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"You know, people often mistakenly confuse Dr. Frankenstein's name with his creation," she said. "Mary Shelley never offered his name."
"No. People tend to fill a void. In the book, Frankenstein called him a variety of things. Devil, wretch. Ogre. Whereas the monster referred to himself as Adam."
There was a stilted note to his voice, the words formed like bold script, each one a stamp on the air between them, no room for misinterpretation. He was looking at her as if he intended to lean in even closer, take a detailed accounting of her every feature.
Her pulse beating high in her throat, she laid her free hand on his chest to ground herself. She was used to touching humans when she desired to do so, and Vardalos had said blood would be provided for her when she landed. So this must be dinner. Something held her back from the automatic assumption, though, despite the growing hunger. His heartbeat was steady and strong beneath her hand. He laid his over it, a quelling gesture.
"I'm Garron Rand," he said. "I'll take you to your room now. I'm in charge of your care while you're here."
Without further explanation, he tucked her hand into his elbow and led her off the docks. A cobbled main road lined with graceful trees and island foliage seemed to lead up to the castle, but he turned off onto a narrower, less manicured path carpeted only with pine needles and marked with round pavers. While she was as graceful as all vampires were, the thin heels of her shoes weren't made for the uneven terrain. He stopped, glanced down.
"Take them off, my lady."
He was soft-spoken about it, but the direct command stirred her. She could break his hand, all five fingers, with nothing but a squeeze of her own, yet the words that sprang to her lips, a demand that he at least say please, died before that look.
He'd addressed her as "my lady". There was an intriguing difference to the way he said it. She couldn't exactly place what that difference was, but it wasn't disrespectful.
Thinking about that, she took off her shoes. He held one of her hands, steadying her, not really necessary, but she accepted the pleasure of absorbing the strength in that grip.
"If you stay on the pavers, nothing should hurt your feet."
Removing her shoes from her grasp, he looped the straps over his wrist before taking her elbow and guiding her onward. The foliage here was close enough to caress her skin, the stiff tickle of ferns, light-as-feather fronds from tall decorative grasses. She could smell the sea air, but mixed with it were interior scents, dark jungles, lush green places, fresh water sources. Stone. Because of the castle, she scented a lot of stone. Castles had dungeons where all sorts of torments could happen. Delicious torments.
She could hear the blood beating in his throat and made herself think of other things. Time to cut through the air of mystery and put this on normal footing. "So you're my personal concierge. You don't look like that's your usual job here."
"You'd be surprised." The side of his mouth quirked, which pulled at the corner of his eye in an intriguing way against the resistance of the bisecting scar. She expected others found it macabre, but it increased the intensity of his focus, the flash in the affected eye. "I started as a bell guy and know most of the jobs here, so I still pitch in wherever needed when we're short-handed or busier than usual."
"This doesn't look like the type of place that Mr. Vardalos allows to be short-handed."
"No, that's true. But staff members occasionally take a vacation."
"What do you do when you're not 'pitching in'?"
"Security, part time bouncer at a couple of the clubs. With my looks and training, that's easy work." He said it matter-of-factly. "The rest of the time I'm one of the staff Masters at Club Sin."
"Oh. So I'm paying for your services as a Dom."
The thrill of confirming what was obvious about him came with an irrational feeling of disappointment. Theodosius ran a resort that excelled at giving people exceptional vacation experiences, commensurate with what she could pay. Rand was probably a fantastic Dom, so she should look forward to seeing how her money would be spent. How he could serve her needs.
"No, my lady." Garron stopped, retaining her hand as he turned toward her. "When Mr. Vardalos told me you were coming, I told him I wanted you, and cashed in ten vacation days. While you're here, I'm off the clock."
She stared up at him. "You--and he--assumed I would accept that?"
"No, my lady. You'll decide what control you relinquish. I'll decide how to handle that."
A cryptic statement, but the hard-to-read expression made her feel like most of the decisions rested in his hands.
"So what exactly have I paid for?"
His lips quirked again. "An expensive resort vacation on the exclusive, invitation-only Eden resort."
SS
She was shockingly beautiful. Garron wasn't surprised Bill and Waylon, the porters, had practically drooled all over themselves. What surprised him was his possessive reaction, how instant it was. But he'd been thinking about her for over a month, hadn't he? Ever since Theodosius had conducted an extensive series of conferences calls with him to discuss the situation, the Master of the Island preferring voice communication to face-to-face meets.
He'd told her the truth, that he'd done pretty much everything from grunt work to upper management jobs here. Whatever Vardalos needed, because the man had saved his soul. For the past few years, Garron had preferred the hands-off anonymity of being a paid Master at Club Sin, but doing extra hours as a bell guy or wherever they needed more hands kept his adaptation skills sharp. As such, filling in had become his primary means of occupying himself during leisure time. He liked getting people's belongings to their room or back to the plane, responding to their questions and needs. Yeah, some of the bigwigs that came here liked to order him around, but far more often, they relied on his guidance, his ability to negotiate things they didn't know how to do, letting him take the lead.
He liked seeing people come here with unfulfilled hopes and dreams, insecurities and personal shit to work out, and leaving with excitement about what lay ahead, a sense of peace because of what they'd finally figured out. He had a front row view of slice-of-life, happily-ever-afters without being in the middle of them himself.
It wasn't that he avoided life. He just hadn't found anything that made him want to be center stage about it again. Until Vardalos had told him about Lady Kaela, a vampire overlord. A female of extraordinary strength and will who hungered to be a submissive in a shadowy world that had zero tolerance for her desires.
During his ten years on Eden, he'd seen a lot of unexplainable things. Well, check
that. It was possible to explain all of it, if you believed in magic, time travel and a plethora of WTF moments. So hearing that vampires were real hadn't been too much of a stretch. But until she got off the plane, he realized he'd still kind of expected her to be one of those Goth, blood-drinking wannabes.
While Waylon and Bill might only have seen a woman so off the charts hot she was almost unreal, he'd seen the waves of preternatural energy vibrating off her. Because of his injuries, he didn't see all that well with his eyes, but she had a sensory impact like a hammer to the chest. It was the one thing his not-for-shit vision gave him, and why he didn't take advantage of glasses or corrective surgeries for his eyes. Being able to detect the deepest needs of the submissives under his command through the vibes they put off more than made up for crappy vision. Yet in addition to those energy signatures--auras, as the crunchy-granola sandal wearers would call them--he also had a knack for intuiting body language, expression, intonation. The other Doms at the club said his gut was like The Force, but having a second sense for the details that were important, a byproduct of his military training, enhanced it.
He'd watched Waylon step forward to help her to the dock. She had the grace and speed to make it there herself, Garron was sure, but as an overlord, she was used to being treated with deference.
As she drew closer to him, she became even more potent. Long golden-red hair, honest-to-God like the thick waves of silk women only had in movies or hair commercials. Pale skin, yes, pale like a vampire, but so unblemished and tempting touch. Christ, the slightest mark he put on her would show like a brand, a thought that made his cock harden. He'd been told her vampire healing abilities would make most marks disappear quickly. That was all the encouragement he'd need to make them reappear, just as fast.
