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  “Time to play sex slave now, vamp.” Pändra flicked her hand. “On the bed you go.”

  Thomal’s head came up, his hands jerking into fists, his neck stiffening. The thought of playing “sex slave” was an abomination now. Didn’t this woman know what had just happened between them? What they’d shared by him feeing on her? Couldn’t she feel it? No. Whatever tiny softness had been on Pändra’s face before was gone now, so utterly obliterated it was like it’d never happened.

  She lifted her chin. “If you’ve decided against being a good egg, no worries.” She indicated Arc with a tilt of her head. “I’ve still got him to play with.”

  Thomal clamped his jaw so hard his molars creaked under the pressure. “No,” he said. “I’m still all goodie gumdrops for this trip to the dark side.” Fighting the shakes, he crossed to the bed and lay down. Calling on every ounce of willpower he owned, he spread himself out, stretching his hands and feet toward the corners of the bed.

  Chapter Nine

  Eyes pinned on the ceiling, Thomal locked the bones of his face in place while Pändra tied his wrists and ankles to the low bedposts.

  She pulled the telephone cord taut, then stood at the side of the mattress for a long moment, gazing down on him. “My, such martyrdom.” She clucked her tongue. “You might actually enjoy it, vamp. I’ve been told I have a tight vadge.”

  He dropped his lids closed as his engorged cock leapt against his belly. Don’t tell me shit like that.

  “Bring the other vamp over there, Mürk,” he heard her say. “Make him kneel down on that spot to watch.”

  Feet shuffled. “Thomal,” Arc rasped out. “Oh, God, please, don’t do this to him. I’m the one you really want, right? I’ll go along with you this time—”

  “Shut up, Arc.” Thomal squeezed his lids tighter. “You can’t do this and you know it, so just shut up.”

  There was more shuffling movement.

  Mürk laughed coarsely.

  Thomal sprang his eyes open as Pändra climbed on top of him. He understood Mürk’s laugh. She was spectacularly naked now, a vista of bare, fair flesh…except that she’d left on those fuck-me pumps, which on a totally naked chick was, admittedly, sexy as hell.

  She gave him a sultry smile, as if she’d plucked that “sexy” thought out of his brain, then arched her spine slightly forward in an alluring pose.

  After over thirty years of suppressed sexuality, the last few months of which were spent with babelicious Hadley dangling before him as the proverbial sexual carrot, and with a raging boner currently standing up between his thighs, it was impossible not to devour the sight of Pändra. Her breasts were the premiere event, round, ripe, and buoyant, flawless cream lined faintly and sumptuously with blue veins, their crests topped with flirty pink nipples. The flat plane of her marred belly flared into slim hips, at the juncture of which was…oh, man. No hair. She was all smooth skin and a little slit down there, the dusky petals of her sex peeking out. He ran his tongue over his upper lip as his cock lengthened and thickened. He’d never thought he’d like a hairless koochie, but it appeared his dick had its own opinion.

  Pändra glanced down at the growing proof that his cock had no standards. “Hmm, Pändra approves.” She folded her warm fingers around his sex and gave him a firm squeeze.

  He threw back his head and gritted out a moan against a lightning rush of feelings through his groin.

  “The head of your dobber is nice and fat.” She circled her palm over the top of his cock. “I like that.”

  A muffled sound escaped him. He’d had no idea his organ could feel so damned much. It was like he’d grown a mass of new nerve endings in the last few minutes. Which meant he was in serious trouble. He had to keep himself from coming. Feeding and sex combined to create a permanent blood-bond for a Vârcolac, so the only way to stop himself from becoming inextricably bound to this hose beast was not to ejaculate inside her. A vein beat at his temple. Sure, easy as—

  Pändra slapped him across the face, the blow whipping his head to the side with a sharp snap. He snarled. Jesus, no wonder Arc had been taken down by this cum chugger. She was strong as fuck. Bringing his head back around, he glared at her.

  But Pändra wasn’t looking at him. Her attention was off to the side on Arc. “Listen, bloke,” she warned. “You stop watching us at our business and I hit your brother here. Each time harder than the last. Savvy?”

  “Yeah,” Arc said in a rigid voice. “I got it.”

