Blurred Bloodlines [2nd in Blurred Trilogy] Read online

  A knock on the front door barely permeated Marc's mind. He slipped on his shirt but didn't button it, nor did he go to open. Moments later, a second, sharper knock held a hint of impatience. Marc knew who had to be behind the door, and he told himself he wouldn't open it. He didn't want to see Kate now. His failure hurt too much, and he couldn't bear the thought of looking her in the eyes and—

  Before he was even aware of moving, he was doing just that.

  Arms wrapped around herself, she didn't look up at him, staring instead at his chest.

  "Simon and Daniel are leaving town,” she said, her voice all but expressionless. “I need to know if—” She finally looked up at him. Whatever she had been about to say, she seemed to forget it. Her eyes widened slightly and she reached out to him, resting her hand on his cheek. “What happened?” she breathed.

  Marc shook his head. His throat was too tight to let out a single word.

  "Oh, Marc, I'm sorry..."

  She wove her arms around his neck and pulled him to her. His first impulse was to resist; he should be the one comforting her, not the other way around. That impulse died when she brushed her lips to his cheek.

  "It's all right,” she murmured. “He'll get better. I know he will."

  Marc closed his arms around her and buried his face against her neck. He could feel the scars from Blake's bite against his lips. It only made him hold her tighter.

  For a long time after he had left, Blake remained curled up on his bed, shaking and unable to catch his breath no matter how unnecessary it now was. He had heard his words, had understood them, but it was hard to believe them, as hard as it had been to accept the gentle, innocent touch that had come in the place of the blows Blake had thought would fall.

  With time, he managed to begin putting some order in his head, separating what had happened in the past, in another place, and what had happened in this house. What had been common practice with him, and what was normal with Marc. Again, Blake struggled with the difference that should have been so simple and yet was so difficult to keep clear in his mind. More difficult, in fact, than he had believed.

  This was Marc, he repeated to himself. Not him. Not the creature he refused to call his Master anymore, even in his own mind. Why that realization had come in the middle of this crisis, Blake had no idea.

  Marc. Not him.

  Blake chanted the words in his mind, mouthing them silently, trying to make them truer through repetition. But even as he did, something in him screamed that this wouldn't work any better than writing the words in his notebook until his fingers cramped. He needed tangible proof rather than what, in the end, was nothing more than scant hope. He needed to see for himself, know in his flesh that he wasn't still living with his tormentor. Once he did, he would finally be able to move on. Or at least, he hoped so.

  With some difficulty he stood, still hard, still shaking, but he didn't let that stop him as he went after Marc, following his scent to his bedroom, barely aware of the other scent twinned with his.

  He stood in front of the closed door for a little while, listening to the quiet sounds behind it without really paying attention to them or trying to figure out what they meant. The white paint was flaking, revealing a dark wood beneath it. Was his mind the same way, the illusions that had so long masked reality falling away at last and revealing who he had once been, and who he hoped to be again? All he had to do was summon enough courage to enter this room and go to his Sire. Go to him willingly, and prove to himself once and for all that the nightmare was over.

  He finally rested a shaky hand on the door handle and turned it, like he was trying to push away his fears, and everything that he knew was a lie. He stepped inside, walked to the bed, and had to blink several times to finally make sense of what he was seeing. What he had heard. What he had smelled before even entering. He should have known, he realized as he watched Kate and Marc, frozen in the most intimate of embraces. He should have known she was there. But at the same time, how could he? He was still trying to convince himself that this was Marc, not some sadistic, twisted version of his Sire invented by demons to break him. The idea that Kate would be in their tormentor's arms—in his bed—willingly hardly even seemed conceivable.

  Rocking back and forth on his heels, Blake tried to decide whether to keep moving forward or flee.

  Kneeling on top of Marc and poised on the edge of pleasure, Kate couldn't begin to fathom if she had made a mistake in offering Marc physical comfort. He had seemed so broken when he had opened the door to her, and she had just missed him so much... His hands remained tight on her hips, his body trembling beneath her, inside her, still seeking the release it was being denied.

