I nod, scanning my clothes, and then glance back at him. “A toothbrush?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you so much.”
“I sleep only four hours a day.” He winks at me. “And you are like a sleeping beauty.”
I pass him and go to brush my teeth. A happy Mora glances at me from the mirror. She has pink cheeks and swollen lips. Swollen from Declan’s demanding kisses.
As I walk out, I see him zip up a bag. He’s wearing his jeans and cut.
“The Restless Spades MC?” I raise my hands in a question. “Why such a name?”
“We kind of dig a lot of graves. That’s why.”
“Creepy.”
“Funny sometimes.” He straightens and hangs the bag on his shoulder. “Some of the monsters we hunt are really rich, you know. They have no heirs so we take care of their belongings and their money.”
“I understand.”
They work so they have to be paid to keep working.
“I have money, Zorica. I have a nice house, you know. You’ll have a very comfortable life.”
“That’s very generous of you.”
He waves his hand to me. “Come here.”
I saunter over to him and he tugs me into his arms.
“I know all of this is kind of quick.” He inhales deeply and growls. “Everything will be fine.” He kisses me on the top of my head. “Sometimes people do such crazy things. They meet, and they marry on the same night.”
I nod. Everything is fine.
I love him. He wants to marry me and I haven’t turned into a dark Mora yet. What else would I want in life?
Chapter 5
Declan
I feel like I’m drunk. I’m in a good mood. I have this cute little thing in my arms. I will have a family.
My senses have kind of dulled, and I have this strange flutter in my stomach.
I bend my neck and kiss her lips. Fuck me. I can’t tear my mouth off hers.
I never loved a woman.
Is this love?
Kind of nauseating, but pleasant. Makes you feel nervous as hell. Makes you behave like an emotional teen.
Very rarely do hunters love. We’re warriors designed to kill. But when we love, it’s madness.
Yeah, I’m mad about Zorica.
I’m even madder about her tight little cunt.
She should have told me. If I’d known she was a virgin I’d have been gentler. Or not. I realised that the moment my cock tore through her virginity. I took her innocence, and that makes her absolutely mine. My little Mora. I just claimed her to be mine forever.
The memory of her pussy clamped down on my cock causes my muscles to shiver and my member to grow hard. She is so fucking tight. I can’t wait to go down on her. I can’t wait to claim her every hole.
Joy fills my veins, as yellow as the first sun’s rays slicing the greyness of dawn.
But something cold and unnerving scrapes against the back of my neck.
The glass in the window rings like it’s being stretched. The hairs on my back rise. I push Zorica away and turn towards the window. The glass rings again and shatters. My primal instincts awake. I sense a mortal threat.
A hiss tears through the air. My eyes travel to an arrow that pierces Zorica’s back. Two arrows pierce my chest. All of them are burning.
I sway back, as two hunters from the Order jump into the room through the window. The ropes they’ve used to get inside rustle and whip the carpet. My instincts can sense the motherfuckers’ identity. My eyes recognise the rune symbols on their arms. I throw myself at one of them. Something kicks my calves from behind. I fall to my knees.
I see the other scumbag wind Zorica’s hair around his fist and bang her forehead against the wall. She manages only a groan. An urge to murder seizes me. I see red.
A fist crushes my lower lip and blood gushes from my nose. I fling myself to the side, but two more scumbags jump into the room.
Something strikes on the back of my head. I see blackness in front of my eyes and nausea twists my stomach. Another smack. My vision turns bloody red. I sweep my arms but punch nothing. I smell silver.
My heart turns into ice and crumbles into a million pieces. Hands immobilise me. Too many hands. I realise I’m lying on my side. My head pulsates. My vision is still blurry, but I see the motherfuckers pour liquid silver over her body.
I know she’s dying.
I know she’s suffering.
I know this even though I can’t hear anything.
Then the scraps of conversation drift to my ears like I’m underwater.
“Dead?”
“Dead as fuck.”
“Boris said to make sure she’s dead.”
