Текст книги "Alasdair"

Автор книги: Ella Frank

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

LEO QUIETLY WALKED over to the kitchen sink and braced his hands on the counter. They were shaking he was so livid. His back was still facing Alasdair, and for the last several minutes, tense silence had filled the small space.

He wasn’t sure what had happened between now and when he’d been standing amongst the crowd of hungry vampires back at the Walk. But he knew one thing: He’d be damned if he would go back there without a fight.

“Who said I was going to take you back?”

Alasdair’s voice closing in had Leo rounding on him with a glare.

“Why won’t you just leave me alone?” he finally asked as Alasdair came to a standstill by the kitchen table. “First, you terrorize me, then you kidnap me, and now, you’re hell-bent on destroying my life. If this is your version of playing with your food, I think you’ve taken it far enough.”

Alasdair’s brow rose as he studied him. “Haven’t you awoken in a particularly spirited mood? Thanos was right. I like it,” he said, his tone dropping a few octaves. “It’s more fitting of you.”

“You know nothing about me. And I’m positive you care even less,” he grit out, his anger rising inside him now as he bravely stepped closer. “Why haven’t you killed me? I don’t get what your deal is. Are you bored? Defective? Or something else I haven’t thought of?"

The words fell off his tongue and hovered in the air between them like a provocative dare. He wasn’t sure how Alasdair would react, but before he could continue, he was crushed back against the sink. His hands were trapped behind his back, and the counter dug into his hips as Alasdair held him in place.

“I assure you I am certainly not defective. And you should stop talking. Your words, they will get you—”

“What, killed? You said you liked my newfound spirit. Now, all of a sudden, you don’t?”

“We vampires, we’re fickle creatures. We change our minds every split second,” Alasdair said. “And right now, I’d prefer you to shut your mouth. Or I’ll do it for you. Permanently.”

Leo narrowed his eyes, refusing to back down. “You keep issuing deadly threats, yet here I am, alive and standing in my apartment. Right back where I started.” Straining against the hand holding him captive, he pushed his face in closer to Alasdair’s. “The only difference this time? I know you can’t feed from me or something happens to you. You get all locked up, don’t you? So. You going to snap my neck instead?”

The fingers around his wrists constricted, making it clear Alasdair could do whatever he wanted with him right then, but…

“I don’t think so. I also think you have no idea what happened the night you tried to kill me. And that pisses you off because you think you know everything. But you don’t, do you? You’re a little bit scared.”

“Stop talking. Now.”

The smart thing to do would’ve been to heed the warning, but Leo was on too much of a roll to stop now. “I think it’s even more than that though. You find me…” His voice trailed off as Alasdair’s top lip retracted.

“Oh, don’t stop now. I find you what, Leonidas?”

Just like the previous times Alasdair had threatened him, Leo’s body reacted. His breath came in rapid bursts, and a warm flush hit his cheeks. He was aroused by this side of Alasdair.

This intimidating I-can-kill-you-with-my-bare-hands side.

For some reason, it got him off and gave a whole new meaning to wanting the bad boy.

When Alasdair pulled him close, Leo’s heart began to trip all over itself, and his cock made it crystal clear he was undeniably attracted to the male snarling at him. That was when he was struck with another truly baffling thought—he wanted Alasdair to crush his lips against his and kiss him.

“I asked you a question. Now answer me. I find you what?”

Leo’s eyes fell to the lips issuing the demand, and he replied, “You want me. I can tell. You find me as fascinating as I find you.”

“And what makes you think that?”

Leo raised his eyes, and his breath caught at the light in Alasdair’s. “Your eyes. They were glowing that time you were with the other male, Vasilios. When he was kissing you and sucking you. They’re glowing now. They do that because you’re turned on, am I right?”

Alasdair lowered those eyes down his body, and Leo’s erection ached under the inspection.

