ANDREA'S OVERLORD (6 page)

Charlotte frowned. “Wait.”

“What is it?”

“Aren’t you forgetting someone?”

Mikel glanced at Andrea. She looked so frail and miserable his heart broke. “I thought you wanted to hang onto her until I get you your replacement.”

Charlotte raised a thin eyebrow. “What good is she to me? I can’t play with her. I can’t use her to entertain my guests. She’s useless. Take her on good faith.”

Mikel smiled and gave Charlotte a gentle kiss on the cheek. “You’re truly a lady, sweet Charlotte.”

She giggled and pushed him away. “What a manipulator you are, Mikel. I swear you could talk anyone into giving you their souls. Take her if she pleases you. Enjoy her.”

Mikel approached the bed. Andrea turned her face away from him and a dagger in his chest couldn’t have hurt more. He helped her up and she stood before him trembling. He knew from her scent the blood on her dress was from superficial wounds. “Are you able to walk?” he asked.

His tone was so mean and harsh it made her flinch.

“Yes I can walk,” she said. Her voice was barely a whisper. Then, as an afterthought she added, “Master.”

“Good. Then follow me.”

Chapter 9

“I don’t understand why you did that,” Andrea said once they’d returned to his apartment.

Mikel prowled across the living room and settled on the couch. He stretched his arms out across the seat back and watched her with quiet amusement.

Andrea appeared really confused. He wished she’d sit down but instead she remained standing and folded her arms.

“What does this mean?”

“Did any of those men hurt you?” he asked. He frowned suddenly realizing that might be what was bothering her. He wanted her to feel relaxed and comfortable here.

“No. They just scared the hell out of me.”

He patted the seat next to him. “Then why don’t you sit down?”

“Why am I here, Mikel?”

There was a blade to her tone that excited and surprised him. This woman would not be tolerated long in the vampire world. She would mouth off to the wrong person and end up being killed. The thought that this beautiful, spirited creature might be destroyed made him profoundly sad. No, he would have to do everything in his power to protect her. “I would have thought you’d know. I enjoyed what we had last night. You’re here to serve my pleasure.”

Her perfectly sculptured eyebrows lowered slightly. “Isn’t it unheard of for an initiate to stay with her teacher?”

“I’m an older male and an assassin for the High Council. I can get away with things others can’t.”

She unfastened the lace ties on her dress and let it drop to the floor. Naked she was even more beautiful than in the sheer dress. Emotions warred within him. He wanted to punish her and drink from her but he also wanted to give her pleasure. Taking a bite would only terrorize her more and he really didn’t want that. He wanted her to care for him more than anything else. “Haven’t you had enough vampire exploitation for one day?”

“What difference does it make? The second you become bored with me, which will probably be right after your next orgasm, you’ll take me back there.”

“And what if I plan to keep you for myself?”

“That wouldn’t work out very well,” she said.

He detected a tremor in her body. Was it the air conditioning from the apartment, fear, or anticipation of making love to him again?

“And why not?”

“I’ll tell you why. In spite of what you did for me tonight, I’m sorry to say I hate you.”

Mikel had dealt with all kinds of human servants but none had ever dared to speak to him like that. Did this woman have a death wish? If he was in his right mind, he would murder her for those words. “That’s a pretty strong statement for someone who barely knows me.”

“Oh, I know all about you and your
kind
. I’ve seen how your kind uses and discards the humans they interact with. You came to get me to exercise your power, nothing more.”

“You seem very sure of my motives.”

“What else motivates you other than sex and bloodlust?”

He let her question sit in the air for a moment. “Perhaps I’m motivated by love.”

A bitter laugh escaped her. “You expect me to believe that? You don’t know the first thing about love. You know how to use, that’s about it.”

Now Mikel was angry. He got up and closed the distance between them. She flinched as if expecting a blow but didn’t back away. He was very impressed by her reckless bravery. “I’ve been alive hundreds of years. I’ve loved and lost more than you can imagine. So don’t try to tell me what kinds of emotions I’m capable of.”

“So you’ve lived a long time. So what? That’s all the more reason why you should see that what vampires are doing to humans is
wrong
.We are not animals or chattel. We have a right to live our lives in freedom.”

He grabbed her jaw to make her be quiet. “What you’re saying is treason. We could both be killed if anyone heard you uttering such things so shut up. These walls aren’t as thick as you think they are.”

Andrea twisted her face away from his grasp. “Then let’s not talk. Just do what you brought me here to do.” She grabbed his hand and placed it over her right breast.

Mikel was overcome by her rage. It excited and infuriated him in ways he’d never experienced before. He wanted to kill her. He wanted to fuck her. He wanted to destroy her and make her love him for it. Unable to contain his raging desire, he cupped and kneaded her breast. His lips covered hers in a desperate, heated kiss which she responded to with even more aggression.

Andrea thrust her tongue in his mouth coming dangerously close to cutting it on his teeth. He knew she was doing it on purpose to anger him further. She seemed to want to drive him to the point of draining her to death. He broke the kiss and pushed her back.

“I don’t want you to do that,” he said.

