Crimson Debt: Book 1 in the Born to Darkness series (8 page)

“Come, Celeste—this isn’t worth your time or
trouble. I understand the one in question—this Taylor—has been a
grave disappointment to you. You should be happy to be rid of
her.”

“I am never
happy
when someone invades
my home and tries to take what is mine,” she snarled. “And besides,
I am not done with Taylor yet. So is so sensitive—I quite enjoy
tormenting her.”

I saw Corbin’s eyes harden. “You must forgo
that pleasure in the future. Produce the fledgling at once or face
the consequences.”

“How dare you!” She rushed forward, her hands
hooked into claws, but it was me she was headed for, not Corbin. I
was already reaching for my Glock but I would have been too
late—much too late—if Corbin hadn’t stepped in front of me.

He caught Celeste in his arms and bear hugged
her until I could hear her ribs creak. Considering that a real bear
couldn’t have gotten that response from a vampire’s body, it was
pretty damn impressive.

“Let me go. It was that stupid little human
who put this idea in your head—I know it was. I never should have
let her leave here alive in the first place.”

“Are you threatening my consort?” Corbin
growled.

Abruptly she stopped struggling. “You’re
serious? You actually claim a
human
as your consort? I could
understand using her as a snack or even a fuck if you’re feeling
destructive but a
consort?
Even a shifter would be better
than a human.”

“It is true it would be better if she were
brought over,” Corbin said. “Nevertheless, Addison is my consort
and as such she is under my protection both day and night. I will
kill anyone attempting to harm her. Is that clear?” He shook
Celeste once, like a rag doll before depositing her almost gently
on the ground.

Celeste looked up at him, her eyes still
glowing with rage. “It’s clear. Clear that this human has you under
her spell somehow. How she has done it, I don’t know. But now I
must pay the price for it.”

“What price?”

The voice belonged to a new vamp who was
suddenly standing behind Celeste. He was dressed like a gentleman
from the Civil War era with a waistcoat and a white linen poet type
shirt and his hair was in loose, dark waves over his shoulders. But
what caught my attention were his tattoos. Beneath his left eye
were four tiny blood red stars. And beneath his right eye were two
more.

Six hundred years old.
I couldn’t help
sucking in a breath. Holy shit, Corbin was the oldest vamp I’d ever
met and this one—who had to be Roderick—was two centuries older and
thus, considerably stronger. If things went south now, we were in
very big trouble.

But even stronger than my fear was my fury.
This was the asshole who had been forcing Taylor to do demeaning,
disgusting things. This bastard had made her want to kill herself.
My hand was still on the butt of my gun and my finger itched to
pull the trigger. But if I killed a vamp in a non-official
capacity, I was in for a shit-load of trouble and not just from the
government. Vampires had been known to exact their own revenge for
illegal kills and it was never pretty. Reluctantly, I kept the
Glock holstered, hoping for a legitimate chance to use it
later.

“What is all the commotion?” Roderick asked,
looking between Corbin and Celeste. His eyes didn’t even register
me at all. I guess humans weren’t worth his time or attention.

“Inquisitor Roderick.” Celeste bowed low to
him and Corbin inclined his head. “Corbin here has taken it upon
himself to come and take away one of my fledglings because he heard
I was being
cruel
to her.” She laughed as though it was the
most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard.

Roderick frowned at Corbin. “Explain.”

“Celeste has lived in my area for over a
hundred years and though I am older and stronger than her, I have
never tried to exact any tribute. Now, however, she has something I
want.” Corbin shrugged. “So I am taking it.”

“He has no right!” Celeste exclaimed.

Corbin grinned, flashing his fangs in a way
that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with menace.
“Might makes right. It is the creed of our kind, as you well know,
Celeste.”

“Enough.” Roderick held up a hand for
silence. “Who is this fledgling you are so set on having,
Corbin?”

“It is Taylor—the one I gave you to amuse
yourself with,” Celeste answered quickly. “He wishes to steal her
from under your very nose, Inquisitor.”

“I wish to remove her from a situation that
is causing my consort distress,” Corbin said, nodding at me.

