Shadowfae, page 10
part #1 of Shadowfae Chronicles Series
Dante’s eyes glinted. “Drink up.”
Jade puts the glass to her lips, and Dante watches greedily as she sips, blood staining her mouth. She’s already senseless, her eyes distant and euphoric like a fae junkie’s. Her slender throat bobs as she swallows, one gulp, then another. His pulse flows quicker, anticipation whetting his taste buds.
Such a seductress, charming that fucking idiot Quinn. She really knew how to suck a man, too. He’d watched transfixed as she’d taken Quinn to the hilt, his own cock full and aching in sympathy. No wonder Rajahni wants her.
Well, Rajahni can’t have her.
Dante takes the empty glass from Jade’s fingers and slips his arm around her thin waist, leading her away. He’s never seen any reason to play by the rules, never laid stock in dusty centuries-old clan traditions. Follow the rules, get screwed by the rules. He learned that with emphatic force as a boy, the day Mussolini marched the Blackshirts into Calabria to shoot and kick the shit out of hundreds of the people who’d voted the fucker into office in the first place. And he’d sucked up another powerful dose when the Reds strung the aging Il Duce up from a bloody meat hook in Milan. The spoils go to the strong, not the nice or careful. Stop kicking for an instant, and you’ll sink.
Dante is young, delirious on his power, not old and stale like Angelo Valenti, or Sal DiLuca, Dante’s predecessor. Who squealed like a squashed rat as he bled to death, thank you very much, a sound Dante still remembers in hot blood-soaked dreams. He always swore he’d bathe in Sal’s blood, and a mighty fine bath it was. He orgasmed as he held the struggling old man down, hard and long and breathtaking, burning blood and come splashing his skin. He’s not afraid of that, doesn’t shirk from what it says about him. Hell, if it feels good, bring it on. That’s what power’s for.
Fuck ’em if they can’t take it. And fuck the demon lords, too. All jealous of his freedom. Dante’s got no time for useless courtesies or ancient clan bullshit about territory and suitable mates. And now he’s on his own in the new world, with no crusty elders controlling his every move.
So let the world drown in blood and chaos, and all these craven liars who pretend they’re so goddamn civilized will eat each other alive to stay afloat. Let them sink deeper into brutality with every dying thrash, and Dante and those he deems worthy will watch and laugh. His own dark hell on earth, so much tastier and more fascinating than the one below.
Pity Jade won’t like to watch. He’s rather enjoying her, even if it’s just to spite Rajahni. He offered Rajah everything once, and Rajah turned him down, saying he didn’t want to live forever. Laughing at the very idea. No one laughs at Dante DiLuca and stays happy. Dante will fucking well make sure the smug bastard lives every last excruciating moment of his thousand years with Kane. Just thinking about it makes him hard and ready.
He pulls Jade onto the couch with him, distant strobe lights flickering in drifting white smoke. Her gaze smolders as he tells her silently what he wants her to do, the blood connection between them crackling in the stale air. As she stretches onto her back and slides her fingers between her legs to open herself for him, he smiles. Vampire blood, the date rape drug from hell.
He rips her panties away, opens his trousers, and plunges inside her. She’s tighter than he expects, coating him like hot honey, and he has to push hard to enter her fully. She cries out, weak, but thanks to the blood, her rapture is stunned and useless. He nuzzles her breast through her soft dress as he thrusts, tugging the flowering nipple with his front teeth, saliva running from his mouth to soak her. She moans, her muscles rippling around him, and he grins, curiosity a pleasant throb in his balls. “So who are you thinking of, Jade, now I’m fucking you?”
“You,” comes the answer, faint. “Rajah. Killian.”
“All three? Ambitious. Still, you won’t remember any of this, so go right ahead.” He laughs, his urgent breath wetting her dress more. “Now tell me what you really want from me.”
She shudders, resisting, her head jerking from side to side. “Kane—”
“Not Kane. You.” He likes it when she fights. “And don’t tell me you want to be loved. No one loves hell’s whore. Believe me, I know.” He captures her mouth, driving in his tongue, and lets blood-tinged saliva flow, another sly taste of persuasion. “What is there without love, Jade? Tell me.”
