Demon Moon

by Meljean Brook

  Colin’s knees buckled; the nosferatu held him up, sucking and sucking.

  Oh god. Think. What did she have? No venom or hellhound.

  Should you leave and Sir Pup stay, no one could protect you from the evil creatures stalking the night—

  No weapons.

  A gun wouldn’t have protected you if there had been two. You have to run—

  Powerful hands beneath her chin and across her mouth forced her head back; Colin’s features stared down at her, washed in the scarlet light of demon eyes. She wanted to snap her teeth at the demon. Bite his face off. Those beautiful gray eyes, corrupted by something evil and cold…

  They were still gray.

  “Let me go.” It was a growl, tearing from her throat.

  But that wasn’t her. That sound wasn’t anything human or vampire.

  “What sort of ungodly perversion are you?” The demon’s voice was filled with disgust…with horror. His hands tightened and shifted position, as if he was struggling to maintain his grip.

  Why bother? Even if she could run, she wouldn’t leave Colin here alone. She had nowhere safe to go.

  If it comes to that, and you can’t run—

  Oh, god. Yes, she did.

  —grab the pup—

  Not out, not away, but in.

  —and hold on to him—

  Her memory waited; she plunged, ripped through it. Found fangs and fur and claws. Gathered them up. Grasped them tight.

  —and he’ll run for you—

  And ran with them.

  Ariphale’s hands slipped from Colin’s shoulders, its frigid lips lifting from his skin; but even if Colin had had the strength to move, he wasn’t certain he could have.

  Nor was he certain who was the more astonished when Savi shape-shifted, and the slim woman became an enormous wolf: the nosferatu, who knew that nothing except Guardians, demons, and hellhounds could change their shapes; or the vampires watching, who’d been told nothing like a werewolf existed.

  Or Dalkiel, when she ripped his throat out.

  Clever Savitri. She’d always liked to bite.

  The nosferatu’s forearm around his neck strangled Colin’s triumphant laughter. But he still shook with it when she went after Dalkiel’s face, as the demon shrieked and rolled onto his hands and knees and tried to crawl away.

  His wings sprouted from his back; his talons scrabbled against the smooth surface of the dance floor. A sword appeared in his hand, but he’d no time to use it. She pounced on him, her massive forepaws pinning his wings down. Her jaws snapped on the back of his neck. Silenced his screams.

  She’d shown more mercy than Colin would have done.

  Sleek black fur rippled beneath the colored lights as she turned her head to look at him. Her psychic scent rose around her, luscious and fragrant. Hellfire burned from her eyes.

  Ariphale leapt into the air.

  “You should let me go,” Colin said. “She’s less likely to kill you if you are kind to me. Oh, that crossbow will simply not do at all.” It was absurd, how weak he was; but it took barely a kick to upset Ariphale’s aim, hovering as it was with a beautiful vampire crushed against its chest.

  The bolt passed several meters from Savi’s pointed ears. She paced below them, her muzzle tilted up, her crimson gaze fixed on Ariphale as he fluttered across the ceiling like a bald bat trapped in an attic.

  “She’s probably thinking of a way to form wings,” Colin told it. “You’d best release me.”

  But it wasn’t the threat of Savi flying that spurred the nosferatu to action; it was the sudden psychic presence of vampires, of humans—of Guardians—from outside the club, as the protective spell surrounding Polidori’s disappeared.

  Fia, Paul, and Darkwolf rushed onto the floor below.

  “Your idiot demon partner—” Colin struggled as the creature dove toward the suite. Savi raced along beneath them. “—used symbols activated by blood in a building full of vampires. Did you truly believe we wouldn’t sniff out the location—oh, bloody hell.”

  Of course the sodding nosferatu didn’t use a door; and reinforced as it was, the door might not have buckled under the force of Ariphale’s body slamming into it. The wall did, and they crashed into the suite in a shower of wood and insulation.

  The door rattled in its frame; the hinges squealed.

  Before Savi could hit it again, Ariphale triggered the spell. Her scent vanished.

  Colin rose to his knees, coughing to clear the plaster from his lungs. Epona sat on the sofa, her red-rimmed eyes wide with shock.

