Dark Embrace (Principatus)

by Couper, Lexxie

  “What part of ‘I’d be a touched miffed if something were to happen to her’ didn’t you understand?”

  Ven Watkins’s deep, smooth voice made Ezryn start, and he snapped his head to his right, finding the supreme Principatus beside him. The assassin stood calm and still, his tall, lean frame covered in an immaculate black suit, the black shirt he wore beneath the jacket open at the neck, a black tie knotted loosely at the open collar. His lips curled in an almost sardonic smile as he watched the skin show taking place on the stage. To a casual observer, he would appear the perfect package of a sexual being. Until you looked into his eyes. His eyes burned infinite, icy displeasure. He was not happy.

  Ezryn met those eyes with deliberate defiance, every nerve ending in his body sizzling with rising agitation. He was not happy either. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you bit Inari Chayse.” Watkins gave Ezryn a long look. “With a binding bite.” He raised a squat glass filled with blue liquid to his lips and a detached part of Ezryn’s brain recognized it as Carpathian mountain water just before the Principatus drank the entire contents in a single swallow.

  A sudden thump smashed into life in Ezryn’s temple. He narrowed his eyes and stepped directly in front of Watkins, forcing the assassin to follow his movement not just with his eyes, but his head. “How do you know that?”

  Watkins’s eyes flared colder. “For a master vampire, you don’t know much about your enemy, do you?”

  A low snarl vibrated deep in Ezryn’s throat. Anger sawed into his control, but he kept his expression composed. Just… Now was not the time to pick a fight with the supreme Principatus. “Inari is not hurt, nor is she harmed.” He cocked an eyebrow, meeting Watkins’s contemptuous gaze. “Trust me, I would know.”

  “And yet you are here, in a strip club dedicated to the pleasures of the flesh.” Watkins cocked his own eyebrow. “Without her.”

  Ezryn’s anger grew hotter. “Why I am here has nothing to do with you or Inari.”

  “No, it has to do with your general. And your brother.”

  Ezryn stared at Watkins, unnerved shock and irritated frustration a balled fist pounding in his stomach. “What do you know about Jacob?” he snarled, taking a step closer to the Principatus. “And what does my brother have to do with it?”

  Ven’s eyes flared green ice. “Your brother is an idiot who has no concept of how to lead his people. He believes torture will get him what he wants.”

  The ball in Ezryn’s gut punched harder. “Are you telling me Haral has Jacob?”

  The Principatus said nothing.

  A tsunami of incinerating rage flooded through Ezryn. He growled, the urge to shift completely into his true vampire form turning the blood in his veins thick and hot. If Harry had Jacob…

  Struggling for control, he glared at the assassin standing before him. “You know why my brother is here, don’t you?”

  Watkins barely inclined his head.

  Ezryn’s anger burned hotter still. “Then why don’t you do something about it? You’re the Powers’ fucking golden boy. Help me end my brother’s tyranny and save my general.”

  Watkins’s indifferent expression didn’t falter. “This is a blood feud, Ezryn. It does not affect me or those I protect.”

  “Those you protect?” Incredulous fury crashed through him. “Dark Ones! You were once vampire, Ven. Surely that means something to you? Surely the future of your ancestral kind deserves your protection as well?”

  Watkins curled his lip, a slight action that revealed fangs long and pointed. “This is not my fight, vampire, but I will make it mine if something were to happen to Inari Chayse because of it.” His fangs glinted in the club’s muted light, his eyes almost an iridescent white. “You do not want that to happen, Ezzie.”

  Ezryn ground his teeth and glared at him. “Inari is bound to me, Principatus. She is my concern now.”

  Watkins’s face became stone. “Do not be mistaken, vampire. Inari will always be my concern, no matter how deep and strong your bond with her is.”

  “Why?” Ezryn demanded. “What makes her so special to you?”

  The supreme Principatus’s expression didn’t change. His eyes however, grew…flinty. “She chose not kill my brother when ordered to do so.”

