Bound by Night
Page 31
“Samnult. Show yourself.”
Damn you, demon, if you exist, now’s the time to prove it.
Through a hum in his ears, he heard a voice. He called to it, and then he cried out as a tidal surge of euphoria washed over him. It was as if he were floating, cradled by warmth while a million hands caressed him both inside and out. He was sex. The air touching him was sex. The smoke he breathed was sex.
“Hunter.” The impossibly deep voice rolled through him like an orgasm, and he moaned with the pleasure of it. “Open your eyes.”
Hunter obeyed, found himself standing across the tent from a man draped in plush furs. Iron rings circled the rich reddish-brown skin of his arms. Crimson paint streaked his face from the corners of his mouth to where it disappeared into hair so black it absorbed the light from the fire, leaving the man surrounded in a swirling, pulsing shadow.
The world around Hunter lurched.
Demon. And not just any demon. This was the demon.
As if a secret door inside Hunter’s head had been unlocked, hundreds of years of history flipped through his brain like a movie on fast-forward. The very origins of the vampire race came to vibrant life in his mind. Everything he’d learned about the twelve original chiefs was exactly as he’d been told.
The chiefs, guided by visions of war between tribes and an invasion of white men, had summoned a demon they’d believed to be a god. Samnult had promised them unmatched strength, speed, and immortality in exchange for allegiance, obedience, and the firstborn child of every mated first- and second-generation vampire.
Flames flickered in the demon’s ebony eyes. Actual flames that singed everything they touched. Including Hunter’s skin. “You summoned me.” It wasn’t a question.
In the dim recesses of Hunter’s mind, he knew he should be more shocked and terrified than he was. Should be agonizing over whether this was real. But as the herbal smoke swirled around him, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
“I summoned you,” Hunter said, inclining his head a fraction of an inch. “As I’ve attempted to do every year since my twentieth birthday, Samnult.”
“Call me Sam.” Sam bared a mouthful of teeth that would be better suited to an orca. “And don’t try to shame me again. Not if you enjoy having your organs on the inside of your body.”
Right. Sam. And yep, Hunter would rather not be turned inside out. “Noted. I summoned you because I’m taking a mate—”
Sam cut him off with a sharp gesture. “I’m aware. A union with ShadowSpawn. The eldest of Karshawnewuti’s twin daughters.” He yawned, as if this was all too boring to be bothered with. “You know the deal.”
The first stirrings of fear and anger broke through the agony/ecstasy haze of the ritual. “I’m not handing my firstborn child over to you.”
Hunter would sooner slit his own throat than deliver a baby into the hands of a demon.
Sam’s voice degenerated into a serrated growl. “Then you and your mate will watch your child suffer before it dies a horrible, miserable death.”
Hunter really wanted to give Sam a horrible, miserable death. “Not if you lift the curse.”
“Few make that request.” Sam folded his arms across his chest. The furs, some of which didn’t look like they’d come from any animal Hunter had ever seen, parted, revealing a patch of black scales overlapping his rib cage. “Why do you think that is?”
“It’s because anyone who doesn’t ask you to lift the curse is an asshole who doesn’t deserve to have children.” Hunter moved closer, determined to make the demon understand how serious he was about this. “I’ll do anything.”
Sam’s maniacal, sharp-toothed grin was like something straight out of an alien movie, and Hunter was the dumbass character who thought negotiating would be a good idea.
“So,” Sam said in a voice that made Hunter’s hair stand up, “if I asked you to kneel before me and take my cock in your mouth, you’d do it?”
Hunter dropped to his knees. He’d have to drown himself in vodka later, but he hadn’t been lying when he said he’d do whatever it took to save the life of his child.
Sam’s smile faded as he shifted his gaze to the fire, which flared as if he’d thrown gasoline on it.
“If you want to be released from the bargain I made with the twelve chiefs, you must first negotiate a series of tests.” Sam gestured for Hunter to rise. “And one of them isn’t to suck my cock.”
Thank the spirits. Hunter wouldn’t be nursing a grizzly-sized vodka–blow job hangover later. He rose. “I accept.”
“Fool.” The shadow surrounding the demon seethed like a living thing, and Hunter wondered if it was a measure of Sam’s irritation. “You don’t even know what the tests involve.”
“I don’t give a shit what they involve.”
Sam reached out and dragged one hideously long, black-lacquered nail down the gash Myne had made. Hunter sucked air as fresh blood streamed from the newly opened laceration.
“Before your trial can begin, you must choose one of the twins to accompany you. You can’t pass through the membrane into my realm without either your intended mate or her sister. It doesn’t matter which, since their veins run with the same blood. But consider this.” He paused his finger’s downward path just above Hunter’s navel. “No matter who you choose, you will die.”
Hunter recoiled, wrenching away from the demon. Die? His choice was to either never have children with his mate or die?
“If I’m going to die on this fucking quest of yours, what’s the point of taking these tests?”
The fire roared to ten times its original size. Flames licked the wooden tent supports. Heat slammed into Hunter, blistering his skin and charring his hair. The stench of burned flesh filled the air, but Hunter held his ground, suffering through the searing agony with clenched teeth.
“The point is that even if you don’t go on this quest, you will die.” Sam’s hand snapped out to take Hunter by the throat. Drool dripped from the demon’s orca teeth, which looked a lot larger than they had a moment ago. “Before the winter ends, you will be dead.”
“Again,” Hunter ground out, “why should I go on your stupid quest?”
The demon cackled, a sinister, resonant sound that turned Hunter’s marrow to ice. “Because going with one of the ShadowSpawn females is your only hope of survival. Both twins would be the death of you.” In a whoosh of air, he turned to mist, his form twisting with the smoke from the fire. As the flames snuffed out and the smoke dissipated, the demon’s voice echoed in Hunter’s head. “But only one of them will choose to bring you back.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THERE ARE ALWAYS so many people to thank after a book is written, and Bound by Night is no exception. Huge thanks to my awesome editor, Lauren McKenna, whose brilliance and faith made this book such fun to write. And thank you to the entire Pocket Books team, not just for the fabulous cover, but for the support and hard work. Thanks, too, to Kimberly Whalen . . . everything fell together perfectly for us, didn’t it? I also need to send big hugs to Michelle Willingham and Stephanie Tyler, because I swear, without you ladies, I’d never get anything done. This book should have your names on it, too! Love you!
PAUL HARRIS PHOTOGRAPHY
LARISSA IONE is the New York Times bestselling author of the Demonica series, The Lords of Deliverance and Sydney Croft books, and other contemporary novels. An Air Force veteran, she traded in her career as a meteorologist to pursue her passion for writing. She lives in Wisconsin with her U.S. Coast Guard husband, her teenage son, a rescue cat named Vegas, and her very own hellhound, Hexe. You can visit her website at www.larissaione.com.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Larissa Ione
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First Pocket Books paperback edition October 2013
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Designed by Leydiana Rodríguez-Ovalles
Cover illustration by Craig White
ISBN 978-1-4767-0017-5
ISBN 978-1-4767-0019-9 (ebook)