by A. K. Koonce
A pair of eyes so hollow they’re depthless black holes beneath heavy pale wrinkles that hang loosely from his forehead is the most dominating trait. His hair is nothing more than a few white strands draping down from his bald head spotted with age. His teeth are rotting black, and two rotten fangs protrude out from his dry lips.
Pavel.
He’s the nearest thing to a walking corps as I’ve ever seen.
And suddenly what Prey said about vampires aging makes so much more sense. He’s ancient. He truly is.
I stiffly place the pictures face down on my nightstand and try to breathe out the uneasy feelings tangling tightly in my stomach.
I’m walking into a nightmare.
I should rest. I know they’ll all be up until the dawn, and I’ll be expected to do the same. But I’m too anxious and wired to sleep.
“You should practice some meditation or breathing exercises. Your heart is a bit faster than theirs, but right now it’s a slamming noise that is much too loud to belong to a vampire.”
I peek open an eye at the shifter.
“How do their hearts beat?”
In movies, their pulse is nonexistent.So how can I blend in if even Vuitton can hear every beat of my anxious heart?
“They still have a pulse, but it’s just different from a human’s or even my own. Mine always sounds like yours does right now. Shifter hearts speed nonstop, while vampire hearts maintain a slow rhythm. The nearest thing to death as I’ve ever heard. It’s just enough to keep them living, but more than enough to keep them from dying.”
I exhale the slowest sigh, and though I can’t immediately tell if my pulse is calming, Vuitton nods with a sweet smile at my attempt.
“You can do this,” he whispers like his encouragement is a secret he doesn’t want Prey or Louis to know about.
“Thanks.” I roll my head from side to side and try my best to release all the tension I’ve been carrying in my shoulders since these men stormed into my life.
“Come here,” he steps closer and I hesitate for only a moment before I sit up and lean into the one person who has been a friend to be during all of this madness.
Do I trust him? Ab-so-fucking-lutely not.
But he isn’t an enemy. I can tell that much at least. My sister took him in because she trusted him to protect her. That speaks to his character some.
I just don’t know if I’ll ever be able to trust anyone in the supernatural world.
His big hands lift cautiously and I have to force myself not to shift beneath his touch as he wraps his warm palms around my shoulders, just under my neck.
And then he starts kneading.
I hold his gaze as he delicately works the stiffness from my muscles. His pace is slow and firm and it all feels oh so fucking good. A shaking breath slips from my lungs when his thumbs press just right and the smile that pulls at his lips is wide and alluring.
Charming.
Perfect.
The touch of his fingers is hypnotic. Their very presence is an addicting sensation, like the rush of adrenaline just before a fall.
My defenses subside and my shoulders slump while he works my body like he knows every inch of it. I unknowingly lean in so far that my temple brushes against his smooth skin. I tilt my head up to find myself just a kiss away from the hard lines of his abs. Lines carved as if from granite cut through his solid muscle tone. A heavier breath pushes from my lungs causing him to shift as my exhale washes down the thin trail of hair that leads down the lowest part of his stomach. Down. Down. Down...
My gaze lowers, and then lifts back up.
His light brown eyes pulse with a deep green ring around them. His hands against my body halt entirely. All that exists between us is the way he looks at me right now. It’s a hot spark of energy, a fire of want.
A blaze of lust.
His head dips forward and I don’t even think about it as I sit up on my knees. His hands shift. My chest presses against his, but it’s still not enough.
“Vuitton?” I ask in the breath of a voice. Barely a sound, not even a word at all.
More of a moan.
Then he presses his lips hard to mine, parting my lips and tasting the desire lacing his name on my tongue. The warmth of his hands shift, and the strength of those palms slides down my body in a controlling and delicious way. I arch into him as he wraps his hands around my thighs and slides my body up against the bed. He positions me just how he needs, his thickness is hard between my thighs, his hips nestle perfectly between mine.
Then I realize he isn’t using my body for himself at all.
He positions himself just a fraction of an inch over me. His hold on my thighs slips around my hips, and then his fingers are teasing along my stomach, just over the button of my jeans. Warmth flashes across my flesh in a shiver that shakes all throughout me.
His kisses slow down. He pulls back just slightly, allowing our gazes to shift over one another. Our breaths clash in the air between us.
As he second guesses his actions and my desires, I make it totally clear for him.
I just want to drown in the energy he gives off.
Perhaps it’s the human part of me firing off warning flares, or maybe it really is some kind of supernatural magic.
But I want more of that addicting spark that’s glowing between us.
My fingers slide from between his, just to unsnap my jeans before I slam my lips back into his. A groan shivers between our mouths and I’m honestly not sure if it’s mine or his. The flick of his tongue against mine spirals unending energy right through my core, but it’s nothing compared to the static sensation that blazes over my flesh the moment his warm fingers trail down my abdomen. It’s a casual pace, an exploration of my soft skin against the roughness of his palm. It slows even more when his fingertips dip down, then sneak beneath my jeans.
My back arches to help him get to where I want him to go faster, but he simply maintains that leisurely pace of his touch. The heat of his fingers stop just above my clit, so I’m forced to grind myself against his palm.
