Stolen: A Vampire Blood Courtesans Romance Read online

  He walked to the coffee table and placed the bag down. “You know, I wasn’t warned about just how possessive you owned courtesans could be. I thought I was the one who owned you, not the other way around.”

  I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not.

  Turned out, he wasn’t.

  “This is going to have to stop if we’re going to get along here,” he continued. “I own you, Dakota, not the other way around. I’m free to do whatever I please, and I don’t expect you to challenge me on that.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “Tough. This is me challenging you, whether you expect it or not. I understand that you’d want to feed from other women—hell, even that you’d want to have sex with other women. What I don’t understand is why you don’t want to come anywhere near me!”

  “Isn’t this better?” he shot back. “You can’t actually have wanted to be used and abused by some vampire who bought you.”

  “Being a courtesan isn’t just my job. It’s part of who I am.”

  He shook his head. “It’s not a job, Dakota. You’re a slave. You know what that is, don’t you?”

  I blinked in surprise. Of course I did. I’d been taught about how English colonies living in America had brought Africans over to work in the sugar colonies or to work for them in their big homes. But I was nothing like that.

  “I’m not a slave,” I said, eventually.

  “Don’t be so blind. What else would you call this… situation?”

  “I’m a courtesan. I’ve been trained my whole life for this job.”

  “It’s not a job if you’re not being paid.”

  “I have been paid. My board and training for the last however many years were my payment.”

  He shook his head at me again, his eyes narrowing slightly. “You’ve been brainwashed. What happened to you is no better than when people are kidnapped and held in someone’s cellar for years, but still don’t run when they get the chance. Your wings have been clipped so closely, you don’t even know how to fly anymore.”

  My mind was spinning. Was this really how people viewed us, as slaves? “You’re wrong. I’m special. You paid a lot of money for me.”

  For the first time, I wondered just how much.

  “Exactly,” he replied. “Money you won’t see a cent of.”

  “I don’t need any money. You provide me with everything I need.”

  He gave a growl of frustration and stalked across the apartment. He slammed his finger on the button to call the elevator car. “I can’t do this anymore. I’ve had enough of this charade. You can leave. You’re free to go.”

  My confusion was deepening by the second. “You want me to just leave?”

  He stepped back, exposing the open car of the elevator behind him. “Yes. I rescind my ownership. You’re a free woman and you can go as you wish.”

  I hesitated. “But… but where would I go?”

  “Go back to your family.”

  “I already told you I have no idea who they are, and even if I did, I’m not sure I’d want to find them. The few memories I have from my childhood don’t exactly put my mom in a flattering light.”

  “Fine. Go to a hotel. I don’t care. Just get out of here.”

  I spread my hands out in front of me, palms upward. “But, as you just pointed out, I don’t even have any money.”

  He growled at me, actually growled like a dog, and pulled his wallet from the back pocket of his pants. He opened it and took out a thick wedge of notes. The next moment he was right in front of me, having moved with his vampire’s speed, stuffing money into my hand.

  “Here, take it. They’re hundreds. It’ll be enough to keep you going, and when you need more, come back and see me.”

  I stared down at the money.

  “So,” I said, my mind in a mess, “if I took this and walked out of the door now, what exactly would I do with my time? Just sit in a strange hotel room on my own, staring at the walls, in a city I don’t even know. What would be the point? I’d rather be a courtesan. I don’t know how to be anything else. I’ll just find another vampire.”

  I’d be a blood courtesan whether Roman owned me or not.

  His eyes darkened. “No, you won’t. I will not have you out there, allowing strange vampires to feed on you and have sex with you, whether they paid you or not.”

  “If you don’t own me anymore, you don’t get to tell me what to do.”

  He snarled at me, exposing his fangs. “Dakota, you are singularly the most frustrating person I have ever met.”

  I gave him a closed lipped smile. “Right back at you. But seriously, what do you think I’m supposed to do? It’s not as though I graduated high school.”

  “The Madam educates you, I know she does.”

  “Yes, in discussions of the arts, and music. In fact, I could even tell you the abbreviation of every element in the periodic table if you asked me to…”

  “See, I said you were smart.”

  “Maybe, but this isn’t exactly practical stuff. How the hell would I explain my training to a potential employer?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. The truth, I guess.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Sure, ’cause no one would judge me for that.”

  He gave a sigh of frustration and gestured to the now cooling bag of food. “Fine, so since we’ve concluded that there is no solution to this situation, are you going to eat your meal?”

  I suppressed a smile. I couldn’t help feeling I had won this little battle.

  As I shoved noodles into my mouth, and he watched me with the amusement he seemed to find at me eating, he asked, “So, what are we going to do for the rest of the night?”

  Chapter Nine

  There was one thing I would have liked to suggest, my continuing virginity still clinging to me like a maiden aunt to a small child, but I thought perhaps I’d pushed him far enough for the moment.

  I swallowed my food, my hand over my mouth as I did so, before I spoke. “I’d like you to take me out.”

  His dark brows lifted. “Out? Where?”

  I shrugged. “How am I supposed to know? I’ve been locked up in a training center for the last six years. Take me somewhere that will take my breath away.”

