by Heather Long
Picking my way carefully passed the thorns and ducking below some, I found some patches of rock free of the snow and sitting right in the sun. Perfect.
Climbing up to sit on one, I turned my face upward. There was a distinct difference between the light coming through a window and feeling its actual caress on my skin.
It wasn’t warm, and yet, it warmed me at the same time. My breath fogged in the air, but I closed my eyes, savoring the kiss of the sun and the fresh wash of frozen air. I sat there long enough that I should have been shivering, but I wasn’t. More, I’d sat there long enough one of my keepers should have come looking.
But they left me alone.
Pleasure bloomed at the show of trust.
Or maybe they hadn’t noticed my absence. Either way, it was nice to just have this time…
A bird called. Then another. Cracking an eyelid open, I shaded them as I squinted to scan the skies. A flock—yes, I know they’re called a murder—of crows wound its way over the roof to fly through the garden. Weird. I hadn’t seen them since my last trip outside. Not even when I looked out the windows the library.
Some alighted on vines, others soared back up to the rooftop. But they were all there.
And all of them were looking at me.
Hello Paranoia, your name just became Fiona.
Ignoring them, I closed my eyes again. I wasn’t worried about birds.
The crunch of snow, however, sent apprehension shivering up my spine. One could be a fluke.
The second?
Eyes open, I twisted on the rock and faced the stranger standing in the center of the garden. Deep, dark eyes stared back at me from a bearded face shrouded by messy hair that hung to his shoulders. His skin was darker, almost tanned, like he’d been sun worshipping.
It was the absolute lack of expression that had my stomach bottoming out. That, and the very real sensation of power crackling the air—not a whiff of lust rolled off of him, yet he stared at me like he weighed and measured me.
Maybe for a coffin.
Licking my lips, I pushed off the rock to face him. “Take a picture,” I told him with a hell of a lot more bravado than I was suddenly feeling. “It’ll last longer.”
Maddox growled and snarled, but he hadn’t worried me. Nor did Fin, who made me laugh and could be irreverent and playful. Rogue, for all his reserve, infuriated me more than terrified me.
This guy?
The fact that I was half-naked and considerably isolated and lacking any kind of weapon hit me like an avalanche of bricks.
At my statement, however, the corners of his mouth tipped upward. It was the only change in his expression.
“Fiona,” he said in a raspy voice. But it was more than just shaping his lips around my name, it was like he intoned all of me in those three simple syllables, and his gaze kept me pinned in spot like a butterfly on a board.
“Yep,” I said, warier. “That’s my name. Don’t wear it out.”
He cocked his head.
One moment, he was over there, the next, he was in front of me.
Right in front of me.
I hadn’t blinked.
Holy.
Shit.
“Fiona,” he said again, then tilted his head and struck. I had zero time to react. One moment, he was looking at me, and the next, he sank his teeth into my throat, directly over the spot where Dimitri had bitten me.
I was pretty sure I screamed.
Or maybe I just froze.
But the brand of his bite rocked all the way down to my soul, and then the world shifted as he began to drink.
Fuck.
Hello, Alfred. Some distant part of my brain offered the introduction as my life pumped out of me, and all I could do was cling to him.
Really not nice to meet you…
Asshole.
Chapter 14
“Clip her wings if you dare. She will grow new ones.” - Unknown
Alfred
The first whispers reached him when Fin came to see Rogue.
“She’s there, I know it’s her.” Always optimistic and profound in his faith.
“You can’t know it’s her.” Always the skeptic, warier and cautious.
“I do know,” Fin insisted. “She’s a succubus, or she was. Some idiot drained her while screwing her, and instead of letting her heal naturally, he panicked.”
Rogue’s sigh carried the weight of the ages. “He force fed her blood?”
“Far as I can tell. A lot of people don’t want to talk about it. Their prince has ordered silence. I got there an hour after they took her. She went right for him—the prince and the asshole.”
