The scent of copper flickered across my drunken mind, and then he had my face pressed against his throat, and the first sticky drops hit my tongue. Instinct had me sinking my teeth in.
The hot flow of blood hit my mouth, rich in spice and power. The first gulp was like ice-cold water in the boiling desert. It made me desperate for more. As soon as I latched on, he began to rock his hips again. Thrust, counterthrust, he kept my body full as I gluttoned on his lust and blood.
When he began to nail that sweet spot with every hammer home, I screamed against his throat but I kept drinking. I needed it so bad. I needed everything he had, and he let out a roar as he came. We leaned there, him buried in me and panting as he emptied himself, and I kept lapping at his throat, wanting more of the power rich blood.
Gradually, the tension of his hand lighting my scalp up as he tugged on my hair pulled me free from feeding, and I met his gleaming gaze a split second before his smirking mouth closed over mine.
Too drunk to care, I cradled him and let him hold me against the wall until his cock finally slipped free. He didn’t knot, but it took him time after release to soften enough to leave me.
Then he turned me from the wall and dropped me on the bed. Naked. Spent. And floating on a haze of it.
“Do not wait so long next time,” he told me as he drew a finger down my cheek to my breast. “You are not dying on my watch, Fiona.”
The possession in his voice should worry me, but fuck, it would hardly be the first time a lover—even one as casual as he was—decided I was something to be collected. Part of the reason I was stuck here in the first place.
“Fuck you, Dorran,” I managed to slur. Why did he have to taste so good? I hated the need for blood, and it was that loathing that he began to soak up as he knelt down and latched his mouth over a nipple. Instead of pushing him away, I gripped his head and kept him there, until his shadows thrust into my pussy this time and tumbled me over the precipice into a deep, drunken stupor.
Nothing left of me to worry about.
It was the only reason I had to have imagined him smoothing the sweat-dampened hair from my face and the almost chaste kiss he left on my forehead.
“When I send you blood tomorrow,” he whispered at my ear. “You will drink.”
In my dream, I flipped him off, but he’d already pulled on his clothes after folding mine neatly and setting them at the foot of the bed. Then the warden was gone. I didn’t even hear the rattle and slam of the door.
The screams continued after that, but I drifted on a lazy river of sensation. I barely twitched when the sconces lit, marking a new day. Replete and flushed with energy and vigor, I was like a cat who wanted to stretch out in the sun.
Except there was no sun.
And I was still in prison for the crime of being impossible.
I was a succubus, but a vampire turned me after he drained me to the point of death.
Idiot.
When I woke, I was living yet not. I was a succubus, yet also a vampire. My favorite outfit had been trashed, and my best shoes broken. My creator also panicked and fled, sticking me with the hotel room bill.
Do you have any idea what it costs to clean blood out of carpet?
Worse still, when I went to the city’s vampires for some assistance in finding the asshat who’d fucked up my life, I ended up here.
In prison.
Yep.
So if you wanted to know how I got here, that’s it.
For the last two weeks, these four stone walls have housed me and the warden—he told me to call him Dorran—has been my only visitor. He wants me to feed. But I don’t survive on blood alone.
I wish I didn’t need the blood at all.
Four times now, he’s had to force the issue.
Totally worth it by the way, because I won’t touch that bagged stuff, and if the only way to feed my lust was to get him to show up, then I still wouldn’t touch the bags.
I shifted against the bed, aware of every scratchy inch of the blanket and the uncomfortable, almost slab-like surface the too thin mattress covered. Nothing else here offered even a little bit of pleasure. Dorran, on the other hand, definitely filled a need.
Lazing through the day, I barely rose by evening to clean myself up at the sink and to get some water to drink. I could actually eat real food, not that they brought me any.
When the bags of blood arrived through the slot in the door, I was already back to leaning against my wall, dressed in the drab gray with my damp hair drying slowly. At least I could wash.
Instead of thigh-high boots, I decided I’d shop for jewelry tonight. Even if I was almost full to the brim, I wouldn’t be opposed to my sometime visitor.
It gave me something to do while I wasn’t allowed to rot away in here.
The funny thing was, if they didn’t want the world to know about me, why would they want to keep me alive?
Why not just stake me or burn me alive or something?
Hell, cut off my head. Chop chop, and we’re done.
Rolling my eyes, I jerked my attention back to virtual shopping.
My name is Fiona MacRieve. Always good to remember that part.
I was a succubus.
Or I used to be.
Now?
I didn’t know what I’d become.
But as long as they planned on keeping me alive, they better hope they could keep me in here, because my lust for vengeance grew by the hour, and I could feed on that, too.
Just saying.
Chapter 2
“A lion’s work hours are only when he’s hungry; once he’s satisfied, the predator and prey live peacefully together.” - Chuck Jones
The next week passed much as the first two here had. I’d finally begun to decorate my new vacation house. The one I hadn’t purchased yet, but would be on my list when I got out of here. I used to have this really great loft apartment that overlooked a river. Some nights, when there were fireworks, I could lie in bed and watch them go off.
My new place would be high up, too. Something with lots of windows…whether I could take the sun or not was semantics. I hadn’t actually tested the theory. I’d pretty much woken up trashed, dead, and sporting some semi-fangs that weren’t as nice as those you could buy at a costume shop.
Then I was here.
In this hole at the bottom of the world.
Focus. The mental chastisement pulled me back to the target. Cliff house, maybe something sitting up on a bluff. I wanted to look out over the ocean this time, not just a river, and I didn’t want city lights in the distance…or did I?
Compromise. Put a secondary deck on the opposite side that would let me look at a city in the distance. That would work, but I wanted my bedroom open to the ocean. I wanted to be able to throw open the windows and let in the breeze. I wanted to taste fresh, salty air and feel the sun warm my skin.
A clang in the hall jerked me out of my building. Irritated, I sat up on the bed as the first clang was followed by a second. Then the unrelenting clanging grew in force and volume. My head began to pulse in time to the banging, and I scowled.
It was too early for Dorran to come calling. He’d only come twice in the last seven days. Both times because I’d refused to feed. The last time had been the night before. My hunger and my body were both well-sated. I usually enjoyed a lovely period of hazy daydreaming in the first couple of days after glutting myself.