by Aja James
But she did know better. She even knew what he was.
Vampire.
Someone had turned the delectable human Gabriel into a Dark One, and the vampire had a good idea who.
Oh, this was too good to be true! She would have an opportunity to finish what she started. The creature had just recently sated her needs, but watching Gabriel fight had rekindled the lustful inferno within her.
She had to have him. And she knew just the way to go about it.
Even her mysterious “partner” must appreciate her next move, chess master that it was.
Two birds with one stone was hard to beat.
*** *** *** ***
It was the heat that awakened him.
Unbearable, stifling heat. As if his veins flowed with lava and his skin burned with fire.
Gabriel clawed at his arms and chest only to realize that his upper body was already bare. Someone caught onto his frenzied movements and helped him shuck the rest of his clothes until only his skin and hair blanketed his swollen flesh.
Still it was not enough. Water. He needed water. His throat was parched, and it scalded his lungs to breathe.
As if an angel heard his silent supplication, something infinitely soft, silky and blessedly cool enfolded his body, and a hand gently pressed his face into a faintly fragrant hollow.
His fangs punched through his aching upper gums and into the tender skin against his mouth.
With his first swallow of the thick, honeyed liquid, relief flooded him. But another hunger flamed through his body, making his internal temperature all but steaming.
The silky form that wrapped around him shifted smoothly to lie directly beneath him, until his body draped on top heavily, lethargically, and cool limbs wrapped around his back, his hips.
Gabriel became even more restless, though he maintained the seal of his mouth against the source of thirst-quenching nectar. Helplessly, he undulated his body against the softness, wanting to submerge himself in the cool haven.
The haven responded, moving with him, against him, creating a maddening yet delicious friction that both soothed and stoked his flames higher.
And then the hottest part of him slid against a slick, satiny notch.
Gabriel groaned deeply and gutturally.
Yes. More.
The limbs around his hips tightened so that he pressed slightly into the notch. Wet, heavenly warmth welcomed him, gently yet inexorably drawing him further inside.
Gabriel froze in that moment, holding himself utterly still, every muscle clenched, every bone locked, as if he poised on the edge of Destiny’s precipice.
Slowly he opened his eyes.
And stared into pools as deep and as blue as the fathomless sea.
I know you, a part of him whispered in the recesses of his sub consciousness. I found you.
My love. My heart.
“Inanna,” a voice that was his own yet also apart from him uttered reverently, as if all the hope, desire, pain, and passion were embodied in that one word.
Her eyes widened in response, and a gasp escaped her lips.
The small sound triggered a primal need within him that could be denied no longer.
Gabriel stopped thinking, stopped fighting himself. And surrendered to the voracious compulsion to claim. To penetrate.
To Mate.
His mouth took hers without preamble, his tongue plunging inside the same moment his sex thrust fully into her core.
Yessss. Mooore.
Every sensation became magnified and multiplied. The tight clasp of her vagina. The rhythmic contraction of her strong inner muscles. The wet, hot pressure from the squeeze and pull of her core as he moved within her. The silky soft embrace of her body around his. The sucking, nipping and rubbing of her mouth and tongue against his.
His buttocks clenched in sync with powerful, surging thrusts. He reached beneath her knees and wound them higher up his back as he deepened the slow, steady strokes, hitting the hardened knot inside of her. Again and again. Over and over.
Inanna arched her back and moaned in abandon as her vagina convulsed around him in great shuddering gulps, her nails scoring his shoulders and arms with the violence of her release.
And Gabriel fell from the precipice into a dark unknown. His body clenched painfully from head to toe until the veins raised against his skin, held for an instant and an infinity, and released in a torrent that filled her to the brim.
A pleasure like he’d never known flooded his weary, aching body, banking the fires, washing away the pain.
Finally, he was home.
*** *** *** ***
As far as Silver Lake Preserve, White Plains, Maximus, trailed closely by Simca, and Anastasia followed the lead Cloud had given them.
The warrior had not been able to connect with the Pure Ones’ human agent last night. And though he received a sign that at least the agent was alive, he’d also read between the lines and perceived that the human was in a precarious position, hence his message to his vampire allies to do some reconnaissance.
The closer they came to shutting down the fight club operations, the more dangerous it was for the human who remained undercover in the network. Yet, he could not pull out until they discovered and dealt with the true mastermind behind it all.
The two Chosen came upon a small clearing amidst a concentrated circle of pines based on the precise military coordinates the human had left for Cloud.
A fight was currently in progress.
Despite the night’s below freezing temperatures, two human fighters faced each other, clad only in loose trousers, their bare feet noiseless in the recent snow.
One had dreadlocks, moved in the style of Brazilian jujitsu and held a long, serrated dagger. The other had a close-shaven haircut, barely moved at all, merely holding a combat stance—knees bent, fists raised, shoulders tensed—and held a similarly deadly looking knife.
A tight ring of silent spectators stood around the fighters. The difference in this crowd versus those that Maximus and Ana had seen on video footage was that the observers here neither made sound nor movement, barely even blinking as they concentrated all of their attention on the fight at hand.
