by Kim Petersen
She was wide awake now. She threw back the bed sheets and wrenched herself out of his reach.
‘It’s not happening tonight, Logan. In fact, it’s not happening again … period!’ She tugged at the little T-shirt that barely covered her panties. Why did I wear this tonight? She scanned the floor in the dark, leaning over to run her hands over the carpet. She knew she had kicked off her sweat pants around here somewhere.
Logan reached for the bedside lamp and flicked the switch. Her bent, almost bare behind illuminated in his face.
‘Hello, hello,’ he said, groping for her bum.
She snapped up, clutching the sweat pants to her chest and glared at him.
‘Logan, I don’t want to fuck tonight! I don’t want to do this anymore,’ Arella barked, almost tripping as she stepped into the pants.
His face screwed into a woven ball. ‘Whattaya mean?’
‘I mean this – us! It’s a sham and we both know it. Time to call it what it is and move on. Let’s start with you moving on to the sofa tonight.’
Logan’s eyes widened as her words fell into his hazy awareness. ‘But I thought we had a good thing going … we understand each other,’ he gazed at her with puppy-dog eyes.
She sighed. It wasn’t his fault she chose to live with his indiscretions for the last six months; who could blame him for thinking it was okay?
She perched on the bed beside him. ‘Look, we’re both exhausted. Let’s talk about this in the morning.’
He eyed her dubiously. ‘Can I still sleep next to you?’
She yanked the pillows from under him and tossed them toward the bedroom door. ‘Does that answer your question?’
Logan rolled his eyes as he leaped from the bed wearing only a pair of fitted boxers. ‘Fine, but if I can’t satisfy my horniness, I’m going to satisfy my stomach and fix something to eat.’ He strutted from the room like a Viking soldier.
Arella watched him until he was out of sight, trying not to notice the way his perfectly rounded butt flexed firm with his swagger. She shrugged, forgiving herself for one last perv; she had to admit that she would miss watching that strutting bottom.
She breathed a heavy sigh as she collapsed back into bed, pulled the blankets high under her chin and hit the lamp switch. But her attempt to reclaim the deep slumber prior to Logan’s appearance was overcome with that uncanny feeling of discord. She shuddered, attempting to shake it off. It’s just the events of tonight, she told herself. Nothing more. A reaction like this is to be expected after the attack in the city, she reasoned. Everything will be better tomorrow.
Arella grumbled as she tried to ignore the clanking pots and clashing dishes coming from the kitchen. What’s he doing in there, preparing a bloody pot roast? she thought irritably, snuggling her head further under the blankets and trying to block her ears. Finally, after about 20 minutes, the kitchen noises began to subside, only to be replaced by the blaring TV. He hates me! She yelled out for him to turn the volume lower. He conceded to her request just enough for her to fall into a fitful, nap-like trance.
Arella became alarmed as a little time later she was again dragged from the silence of the sleep she so desperately needed as a deafening crash shook her violently into wakefulness.
She sat upright. Her eyes were still adjusting to the dark as a feeling of horror enveloped her. A throaty growl echoed through the house. Logan’s shouting bounced down the hall followed with the sound of objects slamming into walls. She gasped. Her heart pounded a million miles an hour as she flew from the bed.
‘Logan!’ she screamed wildly, running toward the bedroom door. ‘Logan!’
Shadows swirled around the woman’s head. Fistfuls of her hair wound around his clutched fingers like silky straw while Regan surrendered to the gentle probing of her mouth. She skillfully manipulated the length of him, drawing back her lips then swallowing him whole, teasing him as she adjusted the rhythm and feathered her tongue over his smooth testes. She stopped suddenly. Her hot breath lingered on his skin for a few blissful seconds before she withdrew from him completely. Rising to her feet, she shoved her hands into his shoulders and he crashed back onto the bed.
In the pitch-black Regan made out the whites of her eyes and the pale skin of her breasts gleaming like life rafts on a sea of darkness. She rolled down her panties and tossed them toward his face. Her aim was good, the scent of her aroused him more. In one smooth moment she was straddling him. It was just as she positioned her hips over him that his phone decided to light up the room like Christmas Eve and vibrate loud against the timber surface of her bedside table.
