Damned by Blood

Chapter Fourteen

It was like walking into a dream, but she assumed her role effortlessly, natural dominance wrapping her like a cloak. She stepped closer, so that the toes of her boots threatened his bare feet, sending a little thrill of erotic pleasure through her.

“You say you wish to be tested, Mikhail. How? By pain?”

“Pain? Pain is my friend. It’s pleasure I don’t know anything about.”

She folded one of his hands between hers. His skin was freezing. “You truly desire this?”

“I want it. Yes.” His eyes glittered in the low lights. “I feel like I did when I met my first formal challenge.”

Alya knew that feeling well, how the adrenaline that made the heart pound, the nausea that rose but was soon forgotten, the narrowing of her focus until she could see nothing but her enemy.

He said, “I’m ready.”

Mikhail Faustin was a submissive.

Her whole world had just turned upside down and inside out.

A little dazed, she went to her treasure chest, thinking about how best to challenge him. This first encounter should be more about her learning about his mind rather than him being impressed with her equipment. If he was faking it, or simply confused, she wanted to know that, too.

She bypassed all the whips and paddles, clamps and plugs, choosing only two coils of rope, one white and thick, the other black and slender like the bride rope, and, after some consideration, a black leather half mask, the sort a bandit would wear. But instead of having eyeholes, the leather was molded into the shape of closed eyelids. It was a blindfold.

He stood where she left him, rapt, taking in the rope and mask. She walked slowly, making each movement deliberate and provocative. By the time she stopped in front of him, the air between them buzzed.

She showed him the mask. His jaw clenched in response. Blindfolding threatened him, definitely.

Laying it aside, she uncoiled a length of the white rope. “Take off your trousers.”

He obeyed and stood naked in front of her, semi-erect. She looped the rope around his neck.

“What is that for?”

She put her fingers to his lips. “No questions. You may only speak when spoken to, unless you’re telling me to stop. I have no safe words. If you tell me to stop, it’s over.”

As she spoke, his gaze flicked rapidly from side to side, reading her, memorizing the details of the room, perhaps planning an escape. He’d gone hyper-vigilant. She could almost taste the adrenaline coursing through him. As for his thoughts, he had a tight seal on those––for the moment.

Resisting the impulse to kiss his worries away, she tucked his hair behind his ears and tied the mask at the back of his head. The cord cut into his heavy, silver blond hair. The black leather, buttery as it was, appeared coarse against his alabaster skin. Beneath the mask’s tranquil sleeping eyelids, Mikhail’s lips tightened into a thin line.

Mikhail clamped down on the urge to rip off the mask. He often dreamed of going blind in the middle of a fight, at the worst possible moment. This was no time to be blind, either.

“You’re inconveniently tall.” Her breath stirred the hair at his nape and warmed his skin. She was the tallest woman he knew. The only one he’d not have to stoop to kiss.

Kiss. His lips parted at the thought, his chest swelled. She heard his wish. He heard the echoing desire in her. Using this sonar, he realized they could please one another perfectly. But she didn’t listen to it. She was still afraid to listen.

He was following the spider web path. It led to the truth between them, but it was a hard path to follow. As in his nightmares, he had to fumble along in the dark.

Letting her blindfold him was part of it.

Accepting this truth about himself was part of it.

The hope that lit her face when he made his confession was part of it.

This dungeon version of Alya surprised him. She wasn’t nervous or sarcastic anymore. Instead, she radiated serenity. He’d expected whips and chains, but her hands were gentle and her throaty voice buoyed him in the darkness.

She wrapped his torso in heavy rope. He tried to picture what she was doing. She asked him to raise and lower his arms, tied knots here and there, passed the rope between his legs and over his shoulders. Every so often she slipped her fingers beneath the rope and let them rest against his skin.

He liked the rope’s soft texture, the pressure of it as it tightened, Most of all, he enjoyed Alya’s light, deft touch. His breathing slowed. He forgot to be vigilant.

“Lovely,” she breathed, passing her hands over his shoulders, and then down, outlining her work with her hands. Only his torso was wrapped. She tugged on points across his chest and back, testing their strength. It was a body harness of some sort.

