Chilled to the Bone (18 page)

“He left you in the parking lot, girl, not sure if you were dying or wounded or what. Get over it,” Doreen told her.

The wand broke off in Charles’ hand, half of it hitting the floor and crumbling into dust. He dropped the rest on top of it, and it, too, shattered, the pieces no bigger than a few millimeters, as if it were safety glass instead of bone. He tucked the vial in his pocket. John had wanted to kill Doreen after he’d gotten the blood from her. Mickey had been sent to kill, not to capture. So Doreen was in John’s way; she possessed something that could stop him. She was a vampire in every way except for her very special blood, so he’d known her blood had to be the key. The rest was intuition, trusting his hunches like he had when he’d pointed the wand and pronounced a spell the first time.

He reached to put an arm around Doreen’s delicious waist, and instead, she pushed his shoulder and sent him flying across the room. He landed unceremoniously on his side, jolting his hip bone hard and knocking the wind out of him.

“
Flamel nychtas valorum
,” Carla said. She had John’s ring on her finger. A ball of flame left the ring, expanding as it flew towards where he’d been. He could feel the heat from it painfully as it passed by. Doreen had jumped to the side right after pushing him, so she was out of its way. It kept going, splashing against the door to the school room, where naughty subs could be made to bend over a desk and take six of the best from stern headmasters and headmistresses. The door caught fire.

Carla moved her arm and pointed the ring at him again, but she didn’t get to say a word. Doreen was on her, grabbing Carla’s head and pulling it to one side with a sickening crack.

“Oops,” she said. She looked at Charles as if waiting for him to pass judgment. “I didn’t mean to.”

Charles stared. Carla had been trying to kill him, and only Doreen’s speed and strength had let her do anything about it.
Remind me not to make her angry or threaten someone she loves.

“Thanks for the save,” he said. And he saw her shoulders visibly relax.

Did she love him? He was pretty sure she did. Could he love someone that strong, that powerful, who could kill by accident and needed blood to survive? He wouldn’t have thought so two weeks before.

A lot had changed in two weeks.
And I need to get the fire extinguisher.

“Drink, love,” he said, and turned to deal with the fire.

* * * * *

Doreen woke up on the couch. Someone—Charles, probably—had put her clothes back on. The last thing she remembered was drinking, replenishing the energy she had lost struggling with the other vampires. Carla. She’d killed Carla. She tried hard to feel regret, but didn’t. Carla had been happy enough to lead Doreen to her death. She had tried to kill Charles. Given more time to think, she might have done it differently, but she hadn’t had time. She’d grabbed her in the easiest place to grab her, and human beings were fragile.

“Good evening,” said Bela Lugosi, no, Charles with a funny accent. He stood near her; she was on the couch in Kent’s office.

She laughed. “Oh my god. Just don’t do that every night, because it will get really old.”

“Agreed.”

She slipped from the bed to the floor, and knelt before him, knees apart, hands laced behind her back.
Yours, Master.

Charles smiled at her. “There’s a party here this evening, so we’ve got to scoot in an hour. I was thinking maybe a nice night on the town, some wine—“

“I do not drink…” she paused melodramatically.

“Wine,” they said together, and laughed again. Laughing sounded a lot more natural if she remembered to breathe first.

“Seriously you can’t drink?”

“I can, but it doesn’t do anything to me.”

“Maybe we should have you drink some macho jerks under the table and make some easy money.”

She stared at him. His eyes were dancing; he was joking. Good. She would do it for him if that was what he wanted, but she was glad he didn’t. It struck her as unfair.
I’ll do anything for him. Isn’t that crazy? And yet, he won’t let me do anything bad for me if he can help it.

“You think the danger’s really past?” she said.

“I don’t know, love. Maybe it’ll at least take a holiday. I don’t know where it would come from, at this point, and we can’t live our whole lives hiding or under guard.”

Doreen nodded. “I imagine Mr. Pemberton would get tired of providing guards after a while.”

“Yes. I found the human guards outside, by the way… The vampires fucked with their minds, but they didn’t hurt them otherwise.”

