***
We drove in silence getting ever closer to the border and farther and farther away from Jesse and home. My pulse was a bird trapped in my veins. What was she doing now? How would she cope?
“I didn’t tell them,” Ryker said. His tone soft.
“What?” My voice was hoarse, as if I’d been crying a lot. I hated that.
“I didn’t tell them about you. That you were one of us.”
The knot in my chest eased a little, no idea why. “You didn’t?”
“No. But the bloodsucker scourge we picked up did plenty of talking.” His fingers tapped against the wheel. “He said you drained his energy?”
“You can speak to them?”
“Not me. But Bane, the head of MPD can.”
I pressed my head back against the seat. “Well, shit.”
“But right now, I can’t sense you. I mean, you feel human to me.”
“Yes, I’m good at that.”
“How?”
How could I explain this to someone when I didn’t even understand it myself? “I’m not sure. Ever since I can recall, ever since this...hunger woke up inside me, I’ve had this wall. Walls, sorry. I call them my shields.”
The border came into view, and the electric hum of the fence filled the air.
“You have them up right now?”
“Yes.”
“Can you open them?”
“No.”
“You can’t?”
“I don’t want to.”
He sighed through his nose. “I just need to see.”
I turned to him. “Isn’t it enough that you’re taking me from my home, from my sister, from everything I’ve ever known? Do you have to test how freaky I am too?”
He lapsed into silence for a long beat. “I get it. This sucks for you. But there are worse fates.”
“Like what?”
“Like never experiencing anything, like never having loved or been loved, or like being dead.”
Okay, maybe he had a point. I still didn’t want him to poke around in my head though. I crossed my arms.
“When we get back to the MPD we’ll need to gauge you. Find out how strong the neph blood is.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s a hierarchy in Midnight—rules we live by, and a set up for the community. We need to know where you fit in.”
Okay, now I was intrigued. “What kind of hierarchy?”
We slowed as we slipped over the border, and my heart lurched. The sky began to darken as we left Sunset behind. As I left Jesse behind.
Breathe, Serenity, just breathe. “Tell me about the hierarchy. Please.” Anything to take my mind off what was happening to me.
Ryker slipped off his shades and shot me a sidelong glance with his baby blues. “On one condition.”
“What?”
“You drop your shields for the boss.”
“How long is the drive?”
“Forty-five minutes.”
Great almost an hour to kill. I couldn’t keep the bite out of my words. “Fine. Deal.”
The corner of his mouth curled up. “You have a temper, don’t you?”
“My temperament isn’t up for examination. Hierarchy. Please.”
“Okay. So you know that nephs have Black Wing blood in their veins, right?”
“Descended from the bloodlines of human and Black Wing unions.”
We slipped into darkness, sailing beneath a full moon.
“Right. But there are different levels of neph,” he said. “In some of us, the Black Wing gene has taken stronger root, our bloodlines have had more than one Black Wing in them, and possibly several nephs making us powerful and giving us extra abilities.”
“The Protectorate.”
“Yes, the Protectorate are all primary nephs. But not all primary nephs are Protectorate.”
“I’m confused. What makes the Protectorate special?”
“We each command an element.”
“Like earth, water, fire and stuff?”
“Yes.”
“So, only primaries that command an element are allowed to become Protectorate?”
“Yes. But we do command a small force of regular primaries.”
We passed amber lit stores. People milled about, shopping and going about their day. But it was night, just as it had always been sunset for me.
“It will take some getting used to,” Ryker said.
“Are they safe?”
He chuckled. “The scourge don’t attack constantly. They have a cycle of their own, not due for another couple of weeks, and the residents of Midnight are pretty savvy.”
I guess you had to be to live here. But wait, that didn’t make sense. The rippers had attacked me a couple of days ago. “You’re telling me that the scourge never attack outside of that time frame?”
His jaw tightened. “There have been the odd instances of late. We’re looking into it.”
Was the Black Wing who’d saved me looking into it too?
“Back to the nephs and our deal,” he said. “You have the primary nephs and then you have the minor nephs. The ones who have abilities like telekinesis or pyrokinesis, maybe telepathy, or it could just be the ability to read auras. The minor neph population is high.”
“So, while the Protectorate keep the humans safe, what do the other primaries who aren’t part of the MPD do?”
His jaw tightened. “They build their mini empires and play tug of war when it comes to power. Not all nephs have humanity’s best interests at heart. There are things in Midnight that the MPD is struggling to keep in control. A breed of neph that wants to break all the rules.”
Gooseflesh broke out across my skin. Nolan had said the nephs were the good guys, but the tick of Ryker’s jaw told me we had it super wrong, and then the memory of my recent jaunt into Midnight reared its head again. The rippers had me surrounded and then those guys had shown up and they’d asked me...
“What’s a house?”
His gaze flicked my way again. “What did you say?”
“Look, a few days ago I was here chasing a ripper and I got surrounded by a pack and these two guys came up and kinda scared them off but then they attacked me. But before they did, they asked me what house I belonged to.”
He exhaled sharply through his nose. “They attacked you? So, they didn’t sense what you were? Damn your shields are good.”
“Not answering my question.”
