Chapter Seven

The stairs leading up to my office felt like an agonizing, near-impossible mountain to climb, but we weren't walking. I was taking the steps two at a time and dragging Allan by the hand.

The burning lava that was my blood had shattered my internal thermometer. The countdown on my self restraint had hit zero, and every single step I took sent a violent, throbbing jolt of lightning straight between my thighs. My pussy was warm and dripping wet against my bare skin under the tightly belted trench coat. I was completely consumed by it.

Fortune had really done her job tonight, but it wasn't just that. The connection I'd made with Allan in The Nothing was strengthening by the minute and my own biology was desperate to make the delicium permanent. I couldn't imagine waiting much longer, let alone putting it off for hours. When I'd spoken to Eleanor about this earlier I'd literally been thinking of doing it that way: putting it off for as long as possible, dreading the "chore" I had to complete. I'd had no idea how electric the connection would be or how horny it would make me.

Now I had no misgivings. Now I couldn't wait to have the young man inside me.

"Vivienne, wait! What's happening? Are you okay?" he gasped out, his voice a mix of breathless panic and absolute, helpless confusion.

"Shut up and move, kid," I groaned, the words catching in my throat. I couldn't hide the desperate, raw edge anymore. My nipples were chafing agonizingly against the inside of my heavy coat, hard as stones and screaming for friction. My mind was a runaway train of intrusive, carnal imagery. I kept seeing that massive, formidable cock of his hanging between his legs. I needed to fuck him. I needed it five minutes ago.

*"I've known him since he was a kid,"* I had told Eleanor. *"He's been in love with me ever since I rented my office from his dad..."*

Eleanor hadn't understood the hesitation in sealing the pact with him, hadn't been able to comprehend the dilemma. But I sure had. "Had" as in, past-tense. Now the memories of those words I'd spoken made me sick. I didn't want to think about them, didn't want to even acknowledge them!

*This is for his own good*, I reminded myself.

And, despite all my previous misgivings and rationalizations, it was true. For him to become my delicium, for both his sanity and his life to be saved, we had to seal the pact we'd made in The Nothing. We had to have sex. We had to fuck.

And oh gods how I wanted to save his life right now.

We reached the top landing, and I didn't bother with the keys. I channeled a quick, crude burst of my raw magic, hitting the deadbolt with a telekinetic pop that shattered the wooden molding. I slammed the door shut behind us, twisted the auxiliary lock, and immediately spun Allan around, pinning his broad shoulders against the wood.

The dim, wet crimson pulse of the neon sign from *The Purple Note* across the street sliced through my venetian blinds, bathing the room in a heavy, atmospheric twilight. It was my sanctuary, my home as well as my office.

Right now it was a breeding ground for raw carnality.

*Has to be, has to be done*, I kept reminding myself. We were on a clock. From the moment the pact was made you typically had 24-hours to seal it. We could wait. I couldn't wait.

I didn't give poor Allan a second to think. I threw my silver skull cane to the floor, letting it clatter uselessly away, and ripped my belt free. The trench coat fell open, exposing my completely naked, flushed skin to the cool air of the room. Allan's breath caught, his brown eyes widening to the size of saucers as his gaze traveled down the curve of my waist, the flare of my hips, and the slick, dripping heat between my thighs.

"M-Vivienne..." he stammered, shock in his voice, his entire body trembling as a massive, heavy ridge immediately swelled beneath the denim of his jeans.

"Down. Now," I commanded, my voice dropping into a feral, demanding growl.

I reached past him, grabbed the handle of the old Murphy bed bolted to the wall, and hauled it down with a heavy, metallic squeak. The mattress groaned under our combined weight as I pushed him backward onto it. I climbed on top of him like a hungry lioness, my hands working with a frantic, destructive energy as I tore at the buttons of his flannel shirt. Fabric ripped, buttons scattering across the floorboards like plastic rain.

