Menace and Memory Read online

  Menace and Memory

  Whitney Hill

  This is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, people, or places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events is purely coincidental.

  MENACE AND MEMORY

  Copyright © 2022 by Whitney Hill

  All rights reserved. This book is for your personal use only. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. Thank you for supporting the author by purchasing this book.

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  ISBN (ebook): 978-1-7376311-5-6

  ISBN (pbook): 978-1-7376311-6-3

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2022902434

  Cover Designer: Pintado (99Designs)

  Editor: Jeni Chappelle (Jeni Chappelle Editorial)

  Content Warnings

  This book contains strong physical violence and gore, blood-drinking, on-page death, swearing, slurs (not toward any real racial or ethnic group/identity), alcohol use, knife violence, threat of sexual violence, mention of the off-page death of a parent, and consensual on-page sex scenes involving bondage, knife play, and consensual non-consent.

  It’s also a steamy vampire romance with a happy ending, so make sure you have something to cool down with afterward!

  For those who have struggled to break free from toxic environments or people, but who are determined to make their own way, rewrite their stories, and not look back.

  Chapter 1: Lya

  I was trapped, and there was no escaping my bonds. I’d tried.

  I could barely hear circling footsteps in the dark, the faint inhale of anticipation. A hand ghosted over my throat, and I gasped, arching and straining against the loops of rope pulling me spread-eagle on the bed.

  I’d been tied up a few times in my life but never erotically…until now.

  Cade was infuriatingly patient, as one apparently was after almost five hundred years. As a vampire he also had much better senses—night vision that pierced the dark of the new moon, a nose that would pick up every scent my body threw off and tell him whether I was panting in arousal or fear.

  At the moment, it was definitely arousal, spurred by anticipation.

  “Don’t you dare keep me waiting,” I snarled.

  A satisfied chuckle from the dark pulled my head in the opposite direction from where I’d thought he was. I was a good bounty hunter. He was an excellent predator. The scales tipped in his favor.

  Unless I used magic.

  I jerked against the ropes again, a distraction while I drew on Aether. Before I could speak a spell or a command, he was on me. His weight pinned my hips, and his hand closed firmly around my throat in warning.

  “Don’t,” he whispered. “Trust me, the punishment will be far worse. Shall I show you?”

  I shivered, groaning as his fangs scraped along my neck and down to my breasts. With a quick lick to my nipple, he was gone.

  “Cade!” I jumped as two fingers rested on my lips and opened my mouth to them, suckling.

  “This is going to be even more fun than I’d imagined. All that impatience and demand and drive, restrained and stretching tighter by the second.” He took his fingers back. “You have no idea how delicious you smell right now.”

  Before I could answer, the fingers that’d been in my mouth slipped between the folds of my lower lips, cool against my heat.

  I bucked, gasping again as he pushed deeper and curled them, slowly at first, then faster, pumping them and touching me nowhere else. His thumb pressed, making me cry out with pleasure and need, almost to climax—and then he was gone.

  “Goddess damn you!”

  His cool breath whispered against my ear. “I told you the punishment would be worse.”

  He kept going, taking me to the edge and pulling back at the critical moment, until I finally gave in and begged him to bite me, first with reluctance, trying to keep hold of my pride, then with increasing desperation. He couldn’t fuck me until he’d bitten me, and all he was doing was teasing me as everything I was slowly unraveled and was replaced by need.

  When I was down to breathless, whispered pleas, he slipped away again. Sulfur and light flared as he lit a match then the candle on the nightstand. Cade gazed at me, his naked body covered in the scars he’d taken as a pirate before he died his first death, his dark hair in complete disarray.

  He looked too hungry to be pleased with his work, his eyes fully black and his expression tight. “Do you still trust me to bite you bound like this?”

  “Yes.” I wouldn’t have agreed to it to begin with if I didn’t, but he was big on consent.

  “May I bite your thigh?”

  “Yes, for the love of the Goddess, bite me anywhere, please, Cade—”

  His tongue flicked over his lips as his gaze roved over me. Not all solidaires were also sex partners, as I was to him. But we both enjoyed a bite and bang, so here I was, girlfriend and buffet.

  “Please,” I whispered once more, fighting the ropes again, even as I met his eyes for the glamour that’d put me under and take the pain of a bite to a whole new level of pleasure.

  A pleased, dangerous smile curled his lips. He cupped my jaw, and everything spiraled into euphoria as his glamour fell over me. Now he moved with more urgency, slipping between my spread legs and kissing the femoral artery of the left one before sinking fang.

  A low, guttural moan slid from me as I finally came. I was vaguely aware when Cade withdrew his fangs and pressed his tongue to the bite to stop the bleeding but definitely aware when he turned his attention to my pussy, lavishing attention on it until enough blood was moving through him to get hard.

  Then he was in me, moving fast and rough as he took me over every edge he’d pulled away from earlier.

