by Terry Spear
Hell, he had to find out where her sister was staying or she’d be in just as much danger, he was certain. Unless…unless she was already dead.
Taking a deep breath, Daemon pulled Tezra into his arms to stop her heart from racing, her body from trembling on the frosty autumn night. But he knew he shouldn’t tempt his soul with her soft body resting against his hard chest, that he shouldn’t allow her leg to press against his arousal, already agonizing for release.
Thrusting those thoughts aside, he held her tight.
She stirred and nestled her head against his chest, her silken hair tickling his skin. Inhaling deeply, he filled himself with the pure fragrance of her, the springtime freshness and floral scent that was all Tezra.
He tried to clear his mind of how dangerously enticing she was. Yet it didn’t work, not with her warm breath stirring the light hair on his chest, or the way her leg hooked over his excruciating arousal. Not the way her heart pounded, the blood whooshing through her veins in a steady rush, cajoling him to feed.
No doubt she would think him the devil when she woke, only he felt she was the one with the black magic spells, corrupting him, and not the other way around.
Holding her close, he finally managed to sleep for several hours. Until Tezra’s shrill cry jarred him from his peaceful slumber.
Chapter Four
Awareness reaching her groggy mind, Tezra realized she rested in the arms of a naked, very aroused, warm-bodied vampire, while the sunlight filtered around the edges of black velvet curtains. She jerked free and fell off the mattress, landing on her butt next to Daemon’s high four-poster bed.
Unable to slow her rapid heartbeat, she jumped up, cursing him. “You arrogant bastard! Who the hell said you could sleep with me? Well, hold me like that?” she amended, recognizing the bed was his and the night before he’d told her in no uncertain terms he was sharing it with her no matter how she tried to talk him out of it.
Unmoved, Daemon looked contemptibly smug and didn’t say a word. His darkened eyes watched her, his sable hair fanned across the pillow. Annoyingly full of himself, his well-sculpted chest exposed, he propped his head against his arms. The black satin sheet caressed the hard muscles of his lower body. His prominent arousal snagged her attention for a second glance, though she chided herself for looking…twice. She stormed to the bedroom door barefoot.
“I need my boots. Your brother took them from me,” she ground out. She grabbed the handle of the door to the hallway and twisted. Locked.
“Couldn’t we at least start this late wakeup with an agreeable good morning? It’s a shame not to enjoy morning pleasantries, is it not?” Dark honeyed words spoken like a lure to draw his prey in, but his bedroom charms wouldn’t work on her. Much.
“Let…me…out…of…here,” she snarled, every word laced with fire.
“You said the cellar gave you claustrophobia.” He waved his hand, and the curtains parted to reveal French patio doors opening onto a balcony.
“Being with you gives me claustrophobia.”
He pulled the covers aside and stood. Her mouth dropped when she saw the beautiful length of him, er, rather, the tallness and hardness of his whole body. The shirt he had worn the night before must have been from an earlier wardrobe of his because he definitely had the build of a well-muscled pirate who hoisted sails for a living. And, no doubt, he’d raped, pillaged and plundered along the way.
She waved at the bed. “You said you’d protect me. Is this what you call protection?”
A slow smile gave him a predatory look, his nearly black eyes sparkling while he tied his hair back in a tail with a black leather strap, but he didn’t make any attempt to dress.
She knew the look of madness in his eyes, the lust and the overwhelming urge to feed, to satisfy his hunger.
“You haven’t fed in a while,” she guessed, moving toward the patio door, keeping him in her sights as she backed up, wishing she was armed.
He advanced with the sleekness of a panther, his muscles rippling as he flexed them, his lips still curved up at the corners. “I have many questions I wish answered, Tezra.”
The way he said her name sounded like he was attempting to draw her to him—to feed—hypnotic, willing the victim with words cloaked in black velvet.
“I didn’t think you were the killer until you walked into my apartment. Why else would you have been there?”
“How did you know my name?”
