Quinn woke in a strange bed. His first thought was that he had just had one hell of a dream that involved a gorgeous woman named Justine who as it turned out wasn't only a vampire but his wife as well. There were several other people in the dream as well including his ex wife Amanda, their daughter and Amanda's daughter by her second husband Adam.
He started to move and hissed when pain radiated up both of his arms.
"What in the hell...." and then he remembered everything including being tossed through the air and being caught by the wall. He laid back down and looked around trying to take stock of where he was. He closed his eyes and then tried to sit up again.
Justine! Where was she? The last thing he remembered was her telling him to go to sleep and he didn't want to, he wanted to kick Jeremiah Mather's vampire ass to hell and back.
He heard the door open and then softly click shut.
"Sire? Are you awake?"
He answered without thinking about it, "Yeah I'm awake."
"Are you in much pain?"
"I've been better... who are you and where am I?" Quinn asked as he licked his dry lips.
"My name is Darren." The voice said as it moved closer. "I'm what you would call your personal assistant and you are at home."
"Home? I don't live here and where's Justine?"
"She just called, she will be here shortly." Darren replied. "I took the liberty of bringing you something to drink."
"Great, can you help me out here? I think my arms are broken."
"Yes sir they are but the queen will tend to those as soon as she returns."
"Justine, is she the queen?" Quinn asked.
"Yes sir." Darren replied.
"And I'm her....."
"mate and king." Darren replied finishing the statement as he put a straw into a glass filled with ice water and put it to Quinn's mouth.
He greedily drank it down draining the glass in seconds, "More."
"Not a good idea sir but how about a few ice cubes?" Darren offered.
"Sure, why not?" Quinn asked.
Darren spoon fed him pieces of ice until Quinn decided that he had enough.
"I can have one of the physicians here give you something for pain if you like."
"No, thanks." Quinn replied, "it doesn't hurt too much unless I move and I want to be awake when Justine gets here.
*******
Jeremiah walked around the small room that was his cell. He shook his arms that had already been healed and then hugged himself. He didn't even try to vanish because he knew that his gifts were all gone. He felt them leave as soon as he got close to the house. Once he was inside he felt them completely disappear. The worst part of it was that he was still vampire Justine and Quinn could keep him here for centuries or even forever if they so chose to. This, he knew was where he would either die or where he would languish forever at their mercy. Of the two choices, he preferred death, the permanent one but if he had to go by what Justine said, that wasn't going to happen.
He wondered where she was but then figured that she was with her mate and really? He wasn't in a big hurry to see her. As he walked around the cell, he wondered how long it would be before Violet made her appearance and if the aging process had already begun to reverse itself.
Jeremiah sat down on the thin narrow cot and tried not to imagine the things that Justine could do to him. In all of his years he had never seen a vampire's eyes change the way Justine's had. He could still feel the heat and anger of her gaze. The memory of it made him shudder. If there had been anyway in which he could kill himself, he would have done it but there were guards on all four sides of the cell. All of them facing him, their eyes glowing with anger.
"You are the scum of the earth!" one of them said to him as he glared at him. "It is bad enough that you involved innocents in our affairs but you were going to kill the queen's mate! And you turned and sold women too?" he asked. "I hope that you suffer long and hard and that the face of each woman that you sold flashes before your eyes."
Jeremiah recoiled at the anger in the vampire's voice. He wasn't the only one who held that opinion, every vampire guarding him held the same opinion even if they didn't say it. He had the idea of trying to provoke one of them into killing him but decided against it. For one, these vampires were guards because of their self restraint and two, if one of them did kill him, they would replace him and would suffer everything that he would have.
A sharp pang in his stomach reminded him that he hadn't fed and he wondered if starving him was part of the punishment. It would take years before he finally died and they would be painful years or would he be given just enough so that he would always want more? Then there was the solitary confinement where he would spend centuries with no one but himself to talk to. He knew of vampires who had been driven insane that way and as far as he knew none of them had ever been the same. But he knew that there would be no solitary confinement for him. He also knew that there would be a great deal of pain involved. Would the queen peel his skin from him one strip at a time? Would she remove it all at once or remove a strip everyday from a different part of his body and then start over with the parts that had healed?