  Another lance of pleasure shot through me as he bit again, my neck this time, taking a few more swallows before pulling away and spreading his hand where any movement of mine would press my throat against it.

  “You’re mine,” he whispered.

  I was too busy drowning in glamour and orgasmic pleasure to voice my agreement, but I did agree. Especially if it meant more of this.

  Then his wrist was against my mouth and liquid fire poured into me as he fed me in return. As I pulled on him, he thrust harder into me, grunting as he finished. Heat spread in me above and below, filling me in a way it could only now that I was his solidaire and thus permitted to have his blood.

  I whimpered as he both pulled his arm away and pulled out. The glamour was fading, but his blood still carved through my veins as he untied me. It lit a fiery path through me, searing in a new layer of pleasure. When it ran its course I lay as I was, boneless in the aftermath of it all, as he checked me over, massaged my wrists and ankles, and then gathered me close to him.

  “Are you okay?” he asked in low, soothing tones.

  I jerked my head in a nod as the paralytic effect started wearing off then managed a “Yes,” because I knew if I didn’t manage a verbal he’d worry.

  “Did you enjoy yo
urself?”

  “Yes,” I groaned, as much from the aftershocks of pleasure rippling over me with his ongoing caresses as from pure sexual exhaustion.

  “Good. You’re the most incredible person I’ve ever met. Thank you for trusting me.” He brushed light kisses over my shoulder then leaned to reach for the glass on the nightstand.

  I drank greedily when he held it for me. It was oral rehydration solution, which tasted like dog’s bollocks but would do more for me than plain water after the exertion and blood loss. Drinking from him helped as well, but we knew from experience I’d crash from that high soon and I needed to hydrate before then.

  When I finished the glass, he asked, “More?”

  “No. Hold me.”

  Cade shifted us so that he could fully envelop me and tightened his arms. “With pleasure.”

  I drifted. We had a good life here in St. Augustine. Quiet. Private. Settling into slightly new routines, now that I was his acknowledged solidaire—executor, trusted associate, girlfriend, blood source, and daylight bodyguard all in one. With the role came more protection and status than I’d ever had as a half-elf in Otherside, and for once, I was breathing easy. I had a few new responsibilities, but a weight had been lifted. I knew where I belonged and that someone would have my back. Trusted someone completely for the first time in my life.

  I was weirdly happy…and deep down, I didn’t trust it would last. But for now, things were going well, so I pushed the thought aside.

  With a contented sigh, I snuggled closer to Cade. He made a pleased sound and rolled us to our sides, still curled around me as he stroked my hair.

  “I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about being tied up,” he murmured. “Thank you for humoring me.”

  “Humor’s for comedians. I’m your solidaire.” After eight months together and five in my expanded role, it was still slightly bonkers to me that was the case—typically the role of solidaire was restricted to humans—but he’d asked, and I’d eventually accepted with pleasure that only grew by the night.

  “That doesn’t come with this kind of obligation,” he replied sternly. “You know that, right?”

  “Mm-hmm.” I was too sleepy with satiation and blood loss to argue him. “Don’t worry. I liked it, and I’d happily do it again.”

  That got him to relax. His arms tightened around me, and we dozed a little, as we did every new moon, until the full effects of the glamour wore off and my hunger rose. It’d gotten harder to ignore since I’d started drinking from Cade. All of my hungers had. Food, drink, sex—I seemed to need even more of what life had to offer and experienced it with more intensity.

  It was ironic to me, given vampires were undead, but Cade seemed to have expected it. I had to trust he knew what he was doing, since it was rare for a vampire to take a half-elf as a solidaire given the unpredictability introduced by crossing Aether with glamour.

  My stomach rumbled at the same time I said, “I need to eat.”

  Cade laughed into my hair. “So I hear. In or out?”

  “Out,” I said after a moment’s thought. “The eclipse is making me restless.” As one of the elf-blooded, my magic spiked at new moons. Eclipses took it up another notch. “Besides, we haven’t been seen in a while.”

  “Hmm. True.”

  The air that swept in behind him when he shifted away was cold, but that wasn’t all that made me shiver. “What’s wrong?”

  “Just wondering what the hell Alejandro did with that treasure. I’d expected to see him skulking around by now.” The look on Cade’s face explained the rest: he was still worried the blood witch’s interest in me hadn’t run its course.

  I started to offer the usual placations then paused and tried a different tack. “We weren’t in any shape to hunt him down before, even if you were going to break the deal I’d made with him. And if he comes back, you’ve done everything possible to strengthen me.”

  “I think that’s what I’m most afraid of,” Cade admitted in a whisper barely louder than that made by his clothes as he dressed. “I might have made you into a more tempting target for some.”

  I started to huff a sigh then turned it into getting up and out of bed. He wasn’t wrong, but I’d done well enough on my own for more than thirty years before meeting him.

  Okay, so “well enough” included getting exiled and shot, but that was beside the point.

