Charity looked away and fought down the rising tide of fear that nearly overtook her. She knew he was right, knew she was being selfish to expect him to risk everything at the slim chance of them being together. But she wanted him so much. The thought of being with another…it didn’t bear thinking of.
“I love you, Raven,” she said at last. “I love you, but I don’t want you to suffer, either. If what we have is impossible, if being together means you’ll be punished, then I’ll back off.”
Raven went to her. He slipped his arms around her and lifted her from the couch. “You didn’t let me finish, Charity. I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anyone or anything. I thought I made that clear last night. If there’s a way for us to be together, I intend to find it.”
She jerked her head up and met his obsidian gaze. “You mean it?”
He opened his mouth to answer, but the library doors flew open a moment before the sound of heavy footfalls reached them.
“I hate waiting around,” Aliceanna said, breaking the mood.
Raven smiled at Al-kenna and settled her into the sofa again.
“Does the Warlord really expect us to sit here,” Aliceanna continued, “and wait while he readies the troops? This is madness. I hate waiting. I knew we should have gone with Alaric and Damon.”
“We don’t have a choice,” Myrddin said, coming in behind Aliceanna.
“The hell we don’t. Let’s do something.”
“What do you suggest?” Raven asked.
She shrugged prettily, pursing her crimson lips and tossing her mane of red hair over her shoulder. “I don’t know. What do you think, Raven?”
“We wait,” he said, agreeing with Myrddin.
Charity repositioned herself on the couch and tried not to stare at Raven. Idly, she ran her fingers over his thigh, feeling the hard muscle beneath her touch and getting entirely too much pleasure from the simple contact.
“What I want to know,” Aliceanna said, “is what the rogues have to do with this. I can’t believe they actually attacked Alaric. Are you sure you didn’t misunderstand what Damon said?”
Myrddin shook his head. “Damon was pretty clear when I spoke with him last night. Maybe the rogues are using the Nephilim situation as leverage against the Alliance.”
“No,” Raven said. “Damon said Alaric could read their thoughts. They’ve aligned themselves with Azriel. But to what purpose? To attack the Coven Lord of the Alliance is tantamount to waging war against every coven house in the world. They wouldn’t do that unless…” Deep in thought, he let his sentence trail off.
Charity had only crossed paths with three rogue vampires, and that had been three too many. “They’re horrible fiends,” she said.
“They live by their own rules,” Raven answered. “They kill whomever they please, and refuse to show allegiance to the Alliance.”
“Still,” Myrddin agreed, “I’ve never heard of rogue immortals attacking a Coven Lord. It’s unheard of.”
Raven gazed at Charity. “Wait a minute. How do you know about rogues? You’d never even seen vampires before Prague.”
She shrugged, uncomfortable at the thought of mentioning Azriel. “Azriel left me alone in the tunnels. Three rogues attacked me, and he had to kill them.”
Raven jerked back as if struck. “Three rogues were in the seventh portal tunnels?”
She nodded. “More than three. Azriel said the tunnels were full of ghouls and rogues.”
Myrddin exchanged a look with Raven. Slowly, Charity got to her feet. “Why is this important?”
“Alaric,” Raven said. “What if Azriel isn’t going after the leader of Ikarius but the leader of the Alliance? What if Azriel is going after Alaric?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Al-Kenna awakened a little after six to darkness so complete, it took her a moment to remember where she was. But the feel of Alaric’s naked thigh laid over her stomach was an immediate reminder she wasn’t alone. In fact, the chill feel of his skin against hers brought everything back to her. Flying out of Virginia late last night and going to Figlio’s house. Being out on the beach, being chased, and…Her face heated at the memory of what Alaric had done to her last night, what she had allowed him to do. She didn’t know anything could feel so good. She didn’t know what she preferred, his regular kisses or those secret kisses.
“Have you lost your mind?” she asked herself.
She didn’t answer.
She was in an Alliance coven house, in the middle of nowhere, with a vampire. But even as she thought this, she corrected herself. Alaric was more than just a vampire. He had feelings, was kind to her, gentle, considerate. He suffered from the loss of Smenkhare, a woman he had loved so deeply that centuries later, he still suffered the loss of her. Alaric was more than just a vampire. She imagined he’d never been just a vampire. He was too extraordinary a being to be just anything.
For a moment, she wished she could see him. He’d looked so delicious undressing under the soft moonlight last night. She’d had an urge to drop to her knees and set worshipful kisses all over his body, from his toes to the top of his head. He had the kind of body that deserved worship.
Al-Kenna figured Alaric would wake soon. She thanked God it was winter. She’d never appreciated the long nights of winter so much as she did right now. Turning to lie on her stomach, she wondered how she should behave once he did wake up. Should she pretend they’d done nothing out of the ordinary last night, or immediately bring up the subject?
Would the Warlord be able to tell what she’d done when she saw him? Would it be written on her face?
“What are you thinking about?” a voice in the darkness asked.
It was Alaric, of course, but he’d surprised her so much, she’d nearly reached under her pillow for the dagger she’d stashed there last night after she and Alaric had shuttered the windows and went to bed.
“You’re awake,” she said.