”You also said as much,” he continued, not to be dissuaded. “You never attend that thing we went to tonight. But then, when we arrived, you told everyone I was yours. And what about that cuff lying on the floor in my bedroom? You know, the one you used to parade me around like I was your latest—”

Alasdair shifted and leaned in the distance separating them to whisper, “Fuck?”

“Yes.” Leo barely breathed as the tips of those frightening as fuck teeth grazed across the curve of his lower lip. And when Alasdair stroked the back of his fingers down his cheek, a shiver of pure lust snaked through Leo’s veins.

He was sure he was about to remember how to speak when Alasdair moved his mouth to the corner of his and asked, “Is that what you want, Leonidas? To lie on your back, spread your legs, and let me inside you whenever I desire? Or how about we skip the bed altogether and I take you against whatever is near? Hmm? Are you sure your cock isn’t speaking for your head, file mou? Because, yes. Se thelo. And if I have you, I will not let you go until I am done.”

Leo let out the shaky breath he’d been holding, and against all common sense, he daringly pressed his tongue to the tip of one of Alasdair’s fangs. And that’s when a deep rumbling growl left Alasdair.

A dangerous thrill coursed through him, pumping his fevered blood directly to his cock as his own actions and Alasdair’s wild response affected him.

Fuck, he’s sexy. The glowing eyes, those killer teeth, and the way he fell in and out of his native tongue when he was aroused. Sexy was an understatement. Alasdair was every wicked thought and fantasy Leo could have imagined.

He could kill him any time he wanted. But God help me, I don’t care, Leo thought as he said, “Yes.”

THIS WAS ABOUT to get complicated as hell. When Leo had tongued his left canine, Alasdair’s cock stiffened like an iron poker. Ballsy human, taking liberties that made Alasdair want to fuck him until he got him out of his system.

But he had to think…or at least try to.

Fucking your prey was never a good idea. It always ended badly. Either they became clingy and needy, never wanting to leave your side, or they became the messy by-product of a feed-and-fuck frenzy—something he’d learned to avoid after the first time it’d happened to him well over a thousand years ago. But when Leo whimpered into his mouth and bucked forward against him, Alasdair’s opinion on the subject took on an entirely different view.

He spun them around and, with a flash of thought, shoved Leo on top of the kitchen table so hard the legs scraped against the tile floor as it slid under their combined weight. With his hands now freed, Leo clutched at his shirtfront, and Alasdair maneuvered his way between his legs, placing his hands on the surface and pinning the human in.

“So you think you want that, do you? To be my yielding? To submit to my every demand, my every whim?”

When sensual need swirled inside Leo’s eyes, Alasdair’s own arousal ramped up to the ragged edge. Leo’s erection strained through his thin pants, and Alasdair couldn’t help himself from driving his hips up and connecting their rigid lengths.

I’d be inside your body. Your mind. Sometimes both. 

The red stain on Leo’s cheeks made Alasdair want the man underneath him begging for it, dying for the control he could ultimately give. He wanted to sink his teeth, and his cock, inside the man laid out under him. But knowing what happened the last time, Alasdair didn’t dare risk it.

He took Leo’s hands from his shirt and stretched them above his head, holding them trapped against the table.

You have no idea what you are inviting, Leonidas Chapel.  

When Leo spread his legs farther apart, Alasdair narrowed his eyes at the thought the man let echo through his mind.

I know exactly what I’m inviting. Maybe you’re just too scared to touch me.

Alasdair revealed his teeth in a feral smile and growled. The control he usually held so tight finally snapped in half.

THE SOUND THAT came from Alasdair would’ve been a warning to most, a threat of imminent danger. But the deep cadence had Leo twisting up to get closer to the body pressing him down on the table. He found it difficult to breathe as a warm tongue licked over the pulse at the base of his throat, but he managed to take a shaky breath.

Who’s scared now? You, Leonidas? 

He heard the question inside his mind, and even though the answer was a definite yes, he forced himself to say, “No.”