This time, the low rumble of pleasure is definitely his. It’s a delicious sound that sends a whimper from my own lips as I thrust my hips once more against the frustrating space between his hand and my wetness.
At the sound of my want, he kisses me harder, so hard it hurts, but fuck it also feels so good.
And then…
Cold sweeps in as air flurries my hair and before I can even open my eyes, the crack of wood is sounding through the room as his hand collides with the nearly open door. It jars shut with a harsh slam against his palm.
Vuitton’s eyes are a wild timber color. His blonde hair is a mess across his bronze features and there’s even aggression in his posture.
As for me, I’m still panting like a mad woman who just fucked the memory of a ghost. And that ghost is long gone now. I’m alone and spread wide on the tangle of my blankets. The span of the bedroom separates me from him as we stare wide eyed at one another.
I can’t believe we just did that.
I just fucked this stranger’s hand, and now he’s all but running for the door.
“I—” An apology of some bizzare sort is on the tip of my tongue, but it gets cut off.
“Knock, Prey!” Vuitton growls, his hand curling into a violent fist as he continues to hold the door shut.
“It’d be my pleasure.” A taunting tone says from the other room. “But it sounded like… trouble in there.”
The word trouble spins through my head. I sit up slowly and Vuitton still watches me like I’m the most dangerous creature he’s never come across in all his life.
His free hand that was against my sex just seconds ago lifts, and he holds my gaze for a second longer. His fingertips slide over his lips and he tastes me with hooded eyes lowering down my body, his dark gaze now tinged with remorse and something more.
My thighs shift involuntarily.
A long drawn out exhale falls from his lips. So much is unsa
id in the way he looks at me one more time. And then he turns his back on me, slipping out the door without another word.
He leaves me there with nothing but the pounding of my heart to keep me company.
That… and an incredible sense of frustration.
Nine
Prey
He slinks out of the room quietly, like a beaten dog who was never given a bone in his mangy life.
Good.
The fucking horny barking mutt.
“You were going to fuck her!” I accuse on a furious whisper.
“I was not going to fuck her,” he growls back while he folds his arms across his chest.
He’s doing it to make himself look bigger. It’s a typical defense pose that every animal in nature does when they’re threatened.
Newsflash asshole: you’re already as big as a goddamn dumpster fire. With the brains to match.
No matter how much you puff your chest out, you’ll still outweigh me by a hundred pounds. And I’ll still kill you regardless.
I tilt my head at the dog. I shame him with just a stare. I’m this close to rubbing his nose in her pussy and reminding him that we don’t shit where we eat.
My thoughts get sidetracked by that visual for only a moment.
“Don’t fuck up again,” I say as I poke my index finger into his puffed-out chest. “Wouldn’t want to get her killed the way you did with Kyra.”
My lips tilt up into a cutting smile that twists up the emotions that are already eating my heart alive.
His jaw grinds. The warm brown at the center of his eyes chases out the ring of green in his iris. His beast wants to come out so fucking bad to test me.
Test me, motherfucker! You’d be one less memory of my mistress I’d have to live with.
Ten
Kira
I stand at the window of my bedroom. My pale hair is pulled tightly back, my brow feeling entirely too alert because of it. The crushed red velvet dress is perfectly form fitting, it stops just above my knees. I don’t sway in the four-inch red bottom heels as I watch the deep orange of the sunset bleed over the buildings along the horizon.
I only have minutes left in this reality I’ve known all my life.
The moment darkness falls, my whole life will bleed away into it. I’ll be her. I’ll be a High Council vampire, and all I’ll have to protect me is the surface appearance of what that power looks like.
Honestly, the surface appearance is all I really knew of Kyra in her afterlife. She gave me glimpses here and there of what happened to her, but never anything about who she really was.
Prey is right, my relationship with my sister was stale and fake. It was a bond we both wanted to keep, but we didn’t know how.
She wanted familiarity.
I wanted closure.
Neither of us got what we wanted.
My head leans into the cold glass window. It feels good to let it soak into my pounding head that’s reeling with the mix of too much and too little information. My palm settles there too, with the comfort of the cool glass against my sweaty palm.
A cracking noise snaps across the glass. The cold stings against my skin and I pull away with a pained gasp.
Only to look up at the man directly outside.
Outside my second storey apartment.
His short dark hair blows in the breeze. The suit jacket slashes back and forth against the single button holding it together against his black dress shirt. The silk ebony tie flurries sideways violently, but he just stares at me with the same stern look he left me with in the hall after the strangest kiss of my entire life.
“Kyra,” he mouths, but I can’t hear his voice as he speaks quietly near the glass, frosting it over with ice simply from his breath.
His hands lower and his biceps flex against the smooth material of his suit before he flings the window open. The lock snaps at the top and the metal of it clatters to the floor. Then he’s crawling inside. He’s prowling, and I’m backing away from the wild look in his eyes. He’s storming, matching my every step and I’m slipping away from him on careful heels that are just begging to be kicked off and abandoned.
“Rival,” I say formally.
