“Do I strike you as the jovial sort?” he asked, taking another step forward. “Now, let’s try this again. Give me your left wrist.”
“Why?”
Instead of answering, Alasdair snatched Leo’s wrist up between cool fingers and shackled it with the iron manacle. As the unyielding metal locked into place, Leo reached for it with his free hand, trying to pry it loose.
“Don’t bother,” Alasdair said and then tugged on the chain attached to the cuff. “There’s no way to break free until I release you.”
“And when will that be?” Leo asked, raising his eyes.
Alasdair shrugged, and the move was so…human that he almost seemed normal. That was until his lip curled up at the side and the razor point of one of his canines became visible, which sent a shudder through Leo’s confused body.
“Whenever I decide.”
“I don’t get it,” Leo muttered, still running his fingers over the metal in a futile attempt to extricate himself. “What do you even want from me?”
Alasdair wound the chain around his hand, and Leo was forced to move with it or stumble. When he was only inches from the vampire, Alasdair whispered, “I’m not quite sure yet. However, as soon as I decide, I will either tell you or you will be dead. For now, you’re coming with me.”
ALASDAIR STRODE ACROSS the room towards the pulley on the opposite wall, dragging Leo behind him. “Pick up the pace, Leonidas. Trust me when I say you won’t like the alternative to walking on your own.”
He glanced over his shoulder in time to see Leo straighten up and start to walk at a normal speed.
“Very good,” he said when they both came to a stop. “You and I are going to go on a little field trip.”
“What?”
“We’re going back to your apartment. I want to know what it is you’re not telling me.”
“I’m not hiding anything. I don’t know how many times I have to say it.”
“You can say it a million times and I still won’t believe you. Stay here,” he instructed, looping one of the chain links over a hook attached to the wall.
On his way to the en suite to change his shirt, Alasdair paused when Leo muttered something under his breath. He then pivoted back around and faded out—only to fade back in directly opposite his human companion.
“What did you just say?” he asked as Leo’s mouth fell open and he backed up to hit the wall.
“N-nothing.”
Alasdair stroked his thumb over Leo’s jugular. “That’s twice now. Let’s not make it three times.”
He thought Leo would cower, but as he looked into his eyes, he saw the pupils…dilate. Vasilios had been right. Although he didn’t want to be, Leo was very much attracted to him. The flushed cheeks, the rush of blood he could hear traveling south, and those heavy, lust-laden eyes. They all gave the human away—and made Alasdair want to fuck him until he could no longer stand.
Yes. He could use this to his advantage
“What’s twice?”
Alasdair flicked his gaze down to the lips asking the question, and when the vein under his thumb throbbed in response, so did Alasdair’s cock.
“That’s twice you have lied to me. Don’t do it a third time. Now. What. Did. You. Say?”
“I-I said,” Leo said, slightly breathless.
Alasdair stroked him again. “You said what?”
“You’re having…I don’t know…some issues when it comes to me. So I said why don’t you ask the suit guy, the one you called Vasilios, to read my mind?”
Disgusted that Leo was right and he was having issues with him, Alasdair abruptly spun away. He’d never come across someone who could best him, and he was more than a little irritated that Leo seemed to have worked that out.
“I am not having issues trusting you. I am having issues with believing for one second you are who you say you are. And do not speak his name. Not ever.”
“You asked—”
“Stop talking,” he thundered and turned back to see that Leo had indeed stopped talking. “You are very brave all of a sudden.”
Leo raised his arm, the chain rattling. “What have I got to lose? That hook up there isn’t for fun and games, I assume.”
Despite himself, Alasdair wanted to smile for the first time in a long while. “Certainly not fun for you, no. Perhaps, for me.” He pointed to the chain and stated, “That is going to attach to me. Not the hook on the ceiling.”
“To you?”
“Yes. As in, I will be holding it.”
“Like…like a leash?”
Alasdair thought about that for a second and then inclined his head in a slight nod. “Yes, if you want to think of it that way.”
He studied the disgust that twisted Leo’s mouth, but that didn’t stop him from talking again.
“You lead people…us…I mean, humans, around on a leash? Like what? A pet? A slave? Some kinky fetish deal where you suck our blood dry and then kill us?”
Alasdair stalked forward until Leo’s ass hit the wall. Then he brushed his lips over the neatly cut hair around the man’s ear.
“I assure you, Leonidas. If I get kinky with anyone, they are more than happy to be chained up, hooked up, or fucked up by me. And if I decide to kill them afterwards, they are so high that they beg me for that release.”
Alasdair flicked his tongue over Leo’s cheek, and when he felt him shiver, he didn’t have to be inside his head to know that it hadn’t been from fear.
“Your kind,” Leo asked, and Alasdair heard his pulse skip. “You kill during sex?”
The question was pitched low, Leo’s voice raspy, and when he replied, “Sometimes…” Leo shifted his head so they were practically nose to nose.
This human was curious in the most unusual ways. Asking questions Alasdair would think would horrify him. But the telltale signs of arousal told him otherwise and had Alasdair fighting every instinct he had to keep his teeth off of him.
He’d always been a master at controlling his inner savage, until now. Of course, when it was of the utmost importance, he was finding the challenge difficult. He needed to move.
Now.
“But—” Leo said, stopping when Alasdair shifted away so fast that the breeze from his departure ruffled his blond hair.
“But?” he prodded when he was several feet away.
Leo blinked and then started again. “But the chain. It can attach to the hook on the roof if you want it to. Can’t it?”
Alasdair backed away from the brave and ever-inquisitive human. “Oh yes, file mou. It most certainly can. And that would be a fun game indeed.”
THAT DOESN’T TELL me much, Leo thought as Alasdair disappeared into the en suite, which left him to stare at the ceiling.
He yanked at the cuff on his wrist again and cursed. His heart was working double time as it tried to pump his blood frenetically through his veins while also racing it down to the rock-solid erection straining against his thin pants.
When Alasdair’s breath had swept over him and he’d started talking about death and sex, God help him, his cock had gotten harder with every fucked-up scenario he’d imagined. Then add in the tongue along his cheek and Leo was left contemplating his own sanity if he thought that sex with this guy, thing—vampire—was worth his life.
He was not going to get out of there alive, and as images of what that hook might be used for crashed into his head, he berated his lust-hazed mind. This is where I’m going to die, he thought, and any desire he’d been feeling disappeared as a fresh wave of nausea tightened his gut.
What if Alasdair decided on a whim to hang him up and feed on him until he was drained? Or what if he hung him up and cut him open chest to sternum like they used to back in England…