Chapter 3: Steam and Submission
The silence Lucas left behind was thick enough to choke on. It vibrated with the echoes of his warning and the raw, fading energy of their violent union. Cassie lay on the ruined silk, staring at the scorch marks her magic had left on the headboard. Her body thrummed with a terrifying, settled power, but her mind was a riot. Abomination. Unmake you. Until dawn.
“Well,” Brook sighed from the doorway, running a hand through his disheveled blond hair. “He certainly knows how to make an exit.” He walked into the room, picking up his discarded towel. His gaze avoided the mess on the bed, focusing instead on Cassie’s face. “You’re glowing. Literally. A little around the edges.”
Cassie looked at her hands. A faint, silver luminescence, like moonlight on water, shimmered just under her skin. She willed it to stop, and it faded, but the thrum inside her remained—a deep, contented purr. The hunger was gone, replaced by a sated, heavy warmth. And a new, slick awareness between her legs. Lucas’s cold, commanding touch had awakened something, a craving that went beyond blood. It was a hunger for the loss of control, for the fusion of power and pleasure.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed, the air cool on her naked skin. The scent of sex and blood and ozone was overpowering. She felt filthy. Adrenaline still buzzed in her veins, looking for an outlet. Her eyes landed on Brook. On the smudge of his own dried release still on his abdomen, on the open curiosity and concern in his blue eyes. On the steady, strong pulse she could see dancing in his throat.
He’d offered himself before. A lesson. This wasn’t a lesson. This was a need.
“I can’t sit here,” she said, her voice rough. “I can’t just wait.”
Brook understood. He saw the wildness still swirling in her gaze. He offered a small, wry smile. “The shower’s big enough for two. You smell like a crime scene and a power plant had a baby. I could use a wash too.”
She didn’t answer with words. She just moved. Vampire speed was still a disorienting gift; one moment she was on the bed, the next she was crossing the room, her hand closing around his wrist. Her grip was firm, not enough to hurt, but enough to make him gasp at the suddenness of it.
“Cassie—”
She pulled him, not toward the door, but straight down the short hallway to the bathroom. The small, tiled space was still steamy from his own recent use, the air thick with the herbal scent of his shampoo. She flicked on the shower, and a torrent of hot water cascaded from the overhead nozzle.
Then she pushed him inside, still clothed.
Brook stumbled back against the slick tiles with a yelp, his shirt and trousers instantly plastered to his body. “Jesus Christ, a little warn—”
She stepped in after him, the water sluicing over her own skin, washing away the physical evidence of Lucas. Her eyes were locked on his. Her hands went to the button of his soaked trousers.
He stopped protesting. He watched her face, seeing the conflict there—the fear, the anger, the desperate need to feel something other than impending doom. He gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod.
She ripped the button fly open, the fabric tearing. Her cool, strong hands pushed the wet trousers and his underwear down his hips in one rough shove. His cock, already half-hard from the adrenaline and the sheer overwhelming sensory overload of the last hour, sprang free, full and flushed against his belly.
“Fuck,” he breathed, his head thunking back against the tile.
Cassie’s hands were on him immediately. One circled his shaft, her grip tight, almost punishing. The other cupped his balls, rolling them in her palm. She dropped to her knees on the hard shower floor, the water pelting her back.
“Cassie, wait, we don’t have to—”
She silenced him by taking the head of his cock into her mouth, her tongue swirling around the crown, tasting pre-come and clean skin and the chlorine of the city water. Then she took him deeper, her head bobbing, her throat working to accommodate his length. She was greedy, voracious, using her new strength to hold his hips still as she fucked her mouth on him.
“Oh, god,” Brook moaned, his hands tangling in her wet hair. He didn’t push, just held on as she worked him. Her technique was all instinct, all hunger, and it was devastating.
One of her hands left his balls and trailed back, over his perineum. Her fingers, slick with water and saliva, found his tight, clenched opening. She pressed a single fingertip against it, not entering, just applying a firm, insistent pressure.
Brook jolted as if shocked. “Shit—Cassie—”
She hummed around his cock, the vibration making his knees buckle. Her finger pressed harder, circling, demanding entry. At the same time, she pulled her mouth off him with a wet pop and leaned her head down, her lips brushing the sensitive skin of his inner thigh. Then her fangs descended, a sweet, sharp pressure. She didn’t bite deep, just a quick, controlled puncture, enough to draw a bead of blood, enough to make him cry out—a sharp, surprised sound that echoed off the tiles.
