He licked his lips and didn't respond; his gaze fixed on her hand.
"Would you prefer to feed?" She ran her finger along her throat, as if to call his attention to the area where her pulse beat for him. "Or would you prefer me, naked, in your bed?" She stopped mere inches in front of him, her body fairly humming with desire. Now that she'd had a taste of him, she was addicted.
"I've already fed." His voice was hoarse.
Sunni smiled and turned away, heading to the bed. "I guess that answers my question." She added a little come-hither twitch to her walk as she moved, but her toe caught in the hem of her skirt and she stumbled. Throwing her hands out, she narrowly missed falling on her face, landing instead on the cedar chest at the foot of the bed. She twisted and sat with a rueful smile. "So much for being the femme fatale."
Alexandre moved into the room and took her hand to pull her upward, his smile still a little sad. "What am I going to do with you?"
She laced her arms around his neck and leaned into him, relishing the hard length and warmth of him against her. "Make love to me anyway?" she asked hopefully.
"Of course."
Before she could move, he bent at the waist and swept her into his arms.
"Why, Rhett," she cooed in a sickly-sweet accent, "I didn't know you cared."
He gave her a gentle pat on the backside. "Behave, Miss Scarlett, or you'll end up in serious trouble."
"You promise?" she purred.
"Oh yes."
He deposited her on the edge of the bed and she scrambled onto her knees. She reached and tangled her fingers in his hair as she forced his head back, losing herself in his midnight eyes. There was such passion and pain in his sapphire depths. She'd never met a man of such iron will yet in possession of such a generous heart that he was so completely unaware of. That, she could show him.
"You take my breath away," she whispered.
His expression turned startled. "You give me breath." He raised his hand, tracing the bones of her cheek, then down her jaw as if to memorize every inch of her face. She closed her eyes, reveling in the feel of his fingertips across her flesh. She tipped her head back as he stroked the sensitized skin of her throat, her collarbones. Each movement as delicate as a butterfly kiss.
"You're so warm," he whispered.
She opened her eyes, raising her head. "You make me warm."
She reached for the buttons on his shirt, making short work of them. She ran her fingers over the sculpted muscles of his chest, her fingers brushing his flat nipples and eliciting a soft hiss.
His hands dropped to her waist to tug at the hem of her shirt. Silently, she raised her arms, allowing him to pull the material up and off her unresisting body. The gris-gris hung between her breasts and it felt strangely warm as she tossed it carelessly over her shoulder. She sighed as the moist night air touched her skin to be followed by the heat of his mouth. She leaned back as he feasted on her breasts, first one, then the other.
She made a sound of dissent when he stopped, his head rising to take her mouth. Pulled into close contact with his chest, she nibbled at his mouth, her nipples receiving their own torment from wiry hair.
Their kiss was slow, sensual, a dance of seduction rather than a need to devour. Their tongues tangled as their hands quested, stroking exposed skin while seeking to expose more. Her hands dipped into the waistband of his pants as his slipped down to cup her buttocks, rubbing her against his erection.
She wouldn't be able to wait much longer.
She freed him, her hands stroking his long, turgid length even as he nibbled at her lower lip. His hands pushed her skirt down, forcing her to release him as she removed it.
Gently, he urged her onto her back, her thighs parting easily as he moved between them, pausing only to remove his pants. Her gaze on his intent face, she realized that this moment wasn't about sex, it was a bonding. Reverence humbled her and her throat tightened. Reaching for him, she took him in hand, stroking his shaft, awed as she watched him lengthen.
Guiding, she brought him to her entrance, showing him the way home. He entered her with a gentle thrust, their limbs tangling as they moved together. Her eyes drifted shut, her concentration only on the man and the tide of feeling he was generating with each movement. Tension was a slow build, relaxed and sure. He hummed in delight as she stroked the back of his calves with her feet. She smiled, arching her body to take him deeper.
