Blood Legacy by Vanessa Redmoon

shirt. The lean curve of his muscles as he stripped before me, like barely contained fury. I did this to him. I drove him to this.
    I think I was finally starting to understand the power of being an agonie .
    He strode to the far wall and flicked open a dark wooden box set into an alcove. Something metal glinted in the candlelight. He dipped his hand into the box, and when he pulled it back out, sharp metal tips glinted on the ends of his fingers, like claws. Fear and anticipation fluttered through me. Whatever plans Victor had in store for me, I knew I was bound to feel the prick of those claws against my bare skin.
    “You’re remarkably well kept for someone who’s suffered in Undertown her whole life,” Victor said, striding toward me with a panther’s grace. “Barely a nick or a scratch on you. How do you keep the monsters away?”
    “Which monsters? The human ones, or the ones like you?”
    He struck me across the cheek with a wet slap that ricocheted through my jaw. As delicious as its lingering heat felt, I found myself wishing it had been more like the first time we’d met—his ring tearing at my lip. But I was sure there was plenty more pain to come.
    “You don’t know what a true monster I can be.” He seized me by the chin, forcing me to meet his gaze. None of the playfulness remained in his face, and panic welled up in me, even as it heightened my arousal. Was this part of his game, or was he truly furious? Either way, I felt my joints tightening, aching for more of him, more of whatever attention he gave me, whether it was passion or rage.
    “Petty, pampered little Vampyr princelings who steal into the Undertown and think no one will notice if they drain some nameless Laborer dry?” I tried to sound indignant, even though I was terrified. “Those are monsters.”
    The steel-tipped claws pricked into my jaw. I yelped, a pleasurable pulse worming through me as I felt blood draw to the surface of my skin. “Petty,” Victor echoed. “Yes. Inconsequential. I’m the real thing you should fear.”
    “And why should I fear you?” I asked.
    “Because you are nothing without me. I control you. Your delight and your pain. Your death and your life. And I can turn it off and on at a whim.” He grinned. “And you are helpless to stop me.”
    He sank down to his knees before me; one clawed hand trailed down my chest and groped, rough and painful, at my bare breast. The steel nails only pricked at it infrequently, but each time, that sharp edge mingled with the rough, delicious feel of his skin against my sensitive, piqued flesh. He ran his thumb over my nipple, drawing it out, until it was so hard it ached.
    Then he pressed his tongue against my thigh.
    “Oh, god,” I cried, squirming against the restraints. With my thighs forced wide apart, I couldn’t even move them against one another to release the sudden craving I felt between them, a desperation to have my folds touched, tingled, teased, fucked. “Please. Please, just fuck me.”
    “No,” he snarled. He sank all five claws into my breast. I bucked back against the cross, no longer even sensing the division between pleasure and pain. It was all one sensation—agony. Bittersweet, wonderful, awful agony. It was richer and more vital than a breath of fresh air.
    “Now you’re starting to understand.” Victor cricked his neck from side to side, then slowly, carefully plucked the claws free from my flesh. “Be a good little slut. Show me how you can scream.”
    He wedged himself between my spread legs and traced his tongue in a wide circle on the inside of my thigh. “Fuck,” I gasped, unaware of what I was even doing. I was letting words and emotions pour out of me without thought and it was so incredible, so freeing . . . The slow circles rose up my leg, until he found the first tendril of nectar running down my thigh, and he bit into the skin there, sucking fiercely until I was sure he would leave a welt.
    “Do you prefer it when I’m