Celia

I wanted this. Even now, with both of us wounded and scared, my body reacted to the proximity of his. Those unusual yet kind eyes didn’t flinch from mine. No matter the shape he was in, and what was to come, he was going to do this for me. Well, I guessed it was a little for both of us.

Maybe this was why I’d avoided human touch my whole life. My body wanted a vampire. My heart wanted Idris.

I hadn’t ever dreamed of my first time being in a damp cell, but then I’d never imagined sex in a damp cell at all. The floor was cracked concrete beneath my feet, and the only light was a naked bulb above my head that cast a yellow glow over us. I still thought Idris was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I couldn’t leave here without feeling Idris’s skin against mine, without knowing what it was like to be touched by someone who cared for me. Keno had cautioned me about Idris, and had said there was no camera monitoring the cell, so if I didn’t trust Idris not to hurt me, he wasn’t sending me in. So I knew we had as much privacy as we were going to get for at least a half hour. And I wanted Idris.

“Kiss me,” I said as I blinked back tears. “Then feed from me. Then touch me.”

He didn’t wait. He surged forward with surprising strength, and the chain attached to his wrist rattled as he crashed his lips onto mine.

I’d been kissed before, but it’d been a long time, and all other kisses had been teenage or drunken fumblings. I’d been missing out. His lips were soft yet firm, pressing against mine, demanding I yield, and yield I did as his tongue slipped inside to tangle with my own.

His hand gripped my neck tighter, holding me in place as he ravaged my mouth. I lapped at him with my tongue, and the tip caught on one of his fangs. The sharp tooth sliced my flesh, and I immediately tasted the tang of my own blood.

Idris froze, sucked on my tongue for a minute, and then pulled back. “Oh, fuck,” he moaned. His eyes were whirling red and black like a shuffled deck of cards. His mouth hung open, his one fang red with my blood. I had a momentary spike of fear, before I calmed. “I need to…” He licked his lips, and his voice was garbled a bit. His shoulders heaved and his fists clenched like he sought control.

“Let go,” I said and curled my fingers into the hard planes of his hip, bracing myself. “I’m ready. You can feed.”

His eyes widened and flashed a deep red before he tilted his head and buried his face in my neck. His teeth sliced into my flesh, and I gasped at the white-hot pain, like a fire-stoked brand. Idris’s chest was rumbling, a cross between a purr and a growl and I blinked my eyes, my vision shorting out as I breathed through the agony of the bite. Would it be this way every time?

Then the pain faded, and taking its place was a pulse-pounding pleasure. Idris drank deeply, and the sound of him gulping my blood filled the tiny room. I closed my eyes as shudders racked my body. My belly warmed and heat pooled between my thighs. I clenched them together, but couldn’t stop the small moan from leaving my lips.

Idris’s grip on my arms, which had been soft, tightened with each drag from my veins. He was strengthening in my arms. I was doing this. My blood fueled him, and it filled me with a sense of wonder and pride.

He unlatched from my neck and licked at the bite, then lifted his head. I stared at the sight of him. The bruises and cuts on his face were gone. Vanished. He heaved deep breaths, his mouth dripping with blood as his eyes took in my face, his pupils pulsing with red light. He looked like he was going to devour me—but in a good way, a way I’d enjoy.

And fuck, I wanted it. I wanted to be devoured. I swiped at the blood pooling at the corner of his mouth and it smeared. I couldn’t get over the awe of all this.

He kissed me again, and this time, the kiss was all vampire. A human couldn’t kiss like this with nipping fangs and fast tongue, and lips so strong, I could do nothing but surrender.

He cupped my ass and tugged me onto him so I sat astride his lap. The hard bulge in his pants rubbed right against my heated core and I whimpered. “It’s so intense, I—”

“I know, little one.” He tore off my shirt and threw it into the corner. “I’ll take care of you.”

He tugged down one cup of my bra and drew my nipple into his mouth. The heat of him, the way he swirled his tongue around the hardened bud, nearly drove me out of my mind. I rocked against him, seeking some relief for the churning in my belly, the bubbling in my veins.

“Take off your pants,” he growled at me.

I blinked at him. “What?”

He smacked my ass lightly. “You want to be touched, then I need to show you everything. Take them off.”

I stepped off him on wobbly legs, slipping my jeans and panties down over my legs, and taking off my bra, so I stood in front of him naked. He sucked in a breath and tried to come to me, but the chain on the wall stopped him. He yanked on it with a few muttered curses before lying down on the pallet and gesturing to me. “Come on.”

