The Cherished One Read online

  “Well,” Dain settled next to her, like he used to when they were kids in the too big chairs, “I still have my bachelor pad. . .”

  “I thought your place in the city was a bachelor pad? Unless there’s something you’re not telling Mom and me?”

  He gave a truly long-suffering sigh. “I meant the one I had before Dad died.”

  That was something Fawna had to think about, and it was a very generous offer from Dain. His place in the forest was exactly that. The family owned a huge amount of property that was absolutely pristine woods, left deliberately untouched. His bachelor pad was built more years ago than anyone in the clan remembered, and it was well hidden. It was nothing like any other abode Fawna had ever known, created to blend into its surroundings and compliment them, rather than rip up and destroy the land around it, like the houses the humans built. As a result, some of it was above ground, some of it was below ground, but all of it was sumptuously appointed, and Fawna was sure that he had kept it equipped with all of the latest in entertainment gear. There was little Dain loved better than electronic gadgets, although she knew that it was not connected to the Internet, because of Dain’s own preferences as well as ancient family bylaws.

  “I’d love to stay there.”

  Both of the older people stared with raised eyebrows at the vehemence of her response, but she refused to explain herself. She did not want to go back to that apartment, full as it was of memories of herself with Dag. Getting away to a place that she had only a few very good, childish memories of had a lot of appeal right about now.

  Fawna gave her brother a longer hug than usual, and he responded in kind, letting her cry on his shoulder a bit. “Thank you. I think it’s just what I need about now.”

  “Any time, baby girl. Any time.”

  She wished he wouldn’t have called her that, in just their father’s tone of voice. It made the tears come just that much faster.

  Dain was, as always, thinking ten steps ahead of everyone else. His pad was perfect for her to recover from her broken heart, yes, but it was also extremely well defended, and, by the time she arrived there, he would have it surrounded by his agents. She would be snug as a bug in a rug for as long as she wanted to be.

  And as long as he could manage to keep her there.

  He adjourned the meeting somewhat abruptly then, eager to send her on her way to what he considered to be an even safer place, where Max was less likely to get at her.

  Her Mom offered to help her with anything she needed, but Fawna still had things there at the enclave the family had used occasionally while she was growing up and referred to as “the haven”. It had been used more often while her father had been a bachelor himself and her mom, of course, had left like some sort of shrine. The only thing she asked her Mother to do for her was to take Cookie and Teo in for a while, which she was only too happy to do.

  She wasn’t going to be seeing anyone, if she could help it – she certainly didn’t feel like it – so she didn’t feel the need to bring anything other than jeans and t shirts, which she had a ton of, although she did end up raiding whatever her mom had left there. Luckily they were about the same size.

  He sent her off in the family limo, with old Jack as the driver. He’d trust anyone or anything with Jack. He knew that man would lay down his life for the family – he’d tried to more than once in his hundred and fifty years.

  Jack left her near the forest opening that would lead her to her haven. He didn’t think she realized just how careful her brother was being with her, that she would be watched the entire way until she closed the big, arched front door behind her, but that was probably better. He’d watched Fawna grow up from just a sprout, and he knew that she wouldn’t have anything good to say about her brother’s overprotective tendencies.

  It was dark, but the sky was clear. One of the nice things she’d inherited from her father - besides her affinity for animals - was the ability to see in very little light. It might as well have been high noon as far as she was concerned. She realized that her brother had probably set his “friends” out along the way to watch for her and make sure she made it to the house, but decided to ignore that fact. The path was overgrown, but she knew the way well enough that she didn’t need a path. High concentrations of the family’s scent drew her to places, and that was the area where the family had originated. The forest fairly reeked of the family, even to a half-breed such as herself.

  Suddenly, she realized that she truly wasn’t alone, and it wasn’t because of her brother’s minions, it was because of another presence. A much more malevolent one.

  Max.

  She recognized who it was just before he slipped his arm through hers and began walking with her. Fawna tried to reclaim her own appendage for the second time that day, with the same amount of success, but he would have none of it, and simply clamped down a little bit harder and she simply couldn’t get it back from him. Still, she wasn’t alarmed, knowing that Dain’s men were all around her.

  “Oh, like him?” Max pointed out a body she refused to look too closely at, lying under a tree they were passing by.

  She stiffened and stopped. “You didn’t kill him, did you?”

  Max moved a little away from her, looking down at her, but didn’t let go. “What do you think?” He already knew what she thought him capable of, and in most cases, she was right. And he wasn’t going to do anything to disabuse her of those notions, for the time being.

  He knew he’d horrified her, and that had been a bit of the point. He knew where she was headed, he could smell it himself. It smelled just like her – like lavender and roses and sunshine and earth. There was no way he could miss it.

  It was a good thing, because she had been so distracted by what he’d shown her that her thoughts were a confused jumble. Max expertly guided the two of them to her family’s lair, as if he’d been there as many times as she had. He’d heard that places like this existed, but he’d never seen one, not that he’d ever doubted their existence for a moment. There were many more things going on around this planet than he would ever be privy to. Of that he was extremely certain.