She sighs, sensual, tilting her hips against him to slide him deeper, and the words he’s waiting for slip at last from her shining lips. “I want to die.”
Desire thickens his blood, and a growl wells up in his throat. “Say that again.”
“Kill me.”
His cock swells, painful. He could kill her, too. Vampire blood can erase her fragile immortality, wash it away like dirt whether she knows it or not. But he won’t grant her wish, not yet. Not until it suits him, and she begs him properly. But he can’t wait any longer to taste her, and he drags the shoulder seam of her halter dress inward, revealing one small white breast with a hard, puckered nipple.
“You know this’ll hurt. Don’t scream.” He stretches his jaws, snarling, and with a growl of hungry desire he fastens his mouth over the peak and sinks his teeth in deep.
Blood, boiling and glorious, flowing over his tongue, rich with her salty stink. She moans and writhes. He sucks, filling his mouth. He drives deep into her as he swallows, but the pleasure of rapidly nearing orgasm is pale compared to this.
Her lifeblood pumping into him, her soft skin trembling in his mouth, the dirty, gritty taste of pain against the hardness of her nipple yearning for more sensation. Complete submission, and with it come her thoughts, fragments of memory, ecstasy, fear. Whispers of scent and sensation, a thousand different men, the succulent brush of lips, the slick taste of skin and pressure of teeth, hot hardness filling her, hurting her, pleasuring her, all together in a heady rush of life. And most recently, the luxuriant fall of midnight hair, slick swollen lips teasing hers, the enthralling scent of spice.
Jealousy burns Dante like acid, overboiling his desire, but triumph steals his breath away. He can see into her mind. He knows what Rajahni’s up to, wanting out from Kane’s thrall. And he knows exactly how to fuck it up.
Hot tension grips his balls, explodes along his cock. Desperate, he sucks hard and long, one last delicious mouthful, and comes with a deep groan, jerking into her.
He laughs as aftershocks steal his breath. Come inside a succubus. Not many men get to do that and live. But she can’t steal a vampire’s soul, at least not with rapture. He licks the last of her blood away and pulls her damp dress back to cover the seeping wound on her breast. She didn’t come, and her flesh twitches in protest as he withdraws.
He crawls up to her face, his breath hot and coppery, wetting her ear. “Sorry, darlin’. Maybe next time. Now listen carefully, and I’ll tell you how you can find Vorenus Luna.”
10
I pushed up on my elbows in my sweaty bed, squinting at the afternoon sun pouring in the open venetians. Dust motes swirled, glinting, and my body sweated and burned in the sun-cooked bedroom air. Jesus. What time was it?
The digital clock on the bedside table said 3:25. I groaned and flopped the damp sheet aside.
I dragged myself up to the bathroom, a throbbing ache in my temples. My stomach hurt. I leaned on the wall next to the toilet, fumbling knotted hair from my face, and waited for the nausea. I was naked, sweat running in rivulets over me, and I smelled like a seldom-cleaned distillery where someone had died. My wrists felt swollen, my thrall bangles tight. I had no idea how I’d gotten home. At least the other half of my bed was empty.
My stomach churned at last, and I bent lower and let the spew heave out into the bowl, stinking and stringed with scarlet. I wiped my mouth with a hot sticky hand, tasting acid and copper. God knew what I’d drunk last night.
I turned the shower on and stumbled under, grateful for the cold water soothing my skin and running through my hair, blissfully icy on my pulsing scalp. I rinsed sweat from my limbs, gingerly lathering soap everywhere. I rubbed absently at a tender bruise on my breast I didn’t recall getting. Not only did I not remember getting home, I didn’t remember much at all, beyond tramming it to Unseelie Court
, a few tequilas, seeing Killian Quinn. . . .
Goose bumps constricted my skin, and I snapped upright, the soap slipping from my fingers to bang against the cracked tiles. Quinn. Jesus.
I sprinted into the lounge, not minding about a towel. Water sprayed from my soaked hair as I scrabbled on the floor for my purse and rummaged inside. My heart stopped as I felt nothing—but then my fingers closed around the cool brass neck of the bottle, and I drew it out, my pulse thudding. I held it up before my eyes, water dripping, and something heavy inside shifted, like it wasn’t happy to be there. If I listened hard, I could hear a hissing whisper of fury.
