“What is your name?” the male asked, grabbing his hips and grinding a semi-rigid length of his erection against Dageus’s taut body before pushing him into another elegant spin. Dageus spun out gently before returning to his arms.
“Dageus Ravyn,” he answered automatically. The man grinned.
“I’m Torren,” the male said cockily. The song ended with a last throbbing bass point before fading into another song.
“Can I buy you a drink?” Torren asked, eyeing the young male with blatant desire. Dageus smiled and cocked his head to the side, reminding himself that his brothers were okay with this. Hell, he thought to himself, perhaps Torren would be the one to help him get over the ridiculous obsession he had with Alex. Maybe he’d imagined the depth of the attraction. Maybe it was just him realizing he was gay that had triggered such an intensity between them.
“Sure,” he heard himself say. Torren took him by the hand and led him away from the dance floor.
Salvatore’s cell phone rang an instant later. Germany had suggested that they all get phones for the duration of their stay. It was a marvelous communication device that allowed them to stay in constant contact. Usually they spoke mind to mind, but over greater distances it was more difficult to maintain. Glancing at the caller ID, Salvatore answered. “You must have some mind-reading capabilities…Yes, I’m watching his potential as we speak…yes he’s dancing…I hardly think that’s relevant…No, a male…I’ll tell him when he gets back… Of course… See you then…
Au revoir
.”
The cell phone shut with an audible snap.
“How odd,” Salvatore commented once the conversation was over.
Tony raised a brow. “What was odd, my lord?”
Salvatore just shook in head. “When Dageus gets back from his drink, remind me to tell him that he is due at the theater in three hours’ time.” The brothers looked shocked.
“My lord, we don’t trust him,” Germany interjected. The quietest of the bunch rarely voiced his opinion, but when he did, it was a powerful influence.
“Don’t you think I know that, my Ravyn?” Salvatore asked, his eyes taking on a serious light. They leaned forward to listen to their lord’s next words.
“We’ll watch Dageus and Alex interact for a while, allow Dageus to awaken this new passion of his, and then break the bond between Dageus and the Master of Haven. Given enough time, our magicks should be able to disrupt Alex’s enough to break it. The Master will be unhappy, but Dageus will be free.”
They all nodded at his genius, content to rely on his judgment. Salvatore just prayed that Dageus would forgive them for it.
* * * *
“So how long have you been in Haven?” Torren asked as Dageus downed another shot of Patron. Dageus hadn’t meant to order the most expensive drink at the bar, but he’d asked Torren for a suggestion, and it was what he’d recommended. Dageus watched the male look him up and down and smiled to himself. The Ravyn would make sure that the time and money he was spending on him was worth it. “A couple months,” Dageus offered evasively, obviously trying his hand at flirting. Torren smiled. He’d told him earlier that he thought Dageus’s innocence was sweet.
“So, listen, I was thinking,” Torren said, working up his courage, “How about we grab dinner and a movie tomorrow?” Dageus looked shocked and then promptly blushed. He opened his mouth to reply in the affirmative but was cut off.
“I’m afraid that would not be at all possible,” a dark, menacing voice interjected. “In fact I think it best if you never speak to him again.”
Dageus, startled, turned his head to look behind him to find one very pissed-off vampire glaring daggers in his direction.
“A–Alex?” he stuttered. Torren’s eyes narrowed considerably.
“If I would’ve known he was spoken for, I would’ve never asked,” he replied, his honor bristling at the pure note of accusation in Alex’s voice. Dageus’s temper flared.
“I’m not spoken for,” he snapped in annoyance.
Alex’s brows shot up. With an inhuman hiss, he grabbed Dageus’s arm and hauled him off of the barstool. The bouncers, seeing trouble, made their way toward them.
“Excuse me, sir,” one of them began. Alex whirled around, Dageus’s arm still in his grip, and glared. The big man’s eyes widened. “Oh sorry, my lord. I didn’t recognize you. Do you want us to escort that one out of the club?” he asked, pointing toward Torren’s frozen form.
He shook his head. “No need, Charles. Thank you.” Dageus snarled at the dismissal in his voice. Torren quietly excused himself from the bar stool.
Dageus looked on in dismay as Torren left the bar. “Now look at what you’ve done!”
Alex snarled right back. “Mine!” he roared like a Neanderthal. Dageus gave a great mental push against the Master of the City. He staggered, but his grip on Dageus didn’t loosen. Dageus winced, knowing the vampire was leaving bruises.
“How dare you…” Alex whispered menacingly. Dageus glared at him and opened his mouth to tell him where to get off. One moment they were standing by the bar, moments away from a fist fight with the other four Ravyns riding to the rescue, and the next they were gone. Alex apparently needed a much more private setting to continue the conversation.
Chapter Seventeen
“What the fuck was that?” Dageus demanded, landing with a hard thud on the stage of the darkened theater across town. Anger coursed through his blood like a heady wine, and he shot to his feet to glare at the vampire. Alex stood there, a statute. Pure, unadulterated rage poured through Dageus, directed toward the son of a bitch that interjected himself into his life.
“How could you even consider going anywhere with that poor excuse for a dancer?” Alex hissed, a deep pain in his tone. The insult obviously meant a great deal to him. “He is nothing.”