The scene was almost ritualistic in its intensity. This was not a performance. This was not entertainment.
It was a fight to the death.
The grim onlookers were witnesses to a sentencing. Perhaps a punishment being meted out. Based on the way some of them held themselves, the Chosen could tell even from a distance that they were vampires.
Dreadlocks made the first move, aiming a low spinning kick to take out his opponent’s legs. Close-shave shifted marginally to avoid the swipe, raising one foot, then the other. His movements were concise and brisk, calculated with a precision that minimized effort and maximized impact. His small incremental moves also allowed him to maintain closeness with his opponent, keeping his target within arms and legs reach.
As Dreadlocks threw one fancy attack after another at Close-shave, the latter merely diffused the impact of the moves with efficient counters and continued to close in. Their knives flashed quicksilver in the pale moonlight, each slash meant to deal a mortal or, at a minimum, debilitating blow.
Close-shave was now within one foot of Dreadlocks, close enough to use knees and elbows. He dialed his movements up a notch, his hands and feet striking on a faster beat, like the tempo of a dance speeding up. One, Long Knee to stomach. Two, elbow strike to back of neck. Three, quarter-turn. Four, dagger across throat.
It was over in less than a minute.
Dreadlocks lay dead in a pool of darkening red snow. Close-Shave stood over the body but didn’t bother checking on his opponent, so sure was he of the result. Instead, he stared expressionlessly at the ring of observers around them as if awaiting judgment.
The smallest figure in the crowd took one step forward and addressed the fighter. Maximus and Ana could not make out the appearance of the figure, for the large hooded shroud she wore, except to note
that it was a female. Nor could they hear what she was saying to Close-Shave.
Based on Devlin’s description of the female vampire Inanna encountered and his evaluation of who she might be, this figure was obviously not one and the same. She was much smaller in stature and did not move with the training of a warrior.
But it was obvious she called the shots, for when she ended her speech, the crowd of spectators began to depart with her in the lead, flanked by two vampire guards.
Four vampires remained with the fighter, however, and shifted menacingly in his direction.
Wordlessly, Maximus signaled to Ana that he and Simca were following the female with the entourage. In all likelihood, the fighter still standing was the human undercover agent. Ana would stay behind to ensure his safety.
Not that he appeared to be needing her help, she saw as she moved stealthily closer to the clearing so that she was within assistance range.
The fighter had upped the tempo of his deadly dance yet another few beats, much to Ana’s appreciation.
Though he was human, he held his own remarkably against four well-trained vampire assassins. They were stronger and faster, but the human was more strategic, as if he anticipated their moves based on an internal algorithm of possibilities and outcomes.
And he had obviously been coached on how to fight and win against vampires.
Use their strength and speed against them. Aim to debilitate rather than kill—the eyes, ears, throat, groin. Slash ankles, backs of knees.
Even so, four vampires to one human were impossible odds, and the fighter was sustaining more than a few injuries, the fresh scent of his blood only fueling the vampires’ fervor for more.
Ana stepped into the fray when she saw that the human was locked in combat with one vampire, while another was charging him from behind. She suspended the second vampire with her mind and forcefully slammed him against a nearby pine, the impact shaking heavy snow loose from the canopy of needles.
The vampire who currently had the human in a choke hold and was about to take a bite out of his throat was the next to experience the strength of Ana’s telekinesis as an invisible force held him immobilized.
Quick to take advantage of the opening this paralysis provided, the human reacted by twisting around and punching his dagger up through the bottom of the vampire’s jaw, puncturing his jugular in the process.
With a gurgle, the vampire fell. In seconds, his death would be marked by an ignoble disintegration into dust.
But the human didn’t wait for that event. He pivoted and let fly his dagger into the heart of the vampire who was easing himself up against the tree where Ana had flung him.
Meanwhile, Ana efficiently executed the other two vampires who had been crippled by the human.
And then all was silent and still.
Ana faced the human fighter from a few yards away, close enough to see each other clearly.
The human inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement of her aid. Ana gave a nod back, as well as a slow, sweeping, appreciative appraisal from head to toe.
Battle often made vampires sexually aroused. And Ana was a full-blooded female warrior. Blood, sex and war were her specialty. Vampires likely invented the words “bloodlust” and “bloodthirsty.”
Ana had a hell of a time controlling her primal needs at the moment. The human was one fine specimen of maleness.
Perhaps he recognized the gleam in her eyes (not that she bothered hiding it), for the corners of his lips curled in a wry smile, drawing her attention to said scrumptious lips and to the faint indentation in his sharp, angular chin.
Keeping his eyes on her, as if he wasn’t entirely sure she could hold back her baser impulses, the human picked up the leather trench coat and pair of boots a nearby pile of vampire ashes no longer needed and put them on.
He walked backwards, facing Ana, in the opposite direction that Maximus and Simca had gone, and when he was what he estimated to be a safe distance away, he gave her a mock salute, turned and entered the surrounding forest with long, purposeful strides.
