Savage Chains: Scarred (#2) (13 page)

Suddenly he felt movement and Engles was there, naked and aroused, levitating to place himself behind Angelica. “We’re sharing, whether you like it or not.” Engles’s dark eyes were wild and glazed.

But something primal erupted within Reyes. A flush of heat flowed through his body and he saw through a red film that now covered his eyes. He levitated well above Angelica, then launched at Engles, catching him hard in the chest so that he flew backward between the two posts.

Reyes landed on top of Engles in the pool just a few feet from the table. With his weight holding Engles down, Reyes rained punches at his enemy. Fury raged through him. He found Engles’s throat and gripped him hard as he continued to pound his face, shoving most of his head below the waterline.

Reyes shouted, “Don’t you ever touch what belongs to me!”

“Enough!” the metallic voice called out.

At the same time, two sets of powerful hands grabbed Reyes from behind, hauling him off Engles. Reyes tried to wrench free, but the men were part of Engles’s security staff and built like tanks. Still Reyes fought, especially since Engles rose to his feet in the pool, as all the men were now, his eyes dark with rage.

Reyes, stop! You’ve got to come back to me. I’m scared.

Angelica. Shit, in his fury he’d left her alone and unprotected.

He stilled as he turned to stare at her.

She was still on her knees, though at the edge of the table, and very naked. But the security team now levitated in the air around her and he couldn’t reach her.

She shifted her gaze to something beyond him.
Look out!
she shouted within his mind.

He didn’t see the punch coming. Engles caught him on the jaw and he saw stars.

Angelica slid off the platform, jumped into the shallow water, then leaped toward Reyes. She’d half expected the security team to stop her, but they didn’t.

When she reached Reyes, now held upright by Engles’s men, his head lolled.

She reached for him, but Engles grabbed her arm and jerked her in his direction. His face was bloody and swollen, but he smiled. “I have you now. And there’s nothing Reyes can do about it.”

But there was something Angelica could do and right now she didn’t give a damn for the consequences. She relaxed in Engles’s grip and turned toward him. Adopting her most submissive pose and voice, she said, “What a powerful man you are.”

He pivoted just enough. She leaned into him, and because he was so used to servility she was able to lift her knee in a hard jab. She caught him just right, because his eyes widened, then his mouth. He buckled and fell over on his side into the water once more but came up sputtering and holding his crotch.

The security team grabbed her as well.

Engles called out on a pained hiss, “Take them to the interrogation room. Now!”

But the metallic voice began to laugh, then called out, “You will do no such thing, Engles!”

Scorpion issued his own set of orders, sending Engles and his security team away. Angelica knelt in the cold water, supporting Reyes’s head on her lap.

Scorpion’s metallic voice once more called out. “Slave, try to bring your master around. I need a word with him!”

Angelica patted Reyes’s cheek. She shivered as much from the icy water as from the knowledge that the head of Starlin, an extremely powerful Ancestral, was only a few yards away. She had no doubt that Scorpion could do anything he wanted to either Reyes or herself.

“Master, you must wake up. Please wake up.”

She started rubbing his arms, chest, and shoulders vigorously. “Wake up, master.”

After what seemed like ages, Reyes finally came around. And once awake he leaped to his feet. “Where the fuck is Engles?”

Reyes, calm down right now. We’re alone with Scorpion. Don’t give us away.

He pressed a hand to his face. “Scorpion, my apologies.”

“The fault is Engles’s. He did not have permission to disrupt the show and he’s being punished as we speak. However, I was still extremely well-entertained. You stood up to Engles when no one else dared.

“I’ve had my eye on you for decades and have watched your excellent progress as a slaver. I believe you have tremendous potential in my organization and I’ll be frank: I’m looking for a much more intimate association with you.

“I expect your attendance at the masked ball tomorrow night, and if all goes well I plan to reveal myself to you.”

Angelica was stunned and the chains told her Reyes was as well.

Reyes frowned. “But even Engles doesn’t know who you are.”

