Love Bites UK (Mammoth Book Of Vampire Romance2)

by Telep, Trisha

  One of the wendigos tried to stop her, but she ran over him with a crunch and thud that made her want to vomit. His claws scraped down the hood, leaving thick furrows, and that made her want to vomit even more.

  She hurtled through the gap in the garage door. The last image in her rear-view mirror was of Ferrell disrobing as the crones held Drake.

  Tears sprang into her eyes, but she held them back as she roared down the highway. In her mind, she saw again the sweet, hot way he’d made love to Isobel. That hadn’t been a dream. And now Ferrell was trying to force out of him what could never be forced. She was trying to take what could only be given. Just like Martoni – taking magic for himself when it should only ever come as a gift.

  The hard edges of the nullifier cut into her palm. A slow smile burned away her tears. She knew what to do.

  His head hurt. Cool hands cradled it. Cool lips slid on his. He’d been shot again, and Isobel . . . The last time it had been in the leg, and even though he’d been laid up, Isobel had come to him, giving him her blood to heal the wound. And then, well, they’d proved that even army cots could be put to good use.

  He half smiled as her lips travelled down his neck, though the song, the music of Isobel, was all wrong.

  “Have you had enough abuse then?” a voice said. “Are you ready to submit to me?”

  Not Isobel. Ferrell.

  It was dark but he could smell daylight. Late afternoon, approaching twilight. He couldn’t sit up. She had him well chained to rock that dug into his bare back. A cave. Beneath the smell of light, the scent of decay – a mingling of pork and human flesh, the nest he’d smelled near the pig farm.

  The crones sat silent nearby, but their cold music was all around him.

  Ferrell moved down his body, her fingers like flies walking on his skin. He shivered in revulsion.

  “End it,” he said. “I won’t give you what you want.”

  “Silly, stupid sire,” she whispered. “I offer you such privilege! My mother is a Matriarch. Simply by doing your duty, you earn power and commendation beyond your wildest dreams.”

  “Which is why you are forcing me to impregnate you in a cave full of pig filth,” Drake said.

  Even though he expected the blow, it still hurt a great deal.

  “This is your humiliation, not mine,” Ferrell hissed. “It never had to be this way if you had properly served me from the beginning.”

  “Or if you’d left him alone in the first place,” Dani said.

  A flare of light and Drake could see her standing, her left hand wreathed in flame. Her tank top and jeans were filthy; her hair in dark disarray around her shoulders. Wendigo marks clawed shadows across her cheek.

  She dragged someone behind her.

  Martoni.

  The crones hissed and shrank away from the hot fire growing in her palm.

  “Let him go,” Dani said.

  Ferrell stood, her skin fish-belly pale, her eyes black with anger.

  “He’s mine, witch. Go steal someone else’s stud.”

  The ball of fire grew, blazing white hot.

  “You have two choices. I can lock you up tight with some man-food—” she shook the unconscious Martoni “—or I can fry you all to ash so that even your Matriarch won’t be able to identify you.”

  “She escaped the wendigo. She does not boast,” one of the crones said. “Ferrell . . . ”

  Ferrell unlocked his chains. Drake crawled past Dani and then stumbled to his feet. Before Ferrell or the crones could leap, Dani threw Martoni into them. Then she grabbed Drake and pulled him outside. She sent a hard blast of fire into the cave roof, melting and crumbling the rock into a hot tomb. Ferrell’s music turned into a screeching cacophony before it disappeared completely from his head.

  Dani helped him into the Yenko and he hissed as the leather caught at his bruised, naked skin. Dani hid her smile, tossed him some clothes and settled into the driver’s seat.

  “Hope I got the right size,” she said.

  He checked the tag blearily. He tried to nod but it hurt too much. “How’d you do that?” he asked.

  “Magic,” she said, looking over at him with a grin.

  He winced when he tried to smile. The clothes rumpled across his lap.

  “Do you need . . . ?” She leaned closer and exposed her throat. The freckles on her skin pulsed as her heart sped.

