SovereignsChoice (21 page)

“Wake up, Emma. You barely touched your
dinner last night—you must be famished.”

I wake up feeling rested and refreshed, and
open my eyes to warm golden sunlight pouring in through the windows. Aiden is
already up and smiling at me. He’s wearing a pair of faded jeans and nothing
else—is he skipping the office today? Usually he goes in rain or shine, weekday
or weekend no matter what. He’s definitely a workaholic. Not that I’m
complaining, after last night I’m more than eager to spend the morning with my
shirtless vampire Master. Just look at all those muscles on display.
Yum.

“Barnes made us some breakfast.” Aiden nods
at a silver tray sitting on the dresser. Now that he mentions it, I can smell
the tantalizing aroma of scrambled eggs and toast drifting through the air.
There’s also a teapot with a wisp of steam rising from its spout. “Do you want
to shower or eat first?” Aiden asks.

I open my mouth to say
eat
but then
remember what a sticky mess I am from the waist down. “I’ll shower,” I say quickly.
“But don’t start without me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he says dryly.
“Hurry up, then.”

I scoot out of bed, noticing a few dark red
spots on the sheets as I do. My period has already almost run its course but
I’m still mortified about the evidence it has left behind.

“Don’t worry about the sheets,” Aiden says gently,
breaking my train of thought. “They’re not important.”

It feels important to me but I don’t know
what else to say. Quickly, I disappear into the master bathroom and take the
fastest shower I can. When I come out, wrapped in towels, Aiden has changed the
sheets and made up the bed.

“Come. Sit.” He motions for me to sit back
against the mountain of pillows propped against the headboard. “We’ll have
breakfast in bed this morning.”

Still wrapped in towels, I settle myself on
the bed and look at him warily. He seems like a completely different man than
he was last night. He’s relaxed and smiling and seemingly not mad at me at all.
Is this all because of the sex—or almost sex—we had last night? Or has he just
decided to forgive me for breaking the rules?

“What is it, Emma?” Aiden says, settling on
the bed beside me with the tray in his hands. “I can see your mind going a
hundred miles a minute. You might as well tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I’m just wondering…thank you.” I take the
cup of tea from him. “Wondering why you’re not mad at me anymore?”

“Oh, I’m still upset by your flagrant
disregard for my rules—especially your removal of the harness,” he says, giving
me a stern look. “And don’t worry, darling, you
will
be punished for
that. But…” He sighs and takes a sip of tea. “You have a right to be angry with
me as well. I’ve been on my own so long I tend to keep my own counsel. I
don’t…share things easily.”

I give a soft snort of laughter. “Now,
that’s
an understatement. But thank you,” I put a hand on his leg, “for admitting you
were wrong, too.”

He raises an eyebrow at me. “I don’t
concede that I’m
wrong
exactly. There are still some things about me and
the situation we are in together that you’re not ready to know. But I
understand your frustration and…” He sighs again. “I’ll make a concerted effort
to be more open with you in the future.”

“So…I can ask you questions and you’ll tell
me what I want to know?” I look at him hopefully.

“Within reason,” Aiden says, frowning. “But
yes, ask away.”

Questions rise to my lips so fast they almost
choke me but what comes out first is, “Tell me about Katherine.”

A look of intense pain passes over Aiden’s
chiseled features and he closes his eyes briefly. “Ah, you would ask me that.
Not that I blame you—doubtless you’ve heard of her untimely demise.”

“Not really,” I say honestly. “I mean, I
heard that she was a witch and that she died but not…not exactly how.”

Aiden sighs. “Very well. But in order to
explain her death, I’ll need to tell you about her life. She was an
extraordinary woman and I loved her with all that was in me.” He hands me a
plate with scrambled eggs and toast just the way I like it—no butter but plenty
of strawberry jam. “You’d best eat. This is a long tale and your food will be
cold if you wait until I’m done.”

Obediently I pick up a piece of toast and
begin to nibble. Aiden puts the tray to one side and takes a sip from his tea
mug, gathering his thoughts. His gray eyes go silver, as though remembering
something from long, long ago. Something buried in the past. And then he
begins.

