Moonlit Surrender
Chapter Twenty-Seven

Lerexus seemed content with their little show and did not force himself on her. Lucy did notice, however, him throwing a smug grin towards the direction of the dimly lit window she was sure she had seen John standing in. She also noticed as he led her back inside that her own suite looked down on this very courtyard just across from that window. It seemed her captor had planned his every move, carefully thinking out each and every detail of this moment when he could punish John for his transgressions. So close, yet so helpless to do anything.

Lucy finished out the night in her wrinkled dress cleaning whatever room Lerexus chose to occupy, suffering his leering eye as she tended to her chores exposed in her revealing outfit to any who sought an audience with him. She was surprised Doris had not been among the trickling. It had been a few nights since she had seen the angry woman and was almost beginning to miss her icy glaring.

"Dawn will soon be upon us," the ancient vampire lord announced to her as he rose from his seat in his study where he had been perched under the guise of reading while he secretly eyed her dusting the stuffy chamber. "I'll escort you to your room."

"Not Doris?"

"No, not Doris. She's away. It will do her good to take a break from your presence. She sees only the weak girl you were, but she will return to the formidable right hand you will soon become and replace it easier to respect your leadership." He motioned for the door.

"Maybe," she started softly, sauntering to where he waited with his hand resting on the door's lever. "Maybe, instead of sleeping all alone in that big bed all day, I can join you."

He took in a steady breath as his gaze dropped to her fully exposed breasts behind the sheer mesh draped over them.

She slipped into the narrow gap between the closed door and his lean body. "Please?"

She saw a self-satisfied glimmer in his eye, as if he were internally celebrating this obvious victory over her, too arrogant to sense the subtle manipulation beneath the surface. He reached out to touch her chin and rub his thumb along her plump bottom lip. "A vampire's coffin is a sacred place of safety. It would be quite a leap to trust you with my person in such a vulnerable state."

"I've never slept in a coffin," she lied. "I want to know where I'll be sleeping the rest of my life."

That couch in his crypt was old. Wooden legs. I could break one off and stake him with it.

"John did not invite you into his?" he asked curiously.

"No," she lied again.

He grunted in deep thought as he turned her face back and forth in his hand to admire it. He dropped it suddenly to squeeze her breast then leaned in and growled in her ear, "If we had more time, I would have you right here, up against this door."

Even fucking better. Seduce him until the sun is up, then replace a window or door to open!

She let out a tempting breathy moan and arched her hips into his where she could already feel his erection stirring. "Then take me."

He sighed as if he meant to give in and pressed his growing cock hard against her. "I can see productivity will be a struggle for me with you here in my castle." His eyes dropped to her mouth and he drew closer as if to kiss her, but then pulled away at the last second. "Not tonight, sugar. Now come. It's time for bed."

Her teeth clenched in hidden dismay, but she managed a nauseating, "Yes, Master," then followed him back to her suite.

***

Lucy shimmied out of her dress and kicked it to the side to rid her body of Lerexus' scent as she lazily made her way through the sitting room to the bed waiting for her through the open French doors. She heard the door to the suite lock from the other side as Lerexus tucked her away for the day. She sat down on the edge of the fluffy mattress and yawned. Despite her slight recovery from not being drained of her blood every two seconds, she was still fatigued and withered feeling. Even if her plan had worked and by some snowflake's chance in hell she had been able to lure Lerexus into a false sense of security to trick and make a run for it, she'd have barely made it down a flight of stairs before becoming winded. She chortled at her own flawed plan, imagining she wouldn't have even made it out of the castle before being recaptured.

She was torn from her morbid thoughts by the sight of the open drapes, above the seat, of the window in front of her. She saw one glass door was pushed in and left ajar and through its panes the first grays of dawn were lighting the horizon. Curiously, she crossed the room to investigate, leaning forward on the window seat to peer out. All she saw past the narrow ledge of stone outside the window was a steep drop into the withered courtyard. Across the way, she could see a candle still flickering in John's window, but with sunup fast approaching she knew he was probably already locked away in whatever rickety coffin he had been provided.

"Don't scream," came a low whisper behind her.

Her head snapped around so fast it felt like it might continue for a full rotation. She stared shocked to replace John, bound once more in the shiny silver handcuffs, standing beside her bed.

"If you make a sound, someone will hear. That brute is still hanging around outside your door." He then nodded to the window behind her. "Would you mind closing those, please?" He shifted his bound wrists awkwardly as the metal burned him.

