Captiva Craving - Vampire Werewolf Menage (Six Feet Under Series Book Two) (7 page)

“The claim, Maestru backed it up.”

“Did he, now?” The corner of his mouth kicked up, and she realized he thought it was funny. “When did this vampiric marriage take place?”

“I was eighteen,” she explained nervously, flashing crimson. “I’m told if a vampire took another’s virginity, she became his mate.”

“True for the Species,” he agreed, his hand twisting into her hair and holding her face securely to his, “but
Sixten Kovac
is not fully Species. And even if he was, after all was said and done, he threw you away.”

“That’s
not
true!” He knew way too much about her life. Probably more than she did. Still, no paper or claim could make a difference when she and Sixten wanted to be together. No one would break them apart.

“Really? You were in Italy without him, under your brother’s protection, no less,” he reminded, brushing his lips across hers. Across and back. Across and back. When she turned her face away, soft kisses littered her jawline before trailing back to her ear.

“Sixten supported me financially,” she whispered after clearing her throat a couple of times, “provided for me and my brother.” His free hand caught her foot in a nearly painful grasp, but she went on, “He visited me every…year.”

“Your brother sold you to me.” He eased the pressure on her foot, releasing her hair at the same time. “You became my personal Donor, Blythe. After we made a real connection, you were my only Donor. A high honor you held.” At her gasp, he asked, “You feel shame that I bought you or that your brother sold you?”

“Both.” She refused to cry, though her eyes burned with the effort.

“Believe it or not, I have an ethical code. Until you, I had
never
sold any property or bought it.”

“Anthony sought you out?”

“He sought many out, searching for the highest bidder. Just thinking of the cruel ones you could have ended up with….” Heat left his body. His fury over her treatment struck a strange cord inside her. Gianni’s eyes flipped to hers, pleading, though his lips were too proud to utter the words. Still, the raw possessiveness she found in his gaze quickly surpassed his anger. “After I had you, you were the only one I wanted in my bed. And I made it so. I found such joy in you, in
us
. For an immortal to come back from ennui, it is a rebirth of sorts. Everything is new as I see through your eyes.”

“I was your welcome distraction.”

“I say I am reborn, yet you say I am distracted. I would have never given you up. And however your brother arranged for your disappearance, well; he was a fool to cross the powerful. Now he is a dead one.”

“
You
had him killed?”

“I would have enjoyed punishing him, but no. I did not order Anthony’s death.” His fingers traced her ankle, and then searched upward until they found a delicate hollow beneath her knee. “How could I hurt you that way?” They pressed in, eliciting a surprised gasp from her throat. “Still, I am satisfied with his death.”

“No matter what he did, his death is painful,” she hated the hitch in her voice, pretending to have a civil conversation with her gorgeous captor. Pretending not to
feel
what he was doing to her as his hand reached her inner thigh. “I want to know why he died.”

“Since you understand you are of Were blood.” His opposite hand traced up her spine, fingertips rolling over each bump with great familiarity. “You also understand Anthony was of no relation to you.”

“In the vampire world, does blood only mark familial relations?” He curled his hand around her waistline, pulling her back while his roaming fingers found the elastic of her panties. And there went that craving again. Somewhere in her mind, she wanted to pull away, didn’t she? “Can’t you be close to someone who isn’t kin?”

“You mean in the way you want to be married to someone though
you are not
?” His face went rigid, like a marbled mask readying to crack.

Words echoed in her mind from a broken memory. An unsolicited promise Gianni made more than six months ago,
Tell me who destroyed your heart, and I will lay his at your feet
. No, she did not want Sixten’s heart lying at her feet. She wanted him alive and with her forever. She kept that thought, skirting his pointed question. Instead, she asked the obvious, “What have you planned for me?”

Gianni’s lids dropped, his long, inky lashes throwing crescents over high cheekbones. His growing erection pressing into her hip, he shifted and brought Blythe closer to his chest. She pressed her forearm against his sternum, refusing to lean on him. Tight muscles were firm and strong under her hands, but that was to be expected. Gianni was
the
vampire, a frightening, royal immortal. She considered past times when she sensed immortal power from those in passing, especially Sixten, and had no inkling of what she felt. Other beings were everywhere. Somehow, maybe because she was a werewolf hybrid, Blythe could judge Gianni’s power level as if she were a supernatural seismograph. He was nothing like the others, nowhere close. He was
different
.

