E.V.I.E.: 13 Slayers, 13 Missions

by Lexi C. Foss

  “All it takes is one hit,” Mateo continues.

  “You sound like my brother.” I glower at him. “Fuck knows what he’s on right now.”

  “I’m talking about a female.” He rolls his eyes, pushing away from the bar. “The right one to bring you to your knees.”

  “Just find Vincenzo,” I command, unable to shake the growing feeling that something is off. An echo of a dream whispers into my thoughts. Red hot passion and a green-eyed woman. Her wintery glare melting into lust as her pouty lips wrap themselves around my cock.

  Sucking in a shaky breath, I steady myself with a hand on the bar. What the hell was that? A vision? Premonition? Whatever it was, it was powerful enough to set my carnal hunger alight. Adjusting myself in my trousers, the images taunt me dancing around inside my head.

  “Announce our engagement.” A feminine voice snaps behind me.

  Turning to the owner, I find Vanna tapping her foot in impatience, wearing a fierce expression. Cocking my eyebrow, I survey the red silk dress that’s wrapped tightly around the curves of her body, leaving very little to the imagination. Short blonde hair styled around her slender cheekbones, she’s the image of sophistication.

  “Vincenzo isn’t here yet. Mateo has gone to get him,” I inform her before lifting my drink to my lips and swallowing the last of it down. I don’t like her tone. I’m not some lowly servant to be ordered around. I’m king here. She may become my queen, but I’m the one who rules, and she’ll come to learn that very quickly. I won’t have a spoiled little brat hanging from my arm.

  “Fuck your brother,” she hisses, ignoring my steely warning look. “He’s screwed this up enough times already.”

  “Vanna.”

  Her chin lifts in challenge. “We’re wasting time.”

  Goaded by her outburst, I reach for her, drawing her toward my chest, grazing her bare back with my fingertips. “You will watch your tongue when speaking to me, and in the future, you would be wise to think before you speak.”

  Lips parting, her eyes dilate in wary fear. “You can’t talk to me like that.”

  I lower my mouth brushing my lips against her ear. “You're going to learn your place in and out of my bed once we’re married.”

  Vanna shivers, and I smell her arousal. She wants to be punished. There’s no plea for mercy. Nothing but her whispered, strangled sound of my name. Her mouth takes mine on a groan, opening for me on command. Tongue stroking against hers, I withdrew as quickly as it started. It doesn't feel right. There’s no soaring connection. No bliss. All it does is leave confusion and distaste in its wake.

  Vanna’s eyes narrow. “I’m finding my father, and then you're going to make our engagement public with or without Vincenzo.”

  I watch her turn on her heels storming through the crowd in search of her entourage. Shaking my head in annoyance, I turn back to the bar and order another drink. I’m going to need more than one to get through this evening. Mateo is right. Why am I even doing this? The reasons seem dim in my mind even though they seem important.

  “Are you seriously thinking of shackling yourself to that for the rest of eternity?” A gruff voice asks to my left. “I’d congratulate you, but I think condolences are more in order.”

  Tilting my head, I eye the man beside me. He’s not a vampire. Large and muscular, dressed in all leather, he doesn't fit in with the glitz and glamour of the place. His biceps are adorned with black ink, tattoos of naked women in different provocative positions. Long blond hair swept back in a ponytail at the nape of his neck, it’s held there by a black piece of cord.

  Shifting to face him with a scowl, I lift my finger to get the bartender's attention. “Who the hell are you, and how did you get past my security?”

  “The name’s Gabriel. Oh, I wouldn’t bother calling your bodyguards over. You don’t want to make a scene in front of all your guests. Your brother and Yukie need your help. It isn't just a tempus demon you're up against, it's a Chaos Lord.”

  “Yukie,” I roll the name around on my tongue. Why does it sound so familiar?

  “You need to start remembering, or you’ll be lost in this reality forever….”

  An arm twines around mine. “Dante, come on, make our announcement.”

