by K. A. M'Lady
“Don’t even think about it, Snaggle-tooth.”
Kieran barked out a laugh, startling both me and the odd little creature that was finishing her meal, sucking blood from her fingers with relish.
“Mercy. Enough. We’ve a guest,” he added politely.
I watched as the strange little monster thingy turned towards us, visibly reemerging as the beautiful woman she was when we originally got off the elevator. I couldn’t help thinking I definitely wanted off this ride. Come to think of it, a refund wouldn’t be a bad idea, either.
Couldn’t I just go home and sleep in my own bed? I whined to myself. I had better be getting paid well for this job because so help me, if I wasn’t… Well, let’s just say the Court and I were going to be doing some serious renegotiating of my fees.
“Rihker Tennai, this is Mercy. My first in command.” Kieran did the formal introductions. Only Mercy didn’t feel it was civil or necessary to offer me her hand. Good. As if I’d want to touch her after that little display.
“So the Court sends us Lady Justice herself,” she stated, her brogue thick enough to surf on. “And what is it they hope you are to do for us, eh?” She stood in the middle of the hall, looking both small and menacing. Don’t ask me how.
“Look, lady, I don’t make the rules for the Silent Court. I just follow them.”
“Like a good bitch.”
I was starting to get pissed. Cocky little Goblin Vamp. How I knew what she was I had no idea, but standing a foot away from her with her scent permeating the air, I could feel it in my flesh.
“And what does the Court think a half-breed like you can do to protect my laird?” she quipped.
“Oh, I don’t know. What does a half-breed like you do for your master?” I flung back at her. She narrowed her eyes and cocked her head at me. Her gaze wandered, looking me up and down. She all but sniffed the air like a dog getting my scent. When she apparently had what she was searching for, she replied, “You will do for now, but make no mistake, Rihker Tennai Of the Ivy Tenna-ai, if you fail my master in any way, you’ll not survive my wrath. For there will be no mercy.”
“And while we’re making threats, know this, bitch,” I said as I crossed the distance between us. I was not in the mood to be threatened by some Goblin Vamp half-breed who would apparently kill me and ask questions later. If we were laying it on the line, it might as well be thick. “Get in my way, or keep me from doing my job in any way, and there will be no Mercy, period. You fuck with me, be prepared to take it in the ass.”
I turned to walk away. Dawn was fifteen minutes away. I could feel it. It warred within me. My Pixie blood relished the sun, but my father’s moon magic fought against it. I was two steps away from her when I felt her claws pierce my forearm as she raked them down the length of my arm.
Without thought or a moment’s hesitation, I flung her against the opposite side of the room, a glowing ball of silver fire warm in my palm.
Kieran was across the hall and hunched down beside her when next I blinked. Making sure she was alive, no doubt. Lucky for her she was only scorched across the midsection a bit. More’s the pity.
They both looked at me from across the expanse of the great hall, wonder, awe and something indescribable gleaming in the darkness of their eyes.
I stood there filled with rage, blood dripping from my arm and a glowing silver orb filled with light and power resting in the palm of my outstretched hand. As I willed it away, it blinked out like someone pulled the plug on its power supply.
I was unsure what the look in Kieran and Mercy’s eyes meant. But whatever it was, I was sure my future was bleak. Seemed to be my current theme.
Aroused like some vile hydra of the past
When an angel proffered pure words to mankind
From The Tomb of Edgar Poe, Stephane Mallarmé
Translated from the French by Richard Wilbur
Chapter Six
The glen was filled with a subtle glint of moonlight as it peeked through the thick bough of trees overhanging the banks of the dark loch. I felt like a shadow amongst the fauna, watching as if I were the night owl hovering from the limb of an elm. Below me stood a man dressed for battle, knee deep in the shallows of the loch’s dark waters. In his arms, a woman--his ladylove. And death, her soul’s dark stain.