  Just two feet away from the bed, Blake seemed as frozen as they were. The emotions crossing his face were too complex, too jumbled for Kate to begin to make sense of them. The one positive thing was that Blake didn't appear afraid anymore, and Kate was truly thankful for that. She never wanted to see Blake afraid again.

  She wished she knew what he felt or thought. She would never know if they all just stayed frozen, though. Taking a deep breath, she made up her mind. All three of them had been miserable the entire time they had been apart. Maybe it was simply time to be together.

  She broke the standstill with just a gesture. Her hand slipped from Marc's chest and reached out toward Blake. He reacted instantly, as though without thinking, and reached back. She took hold of his hand and pulled, slowly and gently. Uncertainty flashed over Blake's face. His eyes flickered toward Marc, then back to Kate as he let her draw him closer. He paused when his knees touched the side of the mattress, but Kate encouraged him with quiet but slightly ragged words.

  "It's all right."

  Blake climbed onto the bed, kneeling next to them, his semi-hard cock resting fat and heavy on his thigh. Marc shifted beneath her as though uncomfortable; Kate soothed him by stroking his chest with one hand, the other never letting go of Blake's. She pulled Blake even closer, and slid her hand up his arm to his neck. She drew his face closer to hers and kissed him lightly.

  "See?” she whispered against his lips. “Everything's all right. No one's hurting anyone."

  What now seemed like an eternity ago, she knew that this was what Blake had hoped would happen: all three of them in the same bed. If he could only remember that, remember that they both loved him and each other...

  Hoping to show him just that, she bent down over Marc and pressed her mouth to his. Her tongue pushed past his lips and caressed his palate and tongue. At the gentle touch, Marc's hips jerked upward, pushing his still-hard dick deeper into her. She moaned into his mouth, then sat up again, grinding her hips down, her desire reawakened.

  Blake watched her with wide eyes, blinking down every so often to look at Marc. Blake seemed to be trying to puzzle something out, though Kate had no idea what it could be.

  "Do you want to touch?” she asked, gasping a little but never stopping her slow rocking onto Marc's cock. “You can if you want to."

  She wanted to touch Blake, wanted to reach for his cock and curl her hand around it, but somehow she didn't dare take her own advice, not when Blake was so still next to her. A full minute passed before Blake's right hand finally rose from where it rested on his thigh. It came up and hovered near Kate's shoulder, her arm, finally settling on her hip, just above where Marc's hand still clutched her and reinforced her rhythm.

  As innocent as the touch was, Kate closed her eyes and shivered at feeling Blake's hand on her—both his hand and Marc's. Sparks coursed through her, a promise for more yet to come. She was so close, she just needed—

  "Oh please, yes."

  She couldn't tell, not without looking down, whose hand was now cupping her breast, holding her nipple between two fingers that were just gentle, just tight enough. Tendrils of pleasure coiling around her, she opened her eyes and looked. A deep moan passed her lips. It was Blake's hand against her flesh, but Marc's fingers were pressed over his, holding him in place as though he had
guided him there and was trying to remind him: this was what love felt like.

  As she pushed down one last time onto Marc's cock, as her orgasm flashed through her, filling her with warmth and making the cool hands on her heated flesh that much more welcome, as she felt Marc pulse within her and heard him groan, Kate only regretted that Blake hadn't found his pleasure with them.

  Maybe next time.

  In that other place, Blake had spent hours, days, forever it had sometimes seemed on his knees, waiting for a word, a touch, punishment.

  He was on his knees again that night, but everything was different. The soft mattress beneath him, replacing cold stone, didn't even register in his mind, not when there were two people now kneeling in front of him, touching him.

  There were lips first, warm on his shoulder, cooler against his neck. Hands next, running smoothly up and down his back, massaging and relaxing when other hands were caressing his chest, his thighs, and finally, when he thought he would die if they didn't touch him where he wanted it the most, his cock.

  He needed a little while before he managed to convince himself he could touch back. Hesitating as though he had been reaching for sunlight and the promise of punishment it held, Blake reached out to simply rest one hand on Marc's thigh, the other on Kate's. Neither pushed him away, neither offered a warning or threat. Instead, they smiled at him, kissed him, caressed him, and Blake slowly started relaxing enough to start caressing them in return.