  Glancing away from Gabriel, I see Giovanni and the rest of Vanna’s family standing behind her. Her father looks nervous. The rest of the Piovene clan look just as anxious. Does this union really mean that much to them? I never realized they were that desperate to see one of them as my queen.

  “Why are you in such a hurry?” I question Vanna with an irritated frown.

  “I don’t have time to wait anymore.” She strokes my forearm with her fingertips, giving me a pout. “We need to finish it this time.”

  I catch the oddness of her words. “This time?”

  Vanna flushes a bright pink. “I meant tonight.”

  “I’d be more concerned about the time loop we’re all trapped in.” Gabriel booms, garnering the interested glances of those around us.

  “That won’t be a problem anymore after he gives me my ring,” she snarls, dropping her sweet loving little act as she loses her patience. “Who is this? Someone remove him from the building.”

  “And how would you know that?” He questions loudly. “You summoned the demon. It was you, wasn’t it? What deal did you make? What did you promise it in return?”

  “We should postpone,” I tell her, slowly watching her reaction with dark fascination. “At least for a while if there is a demon on the lose...”

  “No, no. He promised me.” Grabbing my shirt front, she digs into my inner pocket and snatches out the jewelry box. Wrenching it open she takes the emerald ring and shoves it onto her finger. “There it's done. You're mine, all mine now. That whore was never good enough for you. She’s not even a vampire. The bitch is a hunter of our kind. She would have murdered us all. I did this for all of you. All the houses and our bloodlines. I’ve saved us. You should all be thanking me for getting rid of her.”

  Energy ripples through the air washing over almost rocking me back on my heels with the force.

  Yukie.

  Bitter, unforgiving pain flows through me so violently it has my whole body arching forward in discomfort. I’m blinded by flashing colorful spots. My skull feels like it's about to crack in two.

  I remember.

  Everything.

  And it shatters me.

  “There will be no engagement,” I spit, opening eyes I didn't even realize I had closed. “I will not be wedding you.”

  “Dante, don’t do this. We’re meant to be together,” Vanna whines, placing her hands either side of my head and pressing quick kisses to my lips. “Even now, you don’t know the truth still caught up in the dream world around you. That slut is nothing to you. Nothing. It doesn’t matter anyway. Julien has taken her as payment for our deal. You’ll never find her now.”

  She gave my fated mate to the demon. Tried to replace what cannot be denied.

  The look of pure fury I give her has Vanna dropping her touch and backing away in terror. She should be frightened. All of her family should be on their knees right now pleading for their fucking lives.

  “I wouldn’t bet on that. You remember, which means you’ve just broken the loop.” Gabriel slides off his stool, his firm hand settling on my shoulder. “Time has returned to its natural flow, and now anything we do will not be repeated.”

  Warm, golden energy washes over me, causing a sense of disorientation. Breathing in deeply, the smell of the salty sea air fills my lungs. Scanning my surroundings, I find myself poised at the edge of the cliff. Below the inky blackness of the waves smash into the rocks mirroring my emotions. Gaze dancing over the vast moonlit waters, then further up the cliffs, it settles on the brooding structure that sits perched on the highest peak. A castle.

  “Gabriel?” I call, knowing whatever he is he somehow transported me here, and he has some explaining to do.

  “Unfortunately, he couldn’t jo
in us.” A man steps toward me draped in a black cloak so dark it's like the fabric is part of the shadows around us. With striking features, hair slicked back from his face, he holds the unearthly beauty of a vampire, but he’s not one of us. I sense leashed power radiating around him. Something devious, ancient and ensnaring.

  Bracing for an attack, I ready myself for battle. “Who are you?”

  The stranger smirks, emerald green eyes flicking over me from head to foot. “No. Another interested party in this. I’m here purely to observe.”

  I’m not sure I believe him but decide to play along for now. “Where am I?”

  “On a small island somewhere off the Italian coast. Yukie and your brother are in that tower.” He points at the highest turret of the brooding structure that’s crumbling with age and decay.

  “How do I know you're not this Chaos Lord who Vanna is in league with.”

  “If I were, you’d already be dead,” he assures me with such certainty I can’t help but shiver in dread.