Politely?
How am I supposed to address a high vampire?
Sir? Mister? Dark Lord of the Night?
He closes the gap with one dominating step, and then his hand is threading through my hair with a grip of pain right at the root. He slams me against the wall, releasing a gasp of anger and confusion from within me. Then his mouth is against mine in a claiming kiss that steals my breath away.
As well as any rational senses I might have owned.
My fingers grip his smooth tie as my lips part. I press into him as much as he presses into me, because something inside me is crawling up and grabbing on to the allure that he carries. It’s some kind of energy. It’s vertigo. It’s a vibration that syncs into me with all that he has, and I want that unsteady delicious feeling to live inside my heart for the rest of my fucking life.
“Kyra,” he groans against my mouth.
And just like that, the vibration strikes to an abrupt halt.
My fingers release his fine silk tie, one diligent finger at a time. My palm settles there and I shove him off me as I try to find a breath of fresh air between us. He staggers back, but not because of my force. He’s… dazed it seems.
The man who threatened my life less than seventy-two hours ago now looks torn between caressing my face and breaking it in the palm of his hand if I get too close to him.
Clarity begins to shine through in his steely eyes. He assesses me in a new light, from the top of my high ponytail to the points of my sleek black heels.
“I suppose I passed your test,” I arch a perfectly manicured eyebrow at the infuriating vampire. “Mister Royale?”
He swallows hard at the cutting sound of my tone. Dark Lord of the Night would have had the same effect, I’m sure.
His hands move swiftly as he adjusts the windsor knot of his tie, his stature shifting back into the deadly confident man I first met.
“I suppose that you’ll have to do,” he finally replies dryly.
My lips curl into a sneer.
Asshole.
“Grab your purse. Nothing else,” he instructs.
He doesn’t even look at me as he strides to the door and leaves me behind.
Emotionless. Rival Royale is an emotionless creature. Or, at least he pretends to be.
I ignore his hostility and turn to the small rack of dresses, heels and clutches that Prey set up for me in the corner.
He really is a fantastic assistant. No wonder my sister kept him around for as long as she did. That has to be the reason, because it sure as shit couldn’t have anything to do with his sparkling fucking personality.
I grab the largest handbag, though it’s still no longer than my forearm and no thicker than a Bible, but I’ll have to make the most of it.
I abandon my driver’s license, I don’t even think about my debit or credit cards, and I don’t search for my apartment key.
I don’t need any of those things anymore.
The one thing I’ll need in my future is that kitchen knife.
I pull the blade from beneath my pillow and the moonlight glints off of the edge of it. Sure it’s no dagger, but Gordan Ramsay would be super impressed, I’m sure.
And it’s all I have at the moment, so it’ll have to do.
I slip it into the black clutch. My head lifts high, shoulders back, ready to walk right into their world.
And by the end of it all, I’ll slay that motherfucker who hurt my twin.
The three men walk casually with me down the apartment stairwell. I pass Miss Croot and her wide eyes ping pong between the entourage of the gorgeous men who flock me as well as my new, crisp business woman attire.
“Goodnight, Croot.”
“Ww—g’nighttt…” she stutters while Prey winks at her and strides on by like the delinquent prep boy that he is.<
br />
The moment Vuitton swings open the front door, the stinging fall wind bites into my barely clothed body.
“Fuck!” I hiss and pull back from the sidewalk. I scurry back toward the building, but Rival jerks me right back out.
He holds his hand around my shoulder like I’m nothing more than a leaning post for him.
“Prey,” he says with a firm nod my way.
Prey bows his head oddly and before I can utter a single insult, the vampire sweeps me up with one palm beneath my thighs and the other curled intimately around my back.
“This is not Twilight! Put me down, you glitterless Edward Cullen fuck!”
“Glitterless?”
“The glitter was the best damn part. You’re a dim comparison!” My jaw grinds against itself in protest, but my teeth still try to chatter from the cold.
A slow smirk pulls at his lips and it’s almost strange to see. It shines in his eyes with thin little lines meeting at the corners of his cold gaze. It’s genuine amusement from the heartless vampire.
At least I think it is...
It could just as well be allergies.
Constipation?
A seizure?
I may never actually know.
In the next several blurry seconds, the city lights of Chicago streak like a stream of fire overhead. It’s a hellish sight of falling stars through the night sky that is both beautiful and terrifying all at once. Thrashing wind claws at my hair and captures the air in my lungs. It’s such a breath-consuming, dizzying experience that I have to close my eyes and shield my face into Prey’s soft black tee-shirt. His fingers digging into my thighs ease and his thumb brushes oddly back and forth there. I focus on that sweeping sensation against my skin. Once, twice, Three times—
And then we stop.
My lashes flutter and I pull my head up from his cotton shirt to find him staring down at me. There’s tension in his brow. A concerned sort of appearance that I’m just not comfortable receiving from someone so hot and hostile one minute, and cool and calm the next.
I’m all too aware of his body, and of mine. My fingers that are clinging to his neck lift, and I don’t know why I just slightly brush them over the bottom of his messy hair.