  “I . . . ” He sighed. He was tired and hungry and afraid that if he tasted her now, he would surely kill her.

  “It’s OK,” she said in a small voice.

  “There’s a pig farm.” He gestured.

  She nodded, drove wordlessly down the road until he told her to stop. Out of the car, protesting against even putting on the clothes, he stumbled to one of the metal hog sheds.

  When he came out later, she was leaning against the car, clutching his clothes to her chest. She looked a little green under the street lights.

  He said nothing, but took the clothes from her, dressed, and returned to the car. She followed and gave him the keys.

  “I’m going to Mexico,” he said. “You should go somewhere, too. Wherever witches go that’s safe.”

  Her hands fisted and he was certain she glared at him. “And that’s your way of saying thank you?”

  There’s always another choice, he had told Ferrell. But he had never before realized how true that was.

  He was silent for a long moment. Then he took her hand, banishing all sense memories, feeling only the magic-hardened angles of her palm. He drew her to him, putting his hands on either side of her face, trying to see her eyes.

  “There are many other ways,” he said. “I believe you may know some of them.”

  Her breath hitched as he bent close. He knew she was thinking of him again with Isobel, whether she willed it or not.

  “I’ll show you the others on the way down to Mexico,” he whispered.

  She shivered as their lips touched. A spark flickered between them and he drew back a little.

  “Don’t tell me,” he said when she would have spoken. “Magic, right?”

  She smiled and silenced him with her lips.

  Circle Unbroken

  Ann Aguirre

  One

  Red bled from the guttering neon sign, greasing dark puddles with an oily shine. Zane stepped over, his boots near silent on the wet pavement. All around him, dark, broken windows in tenement buildings hung like the razor-sharp teeth of some patient, predatory beast. The rain had stopped an hour ago, but everything was still glazed with a fine mist, as if the world sweated in anticipation of what was to come.

  Or maybe that was just his mood.

  One solitary window broke the surface of the wall beside that sign, and it bore black wrought-iron bars. Crumbling stairs took him right up to a solid metal door. From within, he could hear the soft strains of piano music. The player was a dilettante, pausing every now and then to add some unnecessary flourish. Oddly, the human vanity of the performance made him feel a little better.

  He had nothing to worry about, he told himself. Nothing on his person would give away his intentions. It wasn’t like he’d come bearing tricks of his trade. Even his cell phone was standard gear. This was strictly a recon mission, fact finding only.

  Zane raised his hand and rapped in sequence with scheduled pauses and repetition. He’d gotten that much from one of the regulars before the man wound up in McLean, where they were studying his acutely paranoid behaviour. The skullduggery of it made him feel ridiculous, but it bore fruit when a metal plate slid back and a pair of dark eyes scrutinized him from head to toe.

  “I’m here for a drink,” he said.

  No response. The peep slot closed and someone opened the door from the inside. His source claimed that was the pass phrase and, if given in conjunction with the knock, would get him inside. Unfortunately, he had no way of verifying whether the information was still good.

  “Come in. Enjoy.” From behind the heavy door, the voice sounded disembodied.<
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  Zane shook off the chill and stepped through into the glowing warmth of the bar. He’d been investigating the place for months, but this was the first time he’d been able to get in the door. He took stock of his surroundings, and was oddly disappointed to find everything old-fashioned but tasteful. Mahogany panels lined the walls, softened with red embroidered tapestries. From the heavy, ornate bar to the chunky tables, there was something faintly Elizabethan about the place. In fact, he clashed with the décor in his worn army jacket and faded grey T-shirt.

  He ran a hand through his hair, conscious of its uneven spikes in contrast with the suavity of the man closing the door behind him. The bouncer was enormous, biceps the size of someone’s head, but his hair was meticulously styled, and he wore a superbly tailored suit. Even the piano player dressed better than Zane.