Dageus rolled his eyes. “Are you kidding me? I was going to dinner and a movie with the guy, maybe get seduced and wake up next to someone I want for once! I finally get the balls to admit to my brothers that I’m gay, and I finally go to pick someone up to show them, and you show up! Can’t you see you’ve done enough in my life? I wasn’t exactly prepared to explain that I didn’t like girls. With that little display at the theater, you cornered me! Damn you, Alex! Damn you to hell!” he screamed. Even he hadn’t realized he felt that way until that moment. He resented the shit out of the vampire for making him acknowledge his desires. The tenderness that he’d felt for Alex the night before faded with an uncompromising fear. He struck suddenly.
Alex’s head whipped back from the blow, his bottom lip blossoming with blood, and it sprayed across the stage from the whiplash. Dageus heard a low growl before he was knocked off his feet to the floor. He snarled, pushing against the invisible hands that held him in place. Alex stood over him. His eyes glowed a faint red, the blue in them disappearing with his anger. He stood silently above him while Dageus regained his breath. Alex’s eyes flashed with anger when he caught sight of the healing marks on Dageus’s neck that disappeared under his shirt line.
Not saying a word, Alex bundled up the two ends of the shirt in his hands and tore it apart to reveal the wide expanse of his chest.
“What the hell are you doing?” Dageus demanded, still unable to move, held in place by the Master’s power. “I just bought that shirt, you jack ass!”
Surprisingly tender hands touched his torn flesh. Dageus felt his body being picked up by invisible hands. The hands continued to soothe, caressing the bruises left by his brothers.
“Did they hurt you for letting me touch you?”
Dageus struggled at the question. “None of your damn business!” he hissed with a little less force than before. His body was turning pliant under the gentle strokes of the vampire. It was hard to hold onto the anger when Alex was touching him. Regret was tickling at the edge of his senses for striking out at the vampire, even if he was almost healed just in the few seconds since. He felt the first stirrings of arousal. It wasn’t the starved passion of before but a desire almost like love.
Alex’s face hardened. “Did they hurt you because of me?” he demanded, his voice taking on an inhuman note. The mental strength of his mind tightened around Dageus’s body. Dageus cried out in pain. Immediately the pressure lessened. “Sorry,” Alex muttered.
Dageus sighed in defeat, oddly aroused and breathless from being held down. “They didn’t hurt me because I like boys. They didn’t hurt me because I was with you,” he offered, relaxing into the power that swirled around him. Alex took a tentative hand and put it on his cheek.
“Then why, pet? Why did they hurt you? It was the Ravyns, wasn’t it?”
“It was my penance,” Dageus found himself saying, knowing that he didn’t need to offer the explanation but somehow feeling that he owed it to him. “I broke the loyalty of my brotherhood. I kept something from them that is an integral part of my soul. As Ravyns, we don’t have any secrets. We are one. Keeping something as important as my sexual preference from them indicated that I didn’t trust them.” He paused. “It was disloyal of me. You were just the physical indicator of my preference. I hurt them because I kept it secret. When you break a sacred law, you must offer yourself to the judgment of the brothers. Through the physical punishment we are drawn closer. It is a manifestation of the pain we have inflicted on each other. It was”—he struggled for a word—“intense. I’ll heal by tomorrow, though,” he added as if to justify the bruises. The power released him, but he was caught by the arms of the Master.
“Never again,” Alex whispered, kissing him on the lips. “Mine.” Dageus fought his attraction to the man with everything he was. He didn’t know why, but he felt like he would lose himself if he gave in to this man.
“No.” He gasped as Alex switched tactics and laid nipping, licking, bites to his neck instead. “Stop! I can’t think when you’re doing that!” Dageus moaned.
Alex caught his chin in his steady hands and proceeded to kiss him senseless. The kiss itself was a punishment. Hard. Demanding. His lips branded Dageus’s own with the strength of Alex’s will. Dageus was left gasping as his tongue was coaxed into a mating dance with the vampire’s.
Sweet
.
His lips are so very sweet
.
“I missed you so much,” Alex admitted against his lips. “My Kal, My Dageus. The name doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you’re here.” Dageus felt his heart expand at the words. He’d never had anyone speak to him like he was the center of their world. The power in that admission was a heady thing. Alex allowed Dageus to regain control of his arms, and they snaked their way into his hair. Alex smirked, but Dageus couldn’t work up the energy to care. He was lost in his vampire again.
Take me, Dageus thought feverishly. Please, take me like before.
* * * *
Alex caught the thought as it crossed his companion’s mind, followed by a barrage of images from the “dreams” Dageus had been having. Memories, really. Fantasies, definitely. Alex got hot thinking about the image of him making love on this very stage. He remembered the tight depths of Kal’s body as if it was yesterday. The love had shown in his eyes as Alex had taken him hard for the first time.
Kal and Alex’s cell phones went off simultaneously. Both pulled back from the embrace with a curse. Alex released Dageus completely from his power, and they flipped open their phones in unison.
“
Where the hell are you
!?” Someone’s voice was audible from where Alex stood, the screech causing Dageus to wince and pull the cell away from his ear. Alex let him deal with the mess with the Ravyns and answered his own phone.
“Hello?” he asked softly, aware that his voice still held a faint note of desire.
“You took my Ravyn almost three hours early.” The voice on the other line was deadly.
Alex sighed. “Salvatore, so pleasant to hear from you,” he said sarcastically. “I took him early because you let some would-be hustler pick him up at my club, and I didn’t want him to have any distractions tonight when he dances.”
Alex said the half truth smoothly without a ripple of unease. Chess. Life was a game of strategy, and no one knew that better than the vampire.