“I do not acknowledge him as an equal, but he is a warrior, and I respect him for that. We are too few to be guided by our petty vengeances. We live by survival of the fittest. A hunter like Gideon Green keeps us away from dangerous complacency. Do not force this issue. If you have no use of him motivated by pleasure and entertainment, then let us move on to others.”
“You know this is our way.” Lord Welles spoke, though his countenance was thoughtful.
“I disagree, for the reasons I just explained. But I can tell you for certain, it’s not my way.” Daegan met his gaze, his dark eyes becoming even more opaque.
“No, it wouldn’t be, would it?” Lord Stephen broke in with a sneer. “Not a half-breed with an unknown father. Vampire blood is not what governs your actions.”
Anwyn drew in a breath. Gideon’s head snapped up despite himself, a flood of unexpected outrage filling him on Daegan’s behalf. Even the Council appeared somewhat taken aback by Stephen’s ire. But before Lord Uthe could speak, Daegan did.
“No,” he said in a neutral tone. “The Council reigns my actions. By my choice, because I believe in checks and balances to ensure proper behavior.”
A full moment’s silence held the assembled as Stephen’s face flushed with anger. Check and mate again, Gideon thought, trying not to tense as Torrence’s breath brushed his nape. The behemoth was a step closer than he was a moment ago and it took everything Gideon had not to visibly tighten up his ass, like a walnut refusing to be cracked.
“Well said.” Lord Uthe raised his cup. “Gods, is it too much to have one dinner among ourselves that doesn’t involve political carping? Lord Stephen, save your strategic manipulations for the Council chamber, and let us enjoy our meal. I for one am content with the current arrangement.” He glanced toward the table centerpiece. “Though I admit to enjoying our past female creations more, we were catering to the ladies tonight.”
Unexpectedly, he gave Anwyn a cordial nod, a feral glint that might have been grim humor in the depths of his eyes. Then he gestured with his cup toward Carola, Helga and Barbra, generally including them in his comment.
Belizar cocked his head, considering his right-hand Council member, then shrugged, glancing back at Daegan. “Have you fucked him?”
“Pardon me?”
“I said, have you fucked the vampire hunter?”
Gideon thought it was like watching a tennis match, seeing the Council members’ chins bounce back and forth to follow the conversations. Yet the question raised a disturbing memory in his mind that distracted him from that. Daegan’s hot breath on his neck. The strong grip of his hands, the startlingly erotic invasion of the vampire’s cock. The way his own had jumped at the penetration, the possession, even as Gideon sunk deep into Anwyn’s wet heat.
“Yes.” Daegan glanced at Gideon, then back at Belizar.
There was a murmur around the table; then Belizar cocked his head, his expressive silver eyes locked with Daegan’s. “Pushed him to his knees, made him take you down his throat?”
“No.”
“Hmm. One is easier, you know.” The Russian toyed with his wineglass, waved away a servant when she came forward to refill it. “Seems you have managed to shame us just a bit, Lord Daegan. Not an easy task. Lord Uthe tells me we should avoid hasty decisions, but perhaps there is a middle ground to resolve this matter.”
“I am listening, my lord.”
Belizar nodded, then threw his gaze out to the Council. “With apologies to Lord Uthe for suggesting business at supper”—he shot Uthe an arch look—“here is what I propose. As we agreed, it will help our deliberations about executing the hunter if we have proof that he is well under the command of Lord Daegan, as well as clearly submissive to Miss Naime. While she’s marked him with some lovely stripes, I propose thirty-six additional lashes with a bullwhip of our choosing. A blood strike for every vampire life he’s taken. That we’ve verified.”
He shot Gideon a speculative look that Gideon caught in his peripheral vision, because he was staring a hole in Alanna’s forehead. Her eyes glittered with satisfaction. Apparently, she had no objections to him being whipped. “During that flogging,” Belizar continued, “he takes you down the throat, Lord Daegan, here in front of us. If, for some reason, you are averse to his mouth on your cock, we will settle for you marking him fully right now, at this dinner.”