“Engles will always have a specific role in my organization, but I’m looking for something very different with you. And there will be requirements which I expect to be obeyed.”

Angelica wasn’t surprised when Reyes bowed slightly and said, “Anything you wish, master.”

“Excellent. And now you may go.”

There was nothing elegant about the way Reyes simply picked her up, then shifted to altered flight, both naked. Unfortunately, as anxious as Reyes was to get her away, he moved too fast and pain pierced her skull.

She screamed.
Reyes, it hurts.

He pulled back immediately, but the damage was done, so that by the time they arrived back at his bedroom she was dragging him toward the bathroom, where she promptly threw up. Naked, bent over a toilet, and vomiting. Exactly the way any woman wanted her man to see her.

Reyes was nothing but kind, however, as he stroked her back and apologized repeatedly for being so thoughtless.

This time, however, as she siphoned Reyes’s power, she recovered much more quickly, so that within half an hour she sat next to him on the couch in his sitting room, both wearing robes.

He kept shaking his head. “I can’t believe what Scorpion said to me, that he’s been watching me and has plans for us.”

“Sounds like he wants you for his boy toy.”

Reyes grimaced. “I have no doubt that’s his intention.”

“I’d tease you if the whole thing wasn’t so horrible. But it also seemed to me that Scorpion wants to bring you in as more of a partner than just a member of the board.”

Reyes rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s what it sounded like, but why?”

Angelica shrugged. “Like he said, he’s been watching you.”

“I’ve been careful,” he stated, more to himself than her. “But this is an amazing turn of fortune.”

“I assume we’ll be going to the ball tomorrow night.”

“Yes, of course. We have to go.” He drew in a deep breath. “Do you know what this means?”

Angelica smiled and ran her hand lightly over his scruff along his jaw. “Actually, I do. You’re close to your goal.”

“All I need is to get at the documents detailing all the players, the clubs that Starlin owns, the bank accounts, the machinery for abduction, the holding-cell locations, and I can take them down.”

“Reyes, this is amazing.” That it all sounded too good to be true wasn’t something that she said out loud, but she felt uneasy.

His mood shifted suddenly, new, surprising emotions that had him grinding his jaw. She just couldn’t imagine what it was he was thinking.

Finally, she said, “Say it out loud. Maybe that will help.”

He groaned. “I’m still furious that I left you exposed on that platform. I keep thinking about how easily Engles or Scorpion could have hauled you away. I was unconscious, for God’s sake.”

“And therefore completely out of control, more than you’d ever been when I was with you.”

Turning toward her slightly, he leaned his elbow on the back of the sofa and settled his head into his palm. His brow was lined with furrows, his body tense. She didn’t know how to help him.

Finally, she decided on letting him know what happened after he got knocked out. “I kneed Engles in the jewels.”

At that Reyes’s brows rose. “You did what?”

She chuckled. “I kneed Engles hard. You were out cold and he so kindly told me that now I was his because you couldn’t do a damn thing about it. So, I hit him where it hurt.”

“I don’t understand. If you did that, then either both of us should be dead or I should be dead and you should be bound to him right now.”

“I think the whole thing amused Scorpion. He was laughing while you were unconscious. He was the one who broke it up. Believe me, we were both surrounded by Engles’s security team, but Engles bowed to Scorpion’s will.”

Reyes stared at her for a long, hard moment; then his lips curved. “So, you nailed that bastard in the jewels.”

“He crumpled like a little girl. I’ve never seen a face that red, and his cheeks were puffed out like a blowfish. He fell into the water and came up choking. It was a beautiful sight, despite the fact that I was scared out of my mind.”

Reyes laughed, then slid his hand in her hair, cupping the back of her neck. “I hardly remember what happened except that the moment Engles landed behind you and touched you my brain funneled down to a narrow beam of pure rage.”

“You knocked him so hard that both of you landed in the water. It was awesome. Of course I can say that now because we’re both still alive. But it was one of the best moments of my life.”

“You amaze me, Angelica. You’re handling this whole thing with tremendous grace.”

