Blood Ties (7 page)

“Such a temper,” Ellyra murmured behind him.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you lose it before.”

“Then you weren’t paying attention,” he
growled. The master bedroom was just as soundproof as Ellyra had
claimed; even his hypersensitive hearing couldn’t detect any voices
from within.

“Perhaps they aren’t talking,” she
suggested.

“Get the fuck out of my mind,” he snarled. “I
don’t care what they’re doing.”

She laughed, throwing back her head and
crowing with amusement. “Orion, you are the worst liar I have ever
met. You’re going mad from wondering if he’s going to fuck her. How
he’s going to fuck her. If she’ll come for him as passionately as
she does for you and if she’ll want more. Why didn’t you just feed
her yourself if the thought of her biting another man makes you
this furious?”

Her stark words forced him to picture it --
Kira’s gloriously naked body writhing beneath Carlo’s, her legs
locked around his waist, urging him on as he thrust his cock deep
in her cunt, sinking her fangs into his throat and drinking him
down as she came and came and came. He clenched his fists and bit
his cheek hard, hoping the pain would drive the terrible image from
his mind.

Only when he was certain he could speak
calmly did he reply. “I fed her twice last night. I have nothing
else for her now. Besides, she has to feed on her own sometime,” he
said. The words felt like broken glass in his mouth. The thought of
her going willingly into that abomination’s arms, letting the
bloodslave arouse and fuck her to keep her from losing control of
the blood hunger, was sheer torture. He couldn’t shove the
maddening image from his mind no matter how hard he tried. “Damn
it, I need another drink.”

“That’s not what you need.”

He rounded on Ellyra, fangs bared. “Who are
you to presume you know what I need?” he demanded. “Make no
mistake, Ellyra. I am here with you because I have to be, not
because I want to be.”

She shrugged. “I would expect nothing less,”
she agreed. “Orion, I’m sorry you were hurt when I went to Gregori,
but you wouldn’t give me what I wanted. He would.” She leaned
gracefully against the bar. “I regret the pain I caused you, but I
have never regretted what I became.”

“Depraved,” he growled.

“Immortal,” Ellyra corrected. “Powerful. I
depend on no one, Orion. Even Gregori never controlled me. Do you
know what it was like for a woman in my time? You have always had
freedom -- I had none! Should I have meekly given my life to
marriage and children I never wanted? When I met you, I knew there
was another way to live, one that would allow me to truly live
instead of just existing. Can you blame me for taking it?”

He grabbed the decanter and raised it to his
lips, drinking deep as if the burn of the alcohol would sear away
his rioting emotions. In all the time Ellyra had spent with him,
she’d never voiced any of this. Had never once asked him to make
her a vampire. How could he have been unaware that her life had
been so miserable?

“And did you get what you wanted?” he said,
trying to force himself not to stare at that closed door. “Is Carlo
the man you always desired, or was it Gregori you desired as your
mate?”

“I desire no man as my mate. I never
have.”

Her soft declaration made him spin around.
Ellyra smiled at his disbelief and shrugged. “Your fledgling is a
beautiful woman,” she murmured. “She worries that you’ll leave her
alone. I would care for her, if you --”

Her offer
broke him free from his shock and the sudden realization of why she
had always spurned his advances -- she’d never come to his bed
because she desired
women
, not
men!

And now
she wanted Kira?
His
Kira? He
glared at her, infuriated beyond reason. “She might not be mine,
but she’s not a slave to be given away, either.”

“I already have a slave,” she countered. “I
have no need for another one. I lost my lover to Gregori, Orion,
and I’ve not been alone since my mortal death. Let me --”

“Damn it, you can’t have her!”

She sat back and crossed her arms over her
chest. A long moment passed while she regarded him coolly before
finally speaking again. “I have always been able to see into the
minds of others,” she said softly. “Even when I was mortal you knew
this, and still you think to lie to me now. You have never loved
anyone the way you love her, yet you deny that she is yours. You
claim not to care for her and seem determined to break your own
heart by leaving her. Why do this to yourself? You won’t have her
for yourself, yet you refuse to allow me to take your place as her
guardian -- and I would cherish her, not enslave her. What do you
want, Orion? I don’t understand you. Do you truly crave pain and
solitude that much?”

