Vampire Mage 3: An Urban Fantasy Harem (The Vampire Mage), page 3
My hands moved out from under her panties and made their way up her belly. They cupped her breasts through the matching lace and her nipples pressed into my palms. They tightened at the touch, and I kneaded into them, massaging them until they felt heavy and full in my hands. My tongue touched her skin, gliding along her belly and through the valley of her breasts until it reached her collarbones. It traced along each, pausing for a few seconds to concentrate on the soft dip between them before continuing to trace over her shoulders and then onto her neck. I wanted to worship her, to pay homage to every inch of her. It didn't matter how long it took or what else was happening. Exploring her skin was the only thing that meant anything.
Several moments later Aurora's hand tightened in my hair and tilted my head back to look up at her. She smiled down at me.
"This is all very nice, Hayden, but I am feeling empty." She pulled me to my feet. "And I need you to fill me."
Her legs wrapped around my waist as soon as she was in my arms and I carried her back toward the bed. Tipping her back, we tumbled onto the mattress and I took her hands in both of mine, straightening her arms up above her head. We kissed intensely, my body pressing hers down into the bed, and the warm wetness of her body heated my thigh. Tucking my hips down, I sought out the heat with my cock, and soon knew feeling it through the fabric of my trunks and her panties wasn't going to be good enough. I needed to fill her, to feel her wrap around me. My body ached for the sensation and I craved the rush of power and strength I knew was waiting for me.
Looking into her eyes, I saw the need Aurora felt, the desperation for the melding of our bodies. It reminded me of my vital role in her life. It was more than just desire, more than just arousal that brought her into my arms. She needed me for her survival and fulfillment, and that need made both of us even hungrier for each other. We peeled away the last of our clothes and were finally completely skin-to-skin. Sweeping one arm under her leg, I draped it over my shoulder and pressed up, opening Aurora to me and closing the space between our bodies. Hot and wet, she accepted me eagerly and easily, and I sank into her deeply, until I couldn't go any further. She groaned, her back arching as she pressed her hips up higher to tighten the bond between us.
The plan had been to savor every bit of her and take my time, but that changed the instant her walls closed around me and the sound of her whimper touched my ears. Each hard, fast thrust was accompanied by a deep growl and soon the room filled with my low sounds accented by her higher, sharper ones. Sweat slid from her skin to mine and her tongue swept after it, gathering the salty drops so she could transfer them into my mouth with her kiss. Our bodies wrapped around each other, I thrust as deep and hard as I could without breaking the closeness. Strength rolled through me, starting at my feet and rushing up through my body until I felt it buzzing to the tips of my toes and the ends of my fingers. My mind and body were getting more powerful, and I let the feeling push me to the edge and let me tumble into a climax that tore a scream from my chest and made me pour into her hard and deep. Aurora clung to me as she cried out, her fingernails digging into my skin, and her teeth biting into my bottom lip. Sharp pain brought a few drops of blood to the surface and she licked them up, her body trembling into another wave of climax as she did.
We dropped to the mattress and Aurora curled into my arms, her head resting onto my chest and her body molding against mine. My face nuzzled into her hair and I pressed a kiss to her temple. She sighed in response, then lifted her head to look at me.
"Are you all right?" she asked. "You still seem tense."
"I'm fine," I said. "Better than fine. Just thinking."
"About what?" she asked.
Letting out a sigh, I kissed her again and sat up.
"That I need to get down to that basement before Ty smears that guy across the floor and I have to explain it to my mother."
4
Climbing out of bed, I got dressed as fast as I could, not bothering to put my shoes back on before crossing back through at the kitchen and open basement door. I paused for only a second, waiting to see if I was going to hear the sounds of Ty’s personal brand of persuasion. Fortunately, all I heard was the muttering of his voice from below. He turned to look at me when I got to the bottom of the steps, and I noticed he seemed to be strategically positioning his body between the man in the chair and my line of vision. I pointed toward the chair.
"What did you do?" I asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Is he still in one piece? All of his parts still attached and in the condition you found him in? Because I swear, Ty, if I have to spend tonight trying to figure out which of the thousand cleaning products on those shelves is the one that's going to take blood and various other sundry bodily fluids out of sealed concrete…"
"He's fine," Ty said, stepping out of the way.
The man did look fully intact, but his expression didn't exactly say he was having a good time down there with Ty. I took a few steps closer, noticing his arms were now tied down to the chair and his ankles seemed to be lashed in place as well. I debated calling Ty out on it but figured if that was going to make him feel better about the whole situation, I would go with it. Baby steps.
“Have you found out anything about him?” I asked.
Ty shook his head.
“Nothing,” he said. “I've been trying to get anything out of him I could, but he's closed up tight. If you're not going to let me use my own techniques, I don't think I'm going to be able to find out anything about him, or why Lunaris sent him.”
