by Aja James
“What is your report?” Maximus demanded immediately, just as Inanna’s butt hit her seat, which she wisely chose to be across the large conference table from the pesky and possessive panther.
Thankfully, her leader was looking at the Ninja, not her.
“There was another fight club arranged last night, down by the waterfront. One of our remaining human partners was able to infiltrate into the crowd,” Ryu began.
“It takes fifty grand just to be considered for entry into the club as an observer, and most of the time, the stakes are much steeper. Only the highest rollers are admitted, and there’s a background check more hair-raising and thorough than the CIA uses.”
“What did the human observe?” Inanna asked. Finally, they were making some progress.
Ryu lifted his shoulders in a nonchalant shrug that belied the intensity of his gaze. “The usual. Blood, gore, death, money. The stakes are getting more expensive with each fight club event. Whoever the organizers of this network are, they must be amassing a staggering fortune.”
“But there was one noticeable newcomer to the club,” Ryu imparted as he leaned more alertly forward on his elbows. “A real fighter, if our source is correct, unlike the usual crazies out for violence and adrenaline highs. Trained in mixed martial arts from what I’ve gathered. It was his first appearance at a club. We don’t know yet if he’ll be a repeat. He made quite an impression on the spectators though.”
“Which means the organizers will most likely want him to be a repeat,” Maximus mused. “If we can get to him before they do, we may have a deeper in to the club.”
“If we can convince him to work with us,” Inanna added, “that’s a big if. Humans are not exactly willing to be open minded about blood-suckers these days. Many of them only pretend collaboration to get close enough to strike where we are vulnerable. We have to decide how much we reveal to him.”
“If we don’t involve him in entirety, we might as well not involve him at all,” Ryu said. “He’d be no more help to us than the other humans we still count as friends.”
“Agreed,” Maximus joined in. “Let’s do our own surveillance and find out as much as we can about this fighter before we engage him.”
He turned to Inanna. “You have the deepest human cover, Angel, you would arouse the least suspicion.”
Angel.
Inanna’s moniker within the Chosen. The full title was more to the point: Angel of Death. It was her responsibility and her chosen cross to bear.
To her Commander she said, “I’m on it. Ryu, let’s download all the details.”
*** *** *** ***
Leaning over the railings of the esplanade in Battery Park City, lower Manhattan, Gabriel watched the last of Olivia’s ashes flutter with the icy night breeze into the Hudson River below.
She’d wanted to be set free.
Sometimes in her dreams or nightmares, he could not tell, she would murmur and plead: “I want to be free.”
Free from what, Gabriel never figured out.
Until now.
He’d often blamed himself for not being enough for her. She’d often shown her resentment toward him for taking care of her. He’d feared that she’d wanted to be free of him, free of the marriage, free to do whatever she pleased with whoever she wanted. And so he’d turned a blind eye, giving her all the freedom and space she needed. But still, it was not enough.
She’d wanted to be free of life.
Gabriel used to think she did the things she did to purposely hurt him, but now he realized she was merely hurting herself, hating herself. It went beyond depression; she was truly hopeless.
Lost.
A time bomb waiting to detonate.
Looking back with twenty-twenty hindsight, Gabriel admitted to himself that perhaps he’d always known the source of Olivia’s struggles. Known that he couldn’t save her. No one could. But he was a stubborn fool. Likely masochistic as well. He couldn’t countenance giving up.
It wasn’t in him to bow in defeat.
The monks on Song Mountain had taught him that all life was precious, every life worth fighting for, worth saving. If you were born a king, a peasant, an ant, a tree, it didn’t matter. It was all part of your journey, and there were valuable lessons to be learned along the way. Seeking death before the designated time was a coward’s way out.
At least Olivia’s soul would not be burdened by that mistake, Gabriel thought with some consolation. She had fought the good fight in the end, taking the grueling cancer treatments in stride. Perhaps her smile at the last was because of that—she hadn’t given up.
And maybe, just maybe, Gabriel had given her some of the strength to conquer her demons.
“I thought I’d find you here.”
Gabriel straightened from the railing and pivoted abruptly to face the owner of that haunting, familiar voice.
Nana Chastain. Olivia’s Angel.
The shock of seeing her not two feet away, right now, this moment, knocked the very breath from his body. He could only stare wordlessly at the woman who was both terrifying stranger and soul-deep intimate.
The familiarity her words implied completely escaped him.
She turned half away from him toward the river, gazing out into the dark night and choppy waves.
“I should have come forth sooner,” she said, “I apologize for the abruptness of my appearance. You must have been…taken aback by the terms of Olivia’s will.”
When he made no response, Inanna turned to face him fully and could barely keep her response in check as his body heat and subtle, clean scent, even from two feet away, pulled her toward him like the most powerful magnet.
Still he did not speak. His dark eyes speared into her with such intensity she had to fight herself to not step back.
Inanna wondered what he saw. How much he was able to discern just by looking at her.
Could he see what she was beneath the polished façade? Could he glean the predator and warrior within? Was he in tune to her barely contained desires for him? How her body temperature rose just by being in his presence?
