Vampire’s Companion
The Angelini, connected
Jory Strong (May 29, 2013)
For over a week Detective Cia Caldwell has been struggling to label the interlude with Terach as a one-night stand. Though he’s the embodiment of temptation, she’s managed to resist his overtures. But the erotic images haunting her dreams and her attraction to him aren’t the only thing she’s battling.
Terrified she won’t be cleared for a return to duty until she sorts out what’s real and what’s not about that night she ended up in Terach’s bed, she goes looking for answers at Fangs, the place where it all began—and finds him with another man.
The depth of her desire to join them in carnal ecstasy sends her fleeing. But running is no escape, not from the man she doesn’t believe is a vampire, not from the blood-slave he’s rescued, and not from the supernatural gift she’s suppressed since childhood.
Her acceptance of the truth could mean the difference between life and death, between love and loss and a lifetime of regret, because she’s what both men need—a vampire’s companion.
Note: This book contains graphic male/male sexual interaction.
Additionally: This story isn’t officially part of The Angelini series because Cia, Terach and Isreal are not Angelini. However, it is set in The Angelini story world and contains brief appearances by characters from the official series stories.
Connected Books: The Angelini
Old magic is returning to a world where vampires and Weres exist—and the Angelini, who always take at least two mates, guard humans against the predators hidden among them. While the stories in The Angelini world can be read as stand-alones, they are best enjoyed in order.
Read an Excerpt
Israel exited the car, waiting for Karen to walk around and join him. They were of equal height, of similar coloring, her hair like his, cascading in black waves to the middle of her back, giving them the appearance of being a matched pair.
He opened the wrought iron gate and they proceeded along a walkway lined with night-blooming flowers. He found their scent cloying, stirring memories of visiting the funeral home as a child when his grandfather died.
The club’s entrance was hidden from the street, with good reason. Two vampires stood on either side of the doorway, fledglings he guessed, possibly being punished given their lack of clothing, or perhaps they found pleasure in being displayed.
A wide, tight cock ring stretched the male guard’s penis, while slim chains tethered to nipple rings and strung taut kept his cock head lifted. It bobbed with Israel’s glance, the hole in its tip glistening like a tear leaking from an eye.
He looked away.
The female at the other side of the door was similarly outfitted, though instead of piercings and cock ring, she wore clamps on her nipples and clit, the thin chains connecting them adorned with weights.
“We’re expected,” Karen said.
As a pair, the vampires opened the doors to reveal an elegant, tiled foyer, its walls decorated with graphically erotic paintings and photographs.
Moans of pleasure escaped into the night air. They were followed by the slap of flesh against flesh.
Inside, the scent of sex replaced the smell of flowers. Israel glanced to the right, halted, turning fully to watch as those who wished to have their activities whet the appetites of the newly arrived, or were merely too lazy or enthralled to venture deeper into the club, had stopped to play.
A male companion gripped the back of a chair. The pendant identifying and protecting him swayed, glinting in the light as he was taken from behind by a man as dark as the companion was white.
Various scenes played out in the room, male and female vampires being serviced with mouths on their genitals while others fed at necks and breasts and at the insides of thighs. But it was the male vampire and his companion who held Israel’s attention and had him fighting against grasping his cock as their faces contorted in ecstasy, the human partner’s semen jetting when his vampire lover came.
Dark hands left pale hips, moving upward and around. The companion’s slick back was pulled against a solid, ebony chest. Vampire lips sought and found tender neck, fangs emerging, piercing.
Israel’s throat closed. Longing shuddered through him. He looked away, not wanting to contemplate unfulfilled dreams, unfulfilled hopes, the unfulfilled life that had become his sentence for ignorance and failure.
Female cries drew his attention. A willowy redhead without either slave bands or companion pendant writhed in the throes of pleasure while a male vampire drank from her femoral artery.
Israel’s cock leaked. Once the sight of a woman’s pleasure wouldn’t have aroused him but now it did.
Vampires—a cure for homosexuality. Who’d have guessed?
His lips kicked up.
Only to turn downward when the woman’s cries became moans. Then the silence of someone who’d moved beyond ecstasy and onto the road leading to death.
Her hands flopped like weak, beached fish struggling to get back to the ocean.
Israel took a step forward.
Karen’s hand gripped his upper arm. Crimson-tipped nails dug into his flesh. “Not your business.”
He jerked his arm free. He still had his humanity. He wouldn’t stand by and watch someone die.
She grabbed him again. The scent of Estelle’s perfume assailed him.
The vampire lifted his head, signaling an end to the feeding. With lithe grace he stood and walked away.
Israel ducked his head to avoid eye contact, only breathing again when the vampire passed and the barest whimper said the human remained alive. Karen’s nails dug into his bare forearm as if she feared he’d delay them further by going to the woman. “Tell someone inside if you must.”
He allowed her to pull him from the foyer, going through a door on the left rather than traveling down a wide hallway that ended at a staircase guarded by vampires far different than the ones at the club’s entrance, though they were all lethal.
A human slave in a minuscule dress was stationed to collect clothing. “There’s a woman in the foyer—”
“I’ll have her seen to.”
It was the best he could do.
He and Karen moved deeper into the club, past couches, loveseats and chairs, all of them occupied by couples or multiples, all of the furniture wide and heavy, all of the furniture sporting openings or rings for tethering, all of it slick with sweat and blood, semen and lubrication.
Music pulsed through the air, beating against his skin and through the soles of his feet, a frenetic dark cadence his heart followed then tried to flee. This wasn’t his scene. This wasn’t where he wanted to be. This was hell garishly masquerading as heaven.
They entered a room that could have been an extravagantly themed nightclub in any one of the casino hotels. Color danced off rounded columns reminiscent of those in Greek and Roman temples. It struck and was reflected in golden collars worn by slaves, many of them naked.
The scent of alcohol and sex and blood permeated air that vibrated with pleasure overlaid onto heady, aphrodisiac-inducing fear.
Life and death could both be had in this place, laced with ecstasy.
He shuddered. Better to be ignored by Estelle than to be part of the entertainment, where the driving beat of song was like vulgar maestro or manic ringmaster in a carnal circus, snuffing out reason and overriding inhibition.
Habit drew his gaze to the bar where the man behind it created a fiery drink for an appreciative audience. The sight caught him in memory, taking him back to the life he’d had before Estelle, before he understood vampires were reality rather than myth, before he became a slave. To Terach and the attraction that had driven him to prove he could handle a relationship with a partner who was also attracted to women—who was more attracted to women than to men.
He and Terach had never been lovers though their conversations had moved well beyond the superficial. Lust had surged between them, full of fiery heat made more so by Terach’s reluctance to act on it.
From the moment Terach had first stepped up to the bar to order a drink, he’d believed they were meant for each other. He’d believed in destiny, fate.
Or I was delusional. Searching for love in a stranger’s eyes.
And look where that had landed him.
Would he go back to ignorance if he could? Knowing as he did now that Terach was a vampire?
Pointless. There’s no going back.
He twisted a nipple bar, embracing the pain. There was only going forward, somehow clinging to his humanity and the hope that ultimately this path would take him to the thing he had always wanted, the committed relationship of marriage in the everyday world that was defined in this one by the title of companion.