by Anne Rainey
A Diamond at Midnight
by
Anne Rainey
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
A Diamond at Midnight
COPYRIGHT © 2008 by Anne Rainey
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: [email protected]
Cover Art by Valerie Tibbs
Dedication
To Faith Smith. Thank you for seeing my potential when I didn't see it myself. I won't let you down!
And my author buddy Desiree Lee. Thank you for being so excited about this story! I truly hope you'll be pleased with my addition to the world of immortals.
A special thanks to my friend and cover artist Valerie Tibbs. You’ve brought my story to life with your fantastic cover art!
Prologue
New York City, New York
1840
The time was midnight. Someone was following Diamonique and had been since she’d left the party. His rapid footfalls seemed threatening on the quiet New York street. Curiosity caused her to turn and look. Between the light of the full moon and the dim light of the gas street lamp, Diamonique was able to see a tall, muscular man several feet behind. His well-groomed black hair and evening attire should have made him seem less sinister but it didn’t. The unholy gleam in the stranger’s eyes made her feel as if he were seeing right into her soul—enticing it, cajoling it to do as he commanded. She couldn’t look away from his mesmerizing gaze. It positively glowed.
She forced herself to turn back around and increased her speed. The bloom of fear in her stomach grew until it threatened to squeeze her insides. Desperation made her quicken her footsteps even more. Dear heaven, what had she done? In her haste to leave the party and her carousing fiancé, she’d waved off her carriage driver and started walking. She should have known better. She wished now she’d practiced a small amount of good sense and stayed at the party. At the very least, allowed one of the men to escort her home.
The wind blew her hair across her face, and a shiver ran the length of her spine—with cold and growing fear. Any hope of rescue grew bleaker by the second. Diamonique hazarded another glance backward. Her breath caught in her throat, and she picked up the train of her skirts and ran.
As she tore around a corner, the frightening stories her mother used to tell her sprang to mind. In the hopes of making Diamonique too afraid of going out after dark, thus ensuring her safety, her mother had told her scary tales of winged creatures that sucked the blood of innocent virgins. She now wished she’d taken them more seriously.
A hand closed around her shoulder, bringing her to an abrupt stop. She screamed, and he swung her around as if she weighed no more than a child.
Diamonique stared into death’s unholy eyes. The man smiled, although Diamonique knew it was only a veneer. Death came in many forms. In her case, it presented itself as a handsome, caped stranger, with eyes the color of night and a smile to melt any woman’s heart. In other circumstances such a demeanor might have fooled her. Out here, on the street, Diamonique only felt terror. Chillingly, bone wrenching terror.
“What a little vixen you are.” His voice seductive and tempting as chocolate.
The frighteningly sensual man pulled her flush against his well-muscled body and used his mouth like a weapon. Holding Diamonique’s inert body, he kissed with a practiced mouth and tongue. It was nothing like the tepid kisses of her fiancé. Her feminine instincts screamed this man was an expert at pleasuring a woman. Helpless, Diamonique succumbed to his ministrations. Soon she was engulfed by his whole being, not even sure where he left off and she began.
A sharp stab pierced the sensitive skin of her neck. She whimpered. Quickly, as if by magic, the pain was nonexistent.
As if she’d only imagined it.
In its place, euphoria. The kind Diamonique had only dreamed of in her nighttime girlish fantasies. He was all over her, even inside her soul. Diamonique’s body tightened and she rode out the surge of pleasure with a climactic moan.
“Lift your skirts, love.”
Powerless, she obeyed his voice. Her hands moved to the hem of her skirts and she lifted them high. The soft night breeze caressed her calves and thighs.
“Mmm, yes, that’s the way.”
The man’s hands scorched her skin while his face continued to nuzzle her neck. He was taking liberties that no one, not even her fiancé, ever had. Diamonique moaned, her pleasure mounting all over again. Suddenly, he was stroking her feminine spot and her body flew out of control. He rumbled his approval and slipped a finger inside her wet heat.
“You’re a virgin,” he murmured. “A sweet, tempting little innocent.”
She couldn’t speak. The things she felt overrode her ability at rational thought. But he didn’t seem to require words from her.
“Would you like to know what it’s like to be a woman, love? To be able to live forever and have anything your heart desires?”
Her thoughts scattered when a second finger probed her entrance. In her need to have more, Diamonique shouted, “Yes!”
There was a second sting at her neck, and soon she was drowning in rapturous bliss.
