Elusive Hero Read online

  She stared back down at the water. Silence ensued, and she wondered just how he was interpreting her lack of response.

  Putting one hand under her elbow and another at her waist, he pressured her to rise to her feet. While she let herself be guided to sit down on the bench next to him, she kept looking at the water, not questioning why she couldn't look at him. Wouldn't. The silence became laden with something else, a feeling that became even more weighted as she felt his hands at her waist again, this time slipping the tie of the robe.

  Suspend disbelief, she told herself. Just let it happen.

  He spread open the cloth, the humid mist touching her bare flesh. Now she did turn her attention to him, met his eyes. He didn't lower his gaze, and it made the moment more potent, that he'd exposed her naked body, but hadn't chosen to look at it yet.

  "Stay still for me. Time for that experiment."

  When he removed a coiled object from his jeans pocket, a dozen thoughts and feelings swirled through her like a capricious breeze coming through an open window, scattering papers on a desk, sending them into disarray, a lack of order.

  It was a collar. Nothing elaborate, just a silver band no wider than one of her fingers.

  "For a lot of submissives, there's a shift of consciousness when you put a collar on them. They let go of some of their worries, get more inside their heads, more in tune with what they're wanting. I'm going to put this on you, let you wear it for a little while, see how it feels."

  "Like letting a horse feel a halter for the first time to prepare her to be ridden."

  His lip quirked. "If you want to go down that road, sure, but you're getting a little ahead of me."

  She pursed her lips. "I doubt that."

  "Lift your chin, my lady."

  She tried to see self-serving lascivious intent in his expression. Turn him into a man who had the arrogance to think he could top a vampire. She was a challenge to his testosterone, his ultimate goal being to fuck her, conquer her. Nothing more.

  There were times she wished she weren't smart enough to see through her own defense mechanisms. Desire for her came off him in waves, yes. She expected that from a human male, no different than what she'd expected from the porters. It was Garron's control of it, the way he refused to let it distract him from what he was doing, and how he channeled it to feed an even more intense action-reaction between them, that made it different. His control was capable of scrambling hers, and his confidence in that wasn't arrogant. It was as if he had a window into her soul and was following her own cues, her needs and desires.

  Trying to suppress that internal quiver, she lifted her chin. She could do this. It was a gesture, was all. It didn't matter that, when his eyes warmed with approval, her toes curled against the rock as if she'd been given a gift.

  Garron guided the collar around her throat, his fingers stroking her as he buckled it. The strap didn't rest on her collar bone. It fit just below her jaw, snug, compressing the arteries and her windpipe enough to feel restrictive, the buckle below the hinge of her jaw.

  He caressed her jaw above the collar's hold, her throat below it, soothing her. Even so, her pulse fluttered like a line of butterflies, her body going even more still. So did her mind, all those dozen thoughts dying down to puzzled whispers. A quietness took over, while other parts of her became far less calm. The tissues between her legs had contracted hard when the strap constricted.

  A different level of consciousness, he'd said. All from placing a collar on her throat.

  He drew her to her feet, and she stood mutely as he slid the robe off her shoulders, let it fall and pool around her feet. She was standing naked in front of a fully clothed human male, wearing nothing but the collar he'd placed on her neck.

  She didn't need to breathe, yet she was making shallow, desperate little breaths.

  "Ssshhh..." He ran his fingertips down her jugular, all around the collar, and slid them into her hair, massaging her nape, his thumb tracing the silver band. "Easy, my lady. Just breathe. I know you don't need to do that, but I expect the act calms you as much as anything. It's just a collar. Christ, you're beautiful."

  Her attention snapped back up to his face. He said it fervently, reverently. It wasn't practiced, part of some elaborate strategy. Even as he was staying conscious of her every reaction, he was genuinely savoring, absorbing every inch of her, from the way her hair fell down her back and over her shoulders, to how her painted toenails gleamed as her toes dug harder into the stone.

  "Is it always the same charge for you...no matter what she looks like?"

