Captiva Master - Vampire Warewolf Menage Six Feet Under Series Book 4) (4 page)

Her eyes went to Maestru. “Are there any Habalines in this Dynasty place you speak of?”

The Dynasty Empire wouldn’t tolerate Habalines in their mix. Over the years, they’d hardly tolerated Sixten Kovac as a Vampyr Vojak. “None at all, though, remember your precious unborn. One day she may be scorned by the vampires, unless she, too, is a Donor.”

She took a deep breath. “My gut says I have to stay away from these shape shifters and go with the Dynasty. At least, if I want to keep my sanity,” she added quietly.

“So be it,” Jayce said with marked disappointment. “Because of your horrific ordeal, I will not press this. Instead, I wish you and your child the very best, Amy. Make the most out of your life, sweetheart. And just a little word of advice: Don’t allow dark memories and unjust prejudices to erect a new prison in your mind.”

Amy turned away, staring down at a broken vase of flowers that Adam undoubtedly brought her. Maestru bid her goodbye and followed Jayce into the corridor. When he closed the door, he watched Jayce mist away and then met Adam’s determined face. “It’s time for you to move on, Adam.”

“To what?”

Maestru’s thoughts drifted to a fateful night his beloved Bride was murdered. Hundreds of years had passed and yet it still felt like yesterday.
“Move
on from this in peace,” his Bride beseeched him.
Helplessly, he held her, the blood pouring from her chest, both of them gripping her stomach as she cried for their unborn. “Aleena, please,” he’d begged, elongating his fangs, determined to keep his Bride with him by making her his Undead. “No,” she’d pleaded fiercely. On her last breath she said, “Do not raise me Undead, Husband, where I shall forever live in darkness, without our children running beneath my feet.” Her hand fell away from her stomach, her eyes closing for the last time as she whispered, “That would be my eternal hell.”
His chest ached. If anyone knew loneliness, Maestru did, and, evidently, so did Adam.

He cleared his head, figuring he could use Adam’s extraordinary skills in helping to protect his Dakota. “Are you prepared to move into my Captiva Island lair?”

“Into your lair?” Adam waited a beat, shocked, and then nodded his ascent. “I owe you for much, particularly for accepting me into the Coven and the money.”

Bringing him into the Coven had caused quite a stir, but Maestru had easily doused those fires. “Remember, the settlement you received from my Coven was derived from Rave and Poison’s so-called enterprises. Every survivor got his or her share, including Amy. Coming to my lair has nothing to do with you owing me.” Maestru realized Adam knew nothing of currency, so he’d have to explain how he was now worth millions and how he could invest it to make more, later. “I have need of your power for a specific, honorable purpose.”

Adam relaxed. “Yes, after leaving here, I cannot stay idle. I will reside in your lair until you no longer have a need for me.”

“Perfect.” Maestru clapped him on the back, reasurred he could give Dakota unparalleled protection she obviously required whenever he was away. After he caught up on some much-needed sleep, he could go over the specifics with Adam. “Here’s what I want you to do.”

Thirty minutes later, Maestru hissed in the way of vampires when he
finally
crossed the front door of his Captiva Island Manse, only to find she wasn’t here, her heartbeat gone. “Where. Is. She.” The one time he felt assured he could stay away for duty and wham. Dakota is missing. “Ennui wore you down, Luisa? Did you decide it was your time to die?”

“I could do nothing!” She pleaded. “The werewolf took her. His power is strong.”

“Rock,” he growled, his claws protracting at the thought. He scented the remnants of Rock Kiard in the driveway, though he figured the werewolf merely passed over on his way to Sanibel Island, never guessing he stopped by for a
pickup
. Fool. How could that Beast be so stupid as to enter his lair and take what belonged to the Coven Master of North America? For this, Rock must die, no matter the pleadings of Kash or Sixten. His would be a public execution, for sure, one all would learn from, one even Jayce Jordan couldn’t argue.

Gliding up the stairs to his second floor bedroom, Maestru paused, glancing at the opened door where Dakota had slept. A recent constant in his life was Dakota. She had been
there
, waiting every time he had come home. Though she remained unconscious, had clung to life in the first of those horrifying days, her presence under his roof was just enough to anchor him. Every free moment away from his duties, he had sat vigil, willing her to recover so he could…. He could what? He wasn’t sure of the answer, but she was never to leave!

