SovereignsChoice

  The doorbell sounds again and then I hear a gentle rapping at the bedroom door. “Ms. Krist?” Barnes says in his aristocratic British accent. “There is someone at the door. Are you expecting company?”

  “Yes!” I manage to gasp. I’m clawing at the vibrator now and somehow I turn it up to what has to be its maximum setting. To my mortification, the low-pitched hum instantly becomes a loud buzzing. “Yes,” I repeat, trying to pull the damn thing out of me and shut it off at the same time. “I…my friend…my cousin…”

  The vibrator finally pops free and lodges itself against my throbbing clit. At once my spine arches as the pleasure rips through me like a hurricane. I’m still on edge from everything that Aiden has been doing to me the past three days and there’s no stopping the impending orgasm. Oh Goddess, I’m going to come! I’m going to—

  “I don’t understand, madam,” Barnes says through the door. “Is it your friend or your cousin or both? Should I make lunch for two or three?” Out in the main part of the house, the doorbell chimes again.

  “Three!” I gasp as the purple vibrator takes me to heaven whether I want to go or not. “Or no, two. Damn it, Barnes, I don’t know.”My spine is arching and my clit is tingling with the much needed relief. I try to take a step but the tight leggings trip me and I fall to the floor with the vibrator still going to town.

  “Ms. Krist, are you quite all right?” the butler asks, sounding concerned. “Did you fall? Should I come in to assist you?”

  I’m flat on my back, having what feels like multiple orgasms, tangled up in the harness and leggings with the vibrator buzzing between my legs like a freaking chainsaw. The doorbell is ringing nonstop now and the butler wants to come in and “assist” me. I think I’m going crazy.

  “No,” I moan, finally managing to shut the vibrator off with trembling fingers. As soon as it stops teasing my clit, I feel more in control. My pussy is still throbbing but at least I’m not coming anymore. It’s amazingly hard to think while you’re having an orgasm—something I guess I never really noticed before. “No,” I say in a more normal voice—which is to say, I’m not moaning like a porn star. “I-I’m fine, Barnes, honestly. I just dropped my uh…my hairdryer, that’s all.”

  “Is that right?” He sounds doubtful. “Well then, if you do not require assistance I shall answer the door. Whoever is seeking entrance to the house seems most impatient.”

  Yeah, that sounds like Lexy. “You do that,” I croak. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

  With a little more fumbling, I’m finally able to release the other side of the harness. I put it on the bed and pull up my leggings, feeling strangely empty and undressed without it. But freer too, I remind myself. And now I don’t have to admit everything to Lexy.

  Taking one last look at my flushed face in the mirror, I smooth my tangled hair, take a deep breath and run out to meet my cousin.

  But it isn’t Lexy standing in the open doorway when I finally get to the front of the house. It’s just a UPS man and he looks strangely familiar. He’s muscular and swarthy with thick black hair on his arms and legs that almost looks like a pelt.

  With a start, I realize it is Emil Sanchez, leader of the Curved Horn Satyr clan. He’s in human form today, which is to say the bottom half of him isn’t noticeably goaty—well, aside from all the disgusting body hair, that is. He has on a baseball cap, probably to hide the two stubby horns growing from his forehead. Maybe he’s spent too much time in his satyr form and can’t go back to his human form without them. When he looks up at me and smiles, my theory is proven correct—he also has the slotted yellow eyes of a goat.

  “Hello, pretty lady,” he says, grinning. “Got a delivery for you.” His eyes flicker over my blouse, taking in the way my nipples tent the thin fabric and his grin widens.

  I cross my arms protectively over my chest. When he looks at me like that, I smell smoke and somewhere, someone is lost in the darkness, crying. I shake my head, trying to get rid of the strange vision.

  “Madam, this person appears to have a package you need to sign for.” Barnes turns his blind eyes in my direction. “Were you expecting something?”

  “Uh, no.” I give Sanchez a hard look, which he returns with a lascivious grin. “What is this about?” I demand.

