Puppet/Master (The Vale Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  The man’s dark hair was close-shaven on both sides and long on top, falling into eyes the color of a cloudy sky. It wasn’t a regulation haircut and Arden couldn’t imagine all that much had changed within a year. He was surprised Lauren would tolerate it. The man’s face was covered in scars, and he had the strangest urge to reach out and touch them. Even stronger was the urge to tear into the human’s neck, but he had learned the punishment for such behavior long ago and didn’t care to relive those harsh lessons of his early second life.

  “As a matter of fact, tonight you were summoned for a different reason,” said Lauren.

  Arden gave her a quizzical look as he slipped into the robe, but he knew the mischief in her eyes meant he wasn’t going to get an answer. Why she bothered trying to joke with him, he didn’t know. Her attempts always fell flat. Then again, maybe that was part of the fun.

  “Come,” she said, taking Arden’s arm. The guard opened the door for them into the vast headquarters of the laboratory in which Arden had spent the vast majority of his life. He was one of Eric’s earliest subjects, but according to the vampire himself, Arden was his “crowning glory.” He might not have been born a vampire, but the transition had given him strength and invulnerability far greater than his natural-born counterparts. All vampires claimed a form of immortality, but a chimera, one who had been mortal once, was more powerful than ten of their kind put together. A stake that could end a natural vampire’s life was nothing more than a nuisance to him. He was a weapon to be treasured, or a plague to be cursed, depending on one’s perspective.

  The other test subjects were not all so fortunate. The process of turning a human into a vampire was fraught with improbability and agony on the rare occasion that it worked at all. Most were condemned to the fate of ghouls--grotesquely disfigured beings caught in a state that could hardly be considered life. It was estimated that they lived as long as vampires and never succumbed to old age, but unlike vampires, they lacked free will. No matter how clever or independent, a ghoul would always ultimately be bound to the will of the vampire who had created him.

  Unfortunately for the denizens of the ghoul race, creating a vampire was an imprecise process that required endless trial and error to achieve the desired results. Only a chimera could safely make the transition past the hellish in-between state in which ghouls lived and into full vampirism. In fact, the only trait ghouls shared with their beguiling counterparts was that both ghouls and chimeras were virtually indestructible. For the one, it was a blessing and the other, a curse.

  The lower floor of the laboratory was far less clinical than the testing and observation rooms above where Arden had spent most of his early life. He’d learned to kill in that tall, gray building and he’d learned to hone his body into a weapon long before he’d become one by blood, not that he remembered any of it. His youth was a vague blur to him, as if it had happened to someone else entirely.

  On the first floor, there were comfortable rooms where Eric’s favorites were kept and tended to. Every person on staff nodded reverently toward him as they passed. It had only been a year, but the floor had undergone some notable cosmetic changes. The halls were wider and the tacky ceiling tiles had been replaced with solid plaster. The names on all the doors were mostly the same, with a few new additions and several familiar ones missing. The guard led the way, his firearm poised against his chest, ready to defend the vampires who had forced him into subjugation.

  He was luckier than most. He wasn’t living on the farms, or being experimented on. Somehow, he seemed to know Arden was looking at him because he glanced over his broad shoulder and the corner of his scarred lip wrinkled just slightly.

  Before Arden could think anything of it, Lauren leaned into him with a coy glimmer in her eyes. “How did you sleep?”

  “Well,” he answered. His voice was a bit hoarse from the dryness in his throat, but that would be quenched soon enough. He knew better than to ask. Lauren knew his every need and like him, she knew her purpose. She existed to ensure that he fulfilled his.

  “Good,” she said, giving his arm an affectionate squeeze. She had been his handler ever since his earliest memories, and while his heart lacked the space for any familial attachment other than Eric, she was the closest thing he’d ever had to a mother. “You’re in for a treat tonight.”

  “Is there that much blood to shed?” he asked dryly.

