by Aja James
He’d always been a tightly controlled person. Simple. Sober. Temperate. Now he was the direct opposite of those adjectives.
His life was anything but simple right now. The complexity of his new reality was mind-boggling. His mind had never been muddier, as if he was spiraling endlessly into a yawning unknown. Hardcore drugs probably had this effect on addicts. Maybe he should have tried some in his human life so he could better deal with the dizzying effects now.
And never mind temperate. He’d never felt such extremes of emotion all at once, all mixed together, tearing him apart from the inside out. Hate. Desire. Bitterness. Hope. Anguish. Elation. Fury. And that persistent dark humor that made him want to throw his head back and laugh until his stomach cramped and his lungs could no longer draw air.
After all, he’d cheated death. Wasn’t that worth celebrating? And all he had to do was…
Actually, he wasn’t quite sure what he had to do to remain among the living. Maybe Nana Chastain had been about to cover that part before he attacked her mouth in a frenzy of anger and lust.
Off the balcony went temperance again. He could barely recall what the concept meant.
Did vampires drink blood to sustain themselves? Did they kill their victims in the process? Did they have to hide from the sun in crypts and sleep in coffins? Wasn’t that the sort of thing that pervaded popular literature and media about the bloodsuckers?
Would he at some point turn into a bat?
A corner of his lips tipped up as he conjured the image of his furry, be-fanged self, flapping tiny little bat wings furiously in the air.
Gabriel’s stomach chose that moment to clench hard, almost doubling him over in pain.
He’d been parched and starving for hours, but still he had no interest in water or food, the very idea making him nauseous. Did that mean he needed blood? But he hadn’t felt any temptation to attack the few humans that he passed along his rambling walk, nor had he felt anything when he’d put Benji to bed, thank God.
He did feel particularly ravenous when he was near Nana Chastain, but he couldn’t tell if it was nourishment he sought or a long, hard fuck. He’d sure as hell been starving for both.
Ah yes, sex.
Yet another experience he’d never had and never been particularly obsessed with. It wasn’t so much denial as simply a familiar cloak of self-discipline that he wore. He’d wanted to be physically intimate with Olivia, but the word fuck had never crossed his mind. Not in relation to any woman.
Until Nana Chastain.
And now he wanted to lose himself in the pleasures and pains of the flesh. He wanted to release over and over and over until he was wrung bone dry and then he’d start all over again.
But not alone. No, he was done with his left and right handshakes. She said they were Blooded Mates. Married, in other words, or the equivalent of.
And they hadn’t even had their wedding night.
He owed her at least a lifetime times infinity of fucking to repay her for saving him so generously and binding them together for eternity.
Gabriel was not proud of his own violent, derisive thoughts. Rage was a new emotion too that he was just now trying out like a new pair of shoes.
“Nice jacket, man,” someone called from a much closer distance than Gabriel realized, lost in inner turmoil as he was.
He looked up to see a lean, mean-looking bastard headed his way, accompanied by a dozen or so of his buddies.
“Bangin’ boots, man,” one of mean-looking bastard’s friends echoed. “Can we borrow those?”
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed, a surge of adrenaline and bloodlust blazing through his body. “Don’t think they’d fit you,” he replied quietly, casually.
The group of misfits had by now surrounded him from all sides, some looking grim, some mocking, all evil.
The assumed leader of the horde stared at him unblinkingly, his eyes glittering like a wan moon reflected in a murky well.
“I think I’ll try ‘em on for size anyway,” he said menacingly, his mouth stretching into a toothy smile. “Right now.”
Some rustling and clanking ensued. The gang members were outing their various equipment of torture, Gabriel saw from the corner of his eye. At least no guns. He was feeling a little too bone weary to dodge bullets tonight.
“Hey,” a guy in the back piped up, “he’s that fighter from the videos.” He pointed to Gabriel like he was a freak sideshow at the circus, all goggling eyes and gaping mouth.
Recognition swept the rest of the group, and a few even stepped back a decent amount of steps out of respect for what they’d seen Gabriel do.
The hothead leader didn’t seem much impressed, if his snide expression was an indication.
“Well, what do you know,” he said in a sing-songy voice, “a celebrity right here on our humble turf. I might have to get your autograph after I take those shoes and that jacket off your hands.”
Gabriel stood relaxed and loose-limbed. “Sure,” he said casually, “where would you like me to carve it in your fetid flesh?”
The leader let out a half-bark, half-snort, as if he couldn’t believe the soon-to-be dead man’s audacity. Reigning fight club champion or not, there was one of him and more than twelve of them. And the idiot was unarmed too by the looks of it. It was going to be fun teaching him a lesson.
The lanky bastard raised his hand and twitched his fingers. The two biggest members of his squad stepped up to face Gabriel, each of them a few inches taller than Gabriel and twice as bulky, one had a club and the other just cracked his knuckles ominously. Both began to close in on him, one from each side.
Of course he had thugs to do his fighting for him, Gabriel thought. Maybe the leader liked to watch. It’s just his luck that Gabriel felt accommodating tonight.