Whatever he saw, he could not make sense of, for he asked in his low, husky voice, “Who are you?”
What Gabriel really wanted to ask was: Who are you really? Why do I feel this way around you? I barely know you and yet I feel naked, vulnerable and lost before you. What power do you have over me? Over my family?
Inanna responded to the face value of his words.
“I am Nana Chastain. I have been Olivia’s friend for many years, and it’s remiss of me not to have introduced myself to you sooner. I apologize for that.”
Every word she uttered was like a brick she laid on a fortress wall between them, shielding him from the real woman on the other side.
“I own a conglomerate that dabbles mostly in foreign real estate,” she continued, and Gabriel felt that the more she told him, the less he knew about her. “Perhaps you have heard of it—Chastain Development & Company International.”
Yes, he’d heard of it. It was the parent company of the prestigious architectural firm he used to work at, the one Olivia had recommended him to look into, saying she had a friend on the inside who could put in a good word for him.
Just how much was this woman involved in his life? In his family?
Gabriel remained silent, his thoughts a frenzy of dots swirling to be connected, his emotions a jumble of fleeting memories and feelings he tried desperately to piece back together.
Thinking back, he realized Olivia had mentioned Nana Chastain more frequently than he first recalled. Perhaps all the times she’d said she was going to stay with a friend for the night, it was actually Nana she meant, not another lover as Gabriel had assumed.
“I suppose Olivia told you of the arrangement,” she went on, when he did nothing to fill the pregnant pause. “It is primarily a matter of legality. I am open to discuss however you wish to collaborate on Benji’s upbringing. Please don’t worry that I will forcibly inject myself betwe
en you and your son.”
Her words were meant to be reassuring, Gabriel comprehended, but instinctively he knew that his life would never be the same again.
“That is the extent of your arrangement?” Gabriel knew she was hiding something. In his gut he knew there was more she wasn’t telling him.
Her long, dark lashes fluttered down briefly, shielding piercing blue orbs from view. When she revealed her eyes to him again, they glinted with unfathomable emotions. “The rest of the arrangement is you.”
Gabriel’s heartbeat picked up pace.
“Olivia gave me Benji… and you, Gabriel.”
*** *** *** ***
Jade Cicada gently glided her fingertips along the sheer silk drapes that served as the only barrier between her bed-chamber and the luxurious hot pool that was her private sanctuary at the end of each night, before she succumbed to the first rays of dawn.
No one, not her harem of young, gorgeous, succulent vampires and venom-drugged humans, nor her devoted Sentries, ever entered this private bath hall except to clean and prepare it for her use.
Until recently.
Through the translucent multi-colored curtain, the shades of the sky as dusk approached, Jade imagined, she could see distinctly the enticing dark masculine shape of her Blood-Slave, lounging seemingly relaxed against the edge of the pool. His chest and abdomen rose above the waterline, the smooth olive skin shadowed with the hills and valleys of his leanly defined muscles. Below the waterline, she could only make out shadows.
Mysterious, tantalizing, provocative shadows.
She deftly parted the silk as she approached him.
He turned the strong column of his neck gracefully toward her, acknowledging her presence, even though he did not raise his eyes to meet hers.
Undoubtedly he’d known she was there behind the curtains watching him, taking his measure with hungry eyes and aching fangs. But he never betrayed any nervousness or unease. Except for the first time they met, Jade had never seen the Pure Ones’ Consul so much as startle.
He was calm and tranquility personified. Dignity and equanimity in the flesh.
How she craved to unbalance him.
“Any progress?” she asked as she stepped closer to the pool, as if they were continuing a steady stream of conversation.
He did not bother to clarify. Reading her thoughts unerringly, he answered in the same nonchalant tone to match hers, “A sub-group of the Dozen is on their way here. They will make contact with Maximus tomorrow, I expect.”
She effortlessly peeled away her long black, semi-translucent sheath and waded naked into the heated pool from the side directly opposite him.
“Hmm. Leaving the Shield dangerously unprotected, don’t you think?” she mused with a sardonic smile. “Dark Goddess forbid your enemies learn of this weakness.”
He finally raised his eyes to hers, and there was an infinitesimal moment of distraction betrayed by an involuntary flutter of his lashes when he realized how close to him she was, mere inches away now.
But his voice remained smooth and firm as he said, “The base is secure. The need for our attention is much greater here.”
“Indeed?” she murmured silkily, her startling dark blue eyes becoming hooded with arousal as she closed the last distance between them until her peaked breasts lightly touched his muscled chest, and her lower body languidly enfolded his, her long legs wrapping gently around his hips.
“I certainly need your undivided attention, Pure One.”
Helplessly, a slight shudder racked his torso as her skin molded to his, the water only magnifying the erotic friction.
Per their agreement, however, she did not take him inside her body, though he could not have been more ready for her to do so, his staff pulsing with need. Instead, she opened her core against his swollen cock beneath the water and lapped against the root of him in small, undulating circles, driving him to the brink of sanity.
Clenching his jaw, he forced himself not to react outwardly to her teasing onslaught. Unfortunately, his raging erection he could do nothing about.
