by Lexi C. Foss
Monica, Giovanni’s younger sister, is sitting at a desk hunched over a book. It looks ancient and heavy. The bindings are a faded red. She has her finger on the gold lettering at the top of the page, the rest of the words appearing and disappearing over the brittle paper from whatever magical power inhabits the book. Black hair scooped up into a loose ponytail at the nape of her neck, you can see from their similar features they’re related. The same intelligent, deep brown, cognac colored eyes, even the shape of their noses is the same.
“Look who I found outside,” Giovanni calls, moving to the desk opposite, covered in manila files.
Monica’s face lights up with a smile when she sees me. “Yukie! You're visiting so often it feels like you live here. How’s that boyfriend of yours?”
Her words stop me dead in my tracks. “Boyfriend?”
“The one you're always so secretive about,” she replies, the happiness replaced swiftly with concern. “You were going to see him while you were here. I hope you haven’t fought.”
“I was?” I question in confusion. She has to be mistaken. I don’t have time for men let alone relationships. My life is my work. That’s the only thing that has ever mattered to me.
“You mentioned it when you collected the dress and invitation last night, when you arrived,” Monica continues, oblivious to my thoughts. “You were going to the jeweler’s to pick something up for him.”
“No...you had a courier send them to my hotel,” I reply, slowly remembering the gold cufflinks I discovered before leaving my room.
“Unless you have a double running around, it was definitely you we saw,” Giovanni confirms, sharing a worried look with his sister at my lack of recall. Rounding the large antique mahogany desk, he seats himself in his leather chair. “You better take a seat.”
What. The. Fuck.
Not only am I stuck in Groundhog Day, someone or something has fucked with my memories? What else has been taken from me? I’m being manipulated like a puppet. Made to dance for a faceless enemy who’s moving my strings. Are the dreams I’m having linked to this male I was seeing? Or are they just more lies?
As I take a chair opposite Giovanni’s desk, he takes out one of the pastries from his bag and places it on a napkin before me. Twenty minutes later, they know my whole story except for the sex with Dante. That’s something I’d rather keep to myself. The Vampire King isn’t someone they’d go up against without good reason. Even with his shady dealings and the blood donors he has, he’s always careful to maintain the fragile balance between him and the hunters. If they moved against one of the royals, they’d have a war on their hands. One I know EVIE won’t risk. The safety of the humans in the city comes first. Something like that would just end in a bloodbath.
“I have no experience in this area. Vampires are what we deal with, but I know someone who might be able to help you,” Giovanni tells me, pulling out his mobile phone.
Closing the book in front of her, Monica tilts her head in thought. “Could it be Eliza?”
My ears perk up at the mention of a name I’ve not heard before. “Who?”
“A witch my brother keeps having trouble with. He met her at a bar one evening, and she got him drunk, stole his wallet, and convinced him to….”
“Monica, that’s enough.” Giovanni huffs not at all looking happy that she’s gossiping about him.
“Let’s just say he got arrested outside the Colosseum, naked and covered in chicken’s blood.” She cackles, giving her older brother a look of amusement that holds the promise he’ll never hear the end of it.
“At this point, I’ll try anything. Even the chicken's blood. It wouldn’t be the first time,” I mutter, picking apart the pastry before me, stripping pieces off before eating them. It gives me something to do with my hands.
Giovanni makes a call, his flowing Italian words reminding me of the two vampire brothers who have up to this point been driving me crazy. Dante with his sex god vortex he keeps trying to suck me into. Seducing me with his dirty words and commanding presence. Then there’s Vincenzo with his lazy playful charm. The playboy, jokester who always makes me smile when he’s not being a jerk.
The door unlocking drags me from my thoughts. Surprised we have a visitor, I survey the newcomer from head to toe with passing interest. Probably another slayer checking in. I’m not sure how many there are in the city right now, but I can’t be the only one out on assignment.