  Not sure what emotions she was feeling, she couldn't inject any into her voice, not consciously. Her beauty had always been just there. Another shield over whatever she really was. Sometimes a vulnerable woman, sometimes a monster, sometimes a vengeful warrior. Sometimes an ugly wreck of grief and rage, despair and yearning.

  "Yes," he said, meeting her eyes. "I've had the pleasure of mastering submissives who fit someone's ideal of beauty, and those who are so far from it they've forgotten beauty is in the eye of the creator, not the beholder." He stroked a hand down her hair, caressed her elbow. "All this beautiful hair alone would make a man kill to fuck you, to wrap his hands in it." When he reached her wrist, her fingers started to curl, anticipating him tangling his own with them, he shook his head.

  "Stay still, my lady. I'm touching you now. I'll determine how you touch me when the time is right. Just feel."

  "So you see yourself as God? The creator?"

  "Hell no. I try to reach a place with a submissive where we look inside one another and find what a creator sees. When I get there, the sub doesn't doubt her beauty or worth. She sees the absolute perfection she is."

  His voice, that stilted rumble, could mesmerize. She had her gaze fixed on his mouth, and quelled an urge to lay a palm on his chest, feel his voice like the thunder of the waterfall, a sound heard below the surface of the earth. Below her surface, for certain.

  "Time to go back to your room," he said, and withdrew another item from his pocket. A blindfold.

  "I want you to trust me to get you back to your room. You've seen the tunnel, know where we're going. This way you can absorb the way it feels, walking with me like this."

  Naked. In his collar. If he hadn't just made it clear they'd take the same path back, she might have refused, but still caught up in the spell of his words, she gave a bare nod of acquiescence. As the darkness descended, she managed to suppress a flicker of panic with a couple rational reassurances. He wasn't tying her hands. She could get out of the blindfold whenever she wished.

  He touched her throat again, clipped something to the collar. A tug told her he'd fixed some type of tether to it. He'd collared, blindfolded and leashed her, and she'd barely been off the plane two hours.

  It was too much. But as she went rigid, began to pull back, he made a little hum in his throat, a soothing note. He moved next to her, putting his hand against the small of her back, thumb stroking the upper curve of her buttock. He had hands large as bear paws, it seemed, and they compelled a mesmerizing calm.

  "Just stand here, my lady. Feel it, get used to it. Nothing is going to happen to you."

  She knew how empty reassurances of safety were, but she found she could be just as susceptible to their comfort when accompanied by his touch, the press of his body. A second mark servant could speak inside his Mistress's head, and she wondered how that would add to the tempting sense of sanctuary between Master and sub.

  Once every five years, vampires assembled at the Council Gathering. Usually held in a sprawling estate or castle, the event required extra staff, so servants of lower echelon vampires were often drafted to serve as extra help. During that time, they were naked except for head masks to conceal their identity. It underscored that those servants were there to serve the pleasures of the visiting vampires indiscriminately and with enthusiasm, to honor their Master or Mistress. The idea had spawned quite a few more fantasies for her, the first year she'd atte
nded.

  There was a wide gap between fantasy and reality. When she imagined another vampire seeing her like this, or Garron offering her up to serve others, her fingers itched to do violence to stave off the panic. She forced herself to calm, but it wasn't only her own efforts that helped. The way his hand rested on her waist, the wrap of the tether around his hand that allowed her to feel its slight tug, made her think he really wasn't the sharing kind.

  By all the saints, she was getting ahead of things, her mind running amok. They were just standing by a grotto, him giving her the opportunity to trust him during a walk back to her room, in a familiar tunnel where they'd be seen by no one.

  "Ready?" he said, his voice a pacifying interjection into her tumultuous thoughts.

  Apparently so, because she was in motion, walking with him. The tether was a gentle pull at her throat, and his hand never left her waist. His body brushed hers once again as he guided her back into the tunnel, placing a brief hand on the crown of her head. While he'd had to bend significantly to get through the tunnel opening, she'd only had to duck her head, but he still protected her from scraping the rough archway. Once in the tunnel, he eased her back into a straightened position, kept her moving forward.