She stared into Reyes’s clear blue eyes, once more caught by the man she knew him to be. Through this difficult experience she felt as though she was getting to know him and hoped that maybe she’d be able to help him see who he truly was. She knew he viewed himself in a bad light, as one who’d been enslaved and worthless.

For her, he would always be the man who, the moment Engles had touched her with the intention of rape, had defended her, putting both his life and all his plans at risk.

Her mind ran suddenly back to the platform, to making love with him, despite having an audience. She’d wanted him to complete the act then, and she wanted it now even more.

A delicious shiver raced through her. “You know, Reyes,” she began as she pulled apart her robe and let him see her breasts, “we didn’t exactly get to finish what we started and I have a feeling you need to feed.”

“Angelica,” he whispered.

He leaned toward, slanting his lips over hers. Passion erupted between them like a volcano.

He pushed her back on the couch and kissed her as though he were a starving man and she was his first meal in months.

She loved it. She flung her arms around his massive shoulders and shifted around so that her legs could accommodate his body.

She reached low, fondling what was already hard for her. She’d begun to feel that nothing was so beautiful as floating her fingers over the crown of his cock, then drifting the length of him. He would fit inside her and connect her to him, in the same way the chains had bound them together, the way his lips and his tongue formed a sacred seal.

When he entered her this time her body rolled in a languid arch, taking him in, feeling all that he was.

“I love doing this with you and I wouldn’t have cared if we’d been on the platform. I swear it. All I wanted was to feel you inside, to be joined with you. I crave you, Reyes, every part of you.”

He nuzzled her neck and she felt the sides of his fangs pushing against her throat in careful nudges. Knowing that he’d soon pierce her vein and take her lifeblood made her moan loudly. “Please, yes, please. Drink from me. I never dreamed it could be like this.”

Angelica, you feed me in so many ways and tonight you saved my life.

He slowed his hips but kept up the seductive curl of his pelvis and thighs as he placed an arm over her chest to keep her still. He licked along her throat, encouraging the vein. She felt it rise as though reaching for him, as though needing this as much as he needed sustenance to survive.

Yes,
she whispered through his mind.

His fangs struck and she cried out as her internal well tightened around his slowly gliding stalk. He felt so good and his scent, full of maleness and sex, rose to create euphoric streamers through her senses.

He removed his fangs and began to suck, pushing into her deeper now. The sounds of his mouth working her throat intensified her body’s pull on him.

See what you to do me?
She writhed beneath him.
I’m almost ready to come.

He groaned; then with a movement that stunned her he drove his cock in quick thrusts, vampire fast, so that she was crying out, her body spasming before she realized what had happened. All the while he suckled her neck, somehow remaining pinned to her while her body arched and rocked.

The pleasure was so sharp, so intense, that she dug her nails into his back, which for some reason made him suck harder.

He slowed his hips but kept pushing into her. His control stunned and amazed her.

This feels so good. You’ll make me come again if you keep this up.

Then, just like before, he thrust in quick sensual jabs and she rushed over the edge once more, crying out repeatedly. If he hadn’t kept her upper body pinned, she would have thrashed just for the pleasure of it.

###

Reyes took fire down his throat, one of the most basic elements of life, of civilization, whether human or vampire. He took her essence, all that she was, and drank it in. He felt more vampire in this moment than ever before, as though something about the human, about Angelica, drove him back to his roots and helped him to know himself, all that he was.

He couldn’t get enough. His hunger for her knew no bounds. Feeding for him had always been perfunctory, a necessary part of the process, but not something to be savored. He’d fed from Sweet Dove, but only when she allowed and only as part of her pleasuring process.

When she wasn’t in the mood she’d throw him a half-dead slave from whom taking blood had been a difficult, soul-stripping process.

Now there was Angelica, her soft flesh, the sweetness of her blood, and the adoring way she caressed him. He’d never had an experience like this in his long-lived life. He hardly knew what to do or to think, except to continue enjoying her.

When he had his fill and released the serum into her blood that would replenish her supply swiftly he drew back and lifted up so that he could look at her.