The message tone on my phone squeaked, and automatically I fished it out, the soultrap still seething in my other hand. A mobile number I didn’t recognize. I pressed View.
Dont 4get 2nite eureka tower cy@9 xx Dante.
Pleasant memories stirred. He’d invited me with him to a party, with a handsome blush when I teased him by asking if it was a date.
Dante DiLuca, the most feared man in Melbourne, blushing for me.
I wanted it to be a date. We’d barely kissed—I remembered that now, his baffling blue eyes, the way he’d savored my taste, and my spine prickled, pleasant—but I felt he knew me better than almost anyone I’d ever met. I wanted to bask in his attention, even if it only lasted for a while, until he found out I was Kane’s spy and chewed my throat out. Was that so wrong?
Rajah certainly thought so. I recalled the distant look in his gold-flecked eyes when he’d seen Dante and me, the tight lines around his perfect mouth. Hurt. Confused. Sick. Like I’d betrayed him.
Well, I hadn’t.
My heart somersaulted, and I swallowed firmly on guilt and regret. There was nothing to betray. Rajah didn’t own me. He had no right to control me, just because we’d kissed. Just because we’d burned for each other, breathless and sore with desire. Just because if I thought about it I could still feel Rajah against me now, his glorious scent wrapping me, filling my senses, making me long for his smile, his cheeky laugh, the warm feeling of his hand in mine.
The doorbell clanged, jagged.
Absently I put the phone and the soultrap on the table, and twisted the dead bolt before I remembered I’d just stepped out of the shower.
Shit.
My skin burned all over again. I poked my dripping head into the gap, trying to keep the door closed as far as possible and hoping to hell this wasn’t anyone I knew. The door stuck to my wet breasts, uncomfortable.
A teenager in a blue cap stared at me, blond hair sticking out. “Jade?”
“Yeah. What?” Only then did I notice what he carried, and my breath caught.
“These are for you.” He handed me the basket, the heady scent of roses rolling over me like a wave.
A couple of dozen scarlet blooms, curling petals still dotted with water drops, green foliage shining. No one had sent me flowers for at least a hundred years. Apart from Nyx’s daisy chains, if you counted those. I inhaled, dizzy, and plucked off the note, the door still awkward as my shield.
Still working up the courage. D.
A foolish lump swelled in my throat, and my eyes stung. God, I’m so pathetic. A little romance and I’m anyone’s.
“Is everything okay, miss?” The delivery kid’s gaze darted to my bare shoulder and away a few times.
I swallowed, and smiled despite my aching head. “Yeah. Everything’s fine. Thank you.”
I pushed the door shut and put the flowers on the table, burying my face in velvety petals. My nose tingled with sweet fragrance. Glorious. A man who didn’t think I was easy. Who thought he had to work for me. Someone should bottle this guy . . . Okay, bad joke.
I laughed, but my gaze kept drifting to the soultrap, and the pleasure soured a little. What would happen if I earned my freedom? Lost my immortality? Just as things were starting to look up.
I glanced at Rajah’s phone number, still scrawled in the thickening dust on the opposite side of the glass. Primordium. For once, ten years of the Bible shoved down my throat in Latin came in handy. The origin, the beginning. But whose origin? The beginning to what? I was even more mystified by the others, terminus and animus. The last one especially was a lousy clue. Soul. I mean, duh. And terminus, the dividing line. Who was that supposed to mean?
And even if I figured that out, what was I supposed to do? Drink Quinn’s soul now? Or wait until I’d trapped all four and guzzle them all at once? I was feeling drained, drawn, tired, even apart from my hangover. Did it matter if I fed on other souls in between? And what if Kane found out? Rajah had earned a split lip, but he’d kept Nino’s soul. How had he done that?
Frustration and embarrassment stirred a prickly cocktail in my queasy stomach. There was too much I didn’t know, and I had only one chance. I couldn’t let my pride screw it up.
My fingers strangely clumsy, I picked up the phone, entered the digits, and pressed Call.
It rang three times, four, five. Blessed relief washed over me. It’d go through to voice mail, and I wouldn’t have to talk to him.
