THIRTY
Rune’s face was buried between two of the finest nymph breasts in Loredom, his hands full of them, and he was kissing his way toward a taut nipple.
Just what he’d needed.
His soon-to-be-shed trews were the only thing preventing him from shoving inside his partner, Dalliance.
The word had been derived from her, the epitome of amorous toying. She had been for millennia. She had long black hair, wide gray eyes, and a body men had actually killed to possess.
She arched her back in readiness, her fingers threading into his hair. His lips closed around a nipple, but his teeth didn’t click against a piercing. No warm metal teased his tongue.
Often imitated, never duplicated.
Concentrate on what you’re doing! He knew what she liked, could satisfy her in his sleep. The two of them went way back, had shared clients and patrons, fucking for the entertainment of others at exclusive gigs.
Every now and then, they’d hook up for old times’ sake. He’d selected her today, instead of a bevy all for himself.
The difference between him and Dalli? She’d chosen her line of work at the outset.
The night Magh had sold Rune to a brothel, he’d just seen his mother’s grave and been devastated to learn of her fate.
Then he’d learned of his.
“You’ve been a whore for so long, I thought we should make it official,” Magh said. “Here, you will please your customers, cur. Or perish. At the end of each night, a guard will raise a sword over your neck. If you were a good whore, you’ll retain your life. The first complaint you receive will be your last. You had better hurry. Dawn nears, and no one in your long line appears . . . pleased.”
The creature at the start of the line had been hideous, yet he’d known he would somehow have to pleasure her, to bury his disgust and ignore the blistering wrath he’d felt over his mother’s death.
Please or perish. In the intervening years, many of his customers hadn’t been “pleased” with anything less than his body beaten and bloody.
Concentrate. Soon Dalli would notice his distraction. He turned his thoughts to the vampire to stay hard.
His mind raced from one image of her to another. Her little fangs. Her incomparable curves that seemed made for him alone. Her ethereal face when she was about to come. Her flashing hazel eyes when she smiled.
He’d made her smile. She’d smiled in bed with him. Had thanked him.
No! The vampire loved another. All that had been an act. Everything about their night together had been false.
Dalli cleared her throat and sat up. “I called your name twice. But you’re not even here, are you?” He didn’t deny it. “I can always tell when you check out—your eyes glaze over.” She knew more about his early centuries than anyone still living. She alone knew he feared becoming so deadened he’d never feel alive again.
“What’s the problem, Dalli? My cock’s hard enough.”
“Please. I’ve seen you get it up for a pus demon.”
He drew back and sat on the edge of her bed, head in his hands. “Lot on my mind.” He stood and began to pace, bare feet silent on the plush carpet of her nest.
She pulled her robe back on. “Will you please tell me what’s wrong?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Maybe on some level he’d suspected he wouldn’t be in the moment. Maybe he’d chosen Dalli because he needed a friend more than a fuck.
“Clearly it does matter.” Rays of sunlight stole inside from the carved-out window, catching her gray eyes. “Will you not confide in me?”
He shook his head. How could he possibly explain a creature like Josephine?
“I don’t ask where you go when you’re not here,” Dalli said. “I don’t ask what you’re doing with your life, or what plans you have for the future.” She knew he was a secrets master in a shadowy alliance, but he’d given her no other details.
“Which is why we’re still friends.”
As if he hadn’t spoken, she continued, “I’ve never asked those questions, because I could see for myself you weren’t utterly miserable with your life.”
He paused his pacing. “Why would I be?”
Dalli rose, heading to her wine service to pour them goblets. “Someone your age with no mate? No offspring? It wears on a soul.”
“Speaking from experience?” She was almost his age, the oldest nymph he’d ever met.
“We’re talking about you today. And how you are now completely, utterly miserable.”
He scowled. “I just want to get laid. It’s why I’m here.”
“Uh-huh. This has got to be over a female.”
“Why do you say that?”
She handed him a drink, then crossed to the settee with her own. “Give me some credit.” Taking a seat, she motioned for him to join her. “I’ve been in the desire game for a long, long while.”
