He leaned against the wall of the groundskeeper’s building and cast a wary glance at his brother. Janco grinned, mischief a gleam in his obsidian eyes. Many had thought the brothers were twins. Their younger brothers escaped the assumption, only because their eyes weren’t as black as Janco’s and Keane’s. Anton boasted eyes of violet and hair as black as the rest of the clan. Vladja—who was called Vlad by all who knew him—had turquoise jewels that left the ladies mesmerized before he even needed to draw on his vampire powers. Jean-Paul and Reynard had eyes of royal blue—also very unnatural. Soon, his other brothers would visit as well, no doubt in an attempt to exorcise Keane of the human who held his thoughts captive. He had no doubt cousins, as well as trusted family friends, would try to assist as well. He did not look forward to the heads of varying demonic councils all trying to save him from his lust. It embarrassed the family, but he couldn’t seem to stop the draw he felt to the female.
She must be a witch.
He knew better, regardless what his inner voice thought on the matter. The human was no witch. She was special. Different from others of her race, but Keane couldn’t put his finger on just what was different. She, unlike others, could block him from reading her every thought, sensing all there was to know about her. While he did pick up tiny impressions, he had yet to figure her out.
An enigma.
“Perhaps the pull comes from the thrill of the chase. The not knowing her thoughts.”
Janco’s snort alerted Keane that he’d spoken aloud. His brother tipped his head. “She is a sight to behold, but provides no chase for you, brother. She is ripe for the taking. Right there, at your fingertips. Unless, as I have said, you have softened with age.”
“Be gone.”
Janco remained in place. “Take her, Keane. Take her, bind her. Make her submit to you. Fuck her until you can no longer expend a drop of seed and then be done with her. For the sake of the damned, gift her to me when you are done if you have not the stomach for seeing to matters.”
He wanted the woman bound to his bed. He wanted to do all the things his brother had suggested, except be done with her or share her. Somehow he knew one taste wouldn’t be enough. Walking away wouldn’t be an option. And sharing wasn’t something he’d be able to do.
“Do you not have somewhere to be?” Keane asked dryly. “Do not murder and mayhem call to you?” He could summon the power to simply will his brother away, much the way Janco had done with the coin, but it would only serve to ignite a feud between them. One not needed or wanted for the time being, especially not with his quest for the human underway.
Janco merely smiled, refusing to abandon the post he’d no doubt proclaimed to be his—overseeing his oldest brother’s actions. Keane knew it was pointless to push, so he opted to ignore Janco, focusing on the female instead.
As Keane watched from the shadows, the object of his desire made her way down the dimly lit path, through the center of the park within the old cemetery. Why she continued to insist on putting herself in clear danger was beyond him. Humans had always seemed of simple mind to him, but this one seemed bent on harm befalling her.
Stupid humans.
The deep brown of her long hair was painted with kisses from the sun, leaving streaks of gold through it. Even from his vantage point, he could see the piercing blue of her gaze as it scanned the darkness. Her full lips called to him, begging him to come forth and steal a kiss. He clenched his fist, refusing to give in to temptation while Janco was near. Soon he would take what he wanted, what he was sure she would desire as well.
He stroked the distended flesh between his legs, uncaring if his brother saw. They had shared too many women to be modest around one another. The brothers took great pleasure in sharing females in their many sex dungeons. Each brother was dominant in his own right, but each had his own sexual likes and dislikes.
Keane knew Janco enjoyed spanking a woman, making her so wet and ready for sex that she begged, her ass and the backs of her thighs lined with pink from the crop he’d use and her eyes glassed over from pleasure and need.
Keane enjoyed spankings as well, but his first desire ran more towards binding women to a four-post bed and then teasing them before fucking them any way he wished while they remained bound.
His cock ached for release. If only he could fight the growing need, he would be able to spare them a painful outcome.
Keane’s supernatural hearing picked up on a rustling in the bushes far to the woman’s right. He sniffed the air, letting his dark power run out and over the area surrounding her, assuring no threats lay in wait. It was dangerous to walk alone at night. He was proof of that. Thankfully for her, Keane was what most other creatures of darkness feared. He was young for an immortal, yet still struck fear into those around him. All but his brothers, of course. They were unlike many of the vampires in existence today. They hadn’t been sired. They were born to the darkness. Born from one of the four original lines of vampires. Deadly and immortal. A dangerous combination.
Chapter Three
Hannah pushed her hair behind her ears and tried to look as if she was in a hurry to get home, which might explain her taking a shortcut through an old cemetery. In truth, she was on the hunt, or if her instincts were correct, the hunted at the moment. Something was watching her. It was familiar—safe yet deadly.
An odd mixture to say the least.
She’d first sensed the weight of another’s stare two months back. In the beginning, she’d assumed it was her enemy, waiting until the right moment to destroy her, but she’d not even sustained so much as a stubbed toe since it all began. For a slayer, that was a big deal. Something or someone was interfering with her job, cutting off the bad guys before they could reach her or she them.
Never a good thing when one needed to stay sharp and conditioned.
