Netherworld II: Blood Potion No. 9 (6 page)

Her high-pitched ‘pretty please Daddy’
tone became more of a ratcheting nasal whine. “It’s always
something with you. You never want me.”

Bane flicked his eyes up to gaze at her
face. His voice was quiet, and all the more menacing for its lack
of volume. “Are you questioning me?”

She swallowed, and the fear replaced
pique in an instant. “Of course not, Bane. I just – C.K. gave me to
you. Why won’t you fuck me?”

Oh gross. Okay, Gerald and Dan had
warned me the women were treated like possessions and not people,
but jeez. This was just nasty.

Bane dismissed her with an impatient
flick of his fingers. “I’ll fuck you when I’m ready to. Go back to
work, Fizz. I got stuff to do. Is Hazel here?”

Disappointment battled with her need to
please. Subservience won. “He ain’t been in all night, thank God.
He’s such a freak.”

Fizz pranced away, plastering a smile
on for the customers. A waved twenty from a potbellied man at one
table brought her running over for a lap dance. Bane watched her,
his eyes flat and uncaring. Then he sighed and stood, heading for
the door that said ‘Staff Only’.

I blew out a breath and followed him. I
was getting a whole bunch of nothing from this jaunt, if you didn’t
count being grossed out. I was a lot of that.

I followed Bane down the back hallway,
passing a smoky dressing room (apparently the dancers didn’t care
much about not smoking in public places, especially stuff of a more
illegal nature) and an office. We went right out the back exit,
coming out in the litter-strewn alley. The overripe sourness of a
dumpster mixed uneasily with the marsh-salted air.

Bane kept to the shadows beneath the
club’s overhanging roof. He lit a cigarette.

I sighed. He was so easy on the eyes
but so hard on the peeves. “A smoker too, huh? You just get better
and better all the time. What a waste of fur you are.”

An unshaven man, his clothing a few
days late for the laundry, shuffled up from behind the dumpster. He
lumbered slowly, bent with the weight of the world. His shock of
black hair was so untidy it nearly hid his rounded furred ears. A
werebear, I identified.

“Spare a cigarette?” he asked in a low
voice.

“Suck my cock?” Bane
returned.

To my amazement, the homeless-looking
man laughed and straightened from his beaten-down hunch. “Are you
having that good a day, Levi?”

Levi?

Bane blew out a disgusted breath that
contained a bit of an animal whine to it. “I screwed up, got my ass
in a sling. It’s nothing I can’t handle, but C.K. will drop the
hammer to keep the rest in line.”

The werebear said, “Shit. You’re sure
you’re all right?”

“It’ll be okay.”

“Don’t get yourself killed. If you’re
in trouble, we’ll yank you out, get somebody else in the
gang.”

Bane shook his head. “It took me a year
to reach this point. The ATF can’t wait another year for an agent
to get in with the Beasts, not with those tainted blood supplies
showing up more frequently.”

I yelled, “Holy crap. You’re an
undercover agent, not a lowlife!”

Of course they didn’t hear me. The bear
crossed big hairy arms over his chest. “The chances of the
contamination coming from the Fulton Falls’ chapter of the Beasts
are incredibly slim anyway. I’m betting on Atlanta,
myself.”

Bane looked at his cigarette, which he
hadn’t taken a drag off of since lighting it. “Probably, but the
dragon blood is coming from somewhere.” He tossed the half-burned
butt on the ground. “All indicators are it’s moving from one of the
ports in Florida or Georgia. Fulton Falls is as good a place for it
to be smuggled in as any.”

“Just stay careful, Levi. C.K. and
Hazel have a few bodies between them. One more isn’t going to make
them lose any sleep, and your life is worth more than a bunch of
bloodsuckers.”

“Aw, you care. Big hearts and kisses,
sweetheart.” Bane’s unexpected smile lit his face, and I drank in
the handsome visage.

“Asshole.” The bear pretended to swipe
a handful of claws at the werewolf. “I’ll check in with you in two
days.”

“All right, man.”

