Blood Legacy (5 page)

“I see your work wardrobe isn’t the only thing that needs updating,” he said. Then his hands left my skin.

I clenched my bound hands into tiny fists. What was he doing? Why wouldn’t he touch me again? I tried to twist my head around to look at him.

That’s when the paddle struck me, right in the meaty center of one cheek. I shrieked as heat splashed deep into my ass, dissolving into a fierce stinging sensation. Oh, god, it hurt so good. My clit throbbed; I could feel it swollen and hungry against the
cheap thong. The surrendering side of my brain was definitely winning the battle.
More
, it urged.
More.

As if reading my mind, Victor struck again, hitting both cheeks this time, the hot slap renewing the echoes of pain. I bit down on the inside of my cheek to keep from crying out louder.

“A shame you didn’t choose the path of the Donor. You must have the most exquisite blood.”

I tensed in genuine fear at that, but my panic was quickly erased by another spanking, this time with the paddle’s edge. It cut deep into my skin, and I wailed, helpless as I felt hot juices start to creep down the inside of my thigh. “Please,” I begged, though whether it was for him to stop or continue, I couldn’t say.

He wedged his hand between my knees and swiped upward, right to my folds, cleaning away the trail, then pulled his hand away. “Your nectar is certainly divine,” he said after a moment. “Though it’s your blood that holds true power.”

His fingers pried at my thong, no thoroughly soaked, and
eased between my folds. I groaned, back arching, as he stroked my clit in slow circles at first, then a hasty back and forth motion. A wave of passion swelled inside me, desperate for release. I drove my nails into my palms, pulling at the belt that bound me.

It was no use. I couldn’t fight off the surge of the wave as his fingers teased and pulled at my node. My ass arced high in the air as the pleasure pounded through me, tensing my folds and enveloping me in white-hot bliss. I slumped forward, unable to do anything but ride that wonderful, taunting wave.

There was a slurping sound as Victor licked his fingers, then I heard his zipper unfurl. Oh, god, how I wished I could see that sight. Again I tried to pull away from my bonds, but I was stuck.

“More, my little
agonie
?” he asked. I felt the tip of his phallus probe at my folds as he traced it up my ass.

I squeezed my eyes shut and managed a nod. “More.”

He tangled one hand in my hair, pulling it taut. My scalp prickled deliciously at the pain. With his other hand, he eased the thong down, over the curve of my ass, where it slithered down my thighs and pooled around my ankles, still in my high heels. His fingers parted my nether lips once more. I braced myself, aching and desperate for more—

The comm chimed with an incoming voice message.

Victor slammed his fist against the desk with such force it made me jump. “What is it, Heron?” he hissed. “I’m very busy today.”

I tensed my walls, as if I thought for a minute that I could pull his
erection into me. Stupid Raven. The gooseflesh on my exposed rump didn’t feel quite so pleasurable now with its pain; it just felt like a cruel taunt.

“Oh, nothing,” Heron’s simpering voice replied. “But you’ve asked me to warn you whenever Violetta Stregazzi arrives at Bressov Industries.”

Chapter Three

I excused myself
to the restroom as quickly as I could—I don’t even remember what I said to Victor, if anything. I only knew I had to get out of there, and fast. I nearly tripped over my underwear, forgetting that it was currently tangled around my ankles, but Victor reached down and snatched it away before I could even attempt to pull it back up.

Ugh. Just as well. No use traipsing around in that wet mess for the rest of the miserable day ahead.

Though no one so much as looked up from their frantic typing as I left Victor’s office, my skin crawled as if a thousand eyeballs were roving over it, and finding me wanting. It wasn’t bad enough that I was a human, turned on by a Vampyr, of all things. That I’d practically tripped and fallen onto my boss’s dick on my very first day of work was even more embarrassing. No, the most humiliating, terrifying part was that I was starting to believe Victor’s crazy conviction that I was an
agonie
.