  His source hadn’t said anything about a dress code. But as he glanced around, he saw the other patrons didn’t fit their surroundings either. A man sat at the bar in a badly rumpled dress shirt, sleeves rolled up and tie tugged sideways. He nursed something amber in a glass, staring at his own sullen reflection. By the scruff on his jaw, he might’ve been there for days.

  Zane nodded to the bouncer and made for the bar, where the ’tender came over straightaway. “What can I get you?”

  “Kamikaze,” he said, pulling himself onto a stool.

  When she began mixing his drink, he suffered a frisson of disappointment. He didn’t know exactly what he’d anticipated, but this was sedate in comparison with his inchoate expectations. Maybe he’d expected a scene out of Anne Rice with human slaves twined around their vampiric masters, while they fed in veiled alcoves. This just looked like a private club, but it was stupid to imagine they’d work in the open. Before he got to see anything newsworthy, he’d need to earn their trust.

  Such things took time.

  Two

  “Who is he?” Ysabel asked.

  She never entered the public area without speaking to Marceau first. His family had been loyal for hundreds of years, and she could count on his candour as well as his keen judgment. The man beside her appeared older than she by more than twenty years, a father figure some might say. Her mouth curved into a wry smile at the idea.

  Marceau folded well-manicured hands before him. He was a slim, dapper man in his mid-forties. His hair had gone silver prematurely, making an attractive foil for his dark almond eyes. As always, he was impeccably turned out in a Boss suit, his shoes polished until one presumed he could see his own reflection. Beside her, he stared out at the room, where the herd congregated.

  To her surprise, Marceau shrugged. “I am not sure.”

  Ysabel’s brows lifted. “You surprise me. No dossier to hand? Generally, you have them blood-typed before they enter our domain.”

  “He is nobody we’ve cultivated,” he said repressively. “But he knew the knock and the pass phrase. Perhaps it is time we changed them both.”

  “To keep out the undesirables?” She mocked her retainer gently. “It would not do for our place of business to become sullied with those who wish to drink in anonymity.”

  “What of our anonymity?” he asked. “Purges have started with less moment.”

  Purges, crusades, hunters. Yes, she understood his caution.

  Ysabel gave a short nod. “Make the change and inform Carvalo at the door.”

  She noted a number of regulars in her visual sweep, but the young man at the bar drew her gaze back. There was a fierce, savage quality about him from his shock of black, spiky hair to his lean, angular face. This wasn’t a man who would bow to rules or regulations; she could tell that much from a single glance.

  He shifted then, turning his face towards the wall through which she studied him. The man wore a diamond in his nose like a Barbary pirate. Ysabel had spent some time with a particularly roguish one in the islands; she recognized the type on sight. But where Jean Pierre had beaded trinkets into his hair, this one wore warpaint. Streaks of carmine and azure tipped the spiky points of his hair, like a peacock displaying plumage.

  “It will be done.” In another age, his ancestor would have swept a deep obeisance in speaking those words. Ysabel remembered another Marceau doing so. They never used their first names with her. In every generation, they sent the youngest son to replace the elder. One had stood at her side since before the French Revolution.

  His demeanour said he would prefer to adhere to the old ways, but she had learned to her cost that clinging to the past could be fatal. The only solace came from living in the present, not reflecting on all that had been lost. That way lay madness and death, a ceaseless fall into melancholy.

  “Thank you,” she said, schooling her features.

  She could not show weakness. Like a goddess carved from ivory and marble, nothing could touch her. Ysabel lifted her chin, watching the dishevelled man at the bar now. She could not feed from him again, no matter how he craved it. If she had any mercy, she would have barred him from the place, saving him from this desperate half-life, hoping against hope that she would call him to her private chambers again.

  “Shall I have him escorted out?” Marceau asked.

  At first she thought he was talking about the broken wreck of a man in the dingy white shirt. Then she realized he was looking at the fierce young pirate who had wandered into her lair. Ysabel smiled.

  “Let him stay. I will speak with him myself.”

  “Is that wise, m’selle?”

  “No.” She laughed softly. “And that is precisely why I shall do it.”

