Her paperwork said she’d been spanked, whipped, and caned — at a minimum — in the Sydney coterie when she didn’t follow minor orders. She’d been locked away without food for severe infractions. Eunice was supposed to be primarily responsible for her discipline, but Collosa would do it himself before he sent her to live in the loneliness of those guest rooms.
“Look, I don’t want to kick you out, okay? Talk to me. Don’t just refuse an order. Ever. Tell me why you can’t, or why you don’t want to, but never just outright refuse.”
“Or you’ll kick me out?”
“We’ll start out with a spanking, and go from there.” He blew out a breath. “Or caning, knowing Eunice. Specific consequences will be up to him, in most cases.”
She was silent a good two minutes, and he focused on keeping his shields strong and paying attention to the road. Her scent told him threatening to spank her hadn’t scared her. Instead, he scented both arousal and embarrassment. He figured the embarrassment was because she couldn’t hide the scent of how horny she was, and she knew he’d smell it.
“For breakfast, you had three huge steaks, your share of two pounds of bacon, a fuckload of scrambled eggs, biscuits, and enough honey to make a human diabetic.”
It felt as if she’d shoved an icepick into his chest, and he had to act fast to keep his fear response from making it to his autonomous system and stinking up the car.
“You got into my head.” It wasn’t a question. She had. It was the only way she’d know what he ate for breakfast.
“And I looked at recent meals, nothing else. Whatever is in your head is none of my business.”
“Can you show me how to keep you out?”
“Practical bear. I think I’m going to like you. I can show you how I’m getting in, but I don’t know if it’ll show you how to keep me out.”
“It’s a starting point.” The week before, an old-one with enough power to turn his body to mist couldn’t get into Collosa’s head, and today a baby vampire had?
This might solve a problem the trio had come up against, though. “How good are you at placing suggestions in a human’s mind?”
“It’s child’s play for about ninety-nine percent of humans. Why?”
“We had a house manager a few years ago, but she saw some notes we’d written about how to handle an op, told her husband, who told...” He blew out a breath. “The details aren’t important. We fired her and haven’t hired anyone since, which means we have to split up the household chores, and we have to do the grocery shopping and cooking. If you can make it so a house manager wouldn’t notice anything about our work, or will forget it as soon as she sees it, we can hire someone to handle all of that again.”
“Sure. I’ll need to be in on the interview and selection process to make sure she falls into the ninety-nine percent, and she’ll need to be there at least twice a week when I’m awake for the first month. I prefer to give suggestions slowly, build them up in layers, rather than all at once. You’ll want to be careful what she stumbles across the first three weeks, but it should be safe after. Maybe two weeks. I can let you know when it is.”
“Sounds workable. Now, show me how you got in my head.”
“You can’t ever tell anyone, especially another vampire, how I’m doing it.”
He glanced at her and looked back to the road. “You’re using your computer hacking to do it, and if you explain it to them, they’ll be able to do it as well?”
“Yes.”
“Well then, other than telling our housemates, your secret is safe with me.”
“Let me tell them, please.”
“Okay, but if you don’t, I will.”
He saw her nod with his peripheral vision, but it took her a few moments to begin.
“It didn’t take a genius to realize you were irritated with me. I know the portion of the brain where irritation stems. It was just a matter of sliding in where the emotion slid out. With a computer, you merely need to know which ports are open, or at least susceptible. With a brain, it’s enough to elicit an emotion and then come in where it goes out, but you have to know precisely where the emotion comes out. For some shapeshifters, you have to build up whatever emotion it is, layer it with others, kind of like a DDoS attack to get into a computer. You had some fear and some anger, so it was enough for me to come in.”
“When I’m not driving, I’d like you to show me. Come in when I’m conscious of you doing it.”
“I’ll do my best, but if you aren’t conscious of when you’re irritated, it may be impossible for me to do it so you can see.”
“What emotions can you ride in?”
“Grief, terror, and anger are the easiest. I’m getting better at the lesser versions — sadness, fear, and irritation. I’m pretty good with jealousy if it’s strong, and I can sometimes manage with guilt over something big. I can usually get in through extreme joy, but that’s the only positive emotion I’ve been able to use, and it has to be someone who’s so happy it’s the only thing that exists for them in that moment.”
He’d refused to feed her because he hadn’t wanted her in his head. If he couldn’t keep her out, he may as well agree to helping keep her fed, especially if that meant sex. Vampire or not, she was pretty much his exact body type — curvy and stacked and cute as a button.
Just to make sure she wasn’t still in his head, he let himself think about what she’d look like without her jeans and t-shirt, how she’d look under him, writhing in the grip of an orgasm.
When he got nothing from her, and her scent stayed steady, he decided to test the waters another way.
“Kendra only stepped in enough to make sure we don’t take advantage of you.”
“I’m aware. You can punish me if I don’t follow the house rules, but you can’t have sex with me unless I verbally consent, or unless I agree to a power exchange situation. I’m also constrained against using mind tricks or venom to make you have sex with me, though the latter is acceptable if you consent to it first.”
“Do you have control over your venom?”
“Not as good as my former Master, but better than some of his flunkies. I’m still careful with the actual bite. It’s best if the person I’m feeding from stays reasonably still.” She turned to him with her entire upper body. “I excel at two things: computers and sex. I suck at nearly everything else. I’m horrible with social interactions outside of sex. I can’t do any kind of sport, other than sex. I’ve learned to speak casually since becoming a vampire, but before that, I’m told my grammar was too perfect, so I sounded like a computer, at times. It’s still something I work towards.” She was silent a few moments. “I guess I’m good at fashion and makeup, too, but to me, that’s part of sex. Foreplay.”
“You had no choice about who you had sex with for a few years before and after you were turned, right?”
“Incorrect. It was much longer than a few years. My former Master promised he’d turn me if I was his human sex slave for five years, and then his vampire sex slave until he tired of me. It seemed a reasonable payment for long life, and I didn’t hate my time with him. I don’t want to experience some of the humiliation he put me through, and I’ll never again agree to give myself completely to someone if I have a choice in the matter, but I wouldn’t mind some form of modified power exchange agreement, with the right person.”