Regan ignored the call, grabbing her soft fleshy hips as she rotated them on top of him like a seasoned salsa dancer. With perfect lips, he thought, trying to make out the outline of her mouth through the darkness. He needn’t have strained too hard, as she became clear as day when his phone started again. ‘Argh!’ he scowled. Who the fuck would be calling at this hour? He shifted her off him and instructed her to get on all fours.
There was only one person who’d dare call him at this hour.
He reached for the phone. His greeting was silent.
‘Regan?’ Vincent boomed.
‘Yeah.’ He watched the light bounce over the ample contours of her ass as she knelt on the bed.
‘Any news with Dorian?’
‘I’ve checked in today, nothing has changed.’ He ran his fingers over creamy flesh, smiling when he sensed her shiver.
Vincent was silent for a few beats, his heavy breath rasping into Regan’s ears. ‘I checked in with Shagga … midnight, your time.’
His hand paused with his frown. ‘And?’
‘And now it’s about 2.30am your time, right?’
‘So?’
‘So, I know what went down at Zane Crais’s place of residence earlier this evening. Now I’m thinking, if a man can lose his shit enough to blow away his family, that makes him a very unpredictable man. I know the guy has a nasty drug habit, but he was always on track with business like his father. He was in control.’
Regan’s lips grew tight. ‘And now he’s not, I’m aware.’
‘Then I assume, since you’re aware and since it’s two-fucking-thirty in the morning and you’ve been in possession of the whereabouts of Arella-fucking-Anderson for over two hours, you must have taken care of her by now and found the fucking seed. Yet somehow, my gut is telling me otherwise. I bet you’re off screwing some lady friend you picked up from the street level of the club instead of getting the very source vital to the expanding power of our coven,’ Vincent snarled.
Regan was silent.
Vincent snorted down the line. ‘Just as I thought. Get the god-damned seed!’ he growled before hanging up.
Regan cursed under his breath. Damned seed. He should have known Vincent would have checked in with Shagga. Yet Shagga had supplied him with two addresses earlier that evening, and he couldn’t resist revisiting Ms Sexy Lips before dealing with the other woman – especially since he was feeling so out of sync lately.
In his experience, sex fixed almost everything. Almost, he sighed inwardly as he gazed at the woman like a child eyeing forbidden candy. The woman swayed her bare bum and curled her head back to look at him. Her hair fell over her face and he could just make out her lips as the phone began to dim. ‘Are we gonna do this or what? I have to get up early for work in the morning,’ she said.
Regan switched his phone light on and searched for his clothes. ‘Then go back to sleep. I have to go,’ he muttered, before pulling on his clothes and slipping from the house as quietly as he had arrived.
Regan ignored the blanket of stars he became acquainted with when he had arrived. He felt like a vapor – a haze drifting from moment to moment with little purpose. His Dark Star origins foretold he would deliver the Serenity Seed, yet he felt like a sham. He was certain if he wasn’t fortunate enough to possess his supernatural abilities, his uncle would have never bothered with him. He remembered as a child how Vincent spoke of
his father; and he never had anything nice to say.
The father he had never known was labeled a traitor to their serpent god. And for that, Regan knew his uncle begrudged his existence.
He folded himself into the car, checked his destination and turned the ignition while struggling to resurrect the icy walls from which he usually peered. He accelerated and gritted his teeth as the rumbling motor obeyed his instruction. Luckily, the woman and seed lived only a few blocks away from his late-night encounter. He figured he’d get in, intimidate her a little and if she didn’t comply he’d use his mind-bending powers to manipulate her into revealing the whereabouts of the seed before boiling her blood until it seeped from her eyes and clogged her ears.
This was the life he had inherited, and the Serenity Seed was the only thing that could alter any of it. Unfortunately, sex couldn’t fix the life that had chosen him.