The spy’s eyes shot a bitter glare at Ty, and it seemed he was angry we had immediately noticed his necklace and knew what it meant. His hands closed tightly around the ends of the arms of the chair, but he still wouldn't say anything. Ty looked at me, and his expression told me he was waiting for me to give him permission to tap back into his Shade interrogator training to start getting information out of the man, water-from-a-washcloth style. Shaking my head at him, I took a step toward the chair.
"I don't think we're going to need you to do any of that just yet," I said.
"Are we just going to all hang out down here for the rest of the night and hope he has a change of heart?"
"No," I said. "I'm going to try something."
"What are you going to do to him?" Ty asked.
I tried to ignore the mixture of awe and fascination in his voice, like he couldn't wait to see what kind of torture tricks I had up my sleeve. I didn't want to break it to him that my squeamishness with blood was getting better, but not to the point where I was ready to put ‘enforcer’ on my resume quite yet. Besides, I had the feeling I wasn't going to need that type of method.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Nothing?” Ty asked, sounding both confused and disappointed.
"No," I said, leaning close to the man in the chair. "Because I don't need to. Isn't that right? I don't need to do anything to him. I just need to ask the right questions."
I hoped I didn't sound like I was making this all up as I went along as much as I felt like I was. The reality was, though, I had the same type of feeling I did when I first saw the man in the shadows in the backyard. It was like I could look into him, like I could understand elements of him without him having to speak. It wasn't like reading the women's minds or hearing their thoughts. Instead, it was almost like I could influence him and draw out what I needed from him. It wasn't something I had experienced before, but it came to me like the strength and speed of my vampire abilities, and the magic Artemis had been teaching me. It was something new and strange, but I wanted to experiment with it and find out how far I could go with it.
"The right questions?" Ty asked. "What do you mean the right questions? I've been asking him questions for the last hour."
"But not the ones you needed to hear," I said, bringing my face to within a few inches of the spy. "Am I right?"
The man drew in a shuddering breath, but his eyes didn't move from me. The defiance was still there, but his mouth started moving.
"My name is Bex," he said.
He looked shocked at himself, and I couldn't help but smile slightly.
"Hello, Bex," I said calmly. "You were sent by Lunaris, weren't you?"
“Yes,” he said. “I am a spy. I've been following you since you went to The Foundry and met with the Dragon. I was assigned to you then. It was my responsibility to watch you, to follow your movements, and make sure we were kept completely informed of everything you were doing at all times. But it hasn't been easy, especially since what happened to Malakan.”
“What do you mean you were assigned to us?” I asked. “The Dragon already knew I was there. They're the ones who reached out to me. Why would they need to have someone following me?”
“I wasn't sent here by the Dragon,” Bex said.
“Then who?” Ty asked.
Bex gripped the arms of the chair harder, his jaw clenched as he resisted answering the question. I looked at him and nodded slightly, focusing on reaching into him and drawing out the information. His back arched slightly like I was physically pulling him toward me, and he started talking again. I didn't know exactly what was happening, but I kept going, letting the instinct in me guide me as I tried to understand the control I seemed to have over him.
“I represent a much smaller faction of Lunaris. It is a smaller group but is growing in strength and influence. This group doesn't believe the Dragon is doing enough and has lost faith in them and their leadership. The fracturing is evident, but no one outside our group really understands why. This group has determined that the Dragon is no longer doing what is in our best interest or properly leading all those who have depended on them. Our group wants to take the power into our own hands and is determined to see the Prime dead. Now.”
Aurora gasped behind me and I turned around to see her hands pressed to her mouth. She shook her head like she was trying to turn my attention away from her and not have me notice her reaction. I knew she was struggling. Despite what she had said to my parents when we were upstairs, she was still working through what she was learning about her father. It was all happening so quickly around her. I, and everyone else, was so completely focused on how it was impacting them that I knew no one had really taken the time to check in with her and see how she was coping. I had to admit it seemed odd. She had been the one to emphasize the strain in their relationship and how much they had struggled with each other. At the same time, they had only just recently begun to piece things together and find comfort and even respect in their relationship. It was hard to tell if there was ever any love between them, but there was still a strong sense of loyalty, and it wouldn't be easy for her to just toss that aside. The exact details of how long Aurora had been alive were still a bit shady, but she had told me enough for me to know it had been many, many years that she had devoted to overcoming her perspective of her father from her childhood and forming a relationship with him as an adult. Completely tossing that aside wasn't just about having to accept that her father was cruel and hated, but also that she had given so much of her time, energy, and life to someone like that. For someone as headstrong and independent as Aurora was, I couldn't imagine how hard it was to have to admit she had been manipulated by her father like so many others.
"Don't you think that's a little extreme?" Aurora asked.
"No," Ty said. "It's not, Aurora."
"They want to murder my father. They want to just cut him down in the street. You don't think that's too much?"
"No, I don't," he said. "Remember, I know your father in a different way than you do."
"He's my father," she said. "I have known him longer than any of you. You can't tell me you know him better."