  The unexpected answer took Ezryn by surprise. When had someone from the Realm tried to kill Ven’s brother? Why? There was nothing special about Patrick Watkins, was there? He was just a—

  “And in doing so,” Watkins continued bluntly, as though he knew the questions in Ezryn’s mind and wanted no part of them, “she became a Principatus.”

  Ezryn narrowed his eyes. There was more. He could tell from the guarded tone in Watkins’s voice. But what? “What is going on? Tell me.”

  Ven Watkins said nothing for a long moment, his eyes haunted. “Inari’s human sister was raped and butchered by an empathic leech demon in the eighteenth century.”

  “I know that,” Ezryn growled. “I held her last night when the disgusting thing got away from her.”

  “Inari doubts who she is now. Doubts her Principatus existence.”

  A cold finger of disquiet pressed at Ezryn’s still heart. “How do you know this, Ven?”

  The man watched the strippers, face expressionless.

  “They told you, didn’t They?” Ezryn snapped. “The Powers told you what was going on. What did they do, tell Inari she was fired?”

  The Principatus gave him a cold stare. “The Powers are not known for Their tact, bloodsucker. Nor Their communication skills.”

  Cold anger replaced the disquiet in Ezryn’s heart and he clenched his fists. “So your Lord takes the only life Inari knows away from her when she saves your brother, gives her something else entirely foreign and then takes that away when she is at her most vulnerable?”

  Watkins’s face became stone again. “The Lord has not taken anything away. The Powers, however, have spoken in haste and too rashly.”

  Ezryn snarled with disgust. “Then I thank the Dark Ones she is now mine.”

  Watkins lowered his head, cold menace turning his eyes to ice. “You bound yourself to her for a reason, Ezryn. For your sake I pray it wasn’t just your dick making the decisions.”

  Ezryn hissed and bared his fangs.

  Before he could strike, before he could slam Ven to the floor and tear out his throat for such a contemptuous, disrespectful slur, the Principatus pressed his hand to Ezryn’s chest, directly above his dead heart, and stared hard into his face. “Primoris prognatus ut primoris prognatus. Navarr vadum attero Navarr. Make it happen, Ezryn. For Inari and the entire vampire race.”

  A scalding pressure squeezed Ezryn’s heart.

  Primoris prognatus ut primoris prognatus. First born to first born. Navarr vadum attero Navarr. Navarr shall destroy Navarr.

  He sucked in a sharp breath, eyes wild, blood surging, and realized he stood alone. Ven Watkins was no longer to be seen.

  “What the hell?”

  He squinted, searching the crowd around him for any sight of the supreme Principatus.

  Not a sign.

  It doesn’t matter, Ezryn. Haral has Jacob. You know what that means.

  The ominous thought cut into his incredulous disbelief. He turned and moved through the club in an unseeable blur.

  Haral’s compound was on the other side of the harbor, nestled amongst the opulent mansions of Mosman. No matter how quickly he moved, it would take him close to ten minutes to get there. Ten minutes of Jacob in his brother’s sadistic hands.

  His gut rolled.

  The itch in Inari’s belly ignited into an explosive flutter. She gasped, stumbling to a halt in the middle of the busy Kings Cross footpath. The bond between her and Ezryn was growing…agitated? She didn’t know how else to explain it. It was as if the very distance she’d forced him to put between them for his own safety now served as a punishment for her stubborn stupidity to accept what was happening.

  And that is what, exactly, Inari?

>   Desire. True desire. Maybe even…

  She chewed on her bottom lip. Was she really ready to go that far? To admit to that emotion? Was she?

  Yes. You are.

  She closed her eyes, the sights and sounds surrounding her fading to white noise as she focused on the drawing itch and the connection she now shared with her master vampire.

  Instantly and without delay, she felt him in her core, in her soul, a potent, arrogant strength that made her breath catch and her heart race. Whatever future she and Ezryn faced together would be fiery, she knew that. By the Powers, he was the true overlord of the vampire race. He was born to be arrogant and domineering. And she was a succubus. She was born to make men her slaves. They would argue, fight and annoy the shit out of each other every day, but damn, she had little doubt their sex life would make their heated arguments seem like glaciers of ancient ice.

