“Pleasure and pain.”
“What?”
“To experience extreme pleasure, one must first endure pain.”
It was as if her soul had been laid bare before him. She’d never told anyone about the cutting, had hidden her scars for years. Never told anyone about her overwhelming desire to submit, to have someone else take charge for a while, take away her burden of responsibility—if only for a few blissful hours—and just allow her to feel, to be, to live. Live like she had before tragedy had struck and she’d set aside her wants and needs for the greater good…
The more he talked the more her traitorous body fell under his spell. Moisture gathered between her legs and her nipples hardened against the soft cotton of her shirt. Anna couldn’t remember ever being this turned on.
Thankfully, he walked away before she climaxed on the spot.
“What does this bar have to do with the circles of hell?” she asked, once she could breathe.
“Number seven.”
“What?” She glanced toward the window again, considered jumping then decided breaking both of her legs probably wouldn’t help her escape.
A loud crack snapped through the room.
Oh, Lord.
The man had a whip. Her tingling knees threatened to buckle.
“The seventh circle of hell.” He wrapped the leather fall around his hand. “Violence. This club. Seven. It is home to all the most interesting sinners.”
Okay. Yeah. She had to escape Mr. Tall, Dark, and Dominant before she was kneeling at his feet, begging him for mercy. “Maybe I should leave now?”
“Yes.” He stood a good foot taller than her five-foot-three-inch height and his shoulder-length black curls all but begged her to tousle them, begged her to fist them tight in her hands while he beat her then fucked her silly. Her fingers twitched as he leaned closer, his breath ghosting across her cheek as he whispered, “Yes, perhaps you should, tu effapyfs.”
There it was again, that weird language. It sounded vaguely Latin.
In an attempt to salvage what was left of the situation, she diverted to logic. She’d taken several courses in ancient languages while studying for her graduate degree in education. She could spend hours getting lost in dusty old libraries. Before she could ask him about the accent, however, he took her by the elbow and guided her toward the door.
“I’ll escort you out.” He dropped the whip on the sofa and seemed completely unaffected by the exchange they’d just shared. Well, if she didn’t count the impressive bulge crowding the front of his jeans or the lingering heat in his eyes. “Trust me. You will be safer in my presence.”
“I can handle myself.” She tried to shake off his grip, but couldn’t. “And I’m pretty sure I’d be safer with a rabid lion than I would with you. I have no reason to trust you.”
“You are not wrong.”
“You don’t talk like a biker.”
“What exactly do bikers talk like?” He led her down a curving set of stairs and back out into the bar. Wolf whistles and blatant remarks about her body followed until he silenced the room with a single snap of his raised fingers. The music on the jukebox switched from punk to bluegrass as he shoved her through the front door and back out into the blazing afternoon sunshine.
Anna swung around to face him, determined to get the answers she’d come for. Except in the full light of day, he was even more breathtaking, and whatever she’d been about to ask evaporated.
He looked her up and down then pointed in the direction of her rental car. “Go. Now. And do not return.”
“I’ll never stop looking for Liz until I find the truth.”
“Liz is beyond your help now.” He stepped closer, his superhero-pose posture clearly meant to intimidate. “Leave. Before I change my decision.”
“What do you mean she’s beyond help? I swear if you’ve hurt her in any way, I’ll hunt you down until the day I die.”
They stared at each other across the span of several feet, a standoff without the guns.
“I said leave.” He stepped closer.
“And I said no. Not until you tell me who you are and what you know about Liz.”
She stood her ground, even as he continued to invade her personal space. His midnight gaze flickered to her lips and before she knew what was happening, he’d pulled her tight to him and into a brutally passionate kiss. She gasped and he took advantage, tasting her, caressing her until they were both breathless. She wanted to drop to her knees in subservience. She never wanted this to end. She wanted to run back to her safe little life and her safe little apartment in Georgia and never come out again.
It was too much and yet not enough, all at the same time.
He pulled away and held her at arm’s length. “I could make you beg me to bring you to orgasm, right here, right now.”
The air around her seemed to vibrate and he shook her slightly, his voice lower, rougher. Sexier.
“Now, unless you are prepared to show the entire world your secret submissive side, you better leave. And if you show up here again, I will take you. Fair warning.”
She wiped the back of a shaky hand across her mouth. “Who the hell are you?”
“My name is Dante.” He grabbed her wrist and raised her sleeve to show the row of fresh red scratches on her arm from last night’s shallow cuts. “And I’d say you are a desperate little masochist. Now go.”
He walked back inside the club and she stood alone on the sidewalk, torn.
She ached, she quivered.
She yearned.
I could make you beg me to bring you to orgasm…
Given the way her whole body seemed stretched too tight and her pulse pounded between her legs, Anna didn’t doubt it for a second. She stumbled back to her rental car and climbed inside, slumping into the driver’s seat then cranking the air conditioning high to relieve some of the sexual heat still boiling in her blood.
A desperate little masochist…
She’d never applied the title to herself before, but it fit. Hell, she’d been atoning for her past sins for years, knowing it would never, ever be enough. She’d even given up the life she could’ve had, one full of color and emotion and excitement like Liz’s, banishing herself to the land of the prudent, the safe, the secure.
