Blood Legacy (10 page)

“That’s a good girl. Do as you’re told, and your punishment will be minimal.” His voice dropped low, caressing over me. “But there will be some price to be paid.”

He spun me around to face him, then dropped down into a crouch. I spread my legs wide, at his urging, so he could fasten my ankles to the legs of the X. The wide leather straps of the restraints tugged at my stockings; the cool air tickled the exposed soft flesh of my inner thighs.

“This is a good look for you,” Victor said. He yanked one wrist above my head and out, to attach it to the top arms of the X.  “Helpless. Vulnerable.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m helpless.” I leaned forward and caught his lips with mine. My teeth pulled at his lower lip, sucking at it until I felt it swell in my mouth.

Victor laughed to himself as he kissed me back.
“That’s the spirit. But I think you’ll find it takes more than that to defy to me.”

With that, he tugged the last restraint into the place. I was splayed before him—nearly naked, exposed in a way I’ve never felt before. I’ve been with men, I admit, though not many; I’d been far more naked than this before them. But even in restraints, I felt something pulsing through me that I’d never felt before with Finch and the others.

I felt powerful.

It was the way Victor’s eyes sparked as they roved over me. That lust that rippled through his sinews as he shed his suit coat and as his fingers slowly, achingly unfastened the buttons of his dress shirt.
The lean curve of his muscles as he stripped before me, like barely contained fury. I did this to him. I drove him to this.

I think I was finally starting to understand the power of being an
agonie
.

He strode to the far wall and flicked open a dark wooden box set into an alcove. Something metal glinted in the candlelight. He dipped his hand into the box, and when he pulled it back out, sharp metal tips glinted on the ends of his fingers, like claws. Fear and anticipation fluttered through me.
Whatever plans Victor had in store for me, I knew I was bound to feel the prick of those claws against my bare skin.

“You’re remarkably well kept for someone who’s suffered in Undertown her whole life,” Victor said, striding toward me with a panther’s grace. “Barely a nick or a scratch on you. How do you keep the monsters away?”

“Which monsters? The human ones, or the ones like you?”

He struck me across the cheek with a wet slap that ricocheted through my jaw. As delicious as its lingering heat felt, I found myself wishing it had been more like the first time we’d met—his ring tearing at my lip. But I was sure there was plenty more pain to come.

“You don’t know what a true monster I can be.” He seized me by the chin, forcing me to meet his gaze. None of the playfulness remained in his face, and panic welled up in me, even as it heightened my arousal. Was this part of his game, or was he truly furious? Either way, I felt my joints tightening, aching for more of him, more of whatever attention he gave me, whether it was passion or rage.

“Petty, pampered little Vampyr princelings who steal into the Undertown and think no one will notice if they drain some nameless Laborer dry?” I tried to sound indignant, even though I was terrified. “Those are monsters.”

The steel-tipped claws pricked into my jaw. I yelped, a pleasurable pulse worming through me as I felt blood draw to the surface of my skin. “Petty,” Victor echoed. “Yes. Inconsequential. I’m the real thing you should fear.”

“And why should I fear you?” I asked.

“Because you are nothing without me. I control you. Your delight and your pain. Your death and your life. And I can turn it off and on at a whim.” He grinned. “And you are helpless to stop me.”

He sank down to his knees before me; one clawed hand trailed down my chest and groped, rough and painful, at my bare breast. The steel nails only pricked at it infrequently,
but each time, that sharp edge mingled with the rough, delicious feel of his skin against my sensitive, piqued flesh. He ran his thumb over my nipple, drawing it out, until it was so hard it ached.

Then he pressed his tongue against my thigh.

“Oh, god,” I cried, squirming against the restraints. With my thighs forced wide apart, I couldn’t even move them against one another to release the sudden craving I felt between them, a desperation to have my folds touched, tingled, teased, fucked. “Please. Please, just fuck me.”

