If he didn’t need to make sure they were home before sunrise, he’d have pulled over to have this conversation with her. He wanted to see her face, her expression. He wanted to hold her gaze and dare her to look away.
But that wasn’t possible at the moment, and he also wanted to have this conversation between the two of them, before his housemates got involved. So they’d have it now, while he drove.
“Fabio agreed to feed you, with the understanding there’d be sex when you feed from him. I’ll make the same offer, but there will be caveats.”
3
If Kelsey had been human, her heart would’ve been running away in her chest. Since she was no longer human, she dug for control and forced it to beat slowly.
What would it be like to submit to this huge, beautiful man with eyes so blue it took her breath away?
But if she’d learned anything since becoming a vampire, it was how to keep from being made into a pawn. She wouldn’t have power in this house because it was important new vampires were at the bottom of the hierarchy until they’d powered up enough to rise above it. She wasn’t going to give them even more power over her without making sure she got something in return.
She closed her eyes and rested her head against the back of the seat. “Caveats? You do like to use fancy words when the everyday ones would reveal too much about your purpose, don’t you?” She suppressed an aggravated growl. “Here let me break it down for you. You’ll let me feed from you, but only if doing so gives you even more power over me.”
“You just told me you weren’t opposed to a power exchange relationship so long as you got to help set it up.”
She wanted to argue with him, except he was exactly right.
“Tell me your caveats, James.”
She knew all of their real names, and she preferred James to Collosa. Using it just reinforced his size every time it was said. He was huge — it wasn’t like he needed to be constantly reminded.
He glanced at her before focusing on the road again, but he didn’t protest the use of his given name.
“I don’t know the caveats, and I doubt you do, either. I weigh more than twice what you do, probably approaching three times your weight. Everything about me is big. Even if I don’t mean to hurt you, odds are I will.” He blew out a breath, and she scented a hint of arousal from him — though it was hard because mostly she smelled her own. She badly needed to learn to control her scents. It was one of the things she’d completely failed at, and it bugged her, but she couldn’t help it.
“I’ve been hurt before. I’ll survive.” She’d been fucked in every hole by a damned horse shifter, merely because it amused her Master. She could handle a grizzly.
“The thing is,” the grizzly told her, “nothing quite gets me going like an over-the-knee hand spanking. The feel of bare flesh when my palm smacks into it, the sound, the scents. I’m not likely to spank you to punish you, because I’ll be doing it for fun, and we don’t want any confusion about play versus consequences.”
“So what is your idea of consequences?”
“Belt or cane. Eunice will make that decision most of the time, and he usually goes for the cane.”
While Kelsey hated being belted while it happened, she didn’t mind the way it made her feel when it was over. However, she hated everything about the cane, so she’d do her best to keep out of trouble.
James both scared her and titillated her, and she ran her palms over the top of her denim-clad thighs.
“I get to working and I forget things. I lose track of time.” In the previous months, she’d most often received consequences for not making certain she was locked away and safe when the sun rose. Apparently, most vampires always know where the sun is, and they’re constantly making certain they have enough time to get to a secure location before the sun takes them, but Kelsey didn’t get that particular vampire gene. As a human, she’d sometimes worked more than twenty-four hours on a project without eating, drinking, or using the restroom. When reality hit, she’d usually have a horrible headache from dehydration, and she’d be starving, thirsty, and would need to pee. As a vampire, she forgot to feed and forgot to get to her safe space before the sun came up. In her defense, she’d most often worked underground in the Coterie house, just not in her personal suite. She’d preferred the huge library to get lost in her work.
In this new life, she’d be taken to an office to work, and then would be driven home before sunrise, so that shouldn’t be a problem here. She hoped.
“Your paperwork was clear that you don’t often break rules on purpose, which I believe was a source of frustration for your previous Master and trainers.”
“It was.”
“It won’t be for me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Bears are brought up to be aware of our strength. Doesn’t matter if you meant to hurt the human or not. If you do, the consequences are severe. Intent has zero bearing on punishment.”
“Oh.” That actually made sense. She’d always protested that she shouldn’t be punished for something she hadn’t meant to do, but when James put it that way, she got it. Her crimes didn’t risk hurting anyone but herself, but her Master had valued her, and he’d taken it personally when he’d found her crumpled over a desk in a lightly-secured area.
“We’ll figure things out as we go. Aaron got a copy of the packet your old Master sent to Kendra and Marco. I know that isn’t the norm, but Aaron specializes in information gathering. One of the many reasons he recruited you.”
Right, because moving to this Vampire Master’s territory had only happened because the Dragon King had taken an interest in her hacking abilities. The other Masters who’d agreed to take her on had stipulated she agree to be their sex slave, along with whatever job she was taking.
But she got it. Taking on the responsibility of a baby vampire is a huge liability. New vampires are kept away from society for decades. She’d proven trustworthy to walk among the humans at six years. Since doing so, she hadn’t had a single incident that attracted the attention of the Slayers or the Concilio. Still, most vampires stayed with their Maker for at least a century, and most often the first three centuries.
“I’m told Chattanooga has a Slayer assigned. Are things handled differently in the Americas?” she asked.
“Chattanooga has more power players than most large cities. The Dragon King, the King of the Lions, the Alpha Wolf over the entire Southeastern US, the bear considered to be the most powerful, and who happens to be married to a rabbit more powerful than the Rabbit King...” he shrugged. “There’s more, but you get the idea. The Slayer’s name is Ryan, and he isn’t a bad guy, as far as Slayers go. Helped us during the big battle. He seems to have made it a point to let all of us know he can get to us anytime he wants — shown up in our bedroom, or in some other space we consider safe. He’s not threatening about it, and always has some reason for showing up, but it gets his message across.”
“If you kill humans, the Slayer kills you.” Every vampire who’d helped teach her control had stressed this to her. If she killed humans, even if she managed to keep it from the other vampires, she would not keep it from the Slayers.