When Wicked Craves

by J. K. Beck

  Over the years, philosophy and art had come to fascinate him as much as science, and his walls were covered with the works of both the masters and aspiring artists he had discovered over the years, many of whom had never found fame but had true talent in the way they wielded a brush.

  Petra’s shelves were crammed full of books, but they did not lie open and scattered about as Nick’s always did. Nick had the impression of being in a cell rather than in a home, and when he looked at Petra again, he saw a girl who moved through the world but did not in fact live in it.

  “Are we leaving or not?” she demanded.

  He realized he was standing in the doorway, his hands clenched as if in protest of something he didn’t understand. A problem he didn’t know how to tackle, yet he wasn’t certain what troubled him.

  He shook off the feeling and stepped from the room into the hall. “We’ll transform in the kitchen, closer to the vent. Less time for you to be forced into that form.”

  Her brows lifted. “Less time by about four seconds. Is it really that dangerous? I mean, I do have a car.”

  “Mist is safer.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Absolutely,” he said, with more surety than he felt. At some point, her human constitution would rebel against the repeated transformations. For that matter, at some point he would have to feed, as the strain of transforming her along with himself would soon take its toll. Now, though, it was most important to get out of there. And for that, mist was best.

  “Guess I’m ready then—oh, wait.” She paused in front of her dresser, grabbed a lipstick, and scribbled I love you—I’m safe on the mirror. “Okay?”

  He only half nodded, his interest captured instead by the calendar taped to the upper corner of that same mirror. Interesting primarily because there was nothing written on it. No engagements. No birthdays. Nothing except one date circled in red. The fifteenth. Only one night away.

  Petra followed his gaze to the calendar.

  “A blue moon is coming,” he said.

  “Yeah. I know. It’s my calendar.”

  He grinned, that charming lady-killer grin. “How interesting.”

  She felt her cheeks heat, but held his eyes, willing her face to remain bland, to not reveal anything to this man. This vampire who had a reputation of bringing women to his bed, of using them for his own pleasure. And for theirs.

  She’d known a bit about his reputation, of course, simply from working within the shadows. She’d learned more once he stepped in to represent her, asking discreet questions within the confines of her cell, and sending Kiril out to do the necessary legwork.

  He used women, but he didn’t hurt them. The women who entered his bed did so willingly, presumably with no illusions. Nicholas Montegue wasn’t known as a man who would bind himself to one woman. Not ever. His encounters were about physical pleasure, not romance. Not love.

  All of which was perfectly fine with Petra. More than fine, actually, since she could never bind herself to a man, either.

  Her life was lonely by necessity, and she couldn’t help but wonder why Nicholas’s was lonely by design.

  The answer didn’t matter, though. His simple “how interesting” was an invitation—she was certain of it. And although she was nervous as hell, a man’s touch had been at the forefront of her fantasies for all her past blue moons. Fantasies only, though, since fate always intervened.

  This time, it wouldn’t.

  This time, she would know a man’s touch. When the sun set again, she would take what he so willingly offered to so many other women, and she would hold on to it forever, cherishing the erotic memory of skin against skin.

  There was more he could offer, too. The idea had been buzzing around in the back of her head since she told him about her birth memory. Her birth. The event that cured her mother, and her grandmother before that.

  And if she were to have a child …

  She pushed the thought away. A cursed child. Damned. Like her.

  Yet she couldn’t get the thought out of her head. The fabulous, amazing, joyful possibility that after nine short months she would, finally and forever, be free.

  But the cost—dear God, how could she live with herself if she did that to a child? How had her mother and her grandmother and all her ancestors before them?

  They had, but Petra couldn’t. She’d figure out another way to free herself of this curse, or she would die childless. And the curse would die with her.

  He was looking at her, his expression so intense she feared he could read her mind.

  She hurried past him and began down the stairs, moving so quickly she could feel the stairs shaking beneath her step.

  Except she wasn’t the one making them shake.

  “Petra.” From behind, Nicholas grabbed the hood of her shirt. Then yanked her up against him.

  “Careful!”

  “We need to go now,” he said, as everything within the room below began to swirl, as if a tornado were filling the room.

  “It’s Kiril,” she cried. “Nicholas, please, just wait here!” She wrenched her shirt out of his grasp as Kiril appeared in the midst of the whirlwind.

  “Petra!” he called.

  “Dammit, Petra.” Nicholas grabbed the hood again, this time not gently, and she gagged as he jerked her backward toward him.

  “Keep your fucking hands off my sister.” Around them, the objects swirling through the room picked up speed, and Kiril himself seemed surrounded by white wisps, the air that he was manipulating turning so cold under his power that all the moisture in the room had crystalized into tiny ice pellets.

  “Don’t interfere,” Nicholas said. “I’m the one who saved her life.”

  Kiril didn’t answer, and Petra knew damn well that any gratitude he might feel for Nicholas was buried under a fierce determination to protect her at all costs. Nicholas may have gotten her out of prison, but as far as Kiril was concerned, it was his job to take over now. How could he believe anything else?