  She smiled, the thought of any future with the pain-in-the-ass bloodsucker setting the throb in her pussy off once more. A vampire who chose to relinquish everything he knew to save hundreds and a messed-up sex demon who may or may not still be a demon assassin. What a couple they made.

  The fluttering itch in her soul erupted again, impatient and furious. Inari frowned, ignoring the shoves and jostling bumps from the pedestrians passing by her. There was something about the connection between her and Ezryn…something…

  Drawing her concentration onto the bond, she pictured Ezryn in her mind.

  A wave of fury rolled through her, dark and red with disgust. Cold and wrought with…with…

  Dread.

  Inari snapped open her eyes. Ezryn was furious. Wherever he was, he was enraged. And scared. She needed to go to him. Now.

  But how could she help him if she was no longer Principatus? What could she possibly do against something so fierce it scared the true overlord of the vampire race?

  “Who cares?” she growled. “I’m still going.”

  The itch fluttered again, and this time its impatient demand was echoed by something stronger. Something deep within her existence.

  voice that had granted her her soul twenty years ago. Principatus, a voice whispered through her head in a pure note. The same His voice. A ripple of infinite elation slipped through Inari, and she closed her eyes, welcoming the pure force of the proclamation. She was Principatus.

  Of course.

  She frowned, staring at the jostling people around her without really seeing them.

  “Then why couldn’t I…?”

  “Because you need to listen to your sister more,” a deep voice replied at her right. She flinched and jerked around to find Ven Watkins standing at her elbow. He gave her a smile, the expression both serene and somehow wan at the same time. “A Principatus cannot exist, cannot retain their soul if they don’t have the strength to believe in themselves first.”

  “How…” She stared up at him, her mouth open. “How do you know…”

  His smile pulled a little wider, a little more lopsided. “I’ve got connections.”

  She raised her eyebrows, her heart thumping. “Connections? Can you hear His voice in my head?”

  Ven gave a small shrug. “I hear a lot of things.”

  If Inari thought her eyebrows couldn’t go any higher on her forehead, she was wrong. “What else have you heard? Do you know about…” She stopped. Swallowed. “Are you—”

  “Here to help you? Yeah. I think you need a kick up the ass.” He slid his hands into the pockets of his black trousers and leveled an unwavering expression at her. “As someone you know very well recently pointed out, you need to let go of your guilt and fear of what you are and face what must be.”

  The words echoed Tianya’s so closely a chill raced up Inari’s spine and sent a wave of gooseflesh over her limbs. She closed her eyes, her thoughts turning to the empathic leech demon and the crippling doubt he’d awakened in her. The guilt. The leech had defeated her by playing on her vulnerability—her sister’s murder, her guilt for the crime she could not prevent.

  “She’s pretty smart, your sister, especially for a ghost,” Ven went on, his voice calm. Almost off-hand. “They usually just hang around moaning.”

  Inari swallowed, her mouth dry. Her world was spinning on a skewed axis. “So she is a ghost?” She caught her bottom lip with her teeth. “Not a…a…”

  “Figment of your imagination?” Ven shook his head. “No.”

  A relieved breath escaped Inari and she pressed her hands to her face. “She always was smarter than me,” she murmured, picturing her sister.

  Ven chuckled. “Tianya knows it’s about acceptance as much as it is about strength.”

  Inari’s chest grew tight. She’d been so guilty about failing Tianya she’d let it weaken her. Let it almost destroy her. It wasn’t the leech who’d defeated her, it was her guilt. And her doubt.

  “Acceptance of self,” she whispered, her pulse throbbing so hard her lips tingled.

  “Acceptance of self,” Ven repeated.

  Inari let out a ragged sigh and caught her tingling bottom lip with her teeth. She understood it now. What Tianya had been trying to tell her. What her own heart had been trying to tell her. She was what she was. She’d spent so many years hating herself, longing to be something unobtainable, something perfect. She couldn’t do that anymore. She hadn’t failed Tianya when she was a succubus, and she hadn’t failed herself when she was a Principatus. “Acceptance of self,” she whispered again.