“I found Katherine in the woods to the
north of here over a hundred years ago. In those days Tampa was little more
than an overgrown town. Florida was the least populous state in the union for
years, you know. It was too hot and swampy here for most people. As a vampire,
the heat and humidity didn’t bother me, especially since I was, at that time,
confined to the night as most of my kind are.”

Hmm, interesting I eye the heavy
gold-and-onyx ring on his hand again but say nothing. Aiden takes another sip
of tea and continues.

“When I came upon Katherine, she was being assaulted.”

I frown. “Assaulted…how?”

“Raped.” A look of pain passes over his
face again. “She was being raped.”

“What?” I spill my tea on my leg in
agitation and have to wipe it up hastily with a linen napkin. “I mean, really?”

“Really.” He nods grimly. “I was out
hunting in the woods and I heard her screams. A group of human men had her—they
had discovered she was a witch and decided that was reason enough to brutalize
her.”

“Oh no.” I put a hand to my mouth. “Could
you…did you stop them?”

Aiden closes his eyes briefly. “Regrettably,
by the time I got there considerable damage had already been done. I pulled
them off her and dispatched them—”

“Dispatched?” I ask softly.

“I killed them.” Aiden bares his fangs in a
display I’m glad isn’t meant for me. “I ripped their throats out and drank
their blood. There were five of them and I was alone but all the same, it only
took a matter of minutes.”

I’ve seen how fast he can move and I know
how strong he is so this comes as no surprise. I have to shiver anyway, though.
This is the first time Aiden has ever talked about hunting and killing humans
around me.

“Was she all right?” I whisper, and then
realize what a stupid question that is. “I mean, was she badly hurt?”

“She had some bruises and contusions—some
inner trauma.” He glances between my legs and I cross them hastily,
understanding his meaning. “But her mind was more broken than her body.” Aiden
sighs deeply. “I went to her and she tried to fight me off at first. Not
because I was a vampire but because I was male. I didn’t blame her, of course.”
He runs a hand through his hair. “When I finally made her believe that I had no
intention of continuing the brutality the human bastards had been inflicting on
her, she begged me to kill her.”

“Goddess,” I whisper, my breakfast
forgotten.

He nods. “Yes. She wanted to die after what
had been done to her. Virginity was much more important back then, even among
witches, and hers had been taken from her in the most brutal way possible.
There wasn’t as much freedom to do as you pleased and marry or not as you
chose. Most women, even witches, found a husband. There was no other way to fit
into the human community.”

I nod thoughtfully. “And of course, she
would have a hard time finding one after…that.”

“I swore to her that no one else had
seen—that I had killed all the men who hurt her,” Aiden says softly. “But she
told me there were others—two who had left before I got there.” His eyes burn
silver for an instant. “I took care of them later. But at that moment, my whole
focus was on Katherine. There was something about her that drew me. As a
vampire—a predator—I should have wanted nothing more than to finish her off.
She was wounded prey—my natural instinct should have been to kill.”

“But you couldn’t, could you?” I whisper.

“No.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know if
it was her magic or some of my old human instincts coming back. I was still a fairly
new vampire, having just recently left she-who-made-me. All of my training
before my vampire life began had instilled in me the necessity of being careful
and gentle with the fairer sex. My human mother, especially, emphasized
self-control and gentlemanly conduct. So consideration for ladies was ever uppermost
in my mind.” He laughs softly. “She’s been dead well over a hundred years but
the things I learned at her knee are still some of the only parts of my human past
I recall vividly.”

“She’d be proud of you, I’m sure,” I say softly.

“Would she?” Aiden looks at me steadily.
“After seeing what I have become? I doubt it, my darling. But I do have few
fleeting moments in my past I can look back on without shame. My treatment of
Katherine is one of those.”

“What did you do with her?” I ask,
fascinated by the story of my Master’s long-lost love.

“I took her back with me to my house. It
was a much smaller, wooden structure but it was built right here, on this
site.” He indicates the house around us. “This land has belonged to my family
for generations. It’s where I go to ground. Where I feel most comfortable.”

