Jane paused to finish one of her sandwiches. Then picked up a third. Xandrie still stared at her, Theron still leaned, but Jake halted his pacing.
“It’s called The Nymph’s Curse but she’s not a nymph. She’s a demon.”
“Like a succubus?” Xandrie asked.
Jane laughed and choked on her sandwich. “No,” she said when she’d recovered. “A succubus is a pet kitten compared to what she is. She is something older. Much, much older. The thing that succubi evolved from.”
Jane ate the rest of her second sandwich. “Did you know?” she asked Xandrie.
“No. We’ve met before, many, many years ago she inhabited a close friend of mine. But I didn’t know she was anything other than a nymph.”
“Your friend is dead?” Jane asked.
Xandrie nodded.
“The creature can’t exist outside its host, not without killing the host. She’s a parasite.”
Jake put his head in his hands, broad shoulders slumped forward. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault Jake. The curse is meant to lure anyone who deciphers it into releasing the creature. You couldn’t have known that.”
“I almost killed you.”
“You couldn’t have known,” repeated Jane.
“So what do we do?” asked Xandrie, who’d gotten up to pat Jake’s shoulder.
Jane sighed. “She’s mine to keep. There’s no living without her.”
“I think you should refocus your efforts,” offered Theron.
Jane shook her head. “I’ve been inside her mind, and that’s exactly what she wants. If I keep trying to free myself of her, I’ll end up dead. And she’ll have a permanent body. I can’t allow that. But you know what I am going to do?”
Theron smiled. “Are we going hunting?”
Jane nodded. “But, first, you have to tell me everything you know about Droshin.”
9
Jane watched her arm. The tattoo was still, but she didn’t know for how long.
“Thank you, Jake.” The shifter hadn’t moved since she’d told the group about the Nymph’s origins.
Jake crossed his arms over his bulky chest. “So, you’re saying you’re stuck like that, forever?”
“Pretty much.”
Jake sighed.
“Jake?”
The shifter met Jane’s gaze fully for the first time since she’d ripped her way out of the creature. His sad brown eyes seemed to carry more weight than usual.
“Thank you for trying to free me. It means so much.”
He nodded and left Theron’s kitchen. Though he could have left through the broken window, Jane suspected he used the door just so they’d hear the latch click in place as he shut it.
It was Jane’s turn to sigh.
“What’s wrong with him?” asked Xandrie.
“He’s developing feelings for her,” said Theron.
“He is not,” Jane said. “He’s upset he almost freed the Nym... I mean the demon within me. He almost killed me. He’s gonna feel guilty about that for a while.”
“True,” said Theron. “But it’s all compounded by the fact he has feelings for you.”
“Shut up, Theron.” Jane didn’t want to think about that. She couldn’t afford a relationship. Not now. She had bigger priorities. “What’s the best way to kill a vamp?”
Theron pretended to be offended at the idea.
“I’m serious, Theron. If I can’t free myself of the curse he put on me, then I’m gonna do my best to make sure he never puts it on another girl again.”
“Janey... Little One, you can’t kill Droshin. He’s far too old and protected.”
“Watch me. Now tell me what you know, Theron. Anything will help.”
To Jane’s surprise, it was Xandrie who offered information. “Generations ago the fae consider vamps a plague on society, draining others because their own bodies can’t sustain them. No offense,” she said to Theron. “It used to be that fae would perform a trócaire-mharú, a mercy kill on any new vamps in the area, to end their suffering. As I recall, vamps were beheaded and burned.”
Beheading.
Jane didn’t know if she was physically capable of cutting off Droshin’s head. “What about a stake through the heart, huh? Why didn’t they just stake ‘em?”
“You can’t stake a vampire through the heart, Jane. It’s protected by ribs, just like yours. Honestly, I don’t know how that myth ever came to be,” said Theron.
“But... between the ribs? Right?”
“It’s hard,” Xandrie said. “Really hard. You’ve got to aim perfectly or your bouncing off bones and hitting shit that hurts, but will only make the vamp angry.”
Theron nodded. “Beheading and burning is the only way.
Fuck. Jane was barely five feet tall. And the demon she housed constantly sucked on her metabolism, making it not only impossible to gain weight, but also hard for her to build muscle.
“I’m not strong enough to behead him. There has to be another way.”
Both Theron and Xandrie shook their heads.
“Sorry, babe. There just isn’t,” said Xandrie.
Jane put that issue on the back burner to think about a different problem. “Even if I did have the physical strength to do so, it’s not like Droshin is just gonna pull down his collar and let me whack his head off.”
Xandrie smiled at Jane. “You think the new vamps were so easy to convince? Only the most skilled swordswomen were dispatched to end a vamp. They fought to take the vamp’s lives, and many gave their own in pursuit of that goal.”
As Jane turned over the different angles of the problem, the sharpness and clarity of mind she’d grown accustomed to started to dull.
“Fuck,” Jane whispered.
The mojo-dampening effect of Gunnar’s injection was wearing off, which meant the extra energy she’d just gotten used to would now be diverted to the demon, who would soon wake and demand to be fed. She looked at her arm, checking the tattoo. It wriggled in circles, making its way to her wrist.