  “Well,” Ven chuckled, “that and the fact you are willing to fight for the one you love. Even if it means certain death.”

  She jerked her stare up to his face. Her heart slammed against her breastbone. “You do know?”

  “About Ezryn Navarr?” He nodded.

  “And you’re not telling me I have to kill him?”

  Ven burst out laughing. “I’m telling you, He’s telling you—” he pointed skyward, “—to stop thinking you have to keep everyone happy and think about the one you love.”

  “But the Powers…”

  “Have been told to mind Their own business.” He smiled. “And your heart, Inari Chayse, is none of Their business.”

  She looked at him, gnawing at her bottom lip.

  “You know what’s in your heart,” he said. “I know what’s in your heart.” He flicked a quick look to the heavens. “He knows what’s in your heart, but does Ezryn?”

  And with another of those lopsided grins, he turned and walked away from her, weaving his way along the busy sidewalk.

  “That’s it?” she called, uncaring of the smirks and curious looks her raised voice earned her from the crowd. “What do I do, Ven?”

  She saw him shrug once, a casual lift of his broad, straight shoulders, and then he was gone.

  “Damn it,” she muttered, watching the swell of people walk around her. “That’s the second time he’s—”

  Something cold and angry knotted in her belly, and she sucked in a quick breath. The bond between her and Ezryn. Her blood roaring in her ears, her whole body awash in tingling energy, she closed her eyes again and took a slower, deeper breath. The very essence of the bond flowed through her, its intangible force like the pull on a compass arrow toward magnetic north.

  It was blistering cold with fury and dread. It snared her core like a tight fist and tugged. Hard. Undeniable.

  Wherever Ezryn was, he was still enraged. And still fearful.

  “I’m coming, my master vampire” she whispered, every fiber in her body burning with righteous force and protective love. “I’m coming, and I’m bringing certain death with me.”

  She turned, knowing exactly where her lover was, and stared straight into the leering faces of five vampires standing silently before her. “A little birdie told us you’d be here, sweeting,” the tallest said, the words almost lost in a thick Irish accent. “We’ve been looking for you all night. The overlord demands an audience with you, and we’ve got the job of making you come.” He flashed long, pointed fangs at her, his gaze r
aking her body. “Lucky us, eh?”

  Sydney became indefinable. Ezryn sped through the streets, the humid night air lashing at him, the smells and sounds a thick mist he sliced through effortlessly. The closer he drew to Haral’s compound the faster he moved. The dread in his chest twisted, knotted, folded over on itself until the demon deep within his existence controlled him. Ruled him.

  He leapt the compound’s ten-foot perimeter fence without slowing down, his feet barely touching the night-wet grass as he moved toward the mansion. Fangs bared, he flung the first vamp that came at him away. The guard’s body smashed against the mansion’s granite wall. He tore the throat from the second vamp before the first’s body slid to the ground, uncaring of the blood and oily dust he left in his wake.

  A wild howl came from the far corner of the compound and he narrowed his eyes, disgust curdling in his mouth. His gutless baby brother had bleeders guarding him, vampires who had no ties to tradition or reason for loyalty.

  He moved quicker, cold fury fueling his actions, his stare already locked on the third guard coming at him, fangs extended, eyes petrified.

  Petrified.

  The word spat through Ezryn’s head, and icy guilt sheared into his rage.

  These guards were still his people. Bleeders they may be, but they were still vampires. Protectors of the overlord doing nothing more than an honorable job—guarding their leader. That their leader was a sadistic megalomaniac was not their fault, nor reason for them to be butchered by their true leader.

  He stumbled. And the slight decrease in his speed was enough for four other vamps to slam into him and take him down.

  They hauled him off his feet, fangs bared, eyes wild and demonic. The overwhelming need to throw them from his body and rip out their throats surged through him, but he fought it. Just.

  “You’re going to die, fucker,” one of them snarled in his left ear, sinking claw-like nails into his arm.

  He turned his head and gave the guard a level stare. “I am Ezryn Navarr, bleeder. The true overlord, first born of the First Family, and you will die before I do.”