Bitten in the Big Easy

Femme Noir, Book One

Butterfly by Paisley Smith

Vampire Narcissa Csintalan is in a New Orleans bar, waiting on her tardy sister Elena, when she develops a raging fang-on for the bar’s sinfully sexy, butch bass player. The bite marks on the songbird’s neck put her at the top of Cissy’s must-feed list.

Butterfly Baudelaire has sworn off strays, but the blonde coming on to her has a killer pair of fangs and looks like she knows how to use ’em. Butterfly’s not banking on the bite Cissy takes out of her heart—or the fact that more than her well-spanked bottom is in danger from her vampire lover.

Gilded Cage by Delilah Devlin

Since her turning, Elena Csintalan has wrestled her inner demon on a nightly basis. She never expects her limits to be tested—until she finds herself drawn to a tawny woman whose lush curves make her eyeteeth spike. Before she knows it, she’s dangling inside an iron cage, one that’s frighteningly familiar. And the punishment she endures is oh so divine…

Despite a surprising empathy she feels for the vampire she’s captured, Cassia proceeds with her coven’s plan—drain Elena of her blood at the height of orgasm to complete a potion that will protect them from Elena’s maker. Cassia scried the darkness coming their way, and the monster has a name—the Countess Elizabeth Bathory.

Ellora’s Cave Publishing

www.ellorascave.com

Bitten in the Big Easy

ISBN 9781419936562

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Bitten in the Big Easy Copyright © 2011 Delilah Devlin & Paisley Smith

Edited by Kelli Collins

Cover design by Syneca

Photography: Colin D. Young and Konrad Bak/Shutterstock.com

Electronic book publication September 2011

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Bitten in the Big Easy

Delilah Devlin & Paisley Smith

Butterfly

By Paisley Smith

Chapter One

“I need to see your ID.”

Narcissa resisted the urge to blurt a sarcastic laugh. Instead, she reached for her hip bag and eased a very valid-looking driver’s license out of her wallet. Holding the bartender’s gaze, she passed her identification across the bar.

His flamingo-pink hair gleamed in the neon bar signs as he dipped his head to scrutinize it. “Narcissa Csintalan, twenty-one.” With a grin that accentuated his silver lip loop, he handed her license back. “If you say so,” he shouted above the din of thumping music and the voices of early evening patrons.

Narcissa’s lips pulled into a tight smile. No one looked askance at a fake ID in the French Quarter. She slid her license back into her wallet and inhaled deeply. Ah, that smell—a combination of musky river bottom, sweaty bodies and blood. “Mmm,” she purred, savoring the bayou bouquet.

Propping one elbow on the bar, she took in the same crude flooring, the weathered edifice of the wooden bar and the multiple doors flung open to Bourbon Street. With its chandeliers suspended from cypress beams, a mixture of sports regalia and the old-world charm of bar-top fountains atop limestone bases, the Absinthe House was quaint and a tad trashy. Still, something about its familiarity lured Narcissa and her sister Elena whenever they visited New Orleans.

Life changed so fast these days. It was nice to hang on to a little sentimentality now and then.

“What’ll it be?” the bartender asked.

She eyed one of the several green marble absinthe fountains. Two curious and inebriated patrons at the nearest obelisk-shaped fountain followed another bartender’s instructions to louche their drinks.

“That shit’s foul!” one exclaimed.

“Shoot it!” the other man encouraged as his friend tipped up his glass.

The drinker wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve and shook his jowls as if he’d just been initiated into some secret rite of passage. A mottled brass statue of Napoleon glared in disapproval from atop the obelisk as the man slammed his glass back down on the limestone base, pitted from years of cool water dripping from the tarnished spigots. “Whew!”

“Green fairy’s gonna get you,” his friend warned as he stepped in front of the little obelisk to set his own sugar cube on fire. When a green flame shot up a couple of inches, he hooted.

Narcissa barely resisted the compulsion to say you boys don’t get out much. Instead, she turned her attention back to the bartender. “Absinthe. But not that anemic crap they’ve just made legal. The good stuff you keep in the back.” She slid onto one of the padded stools, her back to the bar, and crossed her legs, heedless of the fact her pleated mini bared more thigh than the law should allow. Or that the two drunken patrons had noticed.

Not her type. Not even on a good night.

She’d sworn off men, oh…four centuries ago.

Little had changed in the Jean Lafitte Absinthe House since the last time she’d been here. That had been in 1933, at the end of prohibition, and the only difference had been her clothing. She’d sat in this same spot wearing a fringed Parisian-designed shift dress that draped prettily over her pert breasts. She ran the tip of her tongue over her front teeth in memory of the delectable little flapper whose femoral artery had supplied her with champagne-tinged blood that night.

A sweet young thing in a short shift dress and high-heeled boots walked past so close, Narcissa had to fight to keep her fangs in check. Her eyes closed briefly as she breathed in the scent of a decidedly girly perfume mingled with the musky aroma of fresh sex.

No, not much had changed in New Orleans at all since the first time she’d set foot on the city’s streets in 1796. The same oppressive heat hung in the air like a damp, palpable blanket. Hovering over the unmistakable human odors of unwashed bodies and piss lay the heavy river stench of silt and fish.

There was one other thing imperceptible to the throng of tourists standing shoulder to shoulder in the absinthe house. Narcissa, however, detected it easily—the delicious, cloying fragrance of death. Years of devastating yellow fever, storms, wars and just plain murderous behavior haunted the Crescent City, calling out to her sensitive faculties like a Siren song. Her fangs tingled. She breathed the mouthwatering scent in, letting it fill her senses as if it was the most exquisite perfume.

Narcissa licked her lips, still tasting the coppery tang of the blood of her most recent, and very unwilling, donor. A smile played on her lips at the memory. A dimly lit alley. A drug dealer with a knife, intent on robbing her or worse. The shock permanently fixed in his death stare. A shiver rippled up her spine. She chuckled softly. It had been so long since she’d been to New Orleans she’d almost forgotten how wonderfully exotic and spicy the old Creole blood tasted. Filled with the flavors of savory seasonings, gulf seafood, greasy meats and liquor—always liquor—and corruption. She smacked her lips. Yes, she ranked Creole blood among her favorites.

Her preternatural gaze scanned the confines of the bar. Tourists. Most all of them. Clad in their ball caps, sneakers, shorts and loose-fitting shirts, they all looked the same. Back in the thirties, this bar had been a veritable den of iniquity rife with tasty prostitutes and thugs. Easy pickings as they stumbled out onto Bourbon Street. The type no one ever missed. No so, today.

The bartender’s bright-blue fingernails contrasted the green liquid in Narcissa’s glass as he slid her drink across the bar, along with the sugar cube and louching spoon.

“Will you be starting a tab?” he asked, hopeful.

“Not tonight. I’m meeting someone.” She passed him a twenty. “Keep the change.”

His eyes brightened. “Thanks!” And then he was gone.

She inhaled and hopped off her stool to louche her drink. Absinthe, even the good stuff, had little of the legendary hallucinatory effect on her but she’d acquired a taste for the black licorice-like drink back during the Belle Époque period. Nothing tasted so sublime as a blue-blooded poet, stoned on opium, his eyeballs swimming from drinking absinthe. She’d practically lived in the opium dens during those years, traveling from Paris to London and then eventually to San Francisco, where the abundant Chinese population kept her sated for years.

Narcissa set the sugar cube on the silver spoon and twisted the tap to slowly drip water over it. The drugs kids did today couldn’t touch the body-numbing, mind-expanding stuff from the early nineteenth century. Feeding on a crackhead or a pill popper left a bitter chemical taste in her mouth. She shuddered and then flicked her lighter to melt the remaining sugar cube into the absinthe, already clouding milky green in the glass.

Swirling the liquid to mix it, she climbed back onto her stool. Now, who could she entice into finishing this drink for her? Just one more snack before Elena arrived…

Narcissa glanced around the bar. Outside, the sun had completely sunk over Bourbon Street and now only the glare of the lamps and neon lights remained. Elena had always liked to sleep in but they’d said eight o’clock, and it was half past.

Flipping open her cell phone, Narcissa shot her sister a text. Am here. Where r u?

She looked around the bar once more, just to make certain Elena wasn’t already here scoping out prey. Two guys, obviously tourists, sat under a television, watching a baseball game. Another man removed a business card from among the thousands thumb-tacked to the wall. Blandly curious, Narcissa focused until the words on the card converged into clear view. Madame LaVeux’s Escort Service. “Everybody’s looking for something,” she muttered aloud as her gaze paused on a café au lait-skinned beauty sitting alone at a table.

Immediately, Narcissa’s attention riveted to the woman’s luscious pair of tits straining to be contained in a tight tank, with cleavage up to her chin and dark, suckable nipples visible through the mass of corkscrew curls meandering around the swollen mounds. Curvy and succulent, the woman stared back, her eyes glimmering gold in the spotlight coming from the area where the band played.

Narcissa gave her a smile and lifted her glass in silent salute. The unsmiling woman gave her one knowing nod. But she wouldn’t be Narcissa’s dessert. The Creole babe was exactly Elena’s type. Narcissa couldn’t help but shimmer with smug pleasure. Wouldn’t her sister be thrilled that she’d saved one for her—for once?

But there was something about the woman that—

“Our bass player’s gonna sing the last one,” a voice rang out over the crowd. “Give it up for Butterfly Baudelaire!”

Narcissa’s attention flicked to where a four-member band moved about on a small raised platform. The group’s bass player, a black-haired hottie, changed places with the lead singer, sidling up to the microphone then checking the knobs on her instrument. Wearing a black tank that showed off her squared shoulders and muscular, half-sleeve-tattooed arms, and a pair of shiny tight pants that fit her long, lean legs like a snake’s skin, everything about this little Butterfly called to Narcissa.

Now, this one is my type.

Wide belts draped around the girl’s boyishly narrow hips. A super-short haircut and black combat boots completed the butch beauty’s ensemble.

“Two, three, four!” She counted the band off with authority as her fingers plucked the bass strings, kicking off the first measures of a heart-thumping, bluesy song. Butterfly practically caressed the mic with her lips, leaning her head to one side so that her black bangs fell across her eyes, before opening her mouth to sing. Her voice rang out, raw and sexy, as gritty as Bourbon Street itself.

Intrigued, Narcissa watched, propping one elbow on the bar and crossing her legs so that her knees aimed at the sultry singer. And then Butterfly’s stare lifted and pinned Narcissa, unfurling through the vampire like the intoxicating warmth of the absinthe flowing into her body. Like blood.

Just the thought of disappearing into a darkened corner with this lip-smackingly Sapphic songbird made Narcissa’s barely there panties dampen. And not just that. Now she had a raging fang-on.

A trickle of perspiration trailed down the side of Butterfly’s face and Narcissa licked her lips at the thought of letting her tongue follow that salty trace right down to—

Bite marks?

Narcissa peered, drawing the wounds into focus. The mark was days old, the purplish indentations where teeth had pressed into Butterfly’s ivory skin barely visible, but there nonetheless. Instinctively, Narcissa’s tongue touched the point of one of her fangs.

She ought to retract them, to look away from the provocative spectacle on the stage. But she didn’t want to. Besides, this new New Orleans belonged to Anne Rice and Charlaine Harris and their multitudes of vampire aficionado fans. A high percentage of the people traipsing up and down Bourbon Street sported fangs, albeit fake ones.

No. If the little Butterfly liked to be nibbled on, then Narcissa was not about to be shy about the fact that she possessed the proper equipment with which to do it. She smiled, practically baring them.

Butterfly continued belting out her tune but her kohl-lined eyes betrayed her fascination for fangs. Narcissa shifted on the stool, smug that her prey didn’t go unaffected by the sight of her. How long had it been since she’d tasted such an alluring creature—in all the ways a lesbian vampire could taste a woman? How long since one had tasted her?

She sucked in a quick breath. New Orleans always had been a good place to find a willing woman in whom to lose herself.

A quick check of her phone showed no messages from Elena. Nothing. Take your time, sister, because I’ve got some biting to do.

Turning her attention back to Butterfly, she studied her. The guitar strap cut a path between two small, high-set breasts. Just the way Narcissa liked them. Like they said, more than a mouthful was a waste. How could she be so different from Elena, who loved a woman with abundant curves?

Though no one could overpower her in bed, Narcissa enjoyed a woman with an innate intensity about her, a woman who looked like she could dominate. But the pop-culturistas had it all backward. The tough-looking ones always made the best subs behind closed doors. They were the ones built strong enough to take whatever their fine-featured Dommes meted out.

Further inspection indicated at least three more visible bite marks on Butterfly’s neck and shoulders. Narcissa resisted the urge to smack her lips. She inhaled, focusing on drawing in the scent of her prey. Perspiration tinged with soap and the perfume of hair products. Underlying it all, Butterfly’s own sweet fragrance drew Narcissa like a hypnotic spell. What a thrill it would be to sink her diamond-hard fangs into the veins of someone who actually enjoyed it!

She twirled the curling ends of one of her blonde pigtails as she studied her prey. Butterfly’s hips swayed and dipped with the music. Her back arched and bowed as she crooned into the mic. And always, her heated gaze remained locked with Narcissa’s, as if she sang her dirge just for the vampire who couldn’t wait to devour her.

Narcissa uncrossed then recrossed her legs. Increasingly uncomfortable warmth settled in the crotch of her panties. Butterfly didn’t look like an easy girl to tame and that was exactly the way Narcissa liked them. Hard. A little mean. She wanted them to put up a fight. Like her dam, the woman who made her a vampire, Narcissa loved conquering a challenge. Of course, they always came around in the end. And that was sometimes the end of them.

Did Butterfly know she was perhaps singing her swan song?

A tinge of guilt niggled Narcissa at the thought of killing this one. She swallowed thickly. Killing was always easier. No witnesses. No problems.

Narcissa resisted the urge to sigh. She hadn’t killed a willing donor since the 1930s. It just didn’t seem PC. Some people deserved to die, of course. And throughout much of her existence, there were always plenty of people on the cusp of dying, so disease ridden they welcomed death.

Her guilt, however, did little to abate the hot need that uncoiled from Narcissa’s fangs straight down to her clit. She ached with a desire to pierce into the singer’s juicy veins. Just a taste—at first. One little nip at the throat and then, for the coup de grace, the femoral artery. Her mouth watered. She could almost taste the sweet blood on her tongue.

Butterfly picked the last reverberating note and, before the throbbing beat had eddied, she leaned toward the mic. “Thank you very much.” Her husky voice echoed off the exposed brick walls and resounded in Narcissa’s head.

Jön számomra. Come to me.

But she didn’t need to use her hypnotic persuasion to lure the sexy singer. For someone who so obviously enjoyed being bitten, the sight of those fangs alone would do the trick.

Butterfly ducked and lifted her bass off her body before placing it on a stand. While bent, she grabbed a bottle of water and then stood, twisted the top off and tilted back her head as she guzzled.

Just watching her throat muscles work caused Narcissa’s nipples to spike under the rough lace of her bra. She arched her back to soak in the full effect before Butterfly turned and started toward her.

Long, purposeful strides brought her closer, and with her that perfume of sweat and soap and sweet, musky pussy. Narcissa never relinquished her stare. Her vampire nerve endings sang with the intruding mortal energy. The gum tissue around her sharp fangs pulsed and itched. She tried to smile, to show those pearly whites of hers, but tension crackled around her mouth. Her belly clenched with erotic need. What an exquisite assault on her senses!

“Can I buy you a drink?” Narcissa purred, letting her gaze travel down the woman’s lean form and back up again.

A little half-smile twisted one corner of Butterfly’s lightly glossed lips. “You look too much like trouble.”

You have no fucking idea just how much. “You look hot. I thought you might like something…wet.”

Butterfly leaned on the bar, her weight shifting to one leg. She lowered her head, her black hair falling forward, half obscuring her dark eyes. “Are you comin’ on to me?” Her rough voice matched her androgynous look. She shifted her weight to the other leg.

Narcissa flashed a disarming, dimpled smile. “How’d you ever guess?”

Butterfly bit her bottom lip as she scanned Narcissa from head to toe and back up again. “Where are you from? Your accent isn’t familiar.”

Narcissa grazed one of her fangs with the tip of her tongue. “Would you be surprised if I told you Hungary?”

Butterfly’s shoulders turned almost imperceptibly toward her. “For real?” she asked, her eyes betraying the fact that she thought it was bullshit.

Narcissa nodded and sipped her absinthe. None of them every really believed her. Until it was too late.

“Hey, can you get me a draft beer?” Butterfly called to the bartender as she thrust a wad of wrinkled cash across the bar. She turned a little more in Narcissa’s direction. “Hungary? You like to play the whole part, don’t you?”

“I’m not playing anything.”

Butterfly shoved the remaining cash back into her front pocket, the motion attracting Narcissa’s attention to the woman’s short, black-painted nails. She liked short nails, especially when they were attached to fingers burrowing inside her pussy.

Butterfly leaned on the bar. “Did…uh…did somebody send you in here to fuck with me?”

