by Tessa Dawn
“Of course,” Ian said.
“Do you torture, rape, or maim, just for the pleasure it gives you?”
This time, Ian snickered. “Do you have a point?”
Despite the psychic nature of the connection, Ian heard Achilles hock up a glob of phlegm and apparently spit it out on the floor. “Yeah, I’ve got a point.”
“And that would be…what?”
“You are not a lone wolf, Ian Lacusta. You belong to the Dark Lord, Selucreh. You belong with the house of Jaegar.” Achilles Zahora marshalled the full power of his baritone voice. “Come home.”
Julien Lacusta shot upright in the burgundy chair beside his bed, stunned by the power of the dark energy that had just slammed into him. Panting in response to his racing pulse, he tried to regain his bearings. It was as if a dark, inky sludge was clouding his vision, and it was everywhere around him.
Above him.
Below him.
Within him.
He choked on the sheer malevolence of it, straining to separate fact from fiction, and then he immediately checked on Rebecca: He had given the human female a powerful compulsion to sleep, just moments after she had passed out, and then he had carried her to his bedroom and planted her in his bed, tucking her between the sheets. To his way of thinking, the female had been much too afraid, far too overwhelmed, and way too damned determined to escape to reason with at the time—maybe some sleep would do her some good, hit the reset button or something. Not to mention, Julien had been in no frame of mind to sit her down and explain the Curse; nor had he felt like restraining her, taking over her mind, or clarifying the incident with Shelly and Nachari, expounding upon the chaos she had walked in on while he was high on liquid O.
Truth be told, he had needed a moment to himself.
Now, as he prowled around the room, trying to calm his racing heart, he couldn’t help but wonder if this Blood Moon wasn’t an ill-fated and terrible omen.
If the timing wasn’t beyond horrific.
If the Blood had not cursed him…twice.
Too unsettled to go back to the chair, he made his way to the bed, eased his heavy frame onto the mattress as quietly as he could, and settled atop the covers, careful not to awaken Rebecca. Sinking deep into the soft down pillow, he anchored both arms behind his head and returned his attention to the unsolicited dark energy. Hell’s minions, and may the gods have mercy: It had been centuries since he had felt anything like that.
Yet and still, he would know that darkness anywhere.
That thick, psychic sludge.
That hatred.
That abomination.
And it could only mean one thing—
Ian was still alive.
six
Rebecca Johnston began to stir in the soft, queen-sized bed, around two or three in the morning, slowly opening her drowsy eyes. She had not slept that deeply in months, and her mind was still in a fog. She was just about to reach for her throw, tuck it around her shoulders, and amble to the bathroom, when she froze where she lay.
This was not a soft, queen-sized bed, flanked by a framed panel of ocher fabric squares. It was a huge iron-and-wood platform, probably custom made, situated in the center of a large rustic space, beneath a high-coffered ceiling framed in expensive panes of wood.
She gasped, sitting up abruptly.
There were two dome-shaped, stained-glass windows to her right, each propped open by a horizontal iron arm, an enormous ceiling fan circulating above her, and a thick tuft of carpet running along the wide-planked floor, which served as a narrow runner.
She turned her head to the right—
And screamed.
That man!
He was still there!
The one who knew her name.
The one who had forced her into his house and hurt the other woman. The one who had made the green-eyed guy vanish into thin air…and…and…and obviously placed her in his bed.
She peeked under the covers, instantly relieved to see that she was still wearing her clothes, but heaven help her, what had he done?
He sat up in a smooth, serpentine motion, like the Loch Ness monster rising from the sea, and turned to regard her with those dark moonstone eyes, and she almost came unglued. Snatching the covers and tucking them beneath her chin, she scrambled backward until her spine hit the heavy iron headboard, and then she gave way to her panic. “Get away from me!” she shouted.
He held up both hands, rolled off the bed, and took several languid steps away from Rebecca, backing into a large mission-style dresser, where he gently settled his weight. “This good?” he asked gruffly.
