“Emma,” he murmurs, walking over to stand by my side. “Darling…”
“I’m ready, Master,” I tell him in a shaking voice. “Ready for…for my punishment.”
His gray eyes go suddenly hard. “That’s good to hear, Emma, because I’m going to punish you hard tonight. I’m going to use your little pussy very roughly and thoroughly and I don’t want to hear a word of protest. Do you understand?”
His stern words start a fire between my legs. “Yes Master,” I whisper. “I-I understand.”
“Good.” He moves around behind me and I hear the low purring sound of his zipper being lowered. “Because I’m going to fuck you now, Emma. Going to fuck you hard.”
I feel him fit the broad head of his cock to the entrance of my pussy. I can’t help remembering the last time he did this—the way he slid into me so slowly and was so careful not to thrust in me too hard. The way he was so gentle, so loving in his treatment of me. I have a feeling tonight is going to be the opposite but somehow no less pleasurable for all that.
Two strong hands grip my hips and I can feel my Master’s breath hot against the back of my neck. “Get ready,” he advises me, his voice a deep, menacing growl. “I’m not just going to fuck you tonight, Emma. I’m going to breed you.”
His words remind me suddenly that I’m not on birth control. And since my period is over—has been over for a while—I’m fertile and completely unprotected. I open my mouth to say this…and close it again.
“I know,” Aiden murmurs in my ear as his thick shaft slides slowly into me, stretching me wide. “I know you have no protection, Emma. I know you’re open and fertile. Completely vulnerable to my seed.”
“Master?” I whisper, making his name a question. “Are you…will you…?” I can’t finish the sentence. He’s all the way inside me now, and this time he’s making no effort to hold back. The broad head of his cock presses hard against the mouth of my womb, making me shiver with fear and anticipation.
“I’m sorry, Emma,” he tells me. “But I won’t pull out of you tonight. I’m going to claim your pussy and come in you whether you want me to or not. The best thing you can do is simply submit—open your pussy for me and let me fill you. You have no choice.”
My chest feels tight and it’s suddenly hard to breathe. Submit. I have to submit, I remind myself. And then slowly I start to relax. If my Master wants to come in me while I’m fertile and unprotected, I have no choice but to let him. The knowledge that I am his—completely and totally his to do with as he chooses—fills me with a strange kind of peace.
“Yes Master,” I murmur, turning my head and pressing my cheek to the cool wood of the breeding bench. “Whatever you want. I-I submit.”
“Gods, Emma.” His deep voice is tight, filled with emotion. “You’re so beautiful when you give yourself to me. I love you so much.”
“I love you too.” I spread my thighs wider, trying to open myself still more for him, to give myself completely. “Please, Master, do it,” I urge him. “Take me. Punish me.”
“I’ll punish you when I’m ready and not before,” he growls with soft menace. The hands gripping my hips tighten and I feel him tense inside me. “Remember what I told you about topping from the bottom, Emma?”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I just…I want you so much. Whatever you’re going to give me—pleasure or pain. I want it.”
“I’ll give it to you, all right,” he says, sounding almost angry this time. “Don’t move, Emma. I’m going to fuck you now.”
I open my mouth to reply but then I feel him pull almost all the way out of me…and thrust back in hard and fast. I cry out as I feel the thick shaft filling me, the head of his cock pressing hard against the mouth of my womb with each deep stroke.
Punishment fuck…he’s giving me a punishment fuck, I remind myself, trying to remember to breathe as the hard fucking goes on and on. I want to try to twist, to get away—but there’s no place for me to go. Aiden’s hands on my hips hold me in place, not letting me move from my submissive position. His breath is hot and furious against the back of my neck and his cock seems to throb within me, stretching me to the limit with each deliberately rough stroke.
Strangely, his roughness seems to push me closer and closer to the edge. I’m experiencing as much pain as pleasure but the feeling is so intense, so deep. I feel so opened, so taken by my Master. I am his, I think as he rams into me yet again. Utterly and completely his. He’s finally claiming me. Finally marking me as his own.
