Calabi Chronicles: Bloodstone Read online

  “I’m going to come, Aideen,” he warned, the words broken into sharp pants.

  Her mouth captured his cock, her hands darting from her breasts to cup his testicles. The brush of her skin against the sensitive pubic hairs made him shudder and he arched his back, thrusting his hips forward and flinging his head back. Aideen urged him deeper, her cheeks hollowing as she forced the remaining half of his length into her. Aideen looked up, saw that he was biting his lip. A bright red tear of blood pearled beneath the sharp canine.

  She sucked at his cock more urgently, trying to beat down the control he was exercising. The flat of her tongue pressed against the inside curve of his shaft and she delivered hard strokes to the thick vein that throbbed with his approaching climax. Keeping the pressure on his shaft, the entry to her throat hugging the engorged tip of his cock, she relaxed her cheeks and rapidly puffed the air in her sealed mouth.

  Kean, undone, groaned and bucked against her, the first spurt of cream forcing its way down her throat. The sharp tang of his semen washed across her palate and her lips constricted to milk another spurt from him. Even as he tried to withdraw, she held him tight to her, her finger snaking along the smooth skin of his perineum to tease his tight hole with shallow thrusts. Ensnared by her probing finger and greedy mouth, he bore down, riding her hand. His hands found her hair and he wound his fingers tight through the long tresses until she had sucked the last of his climax from him. When at last they released one another, he collapsed against the bed, his body twitching at the lightest touch.

  Aideen rolled on top of him. Her lips covered his, her tongue, still thick with cum, invaded his mouth. Their juices mingled and the taste pebbled her nipples in a delighted thrill. She rubbed her pubic hair against his shaft and he jerked against her.

  “Mercy,” he moaned when Aideen finally broke the kiss.

  Aideen squirmed over his lower body and wedged the tip of his shaft against her clit. “No mercy,” she taunted and contracted her muscles against his semi-rigid length. “You started it,” she reminded him.

  Kean reached up, quickly pushing at her elbows so that they collapsed. With a quick turn, he had her pinned beneath him. Despite Kean’s protests, his member already began to thicken with renewed desire. He gave her lips a sharp erotic nip then sat up. Her normally pale skin was flushed a gentle rose. Her breathing continued fast and hard, her mouth an open invitation. He fingered its full curve. When she closed her eyes in contentment, his chest swelled with tender emotion.

  “I’m going to take a shower.” He bent down and kissed each closed eyelid. “You can join me.”

  Aideen opened her eyes and he saw something lurking behind the green gaze. He studied her expression for a moment before fixing on that something’s identity. Purpose.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Just a little business to take care of,” she said. The words were crisp, the sensuality of her voice held in check. “I’ll join you when I’m done,” she promised. “Wait for me.”

  Kean nodded and rose from the bed. His robe was on the floor and he stepped over it on his way to the bathroom. Aideen wrapped hers around herself and lay against the pillow. She closed her eyes and let her thoughts wander from the room and down the hall. It took her only a few seconds to find Vera, to stroke the bare nape of her neck and coax her to the study’s outer door.

  The shower was already running when Vera knocked on the door but Aideen was waiting for the sound, saw Vera raise her hand to knock before the sharp rap reached her ears. Loosely tying the robe around her, Aideen got up and answered the door.

  “Oh, Vera, what is it you need?” Her voice was sleepy innocence and she padded back into the bedroom before the woman could answer her.

  “The tray,” Vera answered. Distantly polite, she nevertheless managed to fill the room with a cold menace. “I thought you might be finished with it.”

  Aideen glanced down at the tray, its contents virtually uneaten. She pounced onto the bed, her breasts half spilling from the robe. Oozing sexual insolence, she stretched before answering. “I’m afraid we didn’t eat much.” She ran a casual hand across her breast in memory. “Taking care of other appetites, you could say.”

  Vera bent down to pick up the tray and Aideen put a hand on her shoulder. The woman froze, staying so motionless that Aideen thought Vera would shatter if she gave a tentative poke.

  “Vera, there are stables here, aren’t there?” Kean had given Aideen a verbal map of the grounds, pointing out what was visible from their balcony.