"This is necessary," I declared to both myself and to him. "We have to do this. You want this, don't you?"

I didn't actually need to ask for his consent. The silver, ethereal leash binding him to me already through the act of delicium made it so he would always obey me. Even if he didn't like it, even if he didn't want to, he would obey.

But I wanted to hear him say it.

"Yuh--yes," he breathed, his hands suddenly on my waist. "God, Vivienne, you don't know how much I..."

"Shuddup," I grumbled, forcing his shirt off as I pressed my lips against his.

The raw texture of his hairless chest against my sensitive breasts made me gasp, a desperate, shuddering sigh tearing from my lips. I unbuckled his belt and forced his heavy denim jeans down his muscular thighs. When he sprang free, my breath completely left me. He was magnificent: thick, heavy, and hot to the touch. It was nearly as long as my forearm, thick as my wrist, and circumcised. I'd never seen such girth on a mundane before and I'd seen my fair share of pornos. My hand looked so tiny as I wrapped it around his massive manhood.

*Definitely not a kid*, I thought.

Allan was vibrating with a primal, masculine energy, now, that made my vision blur. Our connection was intensifying, the leash tightening around his soul and digging into my own.

"Are we... oh god, Vivienne!" he moaned.

I wasn't giving him much of a choice in anything but he wasn't resisting at all. Nor would he. He'd made the pact and, even though he couldn't remember doing it, there would be a part of his very soul eager to complete it, to make it permanent. The ethereal leash I held around his neck was strengthening by the second.

I didn't use protection. I wasn't sure if I even had condoms big enough for him anyway, and I didn't care about the ethics. I didn't care about the consequences. I didn't care about anything anymore except getting him inside me.

I straddled his hips, guiding his thick head to my dripping, hyper-stimulated pussy, and started to sink down on his cock. I groaned as my pussy stretched to accommodate him, and made a high pitched whining sound after his head finally popped inside me.

"Gods!" I screamed, my head snapping back as my walls clamped tight around him. I continued to sink down, carefully but firmly, my hands on his smooth chest to steady myself.

As we connected physically, the psychic feedback loop detonated in my brain. The Nothing tore open between our minds, but it wasn't the cold, catatonic void from before. Now it was a raging, golden wildfire. It was pure emotion. It was bliss and chaos and calamity all at once. Because his soul was half-bound to mine, I didn't just feel my own pleasure. I was hit with a tidal wave of *his* perspective.

I felt his eight years of pure, unadulterated devotion. I saw myself through his eyes: not as a cynical, messy, street-savvy PI who drank too much and probably slept around too much, too. Instead I saw myself as a goddess of copper hair and green eyes, a savior he had loved since he was a twelve-year-old boy sitting on his dad's porch.

Narcissist that I am, seeing myself through his eyes amplified my arousal. I really was perfect, wasn't I? I really was larger than life, beautiful, tough, brilliant...

"Fuck, Allan," I groaned. He was nearly halfway in me and I had to take a short break, allow myself to adjust to his massive size. His glasses had fallen off and I stared down into his grey eyes, breathing heavily, then slowly I began to ride him. I pushed down some more, then pulled myself up, then down again, my pussy's ample lubrication helping me withstand every inch of movement.

Soon I was moving in a frantic, heavy, rhythm-synced grind that sent massive waves of electricity straight to my clitoris. Allan's hands gripped my slim waist, his thumbs digging into my hips as he thrust upward to meet me, his face twisted in a mixture of mind-melting ecstasy and total submission.

"I've... never... done this...," he panted.

For a moment I froze. Of course he was a virgin. My Allan was, after all, socially inept and an introvert. I assume his love for me might have kept him from forming such feelings for others as well. Still, the thought of being his first made me groan.

Gods, this was wrong. But unfortunately for me, wrong sex... taboo sex... dangerous sex... those were all in my wheelhouse. And the realization that I was taking his virginity rocketed up my arousal once again.