  “Just doing my job, ma’am,” he says with deceptive mildness. “Got a package for you.” He shoves a clipboard at me as well as a greasy pen which I take with distaste. I’m sure my fingers are going to smell all goaty and nasty just from touching it.

  “Who’s it from?” I ask, scrawling my signature on the line he indicates and giving back the pen. I still think it’s strange that the leader of a powerful satyr clan is a lowly UPS man in everyday life but I guess everybody has to work.

  “Someone important.” He gives me a most unpleasant grin before pushing a small brown cardboard box into my hands. He tips his hat briefly, which exposes his stubby horns. “Have a good day, ma’am.” And then he’s gone.

  I watch him leave with relief. I’ve never liked Sanchez or any satyr for that matter. They take mindless lust to a whole new level so unless you’re really into being raped, they aren’t the ideal Friday-night date. Thankfully, I almost never have to see him or his kind outside supernatural gatherings. But when I do see him, he always finds a way to say something nasty or make a lewd gesture. Actually, this encounter was remarkably mild.

  “Is madam ready to close the door?” Barnes asks, reminding me that I’m standing there with the large front door open, “air conditioning the great outdoors” as my aunt would say.

  “Uh, yes.” I clear my throat and step back, clutching the box to my chest.

  “Thank you, Ms. Krist,” he says formally and closes the door with a snick before turning to me. “May I ask again if there will be two or three for lunch?”

  I flush, remembering the state I was in last time he asked the question. “Just two, Barnes,” I say, speaking as formally as he did. “Thank you.”

  “You’re most welcome, madam.” He nods at me, perhaps a touch less frostily. “Would it please you to have lunch by the pool?”

  “Oh yes, that would be wonderful!” I’m getting excited now to show Lexy the house. It’s not as if I own it but if you live in a mansion, you might as well make use of it. And having lunch by the pool sounds so perfectly la-di-da. She’s going to love it.

  A very small smile touches Barnes’ thin lips. “Very well. I’ll set everything out for you.”

  “Thank you,” I say again, really meaning it.

  He nods and leaves me alone. I look after him until I realize I’m still gripping the mysterious box. What’s in it? I lift it to my ear and shake but I don’t hear a thing and it’s very light, almost as though it were empty. Who would send me an empty box and why? There’s no tingling in my fingertips so no magic is involved. At least, nothing overt.

  I take the box back in my room before I open it. Inside is a single slip of paper and on it, in elegant script are written these words:

  Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart. O. When may it suffice?

  Soon.

  I stare in confusion at the piece of paper. It seems to be some kind of a quote or warning. But by who and about what? Too long a sacrifice—is someone trying to say that a year is too long for the designated Sacrifice to serve the Sovereign? Well, what good is it going to do to tell me that? It’s not like I can change anything.

  I’m still puzzling over the box and its confusing contents when I hear the front doorbell again. This time it’s Lexy with a laundry basket full of clothes and—oh joy!—my cell phone. She even remembered the charger.

  I give her an enthusiastic hug and then she steps back to look around. “Wow, this place is swanky! But what the hell is the deal with all the glass walls?”

  “Aiden likes sunlight,” I say, with a shrug. “He says he went without it for too long and now he wants to make up for lost time.”

  “A vampire who loves sunlight.” She shakes her head
. “What’ll they think of next? Well, come on, give me the grand tour.”

  I take her to the bedroom first, so I can deposit the laundry basket full of clothes. But I have forgotten about the abandoned harness, lying discarded on the bed. I’m quick to put the laundry basket on top of it but Lexy is even quicker.

  “Oh my Goddess—what’s that thing? Do you wear that?”

  “Not all the time.” I can feel my cheeks heating and I curse myself for leaving the damn harness in plain sight. After all the trouble I went to in order to take it off and then I go and let her see it anyway! It’s mortifying.

  “So he’s into the kinky stuff, huh?” Lexy grins at me and wiggles her eyebrows. “I thought he might be after what I heard about him.”

  “What? What did you hear?” I’ve been living here with Aiden for weeks now and I scarcely know more about him than I did when I first came. He’s maddeningly evasive when I ask about his past and he has an annoying habit of answering my questions with other questions.