“Do you want your pants off?”

He grinned, all bloody fangs. “You first.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant, until he directed me to straddle him again, higher this time. “Up, little one,” he said, and licked his lips, eyes on the apex of my thighs. “I want to taste you.”

Taste? It dawned on me, and I nearly fell off the pallet. “You want to—”

“I want to lick you until you come. If you liked my kisses there”—he pointed to my mouth—“then you’ll love them here.” He ran a fingertip along my wet, heated folds and pressed on my clit until my knees buckled. He raised his gaze to me. “Please. I want it so badly.”

Like I was going to deny him. I shimmied forward on legs that didn’t want to cooperate. “How do I do this?”

He cupped my ass and pulled me forward, like I was a handful of fresh water. “Sit on my face, and I’ll show you what real pleasure is.”

I straddled his head, accepted his hands as a guide, and then slowly lowered down. I felt so vulnerable like this, exposed, but also safe. Because Idris. His nose brushed my clit and I sucked in a breath. While I’d never been with another man, I’d touched myself plenty. I knew what I liked, what felt good. Then Idris’s tongue began one long, slow lick up through my opening to swirl around the clit, and I realized I didn’t know. I had no idea. Because that, that right there, was the best thing I ever felt in my life.

I threw my head back and moaned long and low.

“Yes,” he said, dragging the word out in a hiss, his voice a rumble against my skin. “Tell me, Celia. Tell me how it feels.”

“Wet,” I gasped. “Hot.” He licked again and I slapped a hand against the wall to brace myself. Then he was doing more, nibbling with his lips, sharp pricks of his teeth that had me jerking. His chest rumbled, and the vibrations went straight to my core. I was grinding down into him shamelessly now, and he took it all, eating me like a starving man, his tongue dipping into my entrance while his big hands massaged my ass, thumbs working in tandem with his tongue to drive me out of my mind.

“Your taste,” he rasped. “I’m addicted to it.”

“Idris,” I moaned.

“That’s it. Come for me, Celia.”

My hips thrust harder, and when his thumb speared me just as he sucked hard on my clit, I came. Hard. The orgasm was a tsunami, a hurricane, every single natural disaster rolled into one, effectively wiping me out, washing me clean, turning me into something new.

Before I could even catch my breath, I was up, moving. My back was on the pallet and Idris was looming over me with his one hand remaining on the wall where it was chained. He slotted himself between my legs, his pants pushed down, long, hard dick red and angry and dripping a creamy white liquid.

I reached down and wrapped my fingers around it, wanting to feel it, needing to know what he felt like in my hands. He felt glorious—hot and silky. “Idris,” I said, gazing up at him in wonder. His expression was so full of adoration that it took my breath away. Was this what everyone had? Someone they loved? Intimacy?

He stayed on his knees above me, other hand braced beside my head. “I’m going to take you now. Are you ready?”

I nodded. “I’m ready.”

For a moment regret flashed over his face. “I wish I hadn’t denied this so we could have—”

“Don’t,” I said. “I don’t care where we are. I don’t want to think about what’s going to happen. This moment right here is special to me because you’re here. That’s all that matters right now.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, pain etched in his features, before he opened them again, pupils burning holes in my skin. “I love you, Celia.”

“I love you, too,” I said.

He guided the tip of his cock to my entrance, then he pushed in. For a moment I wasn’t sure he’d fit. I felt stretched, and then he fell onto his hand with a moan and thrust inside all the way.

I gasped, a stab of pain piercing me. Idris stilled and he placed his forehead on mine, dropping a kiss on my lips. “Are you okay?”

“Hurts a bit,” I said.

“I know,” he murmured. “I’m sorry.”

I ran my fingers into his hair. “No, don’t be sorry.”

“I-I need to move, little one.”

Oh, right. “Move.”

“Are you—”

“Move, Idris.”

With a moan, he pulled his hips back slowly, and took his time inching back inside. In and out, in and out. He gained speed with every thrust, his hips changing angles, rotating slightly. I didn’t know why until his cock touched something inside me that made me squirm.

I gripped his wrist tightly, and threw back my head.

“There it is,” he murmured.

Then he didn’t let up. He pounded into me, over and over again, rubbing that spot that lit my body up from the inside. It started as a smoldering ember and soon grew into an all-consuming fire. I cried out, writhing beneath, saying words and curses and other sounds.

I came again, this one taking my breath away, so I had to close my eyes and gasp for breath. I opened them just in time to see Idris go still, and then his mouth opened and with another jerk, he spilled his release inside me.