  He seemed to be holding back a smile. “I’m not sure that’s the sort of thing you should say to a vampire.”

  “I guess not.”

  The thought that he could kill me in a second sent a shiver racing across my skin.

  “Okay, the hours are dwindling. Morning will be here before we know it. If you want me to show you somewhere, I need you to trust me.”

  “Sure,” I said, hoping that I could.

  “I’ll pick you up, so put your arms around my neck and hold on as tight as you can. We’ll move through the city faster than you’ve ever experienced, but don’t let go and don’t struggle.”

  I didn’t even get the chance to nod before I found myself scooped up in his arms in a cradle hold, my arms around his neck. He paused briefly at the elevator, and held me, with me looking into his face in surprised pleasure, until the doors opened again. If anyone had seen the private elevator doors opening, they wouldn’t have seen who exited. Roman moved so fast, I barely noticed the time between us exiting the car, and then us being out on the street. He ran, darting through traffic, leaping on top of the car roofs if he had to. He moved between alleyways and buildings, taking leaps to bolt over walls and fences. Around me, the world became a blur of light and color and sound. The wind caused by his motion tore against my face, ripping the air from my lungs, and the G-force of his movement pulled at my neck and the weight of my head. To protect myself from these forces, I buried my nose and mouth against the smooth, cool skin of his throat, hiding my face against him, my eyes squeezed shut.

  Finally, we stopped.

  The cool night air buffeted my face as he set me down and I dared to open my eyes.

  I gasped and wobbled slightly, but Roman caught me by the arm to steady me. It wasn’t just
the lack of movement that had made my legs weak, but the view from where I stood.

  If I’d thought the view from Roman’s apartment was amazing, this was like a jolt to the heart. I couldn’t believe how high up we were, the lights of the city spread below us like a twinkling ocean.

  “Oh, my God. Where are we?”

  Roman glanced down at my face and smiled. “We’re on the Empire State Building’s observation deck.”

  “We are? How high up is that?”

  “It’s the one hundred and second floor.”

  “This is incredible. How did you get up here? Isn’t the place locked up at this time of night?”

  His eyebrows rose in the way he did when he’d found something I’d said to be amusing. “Yeah, but I have this whole vampire thing going on again—you know, speed and inhuman strength. Something as immaterial as a door and a lock doesn’t bother me.”

  My eyes widened. “You broke down the door to the Empire State Building?”

  He chuckled. “No, I didn’t. I’m just playing with you. This place stays open until two in the morning, so I sneaked us in. It’s just quiet this time of night.”

  Relaxing slightly, knowing the police weren’t arriving any second, I turned back to the view. The lights on the streets far below were laid out like a grid map, and the taller skyscrapers rose upward like space rockets.

  Roman stood directly behind me, his body only a hair’s breadth from my own. I wanted to lean back into him, to rest against his solid form, but I didn’t want to do anything that might spoil the moment. This was the kind of thing I’d been dreaming of for years, this breathtaking expanse of space, and I drank it in like a man gulping down water in a desert.

  I didn’t know how long we stood there for, but eventually a security guard approached and told us they were closing.

  We glanced at each other and smiled.

  Roman caught my hand in his, and, as though we were a normal couple, we followed the security guard out of the top deck and caught the manually operated elevator back down.

  We left the building, still hand in hand, and walked through the city. I absorbed the sights, sounds, and smells of this busy place—still full of people and traffic, despite the early hour—my heart swelling with the sheer vastness of the city. How tiny my life had been before, shut up inside a concrete box. I struggled to imagine going back to that now, and my stomach twisted in anxiety for the girls still trapped within the training center. They saw it as a home, when really it was their prison.

  When Roman noticed I was growing tired, he lifted me back in his arms. Moving faster than humanly possible, he whisked me back to the apartment.

  “Thank you,” I told him. “That was amazing.”

  “Does that mean you’ll stop pushing me on the other things, then?”

  I looked at him from beneath my eyelashes. “You mean the blood and the sex?”

  His expression darkened hungrily. “I’m trying to behave, Dakota.”

  I reached out to touch the buttons of his shirt. “I thought I’d made it clear that I didn’t want you to behave.”

  A hint of a smile played on his perfect lips. “Are you saying you want me?”

  My cheeks heated. “Well, I am eighteen, and I’ve never even been kissed.” I returned the smile, only mine was filled with embarrassed sarcasm. “I guess you could say I’m a little bit desperate.”

  I surprised a laugh from him. “Desperate? You only want me because you’re desperate?”

  “I guess you’re not hideous to look at either. It doesn’t help that you like to sleep half naked.”

  His gaze smoldered. “My naked chest increases your desperation for me?”

  My breathing suddenly grew shallow. “It doesn’t help,” I managed to say, though it was barely more than a whisper.

  He stepped in closer

  “Please, Roman,” I breathed. “It’s okay if you want to taste me. I don’t understand why you don’t want me.”

  “I do want you, Dakota. I want you so badly, no other woman is satisfying me right now. That’s what makes this whole thing so fucking hard.”

