“You were disgusted by what you caught sight of in the morning court, the whipping of a male. But, in my court, Donors are punished with pleasure. Observe.”
Volos stood behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist just under her breasts. The lapping water moved his cock back and forth against her hip and his breathing kicked up, stroking her neck. She tensed, knowing his fangs were so close, so very close to her vein.
“Shh,” he whispered against her ear. “Settle down, my little Donor. I will take care of you.”
She bit the inside of her cheek not to retort. Yet her attention was quickly torn away from the prince’s condescending arrogance, when a delicate woman with blonde curls and golden skin was hoisted above a platform beneath an open roof gazebo. The Gryph tying each of her limbs in four directions didn’t look angry. No, he looked hungry, particularly after he stood back and admired his work. His focus determined on the woman’s plump flesh between her legs.
“A Donor,” Volos explained, his lips brushing her ear. Isla couldn’t imagine what they were about to do, but when she tried to turn away, Volos gently cupped her chin. “I only require you to watch one punishment, and then we can leave.” He pulled her back against his chest, his body reclining with the current of a natural spring.
The Gryph boomed in a thundering voice, “Confess your wrongdoings to your prince, Donor.”
“I-I fed a Species vampire who visited court.”
Gasps sounded from all around, Volos going rigid against Isla’s frame. He whispered in Isla's ear. "She's committed the same offense three times this week, hoping I'll be the one to punish her instead of the Gryphs."
"She's wanting your punishment?" Isla asked.
"Exactly."
“Prepare.” The Gryph unzipped his pants, his bulging cock rippled with extra ridges. Even against the majesty of his enormous wings, his straining erection caught Isladora’s immediate attention. His hands moving across her ankles, the Gryph checked the Donor’s ties, before he spread her legs further apart. Another Gryph moved in front to support her head, though his cock, also with multiple ridges, swiped her mouth for entry. She gave him a greedy smile, licking out to catch the fluid from his cock. He smiled down at her, his wings lifting up and snapping out. He was beautiful yet ferocious.
The Gryph behind her moved between her legs and quickly slapped her ass with the flat of a belt. She whimpered, wiggling to get away, but then she arched for more. His hand rose again, hitting the right cheek straight in the middle. She screamed out, her cheek a reddening flame. But the Gryph never rubbed away the pain, only adding more to her opposite cheek.
Before her, the other Gryph was studying her, his stomach shuddering with every lash she received. He reached under her throat, tilted her head back on the last smack and touched his cock to her tongue.
Between her thighs, the opposite Gryph opened her dripping lips, pulling them wide with his thumbs, and showed the observers her blatant arousal over his punishment.
Volos’ breath drifted over Isla's throat. “See how tender he is to her sex? His hands so soft.” His tongue laved at her pulse point.
The Gryph lifted the Donor's hips, positioning her. And Isladora had no idea how the Donor would accept such a cock. He settled his bluish head right at the Donor’s opening and slammed inside, spearing her halfway. His tight buttocks moved in and out, slowly, getting her adjusted. Isla clenched her fingers under the water, wanting to move them over her clitoris. Just one swipe and she would explode.
Volos kept her chin in his head, his mouth dipping lower, around her collarbone as the Gryph quickened his pace. The Gryph at the Donor’s mouth could only fit his head inside, much the way Isla would do with her males, and she imagined them there. Their hands would be opening her, their tongues licking her offering, her body restrained but willing.
A white-hot daze threaded Isla. She struggled for composure but it was no use. Her sex hot and swollen, she squeezed her thighs together, relishing a sudden rush of water whirling over the neediest part of her. A strangled shout erupted from the woman accepting the two Gryph cocks, but Isla’s eyes drifted shut.
She was lost.
Sinking in a billowing white cloud, her hips undulating faster, Isla's legs opened back up as another current rushed between her thighs. As the Donor screamed her merciless climax, Isla cried out, too. “Oh!”
“Um,” Volos groaned, his mouth working familairy against her throat.
“Ah!” Isla’s thighs started twitching, a rush of answering warmth rolling down her inner walls. Another swallow from Volos against her throat, as his tension fueled Isla’s orgasm. Volos moaned in her ear when she released into Lapis de Lune.