  I’ve never met anyone who can disturb me the way this creature does. There’s something about him that has my every instinct on full alert. He’s a different kind of predator than I’m used to. Darker than the monsters I’m acquainted with.

  “Why are you helping me?” My tone is thick with suspicion.

  “I’m not.” Turning to his left, he walks away from me farther up the rocky outcrop. “Let’s see if your skills as a fighter measure up. You know nothing of pain. The creatures here will have you longing for its sweetness with the things they can do to you.”

  Keeping pace behind him, we venture along a narrow path with a sheer drop to the sea on one side and rock the other.

  “Are you going to tell me your name or not?”

  “How much do you know about Yukie?” he asks, choosing to ignore my question and ply me with his own.

  “She’s a vampire slayer and knows my brother,” I tell him, giving him the barest of what I know.

  The knowledge of her profession had been met with wariness. I had thought Vincenzo was completely insane for even associating with her. You don’t keep an enemy that close unless you intend to kill them. The woman lives under the radar. Moving from job to job killing our kind with no regret or mercy. Meeting her though, I had seen the appeal. Yukie had been like a sucker punch right to my jaw.

  “She was genetically engineered to be the perfect vampire slayer,” my guide murmurs silkily. “She was one of three children who survived the process. Only two are left now. Yukie and her sister Kiko, who hunts reapers.”

  Yukie was created? The revelation renders me speechless for a heartbeat. I never expected that. She’s been a mystery I wanted to unravel, and if this man is telling the truth, there’s far more to her than I even could guess.

  A hiss comes from the rocks above. Head snapping up, I’m in time to see gaunt figures scaling down the cliff face toward us, red eyes glowing hungrily like burning coals in the dark. Skin as pale as the full moon, their flesh is shrunken and stretched tight over their bodies. I’ve never seen my own kind looking so sick and corpse-like.

  Bracing for their attack, I glance over the edge noting the sharp drop into the sea below. “What’s happened to them?”

  The stranger watches them advance with mild interest. “They’ve been in the hands of the Chaos Lord. He would have taken his time torturing them. Starving them. Training them to become his pets and warping them to his will.”

  “Then I’m going to free them from his control.” Baring my fangs and wrapping my fingers around the cold rocky outcrop, I climb. Grip firm, I scale with fluid movements toward my prey. Casting my focus, I count them. Eight forms coming at me at high speed. The nearest one lunges at me with a hiss. Grasping him by the scruff of the neck, I toss him from the rocky surface. He tumbles with a scream toward the jagged rocks below. Another comes at me with a blade in her hand, slashing it at my arms, no doubt in the hopes of sending me to join him. Withdrawing my arm quickly from her reach, I swipe at her wrist. Hand closing around it, I crush the fragile bones until she releases her weapon. Catching it, a jab to her chest and I pierce her heart.

  I give them the only mercy I have for them. A quick death. No hesitation in ending them from their enslavement. I recognize a few from Vanna’s house. She must have betrayed some of her own bloodline to get the demon to agree to her request. Dispatching six, I descend to the ledge.

  The stranger isn’t alone. With experience and ease, he brings his dagger up to the vampire’s throat. The blade slices through supple flesh, leaving a gaping hole. As crimson pours from the wound, it drenches the front of the other male’s shirt staining it red.

  Metallic, the scent fills my nostrils, and my hunger rises, mingling with my adrenaline for a heady combination. A rumble of approval escapes my lips. I’ve almost forgotten what it's like to fight and hunt. Too caught up in politics and diplomacy, I’ve let myself become idle.

  “Can you control yourself?” The stranger plunges his weapon through the other vampire’s heart. “Or do I have to stake you too?”

  I gesture at him with the knife I’m still clutching. “I wouldn’t suggest trying it; you won’t like the outcome.”

  The creature turns to dust, what’s left of him drifting away on the sultry summer night air. There’s nothing left of any of them to prove they’d been there. Victims of Vanna and her family's betrayal. One I won't forget.

