Page 23 of Magick and Lead (Dragons and Aces #2)

KITTY

K itty paced the sparsely furnished living room in the safehouse apartment half a mile from Charlie’s apartment.

She’d called Langford to meet her here, but she was still startled when the door swung open and he was there.

He stepped inside, straightening his tie, and the door banged shut behind him.

He eyed her for a moment, then moved toward her—not the way a man walks, but with the unnatural smoothness of a prowling panther.

When they moved about in the world, Langford and his fellow agents were good at pretending to be normal.

But when he was alone with her, it was always painfully clear that he was not human.

Of course, neither am I anymore, Kitty thought.

But that didn’t diminish how disquieting it always felt being alone with Langford. Her master.

He approached until he was so near that her breasts pressed against the front lapel of his suit through her dress.

“I’ve told you before,” he said in a low, smooth voice. “When you come here, you disrobe.”

The words set her tingling and trembling. She hated what he did to her. And she loved it. Oh, God, did she love it. And she hated herself for loving it.

She knew what would come soon. It loomed over her, filling her with dread and desire in equal measure. But first…

“I have something to tell you,” she said, her voice tremulous. “The one-armed princess of Maethalia. Essaphine. She’s here.”

Edward tilted his head. “That seems unlikely.”

“I’m telling you, I saw her,” Kitty said, her voice rising. “I’d just left Charlie’s apartment and…”

“Are you trying to make me jealous?” Langford cocked an eyebrow, but there was no emotion in his arctic blue eyes.

“Stop. You’re the one who told me to get as close to him as I could.

And I didn’t get that close,” she huffed a sigh.

“ Anyway, I heard a female voice when he closed the door to his apartment, so I went around to the far side of the building, climbed up the wall, and looked in the window. It was her. She had a fake arm in a sling, but I could tell in two seconds that it wasn’t real.

Besides, how many girls run around carrying Maethalian daggers?

And why would anyone else be trying to kill Charlie? ”

“You’ve expressed that you’d like to kill him,” Edward pointed out. “It could be just another of his lovers.”

At those words, Kitty felt her cheeks burn.

The truth was, she didn’t love Charlie. Never had.

And it was also true that she and Langford were…

involved . But that didn’t make the idea of Charlie having another lover any better.

In fact, Edward’s mockery made her feel worse—like a hypocrite as well as a girl who’d been passed over.

“I just thought you might like to know that the Princess of Maethalia is here in Ironberg. Forget I said anything,” she grumbled. But Edward reached out a hand, running it along her jawline and her lips, soothing her. His fingers were like ice cubes. Frigid. Arousing.

“You did the right thing, Kitty, as always. And you’ll be rewarded. I’ll send my watchers. We’ll take it from here.”

Silence hung between them for a moment, a silence so complete she could hear herself breathe. But not Edward. She’d never get used to the fact that he could live without breathing. He’d assured her that one day she, too, would lose the habit. It scared her, the thought of becoming that inhuman.

She saw the tips of his fangs had grown, pressing now against his lower lip as he stared at her. Wanting her. She’d thought it was bad hanging out with men when all they were thinking about was sex. But being with a vampyre who wanted her for her blood? It was so much worse. And so much better.

“What are you going to do to her?” she asked in a small voice. “Capture her? Kill her?”

How would this princess fit into the Intelligence Bureau’s plans?

And would Charlie get caught in the crossfire?

One mantra Langford often repeated was, no whispers, no witnesses .

He had even shown her the vats of acid in an old, abandoned meat-packing factory where the bones of inconvenient people disappeared—after Langford and his crew had drunk them down to raisins, of course.

“Don’t worry, Kitty,” Edward said in a voice hardly more than a whisper. “We will be as gentle with them as I am with you.”

His eyes met hers, then. Hypnotic. Commanding. He instructed her without saying a word, and she knew what she was to do. She slipped one shoulder out of her dress, then the other, and let it fall. Then she pulled her panties down past her hips and let those fall, too.

Edward looked at her from the tips of her painted toenails up to the curls of her hair. Slowly, he leaned in until he was cheek-to-cheek with her. He brought his lips to her ear and slowly inhaled.

“You still smell… alive,” he whispered.

Slowly, very slowly, he traced his lips down along her neck, past her collarbone, down the top of her breast. She was shaking now, trembling like a flower in a breeze.

Her nipples were so hard they ached by the time his lips traced her left areola.

Then, he opened his mouth and brushed it with his fang.

A soft squeal came from the back of her throat.

She felt herself getting wet. Throbbing.

But she didn’t move. Or speak. Or flinch.

She knew her role. She was prey.

The tip of his tongue slipped across her nipple once, making it somehow even harder. Then he took it in his mouth. She felt the tip of the fang press against it, a twinge of pain, a prick of pleasure. Then, he bit.

Pain lanced through her, making her hiss.

She started to pull away, but he caught her around the waist, his arms strong as iron bands, and he pulled her tight against him.

Half a second later, the pain was gone, erased by the vampyre venom, with its radiating warmth and ungodly pleasure.

He was suckling her now, drinking her hard and so fast she became light-headed.

Then he switched to the other breast and, with the snarl of a beast, he bit it, too.

She moaned as he drank, waves of ecstasy rolling over her.

Her knees buckled, and he guided her down onto the wood floor.

Her other breast was still bleeding, and he rubbed it with his hand, making her breast ache with pleasure, smearing her chest and belly with crimson.

Then his hand was slipping down between her legs, rubbing her, making her slick with blood—as if she needed any help.

She was already so wet she could feel it dripping between her thighs, could feel herself throbbing, already teetering on the verge of climax.

