by Tes Hilaire
Fuckingcraptastic. A teleporter? Boy, was Senior going to be pissed to find out Karissa wasn’t the only one with those skills.
Knowing the merker would simply be on top of him again the moment he reformed from the shade, Valin dove for his knife, simultaneously tossing out a warning to Gabby. <
He hoped to hell she heard, prayed even harder that she’d actually fucking listen to him and get the hell out of here, but he didn’t have the time to make sure as his hand had barely closed around the blade when the second merker was on top of him, its iron-heavy fists pummeling into him like goddamn battering rams.
He rolled away, ignoring a sharp crack from his lowest rib as one of the blows grazed his side just right, and scrambled to his feet, quickly putting some distance between them. He’d barely had time to settle his grip on his blade when the merker flashed in directly in front of him. Luckily Valin had anticipated that and got in a good stab to the merker’s midsection. The merker roared, immediately flashing. Only the stupid fuck forgot that anything touching him went with him, which meant both Valin’s knife and Valin went with Star Trek boy too. A split second and a disorienting fifty feet later, Valin and the merker staggered away from each other, each clutching at their most recent wounds.
“Wanna try that again?” Valin asked, stalling as much for a chance to clear his head as anything else.
“Want to die so soon?” The merker sneered back, then, rude bastard that he was, charged before Valin could retort with his own quippy comeback.
Probably not a bad thing; would have been pretty lame anyway.
Valin crouched, readying for the impact, only at the last second the merker flashed out. Instinct had Valin spinning, his blade rising in a defensive arc. Good thing too, as the merker reappeared a couple feet in the air behind and above him. Because of his quick thinking, gravity turned into his friend and the merker received another hole in his body, this one a deep gash across his thigh as Valin continued to spin out from under him.
With the merker howling obscenities, Valin risked a glance toward Gabby, then wished he hadn’t as his heart came to an abrupt halt in his chest. As he watched, she leapt onto a car, pushed off, her body twisting, feet flying out like a fucking ballerina as she whizzed over the pyro’s head, the arc of flame chasing her through the air. One of those feet connected, the audible crack of bones fragmenting a welcome sound in the pandemonium of the dual fight. Sensing the second merker bearing down on him, Valin rolled out from under another attack. Valin barely caught the movement of the pyro slumping out of the corner of his eye.
Still, he needed to end this.
On a gamble, Valin heaved his knife into the air, the sharp blade all but disappearing from sight as it sailed up, up, up into the darkness. It was hard to miss the merker’s what-the-fuck expression. For a split second pure shock rooted his feet to the spot as it tried to decipher why Valin would toss away his only weapon.
“So I can kill you, fuckwad,” Valin muttered. He knew he had to time this right. The knife reached the pinnacle of its arc a good dozen stories up and began to fall. He waited. The one thing that could screw up this plan would be if the merker looked back his way, but the stupid shit never took his eyes off the knife to see Valin shift. If Valin had enough substance to shake his head, he would have as he watched the switch from confusion to determination cross the merker’s face as he prepared to teleport. Valin thrust his essence across the expanse toward the knife. The next part was tricky and he had to concentrate hard to twist just enough of his ghostly substance back into semi-solid mass. The knife settled into the shadowy form of his outstretched hand.
Pulling deep from his own energy stores, he kept the blade aloft, thrusting the knife forward before releasing the agonizing hold he had on the rest of his substance that wanted to follow his hand’s example and reform. It all took but a split second. Just long enough to drain the hell out of him, but long enough for the ultimate payoff. The merker popped back in. But because Valin had shoved the knife’s trajectory that foot and a half forward before fully reforming, the merker’s hand didn’t grasp onto the knife, but rather Valin’s arm—which, what do you know, happened to be attached to the blade now lodged deep in the merker’s chest.
“Sayonara, A-hole.” Valin smiled, calling forth the light that had been infused within the heavenly forged blade. Like lightning, it shot down the sharp-edged metal into flesh. The merker roared, his iron hands clamping down around Valin’s forearms. Within its chest the blade continued to burn away at the merker’s blackened heart. Unfortunately, like all things wonderful in Valin’s life, this moment of joyous fuck-you was rudely interrupted too—by the hard-ass smack of reality called gravity.