"Just... shut up and... take it," I moaned. His cock was almost entirely inside me, finally, and I felt full to bursting. I pulled up, slammed back down, up then down, each downward movement stealing another inch of him inside me, ratcheting up my pleasure to dangerous new levels. I heard a popping sound from somewhere and assumed it was a lightbulb exploding. I heard a groaning sound that was the floorboards contracting. I could hear rattling sounds that were no doubt the windowpanes getting ready to crack and maybe explode.

And then they did explode and a gust of cold wind blew into the room that did nothing to lessen the heat of our joined bodies.

I was nearing my orgasm. I was sure he was, too, and so our pact was nearly complete. Complete and permanent. I groaned at the implications.

"Oh gods, Allan...," I said. "I'm sorry!"

The psychic feedback loop was amplifying every single friction, every slide of flesh against flesh, accelerating us both toward a screaming, soul-binding peak. I was being ridden. I was doing the riding. I was gripping my hips. I was placing my hands on his chest.

The countdown for the delicium was dissolving into a permanent bond. My thighs tingled, my vision swam, and I hung over the absolute precipice of release...

*BOOM.*

The heavy oak door of my office didn't open. It was obliterated into a cloud of splinters and flying iron hinges.

Before the echo of the blast could even fade, two brutal figures rushed the bed. I didn't even have time to scream before cold, iron-hard hands wrapped around my upper arms, violently tearing me off Allan's lap.

"Vivienne!" Allan shrieked, but a second later, a massive male vampire slammed him flat into the mattress, pinning his throat with a knee.

I was thrown brutally to the hardwood floor, landing hard on my side. I scrambled backward, shivering, panting, and drenched in sweat. I was naked, but I didn't care. What I did care about was the abrupt, violent halt of the *delicium* pact. My head throbbed in pain as though it'd been ripped asunder and it sent a wave of physical, magical withdrawal crashing through my nervous system. It felt like my veins were full of boiling acid, my clitoris throbbing in agonizing, unreleased frustration.

My cane was across the room. My.38 revolver was buried under my coat. I was completely defenseless.

Standing over me, holding her blood-stained knuckles with a cruel, amused smirk, was a tall, pale female vampire in a sleek leather duster. She had long blonde hair slicked back with too much gel and a snake tattoo that ran from inside her button-down shirt up to her right temple.

Jesusita. I only knew her by reputation but she was considered quite the psychotic.

"Modesty doesn't suit a witch caught in her heat," she purred, her voice dripping with lethal malice. "Quiet now, Vance. Or Katherine here will pop your head off like a cork."

A third figure stepped through the shattered doorway, and the temperature in the room instantly plummeted.

The vampire Count of the City. Marcus Sterling.

He didn't look like a monster, which made him infinitely more terrifying. He was a compact man, standing around 5'7", but his presence filled the cramped office until the walls felt like they were closing in. He wore an impeccably tailored, dark military-style coat that gave him a distinct, Napoleonic-type profile. His chestnut hair was swept neatly across his high forehead, and his skin was a flawless, translucent alabaster.

But it was his eyes that pinned me to the floor: piercing, cold gray orbs that held the weight of centuries of absolute, undisputed tyranny.

Marcus didn't look at my nudity with lust; he looked at me with the detached, clinical boredom of an emperor examining a minor bureaucratic error. He glanced at the Murphy bed, then down at me.

"A delicate ritual, Miss Vance," Marcus said. His voice was smooth and quiet, yet it rang out like a gunshot in the small room. "A shame it was interrupted. I understand an uncompleted pact can be quite... damaging to the mortal mind."

"Marcus," I choked out, my teeth chattering as I hugged myself, hiding my breasts. "What the fuck is this? You breached a neutral sanctuary!"

"You lost the right to sanctuary the moment you decided to play detective for Eleanor," Jesusita, his lieutenant, barked from the shadows.

