by Kresley Cole
When he dragged his gaze from his palm and faced her again, he looked even more determined to reach her, his onyx-colored eyes burning with intent. And in that second, everything became clear to her.
He would be determined. He'd clearly never seen his seed before this night.
Ah, great Hekate, she was his mate.
Though a male demon could experience orgasms, he couldn't produce semen until he'd found his female. He couldn't release it until the first time he claimed her. With this first hint of seed, he would believe she was his demon mate.
As well as his vampire Bride. An unmatched vampire male didn't draw breaths and had no heartbeat or sexual ability until he'd encountered his female and become blooded.
No wonder he'd appeared bewildered by his breaths. He'd pounded his fist over his chest, over his heart.
Because she'd made it beat.
Had the Order known this would happen? That she'd be his Bride and his mate? How could they have? It seemed impossible. So why did she feel double-crossed?
"Alton, ara," he commanded.
Her Demonish was terrible, but she thought he was commanding his female to come—or to heel?
"Not until you calm yourself!"
"Alton!"
She shook her head, miming that she would jump, hanging a leg over.
With a roar, he lunged to one side to punch a boulder in frustration. It cracked wide like an egg.
His strength. He could break her bones with a touch.
She'd heard tales of vampires pursuing their females. They were unstoppable. And she knew that the demon males of some species could be lashed by a breeding drive so strong it made them crazed. Even if they knew they faced certain death following that drive, they couldn't resist it.
He was definitely in the midst of that haze right now.
Would she jump? Rather than have this brute rutting on her? Though his postcoital high might be like happiness, fueling her with enough power to escape him, the demon would tear her with his size. Would she even be conscious to draw the power from him?
Again he eased closer, and again she dangled her leg from the edge—
The outer layer of rock gave way under her foot.
New Orleans, Louisiana
Val Hall, the Valkyrie stronghold
"Nix, I'm not leaving until I get the info you promised," Mariketa the Awaited told the mad soothsayer dancing around the room. "So let's start at the beginning."
Nix the Ever-Knowing, better known as Nucking Futs Nix, cried, "Let's start from the end! It's coming soon, you know." She twirled in circles, her long black braids flying out, resembling copter rotors. She looked like a stoned supermodel, high on runway power, rather than a three-thousand-year-old Valkyrie oracle. Her baby-doll T-shirt said Carpe Noctem.
The dozen or so other Valkyrie gathered with them in the great room watched the proceedings intently—they had a stake in Mariketa's quest to find Carrow as well. At least one of their own had been abducted mere miles away from where Carrow had been taken.
So many stolen. Myriad creatures from all corners of the Lore had gone missing, including other witches, one as young as seven. They were rumored to have been captured by the henchmen of an unknown entity, and none of them could be found. The House of Witches, the fey trackers, the powerful Sorceri, none of them could locate their own.
Inhaling for patience, Mari said, "You have to have seen something."
Nix frowned over her shoulder. "Have to have I?" Spinning, spinning.
"Nix, stop it!"
The soothsayer slowed to a standstill, casting Mari a hurt look. Then she flounced to an easy chair.
Extracting info from the soothsayer proved difficult at times. At all times. And Mari had heard that Nix hadn't even been lucid for the last two weeks. But Mari had to try—she was beside herself with worry about her best friend.
To search for Carrow, Mari had used all the power she could draw on without risking a mystical backlash. Then she'd called on all thirty-seven covens of the Wiccae to scry. Even with so many talented witches searching, no one could find a trace of Carrow. All they could say was that she was in grave danger.
Thanks for the tip, bitches.
So Mari had gone to the most powerful and famous oracle in the Lore. Her Valkyrie friend. "I got a call that you had information. Nix? Valkyrie!"
"Hmm?" She languidly gazed up. "Then tell me something about Carrow, something that no one else knows."
Tests? Mari felt her heart sinking. Nix loved to play people. In a small voice, she said, "I thought we were friends."
Nix's golden eyes flashed playfully. "You are indeed my favorite Wiccan-type person."
