Owned by The Vampire: Complete box set series (Books 1 - 3) Page 3

  “If that was what you wanted, then of course, I would,” Alex replied.

  “Then … I guess that’s what I’ll do,” Isabel said. “Don’t – don’t tell anyone you’re doing this.”

  “No, that would be stupid,” Alex agreed. “I’ll just make sure you’re punched out at the right time.”

  “Okay,” Isabel said, staring at him in shock. “Let me know what Peterson says.” She rose to her feet, and Alex looked her up and down; for a moment, his gaze almost made Isabel’s stomach turn over, it was so full of straightforward lust. “I’ll just go now. I’ll be back tomorrow morning.”

  “Can’t wait,” Alex said cheerfully. “Maybe you could wear a shorter skirt?”

  “I’ll think about it,” Isabel said, shaken. She turned on her heel and left the office.

  Chapter Four

  “This is absurd,” Isabel said to herself, pacing across her living room floor. “Things like this don’t happen.” She shook her head, reflecting on her drive home. She had been so distracted, so completely bowled over by the shocks of the day, that she had blown right through a red light. Predictably, a police officer had been right behind her when it happened. That, at least, had been more or less how Isabel expected her day-to-day life to go. Right up until the officer had walked up to her window, she had felt comforted by the regularity of the situation in spite of the knowledge that a red-light ticket was going to cost far more than she could afford.

  As soon as the officer had leaned in to look at her, in the midst of asking about her license, registration and insurance, Isabel had known that it wasn’t going to be the normal process. She thought that Alex’s reaction to her newfound desirability was an isolated incident, but the same look of almost drugged enchantment had come over the middle-aged man’s face as soon as she met his gaze. “How are you this afternoon, ma’am? You look absolutely fucking amazing.”

  It had to be more than just becoming attractive, Isabel thought as she continued to pace. She decided to test the luck she’d had with her boss on the police officer, just on a whim, thinking she had nothing to lose. “Thank you,” she’d said warmly. “I feel amazing, too.”

  “I bet you do,” the man had said, his voice dropping low. “Any chance I can feel amazing?”

  “Not today,” she told him. “But maybe you would be willing to do me a favor?”

  “Anything you want,” the man – whose name tag read Reilly – —had replied. “Anything at all.”

  “Don’t give me a ticket, please,” Isabel had suggested. “It would make me so very sad.”

  “No ticket,” Reilly had agreed. Isabel’s shock at the strange turn of events had deepened.

  “Maybe you’d be willing to drive alongside me, make sure no one else pulls me over for anything?”

  “Of course,” Reilly had said. “I’d love to.”

  When she’d arrived at her apartment building, Isabel had been at a loss for what to do with the enraptured officer. She’d finally decided to tell him to get back to his job, and he’d beamed at her as if she’d given him the best treat of his life and gotten back into his car.

  “What the hell is going on?” Isabel glanced at herself in the big mirror she had put up on the wall opposite her living room window. She was as beautiful as ever. “It can’t just be the fact that I’m hot. It can’t be.” She had known gorgeous women, and while Isabel had heard more than once about their random triumphs, she had never heard of any of them getting off work early with pay, or getting out of a completely valid ticket, much less getting a police escort, just from asking.

  Then too, Isabel thought, peering at herself more closely, she wasn’t just beautiful; she wasn’t even just gorgeous or stunning. As the day had worn on, every time she looked at herself in the mirror, she saw something newly captivating about her face. And she had noticed that her clothes felt just a bit looser than they had when she put them on. Not so much that she worried about them falling off, but enough to notice. There was something supernatural about how she looked, how she felt. That was the only word that seemed to fit what was happening; even if it was absurd to think of it that way.

  Seized by a sudden thought, Isabel quickly undressed, throwing her clothes aside without paying attention to where they landed in her living room. She sat down on her couch and spread her legs, turning one out at the hip to look at the spot where she had noticed the odd mark only two days before. It was still there, but it had changed; it had healed, somehow, but two little spots lingered, pale pink like scars. “Bite marks don’t completely heal in two days?” Isabel brushed her fingers over the spots, and something rose up in her mind: she remembered watching True Blood a month before, and the marks the vampires had left behind. “No – no, that’s ridiculous,” she said, shaking her head dismissively at her own whimsy and looking around for her clothes to put them back on.

