Cover Copy
When the demons arrive, not even The Society can escape extinction.
Soft-spoken and sharply dressed, William, a bitten vampyr, has sworn his loyalty to The Society—and when an imminent demon invasion threatens everything his family has worked so hard to build, he quickly comes up with a plan to save them all. But he’ll need Evan, a stunning and defiant woman, to help rally what’s left of humanity…
Evan is the last human who wants to see the Vampires saved. But with the demons set to destroy all life on earth—human and Vampire alike—she’ll have to partner with William to survive. Yet the dangerous twists and turns ahead only bring the two closer, uncovering forbidden desires neither dreamed were possible. Will their newfound romance be enough to conquer a centuries-long feud? Or will it put the entire world at risk?
VENGEANCE OF THE DEMONS
The Society
Visit us at www.kensingtonbooks.com
Books by Rebekah R. Ganiere
The Society Series
Reign of Vampires
Rise of the Fae
Vengeance of the Demons
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
Vengeance of the Demons
A The Society Novel
Rebekah R. Ganiere
LYRICAL PRESS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
www.kensingtonbooks.com
Copyright
Lyrical Press books are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp. 119 West 40th Street New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2016 by Rebekah R. Ganiere
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First Electronic Edition: May 2016
eISBN-13: 978-1-61650-663-6
eISBN-10: 1-61650-663-6
First Print Edition: May 2016
ISBN-13: 1978-1-61650-664-3
ISBN-10: -61650-664-4
Printed in the United States of America
Dedication
For my Grandmother Lillian, my Mom Beverly and my Sister Ashley the three strongest women I've had the privilege to know and be loved by.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my editor Paige Christian, without her I never would have gotten these books finished. For Renee Rocco for seeing something in my stories worth taking a chance on. To Lyrical Press and Kensington for all the support.
Chapter 1
William took another deep draw from Sue’s neck as his body shook with the strain of holding back his climax. The soft throaty moans she uttered along with how deep her nails stung his skin told him that she was almost there herself.
Her thick, rich blood slid down his throat and tingled his limbs with energy.
“William.” She panted his name the same way she had every time she was about to climax. Over the last year of using Sue for a blood servant, he’d explored every last fantasy he’d spent his life dreaming of but never fulfilling.
Her breathing quickened and her nails dug deeper into his skin as she sucked in a sharp breath. He pumped into her, disengaging his fangs at the moment his body wound tight and then exploded with release. He rocked himself through his climax and waited for hers to subside before licking her neck wound shut and rolling away. They lay side by side in his bed, both catching their breath.
She laughed. “Wow, that was a quick one.”
He reached over and ran his hand over the flat of her stomach. “Sorry. It’s been a while.” It was a lie. The truth was he’d been envisioning her as someone else and that had gotten him excited in ways he’d never imagined.
She laughed again and lifted his hand, kissing it. “I’m not complaining. I never was very patient.”
He sat up, picked up his watch, and wrapped it around his wrist. A nice watch was something he never would have been able to afford before being bitten by Danika and becoming a vampyr.
Behind him, Sue slipped out of bed and pulled on her clothes.
“So have you given any thought to what I said before?” she asked.
William’s gut clenched. “Yes, I have. And I’ve told you. I’m a fledgling. I’m not old enough to have a human of my own yet.”
“William, you practically run this coven next to Danika and Mason. You could do whatever the hell you want.”
She was right. But she was also not the one.
“We have fun. That’s all this can be.” He turned to her. “If that isn’t what you want, I completely understand and respect that. You are welcome to find a different member of the society to be with.”
She stared at him for a moment and then sighed and shook her head. She climbed back onto the bed and leaned over to him. Her mousy brown hair hung haphazardly around her face, a testament to their most recent intimacies.
“You know what your problem is?”
He shook his head. “Tell me.”
“You’re too nice. I’ve never met a guy who was as nice as you before. Not pureblooded Vampire, or a bitten vampyr. Not even those mutated vamps or stupid human men are as nice as you. You’d think that with the vamps and humans being lowest on the totem pole that they’d be the nicest people ever. But nope. It’s you.”
“Well, I hope that whomever you end up with, they are much nicer than I,” he replied. If she even had a clue that every time for the past two months they had been together, he’d been envisioning her as someone else… No. He wasn’t as nice as she thought.
He pulled on his slacks and sweater, ran his fingers through his hair, and stepped into his loafers.
“Come on. I’ll walk you back to the barracks.”