  “Ah-ah-ah,” Lexy trills, shaking her finger at me. “I’ll tell you everything but first you have to tell me the dirty details of what it’s like to be the Sovereign’s personal sex slave.”

  “Oh come on, Lexy,” I moan but she only laughs.

  “You know how it is—you have to give some to get some. Besides, I’m dyingto know. You’re the envy of every single girl in the supernatural community, you know. The last Sovereign was so old and stodgy and boring. And Aiden James is so sexy and hot and mysterious and—”

  “Lunch is served, madam.” Barnes is suddenly standing there at the doorway, giving Lexy a very disapproving look from his blind eyes.

  “Oh, thank you, Barnes,” I say, feeling embarrassed all over again. “Uh, by the pool, right?”

  “As you requested, Ms. Krist.” He makes me a formal, sweeping bow and then stands back, indicating that we should precede him from the room.

  Once we get seated by the cool blue water, Lexy can’t stop gushing about how fabulous everything is and honestly, I have to agree with her. Lunch is a much more elaborate affair than the simple fruit and cheese courses that Barnes usually prepares for me. There’s an elegant chilled cucumber soup to start and then tiny finger sandwiches filled with smoked salmon and cream cheese. Next a mushroom-and-spinach quiche followed by blackberry-sage sorbet for dessert. Barnes even opens a bottle of champagne—something expensive with tiny bubbles that tickle my nose and go straight to my head. That’s not really saying much though—I’ve never been much of a drinker.

  “So tell me,” Lexy continues as we nibble and sip. “What exactly is going on here in this weird glass house?”

  “About what you’d expect,” I say and take another sip of champagne. Honestly, I’m beginning to feel a little tipsy. I really should stop but it tastes so good.“I mean, you know, regular sex-slave stuff.”

  “What?” she squeals. “What kindof sex-slave stuff. Tell me, Emma!”

  It seems to me I didn’t want to tell her before but now that I’ve had several glasses of the lovely champagne, it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.

  “You know,” I say again. “I wake up in the morning and have breakfast with Aiden. Then he takes me in the bedroom and makes me wear the harness.”

  “What? That weird purple dildo thing I saw in your room?”

  “Yup,” I say and hiccup before taking another sip. “I’m not supposed to take it off but I did anyway. I thought it would be too weird to wear it with you here.”

  “You got that right.” She snickers. “So then what?”

  “He goes off to work and leaves me here. Oh, but usually I spend the whole day naked except for this.” I point to the collar I’m still wearing. “And the harness.”

  “It’s gorgeous,” Lexy says, looking more closely at the collar with its dangling pendant. “Is that a real ruby? And did you just say you spend the whole day naked?”

  “I have no idea if it’s real but knowing Aiden, it probably is,” I say. “And yes, I don’t wear clothes. He, uh, says he likes to see me. Also, he wants me to like myself better too or something like that.” I hiccup again.

  “Weird,” Lexy murmurs. “But also kind of hot.”

  “That pretty much sums up the whole situation,” I agree.

  “So what happens when he gets home?” she prompts but I shake my head.

  “Uh-uh, cuz. No more about my kinky daily routine until you spill what you know.”

  “Oh, all right,” she sighs. “But you should know I had to sleep with a lot of vampires to get this dirt.”

  “Yeah, like that was such a hardship for you,” I say dryly.

  Lexy giggles. “Actually, it’s been a lot of fun. Even if I am starting to feel like a pin cushion.” She looks at me curiously. “By the way, where are your bite marks? Aiden must be feeding from you, right? I mean, you should see my inner thighs.”

  “Uh…” I feel slightly uncomfortable, despite my semi-drunken state. “He hasn’t actually bitten me again since that first night. He, uh, says that he doesn’t need much blood.”

  “Okay, well even without the biting the sex must be amazing,right?” she prompts.

  “Actually…” I clear my throat. “We haven’t, uh, done that either.”

  “What?” she shrieks. “He’s had you a whole two weeks and he still hasn’t claimed you?”

  “Keep it down,” I say, feeling annoyed. “I told you, I’m not telling you anything else until you give me the information you got whoring around the vampire community.”