Isla gasped when Volos withdrew his fangs, licking her pinpricks closed. “Y-you fed from me?”
“Watch yourself,” he warned sternly, his eyes touching on the others. He snapped his fingers and a vampire waited at the lagoon entry with towels. Volos’ hands slid beneath her back and knees and lifted her to his chest, carrying her out of the water.
Meanwhile, Isla was trying to find the soreness she associated from feedings but it wasn’t there. In fact, her body felt divine, all relaxed and supple. But her heart was lead, weighed with longing for her males. If she could hold them once more, just tell them…that after scant days she…Did she love them?
She placed the flat of her hand over her chest. Could she feel love this soon? Isla understood immortals did, but she was a mere mixed blood, a fraction of that gene pool. But if she didn’t know better…She froze. Hands were drying off her body, their tender glides going between her sex and soaking up the water. “I can get that, thank you.” She snatched the towel from the attending vampire, her face flushing anew, and secured it beneath her arms. Lifting her robe from the chair, she started walking.
Already in his robe, Volos’ hand stroked back the wet chunks of midnight hair falling in Isla’s face. “I think werewolf mixed bloods are the most beautiful.”
She kept her mouth shut until they walked inside the palace, going the opposite way in the corridor as where they’d entered. “So you’ve had a lot of mixed bloods?” Pulling the robe over her arms, she dropped the towel and kept walking.
He raised a brow, countering her with a question, “So, how was your experience with me, when compared to Italy?”
Far different. “I can’t believe…,” she stopped and tied her sash. How could she not believe he’d fed from her? She was a Donor and he was a Dynasty Vampyr. It went with the territory, right? But she hadn’t realized he was doing it, until her eyes were crossing in ecstasy.
“That I fed from you?” He led them to a hallway filled with Gryphs standing at attention. Isla guessed them to be just out of Youngling status. All were scary, intimidating, but after seeing the two Gryphs by the pool taking the Donor, she saw them in a sexier light. “Actually, I only swallowed a few tablespoons. You are understandably skittish. Therefore, I needed to see your reaction to my bite.”
She rubbed her throat. “You made me climax.”
He shrugged gracefully. “Apart from your throat, I never touched you. Your climax was your climax.”
He had her there. “But why did you…I mean you could have had anyone recondition me?” She hated those words the minute she’d said them, but there were no logical discussions with vampires…besides Oycher.
He didn’t answer her. They walked in silence a few minutes before he said, “The Pack that tried to claim you requests that I agree to a Donor exchange program.”
“Yes, I was to work with Donors,” she said quietly, when they reached glossy ebony doors.
“Working with Donors?” He stared down at her, raising a gilded eyebrow. “Or would you consider yourself a possible ambassador for your kind?”
She knew he didn’t mean werewolf, but Isla had never before wanted to consider herself a ‘kind’. But maybe that was her problem. She was a Donor, after all. And in the immortal world, she was, in fact, in a certain classification of species. “When you put it that way, yes, I would be an ambassador.” If given the opportunity, she thought, lifting her hands. “But I could never do that from here.”
“Because that would be one-sided,” he agreed. “So how would you even out, as the humans say, the playing field?”
“I would have to leave here.”
“Would that be an even trade?”
“It’s my understanding that the Alpha would align Donors to move in and out of the monarchy for feedings, like a rotation.” She shuffled her bare feet. “I guess that would mean me, too.” Was he actually contemplating this? Could it be possible?
“If I were to consider opening such arms with Pack, I would require a true ambassador. A Donor who would be willing to represent the monarchy’s…”
“Softer side,” she filled in. But where would she find this softer side? For the morning’s entertainment, he’d had someone whipped in the center of court.
“Yes, I want Donors to realize pleasures await them here, at their fingertips.”
She looked away, rolling that thought around.
“Yes?” He lifted her chin with an elegant fingertip.
“I can’t say it.” She dismissed the thought. “You’ll think it’s biased, and it probably is, given my background with your kind. But it’ll also get me punished.”
“This once, I will forgive.” He released her chin. “Go on.”