  She smiled. “There will be enough, but the point of this evening isn’t to work. It’s to show you off.”

  Arden tilted his head, but remained silent. He knew she wanted him to pester her for the answer, but that would only draw it out and the light had him on edge.

  Lauren sighed. “Eric is having a party this evening. The Emperor of Favros will be in attendance, and he’s specifically asked to meet you.”

  It took effort to maintain the same expressionless face he usually wore. Serving Eric was an honor, and Arden lived for it. He longed to quench his master’s rage with the blood of his enemies, to be the dagger plunged into their hearts. Being paraded around a party like a plaything was not his idea of fulfillment, but if it pleased Eric, he had no right to question it. Even if it was for the head of one of the elven nations Arden had spent decades trying to topple.

  “Whatever he wants.”

  “That’s a good boy,” Lauren said, patting his hand proudly. She stopped walking as the guard unlocked a door that seemed deceptively heavy for the luxurious accommodations within. Arden hadn’t spent enough time in it over the years to feel any connection to it as his room. It was just a place he went to recover and have his wounds tended to after missions, and a place to feed.

  There was a bed for reclining, even though true sleep could only be found within his coffin, and a large clawfoot tub by the window overlooking the other buildings many stories down. Eric controlled a city within the larger city of Atros, and his facilities were lacking in nothing.

  Within the room, there were two human men waiting, blinking ports embedded in the left sides of their muscular necks. One was a lithe blond who appeared around the same age Arden had been frozen at for the better part of two decades, even if he had only been awake for a fraction of that time. The other was an equally beautiful yet far more masculine man with full lips and sorrowful brown eyes. Neither was clothed above the waist, their muscular torsos on full display. Arden’s mouth watered at the scent of them. The blood rushing through their veins was so fragrant he could taste it.

  Gifts. Wonderful tokens of appreciation that he would have been eager to tear into under any other circumstances, but tonight, there was something calling his name even louder than the blood that had been engineered to appeal to his kind.

  “Master Eric wants you to be in the best condition for tonight’s party, so rest, feed, and when you’re ready, these two can help you make yourself presentable,” Lauren said with a glimmer in her eyes. “Assuming you don’t go too hard on them.”

  Arden gave her a placid smile. He knew that turning up his nose at gifts from Eric was unthinkable, but the snarky look the human guard had given him had sealed his fate. “They are lovely,” he agreed, his gaze sweeping over the offerings before him. There was fear in their eyes. They knew who and what he was—so much more than the natural-born vampires they were used to serving. Even so, he recognized the lust in the blond’s lilac eyes. He could smell it in the man’s blood. Arden had only ever taken the human offerings up on sexual service when they were the ones who initiated it, and he generally preferred to be the one getting penetrated, but he would be tempted to make an exception for the lusty femme in front of him.

  If the guard’s attitude hadn’t already made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

  “However, I think I’d like to feed from him.”

  Lauren seemed as surprised as the offerings were and she glanced at the guard, then around the room, as if she’d missed someone else. “I’m sorry, who do you mean?”

  “Him,” Arden answered, pointing at the guard. The
guard’s surprise showed in his eyes for a moment, before his mouth stretched into a lopsided smirk. The scars pulling up his left cheek seemed to keep it from ever being quite even.

  “Him?” Lauren echoed in disbelief. Arden didn’t miss the offense in her tone. Proof that she had selected the offerings herself, which made him feel less guilty for turning them down. Of course Eric wouldn’t have time for such things. He had a realm to see to and emperors to court. “What’s wrong with them?”

  “Nothing,” he assured her. “But I’m quite thirsty and I don’t trust myself with such... delicate property.”

  The brunette swallowed audibly. The blond smelled of even stronger lust, casting a forlorn glance in Arden’s direction as Lauren ushered them out of the room.

  “Very well,” she said in the exasperated tone of a mother whose child refused to eat the meal on his plate. “Just see to it that you’re dressed and downstairs by midnight.”

