by BETH KERY
He stepped into the room.
“You recognize me,” he said. It wasn’t a question, but a statement of fact.
“Of course.”
“Where have you seen me before? Here?”
Confusion flickered across the young woman’s expression. “I don’t understand…what do you mean?”
“Tell me where you’ve seen me before.” He removed his glasses and used his ascendancy, not to enslave, but to calm.
“At the Grand Avenue subway stop, of course. You listened to me play and sing for over an hour, and then you took me to the Black Velvet Lounge. And then afterwards, you took me to that place far, far down below the city.” Her voice faded to a husky whisper as she stepped closer to him. The aura of her vitessence throbbed with the escalating beat of her heart. She rolled a thick silver barbell along her lower lip and laughed seductively. “You loved the feel of that on your cock, didn’t you? Remember? How I took you so deep and hummed you a sweet tune, and you called me your little songbird…your sweet little pet? You’ve come for me early? Is it time?”
“No.”
She started out of her entrancement.
“There’s been a change of plans.”
“But, you said if I showed myself worthy… You saw, didn’t you? I didn’t lie to you, did I?” She held up her forearms. Pale gold tears flowed down her gray face. “You said that if I showed myself willing, we could possibly live together for a glorious eternity.”
Saint’s muscles clenched in rising fury.
It’d been five and a half centuries since Saint’s one and only night of unregulated bloodlust. His first memories of life were clear and hauntingly graphic, as much as he prayed to the gods to make them fade. Consciousness hadn’t come in fits and starts, but in an abrupt slam. He and his clone, Teslar, had just suddenly been there, inhaling the verdant earth and the brackish water in the distance. One sensation had preceded all others. It had awakened him to the gray, shadowed world.
Hunger.
They had come upon a village not far from the banks of a river. Teslar and he had fed like ravenous wolves turned loose in a field filled with helpless cattle.
Saint lived daily with the knowledge of what he’d done to the Native American tribe, the Iniskium. It hadn’t taken him long to learn the horror of his actions, to know the fires of remorse, but Teslar continued in his never-ending mission to drain his victims completely of their vitessence. Teslar craved the spice of fear in his food and enjoyed coming up with new ways to evoke it in his victims.
Teslar was a fear-eater.
Saint definitely sensed fear in the young woman who stood in Christina’s office, but the most overwhelming misplaced emotions he read at that moment were excitement, infatuation, and idolatry. It worried him. He was responsible for his clone, after all.
Teslar’s crimes were his own.
Ages ago, Saint had separated himself from Teslar, denied his bloodlust free access to rule his existence. Only then had the Magian named Kavya given him the primary mandate that ruled his existence.
Now Saint lived to keep Teslar in check, to control from the outside what could not be regulated from within.
Still, Saint knew the truth. He and Teslar were one and the same—parasites, creatures worthy of the look of disgust and fear Christina had given him the other night after she’d seen him feed off the women’s vitessence—the vital essence exuded by the soul, the energy that surrounded humans in varying amounts. Vitessence was found in concentrated forms in the blood, sweat, tears, and sexual secretions—fluids associated with strong emotion.
Saint and Teslar were both energy vampires, but vampires in the classical sense as well.
Teslar was harvesting his energies for some purpose, carefully cultivating his power. Saint had suspected he was the Youngblood Thief before, although the means of blood extraction had thrown him off the scent of his clone at first.
Why would a vicious and expert blood-drinker like Teslar bother to paralyze and then medically exsanguinate his victims? Teslar had the ability to exsanguinate utilizing his fangs and suction alone.
Why this change in method?
Saint thought he knew the answer. Teslar wanted to heighten his victim’s fear. The captive bolt that had been found inserted in the young people’s brain caused paralysis. Unfortunately, the victims were fully aware of what was happening to them while their blood was drained.