She sucked in air, afraid she might start hyperventilating. He was still wearing the same faded blue jeans and form-fitting, stainless-steel-gray tank he’d had on earlier—that had to be a good sign—and he had washed the blood off his hands and smoothed his mahogany hair. Yet he still looked like death in sensual clothing, a gladiator from another time.
He still looked like the scariest man she had ever seen.
“What are you doing?” she whispered tentatively, too intimidated to meet his eyes. “Why am I still here?” He stretched his shoulders, and the ensuing ripple of waves that cascaded along the muscles of his arms, and then his chest, forced a whimper from Rebecca’s throat.
“You’re here because of the celestial gods.”
Rebecca drew back and cleared her throat. “Excuse me?”
The man—Julien—ran a strong, powerful hand through his gorgeous, tapered hair and sighed. “I’ve thought this through, several different ways, and there’s just no gentle way to lay this out. No matter how I present it, it’s gonna land like a ton of bricks, so to my way of thinking, I should just put it out there, let the shit hit the fan, and then deal with the aftermath later.”
Rebecca gulped.
What was he talking about?
And what was he about to say?
Her stomach twisted into knots as she waited, half expecting to hear him confess that he planned to torture her, bit by bit, kill her slowly, and then bury her body in the woods. Was this guy really that self-aware—was he proud of being a sadist?—and blunt enough to just toss it out there like a leisurely morning chat?
Her teeth began to chatter.
Julien stiffened, but only a bit. “Rebecca Louise, you are not who you think you are, at least not entirely. You were born with a purpose beyond what you know, and so was I. My name is Julien Zechariah Lacusta; I’m a vampire, not a human; and you are my predestined mate. The moon that turned the color of blood last night was no anomaly or accident. It was an omen, a sign, a signal meant to tell me you were here. Look at your wrist.”
She scrunched up her nose in a frown, still reeling from his bizarre, cryptic words, the fact that he knew her first and middle names, and the way he referred to her as his. Yet and still, she turned over her right arm and glanced—
“The other one,” he instructed.
She jumped at the brusque sound of his voice and held up her other wrist. And then she gasped aloud. Why hadn’t she seen that before? Why hadn’t she felt it? Noticed it? Dear lord, it was as blatant as the day was long, as pronounced as a neon red sign: There were strange engravings and shadowy marks etched deep into her skin; raised symbols and mysterious images seamlessly woven into her flesh; and they looked like a familiar constellation, like Hercules in the northern sky.
“That’s right, baby girl, Hercules, clad in a lion’s pelt, my birth constellation. My ruling Blood Moon.”
Rebecca had no idea what he was talking about, but things were really getting weird. There was simply no denying that something unnatural was going on, but this guy? He was truly psychotic. “I don’t understand,” she whispered, her voice as grave as she felt. “I…I…how can this be?”
Julien rocked forward, bracing his palms on the dresser behind him, and unwittingly flexed his arms. “I’m not human, sweetheart. As I said before, I’m a vampire, and I was born under a curse. To put it in terms you’d
understand: You are my wife, my mate, the woman who is about to give me a son. Over the next twenty-nine days I will sire two children with you—twins, one dark and one light, one pure and one evil—and I will turn the evil twin over to…this curse…in order to spare my life. All of it is preordained. None of it is optional. And that is why you are here.”
If a person could actually feel a surge of adrenaline, blood rushing to their muscles in the form of liquid heat, then Rebecca’s veins instantly caught on fire, and the flames consumed her reason, singed away her fragile peace. She shot out of bed like a ball from a cannon, sprinted to the nearest window, and began to climb through the painted glass—two-story fall, be damned.
Julien was there in an instant, blocking her escape with a strategically placed arm. “Settle down, iubito. I’m not about to let you go. And I’m certainly not about to let you jump.”
Rebecca struck out at him with an angry, clenched fist, nearly bruising her knuckles against his jaw. “Ouch!” she cried instinctively, and then she began to cry. “Please, just let me go. You don’t understand. I can’t be here. I don’t care about any curse! I just wanna go home.” And then something so primal, so irrational, so impulsive took her over that she could hardly contain her frenzy.