“You’re mine, Emma,” Aiden growls in my ear, echoing my thoughts as he fucks me. “You belong to me now and I’ll never…let…you…go.” He punctuates each word with a particularly deep thrust, making me cry out, making me gasp my submission.
“Yes Master,” I cry, feeling the magic of the wounded spell flow over me as my pleasure and pain start to peak. “I’m yours…only and always yours.”
“Come for me.” One of his large hands leaves my hip and travels around to my pussy. His long fingers rub roughly against my clit. “Come for your Master, Emma. I want to feel your pussy holding me tight when I fill you with my cum.”
“Master…” I moan and suddenly it’s too much. The pleasure of being owned, the pain of his roughly inflicted punishment, the magic of the ancient spell pouring over me, yearning to be healed… It all comes together like a cyclone inside me and I feel myself exploding, my pussy contracting helplessly around Aiden’s thick shaft as he shoves himself hard inside me and pumps me full of his hot, creamy cum.
“Mine,” he growls again as he fills me with his seed. “Always mine, Emma. Never forget that.”
“I won’t,” I try to say but the magic gets in the way. I can feel it tingling all through me, rushing over me, invading me, calling my own, long-dormant power to the surface.
Suddenly my eyes feel strange and so does my hair—my pupils burn while my scalp feels as if someone poured a bucket of ice water over my head. Even my bones ache. Bizarre energy rushes over me, drowning me, overwhelming my senses until I can’t see, can’t hear, can’t breathe.
It’s too much to bear all at once. Dimly I’m aware of Aiden calling my name. I try to answer but my mouth won’t work. I shiver and gasp as the world goes gray around me. I open my mouth to scream…and everything fades to black.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Emma? Emma, darling? Wake up! Wake up.” Aiden is shaking me, a look of fear and desperation on his strong features.
“A-Aiden?” I blink up at his white face barely visible in the darkness, trying to make my eyes focus. Why is everything blurry and then suddenly sharp? And why does my scalp itch so badly? I put up a hand to touch my hair but blue sparks fly from my fingertips. With a gasp, I pull my hand back. I don’t want to set my own hair on fire! “What’s…what’s going on?” I ask him in a trembling voice.
“Your magic. You finally came into your magic.” Lexy is suddenly kneeling beside me, free of the tape that bound her earlier. Beside her Grant is standing, his hands on his knees, peering at me curiously.
“It’s true,” he says. “It came in like an earthquake when you fused the spell. I’ve never felt such a manifestation of power before.”
I recoil from him, thinking I’m still naked, but then I realize I’m wrapped in Aiden’s charcoal-colored jacket. “Is that true?” I look up at my Master for verification.
“I don’t know,” he says honestly, looking immensely relieved. “I’m just glad you’re all right, darling. You fainted and I couldn’t wake you up. Gods…” He puts a hand over his face for a moment in an uncharacteristic display of emotion. “Emma,” he says in a muffled voice. “Don’t ever scare me like that again. I thought…thought I’d lost you.”
“You still might.” Lexy puts a hand on her hip. “Why didn’t you warn Emma this day was coming? Why didn’t you tell her she was related to Katherine? And what else are you holding back?”
“Lexy, please…” I hold out a hand to stop her. “I don’t want
to fight right now. I’m too tired and I feel too weird.”
“No, your cousin is right.” Aiden sits back, his grip on me loosening. I don’t like that. I want to be held in his arms again but somehow I can’t say so.
“What…what do you mean?” I ask softly.
“There are things I haven’t told you.” He looks down at the flagstones, the curving circle still half filled with his blood. “Things I haven’t shared. But only because I wanted to spare you pain.”
“What things?” I don’t want to know but my mouth forms the words anyway. “What…what are you talking about? Please, Aiden, I need to know.”
Aiden sighs heavily and releases his hold on me completely. I feel so cold without him near me but I’m afraid to get close, afraid of what he might say.
“I never told you that you were related to Katherine because I didn’t want to tell you about the night I first saw you,” he says.
