Page 34 of Ouch! My Vampire Doms Don't Sparkle
I remain stiff in his embrace, trying not to cry.
“I won’t take anyone else to the blood banquet,” he whispers.“I’ll tell Gaius you couldn’t make it.I’ll…come up with something.All right?”
“I’m being stupid, aren’t I?”I ask.“You’re trying to save my life and I’m trying to throw myself in front of the bad guy.All because I’m jealous.”
“No, no.”He kisses the top of my head.“I feel the same possessiveness over you, love.It’s all right.”
I melt into him, the fight leaving me.“You’re not taking anyone else, really?”
“Really.I’m not taking you either, though.And that’s the end of that.You want to fight me on it, I’ll put you over my knee and that punishment willhurt.”
I don’t doubt him.That’s something to test another time.
Right now, though, there’s only a towel separating my naked body from this man.He seems to realize that fact at the same moment I do, and a wicked smile forms on his face.
“You are jealous,” he says.
“Fuck yes, I am,” I say with a pout.
“Let’s go.”He heaves me up into his arms and I wrap my legs around his waist.
A few minutes later in the bedroom, we’re both naked and he’s leaning over me, pushing my legs apart with his.
“No one else for me, Autumn,” he says as he sinks his cock into me, filling me up.His whiskers scratch pleasantly against my cheek.“Just you.Only you.”
Xander
The blood banquet is tonight, but all I feel is a sense of foreboding.What the fuck is Gaius’s true game, here?He can’t want to stay in San Esteban.He always turned up his nose at the former colonies, saying they were too young to hold the rich traditions he values.It’s a comment which solidifies him as one of the biggest assholes in my acquaintance, because those former colonies contain vast multitudes of cultures and histories, much of which were present prior to their colonization.If his racist, colonialist biases kept him far from San Esteban, though, I was happy.
However, he’s here now.Why?
My suspicion is that he is bored.After four hundred years, not much entertains or amuses him.What does still amuse him, it turns out, is intrigue, manipulation, backstabbing, politics.Tormenting his frerte, Benjamin, is another amusement.Petty cruelties and domination rule their house.
Their entire dynamic gives me the fucking creeps.
Will and I chose this city because it was far from Gaius’s games.Far from his European strongholds.Far from his influences.
Now Gaius is here, and he’s brought all that shit with him.Fuck, fuck,fuck.
I look at the antique grandfather clock in our Dorado Terrace apartment.It’s nearing eight in the evening, so I call Neve, knowing she’ll be awake.
“Xander.”Her voice is cool, cautious.“I told you yesterday, I can’t tell you anything.”
“I know you can’t.How much damage did he do up there, exactly?”
Her coolness edges toward sorrow, regret.“At least six.Two of them mine.”
“Fuck.I’m sorry, Neve.”
“Yeah.Me, too.We know how he is.If we don’t join him, we’re enemies.Motherfucker doesn’t know how to coexist with anyone.”
“Have you thought about…”
“Creating a triad of my own?Yes, asshole.I have thought about it.And I’m just not ready yet.”
“Okay, okay,” I say before she can start ranting about it.I don’t bother telling her how if she had a frerte and an amant, she could better defend her territory.She knows.She’s built up a strong network of allies, but that network will only get her so far if someone like Gaius comes in and wants to remain in her city.
Much like he’s doing with ours.Shit.
