A Mermaid's Ransom

  Over twenty years. Alexis couldn't wrap her mind around the idea of dedicating twenty years to anything, but then, what else was there to do here? Starbucks obviously hadn't set up a franchise in this place. Mentally she thanked Clara for helping her develop an involuntary sense of humor, to carry her through times completely devoid of it. Until now, she'd never realized how useful it might be in a crisis situation.

  Dante had risen, moving to a rack constructed of more black wood. It held assorted cloths of dubious cleanliness and textures, everything from wool to denim. He brought one back as a makeshift towel. "I am going to take you over there." He nodded to a bundle of rags in a wood frame, something between a nest and a bed. "Unless you'd prefer to stay where your tail stays wet."

  "No, that's fine. I just have to wash it down every so often. It doesn't have to be immersed." The somewhat slimy liquid was far from the fresh rush of water of her ocean, so with the blood removed, she was more than ready to get out. But then she thought of what he might want if he laid her in the bed. The traitorous tightening of her body alarmed her even more than his intentions. "Why are you taking me over there?"

  "You said you did not want to be in the circle, and you do not want to stay in the pond. Unless you wish me to lay you on stone, it is the best place."

  She glanced at the large wooden chair. While it was imposing and somewhat sinister, she saw the same skill in the interweaving of the thicket of black shiny wood as she saw in the construction of his "pond." "There's that. I can sit up."

  "Only I sit in that chair." Lifting her, he took her toward the bed. Curving her hand around his neck, beneath the strands of his hair, was the most obvious place to hold on. His hair truly was like silk, the cords of muscle beneath his smooth skin tempting touch. Goddess help me. His sorcery isn't just for magic spells.

  "I might sit in it later, and hold you on my lap, if you wish." He seemed to roll that around in his mind. "I think I would like that."

  Lex swallowed. "What . . . how long will you wait for Mina's answer?"

  "Ssshh. There is only now."

  Though the child of extraordinary parents, Alexis realized she wasn't immune to the coping mechanisms of any kidnap victim. Trying to identify with her kidnapper in psychologically hazardous ways, feeling an empathy for him she shouldn't. But unlike other kidnap victims, empathy was her extraordinary ability. She didn't know if that would make her more vulnerable to the pitfalls of those coping mechanisms, or if it gave her strengths and defenses that would prove useful. Of course, as Dante had said, she only had this moment, and since she had nothing better to do . . .

  Since he could hear her thoughts, there was no dissembling, no hiding of her strategy. But she also couldn't hide her confusing array of reactions to him, and so far he didn't seem concerned with her thoughts, at least not enough to retaliate to them. He was dispassionate about many horrible things, but when it came to her, he was far from dispassionate. That had to be useful also, right?

  When he knelt to lay her down, she noted he had no more trouble with that than if he'd been carrying a small doll. Vampires had great strength, or so the lore went. From the little she knew, they were considered dangerous and unpredictable and, like all creatures that humans considered supernatural, didn't go out of their way to be noticed.

  "If you were born here, how old were you when your mother . . . died?"

  "When I killed her, I was about one half of the size I am now."

  So he'd been an adolescent, perhaps about twelve or thirteen. She gathered her courage. "Why did you kill her, Dante?"

  Settling her on the blanket, he considerately adjusted her hips so her tail was straightened. As he eased her back, there was time for her to fold her wings beneath her. The ragged blankets were musty, with lingering traces of blood, but she suspected they were as clean as any place she'd be offered here. The wooden support wasn't uncomfortable. Just her surroundings.

  As he looked down, it was hard not to look away. The pros and cons of empathy she understood, but this was incomprehensible. When he did that, his face so close, she couldn't help but think of his kiss.

  You want me to kiss you again.

  Ignoring his thought, she tried to understand it in herself. Was it shock, her mind's way of blocking her from the true horror of what he'd done to her and to others? Did it make any sense to even dwell on that right now, when survival was paramount? She could have moral dilemmas later. Of course, wasn't that pretty much what he'd said to her earlier, about living in the moment? Did she have to become him to survive this?