  The sensory deprivation heightened the scents of earth and wet rock. Which increased other senses as well. She felt every brush of his hip against her buttock, and each finger resting on her lower back sent individual tendrils of heat into her lower belly. The tug of the tether had her nipples stiffening, and the constriction of the collar around her throat made her imagine his grip there instead, holding her down, collaring her with flesh and bone as he spread her legs and plunged into her, commanding her to wrap her legs around his hips, take him deeper. His skin would heat, the blood rushing to his cock, making him thicker and harder, and she'd hear his heart thundering, his life essence calling to her.

  Her fangs were lengthening, and she realized she'd rested her hand on his side, was screwing her fingers into the fabric of his T-shirt. As she thought of him teasing that blood over her lips, her nails dug into the flesh beneath. She wanted to taste him. Needed to taste him.

  As they made another turn, he gave her a gift, proving how insightful he was. Sliding an arm around her waist, he crowded her against the stone wall, himself against her body. Surrounding her with all that strength and weight, he cupped the back of her head, brought her mouth to his throat.

  "Ask my permission to feed, my lady. You need your Master's permission to eat, to drink, to sleep."

  He was so close she could practically taste his skin. He had his hand wrapped in her hair, but that wouldn't stop her from taking what she wanted. She could strike like a snake, as lethal as one if she desired.

  He'd said as much earlier. "Why don't you just take it?" But that was his point, wasn't it? Any male vampire could force her to his will, just as she could force Garron to hers. Her body quivered in his hold, shrieking at her to ignore all that, to just take. It should be enough. It was enough for other made vampires.

  Even if they didn't have overt dominant tendencies before being turned, it was as if the chemical change ferreted out and magnified every subtle hint of them so the vampire could survive in a world where it was all about a hierarchy of dominance. That was what her sire had assumed would happen to her. He'd been wrong.

  She was the anomaly. The human woman she'd been, the Confederate spy, had possessed the strength to manipulate and deceive, to become whatever was necessary to serve, to try and make her world a better place. Her turning had latched upon those qualities, magnifying them, while leaving those deeper yearnings untouched. Her submissive desires had been stronger than any single or combined dominant tendency within her. Provoked by Garron's command, they surged up like a tidal wave.

  He smelled like all the things around her--salt water, stone and tropical jungle--as well as the cotton of his shirt, a faint aftershave. Beneath that was his essence, the unique scent she would inhale if she visited his quarters, wore one of his shirts, or woke in the middle of the night in his arms. She wanted to do all of those things, fiercely and immediately. She wanted to wake up in such a life, all the rest a bad dream.

  Her reaction had to be caused by the sorcery of the blindfold and collar. She'd seen servants go into a euphoria from such basic tools of mastery. Why should she be surprised that they had a similar effect on her, when she'd fantasized about wearing them so often? She didn't care about the whys. Yet, despite that, she found she couldn't make that last step and ask for permission.

  "I want..." Her fingers closed into balls again. "I want to feed."

  "Yeah, you do. You look hungry. So be polite and ask." The edge in his voice increased the quiver through her limbs. What kind of punishments did Garron deal out to disobedient subs?

  "I can't. I've never... It's like I'm opening myself up far too much."

  "It's just us. I can see--hell, I can feel your reaction to wearing my collar, being naked like this. It's humming off every inch of you. The blindfold helps you get lost in your own responses and emotions. It creates a cave like this inside you, where those things echo and bounce back, intensifying everything. I love the tight way you're holding those gorgeous lips, holding it all in, because that means what you really want to do is part them, let me in. My mouth, my cock. Cry out your pleasure, ask for permission to exist, let alone take a pint from my throat."

  He leaned in so close his breath was caressing her lips. "You've imagined this countless times, my lady. Haven't you?"