  Kiril held out his hand, his clothes and hair whipping around him. “Petra,” he said. “Now.”

  She jerked free, terrified that if she didn’t, Kiril would surely kill Nicholas. Under normal circumstances, a human was no match for a vampire. But a pissed-off tornado could rip even Count Dracula apart.

  It wasn’t the right move.

  Faster than she could see, her brother whipped across the room, the whirlwind tightening around him, pulling everything in toward him. Everything, including Nicholas.

  A chair drew close to Kiril, who stood at the eye of the storm, then shattered into a million splinters before finally reaching him.

  Inside the swirling wind, Nicholas was being drawn closer and closer to her brother, his planted feet and firm grip on the banister no match for the force of her brother’s power.

  With his free hand he reached for her. “You can’t stay with him. You know it, Petra. I’m your last, best chance.”

  “And I’m Serge’s,” she whispered, her hair fluttering in the wind. Otherwise, though, she stood in a pocket of safety, her brother’s whirlwind both avoiding her and shielding her.

  “Serge?” Kiril repeated. “The monster lives?” It didn’t take her brother long to do the math. “This vampire wishes only to use you,” Kiril said, his voice raw and his skin red from the strain of conducting so much power through himself. “Petra, you know what will happen if you go with him. You cannot go with him.”

  “Now, Petra,” Nicholas said, his composure never faltering.

  She faltered, and hated herself for it. Kiril was safety and comfort and familiarity. He was her brother. A hand to hold during a blue moon.

  Nicholas was danger. He didn’t care about her, only about Serge. And, yeah, he’d kill her if he knew that was the cure. But he didn’t know. And until he did, Nicholas represented hope and the possibility of freedom.

  Her heart pounded. Freedom. And if not freedom, maybe one night. One single night to feel the beat of a heart and a
finger stroke on her skin. Just one.

  She had to try.

  With one thick cry of anguish, she ripped herself away from her brother’s protection, then launched herself into the whirlwind—and into Nicholas’s arms.

  He changed almost instantly, her body disintegrating painfully as they shifted into mist. Something was wrong. Something was horribly, awfully wrong.

  She had no voice with which to cry out, no way to give release to the wrenching agony of this transformation. Terror ripped through her—the fear that the transformations had damaged her. That as Nicholas had said, her body couldn’t take it.

  But it wasn’t her body—it was Kiril. And with sudden understanding, she knew what was happening. Knew that the wind that was her brother was whipping through the room, its violent motion dissipating the mist, lashing out in anger and—unknowingly—destroying her in the process.

  Stop! Stop!

  In her mind, she cried out to him, fighting against his anger, mentally trying to cling to Nicholas, whose energy was surrounding and protecting her, his essence whole despite the winds, protected by his vampiric nature.

  And through it all the pain kept growing, turning her thoughts red, blurring her mind, ripping through limbs that didn’t exist and spilling blood that flowed only in her mind. But the pain was real—dear God, the pain was real—and she cried out for her brother to stop, to stop, to stop before he killed her.

  As quickly as it began, it ended, and in her mind she breathed deep in relief, grateful for the reprieve. Short lived, though, because even as the thought entered her head, pain seared through every molecule of her body, and relief came only with the sweet breath of nothingness.

  “Hold back! Hold back!” Tariq called out to his team, his voice low, but his words forceful enough that his men responded instantly.

  Beside him, Elric crouched, pointing up at the sentient mist rising into the night. “We got here too late.”

  “No shit,” Tariq said, rocking back on his heels. “That’s what happens when you follow a fucking tornado through Hollywood.”

  A rustle in the bushes, and then Vale appeared, his pale skin almost iridescent in the waxing moon. “The target’s alone, and he’s looking pretty ripped. I think we can take him.”

  “I bet he’s fucking destroyed,” Elric said. “Magic has a price, and our bad boy used a butt load of it.”

  “No.”

  They both turned to Tariq, who considered his options. He’d left Division to join Elric and Vale in the field while at the same time giving orders to five other teams to watch the airports, infiltrate vampire hangouts, monitor magic-power surges, and basically do the legwork that went with trying to find a person who didn’t want to be found.

  “The brother’s not our target,” Tariq said to the others. “His sister is.”

  “And you know damn well he’s in touch with the bitch,” Elric said. “She called him or something. That’s why he raced back home.”

  But Tariq just shook his head, his eyes on the house and the shadow he could see inside, pacing—stumbling—back and forth in front of a gauzy white curtain. “I don’t think so. I think Sis is pulling this one on her own.”

  “Or Montegue is calling the shots,” Vale said.

  “A likely scenario,” Tariq agreed. “Whatever the reason, our boy here doesn’t know where his sister is.”

  “But he rushed back.”

  “He can sense her,” Tariq said, thinking out loud. “It makes perfect sense. He can feel her. He’s trying to find her, just like we are. And you can damn well bet he’s going to follow her.” He looked at his buddies, his team. “And we’ll be only a few steps behind.”