Luisa was sobbing behind him, in fear for her life, wondering if he would behead her for her insolence. He recalled how she had been a devoted servant for nearly a century, yet he was having a hard time holding back from severely punishing her. Passing through his bedchamber door, he waved a hand across his longest window. The blinds lowered from his mental command, obscuring his actions from whatever prying eyes were lurking. Maestru never fooled himself into thinking he kept any level of privacy or safety. Considering his recent discussion with Prince Volos, doubling his efforts was necessary.

Stopping at his weapons’ cabinet, he collected his long coat and hid blades in all available places. His eyes dropped to his shirt and then his leather pants. The stench of every immortal he had encountered today was driving him mad, particularly Amy’s aroma. Not that he hated her, but lately, his Master Species repelled every female he encountered. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been properly laid. Realizing he was a complete mess, he misted into his shower, stripped from head to toe, and cleaned up in vampiric speed. When the suds trickled sensually over his balls, they woke up everything inside him. Damn, he was hard as brick. With his thoughts fixed on Rock taking Dakota from him, Maestru’s marking instincts roared to life. Right away, he understood this sensation went far past vampiric possessiveness and bled into mating territory.

How can that be?

A red haze suddenly covered his vision, his fangs draping his bottom lip, dripping, as his Master Species took over his body. When a shot of pre-come left the tip of his crown, he hissed a deadly threat, thinking of the one who took her,
that fucking werewolf
, and gripped his throbbing erection with one hand, his laden balls with the other. Maestru stroked and stroked and stroked in vampiric speed, imaging Dakota’s delicate hands squeezing his cock as he scraped his scrotum with his free claws, just as he would during an actual mating ceremony. What he wouldn’t do to have her beneath him now, moaning his name hoarsely, screaming her umpteenth orgasm through those plump lips of hers. He burst with a strangled shout, crying out her name, while his load hit the shower wall and streaked the tile in cream and… “Shit.”

Blood.

Everywhere.

Maestru had done this only one other time. All the blood froze in his body before his heart kicked into overdrive. “God.” Scrambling to fight this trance, he took a deep breath.

If Rock had hampered Dakota’s recovery in any way, Maestru would torture him for centuries before he finally killed him. “My Dakota, I will hunt you and bring you home.” After swiftly toweling off, he strolled back through his bedroom to find Luisa still crying. “Luisa, I haven’t the patience for your blubbering. Calmly tell me everything that happened,” he ordered, while releasing an exasperated breath. In his high chest, he pulled out another pair of dark leathers and a navy blue Henley, while moving in his native speed. Luisa remained, though spun around and faced the opposite wall as he dressed.

“When sweeping the kitchen, I heard the human stirring in her bed and misted right away to investigate.”

Maestru’s hands froze on his waistband, the top button halfway through its hole. “You heard her stirring? As in, Dakota was
conscious
?”

“Yes, My Master, I tried to calm her and she wanted nothing from me. I think she could sense me as a vampire.”

“Sense you, you say?” He’d find that curious if he weren’t so overwhelmed by Dakota’s awakening. He reached for a fresh pair of combat boots and laced them before throwing on his coat. “Go on.”

“She used my phone, dressed, and then raced out the door into the werewolf’s truck.”

Circling Luisa, he met her eyes. “She
raced
out the door. Her body was completely operable…no problems, no hitches?”

“Yes, that’s what I’m telling you.” She waved a hand at the hidden connecting panel leading to Dakota’s room, one he often used. “See for yourself, she barreled through it with merely her hands. How can a human female do that?”

Maestru took in the destruction, just noticing the wooden fragments littering the floor. “Well, look at that.” He shook his head, gliding out his bedchamber and down his main staircase. “So the werewolf didn’t actually abduct her.”

“No, but I think you should kill him anyway.”

“Of course you do, because you want all werewolves dead.” Not a bad notion, but he couldn’t kill Rock without justifiable cause, which Maestru obviously didn’t have now. “I’m off to hunt what I lost. Don’t wait up.” Out the front door, he misted high, fighting his exhaustion, and spread his body over the Gulf of Mexico. Another hiss left him as he hunted his blood, which thundered through Dakota’s gentle veins. Now, there wasn’t a place he couldn’t locate her, and it was high time she understood. Even though he just experienced release, his groin tightened mercilessly when he picked up a thread of her scent, leading to downtown Fort Myers. Presently, he wanted nothing more than to corner her and sink his fangs deep into her throat, watching her repeatedly orgasm as he
finally
collected his Blood Debt and possibly more.

