The Vixen Torn (13 page)

His kindness only existed to make it worse when he yanked it away.
She had known too many men like that in her life not to recognize it.
Even when he was buying her the world, she knew why.

So why had she returned back to his home?

She could see through the thick drapes that the sun was set or
already setting, the day spent in sleep it seemed.

The porridge was tasteless, but for an odd tang. It was as
unpleasant as the gruel she was forced to eat back in that dungeon so
long ago.

Yet as she ate it she couldn’t help but note some sound of
amusement from behind her, and when she turned she saw Berro laughing
and grinning like a fool as he shut the door and left her to her own
devices in the closed room.

She made a face and pushed it away, not wanting to know what had
tickled him so. Jackass.

She looked around for somewhere to hide it, for she knew that
Zarach would see it as a slight. That she hadn’t accepted his
gracious gift of tainted porridge.

With plenty of time to spare she had no issue finding a seemingly
discarded ice bucket behind a pile of cushions, in which she
discarded the porridge into and closed up.

Zarach, it seemed, was in no rush to get to her. She found herself
lingering in the opulent party room all by herself for at least an
hour or two. The tedium of being treated so shabbily grated on her
nerves.

In her youth, when she was still being trained, this was how she
was treated. Locked up and discarded like a meaningless nuisance,
lower than a bug. Lower than anything. It had been horrible, and it
had made her so hungry for men. For their company, for their
affection. She devoted herself to her craft, and became something
that should never be discarded again.

Yet Zarach’s ego was large enough to suffocate her. She
couldn’t even get comfortable for the fear that she’d
leave a crease on her body that he wouldn’t care for. Any
little thing could set him off, but pacing only amplified her
thoughts and embarrassment.

She never should have offered to do this for Loren. To get it into
his head that she would so easily kill his cousin and make him rich.

No, she corrected herself. She should have run. The moment her
wallet was dry, she should have found another city to disappear into.
Weren’t these the types of relationships she was trying to get
away from? Fuck, she thought she was doing so much better simply
because they were mortal men, but they could be worse even than
demons.

When at last she heard the sound of the master of the manor
approaching, his distinctive boots thudding against the floor. She
knew to prepare before the door swung open, revealing the tall, pale
tyrant.

She smiled, and it was genuine, for he interrupted her morose
thoughts. Immediately she kneeled in front of the couch, facing him
with her head down. Her black hair curled around her shoulders and
the white fabric strained against her chest.

Zarach paused, and though she could only see the shine of his
polished leather boots, she could tell he wore a fine suit. “Obedient
as always,” he mused in his husky voice, striding towards her
slowly with that same calm, collected manner that had first enticed
her .

“You look in better condition than most of my guests after
their first night,” he remarked, reaching out and letting his
fingers move through her glossy black hair. “I trust your
accommodations were comfortable then?” and she could detect the
faint trace of dark humour in his question.

She didn’t speak. Instead she nodded, and there was some
tease of desire that ran through her body. How, how she wanted this.

But she wanted it for real. The things she would do, the things
she could make a man want... It made her hunger, but it wasn’t
for him. She could never trust him enough to actually supplicate
herself to him. Her pleading would be for his pleasure, not her own,
and it was so much sweeter when those strong emotions were shared.

Zarach’s long, slender fingers curled into her hair and
tugged back, forcing her face to angle up as he gazed down at her. He
made her meet his crimson stare. “It’s a big day for
you,” he said in a soft whisper. “You’ve earned
some rewards. My favour,” his lips curving into a wry little
impetuous smile. “Something beyond jewels and baubles even.”

She could smell the cologne off him, the rich scent that covered
up something else. Something dark. The coppery aroma of blood.

She pushed her repulsion aside and smiled, her white teeth
gleaming between her dark pink lips. She felt like a small animal,
begging for her Master’s approval. It was so familiar and
foreign all at once. There was no bond between them, no respect. She
was just some bitch, and there was no pleasing him.

