The Vampire Queen's Servant(11)

As he stood completely nude, deliberating his next move for several charged moments, he wondered what she was thinking. He was throbbing, enormous. He hoped she took pleasure in that. Life in a circus had helped him get past modesty about personal nakedness, but he found himself somewhat self-conscious under the circumstances.

"You think you can commit over three centuries to me, Sir Vagabond?"

"As long as you need me."

"You say that, but you resist me. Did Thomas tell you the oath to a vampire of my rank?"

"I am sworn to your service. Compelled by absolute loyalty, I safeguard your well-being before my own or any other ties of family or friendship. I swear it by the giving of my blood to you and before all of Divinity, may my life be cursed and my soul be damned if I speak false or ever betray the vow."

A pregnant silence filled the room. "Thomas made you take the oath," she said at last.

"It was the last step in my training. I stood vigil in the monastery chapel for three days and three nights before he spilled my blood on the stones to consecrate the words."

Fifty lashes across his back. Required when administered in conjunction with the oath, they were part of the Ritual of Binding to a vampire queen. It was a ritual so ancient most vampires under three hundred years old didn't know it. Lyssa moved through the shadows outside of his vision, staring at those crisscrossing lines that would have turned his back into a mass of blood when they'd occurred, causing enough pain to make the strongest man sick, lose control of his bowels. Then the monks would have made him scrub those stones clean on his hands and knees, naked, before they would offer to tend his wounds. The Master always came first.

"Did Thomas use my whip?"

"Yes, my lady. He said you'd used it on him when you accepted him."

She closed her eyes. She'd given it to Thomas as a gift years before. He'd apparently carefully preserved it. Once a human became a servant, most wounds he'd received even previous to his acceptance would not leave permanent scarring, unless his Mistress anointed the weapon with a drop of her own blood first.

Without knowing if she would accept him, Jacob had subjected himself to torture and permanent disfigurement. An exceptional act of loyalty. It moved her far more than she wanted him to know.

"I'd like you to put your boots under the bed," she said at last.

Odd. From the tone of her voice, Jacob could tell that had been a request, not a command. He suspected Lady Lyssa never intimated words except exactly as she intended. She could likely orchestrate any nuance she wanted in her speech.

"Under the bed. Just like the country song?"

She didn't respond. He didn't expect her to do so, but at least he didn't sense she was offended by him forgetting himself and speaking out of turn. Putting the boots neatly just under the bed, he eyed the expanse of mattress.

From the corner of his eye, he realized she was behind him now, almost three feet back. Close, reminding him of the temptations that might wait for him if he complied. Far enough back so the decision was his, as she'd said. After that, his choices would be limited.

He turned around to face her. Keeping his gaze on hers, he took a step back, then another. The anticipation that rose in her expression resulted in a taut, indefinable anxiety in his gut as he sat down on the bed. As tall as he was, he'd still have to flex his feet to keep his toes grazing the floor if he slid back to where the crook of his knees met the mattress as she wished. Lying back, he felt the soft quilting of the cool bed linens give beneath, him.

She hadn't made the bed, so he smelled her, felt the rumpled waves of the quilted blanket beneath him. He'd undressed her for her comfort, trying not to take advantage of her unconscious state to ogle, but now her scent taunted back to life the vision of smooth, pale flesh and curves he'd briefly glimpsed, the bare folds of flesh between her legs, for vampires only had hair above the neck. He raised his arms over his head, his knuckles brushing the covers.

"See if you can reach the opposite edge of the mattress."

He stretched out his arms as far as he could and came within a few inches of reaching the other side if he strained.

"Hold that position. I want you to pretend your arms are already bound. In a moment, they actually will be."

When he heard the clank of metal, he wanted to roll away, leap up. With a force of will that took more effort than he expected, he kept still. A beautiful woman wants to tie you up and have her way with you. You've played soft bondage before. But only as she'd described, where it would have been easy to get loose. Where the emotional stakes were nowhere near as high as they would be here.

