Chapter 14

True to his word, Leo woke me about three hours before we were due to land. I hadn't slept as much as I'd have liked for one night. Or day. But I knew it would help.

I had no idea if Leo had slept or if I was supposed to have done anything else. The seat was so much more comfortable than other flights I'd been on that I had slipped into sleep and stayed that way without problem.

While Leo gave me a moment to wake up, I glanced around. At some point the stewards must have come through because he'd put aside a glass of water for me and he handed it over now.

"Thought you might appreciate it. They'll bring breakfast around in about an hour or so as well."

"Thank you," I said, knowing I was uttering those two words a lot. He smiled at me saying those words again, but handed me the water glass without drawing any more attention to it.

"So, what are all these many questions you have for me?" he asked.

I considered the first one I wanted to ask very carefully, knowing I was unlikely to have time for all of them. What would benefit me the most to know?

"Who asked you to investigate Ludis? Surely he's your Brethren."

"That's where you want to start?" Leo asked, lifting an eyebrow.

I nodded, not sure it was exactly, but unable to think of a better option. "I want to know who exactly I am allying with on this. I'm not beyond calling in favors if this goes well."

Although I was making a sort of joke, Leo nodded as if that explained the best approach or at least a semi decent one. I let him think and drank and munched on the spare candy bar I had as I did. I probably shouldn't have been eating chocolate for breakfast, but after being awake all night and then in the air I had lost track of what time of day it truly was and I was just consuming what I needed and sleeping when I could at this point.

"How much do you know of the twelve original vampire Brethren?" Leo asked after a while.

"I didn't know there were twelve even, let alone what they have to do with Ludis." I shrugged. There was little information anywhere on the true-blood race and I didn't exactly have anyone I could ask.

"There were twelve clans a long time ago. For a while the world seemed to be getting an idea of us existing, many hundreds of years ago." He folded his arms and frowned as he considered the story he was telling me. "They decided that it was important for us not to make humans so scared that they hunted us into extinction."

"Makes sense. You don't want to die just like we don't."

"They agreed to split up our power, the territories we controlled and to police our kind." Leo paused and sighed. "Each one of the twelve clans put some of their power into a dagger. The heads have changed several times over the centuries, but the daggers remain, passed on between Brethren. I belong to the clan that has the amethyst dagger. My sire, in more ways than one, wields it."

"Your father?" I asked, aware of the weight that might put on his shoulders.

"No, my uncle. My father bore it and died in its service."

I swallowed, not sure what to say to such a revelation. He was a lot more powerful and important than I had realized. My parents had told me that the true vampires had a different system of governance and said that it was good to know whose territory you were in. I assumed that they fought over them.

The systems had also made me wonder what to expect of the Brethren, but that they sort of worked together and gave each other room wasn't the answer I had expected.

"We're not like the turned," Leo said, echoing the conclusion I was now coming to. "It's important that we get along with humans. After all, we need you as a food source, but we don't want to be seen as monsters."

"And the turned aren't like that at all?" I asked, even though I pretty much knew the answer.

"No. The turned are much more hedonistic and think short term. Possibly because they're so much easier to kill. I don't know. I do know that some of them killed one of the twelve dagger holders and now sits at meetings of the Brethren as if he is one of us."

I nodded, understanding coming to me. "You want to make sure Ludis isn't planning something similar."

"Exactly. If Ludis is trying to take over this clan, then it is up to us to stop him, but a Brethren can't kill a turned unless they attack first. It's one of our rules to give the turned a degree of safety among us."

"Which is where I come in. You get me to kill him instead."

"More like, I don't stop you from removing a nuisance from my path."

I chuckled, knowing that it was a subtle distinction, but a distinction nonetheless.

"This amethyst dagger has powers?" I asked, although I was only a little curious about this topic.

"It does, but don't ask me what they are. I don't actually know." With that, Leo leaned over my way and pulled me in for a hug and a kiss again. Although the passion surprised me, I wasn't going to say no to more of a relationship with him.

As he kissed me, his hands roamed again, however. They slunk lower and lower down my body until his fingers were slipping underneath the hem of my dress once more.

I let out a strange sound half way between a moan and a gasp as soon as he touched me. He still had my panties, leaving me exposed and he was quick to touch and stroke in just the right way to get me aroused again. It helped his cause that he had been driving me wild since the moment I met him and enjoyed me without letting me finish already.

"Is this my reward?" I whispered as he slipped his fingers inside my wet pussy again.

He kissed my neck. "No. This is me enjoying your body and making sure you know how much it belongs to me now. You're not going to cum. Not for some time yet. You're going to be begging me for mercy long before I let you."

I whimpered, making a sound I'd never thought I'd utter before now.

He fingered me until I was close to my peak, my body so desperate for release and then he pulled his fingers out again. Instinctively I tried to squeeze my legs shut to finish the process without him, but he noticed the motion and pushed my legs apart again. He held them that way as I squirmed in frustration.

Still in his arms, I began to recover a little but the frustration was definitely mounting with each almost orgasm. This was a cruel sort of torture, but he was right about what it was teaching me. My body was now very much his. And there wasn't a lot I could do about it.

"Now, what other questions did you have for me?" he asked once my breathing was a little slower and I wasn't such a hot mess.