Fight or flight.
She had tried to flee, and it hadn’t worked.
She smacked him across the face with an open palm, as hard as she could. “Screw you, you evil bastard. You’re freaking insane!” She slapped him again, even harder this time. “And I will never, ever, ever let you touch me, so you’ll have to kill me first.” She was literally panting with rage. “Let me go!” Smack. “Back the hell up!” Pop. “I despise weak, broken, pathetic men like you who think they can just take what they want.” She tried to knee him in the groin, but he blocked it. “Block this!” she shouted, and then she spat in his face. The gladiator took a startled step backward, and she came at him even harder, punching him in the throat. “What! What is it? Your mama didn’t love you? Your daddy was a loser? Your uncle liked to play with you in the dark? Go to hell! Do you hear me? Go straight to hell!” She threw back her shoulders and side-stepped past him, hoping to take advantage of the element of surprise. “I’m leaving, and you’re not going to stop me because you are a weak, pathetic little boy.” She made her way past his broad, muscular shoulders, and her heart rate increased as she anxiously eyed the door. If she could just get through the threshold, she could run the rest of the way, while her psychotic, delusional captor continued to reel in confusion, hopefully reduced to his barest, broken form.
It was the only shot she had.
A gamble she had to take.
A deep, feral growl pierced the darkness, reverberating behind her, and her stomach lodged in her throat.
“I am so not cut out for this shit,” her captive snarled. And then his voice dropped an octave deeper, into a savage, bestial purr. “Get on the bed.”
Before she could respond or react, her body launched into the air and flew, of its own accord, halfway across the room, hitting the bed with a whoosh as her limbs spread out atop the mattress.
The male prowled toward the…dresser?…his eyes fixed on a heavy silver tray, where he opened a decanter of alcohol, poured a shot of some unknown spirit into a crystal glass, and then reached for an exquisite, ornate box to remove the black-and-gold lid. He retrieved a dark plastic pouch—it almost looked like a packet of soy sauce, the kind that came with a Chinese meal—and tore it open with his teeth. He dumped the contents into the glass and consumed it in a single gulp, and then he spun around to face Rebecca, and his mouth was edged with fangs.
Rebecca screamed like her life was ending, stunned by the impossible visage. It just couldn’t be real…
None of it.
None of this.
Oh Blessed Saint Michael, what was he going to do next?
He pulled his tank over his shoulders and tossed it on the floor, taking a giant step toward the bed, his head lolling forward in ecstasy. “I don’t care that you struck me,” he growled. “And I don’t care that you made a valiant effort to get away—kudos to you, Rebecca Johnston, at least you have some heart. But my mother? And my father?” He popped his neck several times, and the sound amplified throughout the room like bullets leaving the chamber of a gun. “That’s just…off limits.” He opened the fly of his jeans with one swift rotation of his wrist and ran his tongue along those fangs. “Truth is: I don’t want this shit any more than you do, but it is what it is. Now lie back, and we shall see what you will and will not do, what you will and will not want.”
Much to her utter shock and horror, Rebecca’s body obeyed, even as her mind protested, grievously. “Wait,” she cried helplessly, holding up both hands. “Please…wait…I’m sorry.”
“Sh,” he intoned, and just like before, her voice was trapped in her throat, no longer able to work. “Don’t worry, baby, you’re going to desire every moment of this.” He waved his hand through the air, and a rush of erotic desire, so powerful that it shook her to the core, slammed into her body, tingled in her toes, and nestled in her womb.
She jackknifed off the bed, arching her back in need.
What the hell was happening?
Her body was virtually on fire, and she could hardly reason or think.
She wanted.
She needed.
She craved.
Him!
Like he was her last dying breath, and no one—and nothing—would satisfy the ache, the pain, the indescribable hunger, but his body, filling hers.