“Dead. I’m telling you.”
Darkness cuts me off from reality.
My first conscious thought is that I must be dead. But the sharp pain in the back of my skull reassures me that I’m not. Nausea hits me hard, and I retch. A hand tugs my arm up.
“Declan, wake up, man,” a male voice says.
It’s Brad’s voice.
I try to lift my eyelids but they’re too heavy. Too swollen.
“Zorica,” I say, my mouth making no sound, my lips burning.
“Man, you’ll freeze to death here. Come on. We have to go.”
Now, I feel the merciless coldness biting me. My feet are numb. My hands are stiff and painful.
“Zorica,” I say louder.
“The scumbags threw you out of the car. Motherfuckers.” A few curses follow.
“Brad… Zorica…”
“We have to go.”
He helps me sit up, and I finally open my eyes. My surroundings spin out of control, a blur of green and grey colours.
“They didn’t kill me,” I say.
“You’re fucking lucky. They normally decapitate us.”
“Why did they allow me to live?”
“I have no fucking idea.” He puts his arms under mine and tries to lift me up.
I dig my numb heels into the mossy ground as my painful muscles tense up. A burning agony claws at me.
Brad huffs out and braces my chest. That knocks the air out of my lungs. Blackness obscures my eyes. Bile rises to my throat.
I feel Brad haul me. The uneven ground scrapes the side of my body with the sharpness of stones and twigs. Then Brad pushes me into the back seat of a car.
I pass out.
I dream of her. She’s calling out to me—everything is like a distorted nauseating reality tinted with the redness of blood. I want to go to her, but I can’t move.
I wake up as my eyes glance up at the vaulted ceiling. I realise I’m lying on the couch in the clubhouse, supported by pillows. My dad is leaning over me, his expression serious. His eyes are full of concern.
“Five ribs broken,” he says. “Right arm broken. Skull broken.” He nods several times, wrinkling his forehead. “Fingers broken, ankles twisted.” He growls out his pain and fury.
“Your dick is in good shape though, you lucky bastard,” Jax says.
I know he just wants to help, but his humorous words only piss me off.
I pull myself up a bit as pain lances my body and I scan myself. I have a plaster on my right arm and stitches on my chest. My head feels like a swollen ball full of dense liquid and it pulsates with a sharp pain.
“My wife,” I rasp.
Pain crushes my heart and I growl out my rage and desperation. They took my wife from me. They hurt her. Killed her.
I want to get up, but I can’t move—every muscle of my body seems to be bruised and stiff.
“Later,” my dad says in a gentle voice. “Try to rest, Declan.”
I lift my head but dizziness and nausea pin me down. I drift off into oblivion.
My club brothers wake me when an evening meal is ready. My regeneration finally kicks up and I feel much better. I eat my food and go to have a shower. After I have a shot of vodka at our bar with the walls made of grey stone, my granddad calls out for church. T
he boys are as silent as specters while we walk over to the basement. The labyrinth of corridors is as dark as medieval dungeons and smells of damp. Water murmurs in the copper pipes that stretch above my head.
We enter our office and spread around the oak table as the chairs scrape against the stone floor. The artificial light from two strips blinds me for an instant.
“The scumbags are up to something, Prez,” Brad says.
“Did I ask you any questions?” Prez growls.
Brad raises his hands in a warding gesture. “Sorry, Prez.”
My granddad looks at me as his grey eyes gleam. “You found a Mora, right?”
“Zorica,” I start.
“Answer the question,” my granddad says.
“Yes, I found a Mora vampire, Prez,” I say.
“You fucked her?” My granddad threads his fingers through his shoulder-length silver hair.
“What?” I explode.
My granddad looks mortally serious. “Answer my question.”
Why the fuck does he need to know this? Zorica is dead and it’s not club business. “I did, Prez.”
He nods at me as one corner of his lips crooks up. “You love her?”
“That’s not club business.” I clench my jaw as rage surges through me.
