Goran nodded his head and settled back in his seat as if he’d been about to jump out of it and battle anyone who said otherwise.
“The Norms know,” Hakan offered.
“Know what?” Zahra asked.
“About vampires and fairies,” I said. “The ghouls and shapeshifters have stayed under the radar. But it won’t be long before the cat - or whatever - is out of the bag.”
Zahra swore softly.
“The world is in chaos,” Hakan remarked. “Although I have found their chaos to be rather…acceptable.”
“Acceptable?” I demanded. Half broken cities and humans armed with garlic? That was acceptable?
“You have technology I find quite useful,” he said.
“Television?”’ I offered.
“What is television?” Zahra asked.
I smiled at her. “You are going to love Twilight,” I said. “Or Interview With A Vampire. Oldies but goodies.”
“What is she saying?” Zahra asked Hakan in Turkish. “I hear words, but none of it makes sense. And what is this strange accent she has? It is disgusting. Can she not talk like the English do? Have things changed that much?”
“New Zealand,” I told her. “I’m a kiwi. Well, half of me is, and I was raised there.”
She blinked at me.
“1642,” I added. “You might have heard of Abel Tasman?”
Zahra placed her hands on her hips and glared at Hakan.
“You have entwined with a madwoman,” she said.
I looked first at Zahra and then at Hakan. Then kept flicking my gaze between the two. Finally one of them moved.
Hakan let out a soft breath of air and then burst out laughing. His laugh was deep and resonant; from inside his chest. A chuckle I could feel to the tip of my toes. My Light soaked it up and basked in it.
As I did.
Zahra blinked at him.
“It is contagious, then,” she announced. “Typical.”
Speaking of contagious things…
“How did the Ljósálfar get involved with your Kral?”
That she understood easily enough.
“I do not know.” In English again. Perfectly pronounced English even if it was still a little accented. She probably thought she sounded like the Brits do. I suppressed the smirk that wanted out at that ludicrous thought. “I awoke, and there was a foul scent on the air,” she added. “My magic did not like it. It felt…”
“Corrupted,” I said.
“Yes, exactly! Corrupted. And then I met one of them.” She looked at Hakan again. “I was not myself, I will admit, but the fairy had it coming.”
“What did you do, Zahra?” Hakan asked.
She rolled her eyes. It was a perfectly normal human thing to do and one that looked hilarious on the black-eyed witch.
“I ate him.”
Ugh. “Really?” I said. “Didn’t he make you sick?” Fairy blood was not good for vampires. It possessed very little in the way of health benefits with a hell of a lot of natural emetics mixed in.
“Zahra does not mean feeding in the vampiric sense,” Hakan said. She eats their souls, he added silently.
For a second, I did nothing. Thought nothing. Said nothing.
That was what I felt, what I sensed within her. Not Dark, strangely enough, but Black.
Zahra Bahar was a Black Witch. A Cadı of Muska.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I snapped.
11
He Didn’t Know
“You want to entwine the blood of a Black Witch with my brother’s?” I shouted.
Hakan had convinced Zahra and Goran to go downstairs and test the shields and wards the fairy had placed on the hotel. We were alone in the room for a short while. I was pacing. Hakan was still on the bed; semi-reclined.
He watched me with silver-laced eyes and the hint of a smile that was begging to be slapped off his face. I flexed my fingers in anticipation.
“Luc, who dances in the sunlight and whispers sweet nothings to his many girlfriends!” I added. “Luc, who hasn’t got a mean bone in his body and who would rather die than betray a friend! Luc, who…”
“Is now Dark,” my Savaşçı said.
Argh! My Light swelled, ready to blast the entire building apart.
Hakan jumped up off the bed in a vampire-fast motion and wrapped me up in his arms. It wasn’t so much his nearness, the fact that he’d come to me when he saw I was in pain. It was the fact that he’d limped, had favoured his injured side. That he had moved himself anyway.
My Light pulled back inside me, and I let myself fall into his willing arms. He stroked a hand down my spine, cupped the back of my head, and then kissed me on my forehead.