Theron, I...
Say no more, Little One.
“Xandrie, Jane needs to feed. Would you mind excusing us?” Theron’s tone was casual and even.
Xandrie’s was not. “Uh, do you want... should I leave?”
Theron smiled. “We won’t be long.”
Jane followed the vampire upstairs to the room that had become their “feeding room”.
It was soundproof and comfortable.
“How bad is it?” Theron asked as he shut the door behind them.
“It’s not, but I don’t want it to get bad.” Jane held out her wrist, showing Theron the tattoo dancing around it. She looked into the vamps ageless face. Dark brows and lashes framed his violet eyes, giving them a natural smoldering look. His perfect skin and pointed cheekbones made his face very pleasing.
However, it was the first time Jane had really noticed how stunning Theron was.
“Jesus, Theron. Have you always been so fucking hot?”
“You flatter me, Little One.”
Theron took the wrist Jane showed him and put it to his mouth. Just as he bared his teeth, Jane pulled away.
“What’s wrong? You always like it when I start with a bite.”
“I know. But once the vamp magic takes over I don’t really have much control.” I can’t enjoy it, or savor it, she finished in Theron’s mind.
The vamps violet eyes flashed a devilish glint. He snatched Jane off her feet and threw her onto the ornate, four-post bed.
And then he was on her, Jane hadn’t even seen him move, she’d barely had time to sink into the thick down duvet. But there he was, hovering over her body, kissing her neck, pulling at the fabric of her shirt.
Jane pressed herself against him and pulled his body closer. I really need this, she said to his mind.
Theron didn’t need any coaxing. In moments he had both his and her clothes off and folded neatly on the end of the bed.
Jane didn’t n
otice Theron’s neat freak side because this was the first time she’d ever been fully naked in front of anyone other than Droshin. She’d intentionally hid her body in the past because of what the demon did to it.
She watched Theron’s eyes as he took in every bone, bruise, and scar, waiting for him to turn away in disgust.
He laid a kiss atop the bruise on her painfully pointed hipbone. “What’s this from?” he asked.
“That’s where the demon dropped me inside the metaphysical prison.”
Theron’s jaw clenched. “Metaphysical injuries manifest on your physical body?”
Jane nodded.
Theron ran his fingertips over each of her protruding ribs. “What about this?” He asked as his middle finger circled a deep burgundy bruise across her lowest rib.
“That’s where she tried to pull me back in when I clawed my way out.”
Theron nodded and traced the longest scar she had. “And this?”
Jane looked at the white scar that ran the length of her torso, from between her breasts to just above her navel. “That’s where the demon claws her way out.” Every time.
Jane said the last to Theron’s mind because she didn’t trust her voice not to break.
She’d never shown anyone.
You’re normally unconscious afterward, to recover?
Jane nodded. This time was different. Usually, when she releases me she’ll heal the damage she caused. The process knocks me out, kind of. I feel every bit of the procedure, the faster mending probably hurts worse than healing on my own, but it is quicker. Since I escaped this time and caused her a fair amount of damage in the process, she’s busy healing herself. Plus, she’s probably pissed I got one over on her. She wouldn’t heal me even if she weren’t busy.
Theron shook his head. “Jane, you are a warrior. Never be ashamed of your battle scars. Never.” Theron bent to kiss Jane’s lips but then thought better of it. Little One, are you in pain?
All the time.
Before Jane could register movement, Theron had left the bedroom, come back and had her in his arms. “I’m not doing anything to hurt you further, regardless of what that demon needs.”
Theron carried Jane into the adjacent bathroom and put her in the antique claw-foot tub which was somehow already full of steamy water.
“Fast-fill faucet,” Theron said as he poured something into the bath water. “Magnesium sulfate. Helps with the bruising.”
Jane nodded and laid against the cool porcelain, letting the water and minerals leach away her pain.
Biting her would have been the easier route to end her pain. The neurochemicals his bite transmitted would have turned off Jane’s pain receptors, lighting up only her pleasure center. But Jane had asked him not to.
Jane needed to be seen. She needed someone to know the atrocities the demon caused her.
Not because she wanted pity.
She never wanted that.
She wanted Theron to truly understand the hell she lived every day so he would help her figure out how to end Droshin.
Theron sponged the hot water over Jane’s chest. “Do you want some of my blood?”
Jane shook her head. She knew his blood would heal every bruise and ache instantly, but she wasn’t fond of the idea of healing all the demon’s wounds as well.
In fact, she wasn’t so keen on feeding the demon at all. She couldn’t cut her off completely, but she wasn’t ever going to let her enjoy a full tank again.
Jane had more compassion for the creature when she thought it was a nymph. Now that she’d been in her mind, and knew how parasitic and evil she truly was, she had no qualms about letting it be a little hungry.
None at all.
10
Theron got in the tub with Jane, pulling her body closer until she was in his lap facing him.
He kissed her neck again. “I don’t want to hurt you, Janey. You need to take the lead,” he whispered in her hair.