“Mmm,” he answered, rubbing his naked thigh over her bare butt. “This is nice.”
“What’s the plan for today?”
He eased on top of her and warmth suffused her body. It wasn’t an external heat, but an internal one that positively scorched her to her core. She felt the hard length of his cock pressing insistently against her entrance. Desire coursed through her veins. Suddenly, nothing seemed as important as having Alaric deep inside her again.
“First on the list,” Alaric purred into her ear, “I’m gonna ride you nice and slow.”
Saying this, he eased his thick erection into her in one luxurious thrust.
She sighed in surprise as unexpected pleasure surged through her body.
“Oh, God, Alaric.”
With his arms positioned at either side of her, he levered himself up and began a slow, measured ride. He thrust into her until he was at her core, then eased back. Each move felt so good, she had to force her face into the pillow and bite down on the cottony fabric to staunch her cries.
“That feel good, baby?” Alaric asked.
“Yes.”
“I could make love to you all night long, you know that?”
Just the thought of that made her grind her hips in welcome to every thrust. She’d love to spend eternity lying beneath Alaric as he moved within her. Already she could feel her climax building, knew it wouldn’t be long before the ecstasy filled her. She also knew with every thrust, his blood lust grew.
“Al-Kenna,” he whispered into her ear. “My beautiful princess. Taste me.”
He tangled his fingers in her hair and turned her head to face him. When his tongue touched hers, she nearly screamed at the thrill of the contact. One taste of his crimson elixir made her buck beneath him. The taste of him was the taste of euphoria.
He closed his mouth over hers and she let the warm fluid fill her mouth. She sucked his tongue like a greedy baby, hungry for more. Each time he drove into her warmth, the ecstasy felt a thousand times better. The rapture was so intense, she thought she might swoon.
When he pulled away from her, she knew what was coming next; the consummation, as he called it. She focused on the thrill of having him moving inside of her, on the ebbing tide of pleasure his blood produced. Still, when she felt the edge of his teeth at her neck, she stiffened.
“It’ll feel good, baby. Remember how good it felt last night?” he told her.
She screamed when he reared back, then sprang forward, closing his mouth over her throat.
The pain was intense, but tonight it didn’t seem quite as bad as the previous evening. It hurt, but the pain was blunt and brief. Soon, it resolved itself between her thighs where Alaric continued to move.
He accented each suck with a thrust, every thrust accented by the rising tide of her orgasm. The orgasm built in her, grew until she could scarcely keep still beneath him. The pleasure was suddenly too much.
“Yes,” she moaned. “I love you, Alaric.”
He drove himself into her and pulsed hard and fast. She screamed as her most intense orgasm yet erupted inside her. She barely heard Alaric’s scream of pleasure, so powerful was her own. She thrust against him and moaned into the pillow.
When his thrusts slowed, softening until he lay still atop her, she sighed.
“Bravo, Alaric! Now, get the hell out of bed so we can get on with the meeting.”
Alaric sighed. “Shouldn’t you still be in bed, Damon?”
* * * *
Alaric surveyed the room from his position at the head of the center table and again, he barely managed to restrain a sigh. What should have been a brief meeting of like-minded individuals had stretched into hours of discourse on topics ranging from the imp threat to beastman/vampire relations and the ever-changing land barriers.
One coven master had seven coven leaders beneath him, all of whom were fighting amongst themselves because each thought he deserved more land than the other.
“Counties today in North Carolina aren’t what they were thirty years ago when I took over control of the region,” one vampire had complained. “It only figures that if a coven leader controls a land mass that includes three counties, and those counties are reconfigured, then the coven leader’s domain should be reconfigured.”
Alaric couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
Then, another piped in with, “Yeah, but the coven leader whose land mass has been diminished from the county re-allocation shouldn’t lose land because men have decided county re-allocation is necessary. Immortals shouldn’t be governed by the whims of man.”
Things quickly got heated after that.
After nearly an hour of this, Alaric exploded. “Bloody hell!” he yelled over the fray. “For the first time in millennia, our lives are in mortal peril. Azriel has risen from the depths of the earth and set his sights on freeing the Nephilim…” He paused long enough to fix his gaze on every immortal assembled before him. “The Nephilim are a race of fallen angels who enslaved our ancestors; can anyone remember that? Yesterday, Azriel had the last human Nephilim in his possession. Though she’s escaped, the situation is dire…and it’s now that you come to me with your land disputes? I don’t want to hear them. On a good day, I don’t want to hear them; you cannot think for one second I’ll give a damn today.”
“We need a dictate from on high to settle this once and for all,” William, a beastman coven master from Delaware, said.
“Either we can reassign coven lands or we can’t,” said another. “It’s up to you.”
A few more began to speak up, but Alaric raised a hand to hold them off. He closed his eyes for a moment and struggled to regain his composure. Once he had himself under control, he folded his hands in his lap and spoke again. “A word for you,” he said in a near whisper. “Hierarchy.”
The immortals glanced at one another, unsure of his meaning.