Marcus held up a single, pale finger, and Jesusita instantly silenced herself, bowing her head. The Count turned his piercing gray eyes back to me. "It seems your little informant at The Body Shop has an exceptional memory, Miss Vance. Fortune is a delightful girl, if a bit greedy. The moment you walked out of her booth with a prophecy pointing directly to Jasiri Karanja's ebony tower, she called my court."

My heart dropped into my stomach. *Fortune. That beautiful, opportunistic little bitch.*

"Jasiri has been playing a dangerous game," Marcus continued casually, stepping closer until his polished leather boots were inches from my face. "He used that wild Alpha beast to do his bidding, to slaughter Eleanor's guards and steal Julian from her estate before I could get him for myself.

"I require Julian," he said coldly. "Eleanor's thrall has... seen things he shouldn't have. I need him alive or dead, it matters not to me. But Jasiri's pet now guards him behind corporate glass and high-tech security. I cannot march my court into my rival's tower without triggering a spectacle that would shatter the Veil and draw in your Coven."

"I don't... have a... coven," I said through gritted teeth.

He shrugged. "I do not need their interference, is my point." He glanced over at the bed, where Allan lay gasping, his eyes bloodshot, his mind already fracturing from the incomplete ritual.

"But a wild-card, outcast witch working a private investigation?" Marcus smiled, a tiny, cruel curve of his thin lips that showed the tips of his elongated fangs. "You can walk right through his front doors. I'm sure a witch of your reputation can get past his security and find Julian."

"I don't work for you," I spat, though my voice trembled from the physical agony wracking my poor, denied pussy.

"You do now," Marcus murmured. He turned his back to me, gesturing to the massive enforcer pinning Allan. "Take the boy."

"No! Vivienne! Help me!" Allan screamed, struggling wildly as the enforcer dragged him off the bed, effortlessly pinning his arms behind his back. Jesusita stepped forward, casually tossing a heavy woolen coat over Allan's naked, shivering torso to conceal him.

"Allan!" I tried to stand, but the stiletto heel of Katherine's boot slammed down onto my hand, pinning my fingers to the floorboards with a crushing force that made me cry out.

"Let us lay out the terms of our new contract, Miss Vance," Marcus said, his voice remaining chillingly calm as he looked out the venetian blinds toward the eastern horizon. The sky was just beginning to turn a faint, bruising shade of indigo. "The sun will be up in less than two hours. When it is, Jasiri and his elite guard will be dormant, sealed in their sun-blocked havens at the peak of Karanja Industries. You will use that window to infiltrate the tower, locate Julian, and deliver him to my court."

He turned back to look at me, his gray eyes flashing with an ancient, predatory hunger.

"If you succeed in bringing me Eleanor's thrall before midnight, you may have your little pet back. I will allow you to finish your... delightful bonding. If you fail, or if a single whisper of this conversation reaches Eleanor's ears..." Marcus smiled, twisting the knife efficiently, just like Eleanor had earlier. "The boy's mind will completely fracture into catatonic madness from the incomplete pact. And my court will enjoy him as a midnight snack. Do we understand each other, detective?"

I stared up at him, my knuckles white, my body shivering from a toxic mix of unfulfilled arousal, physical pain, and pure, unadulterated fury.

"We understand each other," I whispered through clenched teeth.

"Excellent," Marcus said, adjusting the lapels of his military coat. "Jesusita, secure the asset. Miss Vance... the clock is ticking."

With a synchronized, terrifying swiftness, the Count, Jesusita, Katherine, and the enforcer vanished out the shattered doorway, dragging a gagged, struggling Allan into the darkness.

The door hung open. The room was dead silent, save for the rhythmic hiss of the Detroit rain starting up again outside and the wind blowing through the shattered window. I was left entirely alone, shivering and naked on my office floor, my body burning for a release I couldn't have, as the clock ticked on, and on, and on...

END OF CHAPTER 7