  Marceau favoured her with a grave, measured look, as if to say he did not find her reckless manner amusing. But he said nothing; it was not his place to counsel her. In her way, she was akin to royalty, and there was no one who dared rebuke her.

  She had outlived them all.

  Three

  She had hair like moonlight.

  The woman wore a red dress that clung to her like a second skin, and Zane’s next thought surprised him: blood and ice. Her smooth skin suggested that she was in her mid-twenties, around his age, but her eyes belied that initial impression. Those eyes were ageless, the deep grey of the sky just before a storm, and just as clouded with secrets.

  Nothing in her demeanour hinted at violence, but he’d always possessed a strong sense of intuition. Though he had no proof, she was one of them. He’d stake his life on it.

  To his surprise, she came straight towards him. She seated herself with liquid grace, putting an empty stool between them. Without taking her drink order, the bartender produced a glass of white wine. Zane watched her slim fingers curl around the glass, nails polished to match her dress. The crimson tips should have made her look hard and mercenary, but instead – well, he found himself unable to reconcile the conflicting signals.

  “You’re new here,” she said without looking at him. Her voice carried the faintest lilt, not Irish, not Welsh, but as if ancient melodies danced on the tip of her tongue.

  Something told him to be on his guard. “Yeah.” The only line that sprang to mind was, You come here often? So he swallowed it along with a third of his now watery drink.

  “Ysabel.” The dishevelled man on the other side of Zane spoke for the first time.

  So that’s her name. Inexplicably, Zane thought of nightingales.

  Despair in his face, the other man reached towards her like a supplicant. “Do you—”

  “No.” Though her tone was neither sharp, nor hard, it carried unmistakable finality. “You should go home, Steven. There is nothing for you here.”

  “It is to be exile for me then?” Though he didn’t look poetic, Steven quoted verse nonetheless. “‘And this is why I sojourn here, Alone and palely loitering . . . ’” He shook his head bitterly. “It was you, wasn’t it? ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’. Keats wrote about you.”

  Zane didn’t see her gesture in any fashion, but the bouncer from the door stood beside them, levering Steven to his feet. “I’ll see that he gets home.”
/>   The woman inclined her head. Once the other two had gone, she said, “I am sorry you had to see that.”

  “Are you? Why?” His nerves tingled.

  “I would not like to see you deterred from our company before you find what you’re seeking.”

  He froze. “What makes you think I’m looking for anything?”

  She faced him then, offering the full weight of her eyes, and he swore he felt the warmth of her touch. “We are all searching for something, are we not? Some gather wealth to stave off the long winter. Others yearn for power to leave their mark on the world. Yet others crave wisdom and knowledge. They are, perhaps, the most dangerous seekers of all.”

  “You think so?” He felt as if she employed an archaic form of mesmerism to slow his thoughts and leave him unable to focus on anything but her mouth.

  Ysabel smiled. Her canines were delicately pointed. So subtle that if he hadn’t known what he was looking for, he would’ve missed the slight variance.

  “Who is more dangerous, the man who owns a bomb or the man who knows how to build one?”

  He conceded the point with a nod. “One’s capacity for harm is finite. The other—”

  “Could destroy the world,” she supplied quietly.

  “I take your point.” Belatedly, he offered his hand. “I’m Zane. I already know you’re Ysabel, so it’s only fair to offer a name for a name.”

  “Is it?” she asked, studying his palm like a fortune-teller. “How odd. I have seldom consorted with those who concern themselves with what is fair.”

  “Then you must’ve had a rough life, lady.”

  At length she took his hand and a sweet shock went all the way to his shoulder. It made him want to wrap his fingers around hers and draw her against him to see if the sensation would flood him from chest to knees. He restrained himself only through sheer will, pulling his flesh from hers quicker than was courteous.

  She mused on that a moment, running her fingertips around the mouth of her glass, and a shudder went through him. He could feel her tracing circles on his skin. Desire rose, wholly unbidden, and he didn’t like the loss of volition.