“Good.”

“Anyway, after a drink, I was thinking we’d do some dancing. You’ll have to slow down, though. I’m not as fast on my feet …”

“Why not stay for the party, Master?” She hesitated before asking, but she had to admit she enjoyed both times under his command at Dark Xanadu. She was ready to do it again, as often as he wanted her to. She was, after all, a fearsome creature of the night. She grinned. Being able to protect Charles last night had made it, for the first time, seem something other than a curse.

“It’s not a bondage party. It’s a swinger’s party. And I’m keeping you all to myself.”

The possessiveness of his comment made her feel week in the knees and warmed her deep inside. “Yes, Master,” she said.
And I want to keep you to myself, too.

“Thoughts, love?”

“Not very submissive ones, I’m afraid.” She looked down, averting her eyes.

He put his hand under her chin and guided his gaze back to him.

“Tell me. We can’t be together without honesty, love.”

“I don’t want to share, either.”

A smile crinkled his eyebrows. “Share what?” he asked, but she thought he knew. He wanted her to spell it out.

“Share you. I don’t want to share you.”

“Agreed. Is there anything else you’d like to insist on, going forward?”

Insist?
She couldn’t think of anything. If something came up, she was pretty sure she could speak up. She slowly shook her head.

“I bought a present for you.”

Charles held a box: plain, white, about six inches square, the kind where the top lifted up and off rather than one with a hinge. She unclasped her hands and brought them forward to receive it in both hands. He handed it to her reverently.

She lifted the top and looked inside. It was the collar she’d been looking at in the store. Leather, an inch wide, with three sturdy looking D-rings for attaching— Well, whatever he thought to attach. On the inside, however, white stitching had added their names: Charles Keller. Doreen Hammaker. She reached to pick it up, and his hand stilled hers.

“You don’t put it on yourself. If you want it. If you take it, love, I’ll protect you as well as I can, with my life if need be. I’ll expect your obedience. And your love. And occasionally, to speak your mind and tell me when I’m full of it.”

Her heart beat faster, thumping inside her. Obedience. Love.

“I love you, Doreen,” he said. “I didn’t think I’d ever want to collar anyone. It was so much easier, so much cleaner, not to get too serious, and not let my subs get too serious either. But you’re something special.”

“A vampire,” she suggested.

“A woman,” he insisted. “Strong in both body and heart. Beautiful.”

Her heart felt so warm she thought it was going to melt. Deliberately, she took a breath. It was what she’d always done before making any important decision, and if it felt less natural to her now, it still calmed her. She knew what she wanted. It was right in front of her. All she had to do was say yes.

“I will love. And obey. And honor you, Master. For as long as you’ll have me.”

She thought he might bolt at the word honor, but she couldn’t help but say it. She’d seen a couple friends in college lose lovers when they mentioned marriage. But Charles didn’t take even a step backward. He picked up the collar, wrapping the leather around her neck lovingly and buckling it snugly in back.

“You can buckle the collar tighter, if you like. It’s not like I have to breathe,” Doreen reminded him. Right now, she wanted to feel her new collar as much as she could.

“No, but you might want to occasionally. It does wonderful things to your chest, anyway.”

She took a breath and glanced down. Okay, she could see how a guy might like the rising and falling action of her tits. She looked up at him and did it again. She didn’t need special powers to see the wheels spinning in his head. Or to notice the way his cock bulged in his jeans.

“Now what? Do you have any fantasies to indulge?” she asked him, teasingly.

“Now? We’ve got thirty minutes until the party starts. And I don’t call them fantasies anymore.”

She arched an eyebrow. “No?”

“No. Now I call them plans for the evening.”

Oh!
“Yes, Master.”

The End

Author Bio

Sindra van Yssel is a practicing librarian on the east coast of the United States. She spends her off time writing books too spicy for the library shelves, taking her son to soccer games, cooking East Asian food, playing Dance Dance Revolution, and listening to old bands like Bauhaus and The Cure. She has difficulty sticking to any one hair color, but as of this writing, it’s bright pink. Her website is at
www.sindravanyssel.com
.