The guy looks like he’d be more at home in a biker bar than the library-like basement. Tall, golden hair hangs loosely around broad shoulders. His thick muscled arms are decorated with tattoos of naked women. With the black leather trousers and tight t-shirt stretched over his wide chest, he’s an intimidating sight. He looks familiar, and it takes me a second to place where I’ve seen him before.
Giovanni rises from behind his desk, a grin gracing his lips in welcome. “Gabriel, it's good to see you.”
“It’s been a while,” the stranger replies, taking the vampire slayer's hand and shaking it in a firm grip.
“Yukie here is experiencing some kind of time distortion, and with your knowledge, I thought you might be able to assist us.”
Slipping from my seat, I stand and give him a nod, aware of his blue eyes narrowing on my face. I’m guessing he just remembered where he’s seen me. Not that our paths cross often.
“I’ve seen you around Cease Fire. It would be hard to forget green eyes like yours. They're very unusual.”
“You run The Black Penny pub,” I counter lightly.
Owner, bar keeper in Cease Fire, he’s also in charge. A shepherd watching over his sheep and wolves alike. A place between dimensions, it's a safe, neutral haven for the forces of Heaven and Hell to meet. It’s somewhere I pass through when I’m journeying to a job. With all the portals to different places situated there, it's handy for my work as a vampire slayer.
“That’s right.” The archangel seems pleased that I know him. “You're welcome any time. Now tell me what’s got you all so concerned.”
I recount everything that’s happened a second time skipping over the details involving my intimacy with Dante.
“A spell is the most likely cause or some kind of abnormal time loop. Altered memories are a little more difficult to achieve. That’s messing with someone's head, and unless you have precision in what you're doing, you could erase a mind completely,” Gabriel tells me patiently from where he’s now perched on the end of Monica’s desk. “In most of the rare cases I’ve heard about, these things happening…there’s always a focal point.”
“So we need to work out what started it?” Giovanni murmurs, opening a desk drawer and pulling out a beat up looking metal tin and a folded map.
“The exact point it activated,” his guest confirms. “We can see if we can pick up a high concentration of magic. Something like this would leave an imprint.”
Helping him spread out the map of the city across his table, I watch him open the lid of the box and lift out a quartz crystal on a chain. Holding it up by the end he keeps in directly above the surface of the table face downward. It does nothing at first, just sits there barely moving. After a minute or two, it starts to sway from side to side growing in momentum.
“No magic but I am detecting a high amount of demonic energy in the city right now,” Giovanni informs us, his tone laced with grimness.
Great. Just what I need. Another demon toying with the lives of humans. Even with my mixed blood, they don’t consider me one of them. I’m an outcast. Ridiculed for being created in a lab. My existence is met with hate and brutality once they know who and what I am. The science experiment the Devil ordered to be made. Strung together with DNA from whatever they had on hand to become the perfect assassin.
At least here they don’t know my origins. I can pass as a shifter without them knowing anything else regarding my background, and that’s how I like to keep it.
“So we’re dealing with a demon.” I keep emotion from my voice, worried they might
betray me.
“It sounds like you have a tempus demon on your hands,” Gabriel announces with an irritated sigh. “They can manipulate time if they have enough energy behind them. You don’t see them doing things on this scale often. You need to watch for glitches.”
“Glitches?”
“They’ll start to happen the longer the time loop continues. Retrograding. It means it's losing its strength. Whatever is powering it can’t last forever. It also means I’m more than likely trapped here too now I’ve walked willingly into it.”
Giovanni groans, glancing up from where he’s putting away the map. “Dio, I never even thought about that...”
The angel shrugs. “Don’t worry, we’ll just figure it out faster if we all team together. You might have something useful among all the books you have stored in here.”
I spend the rest of the day in the company of the Archangel, Giovanni, and Monica. Even with the knowledge of the library at our fingertips, finding anything useful is slow going. We stop for lunch, wandering to a local restaurant they speak highly over. The atmosphere is cozy and friendly, the staff greeting us with cheerful voices. We’re shown to a table near a window and treated like royalty. Mouth-watering aromas fill the air with the sounds of clinking dishes and glassware along with the chatter and laughter of happy customers.