Suddenly, Arella was aware of everything. Her bloodstream felt as if it were now a hard-wired tapestry weaving through her body in an acute rush of adrenaline. A creepy silence settled over the house, and her heart felt like a thumping chunk of metal. She froze, her hand suspended midway between her and the door handle, her ears pricked. She could no longer hear that feral snarl, nor Logan’s terrified screams. But she heard something that triggered a horror within her that was beyond anything she had ever experienced.
Arella reached for the handle. Her hand was shaking so hard, she needed to use her other hand to steady herself. Oh my god! Oh my god! She mouthed over and over, suddenly wishing she had paid more attention and tried harder to connect with her angelic ancestry.
She inched the handle open a sliver and pressed her eye to peer through the narrow space. Her vision tunneled down the length of the short hallway toward the front of the house. The only light issued from the dynamic shine of the TV, floating from the living room like a liquid-light display. Over the low drone of the television she heard something else – a slurping kind of sound.
Arella pulled the door open a little wider and skimmed out into the hall. Her pulse was racing so fast, she wondered if her heart could keep up. She fought to keep control as she knew it was vital to her survival. The guzzling sound amplified into low grumbling snarls. She was mystified as to what was happening, but she knew they needed help.
Something compelled her to move forward instead of escaping out of the rear of the house. I must check Logan, she decided, and despite every inch of her body urging her to do the opposite, she edged along the darkest wall of the hallway and cranked her head around the corner just enough to scan the living room.
Her eyes were drawn to the TV and the pieces of furniture that were overturned. She noticed her teapot collection scattered and broken at the foot of the white French mahogany display cabinet. Her eyes then fell upon him – a hybrid-like creature crouching over Logan. He wore a black sweater but his bald crusty head, enlarged ears and thick pointy fangs were clear to her.
She blinked, unable to process the scene before her. She stood petrified with her eyes glued to the grotesque creature. She saw the blood saturating his face and dripping from his chin. His tongue licked and slurped, and it was forked and long and protruded and lapped against an organ-like object in his hands.
Panic gripped her like a sharp wind down a narrow alley as she realized the creature feasted on Logan’s heart. She backed away, whirled around and sprinted toward the back door as fast as she could, failing to make the turn in time and slamming hard into the laundry door. She gasped. She heard the hybrid on the move. He had heard her, and she wasn’t about to wait around to find out how fast he could catch her. She scrambled to her feet and caught sight of him as he rounded the hallway and faced her. Their eyes met through the darkness. The nape of her neck tingled as she caught the electric blue swirl in his eyes.
‘What are you?’ she whispered.
He peeled back his lips and grinned, baring his bloody fangs and curling his head in a rough growl. They moved at the same time. She flew into the laundry and smashed the door shut. She flicked the lock before hurtling through the back door that opened into the rear garden. No sooner had she hit the night air when she collided into a man. She yelped as he gripped her wrists to steady her. She looked up at him. It was dark, and she couldn’t make out his face, but his flaxen hair gleamed under the starry night, and for a second, she thought he must an angel. But when he spoke, she knew she was mistaken.
‘What the fuck?’ he spat, gripping her arms and leaning his face closer to hers.
Arella tore from his grasp as a loud boom thundered against the internal laundry door. She screamed and waved her hand furiously.
‘There’s a creature! He killed my boyfriend and he’s trying to kill me!’
The man peered into the laundry as the laundry door splintered with a loud crack and the hybrid barged through the door, lost his footing and dropped to the floor.
‘What the fuck?’
Arella squealed as she whirled around determined to escape as fast as her legs would carry her, but she discovered the man at her back door had other plans as his large hands wrapped around her waist and swooped her in like an eagle pouncing on prey. He was definitely no angel. She stared up at him as she became aware of the hybrid recovering from his fall. She faltered as a spark of recognition triggered in her mind.
‘You?’ she hissed.
He glanced down at her, his face frazzled. ‘What the fuck?’
‘Let me go!’ She clawed at his hands with her fingers.