Despite Saint’s suspicions, leaders of the Iniskium—Fardusk, Isi and Strix—had been unable to come up with any solid proof that Teslar was the Youngblood Thief. Even the opportunity to obtain proof had been negligible, as Teslar had found a new hidey-hole in the underground of the city—a den, which, as of yet, had remained a secret to Saint and the Iniskium.
Until now.
He stepped closer to the girl, automatically setting up an energy barrier between them, protecting her from his poisonous, parasitic nature, leaving only a narrow channel open. He turned his ascendancy up to its fullest strength.
“Listen to me. If you give yourself to Teslar or any one of the Scourge revenants for the Final Embrace, there is a ninety percent chance you will die.”
“I know,” the girl replied fervently, her eyes glassy with manic excitement. “I’m prepared to make the sacrifice.”
Saint paused. She knew? Teslar had told her the truth?
Not all of it, Saint was willing to bet. He continued ruthlessly.
“Your blood, and most likely your flesh, will be consumed with all the mindlessness and disregard of a fast-food meal. If they don’t eat your flesh, there is a ten percent chance you will turn Scourge revenant, possessing no soul. You will be a monster, and the form of that monster will not even be something of your own choosing. There will be no point to your existence but to feed, to figure out how to feed next…to scheme how to feed well. And hear this. You will be one of many. Teslar has said you would be his special companion, his mate, but he lies. Teslar breeds and breathes lies.”
For the first time, her worshipful expression fractured. “But you are—”
“I am not Teslar.”
He tried to keep the passion out of his voice, but it was difficult. It was stupid to bemoan the fact that Teslar and he were identical in appearance.
We share more in common than just a face. I am him and he is me and we are all together.
“When were you planning on seeing Teslar next?” he asked the girl sharply, pushing aside the taunting, singsong voice in his head.
Alison bit her lower lip doubtfully. Saint pressed with his ascendancy.
“If…if you come with me later tonight, you’ll see Teslar,” she said.
“I’ll follow you then.”
Chapter Four
Christina stomped into her office and threw Saint a vitriolic glance. He sat in the leather chair behind her desk, unmoving.
His eerie stillness had been one of Christina’s first indications that Saint wasn’t normal. Human beings weren’t capable of that sharp degree of focus while remaining immobile for so long. Unless they were a Buddhist monk or something.
“Where’s Alison?”
“She went to her room,” he replied evenly.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve, you know that?” She slammed the door shut and swept across the room like a wildfire on the rampage. “It’s you who put this fixed idea in Aidan’s head that we shouldn’t move away from Whitby. Didn’t I tell you to stay away from him?”
“You’re wrong. No intervention was required on my part. Aidan is very upset about the idea of leaving Whitby. It’s his home.”
“Wrong. Whitby Manor is your home,” she corrected, pointing accusingly.
She stepped back when he stood abruptly, quick as a snake at the strike.
“It’s my home because you’re there,” he growled.
Christina was set off-balance by his unexpected revelation accompanied by a focused explosion of feeling. The vivid memory of the gazebo made her recover. “Maybe you should have thought
of that before you brought your girlfriends to what should have been our first date.”
She’d never seen Saint show an emotion as mundane as incredulity until now.
“First date? You saw what I am! Saw it with your own eyes, and yet the only thing you consider is that I was unfaithful to your infantile fantasies?”
She snarled and picked up a heavy marble paperweight from her desk, fully prepared to hurl it at Saint’s stunned expression of disbelief. A frustrated cry left her lips when he was suddenly beside her, restraining her wrists. He wrapped his arms around her and pushed her back into his chest.
“Calm down.”
For a few seconds, she was dazed by his resonant, deep voice and the sensation of his body pressed against her. She twisted furiously in his hold, but her body slowly sagged. When she realized she was following Saint’s order without conscious thought, her fury erupted.
“God, I hate you! How could you have done that to me?”
“I am what I am. If I could change my nature, I would in a second. You gave me no choice but to reveal to you the truth about why your dreams are merely that—the fantasies of a child.”