Ana watched him walk away with a contemplative smile on her own lips. Mmm. The man could move.
She went to the tree where the human’s dagger had punched through the chest cavity of the slain vampire foe, embedded in the thick bark, and retrieved it.
An LHR combat knife. Military issue. Customized specs.
Ana looked it over appreciatively. She did love her weapons, and this one was a beauty. She sheathed it at her hip before breaking into a run in search of Maximus.
She would hold on to it for the human should their paths cross again.
“With his surrender, the sacrifice is made. Death is near and Darkness surrounds, as the race’s Adversary raises its blade”
—Excerpt from the Lost Chapters of the Ecliptic Scrolls
Chapter Thirteen
Gabriel flipped the eggs over easy in the skillet and moved around a few pieces of bacon frying alongside them.
He was learning a number of new things about his “wife” over the course of the last little while.
For starters, he wasn’t sure how long she’d been in this world, but she still hadn’t learned how to cook in all that time.
If he had to attribute her lapse to skill or will, he would guess will. After all, frying eggs and bacon while toasting some bread was not a difficult activity to learn. When she informed him that she could boil eggs but sometimes forgot the water, or the heat, or the time, he decided to take over cooking their impromptu meal in the wee hours of the morning.
Second, despite the badass, mysterious, cool, calm and collected first impression she gave with her icy beauty, black leather and long trench coats, she was rather cozy and down-to-earth at home, currently watching him prepare their food on a barstool at the kitchen counter outfitted in a long blue cotton sleep shirt with a cartoon of Snoopy on it. When he’d looked at it quizzically, she murmured that Benji had picked it out on a shopping trip.
Gabriel was slowly accepting the fact that Nana Chastain had been, was, and would be an integral part of his son’s life.
And his own.
Third, she seemed rather shy despite her no-nonsense directness.
I want you.
A few minutes ago, she’d had him well and good.
But when both their stomachs growled loudly, she’d sprung from the bed like a skittish colt, threw on the cotton T and muttered something about a late supper as she dashed out of the room without a glance his way.
Gabriel wasn’t an expert in post-coital protocol—by any means—but he thought maybe a cuddle might be appropriate. Perhaps an affectionate kiss or two which might develop into another round of orgasmic bliss.
He was certainly up for it.
But then, what did he know.
Aside from being “Blooded Mates,” they didn’t exactly have a relationship based on emotional attachment. Everything was backwards with them. First came “marriage,” then sex, and now…
He didn’t know what came next. Should they go on a first date? And if he was extra suave, he could sneak to second base?
All he knew was that they’d just had mind-blowing sex—naked, messy, greedy, noisy sex—and they didn’t know what to say to each other.
Hell, he wasn’t even sure he liked her.
But, good lord, did they have chemistry!
He was wearing a bath towel around his waist in lieu of the torn and bloodstained trousers (he was unreasonably happy to find that she didn’t stock up on menswear in her apartment, a good indication of either lack of male company or protection of privacy and discretion), and she was covertly eating him up with her eyes, a rosy blush adorning her cheeks. When he’d asked her mundane questions like what did she have stocked and how she’d like her eggs, she’d provided half-coherent muttered answers without meeting his eyes, her blush getting deeper the longer he held her gaze.
If he didn’t know better, he would have thought she was a teenager crushing on her first guy.
But that didn’t make sense. She was who knew how old, and looking the way she did, with her charisma and effortless allure, she was certain not to have been lonely for male company in her long existence.
And he assumed that she didn’t know him any more than he knew her. It was simply a sexual attraction and now a biological imperative that brought them together.
Gabriel had figured out in the brief orgasmic aftermath that the process had been necessary for his body, perhaps for hers as well. Like air. Like water.
What he didn’t yet understand was why she’d chosen him.
And why, despite everything, he felt like he’d chosen her.
Inanna.
The name echoed in his mind, but he did not know the context for it.
It was as if he were submerged in the murky waters of a deep well. Every once in a while he glimpsed a flicker of light, an image, registered a sound, but then the clue would dissolve into shadows and echoes, and whatever that was buried inside of him remained dormant and hidden.
“How old are you?” he asked while he found the plates cupboard and served up the food. He might as well start there since it was on his mind.
She paused for a moment, seeming more surprised by his speaking to her than by the rather blunt question itself. “Over four millennia.”
Now it was Gabriel’s turn to pause. “Huh,” was all he could muster.
She shrugged one shoulder. “I stopped counting the actual years a few centuries in. Time becomes irrelevant after a while. What one does with it is the only thing that matters.”
Gabriel put her plate of hearty fare in front of her on the counter with accompanying silverware and said dryly, “And in all those years you never learned to cook.”
She peered closely at him for a few seconds, as if trying to decipher whether he was teasing her or whether he was truly deploring her lack of culinary expertise.
Wow, they were awkward, Gabriel thought, as he tipped one corner of his mouth up to indicate that he was just teasing, not judging.