The werebear shuffled off into the
darkness and Bane/Levi went back into the club. I stayed in the
alley for a few moments, trying to catch my breath. My mind reeled
with the information I’d stumbled on.

Chapter 3

Day arrived and I was back at the King
George, though in a much more private setting than the Para Central
ballroom/office. Tristan and I sat on a big, ornate queen-size bed
with down pillows and a comforter.

This was somewhere on the fourth floor,
one of the grander suites of the hotel. It doesn’t exist in the
real world, as only the ground floor survived the fire more or less
intact. But the King George, so well loved by so many back in its
time, has a ghostly presence of its own.

In its memory, I can enjoy the
handcarved opulence of its suites’ furnishings, the always
fresh-laundered scent of the finest linens of its 1920’s heyday,
and even gourmet meals and champagne, served up via the
recollections of a five-star chef and sommelier. I can enjoy all
the amenities once the sole province of Rockefellers, Vanderbilts,
and other hoighty-toighties. Now if they’d just add a modern
spa…

I was happily wallowing naked on the
satin comforter, its diamond pattern done in rich burgundy and
gold. Not so naked in his navy slacks and white button-down shirt
was Tristan, done with being a vampire for the day. At least his
shoes and tie were off. Now he was a ghost like me, warm and sexy
and not scary. Without the hunger for blood lurking beneath his
every thought, the chiseled planes of his face seemed not so sharp,
his almost black eyes no longer cold. This was the man who made my
heart pound with joy and not fear.

He was gorgeousness personified, my
cultured sweetie. The perfect foil to Dan’s rough, almost craggy
appearance, Tristan was all gentlemanly with impeccable manners.
Well, to a point. Once you dumped sex in the mix, the softer
aspects went bye-bye. Tristan was the controlling Dom to my sub
tendencies. The man was all power and demand, just the thing to
make me melt into a warm, gooey puddle of Brandilynn.

Unfortunately, sex was a long way from
his mind right now. Even my nude cavorting all over the bed,
rumpling the cover as I indulged in a sensuous feast of touch,
couldn’t make him stray from important business. The revelation
that one of the Beasts was a secret agent had gotten his attention
fast.

“The feds think the Beasts have
something to do with the tainted blood supplies,” he mused. I could
practically see the hamster in his head, making that wheel go
around in a blur.

“That’s what I got. And Bane or Levi or
whatever his name is thinks either the pouches themselves or the
dragon blood tainting them could be coming in through our
port.”

“Dragon’s blood.” Tristan shuddered.
“Terrible stuff. It burns us alive from the inside.”

I echoed his shudder. “For once, I’m
glad you only drink from the source.”

Tristan is important enough as Fulton
Falls’ only para county commissioner to score blood groupies, young
women who get off on vampires biting them and sucking their blood.
And when I say ‘get off’ I mean literally. Apparently, sex with a
vampire who’s drinking from a vein is mindblowing stuff. I wouldn’t
know. When I was alive, I avoided vampires like the plague. There
are too many people lying in their graves because a vampire lost
control and drained them.

I managed to suffer that fate myself
despite my bigotry. Ironic, huh?

The fact that Tristan has sex with his
groupies is not something I like to think about much. Blood from a
live donor arouses vampires to where they simply must have
intimacies. Maybe because it’s still warm and there’s a pulse
attached to it. Those who rely on the pouched and bottled stuff
don’t go sex crazed when they drink it.

I didn’t want to think about vampires
and their feeding habits. It was definitely cooling me off to the
point I’d stopped writhing all over the decadently comfortable bed.
I got back to the business at hand.

“Dragons live only in Europe and Asia,”
I thought out loud.

Tristan nodded. He rubbed my thigh with
an absentminded calloused hand. The touch made me think of other
places that hand would be welcome to rub. But Mr. Politician was
still in professional mode. “It must be coming from Europe if it’s
coming in through the eastern seaboard. I’ll make some calls
tonight and get the clutches over there to start searching for the
manufacturing plant the tainted blood might be coming
from.”

I slid across the bed to snuggle
against him. “So it’s out of your hands. That’s going to drive my
control-happy county commissioner crazy.”