The taste of his blood, bright and coppery, exploded on her tongue. It was different from Lucas’s ancient vintage, different from the potent, climax-infused feed earlier. This was pure Brook—vibrant, caffeinated, magical. It sang in her veins, syncing with the throbbing heat between her own legs.
She released his thigh, licking the small wounds closed, then surged to her feet. Her eyes were fully black, vampire-obsidian. “Turn around,” she commanded, her voice barely human.
Brook, panting, his cock aching and dripping, obeyed. He turned, bracing his forearms against the wet tiles, presenting the smooth curve of his ass to her.
Cassie spat on her hand, slicking her own arousal and the water over her fingers, then pressed one, then two, inside herself, preparing her body with rough, urgent strokes. She was wet, incredibly so, the aftermath of Lucas and the fresh feed and this raw need making her ready.
She didn’t gentle him. She lined up the thick head of his cock with her entrance and sank down onto him in one relentless, downward thrust.
“FUCK!” Brook shouted, his body going rigid. She was tight, impossibly so, a hot, silken vise clamping around him. She took him to the hilt, her ass meeting his hips with a firm slap.
She didn’t wait for him to adjust. She started to move, setting a brutal, driving pace. Her hands came up, fingers interlacing with his against the tile, pinning his wrists above his head. She used her vampire strength to hold him there, to control the rhythm, her body riding him with a ferocious hunger.
The angle was deep, punishing. Each time she dropped down, he buried himself to the root, hitting a spot inside her that sent sparks behind her eyes. Her tits bounced with the force of their movement, water flying. The sounds were obscene—the slap of wet skin, their ragged breaths, the constant drum of the shower.
“You feel that?” she growled in his ear, her teeth grazing the lobe. “That’s my magic. That’s my hunger. Not his.”
She rode him harder, faster, her thighs burning with the effort. The pleasure was a coiled spring inside her, winding tighter with every thrust. But she wanted him there with her. She needed him to feel the full, terrifying scope of what she was.
With a snarl, she pulled one hand free from his wrist. She brought her own forearm to her mouth, and with a savage, deliberate bite, she sank her fangs into her own flesh.
Her blood, now laced with the potent, hybrid magic Lucas had awakened, welled up, dark and gleaming. She held her bleeding wrist to Brook’s mouth, forcing it against his lips.
“Drink,” she ordered.
His eyes, glazed with pleasure, widened in shock. But he was lost to the rhythm, to her, to the overwhelming sensations. He opened his mouth, and her blood—thick, sweet, crackling with unstable power—flowed onto his tongue.
The effect was instantaneous.
It was like swallowing lightning. Brook convulsed beneath her, a strangled cry torn from his throat. His back arched, his cock swelling even further inside her as her blood-magic hit his system. The feedback was immediate for Cassie; she felt his shock, his ecstasy, his sudden, hyper-awareness of every point where their bodies connected. It amplified her own sensations a hundredfold.
She screamed, her body seizing around him in a violent, convulsive orgasm. It ripped through her, wave after wave of blinding, white-hot pleasure, pulling him with her.
Brook came with a roar, his release pounding into her in hot, pulsing jets, triggered as much by the supernatural jolt of her blood as by the friction. His hips jerked uncontrollably against hers, milking his own climax as she milked him with the tight, fluttering grip of her cunt.
For a long minute, the only sound was the shower and their heaving breaths. Cassie slumped against his back, her forehead pressed between his shoulder blades, her bleeding wrist falling to her side. The water ran pink, then clear.
Slowly, carefully, Brook turned within the circle of her arms, his movements shaky. He looked pale, shaken, radiant. His eyes searched hers. “What… what the hell was that?” he whispered, his voice raw.
Cassie shook her head, the last of the frenzy leaving her. The glow under her skin had returned, a soft, steady pulse. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I needed… I needed it to be mine. Not his lesson.”
He cupped her face, his thumb wiping away a streak of blood from her lip that wasn’t hers. “It was,” he said softly. Then his gaze sharpened, looking past her shoulder, through the fogged glass of the shower door. “The wards just pinged again. Softer this time. Not a break. A… probe.”
All the heat, all the sated languor, drained from Cassie’s body, replaced by a cold, sharp clarity. The taste of her own blood was still in her mouth, a metallic echo of power.
Dawn was still hours away.
The shower’s drone was the only sound for three pounding heartbeats. Then Brook swore softly, his body tensing against hers. “The wards just pinged again. Softer this time. Not a break. A… probe.”
Cassie’s newfound clarity sharpened into a blade. All the languid, sated heat from the shower, from the raw act of claiming her own power through his body, evaporated. The water streaming between her breasts felt suddenly frigid. “Is it him? Lucas?”