"Then why are you making me jump through hoops like everyone else?"
"Not hoops—scent."
"What?"
"Your revealing a secret about Carrow is like giving a scent to a bloodhound. I need something to point me in the right direction."
Things no one knew? Where to start?
Though Carrow was a daughter of Bacchus—not literally—and an impulsive hellion, she was also wicked smart. Folks never saw that coming. Also a shocker? There was a method, and a purpose, to her madness. She didn't raise hell for hell's sake.
Carrow's most guarded secret? It breaks her heart every day that her parents don't return her calls.
They hadn't called for years. Mari had once walked in on Carrow sobbing over the loss.
Mari gazed around at the Valkyrie, uncomfortable divulging anything private about Carrow. For all these females knew, her best friend had an enviable life—friends, money, parties.
Only Mari and their mentor, Elianna, knew the pain Carrow carried. The party-girl witch who always had a smile on her face was rarely happy. "Very well, Valkyrie. Carrow has an emotion-based power source. She feeds off happiness specifically, but she can't seem to, uh, generate it herself. She's always thinking about how to find more. Like someone on a diet will always think about food."
Nix squinted at the ceiling. "Carrow is in an environment that she hates worse than anything."
"The woods?" Mari cried. "She can't stand the outdoors!"
"And yet personal preferences rarely figure in my visions, favorite Wiccan-type person."
"Tell me, Nix, why was she taken there? Who took her? Has anything like this happened before?" Nix had been around for three thousand years. She'd seen a lot. "Have Loreans ever been abducted like this?"
"Yes," the soothsayer answered, adding in a whisper, "by the Order."
"Care to extrapolate?"
"No."
"Tell me who they are!" No answer. "Is it the military?"
Nix narrowed her eyes at Mari. "Define military."
"You know, soldiers, army, et cetera."
Nix squinted again. "Define army."
"At least tell me if they're human!"
"Define—"
"Shut it, Nix!" She pinched her forehead, then gazed up at the soothsayer. "I can't stand the thought of Carrow out there away from the coven." What if she was somewhere alone and friendless? Because Carrow's childhood had been so seriously screwed up, she didn't handle being alone well.
The soothsayer chuckled. "Ah, Nixie plays. The Order, also known as the Deceivers, the Summoners, the Collectors, and the Mortals Who Walk on Two Legs, except I made up that last part."
"What do they want?"
"They want all the freaks dead. Funny. I don't feel like a freak. Unless le freak, c'est chic?" She shrugged. "To be fair, they only rise up whenever immortals do."
"Man, if there's one thing Carrow hates, it's being punished for a crime she didn't commit." Luckily, that didn't happen often, as Carrow perpetrated more than her share of crimes. Her last offense? Stealing a cop's horse to ride into Pat O'Brien's. Carrow's defense? She'd needed an accessory.
Mari had once asked Carrow why she so readily got into trouble with the law—the public indecency and intoxication, the vandalism, and so on. After all, Carrow could harvest power without jail ti
me. "Is it just to get back at your parents?"
Carrow had answered, "At first, yes. Now it's just tradition. ..."
When Nix said nothing, Mari grew still. "Immortals haven't risen up, right, Valkyrie?"
"Have we not?" She frowned. "I'll have to check my inbox. But I'm fairly certain we were going to, maybe, just a jot. Like against industrial polluters and people who take candy from babies. Those who drive slow in the left-hand lane and men who wear Members Only jackets, naturally."
Mari gaped at the other Valkyrie. Not all of them looked surprised. A couple raised their chins. "Have you all gone as crazy as Nix?"
Though few in the Lore dared to cross her, if anyone would, it'd be her half sisters.
Nix continued, "Things came to a head with this Order a few years back when they overestimated their firearmy might, and made an incursion against us. Even with their technology, all were massacred. 'Not to be borne!' they said. So now they study us for weaknesses. I can't fault them, really. If humans presented any kind of mystery, we'd probably vivisect them as well."
