Free Darkened Days by C. L. Quinn Page A

treatment of the cadre.  Yes, they’d broken some rules.  But they were babes, and it didn’t appear an older vampire was around to teach them the way of life.  So, were they dangerous, or just uninformed?  Did the first blood have the right to unilaterally decide to imprison a large group of vampires?  With no surveillance, obviously, or they would have known Jacob was not part of the cadre.  And should never have been taken, let alone imprisoned.  So he was pissed at being separated from Starla, and only slightly less pissed that he had been detained at all.  When his jailer came next he would demand to see her boss.
    Rolling over, he tried to close his eyes and sleep.  Closing his eyes had been easy.  Sleep eluded him all day long until just before sunset, when he felt his eyes give way, close tight, and he blanked out.
     
     
    Someone was touching him.  He woke to fingers trailing down his chest.  When his eyes finally agreed to open, he looked up to see Crystal in the cell with him, on her knees beside his prone body, caressing his skin aggressively.  She lifted her eyes from her own hands to meet his red-rimmed eyes.
    “You are delicious.  What is your name?”
    “Jacob Ward.  I live with Koen and Eillia in the Orientales.  You’re with a first blood vampire.  I imagine those names are familiar.”
    “Hm.  Yes, I’ve met them.  Long ago.  Eillia lived here in Paris.  But she’s dead.  Has been for over a year.  Would you care to try to come up with a different story?”
    All the time she spoke, she kept moving her hand over his abs and lower.
    He tried to pull back but found he couldn’t move again.  What the fuck?
    “You’re not first blood,” he said.  It was a statement of fact.
    She nodded.  “You’re right.  I’m not.”
    “Is he nearby, then?”
    “No.  I told you.  He doesn’t dirty his hands with this stuff.”
    “Then how am I frozen?”
    “It’s me.  You see…”  She paused and let her fingers slide beneath the waistband of his jeans.  He could feel the response, almost automatic for a male vampire, to the stimulation.  It didn’t mean she turned him on.  It meant his body loved the touch.
    “Sorry.  Distracted.  Jacob Ward, I am just like you, although I have a few centuries on you.  But a normal vampire routinely drinking the blood of a first often gets some of that vampire’s innate abilities.  He stopped the entire cadre in its tracks, you included.  I couldn’t do that.  But one vampire.  Yes, I have assimilated that ability.  It’s how I can come and go from these cells without worry that you will split my skull and leave.  I can tell you are more powerful than I am.  Well, physically, I mean.  So, I have to keep you like this for everyone’s safety.”   Now she was drawing little circles around the top of his jeans.
    “You don’t mind me doing this, do you?”
    Actually, he sure the fuck did.  But telling her that wouldn’t be his wisest choice.
    “”Um, no, it’s good.”  Suddenly she had the button undone and the zipper opened completely.   Jacob never wore underwear so he was fully exposed to her eyes and busy fingers.
    She lifted him out of the denim and ran her nails along his length.  His cock liked that and filled, the length exploding in her hands as she kneaded him and then leaned in to lick the head.
    Even frozen, Jacob’s body jerked.
    “It’s not that I object to this, but don’t you think you need to have your boss contact Koen so you can see I’m not involved with this cadre?”
    “No.  Not right now.”  She leaned in again to run her tongue up him.  He dropped his head back and closed his eyes.  This freezing skill was a bitch!  He was helpless for the first time in his life and the rage inside him was building to an inferno.  He did not want to have sex with this woman.  But she could control whatever part of him she wanted and he had no choice.
    She groaned and got on top of him.  But