  Marc's cock was still sticky and spent from his time with Kate, but it slowly reawakened under Blake's touch, a single finger running from tip to root and back again. Kate's skin seemed to burn Blake's fingertips everywhere they danced on her. Blake didn't know which of them to look at anymore, which touch to focus on, too caught in the moment to even realize this was the first time he had shared a bed with both of them at once.

  When Marc pulled back, Blake turned toward him, afraid he had done something wrong. He quickly returned, though, and the small bottle of lotion in his hand made a small ‘snick’ when he flicked the cap open.

  "Is this OK?” Marc asked quietly, fingers shiny and slick but not rising toward Blake yet.

  Blake gave a jerky nod of his head, and soon Marc's hand was on him again, cupping Blake's ass, sliding between his cheeks. A slick finger caressed him—a tentative, fumbling finger, and somewhere at the back of Blake's mind the question rose as to whether Marc was too nervous or too impatient he couldn't control his own hands. The finger found its way, eventually, and pressed in. Blake's chest constricted as he struggled for breath, but he fought his body's first reaction, which was to move away, far away, before the pain started again.

  "Shhh...” Kate's voice slid through his mind, like her hand slid on his cock, in his hair, her lips on his mouth and cheeks, soothing and strangely alien. Long seconds later, after a litany of ‘Marc, not him, Marc, not him,' Blake finally regained control of his breathing, enough to stop it.

  Then a second finger joined the first, wet and smooth, unlike anything Blake had felt in longer than he could remember, and he froze all over again. It was stupid, he told himself even as he squeezed his eyes shut. Stupid to let his mind bring him back to that cell, to his jailer. Things had never been slow, or careful with him. Stupid yet he couldn't help it, every additional touch felt like it was about to transform into something far less pleasant, and everything he was, everything he knew told him to run while he still could.

  "Marc?"

  Kate's quiet, questioning word seemed much too loud in the silence that surrounded them, and Blake flinched, squeezing his eyes more tightly shut.

  The worry in her voice took Blake's mind as much time to process as the fact that Marc wasn't touching him anymore. Not at all. Kate continued to stroke his arm and back soothingly, but Marc had pulled back. And while a part of him felt relief, Blake also knew, deep down, that if they stopped now it would take even longer to shrug off the hold his memories had on him. He forced his eyes open, ready to demand that they continue, remembering too late that he had no voice to express himself. Shaking his head, he reached for Marc, clutching at his arm and shoulder, drawing him in for a kiss in which he poured all of his fear that he'd never find his Sire again.

  It was a small, whining little noise that made him pull away, breathless and lightheaded. Kate had shifted closer to them, close enough to touch them both, and the look on her face was pure desire. Tentatively, Blake turned toward her, seeking her mouth. It pressed to his at once, and she kissed him with the same urgency he had kissed Marc.

  When she broke away and Blake looked for Marc, rather than the concerned look he expected to find, he was confronted with a most improbable sight. Marc had turned around on the bed, facing away from Blake, and he was now on his hands and knees.

  "Don't make him wait,” Kate whispered against the shell of his ear, and now the worry was gone, replaced by a shy embarrassment that somehow sounded familiar. Her voice dropped even lower when she added, “Show me how beautiful you two are together."

  Her words were like a blazing trail coursing through Blake's mind. Unable to form a coherent thought, he walked on his knees to Marc, close enough that his cock pressed snugly against the crack of Marc's ass, close enough that he could reach around and take hold of Marc's dick. It was hard and slick in his hand, as though Marc had prepared himself before changing his mind; the same slickness against Blake's cock when he rocked back and forth against Marc's ass told of another kind of preparation.

  Once more instinct took over, but rather than demanding that Blake flee or submit, it now left him no choice but to enter Marc. This time, when Blake froze, it had nothing to do with memories, for he had never been in such a position with Marc before. Not with Marc, and definitely not with him. It wasn't a new territory, per se, but he could barely wrap his mind around the simple idea that Marc—that his Sire—was offering himself to Blake like this.