With his cruelly tight hold on her hair he pulled her up to her
feet, forcing her to move her agile, toned legs to keep up with the
unforgiving tug. “How about you show me a little dance?”
he rasped with a gleam in his eyes as he let go of her hair and moved
back towards the couch. “Show me your appreciation for the gift
I’m going to give.”

He reclined upon the opulent sofa, arms to the sides, stretching
his long, lanky body out upon the rich cushions. Zarach would have
been so sublime a man, had he not gotten so full of himself. So
recklessly cruel to those who wished to aid him.

She didn’t want to know what his present was. She wanted to
prolong the moment, and she straightened her hair. There was no
music, but that didn’t matter. She recalled a beat in her head
and began to move her body in remembered, seductive motions.

The art of exotic dancing was something she took quite seriously,
and was one of her most notorious skills. She knew angles that her
body looked best in, and each small movement was practiced. Precise.
Her hips swayed and circled, her hands displayed and drew attention
to her body. The outfit he’d provided her left so little to the
imagination, but she kept it on.

Her fingers teased along the cloth seams, calling her nipples to
attention before delving her fingers beneath her skirt. She was
already wet, she noted with some annoyance. Dancing for a man that
terrified her, that treated her like a possession, and still she
couldn’t calm her body from its arousal.

Was she really such a broken woman that terror was a lubricant for
her?

She licked her lips as she brought her breasts to his face, and
all the while, she was so careful of not drawing attention to her
neck. She avoided certain moves, certain teases, just to try to keep
the focus on her feminine gifts more than what she knew he wanted.

A creature out of nightmares before her. Something she’d
heard of, but never before encountered. Though the pale skin and eyes
seemed to match up to the tales.

Yet as she taunted and teased in her well—honed manner, he reached
out and put an arm around her, yanking her to him onto his lap. Her
buxom breasts struck his face for a moment, and he kept her pinned to
his groin, where she could feel the swell of his manhood below.

“Very nice,” he husked to her, licking his lips with
his face so near to hers. So near to her neck.

Her throat constricted, and she forced herself to swallow against
the dryness. “Thank you,” she said, her voice sounding so
small. She shifted, bringing her knees onto the sofa on either side
of him. It gave her a bit of height, and she squirmed against that
hardness.

That was something she understood. Even then, it was something she
craved. A deep blush went through her body and she wondered if she’d
always be a slave to her lust.

His two powerful hands went down to her shapely rear, clutched her
round ass cheeks and groped them tight and hard. Zarach leaned in and
licked along her jaw back towards her neck as he fondled her luscious
flesh.

He was so cruel and cold, but her sultry maneuvers, her skillful
dance, it had all managed to bring the base man inside him out. “I
think I’ll claim you all for myself,” he hissed to her,
and she felt him nip along her cheek, moving towards her ear.

She hated how her heart leapt and a smile warped her lips. She was
proud of herself, of getting special treatment from this fickle
monster. Her hands stroked along the back of his shoulders, pulling
herself into him. “Yes,” she whispered to his ear and she
ground against him with such need and heated desire.

She couldn’t help herself. She needed this.

Squeezing her cheeks, he bit her earlobe, tugged it with his teeth
then lifted her. With a swift motion he pushed her over onto her back
atop the plush sofa beneath him. He forced himself betwixt her legs
and ground against her sex as he fondled her form. Harshly into her
ear he said, “You seem too good to be true, but perhaps you’re
all that.”

She was trained for men like him; men who had power, who had
influence, who had dark desires and needed a willing slave. It was
something that made her unique, but it was also a great source of
conflict. Even as she feared him, as she was manipulated in his
strong arms, she felt a need throbbing beneath that small skirt. It
flipped away from her thighs as he lay her back and she was so
wantonly exposed, her arousal already thick in the air.

Could they just start over? Without the deception?

Did she even want that? She knew, rationally, she didn’t.
But for that moment, when he touched her and praised her, all else
was drowned out with her moan.