He could feel it, too, because he pulled back suddenly, letting her bloody breast slip from his mouth. He rolled her over and pulled up on her hips so that she was on her knees, ass in the air as she gasped for breath.

“Gentle, gentle, please,” she gasped.

He was not gentle. He was inexorable. Entering her, filling her with the force of an avalanche. Cold as stone. Hard as iron. And big. Big as…

Oh, God…

Her mouth fell open in a silent scream as he moved inside her. His hands reached around, touching her breasts, painting her with her own blood, then running down, reaching between her legs to tease her with his bloody fingers.

Her mouth fell open, and a low, animal groan came out of her. She was coming now, each thrust wracking her, lifting her to a higher level of pleasure. The venom coursed through her, making the world swim. Every cell of her body felt alive. Electric.

“Mmm, you’re delicious,” he whispered, plunging himself into her once more, so deep a squeal came from her open mouth.

Then, suddenly, he was out of her.

It was a relief. And a torture.

“Don’t stop,” she begged in a breathy whisper. “Please, master, don’t stop.”

She felt his lips and fangs tracing down her shoulder.

Down her back, down the cheek of her ass, all the way down to the center of her pleasure, still throbbing.

She moved her hips, rubbing herself against his face, unable to stay still with the burning longing that coursed through her.

She felt his lips open up against her. Then, he bit with force, as if he were crunching into an apple.

She screamed, pain stabbing through her like a burning knife.

But the pain was gone in an instant, replaced with… with… Oh God.

She felt his mouth working as he gulped her blood, pulling her pussy to his face as he drank her.

Her legs spasmed, kicking involuntarily.

Tears ran down her face. She screamed. And laughed.

And moaned. And trembled. Still, he kept on drinking her.

And the pleasure made her shake like a person electrocuted as she came and came and came.

The world came back to her slowly. It took effort to open her eyes, and when she did, she saw Edward standing at the mirror, tightening his tie.

Two of his agents stood by the door, looking perfect with their matching black suits and slicked-back hair—each of them watching Kitty like she was a snack they were considering taking a bite of.

She started to sit up and winced. Her breasts stung. Her pussy ached. Her body was sticky with blood.

It was always like this. In the moment, she felt swept up with Edward, lifted in a tidal wave of ecstasy. And afterward, she felt like a fish washed up on shore. She grabbed her discarded dress and draped it across herself, hiding her nakedness from the wolfish eyes of Edward’s thugs.

“Clean yourself up and get back to your office at the Times,” Edward said without looking at her.

“What about Charlie and the princess?” she asked.

“We’ll watch them. And when the time comes, we’ll act.”

He picked up his hat and, without so much as a backward glance at her, he walked toward the door—moving, as always, with that eerie grace. As if he were made not of flesh, but of smoke.

He’s not human. And he made me not human.

The horror of it rose like vomit in her throat.

“I quit,” she said.

He froze in the doorway. Together, he and his two comrades turned back to her. His friends were smiling—a pair of frigid, mad grins with no mirth in their eyes. But Edward looked deadly serious.

“I mean, what would happen?” she said, softening her wording under his predatory stare. “W-what would happen if I said I wanted to quit?”

“Quit.” He said. “Quit the agency?”

She blinked, considering. She hadn’t known exactly what she’d meant when she’d spoken.

“Quit… everything,” she said.

Edward’s friends laughed, a sound as cold as the clanking of iron chains.

His eyes narrowed. “I made you,” he said slowly. “I made you a vampyre, gave you immortality, that you might serve—serve me. Serve the agency. Forever. You are not an employee, Kitty. You are my child. And my slave. And my wife. And my whore. And my soulmate. Just as they are.”

He gestured to the men next to him.

“Bruce,” he said. “Cut your wrist.”

Without hesitation, the man on his right pulled up his sleeve and bit his own wrist. Blood began pouring out, hitting the floor in fat, spattering drops.

“Drink,” he told Kitty.

She started to shake her head.

“DRINK!” he bellowed.

Bruce went to her and offered his wrist. Reluctantly, she put her mouth on it and felt the hot blood thumping across her tongue.

It turned her stomach. But more than that, it filled her with warmth and giddiness, like strong alcohol times a thousand.

All her senses bristled to life. The pain in her breasts and vulva whiffed out like a candle flame.

The deeper she drank, the better she felt, until her body felt illuminated and powerful, her spirits soared, her thoughts became perfectly clear.

She felt more alive than she ever had in her life.

For some reason, she suddenly thought of her grandma. Of going to church with her and lighting the pale blue Sophi candle when she was just a little girl.

I’m not human anymore, she thought. Tears filled her eyes and began to spill down her cheeks.

She was feeling so much. Everything, all at once.

She felt like she was higher and drunker than she’d ever been before.

She felt like she was at her own funeral.

And her own birth. And her own wedding. And?—

“That’s enough,” Edward said.

Bruce pulled his wrist away, though Kitty tried to hold onto it, like a baby loath to release its bottle.

Just as she opened her eyes, Edward slapped her across the face. The sting of it nearly spun her head around, snapped her eyes open. She put one hand to her throbbing cheek as he knelt before her, his face only inches from hers.

“Listen, Kitty. You want to quit? You want to be free? You’ll have to kill me,” he gestured to the men behind him. “…And all my children. Do you think you can do that?”

She shook her head, her hand still pressed to her aching cheek.

“Then learn to enjoy your life,” he said. “Because it’s going to be a very, very long one.”

He watched her for a long moment, making sure his words sunk in. Then he stood, buttoning his suit coat, and left the apartment, his men following in his wake.