by Ashlee Sinn
Arabella and Ashby turned their sights on me. I stood still in defiance, arms crossed and bitch face in full effect. The bartender suddenly popped the cork on a bottle of champagne and I jerked my head to the side in distraction. I watched him fumble with the foam, trying his best not to let it spill all over the furniture. But the second I spun back around to tell the ladies I wasn’t interested, they’d moved ten feet closer, now standing directly in front of my face.
“She’s different,” the one in black said, sniffing the air between us.
“She’s a hunter,” the other stated.
“And you can just back the fuck away and out of my personal space,” I said. I couldn’t move any more without climbing on the sofas…and that would certainly make me look weak.
The women feigned shock before letting out a cackle that filled the tiny room. The bartender did his best not to make eye contact with any of us.
“Aw, she’s feisty.” The stripper in purple stepped forward and studied my face. As I tried my best to put on a strong front, her eyes bleed yellow. Even in the darkened lighting, I knew that I was in trouble.
“You’re a demon?” I whispered in awe.
Viktor had left me with two demons? Two female demons? Oh, he was so dead.
“She’s perceptive, Arabella,” Ashby, the one in black, cooed. “Tell me hunter, how many demons have you encountered in your short, miserable life?”
Truthfully? None. “Several,” I replied.
“You’re lying,” Arabella stated. She lifted her hand and reached toward my face. I jerked back and almost fell onto the couch. “Don’t be scared,” she whispered. “We’re not here to harm you.” Arabella looked at her sister and giggled. “She smells delicious.”
“Excuse me?” I asked, swatting her hand away.
“Your soul is very…appealing to me and my sister,” Ashby said as though that clarified everything.
“You just keep your skanky little hands away from my soul.”
Ashby laughed, her eyes reflecting the surrounding light and making her look more animal-like than before. “Come on, hunter. Just one taste?”
“Champagne?” the bartender interrupted. I hadn’t heard him approach, but he now held a small tray with three crystal flutes of liquid sitting on top. His hands shook, his eyes wide in fear. I wondered why he’d chosen to work in a place like this.
“Yes, please,” Arabella said, eyes still watching me as she grabbed her glass.
“No, thank you,” I said, engaging her in the stare down.
Ashby pushed a glass into my hand, causing me to lose the battle. “Oh, don’t be such a party pooper. Have a drink with us. Viktor would want you to indulge.”
Chills danced over my skin at her words. “Viktor doesn’t control me,” I growled through gritted teeth.
She tilted her head and whispered something into the air. Arabella tensed, mouth dropping open in response. “What are you doing, Ash?”
Her question went unanswered as her sister lifted my hand and forced me to put the glass to my lips. I could barely feel the coolness of the alcohol grace my mouth, yet couldn’t stop myself from taking the drink. Like a voodoo doll, I’d lost all control over my actions.
“He won’t be pleased,” Arabella warned.
“He won’t know unless you tell,” her sister said in response. Then she turned her demon gaze on me. “Now Sophia, why don’t we all take a seat?”
“How do you know my name?” I managed to ask at the same time I felt my body lowering into the sofa.
“Why do you ask such silly questions?” Ashby replied.
As I sank into the plush couch, Ashby crawled onto the space next to me. Her perfect body, with not an ounce of fat on it, slid gracefully from side to side. Hips pressed into the air and shoulders bowed low, she stalked forward like a lioness.
I found myself unable to move yet oddly intrigued by the woman. I swear her face morphed into something too ethereal for this world. Reaching out with my hand, I couldn’t help but want to brush my fingers over her plump lips in a way I’d never desired another female before.
“Ash,” Arabella warned again. “Don’t do this.”
Ashby spared a quick glance at her sister standing off to the side. “Don’t be a prude.”
A moment later, I found myself sandwiched between two female demons and wanting them to touch me, yet not understanding why. “She does smell delicious,” Arabella whispered. Her nose brushed my cheek and I flinched at the coldness of her skin. “Sweet. Desirable. Forbidden,” she said as she ran her nails along my exposed arm.
I turned my head, looking directly into the glowing, yellow eyes of Arabella. My lips parted automatically, craving the need to feel her skin on mine. Not once had I ever desired the company of another female. But now, the prospect of having two sent shivers dancing over my neck and heat racing between my legs.
Just as I leaned forward, Ashby’s hand turned my chin back in her direction. “Oh no, hunter. Me first.” She pressed her soft lips on mine, lightly kissing around my mouth. Teasing me with her movements. I tried to push into her, but my body wouldn’t listen. A deep thought buried in my head warned me that this wasn’t right—that I needed to move and get off of this couch. Yet no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t force my arms or legs to obey.
“Don’t try to fight it,” Ashby cooed. “You’re under my spell now.” Her hot breath trickled over my neck, the chills indicating an arousal I had no control over. “And you will be my special dessert tonight.” Ashby’s hand slid underneath my dress, her nails trailing closer and closer to the warm place in the center. I had no idea what happened to Arabella and at this particular moment, I didn’t care.
Just as Ashby’s fingers reached the edge of my panties, someone shouted from across the room. “Get off of her.” The man’s voice flitted through the air, an aura of power and control forcing my seductress to tense under his warning.