  Brushing the leftover fragments of the dead vampire from his black robes, the man continues along the path as if we hadn’t just been set upon. “Tell me, what do you plan to do with the vampire hunter when you rescue her and your brother?”

  “I’m Yukie’s mate,” I inform him, falling in behind him, my movements agile and silent as we traverse the narrow trail. “I’ve known it from the first moment I touched her.”

  “And so you intend to claim her?”

  “We’re already bound by my blood. She’s already mine.”

  “Perhaps,” he murmurs before halting beside a hidden cave, more of a craggy crack in the cliff face. “This is a secret passage that leads into the castle. It’s a shortcut, which will save us time.”

  The interior of the cave is dank and damp. We traverse the narrow tunnel to the dancing light of his flaming torch. The shadows it creates are sinister and ominous. It feels like forever before we come to chamber. Widening out, the floor is no longer sand but rock. Boulders of different shapes lay around the space. At the back, the passage way continues into the inky blackness. Dripping water and our footsteps are the only sound.

  “What makes you think you're worthy of her? Fate might have thrown you both together, but even that can be broken. It’s been done before,” he questions, voice low and steady in the dark. “Do you really think her master will allow her to leave his employ?”

  My night vision easily picks him up a little way in front of me. The way he moves, he has no trouble seeing in the gloom, and again it makes me wonder what he is. “Her master?”

  “She’s the Devil’s slayer.”

  It takes a minute or two for the new information to sink in. I feel like someone just poured kerosene on everything I thought I knew and lit the fucker up. Does Vincenzo know? No. He would have run in the opposite direction if he’d had that little bit of information. My brother may be reckless, but he’s not stupid. We don’t tangle with the Devil or any of his minions. At least not until now.

  My senses prickle. “We’re not alone.”

  “I know,” the stranger replies with what sounds like wary humor. “I knew before we even stepped inside what was waiting for us. The time has come to see what you're made of Vampire King. Let’s test your metal and see if you survive.”

  Hisses echo around us in the dark in the cavern. Crimson orbs glowing brightly in the oily blackness. More than before. Many more. Hungry, deranged, burning in the dark. Fingers tightening around the handle of the knife, I lunge toward them with a battle cry, an image of Yukie blazoned through my thoughts. I will f
ind her. Nothing on earth is going to stop me. Not even my own kind.

  17

  Yukie

  With a silent scream, I fall forward from the blow of Julien’s clawed hand, my throat and mouth too full of blood to let the noise escape. Spitting it out before it can choke me, I gasp for air on the ground. I can feel my tiger cowering inside me, too fearful to come out. She knows this creature. Learned to avoid him at all costs when she was younger. It was one of the reasons I lost touch with my shifter side. Why my connection to it became so faint.

  The demon crouches beside me, his sharpened nails scraping the stone floor. “You look so stunning, my love, with blood falling from your mouth and hate sparkling in your eyes.”

  “Just tell me what you want, and get it over with.” I do my best to sound stoic and uncaring, unable to drown out my pained grunts as my wounds worsen. The damage Dante inflicted is still healing, but at least I’m no longer bleeding all over the place.

  Julien hums. “So impatient.”

  Reaching out, he caresses his fingers along my jaw, smiling when I flinch. Cupping my chin, he pulls me in for a sweet, chaste kiss. I want to jerk away, but instead I kiss him back harder. This is what he wants. What he’s always wanted. His sick obsession with me since I was a child fuels him. If I play along, maybe I can get the hell out of here, wherever here is. After waking fully, it had been obvious this wasn’t Rome. From the narrow windows and stone walls, I seem to have been relocated to some kind of castle.

  “I own you. There’s no getting it over with,” he murmurs against my lips. “But first we must get rid of the tiger inside you. Dig it out and cleanse you of its mark.”

  Dragging me up by my hair, he grins down at me. My head lolls, the agony throbbing through my skull causing a ringing in my ears from where he’d beat me.

  Cupping my cheek to support it, he brings my face up to his own. “Come on, focus, Yukie. You have a concussion, and I can’t let you fall asleep yet.”