Fury bloomed in her chest, feeling as if it would explode through the skin at any moment. “I told you the other night. I knew you weren’t like everybody else. I didn’t guess you’re…whatever you are…a vampire?”
“Humans have called me that. The truth is a bit more complicated.”
“Vampire or not, you’re an asshole. Some things remain consistent across the species. Even the paranormal variety.”
She braced her legs and twisted viciously to push herself out of his hold. She might as well have been trying to throw a mountain off her. His strength was effortless, as though she were being restrained by steel instead of flesh.
“Let go of me.”
“When you calm down.”
She tried to ignore the shiver of excitement that raced down her neck when she felt his voice rumbling from his chest to her back and his warm breath brushing her ear. She inhaled his familiar scent. As usual, it started an unstoppable chemical cascade of arousal in her body. Her lack of control over her reaction infuriated her further.
“I’m about ready to scream myself hoarse. Do you want to upset Aidan?”
“No. Do you?”
She twisted her neck around and glared up at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Do you think you’re really doing the best thing by taking him away from Whitby?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
“Who’s making that decision? The loving mother? Or your battered ego?”
She went completely still. For a few seconds she thought she’d go stark raving mad if she didn’t get to punch Saint Sevliss’s gorgeous, smug face just once. He stared down at her with those amazing blue eyes while she panted and her breath burned in her lungs.
Using every ounce of her willpower, she forced herself to calm. She inhaled slowly several times, trying her best not to notice the sensation of Saint’s arms enclosing her expanding and contracting ribcage.
“Let go of me, please,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster.
When she felt him slowly release her, she gave full rein to her fury. She turned, stepped back, cocked her fist and swung. Two weeks of pent-up anger and frustration went into a well-landed right hook to Saint’s angular jaw. His chin swung at the impact of the blow.
He slowly turned to face her. What she saw in his eyes made her take a step back in alarm. He halted her retreat by grabbing her upper arms and hauling her next to his body. Anxiety and anguish mixed with Christina’s fury when she stared up at his face.
How can he feel so much and show so little? It was as if her punch had popped the lid off a tightly sealed container of frothing, scorching-hot emotion. A tear skipped down her cheek when he shook her.
“I didn’t want to hurt you, Christina. I hate myself for having done it. But you gave me no choice, the way you were pursuing me.”
His heat seemed to pour into her body. She experienced his inner turmoil clearly, felt his desperation, his need and his pain in equal degrees to her own. It was unbearable, the friction it caused inside of her. Without thinking about her actions, she struggled to get her right arm free from his hold. Much to her surprise, he released her. She grabbed a handful of soft hair at his nape and jerked fiercely.
“I would think you’d be glad we were leaving. Wasn’t that little show you staged the other night precisely for that purpose?”
She sobbed as tears spurted down her cheek. Despite her unbridled fury, she couldn’t stop staring at Saint’s mouth for some god-awful reason, couldn’t stop from pressing her body against his long, hard length, or rubbing her aching nipples against his ribs.
“I was trying to stop you from getting me into bed. I’m trying to keep you safe from me. Can’t you see that? That doesn’t mean I want you and Aidan to leave Whitby for good.”
“Well, I guess your little plan didn’t work too well, did it?” She jerked on his hair one last time for emphasis before she went up on tiptoe and pulled him down closer to her face. She didn’t stop until she felt his warm breath brushing against her lips. “Why in the hell do I need to be kept safe? You must know by now I can read people’s minds, Saint. I have never been afraid of you.”
His upper lip curled; his eyes blazed. She cried out in surprise when he wrapped his hands around her waist and lifted her roughly until they were groin to groin, heartbeat to heartbeat.
“You should be afraid.” He swooped down and took her mouth in a ravaging kiss.
A torrent of emotion and sensation surged through her. Christina dazedly realized Saint was right. A woman should be afraid she might drown in the deep, frothing well of carnal delight that suddenly submersed her entire being.