  Ariphale stood by the door, its hand covering the symbols protectively. Not so arrogant now; before Savi, it’d have never feared that two vampires might have the speed and power to get around a nosferatu and erase the blood.

  Unfortunately, at that moment neither he nor Epona did.

  Colin smiled when he looked at Epona again, and she cringed back into the cushions. “Did you empty this room of its weapons, as well?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry, I—”

  “Don’t apologize to me. I only refrain from killing you to avoid upsetting Miss Murray; she’s much more reasonable and forgiving of such things. You made a bargain to save Raven’s life?”

  She nodded, her breath shallow. “I’m not sorry for that.”

  “I’d have done the same for Miss Murray.” He adjusted his collar, tested the wounds on his neck. Raw, but closed. “It must have been quite the demonstration the demon gave you, when the nosferatu tore apart those vampires. They were your friends?”

  “Yes.” If possible, she appeared smaller than before, older. She darted a glance from his throat to Ariphale. “Do you need blood?”

  “Yes.” He strolled to the sofa, tipped her chin up and coldly studied her neck. She paled; her lips quivered. “But not yours. I will, however, take this.” With deft fingers, he unbuckled her spiked leather choker and slid it into his pocket. “Once it realizes there is no exit the Guardians will not cover, that it is trapped, it will slaughter us; you’d do well to escape.”

  “How?” she whispered.

  “It’ll not leave the symbols unprotected to pursue you, for fear I’ll destroy the spell. Leap through.”

  Colin pointed to the ragged hole in the upper half of the wall. Selah hovered outside, looking down at them. Her hands were moving as if she signed instructions, but he could not understand them.

  The spell, taking its own interpretation of “silence” to prevent all communication.

  “What about you?”

  “If we both tried to escape, it would come after us. And even if I made it out, it could remain here indefinitely—until Polidori’s fell down around it, or I set it on fire to flush it out. I’ve no intention to pay for the club’s restoration again.” He frowned as Ariphale fidgeted uneasily at the door, angling its head to look at Selah. “Go now, or I’ll reconsider and take your place.”

  He should, regardless. Though Selah probably reported their location and safety within, Savi would be frantic with worry.

  But he wearied of these intrusions into his homes; and if she had to leave him, he could at least give her a safe location to return to whenever she needed one.

  Provided he survived, of course.

  Ariphale’s growl rumbled through the suite when Epona sprinted for the wall; its white naked body tensed as if to give chase, then stilled as it glanced back at Colin.

  “I may have been weak enough that you could have caught her and returned to intercept me before I reached the door,” Colin said, smiling. He approached the nosferatu at a slow, insolently careless stroll. “But it’s difficult to be certain, is it not?”

  “It is not.”

  The nosferatu could not be given accolades for wit and diction, but Colin was surprised that it had answered at all. He’d anticipated the creature would dismiss him as a nonentity.

  “Ah, yes. You must know the limits of my strength. You’ve taken my blood; you know that many things which should be impossible for a vampi
re, I can do. You felt one of them—Chaos—whilst you fed.”

  But Ariphale had either withstood it disturbingly well, or Colin hadn’t the ability to channel that realm as he could when taking blood. Savi had reacted with horror, and three young vampires had screamed in fear; Ariphale hadn’t shown the slightest discomfort.

  Not until Savi had destroyed his demon partner.

  Colin touched the tip of his tongue to his left fang, let the scent of his blood tinge his breath.

  Ariphale’s nostrils flared.

  The nosferatu had its own curse: bloodlust. A vampire would have been satisfied after taking so much from Colin earlier, but the nosferatu couldn’t experience physical hunger, and so the bloodlust was not eased by feeding. And Colin couldn’t mistake its effect on the creature’s body.

  Nor could he mistake the creature’s self-disgust at its reaction.

  Colin leaned his shoulder against the wall, crossed his feet at the ankles. “It is a terrible burden, a curse such as this,” he said, his voice overripe with melancholy. “The endless need; the lack of control; the loss of one’s will. The revolting urge to rut like an animal.”