His grip tightened and Arella almost lost all her breath while she hysterically kicked out her legs. A vicious growl issued from the house before a bizarre silence fell across the scene. Arella froze. She barely dared to breathe as panic set in and her head scrambled with possibilities. She thought she might pass out there on her back porch, ready for the hybrid to feast on her internal organs when a deep voice called from the inky laundry room.
‘Regan Knowles,’ the man-creature sneered, stepping from the darkness and casually leaning on the threshold.
Wait a minute, this beast knows Regan Knowles?
‘What the fuck?’ she said, glancing up at Regan and squirming to loosen his grip. It was useless – all the writhing in the world couldn’t budge this bastard. And why the hell was he so calm? Didn’t he see the same man-creature as me?
Regan cocked his head to the side as he carefully looked over the hybrid. ‘Zane Crais,’ he murmured.
Zane Crais? She had heard of Zane Crais, but she was certain she had never seen a newspaper clipping of Zane Crais looking like this. Am I going crazy? Is this a bad dream? Her thoughts scattered. Whirling sirens in the distance drew closer, and she felt the tension in Regan’s arms relax a little. She silently thanked god for her nosey neighbor, Mrs Peacock, the street’s overzealous cop-caller. She began to squirm loose.
Zane caressed his chin with a long talon. ‘I’m assuming you didn’t come here for tea, but you’ll find some leftovers in the living room if you’re interested,’ he chuckled.
His gaze fell to Arella and his laughter ceased. ‘The woman is mine, and so is the Serenity Seed.’
‘How did you find her?’ Regan said, his arms falling from Arella as he squared his jaw and turned to face Zane head on.
Arella looked from one man to the other, her frown deepening every second. Why are these people looking for me? And what seed?
As far as she knew, she had done nothing to warrant a full-scale hunt from two members of the most notorious gang families in Sydney. She decided she really didn’t want to know the answers to those questions. She began to edge away as she glanced back at the creature-man standing in her laundry doorway. She had to blink twice because he appeared to be changing before her eyes. She noticed the vivid blue streaks in his eyes fade and the long claws fiddling about his chin shortening.
‘Ha! You are not the only one Apepsis bestows his gifts upon, Dark Star,’ Zane snarled.
Sirens whistled and buzzed through the night. Arella guess
ed they were only a few blocks away. She missed the rest of their strange conversation as she leaped back and sprang from her back porch to run as fast as she could around the side of the house and into the street. Her feet thumped hard against the road and her breath rattled through depleted lungs as she franticly searched for a place to hide. She spotted a car parked next to a gigantic tree and sprang behind it, almost crumpling to the ground as she tried to catch her breath and gather her thoughts.
Hovering behind the car in the shadows, Arella could still see the front of her house a little way down the street. She watched closely for signs of movement, yet she became more and more perturbed as nothing stirred with every passing second. Surely, they planned on fleeing her house now the police sirens were close, yet neither Regan nor creature-man emerged from her front yard.
A police car rounded the street corner, slowed and killed the sirens. She sucked in air as it stabbed through her chest, and held her breath. She didn’t know what to feel. Relief? Shock? The sorrow rippling below the surface … or fear? All these emotions circled through her like a jumbled pirouette, and when she exhaled with a plume of white mist, she realized how cold she was.
Arella slowly rose from her crouching position and watched two police officers alight from the car and walk toward the front of her house. She bit hard on her bottom lip as she looped around the car under the shadows. A quick glance from side to side and she noticed people clambering from their homes to see what all the commotion was about. No creature-man nor would-be angel man was in sight. Another siren sounded and there was a screeching of tires as another police car pulled to a stop in front of her house. Respite wafted through her. Eager to reach the safety of the police, she took a step from the shadows, gasping when a hand suddenly gripped her arm.
She could sense who it was before she saw him. She swung her gaze to his hand clasped at her wrist before she faced him. His black clothed body almost enmeshed with the shady bark of the tree trunk, with only the wisps of his platinum hair visible from the hood concealing his head. Dark sunglasses hid his eyes, but she could still feel the intensity of his stare.