Brook listened to a silence she couldn’t perceive, his head cocked. “No. Different signature. Smaller. Cautious.” He reached past her and shut off the water. The sudden quiet was a shock. “But it’s sniffing around the edges of my protections. Looking for a weakness.”
They dripped onto the bath mat, a puddle forming at their feet. Cassie grabbed a towel, the rough cotton abrasive against her oversensitive skin. She scrubbed herself dry with frantic, jarring motions, trying to erase the feeling of being hunted. Brook moved more slowly, watching her, his eyes tracking the faint silver luminescence that still pulsed beneath her skin like a trapped star.
“You’re still glowing,” he said, his voice low.
“I don’t know how to turn it off.”
“Probably a side effect of the…” he waved a hand vaguely, “…the everything. Come on.”
He led her, still naked, back to the black-silk-draped guest room. The air still hung heavy with the scents of their earlier violence—ozone, sex, the iron tang of blood. The chaos of the rumpled sheets, the deep imprint of Lucas’s weight, felt like a crime scene.
Brook collapsed onto the edge of the bed, his body sagging with a sudden, profound exhaustion. His cock, spent and softening, twitched against his thigh with a final, fading aftershock. He watched as Cassie, standing by the window, ran her tongue over her right fang, catching the last drops of his blood. A shudder ran through him that had nothing to do with the cold.
“Fuck, Red,” he breathed, the words slurry with fatigue and wonder. He gestured weakly towards the ceiling, where arcs of blackened, twisted sigils were scorched into the plaster. “I knew witch-vamp hybrids were rare, but that?” He let his hand fall back to the sheet. “You didn’t just drink me. You fucking rewired my nervous system. I can still feel it… buzzing. In my teeth.”
Cassie looked at the marks on the ceiling, a cold knot forming in her stomach. She had done that without even knowing. His laughter was a short, breathless puff of air that died as soon as it was born. His expression turned grave, and he leaned forward, his fingers closing around her wrist with surprising strength.
“Listen,” he said, his thumb pressing over her rapid pulse. “Lucas isn’t just some elder prick with a grudge. He’s Thomas Reed’s estranged sire.”
The name hit Cassie like a physical blow. Thomas Reed. The renowned, reclusive philanthropist. The “moral anchor” of the city’s elite. Her thesis advisor’s ultimate subject of study. “So fucking Thomas Reed is a vampire?” The hypocrisy was so vast it tasted like ash. “And a witch? What a fucking hypocrite.”
Brook barked a sharp, tired laugh. “Yeah. And he’s even hotter than Lucas, if the portraits in his gilded cages are accurate. Powerful, too. Runs half the city from the shadows. Your thesis was poking a stick into a hornet’s nest he personally curated.”
Cassie pulled her wrist from his grasp, crossing her arms over her chest. The glowing under her skin flared briefly. “I’m not going to fuck him, Brook. He wants to murder me. Lucas said ‘unmake.’”
“Never say never,” Brook murmured, his eyes drifting down her body with a familiar, hungry appreciation that rekindled a low heat in her belly. “Plus, if you fuck him the way you just fucked me, he might reconsider the whole murder part. Survival is a potent motivator.” He reached out, his hand smoothing over her hip. “Speaking of…”
His touch was electric, jolting through the post-adrenaline crash. She looked down and saw him, fully hard again, his cock rising thick and eager from the dark blond curls. The sight sent a bolt of pure, selfish want through her. This, at least, was simple. This was a hunger she understood, a power she could wield.
“I need to be in you again,” he said, his voice a rough whisper. “Please.”
Cassie didn’t speak. She merely stepped into the space between his knees, her thighs brushing his. A low moan escaped her as he leaned forward and took her left nipple into his mouth, sucking hard, his tongue flicking over the peak. Pleasure, sharp and bright, lanced straight to her core. She tangled her fingers in his damp hair, holding him there.
“Fuck, these are perfect,” he muttered against her skin, switching to her other breast, his hand coming up to knead the soft weight. He bit gently, then soothed the sting with his tongue. The combination made her knees weaken.
“So much for you being gay,” she gasped, arching into his mouth.
He pulled back just enough to look up at her, a wicked grin on his face. “I never said I was only gay,” he corrected, his hand sliding down her stomach, through the slick warmth gathering between her legs. “I said I was also into men.” His fingers found her clit, circling once, twice, making her hips jerk. “Turns out I’m into this, too. Specifically this. Now sit.”
