Crimson Debt Read online

  Celeste hissed but Corbin was suddenly between us.

  “Step back, Celeste. Let my consort tend to the fledgling.” He gave me the key, which felt oddly heavy in my hand, and shook his head slightly. I wasn’t sure if he was warning me not to fight with Celeste anymore or what but I was too upset to care. With trembling fingers, I unlocked the two sides of the belt and pulled it away from my best friend’s smoking flesh. There were burns on her lily-white skin that made me think of the marks from a barbeque grill. I had to fight my gag reflex as I helped her out of it and threw the hateful thing over the side of the bed with a clatter.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” she whispered, casting a fearful glance over my shoulder to where Roderick watched us expressionlessly. “It’s not safe.”

  “Corbin is helping,” I told her. “He’s got my back so don’t worry about it.”

  She got a worried expression on her face. “What did you have to promise him?”

  “Later for that. Do you have some clothes around here?”

  “By the side of the bed. He…he made me strip them off before he…” She shook her head, unable to continue.

  “You don’t have to say it.” I reached for the clothes but Corbin was already handing them to me. He stood with his back to us, considerately shielding Taylor from both Celeste and Roderick while I got her dressed. Thankfully her flesh was already healing so by the time I got her into her pale pink top she was able to slide on the tan linen skirt that went with it without too much pain.

  “We can really leave?” She looked at me hopefully as I finished getting her dressed.

  I nodded firmly. “We really can. We’re going to get you out of here.”

  I tried to help her off the bed but she nearly fell. “Sorry,” she gasped, clutching her head. “Just a little weak. Light-headed.”

  “How much blood have you lost? You need to feed.” I pushed up my sleeve automatically, offering her my wrist but suddenly Corbin was gripping my arm.

  “No.” His silver-blue eyes were hard, possessive. I glared right back at him.

  “Let me go. There’s nothing sexual about this—Taylor is weak after what that bastard did to her. She needs blood.”

  “Well, she’ll get no more of yours.” Corbin swung Taylor into his arms and carried her around the side of the bed. I followed reluctantly, glaring at his back. Possessive asshole!

  I noticed that Roderick and Celeste were whispering together but I was too angry to pay much attention to the way they were staring at me. Let them look and I didn’t give a damn if Roderick had heard me call him a bastard either. In fact, I hoped he had heard me. All I needed was a tiny excuse to pull the trigger and it would be fine with me if he gave me one.

  We marched out of the house and it wasn’t until we were in Corbin’s Mercedes with Taylor safely stowed in the backseat that Corbin said anything. He drove several blocks in complete silence and then he turned to me, his eyes blazing.

  “Do you have any conception of what you’ve just done?”

  “What do you mean? I didn’t do anything.”

  “You most certainly did. I claimed you as my consort and then you offered to feed another vampire. You made this offer right in front of me as well as the Area Inquisitor and one of my inferiors.”

  “Taylor’s hurt—she needs blood.” I crossed my arms over my chest defensively. “Look, I’m sorry but I wasn’t thinking about your precious ego—I was thinking about my friend’s wellbeing.”

  Corbin gripped the steering wheel and swore fluently in a language I didn’t recognize, though the gist of what he was saying was pretty clear.

  Finally he took a deep breath and looked at me again. “What you have done was tantamount to offering to commit adultery in front of high-ranking witnesses. In Roderick’s mind, I now wear the cuckold’s horns.”

  “The what?” I asked but Corbin only shook his head and continued.

  “Roderick will draw one of two conclusions. Either he will think that I am weak and unable to control my own consort or he will deduce that I was lying and claiming you falsely as my own. Either conclusion puts us in a very, very bad situation.” His voice so quiet I could barely hear it yet so filled with menace it made me shiver.

  “I didn’t know,” I said.

  “You must have had at least some idea. I told you when I was healing your scars.”

  “You never specifically said—”

  “Silence.” Corbin held up a hand and looked away from his driving to glare at me. “We will have to find a way to rectify this situation later. In the meantime, you are not to give Taylor any more of your blood.”

  “How is she supposed to heal if I don’t?” I demanded, throwing a concerned glance over my shoulder. Taylor was huddled in on herself, a small ball of misery in the back seat. “You saw what he did to her,” I said to Corbin in a softer voice. “She needs me.”

  He looked at Taylor in the rearview mirror. “She needs more than you can give her right now. She will be given bagged blood when we get back to the Fang.”

  “But bagged blood won’t keep her alive for long,” I protested. For some reason unless blood is fresh from the vein, it doesn’t have the nutrients and life force vamps need to keep going. Otherwise I wouldn’t have had to play pincushion slash blood bank for my best friend for so long.

  Corbin frowned. “It will suffice until I can find one who owes me enough to pay the Crimson Debt and let her feed from them without the use of glamour.”

  “The Crimson Debt? What’s that?”

  “It is none of your concern,” he growled. “You’re lucky I’m seeing to your friend at all. I should let her starve as part of your punishment but I am not like Celeste—I find no pleasure in cruelty.”

  I was about to thank him, albeit reluctantly, when what he’d said really sank in. “Wait a minute—what punishment?”

  Corbin glanced at me. “The one you have incurred by being disobedient and making the Area Inquisitor suspect our duplicity.”

  “You’re delusional, Corbin—you can’t punish me!”

  “Watch me,” he said evenly. “We made an agreement and though I have honored my end of it, you are failing miserably so far at yours. You have actually weakened my standing with the Inquisitor. Some very serious punishment is definitely in order.”

  “What are you going to do? Put me over your knee?”

  I was joking but Corbin appeared to actually consider the idea. Finally he shook his head. “I fear you’re too stubborn for corporal punishment although it would be well within my rights to spank your lush bottom until you cried tears of contrition.”

  I didn’t like the way this conversation was going at all. “Look, when we agreed to work together I never said anything about letting you punish me if things went wrong.”

  “You didn’t have to. You agreed to act as my consort and as such you tendered me the right to do whatever I wanted with your mind or body.”

  “I did not! Or if I did, I didn’t know it,” I protested. Talk about not reading the fine print! But Corbin was shaking his head.

  “Ignorance of the law is not excuse for breaking it. Make no mistake about it, Addison, you will take your punishment or I am taking your friend right back to Celeste to do with as she chooses.”

  “You bastard!” I wanted to hit him but I knew I wasn’t strong enough to hurt him. “I can’t believe you’d blackmail me into letting you do whatever you want.”

  “Then you do not know me very well, Addison.” We were pulling into the employee parking lot around the back entrance of Under the Fang and he stopped the Mercedes and turned to face me. “From the moment I saw you, I knew I would do anything to have you and I do not care how I achieve my goal. By fair means or foul, you will be mine.”

  “But…but why?” I said desperately. “Look at you, Corbin—you’re rich, you’re powerful—hell, you can give multiple orgasms with your mind. You could have any woman you wanted. Why me?”

  He smiled humorlessly. “May