Vampire's Companion (2 page)

“Why?” he asked, pushing the words out, though in the end they were irrelevant.

“I overheard Master Amadeus tell someone else that she’s going to Europe for an extended stay and wants to travel with a smaller entourage.” The blonde shrugged. “Be glad she cared enough to send you here rather than just turn you out in the street. With your looks, you’ll be claimed by someone.”

Bitterness came like oily sludge, a dark wash of it that nearly choked him. “Claimed how?”

The brunette answered, “You’ll exit through the column door when it’s your turn. There’s a performance area marked by a change in floor color. You must remain in it until whatever song has been selected to designate your entry is finished. Dance or do nothing. The choice is yours. It’s up to you to entice a vampire’s interest.”

He couldn’t suppress the shudder that came with thoughts of the vampire who’d stroked the crop.

The blonde extended her arm so the tray she held was inches from his chest. “You can remove the bands or we’ll do it.”

He picked up the key, struggled to keep his hand steady. The collar’s lock clicked open, sounding loud in the crypt-like space. He placed the band on the tray then did the same to the thick bracelets around his wrists.

He fought a sudden lightheadedness as the sigil-etched gold that symbolized his nightmare became an anchor to safety he’d been wrenched from in bloody, predator-filled waters.

The blonde handed the jewelry-laden tray to her companion. “Your clothing next.”

He stripped out of the tights he’d detested putting on but now hated to part with.

She took them from him.

His heart sped again. Icy talons raked through his belly. “And if I’m not claimed?”

“Then you’re considered free.”

He laughed, a harsh, nearly wild sound. There was no true freedom for someone like him. The slave-bond and the need for vampire blood continued to exist. In proximity to Estelle, others could serve in her stead, but separated by an ocean…

The blonde glanced past him at blank walls as if unwilling to look at him and consider that his fate might one day be hers. Fingering the collar on her neck, she said, “If you haven’t been claimed, you’re welcome to remain at Wyldfyres until the club closes so you can attempt to gain a master or mistress.”

“And the rules that apply to me?”

“If you stay, you’ll be subject to the same ones that govern any human who enters without protection.”

Pity flickered in the brunette’s eyes. “If you’d prefer to leave, signal one of us and we’ll return your clothing and escort you out.”

They left, closing and locking the door behind them. His skin pebbled and his heart stuttered before beating frantically. The acrid smell of fear stung his nostrils. The room shrunk as if he were a discarded pet left unwanted at a shelter and placed in a tiny cage.

If not claimed, he had no rights here, not even to life. If cast out of the club at the end of the night and left to wander, the empty void of the bond with its howling, never-ending need for connection and blood would drive him insane.

He shuddered. He’d seen slaves allowed to go mad, some of them left to wander the street, others chained to walls, barking like crazed dogs.

Taking his cock in hand, he did what survival instinct demanded. He worked at becoming aroused so that he might capture a vampire’s attention and avoid a fate worse than death.

* * *

Terach lurked beyond the street lights creating an illusion of safety in the rough area surrounding the homeless shelter. The scent of unwashed humans and their evening meal drifted out through an open window.

If he strained, he could hear Cia beneath the sound of a colicky baby and the never-ending drone of a television. For him, everything about her had become an irresistible draw, like an offered neck or a heated fist grasping his cock to guide it home.

Night air caressed his skin. Moonlight beat down on him with the incessant call to hunt.

He struggled to keep his fangs sheathed. He’d long since given up trying to control his cock. It had been in a constant state of throbbing hardness from the moment Detective Cia Caldwell had arrived at his sire’s club on police business.

His only relief from the constant ache of unfulfilled desire came during the day when his heart ceased beating. He’d been alive for centuries, but now each night passed with the slow crawl of eternity—thanks to his sire’s command that he
court
the woman he’d already claimed.

Terach didn’t need Gian’s edict. He knew what it was like to be owned by another, to have no free choice at all. To be a slave passed around at a drunken party or one sent to a visitor’s tent to be used in whatever manner appealed to his owner’s guest.