“Put your hands behind your back.” She ran her hands down his arms, straightening them. “Roll your shoulders back. Open your chest. Good.”

Something warm slithered around his elbows.

“It’s your friend, the bride rope,” she said. “You know you can’t escape this one.”

She crisscrossed the rope up and down his arms, pulling his shoulders back until his shoulder blades met. The binding extended from his elbows to his wrists. Again, his body welcomed the process and his mind drifted. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was…comforting. It reminded him of an embrace.

“Mikhail? Are you there?”

Had he been sleeping? He fished around for words, trying to remember how to speak. “I’m here.”

She pushed his chin back with one finger. His head lolled back. Heavy. She drew her hand down his exposed throat. “I like this side of you.”

Next she bound his ankles together.

When she was done, she led him by the harness to a new position about five paces distant, but it took a while to get there, because he was hobbled. On the way he realized he didn’t have the faintest idea where he was in the room. Ordinarily he could orient himself anywhere, but he’d lost all his bearings.

At their destination, she said, “Kneel.”

With his ankles and arms bound, he could not kneel without falling, but he did as she asked, without hesitation. He’d gone too far to turn back. He folded his knees.

Her strong hand caught hold of his harness and lowered him to the ground.

He was beginning to understand this game. She was putting herself on the line, too. Earning his trust. Tilting his head forward, he rested his brow against her belly. After a moment, her hands settled lightly on his head.

At that contact, a brilliant flash of emotion escaped from her, so strong, and so fast, he couldn’t name it. He pricked his ears and listened to her fight to bring her breath under control.

“Alya?” He wasn’t supposed to talk, he knew, but he was worried about her. She ignored his silent query and began to connect the ropes dangling from his wrists to the ones binding his feet.

When she finished, he heard the squeal of a pulley. She snapped something cold to the web of rope covering his sternum. Another screech came from above, and she clipped a second something to his harness at the level of his navel.

What was she going to do? She wasn’t going to hang him, was she?

“Mikhail. Breathe.” Her palm caressed his cheek. “Everything to this point has been prep. This is the test you asked for. Are you ready?”

He nodded.

“Don’t fight it.”

That little piece of advice didn’t make him any less nervous.

The pulleys clicked and strained, and he lifted off the ground, his body rotating until he hung from those two points on his chest. Hung like a piece of meat. Helpless to defend himself.

“Do you trust me?” she’d asked him three nights ago.

And he’d answered, “Do you think I’m crazy?”

He’d gone crazy.

Alya walked around him, testing connections. Everything hurt. Nothing she did helped. This wasn’t good. This was the worst idea he’d ever had. She tightened the rope connecting his hands and feet until they crossed, stretching muscles not accustomed to being stretched.

I’ll snap the ropes around my feet. Maybe I can find the floor. I don’t need my hands…

“Take a deep breath.” Her hand quieted his heaving chest. Another hand cupped the back of his skull, taking the weight off his neck. “Let your head fall back.”

An old memory came to him. His father supporting him in the water, showing him how to float. Trust the water, Mikhail.

He filled his lungs.

“Release your shoulders. Relax your hips.”

Trust the water.

He let go, and nothing hurt. He let go, and he was floating.

Alya dropped to her knees, torn between weeping and praying. Bless Natalia Faustin’s dancer’s genes. She’d never seen anything so beautiful as Mikhail Faustin bound.

Mikhail’s long, lean body, as flexible as it was powerful, hung from the ceiling, bent into a circle. His powerful neck arched back, utterly exposed. On the opposite side of the circle, his erection was rising in perfect counterpoint. Her intricate rope work enhanced and celebrated his every line.

For a moment, when he’d first gone up, she feared she’d lose him, but he’d found his equilibrium. He was a natural.

She didn’t know how long she stared at him, open mouthed, before she remembered what she was doing. He couldn’t stay up there for long.

On hands and knees she crawled over to his head. Though his every line spoke of peace, and she heard no echoes of panic, she checked his pulse. Slow and deep.