He didn’t say it. He didn’t need to. Luc was not the same person he once was.
He was no longer my fun-loving, carefree brother.
“Damn it,” I muttered. Hakan said nothing. “Your side,” I offered. “Why is it not healing?”
“My well is empty,” he murmured, holding me to him as if he could hold us both together by aligning our bodies just right.
“Your Mhachaky magic?”
“And my Sanguis Vitam. One is not wielded without the other for a Mhachkay.”
“You need to feed,” I surmised.
“And you need Light. Allow me, Éliane.”
“Two birds. One stone,” I said.
“Two hearts. Two souls. And they have chosen.”
I smiled. His fingers cupped my chin and lifted my face to his. His kiss was soft and also hungry. A dichotomy that did delicious things to my body.
A low growl emerged from the back of his throat. “We do not have time, hayatim,” he murmured.
“I can do quick,” I offered with a small smile.
“I can not,” he told me and smirked.
Shaking my head, I reached up and swept my dreads off to the side, exposing my neck. I tilted my head and watched his beautiful blue eyes burn with silver coated ice.
He pulled me closer; hips to hips. His hand coasted down the side of my body, over my breast down to my waist, and then he swept his palm over my butt cheek and pulled me tighter to him.
He was hard and erect; ready and wanting. But any moment now Goran and Zahra would return. It was bad enough if they barged in while Hakan was feeding. Although feeding publicly was not considered inappropriate for a vampire.
But feeding Hakan while he was turned on, I thought, was asking too much.
“Why didn’t we get separate rooms?” I rasped.
“An oversight,” Hakan purred. “And one I am ruing at this moment.”
His lips trailed over my neck, his tongue followed. He nipped me and made my body jerk. And then Sanguis Vitam flowed out to soothe me. I let him; it felt good. Better than good; it felt like a hundred hands stroking, a thousand fingers searching, and an infinite number of sensations bursting all over my skin; deep down inside.
His fangs scraped over flesh. My Light swelled on the wave of euphoria that followed. And then they pierced skin, and he swallowed me down like a fine wine.
I shuddered against him, a climax immediately stealing all thought. My Light blossomed and grew, his Sanguis Vitam surged. Together they danced, and it was divine. Magic swirled around us. I saw the zilant, Hakan’s vampire-within. I saw the owl, its round eyes blinking. And then all I saw, all I felt was the vampire, the man. Him.
He jerked against me. A growl sounded up in the back of his throat, mixing in with the purr that hadn’t stopped since he’d started feeding. His tongue lapped. His hands roamed freely. I felt him rock his hips against my stomach and then I fell apart all over again when he sent me his thoughts.
Tastes so divine. Light so pure. Blood so powerful. Mine. I am lost. Drugged. Entwined with a miracle. Wrapped up in delight. So hot. So seductive. I could come.
Then come, I whispered back.
He spun us to the bed; my back hit the mattress, his body covered mine, and then we were moaning and rocking and falling apa
rt at our cores. Light brimmed. Sanguis Vitam stroked. I orgasmed again with a cry of surprise. He groaned his release and licked the punctures on my neck.
Kan büyülü, he said, resting his forehead against mine. Kafinefendi, he added. Hayatim, he purred. Mine.
Mine, I said in reply.
We lay panting, wrapped up in each other’s arms. Light swirled all around us. Sanguis Vitam danced.
A soft knock sounded out on the door.
“They are back,” he said, cupping my cheek, staring into my eyes. “I must shower,” he added. I tried not to smile like an idiot. “Can you be in the same room as my cousin?”
“Of course,” I said a little too sharply.
Hakan smiled. I sighed. He laughed and climbed off the bed, pulling me up with his hand clasped in mine.
“Behave, hayatim,” he said, tapping me on the arse.
I spun and kicked him in his.
“You better hurry,” I taunted. “Goddess alone knows what I’ll do to your cousin while you’re gone.”