He stabbed his fingers through his hair. “There is a girl. She’s got me tied up in knots.”
“I think you better bring the bottle over.”
Good thinking. He grabbed it and joined her, setting it on an amber side table. He sank down beside Dalli. “I’ve only known her for four days.” Out of the millions he’d lived. “In my lifespan, that’s a blink of an eye.” In Dalli’s too.
“Do you think this girl could be the one?”
Maybe? No. No! “I will never have a mate. I’ve expected no destined female for myself.”
“Because of your poison? I know how much you despise it.”
I hate it so godsdamned much. Yet for a while, his hatred had faded—because Josephine bloomed whenever she fed from him. She’d craved him. But he didn’t want to be dependent on a vampire just because she could tolerate his hated blood!
He didn’t want to want someone who loved another.
Even if Josephine chose Rune instead, what kind of future would they have? He would never be exclusive with her, couldn’t imagine spending the next several millennia in bed with one female.
Especially when his value to the Møriør depended on him sleeping with others.
He emptied his goblet and set it aside. Forget the vampire. “Let’s just do this.” He rubbed the heel of his palm over his cock until he was hard enough. “Does it matter to you if I’m engaged or not? I’ll make you purr. I always do.”
“Are you sure?”
I want inside Josephine. Inside the silken heat he’d pleasured with his tongue. I want to see her reaction when I enter her for the first time. “Hundred percent.”
Dalli pursed her lips. “You might as well start talking. Tell me her name. I want to know all about her.”
He exhaled with resignation. “Very well. Her name is Josephine.” He poured another healthy serving for them both.
“What is it about her?” Dalli asked, excitement in her demeanor. “Why is she different from all the others?”
How to put into words what he was feeling? “She’s a walking contradiction. She’s powerful, but young. She seems world-weary at times, but again, she’s so bloody young. She’s insanely secretive—and yet she’s outspoken to the point of being blunt.” He recalled her telling him, “You. I like. I like you so much.” How could she have been so believable in the throes?
“When you say young . . . ?”
He hesitated, then admitted, “Quarter of a century.”
Dalli coughed on her wine.
“I know. And, damn it all, Dalli, she’s a vampire.”
“How can that be? Female vampires are so rare.”
“I don’t know a lot”—anything—“about her. But she’s definitely a vampire.”
Dalli’s excitement faded. “Rune, I’m so sorry. No wonder you’re miserable.” She put her hand over his. “Maybe your Josephine could drink bagged blood or something like that. Not feeding from her partner would be a sacrifice, but I’m sure she’d want to try for you.”
Over the rim of his goblet, he said, “She drinks my black blood. Couldn’t crave it more.” His tone was smug.
“What? How is that possible?”
“She says it’s because she’s ‘wicked strong and all.’ ”
Dalli’s eyes grew merry. “I like her already. Is she transitioned?”
“She was injured recently. I slathered her with runes, but I suspect she would’ve regenerated on her own.” He still couldn’t believe he’d remembered those rune combinations after so long. But then, I’d needed them enough in that brothel.
“Are there no physical boundaries between you two? Can you be with her fully?”
“So far, so good.” Though he hadn’t been inside her yet. If she was his mate . . .
“This must mean she’s yours. You’ve found her, Rune! Do you understand how blessed this makes you?”
That word had never been used to describe a being like Rune.
Dalli studied his face. “Are you . . . engaged when you’re with her?”
“Engaged? When I come with her, I yell so hard my throat hurts. I say things before I think them. Speak in bloody Demonish!” His head fell back against the settee, and he stared at the leafy ceiling. “I lose control totally. The first time I got a taste of her sex, my eyes rolled back in my head.” Those plump lips . . . that maddening clit ring . . .
Lost in memory, he said, “She gets so wet. When she comes on my tongue, it’s a luscious reward for me. And gods almighty, when she pierces my skin with her sharp little fangs, my heart thunders, and my balls tighten and ache as never before. My cock feels like it’s going to explode. . . .”