To remind him where he was, she circled her fingers behind his ears. A few tears escaped the mask to streak his brow. No doubt he was feeling much, however quietly.

“You’re okay?”

“Mmm.” His lips curved into a smile of heartbreaking beauty. She leaned in and gave him an upside down kiss, relishing the lazy sweetness of his mouth, but not allowing herself to linger there too long.

Her lips traveled up his neck. The blood beat strong under his taut skin. It reminded her that she was hungry. She let him feel that hunger. His languor vanished.

Smiling, she drew a nail along his neck, from the hollow of his jaw to the hollow of his throat, leaving a thin line of blood in her wake. He was officially on notice.

She’d woven the harness so that two rope-work diamonds isolated and outlined his pecs. Since that time, his small, flat nipples had flushed from pale pink to deep cherry red. Beautifully tempting. Securing his torso with her hands, she bit into the firm muscle above his left nipple

Like a designer drug, his blood passed directly into her bloodstream. Her eyes flew wide and she struggled to draw breath. It seemed impossible, but his blood had only grown more powerful since her first feeding.

A thin red rivulet ran down his chest and soaked into the rope. She wiped up the trail with her fingertip and licked it clean. Mmm. Mikhail. She leaned over and opened up the other side of his breast.

This was how she treated feeders—taking them one sip at a time, opening them over and over again until they begged for mercy or passed out. She thought being treated so might bring out his true dominant colors, but on the first bite, he’d only moaned softly. On the second, he actually relaxed into the bite. She knew if she took off his blindfold, she’d find his eyes unfocused and heavy lidded beneath.

It’s really true.

She wanted to remain suspicious, but the joy filling her could not be repressed. It made her giddy, buoyant, and utterly unable to concentrate. He was her mate. As no one else in the world could be. She covered his beautiful body with kisses, as she’d wanted to for so long.

Sensing the change in her, he stirred. His body responded to every stroke of her hand, twisting and turning in the ropes. She traced his ass and cupped his heavy balls. She nipped down the center line of his belly and lapped blood from his navel.

“You won’t come until I tell you. Swear it.”

“Swear it,” he said, his voice low and slurred.

The smell of his arousal, close up, drove her wild. Her pulse throbbed between her legs. She was wet. She imagined grinding herself against his mouth, but it wasn’t enough. She wanted to ravish him, body and blood.

His cock stood fully erect, and as vulnerable as his neck. The broad head was the same rosy red as his nipples, and the veins purest purple. The rest of it was as alabaster as the rest of him. What little body hair he had was the color of burnished silver.

She cupped his shaft in her hands. He gasped, his chest swelling, his thighs tensing. She wrapped her tongue around the head, savoring his salt. His pulse beat powerfully under her fingers, like an invitation. She honed in on the dorsal vein with her tongue, and opened it at the base of his cock.

He cried out and arched high in the ropes, but he didn’t come. His hot blood sprayed against the back of her throat. The storm inside him swept through her. His blood begged to be consumed, at any cost. It took all her strength to back off and close the wound.

Legs wobbling, she made her way to his head. Mikhail was sucking in huge, heaving breaths.

“First I’m going to drink my fill of you,” she whispered in his ear. “Then I’m going to fuck you.”

His lips parted in anticipation.

Her incisors sharpened and she swooped down on his throat. She knew he couldn’t afford it, but her every instinct drove her to tap straight into his heart’s blood.

She mainlined his soul. The cellar, the ropes, all of it faded away. In her mind’s eye they embraced on a high promontory. The world spun around them in fiery colors. He kissed her throat, her mouth, her ear. Her hands coursed over the hard muscles of his back, down his strong flanks. His arms folded around her. Together they were safe. Together they were whole.

Her barriers began to give way.

All that mattered was his need. Her need. Their staggering need to be one.

“Hands.”

“Hands!”

“HANDS!”

Waking into the dungeon, she raised her head, licking her lips clean. Mikhail thrashed against his bonds like a shark in a net.

She understood. He had to hold her. He’d die if he couldn’t. And she’d die if he didn’t.

The pulleys tore from the ceiling just as she willed the bride rope to release his arms.