The heavy restroom door groaned shut behind me, sealing me away from the administrative team’s gaze (and, of course, the approaching Violetta Stregazzi).
I leaned against the cool marble countertop. My hair had pulled from of my chignon in places, and stood out like a frantic black halo of wisps around my face. The worst damage, though, was surely to my butt, and I wasn’t about to lift up my dress to check it out in the mirror. I could feel the bruises festering just fine.

Deep breaths, Raven. I stared myself down in the mirror. So what if Victor Bressov spanked you a little bit and gave you an (admittedly pretty phenomenal) orgasm? You have a job to do here, and I’m not talking about financials. You found that shady file. If you have to cut your losses and flee this madhouse right now, then you can at least take that file with you.

I washed myself off as best as I could in the executive bathroom sink; hopefully I didn’t stink of scotch and sex anymore. I tugged my hair free from the chignon, smoothed it out with my fingers, and twisted it back into place. I could do this. I could grab that file and get away from Victor Bressov, and still be a hero in the resistance’s eyes.

The bathroom door groaned open. My eyes flicked toward it in the mirror, but from the mirror’s perspective, there was no one there. Heels rang against the slate tiles and the door eased shut again. That meant only one person was likely to be behind me—a Vampyr.

I turned around, as calmly as I could.

Violetta Stregazzi’s burgundy curls were piled high atop her head; a black metal corset cut into her milky skin before ending in a velvet skirt that billowed out nearly as wide as the doorframe. I dropped into a hasty bow and brushed past her. “Excuse me, my lady.” I grabbed the brass handle, having to lean around her close enough that I could smell her sharp metallic perfume with its undercurrent of dying roses.

She grabbed me by the wrist—what is it with Vampyrs and wrists? I thought grumpily—and leaned forward. “Who are you?” she asked. And then her nostrils flared as she sniffed at me like some ferocious bloodhound. If I hadn’t heard all the terrifying stories of dreadful fates her many, short-lived Donors had met, as well as rumors of even darker and more depraved dealings, I might have laughed.

“Raven.” I looked away. “Part of the administrative team, my lady.”

She
hmmed
, tight-lipped, then leaned toward my ear. I froze in place. “What an unusual scent you have. There’s something very familiar in it.”

Oh, god. Victor. She could smell Victor all over me. I was about to get eaten by a psychotic black-widow Vampyr. In an executive bathroom, no less. Could this day get any less illustrious?

“It’s delightful.” She leaned back, an eerie smile parting her blood-red lips. “Well, I won’t keep you. In any case, I’m sure we’ll be meeting very soon.”

“Maybe.” I ripped the door open and got out of there even faster than I’d escaped from Victor’s office.
But hopefully not
, I thought.

The next few hours were torture—and no, not the pleasurable,
agonie
kind. Violetta strutted into Victor’s office, and those thick black glass doors whose sound-proofing qualities I’d been so grateful for this morning now vexed me to no end. Was Violetta undergoing a spanking session of her own? Or maybe it was Victor’s turn to get paddled. No, I couldn’t afford to let my thoughts wander down that road. I had no claim to Victor Bressov—nor did I want to.

Despite what my hormones were saying to the contrary.

If Heron suspected anything, she didn’t show it, but then, Bressov Industries kept all of us loaded down with endless tasks. At the end of the day, Administratives were really no different from Laborers—we punched our timecards, we churned our way through the assembly line of whatever tedious task kept society lovely for our Vampyr betters, then we descended into Undertown and collapsed into bed (after a quick stop at the Donation stations, if our numbers were up).

Still, I waited until Heron left for the restroom to dive into the hidden archive again. The file sat there, taunting me
, covered with Violetta’s digital fingerprints. It was encrypted, of course, but that only furthered my certainty that something juicy must be locked away inside. I took a deep breath and copied it over to a private drive, along with several other nearby archives, just so it didn’t look like a deliberate copying. Then I passed the archive through several hop points along the Stream. Once I left the Bressov Industries building, I’d give it a final send-off on my personal equipment to one of Finch’s secret accounts. His Resistance tech heads could get their rocks off trying to decrypt it.

