by Jory Strong
Araña’s eyes darkened into endless black. Resolve and determination slid up her spine, throbbing so deeply he felt it pulsing through him. “She might not have time. The Church is no friend of the gifted. I’m going—”
“No.” Fury at the idea of her risking herself made his voice harsh. “I’ll find the healer. I’ll rescue her from my enemies as soon as I’m free of the collar. The Were, too, if he’s unfortunate enough to stumble into this trap.”
Araña’s relief melted over Tir, along with her pleasure in his promise. It should have angered him that her emotions so often became his. It should terrify him that her will could become his own. But instead he found himself fighting the urge to push her onto her back, the need to eradicate all remnants of their argument making him want to cover her with his body and feel her underneath him.
His mouth settled on Araña’s and she willingly parted her lips for him. Her tongue greeted his, sliding against it in a sensuous celebration of intimacy restored.
He could spend an eternity with her and never have his lust sated to the point where he would desire another female. Even in their cramped, debris-strewn hiding place, he wanted to free his cock and join with her.
Tir forced himself away from her. “There’s not much of the day left. We need to go to the bookseller’s.”
It pleased him that physically parting seemed as difficult for her as for him. Her dark eyes hid nothing from him. They smoldered with desire. Caressed him.
“You’re right, we need to go,” she said, sending a lick of flame along his cock when she glanced downward and wet her lips with her tongue.
“Araña,” he growled.
Her smile held feminine satisfaction. Her eyes, when they lifted and met his, held an awareness of the power she had over him, how thoroughly she’d enslaved him and made him a prisoner to his need for her.
“That look invites further punishment,” he said, urging her from the hiding place before lust delayed them further.
They clung to ruins where they could. Several times they were forced to duck into shadows by the sound of a diesel engine, followed by the passing of a sleek car carrying the gold flag with the red lion rampant.
Eventually they passed out of the area set aside for the gifted and into neighborhoods where groups of houses had been reclaimed. Dogs barked, announcing their passing. Children looked up from evening chores of gathering food from gardens and chasing chickens into well-protected coops.
Older children drove cattle and sheep down the street, returning from a day in the forest, or maybe from a day spent guarding the animals as they grazed among rubble.
The residential section gave way to what had once been a business district. A goat rounded the corner in front of them, its eyes wild with fear, the bell tied to its neck clanging as it sped past.
Tir drew the machete as quickly as the knives appeared in Ara ña’s hands. They approached, bracing themselves for whatever predator might charge after the goat.
Instead there was the panicked bleating of more goats, the shout of a boy, and then the horrible, abrupt sound of silence.
They surged forward, around the corner.
Tir had no name for the things he found there. But Araña did.
“Chupacabra. Goat suckers.”
The creatures were reptile and mammal combined, leathery skinned with sharp spines running down their backs, their fangs driven deep into the throats of two goats and a boy barely in his teens, their cheeks puffing in and out as they drank blood.
“He’s still alive,” Araña said, rushing forward and willing to take on all three of the creatures.
Tir passed her, though he doubted it would make a difference. The boy no longer struggled.
The closest chupacabra lifted its mouth away from a goat’s throat and screeched in warning, flashing its bloody fangs. It screeched again when Tir kept rushing toward it, then sprang away like a kangaroo, emitting a sulfur stink an instant before the machete sliced through the air where the creature had been.
He kept going, trusting Araña to watch his back. The second chupacabra jerked, nearly severing the goat’s head from its body in its hurry to get away from Tir.
The third, smaller and probably less dominant than the other two, followed the example of its companions, abandoning the boy it had been forced to take as a meal.
Arterial blood sprayed out in an arc of red. Tir reached the body and could almost feel the soul hovering free, thinning, slipping away.
Too late, he started to say. But before he could utter the words, Araña’s sorrow at being unable to save the boy washed through him, the intensity of her emotions striking so deeply he acted without thought.
Tir sank to his knees and opened his mind, accepting the pain. He touched his hand to the boy’s torn throat and willed it healed, willed the soul to return to the still warm flesh.
The machete fell from numb fingers. He was only vaguely aware of it, only vaguely aware he hadn’t used his blood to heal.
Pain nearly crushed him to the ground. He fought against crying out and revealing his weakness. Then Araña was there beside him, her touch feather-soft on his back, but it was like life-giving fire, adding strength, adding her will to his, and the combination was undefeatable.
The boy cried out. He opened terror-filled eyes and rolled away from Tir’s hand, then scrambled to his feet, taking in the dead goats before fleeing.
Tir turned his head and found his lips only inches away from Araña’s. Hunger rose like a victory cry, flaring between them, tightening their bodies.
He wanted to take her. He would take her.
But they were too close to the bookseller’s shop now to delay. And he needed time to think about what had happened with the boy, what it meant that her desires had so completely become his own. Never before had he healed by will alone.
“Another block and we’ll be there,” he said, standing, dragging her to her feet, unable to resist crushing her mouth with his, tangling his fingers in her dark hair and holding her to him as his tongue thrust against hers, dominated hers until she melted against him.