Oh yeah, hitting the ground from that far up was a bitch. He tried to take away some of the shock by absorbing the impact by bending his knees, but that didn’t stop the blast of you-stupid-fuck agony from shooting up his legs and driving a railroad spike of crap-that-hurts through his back and into the base of his brain. The only good news was it seemed to have a similar effect on his half-incapacitated buddy. The merker crumbled, his grip falling from Valin’s arms and his body slipping from the blade as he fell ass backwards, his skull cracking most satisfyingly as it struck the asphalt. And yeah, minus the fact that his entire body was still cursing him out, things didn’t get much better than this.
Valin smiled, straddling the merker, who was sprawled like an offering before him. Lots of practice made short work of the next step, and seconds later the merker’s smoking skull lay detached from its body, the creature’s soul obliterated with His light.
Damn, that had taken way too long.
Heart thudding, Valin spun, his gaze immediately searching out the dark shadows where the pyro had fallen. It was still there, only shit, so was Gabby, her slim body sprawled over the crumpled form of the unconscious merker.
“Gabby!” he choked out. Had she been hit by that last blast of fire? Images of her charred body flashed through his brain, pumping adrenaline through his system so that all pain and exhaustion were forgotten. The jolt allowed him to sprint across the expanse as fast, if not faster, than he could have in ghost form.
Scared to death of what he might find, he grabbed onto her shoulders and pulled, only to meet resistance.
“Gabby?” He tugged again, then recoiled as she snapped her head around and hissed at him. Wild eyes, blood-drenched fangs. Holy fucking hell, was she feeding from that thing? His question was immediately answered as she turned back to her meal, fangs flashing as she lunged at the merker’s already gaping throat and sank in. The shock had him standing there like a dumb-ass, not moving, hardly breathing, just watching. He wasn’t even aware of time passing until the world started to spin and he had to consciously draw in a long pull of air.
Way to go. Why don’t I just pass out while she’s vulnerable to any backup that happens to be on the way?
His oxygen-sucking routine must have startled Gabby because she leapt off the merker and staggered a few yards away.
Still feeling like the world was off-kilter, Valin stepped forward with his knife. Only, crap, the merker looked damn dead already. He squatted down, fingers fumbling at the merker’s torn throat as he searched for a pulse. Not finding any, he reached out with his senses, but all he could feel from the merker was a fading stain of evil, not the pulsing taint of dark energy he’d expect from a live creature.
“What the fuck?” He stared at the blank eyes of the merker, his grip tight on the hilt of his knife. Any second now the creature was going to blink and pull one of its walking dead reanimation routines. Only it wasn’t; it just laid there in a pool of its own blood, its dead eyes staring at nothing.
Holy crap. She’d killed a fucking merker! Drained it of not only its blood but its life energy.
There was a scrape from behind him, like boots scuffing on pavement. He spun on his heels, half-expecting to see one of those backup merkers he’d feared coming up behind them,
but met, instead, with the vision of Gabby’s backside as she half-ran, half-staggered down the street. Like she was, holy fucking hell, running away from him again.
He didn’t even think. Dissolving into the shade, his knife clattered back to the ground as he sent the particles of shadow that held his essence after her. He reformed behind her, his frustration and anger propelling him forward so that his grab for her shoulder turned more into a tackle. She hissed, a sharp elbow digging deep into his already screaming rib cage as he tried to twist midair so as to take the brunt of the fall. Bad idea. The combo of her hit and the sharp smack of the hard pavement sent the air right out of him and his grip slipped. She rolled off him, her boots smacking pavement by his head as she bolted once more.
Goddamnit!
Valin rolled over, sucking air as he watched her crouch, all that compact strength pulling in as she sighted and locked on to her intended escape route: a narrow three-story brick building pinned between two taller cement monsters. Having seen Roland in action, he wasn’t surprised she’d look to the rooftops to elude him, though he was a bit insulted that she thought it might work.