“Where’s the asshole now?”
Yes, he would like to know this, too.
“In the wind.” Frustration etched Fin’s words. “I’ll find him, or Maddox will. For now, we need to get to her. The prince sent her to Nightmare Penitentiary. He’s determined to cover this up before the American council learns about her. Hybrids are myths after all.”
A snort. “You want to go after her.”
Then silence.
“Fin.”
“Maddox is on his way in. It took me time to track an access point. They’ve improved their spellkeepers on the gates. Not that much, but he’s on his way in. I’m going after him.”
“And you’re telling me because you want me to come…”
“Just back up. If you haven’t heard from us…”
The words faded as they argued. Rogue would go. He wouldn’t leave their brothers alone, not if they asked for him.
He drifted.
“Rogue…why the hell did you do that?” Maddox’s snarl ripped through his sleep.
“Because she stinks of shadow demon, and if you hadn’t noticed, he can already call her.”
“I was blocking him,” Fin argued.
“She’s not even through transition.” The disgust curling in Rogue’s tone roused him further. “We’ll need to drain her, repeatedly. Lance the shadow from her, break the addiction, then infuse her with our blood.”
“That will save her?” Hope crept into Maddox’s tone. A hope that hadn’t been present in so long, Alfred had forgotten the last time he heard it. He was one of the last of his kind. Maybe the very last.
They’d saved him from the hunters who came for him. He and Rogue had both protected the wounded beast and found a friend.
A brother.
“There are no guarantees, Maddox,” Rogue told him, and no one but Alfred would have heard the sympathy in his tone. “We’ll try.”
“What about Alfred?” Fin said. “We should wake him. She’s the one.”
“We don’t know she is,” Rogue reprimanded him. “Alfred will wake when he’s ready.”
Was he even truly asleep?
They seemed to have it in hand.
The slam of a rapid heart and screams of ecstasy ricocheted off the walls. A scent tickled at his nostrils.
“…you’re not wrong,” Fin agreed. “But I can be jealous because I want to know her, too. I’ve dreamt about her for centuries. Unlike the rest of you, I knew she was coming. I never broke faith.”
“Lust-filled dreams about her breasts are not what I would call prophetic,” Maddox stated drily, and Rogue gave a half-laugh.
He dozed.
“Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies.” Her husky voice wrapped around him like a lure.
Maddox snarled, “Stop poking in her head. We’re supposed to be convincing her, not chasing her away.”
“I was playing,” Fin argued. “Besides, she thinks I’m pretty. So suck it.”
Flashes of impatience from Rogue. The boys argued. They always had. It was good for them. It kept them alive.
“…what the fuck were you thinking?”
“He’s lust drunk, what do you think he was thinking?” Fin snapped. “Just feed her. He’s all knotted up inside her and not moving for a while.”
Quiet again.
Movement roused him. Move
ment and pain. He tried to focus on it. The stranger moving about the keep. Her light steps landed like warning thuds. Change eddied in the air. Change he hadn’t tasted in generations.
It wasn’t time yet.
“…shadow demon…”
Hmm. What was that about a shadow demon? Demons kept their distance. They knew better than to disturb him or his.
The thread faded away.
“…Fin believes she’s here.” Rogue. “I am only telling you because she was in Nightmare Penitentiary. She may not survive her transition. We may not have gotten to her in time. If they come for her, we will lead them away. If we must flee the keep, they will never get in here, but you will find us in Fin’s lands.”
If they come for her?
Someone hunted her?
His sleeping mind turned the information over.
Shadow demon.
Prison.
Yes. They might try to come for her.
No one invaded his lands.
“I was just wondering if I could go see the sun…I haven’t seen it in weeks.”
Her voice whispered to him, beckoning, and he listened to the shift in her heartbeat. To the discussion from the boys wanting her to not risk it. Vampires in transition were particularly vulnerable. If the transition wasn’t taking, the sun was the fastest way to end their suffering.