Ashby flew back against the far wall, the sudden absence of her body creating an unexpected void. I heard another crash on the opposite side of the room, vaguely aware that the second demon sister was no longer in close proximity either.
I tried to focus on the large, muscular man now stalking toward me but my eyes were hazy and the light was dim. “Who are you?” I whispered.
He bent forward, hands cupping my face and turning it from side to side like he was inspecting something. “What have you done to her?”
My eyes caught Ashby’s. Behind the man and close to the curtained entrance, she pushed herself up off the floor. “She was mine to play with.”
I felt the man stiffen and feared he may squeeze my face too hard. My senses had started to recover and I began to feel the initial tingle warning me about the presence of a vampire. A spark of recognition tried to come to the surface, but it was still blocked by whatever demon magic Ashby had subjected me to.
“And who gave you permission?” the man growled at her.
“Viktor,” she whispered in response, almost as if knowing what his reaction would be.
Bright blue eyes bore into mine, the vampire in front of me unhappy with what Ashby had told him. “So you’re Viktor’s new toy,” he breathed. “Well, I think it’s time I let Viktor know who’s really in charge.”
And without giving me even a split second to react, the vampire opened his mouth and plunged his fangs deep into my neck.
Chapter 6
Pain not ecstasy. Death not life.
That’s what I thought in the brief amount of time the vampire had me under his hold. For as long as I’d craved the feeling of fangs digging into my skin, I suddenly found myself sorely disappointed and utterly afraid. I was the prey. An easy, unprepared target that had let her enemy get way too close.
That is until the vampire sealed the wound. A hot, powerful tongue swept along my neck in spirals, dodging in and out of the place his teeth had marked. From the center of the bite, heat radiated outward along every part of my skin. The desire I’d felt whe
n Ashby had been touching me came back in a rush. I let out a small noise of satisfaction and the man on top of me chuckled.
“So easily swayed,” he whispered against my lips. “Surprising for one of Ezra’s famous hunters.”
Recognition slammed into me like a train. A hundred ton train that derailed all of the Order’s meticulous plans. “I…I know you,” I said to him.
The vampire smiled, not even attempting to hide his fangs. High cheek bones, a chiseled jaw, and exotic features swept me up into his spell again. My neck scorched at the place he’d bitten, but my mind fought hard to force recognition into my eyes.
His lips found mine at the same time his hands squeezed my breasts. His thumbs tweaked my nipples and even under my bra, they responded quickly. Desire flushed through me. An uncontrollable and undeniable urge that exploded from the inside out. I wrapped my hands around his waist, trying to pull him down on top of me. I felt him smile a moment before he pushed his tongue inside my parted lips. He explored every inch, inviting me to dance with him. I complied. Willingly.
And there was nothing I could do to stop myself.
“Sebastian!”
Viktor’s voice flooded the room a moment before he ripped the vampire off of me. Like with Ashby, his absence left a cold, gaping wound. But then my brain started to work again. Sebastian? I know a Sebastian don’t I?
“Viktor Kaska,” Sebastian said after he straightened his suit and faced his opponent. “I heard you were looking for me.”
Viktor’s concerned eyes found mine, his gaze darting quickly to my neck and back to Sebastian again. “What did you do to her?”
Sebastian took a moment to glance in my direction. My neck tingled under his gaze, and not in the way it should as a hunter. “Consider it a warning,” he said cryptically.
Viktor stepped forward, his tall frame barely towering over Sebastian. Again, my brain worked furiously to break all of the magical spells I’d endured tonight. Sebastian…Sebastian.
“This is all you’re doing?” Viktor asked and Sebastian shrugged in response. “Why?”
Sebastian’s eyes found mine again before walking over to the bar and lifting a glass filled with thick, red liquid. “The time for change has come, my friend.”
“You’re going about this all wrong,” Viktor said calmly, all the while moving closer toward me.
“Am I?” Sebastian mused. “I have waited a long time to earn my place, only to be passed over by necromancers and witches three generations younger.”
Suddenly, everything clicked. “You’re Sebastian Braziano,” I said, pushing myself to my feet. “You’re supposed to be helping us.” Sebastian was Ezra’s friend and our liaison to Human Affairs.
We’d been set up. And Viktor had suspected as much.
“Nice to finally meet you, Ms. Sophia.” Sebastian’s old accent raced to the front of his words, the charm oozing from his voice even more than Ashby had done.
At that thought, I turned around to find the demon twins. Sometime since Viktor had stepped into the room, the women had disappeared. Damn them. I wished I could disappear right now too.
“Why are you doing this?” Viktor asked. His voice broke a little, making me wonder just what kind of history these two, old and very powerful vampires had shared.
“You’ll find out soon enough.” Sebastian sipped his drink, his eyes glued to the bite on my neck.
Viktor grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the exit without saying another word. His touch shocked my skin as though it rejected him. Viktor’s gaze snapped in my direction as he squeezed my hand hard enough to feel pain. “Don’t let go of me,” he pushed out through gritted teeth the moment we stepped into the main part of the club.
