Crimson Debt

  Celeste hissed but Corbin was suddenly between us.

  “Step back, Celeste. Let my consort tend to the fledgling.” He gave me the key, which felt oddly heavy in my hand, and shook his head slightly. I wasn’t sure if he was warning me not to fight with Celeste anymore or what but I was too upset to care. With trembling fingers, I unlocked the two sides of the belt and pulled it away from my best friend’s smoking flesh. There were burns on her lily-white skin that made me think of the marks from a barbeque grill. I had to fight my gag reflex as I helped her out of it and threw the hateful thing over the side of the bed with a clatter.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” she whispered, casting a fearful glance over my shoulder to where Roderick watched us expressionlessly. “It’s not safe.”

  “Corbin is helping,” I told her. “He’s got my back so don’t worry about it.”

  She got a worried expression on her face. “What did you have to promise him?”

  “Later for that. Do you have some clothes around here?”

  “By the side of the bed. He…he made me strip them off before he…” She shook her head, unable to continue.

  “You don’t have to say it.” I reached for the clothes but Corbin was already handing them to me. He stood with his back to us, considerately shielding Taylor from both Celeste and Roderick while I got her dressed. Thankfully her flesh was already healing so by the time I got her into her pale pink top she was able to slide on the tan linen skirt that went with it without too much pain.

  “We can really leave?” She looked at me hopefully as I finished getting her dressed.

  I nodded firmly. “We really can. We’re going to get you out of here.”

  I tried to help her off the bed but she nearly fell. “Sorry,” she gasped, clutching her head. “Just a little weak. Light-headed.”

  “How much blood have you lost? You need to feed.” I pushed up my sleeve automatically, offering her my wrist but suddenly Corbin was gripping my arm.

  “No.” His silver-blue eyes were hard, possessive. I glared right back at him.

  “Let me go. There’s nothing sexual about this—Taylor is weak after what that bastard did to her. She needs blood.”

  “Well, she’ll get no more of yours.” Corbin swung Taylor into his arms and carried her around the side of the bed. I followed reluctantly, glaring at his back. Possessive asshole!

  I noticed that Roderick and Celeste were whispering together but I was too angry to pay much attention to the way they were staring at me. Let them look and I didn’t give a damn if Roderick had heard me call him a bastard either. In fact, I hoped he had heard me. All I needed was a tiny excuse to pull the trigger and it would be fine with me if he gave me one.

  We marched out of the house and it wasn’t until we were in Corbin’s Mercedes with Taylor safely stowed in the backseat that Corbin said anything. He drove several blocks in complete silence and then he turned to me, his eyes blazing.

  “Do you have any conception of what you’ve just done?”

  “What do you mean? I didn’t do anything.”

  “You most certainly did. I claimed you as my consort and then you offered to feed another vampire. You made this offer right in front of me as well as the Area Inquisitor and one of my inferiors.”

  “Taylor’s hurt—she needs blood.” I crossed my arms over my chest defensively. “Look, I’m sorry but I wasn’t thinking about your precious ego—I was thinking about my friend’s wellbeing.”

  Corbin gripped the steering wheel and swore fluently in a language I didn’t recognize, though the gist of what he was saying was pretty clear.

  Finally he took a deep breath and looked at me again. “What you have done was tantamount to offering to commit adultery in front of high-ranking witnesses. In Roderick’s mind, I now wear the cuckold’s horns.”

  “The what?” I asked but Corbin only shook his head and continued.

  “Roderick will draw one of two conclusions. Either he will think that I am weak and unable to control my own consort or he will deduce that I was lying and claiming you falsely as my own. Either conclusion puts us in a very, very bad situation.” His voice so quiet I could barely hear it yet so filled with menace it made me shiver.

  “I didn’t know,” I said.

  “You must have had at least some idea. I told you when I was healing your scars.”