  “Your lament would please a demon, who might assist you in ending your own existence and relieving you of your burden,” Ariphale said. “But I do not care for it.”

  “I imagine you don’t. I was not speaking of myself.” His gaze swept the nosferatu’s length. “At this moment, you must be certain of your impending doom. For though my consort awaits you, she’ll not have the opportunity to kill you and end your cursed existence; the moment the shields around this room have fallen, the angelic Selah will teleport in…and will return you to your holding cell. But you’ve another option.”

  “To remain here?” Ariphale shook its head; its amber eyes glowed fiercely. “That is not another option; it is still imprisonment.”

  “You are mistaken; that is not what I offer. Chaos is not all that I contain within me,” he said softly. “I also have Caelum. And I can make it very good for you.”

  Within his pocket, the spiked collar lay folded in his palm. Colin squeezed.

  The tinge became a flood.

  Colin withdrew his hand, and painted in blood a symbol on the wall. “My consort,” he said, “cannot keep her psychic shields up whilst in her wolf form. You sensed them failing before her transformation; you know this to be true.”

  “Yes.” Its response was guttural, the bloodlust raging fully upon it.

  He wrote the reversed symbol below the first. “Also, that the portal to Chaos opens when her shields are down. You must have heard the experiment we conducted in the Room.”

  Ariphale stared at the symbols. “You are opening a portal to Chaos? Or to Caelum?”

  Neither, but this ignorant bloodsucker had not learned that without Colin sensing Savi’s psychic presence, the effect was inert. The spell prevented that.

  Colin grinned and backed slowly away. Provoking a hunter’s instincts. “The wyrmwolves should come through at any moment. And I shall lock myself in the suite’s washroom, activate the spell inside, and wait for them to kill you. When you are dead, the protection around this room shall fall, the Guardians will sweep in and terminate the wyrmwolves…and I shall exit the washroom unharmed. And perhaps with my hair combed; I’ll have little else to do as I wait.”

  Good God. He was more like Dalkiel than he’d thought; these monologues were quite entertaining.

  And, as he’d hoped, infuriating.

  With a cry of rage, Ariphale rushed him. Colin let him come—he couldn’t have escaped by running. Nor did he want to: a nosferatu less overwhelmed by bloodlust might have drawn a weapon; Ariphale used his fangs.

  So did Colin.

  He only needed a sip. The nosferatu’s hand over his mouth, holding his chin twisted to the side and his neck exposed, was just enough.

  Ariphale’s body went rigid, then quaked as Colin sent the rapture twisting through it. The creature’s mouth opened, as if to cry out; the tearing pressure of its teeth in Colin’s throat eased.

  Release. A final pulse into the nosferatu’s blood, to shift the odds in his favor; Ariphale already seemed better prepared for it. He was quickly losing his advantage, but Colin only needed a moment’s head start, and an instant’s clarity to recall that he shouldn’t use his bleeding hand. And to hope that Selah was watching, and would be ready.

  He swiped at the symbols; the nosferatu bore down on him, his weapon flashing.

  Selah didn’t transport in; she gave him a sword.

  Colin stepped to the side and dropped. He cut Ariphale’s running legs from under it, then stood and impaled it from behind, angling in between its wings and into the heart as it fell. And through the back of the neck, just because it was there.

  Not very sporting, but fuck him if he wasn’t as weak as a bloody kitten.

  The suite door crashed open. Savi’s fragrance filled his mouth, his lungs. He staggered, sank to his knees. Buried his hands in her fur as she pressed her cold nose against his throat.

  Colin drew back and looked at her. “I’ll not kiss you like this.”

  She opened her mouth in a wolfish, toothy grin; a moment later she lay quivering against him, still smiling…laughing.

  Naked.

  “I think I must have a hammerspace.” She pressed a kiss to his lips. Another. “But I have no idea how to get my stuff back out of it.”

  Colin glanced down at her fingers; the henna decorating her hands was unbroken, but her ring was gone.

  Her smile faded. Colin had no time to reply.

  “Savi,” Michael said from behind them, his voice eerily strained. “Raise your psychic shields.”