In his human life he’d gone without food until he became little more than a stick figure. He’d gone without the touch of any, save those who reviled or owned him.

Death had once seemed preferable in that long ago human life, and he’d taken his chances. He’d run, knowing that hunting and killing escaped slaves was great sport for the soldiers left with little to do after the lands they’d invaded had been thoroughly conquered.

A companion was not a slave. But still, he had made Cia his without her consent, without giving her even the choice of death. He’d acted on the glimmer of precognition that had once set him apart in the superstitious village of his childhood. An ability that had made his senses buzz at life-changing crossroads.

The night he followed Gian was one of those times. He’d leaped to Gian’s defense, when in fact, Gian had been setting a trap for those who would prey on him, leading them into darkness so he could feed.

Centuries had passed, but fierce satisfaction still surged through Terach at remembering the joy of becoming the hunter after that chance encounter with Gian had led to his being made a vampire.

With the ravenous, mindless hunger of the newborn, he’d gorged himself. He’d killed those sent after him, and those who’d used him, and finally, he’d drained his fat tick of a master dry.

He touched his tongue to a canine tooth. Stroked, allowing both of them to descend into fangs.

Prowling forward, he circled the homeless shelter in the hopes some fool would attack him so he could vent his frustration. But tonight he was the only predator waiting outside it in the darkness.

If Cia wouldn’t allow him across her threshold tonight, he would have no choice but to feed from another. It was an unappealing prospect, an unappetizing one.

He wanted her. She was his companion, bound to him by blood and magic eight nights earlier when he’d saved her life. Though at the moment she was an
unknowing
companion and presented with the truth, would be his
unwilling
one—at least until he could convince her otherwise, to accept not just what he was—vampire—but what she was—a human gifted with supernatural abilities.

The memories he left in the wake of his claiming were fact overlaid by fiction, a mix to explain how she’d begun the evening at Fangs on police business, but had awakened the next night in his bed wearing his medallion, her body well satisfied, left marked by passion and suffused with craving.

His cock jerked with thoughts of that waking, of rolling on top of her before her rational mind built a wall between them. She’d spread her legs willingly for him in those moments of sleepy lassitude. He’d buried his fangs in her flesh and joined his body to hers, giving pleasure as he took it.

Arousal leaked from his cock head with the remembered heat and flow of her blood over his tongue and down his throat. He craved her taste, needed the press of her naked skin to his, the tight fist of her channel and the sounds of her cries.

He’d blurred the feeding from her mind but hoped the pleasure preceding her scream of release would bring her back to his bed. It hadn’t.

She’d dozed. And upon next waking, passionate lover had become cool, controlled cop.

Seven times he’d asked her out since then. Seven times she’d refused.

Terach slapped the wall he stood next to. His body hummed at hearing her begin her goodbyes.

She’d been at the homeless shelter for hours, first helping the children with reading and writing and math, afterward the adults, doing what she could to give them the tools necessary to break free from the cycle of poverty.

He admired her for it. This was not a new activity for her, though now it had become something more than giving back—whether she would admit it or not. This was refuge, retreat. Avoidance.

Of him. Of the changes wrought by claiming and blood exchange. Of the future.

Several moments later she emerged, dressed conservatively. She looked the part of an off-duty cop, as if khaki pants and loose-fitting shirt could hide her femininity, and with it, the cravings of her heart and body. As if somehow clothing served as a shield against tender feelings by projecting authority and confidence. She’d be offended if he told her the short cap of brown hair coupled with fine facial features made him think of pixies.

His lips curved upward in a satisfied smile at seeing her sweep the area, sensing his presence. He remained motionless, watching her out of the corners of his eyes rather than with the direct gaze of a predator.

A delicate shiver went through her. Had the breeze cooperated, it would have brought him the scent of dewy arousal, her body’s acknowledgment that he was nearby.

She moved with quick strides to her car.