The waiter brings a bottle of wine with our starters. A mix of cheeses, cold meats, and bruschetta. Giovanni insists on us having some pasta for our main course. Our conversation is light and interwoven with laughter. I’ve never been one to relax, but I find myself enjoying the banter and company. It feels natural. Not stiff as I imagined it to be. Not doing things like this often, it feels surprisingly comfortable and pleasant.
We linger over coffee after finishing our meal, too lazy to move in the summer heat. Most people are off for a siesta. Bellies full and ready for a long nap in an air conditioned bedroom.
Returning to the office, we dive back into the books, pawing through page after page of anything referring to time displacement or demons. By the time the sun is getting ready to set, my thoughts traitorously slide to Dante. The Vampire King will be rising soon. Where I’ve had the day to myself, his is only just beginning.
Closing the book in front of me, I stand, scraping back my chair. “I better go and check in with my contact. He’ll be up soon.”
“I’ll have one of my agents nearby in case you need assistance,” Giovanni tells me from behind his desk.
I’m silent on the taxi ride, barely aware of the music playing from the radio. The cool air blasting through the fan does little to ease the heat of the summer evening. I’m early. It’s hours before the party will start, and the vampires in the city will have only just started stirring. If I can catch Dante before the assassination attempt, we’ll have more time to talk. I should really be finding Vincenzo as he’s the one who got me into this mess, but it makes sense to find the king first. He has more pull. We need to find out who’s summoned a demon. Maybe later I can ask Vincenzo about the dream I’d had just before waking. Why he was in it. If he remembers anything I don’t. It still lingers in the back of my mind. Although I’m not sure why.
Paying off the taxi driver, I head into the fancy hotel, my trainers moving over the marble floor like they have done more times than I’m sure I can count if I remembered.
Slipping up to Dante’s penthouse was easier when the foyer was crowded with guests. Slinking toward the bank of elevators, I halt at the private one. A direct route to his domain.
The concierge eyes me from behind his desk. “I’m sorry, signora, but that’s a private elevator.”
“I know.” I give him a sultry smile. “He’s expecting me.”
The look he gives me is doubtful. Snatching up his phone, he calls up to check his suspicious expression easing once he’s described me to his employer. He doesn’t try to stop me when the doors open and I step inside. Jabbing the button for the top, I stand tapping my foot impatiently. Just as the doors are closing, I see a young man step up to the concierge desk. Tall, slim with, strawberry-blonde curls, cunning brown eyes. There’s something about his smile that stirs something in the depths of my memories, but it's gone as quickly as smoke on the wind. Giovanni’s agent. I must have seen him at the office at some point, or maybe I’ve attempted this scenario before? I just don't remember it. It’s frustrating that so much is veiled from my eyes.
Dante isn’t on the bed where I expect to find him, instead he’s emerging from the bathroom. My body comes alive at the sight of him. The tiger within me stretching ready to rub herself against him in sexual interest. She urges me to drop to my knees to let this male mount us from behind, his teeth biting down on our neck.
Hands on my hips, I glower with annoyance, ignoring the impulses to submit. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Showering,” he enlightens me, barefoot and padding closer.
“We have more important things to think about right now. I think a tempus demon is the cause of all our problems. If we could live longer than five bloody minutes, maybe we could figure out what’s going on. Find who or what summoned it. For what purpose.” I eye his damp torso with mounting need. The clean, fresh male scent of him goes straight to my head like incense.
“In time, we will discover all the answers.” His voice is low and husky as he bends toward me.
The impact of his lips on mine captures me by surprise.
“Don’t,” I whisper, trying to turn my face away only for him to cup my jaw gently and bring my mouth back to his.