“You mean…the first time you came into my shop?” I asked, confused.
He shakes his head. “No, darling, I met you long before that. You just didn’t remember me. And I had almost managed to forget about you as well—until I walked into your shop. But the first time I laid eyes on you was fourteen years ago on the night your house burned to the ground.”
“What?” I look at him in disbelief. “But how…why…?”
“I’ll tell you everything.” He looks defeated and tired, as though he’s suddenly feeling every year of his immense age. “Though you will not like it and you may hate me when I’m through.”
A sudden thought occurs to me. “Aiden, you told me that Katherine was a virgin before you found her being…attacked. But somehow I’m her direct descendant so she must have had a baby.” I feel sick. “Please tell me you’re not my great-great-great-grandfather or something creepy like that.”
“No.” Aiden looks startled. “No, of course not. The baby girl she had was as a result of the rape. I wanted to keep her and raise her but Katherine refused. The baby was a constant reminder—she wanted nothing to do with her.” His expression turns sad. “We placed her with a childless couple who desperately wanted her. I didn’t think about the blood tie I had to her—to all Katherine’s descendants—until that terrible night I first saw you.”
“Blood tie?” I ask, frowning.
“When a vampire takes enough of your blood, it forms a kind of bond,” Lexy lectures. “Depending on the type and quantity of blood they take, the bond can be very strong—even lasting across centuries and generations.”
“True.” Aiden nods. “I was bound to Katherine by her blood,” he says, a faraway look in his eyes. “I loved her so much I wanted to die when she did, so I went to ground, hoping to sleep away the pain.”
“I know about that,” I say.
He nods. “When I went to ground, I still had Katherine’s blood in me—the way I had your blood in me tonight. It formed a bond to her next of kin—the little girl she gave away. She must have lived a quiet life and her daughter after her and her daughter as well, because none of them ever disturbed my slumber.
“Then, one night over a hundred years after my beloved Katherine died, I felt a calling—a tugging inside me. It was almost as though someone had tied a cord around my heart and was pulling as hard as she could.”
“The blood tie,” I whisper and Aiden nods.
“Your mother knew, darling,” he says. “I don’t know how—maybe she researched your family tree. But she knew I was bound to Katherine and her descendants and she called me up from the grave to save her and her little girl.”
He puts a hand to his face and I sense that what he has to say next is hard for him. “I came as soon as I was roused but I couldn’t save your mother—I’m so sorry. I don’t blame you if you hate me for that. But I did manage to bring you to safety. I put you in your aunt’s arms before I left.”
“That night,” I whisper. “I always dream about that night…” Suddenly The Dream comes back to me. Its details are vivid and for the first time, I can remember it all. The man with the deep, kind voice and white hands, the one who shielded me from the flames and saved me from the man with the slotted yellow eyes…it was Aiden. He was there for me from the first!
“But…” I shake my head in confusion. “If you were there, you must know how the fire started. And who was the man you saved me from? Was it…?”
“It was Sanchez,” Grant says. “He told me he’d been sent once before to get you, back when your power first started manifesting, early on when you were a child. The vampires wanted your blood to mend the spell, which was already in bad shape, even fourteen years ago.”
“Sanchez…” So that’s why when I see him I always smell burning and hear weeping. I shiver. “That bastard.” I ball my hands into fists. “I’ll kill him! Is he the one who set fire to my house?”
Grant frowns. “No. At least he says he wasn’t. According to him he went to your house but your mother intercepted him. They had words and fought—she managed to drive him away, back into the yard. He claims the fire started on the second story—he saw witch-flames shooting up the curtains in one of the bedrooms and then suddenly the whole place was ablaze.”
“Witch-flames?” I feel sick and dizzy. I look down at my fingers and see the crackle of blue sparks shooting from their tips. The Dream peels away like a piece of protective film that’s been covering my mind. Suddenly I realize that its safe fuzziness has been protecting me, keeping me from knowing, from understanding what really happened that night.
