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

by Lexi C. Foss

  Vampires in my world were forever frozen at the age of their turning, but our bodies could occasionally fluctuate. Not by much. However, nine decades in a prison with nothing to do other than work out and keep up my strength had crafted me into a slab of defined slab. Her purple irises ran over me with appreciation, her lips parting as my shirt fell unceremoniously to the ground at my feet.

  I removed my shoes next. Then my socks and pants. And it wasn’t until I had my hands on my black boxers that her mind seemed to catch up.

  “What are you doing?” Her voice was much clearer now, the tone healthy and right.

  “Taking a shower with you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to.” I also needed to reassure myself that she could stand without hurting herself. A ridiculous notion because I knew she could now that she’d rejuvenated her spirits with the amulet and my blood. But that didn’t stop me from removing my boxer shorts and moving to stand naked before her.

  Her eyes fell to my groin, her breath coming out in a shudder. “Cassius…”

  I ignored the warning in her tone and lifted her off the counter. Her feet touched the floor, her legs giving a slight wobble. She clutched my arms, wincing at the display of instability.

  “It’s okay, Kseniya,” I whispered. “You’ll be yourself again very soon. Then we can spar if you want, but I’m washing your hair first.” It’d been so long since I felt those silky strands between my fingers. Too long since I’d really touched her.

  My throat worked over a swallow, my entire body primed and ready for her and not at all caring that our circumstances were still in shambles.

  This woman was mine, had always been mine, would always be mine.

  Which was why I’d have to kill her if everything Grigori had told me turned out to be true. It would be the only way for me to dismantle this spell she held over me.

  I pressed my lips to hers, hungry for a taste, and found her mouth just as eager as mine. Her grip on my biceps tightened, her body arching toward me rather than away from me. I pulled her closer, then walked us both toward the waiting shower without breaking our kiss. Her steps weren’t perfect, her strength not yet fully restored, but she pushed through it with the heart of a warrior.

  Water rained down around us, bathing us in warmth as I reached around her to close the glass door. Then I enveloped her in my arms, my tongue seeking hers. She practically melted against me, our history a thriving heartbeat between us.

  The hatred I should feel for her seemed to slip through the drain at our feet. Maybe because of the truth Sapphire had revealed, or perhaps it was a result of just missing my other half.

  Fuck.

  I ripped off the band holding up her hair and threaded my fingers through the thick strands, needing to embrace her. She clutched me just as harshly, her nails digging into my arms and drawing blood in the process. It had always been like this between us, passionate and violent and so utterly mind-blowing.

  But before I could take it to the next level and completely destroy her with my mouth, she yanked away from me, panting, her eyes flashing. “I don’t understand.”

  “That makes two of us,” I admitted, breathing almost as heavily as her, my chest heaving with the need to drag her back into me and fuck her against the wall.

  “You left that card for me to find. Then you set the trap in the club. Now…” She paused to steal a huge gulp of air. “Now you’re kissing me? Saving me? Healing me?” She shook her head, her expression one of acute bewilderment. “Why?”

  “What card?” I asked. “And I didn’t set a trap, Kseniya.”

  “The card on the dead body in the deli.”

  “You think I staged that scene?”

  “Didn’t you?” she countered. “Isn’t this all just one of your infamous games?”

  I nearly laughed. “Infamous games?”

  “Stop playing with me, Cassius.”

  “Never,” I retorted, adoring our little sparring matches. “But I didn’t leave a card for you, nor did I orchestrate a trap. While I might enjoy taunting you, little slayer, I would never work with a hybrid.”

  “A hybrid?” she repeated, her eyes widening. “Oh my God, you’re right. That’s what he was—a hybrid between a shifter and a vampire. I didn’t even know that was a thing.”

  “Apparently it is,” I replied, stepping toward her. “And this one has a penchant for making a mess, something you know I would never do.”