Speechless, she pushed the glass doors closed and drew the curtains tight, leaving the two of them in the dim light of the candelabrum on the nightstand, but safe from any stray rays from the sunrise beginning to glow under the horizon outside. "How?" she asked in shock.

"That ledge is just wide enough for someone to shimmy very carefully across."

"You did that handcuffed? Are you insane? Couldn't you have gotten hurt? What about the time? You're stuck here all day now."

"I... needed to see you."

If he can fit on that ledge, so can I.

"I thought he took those off of you nights ago?" she asked as she watched the faint steam rising from his white skin.

"We had a disagreement," was all he answered, then suddenly changed the subject. "I assume this means you've taken him up on whatever it is he's offered you for your submission," he stated bluntly. "Would that bother you?" she replied cryptically.

Let him flounder. Let him squirm a little. He deserves at least that.

He sighed heavily and did not meet her gaze. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed, but all things have their expiration. I enjoyed our time together and will treasure those memories. However, I told you I had a plan and now I'm afraid things are set in motion that cannot be undone. If a life with him is truly what you've chosen, you'll need to warn him."

Her eyes widened and she rose from her seat. "He would kill you for a second betrayal.”

"He would."

"How can you be so nonchalant about that?" she asked in shock.

"I've lived a long life, seen many things, loved, been loved - I think. What more could a man ask of his existence? I can meet death with no regrets... but for one." "What's that?"

He crossed the short distance between them and she was suddenly aware of her nakedness. His fathomless eyes glowed in the light of the candles as they settled on her. "That I did not lock you away all for myself when I had the chance." Shackles. Hidden. Owned.

The image was not so different than what she had already experienced in Castle Sheol, but for being kept by a man she would gladly call master. How easily the scenery changed at the thought of being John Wright's captive pet, bound, restrained, sacrificing the blood in her veins willingly to him, taken each night in some new dark game. She stepped a little closer, looking up into his otherworldly gaze. "These memories you'll treasure, what are they exactly? Tell me." "The first time I met you, how I watched you while you slept."

She felt a smile tug at the corner of her lips but suppressed it. "You watched me? When I fell asleep in your class?"

"I did. The truth is, I just couldn't bring myself to wake you. You looked so peaceful, so beautiful." "What else?"

"The first time I tasted your lips." He closed his eyes momentarily. "The need in your body was so great it was like an audible hum, a siren's call beckoning me." His eyes opened and he stepped closer. "I should have taken you right then, ravished you and then hidden you away in a remote tower."

She licked her lips, remembering the powerful first kiss they had shared, how it had stirred her impossible need for more and soon became all she could think of. Could he sense its presence in her still? Did he know? "What else?" she asked again with a slight waver in her voice.

His mouth did not break from its deep grimace, but she could see the grin glittering in his gaze as he realized what she was doing. He took another step to her, standing so close her nipples brushed the buttons of his black vest. "The first time I tasted your pussy. Do you remember?" he rasped low as he bent his head down to her ear.

Waiting on his coffee table. Knees hurting. Neck stiff. His tongue parting me open.

Slow. Teasing. Testing.

She shuddered despite herself. "Yes," she answered weakly.

The corner of his mouth tugged up ever so slightly. "My favorite time was eating you out in the classroom."

She felt her arousal growing like a hot thunderstorm rolling through her body whose lightning strikes all landed in her pussy.

The silver of the handcuffs rattled as he curled his index finger around a coil of her hair, his gaze dropping to glaze over her exposed body. "Do you recall what naughty thing you wrote on my whiteboard that night, sweetheart?"

She sighed in want and knew she had lost this delicate pas de deux of wills. He knew she was trying to tempt him but he was too adept at playing her own body against her. "I'm your little slut," she conceded softly with a bite of her lip as she fought the urge to tear him out of his suit and tie.

His finger dropped the piece of hair he had been toying with and glided down the slope of her jaw and under her chin to tilt it back up to him. "Are you still my little slut, princess?"

God yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!

So much for punishing him.

"Always,” she whispered.

His devilish smirk turned into a full grin. "You did not agree to whatever terms he gave you."

She shook her head. "I've been trying to get out of this place since the moment I woke up in it."

He planted a soft kiss on her forehead. "Good girl."

She felt her knees go weak, still addicted to his praise and hungry to do anything she had to in order to receive more of it.