  She made an incoherent sound as he wrapped the tether tighter around his large hand, rested it on her sternum so she felt the weight of his touch, the deliberate pull against the collar. "You want a Master who will keep you naked but for his collar all the time, so you know you're his. Totally his. He'd take you to his bedroom, hook the tether to the headboard, put you on your hands and knees and fuck you like that. Put his hands on your hips so every time he pulled you back to take his cock harder, you'd feel the yank on the leash, the collar. His ownership of you."

  Her fangs lengthened to their full size, something that she didn't usually do until they were embedded in flesh. They were nearly a half inch, curving over her bottom lip. His hand was close enough that when she dipped her head restlessly, she grazed the sharp tips over his knuckles. His other hand dropped, his palm so broad it cradled her buttock. His fingers insinuated themselves into the cleft, an intimate invasion, causing her to lift on her toes against him. Her mound brushed his erection, an impressive steel bar under his jeans, sending a jolt of pleasure through her body.

  "Ask," he demanded.

  "Please let me drink," she said, the words wrenched out of a place of fear and need. If he waited another second, she would simply take, no matter the consequences to her sanity, to her belief about her control. It would be over before it ever started. The thought plunged her spirits into a different kind of darkness.

  His grip on the tether eased, but only to move his hand to her nape and bring her forward so her mouth was fully against his throat. She sank her fangs into him, and that was a jolt of pleasure as well, the first flood of metallic, rich taste. When she all but purred from it, she heard his answering growl of satisfaction. He increased his grip on her ass, not holding back on his strength. Pulling her thigh up along his hip, he shoved her back against the tunnel wall, dropping his hand lower to seek a different pleasure for himself. As she had his first taste of his blood, he had his first exploration of her pussy, the slick lips that she was sure coated his knuckles with her arousal as he pressed them into her. God, he had fabulous thick, long fingers. She worked her hips on him as she was drinking, her hand drifting up to his jaw.

  Catching her with the hand holding the tether, he wrapped a loop around her wrist, holding it against her throat, making her keep it to herself as he explored her cunt, teased her clit and made her writhe between hard stone and his muscled body. Her bound fingers convulsed under her jaw as her other hand clutched his T-shirt, fingers cling
ing to the waistband of his jeans beneath.

  He broke her hold on his throat after she'd had no more than a few swallows. "Enough for now," he said roughly.

  It was and it wasn't. It was enough for her immediate needs, an adequate snack, but it didn't balance anything else. She gasped as he continued to work her on the hand dipped below her thigh. She was up on one set of toes, the other leg clinging to his hip. He was pushing against her as if they were fucking, and she was rubbing her mound in a crazy pattern over his erection as his fingers kept up their diabolical dance inside her.

  "I'm still hungry."

  "Yeah, you are. But you'll wait a bit."

  He pulled his fingers out and she smelled her musky scent. While he let her slide back down to her feet, he kept her pinned against the wall. Tying her wrist to her throat had freed both his hands. He spread his palm out beneath her bound wrist, which put the heat of his hand over the cleft between her breasts, a sensation that spread over a much wider area. As her scent grew stronger and tangled with the faint mint of his breath, she heard the provocative sound of gentle sucking, and realized he'd placed his other fingers in his mouth to taste her. Hearing and smelling that without sight, his aroused body hard against her, had her ravenous for things so much more fathomless than blood. Yet the need paralyzed her as well.

  "I'll feed you soon. Then you'll feed me," he said.

  She wanted to do it now. Everything in her raged for it, couldn't believe she was allowing herself to be restrained by little more than his words and the pressure of his body. Her nipples were tight and hard, her pussy wet and willing. But as he freed her wrist and tugged her onward, his hand again on her lower back to guide her, she followed his lead. In the darkness, with the collar on her throat, she had no care for who and what she was supposed to be.

  "It's getting close to dawn. Time to put you to bed.

  Chapter Three

  Time to put you to bed. Like a child? Was he insane? Or was she?

  The walk helped her settle, regain some perspective, wonder what he intended to do next. Back in her rooms, he kept the blindfold on and brought her into the bedroom, put her down on the bed in a sitting position.