Amusement tempered his hunger. She was conscientious even in the choice of what she drove, choosing a small hybrid rather than a gas guzzler. She would be good for him, making him see the world in a way he hadn’t for a very long time.

He allowed her to get out of sight before he returned to his dark SUV. A bouquet of amaranth lay on the passenger seat. He stroked a soft white petal then did the same to a dark pink blossom.

In the language of flowers, these stood for immortality and unfading love. He had the first, in a fashion, and hoped to fill his life with the second.

Las Vegas was not so large that she could outrun the bond forged by the taking of his blood and the acceptance of his medallion. But given the hour, and the fact she hadn’t returned to duty, he expected her to go to her apartment and she didn’t surprise him.

He parked, emerging from the car with the bouquet in hand. She glanced over her shoulder, hesitated before stopping and turning to face him.

Her chin lifted and spine straightened. He held his smile, knowing she would slouch instead if she was aware of the way her nipples had formed into hard buds of temptation pressed to the front of her shirt.

Hunger surged through him, need intensified by proximity and by how long he’d gone without touching her, without taking her blood.

Patience. It will pay off in the end.

Their eyes met, testing that patience with the lightning strike of desire. It surged between them, gripped him in a lust that nearly had him curling his hand around his cock.

“You followed me from the shelter,” she said, using glare and accusation in an attempt to beat back attraction.

“Yes.”

He stopped in front of her, delivered the bouquet in a quick strike toward the chest rather than risk her refusal.

A blush spread across her cheeks at ending up holding the flowers.

He crossed his arms to prevent their return. Hope and satisfaction surged through him when she didn’t toss them at his feet.

“Give us a chance, Cia.”

“No. No. What happened the other night was a…”

She stopped short of calling it a mistake.

It was a good thing.

“Invite me in, Cia.”

He fought the predatory instinct to compel her. The masculine desire to claim what already belonged to him.

“No.” But her tongue darted out, wetting her lips.

He leaned in and was rewarded by the soft catch of her breath, by the deepened scent of aroused woman. “Cia,” he said in a lover’s tone.

She jerked away, retreated a step, driving his hunger for sex, for blood,
for her
, even higher. The rushed cadence of her heart was a summons he wouldn’t be able to resist much longer. His fangs threatened to descend.

“You can’t keep running from the truth. We belong together.”

The lips he wanted touching his, exploring his body and taking his cock between them, thinned. “You’re wrong. Stop calling me. Stop showing up.”

She spun and headed for her apartment, still clutching the bouquet. He balled his hands into fists, need and desire now accompanied by an edge of violence, hunger exacerbated and intensified.

Tonight he would take his sustenance at Wyldfyres.

It was not where he wanted to be, but he was no stranger to it. And though both blood and the offer of sex were easily found at Fangs, he could well imagine his sire’s words slicing into his mind when he showed up after having again been rejected by his companion.

He could hear Gian’s amusement-laden voice saying,
I can’t believe one of my making is so foolish
. But far worse would be the pity he might read in his sire’s expression, at having shackled himself after having so thoroughly embraced freedom.

Yearn and ache and hunger, they’d become constant companions since the night he’d had Cia in his bed. He managed a smile that wasn’t a gnashing of teeth. In the end, his choice, the decision to bind Cia rather than just heal her, would come to be important. He felt it.

Old magic was returning to the world. He read the signs like a village witch catching a glimpse of the future by casting bones or animal guts.

He drove to Wyldfyres, parking several blocks away to allow time to center himself before entering a place that reeked of sex and blood. Many companions considered the taking of blood from another—when it wasn’t a matter of survival—as unfaithfulness.

It had become necessity for him. But he would choose a human male rather than a female. Someone forgettable.

He didn’t worry he might lose control and shove his cock into another woman. He didn’t worry about taking some nameless man while feeding. He could stave off the needs of the flesh because when Cia finally understood what she was to him, he wanted there to be nothing in his memories that would hurt her.