He freed her then and started walking, the confusion of his thoughts yielding to anticipation with each step closer to the bookseller and the text that would finally free him from the cursed collar.
Araña walked next to Tir, filled with awe and wonder, happiness over what he’d done. He’d saved a child, spontaneously, when there was nothing to be gained from it other than the satisfaction of having done something good.
He’d saved a human at a cost to himself. Despite his efforts to hide the pain it caused him, she’d seen it, sensed it.
Araña glanced at his face, her eyes caressing the elegant lines, hungrily storing each nuance in her memory. Her fingers itched to take up colored pencils and capture his likeness, though she doubted she would ever be able to re-create his beauty on paper.
In moments he would be free of the collar. She might doubt her ability to draw him fully, but she didn’t doubt her ability to open the safe containing the translations. From the first time Matthew showed her a safe and challenged her to crack it, she’d never failed at opening anything that used sets of numbers to control the locking device, or in the case of alarm systems, to engage or disengage them.
Her gaze dropped to her hand and the spider. She’d always thought her ability with combinations was simply a knack made better with practice and usage, much as Erik and Matthew could pick any lock almost as soon as they’d inserted a tool into it. Now she wondered if her ability was a result of the demon mark. Unlike the mechanics of picking a lock, combinations were known, they were part of the already woven threads of the past.
Araña’s palm glanced over the hilt of Erik’s blade. A knot formed in her throat, not for his loss—she’d come to terms with losing him and Matthew—but what it would mean when Tir regained his memories and his powers.
Would he still want her? Desire her? Would he discover he had a mate elsewhere? Children? A family that
would shun him if he chose to keep a human at his side?
Araña closed her mind to her worries in favor of studying her surroundings as they passed through ruined buildings that had once housed shops. L’Antiquaire came into view near the edge of the forest.
The remoteness of the bookseller’s location sent the first trickle of uneasiness through her. And when they reached it, Araña’s gaze went automatically to the sigils carved in the doorway.
It was like being doused with icy water. Her breath caught. Her skin chilled into gooseflesh. “You don’t recognize the symbols?” she asked above the erratic pounding of her heart.
“Some of them.” He touched the common ones, the ones meant to ward against evil and certain types of supernatural beings.
Araña’s hand shook slightly as she lifted it to the wood, forcing herself to trace the glyphs Tir hadn’t and speak the names they represented. “Tucci. Tassone. Torres. They’re vampire family names.”
She traced others on the opposite side of the door. “Laurent. Rios. Michel. They’ve offered their protection, too.”
Tir’s husky laugh was almost enough to melt the ice encasing her at seeing the glyphs. His fingers curled around her arm, turning her to face him.
The knuckles of his other hand grazed over her cheek in a caress. “And you’ve got my protection, Araña. I had no trouble with the vampires I encountered at the dock. They allowed me to pass and recover your boat, though if the Were is to be believed, they were paid to guard the area.”
Her heart gave a jolt and her hands went to his chest. “You didn’t tell me you encountered vampires.”
Tir shrugged. “It wasn’t worth mentioning.”
“Perhaps not. Vampires take business matters seriously, just as they do their promises. If they let you pass at the pier, it was because they could under the terms of the agreement they’d negotiated with the dock and ship owners. It doesn’t change the danger represented by the symbols around this door.”
Her eyes strayed to the protection sigils. “See the marks after each name? They’re a pledge that justice will be administered even if it takes centuries to accomplish. They’re a warning that the punishment they administer might encompass the enslaving and killing of not only the person guilty of a crime against them, but every living descendent and every blood relative.”
“If it will calm your worries, I’ll promise not to harm the bookseller.” He kissed her in a rough display of masculine dominance and arrogance. “You will open the safe, Araña. And you will trust me to protect you from the consequences of it.”
In the end she knew she would do as he requested. She’d promised to do this for him, just as he’d promised to recover the Constellation for her. But fear drenched her all the same.
He reacted to it by stiffening beneath her palms at the implied lack of confidence in his ability to keep her safe. His face became a harsh mask.
She touched her lips to his in supplication. “Trust me to try negotiation first,” she whispered, rubbing her fingertips over hardened masculine nipples.
Tir’s nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed, but in the end he gave a slight nod before leaning forward to issue a sensual warning against her ear. “When this is done, I’ll take you so thoroughly there’ll be no room left for doubt or fear.”
Araña shivered as the threat sent heat sliding into her belly, thawing some of the chill as they stepped into the shop. “Did the bookseller tell you who owns the book?”
“Virgilio Cortez.”
Optimism built on the heat from Tir’s sensual threat. She didn’t recognize the name. Maybe Cortez was human. “Is he a vampire?”
Tir countered by asking, “Does the name Draven mean anything to you?”
Her steps faltered, not just at the mention of Draven’s name, but at the smell of books and the sight of so many of them crammed onto overstuffed shelves. “He’s head of the Tassone family. They rule in San Francisco.”
