Captiva Capitulation (3 page)

"Unravel and ravel, take your pick." He waved a hand over the doorway, parting an invisible barrier, and stepped inside with Blythe in his arms. After Bane had taken a quick phone call, he and Kash were in a tight huddle, suddenly discussing something, their faces tight with concern. Whatever was going down, Bane would have to carry on without Rock for the next two nights. He could ask Heath to fill in.

“Most any Druid spell?” Sixten asked specifically, bringing him back to the conversation at hand.

“I know my fair share,” he replied, “And we have to do better than this. Really, you have your home spelled against pure blood werewolves and pure blood shifters, but any vampire or mixed blood can come in here. In all of two seconds, I, a pure blood werewolf, am standing in your kitchen."  Through the window, Rock nodded as Bane gave him a thumbs-up and misted away.

“Blythe and I have to get inside our own house - we're mixed bloods. Furthermore, as far as vampires are concerned, I’m not keeping him out.” Sixten gestured at Kash before stepping through the threshold. When Sixten turned back to Rock, Kash misted away, following Bane. “My wife needs rest.”

Rock frowned, staring down at her high cheekbones. Her eyelids had closed and her dark lashes fanned out to perfection. “I can
sense
what she needs. I’ll put her into your bed.” Without a doubt, his Beast could sense everything Blythe needed, Rock’s soul anchored by hers. “Point the way, vampire.”

“I don’t know if she’s ready for you to tuck her in.”

“I’ve dishonored her by frightening her.” Rock didn’t think when he’d crushed her to his chest, demanding her acceptance while she was reeling in shock. “I will honor her in this way, seeing to her rest as I protect her. I’m sure you know that it’s our way.”

Blythe’s eyes snapped open, her body still relaxed but her brain in overdrive. “Seeing to my rest? That’s not necessary.”

Just when he felt guilty for overwhelming her, again Blythe attempted handling him. Not happening. Rock touched her mind, speaking in a private way.
I walked your dream tonight. Sixten and I weren’t the only males in it. Do you want to discuss this now?

She narrowed her cognac eyes, wondering how Rock knew, but made the choice he expected. “I guess…seeing to my rest…sounds fine.”

“You’re going after him?” Rock asked Sixten.

“Going after whom?” Sixten looked affronted.

“Kash looked a little green,” explained Rock, “took off in a hurry.”

Briefly, Sixten closed his eyes, his hand reaching out for Blythe. Their fingers intertwined intimately. “You really expect me to leave Blythe here alone…after everything she just saw and then found out…about you?”

“She’s not alone.” Rock said evenly. “I’ve got Blythe. What about Kash?"

“What about Kash?"

“So quick to dismiss him?”

“As far as Kash is concerned, I’ve dismissed nothing, werewolf.”

He looked between Sixten and Blythe. “You two are treading water about something this important?” He hadn’t missed the possessiveness Kash had shown with Blythe, or the way Sixten overlooked his friend. And considering the dream Blythe had tonight, her subconscious was calling out to the Vojak as much as she was calling out to her werewolf. Whether she understood it or not, Kash felt her need for his Species as much as Rock felt her need for his Beast. Maybe she was too ashamed to admit her growing feelings for Kash. For sure, Blythe wanted Kash in her bed. “Secrets open rifts, leaving everyone involved vulnerable.”

Sixten’s eyebrows drew into flaxen slashes. “
Now’s
certainly not the time.”

“Obviously, I’m not challenging your rights as her mate. If you were challenging mine, you would have done so fifteen minutes ago.”

“Yes, I’ll accept you as my co-mate.” Whispering lips across Blythe’s knuckles, Sixten offered selflessly, “I’ll do anything for the only love I’ll ever know.”

“Then whom are you challenging, Six? Think about it.” Rock ignored the stream of tears that left Blythe’s eyes, even though they tore at his heart. “You can check on Kash while I’m with her. Why not offer me your trust. It's not as if I haven't earned it. Repeatedly. Hell, I risked my life to save hers, before I even knew Blythe was mine. Just saying."