With a sigh, he took to the shade once more. His little minx was going to have to learn sometime that he wasn’t going to let her run from him and now seemed like a damn fine time.
Thankfully Valin’s second tackle went much better. Probably because she’d paused to catch her breath on the second rooftop she’d clambered up on. He’d barely reformed before he snatched her right wrist, twisting her around.
Her lips peeled back, exposing elongated fangs. Not at all intimidated, he grabbed her other wrist. Both hands in his firm grip, he spun and smashed her back into the roof’s access door.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” she snapped, using every muscle in her tiny, pint-sized vampire body to try and dislodge him.
“Me? Where the fuck did you think you’re going?”
“Oh, I don’t know…wherever the hell I want?” She jerked her arms against his grip, then when that didn’t work, used the metal door to try and lever her body into an arch. It took all his strength to keep her pinned, and all his willpower to not rub himself against the amazing set of curves that she was wiggling so deliciously against his naked self. Finally, with a muffled growl of frustration, she collapsed back against the door.
He was still trying to convince his little brain that this was not the time or place when it finally clicked in his head that she was shaking, badly. Concern that maybe she’d taken some injury during the fight that he hadn’t seen had him loosening his grip. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she hissed, her eyes flashing daggers that would have cut him open if possible. That look and his muscles that still ached from the effort it had taken to catch her should have been sufficient reassurance, but he still didn’t like the trembling that shook through her thin frame, rattling everything from her teeth to the bones in her toothpick ankles.
How the heck could she be feeding like that and still be so damn skinny? Unless it was because it was merker blood. Maybe her body couldn’t process it properly. Maybe…
He sucked in a breath as a horrible piece of the puzzle clicked into place. “Crap, Gabby, is this what’s making you sick?”
“What’s making me sick?”
“That.” He jerked his head back in the direction of the fallen merker. “Are they what you’ve been feeding off of?”
She raised her brow and blew at a stray lock of hair that had fallen into her face as if wrapping up a duh and a what do you care all into one.
“Scratch that, of course they are. Do you always have this sort of reaction to them?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Come on, Gabby. The shaking? The sweating?” The oily slickness of evil coating your skin. He didn’t say the last part out loud. Still she sucked in a breath, clamping her pretty white fangs down on her lower lip as she averted her gaze. “Aw, fuck. It is, isn’t it? You’ve been feeding off those things and it’s making you sick.” He shook his head. “You must realize the harm you’re doing to yourself. Why, Gabby? Why are you doing it?”
“Maybe because I like it,” she said, her voice lowered in a sibilant whisper. “Maybe because I need it.”
“Need?” That she needed blood was a given, but to wreak such devastation upon herself?
“Oh yes, I need.” Her gaze moved past him, her eyes sparking crimson as they looked back toward where the merker had fallen. “Before I die I’m going to see as many of those fuckers dead as I can.”
Chapter 9
Gabby could tell she’d said something wrong. Not that there could be much more wrong with this moment, and being pinned up against the flaking metal door was the least of it. She never let anyone see her feed, and this was why.
Humiliation burned along with the blazing bonfire of self-disgust. She didn’t feed in front of anyone because she didn’t want them to witness the sick pleasure she got from her bloodlust. Didn’t want them to know how much she craved the dark energy that filled her after exacting just a bit more of her revenge upon Ganelon and his deceased maker.
Only with Valin it seemed infinitely worse. The dark anger in his gaze made her want to shrivel into a puddle of shame at his feet…or kick him in the nuts so as to see something else there.
She jutted her chin up instead. “What? You have a problem with that?”
His jaw clenched, obliterating the devil-may-care magnificence of his face into something far darker and strangely erotic.
That’s the succubus in you talking, Gabby.