The slight breeze tugged at the light pink t-shirt she wore over a bodice of black leather. She’d learned early in the game that walking around showing off her slayer clothing wasn’t wise. Hiding it beneath layers of non-threatening clothing did the trick. She would have abandoned the slayer attire altogether if she hadn’t been so fond of her skin. Too many creatures of the night possessed claws and teeth sharp enough to shred skin like tissue paper. The leather served as an obstacle. One they could still penetrate, but with more effort, allowing her time to fight back.
“Hannah!” a familiar female voice called out. “Wait up!”
She turned and spotted a fellow slayer headed in her direction. She beamed, happy to see a fellow sister of destiny. “Preyca!” She waved and came to a stop as the hot-tempered, raven-haired woman fast approached.
Preyca made the sign of the cross as a line of Spanish ran over her lips. It was a very Preyca thing to do whenever she sensed something off, and something certainly was off around Hannah as of late. Preyca shuddered. “It feels like the devil himself is surrounding you.”
Hannah laughed nervously. “I wouldn’t go to that extreme.”
Strangely, that was exactly how it felt—only not in the negative way Preyca meant. To her, it felt as if the devil wanted her wrapped in tissue paper and protected from anything that dared look at her funny. In fact, her “devil” wasn’t feeling very devil-like at all.
Preyca embraced her, hugging her tight. “I’ve missed you. You haven’t been around much and a lot of us were beginning to wonder if something happened to you, Hannah.”
She didn’t want to get into the uneasy feeling she’d been unable to shake for the past two months, so she shrugged. “I’ve been around, keeping mostly to myself. How about you? Anything exciting happen?”
“Girl.” Preyca grabbed her hand. “It’s been a zoo. Non-stop action day and night anymore. Something big is going down. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed?”
She hadn’t, but remained tight-lipped. How could she notice anything in the way of increased activity when her mysterious protector seemed to be some sort of natural repellent for anything of the like? She missed th
e fight. The thrill of knocking the bad guys down several pegs before ending them for good and ridding mankind of their evil.
“So, what’s been happening in your sector?” asked Hannah, trying to act like she wasn’t so interested that she could hang on every word. It was to the point she was going to host a slayer mixer just to catch up on good gossip and hear details about fights.
Preyca rolled her eyes and waved a hand in the air. “The bloodsuckers have been crawling out of every hole in the ground they can find and seems like I’ve had an above average amount of ghouls for this time of year too. You?”
“Oh yeah, totally out of the ordinary number,” she replied.
More like none, she thought. She couldn’t go on much longer like this. As a natural-born slayer, it was in her blood to fight, to protect the innocent. Sitting on her backside doing nothing went against her very nature.
As if on cue, the hairs on the back of her neck rose, alerting her that her secret admirer was close. The feel of something pushing against her skin caught her attention. Since Preyca had released her hand, Hannah’s guard went up. She shifted her footing slightly, nudging her friend.
Preyca nodded, signaling she felt it too.
Alarm faded quickly to worry as Hannah recognized the presence. Her admirer. He was something supernatural. There was no doubt in her mind, and Preyca, like her, had been born to eliminate supernatural threats. The idea of harm coming to her “protector” sickened her.
“It was nothing,” she said, hoping to get Preyca to drop her guard.
The feel of a hand skimming up her back, coming to a rest on the nape of her neck, left Hannah glancing behind her. Nothing was there. Something brushed past her breasts, causing her nipples to harden to pebble-like peaks. She drew in a sharp intake of air as the feeling shot to the apex of her thighs. It felt as if fingers were dipping into her heated core, sampling her before moving straight to fucking her while she stood in place.
Shock coursed through her body and she jerked back, staring around wildly, trying to find the source of the sensual assault. While she didn’t find the guilty party, she did see something else—a single gold coin laying devil side faceup on the ground where she had just been.
Preyca bent and retrieved it. She gave it a onceover before handing the coin to Hannah. “Hannah, I don’t know why you’re carrying The Devil coin around with you, but it can’t be a good omen. My Tia Rosa would spend a week trying to bless the fog of evil that seems to be hovering over you at the moment if she caught wind of it. Want me to call her? She’s on my speed dial. Figure she’s the best person to call when shit gets freaky and, sweetie, it just got way freaky to be carrying around with you.”
Hannah stared at the coin, wide-eyed, barely hearing her friend talk of her aunt and what she would do to make the darkness go away. In truth, a sad feeling settled over Hannah at the thought of whatever had been near her for the past two months suddenly being gone.
She took the coin from Preyca, knowing full well she hadn’t dropped it. No, it had been placed there. It was his personal calling card and it wasn’t the first time he’d left The Devil coin behind. The first time had been the night she’d initially sensed his presence. She’d returned home to find the coin pinned to her door. From that night on, her mysterious watcher in the night had left signs he was near, that he was observing. Was he who was keeping her from doing her job?
Glancing around, Hannah saw nothing out of the ordinary, though she did continue to look in the direction of an old gray building. It was tiny, and if she had to guess, she would say it was used for housing yard work equipment. Nothing was there. In fact, the area seemed untouched by both the street lamps and the pale moonlight.
Odd.