“Then Cortez is most likely vampire. Before I left here, the bookseller suggested there might be some service I could perform for Draven in exchange for his intercession with Virgilio.”
Tir stepped into a narrow aisleway between shelves. Araña followed, her optimism growing and allowing her to smile for the first time since seeing the vampire family names carved into the door-jamb. “It’s possible the bookseller knows of something Draven wants.”
As they maneuvered through a rabbit warren of shelves, fleeting images of Erik and his books passed through her mind. He would have loved this place. And Matthew would have grumbled more loudly the longer they were in it.
The stacks opened into a work space. Araña immediately sought the safe with her eyes, barely taking in the figure of the old man hunched over a table. She found a row of them set in brick and mortar, and even without taking the first step toward the wall housing them, she knew each safe would have a vampire sigil on it.
Her attention swung back to the bookseller. He looked up, and shocked recognition replaced all else. “Thierry?” she asked.
Faded lichen-colored eyes studied her face for a long moment before dropping to the gloved hand. “You’re Matthew and Erik’s girl, Spider, if I remember correctly.”
“Araña.”
He gave a small nod to acknowledge the translation. “Are they in Oakland, too?”
Her throat closed for an instant. “They were killed here.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” His glance traveled from Tir to the bank of safes, then back to her. “Considering the company you’re in, I can guess your reason for being here.
“I don’t doubt you can do what you intend. Erik could have, and the last time I saw him, he bragged you were better at it than him. But I know Matthew would have made sure you know how foolish it is to cross a vampire. The Cortez family isn’t a powerful one, but the others will stand with them.”
Tir stiffened at her side and Araña took his hand in hers. She stood taller with pride that Eric had bragged about her accomplishments to this man both he and Matthew had once used when it came to dealing with vampires. “I’m prepared to negotiate for access to the book. Will you mediate?”
The bookseller studied Araña and Tir’s clasped hands for a long moment. She suspected he was remembering Matthew’s warning not to touch her because of the demon mark.
As if her thoughts summoned it, the spider moved to the back of her hand, its sudden appearance startling Thierry. He glanced up. “I’ll assist you. Have you ever dealt with a vampire before?”
She saw no point in lying. “No.”
“Then let me make a suggestion. Because Virgilio is the lesser vampire and the book of relative unimportance to him, it would be acceptable to summon Draven’s human High Servant, Thane. He is available during the daylight hours and can enter into certain contracts on behalf of Draven. He’s certainly qualified to negotiate with both you and the Cortez representative on this matter.”
“How do I contact him?”
“I’ll send a message, now if you wish.”
Tir stirred restlessly. “This will be settled tonight.”
The shopkeeper gave a slight shrug before moving away from the table. Araña thought he’d disappear into the stacks and send his message via magic or human runner. Instead he opened a drawer and pulled out a cellular phone.
It surprised her—but only for an instant. The technology had existed well before The Last War. Even children were said to have routinely carried them in the past.
In her lifetime she’d never seen one of the phones except in history books or magazines that catered to the ultra-rich. But it made sense that vampires—many of whom had been alive for centuries before the world was changed forever—would have saved and guarded some of the towers for their own use, and that a man who dealt in old, valuable books, and was protected by a great number of vampire families, would be able to contact them using technology rarely available to humans.
As Thierry spoke into the small device, Araña released Tir’s hand
and moved to stand in front of the safes. She’d been right in her guess. Most bore the mark of a vampire family.
From behind her Thierry said, “You’re in luck. Thane is on this side of the bay. He’ll be here shortly.”
She turned. “Do you have a suggestion about what Draven might consider a fair trade for his intercession?”
The bookseller shook his head. “I’m sorry, no.”
Twenty-one
THANE entered a short time later, accompanied by bodyguards. He was everything Araña would have expected of a High Servant. Deadly beauty and lethal charisma combined.
Tir came to her side, equally beautiful and equally deadly, though Araña hoped the situation wouldn’t escalate into violence. Thane’s eyebrow lifted at Tir’s action, his storm gray eyes glittering with amused speculation—until something cold and alien passed through and they were left the color of smooth steel.
The hair on the back of Araña’s neck stood. She shivered, remembering Matthew’s speculation that a vampire could take possession of a High Servant’s body in daylight.
“Any deal will be with the human,” Thane said, his voice indicating there was no room for negotiation, his gaze settling completely on Araña. “I’ve already spoken to Cortez’s man and he’s agreed in principal to allow you access to the book, as long as it doesn’t leave the premises and is returned to the safe in its existing condition. What do you have to barter with?”
“I’m a thief.”
“Draven rarely requires the services of a thief. But your skills might be put to a different use. What are they?”
“I’m good with safes. And alarm systems.”
Thane’s smile was more savage flash of teeth than anything else. “Then perhaps we can deal. The question is, how good are you? Good enough to succeed when the penalty for failure will be death?”
A low growl came from Tir. His arm snaked around her waist, pulling her back to his chest in a possessive, protective gesture that made Thane’s amusement reappear.