Not all vampires could walk in the sun. The bloodlines had begun to weaken. The natural born retained some of the skill, but the turned? More and more, they faded too quickly. Power and hunger had made selection an open market rather than a chosen few carefully shepherded.
Selfish bastards.
Movement against his wards had him stirring.
Crows.
They swarmed toward his garden. Another power touched their minds, and he dislodged it easily. This was his keep. His land. Everything on it was his. The interloper fled at the first brush. An image scorched against his mind, a challenge.
Then he stared into the garden through the eyes of the many. Red hair snagged his attention, full lips and pale golden skin.
The red eyes pulled all his focus, and her pout when they insisted she return inside. He agreed, he didn’t want her to go, but then she was gone, and Rogue stared at the crows with a warning on his face.
It had been a long time since he’d lain eyes on his brothers. Rogue didn’t know it was him, he worried it was the other.
Then they were gone, and Alfred let his mind wander as the crows flew. Time had marched on. How much had passed, he wasn’t certain. He needed to find out.
Anger.
Rebellion.
Lust.
The scent of it permeated the keep. Fiona.
Her name was Fiona.
Maddox called her Kitten.
Fin labeled her Beautiful.
But it was Rogue’s nickname that pulled at him. Little sváss.
Little Beloved.
His heart rate began to increase. They were courting her. Draining her. Feeding her. Fin pled with her for more time. The little hellion wanted to leave. They always ran. But it had been a few days, and she was still in the keep. She still fed from them, and her signature and scent grew stronger every day.
Alfred wanted to see her
Wanted to test her.
Taste her.
Awareness rippled through the keep as a door opened and she left. Her heartbeat grew more distant. He’d been listening to it for days now, the cadence of her heart. When it sped, when it slowed, when it pumped furiously as one of his brothers pleasured her. He understood each rhythm. It slowed and grew fainter as she left the safety of the interior for the sun.
The crows came at his summoning. At his first glimpse of the firebrand’s hair, his pulse quickened. The chamber opened with a single wave of his hand, and he stepped out. Hunger assailed him.
Hunger and need.
Like a ghost, he moved through the keep. The locks fell away at his presence. The spells infused into the stone had also used his blood. Outside, the sun warmed his skin and blinded him, but he didn’t need his own eyes. The crows gave him all the angles he needed. Her tousled curls. Her full lips. The fact that she wore only a robe and her feet were bare despite the snow.
The flush to her cheeks.
Life suffused the hellion. Life and power.
The first whiff of her stroked through him as he took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the musky femininity. All of his brothers had marked her. The breeze shifted her hair, baring the bite mark on her neck. The puffiness of it hadn’t faded. The transition wasn’t complete.
They’d kept her alive.
There, just below the sweetness of her perfume and the overlays of his brothers blanketing her scent, was the taint of shadow. It was still there, like a dark invader lurking beneath her skin.
The demon had done more than just mark blood and her body. He’d marked her soul. It was as much a declaration of property as it was of war. Alfred met her gaze when she jerked to look at him.
Red eyes blazed back at him. But they hadn’t always been red. No, that color belonged to his hellion’s hair, not her eyes. She needed to complete the transition, to let go of the dual ties and sink into the place she belonged.
Fin might be right about her.
While he’d shared the vision, Alfred had never seen the woman’s face. Only her hair.
The same scarlet hair now blowing in the wind. A wind that shifted and flooded him with her scent. Hers, theirs, and the shadow demon’s.
Hunger assailed him.
She ran her tongue over her lips, trapping his attention on her luscious mouth. “Take a picture,” she challenged as she pushed up from the rock to face him. “It’ll last longer.”
Amusement curved through him. Defiant.
No wonder his brothers couldn’t get enough of her.
She had spirit.
“Fiona,” he tested her name on his tongue. Everything about her seemed encapsulated in her name. Queen and demon. Lover and threat. Friend and enemy. Fiona was far more dangerous than she realized.