So much for his well-earned moniker, “the Monk.”
Since he first laid eyes on Jade Cicada, Seth’s body had no longer been his own.
“Surely you’ve had enough attention for one day,” he responded in a low, steady voice, no inflection whatsoever to betray the spike of pain within his chest as he thought of the harem she’d dismissed a mere half hour ago.
It was the same every night before she took to her bed before dawn. Half a dozen well-oiled, deliciously-scented nude males would parade into her bed-chamber, where they entertained her sometimes for hours with their sculpted, lithe young bodies and fed her their hot, sweet blood.
And she made him watch her take her satisfaction every time.
It was their bargain: his punishment for withholding sexual intercourse, though she’d never spelled it out as such.
It was understood that a Blood-Slave gave both blood and body to his/her master. In Seth’s case, he’d negotiated a compromise that only surrendered his blood. She could try to seduce him, and surprisingly she hadn’t made much of an effort in the past few months.
That her glorious, naked body was currently wound around him like a second layer of skin was mere child’s play where the Queen of the Vampires was concerned. He knew from witnessing her orgies that she could do far worse. But try as she might, she could never take him without his consent. That was their bargain.
Seth cursed his own arrogance. He’d sorely overestimated his self-control and completely underestimated the vampire Queen’s powers of persuasion.
“Mmm,” she purred as she nuzzled his throat, breathing in his subtly musky scent, mixed with the refreshing fragrance of the bath. “Not enough of the attention I desire most,” she said as she kissed a wet path along his jaw.
He could feel her smile though he could not see it. He knew it was a full, teasing tilt of her lips.
This was all a game to her.
That he burned feverishly with unfulfilled arousal and deep, dark need—it only amused her more.
Without warning, she undulated her hips slightly and her nether lips closed around the head of his penis in a luxurious kiss before settling back against the root of him.
Seth gritted his teeth to prevent a hiss from escaping as his scrotum tightened painfully and his cock jerked and shuddered. Though his arms ached to wrap her in their steely embrace, he resolutely kept his limbs relaxed against the wall of the bath. Beneath the water, however, his fists tightened until his knuckles turned white.
Against his throat, he felt her smile spread wider.
“Just say the word, Pure One,” she taunted him with her rich, womanly voice, “you’d enjoy our Contract so much more if you just let yourself go.”
“Dying an excruciating death over the course of thirty days is not what I call enjoyable,” he replied in an even tone.
Her soft laughter rumbled from the tips of her toes to the top of her head, finally to flutter out between her rosy lips like tinkling dragon flies’ wings. Seth could not help but appreciate her ability to laugh with her entire body. It was as if her whole being vibrated with good humor.
It also did not escape his notice that he was the object of her amusement.
“Come now,” she said when the laughter subsided like effervescent champagne bubbles, “surely you don’t pretend that I’m ignorant of the real meaning behind the Cardinal Rule.” She lifted her head and faced him directly, her arms wrapped loosely around his neck.
A small smile still in place, she lowered her lids and looked at him coyly from beneath her lashes.
“You do not waste away in thirty days unless you give yourself in love to your partner, body, blood and soul. Mere sexual congress for the fun of it means nothing. You could fuck me all day and all night anywhere, any way, and you’d be immune to the fearsome Decline.” She paused for effect as her careless words made him shiver hot and cold.
“Unless,
of course, you have feelings for me.” Her smile was spreading again as she licked from the base of his throat to the tip of his chin. “Surely, you, of all males, would not make that mistake.”
Seth had no response, no ready quip to banter back. Words eluded him in this moment of truth. Whatever it was between them, it was not a game to Seth. And though he struggled not to feel, his emotions grew stronger and more complex with each passing day.
To block out further conversation, dangerous conversation, he tilted the pulsing vein in his throat against her lips. His hands reached for her hips beneath the water and he brought her core tightly against his, grinding his cock in a voluptuous twist from root to tip through her swollen nether lips, hitting her clitoris in one long, mind-numbing glide.
She moaned deeply and clutched his shoulders, her nails digging into his skin. Almost immediately her elongated fangs sank into his vein, and she took a deep, drugging pull.
And then, finally, there were no more words.
“She who loves a Dark Mate shall be rewarded with peace, passion and prosperity. She who covets a Pure One shall be delivered pain, destruction, and death. She who desires a human shall be forced to witness the wrath and endless despair of mortality.”
—Excerpt from the Dark Laws, verse sixteen of the Ecliptic Scrolls
Chapter Five
Sophia spun on her heels a full three-sixty degrees in the middle of Times Square, right outside the subway exit on Forty-Second Street.
Every time she came to the Big Apple she was awed and thrilled anew by the towering skyscrapers, bustling streets and cacophony of sounds. She would never live in New York City, it was too intimidating, too loud, too in-your-face. Too overwhelming.
But she loved to visit.
This time, she was here for a whole month, using a special exchange program between Harvard and Columbia University as cover. She even got to stay on campus. Well, in a five-million dollar four-bedroom apartment in Morningside Heights reserved for dignitaries, tycoons and movie stars.
But still, she was on campus!