  “Yes, but Lady Claubine doesn’t keep horses anymore.”

  Aideen dropped her voice suggestively. “I’m not interested in horses,” she said and smiled at the older woman. “I was hoping for someplace secluded.” She looked at the clock. It was late in the day. Meyrick would undoubtedly need a little more time to plan his next move once Vera tipped him off.

  “Someplace where Kean and I could be alone, without fear of being interrupted by the constant stream of visitors,” she suggested.

  Vera straightened up, her sharp gaze detecting all the little signs that Aideen had just been thoroughly loved. The wild hair, damp at the temples. A dry film of sweat on her neck and partially revealed breasts. The pungent aroma of Kean’s semen. “Nothing can be done tonight,” Vera advised.

  “In the morning, then?” Aideen asked, her tone wheedling with a false urgency. “When the dew is still on the grass. I love that time of the day.”

  Vera nodded slowly. The tray began to shake from her tight grip.

  “You could take a sort of picnic breakfast out there ahead of us?” Aideen clapped her hands in delight when Vera nodded again. “Champagne and strawberries!”

  “I think that can be arranged.”

  Aideen jumped from the bed and wrapped her arms around Vera’s shoulders, the tray awkwardly dividing them. “That would be so perfect!” She placed her cheek against Vera’s, her mind probing for some confirmation of the woman’s intent. What she saw made her blood run cold. A man’s form hiding at the edge of a tree line where the estate’s stone wall ended. He stepped forward, the dawn’s light spreading into an orange halo around his close-cut hair.

  Everett! Aideen took a step back from Vera and shoved her hands into the robe’s pockets. Even then, she didn’t think she could hide the shake that infected her and she turned toward the bathroom door, releasing Vera with a backward glance and a forced smile. “Late for water play,” she offered and disappeared behind the bathroom door.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “You can’t take a gun,” Aideen advised Kean as he puttered around the room waiting for dawn to stroke her rosy fingers across the horizon.

  “No knife, no gun,” he groused. “Do I get to take my hands? Should I leave my teeth and nails behind, so we’re totally defenseless?”

  “They’ll only take them away from you,” she said and picked at the hem of her shirt. “And it’s hardly what you’d take to a romantic tryst.”

  Kean caught her fingering the fabric and pushed her hands away. “Don’t play with it, you’re probably giving Julius fits right now.” Kean checked the stitching to make sure the tracking dot was still in place. Satisfied with the dot’s placement, he released her shirt, his hand reflexively going to his collar where another dot was embedded.

  Shoving his hands in his pockets, he sat down next to her on the bed. “I wonder who Meyrick will have dug up for the job.”

  “Better not to think about it,” Aideen answered.

  Kean caught her evasive tone. He turned to her, his hand leaving his pocket to keep her from looking away. “You know who he’s sending? How…who?”

  “I know who Vera’s met with…”

  “It’s not those Rossaveal thugs, is it? I owe that over-muscled bastard a sledgehammer to those sausages he calls lips,” Kean said.

  Aideen closed her eyes. Her lower lip began to tremble and Kean released her chin.

  “It’s not that Wadebridge freak—Police Cons
table Pumpkin King?” When she didn’t answer, he stood up to pace the room. Stopping in front of her, he hit his open palm with his fist. “I told you this was a bad idea!” Irritated by her silence, he grabbed her shoulders and shook her once. “Damn it, Aideen, she can’t have told you to turn yourself over to Everett.”

  He let go of her shoulders and she looked up, her gaze distant. She felt the brush of a tree branch and its leaves against her shoulder. Breath misted the air. “He’s here already,” she told Kean, her voice reaching him from the end of a long tunnel. “Watching to see if it’s safe for him to enter the stables.”

  Kean covered the distance to the dresser in two strides. Reaching into his drawer, he pulled the handgun back out. “She didn’t mean for you to go…only to bring him here,” Kean said, more to himself than the glassy-eyed Aideen. “I’ll fetch that crazy bastard and bring him back for an interrogation.”