Chapter One
Columbus, Ohio
Present Day
Standing at the railing of her balcony, Diamonique stared at the cool, crisp Autumn evening. Tears threatened to spill over, as she recalled the exact moment in time when she first tasted immortality. The young and naive girl she’d been, gone for all eternity. Unbidden, an image of Cain sprang to mind. She’d fallen in love with him. Even though he’d turned her world upside down, she’d still given him her heart and soul.
Her body tightened, her craving for blood mounting. She’d waited far too long to feed. Her sigh mingled with the air. She would need to hunt soon. Not even her plush and exotic penthouse suite could calm the hunger. Too much a coward to face the dawn, hence giving herself back to death like a present wrapped in charred flesh, Diamonique’s existence was nothing more than an empty tunnel of nights.
Once upon a time, she’d believed in happily ever after, but the relationships she’d tried to conceive over the centuries had been but a bandage for her loneliness. At first, after Cain’s betrayal, she’d sought out her fiancé only to learn he’d been shot for having an affair with a married women. That solidified her feeling that men were not to be trusted. Due to constant relocations to keep her ageless appearance from being questioned, she’d never bothered to pursue a deep relationship. As the sole heir to her family’s fortune and her own knack for choosing the right stocks, she’d become independent in her own right, never having to rely on another man or immortal. Cain’s monetary guilt offerings over the decades were given to charity. And although wealth came in handy, it was still no comparison to loneliness.
Diamonique shook off her self-imposed pity-party, shifted her body and took to the sky. She soared on raven wings, streaking off into the night in search of sustenance.
She landed silently in a dirty, empty alley, before quickly taking to the sidewalks. Moving through the crowds of people with ease, Diamonique sneered in contempt at how stupid mortals were. Oblivious to the peril they were in just by being in her presence. She could have them, any one of them, with but a flick of a wrist, a bat of her lashes, and a curve of her lips. She knew her own power and reveled in it.
Hunger turned her more danger
ous than ever. She was a law unto herself and God help the one who thought to step between her and food this night. The only pleasure she received these days, came from the blood she drank. The sweet warm flow of it as it dripped onto her greedy tongue.
She focused on the thoughts of the city as it awakened with the promise of lusty desires. Those who lived in a dull world by day would emerge by night, changed. They thought to sate their wicked appetites under the cover of darkness. Still, one mind was different. She closed her eyes and stopped dead in her tracks, then tuned her every nerve, her every thought to that one pattern of thought. His boredom struck her like a cattle prod. His need to escape the madness of the city, to leave behind all that was colorful and slip inside his pale loneliness. She searched him out. Coming to an open door, music blasting so loudly the windows vibrated with the intensity, she stepped over the threshold and became like all the other partygoers. With the power of suggestion, they would see an image of mist and beauty and nothing more.
Diamonique weaved through the gyrating bodies, until she was directly in front of the one she’d chosen to give her nourishment. As if sensing her, he turned around. The beauty of his eyes struck her. Eyes the color of the daytime sky she missed so much; striking and sensual, as they caressed her face. Something about his eyes seemed familiar, but she couldn’t think why. The song changed to a slow romantic tune and a woman’s lilting voice filled the room.
Her lids closed and an image of Cain sprang to mind. It startled her. Thinking of him made her remember all the passion they’d shared. The music, the soft lights, all of it coaxed her into wishing for the unattainable. For once, she let herself float along, feeling the rhythm catch in her heart. Cain’s face, his strong arms and powerful body took over her thoughts. She ached to have his lips pressed to hers just once more. Diamonique wanted his hot gaze searing her and seeing into her soul the way only he could. She needed and wanted and the music gave it to her. If only in her imagination, it was enough.
With her eyes closed, it felt as if she were drifting in a dream. Her hands went where she wanted Cain’s to be once more, stroking her own neck the way his lips once had—driving her mad with the tease of his tongue. Her hands journeyed downward, until her fingers hooked beneath the hem of her skirt. A hot breath against her cheek startled her out of her fantasy.
“You’re beautiful.”
It was the man she’d come to entice.
Not Cain.
That should have pleased her. Cain was the past.
The song ended, she stepped back and breathed a sigh of relief. But as she studied the handsome stranger, his silent intensity washed over her. His eyes were dark with an enticing promise of an inner fire. She could see and feel what he wanted so clearly in her mind. His body covering hers, entering hers, their passions mounting and dueling. It stopped abruptly; the images disappearing so fast she wondered if she were truly in charge of her own mind.
The music changed once again, the tempo faster, the romantic tune gone, but the mood was still there. She was still as edgy, still as ready, and the stranger was still standing in front of her, staring at her, waiting for her to surrender.