“Fuck with you?” Oh this was too rich. “No. I’m supposed to meet my sister here. She’s late,” Narcissa explained. “But she tends to be a late sleeper. There’s no telling when she’ll show up.” She glanced once more at the dark beauty across the bar. At any rate, that one would keep Elena occupied for a little while. “What about you? Where are you from?”

“Tennessee.”

Oh yum. Southern girls tasted sweeter than any others in the whole world. Like succulent peaches plucked just a little too ripe. Soft. So juicy the nectar dribbled down your chin. Those little bite marks all over this boy-belle evidenced an amateur had been sampling the forbidden fruit. A sanguine postulant.

“I had some finger-licking-good stuff at a little rib shack on Beale Street once.” Narcissa leaned back on one elbow.

Butterfly inched closer. “You’re just raw, aren’t you?”

I’d like to eat you raw. “It doesn’t pay to beat around the bush. So to speak.”

Those dark eyes roved all over her again, lingering in spots that caused Narcissa’s clit to swell and throb. Coercing mortals into doing things they didn’t want to do came easily to her. But she enjoyed the hunt, the game. She wanted Butterfly to be the one begging. Careful, you might get what you wish for, girlfriend. Narcissa loved knowing they found her irresistible because of her face and her body and her attitude—not because of her preternatural powers.

The bartender shoved a frothy mug of beer across the bar. Butterfly hefted it and drank. She swiped the foam off her top lip with the back of her hand. “I don’t like to beat around the bush either,” she said, leaning so close that her breath fanned Narcissa’s cheeks. “I like my women with slick, bald pussies so I can lick them from the top to the bottom. No holes barred.”

Narcissa swallowed thickly. The points of her fangs pricked the inside of her bottom lip.

Butterfly’s mouth brushed her ear. “Are you bare down there?” Her eyes flicked down to where Narcissa’s skirt veed at her crotch.

Spinning around to face the bar and spreading her thighs just far enough, Narcissa pinned Butterfly with a flinty stare. “Why don’t you see for yourself?”

Their gazes held for a steep second before Butterfly dropped her hand to Narcissa’s knee. A calloused finger trailed along the inside of her thigh, higher and higher. She spread farther and the fingertip worked under the edge of her skimpy panties and into her waxed-bare, dewy folds.

Her breath left her lungs in a stifled ragged rush as she tried to appear like any other casual bar customer, there to enjoy the atmosphere. She was anything but as Butterfly’s shoulder dipped and the finger prodded, circling to tease Narcissa’s clit before wriggling through her slit to find her opening. Liquid oozed from her channel. Her ass heated and her body tightened. The muscles in her thighs shook and it was all she could do to keep from sliding forward and impaling herself on that wicked finger. She struggled to keep her eyes open. Need intoxicated her, engorged her fangs and made her pussy lips swell, tightening the coil of arousal poised to spring into full-blown lust. While life whirled obliviously around her, she was on fire.

Just an inch more…

Disappointment fluttered when Butterfly suddenly withdrew the digit. Narcissa had never ached for the loss of anything so much in her four hundred years.

Butterfly lifted the finger to her lips and, holding Narcissa’s gaze, sucked the sweet cream right off. “It’s bare, all right.”

Narcissa’s eyes locked with the singer’s and she fought hard against the burning compulsion to weave a hypnotic spell over this enigmatic stranger. “You…you wouldn’t leave me like this,” she said, hating the desperate edge in her voice.

Butterfly chuckled and swigged her beer. “Sugar, I don’t even know your name.”

“Narcissa. Cissy.”

Debating, Butterfly studied the prissy blonde she’d just left in a puddle on the barstool. Shocks of platinum-blonde hair eluded her two pigtails, nearly obscuring her unnaturally green eyes. Color like that looked unnatural outside the animal kingdom, even when it came in a Bausch & Lomb box. She looked all goth-schoolgirl in her pleated skirt and those white knee socks. The heels of her Mary Janes hung on a rung of her barstool so that her knees remained parted, a reminder of the sweet little prize just under the hem of that miniskirt. Her shirt was open halfway down her chest so that just a hint of supple cleavage peeked through. The knotted shirttails bared a creamy midriff and slender waist just right for wrapping her hands around.

Cissy was so deliciously girly, Butterfly didn’t want to resist. She wasn’t one of those girls who took home a new chick every night, who loved them and left them and forgot their names the next day. Well, not anymore.

Not since last month, after she’d brought home the last of what she called one her stray kittens. Drunk and horny and on spring break, the girl had willingly gone home with her. She’d tired her best to keep up, to sink her teeth in at precisely the right moment. But the sex just hadn’t been all that great.

That last one had been the proverbial final straw in a string of so-so sexual encounters that lacked something Butterfly couldn’t put her finger on.

Finding a partner who’d bite hard and deep enough these days was difficult, if not next to impossible. Everybody was scared of hepatitis and AIDS and all sorts of other sexually transmitted diseases passed through blood. Butterfly had realized that, for her, getting the hell bitten out of her was an addiction. Something she couldn’t deny or do without. An addiction with a voice that weaved through her brain and spurred her to do and say crazy things that sent her spiraling toward dangerous new heights to get her fix.

Her gaze kept returning to those pointed little fangs. If she hadn’t been in a smoky bar, she would have wondered if they weren’t slightly retracting and protracting. “Those real?” she heard herself ask.

“Very.”

Her mouth went dry. “Do you think you’re a vampire or something?”

“No. I don’t think it.”

That baby-doll appearance didn’t match her no-nonsense tone at all. She suddenly looked as if she could take charge and lay claim.

“Those things just for show?” Butterfly asked cockily.

Cissy sucked the tip of her finger before tracing it across the fading wound on Butterfly’s shoulder. Lightning bolts shot through her at the cool touch, and then tingles. Confused by the unfamiliar sensation, Butterfly jerked away.

No. This temptress wasn’t going to get her to break the pact she’d made with herself to walk the straight and narrow. Well the narrow, at least.

She downed the rest of her beer and stifled the need to burp. “Nice meetin’ you, Cissy.” She gave a curt incline of her head and then went back to break down the equipment. The best thing she could do would be to get the hell out of there before she ended up in bed with yet another strange girl.

She had the feeling, though, that this wasn’t the kind of girl she could forget the next day. Or that insane tingling on her shoulder. She brushed the wound with her hand but the tingling wouldn’t stop. After she got her bass in the case and her share of the cords and amps ready to load, she stood, intent on going to the restroom before setting out for her apartment.

Go back and tell that girl to come home with you. Jeez, she’s the hottest thing in the place. Butterfly tamped down her inner voice as she took care of business and then left the stall to wash up. As she rinsed her hands, she looked at her reflection in the mirror.

To her astonishment, the wound on her shoulder had vanished.

Heart pounding, she leaned closer to the mirror for a better look. Sure enough. The bite marks had disappeared. “What the fuck?” Butterfly muttered.

What had Cissy done to her?

She rushed back out into the bar but the blonde was gone. “Hey,” she called to the bartender. “Did you see where the blonde who was sitting here went?”

He shrugged. “Guess she left. She was all paid up.”

Bewildered, Butterfly raked her fingers through her hair, gathered up her bass and then fled out the back door, heading toward her car.

In the space of a blink, her body slammed against the brick wall opposite the bar. The breath left her lungs. Small but strong hands held her immobile, and when her eyes finally focused, she saw the light flash on a pair of the most beautiful fangs she’d ever seen.

Chapter Two

Butterfly clung as Cissy’s head lowered. Knowing those fangs were about to pierce her flesh was the most exquisite torture she’d ever known. What was going on? How had someone so small blindsided her like this? Cissy’s inhuman strength made Butterfly feel feminine, made her feel like the vulnerable woman she’d always wanted to be in bed but hadn’t known how.

Cissy’s hot breath fanned across Butterfly’s neck, sending a shiver racing down her spine. Twisting and bucking, she held on as the sharp, pointed fangs scraped her flesh. A tongue flicked out to taste the sensitive skin of her neck. Damn, but this chick knew how to prolong the pleasure of the bite, how to utterly destroy her control. Butterfly speared her fingers into the thick blonde hair, holding her close. The flimsy line between captive and captor blurred. The sweet intoxication of anticipating the harsh sting and then the dull throb of pain inundated her. Sink those fangs in, sweetheart. Bite me.

But not yet.

With a low growl, Cissy moved restlessly against her, grinding their breasts together, hips rolling in rhythmic tandem against the mound of her sex. Butterfly’s clit pulsed. Her pussy clenched around its own emptiness. If these pants weren’t so fucking tight…

Breathing heavy and harsh, Butterfly drew her fingers from the thick mane of hair to hastily unfasten her pants. She captured Cissy’s hand and guided it inside, between her legs. Inquisitive fingers searched, stroked. Found. Flames licked between Butterfly’s thighs at the poignant intensity of the touch. Somewhere in the back of her mind it occurred to her that this was more than a hookup. This was a possession. Cissy had claimed her and Butterfly didn’t have the will to stop her.

“Are you sure you don’t want this?” that strangely accented voice murmured against her ear. Teeth nipping. Promising.

But Butterfly was already lost, swept up in the maelstrom of lust and the guarantee of sweet pain. She fought to drag in enough air to breathe. A finger pushed up hard into her pussy, raking and awakening sensitive nerve endings. Her knees buckled and she sagged against the bricks. Cissy’s other hand caught up in the short hair at Butterfly’s nape. One firm tug pulled her head to the side, roughly exposing her neck, inflaming a wildfire of arousal that already burned out of control.

Her pulse pounded so loudly she could hear the blood thrumming in her ears. Jesus, how was this little gal so strong? She was the type Butterfly could struggle against, could fight for her pleasure.

“I’m going to taste you.” Rough hunger deepened the tone of Cissy’s voice.

Butterfly felt herself gasp as she strained to get closer to the tongue and teeth tormenting her neck. She felt the warm ooze of her fluids around the finger pistoning the hot center of her body. Sweltering, moist heat flicked over the vein throbbing to be tasted and then two pointed fangs pressed against her throat.

Butterfly held her breath. Everything inside her stilled. Her muscles deadlocked. Time stopped. Only her heart continued to beat and beat. Harder and harder. The one finger slipped out and then two tickled the slick folds with wicked intent.

“Könyörög én-hoz harap ön. Beg me. Beg me to bite you,” a lust-darkened voice rumbled as soft as a feather against her skin.

“Yes! Oh fu—” Butterfly heard herself cry but her word was cut short as, simultaneously, the fangs pierced through the skin of her throat and those two fingers slid deep into her cunt.

Unable to move or breathe, Butterfly grew rigid, gripping the shoulders of her erotic assailant. Her mouth fell open in a silent moan. Pain and pleasure vied for prominence. Slow thrusts in her pussy mimicked the deliberate sucking at her neck. The thought that she might die in this alley flickered like a guttering candle in her mind but right now, she didn’t care.

Her fingers dug into soft skin. Her short nails clawed and then adrenaline and endorphins exploded, carrying Butterfly higher than she’d ever soared. Her hands released their death grip and roamed over Cissy’s narrow back, sliding down to reach under her mini and cup the taut cheeks of her ass. The smooth muscles there flexed in measured succession.

Expertly, Cissy buried the teeth deeper, sending dark waves of cataclysmic ecstasy through Butterfly’s body. Cissy sucked as if she craved more of the essence that flowed willingly from the vein. Butterfly curled her hips into the penetration as the fingers burrowed farther, filling her, stretching her. A thumb pressed down on her clit and kneaded, firing an electric current through her body. Unimaginable sensation thundered along with Butterfly’s pounding heart.

Enthralled, she clung, welcoming the combination of fierce agony and tender bliss. Perspiration beaded and trickled down between her breasts. Or was that blood?

In an instant, all her control had been stripped away, transforming her into a quivering mass of desperate need. Thirst for release built and crested and descended upon her like a diving bird of prey, shattering her. The rapture of it was uncontrollable. Her fingers clutched. Ass. Skirt. Her thighs quaked. Come gushed around the still-thrusting fingers as she rode the sensations that left her quivering in their wake.

Butterfly found her voice and cried out, the strangled sound of it absorbed into the thick humid heat and noise stemming from Bourbon Street.

* * * * *

Elena would just have to wait. Narcissa’s appetizer had only whetted her thirst for more. After a short and very silent car ride, they arrived at Butterfly’s apartment, which was thankfully only minutes from the Quarter. She’d never tasted anyone as spicy, as sweet, and only now did she realize the missing ingredient.

Fear.

Butterfly had not feared the bite, but welcomed it. And damn if that didn’t alter the flavor into something insidiously addictive. Cissy swallowed, savoring the unique taste. Already her fangs hardened for more.

Side by side, they hurried up the unkempt flagstone path but it wasn’t fast enough for Cissy.

“I rent a room here,” Butterfly said uncomfortably as they traipsed through the courtyard entrance toward the verandah of an aging house. Thickly planted camellias, azaleas and gardenias spawned an almost too-heavy perfume in the oppressive humidity. Cissy ducked the drooping, broad banana tree leaves and sturdy magnolia branches that created an encroaching canopy over the narrow walkway. As they neared the house, a striped gray cat scurried past through the dense Japonica bushes.

Butterfly glanced back furtively. Her gaze betrayed both her wariness and her intrigue. Cissy had seen the look before. Many times before. But never after the first bite.

No. None of her victims had ever reacted to being bitten with such erotic fascination. The dim streetlight gleamed off Butterfly’s leather-clad ass as she climbed the two brick steps and then wriggled her key into the wrought iron verandah door. It swung open with an ominous creak.

Pale-pink paint flaked from the exterior walls of the double-gallery house. In years past, the pastel house with contrasting black shutters would have been considered an architectural gem. Now it just seemed like a tired old dame, the delicately carved, whitewashed woodwork struggling against its weight.

“What’d you do to me back there?” Butterfly asked, quickly making her way across the creaking floorboards of the porch to another door.

“Only what you asked.”

“No,” Butterfly said, her voice deepening. “Before that. The marks on my shoulder. You touched them and they…they went away.”

Cissy followed her into the house and up a flight of stairs that groaned in protest as they climbed. Cissy stood close behind her, inhaling the scent of sex and blood and sweat—and Butterfly. “You know what I am.” Cissy’s voice was but a silken whisper at the back of the mortal’s nape.

Standing this close, Cissy felt the almost undetectable shiver that ran through Butterfly’s lean body.

Another key unlocked the door to Butterfly’s apartment. She glanced back and grinned. “I guess I should invite you in?” It was obviously meant to be a humorous inquiry but still, Cissy hesitated at the threshold.

She only smiled, baring her semi-erect fangs.

Butterfly’s gaze shot to Cissy’s mouth, where it lingered for several seconds. “Welcome to my house,” Butterfly said, quoting the most legendary vampire story of all in her best imitation of Bela Lugosi. “Come freely. Go safely. And leave something of the happiness you bring.”

Magickal barriers down, Cissy laughed and crossed into the small apartment. It was just as she’d expected. Dark curtains cascaded from the ceiling and pooled on the floor. A tattered old sofa and worn coffee table served as both the focal point and dividing wall of the room. Behind the sofa, a tiny kitchen, sink piled with dishes, graced one corner. Cinderblocks and lengths of plywood sagging from the weight of vinyl albums and CDs served as a makeshift entertainment center.

Butterfly punched a button on her stereo and soft, crooning music wafted from the speakers.

A quick look through the open door into the bedroom told Cissy that Butterfly lived alone, with the exception of a black cat who awakened from a nap. He stood up at the foot of the unmade bed and arched his back in a satisfying stretch before leaping off onto the scattered clothes on the floor.

“You want a beer or anything?” Butterfly asked, hastily straightening up just enough so they’d have a place to sit.

“I would love a drink,” Cissy said, gaze drifting south. “From your femoral artery.”

Butterfly froze and then she let out a nervous laugh as she strode into the kitchen. She opened the fridge and retrieved a beer. “For real. Are you one of those vampire wannabes?” she asked, twisting the cap off.

“I’m not a wannabe.”

“That’s what they all say. Do you have a name for what you call what you are, then?” Butterfly dropped heavily onto the sofa, sitting with legs sprawled wide, one arm across the back.

Cissy detected the denial in her prey’s eyes. Funny. In her four centuries, this was the first time she could recall ever wanting to explain herself. She sat, letting her bag sink to the floor. “I am a vampire. A real, blood-sucking, coffin-dwelling, can’t-miss-my-morning-curfew vampire.”

“All right,” Butterfly drawled. “I’m cool with that.” She turned up her beer and once again, Cissy stared ravenously as those corded throat muscles worked to swallow.

Her fangs elongated, aching for another bite. But more than that, her body hummed with the memory of making the mortal come on her fingers. Here, where there was no one to see—or hopefully hear—they could do so much more.

“You don’t really believe me, do you?” Cissy asked, standing. She reached beneath her skirt and hitched her thumbs under her panties. She pulled the flimsy fabric down her thighs, let them fall to the floor and then stepped out of them and stood, waiting for an invitation of a different kind.

Butterfly’s pupils enlarged and her hips rocked slightly. A muscle in her jaw flexed. “Pull up your skirt. I want to see your pussy.”

Anticipation crackled in the room. Cissy inhaled sharply, the breath hissing between her teeth as she teasingly raised her skirt to reveal her sex. She achieved the desired effect, because the mortal’s gaze heated.