  “You never specifically said—”

  “Silence.” Corbin held up a hand and looked away from his driving to glare at me. “We will have to find a way to rectify this situation later. In the meantime, you are not to give Taylor any more of your blood.”

  “How is she supposed to heal if I don’t?” I demanded, throwing a concerned glance over my shoulder. Taylor was huddled in on herself, a small ball of misery in the back seat. “You saw what he did to her,” I said to Corbin in a softer voice. “She needs me.”

  He looked at Taylor in the rearview mirror. “She needs more than you can give her right now. She will be given bagged blood when we get back to the Fang.”

  “But bagged blood won’t keep her alive for long,” I protested. For some reason unless blood is fresh from the vein, it doesn’t have the nutrients and life force vamps need to keep going. Otherwise I wouldn’t have had to play pincushion slash blood bank for my best friend for so long.

  Corbin frowned. “It will suffice until I can find one who owes me enough to pay the Crimson Debt and let her feed from them without the use of glamour.”

  “The Crimson Debt? What’s that?”

  “It is none of your concern,” he growled. “You’re lucky I’m seeing to your friend at all. I should let her starve as part of your punishment but I am not like Celeste—I find no pleasure in cruelty.”

  I was about to thank him, albeit reluctantly, when what he’d said really sank in. “Wait a minute—what punishment?”

  Corbin glanced at me. “The one you have incurred by being disobedient and making the Area Inquisitor suspect our duplicity.”

  “You’re delusional, Corbin—you can’t punish me!”

  “Watch me,” he said evenly. “We made an agreement and though I have honored my end of it, you are failing miserably so far at yours. You have actually weakened my standing with the Inquisitor. Some very serious punishment is definitely in order.”

  “What are you going to do? Put me over your knee?”

  I was joking but Corbin appeared to actually consider the idea. Finally he shook his head. “I fear you’re too stubborn for corporal punishment although it would be well within my rights to spank your lush bottom until you cried tears of contrition.”

  I didn’t like the way this conversation was going at all. “Look, when we agreed to work together I never said anything about letting you punish me if things went wrong.”

  “You didn’t have to. You agreed to act as my consort and as such you tendered me the right to do whatever I wanted with your mind or body.”

  “I did not! Or if I did, I didn’t know it,” I protested. Talk about not reading the fine print! But Corbin was shaking his head.

  “Ignorance of the law is not excuse for breaking it. Make no mistake about it, Addison, you will take your punishment or I am taking your friend right back to Celeste to do with as she chooses.”

  “You bastard!” I wanted to hit him but I knew I wasn’t strong enough to hurt him. “I can’t believe you’d blackmail me into letting you do whatever you want.”

  “Then you do not know me very well, Addison.” We were pulling into the employee parking lot around the back entrance of Under the Fang and he stopped the Mercedes and turned to face me. “From the moment I saw you, I knew I would do anything to have you and I do not care how I achieve my goal. By fair means or foul, you will be mine.”

  “But…but why?” I said desperately. “Look at you, Corbin—you’re rich, you’re powerful—hell, you can give multiple orgasms with your mind. You could have any woman you wanted. Why me?”

  He smiled humorlessly. “May
be someday I will tell you. For now all you need know is that you are my ideal and I mean to have you. And tonight I am going to punish you.”

  So we were back to that again. “Look, I’m not going to let you—”

  He put the key back in the ignition and started the car again.

  “Wait, what are you doing?” I demanded.

  “Taking Taylor back to Celeste. You obviously wish to renege on our deal.”

  “No, I don’t! Anyway, you’re bluffing. I saw the way you looked at Celeste—you wouldn’t take Taylor back to her after what she did.”

  He raised an eyebrow at me and put the car into drive. “You think I am bluffing? Would you care to call my bluff then?”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “No. Damn you.”

  Corbin frowned at me again. “You know, I could chain you up and do what I wanted as Roderick did to your friend. But as I said, I dislike such practices. Will you yield to me willingly or not?”