  “Yes, mother,” he said dryly. She shot him a dirty look, but they both knew nothing would come of it. She outranked most of the staff in the facility, but Arden was irreplaceable. The Master Vampire’s right hand.

  Once they were alone, he turned to face the guard, surprised to find the man staring boredly at him, his thick arms folded. They were scarred, too. Scarred and bulging through his uniform sleeves. “So you’re the big gun the head honcho’s always bragging about,” he said smugly, giving Arden a look that was clearly meant to size him up. “Thought you’d be taller.”

  His boldness was as irritating as it was refreshing. That was typically a trait among shifters, but it was obvious this man wasn’t from human farm stock. Maybe he was one of the freelings, escaped humans who’d taken refuge among the fae or found ways to survive in the vast underground cities the long-extinct sprites had abandoned.

  “You don’t get to speak that way about him.” Arden’s voice became rough, and the look in his eyes seemed to dim the spark in the other man’s. When he took a step forward, the guard didn’t flinch. He was brave, Arden would give him that. Foolish, but brave.

  “Didn’t mean to offend your beloved master,” the man said wryly. “I’m new.”

  “I can see that. You’re not the usual type they choose for the guard.”

  He snorted. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  Arden frowned. Definitely a strange one. “I need blood. Do you offer it willingly?”

  His smirk became even more infuriating and he rolled up his sleeve, stretching out his burly arm. “Have at it, kid.”

  Frustration burned deep within the chimera’s core. He rarely interacted with anyone other than his master and his handler. The staff who served him and the humans who fed him were usually submissive to the point of being non-existent. Attitude was new, but as much as this man rubbed against him, it made the scent of his unremarkable blood all the sweeter.

  “I prefer feeding from the neck.”

  The guard’s smug expression fell. “Of course you do.”

  Arden took a step forward. To his credit, the man did not flinch. “Take off your shirt,” he ordered, sneering. “I’d hate to soil that new uniform.”

  The human snorted. He dug a finger into the bud of his necktie, an accessory that looked sorely out of place on a body that was built for battle, not office work. Most of the guards in Eric’s facilities never saw actual combat. The days of bloody warfare between species were long over. Now was the age of prosperity and seething political tensions hidden behind the air of civility. It didn’t bother Arden. He had never been expendable enough for deployment in the war, and the less of it there was, the greater the need would be for assassins who could kill without fanfare or hesitation.

  The guard ripped the loosened tie off his neck and took his time with each button of his shirt. By the time he languidly peeled the thin fabric over his bulging biceps, it became obvious he was enacting a strip tease just to get under his audience’s skin.

  Arden frowned. He didn’t appreciate the knowing glint in the man’s eyes, nor the way his own cock stiffened in response to the display in front of him, as audacious as it was. The bulge in the other man’s pants was just as brazen, and it made his mouth water in a different kind of thirst.

  It had been so long since he’d known the touch of a man. Even longer since he’d known the touch of one like this. Callused fingers biting into his shoulders, strong arms adjusting his deceptively slight body down to the perfect position for penetration. It didn’t matter that Arden was physically stronger than the vampires who ruled him, let alone the human men he most often took to his bed. In those rare moments of intimacy, it meant something to feel fragile. To be the plaything of another, pliable in a lover’s eager embrace.

  This man recognized his lust as if he could read it in his mind, and Arden was grateful for the loose fabric of the robe that concealed the signs in his body. He should have kept the blond. It would have been a good feed, a quick fuck, and far less dangerous.

  “Like what you see?” the human challenged.

  Arden ignored his question and shoved him down onto the bed. The other man’s chest was hard and that brief contact filled Arden’s hands with warmth he had almost forgotten. He hadn’t forgotten how it felt to be pressed up against that heat and the smoothness of skin that bloomed with life and youthful beauty for such a short time. Arden would be young and beautiful forever, thanks to Eric, but even though a flower cast in bronze would bloom forever, it would never have the velvety texture of mortality. The sensuous heat of life beneath the surface, just waiting to be extinguished.

