Floating in warmth, Pearl was certain this had to be what heaven might offer—weightlessness, intoxication by a sense of perfection.

Nothing could touch her here.

Nothing, until softness brushed her brow, urging lashes to part to the glow of gold.

Candles burned, flickering soft light off a cracked oil painting. It was the image of a woman tending to goats on a rolling hillside, beautiful by any stretch. The sun shone as if real, more real than the dots of light blurring in the periphery of her vision.

“That, my dear, is our favorite painting. Can you not feel the wind in the bent grass as you look upon it? Seeing it now, I almost remember the scent of a field warmed by summer.”

Shifting, only just growing aware of her body, led water to slosh and splash against her skin. Blurry vision settled on a man so near her face, she could smell the soap on his skin. Following the line of his arm from neck to hands, she found his sleeves were rolled up, his forearms dripping wet and half submerged.

Pearl felt weightless and warm because she was prone, naked, in a copper tub… a stranger hovering over her.

A strong hand came to her jaw, angling her lolling head back to rest on the waiting towel. “It’s only I, your Darius.”

Certain she was drunk, Pearl sucked her bottom lip. It was smeared with flavor. Wine? Or was that bourbon? Reaching up to gather what dripped from the corner of her mouth, she looked to her fingers and found blood.

A deep, perfect red.

Her throat ached to lick it up, craving that crimson bead as she’d never wanted anything before. “I don’t…”

The man winked. “Know how you got here? We were playing a game, and I’m afraid you grew utterly drained.”

Entranced with that red dot, Pearl brought it back to her lips so it would not be wasted.

The man had other ideas.

Catching her wrist, he brought the finger to his lips and sucked it clean.

When she tried to snatch her finger from the heat of his mouth, he pricked her flesh, laughing when she squealed. Then he gave her a dazzling smile.

Two long fangs, milky white, glimmered in the low light. “There is nothing to fear. Look at your finger, Pearl. It is already mending.”

Mouth agape, she was unsure exactly which topic was most in need of immediate attention: the fact she was naked, obviously being bathed by a striking stranger. The fact there was another person like her. One who spoke warmly to her, knew her name, and seemed almost familiar. Or, the fact that her finger was healing right before her eyes.

Nudity was addressed first, both arms slipping so they might cover where her breasts bobbed in steaming water.

This earned a breathy chuckle. “Your shyness strikes me as particularly charming in this moment.”

Knowing her cheeks were a vivid pink, Pearl tried his name. “You said your name was Darius. I don’t… I don’t know you. I don’t know how I got here. Is this the hospital? Have I been ill?”

Red eyes, that’s what they were—red as blood and glowing like an ember ready to set the world to flame. “Darius, yes, and I am at your service, my Pearl. And, yes, you do know me. You know your lover very well, you just don’t remember me. You see, we meet anew each night in your chamber.”

She had to be drugged or ill. Not a word he said made sense.

Neither the painting nor the handsome man held her attention. It was the walls she looked to, the chipped hunks of stone, the lack of windows. She was in a cell, blocked in a corner by a screen that hid the remainder of the room. “Why wouldn’t I remember you?”

Her chin was caught, Pearl made to meet the eye of the stranger. “So that you might be happy, always. Time has a way of twisting our kind. You have the gift of constant newness. Your God has blessed you. He dotes on you.”

“My God?”

“Every day is fresh. Every time I touch you, it’s the first time. Every time I kiss you, you still blush. I am the perpetual bridegroom, and you are my darling treasure. There is much joy to be had in this.”

Men did not speak that way to women; they didn’t look upon them as if they were going to swallow them whole. She sunk lower in the water as if it might shield her from the weight of his gaze.

Darius tutted. “You wish for privacy so you might dry yourself and dress. That is unnecessary. I know your body inside and out. There is no cause to flinch or try to hide in the tub.” He picked up her hand and began to clean dirt from under her nails, no matter how she fought to pull it back. “I shall finish bathing you, I will dry you, I will dress you. Then, I will feed you.”

He made her sound like some doll, tutting and clucking when he found a broken nail or a hanging bit of cuticle. “Such a mess. Be still.”

Be still. The command rang inside her skull, and still she became. She couldn’t move, not even to blink or turn her eyes from his scowl.

Next he soaped her shoulder, the remaining length of her arm, Pearl stiff and unable to respond.

Strangers didn’t touch this way. They didn’t issue unspoken commands that a body was physically incapable of ignoring.

“You may breathe and speak, Pearl.”

Throat dry, Pearl sucked in air. “How did you…”

An impish wink, and he kissed the tips of her clean fingers. “I’m your God, remember?”

“And you said… lover.” She had never had a lover. Men had never touched her for her benefit. They certainly had never buffed her nails. “Have we… umm?”

A subtle twitch came to the corner of the man’s mouth. “Have we umm what?”

He was going to make her say it, Pearl blushing all the harder. “Known one another well?”

Moving slow enough to assure he had her total attention, the man dipped his fingers under the bubbling soap scum. His wrist followed, his forearm. “I have known you in every possible way.”