Dalli cleared her throat.
He blinked, amazed that he’d been stroking himself. She grinned. He scowled and yanked his hand away. “This is what I’m talking about—no control!”
“You can’t have it both ways, Rune. You can’t fear losing control and becoming deadened.”
Dalli was right.
“I think you’re falling for her.”
“As in love? My kind doesn’t love; we’re not capable of it. Much less me, with my past.”
He’d lived with the threat of that sword over his neck for ages before a fair master had come along, freeing him and offering a percentage. Numb to violation and blind to an alternative, Rune had said, “Why not?” He’d considered himself nothing more than a coin whore.
His thoughts had never strayed toward the future. His feelings had been stunted, as cold as ash.
Were they still? Josephine had gotten him excited and frantic and agitated. Frenzy had overcome control. Was that sparking cinder inside him catching flame?
With her, he’d been flung into some place he’d never been before.
I want to return there.
Dalli said, “In the past you had to distance yourself to survive. But no longer.”
To survive his patrons—and Magh. When she’d learned he was volunteering to be used, she’d been enraged. Evil to the core, she’d recaptured him, imprisoning him in her dungeon. She’d desired him and hated herself for it. Then the real torture had begun—
“Stop right now,” Dalli said, reclaiming his attention. “Stop reliving days gone by. You can begin again with Josephine. Someone so young will help you see the worlds anew.”
“I don’t want to begin again.” Magh had reshaped him so many times that the mold should have broken. He’d gone from slave laborer, to killer, to involuntary whore, to voluntary whore, to whipping boy. All because of a vicious woman. He was done changing.
Yet hadn’t he considered himself altered after his first orgasm with Josephine in his bed? “All of this is moot anyway.” The cinder inside him had caught flame for the wrong female. “She wants . . . someone else.” Rune downed his goblet, then stood to pace again. “Some asshole who wears cowboy boots.” Was Josephine’s male searching for her? Wondering why she hadn’t returned to his bed for yet another moonset?
“What manner of species is he?”
“I don’t know.” Rune had been focused on his target, had only paid passing attention to Nïx’s companion, Thaddeus. Unable to recall the male’s scent, Rune pictured his appearance. “He’s big. Tall with broad shoulders.” The prick’s face was much handsomer than Rune’s own. Which meant it was boring. He grated, “Attractive, I suppose.”
“You sound jealous.”
“I’m not jealous; I’m pissed. She tricked me. We had a night together, and it was . . . different. I didn’t even swive her.” Shared breaths, broken boundaries. All an act. “She played me just as I played patrons, making them believe I loved each one alone.”
“What did she do?”
“I thought she was half-infatuated with me. All along, she plotted to get back to him, the one she truly wants.”
“Then win her from the other. You and I both know you’re an unparalleled lay. Unleash your arsenal upon her—your full arsenal—and she’ll be yours.”
Rune stopped pacing. “You’re right. If I hold nothing back, I could have her eating out of the palm of my hand.” Yes, he would make her love him instead of the other. And once she did, Rune would hurt her as he’d been hurt.
Not that he was hurt. He was simply irritated.
“That’s the spirit!”
He frowned. “Say I did win her, I think she’s the jealous type. She’d expect monogamy, and I can’t do that.”
Dalli gave him a rueful grin. “It’s not so bad. Most beings want a devoted partner they can call their own.”
“Nymphs don’t.”
“Maybe we desire freedom just a bit more.” Her gaze grew distant.
Daydreaming of someone in particular? “Dalli?”
She raised her face. “By the way, I suggest you shower before you go. The scent of nymph arousal wouldn’t be a good opener if she is indeed the jealous type.”
“She needs to get used to it, because I will be bedding others.”
“Rune, trust me on this.”
“Very well. Just this once.” He stripped off his trews, then headed for her bathing chamber.
As he strode past her, cock swaying, Dalli sighed. “I’m going to miss that.”
“Trust me, dove. It’s not going anywhere. Rune the Insatiable does not do monogamy.”