  “Brilliant.” She turned back toward Thomal, and smirked when she saw his expression. “Ready to spit tacks, are you, love? Get as jarred off as you want.” She winked. “It gives me more of the hots.” She rose off Thomal’s thighs, lifting up high onto her knees, and wet her fingers in her mouth.

  Something pulled tight in his chest as he watched her transfer that wetness to her sex. This is really happening…

  Her hand froze at her crotch, a look of surprise darting across her features. “Already wet,” she murmured.

  Fucking Fiinţă.

  She grabbed his erection and set it against the soft squish of her opening.

  No… No… “Wait,” he gasped.

  “Nope.” She sat down on him.

  A guttural roar ripped helplessly out of his mouth as her sheath slid the length of his rampant shaft, her firm butt cheeks coming to rest on his balls. His wrists and ankles strained convulsively at his bonds. Oh, Jesus. He panted. Jesus. How long had he wondered what it would feel like? How long…but he’d had no way of knowing…not even the remotest idea in his head that…that it’d be like….Oh, Jesus Christ. Tight vadge was the biggest understatement ever uttered. He felt like his dick had just been shoved into a wet, warm blood pressure cuff.

  “It’s a corker, isn’t it?” Pändra planted her hands on the mattress above his shoulders and started to move up and down on top of him, the powerful muscles in her legs flexing against his sides, her long, soft hair brushing his face and chest.

  Oxygen scrambled in Thomal’s lungs. He twisted his wrists so that he could grab his bindings and hold on for all he was worth. Pändra moved faster and faster. Each time she sat down, she rammed him deep inside her, the walls of her sex clamping around his dick in a relentless grip. Sweat flooded his eyes, blinding him. He blinked hard, forcing himself to focus. Come on, Costache, you can get through this.

  Mürk laughed, that low, coarse, sick sound.

  Arc was silent as death itself.

  Thomal sucked ragged breaths between the grate of his teeth. His cells felt like tennis shoes in a clothes dryer, tumble, tumble, clunk, clunk as they moved into The Change. He was already half-bonded to Pändra from that bite, and every natural Vârcolac instinct in him was pushing him toward completing the bond. The scent of Pändra’s sex swamping his senses didn’t help with the whole don’t-climax restriction. The strong urge to do exactly that tingled through his balls and into the root of his shaft. Somehow he managed to grit it back, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to last much longer. He needed to pull a fake orgasm on her, groan and buck up his hips, but… As close as he actually was, pretending would probably push him into the real deal.

  Mürk made an interruptive noise. “This vamp isn’t mindin’ anymore, Pändra.”

  Pändra stopped pumping her hips and drove her fist into the side of Thomal’s head.

  Pain splintered through his cheek, the corner of his eye splitting open and releasing a torrent of blood down his cheek. Cursing savagely, he shook the stars out of his vision, then jerked his head over to his brother. “Would you get your act together?” he seethed.

  Arc’s expression was ravaged.

  Don’t like that you’re being forced to watch? Well, screw you! Arc wasn’t the one staked out like a sacrifice to the Demon Goddess of Sex Torture. “I’m trying to concentrate here,” Thomal hissed.

  “Is that so?” Pändra stuck a finger under Thomal’s chin and forced his head back toward her. “Concentrate on what? You aiming to keep yourself from
chucking your muck?”

  Tension pulsed in his head. His lungs suddenly felt blocked; he struggled for air.

  “Uh, oh. Pändra doesn’t like to be defied.” She tsked, as if he should’ve known better. Snatching up a pillow, she jammed it under his head to prop him up, preventing him from anymore ceiling stare-downs. “It’s your turn to watch.” She spun around and straddled him on her hands and knees, facing the opposite direction, her slick sex and her perfect ass now pointed at his face.

  A tightness pulled at Thomal’s spine.

  Pändra twisted her head to look at him. “You keep an eye on your donger going in and out of my vadge, you hear? If you stop, Mürk’ll rat on you, and then I’ll sock your brother’s head into the next room. Right-o?”

  He swallowed, or tried to; his mouth was suddenly as dry as if he hadn’t fed in a week instead of only a few minutes ago. No way he could make it through that.