  He touched her chin so her gaze lifted from where it had fallen to his bare chest, coming back to his perfect, soulless face. No, he had a soul. That was the problem. That was where an empath connected. Only if she let what she felt there make her oblivious to everything else would she be guilty of the destructive coping syndromes so many captives used. If she used it as the tool it was, as finely tuned as an artist's brush, then that would be all right.

  The logical grounding point steadied her. Unfortunately, that touch didn't. And it was only the knuckle of his crooked forefinger, slowly following the line of her jaw. Up, up toward her ear, the other fingers alighting on her throat, the leaping pulse. When his index finger stroked along the sensitive gill slit just beneath her ear, her fingers dug into the bundle of rags.

  "Dante," she managed, "you didn't answer my question."

  "What question?" Leaning down, he settled his lips on the path his fingers had traced. She drew her breath in through her clenched teeth as his arm around her back tightened, bringing her upper body against his bare chest. Her breasts rubbed against the hard muscle. Lex scrambled for focus.

  "You know what. You're just trying to distract me."

  "I have no need to do that. Whatever your question is, I will answer it when I wish. Until then, just feel, Alexis."

  It was the first time he'd said her name aloud, outside of dreams, and she desperately thought it possessed all the power that magic claimed came from giving someone your true name. Alexis was the name she gave others, but she had a birth name as well. It was only known by her parents and Mina and David, as her godparents. It had been used to spin protective magics around her at birth, only they hadn't been enough, had they? Of course, if it was her own actions that had brought her here, perhaps she herself was to blame for overriding those protections.

  "You liked me in your dreams. You looked forward to coming to me. So why do you not want to be here now?"

  "I didn't know you were hurting others. I didn't think you'd hurt me."

  Despite the fact her body was sizzling at his touch, her own words brought her up short. She didn't think that someone would hurt her. She knew it. She even knew the distinction between malevolent intent, and someone who, because of the dark madness of his mind, might do harm without intention. At this point, Dante could fall into either category.

  She'd had a lifetime of training, and she had to believe in it. He was right. Not only had she wanted to be with him, she'd been sure that was where she was meant to be. She still felt it. Why would her intuition draw her to a being of darkness, unless he was more than that, possessing a hidden light only she could find?

  Bringing her attention back to him, she saw his eyes following every expression of her face. "You won't hurt me."

  "Yes, I will. I will do what I must to leave here."

  "Would you be sorry?" At his look of incomprehension, she almost despaired, then she seized on another thought. "Would you regret, Dante? Do you regret killing your mother? Did it make you feel sad?"

  He drew back from her, and the loss of his touch was staggering, particularly in these desolate surroundings. While the change in his expression made him more feral looking, he also looked younger, suggesting he was looking back into that earlier version of himself.

  "No. I didn't regret it. But it did make me sad. Because I was alone then. They always had her chained, because she was strong. I didn't realize that I had her strength, not fo
r a long time. They often denied me blood, kept me weak to hide my strengths, make me always afraid." He lifted a brow, his crimson eyes glowing. "I do not fear anything anymore."

  He lifted a shoulder. "They knew just enough about a vampire to keep her alive, year after year. Before she died, my mother gave me her memories, through her blood. She also spoke of your world, when I was old enough to understand her words. She told me that was my home, not this place." A hint of fang, a vicious anger like volcanic lava roughened his voice, then was gone. "A place of green grass, blue skies."

  He settled then, one knee bent, the other folded beneath him. Since the ragged trousers were thin, and touching her had aroused him, his organ was clearly outlined. Remembering its punishing invasion, a part of her flinched, but another part contracted, moistened, as if she sought him again.

  "What do you wish first?" He moved his hand down to give himself a functional stroke. "This, or my words?"

  "Your words," she retorted. "I don't want that. And yes, I know you'll say it's a lie, but like I said before, it's biology. Anatomy."