"I saw you in the courtyard earlier. The way you moaned... I just assumed you had chosen to stay."

She shook her head again. "I think he wants to turn me into a vampire. He wants me to be his queen."

His brow raised. "And you said no?"

"Why would I want to be a queen when it's so much more fun being a princess?" She shot him a coquettish smile. "Would you like to know a secret?"

He nodded, amused.

"I saw you too." She untucked his tie from behind his vest and ran her fingers down the length of it. "So, that's where those moans came from."

He grunted, watching her fingers play down his chest. "Do you like having me watch?"

"Do you like watching?" she teased coyly.

"I do," he sighed.

"Maybe we should hang out here a little longer then. Lerexus can't keep his hands off me."

"And why should he be able to?" He touched her with his own, running them over her collarbones and down the soft skin between her breasts, watching the waves of goosebumps trail behind his touch.

She dropped the tip of his tie. "He's talked a lot about you. Both he and Doris."

“What is it they have to say about me?" he quirked an eyebrow and let his wandering hands fall away.

"Doris said you're a predator and seek out weak women to control."

"And you saw this for the lie it is when you realized you are nothing close to weak."

She looked up at him wide eyed.

His brow dropped sadly. "Oh, darling, no." He clasped her hands in his bound ones. "Doris is a loathsome woman, power hungry and full of envy. She doesn't know the first thing about true submission. I did not choose you because you were weak and easy to control. I was captivated by your mind and soul, seduced by your need, and hopelessly ensnared by your willing surrender to me. It takes a strength that wretched woman will never know to put that kind of trust and obedience in someone."

He thinks I'm strong?

John says I'm strong.

You are strong.

She felt a heavy burden lifted from her chest as she slowly began to remember who she was, the confidence she had lost since being trapped behind these walls.

"And Lerexus? What poison did he spew?" He released her and sat down on the edge of the bed with a weariness she did not know an immortal vampire could have. "He told me you lied about your past."

He was silent a moment. Lucy saw the glowing embers in the fireplace go cold and could see every corner of the room lit dimly in gray light filtering in through the heavy drapes as the sun rose beyond. "There are aspects I was not entirely forthcoming about, this is true."

"Forthcoming?" she snorted. "You told me you had been mourning your wife's death and were attacked by some vampire in an alley that turned you by accident."

He raked his hands through his gray streaked hair. "I see he's been very chatty with you."

Lost in the world of this story? Make sure you're on Ñel5s.org to catch every twist and turn. The next chapter awaits, exclusively on our site. Dive in now! "Also that this is like a thing for you. You like young, naive girls, but it never works out."

He cursed angrily under his breath.

"John, I know everything. So, just tell me the truth. Stop lying."

He looked back up at her. "I swear I had no malicious ulterior motives. I-I have regrets. Three hundred years is plenty of time to do a lot of stupid things. It's true it was not my wife who had died. She lost her life giving birth to our daughter Ingaret. I told you she was taken by the plague, which is true, but she was a young woman when it happened. I did not handle it well." He shook his head. "That is such an understatement. It tore me to pieces, to love and raise a child all the way to the cusp of adulthood, only to lose her, is a wound that will never heal for me."

"Why would you lie about that?" she asked sadly. "Why keep that from me?"

"Because of what it led to. My grief pushed me to obsessive lengths at any attempt to get her back. Healers, witches, alchemists, dark surgeons, I sought out any rumor that could bring her back, even those of the undead, of vampires. It is also true I sought out Lerexus. He was a fearsome vampire lord, powerful, with many rumors surrounding him. I tracked him down and begged him to aid me, offering anything and everything just to get my little girl back." He rubbed his forehead, unable to meet her gaze any longer. "He saw potential in me, an intelligence he found desirable. He told me he would bring her back if I became his apprentice. He led me on for many years, feeding me lies about replaceing the right components for a ritual that did not exist. By the time I figured out he was stringing me along, my daughter was long rotted in the ground and I was doomed to this monstrous form, forever at his beck and call. I paint Lerexus the villain, but the truth is that I'm in a hell of my own making. I couldn't just accept the finality of death and have waited out the rest of my mortal days in a hollow daze until also claimed by it. I'm ashamed, Lucy," he admitted softly.