He shook his head at me and stepped lightly out of the room, into the attached ensuite bathroom. I crossed to the door, schooled my features into a more warrior-like mask, and opened up.
Goran stepped in, not making eye contact. Zahra followed behind, inhaling deeply and obviously through her nose as she passed.
Witch.
“If only we could open a window,” she said and sighed.
I presumed the window was to clear out the scent of sex.
I say again…Witch.
I closed the door and leaned back against it, arms crossed, chin lowered, half-lidded eyes on the vampire before me.
“If only we hadn’t been interrupted,” I offered.
She screwed up her nose at me and hissed. Even hissing, she was strangely attractive.
Luc would like her, I thought. The old Luc would have tried to befriend her first. The new Luc…
I didn’t want to think what his endgame would be where this woman was concerned.
“The shields all in order?” I asked Goran.
“Nothing and no one has tested them, my Lady.” He’d reverted to formal titles again. Possibly to send a message to Zahra.
I crossed the room and took a seat at the table, closer to the fairy than the Mhachkay. And wasn’t that telling? Zahra looked at the bed, then looked away again, her gaze catching mine.
“Did you feed?” I asked.
Her brow arched. “There was not time,” she said.
“Would you like a vein?”
She cocked her head at me. Goran had paused in whatever activity he’d been undertaking.
“You would offer to feed me?” Zahra asked.
“Much can be determined from the way a vampire feeds,” I said.
“Ah,” she said. “You wish to test me.”
I would be damned if I foisted this witch on my brother without getting a feel for her true self first.
“What is your talent, little one?” she asked.
Little one from the Dark Shadow I could handle.
Little one from Hakan’s cousin I could not.
“My talents are my own,” I told her, “Witch.” The last was added with a sneer.
“If you think that is an insult, you do not know my kind.”
I leant forward and said in a smooth voice, “And you, Mhachkay, do not know my brother or me.”
“Your brother,” she said, eyes narrowing.
Damn it. Had Hakan not told her? What did she think she was needed for? Her magic?
I sighed. Of course, she thought Hakan needed her for her magic. Her magic was unique. Powerful. Coveted by her kind.
The door to the bathroom opened and Hakan walked out in jeans and no shirt. He rubbed at his hair with a towel and prowled across the room as if he hadn’t walked into the middle of ground zero.
“She has a brother,” Zahra said to him.
Hakan turned and looked at me. I could see the question in his eyes.
Yes, yes, I let it slip. Bite me.
Hakan smiled. Fang peeked out behind his beautiful lips.
“Éliane is a twin,” he simply said, and then kept towelling himself dry.
“Two of them,” Zahra whispered. “That is why.”
That is why Hakan freed her.
“Where is he?” she asked.
“Paris,” Hakan said. “Ediz has located him.”
I sat up. Hakan offered me an apologetic smile.
“I have just heard, they have his location and are awaiting nightfall to strike.”
“Can we get there in time?” I asked, sounding a little too desperate.
“The Weaver and Nothus will wish to strike at twilight,” he explained. “Less chance of Dupont escaping.”
Alain would need full night to venture out from where they were hiding. He was too Dark now for anything else.
“We could go early,” I said. Hakan could handle a little twilight. And Goran and I had no such problem with sunlight.
“Zahra cannot walk under the sun.”
I looked at the witch. She glared at Hakan as if he’d divulged a state secret. I guessed, to her, it was.
“That’s too bad,” I offered. It was bad. It was more than bad. It was a disaster.
I couldn’t very well suggest leaving her here; she was needed. So we’d go when night fell and trust Georgia, Samson and Ediz to trap Alain and my brother. I wanted to be there. I wanted to reassure Luc. I wanted to check on Alain.
I could do nothing. I felt impotent. I felt frustrated.
“Do I have a say in this, cousin?” Zahra asked. She was leaning against the wall beside the fireplace.
She looked like a weapon ready to strike.
Hakan finished drying himself off and gently laid his towel across the back of a chair in front of the fire. I admired his restraint and natural aversion to dropping wet things on the floor, but I was getting impatient for his reply.