"I didn't say better," Ty said. "I said a different way. No matter what the two of you went through, you have always seen him as your father. I have seen him as the power-hungry dictator-wannabe he actually is."
"Don't talk about him that way," she said.
"Aurora, what's wrong with you?" I asked. "What are you saying? You know what he's done. You saw it."
"How do you want me to talk about him?" Ty asked, his voice overlapping mine. "Would you rather me talk about the people he's killed? How about the ones he's tortured? Or the ones who just haven't been seen since they crossed him?"
"You don't know what you're talking about," Aurora shouted. "I know you hate him for demoting you. I know you blame him for your life ending up the way it is, but you only have yourself to blame for that. He was trying to do what was right."
She was recoiling, pulling back into herself because she was so afraid of what she was hearing. It had gotten to be too much for her, and she couldn't bear it.
"Aurora," I said, grabbing her shoulders and staring into her eyes. "What is wrong with you? Listen to yourself."
Tears pooled in her eyes.
"How could I have missed it?" she asked. "How could I have lived this long and been through so much with him, and not see it?"
"You did see it," I said. "You did. You might not have known what you were seeing, but you always knew there was something about him that you couldn't trust."
"But I didn't know," she said. "I didn't know what he was doing or what he was capable of. Maybe if I had known…"
I pulled her close and kissed her, wanting to remind her of the strong link we shared. She needed to remember what we were doing and why. When the kiss ended, I pulled my mouth back just enough to be able to look at her.
"You can't put yourself through that," I said.
"But if I had known what he was doing or what he was planning, I could have stopped him."
"If you had tried, he would have made sure you didn't get in his way," I said. "You know that as well as I do."
I didn't want to say what I really felt, what both of us knew was true. If Darian had found out Aurora had any inkling of what he was doing and tried to call him on it, he would have killed her. The fact that she was his daughter wouldn't have meant anything to him. She would have just been another of his casualties.
"Everything they are saying is true," Bex said.
We turned to look at him and I realized I had almost forgotten he was sitting there. Ty bristled, but nodded.
"What do you know?" Aurora asked.
5
I didn't feel like I needed to control Bex anymore. He was speaking out of his own will now, wanting to tell us what he knew.
“You are not enough to protect the Underworld, Princess,” Bex said. “I know you are strong. Everyone who has ever heard of you knows that. There is no question as to your determination or your power. But even that is not enough to contend with what your father wants. As soon as Darian decided he would be the one with the most power in the Underworld, he became a threat to anyone who was near him. There was not a single person safe from him if he decided they stood in his way. I'm sure if you thought about it, you would know of someone who went against him and lost their life.”
Aurora stiffened, her chin lifting as if in refusal to accept what he had said. She didn't want to admit to the images going through her mind. The comment was significant. There was something specific he wanted her to think of when he said that. I waited for her to say something, anything that might tell me, but she stayed cold and quiet. Usually, I would leave her to her thoughts. I'd made the commitment I would leave the women to their own minds and thoughts except in situations that seemed urgent, and the way her body shook, and her face going pale was enough to make me believe this was one of those situations. I focused on her, drawing myself into her so I could know what was happening in her mind. In an instant, I saw a flash. It wasn't words, no actual thought to tell me what she was going through. It was only an image. In the brief moment I was connected I saw a woman, her eyes bright and sparkling, her hair flowing in curls down to her thighs. She smiled and it felt like she was smiling directly at me, then it was gone in a bright light. I stepped back involuntarily, trying to draw a breath into lungs that felt trampled closed.
Without having to have any other confirmation, I knew that was Aurora's mother. She had talked about her many times, and it didn't occur to me until then that it was always in the past tense. She always talked about her mother as having been a central element of her life when she was younger, but somewhere along the line she had disappeared from the narrative. It wasn't something I thought about much until that moment when it really sank in why her mother wasn't around anymore. A new wave of hatred for Darian filled me and I wrapped my arm around her waist to hold her close to me, wanting to offer her a sense of comfort. She needed to know I was there for her, no matter what, and was ready to defend her and everyone else who had been hurt by the Prime.
“How is he able to do all of this for so long without anyone stopping him?” Aurora asked.
“The Prime is very good at hiding his evil intentions,” Bex said. “But they have all been long known among Lunaris. It's part of the reason why Lunaris as a whole, as well as the Dragon and my own group, despise Darian so much.”
“Think about Owen and Molly,” Ty said. “Think of the life they led in the Underworld. They had privilege, they had the perks being vampires and living into perpetuity in the Underworld, but they chose to give it up. They made the conscious and purposeful decision to walk away from everything they knew, the lives they were already leading, the potential they had for the future, and all the privileges that come with being members of their species, just so they could escape from Darian. They knew the time would come when they would either be called upon to serve him and do things neither were willing to be a part of, or they would be killed. I honestly believe them leaving was far more about not wanting to be involved in any of the horrible things he was doing than it was about protecting themselves. After all, coming here means they will face certain death at the end of a human lifespan. They chose a slower death sentence to break free from him.”