“You clearly want my dick, so there's no point fighting against it. You're still in heat and will remain that way until we can break the loop we’re stuck in.” Plunging his tongue between my lips, it duels with my own. I should fight this, but instead my body reacts to his closeness, sweeping me up in a storm of need. He’s becoming a dangerous high. I’m turning into an addict because each touch from this vampire has me craving more. I don’t know why I can’t just stay away from him. Somehow the alpha has dug his way through my armor without invitation. I hate to admit it, but the bond I feel with him is growing. His voice stirs me. Makes me yearn for him.
Dante’s hands slide to my hips stroking my sides beneath my t-shirt. Still kissing me, he guides me backward easing me down on the bed. Finally breaking away, he strips off my top and pushes aside the thin material of my bra to caress my breasts. Playing with them, he leisurely takes his time arousing my nipples into hard peaks.
“Dante,” I moan weakly when his mouth finds mine a second time, kissing me breathless.
Lips moving to burn a path along the side of my neck, they find my breasts, first sucking on one then the other. Gripping his head, fingers tangling in his dark hair, I urge him to caress me harder. The first gentle scrape of his fangs on my flesh has me writhing in pleasure.
Somewhere along the line, his towel has been discarded. Pressing himself against me, the feel of his cock, thick and wanting, against my stomach is unbearably erotic. Dante disposes of my jeans and panties quickly, parting my legs with his exploring hand. When his fingers find my slit slick and ready for his possession, he growls.
I feel like I’m going mad. The need for this, him, sex, bordering on an obsession that frightens me.
Licking my stomach, he moves lower until his tongue is giving me the same kind of pleasure his fingers had given me. I can’t hold in my soft, low moans of pure ecstasy.
Grasping my thighs with either hand, he prevents me from escaping his slow exquisite torture. The long, expert strokes of his tongue have my hips bucking wildly, which he ruthlessly keeps pinned to the mattress. Digging my nails into his shoulders, I accept everything he gives me. He’s becoming the pinnacle of my existence. This taste of the forbidden he seduces me with so easily. He keeps going until I can’t take it anymore. Claws extending, I scratch at his skin leaving bleeding claw marks in their wake. Rivulets of blood trickle down onto me, but the wounds I’ve inflicted heal just as quickly.
“Please….”
“Shh.” Dante slides his hand under my bottom lifting me to him. “I know, Pussycat, I know.”
When he finally thrusts into me, the world explodes with pleasure. My orgasm is so intense I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.
He whispers to me in Italian, lust on his handsome face. Words I don’t understand, but the passion behind them is unmistakable. Moving over and inside me, he seeks his own release. It's then I realize two things. The first is that no man has ever, or could ever arouse me as much as this vampire can. And the second is I need to run when this is all over.
10
Dante
Yukie lays shivering and panting beneath me, the bite of her fingernails still scoring tracks along the planes of my back. Looming over her, I rest my elbows either side of her head before running my finger along her cheek.
“You are full of surprises, Pussycat,” I drawl softly, watching her cheeks turn a pretty shade of pink. “You can’t get enough of me, can you?”
Anger and hurt flashes in her green-eyed gaze. “Let me up, you bastard.”
“I think I prefer having you here beneath me,” I counter, thrusting my hips against her when she struggles, making her aware of my semi hard cock still buried in her pussy. “Every inch of you saturated in my scent for every male here to smell.”
“Alpha asshole,” she hisses, pushing at my shoulders. “Get off me now.”
“Settle down. You aren’t going anywhere. So you better get used to it.”
Yukie draws her nails along the sides of my neck in response, in warning. Shuddering at the delicious pricks of pain, I lower my mouth to the curve of her throat to nip and suck along it. A moan escapes her, and I feel her resistance start to melt. Not surprising when she's in this state. Lost in urges and instincts, I can see she doesn’t understand. Shamelessly grinding herself against me, her legs lock around my hips. For all her outraged words, she can't get enough of me. She’s been taught to hate what I am. Trained to hunt vampires. Now she’s been taken by one, and she has no idea that she’s surrendering to the bond between us. My pussycat can pretend later that she doesn't enjoy this. None of it will change the fact that she’s mine now.