Would he force her? Could I if he didn’t? Did I want to?
“My Entwined offered you her blood,” he said instead of answering. “Will you dishonour her by not partaking?”
Dishonour him, he meant. But I’d accept it. I’d grown up with that way of thought. The world may have changed a hell of a lot since the Mhachkay were imprisoned, but some things never changed, no matter what.
I stood up and walked across the room to Zahra. I could tell she wanted to ask Hakan what I could do with a bite. Nosferatin were powerful. We could shield and attack with our Light. In the case of my mother, she could banish a vampire’s Dark and exchange it with her Light - if they let her. If they didn’t, she staked them. I wore stakes, too. Zahra would have been aware of them. In such close proximity, I could stake her in her twin hearts just as easily as my mother did those who did not take up her offer of absolution.
But that wasn’t what had the witch worried. And I wondered again about what the Mhachkay knew of my kind.
I offered a thin-lipped smile and presented my wrist. My neck was Hakan’s, and even if he were willing to go along with this, he would never willingly allow another vampire, trusted or not, to sip from my carotid.
Zahra sighed.
Reaching out she mumbled something in Turkish, which I took to mean thank you for lunch, and then brought my wrist to her lips. She licked. Her eyes widened, smoke swirled inside. And then before either of us could back out of what was undoubtedly a bad idea, she bit.
Fangs pierced skin, the scent of blood met my nose, Zahra made a sound in the back of her throat.
And then she was drinking, and the ribbons inside were twisting, and I wasn’t standing in the middle of a hotel room somewhere on a back road in the former Ottoman Empire being fed on by a vampire.
I was somewhere else.
The Mhachkay castle, I thought. It was different from how it had seemed on our recent incursion. Lamplight lit the hallways. Tapestries hung on the walls, none of them faded. A plush rug ran down the middle of the corridor. Sound emerged from the right.
I looked, and I was standing in a great hall. Tables were laden with food, both the Norm and vampire kind. Roasted meat and fat drizzled vegetables. Fluffy cakes and pitchers of ale. A blood whore in skimpy clothes reminiscent of the Renaissance period.
A vampire with silver eyes fed from the neck of a barely dressed woman. Another kicked back and bit into a chicken leg, hot juices running down his chin and onto well-worn leather. Zahra walked through the lines of tables, head held high, back straight, long dark hair hanging loosely down her spine.
All eyes tracked her movement. A ripple of respect ran through the crowd.
One or two got turned on by her presence and the desires they harboured for her. For her power, not necessarily for her body. Though there was some of that, too.
She ignored it all and stepped lightly through the companionable atmosphere. I followed her without even trying until we were standing in an ornately decorated anteroom and the Kral was looking up at Zahra with hunger in his eyes.
“Uncle,” she said.
“Come sit with me, girl,” he ordered, tapping the seat at his side.
There was barely room enough for one, let alone two of their size.
Zahra inclined her head and did as her uncle bid her; sitting down beside him, not even trying to sit as far away as I knew deep down inside she wanted to right then.
She was good at politics, I thought. She knew when she was backed into a corner.
The Kral wrapped an arm about her shoulders and hauled her into his side. He reached up and stroked a finger down her neck. The movement was laden with innuendo.
Zahra stared straight ahead.
Vampires did bite other vampires. In battle. In lust. But only mates could sustain each other. Biting for feeding was a waste of time and effort, and considered inappropriate.
He looked at her vein as if it would sustain him for life.
I shuddered.
“He has been seen in Turkey,” the Kral said. “Constantinople. A little bird told me his familiar found him. He nursed the creature back to health.”
Zahra said nothing.
“I have wondered,” the Kral said softly, his arm about her shoulders tightening, the fingers of his other hand gripping Zahra’s chin firmly. He turned her to face him. “Who could have let the Erbörü go? Surely not one loyal to me. Surely not my little Zahra. My girl.”
Blood Enthralled (Blood Enchanted, Book Three): A Vampire Hunter Paranormal Romance Series Page 10