The Knight of Disks (Villainess Book 4) Read online

  VILLAINESS #4:

  THE KNIGHT OF DISKS

  by

  Alana Melos

  The Knight of Disks

  Book 4 of the Villainess Series

  Copyright 2017 © Alana Melos

  Model Cover Photo © cokacoka @ depositphotos

  All other artwork, graphic cover design, logo art, and graphic text © Jotham “Pipes” Talbot

  Published: January 7th, 2017

  Publisher: Alana Melos

  The right of Alana Melos to be identified as the author of this Work is asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.

  Characters and locations are fictitious or used fictitiously. All characters are at least 18 years old. All sexual acts portrayed in this work of fiction are consensual.

  Mailing List: http://eepurl.com/cfQK35

  Author's Blog: http://alanamelos.blogspot.com

  Author's email: [email protected]

  Author's Twitter: @Alana_Melos

  Contents:

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Epilogue

  Author's Notes

  Excerpt from The Devil and Delilah

  Links to Other Works

  Prologue

  Although I have seen my mother angry countless times, I only saw my father lose his temper once. He controlled his emotions well… so well in fact that I didn’t even read them off of him, not even by accident. I had no desire to scan him though, so it didn’t matter.

  This had been right before I left, before I found it unbearable to be around my mother and the unchanging environment stifling. We’d gone to one of the neighboring islands, which was a rare treat in and of itself. I was fifteen then, I think, young though not really naive. I liked to think I wasn’t anyway. We sat at the bar of the restaurant we were in, waiting for our food, when some goomba came and hit on me. That was the first time I’d actually been hit on and wasn’t sure what to do. I shrugged him off and was polite about it, since I was in public and didn’t care to make a scene. In general, we kept a low profile when we went out as my parents were still wanted criminals. The guy persisted, inching closer to me and running one of his hands down my bare arm. Then I shoved him. Neither of my parents blinked an eye at what was going on, though my father shifted in his seat to watch better.

  The mook looked me up and down, his face twisting like he’d bitten into a bad fruit which had turned sour. “You bitch,” he hissed at me. “What’s wrong with you, fucking shoving me? I was just trying to be nice!”

  I sat there, blinking at him. That was the first time someone had called me a bitch. His threads read the pulsing dark red of anger, right on top, but directly underneath was a sickly golden color, which took me a couple seconds to decipher as I’d never seen inadequacy before. I laughed. It must have been strange and unusual to burst out laughing when someone was basically threatening you, but I couldn’t help it. He was angry because he felt bad about himself. It was so stupid.

  The jerk’s face colored red. When I laughed even harder at that--really, it was ridiculous how upset he got by the rejection--he said something else and made as if he was going to grab me. His fingers grazed my arm, which cut off my laughter instantly, but that was all. A big, meaty hand grabbed his and twisted it back.

  My father’s hand.

  He was pretty quiet for being such a big guy--he stood six foot five--and neither I or the goomba had heard him scrape back his stool and stand. He didn’t say a word, but his dark eyes practically glowed with anger. The guy saw how big he was and started to say something. Maybe it was an apology. Maybe it was to mind his own business. He didn’t have the chance to finish. My dad hit him, hard. What followed was a beat down the likes of which I’ve never seen rivaled. The look on my father’s face riveted me. His mouth had been pulled back in a vicious grin which didn’t touch his eyes, yet they were alight with savage enjoyment all the same. He’d taught me how to fight in his style--not that I was great at it--but seeing him use it to beat the life out of someone was an entirely different thing than the gentle sparring we did.

  When the guy couldn’t stand and lay crumpled on the floor, my dad kicked him a few times, his normally slicked back hair coming out of place with the force of the blows. He beat him to the point of death, then stopped, all at once. He upnodded towards the bartender, smoothed his hair back, took out money to pay our tab… and he left a generous tip. The others in the restaurant-bar had just sat there, stunned. No one said a word. They were all colored yellow in fear.

  “Let’s go,” he said to my mother and me. She laughed lightly and hopped off the stool she sat on, whistling merrily as she fell into place beside dad. I followed more slowly, watching the man’s threads fade with fascination as he lay there wheezing. My father walked away from the bloody mess like it was nothing.

  “Why?” I asked him. I didn’t get it. We wouldn’t ever see the jerk again, and while a smack down wasn’t uncalled for there, the beating my father had given would be talked about locally for years, drawing unwanted attention to our area. Likely, the goomba was just some tourist who was used to getting his way. Seen ‘em once, seen ‘em a thousand times. He wasn’t anything to risk bringing the heat down for.

  “Because no one fucks with what’s mine,” he said, his voice pleasantly neutral as it usually was. “You’re my daughter. No one fucks with you.”

  “But… he wasn’t… I don’t understand,” I said, trying to filter it through my head. Then, he said the words which were the last lesson he gave me before I split. This conversation stayed with me throughout the years and became a mantra.