  “That’s why we’re building a community,” I said instead. “Right?”

  “Of course.” But he didn’t sound completely convinced.

  I let him be in his mood. There really was nothing more to do about it; he was just being overprotective again. Part him and part vampire instinct when a prime blood source was threatened. I was learning to live with it, since it wasn’t worth leaving him over, but it did irk me sometimes.

  Once we were both dressed, I let him drive us over to one of the beachside bar and grill restaurants on A1A. A steak would have done me better, but this place had an amazing coconut shrimp appetizer. A couple of burgers would do just as well for the protein I needed, even if it confused the servers when they caught me eating the food on both my plate and Cade’s.

  Suddenly I wasn’t in the mood to deal with that confusion tonight though, and not just because the eclipse was setting me on edge. “You wanna eat at the beach?”

  He glanced at me to see if I was serious. It wasn’t just that I was contradicting what I’d said earlier about being seen by any of our fellow Othersiders who might be passing through or the annoyance of the eclipse or that it was February and therefore cold. It was more that I’d avoided the beach, especially at night, since being attacked by sirens a few months ago. But I missed it, and it wasn’t like we were going to summon them to shore like we had then.

  “Will you be able to see to eat?” he asked.

  It was a wiser question than he might have asked, and I reached over to squeeze his arm. “I don’t have a high-blood’s night vision, or a vampire’s, but I can manage to find my mouth in the dark.”

  He snorted a laugh. “As you wish, my love.”

  The beach was technically closed at this time of night, but who was going to tell a vampire and a half-elf we couldn’t be there? With the bag of food in hand, Cade let his glamour loose in an undirected calming wave, and I muttered a “don’t see me” spell—carefully, given the eclipse—that would amplify the effects. If anyone was watching from one of the bungalows lining the road down to the public beach access, they’d feel compelled to look the other way and forget what they’d noticed. I hoped.

  Eclipses made things wonky sometimes. Unexpectedly stronger or weaker, sometimes with disastrous results. It was probably for the best that Cade had stopped me earlier.

  I spread the blanket I’d brought from the car, and Cade anchored it against the wind as I stood there, looking out over the dark, crashing waves.

  “Everything okay?” he asked.

  I hugged myself, struck for a moment by memories.

  “Lya?”

  I shuddered and sat down, reaching for one of the black Styrofoam containers of food. “I’m fine. Or I will be. I just need to get used to it again. No time like the present, right?”

  He didn’t answer, and I knew he was probably beating himself up over what’d happened.

  “Cade. Enough.”

  That got me a sharper look. He didn’t like being ordered about. He’d deal with it, but deep down—or maybe not so deep—he liked being in charge. It made him feel safe, and it was why I’d agreed to his hesitant request to explore bondage as a sex thing.

  I leaned against his arm to soften my rebuke.

  He kissed the top of my head and wrapped the second blanket we’d brought around us both. “I’m proud of you. Of all you’re building here to turn your experiences into something good. There’s not enough of that in Otherside.”

  “Tell me about it.” My words were muffled by a mouthful of burger, and my embarrassment made me sound extra
surly. I swallowed and cleared my throat. “Thank you though. Really. I…nobody’s ever told me that.”

  Cade leaned away. I couldn’t quite read his expression in the dark, but his better vision could probably let him see mine. “Never told you what?”

  “That they were proud of me.” I shrugged and munched on a yucca fry. “I was practically a bastard in my mother’s House. My father was barely tolerated, especially after they broke tradition to raise me as a pair rather than sending him away. I was housed, clothed, fed, and when I was old enough, trained alongside the Darkwatch, until they got into the magical part of the training and washed me out of the program.” I sipped my water to get the food past the lump in my throat at the memory of the benign neglect my existence had merited. “Nobody’s ever wanted me, Cade. Not like you. They certainly were never proud of me.”

  He was silent long enough for me to finish my food. As I packed up the trash, he said, “What would you have been if you’d made a different choice? One that let you stay there?”

  I snorted. “Nothing. Nobody. I’d be absolutely nothing other than an embarrassment. Because there’s nothing for people like me. Low-bloods don’t get titles or honors.” My lips twisted at the term. I preferred “half-elf,” but I was speaking as they would. “Or choices, unless we leave and make our own way.”

  “Every time you tell me more about your life, I pray they stay out of it going forward.”

  Something twisted in my chest at the heaviness of his tone. “Why’s that?”

  His gaze weighed on me in the dark. “Because I’m not sure I could resist draining them if they did anything other than beg your forgiveness, and I don’t know if you could find it in your heart to forgive me after that.”

  I leaned over to kiss his cheek and rose. “Then it’s a good thing we’ll never have to find out, hey?”

  Cade didn’t respond, and I turned the conversation back to business as we shook the sand out of the blankets and made our way back to the car. Some things were more important than a meeting that was never going to happen.