Mikhail spun in midair and landed on all fours, blind, rope spilling all around him. The next moment she was in his arms. Their mouths met, their kiss deep and searching.

He threw off his mask. She unclipped the lines from his chest. The harness would have to wait. They rolled across the floor.

Her shirt was in the way. Mikhail ripped it off. Yes.

He lapped her aching nipples through the lace of her bra. The lace abraded her tongue. No, his tongue. She smelled her wet skin through his nose. They were trembling, both of them, fevered.

Rolling. No one on top. One boot off, then the next. Trousers. Gone. Mikhail sliding down between her legs. Yes. His broad, strong tongue parting her flesh. She was flooding wet, crying out each time he stroked her.

He loved her sweet salt. She tasted herself. Yes, like that, that. Just like that. Knyaz tongue, devouring her.

His lips closed on her clit. His fingers thrust into her, curving them, teasing her deep nerves until her back bent with the sweetest agony and her heels ground into his back. Mikhail!

She came again, clutching his fingers once, twice, three times while a new surge of wetness spilled over his tongue. He lapped it up, knowing exactly what she wanted, how she wanted it, his brain hardwired to hers.

Her ecstasy coursed through him, driving him up her belly, which he covered with kisses, her breasts, which he adored, her golden breasts, the peaks taut and straining in his mouth. He sucked them deep, used the edges of his teeth to make her moan. Her claws raked his back. Her mouth, hot on his, could never be satisfied.

Tear me to pieces.

He cradled her face, nipped her swollen lips, sucked her tongue, sent a hand down to caress the long lines of her back.

She hooked her leg over his hip and guided his cock to her center. He pressed inside, her hot, slick walls embracing him. Again her sensations blurred with his. He knew what it was like to be filled, stretched. They clung to each other, becoming one exquisitely joined body. Tighter, closer, there, don’t move, never leave…

Alyauskha.

He fingered her face, tracing her high-bridged nose, the arches of her brows. How wonderful to see her soft and open again, just like she’d been so long ago, under the willows.

They didn’t have to move much, not when each touch, each passing sensation reverberated between them. A hitch of the hips, a hand passing over a hip, another slow kiss. No need for more.

But she was so slick, so inviting, after a while he had to move, to strain deeper, to call up those fluttering responses inside her.

She rolled on top of him. Braced her hands on either side of his head and began to fuck him in a slow slide. He ran his hands around her waist, up her spine. She leaned over to kiss him, her black hair a curtain.

He fingered her clit. At his touch, she threw back her head and gave a long, throaty cry. She was so close––but she pushed his hand away.

“Up,” she said, hauling him up by his harness. As he sat up, she wrapped her legs around his hips. He leaned back, finding the perfect angle between them. But her face had turned troubled, and she studied him warily.

Sending out questioning thoughts, he stroked her cheek with his knuckles.

“I’m afraid to let you bite me.”

It cost her to make that confession. He knew how it mortified her to admit any fear at all. All he could do was pull her close. She rested her cheek on his shoulder while he stroked her hair. Their hearts slammed together. His cock pulsed inside her.

They were linked in so many ways, but he couldn’t say exactly what about biting frightened her. When he’d taken her blood at her house, he’d raped her. There was no sugar coating it. But he didn’t think that was the problem now.

This incomplete bond was a curious thing. He knew exactly how she needed to be touched, but had no idea what to say to her. Again he was on that very slender path. He could lose it so easily.

Maybe silence was what she needed, because he hesitated for so long she spoke aloud, her voice muffled and heartbreakingly young. “You’re not going to like what you see.”

“I’ve already tasted you.”

“Not deep. You haven’t seen much at all. You’re going to see everything.”

“I don’t scare easily.” He drew her hair over to one shoulder, baring the side of her neck. Her hands tightened on him. Nuzzling her ear, he murmured, “I promise.”

She made a small, despairing noise—but it wasn’t a no. If she meant no, she’d knee him in the balls. Instead, she hooked her hands through the ropes on his chest and braced herself.