  “Hard for you? I’m the one who’s left alone here, hour after hour. I’d rather go back to the training center than have to live the rest of my life on my own.”

  He frowned. “You can’t mean what you say.”

  “Well, I do. At least I had my friends there. At least Mother fed me.”

  His expression softened. “You’re right. I’ve been treating you badly. I’ll have your fingerprint added to the keypad first thing tomorrow, so you can come and go as you please.”

  That was something, at least. “Thank you. But what about the other thing?”

  “My feeding on you?”

  I nodded and touched the collar at my throat. “I thought you’d have taken this off by now. I don’t think you understand how important being an owned courtesan is to me.”

  “No, you’re right, Dakota. I don’t understand it at all. Weren’t you frightened about who you’d be sold to? What if you were sold to some heartless vampire who only wanted to torture you?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Why would someone do that? We’re supposed to be cherished.”

  “There are sick people around. There’s nothing stopping one of them from buying you.”

  “Mother assures us she vets each and every vampire who applies to be considered. She tells us they are only ever gentlemen.”

  He laughed, the sound cold. “We’re still vampires, Dakota. We still drink blood. We still kill, if we have to.”

  I shivered at the idea of Roman feeding on someone until their heart stopped beating. He was over a hundred years old. The possibility that he’d never fed until someone died verged on the impossible. Many vampires struggled to control their urges when they were first turned. I wondered who his maker was, and if they were walking this world.

  It dawned on me that I knew nothing whatsoever about Roman Kramar. I knew his name, where he was originally from, and that he had bought himself a courtesan without wanting to use her, for some unknown reason, but that was all.

  “Please, Roman.” It seemed I wasn’t averse to begging. “Just feed from me.”

  A muscle below his right eye ticked. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?” I still didn’t have an answer.

  “It’s almost morning,” he replied, coolly, stepping away from me. “And anyway…” His eyes narrowed again. “I’ve already fed.”

  Chapter Ten

  After Roman left me to go to his bedroom once more, I took to my own room again.

  I slept away most of the day, waking to use the bathroom, and then going back to sleep again. There wasn’t much point in me being awake while Roman was literally like the dead.

  When I woke for the second time, I realized it was already dark. I felt groggy, my muscles stiff from having spent too long in bed.

  Then a male voice filtered through to me from the apartment, and it wasn’t Roman’s.

  I sat up. Someone else was here.

  My heart thumped with excitement. It was rare I ever got to meet someone new. Back at the training center, we had new girls brought in, but that was only every year or so, sometimes even longer. We occasionally had new guards working there, but even then, they had little interaction with us. I was excited to meet someone different.

  Was he a vampire, or could he be human?

  Hurrying in my excitement, I quickly cleaned the sleep from my eyes and used the bathroom. I wanted to get out there, but not looking like I’d just woken up. I ignored the clothes Roman had provided me with, and grabbed a simple black dress and some heels from my suitcase, which I should probably look at unpacking sooner rather than later. A final sweep of mascara to my lashes, and some gloss to my lips, and I was ready.

  Pushing back my shoulders and lifting my chin, I left the bedroom to meet Roman’s visitor.

  Another vampire, I could tell instantly by the pallor of his skin and the way his eyes alighted on me. He had l
ong, light brown, wavy hair, which fell past his shoulders, and blue eyes that were supernaturally light in color. My heart stuttered as soon as I saw him. His build was even broader than Roman’s, and the way he dressed was more casual. Both vampires had been sitting when I entered, but instantly sprang to their feet.

  Roman glanced between me and his visitor, and I felt a stab of satisfaction at the wariness I saw in his eyes.

  If he thought I was some sweet, innocent princess, he was very much mistaken.

  I swept across the floor in my heels, my training coming back to me. I held out my hand to the new arrival, and he took it and bent to kiss the back, his lips cool against my skin.

  “Roman didn’t tell me we were having visitors,” I said, playing my part. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here to greet you when you arrived.”

  “That’s fine,” he said. “Roman didn’t even mention you were here.”

  He glanced toward my owner, who glared at me.

  “Roman, don’t be so rude,” I continued. “You have to introduce us.”

  “This is Dakota,” he said begrudgingly. “Dakota, this is a friend of mine, Lucas.”

  “It’s lovely to meet you, Dakota,” the other vampire said, his tone as smooth as chocolate. His eyes drifted down to my throat, and the red-gold collar still firmly around my neck. “An owned courtesan, I see.” He turned back toward Roman. “You didn’t mention you were planning to purchase one of these fine specimens.”

  I could feel the tension radiating from Roman. What was he getting so strung out about? According to Mother, vampires were supposed to enjoy showing us off to their comrades, and even displaying their wealth and generosity by allowing others to take a taste of us.

  Roman smiled, flashing his fangs, the expression not reaching his eyes. “I wasn’t aware I had to tell you every detail of my business.”

  Lucas laughed, as though he hadn’t noticed Roman’s mood at all, and sat back down. They both had a glass of either wine or blood on the coffee table in front of them, and Lucas lifted his to his lips and took a sip.

  “So,” he said to Roman, “how much has she told you about where she’s from? I hear the woman who trains them keeps it all very hush-hush.”