Page 22 of Bottoms Up (Mythic Beast #4)

Silver

I was beyond pissed that my vampire was so close to a true death he wouldn’t come back from, but Kirsten had warned me what he’d look like, so the shock was bad, but I didn’t start threatening to hurt people I’d have no chance of actually inflicting pain upon.

Kirsten flashed me into a hallway, so I was looking at my Julian through a window. Marco sat with him, holding his hand. Vampires always look pale, but Julian was the wrong shade of pale. He was… bluish.

They had him hooked up to a machine that would filter his blood while adding straight human blood in, to try to negate the silver poisoning as much as possible, but it was in his cells, his muscles and tissues, not just his blood.

You can come in , Marco telepathed, and his gaze met mine through the glass. He passed the test with flying colors. Even if he was still starving, he wouldn’t hurt you.

I opened the door and stepped inside. “I thought vampires don’t sleep? I mean, there’s the whole dying every morning thing, but it’s not even midnight.”

“He’s weak. We’re swapping his blood out with fresh, and we’ve let him feed from a black bear twice now — forcing a change on the bastard when he was nearly dry, and then letting Julian drink him down again once we had the bear fed and back to human.”

“How long will it take him to get better?”

“I’ll officially emancipate him to speed that along, but I’d like to power him up first. For my line, that means sex, but he doesn’t have to be involved.

I’ll lean someone over him, fuck their ass and then feed from them, and aim the lust energy toward Julian.

While he’s drinking it in, I’ll release the bonds I hold that make him my slave.

Your brother explained the whole slave-drain thing to you, so you’re aware he’s going to get a big energy boost.”

“What do you need from me?”

“If watching me fuck someone is arousing for you, go with it. I’ll make sure he doesn’t suck down too much of your lust, so someone may come get you and walk you away from us, but I believe he’ll focus on drinking down the lust I’m generating, knowing it’s safe to take it from me and the eagle I’ll be fucking. ”

* * * *

Julian

Consciousness returned in shards. A burning ache, everywhere . The kind of pain that meant I was still alive, and after what I’d endured, that was no small miracle.

I was in a bed, soft and warm, and it was moving. I couldn’t open my eyes, but I could scent Marco to my left. Largo too. That meant this wasn’t a dream — and that all the lust in the air meant Marco was fucking Largo. Powering me up .

And under the covers, wrapped around me, was Silver. My darling Silver, stroking himself lazily under the covers, pouring lust into the air like perfume. I focused on Marco and Largo, drinking down everything I could from the air around them, so I wouldn’t take Silver’s life force.

That’s it, good and trusted servant. Marco’s voice whispered in my mind. Drink Largo down as much as you wish. Etta takes him down to practically nothing whenever it suits her. He’s here as a personal battery for you. Drink him down and power yourself up.

I soaked in the energy, a conduit straight from the joining of the vampire and eagle, right into my soul — or whatever it is that animates me. Some vampires believe we no longer have a soul, but I can feel mine.

Power streamed into me. Blood magic. Sex magic. The heat of it flowed into me like a furnace being lit from within.

I jerked at the sharp pinch and stab on my arm, the scent of my own blood in the air. I felt Marco collecting it, followed by a warm, wet finger at my lips. I scented his blood, and opened my mouth to accept it on my tongue.

The magic stretched between us, and my Master said, “I, Marco, take you into my family.”

I gave him the words back, voice rasping with effort, and my soul rejoiced that I was being given the choice. “I, Julian, pledge my fealty and loyalty to you, Marco, Master of the coterie, and I fully accept entrance into the coterie and family as a free man, of my own volition.”

The magic leapt between us. Familiar and utterly changed.

Free man. The words rang in my chest like a bell — and in the same instant, Marco came with a groan, burying himself in the eagle he’d been fucking, and the room was suddenly thick with him. His lust. His magic. His ownership of the moment.

The magic between us didn’t snap into place like a steel shackle this time, as it’d done back when I’d been locked and caged into the coterie as Marco’s slave, shortly after he purchased me.

No, this time, the magic sank into me like a warm blanket — and okay, there were some barbs in the blanket, but they were there to make sure it held on and couldn’t float free. The barbs were comforting.

For about three seconds.

A whoosh of power swept into my body. My eyes flew open and I sucked air into my lungs. I was surfacing from drowning, gasping on pure magic. I’d never felt this kind of rush before. Even with my body weak from silver poisoning, I felt power and magic in every cell of my being.

“Push the weakness out with it,” Marco said, calm as ever. “You’ll be stronger in a few days, but you have enough now to work toward your own healing.”

He sent me the shape of what that would feel like, and I reached for it, following his lead. It worked — the silver pushed from my cells, my muscles, my organs. Not all of it, but enough I felt immediately better.

“You oathed me into your family,” I said. “Not just the coterie.”

It’s another way of saying I’m in his inner circle, usually reserved for the top three or five vampires, along with a few who are especially trusted.

“Of course I did.”

Etta walked in and lifted the limp eagle shifter, still draped over the bed and completely naked, and walked out with him. Someone had walked in with her, and my heart skipped a beat when I realized it was the slayer.

“Ryan,” Marco said, his voice neutral.

The slayer took a long moment to study me before he told Marco, “Just getting a feel for him now that he has access to his own magic and power. He passed the test in every way, and he more than deserves his freedom. No arguments from me on that.”

The slayer walked around the bed, toward Silver, and told her, “I’m Ryan, born to a race of slayers. It’s my job to make sure the humans stay safe from the monsters.” He paused a few seconds, breathing in, and I got the idea he was parsing all the scents.

“Now that Largo is gone,” he continued, “there are no more monsters in this room. If you one day decide to be bitten and turned, it’ll be my job to determine whether you should be allowed to live, based on what you choose to do with all that power.”

“You let Largo live, even though you say he’s a monster?” Silver asked.

“He’s owned by Etta, and she doesn’t allow him to harm the innocent.”

“Julian could never be a monster.”

“ Never is a myth. A fanciful idea.”

“Maybe so, but he’s a kind soul.”

“He was as you say while enslaved by a responsible Master. He was not earlier in his life, when enslaved by a monster. Time will tell who he decides to be once he’s free to decide for himself.”