He found he couldn’t meet her eyes and took
another swig from the decanter to avoid her too-knowing gaze. “I
want her to be self-sufficient,” he said, staring at the play of
light through the crystal and liquor.

She waved toward the door. “She’s in there
becoming self-sufficient,” she countered. “And you’re miserable.
Tell me what you want, not what you think you can have.”

He put the decanter down with exaggerated
care. What did he want? He wanted Kira, of course -- he always had.
He wanted her with a passion that left every obsession he’d ever
had in the dust, but she’d never chosen him. She’d chosen that
thrice-damned mortal vampire slayer and would have left without a
backward glance to be with her lover. Would’ve betrayed him and
gone to the Nighthawks, just as Ellyra had. So what did he
want?

The same thing he’d always wanted. The
impossible.

Most of all, he wanted to tell Ellyra to stop
this damned questioning. But if she could truly see inside him --
and everything she’d said proved she could -- it would do no good.
No matter what had changed about her when she’d gone to Gregori,
Ellyra had always been and always would be persistent.

That meant he had to find some kind of answer
that would put her off.

She shook her head and spoke again before he
could think of anything to say. “Has it never entered your mind,”
she said, “that Kira was harmed by that attack even more than
you?”

His head snapped around and he bared his
fangs at her. “Why must you reopen this wound?” he demanded.

“To distract you,” she replied, giving him
honesty when he least expected it. “Otherwise you’d have broken
down the door by now, no matter what you say. You’re thinking of
the slayer who destroyed your home, yet nowhere in your mind do I
find the smallest shred of sympathy for Kira.”

“She betrayed me,” he growled.

“
She was
used!” Ellyra snapped. “Come on, Orion, you’ve never been stupid.
Don’t start now. Do you really think it was a
coincidence
that Gregori’s own Associate sought her
out and romanced her? Yes, Barrett really is a Nighthawk Associate,
the highest-ranking of them all,” she added when he stared at her
in stark disbelief. “She wasn’t fooled -- he told her the truth at
all times, about all things but his love. She was merely a means to
an end. His orders weren’t to kill you, Orion. His orders were to
end your rebellion and bring you back to the Clan, either on your
feet or in a body bag.”

For the second time since Kira and the
bloodslave had vanished, Orion’s mind reeled. The more he thought
about it, the more it made sense. Gregori had been furious when
he’d left the Clan -- it reflected badly on his authority that he
was unable to control his own fledgling. The longer Orion stayed
away, immune to the Master’s influence as he grew strong in his own
right, the more Gregori would burn to bring him to heel.

He’d probably been waiting for decades for
Orion to make the mistake of caring for anyone. As soon as he had,
Gregori had attacked -- not to kill, but to make him embrace his
Clan again. Powerful as he’d become, Orion was far more useful
alive than dead.

The night of the attack played again in his
mind and he saw the truth of it. From the moment Kira had walked
into his office and given her notice, Orion was knocked off his
guard. Every ounce of his attention had been focused on her.
Barrett could have struck at any time if his intent had been to
kill, and as much as it shamed Orion to admit it, he would not have
recognized their danger until it was too late.

Instead Barrett had given warning, first by
calling Kira, then by the gunfire that had ultimately led to her
mortal wound -- but bullets weren’t enough to kill a vampire. No
wise vampire would be without a means of escape from their home,
and they’d been given ample time to reach his escape tunnel before
Barrett had blown up the house.

All this pointed to the work of a vampire’s
servant, not a vampire hunter.

He shook his head, stunned he hadn’t seen it
before. “How did you know all this?” he whispered.

“Because Carlo is more than my bloodslave,”
she replied. “He acts as my Associate, and Barrett’s plan was no
secret.”

A thousand questions flooded Orion’s mind.
How long had this been planned? What exactly did Gregori want from
him? What would it take to get the Master to back off and leave him
and Kira in peace? Fighting the entire Clan wasn’t a possibility.
Could he force himself to negotiate with Gregori if it meant
keeping Kira safe? Was bargaining for his freedom even
possible?