Then something damp hit her forehead and pulled her from her sybaritic lair. She blinked, her eyes resting on her lover's face. He was crying. Eyes closed, Alexandre moved within her, a dreamy expression on his face while tears seeped from beneath his eyelids.
Her throat tightened as she raised her hand to her own face, wiping away his tears. Bringing her hand to her mouth, she tasted the salt and blood of his pain as her eyes stung.
Within moments, he came, spreading heat throughout her womb before relaxing, his arms coming to rest against her.
She guided his head for a kiss that was both absolution and acceptance, her heart full.
Reluctantly, Alexandre retreated from their bed, leaving Sunni sound asleep. She lay on her back, her arm outstretched, and his eyes zeroed in on the tiny bruise.
It was still there.
Odd, it should have healed by now, as vampires were notorious for their ability to heal themselves. Unless it was a new one?
Sunni wouldn't be injecting herself with something, would she?
He glanced at the clock, tempted to wake her. Damn, it was twelve-thirty and he had only a half-hour to dress and meet Cass. Throwing one last look at his lover, he made a note to talk to her about it when he returned.
* * *
Chapter 11
She was as beautiful as he remembered.
Cass stood silhouetted against the bay, the moon gilding her dark hair with silver highlights. Her profile was as chiseled as a cameo. Dressed in a cream silk pantsuit with a simple gold chain about her neck, she looked like a prosperous doctor's wife, more suited to the local garden club or PTA then standing in Jackson Square at one A.M.
She turned as he approached. "Hello Alexandre." She gave him a small smile. "It's good to see you."
"Cass."
Her smile faded. "I've missed you."
He didn't buy the meek-miss she was attempting to portray. "You should have thought of that before you deceived me."
A flash of irritation crossed her features before she masked it. She was a master of deception and she commanded her expressions and emotions like a symphonic conductor. He wasn't impressed.
"I've made some mistakes." She held her hand out, palm up. "I've come to ask your forgiveness."
"And?"
She looked perplexed. "And what?"
"What else do you want?"
"There is nothing else."
"Cass, you and I have known each other too many years, so don't think you can fool me. I know that you don't do anything unless there's something in it for you. Quit wasting my time and get to the point."
A sharp smile curved her mouth and her meek demeanor fell away like autumn leaves in a breeze. She gave a small laugh. "You're still quick, I see. I have a proposition for you, Alexandre. How would you like to rule the preternaturals with me by your side once more?"
Not on your life.
"I'm already the head of the Council. What do I need you for?"
"Power. The one thing the Council never had was a standing army. We may have made the laws, but we couldn't enforce them well."
"We had no need to 'enforce' them as we had few problems over the years. Yes, someone stepped out of line and went rogue, but they were dealt with effectively enough." He shook his head. "We have no need for an army. They all realize that without some form of law all would be lost, so they govern themselves quite well."
"Not well enough or Mikhail would have never ambushed you," she sneered. "He almost succeeded. If he'd had a proper army, you'd be nothing more than a memory now."
He crossed his
arms over his chest. What she said was true. If Mikhail's army hadn't scattered at the first sign of confrontation, he and Fayne would be long dead and Mikhail would have control of the Council. He shuddered at the thought of the havoc his demented foe could have wrecked upon the innocents.
"And you can give me this army?"
"I can, indeed, for I have Elsabeth's diary."
The diary.
He forced his arms to relax and slid his hands in his pockets, feigning nonchalance. "What does the diary contain?"
"Many, many things, one of which is a serum to create the ultimate vampire warrior." She shrugged. "Of course, we're still working on it as we haven't perfected the formula. We've had some success and some failure."
He stilled, tension crawling under his skin. He fought to keep his voice calm. "What does the serum do?"
"Increases a vampire's natural abilities. It robs them of the desire to think for themselves and they evolve into the ultimate killing machine." She shrugged. "We've found, as long as their needs are met, they are ours to command."