Rebecca gasped and moaned from the all-consuming sensation, reaching out to stroke his thigh, praying for anything he would give her, if only just a tease. When he didn’t come to her fast enough, she panted to contain her arousal, like a woman in the throes of labor, trying to regulate her pain, just for another minute.
Just for another second.
This was crazy.
Unthinkable.
Beyond anything Rebecca had ever known or felt.
She needed him…
Now.
Twisting to remove her blouse, and then shimmying out of her jeans, Rebecca stretched an arched foot toward his hard-cut abs and tried to reach his arousal with her toes. He growled deep in his throat, and she felt instantly encouraged. “Please,” she whimpered, barely recognizing her own sultry voice. “Oh, please, Julien…please.”
He descended like the darkness on a moonless night, blanketing her body with his own, and her stomach clenched in violent anticipation. “Tell me what you need, baby,” he drawled, and her breath caught in her throat.
“You, I need you,” she moaned.
“Indeed, you do,” he rasped, and there was a faint hint of something unnamable in his voice—sarcasm, conquest, male satisfaction? He slid his glorious, powerful hands down the small of her waist, over her quivering hips, and hooked his thumbs inside the band of her lace bikinis.
And then he rocked forward, bit her in the throat, and began to drink her blood.
Nothing else mattered.
Nothing…
At all.
Rebecca had tumbled into an endless vortex of ecstasy, and she was luxuriating in the fall.
Julien Lacusta descended into the welcoming, velvet arms of the dragon—alcohol, blood, and liquid H—letting the heroin take him over completely.
Rebecca would never understand, nor would she ever forgive him.
But how could he explain?
And what other option did he have?
The last thing he wanted to do—the last thing he would ever want to do—is hurt his destiny, take away her reason, or remove her control, make her come to him through compulsion. But it was a helluva lot better than violence, harming her in any physical way, and she had pushed him so very close to that edge: He had almost lost his center of gravity, his hold on reality, if only for a moment, a split-second in time, when she had come at him with such rage and determination…
Her fist, her open hand, even spit
ting in his face; none of it had fazed him. She couldn’t harm a flea. But her words, those hate-filled actions, that unfiltered rage; that had been eerily familiar, too reminiscent of his past. Rebecca Johnston had catapulted Julien into another place and time.
Harietta Lacusta sat down at the small barn-wood table and pressed her back against the coarse stone wall, staring at her beloved child, Ian. He had just turned ten years old that morning. “Obviously, you can’t have a birthday cake, Ian,” she teased, nervously brushing her hands along the folds of her skirt, “but I think you will really like what I brought you. I fed from a very pretty young lass last night.” Despite her fervent attempt at gaiety, the mirth never reached her eyes. She held out her wrist, and Julien cringed, knowing exactly what Ian was thinking.
Ian hated feeding from his mother.
He hated it with a passion.
It was emasculating at best.
Yet Harietta was always so oblivious to Ian’s burgeoning darkness, the hatred that consumed his blackened heart. “Come on, Ian; just try it. It’s your birthday, after all. And I even have a gift for you…after you feed.”
Julien sat up straighter on the rough, wooden bench, staring out the narrow twelve-inch window at the back of the shanty—he did not want to watch the scene play out. It was always the same: Ian came this close to losing his control, and their mother pretended not to notice, like she could somehow will him into being something other than what he was.
An aberrant scourge of nature, just waiting to implode.
Ian sat back and smiled, and even from the corner of his eye, Julien knew there was something wrong, something malicious and distinctly sinister in that false, wry smirk. At complete odds with his smile, the child rose from his seat, towered over Harietta, and slapped her so hard the echo ricocheted off the earthen walls. “To hell with you, you evil, maniacal wench. You’re utterly insane!” He struck her at least nine or ten times, in lightning-quick succession, before Julien could move or intervene. “Go to hell! Do you hear me? Go straight to hell! I’m leaving this lords-forsaken hovel, and you’re not going to stop me because you are a weak, pathetic little worm.”