“Take that skirt off.” Butterfly flicked her bangs off her face.

Fangs bared, and holding Butterfly’s gaze captive, Cissy unzipped her mini and let it drop, watching with satisfaction as her new friend’s breasts rose and fell with a hoarse breath.

“Now the top. I want you naked. I want to suck those pretty titties.”

As she quickly unknotted the hem and unfastened the buttons of the blouse, Cissy’s flesh tingled. She shrugged out of it before she reached behind to unclasp her bra.

“Come here,” Butterfly commanded, setting her beer aside and sliding forward so Cissy could straddle her.

The couch springs creaked under her weight as Cissy planted her knees and sank onto it. Rough, calloused hands slid up her thighs, cupped and squeezed her ass. She could barely swallow. Cool air blowing from the window-unit air conditioner chilled her naked skin in direct opposition to the warmth of human hands gliding over her legs and back. A coarse hiss left her lips when those hands cupped both her breasts and squeezed.

Leaning forward, Butterfly closed her lips over one of Cissy’s hard nipples. Cissy wanted to melt. Just the sight of this sexy woman tantalizing her nipple did things to her. Indescribable things. Sharp spasms of pleasure raced to her clit and clenched in her channel. Clutching her lover’s shoulders, Cissy let her head fall back. She reeled into the flood of lust unfurling through her body, making the human blood she’d drunk pump through her veins in thick, hot bursts.

While she teased one nipple, Butterfly’s fingers worked to pinch and plump the tip of the neglected breast. For Cissy, the pleasure was too much. And yet, not enough.

One capable hand drew her farther down, spreading her legs impossibly more to accommodate Butterfly’s wide, masculine sprawl. Fingers burrowed through her already slick folds. It was a possessive caress. Reaching. Claiming. Cissy rocked her hips.

“Kiss me,” Butterfly rasped, slipping her free hand around Cissy’s neck to draw her mouth in.

Opening for the tongue that tasted and then thrust between her lips, Cissy greedily complied. She sucked it in, an electric shudder racking her when the mortal’s tongue bar clashed with her teeth, when she explored her fangs.

“Ride me,” Butterfly murmured into Cissy’s mouth.

One, then two fingers impaled her and, as their mouths fused, she bucked. Animalistic need fueled her. Ravaged her. Drove her. She snarled, lifting herself and coming down hard on the two fingers.

“Fuck me,” Butterfly encouraged, her words disappearing into Cissy’s mouth.

Cissy wanted to undress her lover but couldn’t. She wanted to reciprocate this intense pleasure about to explode between her legs but she couldn’t do that either. Instead, she dragged her mouth away. She felt her eyes blackening, felt her maker’s legacy taking her over, turning her into something wild, an animal. A demon. A deep growl tore from low in her chest.

The look of slight fear coupled with lust in Butterfly’s eyes spurred Cissy on.

Close. She was so close. Pressing her lips tightly together, she bounced faster and faster. Inhumanly faster. The fingers penetrated her deep, stroking her tender flesh within. Her body tensed, growing hard as iron. The pleasure burned brighter. The prize lurked closer.

Everything inside her drew tighter and tighter until it detonated, triggering a massive explosion that radiated from her sex outward. And with a primal, feral cry, she came.

She wilted into Butterfly’s embrace, kissing her, dragging her shirt up and only leaving her mouth long enough to pull it off over her head. Cissy had to remind herself the tough-looking, husky-voiced woman was a mere human, someone she could crush in her hands. With barely controlled restraint, Cissy’s hands explored the hard body beneath her. Small, tight breasts filled her palms. Spiked nipples, one pierced with a little gold ring, rolled between her thumbs and forefingers.

Still swimming on the waves of her intense orgasm, Cissy absorbed Butterfly’s essence. The spicy, androgynous smell of her soap, of her hair. The unyielding feel of her lithe body and that scent. Oh, that sweet scent of her arousal…

Without warning, Butterfly stood, lifting Cissy with her. She loosened her grip and silky legs slid down leather until Cissy’s Mary Janes touched the floor.

Butterfly curled her finger around the end of one of Cissy’s pigtails. “I want to eat your pussy. It’s my turn to taste you.”

Lacing her fingers with Cissy’s, Butterfly led her into the bedroom. “Get on the bed.”

Heart hammering from exertion and excitement, Cissy gulped as she climbed onto the bed.

“Spread your legs. Show me how wet I made you.” Butterfly unbuttoned and unzipped her pants before she kicked off her boots and peeled off her clothes.

Drinking in the sight of Butterfly’s coltish figure and boyish stance, Cissy parted her thighs with all the flair of a seasoned courtesan.

“Pull your lips apart.”

Her breath hitched as Cissy complied, pushing two fingers through her slippery folds and spreading them wide to reveal the hidden, flushed flesh.

Speechless, Butterfly gazed at her lover’s beautiful, creamy pussy. Cissy’s alabaster thighs contrasted the hot-pink center of her sex. Clear fluid glistened on the delicate furrow, causing Butterfly to salivate in anticipation of running her tongue through that sweet slit.

She crawled onto the bed. “After I eat you, I want to fuck you with my strap-on. Are you good with that?”

“Hell yes,” Cissy mewled as she threaded her fingers into Butterfly’s hair and dragged her head down.

At first taste, Butterfly dissolved.

Pressing her face close, she raked her tongue up and down the hard ridge of Cissy’s succulent clit. When Butterfly flattened her tongue and swirled the little metal bar in it around the swollen bud, Cissy’s knees lifted in response. She writhed and twisted but Butterfly dug her fingers into the soft flesh of her thighs and pushed them up and back and open, pinning her—exposing her—so that her bottom tilted up and Butterfly was denied nothing.

She latched on to the clit and sucked it between her lips, pulling, only to let it pop back into place. She licked lower and speared her tongue into the juicy opening, thrusting, tasting. She’d never eaten a pussy as sweet. So deliciously sweet. Pushing the thighs back even more, she tilted her lover up so she could tease the sensitive area between the two openings and then she circled the puckered little rosette.

A strangled cry echoed in the room. But there was so much more Butterfly wanted to do. She smacked her lover’s pale ass, leaving a blushing handprint behind. “Get on your knees.”

With a hiss and flash of fangs, Cissy flipped over, eagerly raising her luscious bottom in the air. Butterfly admired her for a moment before moving to the dresser where she kept her toys. She pulled open one of the drawers and withdrew her favorite strap-on dildo. Big and thick, the silicone cock had pleased many a visitor to her apartment.

She glanced up in the mirror to gauge Cissy’s reaction.

But Cissy was gone.

Butterfly’s head snapped around and there Cissy remained, on her knees with her head down on a pillow. Butterfly looked back and forth, confused. “You’re not—”

Realization sank like a stone in her gut. She raked a hand through her hair.

Cissy grinned, showing off those sharp teeth again. “I told you.”

Butterfly gaped. “Fuck me.” This couldn’t be real. Cissy couldn’t be real. Fucking A, vampires were not real.

Cissy’s shoulders lifted and she sat on her knees. She cocked her head to the side. The motion caused one pigtail to bounce over her shoulder, the ends curling provocatively around a rosy nipple.

“So that bite you gave me in the alley. That was real?” Butterfly felt strange having this conversation while naked and brandishing a monster strap-on. But nothing else about this night had been normal since she’d set eyes on the sexy blonde. Butterfly had the feeling her life had taken an irreversible turn.

“As real as it gets.”

What are you waiting for, dumbass? Strap it on. Fuck her. It’ll be your turn next. The voice in Butterfly’s head—the one that belonged to her dark addiction—would not shut up. Common sense told her to rifle the house for a cross or something she could fashion into a stake. Other parts of her ached to feel those fangs embedded in her veins again. No one had ever bitten her the way Cissy had. And just at the right moment. She couldn’t have ordered a more perfect lover if they shoved them out drive-through windows.

Rash courage surged like a rogue wave. “Well, then,” Butterfly said, stepping into the harness. “You better get that sexy ass back up in the air, because I’m going to fuck you until I make you scream.”

Cissy’s smug smile disappeared as her head lowered back down on the pillow. All sweet, creamy curves, she was gorgeous with her bottom raised and with two fingers intently circling her clit.

Butterfly tightened the straps and climbed onto the bed. “You don’t look like you need any lube,” she said, raking the bulbous cockhead through the juicy, pink flesh. She rocked her hips forward and the head slipped inside.

“Oh…”

Teasing her, Butterfly slowly thrust only the dildo’s crown in and out. She stroked the vampire’s back, feeling the muscles in her body contracting and releasing. “What a pretty sight. Your pussy looks damn hot taking my cock.”

“Mmm…”

“Do you want more, vampire chick?” Watching those swollen nether lips suck at the head of the dildo caused liquid to gather in Butterfly’s channel. But she had different plans than being impaled on a strap-on by her vampire lover.

“Yes. More. Fuck me hard,” Cissy pleaded, her voice muffled by the pillow.

Butterfly buried the cock in up to its faux balls. Heated moans and whimpers encouraged her to drag it out and propel it home again and again with forceful, measured movements. Cissy’s hands fisted in the sheets. Her legs eased open farther. Her ass quivered. The effect on her lover intoxicated Butterfly. She smoothed her hands over the satiny white skin. Perfect skin. She fucked her harder, realizing this vampire was the answer to her every desire, her every fantasy. Her every desperate need. She’d searched for this all her life and now Butterfly intended to partake of it. The search was over.

Cissy’s head turned to the side, her expression one of agony. Sweet agony. Forehead furrowed and eyes squeezed shut, she looked close to coming.

“Play with your pussy,” Butterfly encouraged, her voice accentuated by each hard thrust.

The fingers returned. Cissy’s shoulder rolled as she worked her own clit. Her breathing turned jagged and then her mouth opened in a silent moan as little jolts of her body indicated she’d come.

Butterfly pulled out, unclasped the belt of the strap-on and let it fall to the bed.

Breathless, Cissy rolled onto her side and held her arms out, an unspoken invitation in her eyes. Without hesitation, Butterfly moved into the vampire’s embrace and claimed her mouth. Infused with passion, it was a kiss unlike any she’d ever known. Deep. Filled with promise. Filled with the threat of danger.

They kissed for what seemed like an hour. Touching, kissing again. Sometimes deeply. Sometimes just pecks on the lips and cheeks and eyelids. Whatever this was, Butterfly had never known anything like it.

Love ’em. Leave ’em. Get ’em the hell out of her bed before morning. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t bring strays home anymore. And look what she’d ended up with. A fucking vampire. A fucking real vampire.

Curiously, for the first time in her life, she felt she’d found someone who understood her need for pain. And even though that very life might end before dawn, Butterfly didn’t care. Some need stronger than reason drove her. So be it. Death would be a fitting price to experience this. Just once.

“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?” Butterfly finally broke the silence, her legs entwined with Cissy’s.

“I’m certainly going to try my best.” Cissy’s grin was beguiling. Alluring. Deceptive?

Butterfly swallowed thickly as she rolled her thumb over a taut pink nipple. “How’d you…how’d you get to be a vampire?”

Cissy’s eyes blackened and her fangs retracted.

The need to suddenly know everything flooded Butterfly. In one night, her life had been turned upside down. Everything she’d heretofore believed—or didn’t believe—had changed. Were all the myths true? If vampires existed, did ghosts, werewolves? Bigfoot? Shit.

Common sense railed at her that this couldn’t be happening, that Cissy had drugged her with peyote or some other hallucinogen. Maybe she’d gotten a hold of some of that stick-your-dick-in-the-dirt absinthe by osmosis.

“I’ve never told the things I’m about to tell you to a mortal before,” Cissy whispered.

“As long as you don’t end it with now I have to kill you, I’m cool with it,” Butterfly joked but the underlying truth sent a cold chill down her spine.

“I was born in what you now know as Hungary. In 1585.”

Butterfly’s eyebrows rose.

“My sister and I were the daughters of a baron. We had a happy life until our mother passed away and Papa remarried a spiteful woman who hated and resented us. She sent us to a gynaeceum to be trained in the ways of courtly etiquette.”

“1585?” Butterfly still couldn’t get past that fact. “Shit, that makes you over…four hundred years old.”

“I lost count at thirty-five.” Cissy’s smile seemed a little self-deprecating. But that smile quickly disappeared. “The gynaeceum belonged to Báthory Erzsébet, a countess who lived in Nádasdy Castle in Sárvár.” As she spoke, her accent became more pronounced. The barely visible veins under the pale skin of her face took on a bluish hue.

Mesmerized by the vampire’s strange beauty, Butterfly struggled to concentrate. “Báthory Erzsébet?” she asked, trying her best to copy the Hungarian pronunciation. “Are you talking about Elizabeth Bathory? That chick that killed all those girls and bathed in their blood?”

Cissy’s blonde lashes fluttered down. Her expression colored with long-ago memories. “Yes. She was my dam. My maker.” Her voice sounded oddly devoid of emotion. “Her marriage had given her wealth and prestige. Her beauty was renowned. Long before Elena and I attended the gynaeceum, she’d begun bathing in the blood of her maids in an attempt to obtain immortality. Our little community turned a blind eye when the local peasant girls began disappearing but when she began selecting victims from the gentry, the authorities stepped in.”

“Wasn’t she known for torturing those girls?”

The vampire pursed her lips. “Yes. She took wicked delight in the most sadistic behavior. She flogged us, raped us, cut us and drank from us. She seduced us. She filled her bath with our blood and luxuriated in it.”

“But how…how did she make you a vampire?”

Cissy’s body tensed. “She promised the most ruthless of us—the ones who helped her—immortal life.” A strangled whimper came from her throat. “My will to survive was strong. I was…enthralled by her. I would have done anything, said anything to please her, to earn her favor. Evidently she noticed, because to control me, she kept my sister in a cage…so I would kill for her. She included me in her blood rituals and promised if I did everything she bade me, she’d allow Elena to live.”

“You…you took part in killing those girls?”

Cissy’s gaze lifted. Her stare was direct. Almost cold. “I did as I was told. I did it until I discovered I too had developed a taste for blood.”

Butterfly shivered.

“Times were different in those days. Death was always close. It was…expected,” Cissy said.

“And that turned you into a vampire?”

“My dam had witches in her employ. Men and women who practiced black magick. Erzsébet chose me and, during the next full moon, I was taken outside the castle, stripped bare and coated in blood while the witches performed a ritual over me. When it was done, Erzsébet exchanged blood with me and made me what I am. Vampyr. I could no longer go out in the sunlight. I no longer had a reflection in a looking glass.”

“That would blow. How do you ever get ready to go anywhere?”

A little smile claimed Cissy’s lips again, revealing her lovely pair of fangs.

“What was the ritual all about?” Butterfly asked.

“To this day, I am not certain, but I suspect the bloodspell granted her some sort of control over me. I became Erzsébet’s slave.”

Butterfly caressed the vampire’s cheek and brushed her thumb across one of the sharp points. Her channel clenched with need as she imagined those teeth sinking into her shoulder, her neck, the artery on the inside of her thigh. But there was more to learn. “How did you get away?”

“The witches eventually turned on her, somehow releasing me from her power. I cooperated with the authorities who came to arrest her. I helped them take her and then I freed my sister and we left our homeland. The others were cut into pieces and burned.” Cissy dragged one satiny calf up Butterfly’s leg.

“I’ve traveled all over the world but I’ve never been back there—to that place.”

“Why not?”

“Because Báthory Erzsébet still lives.”

Butterfly’s lips parted. “I thought—”

“A lie told to quiet the people. A secret society was formed to hold her captive, to cage her as she caged Elena and to keep her there, starving for blood for eternity.”

Butterfly shuddered at the thought of such a monster still breathing, still capable of heinous, unimaginable murder. “Are there others? Besides you and your sister?”

“I know of four others who escaped. Two have made companions and doubtless, they have made others. One tied herself outside and waited for the sun to rise. She is…no more.”

“Hold up,” Butterfly said. “Made? You can make other vampires?”

Cissy shook her head. “I’ve never made another.” Save one. “Neither has my sister.”

“Why not?”

Cissy gave a wry chuckle. “The question, my pet, is why.”

Butterfly shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. Immortality. Eternal youth. Just to name two.”

“I was made from evil, Butterfly. I shouldn’t exist. I doubt I could have been made had I not done the awful things that I did to those other girls. I’ve lived with the guilt of it for four centuries and it’s not something I would wish on someone else.”

“Aren’t you lonely?”

Cissy inhaled. “Enough about me. Why do you enjoy being bitten?” She nipped Butterfly’s thumb, drawing a bead of blood that fell on her tongue like nectar from a honeysuckle.

“I…I guess it started when I was a kid,” Butterfly confessed, trying to concentrate with warm lips sucking at her thumb. “My sister was born with a shit load of health problems. My mom was young. Single. Stupid. While she was busy trying to keep my sister alive, she left me to fend for myself. I wasn’t stupid. I could see that my sister got attention because she was sick, so I would cough and tell Momma that I was sick too.”