Fingers crept between her thighs, separating folds, to tease a place that made her gasp when treated to small circles of friction.

His head hovered lower, Darius observing her parted lips and dazed eyes. “You suffer such attention beautifully, and I think you always will. I dare you to tell me you do not enjoy this.”

A noise caught in her throat as he breached her, a single finger wriggling inside that place men liked to damage and use.

Only his attention brought no pain. There were gasps of surprise instead, little sounds coming from lips that spoke of trepidation, confusion, and a drugged hunger for more.

Water began to splash when his exploration grew more vigorous—what had been slow and meticulous became wild and unbearable. Head back against the lip of the tub, Pearl squeezed her eyes shut and found a rush unlike anything she’d known. Before she might stop herself, she cried out and lurched, spilling water and soaking the man’s shirt front.

He pressed a kiss to her slack lips as if she were some sleeping beauty waiting for the prince to wake her. “That is only a taste of what we have shared.”

In her wide, dazed eyes sat sluggish relief. This was no monster…

Hovering over her mouth, he smiled again. “Kiss me, my Pearl. Kiss me, and I shall be sweet.”

Kissing was not a familiar activity any more than the odd sensations of having a man touch her gently between her legs. All the others had shunted in ugly, hard flesh for their own pleasure. Usually they drew blood.

Certain now that she was drunk, ill, completely mad, she gave in and pressed her lips to his—because all of this had to be a dream, and rare sweet dreams should be savored.

There was an instant reward. His fingers went back to teasing that magical place even as his tongue tangled and teased hers. Moaning under him, unsure why her body moved as it did, Pearl gripped the edges of the tub as if that might anchor her in this wonderful sensation.

As she was about to crest, shatter, and be reborn, he stopped. Pulling his fingers from the fluttering hungry part of her body, his lips followed suit. A string of spittle stretching between them before it snapped. “Stand. I want to look at you all clean and shining in candlelight.”

She leveraged her weight against the tub, completely graceless as she fought feeble legs to stand. Without the comfort of the water, she felt like death warmed over.

“Ungh.” Unsteady, she swayed, and muttered, “I have been ill.”

Seated on his stool, he began to touch the tottering woman, humming approval when she leaned into his hands for support. “Fragile little kitten, you’re hungry.” He crooked his fingers, commanding her from the tub and to his lap. “Come.”

Ravenous, in fact. Swallowing, she looked to the thigh he indicated should serve as her seat, and muttered a dazed, “I’m wet. I’ll leave a mark.”

“Yes, you are. Now obey me. Come.” Flat out chuckling, he gave her hand a yank. She tripped from the tub, caught in his arms, and draped over his knee.

Breathless, she gawked over her shoulder when he set his hand to her rump and explored. As he leered and toyed between her cheeks, she felt more and more the prostitute and less the lover.

Exposed, weak, and growing cold, she sucked her lower lip between her teeth and tried to push away.

“No wriggling!”

She heard the sound of the smack before it registered how hard he’d struck her.

The flesh of her ass jiggled, stung horribly, and would bruise. But it was her pride that was far more damaged. Red faced, mortified and aching, she shook her head but had no words.

“Had you sat as you’d been told, I would have cuddled you dry with sweet kisses and soft words.” Drawing up a soft towel from where it rested beside the bath, he began to blot droplets away from her bowed back. He palmed her ass, squeezed that bruised flesh, and grinned when she looked away in shame. “I’m only teasing, Pearl. Who could resist such a view?”

Gently he turned her, sat the shamefaced woman on his knee and pressed a tender kiss to her temple. “We were playing a game before you fell asleep. I think we should play another.”

Aching, aroused, unwell, and starving she sighed. “I’m not very good at games.”

Nuzzling her wet hair, he whispered, “But you win so often.”

“I’m cold.”

“You owe me one more kiss.” He was already at her mouth, sucking the trapped lip from her teeth before he added, “One more kiss, then we play a new game.”

The pressure, the friction, even the sharp edges of his teeth, all of it was his doing. She was trapped under the onslaught, gasping for air and shocked to feel the stirrings return between her thighs. But as it was, she could not kiss him, not with his tongue already in her mouth. If that was his game, she had no way to win. All she could do was try to make words that were swallowed, ignored, and grunted at.

But she was growing warm again. Every last attention he lavished on her felt… nice.

A rush grew in the place he’d explored under the water, a plumpness Pearl did not recognize that made her want to press harder to his thigh, and forget the lingering soreness of her ass.

When he gave her a moment of breath, she panted, found herself squirming, and just about fainted when he suddenly took her nipple between his teeth. “Is this the game?”

Grunting a non-answer, those long teeth he’d used to cut her thumb were planted into her breast. Sucking her nipple, tonguing it, a mix of searing pain and unknown pleasure mingled as he drank the scant blood that ran.

Pulling his mouth from her breast, teeth red with her blood, those eyes burned with hellfire. “Bite me.”