My president growls with irritation. “Answer me.”
The fingers of my good hand roll into a fist. “I love her. Yeah, I do love my little Mora. I will always love her.” My last words come out on a raspy murmur.
Yes, I’m as dead as she is. A thought crosses my mind. I don’t want to live this living death. I’m gonna kill as many hunters from the Order as possible and then I’m gonna end my pointless existence.
“Good,” my president says.
What’s so fucking good about my loss?
My president continues, “I was a scribe while serving in the Order. I had access to knowledge.” He grins at me. “You live—she lives. She dies—you die. That’s how it works between Moras and hunters. There’s a reason why the Order forbade the hunters to love them. It’s against the balance in the world. We live long but we’re not immortal. Moras are. She’s alive, Declan, and we have to find her.”
I rise to my feet as my chair falls over. “I need to find my wife.” My knees bend, my mind spins out of control, and I pass out.
***
Four years later.
Brad, Jax and I lean over the scumbag and immobilise him. His face is one bloody mash. He’s going to pay as had done the four hunters before him. I sprinkle his head with gun powder and light up his hair with my lighter. The boys and I move away as his skull seizes with fire and tiny explosions make a sieve out of his scalp. He cries out like an old woman, screams and then falls down and convulses. He’s still alive. Brad nods at me. We immobilise him and start chopping his fingers off. Then I grab an axe and chop off his head. It’s done but gives me no relief. I need to kill another scumbag. And then another. Until there’s none left to walk this earth.
I need to kill because I haven’t found my wife yet.
My life is about my routine.
I wake up.
I hunt.
I kill.
I dig a grave.
I get drunk.
I don’t fuck. Women repulse me. Their smiles are disgusting to me. They are not Zorica, and I want only her. Not to mention that my dick hasn’t grown hard since I lost my wife. I don’t give a fuck. I’m a killer, nothing more.
I sweep my eyes over Brad and Jax. Brad looks like a ruthless killer, but Jax has disgust written all over his face. He’s young, only twenty-two in human terms, our youngest asset. Our most human asset. He was born on the outskirts of a Romanian village. The scumbags killed his parents when he was twelve. My dad met him when he turned thirteen and brought him to the clubhouse.
We dispose of the body into a swamp in the woods and return to the clubhouse. Prez asks me to have a chat with him after I have taken a shower.
We go to the garage and stand by his bike.
“You need a break, Declan.”
“I need to find my wife.”
“Go spend some time in your cottage. President’s order.”
I growl with fury, my hands sweeping through the air, but I say nothing. He’s my president and I have to follow his orders.
He pats my shoulder. “Everything’s gonna be fine.”
I nod as he slaps me on the back. “One day maybe.”
“Go.”
I bow my head at him and rush towards my house.
I toss a few sets of clothing into a small bag, jump on my bike and shoot towards France. Brad is riding with me for a day. We have a drink at our favourite bar and part.
I bought the cottage many years ago—my little hide-out to charge my batteries from time to time. To get drunk in solitude. No woman has ever been allowed into the cottage. It’s my sanctuary. I eat, watch TV, and stare at the fire in the fireplace when I stay in there.
I arrive at the village perched on the hill in the late afternoon. As I approach the cottage, my eyes flick over the tiled roof and heavy brown shutters. The white exterior walls need painting. The lawns need trimming. Trash layers the ground in front of the garage.
I park my bike in front of the back door and inhale the air scented with smoke and seaweed.
My wife will love it here. When I find her, we’ll be enjoying ourselves every summer here.
I open the door with two keys and enter the kitchen. The smell of dust settles in my nostrils. I cross the kitchen, my boots thumping against the tiled beige floor. I go through the arched passage and enter the living room. There’re some twigs in the wicker basket beside the stone fireplace so I start a fire. The smell of resins fills the air as the fire gives the rustic interior a warm, yellow aura.
I dust the ground floor for two hours and change the bedding. Brad calls me so we chat for fifteen minutes. He’s interrogating a scumbag, but the motherfucker knows nothing about Zorica.