With a feral growl, Gabriel received the first attack, going low as one of the giants charged him. Crouching on one knee, he pumped his left fist into the man’s kidney, his right fist into the man’s balls. Down the first giant went with a shriek several octaves higher than what Gabriel would have expected to be his normal voice.
Staying low, he swept his leg in a swift circle behind the shins of the second giant, taking him down to his knees. Gabriel leapt up in a flash and dropped kicked the guy on the crown of his head, K-O’ing him instantly.
Damn, he felt good!
Gabriel barely registered how many men came at him next, maybe they came all at once. He didn’t give a shit. His stronger, nimbler, harder body was on auto-pilot.
As if apart from himself, he observed the ridiculous ease with which he dispatched his attackers. He didn’t make any effort to avoid their knives and clubs and steel bars because the pain only fueled his inner savage.
Besides, what was the point of avoiding injury when it healed right away like it never was? Kind of like, what’s the point of living when there was no end to life?
Maybe he shouldn’t be taking near-strangers’ words for fact. But he was in a mood to take risks tonight. He wanted to break rules. Straight up shatter them.
It might have been five minutes, probably less, by the time Gabriel incapacitated the last man standing, the cocky leader, with a jab to the throat, an elbow to the diaphragm, finished off by a roundhouse kick to the back of the head.
Oops, missed one.
Gabriel watched as one of the gang backed up from the carnage, turned tail and scrambled up the embankment to the main road.
He wasn’t worth the chase.
As adrenaline slowly ebbed from his system like receding tides, Gabriel realized he was slick with blood, mostly his own. He fell on his ass in a sprawling heap and decided to take a short breather.
Go ahead and heal, he told his battered body.
But his body ignored him, and his life’s blood seeped steadily into the cold, hard ground.
“What is Fate but pearls of choices strung together? What is Destiny but a path we walk on of our own free will? Remember, Dark Ones, that nothing is written in the fabric of
time until you decide where, when and what shall be the first verse.”
—Excerpt from the Lost Chapters of the Ecliptic Scrolls
Chapter Eleven
It’s hard to say what miffed it the most, incompetence or over-confidence. And when the two traits were found together, well, it was almost stirred to annoyance.
On the other hand, setbacks offered interesting surprises, twists and turns in a well-mapped plan. It did love a good surprise, even if the unpredictable rerouting developed into a completely different map with a new destination.
After all, when one had lived untold millennia with untold more to look forward to, surprises were rare indeed and must be cherished for the treasures they were.
Besides, it wasn’t as if it cared about the outcome.
As the old adage went: ’twas the process that mattered most, not the end.
“You say the network has stopped spreading,” the creature in its oft-used vampire guise hissed softly, spearing its prey with serpent-like eyes.
The female vampire’s expression remained placid. “I am looking into it.”
“No doubt. And I understand the accounts have been frozen as well,” the creature leisurely rose from its bed to approach the vampire, whose eyes cautiously tracked its every move.
“A temporary situation.”
“Hmm. I do wonder, my dear,” the creature said as it stood within striking distance of the vampire, “whether our partnership will be just as fleeting.”
The female made no response, wise woman. She simply stood arrested by the creature’s dark, bottomless gaze, like a rodent captivated by a viper.
The creature gently ran one long-fingered hand down the vampire’s cheek. “Haven’t you enjoyed your rewards from me?” it asked in a purring voice, as raw, undiluted sex oozed from its very pores.
“Yes,” came the breathy response, as the female closed her eyes, seemingly in the throes of recent memory.
“If you want to continue being rewarded,” the creature coaxed while gliding the hand ever so lightly over the vampire’s breasts, fluttering its fingertips over her taut nipples, “then you might want to reconsider your strategy.”
Her throaty moan was her only answer.
“At least there is one silver lining in all of this,” it continued, “you might want to check the latest video upload on the network.”
Abruptly, it receded from her body. Without seeming to have moved, it was lounging back on its massive bed.
The vampire opened her eyes and blinked rapidly as if to clear a sex-crazed haze. “Video?” she had the presence of mind to inquire.
“Looks like the human you so admired is alive and well, and demonstrating once again why he’s the most popular fighter in our club.”
This was obviously news to the female, whose brows drew together in serious consideration. What had she been occupying her time with, the creature wondered with a tinge of impatience. Verily, good help was so hard to find.
“I shall deal with it,” the female said, all business now that the sexual fog induced by the creature’s closeness had lifted. Without waiting for its response, she turned heel and stalked out of the windowless chamber.
“See that you do,” the creature said to her parting back, not really caring one way or the other.
It had other priorities to see to.
*** *** *** ***
Something delicious was steadily trickling into Gabriel’s mouth.
The aroma. The taste. If ambrosia could be found on earth, it must be like this.
Gabriel lifted his head slightly to gain better access to the source of the nectar and was rewarded by the application of something silky against his mouth, such that he could take deep draws rather than simply wait and receive.
