Chapter Seven
Ava
The ground flashed below in a dizzying array of color. Wind rushed in her ears. All Ava could do was hold onto the vampire as they flew through the air. She couldn’t even scream. Her panther had retreated the moment he touched her, leaving her in her human form. Now he had both arms around her waist. Her own hold was around his neck, desperate not to fall to her death.
Ava shut her eyes so that she wouldn’t have to see herself flying, and she only hoped that he wouldn’t decide to drop her before they got to the caves. At one point a low chuckle grated on her ears, but Astrophel didn’t try to speak. Flashes of light passed under them, then they were but a shadow rippling in the moonlight.
Ava wasn’t sure how long they were in the air; it felt like hours. Eventually, the vampire dove downward. The rush of air pulled at her skin as they plummeted. She opened her mouth to scream, but her breath was ripped from her throat. Just before they were speared on the trees, Astrophel slowed. He flipped them over, so that they landed lightly on their feet.
Ava tore herself away from the vampire at once. Her knees buckled, and she fell. Rocks bit into her palms, but she was too thankful to be on the ground once more to care.
“Get up.” Astrophel’s voice held a command.
Her panther retreated a little further, but Ava didn’t let it disappear. Anger pooled in her chest, coaxing her panther to the surface. She let out a roar and lunged at him, but he caught her by the throat once more and lifted her body from the ground. Her weight pulled down until it felt like her neck would snap.
When he set her down again, she stumbled but stayed where she was.
Wind brushed against her back and goosebumps rose along her arms as she realized she was utterly naked, having lost her clothes when she shifted the first time. Bile rose in her throat and she stumbled away from the vampire.
“If you are a good, obedient girl, I will not molest you,” he told her, voice cold as the air around them. “I have no taste for bestiality.”
He cocked his head, nodded when he saw she was sufficiently subdued, and removed his jacket to hand to her. It was far too small on her large frame, but she could at least gain some sense of modesty with it. The vampire gripped her shoulder and spun her around. He shoved, and she walked over an uneven ground. The dark mouth of a cave loomed before them, but Astrophel didn’t let Ava hesitate as he shoved her inside.
The darkness was almost too deep for her, but as her panther slowly returned to the surface, her eyes adjusted. Astrophel propelled her toward a large metal cage. The thick bars of steel were somehow drilled right into the stone of the floor below. Above, it twisted over itself and ended in spikes that pointed down.
The scent of blood was strong in the cave, and bits of fur clinging to those spikes told Ava exactly what it was from.
Ava took a deep breath as Astrophel flung her into the cage and locked it. She turned, her hands clenched. As much as she was glad to be alive right now, she didn’t want to end up waiting around in terror for him to come finish the job.
“What are you going to do with me?”
Astrophel leaned against the metal bars. “What do you know about vampires, Kitten?”
Her panther snarled in protest of the vampire using Jackson’s pet name for her. She snarled, too, but his cold, dead eyes stopped her from protesting. Her heart pounded.
“Not much,” she admitted. “Until you attacked me, I didn’t know vampires existed.”
Astrophel nodded, as though in approval. “The treaty has worked, then. Even shifters are unaware of us… Once the Savage Brotherhood is gone, the world will be ours.”
“That’s great.” Ava tried to give her voice more bravado than she felt. “But that doesn’t say what you’re going to do with me. You said that Jackson’s blood was going to raise your son…”
Astrophel smiled this time. “He will figure out where you are, and he will come for you. Shifters on vampire territory are fair game. I will drain his blood, and, with it, perform the ritual of the Blood Moon to raise my son back. Jackson stole him from me. I will have him back… after I take everything from that dog.”
Ava’s heart hammered. He meant to kill Jackson to resurrect his son? It was impossible… right? Somehow, though, she knew she had to keep Astrophel from knowing how much she cared. “So, you’re going to kill me.”
“No, I don’t think I will. Not until your mate gets here.”
“He’s not my mate.”
Astrophel only smiled.
Her mind whirled. A thousand questions flitted through it, but she couldn’t land on any of them. The vampire still stared at her, that cruel smile on his face. Eventually, she had to back further away from him, closer to the back wall of the cage.
“Stay put.” Astrophel chuckled as he moved back to the mouth of the cage. “I have preparations to make.”
He disappeared, letting her breathe again. The first thing she did was test the bars, to see if they had any give. The lock rattled, but that was it. Scratches lined the floor around the cage. How many others had been here, had wondered desperately how to get out?
Eventually, Ava was too exhausted to keep trying. She curled on the floor, the stinking vampire scent from Astrophel’s jacket clogging her nose. It was pitiful protection. Even now when there were no prying eyes, she felt exposed.
Tears started to burn her eyes. I will not cry.
