Hostile Genus: An Epic Military Sci-Fi Series (Invasive Species Book 2) Ben Stevens (best contemporary novels txt) 📖

citizens of New Puebla are under my protection. If harm comes to them, then their attackers have to answer to me.”

“It all sounds very civilized,” Maya lied. “And I suppose that allowing me into your city, wanting me to perform, has nothing to do with the bread-and-circus tactics of keeping your cattle distracted from the tedium of daily life?” Maya smiled at Don Luis in a way that let him know she was playing.

Don Luis smiled back. “You are too smart, Señorita. And your beauty surpasses your intelligence. You belong here with me, by my side.”

“And I suppose I could if I only consent to receive my Citizen Stamp and pay my ‘taxes’?” Maya smirked.

“While for most, those are the terms of our social contract, for you, it would be different.”

“Different?”

“Come, walk with me. I will show you the future,” Don Luis said dramatically. Inside, Maya was simultaneously amused at both how ridiculous he sounded and just how much he believed in his own bullshit. She played along exceptionally well, a true Lily Sapphire performance, gazing into his eyes and allowing her breathing to intensify, causing her lace-wreathed chest to rise and fall theatrically. She took his hand in hers and allowed herself to be carried away into the city night. They strolled along the parapets and ramparts of the palace’s outer perimeter, taking in the sights. It was the time of the vampire. They saw many of them down below in the streets, and Maya’s escort asked her if she would like to go down to the street level and join them before he showed her his surprise. She smiled and nodded her consent.

They went a short way farther and came to a low-grade ramp that switchbacked down the side of the palace. Large square planting beds decorated the intersections, with several electric light lamp posts illuminating the way down.

Despite having only minutes earlier likened her race to cattle, Don Luis was very gentlemanly as he guided her down the ramps, pausing only momentarily to pluck a rose from one of the square beds. He handed her the rose, yellow in color, by its thorned stem and she squinted her eyes in a smile as she took it. She made a sound, somewhere between a gasp and a squeak, and flinched as she took the rose from him.

Having feigned carelessness perfectly, Maya pricked her fingertip on a thorn when she wrapped her delicate fingers around its stem.

A teardrop of bright blood began to trickle down her hand. Don Luis quickened at the sight of it, and he opened his mouth to let escape a quiet moan. She pulled her hand away from the rose, leaving Don Luis to hold it, and she held her bleeding hand in her other, hovering close to and in front of her chest. She studied his eyes and saw that they were locked on to her hand. She knew what to do.

Maya stepped close into Don Luis and turned her hand, with its small trickle of blood running down and around the curve of her palm, its path now having reached her wrist, up toward his mouth.

“Go ahead; I want you to taste me,” she said in a paradoxically shy and confident voice. He dropped the rose like a thing forgotten and cradled her slender tan arm in his hands. Another slight moan escaped his lips. He brought her hand close, and, beginning at her fingertip, closed his lips around her digit and began sucking the blood flow only slightly. He pulled away slightly and kissed his way down her finger, palm, and wrist, cleaning the trail of drying blood as he went. Both the puncture on her finger-tip and the trail itself were just enough to give him a taste, the tiniest little tease. He was becoming drunk on the urge, though—Maya could see it—like growing arousal, sexual and primal. You could put a tiger in a dress suit and teach it to walk upright, but it would remain a tiger. He pulled his lips away from her wrist, and Maya watched in horrific apprehension as his canine teeth stretched, elongated, and formed into points as fine as the rose’s thorns.

Don Luis’s eyes now glowed red, and his face wore an expression of animalistic ecstasy, the quintessence of need, desire, and lust. With sudden and surprising strength, she yanked her arm away from him. In a flash, the beginnings of rage played across his face, and Maya saw there in him the genesis of rape and murder. She acted immediately, determined to shut off and stem the flow of whatever storm might be brewing in the most primitive parts of his brain.

“Ah, ah, ah. Just a taste. If you want more, I want it to be my way. I am not one of your cows.”

Don Luis looked nearly panicked, fighting back his urges to take her right here on the palace ramp. “State your price!” he nearly gasped.

“I want you to drink me in front of everyone. I want them all to see it.” Maya breathed heavily. The panic of Don Luis’s face turned to confusion.

“I want you to drink me at the finale of my concert and then take me as yours, make me your second wife… I want you to turn me.”

When he smiled, with his eyes red and his fangs grown, Maya knew for sure what the devil looked like, and she also knew without a doubt that she had him.

12

“How long is this dinner supposed to last?” Lucy asked the two thugs guarding the hall’s doors.

“Until it’s finished,” one of the two men said, smirking, causing the other to laugh.

Lucy smiled back, though not at the joke. She was smiling at the mental image she had of ripping the man into pieces. Her painted eyes fluttered, and her smile widened.

“Charming,” she said.

“Annoying is more like it. Why don’t you go have a seat over there?” The tough scowled at her and pointed with a finger.

I’d like to rip