  At last he started moving. And with each thrust of his hips, each flash of pleasure, the past shattered in front of the naked present.

  As kisses went, this one wasn't the most refined Marc and Blake had ever shared, teeth clashing and noses bumping, breaking the rhythm until they found a better angle. It wasn't the most sensual, either; the sting of their setback earlier that night was still too fresh in Marc's mind for him to completely allow himself to enjoy the moment. But it was, on Blake's part, the most desperate kiss he had ever offered Marc, and that was enough of a warning. Blake was never desperate, not the Blake he knew, which meant this still wasn't the Blake he used to know.

  But instead of pulling away, Marc felt himself falling into the kiss, straight into Blake's despair and need, wishing he could vanquish the first and fulfill the second.

  There was still time to stop everything and try to understand what was going on in Blake's head—the sensible thing to do, a nagging little voice insisted—but Marc ignored the voice and clung to the fact that there was still no fear in Blake's scent.

  The kiss, the desperation, the need, all summed up months of living with a Blake that wasn't really Blake, months of touching him and unknowingly perpetuating his abuse, of remembering, with each passing day, what had once been, what would maybe be again some day.

  Given enough time to think about it, Marc might not have chosen this particular road to try to pull Blake out of the maze of illusions and truths he was still trapped in, even without magic. But desperation called for desperate measures, and Blake's desperation had become Marc's own.

  It was clear that, despite appearances, Blake wasn't ready and needed to fight his instincts to allow Marc's touch. And while Marc wanted nothing more than to drive his cock into his Childe, he wasn't lost enough not to realize that it might be a mistake. The simple fact that it was Blake's idea—the same kind of idea that had made Blake a trembling mess not even an hour earlier—dictated that caution was needed.

  Caution, however, wasn't going to take care of Marc's need. Or Blake's, for that matter.

  Two years ea
rlier, he would never have considered it. Bloodlines ran from Sires down, not the other way around, and Marc had never let Blake top him. It only made things more complicated that Kate was there, watching, caressing both of them in turn. Part of Marc knew it was the least of his worries at that moment, but the thought of letting her see him in a submissive role was disquieting.

  It wasn't about his ego, though, nor was it about old customs. It also wasn't about that strange feeling inside him that claimed Blake was too old to be his Childe. The whole point was to prove to Blake that Marc wasn't his tormentor, wasn't the ‘master’ that Blake had once identified on paper. The decision was made in an instant, the cursory preparation he offered himself took barely a second longer, and then all he had to do was wait for Blake to get a clue, which took a surprisingly long time.

  An excruciatingly long time.

  As excruciating as the first slow push of Blake's cock inside him.

  Marc's body resisted the intrusion at first, and he had to force himself to relax, remind himself that this was all right. More than that: it was, he hoped, the key to finding Blake again.

  Blake stilled when his balls came to rest against Marc's flesh, and he leaned against Marc's back, one arm curled around Marc's chest, the other hand wrapped around Marc's cock. Blake didn't move for a long moment; the ragged breathing against the base of Marc's neck told him quite clearly it would all be over pretty fast if Blake moved. Marc forced himself to remain still, focusing on Kate's hands as they caressed his arm and shoulder, or as they slipped along Blake's arm to stroke his chest. She was kneeling next to them, and whenever her fingers left him, Marc knew she was caressing Blake instead. Marc turned his head on the pillow to see her. Immediately, she leaned closer and laid a kiss on his lips.

  As though he had only been waiting for her signal, Blake finally started moving. He slowly pulled back before snapping his hips back in place. At the same time, his hand slid with the same effortlessness over Marc's cock. As Blake found his rhythm, sensations flooded Marc's system. Some of them were familiar, and Blake's hands on him would never cease to cause Marc's body to shiver and crave more of his touch. On the other hand, the feel of Blake's cock pushing inside him, seemingly deeper with every stroke, the way it stretched him or brushed against his prostate until Marc couldn't tell if it was pain or pleasure shaking his body anymore... All of it was new and even stranger than Marc had expected.