She closed her eyes. Desperate, she searched for some thought, some hope. Something that would alleviate the ache in her chest, the fear choking her. An image of Jackson’s face flashed through her mind. The smile he gave her in the bar, the hard planes of his body as he undressed.
Hunger flared in his eyes as he kissed her, long and deep. She could almost taste him now. His hands explored her body, hot, demanding against her skin. She whimpered, helpless under his touch. She had never felt anything so… explosive before. It was like fireworks going off under her skin, making heat flare in her core. The forest disappeared around her until it was just the two of them and nothing more.
His hands ran up her thighs, tracing a delicate pattern that had her aching for more. She squirmed under his touch, his mouth still on hers. He pulled back slightly to give her that crooked grin, eyes glowing with lust as he looked down her body. Ava couldn’t remember the last time anybody had looked at her that way.
His fingers found their way to her clit and she gasped, arching herself to him. Her head fell back. Her wolf gave a deep chuckle as he kneeled back and gripped her thighs tightly. With one movement, he opened them like a flower. His eyes riveted on the juncture of her legs. Ava could smell her own arousal.
She flushed pink all over and tried to close them, embarrassed by her arousal. The wolf held her firmly splayed open, though, and shot her a quizzical look.
“What’s the matter, Kitten? Afraid of water?”
Now in the cave, Ava giggled at the memory. It was just the sort of thing Jackson would say! At the time, though, she had been even more mortified…
“I’ll lick you dry, then,” he murmured, lowering his face.
Ava opened her mouth, whether to protest or encourage she didn’t know. It was lost as he began to do exactly as he promised. He licked her, teasing her, not quite going to her clit. Ava found her hips lifting in desperation against his face, wanting more. His hands were so tight on her thighs she felt like she might spin off into an endless nothingness if he released her.
“You didn’t like me when you first met me in the bar,” Jackson said, licking her again, nuzzling both her thighs. “Did you?”
“No,” she breathed, letting out a soft moan when he wrapped his lips around her clit and started to suck on it, flicking it with his tongue.
“I think you like me now,” he said. “At least a little bit.”
“Please,” she said softly, the word pushing out of her throat accidentally when he lifted his mouth to speak again.
He chuckled but did as she wanted. He devoured her, making the heat inside of her reach such a breaking point she was afraid she might burst into flames. One hand tangled into his hair, pressing against his face as he slipped his tongue inside of her to taste her from the source.
Ava trembled beneath him. His fingers replaced his tongue, then, sliding inside of her, beginning to curl upward in a way that hit the perfect spot inside of her body. She squirmed, whimpering, rocking her hips as he licked and sucked on her throbbing clit. She was on the edge, about to finish when he pulled away from her.
“What the hell?” was the first thing that burst from her.
If Jackson was here with her now, maybe she wouldn’t be so cold…
“You’re not going to come until I’m inside of you,” he said gruffly. “Do you understand?”
Ava’s nostrils flared. She didn’t let anybody tell her what to do. Looking into the wolf’s eyes, she reached between her legs, moaning when she found her clit.
“God!” the wolf breathed deeply as he grasped himself. “Don’t do that! I almost lost it right there. You’re so goddamn sexy.”
She rubbed harder, enjoying the way his eyes hooded as he watched her. Then he had her by the thighs again. With one hand he pinned her hand over her head, the other guiding himself into her. Ava’s head flung back, crying out as bursts of pleasure filled her. She moved her hips, arching them to take him as deep as she could. He started to rock in and out of her, moving slowly against her body in long strokes, pulling almost all the way out before he filled her again and again.
“Does that feel good, kitten?” he asked.
“Mhm,” she breathed, her eyes rolling back as he found that spot again, pressing against it with deep, hard thrusts.
Ava’s hips were already going wild, moving on their own accord in a natural rhythm with his own. She moaned loudly the second he reached down to rub her clit with two fingers, straddling it and stroking the sensitive areas surrounding. It was like he already knew what her body wanted, what she needed, and was doing almost more than she could bear.
“Are you ready?” he purred.
Ava curled with her back against the bars. She ached to have him in her arms right now, to kiss her, to tell her everything was going to be alright. But it wasn’t. Even if they got out of this, she saw now more than ever why Shadow was so concerned about him leaving—if he stepped down as Alpha, how many would be taken by vampires in the chaos that followed?
“Mm,” she breathed.
He took her mouth in a kiss as he found her opening again, pressing inside with a hard stroke. His hips started moving quickly, just the way she wanted him to.
Ava gave one last desperate breath before her body shuddered, her hips out of control. He kept going, his teeth bared in his concentration, before his body froze, grinding inside of her. He started to pull out, but Ava found herself wrapping her legs around his hips, wanting desperately to feel him finishing inside of her. He did so then, coming deep inside of her, rocking in and out until he was finished. He pulled away, then, and Ava panted in the aftershocks of pleasure that washed over her.