  Kean’s words reached Aideen where she hovered looking down on the Pumpkin King. “No!” She shook her head violently and stumbled up from the bed. “If he sees you coming alone, he’ll kill you. And then he’ll turn his rage loose on this house…Claubine…Julius…me.”

  Kean paused, his hand on the door. He stared down at the gun, felt its uselessness. He switched the safety back on and placed it on top of the dresser, his fingertips still lingering over its metal finish. “He’s not going to risk taking both of us.”

  “He will,” Aideen said. Her face held a feverish expression, small beads of perspiration dotting her upper lip and forehead. “I’ll make him.”

  Kean started to ask her what she meant but a mask had fallen over her face. She leaned back against the pillows and closed her eyes. Her lips moved, no sound coming from them. Every few seconds, her breathing stopped, as if she were hiding and afraid of discovery. Then she would exhale, her expression moving forward a few more steps.

  * * * * *

  Aideen floated in the air above the Pumpkin King. He was crouched in an empty horse stall. The cruel line of his lips caressed the barrel of his gun in a shallow act of fellatio. It wasn’t his favorite toy but he found that people fought less when you pointed a gun at them. He couldn’t decide whether it was the surety of the bullet that made people docile or the knife’s promise of slow damage that put the fight in their fists. Not that it mattered. He had brought a bag full of toys along for his little songbird.

  The Pumpkin King’s tongue dipped into the gun’s barrel. The taste of powder from last night’s practice tingled against his tongue. He looked at his watch before peering through the stall’s slats. A square of four rotting hay bales had been pushed into the center, a checkered cloth laid across them with a basket of strawberries and other fruit placed beside chilled champagne. That cold bitch Vera had set the scene before he reached the stables this morning. She was gone before he arrived. Wisely so, he thought, rubbing the barrel of the gun along the front seam of his pants. She would have provided a sufficient diversion while he waited for the little songbird to arrive. His gaze returned to the bucket of ice with its champagne and two glasses. At least he would have someone on which to satisfy his bloodlust this morning. A little something to take the edge off and keep him from moving too fast with Aideen.

  He shook his head and raised the barrel of the gun to scratch at his chin. No, killing her guard dog might not be a good idea. She’d fight him after that. He’d seen the silly cunt’s devotion to the man in Wadebridge. The gun returned to his lap, the slow rub of metal over denim a meditative pleasure as the Pumpkin King decided how he was going to manage getting both bird and birddog back to his van.

  * * * * *

  Back in Kean’s rooms, Aideen opened her eyes. Kean was standing near the bed, watching her. She reached out and squeezed his hand, relieved when the tension in him began to uncoil. Still holding his hand, she glanced at the balcony doors.

  “It’s getting light, we should go now.”

  Kean nodded and picked up a lawn blanket from the edge of the bed. He draped the blanket over one arm and helped Aideen into a light jacket. Cupping her face, he drew her to him for a final kiss. Her lips were ice cold and he covered them with his mouth until they warmed beneath his attentions. “Are you sure about this?” he asked one last time.

  “Yes, I am.” The color had drained from her face but her voice was firm. “I love you.” She saw his heart breaking when he smiled, his throat too tight with emotion to respond in kind.

  They moved quietly through the house. In a delivery truck a kilometer and a half away, Julius sat watching two small dots move through the corridor and down the grand staircase before slipping onto the back patio. They skirted the tree line, pretending they were sneaking off for a morning tryst. The early dawn air was frigid. They walked pressed together, sharing their warmth. Neither spoke—Kean’s attention focused on the stables ahead while Aideen peered down inside the Pumpkin King’s mind.

  Everett had left off deciding how to get them both back to his van and was fantasizing the look on Aideen’s face when he showed her the contents of his bag of toys. His sharp pants echoed inside her head and she laced her fingers through Kean’s as they reached the stable doors.

  Aideen forced a giggle past her lips and stopped Kean before he could push the door open. She waited, locked in an awkward kiss, while Everett brought his breathing back under control and leveled his pistol at the doors.

  “Ooh,” Aideen cooed once they were inside the stables. “Strawberries!” She kept her attention fixed on the impromptu table. She could feel both men tensing, their muscles ready to spring.

