Jerking Linda’s head up by her hair, Isabelle sank her own fangs into the girl’s vulnerable neck, ignoring her startled cry of pain. Her hips writhing against Matthew’s mouth as he left her thigh and latched onto her clit again, she swallowed the hot, rich flow of Linda’s blood, another climax engulfing her.
Her strength at its maximum, it only took a twist of her wrist to snap Linda’s neck and toss her body onto the cold stone floor. A wave of her hand had one of the blood stained wooden stakes on the far wall flying across the room and embedded in her chest. Within seconds she was nothing but ashes and Isabelle didn’t give her another thought as Matthew looked up at her with fearful eyes, his mouth and chin damp from her juices, his fangs dripping from her blood. Smiling, she grabbed his arms and hauled him up her body with no effort, the feel of his hard cock against her damp, still needy pussy enough to let him live a little longer.
“Please, mistress,” he pleaded as he pushed into her pussy, more eager to please her than he was to find his own release.
“You know what I like, baby. Give it to me.”
He rammed into her hard, over and over, fucking her with deep, lunging strokes, his hips jack hammering so fast and hard she could do nothing but lie there and take the brutal, pleasurable assault. Another climax ripped through her, had her crying out in ecstasy as she gave him the pleasure of her bite. Because he was a favorite, she allowed him to climax before she took a razor sharp nail and slit his throat, what little blood he had left splashing on her chest before she tossed his body on top of Linda’s ashes and staked him, his disintegrating corpse joining hers.
Rogues were relatively easy to kill as long as you followed up by piercing the heart. But a member of the brethren was much more difficult, their powers much stronger than those possessed by their underlings. Now all that was left to do was figure out how to stop the brethren from interfering with her again.
Chapter Three
Abrielle stopped in front of the closed, eight foot high, rod iron gates that led into Damien’s property and took a deep, fortifying breath. She refused to let her trepidation overrule her determination to confront Damien about last night. As far as she was concerned, they had crossed the barrier of guardian and ward last night and she, for one, didn’t intend to put that barrier back up. After three years, she still didn’t know what the sudden appearance of the red, crescent shaped mark on her breast meant. The same mark Damien bore on his right palm. Even though she had asked him repeatedly about the coincidence, he had refused to give any credence to its significance. They both knew she wouldn’t fall for an inane explanation such as coincidence, and she was glad he had never offered one. However, his silence on the matter was just as upsetting as an out-right lie would have been.
They were meant to be together, of that she was convinced, and last night only solidified her conviction and she wasn’t about to let him off the hook. She had spent the day stewing over his rejection, vacillating between anger and despair, anger finally having won out. Closing her store an hour early, she had set out to confront Damien once and for all and she wasn’t leaving without a few answers. His historic plantation mansion loomed majestically at the end of the Weeping Willow tree lined drive, the wide, lower and upper verandas supported with tall white columns barely discernible in the deepening dusk. Abby had such fond memories of the times he had brought her here as a child, cherished memories that erased the bad figments of her past. Not only Damien, but other members of his household had lavished her with much needed attention, spoiled her outrageously by giving her everything she wanted, so she figured they were all partially to blame that she was going to pitch a fit over not getting what she wanted now.
Rolling down her window, she punched in the access code for the gates and drove through as soon as they slid open. Damien had top notch security measures in place which included cameras that fed live feed into his security room manned with computers that picked up movement all around the huge estate, so he would know she had arrived. He just wouldn’t know how far she was willing to go to get what she wanted.
Parking right in front, she stormed up the steps, slammed through the seven foot tall double doors calling out, “Damien!” before turning to the right and heading to the front parlor where she heard voices.
“Abby!” Luc greeted her warmly from where he was lounging on a wide, antique chair. He looked utterly ridiculous with his large frame sprawled negligently in such a fragile, delicate chair, but these men didn’t seem to have a care about the priceless antiques that filled Damien’s home. “What brings you out here on a Saturday night, darlin’?”
“Damien,” she bit out. Fisting her hands on her hips, she glared at Luc, Jon and Jacob when they remained silent. “Where is that blood sucking son of a bitch?”
“I don’t appreciate you maligning my sainted mother, ma petite. She was a good woman.”
Abby whirled around to find Damien standing behind her. Damn, that man always could move without a sound. “If she was so good, she would’ve taught you it is rude to enter a woman’s bedroom uninvited, and doubly rude to hide in a corner and watch…” She paused in her tirade, remembering they had an audience.
“Leave us,” Damien ordered his brethren quietly, his eyes never leaving Abby’s furious face. He glared at Jacob when he squeezed Abby’s shoulder reassuringly on his way out, but his friend simply raised a brow before shutting the door behind them, leaving Damien alone with Abby in the candle lit, cozy room.
