Page 157 of Vampire Kings Box Set

Will couldn’t move. Well, part of him could still move. The excited, hard, erect part of him came surging up against his pants while the rest of him remained pinned beneath his master.

“What’s that? Not so much?” Maddox’s voice was affectionately mocking.

“This isn’t fair,” Will groaned.

“No, it’s not,” Maddox agreed without a hint of pity. “You’re powerless against me, and my maker is many times stronger than I am. He would not have to touch you to destroy you.”

Will snorted with derision. “I don’t give a fuck how powerful he is.”

“Such an arrogant little pup,” Maddox purred. “I wonder how I might make you give a fuck?”

This was half-lesson, half-foreplay. Things with Maddox often were. He liked to cast himself in the role of teacher and make his instruction intensely painful, or pleasurable.

Will looked up into the face of the man he loved more than anything, and he let himself submit. At least, he let the part of him that would have put up serious resistance submit. He kept the part that liked to fuck with Maddox. He didn’t want to make things too easy for the vampire or for himself. Will loved the struggle. He didn’t mind if he lost, just as long as he got to fight.

The room spun again as Maddox lifted up slightly and tossed him over on his front, ripping his pants down. The room was well equipped with lube and toys because they’d been doing little more than fucking for weeks on end. It was just as well that Will was sexually limbered up because Maddox did not seem interested in showing mercy of any kind.

“You think yourself the equal to an ancient evil?” Maddox’s hands smoothed down Will’s back to his arms and then pulled them up above his head, pinning them to the sheets.

“I’m better, because I’m new,” Will grunted back, smirking to himself. His ass was bared now, very vulnerable to his master. He was not surprised when he received a hard lash across his cheeks, delivered from Maddox’s ever present and yet hardly ever worn belt. It made him curse into the bedding, but he was getting harder too, his cock rubbing against the expensive, smooth sheets as his hips writhed with the effects of the belt, hot and intense.

“Brat,” Maddox intoned, laying the lash across his ass again. “You taunt me for punishment, but you underestimate how serious this matter is, and the lengths to which I will go to impress that seriousness upon you.”

There was no opportunity to reply. Mad lashed the belt down six more times in devastatingly quick succession, making Will’s cries real. He’d learned how to take a beating under Maddox’s rough tutelage, but sometimes the vampire would push him further than he had ever before, and now was one of those times. Six, followed by another six, followed by another six. Eighteen harsh strokes of the belt caught Will across his ass, and his thighs when he moved too much, unable to keep himself still.

Maddox helped there too, pinning him down on the small of his back, making escape an impossibility. Will had been playing, but Mad wasn’t playing. He was giving full rein to his more sadistic impulses because Will had given him the reason to do so.

Tears leaped to Will’s eyes. He knew better than to beg for mercy. There was no point taunting his master only to beg him for forgiveness. That was not the game. He did not want to cry. He was still hard and throbbing. Still fucking horny. Being with Maddox meant mixing sex and sorrow.

Fortunately for the state of Will’s welted ass, Maddox dropped the belt after another round of three strokes like gunshots. By this stage, Will was gripping the bed and using his hands to pull the rucked sheets against his eyes. Mad knew how to make him sob.

A kinder, gentler monster might have taken mercy on him, but not Maddox. The vampire dropped a kiss on the back of Will’s head as he straddled his whipped rear and thrust himself against the hot little bud of Will’s ass.

“How about now? Can you protect yourself now?” Maddox growled the question in Will’s ear as he surged inside him, the rock-hard girth of his cock making Will’s flesh submit.

Will could moan. Will could come.

Will could not protect himself.

3

“Where’s all the…” Lorien made a vague gesture. “Infrastructure?”

He'd been dragged out of the house by Henry almost as soon as they hung up the phone. There hadn’t been time to take any possessions or make any arrangements. One moment he’d been an acting vampire king along with all the comfort and honor that entailed, and the next he was being driven in what Henry called a pickup truck, because wolves had an unerring instinct toward vehicles with a bed in the back.

Now they were a day or so out of New York, in a forest of all places. Absolute madness. Henry had been occupying himself constructing a very flimsy looking contraption made out of what was perhaps the world’s thinnest fabric. It flapped about in the cold breeze that seemed to blow nonstop in this wet place that smelled of decay.

“What is that?” Lorien finally asked the question while internally cringing at whatever the answer was going to be.

“It's called a tent,” Henry said, having the audacity to sound somewhat proud. “We’ll sleep in here tonight.”

“A vampire in a tent is a ridiculous notion. Even worse than a vampire in crocs. Or a vampire wearing a temporary tattoo. Or a vampire appearing on daytime television.”

Henry gave Lorien a raised brow. “You're not too good for a tent,” he said. “Besides, this is where I’ll be taking shelter. You’re welcome to sit in the truck if that’s more suited to your highness.”

Lorien narrowed his eyes, knowing he probably deserved the ribbing, but not particularly wanting it.

“I didn’t hear you tell Maddox you were the one who caused the monster to wake up,” Henry added, with a significant look at Lorien.