  Isabel gathered up her office outfit and looked at it distastefully. It had been comfortable enough for sitting at a desk, but she was so shaken by the events of the day that all she wanted was to get into her pajamas. She strode into her bedroom and threw the ensemble into the hamper, pulling a pair of soft cotton shorts and a loose tank top out of a drawer. She didn’t expect for anyone to visit her, so there was no need for a bra or a pair of panties.

  Almost as soon as Isabel stepped out of her bedroom, dressed for a comfortable afternoon of existential horror and television, she heard a knock at her door. “Of course,” she said with a sigh, glancing down at herself. Whoever it was – Jehovah’s Witness, someone selling cable packages, or the building manager – they would just have to accept that people in their homes lounged around in pajamas. Isabel padded to the door on her bare feet, irritable at her pensive afternoon being interrupted. She unlocked the deadbolt and twisted the knob lock, not even bothering to look through the peephole before opening the door.

  The man on the other side of it was definitely not a Witness, nor was he the building manager; and Isabel was fairly certain he wasn’t interested in selling her a new cable package either. For a moment, she stared at the gorgeous man, wondering why he looked so familiar. I could not have possibly met someone this good looking and forgotten how it happened, she thought. She took in his dark, shoulder-length hair, his hazel eyes, his broad shoulders and lean, muscled build, and racked her brain for a few heartbeats.

  Then, all at once, it came back to her. Friday night, Underground. The man who had paid her tab, who had taken her to a late dinner – or maybe it was an exceptionally early breakfast – and then taken her in the back seat of her car. “Let me in, Isabel,” he said firmly, and before she could even think about the command, Isabel stepped back from the door, opening it wider.

  “What the hell?” she shook her head, looking down at her hands and then at the man.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” Oz said, stepping into her apartment. “You’re confused, aren’t you?”

  “Confused and a little bit scared at the fact that I apparently don’t have the self-preservation instinct to close the door on a one-night stand who’s stalking me,” she said sharply.

  “Sit down,” Oz told her. Once again, before she could even think about the command, she found herself obeying it. She closed the door and walked over to the couch, seating herself primly.

  “Okay,” she said. “I think you need to explain what this is, and what’s going on.” Oz smiled slightly, his eyes gleaming.

  “That’s exactly why I’m here,” he told her. “You’re in trouble, Isabel. More trouble than you know.”

  “You know about what’s happening with me,” she said, realizing it in an instant. “The whole stuff that happened at work and with the cop.” Oz nodded.

  “You will listen to me, you will hear me out, and you won’t interrupt with any questions until I’m done explaining. Is that understood?” Isabel nodded, in spite of the questions she could feel on the tip of her tongue, almost burning her lips. “You’re becoming a succubus.”

  For an ins
tant, Isabel opened her mouth to retort that what he was saying was ridiculous, but then closed her mouth just as quickly. She frowned…… she had questions, she wanted to say something. You won’t interrupt me. Anger kindled in Isabel’s mind, replacing the instinctive apprehension at the stranger’s arrival. Where does he get off making demands like this?

  “Yes, yes, I know,” Oz said, smiling slightly, almost seeming to enjoy her discomfort, or at least amused by it. “Impossible.” Isabel nodded, wondering what kind of control that man had on her that she couldn’t bring herself to ask the questions churning in her mind. “You humans,” he said, shaking his head. “So obsessed with the paranormal but so unwilling to believe it when it happens to you.” Isabel raised an eyebrow and Oz looked up at the ceiling. “Since you obviously aren’t capable of listening without comment, you can speak,” he said.

  “First of all: a succubus, really?” Isabel crossed her arms over her chest. “Second of all, how is it that you get to boss me around and I can’t help but obey you?” She swallowed against the tight, dry feeling in her throat. “Third: what the hell is going on and how did this happen to me?”