Roderick gave me a surprised look and I was
sure it was the first time I had registered on his radar. “You
claim a human as your consort?”

“I do.” Corbin gave him an unwavering
stare.

“And you find that to be satisfactory? You
are able to fuck her without breaking her?”

A small smile twitched up the corner of
Corbin’s lush mouth. “As you see—she is still in one piece.”

“You must have surpassing control. That I
would like to see.” Roderick was looking at me with much more
interest now, as though I might do a clever trick if he watched
long enough.

“Sorry, we don’t do private shows,” I
snapped.

Roderick frowned. “It appears your consort
needs some discipline, Corbin. She hasn’t enough respect for her
betters.”

I wanted to say tell him to fuck off or ask
how being a rapist and a torturer made him better than me but
Corbin was suddenly between us. “My apologies, Inquisitor. She is a
non-glam and so a bit more difficult to control than most
humans.”

“I see. So you are unable to control her
mind?”

“I said it is more difficult, not
impossible.” Corbin put an arm around my shoulders and I forced
myself to hold still though I wanted in the worst way to shrug it
off. “I could break her to my will completely if I wished, of
course. But I find that a broken mind makes for a boring bed
companion. Do you not agree?”

“Not at all, actually.” Roderick sniffed.
“Although in my estimation it is the breaking itself that gives the
most pleasure, not the end product.”

I thought of how he’d been “breaking” Taylor
and wanted to shoot him so badly I could almost taste it. Only
Corbin’s heavy arm around my shoulders and his hand gripping my
upper arm kept me from reaching for my Glock.

“As I was saying, Celeste’s treatment of her
latest fledging is most upsetting to my consort. She and this
fledgling were friends before Celeste took her and turned her
against her will.”

“Celeste, is this true?” Roderick turned to
her, frowning. He spoke softly but there was a vast depth of menace
in his voice. “You know turning a human without their consent is
heavily frowned upon now that we are in the public eye, do you
not?”

“The old ways were better.” Celeste sounded
sulky. “One never had to ask who was willing and who was not. We
just took what we wanted.”

“I remember that well.” Corbin’s eyes
flashed. “A fine time for our kind. However, it was not always so
pleasant for those that were taken.”

I looked at him in surprise. Had Corbin been
brought over against his will? He had always seemed like the type
to volunteer for vampirism to me but maybe he hadn’t. Maybe some
vampire somewhere back in Scotland or Wales or wherever it was he
came from had seen a big, strong, handsome man and decided he would
make an excellent part of his or her entourage. It was something to
think about—if we got out of this alive. The situation seemed like
it could go either way.

“Cease this bickering.” Roderick looked
irritated rather than enraged, which I cautiously hoped was a good
sign. “Celeste, you have committed an illegal act. And you have
made me party to it by giving me the fruits of your illicit
activity as a tribute. I should kill you here and now.”

“Inquisitor, no…
please
.” Celeste’s
dark eyes grew wide and terrified.

“Calm yourself. I said that I should, not
that I would—yet, anyway. We must have a trial to determine your
fate.” Roderick turned to Corbin. “We can hold it in your club. You
will close tomorrow night in order that we may do so.”

Tomorrow night was a Saturday and I had an
idea of the vast amount of revenue Corbin would lose by closing but
he only nodded. “As you say, Inquisitor. But what of the fledgling
I came for?”

Roderick sighed. “I will cede her to you. I
was growing tired of her relentless sniveling anyway.”

Corbin inclined his head. “You are most
kind.”

The other vampire snarled. “Do not be so
quick to count me kind, Corbin. You may have gotten what you want
but I will be looking into your affairs next. I hope you will have
something suitable for me to bring back as tribute.”

“I am preparing something as we speak,”
Corbin said neutrally. He turned to Celeste. “The fledgling. Where
is she?”

She crossed her arms over her flat chest
sulkily. For someone who was facing a trial and possibly the
vampire equivalent of the death sentence, I didn’t think she looked
too concerned. “Danica will show you,” she said. A vampire with a
single red star tattooed under her left eye nodded at Corbin and
walked down a hallway toward the back of the house.