“No,” he snarled. He sank all five claws into my breast. I bucked back against the cross, no longer even sensing the division between pleasure and pain. It was all one sensation—agony. Bittersweet, wonderful, awful agony.
It was richer and more vital than a breath of fresh air.

“Now you’re starting to understand.” Victor cricked his neck from side to side, then slowly, carefully plucked the claws free from my flesh. “Be a good little slut. Show me how you can scream.”

He wedged himself between my spread legs and traced his tongue in a wide circle on the inside of my thigh. “Fuck,” I gasped, unaware of what I was even doing. I was letting words and emotions pour out of me without thought and it was so incredible, so freeing . . . The slow circles rose up my leg, until he found the first tendril of nectar running down my thigh, and he bit into the skin there, sucking fiercely until I was sure he would leave a welt.

“Do you prefer it when I’m sweet?” he asked, peering up at me from between my legs. “Do you want me to taste you, really savor you?”

“Yes,” I whispered, not trusting myself to say more. I’d never felt more aroused in my life. My clit was throbbing; I tightened my walls with ravenous hunger.

He parted my outer lips with his unclawed hand and ran the tip of his tongue slowly, so slowly along their edge. My back arched instinctively. I clenched my hands into fists, nails digging into my palms, as a sharp, piercing delight went through me. “Do you want me to suck that sweet pussy, fuck you with my tongue?”

I tilted my hips toward him, frantic to feel his tongue on me again. “Yes!” I cried.

“Yes,
what
?” His voice was gravelly.

“Yes,
please
,” I begged. “
Please
suck me.”

He took a sharp bite into my thigh. “Your body and soul are mine now.” He licked the raw skin where he’d bit it, and trailed his tongue up to my folds. “If I want to bite you or suck you, I’ll do it.” His tongue rubbed hard between my lips, scraping at my clit, the very tip pressing into me. “If I want to drink you, spank you, turn you, kill you, then I will.” He darted his tongue again inside me, writhing, pressing, making me clench around it like a fist. “Do you understand me?”

Turn me? Kill me? My heart was hammering within my chest, but the terror in his words made me slicker than ever. That tongue, and his hot breath against my skin, and now—oh, god, his mouth surrounding my clit, sucking it into him—

“I understand—please, please, you’re going to make me cum—”

Abruptly he pulled away from me, leaving me throbbing, standing on the edge, ready to jump. Cold air danced across my engorged flesh. Every change in the breeze and every crackle of a candle’s flame felt like a dagger to my spine, prodding me closer over the cliff. I needed it. I needed it fiercely.

“No,” he said forcefully, his voice like the crack of a whip. “You come when I command it. Only when I command it, and always when I command it.” He smirked. “One day, you’ll be on a crowded mag-lev train, and I’ll comm you with the order to come for me, and you’ll be helpless but to scream as a mind-shattering orgasm tears through you, everyone staring at you in fear.”

I nodded, shaking against the bars of the X. I felt like a balloon with its skin stretched too tight. If he didn’t push me over the edge soon, I was sure I would burst.

“But I think I’ve served you quite enough today already, wouldn’t you agree? It’s your master’s turn.”

“Anything,” I said, my throat raw. “Whatever you want. Just please, let me—”

He slapped me again. It tasted like the sweetest wine inside my cheek. “
If
and
when
I’m satisfied with you.”

At that, he grabbed the top arms of the X and, bared arm muscles glistening, heaved it to one side. I spun through the air until he settled the cross upside down. I slipped down, blood rushing to my head, restraints digging into my ankles to support me.

“Now that’s much better.” Victor gave a lewd slap to my exposed bits. “Maybe the disorientation will tame your brazenness a bit.”

He
reached for the slender buckle on his belt. From upside down, I watched him unearth his erection from the fine suit pants—thick, reddened, and as long as I’d imagined it, from tracing it with my hands that morning. He gave himself a savory tug and stepped toward me.

“Let’s put that disobedient mouth of yours to good use.”