  I took a deep breath. He wasn’t giving me a choice. “Fine. I’ll, uh, yield to you. But I think after this we need to spell out the terms of this contract between us. And also, you’re an asshole.”

  Corbin smiled grimly and killed the engine. “I have been called worse. Now, come—the night is not getting any younger and I want plenty of time to savor your punishment before I have to think of a way to keep us both alive.”

  Chapter Six

  Corbin called some of his underlings to take care of Taylor. Then he escorted me to an underground chamber beneath his office I hadn’t even known was there. But when he opened what looked like a reinforced cellar door and made an “after you” gesture, I balked at going down the long stone staircase.

  “Uh-uh—don’t think so. I’m really claustrophobic.”

  “The passage opens up after a few hundred feet.” He gestured again at the dark, shadowy staircase leading down. I felt my heart leap into my throat.

  “No, I’m not going down there.”

  I suppose he could have grabbed my arm and forced me down the steps but instead he sighed and looked me in the eyes. “Why?”

  “What do you mean, ‘why?’ Why do you think? Just look at that—it’s like a set for a horror movie. The kind where you keep wanting to shout at the clueless girl not to go down in the basement but she goes anyway.”

  A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I know the movies you speak of. I find them most entertaining.”

  “Well, I find them frightening and I’m not about to be the stupid airhead who goes down into the dark looking for the monster.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “Is that what you think of me? That I am a monster?”

  “You’re about five hundred times stronger and faster than me and you live on blood. What do you think?”

  “So again, you fear my strength. You fear that I will, what—lose control and hurt you?”

  “Hurt me or kill me.” I shook my head. “If you only knew the things I’ve seen. Do you know what happens when a vampire tries to have sex with a human?”

  Corbin got a sober expression on his face. “Indeed, I have seen such scenes as you describe. They are not pretty.”

  “Right. So you’ll forgive me if I don’t want to end up looking like a pet puppy some careless toddler ‘loved’ to death.”

  “Haven’t I explained that this is not a problem with older vampires who have learned control? The secret is all in keeping the urge for sex separate from the urge for blood.”

  “Oh yeah? Well then, why did Roderick ask if you could…could fuck me without breaking me?” My cheeks were hot as I spoke the words.

  He sighed again. “Therein lies the caveat. Roderick, in all his centuries, has never cared enough to learn to control himself with a fragile lover.”

  “And you have?”

  Corbin got a distant look in his silver-blue eyes. “There was one in my past. I will not speak of her now, but yes, I cared enough for her to learn control.”

  I was interested despite myself. “And what happened to her?”

  He looked away. “She died anyway.” I noticed he didn’t say how she died or if he or someone else had killed her but the expression on his face was such that I didn’t dare ask.

  “I’m sorry,” I said awkwardly.

  Corbin shook his head. “Don’t be. It was many lifetimes ago—your ancestors had not even been born when it happened.” He seemed to shake himself, throwing off the melancholy mood that had gripped him. “So you fear to go down to my resting place with me because you think I will want to make love to you and then lose control.”

  “That about sums it up, yes.”

  “But I have told you before that I am not interested in an unwilling bed partner. And you are most certainly still unwilling,” he pointed out. “What if I promised that I would not try to have sex with you tonight?”

  “Really?” I was beginning to wonder what form this punishment was going to take. If spanking was out and sex was out, what was Corbin going to do with me?

  “Yes, really.” He nodded. “In fact, I will barely touch you tonight.”

  “Honestly?”

  “On my word of honor.” He nodded gravely and then reached out to cup my cheek. “Addison, I do not like to be at odds with you.”

  “Then let me go home,” I said at once.

  He got an almost regretful look on his face. “I am afraid I cannot do that. But though I cannot let you go, I will not hurt you either. Can you at least trust me enough to believe that?”

  I looked into his eyes—those silvery-blue depths that always seemed to conceal hidden monsters—and saw only sincerity. He means it. He really means it.