Dangerous.
Beautiful.
Intoxicating.
“Yep,” she replied, brazen in her challenge. Not once did she dip her eyes. Most vampires couldn’t meet his gaze head on. Most couldn’t even look in his direction. Fiona? She raised that chin and straightened her spine. “That’s my name. Don’t wear it out.”
Lust punched through him. Burrowing beneath his skin to arouse a hunger he hadn’t experienced…ever.
He closed the distance. The need to touch her overrode everything.
“Fiona,” he whispered the hellion’s name with the reverence she deserved. The fact that the shadow demon’s taint still stained her incensed him. No more. His brothers had tried to erase it. Alfred would remove it entirely. His eyes narrowed on the mark on her throat. Unlike the others, it had faded to a near scar. It was the first one. The one that would remain, even after the others cleared from transition.
It was the mark of the one who made her.
Quiet fury suddenly bubbled in his sluggish system, quickening the pace of his heart and flushing him from inaction to reaction. No one else was allowed to mark her. Not the shadow demon.
Not the bastard vampire.
The need to obliterate their marks and replace it with his own surged like electricity through his blood. He sank his teeth into that mark, his arms locked around her to keep her still. The last thing he wanted to do was tear out her throat. The soft vulnerable column was not a match for the pierce of his teeth as he sank into her sweet flesh.
The first dribble of her blood over his tongue, and he locked his lips to suck deeply. The hot liquid quenched his parched throat, sating both his desire and starving him for more. Every flash of hot decadence rolling around his tongue let him taste her. Her whole body softened against him, the sweet tang of her need adding to the spice on his tongue.
Hello, Alfred. Her biting words lashed at him, even as she gripped his shoulders, cl
inging to him though she was in no danger of falling. He had her. Really not nice to meet you… Asshole.
He plunged deeper, drawing it from her. All of it.
All of her.
“You’re new,” the male said as he slid onto the stool next to me. New? Really? What a tired line. I slanted a look at him without turning. The mirror behind the bar gave me a good visual.
He was lean, dark-brown eyes and hair. He possessed a boyish kind of charm, and his appearance was impeccable. His clothing was upscale and expensive. He’d shaved recently, and his fingers were long and slender. They reminded me of a musician’s hands. Beyond all of that, his lust was a potent force, shimmering off of him in waves. All of it focused on me.
I’d been hungry for the last three days, and despite wandering the various bars, I’d yet to find someone I could feast on that I wouldn’t hurt. My fault for waiting too long between feedings. I’d been leaching a little here and there to stave off the overriding need. But with full moon and the partying pagans gathering along with a huge influx of supernatural over the last two weeks, I had to play it safer.
Elias would have helped out, but we were friends, and fucking friends was usually a no-no in my book. The very last friend I’d fucked to feed on had grown obsessed, and our friendship died in the ashes of his lust.
No, I kept my feeding separate from the rest of my life. Just so much easier.
This guy…he wasn’t human. If I had to guess, I’d say vampire. He was almost too pretty to be anything else. Still…vampires were usually no gos. They wanted more than fucking, and while they could be amazing in bed, Elias had a real problem anytime I indulged my more dangerous fantasies.
Still, beggars couldn’t be choosers, and I was so damn hungry.
“Hello,” I answered, leaning in to let his lust lick over my skin. Oh, it was delicious, and his pupils dilated as he narrowed the distance even further. I wasn’t the only one who was hungry.
Oh, this could work out.
One drink, and we were in a private booth and I had his cock halfway down my throat as he thrust up, desperate for the release as I stroked his balls. The feverish grip of his fingers in my hair pushed me to take him deeper, even as his lust swelled like his cock. When he came, it was a burst of salty bitterness and sweet satisfaction. The wildness of it swarmed through me with a punch more potent than the liquor he’d ordered for me.