I ride over to the shop that’s situated twenty miles away from the village. I do my grocery shopping and return to the cottage. I prepare supper, eat it, and go for a walk. My feet carry me up the hill and then towards the medieval church that looms over the area. I walk along the path made of cobblestones and climb the stairs that lead to the double ornate door. As I step into the church, coldness scented with incense envelops me. I drop into the medieval ornate bench. My eyes sweep over the altar. Two life-sized sculptures of angels with swords stand at each flank of it. I found them at one monster’s house. The dick had an auction house and the basement was full of half-alive humans. I killed him and took possession of his treasures. I sold all of them except for the angels. The catholic priest residing here was very grateful for the gift.
I’m not a religious person. Or I never had time to think about it. I know monsters should be eliminated. That’s all my inner hunter should know. That’s all instinct. The instinct Zorica changed the moment she appeared in my life. The urge to kill monsters is ingrained in my genome, but my wife made a human being out of me if only for a moment.
Now, I’m more bloodthirsty than the monsters I kill.
I’m sitting, enveloped by the sacred silence of the church. Her face flashes through my head. I didn’t even ask about her age. I didn’t ask about her hobby. I should have.
I will.
“I’m here, baby,” I say. “I’m waiting for you.”
I drop my head, my arms placed on my thighs and then I inhale deeply. A flutter goes through my chest and something strangles my throat. I kill off my feelings and rise to my feet. I exit the church and wander around the cottage like I’m a brainless zombie.
Two hours later, I go back to the cottage and fall onto my bed. I drop off to sleep and wake up three hours later. I paint the façade of the cottage and clean up the area downstairs. I have a glass of beer and go to the church. The sun is low on the horizon, a majestic red flare against the mauve sky. Birds cross it like black shadows. A few bats fly past me.
<
br /> I enter the church, sit in the bench and freeze. Seconds are hours or hours are seconds. I’m stiff. I’m all pain. I miss her so much. I love her more than anything.
A creaking sound, followed by the sound of delicate footsteps, shakes me out of my numbness. I look over my shoulder and see a kid. She’s walking towards me, a bold smile crossing her tiny face, her tiny hands sweeping through the air. She looks four years old. Her clothes are dirty. Her long brown hair resembles a bird’s nest with autumnal leaves stuck in it.
The little shit clambers onto the bench and sits beside me. She beams at me.
“What?” I growl.
The little shit shudders, widens her eyes and then giggles.
I watch her put her tiny hands neatly on her lap. “Where are your parents?” I bark.
“Here.”
“Really?”
She giggles. “You’re funny.”
“Really? Where’s your mom?”
“Outside the church. She can’t enter any church.”
Uneasiness sits on my chest. The little shit looks four but talks like she’s at least eight.
I emit a growl and lean over her. Anger boils inside of me. Her mother is an irresponsible bitch. I need to have a chat with her. I lift the little shit off the bench, sitting her on my hip, and she wraps her tiny arms around me.
“Love you, Daddy,” she says into my ear. “Love you so much.”
I stiffen. “What did you say?”
She giggles. “You’re funny.”
My eyes meet hers. Chills go down my spine. She has my eyes. Every hunter kin has a unique iris colour—there are never two kins sharing the same iris colour among my species unless one kin dies out and another is born.
I pull her to me. “Where is she?” It comes out in a hoarse broken whisper.
“Outside the church. I told you, Daddy.”
I start running with the little shit swaying in my arms. My heart flutters. I feel my throat tighten. I tumble out of the church and see her. A gust of wind lifts her hair like she’s underwater. Primal, almost animal-like wildness radiates from her. Her eyes flicker with scarlet. A thin, long scar stretches from her temple down to the angle of her jaw.
“Zorica,” I rasp.
“I need my day rest,” Zorica says. “Take care of her.”
Zorica and Declan: Restless Spades MC (A Bad Boy Paranormal Vampire Romance) Page 5