Cool lips pressed against the skin under his ear, and in his mind, Alasdair whispered, Again, you lie to me.

He was ready to deny it, when Alasdair raised his head and crushed their mouths together. Leo writhed under the hard frame sliding over the top of his, and when Alasdair slipped his tongue out to sample his lower lip, everything flashed to white.

No, no, no.

It was happening again. That same odd kind of flashback. One minute, he was in the present with Alasdair, and the next—

“HMM... IT’S HARD to believe I found you before you promised yourself to another, agóri?”

I’m somewhere else entirely. Fuck, again? What is this? Wake up.

Wake. Up. Chapel.

He didn’t wake, but his vision cleared, and he saw Alasdair lounging on the steps of the large pool in the bathhouse. The crystal-clear water lapped at his chest, and half of his long hair was pulled up and tied away from his handsome face. Between his legs stood the other vampire, Vasilios. His muscular back appeared smooth as stone, and the look on Alasdair’s face as he gazed at the one before him was full of adoration—and Leo knew that what he was seeing had happened many years ago. 

 “Who said I am not promised?”

“Ahh yes, I suppose she counts, even if it was orchestrated by your fathers. Well, won’t they be disappointed when you do not return from this evening’s excursion.”

“Perhaps. But I cannot find it in myself to care.”

Witnessing moments like this was fucked up. It gave Leo a sense of unease in the pit of his stomach. This was an invasion of privacy, a glimpse of Alasdair’s past, and it felt wrong to be witnessing all that he was. He wasn’t sure why it was happening, but when Alasdair shifted off the step of the pool and moved closer to Vasilios, Leo wanted it to end. 

He wanted to be away from the scene unfolding before his eyes and back in the kitchen where—

“AHH…” YES, RIGHT back here, where cool fingers had snaked between his legs and encircled his cock.

“It happened again, didn’t it?” Alasdair asked.

Leo panted and closed his eyes, hoping to hide whatever had just happened from the curious male hovering above him.

“What goes on when your eyes do that? When they cloud over that way?”

When Alasdair’s fingers stroked up the length of his erection and he leaned to the side to suck on his lobe, Leo groaned. He’d never wanted someone as much as he wanted the male currently working him over. He was close to begging when Alasdair nipped the shell of his ear and pushed into his mind.

You still won’t say? Then let me show you what’s going on in my mind.

And just like that, Leo saw an image of them as they were now—but not.

He was stripped naked, and bent down over him was Alasdair.

He had him pinned to the table, and when he raised his head and glanced Leo’s way, a drop of blood slid down the corner of his mouth.

Fuck…fuck, that’s hot.

Where Leo had once thought he would be disgusted by Alasdair feeding from him—suddenly, he was not. Every beat of his heart was like a warning, telling him this was madness. But as it kept time with his throbbing dick, he realized he’d never wanted to come so hard in his life as he did while watching that. The twisted image had turned him on even more.

Twisted is right. But you want it anyway, don’t you?

Brought back to reality by that tempting voice, Leo grunted and flexed under the grip still holding him to the table.

Alasdair was spot on. Sexual arousal had overtaken his sanity and he wanted to be fucked by Alasdair. Even if it meant his very possible death.

One day soon, it will happen. I have promised myself that. But not tonight, Leonidas. Not tonight.

As the words drifted inside his dazed mind, Leo tried to make sense of everything that had happened, but before he could, it all stopped.

Alasdair was gone.

Not only had he vanished from Leo’s mind, but he’d also faded from his kitchen, leaving him alone for the first time in two weeks.

ISADORA PACED BACK and forth outside Alasdair’s bedroom. He’d returned alone an hour earlier from wherever he’d disappeared to with his human. Since then, he’d sequestered himself inside his chambers and had not come out.