I curled my tongue around his shaft, relishing the rough network of veins and the taste of his skin, like the faintest honey. He pressed deeper into me, probing the back of my throat. Suck and lick, suck and lick—I moved faster and faster, goaded on by the pleasant, throaty gasps escaping from him as I felt him swell and stiffen further in my mouth.

“Good girl. Keep going,” he murmured, leaning his face against my knee. He raked the claws along my thigh, digging in deeper as I pulled him further into my mouth. Pain prickled where the claws broke through my skin; I felt like I was swimming above the pain,
in a surreal stretch of time where nothing existed but Victor, pressed against me, pressed into me, scraping through me, filling me with power and passion.

He stiffened, his muscles spasming in his shaft as he sank his teeth into the side of my knee. I held my breath in anticipation. “More,” he pleaded, around a mouthful of my skin. “More.” I braced myself. For a fleeting moment, I wondered just which of us was really in control here—the person bound to the iron cross, or the person without restraints?

Then his climax ripped through me, filling my mouth with his hot seed.  Something ran down my legs—my own blood, from where he was biting me. I tensed, trying to make sense of what was happening as I tried not choke, and swallowed him down. He’d bitten me, hard enough to draw blood, of that I was sure—but he hadn’t extended his fangs. Surely not.

Had he?

Before I had a chance to ask, he pulled out of my mouth and spun the iron cross back up to the right side. My hair stuck to my face with sweat and some of his juices. “Victor—” I asked, gasping for breath. “Master—”

He plunged his mouth into mine, silencing me with his tongue, as if he meant to lick every last drop of himself out of me. I tasted my own coppery blood on his lips. Something within me trembled like a live wire at that taste. Bleed me dry—I didn’t
like
the taste of blood, did I? But it only heightened my arousal, heat pulsing deep inside me, to taste where I had bled for him.

I probed the edge of his teeth with my tongue. No sign of his fangs. I let myself slacken in my restraints and fall into the blissful feeling of his mouth, warm and spicy against mine.

He reached down between us and traced my folds with the claw tips. I groaned, sinking my teeth into his lower lip. With a snarl, he pulled his mouth away from me and nestled his lips up against my ear. “Three,” he murmured.

“Three?” I repeated. “Three what?”

“That’s how many times I’m going to make you come for me.” He kneaded my swollen clitoris, interspersing the tender motions with the sharp bite of the claws. “Are you ready, little raven?”

I managed a meager nod; the spiky, delirious taste of pleasure roiling through me offered me little chance to reply more than that.

Victor’s other hand closed around my throat. “I
asked
,” he snarled, spittle flecking my cheek, “if you were ready.” His massaging intensified.

“Yes!” I cried.

He slipped one clawed finger into my slit. “Then give me one.”

I convulsed around his finger in delicious release. For a minute, there was not
hing but dark, velvety pleasure; then, as my muscles relaxed, I felt everything with heightened senses—the spark of the candles, the tang of the night air, the warmth of Victor Bressov’s skin pressed against mine.

“
Vorona
,” he whispered in my ear, as my lower body’s shuddering ceased. I did my best to give him a confused look, as exhausted as I was. “My native tongue,” he explained. “From before I was turned. It means ‘little raven.’”

“I’ll try to take it as a compliment.”

Victor grinned. “In time, I mean for you to take it as a command.” He stepped back from me and reached for his phallus, which was starting to stir again, and quickly sprang back to life as he stroked it. Then he knelt down and unlatched my ankles from the restraints at the bottom bars of the cross.

“You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this,” he said, as he stood again, carrying one of my legs up with him. We kissed again as the tip of his cock prodded against
my sex. “I hope you’ve dreamed of this, too.”

He slid into me before I could answer, slick and firm, pressing against my walls perfectly, like a hand into a custom glove. I groaned as I stretched around him. It had been so long, and I’d never been with anyone quite like him. Well—that statement was true in a number of ways, I had to concede. He cupped one side of my rump in his clawed hand and kneaded
it as he began with slow, deep thrusts. At this angle, with my legs wrapped around his waist, the friction against my node was nearly too much to take.