Diamonique glided a step closer, bringing their bodies into contact. She could smell his natural masculine scent. For the first time, she realized what it was about a man that made women lose their heads. That smell, that all too enthralling maleness. It made her long to run her tongue over his beautiful full lips.
Rising up on her tiptoes, she took a taste. Initiating the first contact gave her a sense of feminine power. He kept his hands at his sides, as if not sure how to respond. As her fingers went to his hair, his arms closed around her in a tight embrace. Diamonique grabbed handfuls of dark silk and pressed her lips to his, she was eager to taste him. She coaxed his lips apart with her tongue and delved inside. She angled her head, deepening the kiss and felt the sudden change in him. He’d had enough of standing and doing nothing. When she was ready to pull back, the room spun. She’d gone too long without blood. Her cells were shriveling with each second that passed, her mind turned to mush, as she tried to concentrate on the male in her arms. She wanted to kick herself for using her power of flight when she was already so weak. It made her vulnerable. Not since Cain had she felt this way.
Diamonique longed to feel this man succumb to her lips at his throat. She used her voice like a weapon, softly luring him outside, away from the revelry. To her shock, he smiled and took her by the hand as if unaffected by the hypnotic notes. Suddenly, he was the one in control as he steered her down the alley behind the nightclub, beyond the eyes of the curious.
She tuned out the smells, the stench of the trash that hugged every crevice and seemed to cling to her skin like a sickening glove. She frowned as she tried to concentrate, but all she received for her efforts was a headache and no answer as to why she was letting him take the lead.
Shaking off her lethargy, Diamonique moved in front of him and let him look his fill, allowed his eyes to travel the length of her body. His gaze took in the flow of the silky dress, breasts that threatened to spill out of the scoop neckline, and the black spiked heels encrusted with the diamonds that were her namesake. He watched as she moved her legs apart and let the silk fall away from one calf, the slit reaching clear to her waistline. His eyes heated instantly. His heart beat loud in her ears, his blood pumping hard.
Beckoning her to drink.
Pleading for Diamonique to sate herself with this stranger.
She lifted her hand to the back of his neck and pulled him down, then silently slipped inside his mind, reading his thoughts easily. He was a flurry of sexual lust. He ached to sink his heavy length inside her body. Nothing seemed to matter to him except the swell of hip that protruded from the open dress.
Diamonique felt his hands there, even as her teeth scored his soft skin. His musky male scent bombarded her senses, as she tasted his sweet blood. Only once before had she tasted such nectar. Before she could explore the remembrance, his strong capable hands massaged the junction of her thighs. Her tongue continued to tease the blood from his willing veins, each in their own way fulfilling their lust. She let the moment drag out, longer than ever before. She loved his strong, capable hands massaging where she needed him the most. Even as her tongue continued to lap sweet sustenance, Diamonique felt her own climax mounting.
Then he spoke.
“My beautiful, Diamond, I thought I’d lost you forever.”
That voice! Warm velvet skimmed the length of Diamonique’s body. Every muscle went rigid with disbelief.
It was Cain!
The one who’d turned her into this monster of the dark.
She wrenched out of his arms.
“You were projecting false thoughts,” she accused, “so I wouldn’t know it was you.”
She readied herself for battle. But he only stood there, eyes full of laughter as if mocking her. His grin triggered Diamonique’s rage as his gaze traveled over her body with a possessiveness he had no right to.
Her blood craving withered.
“You must have a death wish.” Her voice deliberately harsh and cold as her cells began to pulse with life once more, giving back her strength as her rage grew. Unfortunately, she was also able to see the man who’d so easily hidden his true self from her. No wonder she hadn’t recognized him, as an ancient, Cain had cloaked his appearance.
“Now why would you say that, love?”
“You dare come to me after what you’ve done!”
His eyes lit up with understanding, as if just remembering. “Ah, you must mean the whore. Is that what has you all in a lather?”
Diamonique’s spine stiffened. Her fists clenched and unclenched in an effort to stay in control. “She has a name, use it.”
“Sareena is dead.”
She hadn’t expected that, but then she didn’t really care. “And you’re telling me why?”
He drove a hand through his long black hair and sighed, as if tired. “It’s a long story,
but her death affects you a great deal.”
“Screw off.”
“You have a wicked mouth, Diamond.”
“And you and I were finished a century ago. Leave here, Cain. This is my turf.”
“Afraid I can’t do that, love.”
“Then I will.”
She turned to go, but he grabbed her and hauled her close.
Too close.
She tried to jerk free, but he was too strong. “Let go, damn you!”
“No. You will listen to what I have to say.”
Diamonique knew it was useless. Cain’s stubbornness would continue until she heard him out.