by Tes Hilaire
From the moment she’d gained her footing she’d been running. Had to get away. Couldn’t let them catch her.
But it was dark as shit in here.
She stubbed her toe on something, slipped on a patch of floor that had been polished to deadly levels, and barely managed to stay upright by grabbing onto what turned out to be an armless statue. Behind her, she could hear Logan calling for her still, zeroing in on the sounds she was making. And somewhere, she knew, his father would be stalking her too. Too bad for them. She’d jump to the netherplanes and stay there before she let them catch her.
That was a last resort. She was a fighter, not a lamb. Even if fighting in this case meant getting the hell away from them.
She skidded around the corner, nails digging into the molding that lined every corner on this level. To the right was another dark hall, and to the left…There. A light in the distance, a tease of temptation in the dark. Only it wasn’t safe there either. There were other Paladin. Other men who would “claim” her.
She turned down the dark hall instead.
***
The doors to the sanctuary swung open, revealing a woman in flowing cherry-red robes. The rich robes clashed ostentatiously with her eye-popping, pumpkin-orange curls. Still, the velvet was sinful rubbing up against the creamy skin of her nicely muscled arms.
A warrior. A queen. A woman men should lower themselves to their knees for.
She shouldn’t be here. The thought was like a distant buzz tone in the back of Roland’s mind, spreading a slick sensation of unease along his spine. Then she dropped her shoulders back, breasts pressing forward against the blue silk gown as a wide smile formed on her luscious burgundy lips. The slick unease turned into a shudder.
Damn. Switch roles. With a mouth like that, she should be the one kneeling.
“Well, well, well.” The words rumbled up like a purr from beneath her perfect bust to drip like silken honey from that perfect mouth in a husky and full cadence that was…Mon Dieu! Perfect for fucking. “Christos said you’d be the one to come. I didn’t believe him.”
Christos. He should know that name. But damn, names seemed inconsequential compared to the stunning woman who was currently running her fingers across the top of her low-cut gown. He’d never seen a more beautiful woman. Something about her…the seductive elegance of that slight movement of hand, the drowning quality of her heavy-lidded, ocean-green eyes.
“You want to come in?” She stepped back, gesturing with her head over her shoulder at the grand foyer beyond.
He looked at the checkered marble, the opulent crystal chandelier. Both were inexplicably familiar. Yes. He wanted to come in. He’d come for a reason. He needed to…why was he here?
“Come on,” she said when he hesitated. “I won’t bite.”
The last was delivered with a punctuated lick of her front incisors. Roland practically shivered imagining what it would be like to have those straight white teeth raking over his skin. She’d start at his throat, then work her way down, those red-tipped fingers slowly undressing him so her tongue could find more skin.
She laughed. A full-bodied laugh that had her breasts jiggling pleasingly. A slender hand snaked out, latching on to his arm. “Come on, big boy. I promise this will be a night to remember.”
God he hoped so. Roland let her drag him into the foyer. Behind him the door closed with a solid boom. The manor house was quiet. More so than typical, but before the thought could fully penetrate, the redhead had her arms around his neck and her lush lips pressed up against his own. After that it was blurs of images, punctuations of sensation. His shirt was gone before he could blink, tossed to the wayside with her cloak. Her mouth was all over him, exploring every inch of his torso as her deft fingers went to work on his pants.
Out of the corner of his eye he caught movement. A figure, male, skimming the edge of the room.
“Who?” Even though the question came from his own mouth, the voice sounded foreign. Distant. Strange.
And then she was kissing him again. Her tongue plunged between his lips and demanded he taste what the combination of her and him could be like. Oh hell yes. That was good.
He needed her. Now!
He half dragged, half tumbled her to the floor, his hands as determined to press her into the polished black-and-white marble as to push down the already dangerously low bust line of her gown.
A sharp prick pierced the back of his shoulder. He yelled, trying to twist his head to look at his attacker. A long-nailed hand grasped his jaw, forcing him to keep his head forward.