His voice was raised to the heavens; misery wafting through the night as the wind and sadness carried his pain-filled song. It was a cry the angels could hear as he lamented her passing. With each verse of tragedy, the wind seemed to pause as the night gathered the dead in the darkness of its arms.
He was covered in the blood of battle. Along the bank, gray folds of bodies were strewn in various stages of massacre and death. The blood of corpses was flowing into the shallow banks of the shoreline as the rotted stench of bloated flesh clung thickly to the air. Darkness clung to the world of man as the shadows collected the souls.
But the man, beautiful in his tragedy, wept in a language I did not know. He held the woman to his heart as his long black hair clung to the swatches of congealing blood that covered them both. His pain was palpable; his discourse flowing on the currents of the wind, filling the night with sadness.
From my place amongst the trees, I alone was the silent witness to this nightmare, a lone watcher in the boughs of the dark elm that covered me in the leaves of this vision.
On the opposite side of the loch stood a woman. She was alone in the darkness, a solitary enchantress in the arms of the night. Yet the aura of her power felt as though it could consume all of the light from the world, leaving man to walk in eternal darkness, forever alone.
She was breathtaking, with her long white hair and her flowing white gown. It clung to her svelte form as the wind blew the gauzy material around her luscious curves.
She watched the man from the embankment, calling to him from across the still water of a blood-red loch. Her melodious voice flowed softly on the currents of the sorrow-filled breezes finally coming to rest in all the hollow places of his soul.
I could feel his pain dissipating, rising like the mist on a field. I could feel his anger leaving him in slow, progressive waves. He released the woman, setting her adrift, the depths consuming her body in the chilled black waters of the darkness below. As the strangely melodious voice from across the waters called to him, he was carried above its dark waters like a walking Prophet.
With panic rising in my breast, I danced from one foot to the other, wanting to yell out, to somehow stop the man from crossing the loch. I knew that the only thing that awaited him was death, a certain horrifying death, but I could not speak, for I had no voice. I was a watcher to this vision, nothing more.
As he reached the bank on the opposite shore and his feet touched the soft sands of the shoreline, the creature in white looked out across the loch and up to the tree I resided in.
And smiled at me victoriously.
I sat up in the bed, covers clenched to my chest, my body trembling. Kieran sat in a chair beside the bed, staring at me. Watching me sleep.
“You sleep fitfully,” he stated softly, his voice thick, like whiskey. He was a wet dream kicked back in an armchair, awaiting my arrival, clothed only in black silk pajama pants and matching shirt. The shirt was thrown over his large shoulders; the front completely unbuttoned.
I could see every crease of his belly, every dark whorl of hair on his chest. I blinked several times at his chest before I finally realized I was staring at it and brought my eyes to his.
He was smiling at me rather smugly, which was fast becoming an annoying trait.
“Don’t you have to go find breakfast or something?” I asked, tartly irritated that he’d caught me drooling at him yet again. The worst part of it was that I was in his bed, in the middle of his chic bedroom, in some crypt hundreds of miles below the surface.
Kieran was on the bed, on top of me and had me pinned back to the bed before I’d even seen him move. He was sitting across my legs, and the covers somehow had manage
d to slip down past the edge of my undies. All that separated us was my tank top, the underwear that I’d slept in and a wicked thought.
He had my wrists in one hand and was pulling them up over my head before I realized what he was doing. “Get off me, Kieran,” I said, my voice thick with annoyance…and just a hint of desire. I’d be lying if I said he wasn’t sexy as hell. But I did not invite him into this bed. And his bed or not, we were so not doing this.
“It is only a little a taste I am seeking, lass,” he said as he brushed the fingers of his free hand along the line of my throat, down my collarbone, the curve of my breast and across my abdomen. I shivered from his touch.
Kieran’s eyes had become glowing amethyst pools as he leaned towards me. I could feel his hardness against my belly as he breathed along my jaw line. “‘Tis just one small taste,” he whispered, a small plea laced with need.