  “I…believe you,” I said slowly. “I don’t know why but I do.”

  Corbin smiled, flashing some fang. “That is the first sensible thing you’ve said all night. Now come.” He gestured to the stone stairs again and this time I went with him.

  He was right—the passage did open up after a few hundred feet. It led to a small antechamber with a computer screen and door that looked like it belonged on the outside of a bank vault.

  “This is one of my daytime resting places.” Corbin placed his hand on the flat screen and each one of his fingers was briefly outlined in light, one after the other. “Consider yourself lucky,” he said when the vault-like door emitted a hissing sound as though it was depressurizing. “I have never brought a human down here before.”

  “Not even to fuck?” I asked tartly.

  Corbin gave me a long look. “Lest you get the wrong idea about me, fucking humans isn’t something I do all the time. It takes a great amount of control and I have to care very much to want to expend the effort. I haven’t cared that much in years.”

  Great—he kept going on and on about how careful he could be but he’d basically just admitted that he was way out of practice at vampire/human sex. Of course, maybe it was like riding a bicycle—now there was a mental image that brought a blush to my cheeks. And speaking of being out of practice, it had been so long since I’d slept with anyone I was practically a virgin again. Not that I wanted a four hundred year old vampire to break my dry spell. I was definitely not going to volunteer to help Corbin test his much vaunted control.

  “After you.” He swung the door open and gestured as he had at the top of the steps. And I hesitated again, just as I had earlier. Was I really going to do this? Lock myself into what amounted to a bank vault with a creature who could kill me as easily as I could swat a fly? But really, what choice did I have? I couldn’t let Corbin send Taylor back to Celeste. He had kept his end of the contract—my best friend was safe somewhere, hidden away from the sick assholes who had tormented and tortured her. Maybe now she could start enjoying what was left of her life and I could stop feeling so guilty for leaving her alone that night and letting her get turned into a vamp in the first place. If, that was, I survived to stop feeling guilty.

  Corbin stood quietly, letting me think, which I doubt any human man would have
done. But that’s a vamp for you—they have unlimited time, which usually equates to greater than human patience. In this case, I was glad of the difference.

  “All right,” I said finally and stepped through the door.

  The room I entered appeared to be a bedroom, and it surprised me by not being an obvious “sex lair” like the one we’d found Taylor in. There were no slick satin sheets or sex toys. Instead, it actually looked like a room where someone lived and spent time—if you can call what vampires do living.

  There was a large brass bed covered in a dark green and gold bedspread against one wall and a fireplace opposite it against the other wall. There was already a small fire going in the grate—its flames were reflected in an old fashioned full-length mirror that stood in a golden claw-footed frame in the far corner of the room. Angled to face the fires was a large brown leather easy chair and beside it stood a tall wooden bookcase filled with all kinds of books.

  I walked over to the shelf as Corbin shut us into the room and studied his private library. I was trying desperately not to think about how we were now locked in together but despite my nervousness, a few of his books caught my eye.

  There were a lot of things I would have expected to see on any guy’s night table—some Clancy novels, histories of different wars, mostly by Shelby Foote. There were also books in French, Spanish, and possibly Japanese, which I couldn’t read. Hmm, Corbin was well read at least. Being an English major, that was definitely on my wish list for Mr. Right—too bad he wasn’t human and I couldn’t stand him. Besides the novels and the foreign language books, there were a few volumes so old I was afraid to touch them—was that really a first edition of Tamerlane?

  “Amazing,” I murmured, daring to trace the spine of the book with a single finger.

  “A fine work by a tormented man.” Corbin was suddenly standing right behind me.

  I looked up at him. “You knew Edgar Allan Poe?”

  He shrugged. “In passing. I knew one who considered bringing him over. Unfortunately, his mental illness near the end was such that it was feared he would be too destructive if he became one of my kind.”