“Trynn,” Eris began.
“Shut up!” she interrupted. “Shut up. I don’t want to hear any more of your lies.”
“I’m not lying.” Eris could hear the desperation creeping into his voice, and hated it.
“This is completely nuts!” Trynn exploded, sounding angry now. “Reincarnation? Soulmates? The second century? You could’ve at least tried to come up with something believable!”
Frustration surged in Eris’ chest and his lips curled back, his eyes glowing gold. “Believable?” he snarled. “This emptiness has been my life for two thousand years!”
Trynn scrambled to her feet, horror flooding her face. She backed away from him slowly, heaving unsteady breaths, and he hated himself for the fear he’d awakened in her.
“I am not lying to you,” Eris said in a dark, powerful voice. “In all our time together, I never once told you a falsehood. You are Phaidra, and I am Eris.”
The words seemed to shake Trynn to her core, and she turned, rushing for the entrance. With speed and reflexes that surprised him, she ripped open the hotel room door and fled down the hallway before Eris could even begin to stop her.
Knowing that it was full daylight outside, Eris had no choice but to let her leave. He could not follow her in any form without risking catastrophic injury under the sun’s unforgiving rays.
Fury licked at his damaged soul, and he let out a snarl of frustration as he slammed the door behind her, throwing the hotel room back into semi-darkness. His sensitive eyes, however, picked out every object and color in the room.
As he turned back towards the sleeping alcove, a movement in the shadows caught his attention. Snag stood there impassively, staring at him with deep-set eyes.
“Back so soon? Thanks for that. You were a huge help,” Eris snapped.
Snag did not move or speak. He simply regarded Eris with a thoughtful gaze.
“Why did you abandon me like that?” Eris exploded, feeling his temper pressing outward like a dark cloud. Snag did not flinch in the face of Eris’ fury, but remained standing, solid as stone.
“Nothing to say for yourself?” Eris demanded. “Speak, silent one! Now, of all times, would be the perfect chance for you to dispense your great wisdom.”
Eris allowed a terrible, cutting sarcasm to permeate the words, heedless of the consequences, in the heat of his anger at himself for failing to keep Trynn by his side.
Still, Snag did not reply.
“Fine,” Eris snapped. “Fine! Don’t speak. I have been here for you through thick and thin, I have stayed by your side and forced you to feed when your life was nearly spent. You would be a petrified husk right now if it weren’t for me. And I have never asked anything of you in return, other than your friendship. Today, for the first time ever, I am asking for your help in understanding this mess. Yet you refuse to share your thoughts.”
Snag merely allowed Eris to rant, pacing back and forth in the generous suite. When it was clear that no sort of response would come from that quarter anytime soon, Eris stormed back over to the bed, ripping his shirt off over his head and flopping down angrily onto the mattress. Without another word, he pulled the blankets up over his shoulder and turned so that he was facing away from Snag. He did not want to see the silent, unmoving outline of the ancient bloodsucker standing there in the dark, watching him.
Oddly, even though whirling thoughts and emotions were chasing themselves around Eris’ head, he fell into a deep slumber within moments.
If he had been paying attention to anything other than his own distress, he might have noticed the way Snag was pressing serenity over his thoughts, banishing any painful dreams or recollections of the past. He might have noticed that Snag was giving Eris the peace that he needed to rest and recover from the day’s events.
All the while Eris slept, Snag stayed nearby, keeping the darkness at bay and standing watch over his fellow vampire.
SEVEN
THE SOUND OF HER FINGERS tapping against the keyboard soothed Trynn’s frayed nerves better than anything else might have, as she lost herself in the lines and lines of code she was trying to sort through.
She was distracting herself with a job that had nothing to do with Trajan Security, or with a hot hypnotist who had turned out to be a freaking psycho rather than a hero. There had to be a way to break this encryption so that she could get a fix on her current target’s server—there always was. And she needed a location to provide to her hacktivist organization so others could start working on the situation.