Ugh, she hated when he got all broody and irritable. It usually meant he needed to fucking eat. But, being the arrogant ass he was, Alasdair always pushed his control to the breaking point. It was also evident from the fact he hadn’t fully claimed his yielding that the imbecile was waiting until he was ravenous. And with the way he was stalking that human male, she knew he wouldn’t have taken a meal elsewhere.

She knocked twice, waiting for him to grant her access. However, when nothing came from behind the locked door, she decided she’d had enough waiting.

She faded inside and scanned the large quarters for him. When she spotted him walking out of the bathroom, he had only a towel around his waist and his hair was sticking up in wet strands.

Ahh. It appears someone is trying to wash away his evening’s activities.

“Were you planning to let me in or ignore me all evening, cousin?”

“Does it matter?” he asked as he walked by her, dropping the towel to the floor.

“No. Not particularly. I have need for you in the Adjudication Room. I know I’ve been dealing with things for the most part, but I would like you to step in on this particular hearing.”

She watched unashamedly as he shrugged into a black shirt and pants. Then she thought about what a truly handsome male he was by any standards. It was almost distracting. When he raised a bored eyebrow, she shook herself out of her study of him and continued.

“Stratos has been brought to me. One of the guards patrolling the streets picked him up earlier this evening.”

“Picked him up for doing what?” Alasdair asked as he buttoned his shirt. “Stratos hardly strikes me as the sort to be causing trouble. He’s always towed the line.”

“Yes, I know, which is why it’s so odd. He appears different tonight. Almost possessed in a way.”

Alasdair frowned at her and then shrugged as if it weren’t his problem.

“Do you really think I would come to you if I didn’t need your help? He’s hiding something, and nothing I have done has worked.”

“What do you think he’s hiding?” he asked, this last piece of information obviously piquing his interest.

“I don’t know, but every time I think he’s about to say, he shuts down.”

Alasdair crossed his arms as he mulled her words over. “Did you contact the Ancients? What did they say?”

“They seem to be…away right now.”

“All three of them?”

“Yes, all three.”

When a flash of disbelief crossed Alasdair’s features, she knew what he was thinking. It was odd that all three would leave the main lair at the same time. However, if they had been taught anything over the years, it was to never doubt their Ancient’s judgment. If they needed to be somewhere, it was for a good reason.

 “Well,” Alasdair finally said. “What are we waiting around for? I suppose we need to pay Stratos a visit and get to the bottom of this.”

“ALASDAIR, HAVE YOU heard a word I’ve said to you in the last five minutes?” Isadora asked, as she tapped her polished fingernail on the arm of her chair. They’d been sitting in tense silence while Alasdair assessed the situation hanging from the center of the Adjudication Room. “If we leave him up there much longer, having him present for a trial will prove difficult. Due to his being dead and all.”

The hard lines of Alasdair’s face were as set as stone as he stared at the male in front of them. “What do I care if he’s dead? He’s not telling me anything useful now, and all I’ve heard so far are lies. Stratos, we know you were consorting with a messenger. You haven’t yet denied it, but on the same hand, you haven’t told us why you would be so stupid. So Isa,” Alasdair said with an air of congeniality about him that was at odds with the situation, “I’m not sure why he would be given a trial, all things considered.”

Isadora let her eyes drift to the vampire who was currently attached to the large metallic hook in the center of the ceiling by ankle cuffs. “Because it’s the fair thing to do?” she ventured, knowing she somehow had to pull her cousin from his volatile mood.

He glanced over at her, looking skeptical. “Have you ever known me to be concerned by what is fair and what is not?”

“Well, no.”

“Then what makes you think I would start now?”

She leaned over until their shoulders touched and lowered her voice. “Because in situations like these, our job is to ask questions, not terminate.”