“Emma.” Aiden puts a hand out to me but I shake him off.
“Me,” I whisper, balling my crackling, dangerous hands into fists and stuffing them under my arms. “I’m the one who started the fire. I heard them arguing and I thought he wanted to hurt my mom—I didn’t know he was after me. So I called the flames. I-I wanted to throw them at him but somehow they got out of control. Oh Goddess…” I put my head in my hands, no longer caring if I set my hair on fire, as sobs rise to choke me. “I killed her—she sacrificed herself for me because she knew the fire had to be satisfied. The fire I called.”
“Oh, Emma, hon…” Lexy puts her arms around me. At first I resist but then I wrap my arms around her neck and bawl.
It all makes sense now. The way I couldn’t find my magic and thought I was a dud. It was because I’d buried it, hidden it along with the horrible memory of the night my mother died. Because I didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to admit to myself what I had done, that I had killed the one person who meant more to me than anything else in the world.
“I’m so sorry.” Aiden’s voice sounds far away and oddly formal. I force myself to pull away from Lexy and look up at him. He is standing there, in the circle, a look of grim despair on his white features. “I never wanted you to know that, Emma,” he says softly. “I fear that I’ve brought nothing but pain to you, just as I brought nothing but pain to Katherine.”
“Aiden…” I whisper but he shakes his head, a look of determination crossing his face.
“I release you from your servitude. I am no longer your Master.” He stoops down and I think he’s going to kiss me one last time. Instead he reaches behind my neck and unfastens the leather collar. Then he rises swiftly, regret filling his eyes. “I’m sorry, Emma. I hope you’ll live a long and fulfilling life.”
Before I can say another word he’s gone—flashing out the door in a white blur—showing the supernatural speed and grace vampires are known for.
For a moment I’m stunned. I feel as if I’ve lost my mother all over again and now I have just lost the man I cared for, the man I love. And Aiden said he loved me too. Only now he’s gone, whispers a little voice in my head. He’s gone and he’s never coming back.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Lexy takes me home with her and runs me a hot bath because I keep complaining that I’m cold, so cold I feel as if I’ll never be warm again.
“You’re just in shock,” she tells me, hugging me tightly as she sits me on the
bed in her spare room. “A lot has changed for you tonight. I’m going to get a bath ready and you can wash away all the bad things that happened.”
If only it were that easy. I sit on the bed feeling tired and cold and horrible. Over and over in my head, two different lines are playing and neither one of them is pleasant.
I killed her, whispers one. Me, I’m the one who did it. I killed her. I killed her.
He’s gone, hisses the other, sounding very much like the vampire with the snake voice. He’s gone and he’s never coming back. You’ve lost him. He’s gone.
“Bath’s almost ready,” Lexy calls from the other room.
Guess I’d better get undressed. I’m still wearing Aiden’s charcoal suit jacket but also my other clothes too, which Lexy helped me find and put back on. I mechanically drag myself up from the bed and start to strip even though I don’t want to. I cuddle the jacket close before I take it off. It still smells like him—like cedar and dark, masculine spice. I’m never going to smell that scent again because he’s not my Master anymore. He let me go, released me from his service. He—
Suddenly I catch sight of a complete stranger right across the room from me. She’s tall and has long black hair and vivid purple eyes. For some reason, she too, is clutching a dark gray jacket to her chest. What the hell is she doing in Lexy’s house? And who the hell is she? Her face looks familiar but those eyes…
I turn to face her more fully and realize that I’m not looking at another person at all. Lexy has a full-length mirror on the back of the closet door and it’s reflecting…me.
“But that’s not me,” I whisper aloud, daring to get closer to the mirror. “It can’t be. It can’t.” I feel a strangled scream rising in my throat. What’s happening to me? What am I becoming?
“What…what is it?” Lexy rushes into the room so fast she almost runs into me. “Emma, honey,” she cries. “What’s wrong?”
“That…that girl…her…” I point to the mirror, unable to say anything else. To acknowledge that the girl in the glass is me.