“Hierarchy!” he repeated, accenting the word with a fist to the table. “Do you know what hierarchy is? No, I can tell you don’t, so let me enlighten you. Hierarchy means there are a few million or so vampires and beastmen running around the world. Those vamps and beastmen are grouped into covens, those covens are run by coven leaders, and those coven leaders are governed by coven masters.” He pointed at a few of the men around him. “That’s you. And coven masters are governed by…” Again, he paused and glanced around the table. “What, no guesses? Coven masters are governed by the Coven Lord. At this point, that happens to be me. If two coven masters have a dispute, I want them to come to me. If a coven master has a dispute with a coven leader, even then you can come to me. If a coven member inexplicably sucks a member of Congress dry, come to me. But when coven leaders are having land disputes, I don’t want to hear it.”
“You’re being unreasonable, Alaric,” William said.
“How do you expect I can settle land disputes? There are any number of factors to consider that I, miles away, am not privy to. Population growth—human and immortal; extenuating circumstances, such as one coven leader’s inability to deal with ever increasing human issues. I can issue a dictate, but I assure you it would cause more harm than good.
“If the Nephilim are freed and we don’t defeat them, land disputes will be a superfluous point because everything will belong to them. And if Azriel and his imps defeat Ikarius, the Nephilim will be one step closer to ruling us.”
An unexpected smash made everyone look around to see where the sound had come from. Alaric scanned the room until he found Nuno. Nuno’s fist was resting in a newly made, fist-sized gouge in the table. He glowered across the room “Either we fight or we die. I will not live as a slave the way our ancestors did. I will slice my throat and end my immortal life before I allow that to happen.”
Nuno stared at Alaric for a moment, then gave Alaric a nod.
“I for one,” Jules said, speaking for the first time, “agree with Nuno. We’ve been going on like a band of fools when this meeting should have ended hours ago. We’ve already discussed the pertinent facts. I think we should stand behind Ikarius.”
“What if Figlio won’t come?” William asked. “Surely, Figlio’s presence would bring many of the rogues to our side.”
The immortals around the table nodded.
With his eyes still fixed to Alaric, Nuno said, “A friend once told me not to leave my future in the hands of the elders.” He shrugged. “I’m apt to agree with him. Let Figlio look after Figlio, I will look after myself and whoever stands beside me.”
Alaric grinned.
“So, we are decided then,” Damon said, hoping to end the meeting before another argument could start.
“William?” Alaric asked, taking time to focus on those who’d voiced the most doubt, “Jordan, Rage, and everyone else, do you have any other questions?”
Nobody spoke.
“Okay, then.” Alaric pushed away from the table. “The imps are unlike anything we’ve ever faced. The threat is real and should be taken very seriously. Time is something of an issue, so we need to—”
Damon vaulted from his chair. It fell over and clattered against the basement floor. Lips turned down in a frown and fists clenched at his sides, Damon stared around the room.
“What is it?” Alaric asked, suddenly alert.
Damon held up a hand for silence. A moment later, he asked, “Do you hear that?”
Alaric got to his feet and darted glances around room. Everything seemed as it should, but he could hear something. The sound was faint. And coming from beneath them. He crouched to the floor and listened. At first, the sound was muffled, but as he squatted, it grew louder.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Nuno got to his feet and approached Alaric. “What is that?”
“Sounds like drums,” Alaric said.
“But where’s it coming from?”
Still crouched to the floor, Alaric turned to face Jules, who’d been seated beside him. “What’s below us?”
Jules shrugged. “I don’t know. I wasn’t the architect.”
The sound was louder now.
“Quick, Jules, where are your weapons? Do you have any?”
“Of course.”
“Everybody up. Arm yourselves. Where are the weapons, Jules?”
Alaric saw a few of the younger immortals stare about the room in confusion.
Jules stared at the ground and listened. “Something’s coming.”
The sound was louder. Each boom was accented with a rumble of the floor tiles.
“The weapons are in the back room, through that door.” Jules motioned toward a door in a far corner of the room.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
“Arm yourselves!” Alaric said again. “We need sharp swords. Jules is right. We’re about to have company.”
Jules trotted to the head of the table, pulled open a drawer, and depressed a button. A high-pitched siren began to wail. It was an obnoxiously loud sound, and precisely what was needed. Even as Jules moved away from the table, immortals ran toward the door Jules had indicated.
“A distress signal,” Jules explained. “Right now, every immortal within these walls knows something’s up and to come to the basement.”
“I don’t want them in the basement,” Alaric said through gritted teeth. “We have to get out of the basement.”
“What the hell is going on?” Nuno demanded.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Alaric moved toward the weapon room with Damon close on his heels. “Azriel, that’s what’s going on!” Alaric answered. “Shit!” He whirled on Damon, fire in his eyes. “Al-Kenna is upstairs. Go to her. Keep her safe. Don’t let her out of your sight.”
Damon nodded, then turned and ran from the room.
“Hurry up!” Nuno yelled. “The floor is beginning to buckle. Whatever’s coming is almost through!”
Immortals grabbed weapons and ran from the back room. One by one, they armed themselves and fled to higher ground. Alaric was the last to grab two machetes. A moment later, he made his way through the room and toward the stairs.
Nephilim War: Book 2 Page 24