Trynn had been using her skills to assist online whistleblowers with locating and exposing dangerous individuals in the private sector for a couple of years now. Her expertise as a hacker had been vital in several projects, although no one in the group knew who she was in the real world. She used an alias and such a powerful, complicated system of encryption that it would take a technological genius to break through the multiple layers of defense with which she had shrouded herself.
Needing to clear her mind after her encounter at the Merit Lefkosa, Trynn had thrown herself into tracking down the identity of a man who was in Damascus attempting to purchase some seriously heavy-duty weaponry. She had intercepted the communications of a suspected Russian mob figure with someone requesting munitions for purchase, but the messages had been maddeningly vague as to exactly what kind of munitions. Her gut was telling her that this was a major deal that needed to be monitored, and she hadn’t gotten this far by ignoring her instincts.
Now, though, she was having doubts. Perhaps it was nothing—just one of the hundreds of backroom deals that went on in parts of the world where law and order were more of a distant dream than a reality. Perhaps this transaction would never even come to fruition, or if it did, the weapons would never see the light of day.
Or, perhaps it was the situation with the man who called himself Eris that had completely unnerved her and was making her question herself. She scowled, her thoughts once more drawn back to their bizarre conversation despite her best efforts. Trynn had certainly been unable to banish the preposterous notions he’d fed her, wrapped in fantastical tales that were not remotely believable.
Shit like this just doesn’t happen, Trynn told herself for the dozenth time, staring straight through her computer screen without seeing it. A gorgeous man does not just randomly show up in your life, save you from a suicide bomber, and then announce casually that reincarnation is real and that you were once his soulmate centuries ago before you sacrificed your life for him like some sort of lovelorn Romeo and Juliet.
Trynn shook her head in disgust, a bitter chuckle escaping her throat. Yeah, right.
“Insanity,” she whispered aloud, trying to keep her mind focused on the task at hand.
It was useless. Eris, with his beautifully chiseled body and sculpted features, kept breaking into her thoughts without her volition.
His mussed hair. His striking eyes. His flat, sexy abs.
Trynn swallowed, feeling heat creeping down her spine. Yet, in one part of her mind, she could not banish the image of him drawing his lips back as his eyes glowed gold.
His fangs. His fucking fangs.
Maybe he wasn’t the crazy one after all. Maybe she was.
There were two possibilities here. Either she hadn’t seen what she thought she saw, or… she had. Was she hallucinating? She didn’t feel like she was hallucinating. Though, she supposed that was sort of the point. If you knew you were seeing things, you’d know they weren’t real. Right?
She knew what the pointed fangs and glowing eyes reminded her of. But… that was nuts.
Her thoughts had carried her down such a ridiculous path that she was staring blankly into space, her warm laptop heating the tops of her thighs as the processor hummed. She scolded herself sharply for even entertaining such nonsense.
He was obviously a delusional mental case who just so happened to also be into playing dress-up. Why else would he just randomly be wearing vampire teeth at ten o’clock in the morn
ing during the middle of summer? And his eyes? Well, maybe the light had just hit them oddly for a moment. That was probably it. If there was one thing for certain, it was that such things didn’t really exist in the world.
Feeling more at peace, Trynn settled back to work. Forty minutes later, she finally had a breakthrough in her hacking project. Letting out a heartfelt exclamation of victory, Trynn practically pounced on the keyboard. With the final access key in place, she was able to pull up the account information behind the intercepted message.
The user’s name was B. Kovac and his originating IP address was based in Syria. Damascus, to be exact—just as she had suspected.
“Next time, choose a better VPN service, creep,” she muttered.
Still, she experienced a twinge of disappointment. This was certainly an important step forward, and one she was going to share with the other hackers in her group, but she could have guessed all but the man’s name from the info they already had. Feeling let down, Trynn tried to work backwards and find more information regarding the recent communications and movements of the seller involved in the illegal deal, rather than the buyer.