Except playing it safe hadn’t protected her at all, not really. Not with Liz gone and Anna with no clues as to why or where her sister might be. Now, she had nothing. Nothing to go on. Nothing to show for her trouble today except a body full of want for a man she would never see again and lips still stinging from his kiss.
Ugh. Masochist indeed.
Anna folded her arms over the steering wheel and rested her head atop them, scowling.
Still, Dante knew something. His reactions to her mention of Liz weren’t those of a man with nothing to hide. She scoured her recent memories. His tattoo. It was unusual and given her sister’s love for all things occult, it could mean something. Plus, there were some old Indian ruins near these parts, too. A medicine wheel, if she remembered right.
Chances were, if Liz had been here, they were all connected somehow.
Salvation was tiny, but perhaps there was a coffee shop on the way to her motel, a place where she could grab some much needed caffeine and tap into their free Wi-Fi. Check-in at the motel wasn’t available until three anyway. She still had an hour and she might as well make good use of her time by researching.
She fastened her seatbelt, then signaled and made a U-turn to head back the way she’d come. In the rearview mirror, the white-washed walls of Seven continued to taunt her along with memories of the man she’d met inside. Through the windshield loomed the Big Horn Mountains in the distance and open space for miles.
Dante. She snorted. And he’d asked her about Inferno, too. Talk about ironic. As she pulled up to the town’s one red light, her sister’s description swirled once more in her overtaxed brain. Magnetic as the full moon and twice as seductive.
Could Dante have been her sist
er’s latest obsession?
Made sense. They tended to share the same taste in men, looks-wise at least.
A choking, old pickup honked then sped around her, the driver flashing an obscene finger gesture. She waved and kept going. If Dante had been her sister’s latest boy toy, that would explain a lot.
Lining the town’s main street was a hodgepodge of little shops and offices with its central attraction being an old-time movie theater with a huge fifties-style marquee. Half a block down from the cinema, she found an empty parking spot in front of a tiny brew house. She leaned over to grab her messenger bag from the floor of the passenger side, then halted as the growl of motorcycle engines stormed past once more. Slowly, Anna peered over the dashboard and spotted four riders, one of them Dante, zooming out of Salvation at breakneck speed.
If you show up here again, I will take you. Fair warning…
Acting on pure impulse, she dropped the bag onto the seat beside her and restarted the engine. Pushing the boundaries with a dangerous otherworlder like Dante wasn’t smart, but turning her back on her sister wasn’t an option either. And technically his threat didn’t apply anyway. He’d said she couldn’t go back inside the bar.
He never said she couldn’t follow where he led.
Chapter Three
Wind slapped against his face as Dante barreled down US-14A at one-hundred-twenty miles an hour. Speed was a poor substitute for what he really wanted—namely Anna Frost naked and on her knees while he decorated the beautiful stretch of her spine with lovely red welts. At least the adrenaline helped to soothe his inner pain demon.
His human half just went along for the ride.
He shifted on his seat and inhaled. What a ride Anna would be. If he closed his eyes he could still picture her, all soft skin and dangerous curves. Too dangerous. His demonic instincts told him she would love receiving the pain as much as he thrived off inflicting it. He had denied himself too long, but he knew his limits. And sleeping with humans, no matter how tempting, was strictly forbidden. They were far too fragile, far too easily broken, maimed, killed. Even for a half-breed such as himself. Besides, he had amassed enough crimes in the past five centuries. He didn’t need another murder to add to the list.
Touching her would most definitely be a crime too, especially after what had transpired with her sister. He could still see the warning on Liz’s face that last day, the day her life as she knew it had ended. Could still hear the catch in her voice; see the fear in her eyes as she had bravely faced down the barrel of his gun. “Goodbye, Dante.”
Goodbye, Liz…
Anna. Liz’s sister. Here. Now.
Wrong place, right time.
He shook his head. Did the girl think to fool him with that ridiculous fake hair and those contact lenses? Hardly. He had seen the resemblance immediately. After all, he had been searching for her since Liz had mentioned having an identical twin. Searching for the one who would help him fulfill the vows he had made to his mother centuries ago.
She had died for him. For all the others of his kind.
“You take care of that problem?” Basher snarled as they rode side-by-side down the highway, taking up both lanes. “We can’t afford some other nosy human bitch poking around.”
“Yes, I took care of it,” Dante shouted over the roar of the wind. Part of him wished he could take care of Anna Frost even more, but his guilt and what was left of his conscience would not let him.
Not yet anyway.
Not until she knew exactly who she was.
Exactly what she was and what would be expected of her.
By then it would be too late. For both of them.
Basher puffed on the cigarette dangling from his lips then leaned forward as he gained speed. The engine on his custom Harley squealed under the strain and the harsh sunlight carved out all the craggy lines of his face. With the physical appeal of a feral rat, Basher looked like he had walked straight out of some B-rate biker movie and straight into a cheese grater. He was all stark sinew and ragged bone. Dante stayed with the Blood Ravagers, not because he enjoyed pandering to a bigoted, misogynistic asshole of a bully, but for self-preservation. If Basher knew what Dante really was, what he had planned, he would drown him in acid, skin him alive.