“Later. You’ll get a rundown of the lay of the land later.”
“Why later?”
“Because we’re here.”
A set of wrought iron gates loomed up ahead of me, so high they reached for the moon. They swung open, silently and smoothly as we glided closer. My hands went cold and clammy and I pressed my thighs together to combat the need to pee.
The van crunched down a gravel laid drive and rolled toward a dark, hulking shape made of stone and shadow.
I’d thought he was taking me to the MPD, this looked like a haunted house. “What is this place?”
“This is my home. The home of the Midnight Protectorate.”
Chapter 10
The building was a dead husk from the outside, and it wasn’t much better inside. Unkempt and gloomy, dust motes danced in the air, illuminated by shafts of moonlight lancing in through pointed arched windows high up on the wall. A wide staircase, which at some time must have been grand, swept up to the first floor. It was like stepping into a gothic fairytale. Any moment now, a beast would come bounding down the stairs and—
A huge shadow leapt across the wall to the left of the staircase. I stumbled back almost losing my balance.
Ryker pressed a hand to the small of my back to steady me. “Don’t be afraid. He can smell it.”
He? Who was he? The shadow? My question was answered a moment later when the shadow caster appeared at the top of the staircase.
A beast.
It was a beast. I stepped back, but Ryker’s hand was still there holding me f
irmly in place.
“Calm,” Ryker said.
It began to climb down the stairs. No, not a beast, but a man. A beastly man. I’d never seen anything like him. He was a giant, his hands so big he could have twisted my head off my neck with them. His hair was dark, pushed back from his face to curl beneath his ears and his face—oh, God that face—fierce, and primal and predatory. He was wearing a black T-shirt stretched so tight across his shoulders that I expected to hear a rip at any moment.
He stopped a few steps above the ground floor and glared at me. His eyes flashed violet and then dimmed to a purple hue I’d never seen before.
What the heck kind of neph was he?
“Human,” he said.
His voice was like a caress, penetrating deep and stroking parts of me I didn’t even know existed. I suppressed a shudder. How could such a monstrous creature have such a voice?
“No, Bane. She’s not human,” Ryker said. “This is Serenity Harker, the woman the bloodsucker was babbling about.”
The beast, Bane, studied me for a moment longer. His lip curled in derision. “Wrong.”
Ryker leaned in toward me. “Remember our deal? Drop the shields.”
Breath tight in my lungs, gaze still locked on the monster on the stairs, I let my guards down completely. It was like pulling off a pair of uncomfortable shoes, or yanking off your bra at the end of the day. The relief was a sigh and a stretch.
Bane closed his eyes. His nostrils flared and his head swayed as if inhaling the most delicious aroma. “Yes. Not human.” He opened blazing violet eyes and locked onto me. And then he leapt, bridging the distance between is in one bound.
“Fuck!” I turned to run.
Huge arms wrapped around me, and I was hauled up against the hard expanse of Bane’s chest.
“Get off! Get the fuck off me.” I kicked and squirmed succeeding only in rubbing up against him, in feeling every hard plane and dip of his pectorals and abs. His arms were unyielding bands, and his scent, fucking hell what was that? It was dizzying and intoxicating. The darkness inside me pulsed and stirred, and the hunger rose.
“Bane, what the heck are you doing?” Ryker asked. “You’re scaring her.”
Bane growled in warning, and the vibration of his chest ran over my back and a sharp throb of need shot my core. His lips brushed my ear sending a shiver down my spine. “You want me to release you?”
“Yes.” Why was my voice so husky and breathless? Afraid, I was afraid, that’s what it was.
He ran his nose up the side of my neck. “I don’t believe you.”
No. Neither did I. Oh, fuck. I was throbbing now, in all the right places. What was happening to me? It had never been like this before. The darkness was in my veins, in my blood, taking over with the need to feed.
“Dammit, Bane,” Ryker said.
“What’s going on?” It was Drayton, his tone lazy and almost bored.
But it was all peripheral because I was wrapped in need, holding on by a thread. “Let. Me. Go.”
His chest rumbled in a chuckle. “Make me.”
I gave in to the hunger, grabbed his arm and inhaled with my aura. Oh sweet, sweet, fucking hell. Honey and cinnamon, and man, this was something else. It poured into me, over me, filling me.
And then I was free. My knees hit the floor, my head spinning from the intoxicating flavor of his power. My body thrummed and fizzed and buzzed with the need to move, to take action, but I was damned if I could stand.
There were raised voices, then murmurs, but all I could do was hold up my hands and stare at my fingers as my vision blurred and then snapped into high definition.
“Serenity? Serenity. Are you all right? Can you hear me?”
Ryker? I slowly lifted my chin to look into his beautiful face and grinned. “I’m soooo good.”
Someone snort laughed and Ryker’s brows snapped together in annoyance. Was he annoyed at me? I didn’t want him to be mad at me. He was so pretty.
I reached up to stroke his chin. “You are soooo pretty.”
A bark of laughter. “Looks like you have an admirer,” Drayton said.
“Shut it, Dray.” Ryker reached for me. “Come on. Let’s get you settled.” He scooped me up as if I weighed nothing, and I curled against his chest as a wave of warmth seeped into my limbs.
