Blood-Bonded by Force (7 page)

Thomal lurched forward a step. “Then take me.”

Chapter Eight

Thomal was a soldier. Any given day on the job, he faced pain and death from a state of mental calm. Dancing Le Freak while in hot water never helped a man save his ass. But, right now he was skirting embarrassingly close to a full-on panic attack, his heart lodged like a gooey lump in his throat and his head trying to do a James Bond
shaken not stirred
number off his neck into outer space. Because it was an absolute certainty that if he didn’t convince this skeezy ’ho to leave Arc alone, his brother was going to die, and living even one day of life without his big brother in it was impossible.

Pändra tilted her head to one side as she considered him. “Are you promising to be a good little egg, is that it, all agreeable to my…appetites?”

Thomal drew in a deep, steadying breath. “Yes,” he forced between parched lips. “If that’s what you want.”

Mürk voiced his dissent with a, “My arse.”

Pändra glanced at her brother.

“He’s talkin’ tommy rot,” Mürk said to her. “Tryin’ to trick you into something.”

“Well, he’s right about him.” She nodded at Arc. “The bloke looks manky.”

Mürk’s face grew tight. “Are you forgettin’ this is my show, Pändra?”

Thomal blazed a look at Mürk. “If you want Arc to suffer, Om Rău, you’ll get your wish. I’m his brother, and he’ll hate it if she takes me instead.”

“It’s an interesting proposal, Mürk.” Pändra crossed to Thomal and unlocked him. His chains clattered to the floor. “All righty. Let’s see what you’re offering, vamp.”

Thomal stood in place, rubbing the ache from his wrists. What he was offering?

“Your body,” Pändra prompted. “I want a gander at you, eh?”

Heat flushed over him. He flared his nostrils as he kicked off his shoes and socks, then peeled his jeans down his hips and stepped out of them. Finally, he jerked his T-shirt off and his underwear.

Pändra’s gaze roamed over his naked body, raking him boldly from head to foot.

The muscles in Thomal’s stomach flexed and released, echoing the back-and-forth chaos that had just lit off inside his brain. Being treated like a slab of meat wasn’t exactly his idea of a day at the park, but also…the feminine appreciation in Pändra’s expression was very genuine, and undeniably arousing.

“Now your bum.” Pändra twirled her index finger in the air. “Turn around.”

He turned, anger and tension throbbing in his head.

“Bloody ’ell,” Mürk uttered. “Another one of those dragons on his back.”

Thomal completed his circuit and faced Pändra again. Arc’s strained and shallow breathing created a bizarre counterpoint to his own harsh breaths.

“You’re a right fine piece, vamp.” Pändra’s eyes were bright black, like rain over tar. “I believe we have ourselves an accord. Get on the mattress and lie on your back, spread eagle.” She grabbed her purse and pulled out another length of telephone cord.

Thomal’s gut seized. “You don’t need to tie me down. I told you I won’t fight.”

She gave him a droll, almost bland, look. “For effect, love, for effect.”

He stared at her.

She threaded the cord through her fingers. “My party, my rules.”

“I get that,” he snapped. “It’s just…” He pushed his fingers through the short hair of his flat-top. More chaos in his head. What he had to do next was disgusting, but also…it ignited a primitive fire in his belly, a bloodlust that pounded through him with such feral intensity, thoughts of betraying Hadley were pushed to a barely visible, pinpoint spot at the back of his mind. “I have to bite you first.”

“Come again?”

“I can’t get a boner without your blood in my body, so I have to—”

Arc groaned.

His brother couldn’t see what was going on—Mürk had Arc’s head wrenched back in what had to be a painful angle—but Arc obviously could hear what was happening, and he fully understood the devastating, life-altering consequences of what Thomal was about to do. Well, hey, if there was time to gather a war council and come up with a better way for saving Arc’s life, he’d do it. As it was, he was hanging onto this situation by a thin thread.

“Your brother didn’t need to bite me,” Pändra pointed out.

“That’s because Arc’s married, as I told you. He’s already taken the blood of a woman into his body, so the scent of your blood was enough to get him…him…”

“Proud?”