She nodded and moved to the door. He held it for her, and they both walked into the hallway. They proceeded onto the landing and down the stairs to the grand foyer.
Selene and Neeman stood talking to Sinya and Lance. Selene cooed over Sinya’s new baby. It was still strange to see Lance wearing a baby carrier and Neeman with a smile on his face. Things were changing in the house. And most were for the better.
Selene caught William’s eye and walked over. “Hey.”
William motioned for Sue to continue into the kitchen area. “Evening, Selene.”
She lowered her voice. “We still haven’t found the rift, but we’re getting closer.”
“Good.” If they didn’t find the rift soon, all hell was going to break loose on Chicago. The demon attacks were taking their toll, and it was only a matter of time before a vamp saw what was going on and the news spread. They’d quarantined the area surrounding the location of the rift. For now.
“Have there been any demon sightings tonight?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Let me get Sue back to the barracks, and then we
can all sit down and debrief before sun up.”
Selene nodded and walked back to Neeman, slipping her hand in his back pocket.
William turned and ushered Sue to the back door. They’d just stepped out into the fresh night air when his stomach clenched.
A strong blonde-haired beauty with peachy skin and eyes like aquamarines strolled out of the barracks. She spotted William and Sue and he cleared his throat.
“Well, well, what have we here?” asked Evan.
“Good evening, Evan.” Just looking at her made his throat dry like instant paint. His skin prickled and he tried to keep his hands steady as his desire spiked.
“Midnight snack at the local concession stand?” asked Evan.
“Shut up. You’re just jealous.” Sue walked past Evan.
“Jealous? That you let a bloodsucker drain you and have his way with you? I think not, bloodwhore.”
“Stuck-up redneck. If you hate it here so much, do us all a favor and leave. Nothing’s keeping you here. Lord Danika said any of us that wanted to leave could.” Sue pointed to the gate.
“That’s enough.” William strode forward. “Sue, you go inside. I need to have a word with Evan.”
Sue rolled her eyes and stormed into the barracks.
Evan put on a falsely jovial smile. “Oh yippee, is it time for my ‘be a good girl’ speech again from the big powerful Vampire? I swear, William, you’re like a broken record.”
“How many times do I have to tell you I’m not a pureblooded Vampire? I was bitten. That makes me a vampyr. Meaning I used to be a human.” He grabbed her by the arm. “Come on.”
“Dude, let go of me.” She ripped from his grasp. “What? Did you mix me up with Sue? See, I’m the pretty blond and she’s the plain brunette.”
William clenched his jaw several times. “You shouldn’t talk about her that way.”
“Why because she’s your lovermuffin? Vampyr.”
“No, because she’s a nice person.”
“Oooooh, right. The world’s just full of nice people now, isn’t it?”
This wasn’t going the way he had planned. He’d rehearsed this. All he’d wanted was to have a nice civil conversation with her about helping them out. But talking to Evan was like talking to a whirlwind. All lashing out and leaving destruction in her wake. Why had he told everyone that this was a good idea?
He blew out a heavy breath. Her blue eyes raked him up and down.
“I need to speak to you. Can we please go up to your room?”
“Are you joking? No way. I’m not like your blood buddy, Sue.”
“Fine, then we can go to my room.”
“Are you out of your gourd? Dude, I wouldn’t be caught dead being seen walking into your bedroom.”
Her anger was contagious, and William took a deep breath to keep from exploding on her. “What’s wrong with you? Why are you so mean all the time?”
Her jaw dropped. “Me? I’m not the one holding people here against their will.”
“No one is a prisoner here. You know that. But if we let you go, you’d be picked up by slavers for sure.”
She shrugged. “I can handle myself. I got places I can go.”
He chuckled. “You think you can, but you have no idea.”
“Oh really? And I bet you’re so tough. How many slavers have you killed in your fine silk sweater and your shiny, expensive loafers?”
The memory of plunging a knife deep into the neck of a slaver who’d injured Mason raced through his mind. It had been a recurring nightmare of his over the last year.
“One,” he said quietly. “Just one.”
She snorted and crossed her arms over her chest. “Yeah, I bet.”
“The night that we were captured. I killed one because he was going to kill my friends.”
She laughed again and then stared at him for a minute. “You’re serious.”
He nodded. “Look, it’s not something I’m proud of, and it’s harder than you think. So that’s why you’re better here. Even if you don’t want to be.”
“You’re damn right I don’t want to be here. You bloodsuckers think you know everything and that you’re so much better than us humans.”
“No they don’t.”