  The purple rings around her pupils seemed to throb as she tilted her head back to assess my features. “You didn’t leave the card?”

  “I already said I didn’t.”

  “And you didn’t set the trap tonight?”

  “Don’t you think I would have been there sooner had I arranged all of that?” I asked her, arching a brow. “You know how much I like to watch you squirm. Why would I miss all the fun?”

  “There were probably cameras.”

  “Probably,” I agreed. “But the feed wouldn’t be available in our home realm.”

  That grabbed her attention. “You… you were…?”

  “In our home reality,” I answered for her. “Yes.”

  “You can go back,” she whispered. Not a question, but a statement.

  “I confirmed that for you yesterday.”

  “I know. But… I… I don’t know if I believe you.”

  “Now who’s playing a game?” I asked her, walking her back into the stone wall with one hand on her hip. I rested my opposite arm across the wall over her head, caging her in. “Ask me to prove it. I dare you.”

  She shivered. “You can take me back?”

  “I can,” I whispered. “And I will.”

  Her palms went to my chest, her eyes flaring wide. “What? No!” Alarm cascaded over her features, her pulse a racing temptation against her neck. “Shit, that’s been the plan all along, wasn’t it? To force me to go back and make me see whatever Dimitri has done to the world? The world I failed by not finding a way to return?”

  If she was acting right now, I’d give her every award in the damn book. Because she appeared shell-shocked and broken, her expression one I’d dreamed of inspiring for nearly a century. Yet seeing it now did nothing for me.

  “What do you think Dimitri has done to our world?” I asked her, genuinely curious. It seemed like such a strange thing to fear. If anything, she should be horrified by Grigori’s antics, not my cousin’s.

  “I imagine he destroyed it after removing all the slayers in existence,” she said, swallowing. “And you probably helped him. Did you enslave the human race? Turn them into walking blood bags?”

  “You think I would do that?” I asked her, seeing the truth of it in her gaze. “Jesus, you do think I would do that.” I frowned. “We loved each other once, Kseniya. You knew me. How could you possibly think I’d do such a thing?”

  She shook her head slowly. “But it was all a lie.”

  “Was it?” I demanded. “Is that your way of confessing?”

  Now it was her turn to frown. “Confessing what?”

  “That you gave me up to Grigori. Traded my life for yours.”

  She gaped at me. “What the hell does Grigori have to do with this?”

  “He has everything to do with this.” My grip tightened against her hip. “Tell me what happened that night. Tell me your version.”

  “My version?” The water pouring around us didn’t drown out her squeak of surprise—a squeak that morphed quickly into rage. “Are you fucking kidding me? You want me to tell you what happened? You know what happened, Cassius. You used me. I gave you everything, and you betrayed me in the worst way, laying all those deaths at my feet.” Tears gathered in her eyes. “All because I thought I loved you.” She tried to shove me away. “Fuck you, Cassius. Fuck. You.”

  I caught her wrists, bringing them down to her sides as I pressed my thighs to hers.

  “You think I betrayed you? Yet you were the one who gave me up to Grigori.”

  “Ga
ve you up, how?” she demanded, her anguish palpable and heart-wrenching. “Is that why you gave Dimitri the secret passages? Because you thought I gave you up somehow?”

  I gaped at her. “I didn’t tell anyone about the passages. Well, no, Dimitri knew, but not because I told him.”

  “Sure.” She rolled her eyes. “So he just happened to know how to get into the palace via the tunnels all on his own. You expect me to believe that?”

  “I do, yes. He’s old as fuck and knew all about the secret system below Romanov Palace. Hell, he told me about them before I even met you. How do you think I escaped you all those times we played?”

  She gaped at me. “What?”

  “You didn’t show me the tunnels, sweet slayer. You may think you did, but I already knew about them. The only path you introduced me to was the one that led directly to your quarters, but I would have found it on my own eventually.”