  Lexy grumbles some at that but she finally starts to talk. “Okay, get this—apparently Aiden James has a tragedy in his past. A mysterioustragedy,” she continues, nodding when I lean forward to look at her. “It was like a hundred years ago or something but apparently when he was first made a vampire, he fell in love with a witch. Only back then, that wasn’t done.”

  “Back when the supernatural community didn’t mix,” I murmur.

  Lexy nods again. “Exactly. Anyway, apparently he was crazy for her but she died.”

  “How?” I want to know. “How did she die?”

  Lexy shrugs. “None of the vampires I, uh, talked with seemed to know. Some people say he killed her—maybe by accident. You know, taking too much blood?”

  I shiver and nod. It’s not unknown for a newly made vampire to get a little too enthusiastic about feeding. Deaths happen from time to time, which is why you’re actually safer with an older, more powerful vamp than a brand-new one, fresh out of the coffin. I’m not wild about the idea that the man I’m with may have killed a previous lover but Aiden always seems so controlled around me. That could never happen now…right?

  “Go on,” I tell Lexy, trying to push away my feelings of unease.

  “Not everybody thinks it was Aiden’s fault she died,” my cousin says. “Some say she killed herself—maybe she couldn’t deal with the whole vamp-witch interracial thing. Anyway, whatever the reason, when she took a dirt nap, he went a little bit crazy. He went to ground for years and years and just refused to have anything to do with anyone. Then, about fourteen years ago he finally came back to the land of the living—well, in a manner of speaking, anyway.”

  “Fourteen years? Are you sure?” I ask, frowning.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “No reason,” I murmur. It wouldn’t be a significant number except it’s been almost exactly that amount of time since my mother died in the fire that left me an orphan. In fact, the anniversary of her death is coming up in less than a month.

  “So anyway,” Lexy continues, “He had gone to ground for so long I don’t think anyone really believed he would come back.”

  “Right,” I say, getting back on track. The vampires’ ability to hide themselves away from the rest of the world in a dark box and basically starve themselves to death without actually dying is unique in the supernatural community. It’s kind of like a bear hibernating through the winter, only vamps can go for years, even decades or centuries in their d
ormant condition until something happens to wake them from their long rest. “So what brought him back?” I ask Lexy.

  She shrugs. “Again, no one knows. But when he did come back, he rejected his own kind.”

  “What?” This makes no sense at all. Why would Aiden swear off other vampires? The fanged set is usually very close-knit—why put himself outside the group and its protection?

  “It’s true,” Lexy avers. “They say he lived like a human. Apparently he made all these investments before he went to ground and when he came back into the light, he was a multi-gazillionaire. So he started his own company, built this massive, weird glass house and pretty much did his own thing. Until the Council stepped in, that is.”

  “The Vampire Council?” I ask, raising my eyebrows at her.

  Slowly she nods. This dark, mysterious ruling body has been the subject of much speculation among the rest of the supernatural community. It’s said to be made up of some of the oldest and most powerful vampires in history. It’s also said that no one individual, vampire or otherwise, is strong enough to stand against it. The Council chooses the Sovereign, who acts as a visible figurehead—probably so they can retain their anonymity.

  “So what does the Vamp Council have to do with Aiden? Aside from choosing him to be Sovereign, I mean,” I say.

  “That’s the thing—they didn’t just choose him. They forced him to be Sovereign.” Lexy’s eyes widen. “Several of the vamps I talked to said they heard he didn’t want to be. But they made him. Something to do with his bloodline or something. And they didn’t give him much time either. Apparently he didn’t even know he was going to be Sovereign until two days before the Sacrifice Ceremony.”

  I purse my lips in concentration. Hmm. That would certainly explain how rushed and irritated he was the first time he came in the shop. They gave him next to no time to prepare and he knew he had to choose a Sacrifice so he resorted to that old spell in Farrow’s. But why was he so concerned about finding just the right woman? A man in his position had the wealth and power to have anyone he wanted. Why didn’t he just pick the prettiest or most powerful witch out of the crowd and not worry about it?