  Pändra gave a mild lift of her eyebrows. “Or maybe I should lace into your brother now.”

  “No. I’ll do what you say. I’ll watch.” Watch, watch, watch…just the word tugged his balls into his body.

  “Brilliant.” She faced forward and reached between her legs for his cock, propping it upright, her red fingernails groping toward the head as she positioned his length at the entrance to her body.

  Panic crawled up his spine as those tight pink lips of hers gulped up the head of his dick, then suctioned around the circumference of his shaft as she rode down him. A small explosion of ecstasy went off in his pelvis and blasted down his legs. He shook all over, nearly crying out in pleasure as she started to pump up and down again, her pearlescent labia flexing tightly around his cock on each plunge.

  It’s only a porno movie. It’s not my own dick. But it didn’t work. It just felt too fucking good. She was all silky heat and snug inner muscles, and—as she’d obviously planned—seeing that hot kooch of hers work his member was too much. His orgasm shot up from his nuts and through his cock like a geyser, as unstoppable as water from a broken dam. Every muscle in his body went rigid, his hips straining upward on their own. His seed erupted into her, and he gave a hoarse shout, the feelings of pleasure so powerful and intense, he actually grayed out a little. Panting and groaning, he slumped back onto the lumpy mattress, his wrists sagging at the cord.

  Pändra slid herself off his cock. “Well, that was a rum go.” She swung her leg over, as if dismounting a horse, and hopped off the bed. From the corner of his half-mast lids, Thomal saw her scoop up her clothes. “All righty, brother dear.” She stepped into her skirt and jammed herself into her top. “Let’s leave the vamps. I have a craving for tequila.”

  The two Topside Om Rău left, and the door swung shut gently, like they were trying not to wake a baby. There was a muffled conversation in the hall, probably Pändra with her lowlifes. A moment later, two car engines roared to life, then faded away.

  Thomal stared at nothing, trying to locate his reason and some energy. Time spun out, filled by the steady plink-plink of a leaky faucet in the bathroom and an annoying electrical whine coming from the TV. A sleazeball in another room down the hall asked a working girl, “Hey, tootsie, how much for a hum job?”

  Thomal heard Arc swallow. “This is bad.”

  He didn’t look at his brother. Arc had just seen Thomal get ridden like the Pony Express, and on a scale of one to ten that ranked about an eleven on embarrassing and a twenty-five on mondo bizarro. “I’m sorry,” he said. He’d tried his best not to come.

  “Don’t you dare apologize for what that whore did to you,” Arc blared back, his voice oddly both ferocious and quavery.

  Thomal traced a water mark on the ceiling. The side of his face ached relentlessly.

  “Do you think you can get loose?” Arc asked after another long pause. “The key to my shackles is over there on the table.”

  “I should be able to.” Thomal hauled in a breath, and in a burst of focused power, he pulled inward simultaneously with all four limbs, snapping the bedposts. One smacked his shin as it flew across the mattress, and he growled. Sitting up, he chewed the bindings off one wrist, untied the other, then untangled the cords from his ankles. He rose to his feet, feeling both a little unsteady and like he was thrumming with more power than he’d ever known. Another psychiatric mind-fuck, knowing that his newfound strength came from Pändra’s Fey blood. He finally glanced at his brother.

  There were deep gouge-marks around Arc’s neck from the telephone cord, blood and swelling and bruising. But nothing was as bad as his brother’s expression. Arc knew exactly where this little incident left Thomal, although he wouldn’t say it. No way. Saying it out loud would make it too real for either of them to handle.

  Thomal grabbed his jeans and staggered as he dragged them on. His legs felt like slush, and his depth perception was shot to hell by his injured eye, already crusted over with blood. He moved over to the table and braced his palms flat on top of it, the key blurring before his vision. His arms shook violently. “Shit,” he hissed. “Sh-shit. What…?”

  “It’s bonding withdrawal,” Arc explained. “Your cells are making the biological change into being a bonded male, but your mate’s not here to scent.”