Downtown Fort Myers

“I can’t believe this,” Dakota whispered to Rock and Ryan, taking in her father’s wrecked store. After spending the day sitting vigil at his hospital bedside, wondering if he would recover from his massive stroke, she faced this mess. “Save the roof still intact, a hurricane would have done less damage.”

When Ryan met them, coming at her for a hug, she’d sensed he was other, a vampire, and she could detect it the same way she sensed it in Rock, funny how she hadn’t noticed before her attack. She swallowed a few times and unknotted her shoulders, exhaling slowly. God, she was so confused, and she had every
right
to feel that way. Rock promised her life had changed, and she certainly felt different, but he refused to discuss much of anything at the hospital. Of course, with her dad in ICU, they weren’t permitted much privacy.

Running a palm over a large piece of sheetrock bolted to the front bay window, her thoughts drifted back to her childhood. “When mom took off, my first real job was trimming our store windows for the Christmas Season. Snow didn’t fall, but Christmas was Christmas to me, you know? Sure, it was hot as hell around here.” Her hand arched up, her index finger touching the plywood covering the broken window. “But I refused to put glue-formed sandcastles and those tacky, painted sea dollars next to a miniature Santa riding a jet-ski while hauling Mrs. Claus in her red bikini.” She drew in a shaky breath. “No, not me, I’m a Florida Cracker through and through. With teenage rebellion, I always insisted that this place wasn’t a tourist trap.” She took in another breath, this one deeper. “But it
was
a tourist trap, and Dad wouldn’t have it any other way. He loved talking to
all
people who came through here, from all over the world.”

Had vampires ever stopped by, shopping inside her father’s store and blending in with humans? She dropped her hand and ran the toe of her shoe over a crack splitting the sidewalk, daring childhood superstitions to jump back out at her. It was as if she never knew the world at all. She thought there were humans – only humans. Now what? What would she do when she walked down the street with new, albeit frightening, understanding?

She glanced over at Rock. He and Ryan were incredibly patient, allowing her to absorb everything as though they understood the scattered meanderings of her mind. If it weren’t for Rock saving her, she wouldn’t be standing here. He had torn away attacker after attacker, possibly killing them all with fangs and teeth. Vampire or not, Rock was a hero,
her
hero. If anything, Dakota wasn’t afraid of him, still wanted Rock fervently, though he’d never been more than a friend to her.

Since Ryan rented this store to her father, he had the key in the new lock, turning. “Let’s see what needs to be handled inside, Dakota, okay?”

After following them in, she drew in a gasping breath. “This place is gone…just destroyed.” Gingerly, she stepped over shattered knickknacks, glancing at the whitewashed, maple shelves positioned against forest green walls. Dakota remembered painting the tobacco brown crown molding, thinking how beautifully it contrasted with all the decades-gone-by memorabilia her father offered for sale.

Another gasp left her. “Is that…
blood
?”

“Yeah,” Ryan whispered, not elaborating.

Dakota felt her mouth drop open while taking in the rusty puddles on the floor. She stepped behind a gilded, antique cash register. “This was in our family for generations.” At her sudden recoil, Rock stepped behind her, following her line of vision. Blood dripped everywhere, congealing without drying. It was a peculiar sight. The visual so odd she knew without a doubt it wasn’t human blood.

“We can clean it up, Dakota.”

“How stupid of me,” she said, a bubble of laughter leaving her chest. “I’m thinking of all this superficial shit while my father remains in critical care, recovering from a stroke. Or maybe not recovering since the doctors can’t figure out why he’s not waking up!” Like an idiot, she smacked her fist down on the counter and a sharp pain went through her. Wet blood left her hand where a shard of glass pierced her. Hastily, Ryan turned away, a quietly menacing hiss leaving his body. Her eyes left her hand, snapping up to the back of his head. She couldn’t believe all the time she passed him at work, never knowing he was a vampire. Rock, on the other hand, was much calmer, acting as though fresh blood didn’t faze him in the least.