“Never mind him. Concentrate on me.”
His gaze dropped to the plump offerings heaving up and down against his chest. Oh yes. Gladly.
His head lowered.
Almost there.
A wrist, dripping blood, was rudely shoved in the way between him and his goal.
He growled out a protest. He wanted her. Needed her. And that bloody mess was in his way.
“Drink. Drink, my love. For me.”
Her voice commanded that he drag his gaze up. Her mesmerizing eyes locked onto his, her needs becoming his. Her desire became the force of his will. She wanted him to drink.
Yes. Yes. He’d do anything for her. Holding her gaze, he lowered his head, running his tongue languidly over the dripping red liquid. The taste…exquisite. Sweet, coppery, slick, warm. Addictive.
He opened his mouth and drank further. Couldn’t get enough. Would never get enough.
His eyes rolled back, a euphoric darkness overcoming his vision.
Chapter 12
Karissa’s blood-pumping urge to find a way out started to fade with a new kind of alarm, the kind that told her she was going to kill herself if she didn’t stop. Until then she’d encountered only heavy obstacles—walls, statues, and furniture alike—which did nothing more than leave a collection of bumps and bruises on her already battered body, but it was only a matter of time before she happened upon another stairwell. If she blindly fell down one of those? Well, broken limbs were certainly not conducive to escape.
Karissa slowed, toeing the fine line of making too much noise and progressing forward at a rate more than a crawl. She’d stopped hearing her name a while back. Not that that meant Logan and his father no longer hunted her, just that they were being stealthier about it. Which meant she was going to have to become stealthy too. Forget unseen staircases; she could run right into her predator’s arms.
Her hand, which had been hop-skip-jumping along the wall, evened out to a steady drag. The walls were different here. Simple plaster. No wallpaper or paneling or breaks for ornate columns of molding or recesses with statues hidden within. There was a chill in the air, punctuated with the occasional toe-curling cold spot that seemed to want to leach all of her heat. As if this area, even more so than the rest of what she’d decided was an unused wing in the Paladin’s grand castle, hadn’t seen any use in decades, perhaps even a century. And those cold spots? Ghosts.
And wasn’t that a freaky thought.
Her fingers hit a tapestry. The threadbare weaving tore from its tether at the top, falling with a muffled flop onto the floor. She halted in her tracks, muscles tense, ears pricked for any sound beyond her own hitching breath. Nothing.
She reached her hand back out, expecting plaster, and met—nothing. An alcove?
Carefully she nudged the fallen tapestry aside with her foot, following the line of the baseboard molding to the open gap in the wall. She slid her foot forward. Her toe dropped over the edge.
A hidden stairwell.
She followed the steps down, her hand running across the uneven walls. Not plaster. Stone. Deeper she went. Fifty steps. A hundred. Always curving to the left. Twice she hesitated, almost turned back, but her determination to find a way out kept her taking the next step, rounding the next curve.
Eventually the steps ended, depositing her in some sort of servants’ hall, though it might as well have been a tunnel, or cave. Not one damn window in the plac
e. And the décor was decidedly uninviting. It was dark, cramped, and cold. The stone walls pressed in on her from all sides.
She was made for light. Craved it. And to be confined to hiding in shadows?
Karissa blew out a breath, taking a moment to screw her head on straight. She admitted it. She was afraid of the dark. She’d been raised to be terrified of the things that went bump in the night.
“But you said that evil can sometimes walk in the light of day too, Papa.”
Papa leaned forward, his wrinkled face no longer soft and inviting, but stern. “Yes. But at night, you can’t see the evil coming.”
“Oh, Papa. How right you were.” On so many things.
It was her fault he was dead. That stupid night class. She’d led the monsters home to her ailing papa. He’d warned her, and she hadn’t listened.
She dashed away a tear. She could cry later. After she got away. After she was safe.