  Emotion pushed into Thomal’s throat and his fangs thrust down. He nearly choked on the howl tearing up from his chest. The primal urge to rip the door off its hinges and hunt down that woman, sink his teeth into her again, rose rampant in his blood. Shoulda ripped your throat out. Another wave of near-seizures steamrolled over him. “It’s really messing me up, man.”

  “I know.” Arc scooted forward on his knees. “Get me out of this crap and I’ll help you.” Somewhere along the way Arc’s jeans had been hiked back up to his waist. When had that happened?

  Thomal shook his head, but not about the key. “We don’t know where Raymond Parthen’s new operation is,” he said hollowly. “And we’re not going to find out where he keeps his Topside Om Rău holed up any time soon, Arc, not with a man as smart as Parthen.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “I’m never going to see her again.” Ten days without Pändra’s blood and Thomal would go into a blood-coma. Ten days… Sweat dripped from his face and fell onto the table, droplets attracting, clinging, congregating into small puddles. “I’m going to die, Arc.”

  There. He’d said it out loud, and, yeah, it was too damned real.

  Chapter Ten

  Topside: Clairemont Mesa, San Diego, same night

  Detective John Waterson cuffed up the sleeves of his denim shirt as he scanned the crime scene photographs spread over the Formica table in his kitchen. They were scattered together with sheets of notes he’d taken over the last year about the serial abductions of young, beautiful blonde women, plus the spare notes he’d made about the crime handed off to his occult crimes unit earlier today: the kidnapping of Elsa Mendoza. Even though the Spanish girl didn’t fit the serial abduction case in most ways, there had been a starburst pattern of blood on the wall of her home.

  Same as in Tonĩ Parthen’s room at Scripps Memorial Hospital when she’d gone missing back in January, the first women to get kidnapped in this bizarre case.

  John drew in a slow breath. Had it really been almost a year ago since Tonĩ had first disappeared? The last time he’d seen her—a little less than a year ago—she’d been in the company of a man with black eyes and hair and large black teeth tattoos along his forearms: a description that fit the perpetrators of the serial abductions. When John had tried to question Tonĩ about her miraculous reappearance in San Diego, this asshole had punched John into Sandman’s Land, then absconded with Tonĩ for good, denying John the chance to get some answers…and to date Tonĩ.

  Yes, after months of chasing the gorgeous doctor of hematology—ever since they’d started working crime scenes together—he’d finally convinced her to go on a date with him. A date that was supposed to have put them on the path toward marriage, kids, a house in the ’burbs, vacations spent camping or skii
ng: the whole blissful enchilada. John flexed his jaw. Teeth-Tattooed Asshole had cheated John out of that, and now it was John’s main purpose in life to crush the man. And find Tonĩ.

  John stared down at the photos again as, behind him, his apartment-issue refrigerator whirred into a higher gear and his coffee maker grum-grum-wheezed in the process of brewing some freshly ground Columbian. Sane people wouldn’t be drinking coffee at this hour, but the only things his finicky system seemed able to tolerate these days were nicotine and caffeine. Not exactly the diet of champions. It was amazing he hadn’t keeled over, yet.

  He was betting on any day now, though.

  It was probably time to go on medical leave, but the hell if he was dropping this case before he’d solved it. Eight women total had now been taken now: Tonĩ, the first, then two in April, four in June, and now Elsa Mendoza.

  John wrote down the names of the women who’d been taken in June: Marissa Bonaventure, Hadley Wickstrum, Kendra Mawbry, and Ashling Lafferty. This group was important because two of these women had returned.

  After tracking down Kendra Mawbry at her home, John had learned some interesting information. A four-man special security team had saved her from her kidnappers and then taken her to the refuge of a research institute. Very interesting. Because the last day John had seen Tonĩ at Scripps, Teeth-Tattooed Asshole’s friend had shoveled some dung about Tonĩ disappearing to interview at—drumroll, please—a top-secret research institute. Without a single word of goodbye to John before she’d left? No way. He wasn’t buying it.

  But just as John was about to question Miss Mawbry further about the institute, her abductors had returned for her.

  In the ensuing attack, John was shot.

  John returned the favor and shot his shooter, then in the middle of their gun battle, another man had showed up: black hair, black goatee, gold earring, wielding an M4 carbine assault rifle.