Before he returned his gaze to Daegan, Belizar waited until he’d received answering nods from around the table, though Stephen’s looked somewhat reluctant. “I know what kind of man this Gideon Green is. If he will go on his knees, suck you to completion and swallow every drop, we at least know he will capitulate to you, which will reassure us you have control over him. It will not guarantee our decision, but it may sway it considerably.”
Or they may be just fucking with us
, Gideon thought darkly.
“So another ultimatum. I take his blood, or he takes my cock?” Daegan’s tone was flat, unexpressive.
“We do not often give a petitioner more than one choice.” The warning was clear in Belizar’s face. Daegan’s expression did not change, as if such a threat meant little to him.
“Choose.” Belizar’s voice hardened, the Council head obviously picking up on it. “Or defy this Council. Lord Stephen, tell your servant to withdraw.”
She’d been on her knees awhile, so it was instinctive courtesy that had Gideon helping Alanna to her feet, a hand beneath her elbow. She gripped his forearm necessarily, but let go immediately and didn’t look at him. Backing up to the wall, she took her place behind her Master.
Anwyn’s voice slid through his mind.
I don’t exactly know what this means, but Daegan said, “Head or gut?”
Despite all the feelings coiled like a noose around his throat and cock, chest and soul, that volley surprisingly loosened it. Somewhat. He felt like he was merely choking, instead of about to fall through a gallows door to have his neck snapped. He wasn’t afraid of being flogged, but he knew enough about being hit with a bullwhip to know what thirty-six lashes could do. He didn’t want to shame either one of them. When he felt the wrench in her heart at his thought, he lifted his head, met her gaze with a reassuring spark of fire in his own.
He’s been watching Bruce Willis.
The Last Boy Scout
.
He’s always been able to surprise me.
A pause.
Gideon?
I don’t want him biting me. And I won’t drink his blood. You know that.
He shifted, met Daegan’s eyes. The vampire gave him a slight nod.
“Get on your knees, vampire hunter.”
15
U
P until that moment, Anwyn had been spiraling back into the alley, to places where all choices were yanked away, obliterated by blood and barbarity, where tenderness and love were cruel jokes, unbearable mockeries of the way the world really should be. Though the blood and brutality were not aimed at her, it was no different, when she felt charged with protecting Gideon. If anything, she knew it was worse, being forced to stand to the side and watch it be done to him, rather than experiencing it for herself.
She was a Mistress, yes. In fact, she’d considered herself quite a formidable Dominatrix, but in this world, she was coming straight from the kiddie pool to the deep end. For once the call of the shadow voices was desperately seductive, a way to escape this, but that in itself made her fight. She wouldn’t run. She’d never again run from someone who needed her.
Then Daegan spoke that soft, velvet command, and suddenly the world righted itself. He took control back for all of them.
Gideon had lifted his head, his hair brushing the broad bare shoulders, the midnight blue eyes riveting in their intensity. When he looked toward Daegan, the charge of energy between the two male bodies brought a hush to the room.
It was then she saw clearly what Daegan had seen from the beginning with Gideon, what even the more perceptive of the Council had to see. No matter what barriers separated them, Daegan Rei and Gideon Green held the same warrior code, the same inviolate integrity and inner strength, no matter how battered Gideon’s shields had become. It put every one of the vampires in this room to shame, to her way of thinking.
She had another revelation as well. One that was more private, but no less shocking. Somewhere along the way, Daegan’s tracking of Gideon had turned into an active pursuit of the hunter. An emotional pursuit, beyond the call of lust. Whether it was admiration or kinship, or something else, Daegan desired him, wanted him as his servant as well. Not as a humiliation, like the Council might suspect, but because that was the closest bond a vampire could make with another. He wanted to be Gideon’s Master as much as she wanted to be his Mistress, because for both of them, it was the deepest offer of body, heart and soul they had. She felt it like a current, connecting the two of them.