My body was clenched with want. I could feel desire pooling low inside me, and my nipples growing taut. He brushed his palm up the underside of my breast and found one tight peak. He squeezed it between his finger and thumb, setting every nerve on fire.
Before my body could betray me any more, I forced myself to tell him, “Kieran, stop it. Get off me right now.” My breath was becoming thicker: my body yearning.
“Do you really want me to stop?” he asked as he glided the silkiness of himself against me, further down my body. My breath hitched, and I swore I would come right then as he pressed himself against me.
The door to the room opened and closed, softly. I could vaguely hear voices through the fog of lust that was swarming me. Then a body was standing beside the bed. I turned my head slightly to the left, afraid to take my eyes off the Vamp on top of me, but afraid not to know who the newest arrival to this little tête-à-tête` was.
Dark honey-warmed skin met my view; thick, muscled legs with the appropriate amounts of manly hair; long in stature, and chiseled in proportion. They were nice legs. What the hell were they doing here?
“My Laird, you called for me?” the voice accompanying those legs was rich as the earth. Soft, like the wind through the glen at the Hill of the Clans.
Kieran stretched out the hand he had been fondling me with and the man sat on the bed, his back to me. The bed bowed, bringing Kieran’s body in closer to mine for a snugger fit. I swear, my whole body zinged with delight.
Lying back in Kieran’s outstretched arm, the new arrival turned his head to face me. I was effectively pinned beneath the weight of Kieran who was sitting on me, the shaft of his desire riding against me, and a half-naked, quite good-looking blond man lying back against my chest.
I laid there, chest hammering, mouth dry, arms still held above me by Kieran’s left hand and watched as Kieran leaned over his apparent breakfast. He leaned in and looked at me with those amazing purple-hued eyes; hunger reflecting back at me. His guest tipped his head back, and Kieran sank his teeth into his neck.
The rush of Kieran’s hunger poured through him and into me. He ground himself against me as he pressed his palm to the man’s chest. The full weight of the man’s body was now lying heavily against me. I watched as Kieran ran his fingers up the man’s bare chest and along his nipple. Our guest could only groan in ecstasy.
All the while Kieran watched me watching him, the rush of hunger and lust riding each of us.
I could feel every ounce of blood coursing through me. Never had I been so aware of my own flesh and the blood coursing through my veins.
Kieran rubbed himself against me and I shivered. I closed my eyes in the ecstasy of the moment, knowing that as I did so, I began to glow. Kieran did it again and again, all the while slowly consuming the lifeblood of his willing victim.
He was slowly riding me through our clothes, his hand traveling, toying with his victim, bringing him to bliss with every pull of his lips on his neck. I opened my eyes and the room was filled with light. My light.
My body was on hyper-mode. I was at the edge of climax, and Kieran hadn’t even entered me. At that thought, Kieran pressed himself against my core, and my body exploded into a million fragments.
I watched, my body shattering with orgasm, my heart hammering in my chest as Kieran licked the wound closed on the man’s neck and released his breakfast. Hands pulled him from the bed and out of the room, the door closing behind them. My breath was still coming in thick, deep gasps as I looked into the very warm and living face of my undead host.
“Now, where were we?” he asked his voice like liquid sin, his body now flush with the life he’d just taken from his offering. I swore we’d just had this conversation.
“Are you going to fuck the Pixie half-breed, Kieran?” The voice was pure velvet; rich and thick like warm bourbon. A woman’s lush bedroom voice that says I give as good as I sound.
The timing, I appreciated. The attitude, I did not.
Kieran hadn’t moved. He was as still as a loch on a windless eve. A million thoughts closed behind his dark eyes, and I swore I could almost feel his hatred. It felt as though he were gathering himself…for a confrontation. If that was the case, I so did not want to be lying down, let alone be in my underwear. But his silence made me wonder who it was that could cause such deep emotion in him. I’m sure it was not something a Death Stalker readily displayed.