This time he would take her blood the right way. He found her clit again. She questioned him with her eyes. With his free hand he caressed her throat until the questions faded away and her neck swayed under his touch. Her sweet spot was exactly one inch beneath her earlobe.

“I’m not biting.” He sent the assurance as he bent to that vulnerable spot, first tasting it with the tip of his tongue, then lavishing it with tiny nips and sucking kisses. A long shiver passed down her spine. At the same time he increased pressure on her clit, making her pant.

Her pulse beat faster and faster, the sound of it dragging him into insanity. He left the sweet spot, plundered her whole throat.

“Mikhail! What are you––? Oh!”

As she peaked, he sank his nails into her lush ass and held her tight against him, stilling her. She stiffened, breathless, suspended on the brink. He took her throat in his teeth.

“Don’t hate me—”

He broke her flesh and she came, jerking helplessly in his arms, her consciousness shattered, along with all her defenses.

Like a city after a long siege, she opened her gates. He walked in, unarmed.

And inside, all he found was the heart which he already knew as well as his own. There was nothing there that could not be forgiven.

“Don’t you know you’re the other half of my soul?”

“Filthy as I am?”

“Perfect, as you are.” Brave, fierce, strong, resilient, clever, passionate and tender. Yes, tender, beneath it all.

The stories of her life passed into him as he drank, one glimmering image after another. They rushed to fill up all those vacant spaces he’d held open for her all these years.

When he came back to himself, he found they’d fallen on their sides. For the first time in his life, he felt replete.

Alya lay limp in his arms, flushed and tousled and oddly shy. She touched his cheek.

“Mikhail?”

“Hmm?”

The corners of her mouth curled into a wicked smile as she slid off of him. “You can come now.” He’d forgotten his body entirely. “I don’t—” he began, but didn’t finish, because the orgasm was there, waiting, and at her command it hit him like a knockout punch.

“How do you feel?”

He’d stopped twitching, but his eyes still hadn’t focused.

“Deboned,” he croaked.

“And you like it?”

He rolled his head her direction and met her eyes. A slow, satisfied, unspeakably sexy smile spread across his face. He was happy. She wanted to keep him that way. She’d spend all her spare hours contriving ways to make him give her that smile.

He drew her to his chest. She felt safe there, pressed against his heart.

“I underestimated you. I’ve been such a bitch.”

When he didn’t rush to reassure her otherwise, she laughed. Mikhail was no flatterer.

“And what was I? Some asshole threatening you with a rope?” he said. “I’m no good at courting.”

“Courtship? Is that what this has been?”

“Isn’t this how other people do it?”

He was perfectly deadpan. The man did indeed have a sense of humor. Propping herself up on her elbow, she smoothed his hair out of his eyes. “This is for real, isn’t it?”

He caught her hand and kissed the palm. The warm lights in his eyes said believe.

“And the terms you named—you can live with them?”

“I wouldn’t have named them otherwise.”

“But a knyaz is expected to take a wife. To produce heirs.”

“I don’t need that to be happy.” Lazy, he circled her breast with his forefinger. “All I want is you. Exactly as we are now.”

“But your family will demand that we marry—”

“They will be told what they need to know. They’ll support whatever I choose.”

“Easy to say, but I remember your mother.”

Mikhail laughed aloud. He sounded like a consumptive seal. He needed more practice. She added another item to her to-do list.

“What are you going to do with Dominick?” he asked.

“Skin him alive.”

Mikhail grunted his disapproval. There was a definite man crush going on between those two.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she admitted. “Depends on why he did it, and I can’t know that until we get out of here. Do you want to try the door again?”

“I don’t want to go anywhere.”

Alya stretched, a long, luxurious flexing of the spine, trying to remember the last time she felt so good. “We do have a blood bond to complete, I suppose.”

“And I have questions.” He rolled over and picked up the discarded mask. “Questions about these things of yours. How you use them.”

Even after seeing him in bondage, she couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe that he was still curious, that he might want to do it again. “What would you like to know?”

“Well, first I’d like to know why you have fifteen boxes of cling wrap in your cabinet.”

“Oh, my sweet innocent.”