  He stopped and fixed me with an intense look. His brown eyes sharpened, and I saw the hardness in them… in him. “There’s not any ‘givers’ in this world,” he said. “There’s only takers. You take what you want, anything you want, but once it’s yours… you don’t let anyone mess with it. It doesn’t matter if it’s a stick of gum. No one takes anything from us.”

  “What if you can’t take it back?” I asked him. I couldn’t stop staring into his eyes. They riveted me to the spot, so unlike his normal soft, almost gentle look.

  He cocked his head to the side, then took out a handkerchief and wiped off his bloody knuckles, as if he’d just remembered to clean up. “There’s always a way to take it back. Sometimes it takes talking. Sometimes fighting. You might have to do what you don’t want to, but there’s always a way.”

  When I nodded, he gave me one of his half-smiles, patted my shoulder, and we’d gone on our way. That lesson stuck with me. Intellectually, I’d known he’d always had a hard life. He was a criminal, guilty of just about every crime you could think of. Seeing the intensity with which he said those words and the
ruthless way he’d beaten that guy drove it home. And so, it became my creed: no one takes what’s mine.

  I know I’ve mentioned before I have a plan. I do. It’s not something I share with people because I’m nowhere close to implementing it. The planning was everything. Everything had to be perfect. Since it would take years to set up, when changes occurred in the now, I’d have to alter the plan to adjust for unforeseen circumstances. Every night when I went to sleep, I’d think and consider. When I worked out, my thoughts turned to planning and imagining where I wanted to be. Every step I took moved me closer to the endgame.

  It was important to have an endgame in mind. For most people, it was simple: a house, a family, children, dying with loved ones around them. My father’s had been simple: he wanted a private island to retire on, a pile of money he could never spend, all the food he could eat, and someone to share it with. He’d started with nothing and worked tirelessly until he had everything in his grasp. The one thing he needed above all else to attain his goals was power, power to take it and the power to keep it. He had that in spades.

  I wasn’t nearly as powerful as he or my mother, but I had determination. Each step I took brought me further along the path… unless I had to stop and teach people a lesson not to fuck with what was mine.

  Chapter One

  Only a couple of days after my various misadventures around town, I stood at the threshold of an apartment of a girl I didn’t know with another stranger on my arm. Adira practically cuddled with the college girl, cooing in her ear as the girl giggled and struggled to open the door. My own ‘date’--who was the girl’s roommate--put his arm around me and I smiled at him, filling my head with lovely thoughts of what was going to happen.

  Once the door opened, the girl danced across the threshold, but Adira hesitated. The vampire couldn’t enter without an invitation unless she let her human host take over. However, there was enough of a change in her sunset gold skin tone it would raise questions. The girl didn’t notice, but the guy I was with frowned.

  I elbowed him, “Well, aren’t you going to invite us in?” I smiled again and tried to look like I was into him. Thoughts of red, red blood danced through my head, making the smile genuine.

  “Of course,” he said with a grin of his own. “Ladies? Won’t you please come in?”

  Thank you, Adira said to me mentally as I thanked my ‘date’ verbally. She moved into the apartment and joined her dancing soon-to-be meal. Her skin flushed with blood from our previous three victims, she glowed with energy and excitement. These two had to be enough to fill her completely. I hoped so anyway. The hour was growing late and we had places to be and wolves to rescue. I crossed the threshold with care into the college apartment. It looked relatively clean and straightened, but under furnished as poor college kids lived here. A couch with a decent sized television dominated the living room. Off to one side was a small kitchen. A hallway led to what was probably the two bedrooms and a bath at the end.

  Adira kissed the dancing girl and said something low to her which made her laugh. “Right this way,” she said. The threads of her emotions showed nothing but infatuation and desire. The couple disappeared into the back hallway to leave me alone with my ‘date’. I think his name was Greg. Maybe Jeff. I hadn’t paid much attention. It wasn’t that he was bad looking--as he wasn’t, if on the touch of bland with short brown hair, muddled green eyes, and clean shaven. Nothing set him apart at all, but that didn’t matter. Sex wasn’t what I was here for.

  He closed the door and turned to sweep me into his arms. His eyes ravaged my body and I knew what he saw: a perfectly fit leggy long-haired blonde in a short crimson dress and long red leather trench coat. That I was beautiful went without saying. I’d paid a lot of money to stay beautiful no matter how many scrapes I got into. My big blue eyes searched his green ones and I licked my scarlet lips, inviting him to kiss me. His threads showed nothing but lust and the gloating of being lucky.

  When he did kiss me, it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t how I liked it, but at least he didn’t slobber all over me. I drew backwards, teasing him to come with me as the bedroom door down the hall slammed shut. We drifted to the couch. I shoved him so he sat down hard on the thin cushion and smiled down at my prey. As I shimmied out of my coat, I withdrew a pair of handcuffs from the pocket and kept them hidden.

  “So… how adventurous are you?” I asked as I set my coat aside and kept my hands behind my back.