She felt her heart grow heavy for him, doomed to bear the consequences of his mistakes for centuries. She nodded as things became clearer. "You're not a predator, John," she said softly. "I see that now. You're just a caregiver with a broken heart, trying to fill the void like everyone else in the world." She closed the distance between them and took his face in her hands and stroked his stubbly cheeks with her thumbs. "Raging against death is the most human thing to do. You shouldn't be punished like this for it." She added after a moment with a weak smile, "And if you like, I can call you Daddy."

He did not laugh, something genuine stirring behind his eyes. "As much as I'd enjoy that, it's not just that," he whispered sadly. "I've done horrible things even as a vampire. Whatever else he told you about me is probably true. I've taken many lives, hurt people. As much as I hated Lerexus for tricking me, the others in his coven did not deserve to die. They too were simply lost souls. I resorted to needless violence in exchange for freedom - but even that didn't work out. By siding with the Venatores, I stepped willingly into a new collar, and have been held tight by their leash ever since. I am not blameless, you see."

She sat down on his knee and pulled him into an embrace, burying her nose in his neck with her arms tight about him. "Who is?" she whispered rhetorically.

He held her tightly in kind, cradling her to him in his bound arms and nuzzling into her hair. "Whatever relationships I had previously, if they can even be called that, did not last, it's true. Sometimes a relationship just doesn't work out, sometimes I got cold feet, sometimes they did. Most of the time all I could hope for was a brief fling before they realized I had nothing to offer. The very few poor girls that wanted more, that I caved in for and shared my horrible secret with, quickly realized falling truly in love with a vampire is no picnic. I have no future to offer you. I cannot give you a family. I cannot grow old with you. We can't even have fucking brunch on a lazy Sunday morning. All I have is blood and night, darkness and regret. So you see, I've always known one night you would fly away from me, leaving me with only dreams and memories."

"You still think that? Even after all this?" she asked in disbelief.

His hold on her did not loosen despite his grim prediction. "We will escape, sweetheart. It is a certainty. Perhaps you will spend a few more nights with me, maybe out of the obligation of gratitude, or for sentiment's sake, or maybe just out of your own reluctance to let it end, but it is inevitable, as surely as death for you. There is an expiration on this, as wonderful as it may be."

"What is it I just have to get back to?" she let out a breathy, sardonic chuckle. "Those desires aren't mine. I don't need you to give me anything you don't already have to give."

He was silent and she could feel the tension in his body.

"Did it ever occur to you," she continued more gently, "that I'm not looking for a white picket fence at the end of this tale? Or bouncing vampire babies."

He laughed, relaxing again as he held her close.

"I'll love you until my gray hairs and wrinkles chase you off. I'll play your sexy games night after night until you're absolutely bored of me and ditch me for a fresh face. Most importantly, brunch is so overrated. I'll take pancakes at midnight with you over Sunday brunch any time."

His chuckle tickled through her hair and she pulled back just enough to look back up at him to replace his warm smile beaming down on her.

"You're everything I've ever wanted," she added, grazing her fingers down the straight line of his nose and over his soft thin lips. "Wherever you go, I'm going too."

Though there was still a clear trepidation in the stormy ocean of his gray eyes, he seemed content enough to let the grim subject go. With a kiss to her forehead, he rose and gingerly set her on the bed and brought the downy blankets up over her naked body with a quick puff across the candelabrum on the nightstand. With the candlelight extinguished, the room fell into the dim light of the obstructed dawn rising higher and higher beyond the tightly closed window. "Are you going to stay?" she asked softly.

He loosened his tie and popped the top button of his shirt, then rested back on the pillows beside her above all the blankets. "Where else do I have to be?"

She smiled wide and rolled over to curl up on his chest. "It's like a sleepover," she squeaked giddily, the first time she had felt real happiness bubbling inside her within these halls.

He laughed. "Yes, sweetheart."

They both fell silent for a moment as Lucy listened to the eerie calm that fell over the castle during the day. "Daddy?" she tested the new nickname and watched him smile.

"Yes, princess?"

"Do we have enough time to play with those handcuffs?"

He chuckled and looked down at her in surprise.

"Did you think you were the only one excited by having someone bound and at your mercy?" she grinned flirtatiously.

"I shouldn't be surprised," he smiled, "but I think we ought to rest. I'll definitely make a note of it though."

She snuggled in once more and felt her eyes begin to droop closed as a calm washed over her she hadn't felt since she had spent the day in his coffin beside him. For just one moment since she was kidnapped and imprisoned in this damned castle, everything felt like it was going to be okay.