Cara MIA - By Book One of the Immortyl Revolution - By Denise Verrico Page 0,66
this amusing?”
“When you’ve lived as long as I, you’ll welcome any novelty.”
“I’ll make her love me.”
Gaius laughed again. “Now, there’s another wager I’ll take. Don’t be a fool. Ask Mia about the durability of true love.”
“She has no choice.” Dirk liked that idea. “No choice at all. Oh, that really irks her to hear that. I’ll remind her every night.”
“Enough. I wanted you both to hear this. I’m making you second, to fill the place left when Enrico was killed.”
Dirk was delighted. “The others will hate it!”
“I can depend on your loyalty. The others I’m not so certain of. But don’t think because I’m giving her to you that she won’t be expected to work. I have plans for her and want no interference from you. Understood?”
“Fine.”
“Look at me! I know your lusts, Dirk. She’s not your victim and I won’t have her treated so. So help me, I’ll take her from you.”
“Understood.”
“There Pomegranate Blossom, you have my promise.” Boy, if he knew what I thought of his promises. Gaius kissed me on the cheeks. “I must go meet with Ethan. Dirk, entertain her— show her the labyrinth.”
As soon as Gaius left, Dirk jerked me to him, chortling. “Things will be very different now. It must really irk you that pretty Ethan put you aside, but with me you’ll be better off.”
“You really get off on me hating you.”
“It makes it more interesting. Let’s find a little privacy.”
He dragged me, a kid with a new toy, toward the gardens where a bronze Eros perched over a magnificent marble fountain. His slender, winged form recalled Kurt’s, while Dirk’s simian bulk prompted nothing but revulsion. Psyche never labored as hard as me for Love.
I grimaced. “You’re as happy as a pig in shit, as we say, but it’s not a done deal. Ethan could change his mind.”
“The Northman doesn’t want you in the way. You need a man, not another man’s boy.” He pulled me into a maze of shrubs. “This is much better.” He lowered my bodice, trailing his finger over my breasts. “You know you want it.”
I stared him down. “Not particularly, but if the compensation is worth it I can tolerate it.”
“Arrogant slut.” He wrapped one arm around my waist, his free hand groping me. His tongue forced its way into my mouth, a wet, slippery eel. I pulled back and scratched his face, knowing full well this is what he liked. He grabbed me by the shoulders. I struggled to free myself. “That’s right, put up a fight,” he panted, licking a slimy path down my throat.
I pushed his head away, gasping. “Can’t you wait until they settle terms?”
He whined, “I’ve waited twelve years!”
My voice dropped low in my chest, “It’ll be so much better when we’re in our own bed.”
He moaned aloud and pushed me down on my knees, unzipping his trousers, “Suck me off!”
I pushed, knocking him backwards into the hedge, and took off running through the maze. I had to string him along for a while longer. If I gave in too easily, he’d be suspicious. The long gown tripped me up and the corset I wore kept me from getting a decent breath. I came up on a dead end, panting against the wall of a shed, until he found me.
“I’m tired of games.” He pulled me into the small stone building, opening a trapdoor in the floor and carried me down, shutting the trapdoor and locking it from inside. I broke away and ran into a storeroom filled with crates, adjacent to the stairs. Dirk cornered me and caught me by the shoulders, sinking his teeth into my neck, draining me until I was weak. “You’re not going anywhere yet.” He grabbed a length of chain that he wrapped around my wrists, fastening them to a hook hanging from the wall so my feet barely brushed the ground. He seized my chin, forcing me to look at him. His face was impassive, blank and cold as he slid the zipper of my gown down my back, letting it drop to the floor. He drew a thin bladed knife from his coat, trailing the point over my throat, slicing the skin.
“Dirk, please.”
He licked my blood from the blade. “The Northman has ways of bending minds, Gaius says. Are you a spy?” He grabbed my hair, bending my neck painfully to look up at him. “Answer me!”
“No!”
He bent over my throat again, drawing very hard on the wound, until I was gasping with searing pain.