Safe where?
She had no idea. There was no place to go, no one she could trust. Except…
She shook her head, pushing away the thought weaving itself into what passed for logic in her current messed up state. Running to Roland was not an option. It wasn’t even that she was worried over whether he had or had not tried to enthrall her. He’d risked his life to warn her about what could happen at Haven. And she couldn’t deny the hurt she’d felt from him when she refused him. He wouldn’t have been hurt if he didn’t care about her.
Which meant everything that happened before had to be taken in a new light. Roland had never kidnapped her. Never planned to sell her or rape her. And, God help her and her treacherous body, she was beginning to suspect he’d never tried to enthrall her either. Nope, everything he’d done—except, perhaps, that damn kiss—now stunk of self-sacrifice and concern for her—not his own—well-being.
She would not be responsible for someone else dying because of her foolishness.
She rubbed her arms, attempting to ward off a chill that came with the thought of going it alone. She’d figure things out. As soon as she made it outside. It must have been getting close to dawn, depending on how long she’d been unconscious earlier. As long as she was able to see well enough to use her gift, she could outrun most of the monsters that were capable of withstanding the sun’s rays. Imps, chameleons, the occasional succubus. Yeah, she was able to keep ahead of those.
Karissa pushed off the wall, resuming her tentative progress through the tunnel. She could have sworn that she felt a breeze. And a breeze meant a door, or a window. A few feet later, she felt it again. A definite breeze!
Her heart bobbled beneath her breast. She pushed forward at a pace that she knew was edging on dangerous but couldn’t seem to help herself. The air, tinged with car exhaust, was the sweetest thing she encountered since she arrived at the pretty prison.
She was so excited at the prospect of escape that when her outstretched arm rammed up against something solid and steel, sending a vibrating lance of pain up into her shoulder, she didn’t even flinch. A door! And beyond, freedom.
She muffled a happy cheer and fumbled around for the latch. It seemed sticky, or maybe just rusted and old, but the door gave way behind the shove and grunt of her stubborn shoulders.
Karissa burst into the street beyond, gulping down the city air and basking in the glowing pool of the streetlamp as if she were a lizard and it the morning sun. Only, it wasn’t morning. Beyond the streetlamp’s glow the dark shadows that bathed the deserted street confirmed one of her worst fears: It was still night. Either she wasn’t unconscious very long, or she’d slept a really long time. Damn. She really didn’t want to be out here at night. Maybe she should go back inside, wait an hour or two.
Behind her the door clamored back into its casing. She pivoted, head shaking as she stared at the closed escape route.
“Shit!”
She lunged forward, gave a futile tug at the handle, the muscles of her shoulders straining against the mocking resistance of the metal and steel. Locked. Of course. What good was a secret escape route that your enemies could get in? She’d made it beyond the intricate illusion that hid Haven from the rest of New York City’s unsuspecting population and was now back on the litter strewn streets of the warehouse area of the great city that never slept. Except here. Not a single soul dared to show their faces here at night. Karissa didn’t need to wonder too long why that was.
“Already sick of our hospitality?” a familiar voice drawled.
Karissa spun around.
Chapter 13
It took a moment for her eyes to adjust, to pick out the trim figure standing in the shadows, arms folded, under the awning of the building across the street. But when they did, her lungs caught her breath in a suffocating choke hold. Valin. Of all the Paladin who could have been waiting for her to pop out of the back entrance, Valin was the one she least wanted to deal with. There was something about him that made her think of darkness and shadows, thievery and…yup, murder.
Karissa gulped down a golf ball sized lump of unease and tried to squeeze closer to the steel door at her back even as she desperately sought a way to escape. There were enough streetlamps—even if they were far spaced—that she could manage a sizable jump. The question was, which way?
“It’s dangerous out here at night,” he said, as if he read her mind and knew she was about to bolt.
“I’ll take my chances, thanks anyway,” she said, slipping a half-step to the left.