Vivisect? Mari swallowed. Dissecting while the subject was still alive. Her voice broke when she asked, "How do I get to Carrow?" When Nix merely shrugged, Mari vowed, "I'll go to the mirror, Nix."
Mari was a captromancer. She could travel through mirrors, could touch them to focus her powers, and could gaze into them to divine secrets. Slight problem with the latter. Though she could commune with a mirror and have Carrow's location in seconds, Mari would likely entrance herself into a mystical coma, possibly forever.
Nix quirked a brow. "And what would you tell your overprotective Lykae husband? If he found out your intentions, he'd spank you."
Bowen would, in fact, go ballistic if he got a single werewolf whiff of this. He'd never allow it—even though the Lykae had begun to fear that one of their own had been snared by the people who'd taken Carrow.
"Because we are friends, I am offering my services as a surrogate spankee." Nix said this playfully, but she rubbed her forehead as if it ached.
Mari studied her expression, realizing that Nix looked tired. "I won't go to the mirror if you give me something I can use."
Suddenly Nix tensed. When her amber eyes began to glow, the other Valkyrie eased forward, awaiting whatever foresight—or insight—Nix was about to divulge.
"They're on an island, undetectable by our kind," she said. "It can't be seen by boat or plane, nor located on any map. To find it, you have to look for something else. To reach it, you have to uncover the key."
Riddles now? "The key? What is it?" Mari demanded.
"Who."
"What?"
"Where? Why? When?"
"Nix!"
"The key is a who. Not a what."
"Then who is it?" Mari said. Oh, gods, please tell me.
"Don't remember." Over Mari's sputtering, she said, "I recall he's an immortal male. Filled with evil. Obsessed with something as intangible as smoke. Find him, reach the island." She rose. "I have much to do, young Mariketa. And I can't tell you anything more, because I know nothing else." Gazing at the ceiling, she tapped her chin with a claw-tipped finger. "Ooh, oooh, except for the fact that Carrow is soon to die!"
Chapter 7
Malkom sprang forward, snatching the female's ankle just as she dropped from the ledge. She screamed, was still screaming as he flung her up to safety.
She landed on her belly, clawing at the sand to get away from him, but he clutched her slim leg tight in his fist. Though she thrashed, she gained no ground.
Why was she resisting him? Confusion roiled. Why can she not recognize me as I have her?
Her scent was so feminine, so maddening to him. Lust assailed him as he raked his eyes over her back, her narrow waist, her flaring hips. Her body begged to be mated. At the thought of impregnating the female before him, his horns straightened even more, and his shaft pulsed in his trews.
But she surprised him with a mule kick that connected with his mouth, splitting his lip.
No, do not taste the blood....
Against his will, his tongue flicked his lip. One hot drop made him even more crazed. All his vampire instincts rushed to the fore. His newly beating heart thundered, his chest heaving with breaths.
The instinctive drive to plant his seed—the seed she'd brought forth—was overwhelming him. He'd produced it for her, but he couldn't lose it until he was inside her. The throbbing pressure turned to pain.
Cannot fight this!
When she kicked out again, he planted himself betwixt her thighs, capturing her wrists behind her back with one of his hands. As she flailed, the remains of her skirt rode up her hips, baring ... a sight such as he'd never seen before.
Her undergarments were gone. In their place, she had a thin band of shining silk that encircled her hips, then dipped between the curves of her shapely backside.
Astonished, he beheld this vision with his body shuddering and his cock about to explode.
She still resisted beneath him. And some part of him wanted to release her, to not do this thing he seemed driven to do.
To not use her as he had been used.
But her thrashing goaded the vampire within, made him want to pin her down, made him desperate to drink her. His demonic instinct clamored for him to come inside her body, to mark her neck and claim her as his own.
Both natures commanded him to take her neck.
When she reared back in her struggles, her mane of hair tangled in the brush, baring her neck to him. Beneath the strange collar she wore, the skin was pale and smooth, ready to glove his throbbing fangs.
Never had he bitten another. Reminded of this, rage scorched him inside. A remembered rage. How hard the Viceroy had tried to make him drink.