He grabbed his cock at the thought of the skin being pulled of leaving it bleeding and in excruciating pain. He began to wonder what he had to bargain with and soon realized that he had absolutely nothing worth bargaining with, everything he had was gone. He stood up and began to pace wondering when Justine and or Violet would come to see him. A guard, the one who had just spoken to him laughed.
"You might as well sit down, neither of the queens will be here to see you today, they have much more important things to deal with than the likes of you."
"Do you know when they will come?" Jeremiah asked.
"Whenever they get here!" the vampire snapped as he tossed in a flask filled with what Jeremiah assumed was blood.
He looked at it and left it where it had fallen, he wasn't drinking anything until he spoke with either Violet or Justine.
"Drink up!" the guard said, "for all you know it could contain the end of your life."
"Poison?" Jeremiah asked hopefully.
"You won't know until you drink it now will you?" the guard replied.
The thought that his death could be as simple as poisoning made Jeremiah snatch the flask off of the floor. Even if it were a painful death it would be over in a matter of hours and that was preferable to centuries of suffering. He twisted the top of the flask off, tossed it away and guzzled the warm liquid down as he said a prayer that it would end his life.
********
Justine appeared in the bedroom where Quinn lay sleeping, his arms laying at his side. She moved to the foot of the bed and watched his slow, easy respirations and wondered if she should wake him so that she could fix his arms. She waited for a few minutes before making her decision.
"Sleep until I wake you." she murmured as she placed him into the deepest sleep possible. She wanted him to feel no pain when she healed him. She knew that Violet was waiting for her but she didn't care, Quinn came first. Violet and Edward would just have to wait.
She started with the arm closest to her, touching it to see if he would flinch. When there was no reaction, she pulled the arm into its correct position, held her hands over it and murmured words in a language that she had never heard before. Heat left her hands as she moved then up and then down the entire length of the arm twice. Satisfied that by the time she woke Quinn up the arm would be completely healed, she moved to the other arm and repeated the process. Without touching him but just thinking of what she wanted, she stripped him and examined him for other injuries. She moved her hands over his shoulders making the large deep purple bruises disappear before moving down his back and stopping at his ass.
She fought the urge to touch him. If she started she might be not be able to stop and if it were her, she would want to know that she was being touched. For all practical purposes even though they were mates, they were still strangers of sorts. She didn't count the first time that they had almost made love as enough to move them from the stranger stage to something more intimate.
Justine sighed as she turned Quinn over moaning softly and salivating as she took in his chest, almost flat stomach and cock which was erect and seemed to be looking for her. Unable to help herself, she reached down, gently caressed it watching with longing as Quinn thrust his hip forward pressing himself into the palm off her hand. She removed her hand and left the room. Her whole body was tingling with the need to be with her mate but she had to take care of Violet and Edward first then she could take her time with her mate.
She knew that she had until ten to complete the mating but there was time, it was still late morning and hopefully whatever she needed to do with Violet wouldn't take long. Jeremiah she decided, could just stew in his juices. She wanted his imagination to run wild with thoughts of what she could or would do to him. Part of her instructions were being carried out even now.
She found Violet in the room where Edward her king lay in state. She wasn't sure of what to expect but she was unprepared for Violet's beauty. Her hair was no longer gray but a dark brown with reddish hues, her skin was flawless and so translucent that Justine could see the veins. To Justine she looked ethereal almost angelic, all she was missing was the halo and the wings.
Violet stood when Justine came in and thought her exquisite even though she hadn't taken the time to change as she would have done. She stopped herself, she was being nit picky and Justine was the new queen, she could dress as she pleased. The important thing was that she was here and had the power to return Edward to her.
"My Queen." Violet said with a bow.
"My name is Justine so please call me that."
Violet started, to her recollection, no queen had requested to be called by her first name.
"As you wish." she replied. "Welcome home." she added with a smile.
"Thanks... so how did this happen?" Justine asked.
Violet fought her impatience remembering that she had asked the very same question and the patience in which it had been answered.