“I’ll never expect you to treat us as your equals, but we’re more than food. And until you really weave us into the monarchy, as having a station beyond pampered or punished pets, nothing will work out.” Isla bravely placed a hand on his arm. “I don’t think genetics and underworld crime are the only reasons Donors are so rare. I think their rarity is also a result of the monarchy’s behavior as a whole. The werewolves want you to stop feeding from us. You want the werewolves to give us up and turn us over to you. We need our…” That part escaped her. They needed a voice, but an ambassador pulled between two factions would never move concerns along. There would always be bickering.
His eyes narrowed. “Surely, you are not suggesting your own faction.”
Was that even possible? “I think I should quit while I’m ahead.”
“I agree.” A slight nod. “But you have given me a newer insight, a perspective from your kind, and that is rare for someone my age.”
She didn’t think he looked past twenty-five, but that was vampire genetics talking. And she would never compliment the male who took her from her males in order to dictate her life, as if she were his. “You could always send me home, and we’ll call it even.”
He stood perfectly still for several seconds, staring down at her. “I need you to feed a vampire in the infirmary.” Volos cupped her elbow and pulled her through the ebony doors. “You did well with my bite, so you should be fine giving blood in a healing capacity.”
Humans did this all the time; she reminded herself when they walked the black floors. Still, fear kicked in when she spied the first vampire flattened on a marble slab inside the first partition. Intricate nets hanging from the ceiling supported his wings. “He’s alive?” He sure didn’t look it.
“Yes. This is Fedor,” Volos said quietly, “my Master Gryph. He fought to bring down Renaldo, risking his life for others. Would you go willingly to his mouth, offering your vein to save him?”
She took a deep breath. “He doesn’t deserve to die. I-I would.” Then she paused. “But he doesn’t need Donor blood. He’s not a Dynasty Vampyr.”
“Correct.” They moved to the next partition, where a familiar blonde warrior rested. His ashen face looked crumpled, his neck turned at an odd angle.
“Sage,” she gasped on a horrified whisper. “He looks terrible.”
“He looks better than he did,” Volos said quietly. “I understand he saved your mixed blood friend from Renaldo, a creature stronger than him due to the fact he’d ingested immortal blood. If Sage had come to you, asking for nourishment to heal his ravaged body, would you have donated?”
“Yes,” she said unwavering.
“Considering you are a drug to his kind, and he might not be able to stop drinking?”
She knew all of this. “I would trust Sage.”
His lips lifted into a genuine smile, and it was ethereal, even blinding. “Then I will show you to the male I whipped this morning in the square.”
How could he say those words so easily, as though he’d done the male a favor? “He’s who I’m feeding?”
“Yes.”
“You whipped another Dynasty Vampyr?” Although she hadn’t watched, she’d never forget the sounds echoing through the court. The cut of the lashes and the corresponding grunts would stay with her for eternity.
“No.” He waved his hand to the next patrician. “I whipped a Vojak.”
“Oycher!” She ran to him, almost throwing herself on his chest, until she had enough mind to stop. He was a mess. She turned rage-filled eyes on Volos. “How could you have done this to him!”
“Watch yourself.” He stepped closer, and Isla stood between Oycher and Volos. “His punishment should have been death for harboring you. The only reason he is breathing is because he and your co-mate brought Renaldo to final death. Oycher appreciatively accepted my alternative punishment as opposed to his final death.”
“I’ll never understand you!”
“Moja žena, hush,” Oycher said weakly.
She glanced at his dry lips. “You’ve offered him no blood? You tested me first?”
“You question me too much Donor,” Volos said sternly, his finger tracing the ruby necklace that currently burned like a brand. “But I will offer explanation on this day that I have been most generous. On the Commanding Vojak’s wedding day, he consumes the blood of his Bride, no other.”
Her throat tightened. “His wedding day?”
“Can commence as soon as you feed him, and he regains strength to take you as a male should.”
She reached up to the necklace, wrapping her hand around his. “This necklace.”
“Is from your Vojak, a wedding gift of flawless rubies the color of dripping blood, do you offer yours freely?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation.
“And if the ceremony keeps your Donor blood intact, do you offer to be the first Donor who moves between the earth’s realm and the miasma of my court to feed Dynasty Vampyrs?”