But then he picked up, and my tender abdomen clenched. I heard a muffled clunk while he switched the phone from hand to hand. “Yeah. Rajah.”
His voice made me think of rogan josh, spicy and mouthwatering. Great. I was talking to him naked. I swallowed, my mouth crusty. “Umm . . . it’s me. Hi.”
“Jade? Are you all right?”
The animated concern in his tone made me bristle. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“No reason. Just after last night, I thought—”
“Well, don’t think, okay? I’m fine.” Irritation at his possessiveness crawled on my naked skin, and I stalked into the bedroom, scraping damp hair from my face.
“Hey, you rang me. If you’ve got nothing to—”
“Okay, I’m sorry, all right?” I realized that he now had my number, and cursed that I hadn’t thought to call him from a public phone. “Listen, I need to talk to you. About this . . . thing you told me about. You know.”
“Sure.” He hesitated, like he swallowed or bit his lip. Or ran his tongue over them. Making them wet. Jesus, don’t think about his lips. “I’m at home. You want to come over?”
“What, now?” More bumps shivered my skin, my bare nipples tight. But it wasn’t such a dumb idea. I’d probably be safe from my lustful fixation with him today. Between the gut ache, the headache, and fatigue—the physical kind—I’d never felt less like having sex.
“Okay. Where is it?”
11
His address was the top floor of a refurbished apartment block at the casino end of Spencer Street
, where plane trees blew lazily in the summer breeze and the distant sound of trains rumbled. I hopped off the tram at about five, the hot sun turning golden and the streets starting to fill with tired, sweaty commuters dressed in business suits far too warm for the weather, coats tossed over their shoulders and damp patches showing on their shirts and blouses.
The glass security door was unlocked. A sleek fountain trickled in the marble-tiled foyer, and the silent lift gleamed inside with chrome and mirrors. I pressed the button for five, trying not to look at my reflection. I’d put on a thin white cotton skirt and sleeveless top, and left my hair out to dry. It curled around my shoulders, wild. I wished I’d brought something to tie it back with, or at least a brush, but could find neither in my purse. I combed my fingers through it uselessly, just making more knots.
What did I care, anyway? Right? I was going out with Dante tonight. I’d dress to kill for that. For someone who gave a shit.
Daylight shone in a broad skylight in the top-floor lobby, glistening on slate floor tiles and pale clay-rendered walls. Air-conditioning hummed softly, the air cool and refreshing. It was a change from my place, where the summer sun baked everything to boiling in five minutes flat. Especially if you crashed until three in the afternoon and didn’t close the blinds.
When he opened the door, he was wearing those same faded black jeans he’d worn the night I met him, soft as a baby mouse’s skin and as touchable. Not much left for the imagination there. Top button undone. A glimpse of smooth brown hips. I’d bet no underwear.
I flushed, my guts warm. Honestly. There’s only so much a girl can take. At least he had a shirt on this time.
“Come in.” He turned immediately. Was he avoiding looking at me? Maybe I’d embarrassed him by staring. I’d sure as hell embarrassed myself.
I followed him down a short carpeted hallway into the living room, where the sun filtered through half-closed mini venetians over the broad windows. A sweet, smoky scent drifted, like incense or an oil burner. Books stacked a dozen high on his low glass dining table, and above it hung a frieze of the Hindu god Shiva, multiple arms gesturing. The couch lay sprawled in front of the plasma TV, and a console game showed in pause, some first-person shooter set in a swamp, green slime dripping into swirling gray water littered with alien bodies. Looked like he was kicking ass. I smiled. “Busy, huh.”
He shrugged, sheepish, clearing magazines off the couch. “Can’t work all the time. Umm . . . can I get you a drink?”
I wanted something to do with my hands, but I didn’t know what to ask for. I hadn’t seen him drink alcohol. I glanced over the marble island bench and noticed an ice tap in the door of his stainless fridge. “Water?”
“Sure. Have a seat.”
I sat on the cool cushions, velvet fluffy under my fingers. He returned with two tall iced water glasses and handed me one, his gaze drifting away as he realized he’d have to sit next to me. He settled finally a few feet away, silent.
I sipped, the icy water stinging my tongue, aware that we were avoiding each other’s eyes. This was ridiculous. I put my glass aside. “I wanted to—”