“Yes,” Thomal ground out. “That’s not the case for me.”
Put two and two together and you’ll figure out I’m a virgin
. Luckily, she wasn’t concentrating on Vârcolac math at the moment, otherwise fuck knew what this cruel skank would’ve done with that intel.

“That’s the biggest load of cack I’ve ever heard,” Mürk declared. “The maggot’s tryin’ to dupe you into lettin’ him bite you so he can drain you dry, Pändra.”

“That’s impossible,” Thomal shot back. “Even if I wanted to do that, I couldn’t. Mother Nature installed a safety valve in Vârcolac, so my fangs will automatically retract once I’ve taken enough blood.” And how fun was it that he was having this entire conversation bare-assed naked? “There are many ways I could kill you, half-Rău, but feeding on you isn’t one.” That much was true. ’Course while his fangs were elongated, he could rip out Pändra’s throat, then get back to the task of dishing pain with Mürk.

A smile flitted across Pändra’s mouth, a genuine one this time, and if it’d remained in place, Thomal had the sense his insides would’ve done weird things. “You know, I like you, vamp. You’re a bit of a brass-neck.” She set down the cord. “All righty, let’s take a whack at it.”

She strode up to him, stopping an inch away.

He swallowed hard. And again. Night and day, black and white, apples and oranges…the difference between how she smelled now, without her ring on, and before went beyond his ability to describe. The closest he could come was to say she smelled somewhat like Tonĩ, who, with her Fey blood, had smelled better than any other Dragon out there, mind-and-crotch-blowingly fantastic—that was, before she’d hooked up with Jaċken and killed her scent for any male but her husband. And Pändra had Fey blood, as did all Topside Om Rău. Still…somehow Pändra smelled even better to him than Tonĩ. Better than Hadley, too, which was a mind-fuck on levels he never thought possible. How could an ice queen like this smell so damned good?

“Was there something else?” Pändra inquired blandly.

“My bite’s going to hurt.”

Her lips curled into an ironic line. “What a perfect gallant you are to warn me.”

He knotted his jaw. “I just don’t want you to think that I’m trying to kill you, half-Rău, and retaliate.”

A Vârcolac’s first bite always hurt. Not only that, but the feel of blood being siphoned from the body often set off a new host’s survival instinct, and when that happened, struggling and screaming came next. Bonded males spoke in soft, guilt-ridden voices about their wives’ first time, and Thomal had never particularly looked forward to that part of his own wedding night. Not in a millennium of years would he have thought he might
relish
the thought of inflicting pain on a host. But with this floozy, he damn well would’ve corked up his fangs and stopped the pleasure elixir of Fiinţă from coming out, if it’d been within his power to do that.

“The very thought of my pain must have you sick as a parrot,” Pändra said in a droll tone. “But no worries, mate, I can hack it.” With a sweep of her hand, she brushed aside her long hair, baring her neck to him. “Feed away.”

Air blasted from his nostrils as his eyes ignited on the smooth flesh of her throat, his Vârcolac vision zeroing in on a particularly juicy artery: the carotid. He watched the steady, throbbing pulsebeat there and his own pulse jerked forward a pace. Bloodlust consumed him, instantly and savagely. His mouth watered and, before he could stop it, a primitive sound broke from him.

Pändra angled a questioning glance at him.

Hands shaking, he set a palm on her bare hip and drew her closer, bringing her breasts to within a bare inch of touching his naked chest. Oxygen seared a path through his lungs. He felt the prick of his fangs against his tongue. He hadn’t even had to think about elongating his fangs, like the concentration it required with a donor. They were just out, ready to puncture a vein and bring him some serious culinary ecstasy.

Sliding his other hand around the back of her nape to hold her in place, he bent his head to her throat and pressed his open mouth to her downy skin, sampling the salty-sweet flavor of her flesh. Something twisted in his gut. She tasted kind of…fresh and outdoorsy, as if she’d gone for a dunk in the ocean earlier today, then washed off with lavender soap. Was this the real Pändra? Thoughts of neck-ripping vanished. His next breath tripped out of him as he found the intoxicating throb of her pulse with his tongue. It was the beat of a necessary life-source. His fangs pulsated to the same rhythm, an exquisite ache running into his upper jaw. He flexed his fingers into Pändra’s supple flesh and groaned.

