Justin stroked her other breast. At once her nipple sprung hard and her little whimper was swallowed in his kiss. Their tongues met, touching and tasting as if sipping each other’s desire. Now his body responded. Hard. Caught up in wild need that all but engulfed him. A need he had to master. He eased his lips off hers, tracing a path of soft kisses down her neck as she muttered need and longing. He licked the site of his earlier tasting, adding to his ache and her pleasure as she arched and sighed in his arms.
If he didn’t leave now, he never would.
He settled her back on the pillow and pulled the covers over her.
“Mom?” Abel help him! He’d been so wrapped in desire he’d forgotten Sam. Seeing Stella slept deeply, Justin left her room and crossed to Sam’s. He was sitting up in bed, his eyes groggy from sleep but his shoulders shaking. His eyes opened wide at seeing Justin.
Poor child, waking to find a vampire in his room in the middle of the night. “Hush,” Justin said, “your mother’s asleep. What’s the matter?”
“I had a bad dream.”
“Never mind. You’ll be all right now.” He made certain by casting a light glamour so Sam slept, and reaching into his thoughts to skim off the memory of Justin Corvus in his bedroom.
Justin left the house as he’d entered.
The moon had gone by the time he arrived back at Kit and Dixie’s. He’d have a few hours of rest and then he was off to face Vlad Tepes. A week earlier, he’d dreaded dealing with the alien vampire who’d stolen Gwyltha’s affection. Now it scarcely mattered.
Five hours later, rested, and fortified by his feeding and memories of Stella’s embrace, Justin took the plane to Chicago. It wasn’t until he landed and was seated in a taxi bound for the rendezvous that he remembered he hadn’t removed the memory of his visit from Stella, and if that wasn’t bad enough, he’d held and loved her, without casting a glamour.
He was letting hormones fog his reason.
Chapter Three
Typical Vlad showmanship. A Goth bar! Justin looked around at the dark-clad, pasty-faced mortals and wanted to laugh. He didn’t. The atmosphere suggested a dearth of amusement. Crossing to the table in the corner where Vlad lounged with a wry smile on his face, Justin sent his senses scanning. That Vlad hadn’t come alone was a given. Justin expected a show of power. He sensed two, no three vampires. Clever. Enough to suggest superiority but not enough to intimidate. As always, Vlad was the consummate tactician.
“Welcome.” It wasn’t quite Bela Lugosi but not a bad try.
“Vlad.” Justin paused at the table and nodded.
Neither offered a hand and Vlad remained seated. Dixie would call it a “testosterone power play.” He missed her. Kit was one lucky vampire. A Saturday afternoon strolling in Schiller Park, or helping out in the little shop, or better still, sitting at Stella’s kitchen table, beat negotiating with Vlad Tepes.
“Be seated.”
Justin took the empty chair, angling it away from the wall. “Interesting choice of venue.”
“Amusing, don’t you think?” A mortal would have missed the eye movement to the left. Justin was long beyond mortal. He sat upright, every sense alerted to the other vampires in the crowded bar. Vlad went on. “Yesterday a young woman offered to bite my neck. Claimed she was a vampire of the clan of Lilith.”
“Did you accept?”
The smile reached both sides of his mouth. “I fear my blood would have overpowered her. If the truth had not overwhelmed.”
“She was a believer.”
Vlad shook his head. “Of a fantasy. These children enjoy their games. We live in the reality.”
“Yes, that’s what we’re here to discuss…”
Justin turned to his right as a silent figure approached. The vampire he’d last seen behind the bar stood at his elbow. Without a word he placed two glasses on the table between them, nodded to Vlad and withdrew.
Vlad pushed one glass towards Justin and took the other. “Gwyltha suggested this would please you, domestic, but drinkable. I value your opinion.”
The mere mention of Gwyltha’s name on Vlad’s lips should have seared like acid. It didn’t. Gwyltha was a hundred-year-old heartbreak that eased with every passing day. Was it distance or the rejuvenating air of the New World? As he raised his glass, Justin caught the bouquet of a fine, vintage port. “To a satisfactory resolution.”
Vlad nodded, lifting his glass in acknowledgement. Justin sipped. Not bad at all. He held the dark liquid in his mouth savoring it on his tongue before swallowing slowly. “Tell Gwyltha I applaud her selection.” By Abel! That was easy enough! It was as if he’d asked Vlad to convey a message to a mutual friend, not the woman he’d stolen. Justin tasted again to focus his thoughts on the business at hand. “So.” He put the glass down on the marble table with a soft clink. “Where shall we draw the line? The Mississippi? You take the lands to the west…”
“And leave my colony here adrift among your people? Impossible!”
“They’d have nothing to fear.” Justin looked Vlad the Impaler straight in the eyes.
“I know that, my friend, but they don’t.” He lifted his hands, palms up. “These New Worlders…insecure, anxious, uncertain, in constant need of reassurance.”
Vlad was mixing with the wrong New Worlders! Those were not the adjectives to describe Stella—or Dixie. “What more reassurance would anyone need than the protection of Vlad Tepes?”
“Certainty of secure territory.”
“My people need the same.”
“Two, one still a fledgling, need very little territory.”
“Who knows how many more there may be in time? Better set boundaries that won’t need revision in the future.”
Vlad raised an eyebrow. “You envisage enlarging your colony.”
“I envisage safe and assured boundaries for both our colonies. With all courtesies of passage and cooperation.” Let old Tepes chew on that one. Justin sipped his port, his excellent port, he amended to himself and watched Vlad.
“Are boundaries necessary?”
“Yes!”
Vlad nodded. “I agree. As you will, I’m certain, concede my need for greater territory to accommodate my larger numbers.”
“We must exclude territory known to be staked by other colonies.”
Vlad grimaced. “Not the best choice of words.”
Julian grinned. A deliberate choice of words. Still, Vlad had survived his staking. “Forgive me…Now to boundaries…”
“I suggest you take Ohio and Indiana.”
“And Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Illinois.” That should give everyone enough stomping ground for centuries.
“Illinois is impossible. I have an established colony here.”
“All four of them?” Justin added the vampire he assumed was lurking outside to follow him. “Set aside Chicago as yours and I’ll allow them permanent safe passage.”
“Impossible.”
“Very well, you keep Illinois. We’ll go east. Add Virginia and West Virginia.” Even better. Access to the sea.
“Agreed.”
“Agreed.”
Vlad