Andrea’s eyes swirled with impotent fury. “What? This?” She pulled out a jagged paperclip and dragged the end across her throat. It didn’t do a lot of damage but the small cut bled a surprising amount.

Mikel snatched the paperclip from her and threw it across the room. But it was too late. The sight of even a small portion of her blood forced his mind to flirt with a feeding frenzy. The scent mixture of salt and iron filled his senses making him swoon.

He dragged Andrea to the floor, his hands and mouth taking on a life of their own. His tongue lapped greedily at the scrape on her neck while his fingers found the moist, hot center of her pussy.

There was no foreplay. Her actions ensured there couldn’t be. She gave herself to him without reservation and he lost what little control he had.

His cock and fangs ached in unison, both longing to be buried in Andrea’s flesh. His swollen cock penetrated her with long, angry strokes, pushing as deep into her as he could go. She whimpered and ran her hands up his back.

“Bite me, Mikel. Kill me. End my life of misery. It will bring you so much more pleasure. Go ahead. I want you to,” she whispered in his ear.

His canines throbbed like they’d been pulled out by the roots. He wanted her with a hunger that bordered on madness. But he knew if he gave in to her wish he would be too far gone to stop. He’d be unable to disengage in enough time to save her life. So as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t bite her while they were coupling.

To punish her for trying to force his hand, he pumped his stiff cock harder and faster. With every thrust her flesh grew softer and wetter driving him even more insane. She opened her legs wider with a gentle sigh and he sensed her close to climax. That surprised him. She seemed so filled with cold anger before and now her passion rivaled his. Andrea cried out in rebellion and her legs wrapped around his hips. He wanted to climax but held back. It was too soon, much too soon.

“I don’t want you dead,” he growled into her neck. His labor was bearing fruit as her legs shook with pleasure.

She panted gripping him tight. For a long time he was sure she wouldn’t respond.

Then she said, “We can’t both have what we want. I don’t want to live as your slave.”

Tender agony blossomed from his cock and rode up through his hips and back. “There can be compromise in this. We can find another way.”

She cried out then, screaming and bucking out her orgasm like she was fighting the pleasure it gave her. He came too and withdrew after the last of his seed was spent. They lay on the floor next to each other trying to catch their breath. He’d never known anything like that. What was happening to him with this woman?

“You won’t be able to hold out forever,” she said as she licked her lips. “Sooner or later, you’ll bite and kill me.”

“We can find a way to be happy, Andrea,” he repeated.

“The only way for me to be happy is through death.” She got up from the tile floor and padded to the bathroom. Mikel couldn’t get the memory of her beautiful, sad face out of his mind.

Chapter 10

The camps.

Andrea had been dreaming about them for most of her life. The vampire overlords tried to make them pleasant enough with comfortable beds and busy jobs but none of the humans housed there were fooled. It was a breeding facility and a prison so vampires would have enough victims to consume.

Men and women were allowed to mingle but only on the weekends. When these so-called ‘social parties’ took place there was plenty of food and alcohol. The vampires knew there’d be hookups and indeed there were. With no access to birth control of course pregnancies occurred quite often and that’s just what the vampires were counting on.

When a pregnant woman was discovered in the human colony, she was removed to be with other pregnant women. They gave birth in seclusion and their children were taken from them early and raised by vampire matrons. These matrons taught the children from a young age that their only purpose in life was to provide pleasure to their vampire overlords.

Some believed it without question and others didn’t. Andrea never did. She knew it was a lie the first time she heard it. But no matter what her real thoughts were Andrea hid them well. She hung out with other kids who believed the same thing she did: that the vampire overlords were cruel and evil and should one day be overthrown.

Unfortunately there were several obstacles to defeating vampires. One was that the overlords carefully controlled the human population. Vampires outnumbered humans by two to one and the overlords kept it that way by having annual slaughters or feasts, as the vampires called them, of those humans who were too rebellious or too old to please their vampire masters anymore. The vampire overlords also kept a strict rule of law over their citizens. No human was to be turned into a vampire without the High Council’s approval. If it was found that a vampire had turned a human and not destroyed them immediately, they were terminated by assassins like Mikel.

She shifted in the bed so she could look at him. His face was the image of the perfect predator with a heavy masculine brow, thick jaw, and full, sensuous lips. Add to that his tall, perfect body and alluring power and it was impossible to believe any woman could resist him.

He opened those cool blue eyes and studied her. “Plotting ways to kill me, my beloved?”

“What would you do if I said yes?”

He sat up in bed and rested his back against the headboard. “I’d keep a closer eye on you than I already do. Why? Are you unhappy as my lover?”

“You know the answer to that.”

“You have it better than most other humans. What right do you have to complain?”

“I complain because I am a possession, not a person. I don’t want better treatment. I don’t want you to profess your undying love for me. What I want is my freedom. Oh how I wish I’d been killed at Charlotte’s house by her wicked friends. That would have been better than being your slave in this world.”

Tightness made his jaw muscles more pronounced. “Really? Being drained by a bunch of sex-hungry strangers is better than being my lover? I find that very insulting.”