But before he could sort through them all and
find one question to ask, the bedroom door flew open. Carlo
stumbled out, pale as a ghost and clutching his bloodstained wrist.
“Carlo!” Ellyra cried, rushing to catch him as he collapsed.

“I am unharmed, Mistress,” he reassured her
even as he allowed her to support him. Then he looked up and
focused on Orion with obvious difficulty. “She needs you,” he
groaned, and passed out.

Orion was across the room and through the
door before the bloodslave even finished speaking, his heart in his
throat. If that bastard had so much as scratched her -- “Kira, are
you all right?” he asked, anxiously searching the dark room for
her.

The door slammed shut behind him an instant
before her bare arms slid around his waist. “You are so
overdressed,” she purred, running her hands up his chest and
nipping the back of his neck. She grasped two fistfuls of his shirt
and yanked.

The material ripped from his body. Orion spun
to find Kira behind him, clad only in a pair of lacy red panties
that accented the well-fed flush of her skin. He only had a second
to appreciate the glorious sight of her -- black curls rioting over
her shoulders, high, firm breasts tipped with tempting pink
nipples, glistening white fangs just visible in her sexy smile --
before she launched herself into his arms, her momentum tumbling
them back onto the bed.

And when he sucked in a sharp breath at the
heavenly softness of her breasts colliding with his now-bare chest,
he could discern no scent of sex in the air.

“You didn’t --” he began, wild joy rising up
inside him at the evidence that Carlo hadn’t touched her, hadn’t
ridden her, hadn’t felt the tight clasp of her sweet pussy, but she
cut him off before he could finish the sentence.

“You,” she growled, rising on her knees above
him and tearing at his belt. “I need you, I only need you. Get
these off right now!”

And then the belt was off and she rubbed
against him like a cat. He groaned with pleasure at the full-body
caress and desperately unbuttoned his fly, his own desire firing at
the heady scent of hers. As soon as his jeans were unfastened she
shoved them down his thighs, and then caught them with her toes to
push them down his legs. They caught on his boots and he didn’t
care, because at that moment she nipped his throat and took a
single hot sip of his blood. “So good,” she whispered. “You’re so
damn good. Taste me now.”

His own bloodlust rose sharply, bringing his
cock and his fangs to their fullest, throbbing length. Her shoulder
was close and he sank his fangs into her, too impatient to find a
vein, not caring where he bit her in his desperation to taste her.
Her blood was hot and spicy and he groaned, loving the bond they
reinforced, loving the taste of her.

Her hand closed around his cock and he broke
away from her shoulder with a cry, and when she kissed him he
caught her breasts in his hands and rolled and pinched her nipples.
Her cries were muffled by his tongue as they devoured each other.
He tasted his blood on her lips, savored the trace of hers on his
tongue, but more than that, he gloried in the fact that her skin
smelled only of clean, hot lust and the faint remains of his own
sex.

“Mine,” he gasped, trying to roll her onto
her back, wanting to claim every inch of her all over again, to
erase the images that had tortured him while she’d been locked in
here with another man, but she wouldn’t have it.

“
No,
mine,”
she
growled. She moaned aloud when he lifted his head and sucked one
tight nipple deep in his mouth, flicking it with his tongue. “God,
Orion, please, I can’t wait, I need you!”

He broke away only long enough to murmur,
“What do you need from me?” Then he subjected her other nipple to
the same, hot treatment, worshiping her flesh with lips and tongue
and teeth.

“Love me!” she cried, reaching down and
tearing the red lace panties away with one hard pull, baring her
entire body to him.

He caught her face in his hands and forced
her to meet his eyes. “I always have,” he said, willing her to
understand, to believe.

The wild lust in her eyes cleared for just a
moment, just long enough for him to see her answer there. Then she
sank down on him, taking his entire thick length in one hot thrust,
and there were no more coherent words spoken. She rode him hard and
fast, her head thrown back and her breasts thrust out, and Orion
had never seen anything so beautiful in all his four hundred
years.