Now Malkom knew that the long-dead vampire would win. Because there was no way to stop this.
The pain, the frenzy. In Demonish, he rasped, "Forgive me." Then he dropped his body over hers, his head descending to low on her neck. Into her creamy skin, he plunged his fangs.
"Unh ..." He groaned against her as his lids slid closed. Her rich blood streamed into his mouth, even before he sucked her.
Euphoria lit within him with each scorching drop.
Soon the pressure in his cock couldn't be denied. Unable to control himself, he ground it against her backside. The intensity, the mindlessness ... so much fucking pleasure. A single thrust had him coming spontaneously, roaring with his release, snarling yells against her skin. He bucked against her over and over until the pressure receded at last.
Spent, stunned, he collapsed atop her, reluctantly relinquishing his bite. Though he hadn't released his seed, the orgasm had been mind-boggling. And her searing blood continued to dance in his veins. Satisfaction overwhelmed him until he moaned with it.
That had been only the beginning. At last, he'd know a woman. Soon his shaft would be buried in her secret flesh, pumping his seed deep inside her wetness. At the thought, he hardened at once.
Before, he'd been so frenzied that he'd been unable to wait. Now he would claim her slowly.
When he raised up to tell her as much, she struggled beneath him again. He eased his grip so she could twist around to face him. She stared at him with hatred, her vivid green eyes glinting.
Did she still not understand that she was his female? He captured one of her hands and shoved her palm against his chest, over the heart she alone had brought back to life. "Minde jart."
But she cried out in pain. Only then did he realize he'd broken her wrist in the struggle.
He jerked away from her. She was an immortal of some kind—he sensed this. But she was no demoness, and now he'd hurt her with his unnatural strength.
Abomination, his mind whispered.
She rose unsteadily, looking at him as the Trothans had—with revulsion.
When she began backing away, he said, "Alton, ara." Come, female. But she didn't speak Demonish.
Damn it, 'twas not safe for her out here. In this plane lived a tho
usand different threats, beasts as well as other demon fugitives. He ran his hand over his face, then tried to communicate in Latin.
In a low voice, she replied in Anglish. He'd heard her talking earlier but hadn't accepted that she spoke that cursed off-plane language. The one I learned as a boy from my master, his urgent mutterings in my ear....
The one the Viceroy had tried to force Malkom to speak. Desperate for one less trait to share with the vampires, Malkom had tortured himself to forget that language forever.
How the Viceroy would have relished that Malkom's female spoke it!
"Alton!" Once more, he ordered her to come to him.
Surprisingly, her chin went up, her uninjured hand rising with a lewd gesture.
He comprehended this. Females who were lewd often came from the lower classes. She could even be a slave, considering the collar round her neck and her provocative clothes.
But everything else about her indicated nobility. A quick cataloging of her unusual dress revealed that her intricate boots were of the finest leather. She wore a sizable jeweled ring, and her ears were pierced for more adornments. He knew she wore silk, one of the most valuable commodities in Oblivion.
She spoke again, the sounds clipped. Though he didn't understand the words, he distinguished the tone. She'd just given him a command. Definitely not a slave.
Did this highborn think to order him? The demon urge to master his mate clawed within him.
Dimly he realized she'd begun panting her breaths. Her green irises soon glimmered with pinpricks of light, like starbursts. Her visage was marked with aggression, her plump lips curling back from her little white teeth. But when she spoke, her words were purring, sounds tugging on his memories.
He recognized the word vampire just as he spied light glowing in her palm.
After the demon-vampire had drunk her and used her body as his plaything, he'd experienced pure satisfaction for the briefest moment. And she'd seized on it, fueling her power.
Now she manifested the crackling energy in her good hand. It hadn't been much to feed on ... but she'd make do!
"If you knew what kind of week I've had, you prick!" Carrow bombarded him, laserlike beams exploding from her. They connected with the dazed demon, pitching him into a rock face, the stone crumbling around him. "That's for biting me, Neanderthal."