He guided her onto his lap, her back to his chest. She sank down onto him in one slow, breathtaking slide, both of them groaning as he filled her utterly. Her head fell back against his shoulder as he began to move her on him, his hands firm on her hips, setting a deep, grinding rhythm that was less about frenzy and more about claiming. It was possessive, thorough. His mouth was on her neck, his teeth scraping her pulsing vein without breaking the skin, a constant, thrilling threat.
One of his hands left her hip and reached around, his fingers finding her clit again, rubbing in tight, precise circles that matched the thrust of his cock. The dual sensation built a coil of tension so intense it bordered on pain. She could feel every ridge of him, every slight shift of his muscles, the way his breath hitched when she clenched around him.
“Come on, Red,” he growled in her ear, his voice thick. “Let me feel that magic again. Let it go.”
It wasn’t the wild, sacrificial magic of the shower. This was slower, hotter, a fusion that built in the space where their bodies joined. Her glow intensified, casting their moving shadows on the walls. A soft, golden light began to emanate from where they were connected, a heat that was more than physical.
She came silently, her body seizing around him in a series of powerful, internal clutches that stole her breath. The glow flashed, then stabilized into a soft, steady radiance that clung to her skin like gossamer. He followed seconds after, his release pumping into her with a low, sustained groan, his forehead pressed hard between her shoulder blades.
They sat there, joined, breathing heavily, the only sound their ragged breaths and the faint, persistent hum of the wounded wards. The glow on Cassie’s skin began to dim, receding until it was just a faint shimmer in the hollow of her throat.
Brook’s arms slackened around her. The probing against the wards had stopped, leaving an even heavier silence in its wake. A silence that felt like a held breath.
“Dawn’s maybe two hours out,” Brook mumbled into her hair, his voice already slurring with sleep. “We should… we should try to rest.”
But as Cassie carefully lifted herself off him and they slid under the wrecked sheets, she stared at the scorched sigils on the ceiling. Thomas Reed. Lucas’s sire. Her target. Her executioner. The thought should have chilled her. Instead, lying there with Brook’s warmth at her back and a strange, settled power humming in her veins, it felt like a grim, undeniable direction. A destination.
The silence after Brook’s breathing evened out was absolute. Cassie watched the slow fade of her own luminescence against the dark silk. It was a pathetic nightlight against the depth of what hunted her. Thomas Reed. The name was a cold stone in her gut. Her academic curiosity curdled into a target painted between her shoulder blades.
Brook shifted in his sleep, his arm tightening around her waist. The warm, solid weight of him was the only anchor in the room. She needed to feel that anchor, to prove to herself she was still here, still capable of something other than being prey. She turned slowly, facing him. In the low light, the angles of his face were softened, beautiful. She traced his lower lip with her thumb.
His eyes opened, clear and instantly awake. He saw the look on her face. He didn’t speak. He simply pulled her closer and kissed her, a deep, languid exploration that tasted of sleep and salt and him. His hand slid down her back, over the curve of her ass, his fingers digging in with possessive pressure.
“Again?” he murmured against her mouth, his cock already hardening where it pressed against her thigh.
“Yes,” she said, the word a low vibration. Not for pleasure, not exactly. For confirmation.
She pushed him onto his back and straddled him, taking him inside her in one smooth, sinking motion. She was still swollen, wet from their last joining. He filled her completely, a familiar, stretching fullness. She leaned forward, bracing her hands on his chest, and began to move. This was slower than before, a deliberate, grinding rhythm. Her hair fell around their faces like a curtain.
“Look at me,” she commanded.
He did. His blue eyes were dark, watching her every flicker of expression. She rocked her hips, feeling him rub against a spot deep inside that made her breath hitch. She could feel the low, dormant hum of her magic responding, a warmth pooling in her core. She focused on that feeling, on the connection between their bodies, on the raw physical truth of his skin under her palms.
His hands came up to grip her hips, guiding her, matching her pace. The sound of their joining was wet, intimate. He thrust upward, meeting her downward stroke, and a sharp gasp escaped her. The coil of tension began to wind tighter, a sweet, insistent pressure.
“Touch yourself,” Brook rasped, his voice rough. “Let me watch.”
She obeyed, her own hand sliding between their bodies, her fingers finding her clit. The direct touch, combined with his thick length inside her, sent a jolt of pure electricity up her spine. Her movements became less controlled, more frantic. She fucked him with a rising desperation, her breasts swaying, a sheen of sweat making her skin gleam in the dark.
“I’m close,” she panted. “Brook, I’m—”
The air in the room changed.