  A myriad of emotions filtered through her pretty face, her nostrils flaring. “But if you already knew…”

  I waited for her to finish, yet nothing else came, her mouth working soundlessly without words.

  “Why are you so bothered by Dimitri knowing the tunnels?” I asked her, my grip on her wrists easing. “Why does it matter?”

  “Because he used that knowledge to kill them all.”

  My forehead crinkled. “Kill who all?”

  “The Romanovs.”

  “The Romanovs?” I blinked, my mind working rapidly over the information. Then my lips parted. It dawned on me then, the truth that she seemed to believe. “You think Dimitri led the revolution. That’s why you keep commenting on him being king and destroying the slayer lines.” Of course. How had I been so blind?

  But if all that were true, then the story Grigori had given me was absolutely a lie.

  Unless he’d convinced her of this truth, thereby persuading her to trade my life for hers.

  I lifted my palm, wrapping it around her throat to seize and hold her gaze.

  “Tell me the truth, Kseniya,” I said, memorizing her face and listening closely to her heartbeat. “Did you work with Grigori to have me imprisoned? Did you trade your freedom for my life?”

  “Imprisoned?” she breathed, her pulse skipping to an unsteady rhythm. “I don’t…? What freedom? What are you talking about?”

  I could see it there in her eyes—the lack of a lie. The clear confusion over my words. The uncertainty of my proclamations.

  How she looked at me now was how I’d just looked at her seconds before when I couldn’t understand her accusations regarding the tunnels.

  We both had it all wrong.

  There wasn’t a need to take her home now.

  I already knew the truth.

  Neither of us had betrayed the other. Rather, we’d been played against one another, our minds overruling our hearts and souls and creating a disastrous fate.

  “Fuck,” I whispered, pressing my forehead to hers, uncertain of what to even say. So I kissed her instead.

  Because I didn’t trust my mouth to do anything else.

  Not after everything I’d done and said to her already.

  The hatred I felt for her died on a breath, replaced by the agony of realizing how badly I’d screwed this up. Had I just spoken to her from the beginning…

  No. I couldn’t go there. There was no changing the past, and dwelling on it wouldn’t do either of us any favors.

  Instead, we needed to move forward.

  To make amends. To rewrite our future. To find the right path again.

  “Cassius.” She tried to push me away, but I kissed her harder. And she capitulated on a groan, her hands sliding upward to my shoulders, her arms wrapping around my neck.

  Our mouths were done speaking.

  It was time for our bodies to do the talking for us, to heal a century-old ache that had festered and burned between us for far too long.

  We could work out the details later.

  14

  Violet

  Heat threatened to suffocate me from the inside out. I couldn’t breathe around it, my heart a thundering rhythm in my ears that refused to abate.

  Cassius had kissed me several times over the last few days, but none of those kisses had been anything like this.

  He was branding me.

  Claiming me.

  Owning me.

  And I was helpless to stop him, my body caving to his will despite my mind’s protests.

  What did he mean about being imprisoned? Why did he think I’d traded my life for his? What did Grigori have to do with any of this? And Dimitri knew about the tunnels before? Cassius knew, too?

  My head spun with so many questions and uncertainties; all the while, Cassius possessed me with his mouth and touch.

  Fuck, I’d missed this. Missed him. I’d dreamt of him so many times over the years, his soul permanently imprinted on mine no matter how hard I tried to forget him.

  His blood provided a warmth inside me that responded to the familiarity of our past. His tongue taunted mine into a duel I had no desire to win. And his hands rooted me in the present, forcing me to accept how badly I still wanted him, even after everything we’d been through.

  “I still hate you,” I breathed against his mouth.

  “Then hate-fuck me,” he countered, releasing my throat to grab my hips.

  I groaned at the thought, my nails digging into his shoulders. “Did your date last night not please you?” I asked, searching for ammunition and words to throw at him, to make this stop before I lost myself to him completely.