  “I don’t know,” he said, his voice soft, laced with want. “What are you thinking about?”

  “Well, I’m a little… kinky,” I purred, then held up the handcuffs. “I mean, if you don’t want to… but I really get into being on top.”

  Greg-or-Jeff glanced at the cuffs then back to me. Uncertainty ran through his mind, but I bit my lip and traced a finger around my low cut bodice, highlighting my smaller but perfect breasts. Just the thought of cutting him aroused me and my nipples had hardened. With the thin, silky material of my short dress, he couldn’t miss them… and he didn’t.

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked. I knew I had him then.

  “Just let me cuff your hands behind your back, handsome,” I said as I moved to straddle him. He was hard already and I rubbed myself against him, making his desire for me grow. “And I’ll do the driving.”

  “Kiss me,” he demanded. When I did, I seared his lips with passion. I took control of the kiss, invading his mouth and making him mine. When it broke, Greg-or-Jeff panted with need. “Alright, go ahead,” he whispered.

  “I’ll even let you hold the key,” I said, holding up the tiny silver nub. “Just so you feel safe.”

  That allowed him to let go of the rest of his reservations. He put his hands behind his back. I leaned in, brushing my small breasts against his chin and then down as I reached for his hands and securely closed the cuffs around his wrists. I even put the key in his hand, just like I promised I would. His lips moved along my neck, but I pushed off of him and rolled my eyes.

  “Stupid, stupid,” I said as I stood up. “Just like every other man ever.” They tended to think with their cocks. Not all of them, but a good portion. I supposed I couldn’t say much since I did tend to let my desires run my decisions, but that was different. My desires served a purpose.

  My mood obviously changed, Greg-or-Jeff blinked and frowned. “What are you talking about? I thought you were going to…” His words trailed off into nothing as I reached behind me and grabbed my trench, pulling my blade out from the concealed sheath in it. “What is this?” The thread of fear I loved so swum to the surface of his mind. I sighed with real want now, needing the cutting to be done. I waited. I had to wait for Adira. It was for her feeding this was all being done.

  “Last minutes of your life,” I told him, glancing around. With a thought, I closed the window curtains so no one could peek inside and get a free show. He glanced at the movement, then whipped his head back to me. The rich yellow of his fear increased tenfold as he realized I was a metahuman. A few snippets of his thoughts came to me, that he had nothing against metas, that he didn’t want to die, and that I must be crazy. I laughed.

  “I’m crazy, yes, but organized,” I told him. “If you try to not scream, I’ll make it painless for you, even pleasurable. If you make trouble, well. Use your imagination.”

  “Please don’t kill me,” he said. A thin reed of hope wormed into his head. He sought to use the key to unlock the cuffs. I watched in amusement as he continued to speak. “I have family. My mom, and my dad… they love me. I won’t say anything if you let me go, I promise.”

  Loud moans erupted from the back and I sighed. Well, at least Adira was having some fun, but we really needed to get going. I told her as much telepathically, but she waved me off. Soon, soon. She didn’t get a chance to get out much and date women, so I knew she was using this opportunity to indulge some of her host’s desires. Frustrated anger brought me back to Greg-or-Jeff. I focused on him and his colors swam into view, brilliant and
beautiful. He was angry, with a large helping of frustration. He’d figured out the cuffs had no keyhole.

  “What good is this key?” he asked, more to himself than to me. “There’s no way to get the cuffs off.”

  “Sure there is,” I said, smiling a predator’s smile as I brandished my o-wakizashi. “I cut your hands off.”

  My prey jerked his head up and opened his mouth, taking in a great deep, hitching breath to scream. I jumped on him, straddling him again. I caught his eyes with mine as I stared down at him. His emotions jumped, his threads showing me the action had startled him. His fear made his blood race and heart thump faster and faster, but he didn’t scream. Not yet. Not tonight. Not ever again. I didn’t want to deal with the cops tonight and I was loathe to simply mind control him to silence. That was one of my rules: no taking choices away.

  “If I have to gag you, I’ll make it last,” I whispered to him. “Trust me when I say I know how. You’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time. You’re here for her and you will die, but how you die is going to be up to you. I can make it sweet and fast, or hard and long. Your choice.” I spoke nothing but the truth to him, which was my second and last rule: always speak honestly. People often thought this meant I didn’t deceive people, but that wasn’t the case. You could speak the whole, entire truth and yet still fool people. I did it all the time.

  He whimpered but couldn’t look away. “I… I…” he stammered. The thoughts going through his head were all a-jumble as they often were for people in situations like this. He focused on my eyes, on the intensity there. What he saw decided him. Greg-or-Jeff gulped and nodded. “I’ll be quiet,” he said, his voice low.

  I gave him a kiss on the cheek and stood up again, blade in front of me so he couldn’t help but to see it as I ventured telepathically to Adira, Are you done yet?

  No, just a few more minutes, she thought, lust staining her thoughts a deep pinkish red.