“They?” Her eyebrows knit together. “You’re one of them. Or haven’t you noticed?”
Yes, technically he was a member of the vampire society, but he still saw himself as human in some ways. It wasn’t easy to identify as something for over twenty years and then overnight be told you are no longer that person.
“Please, Evan. I need to speak to you. And we need to go somewhere that no one will overhear. The bedrooms in the barracks are cement blocks. They’re practically soundproof.”
She stared at him for a moment and then her posture relaxed. “Fine. But you better not try anything.”
“I would never think of it.” Well, he might think of it, but he certainly wouldn’t act on it.
He followed Evan toward the front of the barracks. When he was human, she was the kind of girl who wouldn’t have given him a second glance. The hot ones never wanted the geeks, no matter what the movies used to portray.
She threw open the door while looking straight ahead. A group of guys were in the kitchen making popcorn. They stopped when she walked in, but she ignored them and headed up the stairs. The humans stared at William and nodded but didn’t speak.
It was one of the things William actually appreciated about being a vampyr. The respect. As a human, he’d never been respected, not even very well liked. No matter how hard he’d tried.
He’d headed for the stairs when he heard whispers from the kitchen.
“Lord Danika really turned that guy?” asked one.
“Do you think he wanted to be turned?” asked another.
“I heard he saved her life and in return she made him a vampyr as some sort of honor,” said another.
“What a traitor to humankind. To want to sell out and be one of them.”
“Shut up. You’d do it too if someone offered, Matthew.”
He continued up the stairs, his gut clenched tight. A traitor? Is that how humans saw him? As a traitor to his kind? Little did they know that his turning was an accident. All he’d done was try to save Danika’s life by taking a bullet for her. In return, she’d tried to heal him with her blood.
He shook his head and sighed. He’d been wrong. Even now, humans didn’t respect him.
He reached the upstairs hallway and walked down to the open door. Evan sat on her bed and waited.
He closed the door quietly.
“I need your help,” he said without pretense.
“What?” Suspicion clouded her voice. Her eyes narrowed. “What kind of help?”
“Can I trust you to keep something quiet?”
She put on a pageant queen smile. “Of course you can, because we’re BFFs.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. Can we braid each other’s hair and paint nails too while we—”
“Will you shut up?” William hated losing his temper.
Her mouth snapped closed and she stared at him for a moment.
William pinched the bridge of his nose and blew out a breath. Why did he think this would be easy? In the past six months that he’d known her, she’d not made one single thing easy.
“Okay, what?” Her voice no longer held the mocking tone it had a moment before.
Their gazes met. After he told her, there was no going back. If he brought her into the circle of trust…
“Seriously, either tell me or let me get something to eat.”
“You know Mason, Lord Danika’s mate?”
She sat forward. “Dude, is it me or is that guy enormous?”
“He seriously is the biggest guy I’ve ever met.”
They laughed together for a moment, and in that instant William saw Evan for who she really was. But in a flash the girl was gone.
“Okay, so what about him?”
“You kn
ow he’s not human, right?”
“He’s a Vampire?” Her eyebrows raised. “Man that explains a lot.”
“No, no. He’s not a Vampire or a vampyr. He’s something else.”
Her eyebrows drew together. “Something else?”
“He’s a demon.”
She snorted and then laughed. “A demon. Like, angels and demons and heaven and hell? That’s a good one.”
“I’m not joking.”
Her smile fell and she leapt to her feet. “You’re serious?”
“Yes. And Selene is his half sister.”
“So she’s a demon as well?”
“Half demon, half fae.”
She grabbed her hair with both hands and pulled on it. “There are fairy people as well?”
The tension in the air thickened. He was going about this all wrong. The worry and horror that now etched her features was bound to explode.
“Okay, why don’t you sit down?” he offered.
“I’m fine. I can handle it. Just tell me. Are there tortoise ninjas too?”
“A month or so back, before you returned to us, there was an explosion.” William shoved his hands in his pockets.
“At the tracker compound, yeah I heard.”
“Well that was caused by a group of demons.”
She closed her eyes and rubbed at them for a moment. He observed her quietly, waiting to gauge her reaction.
“Where did they come from?” she asked. “Have they always been here?”
At least she didn’t explode. “No. The point is—and this is the point that I need you to promise to keep to yourself—there are more coming, and we can’t fend them off alone. We need help. We want you to take us to the humans.”
“No. No way. Are you out of your friggin’ mind?” She stared at him as if he’d sprouted a set of horns.
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