When Cissy brushed back Butterfly’s bangs, it was nearly her undoing. She blinked at the hot tears rimming her eyes. She wouldn’t cry. Not over this. Not anymore. “When I saw faking didn’t get me any attention from her, I started falling down on purpose. Skinning my knees. I’d cut my fingers with knives until they bled. I’d beat my fists against the wall until they were black and blue. Anything to show her I was hurt and that I needed her.”

“So eventually pain equaled love to you,” the vampire said, her tone soft and devoid of judgment.

“Oh, I got attention, all right. Attention from the back of her hand and a reprimand. The harder I tried to get her to love me, the more she ignored me. I never felt safe. Shit, I never knew love until I picked up a guitar and fell in love with music.” Butterfly inhaled and blew the breath out slowly, trying to release the pent-up emotions. “But I guess you know a hell of a lot about never feeling safe.”

“I do.”

“I got the hell out of my mom’s house as fast as I could. I don’t make much playing gigs down in the Quarter but it keeps me in this dump,” Butterfly confessed. She blinked. Her eyes were suddenly burning. Fury surged for allowing her emotions to surface. Long ago, she’d sworn never to be vulnerable again. And here she was baring her heart to this vampire!

“You asked me if I was lonely. Are you?” Cissy asked pointedly.

“I’ve got needs like anybody else,” Butterfly said, swatting at the moisture leaking from one corner of one eye. “But I’m so damn fucked up, why would I want to bring anyone else into my life on a permanent basis?”

“Maybe you’ve just never met the right person to make you feel safe.” The irony of Cissy’s statement evaporated as she bent to capture a nipple in her mouth. She sucked it. Laved it. Tickled the tight tip with her tongue.

Holding Cissy’s head captive in that spot, Butterfly bowed her back, pressing her breast closer to the rapidly flicking tongue. Her heartbeat joined in and she surrendered to the slick heat gathering in her sex. Insidious desire uncoiled and snaked its way through her until need rioted. A quick but fierce nip on her breast startled her and she cried out. The sharp pain caught her by surprise, causing lust to rage hard, driving out all coherent thought.

Cissy lifted her head. Her brilliant green eyes flickered in the dim light. Danger sizzled in the air but Butterfly ignored all the warning bells going off inside her head. She knew how deceptive looks could be. Cissy seemed like any other girl in search of a good fuck. But she wasn’t any other girl. She was a cold, calculating killer—a woman Butterfly knew could take her to untold heights. She swallowed tightly.

Cissy kissed her softly. “I know one thing. I can make you feel loved. Very loved.”

That was it. Butterfly was lost.

She was taken.

Claimed.

Now, she only wondered if she would survive.

Chapter Three

Butterfly watched as Cissy searched through the toy drawer. Vibrators. Floggers. Handcuffs. Restraints attached to a bulbous anal plug—Butterfly’s personal favorite. Paddles. Nipple clamps. “Outside a sex shop, I’ve never seen such an array of torturous toys.” Cissy brandished a thick dildo. “But these things are a lot gentler than the implements my dam required me to use.”

“I like all of those. Any hole. Any way you want to give it to me.” Butterfly knew the bravado in her voice was nothing but a farce. This vampire could do things to her no mortal could. Her pulse sped at the erotic threat of danger.

Cissy shot her a flirtatious glance. “It’s hard to decide. But I think I have it figured out. Stand up and bend over the side of the bed.”

With an expectant grin, Butterfly climbed off the bed and took her position, legs spread, tattooed arms folded beneath her breasts. Her heart seemed to beat in her throat in expectation of the pain to come. She’d revealed her innermost secrets to this vampire and now, she had to pay for it.

“Do you need a safe word?” Cissy asked.

Butterfly glanced back to discover the vampire had selected a black leather paddle. “I don’t need a safe word. You won’t hear me say stop.” She braced herself. Already her pussy clenched in rapid succession. Her blood grew hot and thick and stampeded through her veins, raising her awareness. She bit her bottom lip and waited.

With a quick flick of her wrist, Cissy applied the paddle to one cheek. Butterfly let out a little sound that was half grunt, half moan. Blistering heat radiated from the spot and then ebbed into a gratifying throb. She sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth, melting inside when Cissy massaged the offended flesh with her free hand. “Do you like to be spanked?”

“Yes.” Butterfly felt drunk on the pain.

“Tell me to do it again. Tell me you want it hard.”

The muscles in Butterfly’s bottom tightened in response. “Spank me. Hard.”

Again, Cissy swung the paddle. It landed on the other cheek with a satisfying smack. Once more, sweet heat followed the sting. “Shit, that’s good,” Butterfly ground out. “Talk dirty to me. Tell me how bad I’ve been.”

Cissy’s legs brushed Butterfly’s bare thigh as she positioned herself to the side for maximum effect. “You’ve been eating pussy, haven’t you?”

“Vampire pussy.”

Smack!

Pain flared through her buttocks and then ebbed into a good, slow burn. Butterfly gritted her teeth as the paddle trailed up and down one rigid thigh.

“Do you know what happens to bad girls who eat vampire pussy?” Cissy didn’t wait for answer. “They get spanked.” Pop! “Hard.”

This time, the smart sting put Butterfly up on her tiptoes. The inflamed skin on her ass prickled, driving her, making all common sense flee. “I’ve been really bad,” she goaded.

“I see.” Smack! Smack! “Look at all that scrumptious blood rising to the surface of your pretty little ass.” Cissy dropped to her knees and pressed a wet kiss to the punished flesh. She raked her fangs across the already sensitized skin and Butterfly’s breathing hitched.

She rested her cheek against the cool sheets, soaking up the sensation of the alternating soft kisses and light bites peppering her backside. Slick moisture seeped down one thigh and the vampire rewarded her, searching between Butterfly’s wide-spread legs to find her opening. One finger inched inside her pussy. She longed to pump her hips, anything to provide friction as the tender muscles clenched hungrily around the digit.

“You really are a bad girl if getting spanked makes you this wet,” Cissy said before two fangs sank to the hilt in the curve of Butterfly’s ass.

Pain, white-hot and wickedly good, radiated outward from the site of the wounds, mingling with the sting left by the paddle. A stifled cry filled the room and Butterfly realized it was her own her voice. Her channel spasmed around the intruding finger but bliss lurked just out of reach. The need to come raged hard but she couldn’t move with those teeth in her flesh. “Oh God. Oh…fuck.”

Cissy’s mouth suckled at the wounds as she worked her fingers, reaching, pressing in deeper and deeper until Butterfly shuddered and shook and wept from the intensity of the orgasm rampaging through her body. She felt it in her scalp, in her fingers and toes. It was too much. Too overwhelming. It was addictive.

Cissy fingered her until the spasms subsided and then she kissed the wounds until Butterfly felt a tingling sizzle. The vampire had healed them just as she’d healed the two wounds in Butterfly’s shoulder. “Did I make you come?” Cissy murmured.

A low moan was Butterfly’s only response. She didn’t want to move. She wanted to stay here, feeling the blood singing through her veins and the afterglow of ecstasy whispering in her muscles.

“I’m not through punishing you yet.” Cissy stood and went back to the drawer. As she rummaged, Butterfly twisted and, through half-closed lids, watched the vampire retrieve a bottle of lube—the one with the two-inch nozzle at the top. She sucked in an audible breathe and then turned away. Some things were better left as surprises.

Shadows of her recent orgasm caused her insides to contract. Liquid seeped down one thigh. But just as she lost herself in the dream world of ecstasy, she felt the tip of the lubricant nozzle against her anus. A few drops dotted the outside. Her rim tightened in apprehension of what would follow. She smacked her dry lips, her fists knotting in the covers as Cissy’s knee roughly spread her legs farther apart.

Butterfly trembled.

“Keep them spread,” Cissy commanded as she traced her finger around the periphery of the supersensitive hole, rubbing it, massaging it until the tight muscles relaxed to admit the slender nozzle as deep as it would go. Warm goo filled Butterfly’s bottom, the incredible intrusion rendering her knees useless as she awaited what was to come.

Anal violation had always been another exercise in accepting pain but this time, she actually wondered if it might be more pleasurable. Her breath froze when a firm hand braced at the base of her spine and something big nudged against the now slippery hole. Cold metal swung against the back of one thigh.

The butt plug attached to the handcuffs!

A thousand thoughts raced at once, the foremost of which sang louder than the rest. How could she possibly allow a vampire to restrain her hands? Her legs shook violently as she realized she was tilting her bottom up and toward the plug.

“I think it’s too thick,” Cissy mused aloud.

No. Keep trying.

Instead of uttering the words, however, Butterfly moaned and pushed back. The tip breached her opening. Fire rimmed her anus and then abated to a sensual smolder as Cissy pushed the plug into the tight nether sheath.

Biting her bottom lip, Butterfly squeezed her eyes shut, relishing the feel of that fat plug sliding inch by wicked inch deep into her ass. It was an exercise in submission, in pain and pleasure. Control slipped further away as the plug stretched her to the breaking point but somehow, she accommodated it. All of it. Her hole throbbed, adjusting to the sensation of being filled so utterly, wonderfully full. Stars flashed behind her eyelids. Nefarious pleasure detonated in her body.

“You look so pretty with that plug in your ass,” Cissy purred as fingers encircled one of Butterfly’s wrists.

She didn’t fight. She didn’t protest. Instead she willingly allowed this self-professed killer to handcuff one wrist then the other, to render her completely and hopelessly helpless—as if she wasn’t already.

Every little movement yanked the chain attached to the end of that devilish plug, moving it back and forth. Tugging it. Its construction prevented it from being easily dislodged, and besides, Butterfly enjoyed struggling against the cuffs, bucking the control she’d so easily relinquished.

“Stand up.”

Movement without the assistance of hands proved difficult, especially when every little shift sent breathtaking sensation rioting in her ass. She managed to stand.

“Turn and face me.”

Butterfly swallowed tightly as she eased around. Her ass pounded around the plug. She squeezed her thighs together against her swollen clit.

Something in Cissy’s emerald eyes flared. “I bet you’d come if I touched you.” She reached down and patted Butterfly’s mons. “Here.”

Lightning quickened through Butterfly’s pussy. She quivered from it, struggling against the urge to push closer to the fingers teasing her. A rumble of frustration tore from her throat when Cissy stepped behind her and turned her toward the mirror.

Butterfly’s own image shocked her. It struck her as strange to see herself represented in the glass without the vampire’s reflection accompanying hers. Odd to feel hands she couldn’t see moving over her body, pinching, caressing, confusing the senses. Wherever the vampire touched or plucked, the skin rippled and pinkened. Butterfly’s tight breasts moved, kneaded by unseen hands. Thumbs and forefingers rolled her nipples, tugging them until she winced in welcome pain. She’d never experienced anything as erotic, as arousing, as magickal as this in her life.

The vampire moved sensuously against her back, causing friction against the chain connected to the plug. It occurred to Butterfly that she could come like this with only her nipples and ass involved. But just as her eyelids closed…

“On your knees.”

Butterfly’s head whipped around. Cissy stood back, hands on her hips, one pigtail in front, the other behind.

Butterfly sank to a kneeling position on the rug. She breathed in the sweet scent of Cissy’s pussy and wet her lips in anticipation of tasting it. One step closed the distance between them and Cissy dragged Butterfly’s head toward her crotch. “Eat me.”

Butterfly didn’t have to be told twice. She burrowed her nose in the narrow slit and searched the folds with her tongue. Cissy rocked, spreading, offering more and then closing her thighs to take the jewel away. Butterfly followed, unwilling to relinquish the soft nether lips and the swollen pearl peeping from between them. Cissy’s thighs parted again and she tilted her hips forward. Her fingers speared into Butterfly’s hair, holding her head captive while the vampire tensed and shuddered. “Én vagyok jön. I’m coming. Oh…Butterfly. Oh…”

Nectar spilled onto Butterfly’s tongue, fueling her own desire. The muscles in her legs strained from her position. God, she needed to come. Let me come, Cissy.

But that would be far too easy for the skilled vampire.

Cissy took a step back. “Look at you with my come all over your face.” And then she bent to kiss the honeyed glaze away.

Being punished and then petted and praised flooded Butterfly with a crazy combination of lust and something indefinable. It spoke to her, soul deep, casting light on the abyss of need and sating the elusive desperation for love she’d known all her life. Soft, full lips captured hers, drawing them between starkly contrasting sharp teeth. The kiss plied and caressed. Claimed.

The vampire’s tongue probed Butterfly’s mouth in a kiss steeped in passion and hunger. Like the strongest drug, the kiss shot through her system, rendering her frantic with sexual longing. It was demanding and soothing. Ultimately deadly. But she couldn’t stop. She didn’t want to stop.

Cissy, however, knew just when to take the candy away. She ended their kiss and then retrieved a crop from the drawer. “Spread your legs so I can see your cunt.”

Butterfly panted brokenly as she opened her thighs. She knew what lay ahead and yet she presented herself to accept it.

Comforting strokes of the suede flange on the crop’s end circled one nipple and then the other. They trekked teasingly down to her bellybutton and back and forth across the sensitive skin of her abdomen. An eager submissive, Butterfly held her splayed position, thrilling in the hunger blazing in Cissy’s eyes as she deliberately tormented her. The vampire stepped behind and expertly applied a sharp swat to the spot where the plug was lodged in Butterfly’s bottom.

“Oh!” Butterfly yelped more from surprise than pain but delicious warmth flowed to that spot, causing her ass to constrict around the invading plug.

She sucked in a breath when the flange tickled up and down her back. Another startling swat landed on one butt cheek. Butterfly let out a ragged breath. “That feels so fucking good,” she murmured.

Her reward was a stinging blow to the other cheek before the vampire continued her predatory circle back to the front. She stepped close and firmly pressed the flange against Butterfly’s already pounding clitoris.

The swollen flesh there jolted.

“Do you like to have your pussy spanked?”

In answer, Butterfly spread her burning thighs wider.

The vampire smiled, flashing her canines, and then with quick, measured strokes, she whipped at the clitoris, inflaming it, plumping it until Butterfly thought she would explode from the sheer blood-pounding pleasure. Her eyelids fluttered. One leg shifted. She could hardly hold herself up. Sensation built and her breaths grew harsh. Almost there. Al—

Stopping to snatch a fistful of hair, Cissy tugged, tilting Butterfly’s head back. “I have something else for you to eat, my pet.”

Releasing Butterfly and discarding the crop, Cissy climbed onto the bed and got on all fours. She spread her legs to reveal her glimmering cunt and puckered pink asshole. “Get up here and lick it,” the vampire ordered.

Butterfly didn’t have to ask which hole Cissy wanted licked.

The vampire gave a little giggle. “Don’t worry. Since I became a vampire, that hole, too, is now nothing more than a pleasure zone.”

Not that it would have mattered to Butterfly. She couldn’t get enough of this woman. She struggled to stand, the movement of the plug stealing her breath as she awkwardly crawled onto the bed and positioned herself between her lover’s legs. She bent and raked her tongue from the juicy crevice up to the tight little hole secreted in the cleft. Just as sweet as the pussy. But the response her tongue evoked as it circled and prodded proved far more intense. Cissy moaned and shimmied. Her knees shifted farther apart on the mattress and Butterfly buried her face there, intent on penetrating the tender threshold to seek the needy flesh within.

Bending like this made her back ache and strained the muscles in her thighs until they blazed. Her neck burned but she wasn’t about to give up.

“Don’t stop!” Cissy cried.

Butterfly thrust deep, torturing the rosebud with the metal bar through her tongue. She was at a complete loss to understand her need to please and be pleased by this vampire. It was insane. It was ludicrous. It wasn’t enough.

Her shoulders ached and she tensed her arms, alternately giving the plug a tug—as if she needed reminding the device was well seated in her ass.

Despite the pain, she lowered herself to run her tongue through the succulent slit below and then back up to thrust it into the hole. If only she had the use of her hands. She’d love to shove two fingers deep up that pussy while she reamed Cissy’s ass.

The vampire wilted and Butterfly followed, the flexion of her body straining against the chain. She whimpered at the sensations but she kept her face buried in the soft globes of Cissy’s bottom, kept her tongue flicking that sweet hole.

Cissy reached between her own legs to massage her clit. She muttered things in her native language, the meaning of which Butterfly could only guess.

“Nekem enni. Igen! Ne állj.” The words were spoken with such plaintive pleading, Butterfly took them as encouragement to continue.

Cissy’s bottom lifted off the bed and she rocked her hips against her hand and Butterfly’s tongue. “Fuck, that’s good,” she said into the pillow. “Fuck. Oh, Butterfly.” And then the vampire’s body tensed. She expelled a rough breath and let out a long, howling moan.

Butterfly continued her pleasurable assault until Cissy twisted onto her back. Had she been human, her face would have been flushed. As it was, the vampire’s veins had become slightly more visible beneath her alabaster skin. Only her eyes betrayed the sexual satisfaction she’d gained.

“Come,” the vampire said. “Straddle my face. It’s time to reward you.”

Butterfly didn’t hesitate. Licking the slick sweetness from her lips, she moved up the bed to position herself over Cissy’s mouth. The vampire’s eyes connected with hers as she lowered herself. The first sweep of a tongue across her too-sensitive clit caused her to cry out. “It’s too much,” she said through clenched teeth.