After another two hours of digging, Trynn confirmed that Kovac was attempting to purchase something from a known Russian mob figure. Trynn had originally recognized the man’s name from an international crime bulletin that she received occasionally from one of her former clients. Now, she was sure it wasn’t a mistake or a case of similar names. The mystery man, Kovac, was dealing with Matvei Timur, an infamous arms dealer who had access to some of the worst weapons humanity had to offer.
As she carefully translated the most recent email she’d plucked from his server, an uneasy sensation gripped her stomach. Trynn quickly hopped onto Internet Relay Chat—a hub for hackers trying to find something to do with their time. Trynn was a member of MASQUE; a group whose aims were largely to dismantle powerful trade rings within the black market, most of which were run by people that law enforcement would consider to be respectable and above reproach.
Hell, some of them were respectable—on the outside, at least. And some of them were power-hungry maniacs with no scruples or redeeming characteristics whatsoever.
Trynn wondered with some trepidation where B. Kovac fell on that spectrum.
Connected now, she typed out a quick message to relay what she had discovered about Kovac. She noted that she was going to continue working on intercepting messages between the two parties. Taking a deep breath, she outlined the contents of the last email and asked if it implied what she thought it implied.
Several other people chimed in, confirming her fears. After a few more exchanges, most of them encouraged Trynn to continue hunting this person in hopes of discovering what he was going to do next. One of the hackers who seemed to know what they were talking about when it came to the last email offered to take the information to the US government.
Trynn agreed and signed off. The sick feeling remained, though. These days, governments across the world were too busy trying to maintain basic order in the streets to follow up every unsubstantiated lead that came their way.
Exhaustion was pulling at her now, after the brief flush of excitement over what she’d found. It felt like her eyelids were being dragged closed and her fingers had minds of their own as they stumbled over the keyboard. After jerking herself awake twice from dozing off with her neck at an uncomfortable angle, Trynn gave up and shut down the system, wanting nothing more than the lumpy mattress on her rented bed.
She stood, stretching her back and looking at her reflection in the mirror over the beat-up dresser. Huge dark circles were smeared beneath her eyes, and she gazed at them in disgust.
Am I ever going to look and feel like myself again? Maybe it’s a good thing that nothing happened with the hot, crazy guy—he’d’ve be frightened off as soon as he saw me without make-up. Christ.
Hoping that she just needed more sleep than she’d been getting, Trynn walked into the bathroom and washed her face. Feeling a bit more refreshed, she finished getting ready for bed and slipped out of the bathroom.
Even in a place as unfamiliar and uninspiring as this cheap hotel room, crawling into bed felt like being wrapped in a warm cocoon. Immediately, Trynn began to drift off, sinking effortlessly into a dream that both soothed her, and heated her flesh from the inside out.
*
A gentle hand caressed her face, and a fingertip traced over her lips. In a flash, she darted her tongue out of her mouth, tasting salt on callused skin and drawing it inside. A moan of longing reached her ears, and she smiled around the finger.
As she languidly opened her eyes, the world again seemed to solidify around her. The light was dim, with a reddish tint. She could see drapes and hangings all around the room, covering whitewashed stone. Eris’ face swam before her vision, banked fire smoldering deep in his eyes. He was leaning over her, pressing her down into the deep bedding all around her.
Placing a hand down on the bed, Trynn pushed her fingers into the cool, soft fabric.
“Phaidra, my love,” Eris’ soft voice whispered in her ear, trailing the finger over her chin and down the tender column of her throat. “How is it that you grow more beautiful to me every day? When we are both old and gray, I will be unable to even look upon your face, for fear that your radiance will blind me.”
She turned her gaze back to him, just in time for his mouth to capture hers in a passionate kiss. Her head spun and she could taste wine on his lips. As his hands found her waist, she could feel him press deeper and settle hotly between her legs.