Gawking at the small trickle of blood that ran from her skin, staring at the man who’d left the mark of his mouth on her, Pearl felt her gums tingle. When she tongued each tip, she found two teeth descended, far too short to even break skin.

Reaching up to touch the useless tips with her finger, shocked she hadn’t noticed earlier, she balked. “They’re gone.”

The fervent stranger didn’t care. He took her hair and drew her mouth to his neck.

The smell she found there set her to salivating. The needle-like pain on her scalp from his overly enthusiastic grip forgotten as her tongue traced a pulsating vein.

The man moaned in a way Pearl had only ever heard when men were finished with her.

For once, she liked it.

She bit and gnawed, did everything she could to get that vein to burst open and spray her mouth with what was hidden inside.

Nothing worked.

Well, something was working. The man’s hand had delved into his trousers and between their tangled bodies he was pumping his fist.

Unfed hunger led to sharp frustration. Her teeth were too short to pierce, her jaw too weak to break salty skin. Everything she needed was right there, so close but unattainable.

But then the smell of blood filled her nose.

His warm, perfect blood.

Yet it was not coming from his neck.

She slunk to the floor without thought, hand around an organ that dripped rubies from an even more generously throbbing vein. When she tried to suck just from the side of that thing, strong hands repositioned her skull. It was put between her teeth, forced toward her throat until she gagged and had trouble swallowing the pooling blood.

All she wanted was a rich drink, annoyed with the man bobbing her head up and down.

Swallowing with that thick organ down her throat became necessary. Breath was forgotten, all that mattered was the struggle against what held her down and wasted blood she needed in her belly. Just as the vein closed and her meal was cut short, something salty sprayed against her tongue.

Made to swallow it in her quest for the final drops of perfection, Pearl retched.

Flailing, half drowning and unable to breathe, she felt the weight on her skull give in. Falling back in a graceless pile, sucking in air as if she’d been under water, Pearl saw the man, his trousers gaping, his mouth open and head thrown back.

It was then she realized just what she’d so ravenously drunk from.

His cock.

That part of a man they liked to stick like a brand into a woman—the thing that burned and brought pain.

That had been his game.

Something was running from the corner of her lips, a wasted drop both salty and sweet.

Darius caught it with his thumb, pushed it back between her shocked lips before using the tip of his finger to close her gaping mouth. “Did you enjoy your dinner?”

There was no answer. The blood had been overly delicious, the things he’d been doing during her feast unrecognized. It couldn’t be normal, a woman’s mouth on a man’s body that way. Embarrassed, unsure if she could bring herself to stop cringing on the floor, Pearl muttered, “Why would you do that?”

Stroking her cheek, Darius smiled. “Swallow my come like a good girl. Taste it on your velvet tongue. Next I’ll leave it dripping from your tight cunt. After that, there is another place on your body I like to bury my seed. Play nicely, and I’ll fill your belly with another mouthful of what makes you swoon before I fuck your ass.”

Pearl looked back at the thing she’d just had down her throat, not at all eager for it to be back inside any part of her body. Just as she was no longer eager to pretend this was a pleasant dream.

He was still hard.

Usually, after they had pushed in, thrust about, and told her to stop screaming, those things got smaller.

Taking the meat of his cock in hand, the man crooned, “You still owe me a kiss. Press your lips here, and thank me for all I gave you.”

She didn’t want it in her throat again; all she had wanted to taste was the blood.

This dream was no longer enticing. In fact, now that she’d had a meal, it didn’t feel dream-like at all.

It was real.

Darius was real.

She was in a room with a man who had put his organ in her mouth.

An organ she had licked manically for drops of blood that did not make her retch as human blood did...

Semen did not taste appealing, the belief confirmed a moment later when he fisted her hair, and led her mouth to the tip where a drop of tang remained.

She kissed it as she was told to, felt her stomach rumble and her throat itch.

Mostly, she felt unclean.

“Are you thinking of the mean old priest?”

A flood of terrible memories intruded as if a dam had broken behind her eyes. This interlude had not been the first time she’d done this. How could she have forgotten something so horrible?

A cry caught in her throat, one that turned to a whimper of degradation.

A hand came to her bowed head and stroked her hair. “And that, kara sevde, is why I do not allow you to remember. That is why every night for you starts new and clean.”

Who would want to have such dark things always lurking in their mind? The stranger had given her blood that had not made her sick, he had given her pleasure in the tub, and then he had given her the memory of a terrible past. Falling to his feet, she put her lips to his shoes and begged he take the nightmares away again.

Voice like iron, Darius warned his treasure, “I shall take all he did from your mind, but remember this fractured moment tonight should you question your life in my care, buck my requests, or shy from my attention. There is no suffering in this room but the torment you bring upon yourself. I would give you the bliss of permanent innocence. I would fill you with pleasure. Thank me for it.”

Sobbing, she vigorously held to his leg. “Thank you.”

And then the rancid memories that had broken her heart were gone. Confused why she was even upset, the tears stopped.

Cupping her face, he wiped wet trails from her cheeks. “Your life with me, in this place, can be sunshine or it can be darkness. Every night, the choice is yours.”