  "No, it is not only that. It's curious. I didn't expect to want you this much, either." After that enigmatic statement, he continued. "When her mind broke, she lost her will to live. She stopped speaking to me. She was my only food source at that point, but . . ."

  He paused, and Alexis watched his expression shutter further, though she sensed him delving even deeper, perhaps for feelings he hadn't examined in some time. "There was a moment her importance to my survival didn't matter. I didn't like seeing her that way. I killed her, because she begged me to do it. She told me to kill myself, too. Told me how to do it. It was the last thing she said to me."

  His gaze narrowed on her then. "I can hear your thoughts. This makes you feel sad, for me."

  "Yes," she said honestly. "It was truly terrible. She must have loved you very much, to have held out as long as she did. What happened when they found her dead?"

  He shrugged. "They hurt me worse than usual, for a time. But I am the only child that has been born here. No captive ever survives the Dark One world more than a few days. Humans die within hours. For a time, Dark Ones thought they'd found a way to procreate, and they sought to bring more vampires here, but the few they found did not conceive and they gave up. My mother told me vampire children are extremely rare."

  "So you've never had females here, except your mother."

  "No." He shook his head. "The witch came here, with her mate. She injected him with Dark One blood so he could bear it. I didn't get to touch her, though. But when the Dark Ones took her to the top of the west tower, a lock of her hair caught on their claws and it drifted on the wind. To me. It twined about my hand." Lifting his fingers, he studied them as if remembering the way it had looked. "It was the foundation to the dream portal. I had to be so careful, for she is very clever, the witch. I could see her reality, but had to be a shadow, never noticed. I saw her at your birth. Saw her later, involved in your teaching. Saw she was fond of you, and you were the weakest thing that mattered to her."

  "I am not weak," she protested.

  Circling her slender wrist, he held her arm up. When she tried to pull away from the hard grip, she was unable to move. His touch wasn't bruising, just overpowering. She felt his arousal increase at her resistance, and her stomach fluttered. The impressive array of lean muscle across his chest tightened as well. "You cannot prevail against me."

  "Not with physical strength. But I could completely whip your ass with my mind."

  "No, you couldn't." He went to one elbow next to her, stretching out on his hip in a disconcertingly casual pose she'd seen students on the campus lawn assume when studying on a pretty day. Though this was as far from those surroundings as she could imagine. "You use your mind to live," he pointed out. "Mine has been used to survive, to plan and destroy. To conquer and invade."

  She set her teeth. It was a good thing she'd dealt with angels all her life. Jonah and his all-male Legion defined arrogance with a capital A. Vampire males seemed to have a similar attitude, though she had to admit, both had cause. Dante didn't seem prone to exaggeration. Jonah wasn't, either. Tears pricked her eyes at the thought of her father, so far away. As a little girl's fear rose in her breast, she pushed it away, because she couldn't afford that here.

  Dante shifted closer. In a swift movement she didn't anticipate, he'd turned her to her side, bringing his body flush against the back of hers, his chest pressed into her wings, his arms coming around her to take possession of her breasts like in her dream. Hard male hands closed on soft female flesh, fingers stroking the nipples in a way that had her arching and pushing her hips back against him in involuntary response.

  Her caudal fin was a feathery gold, as satiny as hair under water. With no water here to let it float, it was folded against her. It concealed the dampening channel to her sex that could be reached through the layering of scales that were softer there, allowing for penetration.

  "Dante," she said in quiet desperation. "You were talking about your mother. And how you . . . brought me here." Ah, Goddess, that felt too damn good. What was the matter with her?

  "Yes, but I will not permit you to be afraid. This distracts you from your fear."

  "Won't permit, or can't bear? Does my fear bother you, Dante?" The word came out on another gasp. While he'd left a hand tormenting her breast, the other slipped behind her, trailing down her back, through the folding line of her wings, down the layered scales on her hips and buttocks. As if her mind was a treasure map he read as easily as a pirate could read his own charts, he moved the limp caudal fin and found those soft scales, stroking and causing her to quiver, then cry out softly as his fingers pushed into the slick heat waiting for him.