Now her robe brushed his leg. There was the sound of metal touching metal again. Her hand slid around to his calf, her fingers stroking the hair there before moving down to his ankle. She took her time about it, turning her hand over as if it were the page of a book to rub her knuckles along the same area. The electrical reaction ran up the inside of his thigh, prodded his cock up another notch.

Apprehension had affected his erection, but it was quickly being restored with the magic her fingers were creating. He didn't want to admit lying still at her command might also be contributing. He'd never considered it a sexual act, making himself helpless to a woman.

Thomas had told him there was no end to the things she could teach him. The crafty son of a bitch hadn't gone into these kinds of specifics, though. He wouldn't have bolted if he'd known. Probably. But it would have been nice to be prepared, as much as a man could be for something like this.

Of course, Thomas had been a monk. Which made Jacob add another question to his list. Had Thomas done this type of thing with her? Because he'd assumed the monk was under the vow of celibacy, he'd never even thought to ask.

Cold steel locked around his ankle. A loose fit, but not enough that he'd get it off without shearing off his heel. Trailing her hand down his foot, over his toes, she traced the lines between them. Her lips were soft and warm on his knee, the area just below it. He wanted to see her, but by holding the position she'd ordered he could only feel her and strain his ears to hear her movements.

The contact of her mouth tickled, making him quiver. Her lips curved against him. A smile, maybe. He felt a prick, just the touch of a fang, and then her weight shifted. Putting her back against his bound leg, she sat, letting his leg and the bed support her as she took hold of the other foot and restrained it in the same manner. There were chains attached to the manacles and she made some adjustment to them which widened the spread of his legs with the pressure of her shoulder against one of his calves.

Air touched his balls as she made him that much more defenseless by somehow anchoring the chains to the corner posts. He swallowed, told himself he could lie here. That he'd done this willingly. He wasn't afraid of her hurting him, so why was a well of panic trying to cloud his brain, take over his body and make it tremble as if he were some type of untried virgin?

"Very nice." She caressed the inside of his leg, dragging her nails over his thigh. His cock was at full attention now as if it knew she'd straightened to look at it.

"Even better," she murmured. Her body rubbed against his leg as she rose. She appeared like the unexpected touch of a breeze up near his head, standing on her knees on the mattress to the right of his straining hands. The neckline of her robe was loose, showing him the crescents of her breasts. At his avid gaze, she spread the upper part of the robe open, revealing her bosom completely. She had curves like firm, juicy apples, the pink nipples capturing his attention and making saliva pool in his mouth.

She pulled another set of manacles on the bed. As she balanced herself, her hands closed on his wrists and the metal snapped onto them, a series of clicks and pressure that told him they were locked with a key like the ones on his ankles. Crossing his wrists, she hooked the manacles together, avoiding contact with his fingers. A hard quiver ran through his muscles as she used the key to sweep a lock of hair off his forehead.

"You've stopped straining. Reach for the edge of the bed as far as you can."

"Come down here."

"Obey me and perhaps I will."



* * *





Chapter Eight





Her voice was breathless.

He swallowed the urge to reach up before his hands were anchored and make her come down to him. For one thing, she could easily slip away. But he was recalling her words.

If you can't obey me, I have no use for you.

He wasn't sure that was true, but some iota of good sense told him he'd better not test his theory at this moment. So he reached as far as he could, feeling the muscles of his upper body sliding up his ribs, stretching taut over his stomach. Her eyes reflected her enjoyment in the show.

The arch in his back increased as she moved away to tether the manacles with chain to the bed rail, drawing up the slack further. Taking hold of the joining point of the manacles on his wrists, she pulled on him, one sharp, decisive move that elicited a grunt from him and stretched out his body several more inches. It would have taken a rack borrowed from the Spanish Inquisition—or a vampire's strength—to extend his body this far, and he felt the strain in his joints as she held him with one hand, tightening the chains with the other to keep him that way.

The floor was gone beneath his toes. She'd just made him completely helpless. The room had gotten exponentially smaller, warmer. With his thighs spread, nothing protected his genitals. His cock had no sense at all, staying high and stiff, calling all sorts of attention to itself. The stretched position put pressure on the gnawing hunger in his lower abdomen.