Even Gideon, whose emotions were always such a tangled jumble, such that he followed an erratic course of instinct and self-denial to jump from moment to moment, allowed desire and hunger, savage need, to cross his expression. For the both of them.
Anwyn.
She let her mind be a conduit, so that Daegan could hear Gideon’s thoughts, linking the three of them.
Yes, love?
It was the first time she’d ever used an endearment with Gideon, with anyone, and his mouth tightened. No one would know from the tough-guy expression what vulnerability existed in that powerhouse body.
I’ve never done this. Can you walk me through it, so I do it right?
Just do it the way you’d like it done to yourself, vampire hunter.
Daegan’s dark eyes sparked, and Gideon’s cock jumped in reaction. Anwyn felt like she was standing between two flames.
You’re going to need that big mouth of yours, because I intend to ram myself down your throat
. Daegan’s mind-voice made it a taunting challenge, so that Anwyn actually almost smiled. It was just the three of them. The rest didn’t matter.
Big talk.
But Gideon swallowed. He didn’t quite seem to know where to go from there, but Anwyn reminded him.
Daegan ordered you onto your knees, love.
Come to me, vampire hunter.
Daegan hadn’t moved, waiting, which somehow made the moment more charged. Gideon hitched up his pants to allow him to walk, the loose hold making the waistline caress the appealing line of hip and buttock musculature as he moved around Torrence. He gave Helga’s servant a menacing glance, which suggested if Torrence lifted so much as a finger to stop him, he’d lose the digit. But when Gideon passed behind Anwyn, she let her fingers trail along his side, pleased when his hand briefly gripped hers, caressing.
As he reached Daegan, Gideon stopped, hesitated.
Gaze down, Gideon. Don’t look me in the eye.
That jaw flexed again, a quiver running through the powerful back. Daegan placed a hand on his shoulder, gripping lean sinew and bone, and exerted downward pressure. Anwyn found she wasn’t the only one holding her breath as Gideon’s knees bent, taking him down into a kneeling position. The pants slid lower, giving her the upper rise of his ass, and without being told, he pushed them all the way down, revealing the dildo still firmly in place.
A slight bow from Daegan toward Brian. “Lord Brian, would your servant mind removing that so it doesn’t impede Miss Naime’s efforts?”
Brian glanced up at Debra, gave her a nod. The woman moved from the wall, keeping her eyes down, but Anwyn noted her hands were gentle as she balanced on her heels in a squat and removed the dildo, wrapping it in a towel provided by one of the waitstaff and laying it by Anwyn’s chair. Gideon had shuddered slightly at the removal, and Anwyn felt the way it stroked him inside, the arousal that was still there despite the rising tension. She’d also noticed how Debra had managed a stroke of the cheek with her fingertips. She was fairly certain it was a reassurance rather than a sexual indiscretion, and wished she could give Gideon a similar reassurance right now.
“Put your palms flat on your knees, Gideon,” Daegan instructed, still in that silky tone. “You’ll do it all with your mouth.”
Anwyn started as a servant touched her arm. Turning, she saw Belizar’s full servant, Lena, extending a coiled bullwhip. The size and thickness brought an instant denial surging to the forefront. Her lips parted.
“If you prefer to watch, we can allow Torrence to do the honors,” Lady Carola said smoothly. “He’s very skilled.”
“As a Mistress, I expect Anwyn is a fair hand with a whip.” Uthe met her gaze across the table. “Can you draw blood with a bullwhip? Be accurate enough to administer thirty-six lashes to a kneeling man’s back and buttocks while he’s servicing Lord Daegan? Draw blood every time?”
“And not hit Lord Daegan,” Lord Welles added, a smile crossing his face that was anything but pleasant. “I’m sure he would not take kindly to that.”
Since she still had not moved to take the whip, Belizar cocked his head. “Torrence was obviously looking forward to fucking your servant. I’m sure he’ll reflect that in his accuracy and strength.”