Taken by a Vampire (Vampire Queen) - By Joey W. Hill Page 0,48

your clothes back on. We’ll be heading back to the cabin within the next hour.”

6

I’M coming for you. We will go to Hell together.

Alanna woke, heart pounding. Since she didn’t hear the echo of a scream, she’d bitten down on it before it could escape. Even with the blocker, the nightmares still came. The InhServs had mocked her, beaten her when she woke them with the cries. So great was her crime against their purpose, they probably would have done Stephen’s will for him, staked her with metal, if the Council hadn’t forbidden it.

Sitting up, she drew steadying breaths. One . . . in, out. Two . . . in, out.

She hadn’t been asleep long. Through the window of her small guest bedroom, she saw dawn had come, turning the moon into a translucent crescent in a dark gray sky. It would be overcast this morning. When she rose and cracked the window, she could smell the rain coming.

She thought about the night she’d spent with her new Master. Painting with him, eating on the ledge with Niall. The soreness of her bottom after Niall’s punishment. She touched her waist through her thin night rail, sliding over her rib cage, across her abdomen. Though she touched nothing improper, the firm press of her fingers against her skin made her shudder. Her whole body had become an erogenous zone.

She remembered Evan’s gaze on her as she’d removed the shirt, displayed herself to him. The moment he had commanded her to undress, her body had liquefied. Then there was Niall, holding her over his knee, punishing her at the command of their Master. When he’d spanked her, only his hand snarled in her hair kept her from sinking her teeth into the seam of his pants leg. She’d craved ruthless male hands, the pierce of sharp fangs, the thrust of their cocks, pounding into her body, using her, needing her. Wanting her.

The ache in her throat was going to choke her. She’d ruined it. As the climax came upon her, something had invaded her mind, the same thing that invaded her dreams now. Failure. Hopelessness . . . Fear.

Evan hadn’t taken her body yet, had barely touched her. But it made sense. He had a servant for his sexual needs. Her Master had committed crimes against the Council, but that changed nothing about her own status in the vampire world. She wasn’t clean. She was a traitor. For Evan, she was simply an assignment, an intriguing diversion until her fate was determined.

It shouldn’t matter. But she’d woken from Stephen’s torment with the memory of Niall’s and Evan’s hands haunting her. She didn’t know if that one kindness among the nightmares had inflated their importance, but she no longer knew herself. Pleasure on demand was a switch she’d learned to flip on and off, compartmentalized when her Master didn’t need it. It didn’t come unbidden, until now. In this early dawn hour, she was overwhelmed by it.

She remembered Niall pressed against her back, Evan’s damp brush sliding over her flesh. She imagined that brush, coated with paint, following the curves of her body, adding her into the landscape, making her a permanent part of the forest, the mountains.

“Lass? You’re all right?”

Straightening, she looked toward the door where Niall stood, his tall form cloaked in shadows so she couldn’t really see him. But she could feel his heat, even from here. His voice stroked her like soft fur.

“Yes. I’m fine.” Even if she had to stake herself, she wasn’t going to fall apart again like she’d done earlier tonight. “Did I wake you?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

She closed her eyes. She’d woken Evan. There seemed to be no way to avoid being shamed by her weaknesses. At least in her little room in Berlin, she’d been ignored.

Evan could close the connection whenever he wished, so her thoughts wouldn’t disturb him. Why would he care about them anyway, this temporary servant who didn’t really fit in his household? But of course he had to monitor her status in case Stephen came for her.

“I deeply apologize to your Master.” She was already kneeling on the floor, her failsafe response. Even though Evan was not physically present or speaking in her mind, if he’d sent his servant, he was participating in this conversation. “I can’t control the dreams, but Lord Brian gave me some medicine so I can sleep more deeply. I will start taking it.”

“Why aren’t you taking it now?”

When she hesitated, lifted her gaze, she