The Administrative hall started emptying out after six. When Heron stood up and shut off her machine, I realized that Victor’s of
fice doors were ajar, the interior dark. When had he and Violetta left? I’d been so swamped with my tasks (and espionage) that I hadn’t even noticed.

I glanced at my task order. Twenty more items to get through before I could leave
. I slumped forward until my forehead rested against the cool glass of my mainframe’s screen. If I’d just been able to prop myself up with caffeine . . .

The screen vibrated with the chirp of an incoming urgent text comm. My eyes followed the screen down to the notification box. BRESSOV, VICTOR.

Shit. What did he want now? Another spanking session, or twelve more spreadsheets processed by morning? At this point, I couldn’t decide which was the more painful fate.

SUBJ: This Evening

Raven –

Your presence is required at the Bressov Towers in Uptown at ten o’clock tonight. As this is a formal event, appropriate attire will be sent to your registered compartment address in Undertown. You will be excused from tomorrow morning’s work duties. If you are still working, you may place your current tasks on hold so that you may rest before tonight’s festivities.

Do not be tardy.

– Victor

My presence was “required”? If this was how he asked a girl on a date, it’
s no wonder his relationship with Violetta was the stuff of Stream tabloid legend. But, if it excused me from the rest of these tasks . . .

I logged out of the mainframe, tucked the rod of my tablet into my purse, and all but ran out of the Bressov Industries spire onto the smudgy gray streets below.

Before I could
comm Finch to let him know about the archive, I had to check in at the Donation center. How I hated those white-tiled facilities, the only clean whiteness to be found in Undertown, rife with the stench of bleach and metal syringes and the vile fake juice and crackers they gave you after your Donation to try to keep you from passing out.

The bored-looking Administrative manning the check-in desk keyed in my questionnaire answers with zero suspicion: nope, no caffeine in the last five hours, no alcohol in the last twelve. A blatant lie on that last, but if our Vampyr betters were going to insist on drinking my blood every month, they deserved to get that sour scotch taste.
I didn’t have any dings on my record yet, so if they did a spot check analysis of my blood, I could take the hit. Besides, I thought with sultry grin, Victor Bressov certainly had no complaints as far as the smell of it.

The machine bit into the soft inside of my elbow, sucked out the pint of blood, and retracted, over and done with in a minute. Somewhere in the device’s bowels, a silicon bladder was filling with my blood, and then would be distributed to a Donor-less Vampyr at random or, less likely, to fill the feeding schedule of a Donor-blessed Vampyr while his or her Donor (or Donors) had to recuperate. Quick, efficient, and about as painless as it could be. The perfect
system of oppression obscures everything absurd about it.

But t
hat little bite of the needle was why I’d given my life to the resistance.

I stood up, legs rubbery beneath me, and staggered through the doorway of my Donation stall. My nose and ears and face felt numb. For the first time all day, I couldn’t feel the welts along my ass where Victor Bressov had laid into me
with his paddle. A Donation administrative rushed toward me with a tray of those vile crackers but I waved her off, arm swinging wide with that drunken, uncontrollable motion of acute blood loss. I pushed past the line of other humans, waiting to make their Donations, but their faces swirled together into a buzzing mess. Just as well. I didn’t want to look at them, either. I was a rebel against the Vampyrs and a traitor to the rebels’ cause, all at the same time.

The cold, wet air of Undertown slapped me in the face as I stepped outside. The sky was deep indigo far overhead, and everything was lit in tight circles of artificial yellowy light. The Donation station was only one tier down from street level, so I could still see the peaks of New Sanguinus’s skyscrapers soaring overhead to pierce the starry sky, but the mag train tracks and roaring limo capsules of Downtown whooshed by above me frequently enough to remind me I was more or less underground. I stumbled down the slope to the mag lift station and hopped in the first capsule to ride it down, deep into the earth, my ears popping and my vision tangling up the harsh geometric metal capsule walls.