“You told me.”
He cocked a dark brow and stopped.
“You thought it. I read your mind.”
He lifted his chin.
A lightbulb moment?
“Listen, you protected me in your way last night,” she said, frowning, “and I want to—” she nearly choked on the words after being held against her will, “—thank you, but I have work to do, so just—” she bumped into the patio door with her backside and reached for the doorknob, “—get my boots back for me, and we’ll call it even.”
“What are you afraid of?”
His voice held no animosity toward her, only craving, desire and bloodlust raging through his system. She swallowed hard, and her skin tingled with anxiousness. Itching to have a sword in her hand, or the retractable knives fastened at her wrists, she mentally cursed Bernard for disarming her.
“I’m afraid of nothing,” she lied and hoped Daemon couldn’t tell. She tried the patio doorknob. Locked.
“Your voice trembles.”
Here she thought she had her traitorous voice under control.
He skirted the bed, taking his time to reach her, showing off his wares that she attempted not to take account of…too much.
He tilted his chin down, the look in his eyes seductive, dark and dangerous.
He twisted his head toward the patio door, and she sensed the aura of a vampire outside, paralyzing her. Krustalus. Her skin chilled and her nape crawled as if he wrapped his icy fingers around her neck.
Breaking free from the paralysis, she turned and stared out the window, but didn’t see any sign of the beast in the gloomy, mist-laden morning.
“Who is he?” Daemon asked.
“Krustalus,” she said with venom in her voice.
Daemon rested his hands on her shoulders, caressed them, sending a blanket of warmth through her, but she fought the sensual feelings, the heat, the strength, the allure.
“Don’t, Daemon. Are you in league with the devil vampire?” If he were trying to placate her concerning Krustalus, it wouldn’t work. Yet on another level, she felt Daemon’s motives to soothe her were instinctual, protective. But she couldn’t take him touching her while the murderer was so close by.
Daemon withdrew his hands from her shoulders. “What has Krustalus done?” he asked, his tone edged with suspicion.
Turning her gaze from Daemon’s stern look, she glanced back out the window. “Nobody believes me.”
“I’m not just anybody.”
That was for sure. And she’d certainly never spoken to one of his kind about it. Her fingers itched for a weapon.
“Tezra?”
“He…he killed my parents and terrified my sister so that she has not spoken for ten years.” She wished she could strike the vampire down this instant. Staring into the mist, she vowed she wouldn’t allow him to shake her up like he always did when he stole into her life.
She clenched her teeth and bit back the hopelessness that he would ever be brought to justice, that her sister would be freed from her silent prison. Tears threatened to spill, but she willed them back, not wanting to shed another drop, not while the menace lived. Rage burned in her soul, and if left to fester long enough, it would leave her bereft of feeling anything but hate until she died.
Silently she cursed Daemon for bringing up the painful subject, yet she assumed he only meant to help. The floodgates threatened to open, her head hammering with gusto as she tried to keep her emotions under control. Show the vampire your emotions, and you’ve lost the game, her teachers would warn her
. Always control your feelings.
“No record of this crime exists, or I would have been made aware of it. Why hasn’t the SCU taken him down?” Daemon asked, his voice shadowed with annoyance and concern.
Tezra lost it. She whipped around, tears blurring her vision, her heart in her throat. “Because they don’t believe he did it, dammit. They don’t believe any vampire did it. But I know! I know, because I made him do it. Because I forced him.” She choked back a sob.
Daemon stared at her in disbelief. She stood so close to him her breasts nearly touched his chest. Her green eyes filled with tears. He wanted nothing more than to touch her, to hold her tight, but his heart warred with his mind to keep his distance. He tried to ignore the way her blood beckoned to him, the way she looked so damned vulnerable.
Taking a deep breath to break the spell the enchantress held over him, he said, “Talk to me, Tezra. Tell me what you know.”
“You’ll be like all the rest who don’t believe me.” Pain reflected in her words, and he wanted to crush the life out of any who had caused her anguish.