  “No, she didn’t please me at all,” he replied, his teeth dragging along my lower lip. “She was too busy fingering herself into a coma while I stood outside her building. Then she went to bed and dreamt of me fucking another woman, yet in truth, I went home alone.”

  My brow furrowed. “What?” He didn’t fuck someone else last night? Just the thought had my heart skipping a hopeful beat, which was exactly the opposite of what I’d intended to inspire with my barbed comment regarding his date.

  “Compulsion hurts,” he whispered. “So does being accused of using such a tactic against the love of my life.” He kissed me again, his tongue punishing and cruel and deliciously wicked.

  I groaned, an inferno building inside me that threatened to shatter every notion within my mind. Cognitive reasoning continued to slip, the apex between my thighs dampening with more than just water from above.

  It’d been so long since a man had made me feel like this.

  “Do you feel compelled right now, Kseniya?” His lips brushed my cheek on his way down to the pulse point of my neck. “Am I forcing your heart to race?” He slid his thigh between mine, angling upward. “Is your body rocking into mine because I told it to?”

  I swallowed, a quiver gracing my spine as his fangs skimmed my throat.

  “Answer me,” he demanded, nipping my tender skin.

  “No,” I managed to reply, my voice hoarse with need. “Not compelled.”

  He laved the sensitive point, his bite imminent. He wouldn’t ask; he’d take. Because he knew I’d give him permission anyway. Even now, hating him as I did, I would allow him to pierce me in whatever way he desired.

  He had always been mine, just as I would always be his.

  Which only made me despise him more.

  And love him.

  I nearly sighed, the conundrum in my head fracturing beneath an intoxicating cloud of bliss as his incisors slid inside me. His name left my mouth as a prayer, the endorphins of his bite sending a shock wave of pleasure to my core.

  It’d been so long—too long—since I’d experienced such rapture.

  All the hatred and pain melted away, his body a balm to the numerous aches and bruises left inside and out. He grabbed my hips, lifting me up against him. I wrapped my legs around his waist on impulse alone, his elongated shaft sliding through my slick folds.

  This, I thought, delirious. I need this.

  Every part of me burned for him, beg
ging him to reclaim me in every way. Instead, he released my neck, his tongue tracing a path up my neck to my ear. “You’re soaked for me,” he whispered, pressing his length against me and hitting my clit with the bulbous head. “Tell me you missed me.”

  “No.”

  “Tell me how much you want this, Kseniya.”

  “No.”

  He chuckled, his teeth grazing my earlobe. “Always so stubborn.”

  “I hate you.” It came out on a whimper as he slid against me once more, his cock a torture device he wielded with expert precision.

  “If I find out you’re playing with me—that all of this is a game—I will kill you,” he threatened, causing my legs to tighten around him. “No more foreplay. No more tricks. I’ll end you, Kseniya.”

  “You’ll try,” I replied, arching into him, needing more friction, requiring more of him.

  “I’ll succeed.”

  “Fuck me, Cassius,” I demanded, tired of the riddles and the verbal sparring and the torment. “Just take me.”

  His mouth sealed over mine, his hands gliding up my sides to cup my breasts and pinch the nipples between his thumbs and forefingers. He gave them a slight tug, knowing I desired a little pain with my pleasure. But he didn’t give me what I wanted most. He just continued to lubricate himself, driving me mad with each subtle shift of his hips.

  I dug my nails into his shoulders. “Stop teasing me.”

  “No.” He used the same tone I had moments ago, then smiled against my lips before driving his tongue inside to skillfully dominate mine.

  I shook against him, capitulating to his every whim. All I knew was Cassius. His touch. His mouth. His taste. His heat.

  “Cassius.” It came out as a curse, or maybe a prayer, my entire being inflamed with a craving only he could fulfill. He continued his assault below, both with his cock and his hands, touching me and stroking me and reducing me to a wanton female dying to be fucked.

  “Tell me how you want it, baby,” he said against my mouth. “Tell me how to fuck you.”