I kissed him to show how willing I was
to comfort him. He rolled over on his side so our fronts met up
close and personal. I was all liquid warmth down below to feel his
strong, solid body against mine.

Tristan grinned at me when the smooch
ended, making my heart leap. The man was too devastatingly handsome
for color TV. “Thanks, Brandilynn. You know how to make it all
better.”

“Yeah? I have a few other ideas to take
your mind off your troubles.”

“Speaking of ideas, I thought maybe
you’d keep hanging around the Beasts a bit longer. Maybe you can
help pinpoint the source of where that tainted blood is coming
in.”

Jeez, he was still working that angle.
I must be losing my touch. But I saw how I might be able to get him
to my point of view.

I drew away and pretended to consider.
“Hmm. I might need some convincing. I don’t particularly care for
that bunch.”

Tristan rolled over so that he was half
lying on me. His clothes disappeared, and a nice, long, hard heat
against my thigh let me know he’d come around to my way of
thinking.

His voice a seductive purr, he said, “I
can make it worth your while.”

Now we were talking. To make sure I got
his point, he kissed me very thoroughly, his hands roaming all
over. Tristan fondled me like he owned me, and I slipped entirely
into a sub state of mind, my body leaving my possession and
becoming his to do with as he pleased. In contrast to him caressing
me like it was his divine right, my hands skated over his chest and
arms tentatively, asking permission to worship his
perfection.

Tristan’s tongue probed my mouth,
claiming all he tasted as his. The blatant exploration left me
breathless and wet. His hands squeezed my breasts as if testing for
ripeness, slid firmly down my ribcage to cup my hips. One hand
roamed to my mound, his long fingers checking for wetness in the
crevice. He found a deluge there, and he took a moment to spread
the moisture over my clit. I jerked in response as a spark lit from
his fingers to enflame my pussy. Then his hands moved back up my
body to pinch my nipples hard, sending another lightning zing
through my nether regions.

He broke from the kiss and swallowed my
gaze with his. My voice very breathy, I said, “Good argument, Sir.
I’m definitely coming around to your point of view.”

Tristan’s face lit with delight. “Then
let me make a few more points while I have your
attention.”

Oh boy. This was so my kind of
debate.

Tristan’s tie was suddenly around his
neck again. I couldn’t help but giggle to see him wearing nothing
but the splash of silk red. He grinned like the devil himself and
pulled the tie off. He held his hand out to me.
“Wrists.”

Oh goodie, goodie. Bondage always suits
me just fine, thanks. I wasted no time putting my wrists in that
outstretched hand.

Tristan bound them at one end of the
tie. The other end he secured at the headboard, giving me no slack
to play with. With my arms stretched over my head, my breasts
lifted like twin offerings. Tristan smacked my inner thighs
lightly. “Spread ‘em.”

I did so, bending my knees to tilt my
pelvis up and open me wide for his pleasure. He looked me up and
down, his expression stern but pleased. “Good girl,” he praised.
“Stay absolutely still in that position. No coming without
permission.”

“Yes, Sir.” Tristan loved having
complete control, and I loved giving it to him, even though he’d
torment me mercilessly.

He started with my breasts. He cupped
them both gently, testing their weight in his long-fingered hands.
Then he stroked slowly all around, raising gooseflesh on my skin
with his light touch. Caressing me so sweetly, like an art
aficionado appreciating a Michelangelo sculpture.

His hands closed over the twin orbs,
and he squeezed just hard enough to approach pain without quite
causing it. Electric pleasure flashed from my breasts to my clit. I
fought not to squirm in reaction. My lips parted as my remembered
breath came fast.

Tristan kept his gaze on my chest. He
traced the edges of my areolas with manicured fingernails. I bit
back a moan to feel how they scraped. Then his forefingers and
thumbs seized the pebbled tips of my nipples. He pinched down
slowly, applying more and more pressure. Heat grew to burning
there, and then slivers of pain came. I hissed but offered no
complaint. My breasts were his to play with, to torture if he so
desired, as was all my body. He pinched harder, and I shuddered as
the pain and arousal doubled.