“What happened?” He pulled her toward the bed, and she balked.
“You are going to put some clothes on, aren’t you?”
Daemon lifted a brow. “You are sure you want this?”
She frowned, and he gave her a small smile then let go of her hand. In a flash, he threw on a pair of black denims.
“Enough. Tell me what happened.” He lifted her onto the high bed, then sat next to her.
“Can he come inside?” She seemed filled with emotions, wavering between fear of the vampire and red-hot anger.
Her teachers would have taught her to control such feelings, especially in front of a vampire. Which made him believe she could cross the line and become a renegade. But he wasn’t about to let her go there. Not when it could cause further difficulties between her people and his.
“I’ve never invited Krustalus inside my home. I only vaguely recall meeting him once in Scotland in the early years after my change. A brief encounter in a tavern, as I recall. Nothing remarkable about the man captured my attention.”
She clasped and unclasped her fingers. “If I had my sword, I’d ask him in.”
This was a dangerous notion, and he couldn’t fathom why she would wish to put herself at such risk. “If the SCU hasn’t condemned him…”
She growled her response. “I condemn him for the murder of my parents.”
She didn’t have the authority. “What proof do you have, Tezra?”
Turning her glare from him, she stared at the floor. “He didn’t take their blood, just slashed their throats and left them to die in front of my sister when she was twelve. I was training at Portland SCU’s elite school, learning how to use my wrist daggers, learning how to be a huntress, but when I came home…” She looked at the patio door. “My sister’s in a world of her own, doesn’t speak or seem to understand most of what I say to her. It’s all my fault she’s the way she is.”
Daemon knew Tezra had trained to be a huntress. He sensed it in her actions, in her thoughts when they weren’t guarded. A dark huntress. Reaching down he took her hands, forcing her to unclench them. Her long nails had dug into the skin, but hadn’t cut it yet. He didn’t need to be exposed to any more of her blood.
He doubted the crime was Tezra’s fault, but she seemed to think the burden of guilt rested on her shoulders, and he was bound and determined to find out why.
Before he could question her further, Krustalus spoke to him privately. “It is I, Krustalus. Will you invite me in? I have important issues to discuss with you.”
Daemon had ruled the vampires of America since the time of the American Revolution. Krustalus had never pledged his allegiance to Daemon’s rule before, not that it was required as long as the vampire did nothing to stir up trouble. So why all the interest to see him now? To get at Tezra? Or did he have some larger just as equally dark purpose in mind?
Daemon sensed a smugness emanating from him. “I’ll meet with you in an hour at Popia’s Wharfside Restaurant.”
“Ahh, you are busy with sweet Tezra. Give her my love, will you, Prince Daemon? ’Til then, milord,” Krustalus communicated in a mocking tone, then left.
Now suspecting what Tezra had said about Krustalus was true, Daemon tightened his hold on her hands. Why else would the vampire know her well enough to recognize she was in the house with him? Why use an endearing term in connection with her name?
She relaxed as if a ton of bricks had been lifted from her shoulders. “He’s gone,” she whispered. “He spoke privately to you, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he said he knew you were here.”
“Of course he knows.” She yanked her hands free. “He always knows where I am, and I sense his close proximity, but he won’t come near enough when he’s in human form for me to catch sight of his face. I only know the demonic tone of his thoughts. He was there, taunting me before Officer Stevens died.” She rubbed her neck.
Daemon glanced at the ribbed material of the turtleneck she wore and a new concern flickered across his mind. “Has he bitten you?”
Her eyes widened, but she shook her head.
But something about her action, the way she’d touched her neck when she thought of Krustalus taunting her, drawing close, made Daemon think there was something more to the situation than a vampire out for revenge.
“I thought you’d been called to investigate the murder. That others were with you at the time. What the hell were you doing alone in the warehouse district beforehand?” he snapped, not meaning to. But dammit, didn’t the woman know how dangerous her actions were?