His stomach sank. "How does it increase their ability?"
"I'm not sure how it works, but so far we've taken relatively young vampires and successfully increased their abilities. Made them stronger, tougher." Cass began to pace, her movements excited as she spoke. "We took a few vampires of about thirty years, gave them the serum, and within twenty-four hours they'd doubled their physical strength, their psychic abilities and they required less sleep. A couple more trials and I'll have the power to create a limitless supply of warriors for our command."
"How is the serum administered?"
She waved her hand. "A small injection, no big deal."
A sense of dread expanded in his gut.
"No big deal?" he asked.
She turned to him, her expression disgusted. "Oh really. What's the price of a few young vampires when we've got something really big here? The world is filled with hapless mortals we can transform at will, it really isn't a big deal."
"You said that you've had some failures. What kind of failures?"
A crafty smile curved her mouth. "It seems that, given in the wrong percentages and doses, the vampires actually burn themselves out. The serum appears to age the subject, thus granting the subject enhanced abilities. Some of our earlier experiments literally caught fire."
Images of charred bodies crowded his mind, followed by the unearthly sound of Martha's heartbroken sobs over the body of her friend, Rachel. He bit his tongue, the taste of blood ripe in his mouth, as panic threatened to swamp him.
Unaware, Cass continued. "We've progressed, though. We have one subject who's lasted almost four days and he's still going strong." A cool calm entered her eyes. "We also have another subject that we have very high hopes for. A young vampire of sixty years and it appears she'll be The One to show us the way."
"You're mad." He ground the words between clenched teeth. "You cannot play with people's lives like this."
"Of course I can," she laughed. "Who's going to stop me?"
"I will."
"No, you won't, for I have something you need."
"And that would be?"
"The antidote for the serum." She withdrew a slim vial with an ornate silver cap attached to a chain around her neck. The liquid glowed eerie pink in the darkness. She waggled it in the air. "How else will you save your little girlfriend if you don't have this?"
Sunni.
Alexandre froze-a sensation of doom in his stomach. He'd been right. The bruise and the needle mark. She'd been injected. Anger surged and he struggled to keep his expression cool. Letting Cass see his wrath wouldn't save Sunni.
"What do you want from me?"
"You by my side as we resume the leadership of the Council together." She smiled as she moved around him, her heels making sharp clicks on the pavement. "With you by my side, I'll achieve the legitimacy needed to resume my seat."
"That's all?"
"Oh, and I want you, in my bed." She laughed. "What you lack in experience, you more than make up in stamina." She gave him a mocking look. "Must be a by-product of all those years of celibacy."
"Done. Now give me the antidote."
"Ah, ah, ah - not quite yet." Cass withheld the bottle. "First we make the formal announcement. Once I've regained my seat, then you can have the antidote."
"What's to stop me from just taking it from you?" He stepped closer, gratified to see her take a step back.
"Miles." She inclined her head to the left and the revenant stepped from the shadows. In his hand he held a .45 automatic pointed at Alexandre's chest. While guns couldn't actually kill him, they would certainly slow him long enough for her to get away.
He was trapped...for now.
Cass smiled triumphantly. "Tomorrow, midnight. We can use Sinjin's club to make the announcement." She turned away, motioning Miles to follow. "'Til then, lover."
Her laughter filled the humid air as she walked away.
Alexandre stared at the darkened bay, anger, frustration and terror churning in his gut. Sunni was at stake. Damn, why didn't he force her to leave New Orleans earlier?
You can't save everyone.
No, but he'd better damn well figure out how to save her. Now that he'd found her, he couldn't bear to lose her. A faint ringing sounded from his pocket. Irritated, he grabbed the cell phone.
"Saint-Juste here," he growled.
"We have another one." It was Sinjin.
Alexandre's heart stopped. Not Sunni. Not yet...
Sinjin continued, "A man." He gave the address and Alexandre barely heard him.
Thank the gods.