"He’s right. I'll be fine, Sixten." Blythe offered. “If something’s up with Kash, go,” she said, wiping at her cheek. “He never stops helping us. Lately, that's
all
he seems to do. If he needs you for whatever reason, go to him. I think you’re his only true friend.” She smiled encouragingly, though her lips wobbled. “I just hope it won't take too long before you come home."

"Okay," Sixten agreed reluctantly, "I've trusted the Vojaks to guard you when I wasn't around. Leaving you with your werewolf mate should be a breeze, right?” Though his expression said the opposite. “I’ll be back here before you know it."

“As long as it’s before dawn, we’re good,” Rock said. “After that, I have to oversee a prisoner’s release into your Coven’s custody over at the joint faction facility. Bane can’t relieve me of that, he’s needed elsewhere.”

“I have no intentions of staying out the rest of the night,” Sixten scoffed.

"Go quickly so you can come back sooner." She blew Sixten a kiss as he misted upstairs to change clothes.

"Which way to your bedroom?" Rock asked his mate.

"If you let me walk, I'll show you."

Swallowing laughter, he asked, "Let you walk when I finally have you in my arms? No way.” Rock watched as her tiny nostrils flared.

“By the way,” she countered, pointing a finger at his nose, “your efforts in trying to handle me will backfire.”

“Backfire? I don’t think so.” He couldn’t help himself. A rumble escaped his chest, his Beast amused at her sauciness when he could clearly smell his mate’s sex dampening in response to his proximity. “
By the way
, don’t challenge me, mixed blood, unless you can negotiate on an even playing field.” He leaned down and sniffed her throat, rubbing his nose across her jawline in a distinctly wolfy way. “Don't give me that look, either. All females enjoy a werewolf’s style of negotiating, and believe me, baby, so will you.”

No matter how many times he came here, he couldn’t come to terms with the long lines snaking out from the entrance. In all his years of Vojak service, he never understood why humans flocked together, herding body against body, in order to taste the edges of darkness while inebriated.

Those standing around hadn’t a clue what true darkness was, or they wouldn’t be here around his kind. Down below, underneath Six Feet Under, a playground for a vampire’s every fancy existed, a blood drinker’s dream world. Where flesh, blood, and bone covered the floors, a place where human nightmares lived. Not that they allowed mortals there. If somehow they made it past Ryan’s covert entrance, they would never leave alive. Maestru and Qudir had turned their backs on the goings on there, looking the other way for years, since humans weren’t typically involved. They all agreed on one thing, though, it was far better to keep certain vampires’ tastes
off
the streets and down below. In fact, that was Qudir’s unending motto. 

Crushing a fifty into the bouncer’s meaty hand, he strode in without hesitation, bypassing those grumbling in line. With a
 glance up, he found pretties dancing in cages, dangling before flashing strobes in a smorgasbord of optic pleasure. None of them held a candle to Blythe.

“Thanks for coming on such short notice,” he said to Sheila, rolling his eyes over everything but her.

“How could I say no?”

Everyone knew the word no rarely left her lips. Sheila shared intimacy with many Vojaks, a groupie of sorts, although Kash had never been inside her. Even though she had offered countless times. She curled her hand around his forearm, her weaker power sliding up his arm. And it wasn’t one of those times where something wrong felt so right. She just felt all wrong, period. Still, both walked in another pointed silence until they reached the west side of the club.

Stopping near the smaller dance floor bar, Kash turned to her. “The dungeon, you got a problem with it?”

“I trust you.” Sheila tugged him even closer, her hair reflecting an unnatural green under the alternating lights.

Shrugging off her hand, Kash grabbed her throat, his thumbs tilting her chin. “You still aren’t claimed?” he asked, dropping his hands as soon as he checked.

“Not yet,” she replied with faux confidence, her heart kicking up with her true response to such a personal touch. With her extraordinary senses, she detected his anger rolling off in radioactive waves. One after the other they crashed, which was the very reason he wasn’t feeding from humans tonight. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt this dangerous.

The smell of Shelia’s adrenalin was just what he wanted, and he inhaled her until his lungs burned. Right then, deep in his bones, Kash knew that the only thing that could distract him was the taste of another’s fear in his mouth. Placing a hand on her lower back, he ushered her past a second bouncer, a vampire. Then they walked through the entrance to Hell. “Shelia, I will feed from you.”