There was just the contact, his hand moving up her body to grasp a
breast through her thin strip of a top, to squeeze that supple mound
so mercilessly. It was then that she noticed it; it was nearly a
miracle she did. Her head just happened to be tilted just right
towards the balcony entrance, the gentle motion of the drapes drawing
her eye as something dark slipped into the room.

Her attention was brought back to the man atop her though when
Zarach’s mouth went to her neck. Her vulnerable neck. His
parted lips poised there at her smooth flesh before he... bit.

She expected something else. When he bit it was like any other
man’s bite in the heat of the moment. He suckled and kissed and
nibbled, but she felt no fangs. No piercing of her flesh. Barely even
a twinge of pain, certainly not the stuff of vampire legends.

She moaned.

Maybe it was the safety and security she felt, though it wasn’t
quite that either. In fact, that made her less likely to moan,
because her body grew hot with shame knowing Jaral had heard. It was
purely primal, that bit of pain something she needed as much as
pleasure. She couldn’t help the fact that her back arched her
breasts further into his rough hands, or that her hips refused to
stop grinding him.

This was who she was. Who she really was.

Zarach went at her madly, with a lust she’d longed for the
day prior. Her responses absorbing him in her body, drowning out the
world about them. She played her part so well, but the speed with
which things went from there startled even her.

A dagger sank into Zarach’s back, but instantly the pale man
struck out in defense, forcing Jaral to step away. She watched as the
stabbed man got off her so quick, made all the more impressive by the
fact that he staggered and gushed blood.

Anjasa knew how to fight and defend herself, but the fast rate at
which the two men acted stunned her.

More blows were traded. The dark killer’s arms struck out.
Zarach deflected. Deflected again. Blocked. The next struck home, and
a second dagger sprouted from Zarach’s chest.

The pale monster spat forth a spout of blood, eyes wide as he
muttered in shock. “S ... Sire?”

“No longer,” came the deep retort in that foreign
accent. And in another explosion of moves that seemed to defy
possibility, the dark Jaral struck out with a kick which Zarach, even
in his twice stabbed condition, blocked and pushed away. But the one
two strikes of his hands could not be guarded against, and Zarach’s
face was knocked back. The hilt of the dagger then struck, plunging
it further into his chest still.

Anjasa was almost afraid to blink, afraid that she might somehow
miss something important as she struggled to move away from the blood
and fighting. She was almost nude and had nothing to defend herself
with. What could she do, even if she did?

The way they moved...

It was like a macabre dance, playing out so quickly before her
disbelieving eyes.

The number of blows Zarach took but kept standing, the movement of
both of them so fast, beyond the abilities of any mortal.

The bloodied and battered almost noble struck back, and in a
desperate motion he shoved the assaulting Jaral away so that he
crashed through the mirror wall and into a room on the other side.

“Why’d you turn on me?!” Zarach shouted with a
spray of blood. “You said you’d make me a Full Blood!”
he shouted, as he moved not towards the stunned Jaral but the door,
yanking it open.

As soon as it was opened, however, he was greeted by the visage of
the dark titan, a hand striking out and hitting the pale Zarach in
the throat with a loud crunch of his larynx. “You would only be
an eternal nuisance, Zarach,” he intoned. Jaral’s
movements were unhindered, as fast as ever, while the battered Zarach
was slowed. Unable to resist any further as another blow hit the
dagger and pushed it so hard Anjasa saw several inches of its blade
pierce through his back.

She could do nothing but watch in horror. She wanted to flee, but
she couldn’t turn away. Her arousal finally started to
dissipate though there was still an inappropriate throb at the
testosterone in the air, and she tried to make herself small on the
couch.

Cowering.

What had she been reduced to?

As Jaral knocked Zarach back to the balcony door, she heard the
metal groan and bend at the impact. Their strength and speed were so
startling. How could such thick metal be bent and twisted like that?