  “Yes, really, a succubus,” Oz said, sarcastically mimicking her tone. “Because of the circumstances that triggered your change into a succubus, I and one other person have control over you. It’s a safeguard, to make sure that your kind don’t overrun the planet.”

  “But a succubus is a kind of demon,” Isabel pointed out, grateful that Oz hadn’t thought to command her to silence once more.

  “Succubi are created, not born,” Oz told her. “You are becoming a succubus because you had sex with an angel and a vampire in the same night.” Isabel blushed; only a short time before her one-night stand’s arrival, she had felt proud at the fact that she had managed to hook up with two guys in one night. Or if not proud, then impressed at herself for the implied attraction both men had felt for her. But something about the way that Oz spoke made her feel petty.

  “Wait,” Isabel said, her mind latching onto the significance of his explanation instead of the tone. “A vampire and an angel?” She shook her head. “Neither of those things exist, any more than succubi are real.”

  “I thought you would say that,” Oz said. He reached down and pulled up the hem of his shirt. Isabel frowned as he tugged it over his head and let it fall to the floor before turning his back to her. A shimmery light glowed along his muscular shoulder blades, and before Isabel’s eyes, a pair of glorious-looking, gold-tipped, white feathery wings, began to appear, spreading out from the center of Oz’s back. Even when Oz turned around, Isabel could only stare at him, bemused and utterly shocked. She had to believe her eyes, right?

  “Okay,” she said after a long moment. “So you’re the angel, obviously.” Oz grinned.

  “Obviously,” he told her. “Vampires have wings that they can summon or hide as well, but theirs are always dark.”

  “Why do I suddenly get the feeling that my entire life is about to become incredibly complicated?” Oz’s grin changed into a wry smile.

  “It isn’t about to become incredibly complicated,” he told her. “It already is.”

  “What do you mean?” Isabel’s heart beat faster in her chest; she wasn’t sure she believed what Oz had said. After all, it was the stuff of fantasy movies and HBO series, but unless he had some kind of mind control ability, she didn’t think he could fake the wings she had seen.

  Oz folded his wings; they shimmered and disappeared, and he put his shirt back on. “In order to be a succubus, you have to have had sex with an angel, me,” he smiled slightly before continuing, “and a vampire.” Isabel pressed her lips together and looked down at her hands, remembering the mark on her inner thigh.

  “Okay, so I’m turning into some kind of demon-thing,” she said. “That’s pretty complicated, for sure, but I get the feeling you mean something more than that.” Oz nodded.

  “First of all: you aren’t a demon, and aren’t turning into one. You’re an immortal being – like I am and like the vampire you also had sex with is.”

  “Wait. Immortal?” Isabel stared at him.

  “You’re just starting to transform now,” Oz explained. “Within about a week, the process will be complete, and you’ll be a full succubus.”

  “What does that even mean?” Isabel’s mind was still struggling to accept what she was hearing.

  “You’ll find that you can readily control men’s minds,” Oz said. “As the week goes on, you will become more and more supernaturally beautiful until you are beyond the ideal for the society you live in. More advanced succubi can change whenever they enter a new culture, becoming the height of beauty wherever they are, but that takes a great deal of time and skill to master.”

  “That sounds good, at least,” Isabel said thoughtfully.

  “You won’t need to sleep. In fact, once you complete the transition, you’ll find you don’t even want to sleep, and if you do sleep, it will generally be during the day. At night, you will be restless.” Oz half-smiled. “You can still eat food, but your body won’t derive sufficient nutrients from it. When you complete the transition and fully become a succubus, you will absolutely have to have sex every night.”

  “Have to?” Isabel stared at the angel. She thought it was as good a term as any, in shock. “I’ve gone weeks without sex before, though.” Oz shook his head.

  “If you go without nightly sex – without a condom – once you’re fully transformed, you’ll begin to weaken within days,” he said. “You’ll find that you have an utterly insatiable appetite for sex, almost an addictive need.” Isabel opened her mouth, realized she had no idea what to say to that, and then closed it.