He chuckled, then began to saunter across the empty street toward her. Stalking, really, like he was the predator and she the prey.
Left it is, she thought and shifted into the netherplane.
A flash of brilliant white and a split second later she was smashing back into reality, her feet stumbling on the pitted pavement beneath the streetlight she’d targeted. She tried to right herself, couldn’t seem to stop the slant of the road under her legs, and went down, her palms smashing into the unforgiving asphalt. Damn, that hurt.
She wasted precious seconds as she tried to heave herself up, fighting the nausea that ripped at her stomach, twisting against the spinning world that seemed determined to play havoc on her balance. She felt like she’d just stumbled away from one of those crazy twirling teacup rides at the firemen’s field days. And that wasn’t even mentioning the anvil that must have fallen on her head. She didn’t have many more jumps left in her. Not after the night she’d had.
Still on her hands and knees, Karissa glanced over her shoulder. Maybe Valin didn’t see where she’d popped off to. But there he was, a half block away and striding down the faded center line of the road.
She needed to put more distance between them. Fast.
Battling back the brain-ripping headache, she forced her gaze forward. There. A jerk, a gut-wrenching twist, and she was another hundred yards away under another flickering streetlamp. Karissa didn’t even give herself time to register the tsunami rolling around in her stomach, didn’t pay any homage to the deafening dial tone ringing in her ears, just looked down the street, picked her point, and popped.
***
That’s it. I can’t go any farther.
Karissa half staggered, half fell to the mouth of a nearby alley where she leaned against the wall of a brick building badly in need of repointing. By her estimation, she managed to gain a good mile or more on her pursuer. Unless he could fly—fat chance—then she should be safe…from him.
South Bronx. Her gut said she was in the Bronx. There was something in the way the buildings seemed to sag against each other, the desperation in the air she was sucking down. Now, if only she knew where in the Bronx. She was more of a Brooklyn girl. Still, if she could figure out approximately where she was, she should be able to make her way from here. The question was, to where?
She looked to where the alley spilled out onto the main street, if the narrow two-way road could be called a main street, that is. A street sign would have been too much to ask for, it seemed.
She took a couple
sagging steps forward, her hand braced against the brick as if it were her lifeline. It very well might be. She’d probably collapse if it wasn’t there.
Her sight distance was limited to the small pools of light cast by towering overhead streetlamps. At least she seemed to be out of the warehouse district. The area had turned into a highly commercialized zone, even if it was struggling. The good news was that the typical night sounds of the city were starting to reinsert themselves, just not here. Here, it seemed, most people were too smart to wander around at this time of night. Except, yeah, that hooker on the next corner.
Karissa took a couple jerky steps toward her. Karissa didn’t have any money, but maybe she could play the girl-to-girl card and extract a location out of her. The girl absently glanced over her shoulder, then looked away, obviously writing Karissa off as unprofitable. Karissa hesitated, not because she cared a wit about her inability to barter, but because of the glimpse she’d gotten of the girl’s face, and she did mean girl. The redhead strutting her stuff in those five-inch stilettos barely looked old enough to wear a training bra, let alone the skimpy tube top she had on. Karissa’s muscles tensed to the point of vibrating. Whatever the circumstances, whoever the a-hole was who’d dragged that poor girl out on the streets deserved to have—
A shadow wafted in front of Karissa, obscuring her vision. She waved her hand over her eyes. Must be tired. The dark cloud of particles coalesced, funneling in around her and settling toward the ground.
Oh crap. What the hell kind of monster was this?
And there was no way she could pull another jump, not so soon.
She scrambled back, her gaze darting around for a weapon. A glass bottle she could break or maybe even a discarded hubcap she could throw at the thing. A thing that looked suspiciously like…
“Valin?” She blinked, trying to make sense of the man who’d formed in the spot previously occupied by writhing darkness. It was Valin. No doubt. But, “Oh God! You’re naked.”