Not necessarily in that order.
The gang leader’s voice croaked out with the gruff resonance of a two-pack-a-day smoker. “She remind you of anybody?”
Yes. “No.” Dante lied. “Why?”
Basher gave him a side glare. “She’s the same as that other bitch you took care of a few weeks ago, yeah?”
Dante remained silent, staring down the road ahead. It had not been smart of him to play dumb. Dumb did not survive long around Basher. The guy was a blunt instrument, a full-blooded wrath demon with a sadistic streak as wide and deep as the Grand Canyon. He tortured first and asked questions later, if his victims survived. Usually they did not. And he always, always looked out for number one.
Which was what had brought them out here, to the foothills of the Big Horn Mountains. Basher had seen an opportunity to increase his wealth, a demand in the otherworld that had yet to be met. A need for human psychics—as chattel, as a means to his end. The gang had spent years abducting them, testing them, keeping the good ones and eliminating the frauds. Over the past decade alone Basher had captured and sold untold numbers, always on the lookout for the special ones.
The ones who might fulfill the prophecy.
The Oracle.
A being so powerful they would bind a gang together and render them nearly invincible to attack. Basher hoped to take control of the Oracle and twist their psychic powers to do his bidding, if he found them first.
Dante had done what was necessary to prevent that from happening.
Now, he just prayed it would be enough.
Those same years Basher had spent kidnapping, Dante had spent building secret alliances within the gang, amassing evidence, even helping the FBI build their case against the human traffickers Basher used to make his millions, the dealers who bought these unfortunate souls then shipped them all over the world as fortune tellers or sex slaves or worse.
The thought of what happened to these innocents turned Dante’s stomach. He might be part demon, but once upon a time, his own mother had been condemned as a seer and shipped off to live with his father, a pain demon prince in Lucifer’s household.
Dante was the product of that unholy union.
Unwanted, unwelcome, caught between two worlds.
He had learned fast to keep his perceived shortcomings hidden and do what was necessary to survive in a world populated by Basher and other pureblood enforcers, to keep them from discovering the truth of his heritage. To Basher and the Council, humanity and half-breeds were a stain, a weakness to be overpowered and eradicated.
Anna and her hidden desires were a risk he shouldn’t take. Beyond her strength and tightly leashed powers, he had to admire the way she had stood up to him, faced him eye-to-eye despite her fear, all to save her sister. Bravery, he respected. But there had been more than courage keeping her in place as he had cracked that single-tail whip. He had seen it in her heaving chest, her flushed cheeks, her sparkling eyes.
Her thirst for pain called like a siren to his inner demon.
And that could mean death for both of them, because he had not been joking outside Seven. If she dared to come near him again, he would take her, and take her, and take her until they were both satisfied.
She hid her desires deep beneath her prim little exterior, but those scars did not lie. Neither did the smell of her arousal or the way she’d trembled with lust in his presence. She was begging to be beaten, whether she accepted her needs or not.
To him, inflicting pain was like oxygen. It kept him alive and functioning. Without it he would eventually go insane and die. He also needed to hurt his lovers in order to come, to reproduce.
Not that he would be doing that anytime soon, especially under the current Council laws.
What complicated matters was his human conscience. Wanting, needing, craving the agony of others meant he lived in a constant state of war with himself. It had taken him centuries to come to terms with and accept who and what he was. To find appropriate, non-homicidal ways to appease his needs. The BDSM scene had been a godsend.
Receiving pain, however, weakened him—zapped his powers and made him susceptible to manipulation, both mental and physical. This knowledge wasn’t lost on Basher, who enjoyed punishing Dante for any wrongs by peeling away the exquisitely sensitive scales hidden just beneath the skin of his upper back, until his hide was raw and bleeding.
They passed the outskirts of Salvation and headed into the flat plains of the foothills, then swerved off the road and across the open terrain toward a deserted airstrip about six-hundred feet from the highway. Decades earlier, bootleggers had used the thing for smuggling alcohol. Later, the Mexican cartels ran their drugs through here on the way to the East Coast syndicates. Now Basher used it to transport his hostages to parts unknown.
They pulled to a stop and cut their engines. Dante walked toward Basher, who waited near an abandoned shack at the far corner of the airstrip, while the two henchmen stayed behind to keep lookout.
Dante’s FBI contacts knew better than to approach the area in broad daylight, but every so often some meddling human tourist stuck their nose in where it did not belong. Those unfortunate snoopers ended up as one more gruesome statistic, one more set of unidentified remains, once Basher got through with them.
As he neared the small building, though, Dante’s preternatural instincts went on alert.
Something was wrong.
Basher’s psychics all transmitted a certain frequency of brain waves.
This signal was higher, stronger.
Dread bubbled through Dante’s system. He reached into his boot and pulled out his gun, flipping off the safety and chambering a round while Basher did the same. They could certainly transform into their demon forms if necessary, but doing so caused far too many unnecessary complications in such a public venue.
Blood Bound (Blood Ravengers Book 1) Page 2