I hurried ahead of him, trailing right behind
the one-star vamp who had long black hair and a perfect figure a
lot like Taylor’s. Obviously Celeste had a type and this was it. We
came to a bedroom door and Corbin reached over my head to push it
open.

“Carefully,” he murmured, putting a
restraining hand on my shoulder to hold me back when I would have
gone rushing in. “Celeste is capable of great cunning. Let the one
she sent to guide us go first.”

I thought he was being a bit too cautious but
I slowed down reluctantly and let Danica enter the room ahead of
us. Then, when Corbin nodded, I walked in behind her, looking for
Taylor.

At first, all I saw was a vast expanse of
black satin. A huge four poster bed with strangely carved posts
dominated the room, drawing the eye immediately, and it was spread
with satin sheets. Walking closer, I saw that the carvings on the
posts were some kind of never-ending orgy. But not just any orgy—a
vampire orgy. The carved figures all had fangs and they were
displaying amazing levels of flexibility. I hadn’t even known some
of the positions shown were possible and I supposed they
weren’t—for humans, anyway.

Then I heard a soft whimper from the vast
bed. It was Taylor, curled up in a corner near the far right post.
She had the black satin sheet pulled up to her neck and her long
dark hair was hiding her face.

“Taylor, it’s all right. I’m here for you.
I’m going to get you out of here and you’ll never have to come
back.” I climbed up the high side of the bed onto the slick satin
sheets, almost slipping in my haste to get to her. “It’s okay. It’s
okay,” I crooned, gathering her into my arms.

Taylor leaned her head against my shoulder
and sobbed. I held her tight, not minding that the arm she wrapped
around my waist was just about squeezing the life out of me. I
wondered why she wasn’t squeezing me with the other arm too but
when I looked up, I saw that she couldn’t. A thick metal cuff
connected her slender wrist to the ornately carved post. There was
a fine wisp of smoke rising from where the metal was touching her
flesh, proving it was real silver, which burns vampires on
contact.

“The keys. We need the keys to these cuffs.”
I turned my head to look for Corbin. He was standing at the foot of
the bed, watching us with a bemused expression on his face as
though he wasn’t sure what to think of what he was seeing. “The
keys!” I said again, which seemed to startle him into action.

He turned to Danica. “Does your mistress have
the keys to these cuffs binding the fledgling to the bed?”

“Here they are.” Roderick was suddenly there,
holding out a small iron key on a wire ring. Corbin took it and
strode around the bed. While he was busy unlocking Taylor’s hand, I
smoothed her hair back from her face. Her cheeks were streaked with
blood and it had dripped down onto her chest. Obviously she’d been
crying for hours.

“Hurts,” she whispered in a soft, broken
voice.

I felt my heart squeeze in my chest. “I know,
hon. We’re getting you out of the cuffs right now.”

“Not just that.” She nodded her head at the
black satin sheet pooled in her lap. “There too.”

“What else did he do to you?” I cast a
furious glance over my shoulder at Roderick who looked back at me
blandly, as though he hadn’t just been torturing my best
friend.

“Hurts,” Taylor moaned again, drawing my
attention back to her problem.

Carefully I lifted the sheet and saw…
“Crap—is that a chastity belt?”

“A silver one,” Taylor gasped as I touched
the contraption that appeared to have hinges in the crotch and
locks on either side of the waist. There were multiple plumes of
smoke rising from her bare pelvis, everywhere the silver was
touching her.

“We need the key for this too,” I said to
Corbin who was staring at the silver chastity belt with an
unreadable expression on his face.

“I recommend you leave that on her.” Celeste
was suddenly there again, by the side of the bed. Taylor shrank
away from her mistress, her eyes wide with fright. “It’s a valuable
part of my collection and I’d be sorry to lose it,” the blonde
vampire continued. “But it keeps little Taylor in line beautifully.
She’s been wearing it every minute she’s in the house—except when
Inquisitor Roderick takes it off to fuck her, of course.”

“The
key
, Celeste,” Corbin grated.
“This is sadistic, even for you.”

She handed over the key, which was much more
elaborate than the one for the cuffs, and shrugged. “I was just
having a little fun.”