It wasn’t a sound. It was a cessation of sound, as if the space had been vacuum-sealed. The gentle hum of the apartment’s wards didn’t just go quiet—it was erased. The pressure in Cassie’s ears popped.
A man stood at the foot of the bed.
He hadn’t appeared. He simply was. One moment the space was empty, the next it was occupied. He was tall, elegant in a tailored charcoal suit that looked out of place in the wreckage of the room. His hair was silver, swept back from a face of poised, ageless beauty. His eyes, a pale, piercing gray, observed them with detached academic interest, like a biologist noting the mating habits of an interesting specimen.
Cassie froze, her body locked mid-rock, her fingers still pressed against her clit. Brook went rigid beneath her, his hands tightening on her hips to a painful degree.
“Do continue,” the man said. His voice was cultured, quiet, and carried an impossible weight. It seemed to vibrate directly in Cassie’s bones. “I’d prefer not to interrupt the culmination. The energetic feedback is quite illuminating.”
It was Thomas Reed. Cassie knew it with a cold, absolute certainty that bypassed thought. The portraits in the society pages hadn’t done him justice. They captured the wealth, the poise, but not this… profound stillness. This density of presence. He made Lucas seem like a frantic, shrieking thing.
Brook found his voice first, a strangled whisper. “The wards…”
“Were admirable,” Thomas finished, his gaze sliding to Brook. “For a hedge-witch barista.” He took a single, measured step closer. The scent that reached Cassie was clean—linen, cold stone, a hint of bergamot. It smothered the smells of sex and sweat. “They are now quiet.”
Cassie tried to move, to cover herself, to get off Brook. Her body refused. A paralyzing terror, deeper than anything Lucas had invoked, held her in place. She was exposed, literally and figuratively, splayed open before the source of her doom.
Thomas’s pale eyes returned to her face, then traveled down, slowly, taking in the sight of her impaled on Brook, her hand still between her legs. A faint, almost imperceptible frown touched his lips. “Lucas failed to mention the… vigor of your feeding rituals. Or the collateral attachment.” He said ‘attachment’ like it was a disease.
“Get out,” Brook snarled, trying to sit up. An invisible force shoved him back into the mattress, a gentle, unmovable pressure.
“I think not,” Thomas said. His attention fixed solely on Cassie. “You are an aberration, Cassiopeia. A splice in the natural order. Lucas’s sentimentality allowed you to manifest. My responsibility is to prune the garden.”
He raised his hand, not in a dramatic gesture, but simply palm-up, as if asking for an apple. The air around Cassie’s skin began to crackle. The soft glow that had nearly faded reignited, but this time it was being pulled from her, drawn toward his open palm in visible, gossamer threads of silver light. An agonizing cold bloomed in her center, starting where she was still joined to Brook.
She screamed, a raw sound of violation. It was a reverse of the feeding, a leaching of her very essence.
Suddenly, Brook bucked beneath her, not with passion, but with a violent, muscular spasm. His back arched off the bed, his eyes rolling back in his head. From his gaping mouth, a stream of pure, golden energy—his magic—was wrenched forth, mingling with her stolen silver light, flowing into Thomas’s waiting hand.
Thomas’s poised expression flickered for a single microsecond. His eyes widened a fraction. The draining stopped.
He closed his hand into a fist, absorbing the combined stream of energy. He looked from Cassie’s pain-wracked face to Brook’s unconscious form, then back at his own closed fist, as if he held something unexpectedly complex.
“Fascinating,” he breathed, the word holding a note of genuine, chilling wonder. “It’s not a splice at all. It’s a fusion.”
He opened his hand. Hovering above his palm was a swirling, beautiful orb of intertwined light—silver and gold, helix-like, each strand reinforcing the other. “He’s not your toy. He’s your familiar. Your anchor. You weren’t just feeding on him. You were integrating him.” Thomas closed his hand, extinguishing the orb. He looked at Cassie with new, unsettling calculation. “This changes the pruning strategy entirely.”
He took another step, now standing directly beside the bed. He reached out, not toward Cassie, but toward Brook’s unconscious face. With a tenderness that was more horrifying than any violence, he brushed a strand of hair from Brook’s forehead.
“You’ve made a mess, little one,” Thomas said softly, his gray eyes now fixed on Cassie. “And you’ve made something unexpectedly durable. Unmaking you, it seems, would require unmaking him. A waste of a perfectly useful asset.” He lowered his hand. “The lesson, therefore, will be different. You will learn your place. You will learn your purpose. You belong to the Garden now.”
He smiled. It was a thin, precise curve of the lips that never touched his eyes.
“We start at dawn.”
everyone is over the age of 18