And she did. Jane took hold of Theron’s face with both hands and kissed his mouth.
It was the first real kiss they’d ever shared.
Jane sank into the vamp’s chest, pressing herself against his cock. Theron muffled a groan into her lips as she did, but he didn’t push back, didn’t match her pressure. Theron remained passive and let Jane have her way with him.
Jane lifted herself off Theron’s lap and lowered onto him. Theron groaned again, this time louder as she buried him all the way inside her.
Jane wiggled a bit to find a comfortable spot, which made Theron smile. She settled in, and found a smooth, slow rhythm, rocking up and down, back and forth, feeling every inch, every detail of the vamp’s hardness.
Her hips circled around him, rubbing all her most sensitive parts against him, and Jane let out a moan of her own.
The demon preferred vamp energy to all others, corralling it quicker and without the need for climax. But as soon as Jane felt the demon’s well was a breath past half full, she slammed a wall down, cutting off the sexual energy she siphoned from Theron.
He noticed, violet eyes asking the question his thoughts spoke in her mind. What was that?
Me putting the demon on a diet. It’s just me now.
Jane’s perpetually black eyes cleared to the natural soft green shade she was born with.
She braced her forearms against Theron’s shoulders and rode him harder. Theron buried his face in her neck, kissing nipping.
“Jane, may I bite you, please?”
Not yet, she thought. But the idea of this gorgeous, powerful creature asking her permission turned Jane on in a way she couldn’t describe. It was enough to push her over the edge.
Jane rolled her hips and screamed as her first, real, non-magical orgasm exploded within her.
She grabbed at Theron’s biceps, the back of his neck, the edge of the tub, trying to steady herself against a climax shattering her into a million pieces.
Jane shuddered as the pressure and white-hot pleasure ebbed away. Now, she whispered in Theron’s thoughts.
The vampire sank his teeth into the supple flesh of Jane’s throat.
She writhed against him as the chemicals in his saliva told every part of her body to vibrate with pleasure. She clawed at the rim of the tub, screaming as a second orgasm jolted through her.
Theron didn’t bite her again. Seeing her truly enjoying herself for the first time turned him on so much that he’d come as soon as she’d given permission to bite her.
The couple shuddered into each other, limbs still entwined and shiny with steam and sweat.
Jane had no idea sex could be like that.
After a moment, Theron lifted Jane off his lap and carried her back to the bedroom. He toweled her dry and handed her clothes back to her.
“That wasn’t what I expected,” he said.
Jane said nothing as she put her clothes back on.
Theron pulled his pants over his narrow hips and disappeared behind the curtain that divided their “feeding room” in half. He came back holding something, offering it to Jane.
“What is it?” asked Jane.
“It’s for you.”
Jane took the katana from Theron and made a face. The sword was light and thin, easy for her to manage, with a handle long enough to use two hands.
She could easily manage using this weapon.
But she didn’t want to.
“Theron, I can’t accept this,” she said and pushed the blade back at him.
“You can, and will, Jane. You’ll also learn to use it, so we can kill Droshin.”
Jane sighed, putting the sheathed sword in her lap.
Theron handed her a small bottle.
“You’ll need to keep it clean. That type of sword is susceptible to rust. Clean it after every use.”
Jane thanked the vamp who was only trying to help her and followed him downstairs.
“Where’s Xandrie?” She asked when she couldn’t find her new friend.
Theron cleared his throat. “I let
her know we would be longer than expected. She’s off occupying herself at her restaurant.”
Jane only wondered for a moment how Theron had let Xandrie know before he answered her unasked question.
“All the members of my conclave have a link to me. Just like you.”
Jane nodded
“You’re not jealous, are you?” Theron teased.
Jane didn’t allow herself a knee-jerk reaction. She took a moment to think about what she actually thought about Xandrie also feeding and fucking Theron.
She shrugged. “I’m not jealous. I’m just wondering how I’m going to get home.”
11
The katana Theron gave Jane came with a scabbard that fit quite well strapped across her back. The blade was light and effortless to use, but Jane thought the mere idea was ludicrous.
“It’s so stupid,” she said to no one while picking her way through the branches and bushes of Warren Forrest. “I’m not some maiden on a quest. I can’t learn to use a sword well enough to kill the oldest vamp on this side of the country.” And the fact that Theron thought she could made her seriously doubt his mental fortitude.
Theron had offered to drive her back to her studio, but Jane declined, instead opting to walk and think about her options.
Normally she wouldn’t be so brave as to be alone for so long on the streets of The Circle, not with the recent chaos she’d unintentionally unleashed. But she had the feeling it wouldn’t be so bad in the early morning hours.
When Jane finally cleared the forest, she picked up her pace to an easy jog along the empty city streets. She looped around the traffic circle the city was named for and headed down the street that would lead to her apartment.
“Motherfucker,” she said when she caught sight of a huge blond man leaning against her building. Gunnar fucking Ahlstrom was the last person she wanted to see.
Jane The Nymph: The Boxed Set (The Circle Series Book 2) Page 8