by Nicola Rose
Gasping for breath, I lay utterly still. Waiting.
His own panting eventually evened out.
It felt like we might lay there in silence forever, but then I spoke without meaning to. “When will you come back?”
I was met with a further wall of silence. Heartbreaking, deafening silence.
“Please don’t leave me,” I tried again, hating the desperation in my voice.
“Jess, I didn’t just bind myself to the Legacy, which, by the way, would be enough to keep me away on its own, because I can’t control the hunger now… I also bound myself to the Bael. I can’t be free from Emory’s command unless he releases me.”
“You’ve always been stronger than you think. Even if you have to work for Emory, you could still visit me sometimes, you could at least try—”
“The Bael want me to carry out the sanguine mating with you, and I’m coming around to the idea. It’s actually starting to sound like a fucking great plan. My hunger for you has blown up to such epic levels that if I got a whiff of you… I’d barely blink before dragging you back here.”
“You wouldn’t—”
“Jesus fuck, Jess, get a grip. Your aura is blinding. You’re the light and I’m the dark. We don’t belong together.” His voice was too cold. I pulled the duvet over my naked body, trembling.
“You can’t have one without the other. Of course we belong together. You’re not darkness. You’re shadow, but not the night.”
He snorted.
“Use my light to bring you back, then. For once, would you stop pushing me away and let me help you?” I asked, ashamed of the tears that were leaking out.
“Help me? It’s because of you that this is even happening. If you hadn’t pleaded with me to stay with that coven so you could practice your useless magic, this would never have happened.”
“Seriously? This is on Ruben, not me! He’d have betrayed us no matter where we were.” A surge of rage halted the tears.
“But he couldn’t have got the Bael that close and kept me at bay without the magic of the coven. If we’d done as I wanted and left sooner, then we wouldn’t be here now.”
“A member of your own Cell betrayed you and you’re still finding ways to blame me?”
“You’re the source of all my misery. You have been since day one.”
Ouch. His words were like daggers, slicing their way into my soul.
“A minute ago you said I was yours, that I belong to you, but now… this?”
“Fuck, Jess, I don’t know. I was angry and horny. Now I’m just angry and hungry. I have to go. Be careful. That witch you’re hanging out with will bring you attention. I can’t talk any more about it, it’s too risky, but it won’t be long before Emory finds out.”
“Wait, Zac—”
It was too late, he was gone.
Every time we spoke he chipped off another piece of my heart and soul, and took it away with him.
Rage. Sorrow. Shame.
Having Zac engage in something intimate had felt like hope, like we were fixing things.
Then he left me, cold and alone, and my heart shattered. Again.
The scream that left me, desperate and raw, caused my hands to burn with intense flames. Oh, and the windows shattered. Huge floor to ceiling things that offered an unobstructed panorama of Dallas - obliterated in an explosion of glass.
I curled myself into a pathetic ball, until the hotel staff gave up banging on my door and let themselves in. They had no clue what to make of the carnage. And I had no clue what to tell them.
I ended up pretending to be blind drunk. Staggering around like a fool. The manager threatened to call the police. I burst into tears – mostly fake, a little real – and sobbed into his shoulder. I produced my credit card and told him to take whatever he needed for repairs, and a little extra for his troubles.
Job done. Who needed vampire mind-fuck powers? A few tears, damsel in distress eyes, and a full bank account would work just fine.
21
Alex
I’d been in the middle of fucking some Barbie-like bitch when Jess started fantasizing about me. I heard her sexual thoughts often, but to hear them whilst I was actually having sex – it felt like I was with her, like it was her that I was screwing senseless. I wanted it, and I hated it, and the poor Barbie might never walk again…
It was happening more often. She dreamt about me when she was asleep, and she craved me when she was awake. Gradually, she was losing the will to hold the thoughts back. All the dirty, filthy, sinful shit that she knew was wrong, but still wanted so badly.
I’d give it all to her. She just had to ask for it.
Because I wouldn’t take her – not like the others. She wasn’t like other women. I could be balls deep in her slick pussy before she even got a breath out to say ‘No’, but where would the satisfaction be? She stirred something buried so deep inside me that it made me want to rip my own heart from my chest. It was painful, and thrilling, and scary as shit. And it made me hold back. It made me want to wait.
I’d wait for her.
She would crawl to me.
Whatever it was that caught my breath and spiked my blood with her magic surges – I’d drain it from her. Drink her in. Devour her soul. And she would love it. Beg me for more.
Barbie had made a gargling sound, bringing me back to the moment. I’d looked down to find my hands wrapped so tightly around her throat as I ploughed into her from behind, that her face was blue. I held on a moment longer whilst I climaxed, with Jess’s own thoughts shooting through my skull… licking the scar on my face…
Finally, I released Barbie and watched her dragging air back into her starved lungs. I planned to give her a moment of recovery before starting again. Then I’d let her go. I’d let her walk, as best she could… one of the more irritating side-effects from having Jess in my head. But then Zac had interrupted and suddenly I wasn’t just having sex with Barbie and Jess – he was there too. In her thoughts, and in reality. It was fucking sick shit to have him invade my own head like that.