Involuntarily, his canines punched through his gums, longer and sharper, and he sank them into the soft fruit, finding unerringly a deeper source of the life-giving juice.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was conscious of a hand smoothing the unruly waves of hair from his face, the fingers gently massaging his scalp. There was a voice that might have formed words but all he heard was its rich, womanly timbre, full and voluptuous, almost like a lullaby that eased him into a deep, enchanted slumber…
Third millennium BC. Silver Mountains Colony, hinterlands of the Akkadian Empire.
“Inanna, to me!” Alad shouted above the din of the clashing armies.
After decades of cold war and skirmishes, the vampires had finally launched a full-on assault on the Pure Ones’ stronghold, their target the General and the Elite warriors he had trained to defend their Queen. The Pure Queen herself was in a different citadel some distance away, but attacking her fort directly would not necessarily squash the Rebellion.
And that was the vampires’ ultimate goal: to put things back the way they had been for millennia past.
Queen or not, the Pure Ones followed the General.
He was the reason they believed in freedom, believed that they could actually protect their independence against all odds, against the awesome Akkadian Empire ruled by vampires. Their erstwhile Masters had more power, more soldiers, more food supplies, more weapons—just more. But the Pure Ones had the General, and he was enough.
Inanna’s father knew the ins and outs of the royal Akkadian fortress, could predict their military and political moves with stunning accuracy, and trained Elite warriors to fight with a skill that made twenty-to-one odds in favor of the vampires seem like a draw.
If the vampires captured the General—again—the Pure Ones’ hard-won freedom would die a quick, bloody death and their decades-long Rebellion would be naught but an ink blot on the scrolls of history.
Inanna unleashed her chained whip on two of the enemy soldiers blocking her path to Alad, slashing them across the face with deadly accuracy. She leapt in the air as they crumpled to the ground, used one of their backs on the way down as a springboard and jumped even higher, two feet above the shoulders of the fighters between her and her goal, and kicked a jaw here, whipped a throat there, leaving a tangle of writhing bodies in her wake as she reached her destination.
Once with Alad, she stood back to back against him, rounding on the enemy soldiers that surrounded them. They had fought together for many summers now and knew each other’s moves as well as their own. Together, their deadliness increased tenfold, as if they harnessed energy from each other’s presence.
The more they fought, as long as they were together, the stronger they became.
Inanna’s lips curled in a smile of deadly intent as she engaged the enemy. She was loving this!
She could do this all day.
At one point, Alad reached back and hoisted her over his head by her arms, flipped her so that he had her by the ankles and spun her with dizzying speed in a circle while she cleared a whole circumference of enemy fighters with her short swords.
There were more than fifty soldiers, half of them human, half vampire, that gained the mountain path behind the fortress in a surprise attack, but now the battalion was laid utterly low by two of the General’s finest warriors.
Alad and Inanna took in the small victory with a brief, but intense look. A look that communicated their elation, pride in each other, triumph.
And love. Always love.
Though they dared not tempt fate and their races’ sacred laws by Mating, they had given all of themselves to each other, save for their bodies. Perhaps one day they would find a way to be together completely, but until that day, they would forsake all others. Their hearts, minds and souls were already one.
Just as Alad grasped Inanna’s wrist, intending to pull her into a brief embrace and check for injuries, a burst of color blazed in his peripheral vision from the valley below. She caught it too. And with eyes wide in horror, they began scrambling down the mountainside toward home.
The fort was being bombarded by boulders lit as if from within with unholy fire.
The surrounding villages were also under fire attack,
from boulders, from flaming arrows and spears, and even from afar, Alad and Inanna could hear the screaming, shouting, crying, the falling ramparts, crumbling towers, collapsing bridges. On top of all the chaos and din, they heard the deafening whistle of the fire boulders launching through the air, projected from giant catapults pulled by water buffaloes, toward the objects of their destruction.
As they reached bottom and made in a mad sprint for the fortress, they could see that the base was surrounded on all sides by enemy battalions. Foot soldiers advancing from the West, cavalry charging from the North and East and heavy artillery combined with archers assaulting from the South.
Goddess above, this was a massacre! It was as if the entire Akkadian army had descended upon their fort.
Inanna and Alad both knew that the battle was lost, but they continued their suicidal dash toward the nexus of the fighting because they knew that if the enemies captured or killed Inanna’s father, the war would also be lost.
The odds were ridiculously against them, but they had to try. They had to find the General and protect him at all cost.
They took the least conspicuous path through the tall wheat fields that remained despite a fire that was rapidly scorching a path from the South, the blaze traveling fast with aid from a strong southerly gale.
The vampires were cunning to wipe out their food source in the event of a prolonged siege. But from the looks of the steady bombardment, it would only be a short time before the fort collapsed.
Alad and Inanna met with minimal resistance along the way, knowing their surroundings as they did the back of their hands.
They entered through a hidden sewage tunnel at the base of the fortress, only slightly visible above ground, mostly blocked by weeds and bushes. This tunnel would take them through the underbelly of the fort where the cellars for food and drink were kept, as well as a storage hall for weapons.
There they stopped to grab a few extra throwing knives, daggers, and anything else they could strap easily to their bodies without impeding movement.