He jerked back to awareness. "Can you repeat the address?"
Sinjin did once more and Alexandre noted it wasn't far from where he was. "I'll be there in ten minutes."
Praying silently, he disconnected and shoved the phone back into his pocket. He had less than twenty-four hours to devise a plan to save the woman he loved and the preternatural world as they now knew it.
* * *
Chapter 12
Sunni fingered the gris-gris, twisting the cord around her fingers only to release it before twisting it again. Where the devil was that shop? She walked quickly down the alley, nerves on edge as she darted quick glances in the darkened shop windows.
Where was Mambo Cecile's shop?
Her hand tightened around the bag, its contents grinding against one another and the scent of crushed rosemary teasing her nose. Something was wrong, terribly wrong-she could feel it.
Not only could she not find the shop, she couldn't sleep. Her body refused to rest and she felt like she was jumping out of her skin. When she'd awakened, Alexandre had been gone and she'd been left with the realization that she was now physically twice as strong as she'd been a few days ago. She'd come down the outside steps and, upon reaching the bottom, had tried to swing around the balustrade only to have the wrought iron straighten beneath her hand as if it were warm butter.
Her heart beat wildly in her chest while a sense of panic threatened to swamp her. What was happening? Was it related to the night Miles had lured her to the alley?
Her inner elbow began to itch and absently she scratched it, all the while continuing her zigzag journey down the street. She still couldn't remember all of what happened that night. But she knew with a certainty that she needed Mambo Cecile, that the voodun priestess could help put the pieces of the puzzle back in order. Until then, she would just keep searching.
"His name's Luke Sanderson."
Alexandre dropped into a crouch by the vampire's body. Luke lay face down on the floor with a fist-sized hole in his back, roughly in the same area of his heart. The edges were neatly singed, his flesh incinerated. The floor beneath him was scorched and black, his ribcage intact.
"Who was he?"
"A local nobody. He was new to town."
Alexandre gave a silent prayer for the dead vampire's soul before he rose to face Sinjin. "I found out this evening what is g
oing on." He told Sinjin about his meeting with Cass and her ultimatum.
"Sunni?" Sinjin's voice was shaken.
He gave a silent nod. "She was targeted thanks to her relationship with me."
Sinjin's eyes narrowed but he said nothing.
"Cass wants a sort of town hall meeting tomorrow at your club. She wants to announce our union. After that she'll give me the antidote for Sunni."
"Do ye believe her?"
"No. I think she wants Sunni to die. She wants to hurt me." He ran his hand through his hair in frustration. "The problem is that Cass has the diary, and I assume both the serum and the antidote recipes are contained in it. Whether I like it or not, she holds all the cards at this point."
"You canna just let Sunni die," Sinjin said.
Alexandre glared his friend. "I have no intention of letting anything happen to her, damn it. We need to find out what's in that serum and, to do that, we need blood from Sunni and a qualified lab tech to analyze the results."
"We don't have that kind of time. We have less than twenty-four hours to come up with a solution or Cass will win. No only will Sunni lose, but the world as we now know it will cease to exist."
Alexandre dropped his head, the weight of responsibility heavy on his shoulders and, for a split second, a sense of panic swept over him. He took a deep breath and Sunni's words sounded in his mind.
"You can do it, you can win this time. You just have to believe it."
He took a deep breath then released it, the panic fading slowly. She was right, he would win this time, he had no choice.
"I've been w-w-what?" Sunni sat down hard on the edge of a small table, knocking a variety of tattoo designs on the floor.
"You've been injected with a serum meant to increase your powers, to turn you into a warrior."
She shuddered as she ran her hands over her arms. Her skin felt strangely warm, far too warm considering she hadn't fed today, and her insides felt twitchy. Images flashed before her eyes-of an alley and Mile's face leaning over her. Of the glint of light off a slim needle as he hovered near.
Wilder, J. C. - Shadow Dweller 5 Page 11