Trynn arched her back, trying to get him closer. His hands moved to hers, their fingers intertwining. He slid their joined hands upwards, so that her arms were pinned above her head as he continued to plunder her lips with his own.
He was like a drowning man offered air, the way he seemed to drink in her moans and sighs. Desire so intense it drove out every other thought flooded her, and beads of sweat broke out across her skin. Eris mouthed his way down her neck and then kissed each of her collarbones before dragging his tongue up to recapture her mouth.
Murmuring his name on the back of a broken sigh, Trynn tried to free her hands so she could grab his hips and pull him into her, but Eris resisted the movement. They wrestled each other for a moment—an uneven contest if ever there was one—before Trynn gave up with a breathless laugh.
“You whisper sweet words in my ear one moment, only to torture and deprive me the next,” she accused, her eyes twinkling.
The slow smile that tugged at his lips made new heat flood her belly. “You love it,” he shot back, with a careless shrug of one shoulder. His confidence was infectious as he stared down at her—a playful, well-fed lion, toying with its prey.
The heat of their bodies warmed the furs and blanket around them. Just as Eris shifted both of her wrists to one hand, freeing the other to slide her long, draped skirts up her legs, Trynn felt her mind drifting. She could see him, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration, but she could also feel the scratchy sheets from her hotel bed.
*
No, no, I want to stay, she thought desperately.
It was no good. A moment later, she opened her eyes to darkness and solitude. Her heart was pounding hard and fast, and sweat beaded her brow. The complete silence was broken only by shuffling from someone moving around in the room above hers. Snapping back to reality, Trynn groaned and threw her arm across her forehead.
Great. She had just had a major sex dream about the crazy—and crazy-hot—weirdo who had rescued her, and then tried to scare her out of her mind with a bizarre fairy story and a set of plastic fangs. Wonderful. Perfect.
Damn it.
EIGHT
THE NEXT MORNING, yet again, Trynn awoke suddenly from a sound sleep, pleasure washing through her body like a warm tide. Again, it faded abruptly as the remnants of the dream slipped from her consciousness.
She sat up and rested her elbows on her knees, cradling her head in her hands.
&nbs
p; “Right,” she told the rumpled bedclothes. “This has got to stop. I can’t keep having sexy dreams about this guy. I’m going to go insane.”
The sheets remained unhelpfully silent. Something about the way they were tangled around her gave the impression that they’d had more fun last night than she had, waking repeatedly from dreams just before she got to the good parts. Right now, she kind of resented them for it.
No more sleep, she decided, flipping her legs over the edge of the bed.
With her pulse still thrumming through her and heat pooling between her legs, Trynn decided that a cold shower was in order to banish the last of the fantasy that had plagued her all night long.
Once under the icy spray, she found it easier to ignore her body’s demand for release as she pondered her current situation. Trynn had never struggled with a lack of libido, but what she had experienced in the last several hours was far beyond anything she would consider reasonable or average. She had been involved in a fight for her life little more than a day ago, for Christ’s sake. Surely this should be a time for her mind to focus on something besides her raging sex drive.
Yet it very obviously wasn’t. Sure, Trynn was deeply disturbed by what had happened at the bank, and she had thus far avoided watching the news or looking at much social media in an effort to escape frightening images and accounts of the incident. Yet, the more she thought about Eris, the more the experience seemed to fade into the background as her thoughts dwelt on him and him alone. Because, oh yeah, that was totally healthy.
But, damn. The dreams were enough to drive a person crazy.
Trynn washed her hair and body, trying to ignore the way her skin prickled under her fingers, as if longing for Eris’ touch despite the chilly spray of the shower. If she’d thought it would help, Trynn would have scolded her body aloud for getting so caught up in a lunatic’s twisted fairytale. Down, girl! Have some respect for yourself!
An hour later, Trynn was completely dressed and as ready for the day as she was likely to get, sitting at her computer and staring at a picture of Eris that she had pulled from the hotel’s security system.
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