  But he’d believed the folklore that pitted them against each other; that said that vampires were death on faeries, and he could see why. All of that dark blackness couldn’t be good for such a gossamer creature of light and green as herself.

  It only made him want her that much more. In a matter of three days, he was at least as caught in her web as his old enemy had been. Perhaps having finally settled the score between them, he’d bitten a bit more off than he could chew.

  Which would be somewhat ironic, considering his bent, he had to admit.

  The rest of the trip to the family enclave was conducted in silence. Max could sense that she didn’t want to talk; he could feel how tense and scared she was, and deliberately did nothing to comfort her. Along the way, they saw several other bodies, and each time she shuddered and started.

  When they were finally there, even he didn’t see the entrance to the place, it was that well hidden, and his night vision was better than hers, but he didn’t know what to look for. Fawna had no choice but to let him in.

  She’d spent the entire trip there trying to figure out a way to get to her cell phone, but it was at the bottom of her huge bag, and he was holding the arm that the bag was on, so she had no hope at all of secretly searching for it.

  Once she’d pulled aside the big oak door that was masked in ivy tendrils, he pulled it shut behind them and leaned back against it. “How connected to the outside world is this place? And I’m warning you now, don’t lie to me. I’ll know, and the consequences will be unpleasant.”

  Of course, the first thing in her mind was to lie to him and say that it was very connected, but the truth was that it wasn’t. Dain came here to get away from that kind of thing. Even the video game equipment wasn’t connected to the Internet. Overall, the goal of this place was to keep it as natural as possible, and that included keeping it separate fro
m the rest of the world. Dain had thought that she would be surrounded by his people, and thus safe from the very person that was lazily perusing her in the relative darkness.

  “Your brother is a smart boy, but he’s altogether too young for me, and, frankly, for his position.” Max advanced on Fawna, who took a step back for each of his steps forward, flipping lights on as she went, for what reason she wasn’t quite sure. He didn’t seem angry that she was trying to evade him in the least. He just kept coming. And talking. And it was his words that she was becoming more afraid of than his advance.

  “You’re due a spanking, you know.”

  She almost stopped in her tracks at that. Why would he think that? And what could this man know about that kind of thing anyway? And why would he think that she indulged in it?

  He gave her a chiding look, his chin lowered, head tilted to the side slightly, as if she’d disappointed him somehow. “Come now, Cherie, I’ve tasted your essence – well, one of them, anyway.”

  Fawna refused to follow that thought to its natural conclusion, but her body went there of its own accord, and to her horror, her nethers began to tingle – and she was sure he knew it.

  “I knew all about you, and the games you played with Daggar.”

  Fawna snorted, thinking about all the times she spent bawling over Dag’s lap, or bent over the back of one of their straight-backed dining room chairs. “It was not a game.”

  Since he could see where they were going and she couldn’t, he’d neatly maneuvered her until the back of the huge overstuffed horseshoe shaped couch in the den hit the backs of her knees and she fell onto it automatically. He followed her there, taking her big bag from her before she noticed and commandeering her cell phone, crushing it to bits without much effort.

  Fawna swallowed hard. That had been her last hope for rescue – not that she held out much hope that she had any bars out here, but at least had been something to hang on to. What was she going to do now? She was all alone for Lord knew how long with a vampire that had already bitten her once, and was now threatening to spank her. Dag was nowhere to be found, the men Dain had thought would protect her were dead, and Dain had no idea that she was in danger.

  She was truly on her own.

  “It wasn’t? So you learned from the lessons he taught you?”

  Fawna snorted. “Yes, I did. I thought twice about doing whatever it was that he had spanked me for the next time, believe me.”

  Max was nodding, but it was in that way that she knew that he disbelieved her. “Well, you were in a very bad part of town when I found you this afternoon, and I think that Dag wouldn’t have been any too happy that you were there, even if you were only trying to discern his whereabouts.”

  Fawna bit her lip. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask Max if he knew where Dag was, but she didn’t want to engage with him at all, much less be beholding to him for any information he might have, so she remained silent.

  “No, I don’t know where he is,” he lied smoothly. “And even if I did, I’d hardly tell you.”

  “Stop reading my mind!” As she said it, she realized how futile it was to say that – she always railed against the heroines in novels and movies who did that. What villain wasn’t going to use every possible advantage at his disposal?

  “Very good. That’s exactly right,” he chuckled low, the sound vibrating in places she wished it wouldn’t. “And it’s a very interesting mind. But I’d hardly describe myself as the villain in this picture, but we’ll come back to that. For the moment,” he rose, and extended his hand to her imperiously, “there is the matter of your chastisement.”

  She swallowed hard, realizing she had no choice but to obey him, at least for the moment. When she put her fingers into his hand, they were cold and somewhat clammy. Max knew she was afraid, but she did as she was told, and his estimation of her rose threefold.

  What little there was left of his heart awakened even more than it had when he’d first seen her, when he’d first discovered that Dag had a new love, and just how lovely she was for himself. No histrionics, no begging, no pleading. She simply put her hand in his and let him pull her up.