“It’s not like I have a choice,” I grumbled. Viktor squeezed even harder.
He pulled me to the center aisle that weaved through the tables. Only unlike our arrival, everyone stopped what they were doing and stared as we rushed by them. Every vampire in the place, male and female, glowered at us with their predatory blues. Several of them dropped their fangs, biting their lips or obnoxiously hissing at us.
“What’s going on?” I whispered to Viktor, suddenly thankful for his death grip. But he didn’t respond and instead kept yanking me though the crowd. I tripped several times, once actually stepping clear out of my shoe.
Someone grabbed my shoulder, pulling me to a stop while Viktor had tried to take another step forward. I screamed in surprise, embarrassed by that reaction but also aware of how all of my senses seemed to be hyped up right now. Viktor’s hand slipped from mine and a wave of nerves swirled around the wound in my neck. My hunter senses jumped into full alert, but the lingering desire in my body tempted me to run back into the private room.
“You dropped your shoe,” a female vampire said. Her voice trilled over the dance music in the background, hypnotizing me at the same time igniting more fear. She held out my heel, her tongue darting across bright red lips while she waited for me to respond. Her short, cropped hair had been pasted to her face, long, fake eyelashes accentuating the size of her almond eyes. At any other time, I would have been mesmerized by her beauty, but in all honesty, she had nothing on the demon twins.
Viktor suddenly jerked me away and snatched the shoe from her. The vampire hissed at him when he turned his back and pushed me toward the door. “Don’t stop,” he whispered into my ear. I heard the fear in his voice and that was enough to shake off any lurking hormonal urges and focus on getting out of here alive.
While all of the vampires and other creatures watched our every move, I had a fleeting thought that maybe they wouldn’t let us leave. But that was squashed the moment one of the human bouncers opened the front door and a rush of cold air enveloped us like a spell.
Or more like a cold shower.
The power racing through the club and taking over my ability to control my own body snapped away like a whip. I pressed my hand to the side of my neck, feeling the heated skin around the bite. It took a moment for it all to sink in, and then I found myself growing angry.
“He bit me,” I said in disbelief.
Viktor was doing something on his phone when he popped his head up and really looked at me. He stepped forward and removed my hand. I tensed at first, but then let him have his examination time. He had gotten me out of there after all.
In a split second, Viktor leaned forward and sniffed the bite. His nose tickled my skin, but it didn’t give me the same feelings I tried to fight inside the club. Instead, I was repulsed, angered even, that he would come so close without an invitation. It was the other extreme for me tonight.
I pushed my hands into his chest and shoved him away. “You don’t need to get so close,” I snapped.
He stared at me for a long moment before replying. “You didn’t seem to mind earlier.”
Whether he was referring to himself, the demon sisters, or Sebastian, it didn’t matter. All I felt was white hot anger simmering at the surface of a pot ready to blow. “You’re the one who brought me here,” I shouted back. Why I was shouting, I didn’t know. It just felt so good to let some of the instant rage out.
He paused again, face wrinkling in concentration and jaw clenched in frustration. “We need to get out of here.”
“I’m not going with you,” I said before I could stop myself.
Viktor, with his super speed, grabbed my hand and yanked me forward into his chest. “We need to find Ezra. Now.”
I tried to break free of grasp, but my attempts were futile. “I’m not going with you,” I said again into a chiseled and way-too-hard chest.
“You are,” he argued. Then, without invitation, he brushed his finger over my neck and the bite. “We need to let him know about this right away.”
“About Sebastian?” I asked, clarity of some sorts finally taking hold again.
“That, and about your bite.
“What about it?”
Viktor wrapped his arms around me tight and pulled me closer to him. “Y
ou’ve been marked, Sophia.”
“Marked?” I said. I’d heard about that, but never saw someone who had only been marked. Usually, they’d been fed upon and had been left for dead, the idea of a “mark” becoming useless at that point. “What does that mean?”
Viktor squeezed me hard and I felt his muscles tense. “It means that Sebastian can find you anywhere and bend your will to his own.”
Not happy with the thought of my free will being stripped from me, I looked up at Viktor. “Can you take it away?” I whispered.
The front doors of the club slammed open and at least twenty vampires rushed outside. As one, they all turned and faced us. Some crouched low, ready to pounce. Others slinked side to side like Ashby had done to me earlier. I knew, in this moment, that everything had changed the second Sebastian sank his fangs into me. I was a hunter, used to killing unruly vampires. But never before had I been hunted like this.
My skin tingled with the instincts to fight while my neck burned with desire to have another vampire take a taste. The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on me. For so long, I had wondered what the rush would be like. What that feeling of pure desire could do to a person. Do to me.
I craved to be one of those human girls who bathed in the luxury of a vampire consort. And now, this bite on my neck got me one step closer to fulfilling that twisted fantasy. Could Viktor really take the mark away?
Did I really want him to?
“I’m going to try,” he whispered to me.
And as an unwelcomed feeling of regret raced through my blood, and the vampires from the club took their first step after us, Viktor pushed off the concrete sidewalk and ran us out of harm’s way.
the vampire huntress
Part TWO: SEDUCed
Sophia Glen has been marked.