“It’s Mardi Gras, Abby. Why are you here instead of out partying with your friends?” Not that he wanted her partaking in some of the raunchier activities going on in the Quarter this weekend. But he certainly didn’t have the right to keep her from having fun.
“Because I want to be with you, Damien. Why?” she asked plaintively, her anger slipping a notch as she recalled all the Mardi Gras’ he and the others had taken her to. Dressing her
up in costume, taking her on rides, joining in on the games with her, watching her overindulge in sweets and fun all while keeping her away from the adult goings on. “Why did you leave me last night? For that matter, why did you come at all?” Lifting her hand, she rubbed the side of her breast, hoping to ease the soft pulse of her mark. But that only succeeded in making her nipples even tighter, her pussy wetter. Tall and lean with roped muscles that rippled when he moved, ink black hair and eyes the color of dark chocolate, he was every woman’s fantasy. And he was hers.
Damien felt his incisors threaten to emerge when she caressed her mark, an action that did nothing to ease the demanding, erotic pulse in his palm or the erection he had been sporting since he saw her drive up. “Stop that,” he ordered her gruffly. “It won’t do any good, so leave it be.”
“Why? What will help this ache? You’ve never told me what these signs mean, but I can guess. We’re supposed to be together, Damien. You know it, I know it. Why are you fighting it?”
Damien had to steel himself against the tears threatening to spill down her flushed cheeks as well as the urge to throw her down on the two hundred year old area rug and fuck her senseless. He had to turn away from her in order to get himself under control. Striding over to a small sidebar that was kept stocked mainly for appearances, he poured himself a glass of whiskey and downed it in one gulp, an action he would probably pay for later. While he didn’t need food or beverages to live, he could swallow small amounts of both without any discomfiting side effects.
“We can’t be together and that’s all I’m going to say on the matter, Abrielle. Go home, forget last night ever happened and we’ll go back to being friends.”
“Friends,” she sneered at his back, her heart breaking. He had given her everything she ever wanted, yet now he was refusing her the one thing she wanted more than anything else. “Are you going to continue taking me to movies you don’t want to see, out for pizza and ice cream that you don’t eat? I’m not a child anymore, Damien.”
The vivid image of her sprawled naked, her fingers moving in and out of her pink, wet sheath, would be forever imprinted on his brain, a constant reminder that she was a woman, his mate. Unfortunately, that image would forever be paired with the image of another young, vibrant woman; only this woman didn’t look nearly as beautiful as Abby after she climaxed under him and then died in his arms. Aside from Isabelle and Marie, she was the one and only woman he had taken blood from and in order to stick to that resolve, he had to deny himself the one thing he wanted above all others – his mate. He knew from listening to and watching his brethren with their mates that along with the urge to fuck came an equally strong urge to taste the sweet elixir of their chosen one’s blood, an act that enhances the pleasure and bond. Maybe combining the two, sex and taking her blood, was different with one’s mate, his friends said it was so, but they had never been driven to the depths of madness Isabelle had driven him, and didn’t have the consequences of those actions haunting them as he did.
“I know you’re not a child anymore. As an adult, you should realize, and accept you can’t have everything you want. Go home, Abby,” he said tiredly despite the fact he had only been up an hour.
He was shutting himself off from her, his back rigid, his shoulders held stiffly, as he waited for her to obey. But she wasn’t giving up yet. She had seen enough of him last night to see how much he wanted her, how much he desired her. She refused to admit defeat now without one last-ditch effort to get him to change his mind. Unbuttoning her white blouse, she shoved it open, unhooked the front clasp of her bra and let it hang open, revealing her breasts before saying, “Turn around and tell me to my face that you don’t want me, that you want me to leave.”
Taking a deep breath to fortify himself one more time, he turned to face her, cursing a blue streak when he saw her cupping her full, naked breasts, her fingers toying with her pretty pink nipples. “God damn it, you don’t know what you’re doing. Get dressed,” he bit out as he used herculean effort to keep from shoving her hands aside and replacing them with his own.
Laughing softly, she taunted, “I’ve been touching myself for several years now. I assure you, I know what I’m doing.” Her gaze shifted down to his crotch where his erection was blatant proof he wanted her. “See, you do want me.”
Damien realized he was going to have to take harsh measures to deter her, measures that she won’t like, but he sure as hell would. He knew he was angry that she had driven him to this and that anger made his eyes glow reddish/brown, but it was time she knew exactly who or what, she was dealing with. Lifting his lips just enough to have the pointed tips of his incisors visible, he stalked to her with slow menace. “You should know better than to bait a monster. You’ve claimed you know what I am, but you’ve never actually seen proof, have you?”