  CHAPTER 13

  The cell was small, uncomfortable, and too damn familiar. Sara had been in the detention block dozens upon dozens of times to interview prisoners or negotiate pleas. Always, though, she’d had the power to call the guards back. To have one of the cadre of security trolls disengage the locks on the glass-and-hematite-walled cells and see her safely back into the hall, and freedom.

  Today, she was the prisoner, and no matter how loud or long she called, no one was coming with a key.

  She didn’t much like it.

  At the same time, she didn’t regret what she’d done. The hearing against Petra Lang was a crock, the execution order even more so.

  Still, it would have been nice not to have been caught …

  She got up from the small stone bench and began pacing again, telling herself not to worry. That Luke had powerful friends. That no matter what, she wouldn’t be stuck in this cell. She wouldn’t serve a life sentence or be staked for aiding a prisoner’s escape, no matter how much she deserved it. She’d broken the law, after all. But she wasn’t sorry. In Petra’s case, the law deserved to be broken.

  She sighed, knowing that Luke would get her out even if he had to break her out, and if they were on the run … well, at least they’d be together.

  She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead against the cool glass, the comfort of knowing Luke would always be at her side warring with the horrible loss of her job as a prosecutor. It was all she knew—it was what she was. And if she was convicted of helping Nicholas and Petra—and, really, why wouldn’t she be?—she could kiss that job good-bye.

  Frustrated, she slammed her palm against the glass, then jumped when she heard not only the thump of her palm but the sharp clank of the security door being opened at the end of the hall. At first she thought nothing of it—she wasn’t the only prisoner on the block, after all. Then she heard the familiar cadence of Luke’s footfalls, and she looked up to see his worried face as he hurried toward her.

  He pressed his hand to the glass, and she lifted hers to match his, blinking back the tears that were welling in her eyes, not from fear as much as from the relief of seeing him again.

  The ogre escort moved as if slogging through Jell-O, and she wanted to scream before he finally managed to disengage the series of locks, then pull the door open for Luke to enter.

  “Ten minutes got you,” the ogre said.

  Sara looked at him, this ogre who had escorted her down this very hall any number of times. “Only ten?”

  The massive shoulders sagged. “Twenty you gots.” He drew in a noisy breath, then gave a sharp nod of his head. “Twenty-five.”

  He left before she even had time to thank him.

  Without a word, Luke pulled her into his arms. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, and she felt as if she would melt right then. The tears she’d been holding back—that she promised she wouldn’t show to her husband—began to flow. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m okay. Really. It’s just the stress.”

  “Cry all you want,” he said. “I’ve got you.”

  “I know,” she said through a throat clogged with tears. She took a deep breath, then another, then pushed back from him. “No. No, I promised myself I wasn’t going to melt down. I can handle this.” She took his hand, then tugged him to the bench. She glanced up toward the corner of the cell where they both knew microphones and cameras were hidden.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I’ve made arrangements.”

  She nodded, absurdly grateful for the skills and connections that used to vex her. “You talked to Tiberius?”

  She didn’t need to hear his words to know his answer. The anger was rolling off him in waves.

  “Tiberius is too concerned about his seat on the Alliance to think about anyone but himself.” He closed his eyes, visibly composing himself, pushing back the daemon that wanted to erupt with the anger. He didn’t touch her until he was calm, then he gently stroked her face.

  She reached up to catch his hand, then pressed her cheek into his palm. “Who would have thought that between the two of us it would be me that forced us to live like fugitives?”

  “We won’t,” he whispered. “I will find a way. I will see you free, Sara. I won’t rest until I do.”

  And though she couldn’t imagine how, this was Luke talking�
��her husband—and she believed him.

  “Petra!” Nick knelt in the narrow airplane aisle, his attention on the unmoving girl. “Dammit, Petra, wake up!”

  Her clothes were in tatters, her body covered with scratches, long red welts, as if claws had ripped through the mist and torn her open. But the external injuries were nothing compared with the battering she’d taken inside. He was certain of it. Already the scent of approaching death clung to her.

  What the hell had her brother done, whipping his wind around a human traveling as mist? Her essence hadn’t been able to withstand being shaken like that. Hadn’t been able to re-form properly after the battering.

  But this wasn’t her brother’s guilt to shoulder alone. Holy Christ, Nick had insisted she travel as mist, knowing that she was weakened. Knowing that he was as well.

  Dear God in heaven, he’d done this to her.

  Something cold and heavy penetrated his chest. Regret. And something more, too. Fear.

  He had to keep her safe. Had to tend her injuries. Had to ensure that she survived.

  He needed her.

  He needed her to save Serge.

  Dammit. He lashed out, hard, his fist pounding against and hopelessly bending the armrest of a nearby seat.

  Damn him, damn her, and damn her goddamned meddlesome brother.

  He leaned close, listening for the beat of her heart, and now he heard nothing.

  Goddammit!

  Frantic, he took his jacket off, then tossed it over her chest. He positioned his hands on the jacket over her heart, and he pressed down, fast and firm, but careful not to put his full strength behind the thrusts. He wanted to revive her, not puncture a lung, but the truth was that he’d never actually delivered chest compressions before. And when he’d been human, the technique had not been known.