“Hung, drawn, and quartered?” that silky voice asked as it sliced through the air.
Leo looked over and saw that Alasdair had come out of the en suite in a black, buttoned shirt.
“That’s so messy. Especially the drawn-and-quartering part.”
Leo studied the cocksure walk of the male coming his way and heard himself saying, “You get a perverse kind of pleasure out of this, don’t you?”
“Out of?”
“My confusion. My fear. It turns you on, right? What kind of sick fuck are you?”
“Is that a trick question?” Alasdair asked, unhooking the chain. “I’m not a person, Leonidas. I’m vampire. That’s the kind of sick fuck I am.”
Leo struggled to pull away. “I don’t want to be led from here like a dog. Or beamed up out of here,” he rushed out, thinking they were about to do the vanishing act.
“Unfortunately for you, the last option is the only way out of this room. You’re in luck, though, because that’s not how you’ll be leaving the lair itself.” A grimace cross Alasdair’s features. “We’re leaving via the Walk.”
“The Walk?”
“Yes. And you’re going to shut your mouth and do as I say.”
Leo’s eyes narrowed as he asked, “Or you’ll kill me?” He didn’t dare look away from Alasdair.
He grinned manically. “Now you’re starting to get it.” Then he clamped a hand around his wrist, and before Leo could pull it free, they faded out of his prison cell.
IN LESS THAN a second, Alasdair and Leo appeared outside the room they’d just been in. The corridor was empty, as Alasdair had known it would be, and when Leo slumped forward into his arms, he moved them to the sidewall, propping him against the jagged bricks.
It was the night of the Walk, and everyone would be in the designated wing, lining the sides of the passageway, awaiting the showing. This was the one night of the month where they publicly presented their latest yielding, or piece of property, for the rest of the brood to see. It was a place to show off—to one-up each other.
Alasdair inspected Leo, who was still out cold, and realized he didn’t loathe the thought of making an appearance. Usually, he avoided it like the plague, never caring to participate or see what others were indulging in. He much preferred keeping his property to himself. But Leo had to be presented tonight, especially after Isadora had brought him to Vasilios’s attention. No human was to be kept a secret from the brood, and if he didn’t show his hand, many would question why.
He ran his eyes over the light hair covering Leo’s chest, down his toned arm, and to the cuff surrounding his wrist. Fierce hunger growled to life inside him like an animal. He needed to feed, but ever since Leo had appeared, he hadn’t had a taste for anything other than him.
Wanting a better look at the man who’d captured his attention, Alasdair moved in closer. His hair was the same color as Thanos’s. But where Thanos wore his longer, Leo’s was short, and right now, even though it was a mess, the top of his hair sat off to the right of a determined side part.
Alasdair licked his lips as his inspection continued down a slightly crooked nose that led to a thin top lip and fuller bottom. Though he’d once viewed Leo as nothing more than a meal, he was now entertaining all the sinful possibilities of the flesh—ones that would alarm the human but also appeal to his more carnal side.
He wanted answers about this man.
He needed to know about the secrets that coursed through his veins—the ones that could incapacitate him with one taste.
Force, however, was not getting him anywhere. He didn’t think that would be necessary much longer though. He remembered the way Leo had watched him with Vasilios. And now, when he’d had him against the wall.
No…force most certainly won’t be necessary in convincing this man. Not when I can use other means of coercion.
Having decided on his new course of action, Alasdair placed his lips by Leo’s ear and softly instructed, “Open your eyes.” When Leo’s eyelids flickered and opened, he added, “We have someplace to be.”
LEO’S HEAD WAS pounding as his eyes opened and adjusted to the shadows. When Alasdair’s face came into sharp focus, he grimaced. The vampire had done exactly what he’d asked him not to—the vanishing act.
“Does your kind not believe in doors?”
Alasdair looked away from him, studying the empty hallway. “Not in a room where the object is to keep the detainee from escaping.”
“Detainee?” Leo asked, straightening his posture against the wall. “Don’t you mean prisoner?”
When Alasdair returned his attention to him, his lips tipped up at the corners, and Leo could’ve sworn he was smiling at him. Not a sneer or a smug smirk, but a genuine smile.
“It’s the same thing. Isn’t it?”
Somewhat put off by the underlying humor and the curve of his lips, Leo averted his gaze to also glance down the hall. “Where are we?”
“Why, we’re standing in a corridor, Leonidas.”
Leo turned his face back to Alasdair’s, and before he could ask that he be more specific, he said instead, “Why are you being so nice all of a sudden?”
“Nice,” Alasdair said as if the word was completely foreign to him. Then he took a step towards him, and Leo had to suck in a breath to keep their bodies from touching. “I haven’t even begun to be nice to you.”
Leo refused to drop his eyes when Alasdair traced the pad of his index finger along the line of his jaw.
“But you’ll know when I do.”
Leo didn’t trust or understand the sudden change in Alasdair’s demeanor for a second. He’s likely getting ready to snap my neck.
I promise you I am not. However, the idea of biting it is very appealing for several reasons.
The breath Leo had been holding rushed out at the thought of Alasdair putting his mouth on him that way. Then he admonished himself. He should be angry. Enraged, even. Not fucking turned on.
“Get out of my head,” he snapped.
One of Alasdair’s black eyebrows rose, and he lowered his hand. “Consider me gone. Though it should be noted, I know you enjoyed having me in you.”
His choice of words had been deliberate, they had to have been, and Leo refused to acknowledge them as Alasdair backed away.
“Where are we?” he asked again.
“We’re in the east corridor of my lair.”
Leo opened his mouth to ask another question, but before he could speak, he was flattened against the wall, with Alasdair up against him. The finger that had just been tracing his jawline was now pressed to his lips, and Alasdair hissed, “Shh. Someone is coming.”
The eyes pinning him to the wall demanded his obedience, and the finger against his lips started to trace a line back and forth until Leo’s mouth automatically parted and his tongue touched the tip of it. At the simple contact, Alasdair’s eyes seemed to light from within. The green glistened back at him, and when his top lip pulled taut and those wicked fangs of his appeared, Leo’s breath hitched in his throat.
Never had he felt this kind of heat. That fire that scorches skin from another’s touch. Yet as he stood there now, he felt as though his entire body was about to go up in flames.
This man was all the things he shouldn’t want, but as Alasdair continued to stroke his lip, all Leo could think about was him replacing that finger with his mouth.
What would it be like to kiss him? he thought as his eyes moved to the teeth that both fascinated and terrified him. Would he graze them along my skin?