Strong but petite hands encircled her hips and pulled her down. Cissy’s tongue deviled Butterfly’s clit then wriggled into her passage. The combination of the anal plug and the expert mouth on her pussy tormented her in indescribable ways. Her eyes closed, the darkness washing her in even more intense sensation as the vampire’s lips enclosed on the swollen knot, drawing it out. Her thighs tightened until she feared the strained muscles would snap. The tongue between her legs stiffened and flicked with inhuman speed. Arms taut, Butterfly dropped her chin to her chest and groaned, riding the crest, letting it build and unfold.

Fingers prodded and one slid home, the tip immediately circling her G-spot, driving her toward what she knew would be the most mind-shattering climax of her life. Butterfly’s legs quivered. Her insides vibrated. The vampire’s kiss moved to her inner thigh and Butterfly could feel the artery throbbing there.

Bite me. Bite me there. Now.

Every cell in her body focused on the pleasure to come, on the touch, the feel of Narcissa. In the arms of a killer, Butterfly had found a safe haven to confess her pain…her need for pain. She had discovered another like her, who’d had to scrap and rely on instinct to survive.

If she had a future after tonight, she couldn’t imagine it without Cissy.

“Cissy, please. Bite me. Oh God. Please.” Butterfly couldn’t hold back any longer. The fingers and the anticipation of the bite snaked together and when the fangs penetrated her flesh and sank deep, rapture uncoiled like lightning firing through her body. A strangled cry tore from Butterfly’s throat.

Raging pleasure tore through her body, through her soul, shattering her. Devastating her as she fought to maintain her sanity amid the ecstasy.

Her consciousness slipped. Her heartbeat slowed to a thick, steady throb and her awareness grew blacker and blacker. Some part of her realized she now lay on the bed. Adept fingers unfastened the handcuffs and Butterfly felt pressure as the plug was gently removed.

Thump. Thump. Slower. Slower. Was she dying?

She didn’t care.

Narcissa discarded the plug and returned to the delicious artery in Butterfly’s thigh. Life-giving blood filled her mouth as she sucked at the wound. Like the absinthe, it flowed like molten lava, reaching every toe, every finger, tingling in her scalp and throbbing in her sex.

It was a good thing she’d decided never to make another. She’d be better off without a baby vampire in tow.

Even if Butterfly was the only one she’d ever considered turning.

Since meeting the sultry singer, Cissy had felt an almost girlish excitement. Was it, god forbid, happiness? The worst part about it was her inability to explain this strange emotion. Unable to shut out her whirling thoughts, she swallowed and buried her fangs deeper for more. Sate the bloodlust. Leave.

In spite of everything, introspection triumphed. She couldn’t explain the fact that she’d existed more than four centuries and hadn’t known such euphoria with anyone else.

But why? Why this woman?

In a way, Butterfly’s submission eased some of the guilt Cissy tried hard to quell. Could it be that her reason for never creating a mate stemmed from the simple idea that she didn’t feel she deserved one? She’d run from such connections—from love—all her life.

She licked across the wounds, tasting her lover. Without warning, her heart twisted. Emotion she’d denied for so many years blindsided her. For the first time, the sanctity of life, of wanting to love and be loved, inundated her. It destroyed everything she thought she knew, the code by which she had existed. She’d always thought she was meant to spend her life alone. She’d certainly never guessed finding a mate could happen so quickly. But it had. She’d known from the first time she’d locked eyes with Butterfly that more than a blood-connection could exist between them.

That’s why it is imperative to drain her and leave now.

Cissy blinked away the urge to kill. She had never shared her past with anyone but something about Butterfly had given her permission to allow herself to be vulnerable, to be comforted. She wanted more of that feeling.

They fit each other. Butterfly’s submission to Narcissa’s driving need for control matched and countered in all the right places.

Cissy’s insides hollowed at the thought of leaving Butterfly in this bed to die. She suddenly knew what she had to do. Walking away was not an option.

Inhaling, Narcissa kissed the bite wounds closed and moved up to her lover’s ear. “Do you want to die, my love?”

“No.” The reply was nothing but a soft moan that Cissy wouldn’t have detected without her extraordinary hearing.

“Do you want to…to be with me?”

“Yes.”

The blood running through Cissy’s body warmed as she brought her own wrist to her mouth. She ignored the alarm sounding in her head as she sank her fangs in, opening the vein within. Trembling, she pressed the bleeding wounds to Butterfly’s lips. “Drink.”

A few crimson drops dribbled on Butterfly’s already pale lips. Her mouth moved and she opened wider and drank. Little by little, her strength returned. Her hands clutched the wrist and held it to her lips as she vigorously sucked the blood from the wound.

Jolts of current fired through Cissy’s limbs, winding their way straight to her clit. She’d never guessed the exchange could be so erotic, so arousing. Fresh moisture gathered in her passage. Her nipples pebbled.

Butterfly’s lips tore from the wrist and sought Cissy’s, tongues sparring, teeth clashing.

Cissy’s heart soared. Her lover lived. She was hers. Now and forever.

When Butterfly’s fingers drifted down her body and searched between her legs, Cissy opened, tilting toward them, aching to feel them inside her. The knowledge that her future had the promise of love, intertwined with the lust she felt, was overpowering in its intensity.

Butterfly moved Cissy onto her back and latched on to one nipple, drawing it, sucking it. Cissy ran her fingers through the short, dark hair, holding her lover close, spreading her thighs and opening herself to her lover’s touch.

The fingers stroked the tender flesh, penetrating deep to awaken receptive nerve endings. Pleasure raced through her system and, in the clouded haze of lust, she realized how much she needed this woman. She needed her like she needed blood. Her mate. Her lover. Now, her equal.

How would it be when Butterfly’s strength matched her own, when they could both sate their need to dominate and be dominated?

Pressure increased and Butterfly’s thumb grazed Cissy’s swollen clit. Her hips jolted at each electric thrust. Instinct told her she would never be immune to this touch. This touch that rendered her defenseless against her own emotions, helpless to the fierce passion her lover ignited.

Another hard thrust evoked a cry from Cissy’s lips and everything inside her seemed to spiral to that one point and then explode in a blast of violent pleasure.

Cissy clung, riding the forceful waves, knowing she’d done the right thing. She’d made another. She’d turned Butterfly.

Neither of them would ever be alone again.

* * * * *

“Shit,” Cissy said, flipping her cell phone closed. “No messages. Something’s wrong. We need to head back to the bar.”

Consumed with her own circumstances, Butterfly raked the tip of her tongue over one pointed fang again. For the third time she walked to the mirror, only to be disappointed when her reflection didn’t appear. “What happens at dawn? Where will I sleep?”

Cissy dropped to the floor and looked under the sofa. “There’s my top.” She retrieved it and then stood to wriggle into it. “You’ll have to sleep over with me.” She grinned as she hastily fastened her buttons.

Renewed emotion for this woman who’d turned her into an immortal surged and, even amidst the hurry, Butterfly stepped close and dragged Cissy into her arms. This new life and new love filled her with an excitement she hadn’t felt in a long, long time. Throughout her long life, she’d dissociated herself from all emotion, hidden from it while secretly and desperately longing for it. Now, with Cissy, she felt free to explore her feelings, to need, to want—to love.

Cissy melted against her and Butterfly kissed her lips, softly. Tenderly. “Is Elena going to be mad that you turned me?”

Something in Cissy’s eyes flared. “She’ll just have to get over it—if her ass ever shows up.”

Gilded Cage

By Delilah Devlin

Chapter One

Elena approached Jean Lafitte’s Old Absinthe House from Bienville Street, skirting the sidewalk, striding in long steps, enjoying the cloying heat, the mingled scents of life and decay, sniffing delicately when she passed a sewer grate but not minding the odors all that much. Tonight, little would spoil her mood.

The tavern looked good for its age—although not as good as Elena. Not a single wrinkle marred her face. Not that she was mindful of her beauty. She only recognized it as fact, having come slowly to acceptance, acknowledging her beauty not as a gift or a curse.

She dressed simply. Straight-legged blue jeans, a black tank and black military boots. A black-banded watch sat on her left wrist. Her hair was pulled tightly into a ponytail at the back of her head. Her only concessions to her femininity were the large white-gold hoops she wore in her ears, and only because she liked the way they bumped against her cheeks.

Still, as severe as she’d dressed, Elena drew attention. She had a model’s long, lithe frame and moved as fluidly as a cat. Again, facts she was aware of but not duly self-impressed.

She’d reached the point in her long life where little mattered. Not friendships, because they were fleeting. Not money, because it could be gone in a single day, as she’d known now twice in her lifetime. Little interested her. She’d seen most of the world. Done everything. Her primary constant was the hunger that drove her even now, when she was wishing she could ignore it just a while longer.

The other constant was her sister. And she was meeting her tonight for the first time in ten years.

Her stomach growled loudly and Elena growled right back, alarming a musician carrying a guitar case so much so that he stepped onto the street to make a wide arc around her.

Something in his keen eyes said he knew what she was. What she must do. And soon. She toyed with the idea of stalking him, making him her supper. That might amuse her, but she’d have annoying regrets later because she no longer wished to prey on the innocent.

Besides, he’d looked to be in the flush of good health, smelled of broccoli and legumes. His sweat was fresh, pure. She wrinkled her nose because she preferred blood flavored with sin, even when she wasn’t being noble. Or at least trying very hard to be.

Elena’s secret wish, the one she’d shared only with a priest before she’d ripped out his throat, was that she would ascend to heaven after a very long stay in purgatory. Something the priest had said was impossible due to the horrendous list of sins she’d confessed.

No matter that she’d been forced into this undead life. The moment she’d opened her mouth and accepted Narcissa’s blood, she’d forever outlawed her soul.

At least she’d have good company.

She slipped her phone from her back pocket, sliding down the split screen to check for messages. Nothing since the last text from Narcissa. Am here. Where r u?

Elena grinned and snapped her phone together. The message was from an hour ago. She wrinkled her nose. So she was late. Again. What was an hour to a vampire?

She approached the doors to the Absinthe House, smelled the citrusy, medicinal scent of the liquor for which the house had been named, hints of the burnt sugar lit atop the drink. The odors of sweat and perfume, fresh alcohol from opened bottles and stale liquor oozing from the pores of patrons kicked up her heartbeat.

She dragged in the smells, discovered one intriguing aroma among the snarled pack and zeroed in on it—lush, sweet musk. Feminine. Dark.

The senses she’d honed over time found the sinner. Her gaze tracked over the tables and the people seated at the bar, landing at last on a woman whose unblinking eyes stared right back.

Cissy could wait. This one was too delicious to pass up. The woman’s hair was a mass of shiny corkscrew curls, which tumbled past her shoulders in shades of dark brown, blonde and red. Her skin tone was a milky latté. Her eyes were golden and tilted upward at the outside corners; long, thick lashes sweeping downward to cast shadows against glowing cheeks before rising again so that their glances locked.

The vixen’s mouth sent a thrill through Elena’s body, cinching her nipples, hardening her clit. Her hips swayed a little deeper as she approached. Draga, esti mina. You’re mine.

The woman’s head canted slightly, as though she had heard her, which surprised Elena. Most humans couldn’t hear the suggestions although they acted upon them, thinking they’d formed the thoughts themselves. Perhaps she was a sensitive, one with psychic gifts. There were many in this city.

Elena stopped beside the table. “Are you expecting anyone?”

A glance flitted over Elena’s slim frame. “I think I’ve been waiting for you.” Her voice oozed like caramelized sugar onto Elena’s skin.

Satisfaction shivered through Elena as she sat in the empty chair opposite the woman and let her own gaze trail lower. Her heart fluttered at the sight of the temptress’s breasts—nipples like dark moons shadowed her gold tank, the tips protruding, lengthening as Elena stared.

Elena’s mouth watered; her tongue scraped the edge of an eyetooth, drawing blood. Her belly growled again, but the music and sounds of conversations flowing around them masked the insistent sound.

The dark-skinned woman lifted a hand from her lap, one long, slender finger beckoning a waitress. “Would you like a drink?”

“Perhaps later.” Elena smiled, dipping her eyelids as she gave the sultry beauty a look that said without words what she hungered for.

A slight, feline smile curved the corners of her generous mouth. “Then we’ll leave. My apartment’s not far.”

The fact the woman took charge without hesitation, without the usual prodding to assure they were both seeking a liaison, amused Elena. It wasn’t often she surrendered the lead to another woman, but this night she would let her prey stretch the leash a bit. The switch would make the meal all the more succulent.

“I’m Elena.”

“Cassia.”

As simply as that, they gave each other names. No further introduction required. This would be a lovely interlude, but one from which the tawny-haired beauty would not return. This one was trolling for a hookup. The open lust mirrored in her smoky eyes and the scent of a raspberry douche marked her as a sinner.

They stood at the same time. Elena liked the long, colorful skirt hugging Cassia’s generous hips, so unlike her own slender curves. The woman’s full-blown body would make a feast. Cassia’s scent heated, wafting in the air, a tickling tease that caught and captured Elena’s hunger, which grew more intense by the moment.

She followed in her wake, noting the swag of Cassia’s round ass. Her gums tingled, the urge to go full-fang and take a nip nearly overwhelming. However, Elena was experienced. She’d learned caution. Learned to bait the trap. Practiced patience, because the longer she extended the foreplay before taking her fill, the greater her pleasure, the more sinful the taste.

She didn’t really note their direction. They trailed down a cobblestone street and into an alley.

“It’s a shortcut,” Cassia said, glancing back.

“I’m not worried,” Elena murmured.

They came to a one-lane street where the backs of tall, narrow houses with their small one-car garages extended to the road. The woman lifted a latch on one gate, glanced over her shoulder and smiled. “We’re here. I hope you won’t be disappointed.”

Elena didn’t reply, simply moved closer and placed her hand on the notch of Cassia’s hip and let it glide lower. She bent her head and licked at the sweat gleaming on the top of her shoulder. Sin and secrets, a hint of something dark lurking in her soul—her favorite flavors. “Hurry.”

Cassia’s laughter was gritty, full-bodied and edged with seduction. She strode sedately up the flagstone path to the sheltered stoop. A twist of jangling keys, then the door opened.

Sandalwood and beeswax lingered in the air. A light beckoned at the end of a long hallway. The woman walked through the darkness, her heels clicking on tile.

Elena glanced to the side, into a sitting room filled with Victorian furniture, the blood-red velvets and floral carpeting feeling familiar since she’d lived through that bygone era.

Cassia turned toward the staircase, climbing upward, glancing back only once to make sure Elena followed.

And why would she not? Her hunger cramped her belly, making her pussy soft and moist. Her head reeled with the woman’s scents, which had deepened as her body heated with exertion, stirring Elena’s hungers to an excruciating peak.

Cassia would be lucky if Elena granted her the time to orgasm naturally before sinking her teeth into her burnished skin.

“It’s in here,” Cassia said, sounding breathless.

What “it” was had better be a bed. Crowding closer, Elena cupped Cassia’s hips and pushed her through the door.

Cassia laughed and whirled away, turning to face Elena with her hands behind her back, which thrust out her exquisitely large tits.

Elena strode toward her, hands already raised to cup them, when Cassia’s arms whipped forward, one palm extended, the fingers uncurling. Something powdery lay in the center, and she pursed her lips and blew.

Elena had a moment to note the moue of the other woman’s lips, but then inhaled the powder. It burned her nostrils and the back of her throat. It tasted sweet and peppery. Her mind whirled, and then her knees buckled.

As the dark-haired bitch’s laughter trilled around her, Elena sank toward the floor.

Cassia caught Elena in her arms as her knees buckled. The vampire’s dead weight caused her to sag. She clutched Elena close, felt her lean curves against her body and hissed between her teeth from the heat. Maybe she’d overestimated her ability to keep her mind and emotions unengaged while she seduced this beautiful creature.

The plan had seemed so simple—until she’d caught sight of the vampire and felt the insistent tug of arousal begin to build inside her. She had prepared for Elena’s allure, anointing her body in a tincture of oils, herbs and flowers that should have guarded her against Elena’s unnatural attraction.

She’d known just how beautiful she was, having poured through the records of Elizabeth Bathory’s trial and studied the lithographs of the witnesses. She’d used one such print, committing it to memory, before burning the likeness and sifting the ashes into her scrying bowl. She’d been prepared to travel however far was necessary to capture her. How delighted she’d been to discover the vampire had returned to her favorite haunt, saving her the bother.

Elena and her sister were well-known among Cassia’s kind. As long as they’d chosen their meals from the disenfranchised—the homeless, the drug addicts and thieves—the covens were willing to live and let live.

However, things had changed. A true evil, darker than the demons residing inside the two sisters, was coming. She’d seen it months ago in her bowl, watching as the clear water was infused by an inky black cloud. She’d brought the news to her own small coven, drawing a fresh bath for them to peer inside as she summoned the vision.

What they’d seen emerging from the black cloud had made them all take a step back, gasping. Then the research and the planning had begun. A spell would be cast to protect the covens, but one ingredient eluded them in their insular realm.

The blood of a descendent. The closer to the Hell-bitch the better.