“That good for you?” he asked, stroking her face.
Ava nodded.
The wolf stretched and sighed. “Ah, yes. I needed that. Thanks, Kitten. Too bad it’s over.”
No. She wouldn’t go past that.
His eyes burned with hunger as he kissed her. The forest melted away, until it was just the two of them and the heat they built between their bodies.
Reliving that moment over and over again, Ava eventually fell asleep.
***
She woke to a pale light coming from the mouth of the cave. Astrophel moved about near the back, chanting as he lit candles and drew on the floor with chalk. A body lay nearby.
Ava cried out in horror before she realized it wasn’t Jackson.
Astrophel glanced up. He continued about his work, ignoring her. Ava moved to her knees, holding the jacket around herself, and inched forward. The dead body was shriveled, preserved like a mummy. Its mouth was wide open, head torn clean from its body and stitched back on. A set of fangs flashed in its mouth and she shivered.
Astrophel’s son.
“So, let me guess,” Ava snarled, more to keep her fear at bay than anything else. “I’m going to be your son’s first meal?”
“He will be far too delicate to risk drinking such foul blood as from a shifter.” Astrophel looked over at her again. He unfolded his long limbs and stretched his back. “You will serve a more glorious purpose.”
“And what purpose is that?”
“Long ago, before your pathetic excuse of a civilization arose, everything belonged to vampires. We are the ageless gods, blessed to rule with strength and might.” Astrophel let out a groan that sounded almost orgasmic, as though he was getting aroused by his own damned poetry. “Our people were glorious, rulers of the night. Blood flowed freely, and it was all ours for the taking. The master sat on his throne, and in his hands, he held the world.”
Ava felt an unpleasant tingling in the back of her mind. The master? Astrophel was a king… who would he take orders from?
“Then the shifters came.” A snarl ripped from the vampire. “The three she-devils of the day killed our master and destroyed all he had built. Three sacrifices must be made to return him. You are the first… the black panther. The lioness shall be next, and finally the kite. Then our master will rise again and devour the sun.”
Astrophel opened his eyes and cocked his head to one side, smiling once more. “And my son will be by my side to witness the war that will end all shifters.”
It was then that Ava felt real fear, coiled in the pit of her stomach. Whether or not she believed Astrophel was irrelevant. The fact of the matter was he believed it. He was going to kill them. And Jackson… Jackson would come for her, ensuring her death.
Don’t, she wanted to scream at him, but even if he could hear her, he wouldn’t listen. Not him with his thick-headed skull.
“He’s… he’s not going to come! I don’t mean that much to him.”
“When you carry his child, you don’t mean much?”
She swallowed hard, her hands pressed to her stomach now. “I… I won’t let you kill him!”
Astrophel laughed.
She knew it was laughable. Her eyes burned as she sank hopelessly back to the floor. “Why? Why a war, why… why can’t you just accept what you’ve been given?”
“Because it was never yours to ‘give’.” Astrophel hissed between his teeth. “Shifters have decided that they are the dominant species, even though you are little but animals. You need to be taught a lesson—this is my planet. This place belongs to the vampires. Cities are nothing but our feeding grounds. Humans our slaves. And shifters? Shifters are our entertainment, to kill as we will.”
“We are not animals.”
“That’s exactly what you are. Incapable of control. Breeding with any mutt that looks your way. You didn’t even know Jackson’s name before you let him fuck you.”
Ava snarled again. Her panther stayed with her, bolstering her courage. “Jealous that nobody lets you fuck them?”
Astrophel growled once, low in his throat. He glanced toward the entrance of the cave, at the growing sunlight.
“I am a king,” he said, under his breath. “And once the master rises, there will be none to oppose us.”
Ava opened her mouth, but before she could speak, Astrophel’s hand lashed out. He grasped her wrist and dragged her forward. His fangs sunk into her wrist and she screamed. He drank hungrily, making growling noises. Agony rolled up her arms, until she sagged against the bars. Her vision washed in and out.
The vampire sat back, licking his lips. He grinned as he stood and looked down at her.
“See you soon, Ava.”
He turned and walked down the cave, disappearing into the darkness. Ava whimpered as she slumped to the ground. Sweat beaded on her brow despite the coolness of the cave. Her head spun, and her stomach revolted. There was nothing in it to vomit, though. When she glanced down, she saw the veins on her chest were a dark blue, spreading out down her torso and her arms. Had the vampire gone too far? Was this the feeling of her life seeping out of her? Killing her and her baby both…
Would he cry for me?
Jackson captivated her last thought as she fell into blackness, a picture of his face lulling her to sleep one last time.