It took me a little longer to clear my thoughts so I could utter them to him, but I tried.

"Where are we going?" is what slipped out first, and he chuckled.

"That is a complicated question to answer. Not that it should be, but the territory my don and clan control is... different to the other eleven houses. We command the seas."

"Like pirates?" I asked. The phrase earned me a chuckle, but he also shook his head.

"We don't attack other ships. And it's a massive cruise line, mostly. Although we'll travel on all the cruises if there's good reason to."

"So we're going on a cruise?"

He nodded. "Essentially, yes. Ludis is aiming for one boat in particular."

"That seems like such a bizarre choice for a territory. It's not static and you have to be on boats to defend it." I didn't understand at all and feared that my criticism wouldn't go down well with Leo, but he tilted his head to the side as if he was genuinely considering my words and a reply.

"There's merit to it. We've not always had that exact territory, but there's always been an advantage to trading on the high seas so to speak. Law in international waters change. Any crime committed while on a ship is tried and sentenced at the next port of call. On a cruise, you know what country you're going to next."

Understanding finally hit me. You could do all sorts of crimes and know that even if you got caught, because of the port you called at next, the charge or sentencing would be different. In a lot of ways it was very clever.

"That and when you kill someone on a cruise boat you can just toss the body overboard and it can take weeks before anyone misses them if they were alone and even if they are missed, people assume they just fell overboard."

I shuddered, not sure that was information I wanted to know.

"You'd be surprised how many people go missing on cruise boats and no one even knows until the boat docks at the final port and they don't get off. There was one woman who went on a cruise and didn't tell her family. No one reported her missing until a week after she should have gotten off."

"That's crazy."

"It helps us."

"Because you can feed and as long as you're careful and mix it up no one knows you killed a passenger," I replied, not sure how I felt about such a devious way to hide it.

He frowned and shook his head. "We don't kill very many people. Not true-bloods. Do you know how quickly we would be hunted if we actually murdered so many. Yeah, some of our turned get out of hand, but we try to keep them as in order as you do. We have enthralled for a reason."

I sat back, trying to process what I was hearing. This was entirely news to me. The guild painted vampires as all bad and something to be destroyed. So had my parents. Could he be telling me the truth?

Whether he was or he wasn't, I got the feeling that I was about to find out.

As I considered the information he'd given me, I tried to think of some more questions I could ask him, but for now I thought I had learned enough. I got the impression that a lot of the rest I would find out once I was on a cruise boat with him and we were on our way to our destinations.

There was also likely to be more alone time than I had anticipated if we were going to be on a cruise ship. From my understanding there would be times we would be in a small room by ourselves, even if we had a nice balcony or other extra perks. It made me wonder what dinner was like and if the vampires all ate. Given Leo's current attitude to everything I suspected that I might be getting a lot of room service.

"Come here," Leo said, pulling me out of my thoughts. He put his arm through the gap between us again and pulled me into a hug. "Done with the questions for now?"

"I think so. Can I ask some more later?"

"You may, but not around anyone else, okay?"

I nodded as he brought his face in closer to mine. I kissed him again, as eager to do so once more as he seemed to be me. Kissing him was wonderful and heat flushed through me every time I did. He'd also promised to reward me for behaving for him earlier and I hoped that I might finally get that reward.

His spare hand soon roamed again, sliding over my body and arousing me all over again. After the frustration that had been building in me it didn't take long to have me wet again and leaning into him and the kisses. He slipped his tongue into my mouth and I opened to him, wanting him to feel the desire I had.

As he tugged and tweaked my nipples again, gentle enough that it only increased the heat and longing for him I felt, I moaned into his mouth.

He pulled back enough to chuckle and then plunged his hands down between my legs. He pulled my dress up, exposing me for a few seconds before I could get my blanket rearranged. I gasped as his fingers quickly found my pussy.

"God you're wet," he whispered in my ear. "Would you like me to do something about that?"

"Yes, please," I replied, not even hiding how badly I wanted it. It was taking all my self control not to grind against his hand or touch myself to take care of it.

He didn't respond but slid two fingers deep into me again while he used the heel of his hand to rub against my clit. I tried not to writhe too much, but it felt so good that I could barely think of anything else. He knew exactly what to do to drive me wild.

"Are you close?" he asked, his voice almost a growl into my neck.

"Mmhmm." I couldn't speak, too close and wanting to enjoy every minute of this.

As quickly as he had started touching me, he stopped, pulling away from the entire embrace except to grab a nipple and twist it painfully on the way.

I gasped at the sudden pain so close to my orgasm and it killed the good feeling almost instantly, leaving me even more frustrated than before. No matter how much I wanted to ask him what the hell he was doing to me, I couldn't speak.

"Not yet," he said and leaned back in his chair. I could see the corner of a smirk on his face but I wasn't sure what to do. The emotions that flooded me at being toyed with like this were intense, but there was also a certain delight to all this.

I was doing exactly as I was told at every moment and while he was clearly deliberately making me very sexually frustrated, I was calm in my mind. There was no overthinking or questioning. There was just obeying him and seeing what happened.

Of course, if he continued torturing me like this, I might feel very differently soon.