Cassia had found the creature most likely to serve their needs—or rather, two. The sisters. But the younger one was more mercurial, her reactions harder to predict. Elena had proven herself to be manageable—within a certain context.

Cassia knew this from the transcripts of the trial, learning how Elena had been caged, bled occasionally, forced to watch her sister play lackey to the Blood Countess to assure Elena’s safety.

She’d learned, reading through one observer’s fascinated accounting, that although Elena existed in fear for her life she’d been unable to withstand the countess’s allure. Bound, gagged, folded into an animal trap naked, she’d succumbed to the bitch’s seduction. Cassia knew why, and she would use that knowledge to get from the vampire what she needed most—vampire blood tinged with eroticism, its potency heightened by pleasure.

Which was another reason Cassia had chosen Elena. Her lithe, lean body and the fierce expression she’d worn when they first met denoted a certain inner strength, so completely opposite her true sexual nature. Cassia was attracted to her form and face, but also to her true submissive leanings.

Even now, stripping her slowly of her clothing as she lay numbed by the effects of the modified zombie powder, Cassia couldn’t suppress a shiver at the thrill prickling her skin as she revealed more and more of the creamy, soft surfaces.

Everywhere she looked was a study of dark and light. She broke the band that captured Elena’s dark brown hair and combed her fingers through the thickness, admiring the soft, resilient texture of the strands. She petted her cheeks, bending over her to gaze into her frozen stare.

The unnatural leafy green, so bright it seemed to glow, was incredibly beautiful and framed by dark, thick lashes.

“I know you see me, my pretty monster,” she cooed, stroking fingertips over starkly etched cheekbones. “I promise to be kind, to give you what you desired of me without you having to ask.”

She bent lower and traced the vampire’s cherry-tinted lips with one finger. “I will stretch these lips. Make them sore. Will you like that?”

The answer came in the subtle tightening of Elena’s deep-rose nipples. “So small,” Cassia sighed. “Barely a mound at all—and your nipples? Lord, they’re nearly all tip.” She toggled one, wagging her finger over the velvety nub. “Will you enjoy a clamp here, one pinched so tight it stings?”

The breaths lifting Elena’s chest shortened. Goose bumps broke over her breasts and belly—a concave belly that tempted Cassia to slide her palm inside the soft indent.

“The nights of pleasure we could have given each other… Alas, there will only be one.”

She curved her fingers, nails scraping down milky skin that quivered and jerked until she came to Elena’s mound. There she thrust her fingers into the dark, silky thatch and pulled.

A low, muffled groan slipped between Elena’s still lips.

“I will do so much more, pet.” She slid a finger between Elena’s labia, found the hardening knot and tapped it. “I’ll spend time here. My tongue will learn its secret wants.” She sank the finger deeper to find her inner folds drenched in arousal. “Lovely—but a little too soon for that.”

She withdrew her hands and stepped back, then walked to the door at the far end of the bedroom to open the closet.

Two women, coven sisters, stepped out. They were nude. Their bodies anointed and gleaming.

“Prepare her. We’ve work to do. Be fast. Already she fights the powder.”

Then Cassia stripped away her own clothing, quickly, so she could follow her sisters into the playroom she’d rigged. She didn’t want to lose the connection she’d built with the vampire through the oils on her hands, oils that she’d smoothed over Elena’s erogenous zones.

Perhaps she was being a little obsessive, insisting she be the one to lay the trap, making sure she would be the one to draw the vampire’s passion to its fullest peak before she was bled. She’d felt a strange affinity for Elena Csintalan, the daughter of a well-to-do family with insignificant lineage. Elena had been sent to the countess’s gynaeceum along with her sister in the hopes that Elizabeth Bathory would sponsor them and find them wealthy husbands.

The true nature of the fostering Báthory Erzsébet provided to the gentry’s young women had not been known by the families, and many girls had perished. But most of the women hadn’t been so uniquely suited for the Hell-bitch. They hadn’t been responsive to her sexual invitations. Not like Narcissa. Certainly not like Elena.

In the two, Báthory had found the perfect pair. One dominant, one secretly submissive. Both desiring of the attentions an older, more experienced woman could provide.

Cassia had felt empathy for Elena’s plight as she’d studied her, learning more from her research and her visions. Her coven’s priestess, Magda, had wondered if she was too enthralled to do what must be done to save them all.

Cassia had lied through her teeth. “Of course I can be merciless. It’s just one dark creature’s life for an entire community.” And she’d forced herself to believe it for a time.

She pressed her fingers against her upper lip, inhaling the mixed fragrances of the special oil she’d prepared and Elena’s desire. Natural musk and floral perfumes intertwined. She licked her fingertips and groaned, need tightening her belly and tugging at her nipples.

Cassia followed her sisters down the hallway to the playroom where they placed Elena facedown on a padded table, and then began to fold her into position. They worked without expression, without evidence of any stirring of desire. Without compassion. They folded the vampire onto her knees, bending her forward. They pried wide her jaw to insert the ball gag and strapped her arms to her thighs.

Then they wrestled her body into the cage, built to the exact specifications of the torture contraption the vampire’s maker had forced her into for play.

The cage was an ingenious device. The height forced the victim to remain bent but provided enough room for her to rise up on her arms and knees. Leather-padded slats on the floor protected knees and calves. The spaces between the flat iron slats were widest where the victim’s face and ass rested, providing easy access to both.

Cassia watched, remaining silent throughout. But she listened to the quickening rasps of Elena’s breaths, saw the wild widening of her unnaturally brilliant green eyes.

When her sister witches finished, Cassia fought tears that burned her own eyes, knowing the horror the vampire must feel.

It would be up to her to break through Elena’s worst nightmare, earn her trust, her love…then destroy her at the apex of her pleasure.

After they locked the door and winched up the cage until it swayed from chains bolted to the ceiling, the witches turned to Cassia.

Her gaze flicked to the table. The pair carried it, placing it out of the way against a far wall.

Cassia straightened her shoulders and pointed toward the door. “Leave us. Leave this house.”

Ingrid’s blue eyes widened. “Is that wise? What if she frees herself?”

Cassia aimed a deadly glare, causing the other to blanch and wave her hand in a warding spell. Ingrid was barely a fledgling witch who both feared and envied Cassia’s powers. “I have this handled. I’ll call you when I’m done.”

Only after the pair had left did she move from her spot beside the door. She glanced around the room, walls painted a dreary gray, windows boarded against the light, gas torches gleaming from sconces.

She scooted a copper tub beneath the cage to catch the blood.

All these things Elena could see.

All were meant to incite terror—her helplessness, the replication of the torture device in which she was caged, the gag to keep her silent, the restraints to prevent any movement.

Cassia walked around to peer into Elena’s face. “I know who you are, Elena Csintalan. And I know you have questions, but they will wait. First, I wish to play.”

Chapter Two

Elena could only watch, shivering in terror. Those words reverberated in her mind.

First, I wish to play…

How many times had that phrase played inside her dreams as she’d relived the horror of her incarceration in Erzsébet’s palace? Most days she slept nude, atop the covers, because even a hint of restraint sent her deep into her nightmare. How did this woman, this human, know her weakness?

Think, think. You aren’t an animal. You are only at her mercy if you allow it.

How many times had she reassured herself with the same lie? And yet, she forced her breathing to slow, her heart to still. Whatever potion Cassia had used to paralyze her had worn off. Only a haze at the periphery of her vision remained, causing her sight to narrow to a tunnel. Would Cassia drug her again if she knew she’d recovered? If she banged against her cage, could she free herself in time?

Best to wait. What had she meant, there will only be one night? Did Cassia intend to kill her?

Not that Elena was afraid to die. She’d considered committing another terrible sin a few times during her long life. But the thought of dying now, not by her choice or hand, enraged her.

Some of her thoughts must have shown in her eyes.

Cassia stepped closer, slipping her hands between the iron slats to bracket Elena’s cheeks with her palms. She pressed so close her warm breaths gusted softly against Elena’s skin. As Elena drew in the hot, humid scent, her clit grew engorged and her teeth sank into the hard rubber ball.

“Surrender to me, my beauty. There’s no need to fight. You want this. You want me.” Cassia came closer still, her lush mouth parting. The kisses she pressed on Elena’s face between the bars were soft and wet. Her tongue darted out to lick the sweat beading on her brow.

Anger and desire mixed with regret that the other woman’s tenderness was only a ploy. Tears pricked the backs of Elena’s eyes, but she refused to let them well. She blinked furiously, glaring all the while even though her body was beginning to melt.

How truly twisted am I? Sure, she feared the confinement but she was aware of the structure of the cage, of the opening below her bottom. Memories of the horrific pleasures she’d enjoyed so long ago swam inside her mind while Cassia cupped her face like a child’s to reassure her.

Does she even know how to play this game? Elena growled.

Cassia pulled away, amusement glittering in her golden eyes. “Is that fury or frustration? Shall I walk around to check for myself?”

This time, Elena didn’t care about the consequences. She rattled the cage, bouncing on her shins, bruising her back against the top of her prison while trying to unbend her legs to break the leashes binding her, but to no avail. Sweating and shivering, she at last calmed, only to discover a hand had slipped between the flat metal bars to cup her knee. Elena bared her teeth and dreamed of tearing into the hand so near her face, but Cassia slid her hand inside a little deeper and turned it to palm a breast.

Elena’s breath caught at the unexpected caress—then pain caused her breath to catch as a clamp pinched one distended nipple, delivering a delicious sting.

She was ready when Cassia applied the second. She stirred, bunching the muscles of her thighs, pushing up her ass in supplication because she knew the woman wasn’t done and Elena’s aroused body was ready for so much more.

Laughter tumbled around her. Low and sultry. Drawing more moisture from her channel until she felt the trickle drip across her clit and soak into her pubic hair.

Movement sounded beneath her—padding footsteps. She wished now she’d paid better attention to Cassia’s nude body to hold a crisper vision in her mind. Instead, she waited with fascinated dread for what would happen next.

She hadn’t been this vulnerable in ages. Although she’d sometimes played in dungeons, allowing human mates, men and women, to subdue her, she’d always known she still maintained control and how easily she could break free of her restraints. This cage was the one confinement she’d never mastered, and she’d both loved and hated her original captor for the lesson.

This time, with all her senses heightened, whether through the powder or the oils she smelled on Cassia’s hot skin, she was intensely, painfully aware of her peril. Which perversely excited her all the more.

Fleetingly, she wondered why she’d been taken. However, she wasn’t allowed time for more than a stray thought, because already palms pressed against her buttocks, spreading her sex and her cheeks. A tongue entered her furrow, lapping between her engorged lips from her clit to her anus, pausing to circle the tiny entrance and prod it.

Her pussy clenched and liquid heat gushed from inside her.

A moan seeped around the ball gag, her tongue pushed against the nubby rubber, but her teeth and the strap kept it firmly in place. She wanted to rant, to chant a litany of curses—to beg for release because her body was shuddering.

When two fingers sank into her channel, she tightened around the digits, squeezing hard. The point of Cassia’s tongue poked into her tiny hole again and again, keeping time with the thrusts that swirled as they sank.

Too quickly, an orgasm built, causing her to jerk her buttocks as excitement flooded her body and sent a wave of icy-hot pleasure through her core. The tension wound tighter and tighter then snapped, sending her tumbling over the edge.

Fingers withdrew. The tongue lapped lazily between her cheeks and traveled lower to capture the fluids spilling from inside her.

When the warmth of hands and mouth departed, Elena slumped, tears filling her eyes.

The haze dissipated. Her vision was crystal clear. Her senses tuned again to the scents, smells and sounds surrounding her.

The woman wasn’t quite human. Or if she was, she was a witch and wrapped in protective magick. It was the only way she could have gotten that close to trick her. Elena’s mind had been clouded with desire. A desire so strong it couldn’t have been natural.

She’d been lured from the start. And Cassia was going to kill her. That much she knew. Ironic, given that she’d planned the same fate for the bitch. She gave a snort, which turned into a sob.

However, death wasn’t what she regretted. She hoped her sister would take her absence as a warning to escape, but knowing Cissy, she’d stubbornly try to sniff out what had happened to Elena. Was it only she they wanted? Or would they seek her sister next?

Think! Think!

She had to find a way to escape. Perhaps she would have surrendered to the pleasure if it were only her own life at stake. But what if they wanted Cissy’s blood too? Her sister was filled with a stunning life force. A ferocious hunger for more.

Again, scuffling steps sounded, this time from beneath the cage. Cassia’s colorful mane came in range as she knelt beneath Elena in the large tub. First the bindings on her thighs were released. Then the clamps were removed from Elena’s nipples, sending a surge of pleasure-pain straight to the tips as blood engorged them further. A hand cupped one breast, massaging it then pulling her chest toward the floor of the cage.

Elena allowed it because of the hunger in Cassia’s gaze. The position was uncomfortable, her calves balanced on the padded slats, her back sinking and head flung back to place her breasts between the slats. The other woman’s mouth rose to suckle one breast while she continued to tweak the other. Her lips were full, strong, the pulls rhythmic, and before Elena realized it, she was rocking forward and back, setting the cage swaying in a shallow arc.

Laughter again—this time delighted—bubbled up.

“You’re so responsive. That’s good.”

The caresses stopped. A sharp flick against her shin sliced a gash that bled into the tub. The painful cut did little to cool the ardor pumping through her veins.

Why are you doing this? she screamed inside her mind. A sob vibrated her chest.

Cassia stepped out of the tub. A fine spatter of blood coated her from shoulder to breast, and yet she paid it no attention. She strode toward a rough-hewn table, picked up two implements and turned, hands extended to let Elena see what she held—an anal plug, a large one, and a flogger with barbs knotted in the flossy strands.

Elena breathed hard through her nostrils and let her head sink toward the floor of the cage. Her bottom quivered; her pussy released a fresh wash of liquid, which trickled down between her folds to drip into the tub.

Again Cassia disappeared from view, walking behind her. A smacking kiss pressed against one cheek. A nose nuzzled into her wet sex. “You’re so wet. So sweet. And fuck, you smell like paradise.” Her tongue lapped at her cheeks, then burrowed once into her channel. A succulent suckle at her distended clit caused Elena’s whole body to tense, her back to arch.

The tip of the plug was pushed into her vagina and twisted, pulled partway out and pushed inside again before withdrawing altogether. Next, it pressed against her anus.

She was helpless to resist, eager to feel the stretch, and relaxed her tight ring to ease the plug’s journey into her passage. The slender tip, no thicker than a finger, pushed slowly inside and widened more and more until Elena bit hard into the rubber ball and growled a protest, but the burning discomfort eased as the bulb was implanted.

Once the plug was lodged deep, Cassia grasped the base and swirled it. “If we were lovers, I’d wear a strap-on—a big, thick, ridged cock. I’d wrap your hair around my hand and pull back your head to arch your back. Then I’d plow into your pussy, tapping the plug with each deep stroke. I wouldn’t let you come, not even if your cunt burned with the friction. I’d want you to wait until the pounding against my own clit built a fire. Would you wait if I told you that you must?”

Elena gave a growl and shook her head.

“Thought so,” Cassia purred. “You’re rebellious for a sub. How long did it take for the queen bitch to discover that about you?”

Elena’s breaths shortened, sharpened, gusting noisily through her nostrils as Cassia teased her asshole and pumped the phallus inside her.

Erzsébet had discovered Elena’s true nature the very first time she’d taken her, tied to a cross with her legs splayed. She’d taken her virginity with a crystal dildo, then eased her fingers inside, one at time, fitting them into her tight channel, telling her she’d go easy if she simply begged. But Elena hadn’t, coming on those fingers while glaring in fury.

Erzsébet had laughed, then curved her thumb into her palm and thrust her whole fist inside her, painfully fast. And still, Elena hadn’t conceded.

The countess had been so beautiful, coming to her in a silky red chemise that molded to her curves, rubbing her body against Elena’s while she was opened, her bound hands curling into fists. Not because she wished she could strike the older woman—but because she wanted to pull her closer. Erzsébet had lifted the hem of her garment and ground her pubis against Elena’s. Short curls abraded her clit until it had hardened for that first time, revealing what arousal could do to her body, how it could change, all blood surging toward the rigid knot. Erzsébet slid to her knees, tongued the turgid nub, then bit her clitoris when she’d climaxed, drawing blood, which hadn’t stifled her climax. No, she’d screamed her release.

Her rebellion as well as her ability to climax through the pain had spared her life for another day, and she’d been consigned to the cage for a greater test of wills.

The flogger flicked and fluffed against her sex, soothing her, helping her breathing deepen. Elena shook her head to rid her mind of the memories.

Cassia paused to stroke Elena’s back and buttocks with the soft flanges, scratches trailing from the hidden barbs. “I was surprised by the vivid description of your torture. The cleric who transcribed the proceedings wrote everything down in excruciating detail. He must have been hard throughout your testimony. Funny little man in his robes. Did they hide his erection? Did you see him playing with his cock under the table as he scribbled his notes?”

Elena turned her head and placed her cheek against the grating. The priest who’d transcribed the proceedings had indeed been a major perv, visiting her in her chamber after the day’s testimony to complete his notes. He’d sped through the recitation but lingered over the more sordid bits.