I drained Barbie in seconds.
It wasn’t enough to quell the rage, which was most unfortunate for the small coven of witches I’d been tracking. They were hunting Sofia, unaware that she was already dead, and having them around put Jess in danger.
They didn’t last longer than a few minutes once I set myself upon them. I was bonded now, more powerful than any of them. They were unprepared for the attack, they couldn’t get any decent defence spells up in time. They tried, of course, and I admit one of them, the leader, gave me some trouble. She managed to break my arm and almost escape.
Almost.
Just as it had seemed like she might overpower me, my own energy had surged. Something shifted, grew, expanded. My blood spiked with additional potency. I’d felt it before, when Jess’s magic had surged in that riptide, and again when she’d incinerated the cop. Which seemed to indicate she’d done something again. And Zac was with her.
I pushed out my mind, connecting with her, finding her, checking she was safe. She’d settled already, and he was gone. That was something at least.
I was still brimming with an anger so deep that my grip on myself slipped. I’d hoped to find Constance with the witches, as an excuse to finish her. She was up to something shifty. Shiftier than all her Morena Legacy crap with Jess. There was something else… but unfortunately she wasn’t there. Her death would have to wait. Which was probably a good thing. With Jess’s growing magic, something was changing inside her. Darkening. Straining for freedom. I could feel it singing through my own blood.
Talking of blood, I drank so much from that coven, I thought I might explode… I’d never binged so dramatically. Bodies piled up, blood flowed, and my anger only burned brighter. Fury that Zachariah was still fucking with her head, clinging on and dragging her down.
“Your insatiable appetite is quite something,” Syn noted.
I was so lost in the haze that I’d forgotten he was even
there. Sinclair ‘Syn’ Beaumont – Leader of the Unaligned. Also known as the deluded fool who thought he was my new boss. A powerful man, not to be underestimated, but soon to be put in his place.
He’d only indulged in a few deaths himself. Out of manners? Etiquette? Testing me? I didn’t know, and I didn’t care. I was stronger than him. I was stronger than all of them. They needed me, not the other way around.
“Stay in touch,” I growled, dropping the final body to the ground. “We strike soon, before the Bael gather more strength.”
22
Jess
Constance hadn’t returned and I was getting worried. What if something had happened to her? Surely not? She was ancient and powerful, she couldn’t have waited centuries only to fall now.
My latest encounter with Zac gave me renewed enthusiasm for cracking on with her plan. How could her proposal be any worse than this? I’d already lost him; I had nothing further to lose in trying to get him back.
Alex huffed from the far corner of the garage, where he was strapping up a new punch bag, having shredded the last one at some point since I last saw him.
When he invited you to join a bloody orgy with your best friend. And some little black voice in your head wanted to say yes.
The bag really was torn to pieces. I kicked at the bits of leather scattered on the ground.
“Something get you extra angry?” I prodded the Devil.
“What do you think?” he barked, uncharacteristically brooding.
“Look, you can’t be pissed that I didn’t partake in your sex-fest—”
“Not that! How about the fantasy you were having about me, before Zachariah called and got you off?”
“Well, you can’t be angry about that, either. I belong to him, not you. Zac getting me off is none of your concern.”
The new bag was up and he smashed it so hard that it immediately split right down the middle. Rubber pellet innards flowed out from within and pooled at his feet. I flinched from the anger simmering in his eyes.
“The Bael want him to wed you, in true sanguine mate style. Traditionally that wedding would culminate in your death, but you’re different, they want you a vampire at the end of it.”
That part was news to me. Why hadn’t Zac said?
“That’s perfect!” I chirped. “I’ll get what I want and so will he.” A flutter of naive hope.
“You don’t understand the level of humiliation and degradation they’ll put you through in the process. The ownership they’ll put on you. We’re not talking about one night of wedding action, we’re talking days, weeks, probably months—” He paused his attack on the bag, but his biceps bulged with tension, hands flexing.
“But I get to be with him, as a vampire, in the end?”
“Can you hear yourself? I know you like being dominated, Jess, but shit me… this is not right. Not for you. For other women, yes, but not you. Besides, he’s not all I am the light now – those rules have gone to shit. Is that the sort of vampire you want to be?”
“Isn’t that the sort you want me to be?” That made his jaw tick.
“This isn’t about me,” he growled.
“Please! Everything you do is about you.”
“Maybe that’s not what I want for you. I can have any woman I want, but they don’t satisfy me. I need someone different, someone to challenge me… to challenge what I think and feel.”
“I’m not yours, I’m his,” I said slowly.
He whacked the split bag and the chain snapped, sending it across the room. Did he have an endless supply of them somewhere?
His shoulders slumped as he spoke quietly, “If he turns you now, you won’t belong to either of us. You’ll belong to the Bael, just like he does.”
“I still can’t understand why you, the selfish vampire, suddenly cares so much about my fate.”
Stupid words. He’d already proved that my misconceptions of him were unfounded. Some of them, at least. Why couldn’t I open my eyes and see him for what stood before me, instead of the version I’d been given by others?