Nevertheless, she craned up for him hungrily, all vestiges of rational thought burned into a mist by her lust and need.
The first taste of Christina and he was lost. He felt like an addict who’d just fallen off the wagon face-first onto the pavement, a drunk who had acknowledged his addiction to watered-down wine and suddenly found himself drowning in premium bourbon.
Her potent vitessence flooded his cells, invigorating him like nothing else could. How could he have gone so many years without losing himself in her? He must have forced himself to forget the experience…self-imposed amnesia.
His body shook with need. This was all Christina’s fault, dammit. He’d suffered in her nearness just as he’d gloried in it. He’d been able to keep himself from her, but barely, and only with monumental levels of restraint and willpower on his part.
But she was a mature female now, a woman who knew what she wanted. Gone were the days of her shyness, her uncertainty and hesitation in the presence of a more experienced male. He could no longer cow her with his silences or turn his back on her sweet, subtle invitations to share her bed.
Saint realized too late this was a whole new game, and he was back to square one.
He didn’t tell himself to move, but suddenly he was sweeping the items off Christina’s desk and lifting her onto it, bending over her as he continued to send his tongue deep in the honeyed cavern of her mouth, striking out again and again to capture her flavor, shivering uncontrollably at the sound and sensations of her whimpers as they vibrated her throat. His incisors throbbed with a need to extend, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop feeding on the sweetest mouth in existence.
She pressed her soft mound against his erection, her hips rolling in tight, sensual circles against his straining flesh. The sensation of her pointed nipples thrusting against his chest made him lift his head and growl.
She stared up at him with desire-glazed green eyes. He had never known what the color green was—never known what color was period—until he’d first seen Christina. Pink was only pink because it was the sensation that had hit his brain when he first saw the bloom in her cheek and her lush, rosebud mouth.
Her lips wer
e red now, not just from his ravening kiss, but with desire. His cock lurched furiously in his jeans, demanding its due. He saw only a pulsing haze of pure gold flickering with a rainbow of throbbing color and Christina’s beautiful face at the center of it. He heard the rush of blood pounding in her veins even more clearly than he heard the thud of his own frenzied heartbeat. The aura of pulsating light surrounding her became tinged with red.
Against his will, his incisors elongated, the sensation excruciatingly painful and arousing at once. He couldn’t do this.
He couldn’t stop.
He was lost in a dream of pulsing color and blinding hunger. He ripped at her pants. Buttons clicked and skittered across the wood floor. He jerked her panties to her thighs and pierced warm, weeping, succulent flesh with his finger. Her head jerked up off the desk, her long, near-black hair falling like a silken cape down her shoulders and back. She bit her bottom lip, stifling a moan as he slid his finger in and out of her tight channel. It maddened him the way her sleek muscles squeezed around him, as though she never wanted him to leave her.
And the gods knew he never wanted to.
She clenched her teeth in an agony of pleasure. He was rough with her and he knew it, reaching high into her, kneading her tender cunt mercilessly. Her vitessence pulsated and sparked around her, looking like a rich, golden cloud spiked with flashing, colorful fireflies. He bathed in it, every cell of his being absorbing her energy hungrily. He flicked his forefinger rapidly across her swollen clit and watched her face tighten with pleasure while her aura surged, the tiny, living lights flickering more rapidly until they overwhelmed his vision.
He ripped at his own jeans, wanting…needing…to be fully embedded in her when her entire being exploded and the essence of Christina blasted into him.
Gods, he hurt. His hunger clawed at him. He fumbled wildly to free his cock as he continued to stimulate her, his eyes never leaving her rapturous face. His cock felt heavy and stretched to maximal volume when he finally took it in his hand and arrowed it toward Christina’s tender cleft. He slid his finger out of her and replaced it with the head of his cock, hearing her gasp at the sudden invasion.