“What size was the crystal phallus?” he’d asked, his beady eyes glittering.

She’d shrugged.

He’d glanced toward the closed door, then given her a tight smile while he’d lifted his robes and untied his undergarments to free his own sex. “As large as this?”

The priest had no idea of her changed nature, and she’d lulled him with a casual lift of a shoulder. “Perhaps if it were straighter?”

He’d rubbed himself, his trembling hand gliding over his flesh until it was erect. Then he’d stared at his swollen cock for a moment, admiring his girth, before raising his glance again. “What do you think?” he’d asked, his voice tight with excitement.

“It was much larger.”

His cheeks filled with furious color. His lips thinned. She’d angered him. He’d risen from his seat and strode forward, bending over her, forcing her to sink back to avoid his fetid breath as he’d pulled up her skirts and fondled her sex.

She’d been dry, and he’d tried to poke his finger inside her. And she’d allowed it, partly because she didn’t want to make enough noise to bring anyone into the room, and partly because she really didn’t care that he violated her. She’d bided her time.

“How did you take that she-beast’s phallus?” he asked, cramming his finger into her dry heat. “I think you lie.”

Elena had snorted. “I took it because I was very, very moist.”

His eyes grew wide. “Are you unnatural?”

She gave him a smile that hid her teeth. “More so than you can comprehend.”

“Girl, do you prefer a tongue to a rod?” he asked, his voice rising.

She’d thought it funny that he instantly decided she must prefer a female lover, rather than guessing her “unnatural” state was due to a newly acquired taste for blood.

“Is this a question for your notes, Father?”

He’d struck her across the cheek then pulled up his robes and pushed open her thighs. Before he could rape her, she’d shaken her head, letting the change come slowly, letting him see the glow in her eyes rise, letting her fangs descend in a slow, steady glide.

And when he’d yelped and tried to back away, her thighs clasped his waist in as close a semblance to a lover’s embrace as he’d likely ever known.

As she’d bitten deep into his throat, he’d gurgled, his meaty hands slapping at her shoulders and head, until they’d slid down to rest limply against the cushions of her chair.

With a shove, she’d pushed his slackened body away, grimacing at the sour taste of the flesh she’d punctured.

It was then that Narcissa had slipped into her chamber. “I heard.” She stepped over the dead priest and sat on Elena’s lap, an arm looping around her neck as she held her close. “What shall we do?”

“You’re asking me? How did you dispose of Erzsébet’s bodies?”

Narcissa shook her head. “I meant, how do we go on?”

They’d held each other tightly, suddenly frightened of the future.

Elena recalled that a nervous giggle burbled up inside her. She had pointed to the priest, whose robes were still wadded around his waist. His cock lay exposed in the opening of his linen undergarment.

She’d given Cissy a look. “We should leave him exactly as he is now.”

“Are we going to run?”

“What is left for us?”

“Mother and Father?”

Elena snarled. “They abandoned us with a monster in hopes we’d make them wealthier.”

“But how will we survive?”

“We are not without powers.”

Their flight hadn’t been recorded in the annals of the trial. Nor had the priest’s demise.

An open-palmed slap against her pussy broke through her reverie. “Am I boring you?”

No, but I’m through playing. Elena closed her eyes and withdrew inside herself. The next slap elicited no response from her whatsoever.

Cassia came around again, peering through the slats, a frown bisecting her dark brows. “Is this another little rebellion? I’ll remove the ball gag, but you’ll have to retract your teeth.”

Elena lifted her lips to show she’d already done so.

Cassia reached through the bars and peeled open the Velcro. Then she slipped the ball from her mouth.

Elena licked her mouth, wincing at how dry and stretched it felt.

The witch sucked her bottom lip between her teeth as she continued to stare, doubt flaring briefly in her eyes.

Not the look one would expect from a confident assassin. Elena forced herself to glance away from the other woman’s ripe lips and cleared her throat. “You want my blood,” she said, her voice rasping, “flavored with arousal. Do you not?”

“I have a little. But I need much more.”

Elena nodded then raised her head to meet the other’s gaze directly. “Do you intend to kill me?”

The witch shrugged. “It’s not necessary for the spell, but we decided killing you would be best.”

“Best. Why?”

“So you couldn’t retaliate.”

One side of her mouth crimped into a tight smile. “Did you ever once consider asking for my blood?”

One dark brow arched. “And you would give it to us? Do you think we’re stupid?”

“Why do you need my blood in particular? Aren’t there other vampires you could have preyed upon?”

“I needed a more direct descendent of your dam.”

“My dam?” Did she mean Narcissa?

“The countess. We’re preparing a warding spell against her.”

She didn’t know Cissy had turned her! Elena thought hard. Cassia said she needed a more direct descendant. Her blood could still work. “You thought I would be unwilling to help you because of my affection for the countess?”

Again, Cassia stared as though trying to read her mind. “You lived while so many others didn’t. She brought you untold pleasures. You admitted that.”

“Not by choice. A man can be raped against his will because his body reacts to stimuli. So can a woman. She found my weakness. Exploited it. I was never truly willing to serve her pleasure.”

“If I could believe that…”

Elena drew a deep breath. There was hope. She might still turn this to her advantage. Perhaps she wouldn’t even kill her captor—at least, not until after she’d delivered on her promise of pleasure many times. “Your helpers are nearby?”

“I sent them from the house, but they’re probably still somewhere close. For my protection should you somehow escape.”

Elena cleared her face of all emotion—save one. Yearning. She let the witch read it in her glowing eyes, her flushed skin. “Free me,” she whispered. “I will submit. I’ll give you what you want of my own free will. I have no love for the Hell-bitch. If you battle her or simply want to resist her allure should she come, I will help.”

Their glances held. Cassia’s deep frown eased. “I have no love for murder,” she murmured.

“Nor do I.” At least not of innocents. “I only wish to survive. So long as you don’t oppose me in that, we can…help each other.”

Cassia straightened. Her chin lifted. Her mouth thinned into a stern expression. “I will release you, but you must do exactly as I command.”

Elena suppressed a smirk. “Or what?”

“Or I won’t let you come.”

Chapter Three

Elena shook out her arms and tilted her head side to side to stretch aching muscles. Her asshole ached as it clasped hard around the plug Cassia insisted remain inside her—a physical reminder of who was in charge.

Cassia remained standing, her expression haughty, not a trace of trepidation in her face, her breaths and heartbeats even.

Perhaps her confidence was forced, but Elena didn’t truly care. The moment she’d been freed, her body had reacted with excitement that flushed her skin and dampened her pussy. Now that they faced each other, each acting of their own free will, Elena was eager, hopeful that the pride and strength she sensed in the other woman was more than a play-Domme’s show.

Cassia tapped the side of her thigh with the flogger and pointed at a spot in front of her. “On your knees, pet.”

Elena’s sex clenched, fluid dribbled down her thighs. “If I refuse?”

“I won’t let you eat this pussy,” Cassia said, gliding her fingertips across her bare mound. She widened her stance and pulled up her lips to expose a glimpse of her clit and the furls of her inner lips, which protruded like flower petals from between her thicker labia.

It had been a long time since Elena had sucked on inner folds shaped like that. She’d pull on them like a straw between her fangs, feather them with her tongue.

Her breasts grew heavy and her nipples tingled. Her sex swelled so that each slow stride toward Cassia rubbed it between her thighs. Moisture glazed the skin there. Ending this now wasn’t an option. She could kill her later—after she’d tasted those ruffled folds.

Elena knelt, nearly groaning as the change of position caused her ass to try to eject the plug. Reaching behind her, she cupped the base, eased it deep again and tightened her muscles around it. Then she bowed her head, giving over control—for now—watching Cassia from beneath the fringe of her eyelashes.

Cassia’s fingers slid between her folds again. Her forefinger swirled on her clit then dived into her pussy. When she pulled it free, arousal glistened on the tip. “Raise your mouth, vampire.”

Elena tilted back her head and held still as Cassia painted her lips. Not until she withdrew did Elena dare to touch her mouth with her tongue then give a greedier swipe. A subtle quiver vibrated through her chest.

The taste of her, sea fresh, salty, made her mewl like a kitten. Her tummy tightened, her body began to shiver with anticipation of Cassia’s next command.

“I want you on your hands and knees. I want that pretty little ass of yours tilted up to receive my attentions.”

Although she lifted her lip in a snarl, Elena complied, falling forward to rest on her hands.

Cassia lifted her arm and gave the barbed flanges a snap.

Liquid pleasure surged from Elena at the sound. Her eyelids dipped, her breaths deepened.

Cassia walked slowly around her. A soft hand patted her rump. “It’s a lovely ass. My ass, don’t you agree?”

Elena gave a rumbling growl.

Whiskey-dark laughter filled the air. The hand smoothed over her bottom in a silky caress. “My priestess accused me of being enamored with you. I read the transcript, over and over. Committed to memory the degradations you suffered. I admired your spirit.”

“I did what I had to in order to survive,” Elena rasped.

“You did so much more than that, darling monster.” The hand lifted. A stinging slap landed on her hip, causing her breath to hitch.

“You found pleasure in the pain and restraint she forced on you.”

Another flick crossed both buttocks. Elena felt the heat of a welt rising on her skin.

“I’ll have to be quick. You heal so quickly, the lesson won’t be learned.”

More flicks and snaps landed to crisscross her ass. One lash landed on her upper thighs, glancing against her swollen labia.

She sucked in a deep breath, but reveled in the heat the witch drew to her buttocks and sex.

Flanges rubbed against her wet, open pussy. “I could make you come this way, swatting your pussy until you screamed. Would you like that?”

Elena withheld a curse, didn’t let even so much as a tiny rumble issue from her lips. She held still in the silence that followed.

Cassia walked around to stand in front of Elena again. “Kneel, pet.”

Elena pushed up and sat on her haunches, keeping her head down. Her nose twitched at the aroma of Cassia’s arousal—sharp and pungent now.

Cassia stepped closer, tilting her hips toward Elena. “Tongue and lips only, little monster. Pleasure me—now.”

Elena gripped her hands together behind her to resist dragging Cassia closer. She leaned in, stuffing her nose between Cassia’s folds. She wet her face, mouth to chin, on the fluids seeping from inside the witch. She swirled her face around and around, coating herself in fluid, drawing in the scent and taste. When Elena thrust out her tongue to lap along the length of her, Cassia trembled.

“Nice,” she hissed, grinding against Elena.

Elena rose on her knees and tilted her head to suckle those protruding inner lips, groaning at their slick, soft texture. She sucked so long that Cassia gripped Elena’s hair and pulled hard. “Stop.”

Elena settled back again, head down. Her breasts quivered with her shaky breaths. She fought to control the tingling in her gums. If she were a younger vampire, she wouldn’t have the control to resist taking Cassia to the ground right now.

Cassia stepped back. “There,” she said pointing toward a padded table with gleaming stirrups extending from one end. “Lie there.”

Elena flipped back her hair, barely resisting a snort. Resistance was only for show. She’d see this play to the end.

Cassia’s arm shot out and the flogger flicked Elena’s left breast, stinging her nipple. Another flick seared the right. “I wasn’t asking.”

Elena lowered her eyelids to deliver a glare, but it was still all a pose. Her legs wobbled as she rose and sauntered toward the table. She hopped easily onto the contoured surface and reclined, her thighs dangling over the edge.

“Hands above your head.”

Elena huffed but did as commanded. Velcro bands secured her hands. Then Cassia tickled the bottoms of her soles with the flogger until she raised her heels and placed them in the stirrups.

Gentle pressure pushed apart her thighs. Elena stared down her body, noted the pebble hardness of her distended nipples, the faint tremors of her lower abdomen.

Cassia’s gaze dropped to her open cunt. “Baby, I’m gonna munch—but not before I make your pretty white thighs pink.”

She twirled the flogger like a baton, a smile curving one corner of her mouth, then landed quick, slicing flicks against her breasts and ribs. When she flicked a nipple, wresting a gasp from Elena, Cassia leaned over and latched on to it, soothing with a slow pull.

The sensation was so delicious Elena started to close her thighs, but a flick against her cunt made her bare her teeth.

Cassia swirled the flanges of the flogger over other breast and trailed it down her belly, lifting it now and then to snap the barbs against her skin, raising more hot welts.

The welts throbbed, and Cassia’s clever flicks continued until Elena couldn’t take a deep breath between the sighs and strangled moans.

The calculated torture continued, stinging whips of the barbs followed by lazy swirls from the silky ends.

Breathless, Cassia circled the table to stand between Elena’s thighs. She turned the flogger and thrust the handle into Elena’s pussy, pushing it deep inside, the curve at the end of the leather-wrapped handle rubbing over Elena’s G-spot until she pumped her hips helplessly up and down.

Cassia pulled the handle free then rolled a stool close to the end of the table.

As she sat, Elena quivered with anticipation.

Fingers plucked at the base of the plug then slid it free. A cloth cleansed her. Fingers played again, toying with her folds then slipping into her cunt and ass.

Tension wound inside her as Cassia’s lips and teeth tugged and pulled at her nether lips and her tongue flicked her swollen clit.

Elena’s eyelids drifted down. Her teeth slid free, and she sank them into her bottom lip, blood trickling down the sides of her cheeks.

“Don’t come. Not yet, beauty.” Cassia curled her fingers and thrust four inside Elena’s wet, raw channel.

Elena gave a muffled shout and arched her back off the table.

“Not yet, not yet,” Cassia said, her voice strained. Lips latched on to Elena’s clitoris, burrowing around it, sucking hard until it extended farther, and Cassia’s guarded teeth closed around the base of the tiny sensitive bulb.

With fingers stroking in and out and her clit tortured with loving bites and sips, Elena couldn’t hold back. Not a second longer. She thrashed her head side to side, gasping, mewling, begging at the last. “Please, witch. Please.”

Cassia lifted her mouth. “Come then, pet. Come for me, now.” She sank again, fluttered her tongue against Elena’s burning clit while she formed a fist and thrust it up Elena’s pussy.

Friction and pressure built until searing-hot pleasure burst the dam. Elena shouted. waves of cold and hot rushed over her skin, the tension in her belly expanded and snapped. She howled as she came, pumping her hips up and down to fuck the hand balled inside her.

When the orgasm waned, she lay panting on the table, sweat stinging the cuts on her lips. A cloth mopped up the mess. Cassia climbed over her, straddled her waist then bent to kiss her mouth. Her tongue scraped the tips of the eyeteeth. Blood seeped into Elena’s mouth.

Elena swallowed the gift down, groaning anew as Cassia’s full lips massaged her own, soothing and sucking. Her tongue thrust into Elena’s mouth and she pulled against the bindings, tearing them to enclose the witch inside her strong arms.

The kiss became a battle, noses realigning, mouths suctioning, tongues dueling until Cassia lifted her head and stared down. “Will you still give me what I need? Will you let me bleed you?”

Elena swallowed hard, panting still. “For a protection spell?”

“Not exactly. We want to taint our blood for her purposes.”

With Cassia’s hot sex wetting her belly, Elena fought for focus. She canted her head, a frown digging between her brows. “You think she’s looking for witches’ blood?”

“I saw her in a vision. She turns us. Makes us powerful and eternal.”

“And you see that as a problem?”

“When she turns us, she enslaves our souls to do her bidding.”

“Humans can resist the suggestion. Free choice remains. My sister and I escaped her. So could you.”

Cassia shook her head, causing her corkscrew curls to shiver around her head. “She’s using magick. One of our kind creates the spell.”

Elena’s heart slowed. Cold seeped into her chest. “She’s been hidden all these centuries. Why would she do this now? For what purpose?”

“I don’t know. I can only tell you what I’ve seen. She’s coming. Here. And we have to be ready.”

Cassia watched Elena’s face for hints of what she thought. She’d done everything she could to seduce the vampire. Gave her freedom, pleasure—an orgasm that still quivered through the body clasped between her thighs. However, the vampire’s expression remained shuttered.

She sincerely hoped she hadn’t made a misstep, because right about now she was vulnerable.

Still expressionless, Elena smoothed her hands to Cassia’s shoulders then glided downward until she cupped her ass. Intelligence gleamed in those brilliant eyes as well as a hint of challenge.

Cassia smoothed her own expression and gave a haughty tilt of her chin. Leaning back, she cupped one breast with both hands, tweaked the nipple with her thumbs then pulled up her breast to swab it with her tongue.

Elena’s nostrils flared. A very slight tell, but enough to renew Cassia’s confidence. Holding the breast in one hand, she braced her torso on the other and bent toward the vampire’s mouth. She rubbed her nipple over the closed lips, then along the seam. “It’s long enough that you could suck at the tip while nibbling the base, don’t you think?” Cassia let go of her breast and pinched Elena’s own nipple hard. “That wasn’t really a question. I want you to do it now.”

Elena remained still for a long moment, her gaze locked with Cassia’s, but when her glance flicked to the breast hovering over, Cassia knew she’d won.

Elena stuck out her tongue and stroked the pebbled nipple. “I love breasts like these,” she whispered. “Full. Proud. I love large nipples, their velvety softness. Cassia,” she swallowed and raised her glance, “I could drink on those stems, suck them relentlessly, like a hungry baby to a teat.” Her hands cupped the one breast gently, and she raised her head to take the nipple into her mouth.

