the ends carved with birds and decorative scrollwork, the flat surfaces below the restraint eyelets worn even smoother by the sweat and struggles of former occupants. Evan ran his fingers over the silk of those spots, felt the contrasting shapes of the carvings.
Glancing over at Niall, he was pleased with the way his servant looked. He wore only a dark gray kilt, and his hair was tied back loosely on his shoulders. Niall had never been tattooed, not during all these years. He was a blank canvas except for Evan’s third mark, the chai symbol on his chest that most in this crowd would take for a brand. They were not entirely wrong.
He remembered the night he’d lain in bed with his servant, his hand on that third mark, imagining the design he’d put over it. He was feeding, inhaling the scent of Niall’s skin as he teased his throat, sipping his rich blood. Niall had followed the movement of the fingers on his chest, figured out the shape.
A dragon, the symbol of the bloody English?
The Scot’s voice had been thick, trying for amusement, but laden with something else as Evan tasted him. Sliding his hand down Niall’s stomach, Evan clasped his cock, working it slow and steady, the way he was taking his nourishment. When he was done, he wanted him hard, because he’d roll him over and make him come into the sheets while Evan released inside him.
When Edward raised the dragon banner, it meant no quarter. No rules. Total domination.
And that’s what ye have over me?
He’d lifted his head, seen his servant’s tawny eyes studying him, his mind rolling that over. Evan’s answer had been to shift on top of him, hands on either side of his face, fingers digging into his hair as he captured his mouth. As he rubbed himself against Niall’s stiff cock, the Scot groaned, kissed him back fiercely. Evan planted his knee so he couldn’t roll them, pushing against his testicles as he plundered the heated mouth, the lashing tongue, biting the delectable mouth.
When he slid back down to press his lips over that spot, Niall’s hand brushed his back, moved up to his nape, fingers digging into his scalp as Evan scraped a fang over him. He was done feeding, but he didn’t turn him yet. He put his head on Niall’s chest, listening to his heart beat. As he was doing that, his servant’s mind stilled, as it often did in such moments. When he rested his large hand between Evan’s shoulder blades, those fingers curved against Evan’s flesh, a need unspoken.
Coming back to the present, Evan focused on the task at hand. He’d ordered Niall to remove his chest hair. He’d planned the design so it wouldn’t be affected negatively when the hair returned, but he liked the unique experience of seeing that broad expanse as a tanned, firm canvas. Beneath the kilt, Niall was just as bare and firm, but Evan wanted him even firmer. He indulged a vision of pushing his servant to his knees, raking up the kilt and taking him right here, before the curious early arrivals.
Niall was leaning against the cross in a seemingly casual pose, but now his head lifted, attention shifting to the vampire.
“Maybe afterward,” Evan murmured.
He was ready to begin. Even though there was a sign posted outside the silk cord, Artist at Work—please keep voices down to help with creative process, it wasn’t necessary. His head would soon enter that space where he would create, tuning everything out. The canvas would be everything. He’d stood in the middle of a plant factory, machinery so loud the employees wore ear protection, and gotten lost in photographing and sketching the workers’ faces, the mysteries they didn’t recognize in themselves as they became one with the machines. He’d turned that scene into a painting where the people were overlaid with a depiction of the creation of the world, the divine machinery that put it all into motion. It had been one of his more complex works.
This was not so complex, but it would be equally absorbing. He’d already developed it in his head, and knew eventually Niall would bear three dragons on his flesh. Evan could see each clear in his mind, how they would relate to one another on his servant’s skin. He wouldn’t do them all at the same time, but every detail of this first, fierce male predator must be perfect. A protector for his most important treasure, the man