I can’t help looking around me, imaging
what it must have been like. I can almost picture Aiden carrying the injured,
weeping girl in his arms and laying her gently on the bed. Comforting her as he
comforted me last night. “What happened then?” I ask.

“I put her in a sleep trance,” he says.
“It’s not magic—we can’t do magic, as you know. It’s more like the technique a
cobra uses to fascinate a mouse. We usually use it for hunting and capturing
prey. In Katherine’s case, I did it to give her time to heal.”

“And did she?”

“In time.” He frowns. “Her body was young
and strong but her mind…” He shakes his head. “I’m afraid she was never completely
free of what had been done to her. It made her sexual tastes…peculiar, when
they finally emerged.”

I raise an eyebrow at him. “Peculiar?”

He laughs briefly. “Well, no more peculiar
than what you and I have been doing for the past month, I suppose. But back then,
the erotic practice of Domination and submission wasn’t nearly so well-known or
widespread.”

“I imagine not. But…” I hesitate, trying to
think how to phrase my question delicately. “I don’t understand how Katherine
could want to be…to be dominated after what she’d been through.”

“Oh she didn’t,” Aiden says blandly. “It
was she who did the dominating.
I
submitted to
her
.”

“
What?
” I
can’t help staring at him in disbelief. There is nothing he could have said
that would have surprised me more. Just the thought of my tall, dark, vampire
Master wearing a collar and being punished is…well damn, actually it’s hot. But
still extremely surprising.

“You needn’t look so shocked, darling.”
Aiden sounds amused. “It wasn’t the first time I had been on the receiving end
of the whip—she-who-made-me was French and notoriously hedonistic, even among
my kind.”

“Is, uh…” I clear my throat. “Is that what
you prefer?”

He shakes his head. “I am a Dominant by
nature. But Katherine was frightened. She had deep sexual desires—urges that
tormented her. However, she needed to be in control.” He shrugs. “So I let her.”

“You let her
what
, exactly?” I can’t
get the picture of him, naked and wearing the same kind of collar he has put on
me, out of my head.

“I let her whip me, bind me…” He looks me
in the eyes. “Fuck me.”

My breath falls out of me in a long sigh.
“She…you let her…”

Aiden nods. “You can rest assured, darling,
that nothing I have done to you has not been done to me many,
many
times
over.” He looks briefly troubled. “The only thing I would not let her do was
bleed me. I never gave her my blood…not until the end. But by then, it was too
late.”

“Too late? Too late for what?” I’m caught
up in the story now, not caring that my eggs and tea and toast have all gone
cold.

“Too late to save her life,” Aiden says somberly.
“You see, though our love was passionate, it was also forbidden. The other
creatures in the supernatural community didn’t like a vampire consorting with a
witch. They felt there was too much power concentrated in one place—too much
potential to draw the humans’ attention and wrath down upon us.”

“But that’s silly,” I say. “We’re much
stronger and safer when we stick together inside our own community—all of the
supes together.”

Aiden nods. “Exactly so. Which is what
Katherine tried to tell the other witches of her coven and what I tried to tell
the vampires of the Council. But no one wanted to listen.” He takes a sip of
tea. “So we made plans to move away from here. Katherine made me a ring,” he
holds up his hand, the gold and onyx glinting, “which enabled me to withstand
sunlight and eat human food again. The plan was to move to someplace far away
and live as humans. No one would be the wiser and we could keep our love.”

“It sounds perfect,” I say.

“It would have been.” Aiden looks troubled.
“I was even making plans to form a life-bond with her. She didn’t want me
to—she worried about me cutting my lifespan in half. I told her I didn’t care.
I was planning to convince her once we moved and started our new life… Unfortunately,
I never got the chance.”

“What happened?” I ask softly, dreading the
worst but unable to help wondering.

“Word of our departure leaked out. I don’t know
how but Katherine was captured. She was brought before the Vampire Council. Then,
as now, they were the most powerful supernatural force in our area—a power to
be reckoned with.”