Cassia flung back her head as the vampire sucked the tip between her teeth and rubbed her puckered lips over the areola. The pull was slow and rhythmic, calming and electrifying at the same time.

She couldn’t help the moan that leaked between her bitten lips. The first nip of teeth caused a streak of heat to race toward her womb. Moisture gushed from inside her, seeping onto the trembling belly beneath her spread thighs. “Goddess, pleasure me. Pleasure me however you will.”

In a blinding instant, the vampire flipped her, breast still clasped in her mouth. The leather beneath her back was hot like the vampire’s skin, and for a moment, Cassia felt as though she was sandwiched in heat.

Elena released the nipple but gave her breasts small, harmless nips. Her breathing was unsteady, her lips blurred and rosy. Her glance remained on a quivering nipple. “I must feed soon,” she whispered.

“I have blood stored.”

Elena gave a wild shake of her head; her hair shivered around her shoulders. “I want yours,” she said, her voice rough and gravelly.

Cassia blew out a deep breath. “Would you drain me?” she asked, keeping her voice uninflected, not wishing to add to the violent tremors beginning to shake the creature holding her down.

“I would take only enough to stem the hunger. I swear.”

Cassia reached up and turned Elena’s face toward hers. “From my breast then. And make me come.” She tapped Elena’s cheek. “You are not a beast or a monster. I will trust you.”

Elena’s eyes narrowed. “I could have killed you a dozen times.”

Cassia grinned. “I have something you still want.”

Elena snarled. “Your pussy?”

“A spell to thwart your dam.”

Her eyebrows drew into a deep frown. “How do you know?”

“That she calls to you? That you are bound by blood?” At Elena’s sharp nod, she said, “You’re not the first vampire I’ve met.”

“Am I the first you desired?”

Does she want to be my first? Cassia sighed. “Yes.”

“I’m not bound to Erzsébet. But I am…aware of her. When she calls to me, I’m tempted to answer. I would like to be immune.” Elena’s gaze drilled into hers. “You can give me that?”

“I can.”

Elena slipped off the end of the table and pulled Cassia by the legs until her bottom was at the edge. This time her feet were in the stirrups, which Elena rearranged and pushed closer to the table. Trembling hands opened Cassia’s thighs, pushing them wide, stretching her muscles and opening her vagina. Cool air drifted over the heated flesh.

Elena’s eyelids drifted down; her nostrils flared as though drinking in her scent. She bent her head and lapped with the flat of her tongue, sticking the point inside and swirling, depositing spit, encouraging a fresh wash of fluid to gush. Her thumb rubbed and pressed against her clit. Then she dipped down and sucked on it, the length of her eyeteeth pushing against her labia but not piercing.

She was careful with Cassia, sliding fingers inside her and twisting slowly, encouraging her to relax her inner muscles and allow a third and fourth digit to follow.

“The Hell-bitch forced her whole fist inside me just after she took my maidenhood. It stung. Her hand wasn’t small. I thought she’d rip me in two, but then she began to pump inside me.” Elena’s fingers slowly thrust in and out, but gently. “She flicked her tongue against my clit. I mewled like a kitten. Not because I hurt, which I did, but because she awakened me.”

Cassia reached down and combed her fingers through Elena’s hair. “She overwhelmed you.”

“The bitch took me body and soul.”

“She made you what you are.”

Elena’s lips trembled. The corners drew downward. Tears shone in her eyes. “No. She turned my sister, and then made Narcissa watch as she bloodied me with a whipping. She bit me. Drank from me. Left me near to death. But Erzsébet left the turning to my sister.”

Tears burned the back of Cassia’s throat, imagining the horror Elena had suffered. So confused by her sexuality. Betrayed by her own body then ravaged by her betrayer. “Narcissa is your dam?”

“Yes. And I don’t want the thread that binds us broken. But you can help her. Narcissa has free will, but Erzsébet can find her easily.”

Cassia soothed her cheek. “I will help her. If she will accept it.”

Elena leaned down and kissed Cassia’s inner thigh, her eyes squeezing shut. “I feel the blood thrumming here.”

“Come into my arms, I will hold you against me while you feed.” She would give her gentleness, something Elena was unaccustomed to.

Elena sat on the stool and leaned over Cassia. “I’ll fuck you while I drink, and you will come harder than you ever have before. There will be pleasure in watching it. If you pleasure me soon after, you will have the blood you need—infused by desire for you.”

Cassia opened her arms.

Elena came down on top of her, her mouth even with her breasts. Her face tilted upward, her mouth opened, lips lifting. Fangs slid down, but Cassia felt no fear.

A hand slid between Cassia’s thighs again. Fingers found her opening then three pressed inside. Her pussy made a lewd, moist sound that only caused Elena’s eyelids to dip into a teasing stare. Then she flicked out her tongue and teased a nipple, fluttering against the side of the tip.

Elena rested her head on the other breast, rubbing her cheek against it while making lazy stabs at the tip. “I would like to sleep like this one day.”

Cassia was the one ready to growl now. “I might let you—if you prove your devotion.”

Elena’s lips stretched into a smile. She didn’t move off the fleshy pillow, but did open her lips and lick them.

Cassia grunted. “I never thought you’d be lazy.” She cupped herself and pushed the large globe toward Elena’s mouth.

“This is me being lazy?” With her fingers stroking in and out, Elena suctioned hard, leaving a bluish love bite on the side of her tit.

Cassia moaned, her body melting against the table. She pulsed her hips up and down, shallow glides to encourage Elena to deepen the penetration.

At last, Elena rolled fully over her. She braced on a hand and looked down Cassia’s body to where her fingers played. “Can you take my fist?”

More moisture spilled from inside her, coating the fingers. Elena pulled free, folded her thumb against her palm and curved her fingers. Then she slowly pushed inside.

Cassia groaned as the pressure built, but breathed in short bursts between her lips, willing the muscles inside her to relax. When Elena pushed past the entrance, Cassia’s back arched, then lowered to the padded bench again. Her eyelids felt heavy, her chest tight with excitement and desire. “Fuck me. Drink from me.”

“Yes, mistress,” Elena whispered. Her fist pushed deeper then withdrew, pushing, pulling, until Cassia’s hips jerked with frantic urgency.

“Now, do it now.”

Elena bent and rooted at her breast, stroking the nipple with her tongue then widened her jaw to suck more of the breast into her mouth. Then her eyes widened. Her gaze met Cassia’s, green light seeming to glow and pulse. Her teeth sank deep, blood spilled around Cassia’s breasts.

Cassia gasped at the sharp pain, but the wounds quickly grew numb.

Elena’s lips suctioned to catch all the blood, her mouth reseating again and again. Cassia clutched the vampire’s head against her breasts and rode the hand plunging deep inside her, staring at the exposed rafters above as wave after wave of deepening pleasure surged through her. Her orgasm was building slowly, liquefying her cunt. Blood surged toward her breast from all directions, leaving her lightheaded but aware.

A twist of the fist crammed deep inside her caused her to tense in anticipation. She raised her legs, toes pointing, thighs relaxing open—so wide the muscles screamed, but she didn’t care. She needed Elena deeper, needed the sultry heat of the mouth pulling at her breast.

The noises Elena made, animalistic grunts and groans as she fed, didn’t frighten Cassia. She enfolded her in her arms, glad she could give something precious of herself to this tortured creature.

Her own moans grew in intensity, and her head thrashed on the table. She pulled Elena’s hair, cupped her head, pushed her chest harder against her mouth. Her orgasm exploded, splintering her control. She bucked her hips, dragged at the locks of hair tangled in her fingers and screamed.

Longs moments afterward, she came back to herself. She lay alongside the vampire, their breasts pressed together, their legs intertwined.

Elena tipped up her chin. “Thank you.”

Cassia laughed and shook her head. “Are kidding me? I could have died happy in the moment.”

Elena’s lips formed a firm, thin line. “You’d best bleed me quickly.”

“Afraid you won’t be able to resist taking another bite of me?”

“Something like that.”

Although it was the last thing she wanted to do, she rolled from the padded table and went to the stand with the implements she’d set out. She chose a long, slender stiletto.

When she turned, Elena stood right behind her.

Cassia drew in a quick breath, afraid again. Reminded this was not a tame creature.

Again, Elena’s expression was hard to read. But she turned away, striding toward the copper tub. She hauled it easily to the end of the padded table then sat on the edge and lay back, reaching for the Velcro bands. Elena clasped the ends in her fists and closed her eyes.

Cassia let out shaking breath. “”I’ll take only what I need,” she said, echoing Elena’s promise.

Elena’s lips twisted into a tight smile. “I trust you.”

Epilogue

Once again, Elena approached the Old Absinthe House. This time, however, she arrived feeling refreshed, her body languid. Cassia had brought her to orgasm with her mouth then bled her. She’d sealed the wound, kissing her bloody thigh and making regretful murmurs for the pain she’d caused.

It had been a transcendent experience—coaxed into orgasm then bled with the stick of the stiletto, blood pumping in a steady stream into the tub. However, this time she’d given it of her own free will. This time her blood would be used for good.

Raucous Cajun zydeco blared from the doorway. She glanced to her side at Cassia’s flushed face. Her lips were still wet with the kiss they’d shared in a dark alley.

Cassia caught her glance and kissed the air, the smack of her lips a saucy tease. Elena grinned. Their mutual unquenchable thirst made Elena feel young again, filled with a happiness still too new for her to believe it could last.

She’d been aware of the two witches trailing them from Cassia’s house to the tavern, but didn’t mention it. Her lover was smart to want backup. Vampires were known for their seductive powers. Many lulled marks into letting down their guard because innocence was sweeter than sin. Feeding on surprise and horror was like sprinkling hot sauce on étouffée. A perfect condiment.

Her phone chirped, and she smiled, hitting the receive button.

“Where the hell have you been?”

Elena winced at her sister’s shout. “Not far, suror.” Elena stepped through the doorway and glanced around. She spotted Cissy standing beside a table, a cell phone to her ear.

Cissy saw her and lowered her phone. But rather than the whoop and quick flying hug Elena expected, her sister remained rooted to the spot.

Elena glanced to the chair beside Cissy where a young black-haired woman sat. The woman met her gaze. Golden eyes glowed.

So, Cissy had found herself a little vamp action. Curious, because they’d both broken tradition by bringing someone with them to their reunion, she strolled closer. But as she drew near, Elena’s keen sense of smell found the lingering aromas of sex, blood—and the remnants of human.

Elena stomped closer and bent her head to glare into Cissy’s eyes. “You turned her?”

“She’s the one. I’m keeping her.” Cissy’s hand covered the corner of the short-haired butch’s shoulder. A gesture that said she’d protect the baby vamp with her life.

Cissy thought she’d have to protect her girlfriend from her?

Her sister’s gaze lifted beyond Elena then narrowed. “Seems like you found a meal. Wanna share?”

Behind her, Cassia grunted but slid her hand inside Elena’s and stepped beside her, her expression unafraid.

Elena gave her a reassuring smile before turning back to scowl a warning at Cissy. “Cassia’s not food. And we really need to get somewhere quiet where we can talk.”

Cissy sniffed. A scowl drew her brows together and her head whipped back.

Elena placed her arm across Cassia’s belly and pushed her behind her as Cissy’s teeth sprung, flashing a feral warning.

“I smell magick,” Cissy hissed.

Elena forced herself not to reply in kind although the urge to bare fang was strong. Not something she and her sister had ever done to each other except as a reflex when caught unaware.

When Elena didn’t blink, Cissy’s glance went from Cassia then back to Elena. She huffed a breath. “And you had the nerve to slam me for bringing Butterfly into the fam?” Cissy jerked her chin toward Cassia. “She tell you who’s coming?”

“You already know?” Elena asked.

Cissy’s mouth crimped with disgust. “I’ve felt tingly all evening.”

Butterfly rolled her eyes and laughed.

Cissy arched a brow, her lips twisting in a roguish grin as she and Butterfly shared a charged glance. “Not what I meant. You know when the one who makes you is coming. It’s like having your leash jerked.”

Elena leaned closer. “Would you like that leash broken?” she whispered.

Cissy’s eyes widened. “Your friend?”

“She knows a way.”

“A fucking spell, you mean.”

“Yes.”

Cissy’s expression grew still. “You mean, I could actually be free? No more jumping when a tingle comes?”

“Think quickly, you also wouldn’t have any warning if she was nearby.”

Cassia’s eyes glimmered with unshed tears. “But she’d never be in my head again,” she whispered harshly.

“Yes.”

Cissy drew a deep breath. “I’m in. I want the bitch gone.”

“We can head to my place,” Cassia said, her tone confident.

“You already been?” her sister asked. “No bad mojos?”

Elena wrinkled her nose.

Cassia laughed. “I promise no harm. I didn’t make a similar vow to your sister, and she wasn’t nearly as quick to catch on to my nature.”

Cissy turned to Butterfly and held out her hand. “The adventure begins. Did I mention that vamps and witches aren’t keen on each other?”

“Were-creatures, however, are the worst,” Elena said, smiling as she turned toward the door.

A prickling shivered over skin and lifted the hairs on the back of her neck.

Her gaze whisked over the crowded bar. The music slowed to a steady drone. Patrons froze in place. A dark, sulfurous cloud billowed through the doorway…

“Out the back,” Elena shouted. “Now!”

Before any of their group could react, Báthory Erzsébet, the Blood Countess—Hell-bitch herself—strode through the door. Her beautiful crimson mouth stretched.

“Hello, little darlings.”

About the Author

Delilah Devlin dated a Samoan, a Venezuelan, a Turk, a Cuban and was engaged to a Greek before marrying her Irishman. She’s lived in Saudi Arabia, Germany and Ireland, but calls Texas home for now. Ever a risk taker, she lived in the Saudi Peninsula during the Gulf War, thwarted an attempted abduction by white slave traders, and survived her children’s juvenile delinquency.

Creating alter egos for herself in the pages of her books enables her to live new adventures. Since discovering the sinful pleasure of erotica, she writes to satisfy her need for variety—it keeps her from running away with the Indian working in the cubicle beside her!

In addition to writing erotica, she enjoys creating romantic comedies and suspense novels.

Paisley Smith is a full-time freelance writer and can usually be found in front of her computer either writing, chatting, promoting or plotting.

A true southern belle, Paisley enjoys all things feminine, such as the perfect shade of lipstick, a pair of killer heels and a sexy, confident woman.

Sneak a peek at Paisley’s site to see what she’s up to.

The authors welcome comments from readers. You can find their websites and email addresses on their author bio pages at www.ellorascave.com.

Tell Us What You Think

We appreciate hearing reader opinions about our books. You can email us at Comments@EllorasCave.com.

Also by Delilah Devlin

1-800-DOM-help: Begging for It

Altered States: Unleashing the Tiger

Arctic Dragon

Bad, Bad Girlfriend

Desire: Garden of Desire

Desire: Prisoner of Desire

Desire: Slave of Desire

Ellora’s Cavemen: Jewels of the Nile I anthology

Ellora’s Cavemen: Legendary Tails III anthology

Ellora’s Cavemen: Seasons of Seduction I anthology

Ellora’s Cavemen: Tales from the Temple III anthology

Frannie ‘n’ the Private Dick

Fun With Dick and Jayne

Handy Men

Jacq’s Warlord with Myla Jackson

Jane’s Wild Weekend

Lion in the Shadows

Lockdown

My Immortal Knight: A Long Howl Good Night

My Immortal Knight: All Hallows Heartbreaker

My Immortal Knight: All Knight Long

My Immortal Knight: First Knight

My Immortal Knight: Knight of My Dreams

My Immortal Knight: Love Bites

My Immortal Knight: Relentless

My Immortal Knight: Silver Bullet

My Immortal Knight: Uncovering Navarro

Raw Silk

Ride a Cowboy

Silent Knight

Sin’s Gift

The Pleasure Bot

Witch’s Choice

Print books by Delilah Devlin

A Hot Man is the Best Revenge anthology

Altered States anthology

Desire: Pirate’s Desire anthology

Ellora’s Cavemen: Jewels of the Nile I anthology

Ellora’s Cavemen: Legendary Tails III anthology

Ellora’s Cavemen: Seasons of Seduction I anthology

Ellora’s Cavemen: Tales from the Temple III anthology

Fated Mates anthology

Feral Fixation anthology

Jacq’s Warlord with Myla Jackson

My Immortal Knight: Endless Knight anthology

My Immortal Knight: Silver Shadow anthology

My Immortal Knight: Twice Bitten

Red Stilettos anthology

Royal Bondage anthology

Running Wild anthology

Un, Deux, Trois, Menage! anthology

Veiled Alliance anthology

White Hot Holidays Volume 3 anthology

Also by Paisley Smith

Beyond Curious

Birthday Girl

First Taste

Nurse Lovette

Soft Swap

Discover for yourself why readers can’t get enough of the multiple award-winning publisher Ellora’s Cave. Whether you prefer ebooks or paperbacks, be sure to visit EC on the web at www.ellorascave.com for an erotic reading experience that will leave you breathless.

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