“You’re not going to fucking die,” he growled and then crushed his mouth to hers. Shock had her not reacting; otherwise she would have taken that kick to the boys. At a minimum twist her head away before she could compare the hard press of his lips from her recent imaginings to the reality of the man consuming her now. But she didn’t, and he did, and it didn’t take her a split second to realize how very wrong those fleetingly brief and definitely unwanted thoughts had been. His kiss wasn’t hard and punishing but rather an invitation. Or more aptly, a challenge to explore the deliciousness of his mouth with her own.
Gabby had never been one to back away from a challenge. Challenges had to be met head-on—or at least circumvented through sly planning and sheer will. This didn’t call for such finesse, so she threw herself into the kiss, battling his tongue for possession of their shared taste. He growled, the sound rumbling deep in his chest and vibrating against the softness of her breasts as he pressed himself tight against her.
Her heart thumped—hard—against her ribs. She tried to convince herself it was fear that made the organ seize up, fear of being trapped, fear of not being totally in control, but she knew it was a lie. This kiss was not about winning some sort of damn power struggle but about fulfilling a need. She needed him. Needed his mouth on hers. Needed to taste the dark bitter chocolate of his tongue. Needed the warmth of his body pressed tight to hers. She’d been so cold for so long.
As if to punish her for even thinking as much, she felt him start to pull away. A sound strangely like a whimper rose from her throat as her body treacherously followed.
“Hold on, cookie. Just let me…” His hands lifted from her wrists. Still fearing he meant to end the delicious torture of her senses, she immediately wrapped her arms around his neck, lacing her fingers into the silken luxury of his thick hair. Only he wasn’t leaving because almost immediately the warmth was back in the tight fit of his body against hers, and the blazing heat of those skillful hands working their way under her shirt.
Gabby sucked in a breath, then let it out as his talented fingers skirted a path of warmth up the curve of her rib cage. She hardly noticed the chilling tease of the breeze as he rucked up her tank top, exposing her torso to the night. She only knew that if he would just keep on touching her, keep on tasting her, that she might possibly find the heat she’d been missing in all those power games she’d been forced to play.
<
br /> You really think this is anything more? You think it can be?
She bit her lip, searching out his face for signs of duplicity and manipulation, but found nothing but heat in his gaze as he took in the view he’d uncovered. What was it with men and boobs?
“God, Gabby…” He pulled at her bra, popping her breast above the constricting fabric. Strangely, looking at her like that was admittedly hot, not vulgar.
“I have to taste you. I have to know,” he said, the words rumbling thickly in the back of his throat. And okay, yeah, that warm, slick heat pooling between her legs in response was a double-hell-yes-that’s-hot from her body.
She was practically panting, but before she could clear her fogged brain enough to convince herself how embarrassing that was, his hand latched onto her ass, hoisting her up against the door. A moment later the delicious ridge of his erection pressed against her pelvis as he lowered his mouth to the straining tip of her nipple.
Pinned between the door and his hard body, she arched toward him, biting back a scream as he drew her areola deep into the heat of his mouth. Pleasure rippled from deep within her core, another rush of slick heat coating her most intimate of places and making her burn for the press of his erection against her. But the angle wasn’t quite enough. She needed to tip her hips just a little more, only she was pinned so tight she couldn’t move.
“Ugh, Valin, I need…” She squirmed.
He chuckled, then obviously reading her mind, he shifted again, this time clutching the cheeks of her ass in both hands to hike her up further. She wiggled, parting her legs and wrapping them around his waist, and holy-fucking-crap that felt so good. He was so hard and thick and if she could somehow just genie-wish away her clothing this might actually be enough.
“Fuck, you’re sexy,” he growled, then went back to torturing her with his mouth on her breast. She arched against the heat of his tongue and was immediately rewarded by a groan as he rubbed himself erotically against her. A tremor racked through her body, starting at every point of contact between them and flaring out in a wave of heat until even her toes were tingling with a promised sort of release beyond anything she’d experienced. Sure, she’d brought herself to orgasm before, had forced herself to learn her body so that she might use it as a weapon when needed, but never had the ripples of pleasure left her panting for breath before. His talented hands, his devilish mouth, his rigid length rubbing against her center—she needed more. More of this, more of him. She needed to taste him, needed to…