“Planned?” He shook his dark head, smiling. “I have yet to taste your body again.” For whatever emotional reason, his fangs were staying down, and they were
long
. It astonished her that he could talk around them so effortlessly. “It is not, as you say, a plan, but a desire. You have been gone for quite some time, my Blythe.” She opened her mouth to interrupt, but he placed a purposeful fingertip over her lips. “I am holding back. A first for me, I will admit, and it is taxing. I am not human. I want.” He shrugged. “I take.” Air crackled with his changing mood. He filled the empty space between them with his static power, one that tired of simmering. A hot open mouth skimmed her temple, her cheek, and across her ear. “You must accept what is to be,” he whispered against her tingling lobe, soft lips brushing her ear with every syllable, “Ask me how I know you were not truly married under the vampiric law.”

She felt cornered, asking warily, “How?”

“Donors are rare and precious, primarily to the Dynasty.”

“Lucky me,” she muttered, pulling back and meeting his eyes. The firelight played back and forth across his golden eyes. By the look on his glorious face, Gianni was a raging fire headed her way.

“If you were
truly
mated under our laws, you would not have experienced a blood tie with me, where you needed my essence in order to live.”

She didn’t believe that for a minute. Still, he shouldn’t have bonded them in the first place. His selfishness knew no bounds. “
You
did this to me,” she spat, scrambling to get away from him, but he tightened his hold. “Egocentric bastard, you made my life dependent on yours.”

“It is true, and although I have guilt for this,” he admitted, without a trace of remorse that she could see. “I cannot say I am sorry, for that would be a lie.”

She had so many things to say, but she sat fuming, staring down at her hands as they gripped her dress.
You’re stronger than this.
Get ahold of yourself!
Sidetracking her mental energy would not grant her freedom. She needed to concentrate, control her anger better.

“This Vojak Kovac is a newly appointed ambassador, is he not?”

“Yep.”

“Then you would have met his Coven Master by now. Was he aware that you needed my blood?”

“Yes,” she whispered, her cognac eyes still flaring with righteous anger. “I was given blood transfusions from Species blood.”

“I wonder. How many blood transfusions would it take before they turned you into a deranged Undead?” His unusual eyes narrowed, his accent thickened. For a second, he looked even more dangerous, if that were possible.

“That could happen?” She asked cautiously.

“You are human mixed with immortal, after all,” he expressed steadily as he rolled tension from his wide shoulders.

More lies? “Part human,” she repeated in disbelief. Still marveling how different her life would have been if her brother had not ‘sold’ her.

“Well, all of that transfusion nonsense is over now,” said Gianni in a relieved tone she could not share. “You have me to care for you, and you will live a long and happy life.”

“An immortal life?”

“Yes, as long as you drink from me, you will stay alive,” he said, his explanation laced by threats.

“Well, I thought I heard it all, but I was clearly mistaken.” Anger took a strange nosedive. Blythe could now categorize her thoughts into equal thirds. There was shock, shock, and more shock. In her mind, she did not want Gianni. Her love for Sixten was all she saw. Unfortunately, the blood rushing her body had other ideas. “Somehow, I got away from you before.”

“At the present, you realize you’ll die without me.” One long figure curled around her manacle, tugging. “I never imagined you would leave me, would
want
to leave me. Foolishly, I trusted your brother to uphold our bargain.” He adjusted his leg, pushing his hard length against her. “There is no trust between us now, my Blythe.”

“If you want me to like you,” Blythe whispered, her eyes burning with unshed tears, “you’re not helping your cause.”

“To
like
me?” he asked passionately. “In the way you
like
your favorite chocolates? Or perhaps how you
like
watching the sunrise wash over slumbering Venice when you have stayed up all night and are too giddy to sleep?” He tilted his head in question. “Do you recall our holiday there?”