  As mild as it was, the show of strength took the guard by surprise, if only for a moment. He brought himself up on his elbows, the muscles in his thick torso contracting as he met the vampire who laid down beside him. He raised his head in a defiant offering, as if he had better things to do and preferred to get on with it. Even when he was about to be fed from, he refused submission.

  It made him all the more intriguing.

  Arden could take the mystery no longer. He needed to quench his thirst with this man’s blood, and hopefully his curiosity. As he expected, the taste was fair but far from the exquisite flavor of Eric’s farmed blood slaves. He sank his fangs in deep and hoped the presence of fear would add some spice to it. The man’s blood flowed just as steadily. His heart rate didn’t increase in the slightest, even though Arden could feel his body tense up when his fangs went in. They were pressed so close that he could feel the other man’s cock against his stomach. It swelled as a groan rumbled its way through the human’s stubbled throat.

  “Fuck,” he breathed as the vampire fed. Arden froze when he felt a heavy hand settle on his back, but he made no attempt to push him away. The closeness was nice in a strange way. He drank his fill and realized the human was even hardier than he seemed, since he didn’t look remotely affected once Arden was done.

  “That all?” he asked in that smug tone that Arden found at once grating and alluring. “And here I thought you’d be ravenous, what with your reputation and all.”

  “Bloodlust and thirst aren’t the same animal,” Arden said, pushing away from him. His head spun from drinking so much so fast. His stomach was full of warmth, slowly spreading out to the rest of him. He stared up at the ceiling as the man rose from the bed.

  “Kind of disappointing. No offense.”

  Arden draped an arm over his eyes to block out the light and let a half-hearted laugh escape his mouth. “My apologies. Perhaps the next puppet who feeds on you will live up to your expectations.”

  The man’s silence was compelling enough to venture a look. He was staring at Arden with a look of surprise and wariness that would have made far more sense a few moments earlier. “Didn’t realize you knew that term.”

  “I’m well aware of what they call us outside these walls,” Arden said, sitting up to watch the stranger. “‘Chimera’ may be the proper term, but it’s hardly used, is it?”

  The man was silent for a moment before saying, “No.
Guess not.”

  Arden watched him with renewed interest. He knew exactly what he was. As Eric put it, “You are one in a thousand, and among the others of your nature, you are one of a kind.”

  During the war, there had been a boom in the ghoul population and a dramatic reduction of human numbers as a result of vampires and elves alike scrambling to discover and turn as many chimeras as possible to wield for their superior powers of destruction and true immortality. The practice had been forbidden long before Arden was created, but men like Eric made the rules. They weren’t bound to follow them.

  Arden stood, letting the robe fall to the floor. He walked over to the already filled bathtub and dipped his fingers into the water. It was still warm, at least compared to him. As the water rose up to his knees, he looked up and realized he still had an audience. For a moment, the man stood transfixed before he quickly looked away. It was the first remotely reverent act he’d made since they had met, but Arden knew better than to think it was a matter of respect rather than embarrassment that he’d been caught looking.

  He knew the type. Proud humans who believed in the fairytales about the great realm of men that still existed on some distant shore, the sanctuary within the fae lands of Praya. Most had long since accepted their fate and submitted to their rulers, but Arden wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised to discover that this human Eric had turned into a guard had once been part of the resistance. That would certainly explain the scars, not to mention his impressive stature.

  “Care to join me?” Arden asked smugly, sinking into the water until it teased the hardened buds of his nipples. His hand caressed the perfectly smooth flesh of his chest and he watched the other man’s throat bob. The sound of his swallow was only audible from across the room due to the chimera’s heightened hearing, but it made him smile nonetheless.

  “I’m good,” he grunted, standing by as if he was guarding any other post. This time, he made a point not to stare.