  “How am I going to manage to get sex every night?” she asked finally. Oz grinned.

  “Did you forget about the control of men’s minds?”

  “That would-be rape!” Isabel glared at him. “I’m not going to control some guy into screwing me so I can stay alive.”

  “They will only be too willing,” Oz told her drily.

  “But won’t – are all succubi just walking STDs or something?”

  “You’re naturally immune,” Oz said. “The other thing you could do, which I recommend is to find a ‘host’ or person you can rely on for your needs.” Isabel’s face burned as the significance of what Oz said filled her mind.

  “So basically, I’m feeding off of whoever I have sex with,” she said. “And you think I should find someone who will agree to have sex with me every night?”

  “It will be the best sex of their lives,” Oz said, shrugging. “Not many would turn that down.”

  “This is …” Isabel shook her head. “This is insane, and wrong. How could …how is this fair? Just because I slept with two guys in one night who happened to apparently be an angel and a vampire?”

  “How are you feeling, Isabel?” She stared at Oz in confusion. The question made no sense, but she realized, in spite of the fear, shock, and dismay she felt, she could feel a little tendril of heat working its way through her body, down her spine. “Hungry?”

  Chapter Five

  Isabel stood and took a few steps back from Oz. “No,” she said, shaking her head. Her stomach was gnawing, but there was a throbbing deeper down, between her legs. In a matter of moments, she felt the slickness along her labia. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she told Oz.

  “Tell me the truth,” Oz told her firmly. “Are you aroused right now?” Isabel looked down at her feet, unwilling to answer. But unable to help herself.

  “Yes,” she said, feeling ashamed.

  “It’s natural,” Oz said, his voice more soothing. “You’ll find yourself becoming turned on several times a day, more and more often until you’re fully transformed. Then, once you’re a complete succubus, you’ll learn to control your appetite, although it will never go away.” He was stepping closer to her, and Isabel felt a mixture of apprehension and desire as she caught the scent of him: warm, sweet, delicious. Was that wh
at he had smelled like during their one-night stand? She didn’t think so, but her mouth watered for more. Images flitted through her head, utterly pornographic: falling to her knees, she took Oz’s hard cock into her mouth and worshipped it with her lips and tongue with abandonment until he came; or pushing him onto the couch and ripping her clothes off to ride him, hard and fast, eager for his climax; or Oz bending her over the back of a chair, taking her from behind all at once.

  “This is insane,” Isabel murmured.

  “You need to be fucked, don’t you?” Isabel looked up at Oz’s face, feeling humiliated and needy, as if her whole body were on fire. She nodded, resigned. “Tell me what you want, Isabel.”

  “I want to suck you off until you come in my mouth.” The words left her almost without thought – she had never in her life been so direct with anyone she had slept with.

  Oz smiled slightly and his hands moved to the waistband of his jeans. Isabel stared in a mixture of shock and pure, unadulterated desire as Oz unbuttoned and unzipped, then hooked his thumbs into the fabric at his hips. He pushed his pants down, and his boxers with them. His cock immediately sprung free, fully erect. For the span of a few heartbeats, Isabel stood transfixed, wondering if she had actually seen Oz’s body before. When they’d had their one-night stand; there was something so deeply arousing about the sight of him, about the lean muscle of his body and the thick, flushed erection in its nest of dark curls, that Isabel thought it was impossible for her to have seen him before.

  The next instant, she was on her knees in front of him, licking her lips to moisten them as she leaned in towards the tip of Oz’s erection. She darted her tongue out to catch the glistening drop of fluid, and it spread across her taste buds, sharp and salty yet slightly bitter and sweet all at once. Isabel took as much of Oz’s cock into her mouth as she could, sucking and licking, swirling her tongue around the sensitive head as she swallowed down the taste of him. The hunger she could feel in the pit of her stomach, in the tightness between her hips, began to sharpen and ease. She pressed forward, wrapping her lips around the thick length of Oz’s erection as she took him deeper and deeper into her mouth.