I wrapped my limbs around him immediately, my instinct to keep him close, keep him with me, keep him mine. His big body was thrumming with energy, and it was contagious. Despite all my fear, I felt like I could do anything now. Maybe I was delirious with blood loss.

“Thank you,” I said, rubbing my hand on the coarse hair of his beard. “That was…more than I ever thought it could be.”

“Celia…” Idris’s face was different, like he’d stripped off the outer shell that he shellacked over himself every day so that his inner bits were bared. He looked younger, happier, and I wished we were other people. Maybe I was a teacher in a nice little suburb, and he was the foreman of a construction crew. We met during an awkward run-in involving sheets of plywood in The Home Depot when I was attempting a DIY. He asked me out, and took me to a beer and pizza joint. We bonded over football and our hatred of cilantro. We got married, had three kids—all girls—and Idris drove our minivan.

Maybe that was boring. But I would have chosen boring in a heartbeat.

I buried my face into his neck, inhaling his scent. My lips settled on his skin and I darted my tongue out to taste his salty flavor. A shudder ran through his body, and he collapsed onto a forearm. The chain holding his other hand rattled, which jerked me out of my dreamlike state of no longer being a virgin to reality. Which was that we were both fucked unless we stopped fucking and started figuring out a plan.

I loosened my limbs and rolled my ankle to work out a cramp in my calf. “I should get dressed,” I whispered, suddenly feeling naked. “I don’t know how much time we have.”

“Look at me,” he said.

I slowly raised my eyes to his. My God, he looked powerful. Healed, with bright eyes, hair shining from the single overhead light. Backlit like this, he was breathtaking. He didn’t look scared, or defeated. He looked determined, and that emotion sank into my bones, filling me up so full that I swore I could burst.

He rose up over me and placed a hand at my throat, thumb rubbing where he’d bitten me. “We are getting out of here, you and me. We’ll take your sister, too. I will not die in here, and you will not be Keno’s breeder. Do you understand me, Celia?”

I nodded. “Yes, Idris.”

“I’m going to need you to be brave for me. One last time, little one. Can you do that? Because I can only do so much in here. I have a plan, but you have to be the major player. If there was any other way—”

“I’ll do it,” I said quickly. “Whatever you want. I’ll do it, as long as we take my sister, too.”

He nodded. “Of course.” He took another long look at me, then helped me up. I dressed quickly as he sat on the pallet, flexing his muscles a bit and studying where the chain anchored to the wall. He felt all around the walls, walking as far as the chain allowed him, before doubling back to the pallet.

I watched him as I cataloged the aches in my body. My face wasn’t as sore anymore. My body ached a bit, mostly…inside. But overall, I felt lighter than I’d felt since that Quellen first entered my bedroom.

Finally, Idris turned to me and beckoned for me to come to him. I did immediately, allowing myself to be enveloped into his embrace. He pressed a kiss to the crown of my head. I closed my eyes, relishing in his warmth.

“The thought of sending you out there with them when I’m trapped in here, unable to protect you, kills me,” he said. “But I’ve felt hopeless before, and today I don’t feel hopeless. Understand?”

I wished I had his confidence. “Yes, I understand,” I said.

And then he told me his plan.

Idris

When they came and retrieved her from my cell, it took every ounce of my inner strength not to tear the Valarian guard limb from limb when he closed his fingers around her upper arm.

As instructed she didn’t look at me, and I remained on the pallet, my gaze on the ceiling. I didn’t want them to know that I’d fed from her, that I’d had her under me, and that I had broken the chain so that with an easy yank, I would be free.

When she saw Keno, she’d tell him I attacked her. As Keno planned to claim her for himself, he’d take that as a personal attack. He’d come to deal with me himself, and that was exactly what I wanted to happen.

I spent some time trying to remember what I knew about the blood veil. The only thing I could recall so far was that it only occurred in females—Occulta, they were called. It didn’t make sense, though—she had dreams, the same dreams I did. Had her father tried to turn her at all and failed? She would have remembered that, though….

Fuck, so many questions that I couldn’t answer while I was chained in this goddamn cell. I played out every single scenario on what could happen once Keno walked in—I refused to believe he wouldn’t. I had plans A through Z worked out, and my anger hadn’t cooled, not one bit. Every second that Celia was away from me, out of my sight, was another second where the rage burned in me, bright white and scorching hot. I curled my hands into my fists, and made sure the chain on the wall was weak like I needed.

I had to conserve my energy and wait. While I did, I imagined all the things I’d do to Keno once I was free of this chain.