Alasdair looked back to the male squirming around from where he dangled helplessly. He then faced her again. “Is that supposed to mean something to me? Yes, my job is to ask questions. If answers are not given, I am afforded the power to make life-or-death decisions. It is a job both you and Thanos refused due to…weak stomachs, I presume. You came to me,” he stated, and Isadora was beginning to think that had been a mistake, given Alasdair’s current temper. “So, if you don’t mind, I will handle this as I have always handled such cases.”

“But cousin, we have known Stratos most of our lives. And he’s…”

“What, Isa? What is he, other than a traitor? Messengers are forbidden consorts. Stratos is well aware of this law. If you break it, you pay. It’s no different for an elder than for a newling.”

She sighed—she was not about to win this. Alasdair had not been his usual self for quite some time, and tonight, ever since he’d returned, he had been in a right foul mood.

“Really, Alasdair, you need to snap out of whatever this is. Thanos is having far too much fun trying to think of new ways to annoy you, and I don’t even want to imagine what Vasilios has in store after last time. It’s clear that dealing with that human is the cause of this odious mood, so why bother with him?”

As she peered into her cousin’s mind to understand what was going on, the irritated emotions in his head showed her how conflicted he was. He was remembering his evening and where he’d been with the male. In some sort of kitchen, where they were—

“You kissed him?” Isadora asked, interrupting his train of thought.

“Get the fuck out of my head, Isa.”

“I would if I thought for one second you were using it.”

“Get out, unless you want me to hurt you instead of him,” he barked at her, standing to make his way over to the vampire awaiting his punishment. Or death.

When Alasdair stopped, he was eye level with Stratos, whose pallid skin looked more so than the norm. His cobalt-colored eyes were dark and full of rebellion, save for the flicker of fear as the two wounds through his jugular veins seeped blood, draining him in a most painful way.

“Stratos, you know why you’re here, do you not?”

The vampire’s eyes creased at the sides as they narrowed, but he offered no response.

“It was reported that you were found with a messenger.”

Again, the vampire remained mute.

“I know you are aware that this is forbidden,” Alasdair said, staring at the strung-up male. “Why would you involve yourself with one of these creatures, Stratos?”

“I…” he sputtered. “She…”

Considering Alasdair’s current disposition and the events of recent weeks, she didn’t think Stratos stood much chance of survival if he didn’t start talking. He knew the consequences of what happened if one was discovered fraternizing with a messenger. They were tortured for the information they knew or had given up and then eliminated.

A messenger was nothing but a tool used between realms. A race of beings who could travel through all portals, all time divides, and come out unscathed and unaged. They held allegiance to no one, but they were quite happy to deliver information at a price.

A price that could be outbid by an enemy should they offer the messenger something more tempting.

Only three were permitted to ever approach such beings: Diomêdês, Eton, and Vasilios. They were the only ones who had any loyalty from those creatures, and even they rarely sought them out.

“Let’s get one thing straight, she is not a she,” Isadora stressed as she walked over to the two males. “It is a being of no gender. You know this.”

“But she… It looked like—”

“It doesn’t matter,” she snapped. “Involving yourself with one of their kind leads to nothing but questions and problems for everyone. Which is why it is strictly forbidden. You aren’t a newling, so again, we have to ask: Why?”

Alasdair clasped his hands behind his back and turned away from the both of them. She wondered how this would end, but knew it would only be a matter of time until she’d find out.

 “What did it tell you?” Isadora demanded, and as she’d expected, Stratos lied.

“Nothing.”

“Try. Again.” Her tone was icy enough to make the air in the room frigid. She grasped the vampire’s hair and hauled him up to place her lips by his temple. “If you tell me, I’ll make sure Alasdair ends this quickly. If you don’t, well, you know how it went with him and your cousin. The smell of burnt flesh takes weeks to dissipate, and I’m not in the mood for a spring clean. So let’s try this again. What did it tell you?”

As she waited for a response, she wondered what could’ve tempted the vampire to risk his immortality. 

 “She…she wasn’t like the others…”

Baring her teeth, she growled in his ear, “What do you mean?”