  "Not just biology," he whispered against her ear, a fang grazing her cheek. "Biology would be my touch making you wet. But you were wet before my fingers pushed into you. That is your mind. You want me. Take me now, and let go of your fear."

  The denial rose to her lips, but his command was extraneous. He would do as he wanted, for to his way of thinking, she was his. And his possession meant more to him than her status as his prisoner, because it was that to which her body was responding.

  She'd automatically tensed, remembering his earlier invasion, but this time, after a brief adjustment of the thin trousers, he seated himself in the opening of her sex, a sensual taunt that undulated her against him. He moved with her, as if they were two sea creatures in truth, twisting in the current of the ocean. She didn't know what current they were dancing in now, but it did exist, even in this terrible place that offered nothing but this brief pleasure.

  He crossed his arms in front of her again, one palm holding each breast, creating a unique dance there as well. Exploring and squeezing, stroking, pinching, a thorough self-indulgent use of her body for his pleasure that had her even more slippery. When he slid in another inch, she moaned, spasming against his length. One hand dropped, a palm flattening against her belly, and he found the navel piercing, today a tiny silver dolphin with a sapphire stone. Teasing it, twisting it, dipping his finger into that indentation, his other fingers fanned out low on her pelvis. She should have anticipated him, but she was lost in the sensation, so that when he used that hand to push her all the way down on him, taking him deep, it was a spear of pleasure that ripped another cry from her throat, not pain.

  This is new. I have not known this before. The way you respond to me . . . it's as if nothing else exists, but in a way different from living in just one moment. This moment is all that is, ever was, or will be.

  Because of the fluid, poetic wonder of his words, she wasn't sure if he was speaking directly to her or had opened his mind, allowing her to tap into the flow of his subconscious thoughts. Because of that, she didn't question her own actions. Alexis reached back to find his face, threaded her fingers in his hair and mewled when he laid a hot, open-mouthed kiss on her wrist. She clutched him, working her hips harder.

  Yes, I like tha
t. Slide yourself up and down my cock.

  Now that was a direct thought, for the note of command in it spurred her own reaction. She obeyed, but as she tired, his strength took over, helping her to keep climbing. While stress and fear had drained her, she knew her physical strength had been sapped by the poison of this place. It had robbed her of breath and energy to reach the pinnacle her body desperately wanted.

  His own urgency was a fire that swept through her blood. When he bent his head, set his teeth to her neck, she let her head fall back to his shoulder, overwhelmed. You won't hurt me, you won't hurt me . . .

  Her tail thrashed with her movements. Usually it would have been a powerful muscle to aid their rhythm, but now it floundered along his calf, her tail fins unfurling on his feet, over the strong, callused arches. He was buried in her wings, his shoulders likely teased by the layers of pale feathers. A couple of them floated past, dislodged by the intensity of their coupling. Damn it, the lack of oxygen was making things gray around the edges, and yet she was so close.

  Then he bit her. Something released in her blood that sparkled and tingled like the surprise pleasure of champagne, with an after-burn that intensified the experience. A drop rolled down her throat, but when it reached the curve of her breast, it was her blood mixed with an ethereal blue color, almost reminding her of the color of angel blood. Whatever it was, it was an aphrodisiac with all the emotional intimacy such a physical drug lacked. All of a sudden, she was bonded so closely to him, the sensation of his orgasm took her over the edge. She moaned, moving with him as if they were the same body. Clara had told her finding such a rhythm was supposed to be both fun and frustrating for two lovers. In contrast, with this melding, she knew everything he wanted at the same blink in time he did, a dance where she was already in his head, learning the steps, so they twirled amid terrible fire and pain. But the heat merely fanned the intensity of the orgasm. When she saw it yawning below her, she realized the chasm of violence and rage she was staring into was the deepest level of Dante's mind. Then all was black and shuddering pleasure, as the climax stole her breath and whirled her into oblivion.