“My honor, Vojak.”

“My way.”

Wisely, she kept her mouth closed as they reached a main corridor in what was truly a dungeon. Cement slabs, rusty chains, and low-lit sconces flickered in time with alternative grunge, showcasing bondage elements the likes the human world has never known.

Raw, unquenchable hunger called from every corner, though blood flowed freely, covering the floors on which Kash walked.

“A private room?” An attendant asked, her body devoid of any clothing apart from knee-high boots and a bloodied whip she held tightly in one white-knuckled fist.

“No.” That one word bounced around the corridor, and even Kash could hear the lethalness honing it. He didn’t want private. Private meant intimate. Intimate was too personal.

Sheila pouted at his answer, her eyes taking a slow visual over his body. So he gave it right back to her. With a deliberate eye-fuck, he took in every aspect an extraordinary vampiress, such as Sheila, had to offer. Undeniably, she was perfect on the outside, not a flaw in sight. Sculptured, refined, and strong, even her blood smelled delicious. In response, his fangs lowered and dripped, lubricating themselves in anticipation. All primordial senses alerted his Species for feeding, and feeding
alone
. However, he expected Sheila to try changing his mind.

“The arena, then?” Miss Whip and Boots held out her hand, motioning towards the sounds of group-fueled grunting and groaning.

Exactly where they needed to go, a wide-open space full of rutting freaks, though, it was certainly the mildest room in this place. “Fine. Your whip, I want it.” She handed it over without question. From there Kash veered left, skirting Shelia around dozens of vampires in various stages of feeding and fucking. Centered on stage, was a female working five males: one in each fist, one in her ass, one in her pussy, and one in her mouth. A sixth stood to the side, feeding from her throat while another female sucked
him
off.

Unimpressed, Kash remained flaccid. Since only one woman could make him hard, he would have to force blood to his dick if he wanted to use it on anyone other than Blythe.

Finding a distinct spot where no other could come up behind him, he bared fangs at the closest males. Meaning he didn’t want to be touched in any way whatsoever. For that matter, Kash didn’t want his dinner touched until he was finished with her. When Shelia reached for his zipper, he flipped her around, her back facing his chest.

“But you’re not mated, either,” she grumbled.

“Who’s in charge here?”

“You.”

“Remember that.” Wrapping the whip around her upper arms, he left her unrestricted below the elbows. She hissed soundly and grew immediately wet when tiny spikes hidden in the leather embedded themselves into her skin. As expected, there went another adrenalin spike, spicing her blood, just the punch to tip him over.

Though she was far taller than human females, he still had to bend his knees to accommodate their height difference. Without preamble, he bit down. When the first swallow drenched his throat, he almost felt bad about making her flinch. A vampiress handled more pain than a human did, so he must have been quite rough upon entry. And he would have apologized later, if her desire hadn’t wafted suddenly to his nose.

Confirming what he already heard, she loved pain.

Most vampires inflicted and fed from pain. During feeding, he enjoyed the added flavor. During sex, he’d rather deliver pleasure. Shelia’s mild whimpers grew to moans, so he cut back on his endorphins and tightened the whip. When she meant to turn her head, he cupped her jaw, holding her face firmly towards the escalating sight in front of her. A stage filled with immortal fucking was what she needed to concentrate on, not him. He had other matters to concentrate on, and he was discretely doing so. Still, her fingertips walked the fronts of his thighs, aiming around the whip’s confines to cup his package. Pissed, Kash emitted a warning hiss without stopping his intake.

She stilled those roaming fingers, understanding his dominion over her.

Good, because he needn’t be distracted. Since he’d walked into the arena, something didn’t smell right. On the heels of that thought, liquid dripped on his shoulder, splatting against his pristine leather.

Blood.

His eyes flipped up, taking in the darkly stoned structure. Essentially, this working cellar shouldn’t be here. Built way below sea level, in Florida of all places, it defied the laws of architectural engineering. But that was magic, magic blended with ethereal power. All harnessed and maintained by ravenous vampires.