Her spine tensed. “Stevens said he knew my parents’ killer’s name.”
“And he said to come alone?” Daemon asked, his voice hard. “You didn’t see it as a setup? Hell, woman.”
“Of course I considered it.” She narrowed her eyes. “But I had to know the vampire’s name.”
Daemon shook his head in disbelief. “He couldn’t tell you over the phone? You had to meet him in the middle of the night in an isolated place…the same place the other officers were murdered?”
She didn’t say anything in response, just glowered at him.
“So Stevens gave you Krustalus’s name, then the vampire murdered him. You witnessed it.”
“No, I didn’t see him kill Stevens. If I had, I would be an eyewitness and have the proof I needed, now wouldn’t I? He’s too clever for that. Besides, I think there are two of them. Stevens never had a chance. The chief gave me Krustalus’s name over the phone when I reported the murder.”
Daemon took an exasperated breath. “Why did Stevens say for you to come alone as if he were the only one who knew Krustalus’s name, but the chief gave it to you without even meeting you there?”
“I don’t know!”
“Did you see Krustalus kill your parents?”
“No.” She shook her head and sniffled, her teeth gritted as if she were trying to fight back the tears.
“Then how do you know it was him?” It wasn’t that Daemon didn’t believe her, only that she had to have proof. If she attempted to kill Krustalus without provocation, she would be no better than what she assumed Krustalus was. “Why wouldn’t he have taken their blood? I don’t know of any vampire who would kill like that and not drink his victims’ blood.”
“I don’t know.”
Puzzling over her parents’ deaths, Daemon rubbed his chin. “Vampires often fight each other using swords, usually over territorial disputes, but serial killers use their fangs to murder. Why are you so sure a vampire murdered your parents?”
She jumped off the bed and paced across the Turkish rug. “Don’t you see? He did it that way to throw the SCU off! He did it that way to get back at me!”
“Why you?” Daemon didn’t attempt to conceal his skepticism. Why would a vampire kill her parents in an atypical fashion for her sake? Had the trauma of her parents’ deaths affected her mind too?
Te
zra stopped pacing and glowered at him. “I knew he’d begun killing humans, but I didn’t know his name. After reading his mind, I taunted him with the knowledge I gleaned. Young and stupid, I never thought he would discover my identity, because I couldn’t determine his. Hoping I could goad him into making a mistake, I planned to turn him in to the SCU. I thought I’d become famous like Michael Tarantos, who at sixteen discovered a vampire hit squad intending to destroy the SCU. Thinking I was invincible…”
With an abrupt sweep of her hand, she brushed away tears. “Just as surely as if I’d stabbed them in the heart myself, I caused my parents’ deaths. I brought about my sister’s suffering all these years. My own arrogance destroyed my family.”
He rubbed his neck, which was rife with tension. He wanted to hold her tight and take away her pain, but because of her agitated posture, he assumed she wouldn’t appreciate anyone’s touch, least of all a vampire’s. “Why didn’t you tell the SCU about your abilities? Surely they would have believed you then.”
“I told a senior staff member about what happened, though I left out the part about being telepathic. Patrico died in the same manner as my parents before he could speak to the others. The vampire would have killed anyone else I tried to alert. I still hadn’t learned his name. Not until the chief revealed it.”
This still struck Daemon as odd. How would the chief have discovered the vampire’s name so easily, when a huntress with telepathic abilities could not? “Do you know how the chief came to discern his name?”
Her brows knit in a deep frown. “You’re thinking the police chief was manipulated. That Stevens was. Maybe so. Or maybe someone he turned or someone who had once been his friend squealed on him.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “Krustalus said I’d find out his name soon. I’m certain he’s the one, and how the chief or Stevens knew doesn’t concern me.”
“But it should, Tezra.” Daemon finished dressing. “You have to prove he’s committed murder. The SCU will have no recourse but to condemn you for murder should you kill him without proving he’s committed a crime.”