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Ah, I did know more, after all, and I turned and told Marco and Cora without pain, since I’d snapped the barbs around my brainstem off. “They tried it with shapeshifter skins — those destined for the auction blocks — and the magics seemed to cancel each other out. That’s why they’re going after human skins now. Nonmagical humans are a blank slate for their experiments. If they can perfect it with a human skin, then they’ll try to scale it up to do the same with a shapeshifter skin. No one knows if a vampire will die from an injury that would kill a human while wearing a magicked skin, so the plan is to put one on a lesser vampire at some point, to test it, but with so few skins available, they don’t want to risk destroying one, so they hadn’t tried it yet. Eventually, they’ll run experiments for every possible scenario before those in power try one.”
“As you remember things, you’ll tell me,” Marco told me, and I nodded.
“Of course.”
“Who are you going to give this information to?” Ryan asked Marco.
“Nathan and Aaron will have to know,” Cora said, “but I’ll get a promise from them not to share it until we can figure out another way to explain how we came about the information.”
“I’ll keep it to myself until we figure that out as well,” Ryan said. “I don’t want to do anything to put Etta at risk.”
“I appreciate that,” Marco told him, and I turned in Ryan’s arms and met Marco’s gaze.
“Why are you walking on eggshells?”
“Cora and I need time alone. Take your slayer downstairs so the two of you can get cleaned up. We’ll call a thirty-minute break and then reconvene. Everyone out.”
Marco didn’t call a vote to ask whether Ryan could go downstairs, and no one argued that he shouldn’t be able to go. Before anyone thought it through enough to protest, I took Ryan by the hand and walked him downstairs to my suite.
* * * *
Ryan
Sometimes, sex is a statement of love between two people, but sometimes it’s a celebration of life.
We undressed ourselves, left our bloody clothes in a pile on the bathroom floor, and stepped under the water. Seconds later, I pressed my vampire against the polished marble wall of her shower and sank my dick into her from behind with one swift movement, and she pushed her ass out and moaned in pure, unadulterated need. I responded by fucking her harder and faster, intent on giving us both what we needed. I sensed Etta’s relief she was still alive, an inner celebration that energized her, and she somehow gave me that energy during sex.
Our auras blended long before either of us came, when orgasm was what usually triggered it. Heat infused my body, electricity flowing through every artery and nerve pathway, empowering me. Etta’s energy isn’t death energy, it’s just a different kind of life — the kind capable of beating the grave — and I basked in our combined power, but I didn’t slow even a tiny bit. I could enjoy it just fine while I pounded the fuck out of her and gave us what we both needed.
It was long past time I asked her to bite me and drink me down, but I instinctively knew now was not the time, no matter how badly I wanted to be inside her in every fucking way.
Having my blood in her, powering her, was my new goal in life, but I wasn’t going to jump in before I knew more.
The truth was, the only way to know more was to do it.
But not today. Not when the magic flowing through her was so wild — almost more than she could control, which was likely why so much of it was bleeding over to me.
Which was more than fine, but she didn’t need to drink me down and add to it.
Also, we needed to be far from the coterie the first time it happened. I wasn’t sure why, but it felt important we have physical distance from the other vampires the first time she drank from me.
I didn’t allow myself release until she was on her third monumental orgasm, her legs wrapped around my hips, her spine against the wall, gasps and screams escaping her throat while her nails dug into my shoulders and her inner muscles clenched and gripped my dick, and we came together in a maelstrom of energy and power, pleasure and lust — and love.
Chapter 32
Etta
Christmas came and went. The New Year celebrations came and went. My first Girls’ Night Out came and went, and wow, did I have fun. I’d known I’d made friends in my new city, but it wasn’t until this night that I understood I’m part of the main group of women leaders, and that they’ve all fully accepted me. Quirks and all.
Largo got the hang of keeping my calendar, mostly. Once I’d completed the driving course, Marco insisted I drive myself, rather than utilize my slave, but it was nice having him in the car while I drove us. I used him as a security guard, an adequate assistant, and food.
Also, as a stress reliever. There’s nothing quite like stringing someone up to whip them and drinking down their fear while you hurt them.
I had two slaves, now. Largo and the former Secundo in Atlanta. He and the Master of Atlanta had been planning a coup, to come to Chattanooga and kill Marco and his top people, so we’d gone to Atlanta and killed four of the top five. This vampire appealed to me, so I’d enslaved him and then put him on the housekeeping staff of the Chattanooga coterie house. He’s too powerful for me to risk keeping for decades, but he’d be a convenient sex slave for a few years, until I tired of him. The night before, I’d ordered him to lube Largo’s ass with silver infused oil and then to fuck him. Marco had fed from their lust while I’d fed from their fear, and it had been glorious.
I’d offered to stop fucking my food, but Ryan had told me so long as I only fucked those I fed from, and no one else, he was good with that. Slayers understand how tightly feeding and fucking are to each other for most vampires, so he knows anything I do with another while feeding is apples and oranges to what I have with him.
Ryan isn’t jealous of me fucking others, but he’d had a problem with me going to Atlanta with Marco and taking out the top echelon of the power structure without taking him. He’d understood why we couldn’t take a slayer with us to do it, and yet, I still sensed he was pissed about it.