Sleepy. I was so sleepy.
“So what is she?” Drayton asked.
“A cambion,” Bane said. “She’s a fucking cambion.”
***
Cambion. She’s a fucking Cambion.
I bolted up and cracked my head against something hard.
“Shit.” Ryker sat back rubbing his forehead.
I pressed a hand to my own head and massaged the skin. We were in a room, a bedroom if the bed I was laid on was anything to go by. The decor here was slightly less gray and gothic with magnolia walls and even a carpet. Heavy red drapes covered the windows, blocking out the night, and several lamps cast a cheery amber glow.
“How are you feeling?” Ryker asked.
How was I feeling? Refreshed, energized. “I feel...great.”
He smiled. “Oh, good. Saves me having to kick Bane’s ass.”
I arched a brow. “Really? You could do that?”
He cleared his throat. “Okay, maybe I’d have given him a severe talking to.”
I snorted. “What happened?”
“According to Bane, he was testing you.”
“Seemed more like he was having a grope,” Drayton said.
How’d I missed him? He was lounging on a chair by a dresser.
“I’m telling you that dude seriously needs to get laid,” Drayton continued.
Ryker’s lip tightened. “Bane was needling you, pushing you to use your abilities.”
“He could have just asked.”
“Yes, but sometimes we don’t know what we’re capable of until put under duress. So, he made you feel threatened.”
Threatened was the last thing I’d felt, but there was no way I was telling Ryker that. My hunger had been my dirty secret for way too long, and it had never been so sexual before. This was new.
“He said I was a cambion. What is that?”
Ryker looked to Drayton.
Drayton’s lips curved in a half smile. “Oh so now you want me to step in?”
“For fuck’s sake Dray, you were busy, so I went to pick her up alone. Deal with it.”
Drayton pressed his lips together for a moment and then shrugged. “Fine.” He fixed his gaze on me. “A cambion is the offspring of and incubus and a human.”
“What’s an incubus?”
Drayton grinned. “You’re looking at one.”
“O-kay.”
He shrugged. “Most incubi need to feed off sexual energy, but there are some who prefer the life force of their victims, and they drain this through sexual encounters.”
“Which kind are you?”
“I’m all about the sex baby.” He winked.
“Drayton.” Ryker warned.
He sighed. “Fine. Most incubi are sterile but the few that aren’t who do impregnate female humans produce offspring called cambions. But there haven’t been any cambions in centuries.”
“But I’m one?”
He nodded. “According to Bane. And Bane is never wrong. Every cambion has slightly different abilities, and yours are intriguing.”
I snorted. “Hardly.”
Ryker smiled. “You drew power from one of the most powerful nephs in Midnight, Serenity. While he fought back. That is no small feat.”
“He fought back?”
“You didn’t feel it?”
I shook my head.
Drayton chuckled. “Well, that’ll put a dent in Bane’s mammoth ego.”
“There’s also the question of these shields of yours. We’ve never seen anything like it. It’s fascinating.”
They’d been my safety net all this time. They were up now, protecting me from myself, keeping the hunger in check.
�
�How often do you need to feed?” Drayton asked.
I swallowed hard, and licked my lips. “I can go a few weeks without, but then it gets hard to focus.” Although recently. the craving had been getting stronger. “If I don’t feed, it gets harder to keep the shields up. I usually get lucky and manage to get hold of one of the scourge we pick up.”
“And if not?”
I clenched my jaw. “Then I go hungry.”
Drayton sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Have you any idea how dangerous that is? You deny yourself and you risk losing complete control.”
“I have my shields.”
“Which you just admitted are harder to control if you don’t feed for too long. Your hunger is inherited from your incubus father, and trust me if it’s denied that darkness will take over.”
There was way too much conviction in his words for them just to be an empty warning. Was he speaking from experience? I was about to ask but he interrupted.
“Have you ever fed on a human?”
Ryker tensed and the dried up husk of the member of the order came to mind.
I blinked back the heat at the back of my eyelids. “Yes. But I didn’t know.”
Drayton slapped a hand on his thigh. “I knew it! You killed Daryn.” He jabbed a finger at Ryker. “And you covered for her.”
“You didn’t exactly push the question either did you,” Ryker said. “You suspected.”
Drayton sighed. “Fine. I’m a soft touch, okay. Who wouldn’t want to live in Sunset if they could.”
“I didn’t know. I promise. I’m not a murderer.”
Drayton let out a bark of laughter. “Baby, you need to grow a thicker skin. You’re a neph, and killing to survive comes with the territory. Daryn would have snapped your neck without a second thought. Trust me. He was a piece of scum.”
Did his words make me feel better? Not really. The image of that dried husk played on my mind. “He was human. I ended up sucking on his life force as well as the magick he was channeling. There is nothing right about that.”
“Not all humans are worthy of being saved,” Drayton said. “We do it anyway, but trust me, there are some pretty fucked up humans out there and Daryn was one of them. You acted in self-defense. Give yourself a break.” He paused and studied me speculatively. “There is a way to control it you know. So you wouldn’t have to have the shields up all the time.”
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