in her seat, she pulled her feet up onto the chair and grabbed the pillow she pulled off of the seat offered to him. Holding her knees, she placed the pillow on them and lay her head down, thoughtful in her pose as she listened to her ship moving through space.

She rose from her seat and moved to the small kitchenette. She made up a larger meal than she ever would have and placed more than half on a tray. She knew that he needed blood, but maybe if he at least ate something it might help take the edge off of what she knew was painful.

Knocking on his door as she held the tray, she said, “I have food for you, my lord. You just need to open the door and take the tray and I will leave you be.”

Raven hadn’t been able to settle down. Her scent permeated every inch of the space coming up from the blankets. Pacing constantly, he tried to stay away from it, moving from one side of the small room to the other. No matter what he did it came at him and drove him to the brink. But despite what most thought of him, he didn’t fall over that edge, and he kept what little sanity he had remaining in a tight grip of reality.

Growling at the sound of her voice, he stalked to the door and opening it, reached out, knocked the tray aside and, grabbing the front of her uniform, hauled her into the room. Pressing her back to the bulkhead, he got in her face. “What did you not understand, my lady? Was it the part where I said to leave me alone? Or perhaps it was the part where I told you I would kill you?” he asked in an animalistic snarl, his long incisors right in her face.

Her fangs slid down into her mouth, and she pushed back at him. “Then kill me, you ass.” His hand was still fisted in her uniform, a clear threat, and yet she didn’t back down. “Kill me and see how you like flight when the computer won’t release to you. You think you are having a shit time now? Kill me and see your day go from shitty to so much fucking worse.” Her father had taught her well and she knew that to allow bullying of any sort was to ask for it again and again. And she was so her father’s daughter, right up in the face of danger, balls to the wall, unlike a Lady of her station, she was more of an in-your-face kind of woman. Leaning in farther, Raven growled, not merely a warning but the sound of a beast who’d had enough. Enough of a creature smaller than the predator he was, smacking him in the nose and generally being a pest. “I will say this only once more since I doubt I will be able to say it again,” he spoke slowly, his eyes changing to full red. “Stay away from me, do not bring me food, do not check on me, do not open the door. Fucking lock me in here and stay the hell away from me because I won’t be letting you go again.” Lifting her up by her shirt, he moved closer to her, pressing his body into hers. Now there was a mistake and a half. His body was harder. She could practically feel his erection throbbing against her leg. “Kick me, hit me, do anything you want but get away from me,” he warned, his voice going from harsh to whisper soft, like a caress.

She nodded and looked into his crazed eyes. “Forgive me.” It was all she said before she brought her knee up and with all the power of a woman who constantly worked out could muster, drove it into the far-too sensitive area of his anatomy that would drop him in a moment.

Gasping, he let her go and fell to his knees, cupping himself protectively and instinctively. He tried to reach out and grab her, but she was already moving, and he missed.

When he dropped, she turned and fled the room. She wouldn’t lock him in, couldn’t lock him in, but she did move to her bedroom and locked herself into that room.

Raven let out a roar, the beast angry that it had missed its prey. She shuddered at the sound that carried, warning and a dark promise. The beast would be coming for her. It would mark her. She would know just who her true master was and she would like it.

She locked herself into her bedroom and began to pace. Son of a, how the hell was she supposed to survive the next four days alone with him? The confines of her ship were very, very small and he was very, very large. She bit her lip as she slid down the door and let her head fall down onto her knees that she drew up and close to her chest.

Raven lay where she’d dropped him, not sure if he did get up that he wouldn’t go after her. And, if she actually thought she was safe even in a locked room, she was sadly mistaken. Shaking his head, he pushed the beast back. He was not the animal side. He was a Vampire, true, but he could be man and coherent in the process. Lifting a hand he rubbed at his eyes and shifted to sit with his back to the wall. Reaching up a hand, he hit the intercom for the ship knowing she was there somewhere. “Are you all right, my lady?” he asked in as normal a voice as he could muster, which, considering it all sounded like Hell itself, was not saying much.

“Yes, my lord. I’m sorry, but you told me to do whatever it took.” Her voice was soft, apologetic, and tinged with something he could only describe as pain. Whether it was for what she’d done to him, sympathetic pain, or a pain all her own he couldn’t begin to guess at. “I don’t know how to help you, my lord. I tried to do what I knew of, but with your aversion to space flight, I can’t help you, I’m so sorry.”

Grinding his teeth, Raven rolled his head around to loosen his neck. “Don’t apologize for something that is not your fault. Just stay safe from me and that will be apology enough,” he said before he growled and shook his head. “I’m close to giving in to the beast inside, my lady. What is your name?” he asked, suddenly realizing again that he couldn’t remember her telling him.

“Jamison, Jamison Montague.” She let out a sigh. “You know my father, James Montague. He is the Captain of the Aurora Minor.” She fell silent for a moment before she blurted out a question, one that, from her tone, seemed to surprise even her. “Why did they do those things to you, my lord?”

He had known her father, and the fact that someone he considered an ally had a daughter who just saved his ass shocked him. “Because they could,” he said before he thought better of it. “They want something from our home world and thought that by torturing me publicly for all our people to see, they would get it. What it was, I don’t know unfortunately, so I can’t even ensure it’s protected.”

“The piercings on your…” she trailed off. “I know what they want,” she whispered. “Tell me how I can help you, my lord. Tell me what you need from me so that you are back to normal when we land.” Because they both knew that the normal practice of their people was to take those who had been tortured and keep them from all population, at least for a time.