  Grabbing a strawberry, she bit the tip off and held the juice end against Kean’s mouth. “Taste,” she ordered.

  He let her smear his lips with the red liquid and lick it away. Even with Everett hovering nearby, his body began to respond and he slipped an arm around her waist. Aideen pressed against him and moaned, the sound a thin caricature of passion.

  “We can eat later,” she suggested and took the blanket from him. She placed the blanket over a collapsed haystack and then crawled onto it, her arms reaching out to draw Kean to her. His body was tense as he leaned into her embrace. Aideen reached out with her mind to massage Kean’s worries before Everett realized his presence had not gone undetected. At the same time, she monitored Everett’s thoughts.

  She need not have worried about Everett noticing Kean’s emotional state. The Pumpkin King’s attention was riveted to her. Perspiration beaded along her brow as she tried to step lightly through Everett’s head. Being inside him was nauseating. She could feel his erection as if it were her own, feel the drops of sweat that trickled down his thighs. He looked at her, not as she was but as he anticipated having her—face up in a shallow grave. Stripped naked, her eyes were glassy with death, her mouth pried open with rubber stops to keep her lifeless jaws from clamping down as he fucked her mouth—spooning her body as he took chunks of flesh from her thighs and labia. His hollow cry of feed me piercing the abandoned woods.

  “You’re shivering,” Kean said. The distance in her eyes unnerved him. She looked at him, her pupils dilating in a heartbeat.

  “Then warm me,” she said softly and hoped Everett didn’t hear the shake in her voice.

  Aideen wrapped her arms around Kean’s neck and locked him to her in a kiss. She heard the soft rustle of the stall’s gate across the dirt floor, felt Kean stiffen in anticipation of Everett announcing his presence. Both lovers froze as Everett placed his revolver against the base of Kean’s neck.

  “Well, Lord of the Manor,” Everett said. “Where are your friends now?”

  Slowly, Kean turned his head to look at the intruder. His brows lifted as he feigned mild surprise. “Constable, aren’t you out of your jurisdiction?”

  Everett’s grip on the trigger tightened. Aideen whispered in his mind, reminded him of his earlier resolution. Everett shook his head, his hand slapping the air around him at some imaginary fly. He offered Kean a thin grin of malice and emphasized his point with a n
udge to the back of Kean’s neck with the tip of the gun’s barrel. “I’ve got extra-jurisdictional power now.”

  Kean managed his own thin-lipped smile. “Surely you’re deluded…what was it that fat cop called you? Pumpkinhead?”

  Aideen gave Kean’s shoulder a warning squeeze. The gesture didn’t go unnoticed. Putting the barrel against her wrist, Everett pushed her hands away from Kean.

  Not here, not here, not here! Aideen pushed the words into the air. Everett’s finger eased off the trigger.

  “Better watch it, birddog,” he warned Kean. “I haven’t made up my mind whether I’m going to let you live.”

  “Your mind?” Kean’s laugh was harsh. His lips peeled back in a growl. “Haven’t made up your mind? I thought someone else did that for you, Pumpkinhead.”

  Everett hesitated, his finger caressing the trigger as Aideen’s silent plea for calm feather-stroked the line of his nose. Everett’s nose twitched and he tried to remember why he didn’t want to kill the birddog immediately. Something about the girl. He looked at Aideen for some clue. Her face was a mix of worry and fear. Her eyes were kind of flat, too, he noticed. Not the emerald fire that had flashed at him in Wadebridge. Something about keeping the girl docile. Right, that’s it.

  “Hoy, I think killing you now would be a kindness,” Everett said. “All the pretty tortures I have planned for songbird… I’ll have you both screaming in stereo.” He nudged the back of Kean’s head again. “You ‘cause there’s nothing you’ll be able to do about it.”

  Everett pulled out a pair of handcuffs. “Hands behind your back, handsome,” he ordered. When Kean didn’t move, Everett slid the barrel of the gun from Kean’s neck and placed it beneath Aideen’s eye.

  “Aideen?” Kean’s eyes were pleading with her to stop the charade, telling her it wasn’t too late to turn the tables on Everett and take her safely back to the house.

  Put them on, she urged. It will be okay.