“Thomal,” Arc wrenched out. “
Don’t
.”

To hell with
don’t
. There wasn’t any such thing as
don’t
anymore.

The hum in his canines told him exactly were to punch in. He inhaled a thick breath, then, with a hard clamping motion of his jaws, he drove his fangs into the velvet softness of Pändra’s throat, sinking in, Jesus, so deep. She barely even reacted to his bite. A small, swift exhale was the only acknowledgement she gave of being virtually stabbed in the neck with a couple of blades.

He came half out of his skin as her warm blood filled his mouth, saturating his tongue with viscous pleasure and forging a path of eternal ecstasy down into his stomach. A growl thundered in his chest. The taste of her was sensation itself: power, heat, potency, energy, elation, life. The earth swayed beneath his feet and bright colors raced across the screen of his closed lids. A tingling warmth started at his toes and spread upward, engulfing him in a sensation he’d never felt before: a feeling of absolute
rightness
. Like his life was clicking exactly into place and he was finally finding the true fit of his skin.

Strength poured through him, Pändra’s Fey blood nourishing him like some violently fantastic drug. Every cell in his body stood up and did a posedown, and his crotch… Something was happening down there. Like the Panama Canal, valves were opening, liquid rising, locks swinging wide. The blockage that kept him from getting erect was
gone
. Blood surged into his cock and swelled him up against Pändra’s belly. Another groan rumbled out of him. Against his tongue, he felt her pulse quicken. Fear? No, it tasted like excitement. A strange thrill coursed through him. He sucked harder, pumping his jaw against her throat to push blood out of her artery even faster. Alarms resonated in his head when he felt his fangs retracting.
No
. He dug deeper into her artery, a misplaced thought racing through his mind that Hadley would’ve hated him for such rough treatment. Then it was over.

As his fangs tucked back into his upper jaw, he staggered a step away from Pändra, the bones in his knees feeling like nuts and bolts clanking around in a tin box. His lungs pumped, and his whole body felt like one big throb: the veins in his head, the aftershocks in his fangs, and his dick—
definitely
that part of his body. His organ wanted to go spelunking right now.

He observed Pändra, and his stomach caught. Her eyes were soft and hazy, the pleasure on her face changing the look of her completely. It was as if that fresh outdoorsy scent of hers
was
her true self, and in a startling flash, he realized this woman wasn’t dead inside, just so ruthlessly contained that her emotions probably rarely saw the light of day.

“Hey,” Mürk butted in. “You okay, Pändra?” More sharply. “Pändra?”

“Yes. Yes, Mürk. That was…” She laughed breathlessly. “Bejesus, you have to get yourself a Vârcolac, brother dear. That was the absolute berries.”

Mürk expelled a
tch
noise. “Well, it worked, whatever it was.”

Her attention drifted down to Thomal’s erection. “So it did,” she murmured.

He followed her look down, and…
thank God
. Shallow of him to do an internal happy dance at this particular moment, maybe, but this was the first time he’d ever seen his organ at full readiness and…he was imposing.

“Time to play sex slave now, vamp.” Pändra flicked her hand. “On the bed you go.”

Thomal’s head came up, his hands jerking into fists, his neck stiffening. The thought of playing “sex slave” was an abomination now. Didn’t this woman know what had just happened between them? What they’d shared by him feeing on her? Couldn’t she feel it?
No
. Whatever tiny softness had been on Pändra’s face before was gone now, so utterly obliterated it was like it’d never happened.

She lifted her chin. “If you’ve decided against being a good egg, no worries.” She indicated Arc with a tilt of her head. “I’ve still got him to play with.”

Thomal clamped his jaw so hard his molars creaked under the pressure. “No,” he said. “I’m still all goodie gumdrops for this trip to the dark side.” Fighting the shakes, he crossed to the bed and lay down. Calling on every ounce of willpower he owned, he spread himself out, stretching his hands and feet toward the corners of the bed.

Chapter Nine