When he didn’t answer, Isadora twisted her fingers in his hair and arched his neck back, widening the gashes on his throat. The pained cry that ricocheted off the leather-padded walls pierced the air, but it wouldn’t be heard beyond the room they were in.

“Start talking. This will be much easier for you if you do.”

“She was sent from our creators…”

“The Ancients would never—” Isadora started.

“No—not the Ancients.”

With that new piece of information, Alasdair turned back and leaned down until his face hovered only inches from the other vampire’s. Stratos definitely had their attention now.

“Who else is there?” Alasdair asked.

“The ones who created them…” he hissed up at him.

Alasdair clamped his fingers into the jagged wounds on either side of Stratos’s windpipe, and when he flashed his fangs at him, he stated as calmly as if he were conversing over drinks and not torture, “Ambrogio created the Ancients. This we already know. Tell me something new, I’m growing bored.”

Stratos gurgled and blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth as his eyes rolled to the back of his head. “I know nothing more…”

Alasdair looked across at her, the skepticism evident in his eyes. He didn’t believe that for a second. “Tell me why, Stratos.”

The male focused on Alasdair, and a crazed smile spread across his mouth, revealing blood-stained teeth. After a hysterical sound resembling a laugh bubbled up from his ravaged throat, he whispered, “You don’t even know.”

Fed up with the fucked-up mind games, Alasdair jerked him up, close to ripping his esophagus free, and the strangled scream that came to an abrupt halt told Isadora that Stratos was now beyond vocal communication.

“I will find out,” Alasdair vowed in a low, menacing tone.

Just before his windpipe was torn free of his body, taking his head with it, Stratos thought loud enough so they both heard, You don’t even know…

LEO SQUINTED INTO the still darkness of his bedroom. His blood rushed around his head, loud in his ears, as he ordered himself across the threshold and into the room that was once his safe haven. With a trembling hand, he checked the lock on his window. Not that it would stop Alasdair, but it made him feel better anyway. Then he walked back to his bed, where he pulled the covers down and crawled inside.

For the last two weeks, he’d been living a nightmare. One that had revolved around the alluring vampire who’d left him flat on his back on his kitchen table. Yet here he was now, staring up at the ceiling, unable to get him out of his head.

Three hours had passed since Alasdair had vanished without a word, and still, he couldn’t decide how he really felt about the events of the past couple of weeks.

The bedroom he’d once been so comfortable in suddenly felt vast and empty as he lay there wondering if… What? He’s going to come back? Christ, Chapel. Wake up. You’re lucky to be alive. He’s gone. You wanted him gone, so be happy.

Happy was the last thing he was, though. He was restless and confused. His body had responded to Alasdair’s as it would any human man that extraordinarily sexy. His cock hardened, his pulse raced, but whenever they’d kissed he was brought back to reality real fucking quick.

This was not a human he was attracted to, and every time things got heated between them, Leo got a flash of memory, or sight, or somefuckingthing. He’d seen Alasdair as he’d been… in the past.

But how can that be? 

He was probably projecting. Wishing to see someone who wasn’t really there and imagining Alasdair as a human to eliminate the sense of danger.

But as he clutched the covers in his hands and his knuckles turned white, his eyes landed on a book on his nightstand. The same one he’d been reading the night Alasdair had taken him.

No matter how hard he tried, his mind kept imagining Alasdair in the white toga and leather sandals.

That has to be it. His work project.

It was spilling over into his sleep, so he willed himself to forget the vampire. Alasdair had destroyed all semblance of a normal reality for him. Maybe, if he could get some uninterrupted shut-eye, he’d wake in the morning and his life would return to the way it used to be.

As the security of alertness faded and he drifted off into wary slumber, though, Leo heard that familiar and hypnotic voice inside his mind, promising, You’re not rid of me yet, file mou. I’ll be seeing you tomorrow night, Leonidas Chapel.