A memory crept forward. Gianni laughing down at her, bringing her body inside the warmth of his long, white coat when a chilly breeze brought gooseflesh across her arms. A magnificent sunrise sparked ahead, stretching above the Venetian horizon and painting the awakening sky with life. Gianni never took his eyes from her face, thoroughly enjoying her appreciation over a sunrise he must have witnessed for centuries, his smile radiant in the morning light.

“Oh…we were there,” she admitted her memory, pressing her trembling fingers to her temples. At least at some point, in another life, she shared genuine happiness with this vampire.

“So…what is
like
? I wish I could simply
like
you, or better yet, hate you.” He looked away, staring into the fire with grave intensity. “In regard to humans, declaring unrequited love is devastating within itself. Even so, for an immortal of my station, a declaration such as that can destroy.”

One thing Blythe truly knew, Gianni was saying he loved her. That admission obviously pained him, because she could never return his love. More than that, by baring himself, he admitted she held power over him. In her minimal understanding of the immortal world, no one with his range of power allowed another to dominate. “So you’re breaking me because you think I’m breaking you?”

“We both know there is no need to break you,” he said, his pulse thudding in his throat. “Simply, you had freedom
before
that you do not now.”

In a blurring movement, he flipped her, tossing the damask pillows to the floor. Her back sank into the soft chaise. Delicate cushioning cradled her on one side, his hard-planed frame pressing the other. Not a human’s body at all, his length honed from a creature that should not be of this world. Her heavy breasts flattened against him, the edges straining under her arms. His hand came up, massaging the extra flesh, expertly kneading her. Ancient eyes narrowed on her with frightening intimacy, a stare that felt excessively personal.

“This is heading somewhere we cannot go, Gianni.” His thumb and index finger found her right nipple, plucking until it mirrored within her womb.

“A place we have already been, enjoyed, and need to get back to.”

“Gianni, we no longer have a physical relationship.”

“It feels like we do,” he whispered against the side of her throat, his body settling between her thighs, though she did not remember spreading them this way. “I sense the human part of your mind spiraling, trying to figure out how to escape me for good…or even sidetrack me from this.” Fabric moved up her thighs, her dress lifting.

“I don’t belong with you.”

“How do you know you were not coerced by Maestru or this Sixten?” A warm, wet tongue drifted up her throat, twirling when it reached the dip below her bottom lip. Somehow, she could feel that movement across her clitoris. It hardened against the silk of her panties, waiting for more. “Why assume
I
am the villain?”

“You’re the one manipulating me.”

He brought himself up by bracing his hands on either side of her face. “Perhaps, it is time for you to remember more. You’ve been gone a long six months, Blythe. I want you to remember what we shared right before you left. Think back…”

Blythe felt cold and then hot…tingling. As though another mind crowded hers, Gianni’s will pushed her current thoughts to the side and pulled memories from hidden mental tombs. Crashing waves pummeled her, again and again, rolling water drowning her until she finally pushed to the surface and took a steady gasp. She shook her head to clear it, and the past unfolded:

“
Are you comfortable in your restraints?” Gianni was too hungry today; she heard it in his voice. Powerful hands stroked the globes of her ass, massaging on the down stroke.

A long chain hung from the ceiling, securing her by lined wrist cuffs. “Yes.”

A whip across her thighs, it breached the point of pain without going over the line.

“
Yes, Sir.” A cool bead of perspiration dripped down her nape, similar to the moisture now saturating her inner thighs. He lowered his naked body down her front, scraping flesh on flesh. “Master, I am so alive with you.”

“
As I am with you, pet.” He lowered completely, a royal at her feet. “Since birth, I have never knelt before another, not even my father.” His knees touched the floor, hands spreading her ankles wide with massaging hands. One snap secured her shackle to the floor, followed by the second one. Some days his erotic obsession, his obsession with her, demanded he completed this in vampiric speed. Other days, like today, he savored his possession of her – moving ever so slowly.

His long hair wrapped her foot. A wet tongue curled around her toes, suckling each one until he moved up and kissed the inside of her arch. “Everything adored; I leave nothing untouched. For you see me as your master, yet you hold the power of my release.”