  Chapter Four

  They weren’t going far, but he felt that it was an important step that she had put her hand into his without a fuss. He simply led her to the back of the couch, which stood well away from the wall. He hadn’t noticed it before, but, in keeping with the natural look and feel of the entire dwelling, the wall looked like it was covered in moss and lichen and it, as well as all of the other greenery in the house, was a wonderful background for her burnished red mass of hair.

  Max arranged her so that she was facing him, watching her carefully the entire time. She was smaller than he was, barely reaching his nipple when they stood together, which was just about right. He couldn’t say that what she wore did much for him, but then most of today’s fashions did little for him. He preferred women to look like women, and as far as he was concerned, they’d all been trying to look like men since the mid sixties. At least they were no longer wearing shoulder pads, as in the eighties. The thought made him shudder. It had been like trying to cozy up to a linebacker.

  Her jeans were worn and butter soft against her skin, and he made short work of them, dropping them to her ankles merely by unbuttoning the top button. Max leaned forward, whispering into her ear, “Someone’s getting a bit thin for her clothes,” and thoroughly enjoying what he imagined was a full body blush that managed to look enchanting on her even though it clashed with her hair.

  Those clear green eyes seemed to dart everywhere instead of settling where he wanted them, on his dark black ones, until his finger tipped her chin so that she had to look at him. Not for long, though. He didn’t want to mesmerize her, but rather hold her attention just enough to dip his eager wick into her soul. But he offered no comfort when he could have. On the contrary, he wanted her to know fear, just as Musette had known fear at Dag’s hands, his immortal enemy, and he refused to admit to himself that she had already become something more – something much more – to him.

  He should have killed her on sight and left her body where he knew Dag would find it, lifeless and cold. He should have stripped her naked and raped her Better yet, he should have taken her to where Dag was and killed her in front of him, as he’d been forced to watch Dag kill Musette.

  But he found he could do none of these things. He was getting soft in his old age. The blood lust that had boiled through his veins hundreds of years ago had cooled, and it was Musette’s loss that had brought that about. He’d had revenge on his mind for so long, biding his time, waiting, watching, forsaking his own life, such as it was to follow Dag’s, that now he had what he’d wanted for so long in his hands, he couldn’t quite bring himself to commit all of the heinous acts he’d practically masturbated over for centuries.

  How could he compound the loss of one guiltless, beautiful soul with another? When had he developed such an annoying thing as a conscience?

  Still, her actions did warrant correction, and he certainly did agree with Dag’s tactics, if he did think he went a bit easy on the girl. She was small, yes, but she was tougher than the Viking had given her credit for.

  Max found himself staring at the tiny mauve scraps of what passed for panties nowadays, an almost smile playing about his lips. Why did they even bother? Those joined her jeans at her feet. He glanced down and was surprised to see that her mons was as nude as a baby’s.

  “Do you shave yourself, or did Dag do it for you?” he asked casually, not thinking that the question would warrant defiance.

  But Fawna was completely indignant. “That’s none of your business!”

  He could, of course, simply read her mind for the answer, but there was no fun in that. He wanted to hear answers from her lips. It was a matter of control – intimidation, yes, but also titillation. His, and hers, he suspected, to some extent.

  Fawna found herself quickly bent over the back of the olive green circular couch, feet
dangling uselessly, nowhere near the floor, her bottom smacked hard and quickly enough that she couldn’t draw a breath until he stopped swatting her, about ten strokes later. His strokes were deliberate and unusual – they seemed to separate her cheeks as they landed, as if he swatted then dragged his hand just a bit, adding insult to injury.

  Max didn’t say a word; refusing to repeat himself. He merely waited, granted not very long. When she didn’t say a thing, he smacked her again, ten times, very hard, admiring his handiwork along the way. He’d forgotten how much he enjoyed disciplining a woman. It had been a very long time. He loved sound of the crack of his flesh against hers, the way her bottom wobbled for just a moment – or longer, depending on the girth of the woman receiving the swat – and, most especially, the scarlet imprint of his hand on her tender flesh, like the almost brand it was.

  He had barely started and she was already near the end of her rope! Fawna was almost unable able to process what he was doing to her, and was in a true panic at the thought that there was definitely more to come. Dear God, she didn’t want to surrender to him so soon. She didn’t want to surrender to him at all, but he was spanking her so hard, damn him! He’d only administered about twelve swats total, and she was already past the point of being able to control her mouth. “All right! All right! Dag did it! He wouldn’t let me go anywhere else to have it done, and I don’t like to do it myself. He did it himself.”

  Fawna had expected that telling him what he wanted to hear would stay his disciplinary hand immediately, but she was – quite literally – very sorely mistaken. He continued delivering solid, crisp, firm slaps to her cringing hiney until he thought she’d learned her lesson. She was long past crying by then and well on to outright bawling, which had been one of his goals. In Max’s considerable experience castigating females, some of them tended not to want to cry, seeing it - as a man would - as a sign of weakness. Fawna was one of those women. She did not want to cry in front of him. She saw it as a weakness in front of her enemy, and she was right to do so.