“Well, do not let us keep you,” she said, and I could hear the rustle of clothing. “Just be quick about it. I do not intend to be here long. Places to go, people to bleed.” The laugh that followed was surely the sound from the Reaper’s Bride, cackling and dark. You knew whatever she had planned was probably going to hurt.
Kieran slid off me and without a word, handed me my blades from the edge of the bed. I thought it rather odd that he’d hand me them first rather than my pants, but apparently I was going to need them.
I strapped on the sheath I’d had made for them and crawled out of the bed in my underwear. As I reached for my pants, folded on the chair next to the bed, a man’s voice from across the room drawled, “There’s really no need for clothes, my dear. You’ll probably just get blood on them.”
I really did not like the way this night was dawning.
Kieran’s bed was set back away from the rest of his bedroom on a kind of dais, draped by a wall of black curtains, so it was partially hidden from the rest of the room. It gave a kind of a façade of being a separate room in itself. As I pulled on my pants and stepped out into the soft glow of the bedroom, I appreciated that separateness. That small amount of privacy I had been allotted.
His room was filled with at least ten others. And I say others, because calling them people would definitely be cutting the race lines thin.
Tis now the very witching time of night…
Now could I drink hot blood
Hamlet, act 3, scene 3
Chapter Seven
“So glad you could join our little party, Kieran.” She stood by the black lacquer bar that Kieran had set up on the left side of his room, her dead white flesh a matted hue in the gloss of the high lacquer shine. She wore a white floor-length gown lined in fur that was a nice contrast to the black and white room decor. Her winter-pale hair piled atop her head was stunningly coifed, showing her bare shoulders and thin neck to perfection. And I swore I’d seen her before.
Her voice, as she spoke, was pure as midnight on a winter’s eve and just as cold. By the dead look in her coal-black eyes, she apparently was not happy that I had been occupying Kieran’s bed.
“I didn’t know the Court made it a habit to hire out their Hunters for other trades.” She made it a statement--one filled with as much innuendo and scathing as she could roll into it. The sharp point of her teeth filed around each word, meant to exude pain.
Personally, I wasn’t up for it. If the bitch wanted to play games, she could do it on someone else’s dime. I stared at her blank-faced, giving her nothing of my emotions while I tried to get the feel for the situation.
“You don’t seem to be doing a very good job of watching over your
prisoner, Mistress Justice,” she said when she couldn’t bait me into her previous argument. So she’d figured she’d try another angle. “It would not please the Court, were something fatal to happen to him under their protection.” She had sauntered over to one of her entourage and stood toying with a lock of his long silver hair.
The man watched me with the chilliest blue eyes I had ever seen on a person. They reminded me of an Alaskan Husky’s, and I wondered if his teeth were just as sharp.
“You seem to know a lot about me,” I said as I strolled slowly to the edge of the room, keeping a safe distance from each of the people she’d brought with her. It was strange that none of Kieran’s people were in the room. Strange that Mercy wasn’t at her post, guarding Kieran’s back.
“I know many things about you, Rihker Tennai. Daughter of Gwina--lady to your Queen Corral. Your mother was raped by a human, was she not?”
She arched a perfectly plucked brow at me and bared her pointy teeth. I should have known she was a Vampire. I seemed to be having some difficulty knowing when they came and went. It was going to have to be something I remedied. Soon.
I stood and said nothing. Why? She had the story, and it wasn’t the first time the bad guys had tried to use it to some effect against me. Too bad for her it never worked.
“If you’re waiting for me to cry or something, it’s going to be a long night,” I said, already bored with the conversation.
“Ooh, Blaen, the Pixie has claws. We might just have to remedy that,” she said with a purr to Mr. Sparkly. He only smiled; those steel blue eyes glistening with wicked mirth.
“What is it you want, Jirvel, that you would invade my home and hinder my people?” Kieran asked from the opposite side of the room. He apparently had taken up the same stance as I did a few feet away from me. At least we were on the same wavelength. If the shit was hitting the fan, at least we were going to take it standing up.