“You don’t think monsters are capable of caring?” he asked. “How else would they stay motivated to get what they want?”
“Greed. Obsession. Hunger. That’s not the same as caring. Caring means that you’d be prepared to sacrifice something for whatever it is you care about.”
He considered that for a while.
“If you can’t see the sacrifices I’ve made these last few weeks, then you’re blind.” All anger had gone from his features, replaced with a sadness. It looked totally alien on his usually smiling face.
“You know what?” he continued. “You think you’re fated to be with Zachariah because you’re a Morena witch? It all makes perfect sense, right? Well, newsflash, I’m his fucking twin. So do we not share that same link? The same pull to be together?”
“I’m not your sanguine mate, though.”
“No? Says who? Maybe I’m just better at handling that shit.”
“You think I am?” My heart stuttered.
He sighed, dragging his fingers through his hair. “No, but that’s not the point. I’m still drawn to you in ways I’ve never felt before. There’s a connection I can’t explain. I just don’t think my brother has the monopoly on special bonds – not this time.”
Our gazes locked in a staring contest, like a game of chicken. Who would look away first? Never him, that was for sure. I held my ground as long as I could, before mumbling that I’d come there to train, not talk about feelings.
He shrugged away the seriousness on his face, but it was too late. I’d seen the real emotion behind his eyes. And it terrified me.
I took my place, guard up, and we began. As usual, he thoroughly whipped my ass, but I was definitely improving. I was quicker and stronger than I had been. And today I was determined to bring something more. I’d been practicing every waking moment. My magic was coming easier. Not as free as I wanted, it still felt cumbersome beneath a blockage in my core, but I was becoming quite adept at retrieving the little resource I had without needing a rage-induced fury to find it.
Alex was on me before I had another second to think, dragging me into a headlock. I grappled at his body, wriggling and jabbing at any part of him I could make contact with. Of course, he was far too strong to concede, but he was fair in his sparring – once he deemed I’d given a good enough rebellion then he would relent.
The moment he did, I went at him with a one-two combo. He weaved out of the way, but I knew which way he’d go, and as he spun I aimed all my magical energy into his abdomen. The blast caught him hard, knocking the wind from him. He faltered, bent over at the waist for a moment, before recovering with a grin.
Shaking his arms out, he readied himself. “I do believe you’re crossing disciplines, darlin’? I thought this was a physical fight?”
“Looked pretty physical to me when you were doubled over without any breath?” I countered.
I kept light on my feet, always angling my body side-on to his, minimising the parts of me he could aim for. He jabbed left and right, hopped forward and back – uppercuts, back fists, every kind of punch there is – hitting out at me with enough speed and force that it made me work, but restrained enough that I could at least attempt to block and return fire.
I tried to release my magic again but missed. He grabbed my wrists and pulled me to a stop, my chest heaving with effort. He hadn’t even broken a sweat.
I wanted to lean into him, to rest my forehead against his, to drink in his power.
Reading my desire, he drew closer, flush to my body, stepping me back until I was against the wall. I let myself breathe into him – his solid, unwavering presence like a wall of hope against my ragged soul.
His hands went to the wall either side of my head, caging me in. Sealing me in his little vacuum, where only darkness and temptation could breathe.
“That silver dagger that you’ve taken to carrying around in your waistband like you’re a hunter,” he murm
ured. “Show me where you’re going to stick it on the next vampire that fucks with you.”
I put my fingers to his heart and he brought a hand down to close tightly around mine, pressing into his chest.
He moved in, his mouth hovering right before mine, stealing what little air I had left in my lungs. I ducked my head, avoiding the kiss, and burying my face into his neck. It was a mistake. The feel of his skin against my mouth had my lips instantly grazing below his ear. Softly, painfully intoxicating. Roaming along the plain between ear and shoulder, desperate to taste more.
“Bite me,” he murmured.
The shock of those words, coming from him, should have had me retreating. I’d bit Zac once before and he freaked out. But instead of pulling away, I tested the water with a cautious nip.
“Harder.”
I went right for the sensitive spot behind his ear, clamping down. Teeth sinking into his skin, raw untamed desire threatening to rip through us. His groan of approval reverberated right to my core. Another moment longer, locked in this heated position, and I’d lose myself.
Summoning what magic I could, I let my blazing fingers drag down his back, setting his shirt alight.
“Motherfucker!” he grunted, quickly yanking it over his head and stomping on the flames. Whilst his head was down, looking at the smouldering garment, I aimed a tornado kick to his face and my foot smashed into his chin. He reeled backwards. I followed through with another kick to the chest and a blast of energy for good measure.
He toppled to the floor and I leapt across, straddling him victoriously, waving my hands over my head, my grin so big it hurt.
He smirked. “Wrong! Motherfucking wrong! You weakened me, that was good. That was your cue to run. Don’t go pushing your luck by riding me like a sassy cowgirl. What exactly do you hope to achieve now?”
“I couldn’t stab you at that close range, breathing down my neck. But now—” I grabbed the knife from its sheath on my waistband and raised it over my head.