Chapter Four
Janco’s attention wandered from his wayward elder brother to the human female Keane was so obsessed with. She was breathtaking and had caught his eye as well. Since Keane had seen her first and since it was very clear he had staked a claim, Janco had watched her in silence, doing his best to hide his attraction for her through sarcastic jabs at Keane and his obsession.
An obsession Janco worried he shared. Another concern that lingered in the back of his mind was the stories of old—the ones his great-grandfather used to tell him and his brothers when they were children. He snorted. That was centuries ago and still Janco clung to every word his great-grandfather had spoken about mates. About a woman who would cause them to act out of character, to do whatever was needed to be near her, and a woman who would be all they could think upon. More importantly, the woman they would bind to them, creating a union that would last eternity.
It had seemed far-fetched to the younger version of himself. Not so much anymore. Though he couldn’t exactly see himself bonded for eternity to the human Keane seemed too infatuated with, but there was something there. Something he couldn’t ignore, despite how hard he’d tried.
The newly arrived female was certainly attractive as well, but she didn’t call to him the same way Keane’s choice did. Janco didn’t fear his great-grandfather’s words were true. He feared he and Keane would have the same mate. That would not end well. While they had shared women in the past, a mate was not something one of their kind permitted another to mate to as well.
He knew mated pairs. They were older than him and his brothers and had been together for many, many years. No one dared step between them. It was the single most certain way to assure one’s death if they dared.
Keane’s female was temptation in its purest form. Her hair hung loosely to her slender waist, drawing his gaze there. It slid further, over the apex of her thighs, and his cock hardened, imagining what it would be like to find solace there.
It took Janco a moment to realize the woman was speaking to the other human. For a bit, all he seemed to see were her full lips opening and closing. Such a mouth would surely wrap perfectly around the head of his dick. It would fit him like a glove. He adjusted his cock, willing it to go down. It disobeyed emphatically. Yes, he bedded human women often, but never was his lust for them so severe.
And from the way his brother had been behaving, a fight would happen should Janco attempt to make a move on the beauty. Janco blinked and his brother’s magik was out and over the females, blanketing them for the briefest of moments. When it was done, the human Keane had been obsessed with looked shaken, while the newest arrival bent to retrieve something from the ground.
Janco glanced back at Keane. “Tell me you didn’t.”
Keane arched a dark brow and smiled, seeming unaffected by his choices. “And if I did?”
“Leaving your coins for her will not ease the pull you feel for her.” Janco wanted distance between the female and himself, but leaving his brother alone with her would not go over well. For the one thing their great-grandfather had been clear on was that no vampire true blood had ever bonded fully to a human. And from the legends, the few times it had been tried, it had ended poorly.
Very poorly.
Keane straightened, adjusting the cuffs of his dress shirt. “And what do you know of this pull?” His gaze slid to the other female and a telling smile appeared on his face. “Could it be you too have felt such a thing for a human?”
“Yes,” he said, lying. It was wise to allow his brother to believe the other female had pull over him rather than the one Keane was enamored with.
He looked back towards the beauty and once more was struck full-on with need. It damn near brought him to his knees. Each time she spoke, her words seemed punctuated with a spell, one that wrapped around his aching body, demanding he take note of her.
It was too much. She was too much. He didn’t trust himself anymore. Not after his ordeal with the beast master. He shuddered even thinking of the monster who called himself a man. Janco knew evil. In truth, he and his kind were considered it—lumped in with devils and demons—but they were nothing like the evil that hid behind the veil of a man who referred to himself as Beast Master. He had left Janco a shell of his forme
r self. He no longer had the same control he once did and he certainly did not trust himself near the female who called to him on a baser level.
Janco turned away from her, facing the wall of the tiny building his brother leaned against. “What magik is this that they possess?”
Keane’s laughter held an air of arrogance to it. “I know not, brother, but it is most powerful.”
“Indeed,” Janco whispered, digging his nails into his palms in hopes of erasing the vixen’s hold over him. It didn’t work, not that he’d expected it would. He chanced a glance at his brother. “Perhaps we should distance ourselves from her—I mean, them.”
Keane gave a rather cocksure grin. “If you believe it will work, though you should know it is one of the first things I attempted.” He inclined his head towards the women. “You see how well it worked out for me. For you found me still hiding in the shadows, watching her from afar.”
Groaning, Janco covered his eyes with his hands. “We are doomed. Lucifer’s balls, how could a human hold any power over us?”
“I know not, brother,” Keane said without emotion, as if he’d resigned himself to his fate some time ago.
Perhaps he had.
Janco let out a long, incensed breath as his hands shook. He could not permit himself to fall into the same trap his brother had. One brother lusting after a human was more than enough. Two lusting after the same one was far too much. “We should go.”
“If you think it will help,” Keane said, this time sounding amused.
“I do not.” Janco closed his eyes tight. He tried to push thoughts of bedding the beauty from his head. Unfortunately, the thoughts seemed quick to leave his mind, only to relocate to his groin. “But still, I must try.”
Keane chuckled. “Then I will join you. It is not every day I’m afforded the opportunity to watch the mighty Janco fall prey to a human.” With that, Keane lifted his hand and a swirl of white mist surrounded them.
Devils Among Us Page 2