  His gut clenching, Colin turned to look. Beyond the plane of the wall, three nosferatu stared back at him. Wyrmwolves writhed and tore at each other. Chaos glowed silently around them.

  Her scent disappeared; so did the portal. The crimson symbols radiated heat, and dried dark against the paint.

  The Doyen unclenched his jaw. “That was…irresponsible,” he said with quiet anger.

  Colin glanced back at Savi. Her face was stricken, but her gaze rested on her bare fingers, not the symbols.

  And Colin replied, “I must confess I find it very difficult to care.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Bald and brutish.

  His appearance suggested the latter, but Varney didn’t seem to mind that a woman who’d been a dog sat on his enormous lap. Nor that Colin asked him to turn his lantern-jawed chin to the side, so that he could better explain to Savi the best locations to bite, the expected blood output from each vein and artery, and the proper method of healing the punctures and of opening her shields to return the pleasure of it.

  Perhaps Colin had promised him hazard pay again? Or maybe he just had a very soft heart beneath that hard nosferatulike exterior.

  It was a heart that Savi couldn’t stop imagining. Her fangs ached and throbbed in unison with its pulsing, steady flow of lifeblood, until Colin’s voice faded beneath the incredible sound. God, she’d never been this hungry. Varney’s pale, thick neck seemed the most beautiful thing she’d ever—

  “Go on, Savi,” Colin said quietly, but she was already leaning forward, already pressing her mouth and teeth against his throat.

  It hit her tongue, raced through her. A flash of light behind her eyes, the heat and pleasure of willing blood in her mouth, her veins.

  Electric. Heaven. Wonderful and sweet and luscious as it slid into her and he was thick and hard beneath her, and she was squirming against him, squirming and he was so big and she was so wet and the blood wasn’t enough.

  I don’t want you.

  She didn’t want him, either.

  But she couldn’t stop. Her hands fumbled for her skirt. Oh god. Jeans, next time. Harder to get past. Wear jeans next time and shred them open at the crotch and just fuck fuck fuck—

  Stop, Savi. I don’t want you. Stop.

  “That’s enough, Savi,” Colin echoed hoarsel
y. “You’re taking too much.”

  Too much. She broke away and bit her tongue—more blood, her blood…and it tasted like blood. Varney’s wounds were almost half-closed when she bent her head.

  Practice, for when it wasn’t a vampire she had to heal.

  A flush of embarrassment spread over Varney’s skin. His penis was solid between her legs. Oh, god—and she could smell herself.

  Awkwardly, she scooted off. “Thanks.”

  I’ll call you tomorrow.

  She wouldn’t cry. Not right now. Not when Colin’s mouth was set and his gaze dark and he looked as if he’d just gone through seven agonies of hell.

  “I didn’t want him,” she said as she took his hand.

  “I know.” His voice was rough. She stood still beneath his perusal as he studied her face, her mouth. “You’ve a bit here. I would kiss it away but I daren’t.” He raised their linked hands and brushed his thumb against the corner of her lips.

  She stared at the smear of blood. Heard his heart quicken…could almost feel his hunger. He needed to feed.

  And it shouldn’t be animal blood—not after Ariphale had taken so much. Nor could it be half-vampire half-hellhound blood.

  “Will you drive me home?” She wasn’t going to cry. “To my place?”

  He closed his eyes. It was a long time before he said, “Yes.”

  Five minutes after she exited Colin’s car, with the painful silence that had stood between them still heavy in her stomach, he knocked at her door.

  His golden hair had been mussed beyond its usual state—beyond what it had been when she’d seen him last. His collar was askew. The scent of a woman’s expensive perfume eddied around him.

  The fragrance of a woman’s fear and arousal.

  The door frame splintered beneath Savi’s fingers.

  His throat worked before he said, “I didn’t.” His eyes searched hers, desperation in the gray depths. “I didn’t.”

  His face blurred in front of her. “I know.”

  “One more night, Savi. There’s no bloodlust now. And you’ve fed. Just one before you leave.” He came inside. No need to ask for an invitation. His mouth covered hers, sipping and tasting. His hands were at her waist, untying the belt of her robe. “Just one more.”