by Cynthia Eden
But that part—well, the want wasn’t exactly new for him.
“I’m not playing tonight,” she whispered, but he could easily hear her over the crowd. “Tonight I’m taking all the power that I want, and if you come any closer, I will drain you dry.”
This wasn’t the Seline he knew. “You don’t drain people, remember?”
But she smiled, and an evil grin should never have been so sexy. “Why don’t you find the shifter who gave me a ride and see what he has to say?”
Sam blinked. “I already found what was left of him.” And he hadn’t expected that.
“He wanted to cut me open.” Her chin lifted. “Coyotes always think blood and sex mix.”
Fury spiked his power and sent the cage rocking on the narrow chain that held it secured to the ceiling. “So you cut the bastard open in return?”
She blinked, and some of the glow seemed to dim from her skin. “Cut him? I-I didn’t cut him!”
“I found him with his throat torn open.”
Shock rippled across her face, and she stumbled back.
She hadn’t known. That definitely put a spin on things—and made it look like Keenan had been right.
“I didn’t . . .” She shook her head. “I just . . . I kissed him.”
A snarl broke from Sam’s lips, and in an instant, he was before her. He grabbed her arms and pulled her onto her toes. “Did you fuck him?”
“Didn’t have to . . . didn’t want to. I can drain with a kiss.” Then she leaned up and kissed him.
Lust roared through his blood. His head swam with a burst of euphoria. Want, need, pleasure . . . the rush of sensations filled his body, and he kissed her harder, deeper.
She pushed against him, her nipples tight, her body soft. And still she kept kissing him. Hot, openmouthed, drugging kisses.
I can drain with a kiss.
He couldn’t hear the music anymore. Couldn’t hear the thunder of the crowd. She was the only thing he knew. The only thing he wanted.
Her tongue slid against his.
He wanted her naked. He wanted to drive into her and make her forget anyone that had come before—any man who’d had her before.
There will be no other.
He caught her hips and lifted her up against him. Her legs wrapped around his waist as she rubbed against his erect cock. Not enough. Not even fucking close.
The floor swayed beneath them. Not the floor . . . cage.
Seline’s lips lifted slowly from his. Sam’s eyes opened. Her mouth was wet from his. The darkness of her eyes reflected the same lust that he felt but . . .
Sam saw confusion in her gaze.
She shook her head and said, “You . . . should be weak.”
He was so hot that Sam felt close to exploding. His cock was so full that he ached. Want. Need. “You’re not taking, sweetheart.” Didn’t she realize what she was doing? “You’re pumping me up.” With lust, with power.
Her eyes widened as she tried to push against him. “No, no, I’m—”
A succubus didn’t always have to take power. He knew that. He also knew that a succubus usually only shared her power with one person . . .
Even a succubus could mate. In fact, if she wanted to have children, a succubus had to find a mate—one man she could share her power with over her lifetime. Otherwise, there would be no births for her. Reproduction wasn’t just about sex with a succubus—it was about mating. Life, love—forever. Did Seline even know that? Because he was betting Rogziel hadn’t shared that information with her.
“Let me go!” She wrenched back, but he held her tight.
“No, you’re not running again. We’re settling this.” Anger and lust battled in his blood. “You’re not—”
The screams reached him then. High, full of terror. Breaking glass. Shouts. The thunder of footsteps.
Through the bars, he looked out over the club. Chaos reigned as the humans and Other rushed for the exits.
Then he heard the growls. Smelled the brimstone. No wonder the shifters were at the front of the fleeing mass. They would’ve caught the scent first.
“What’s happening?” Seline’s stare followed his.
Sam saw the deep claw marks that scraped across the table tops. Fuck, fuck, fuck. “Are you afraid?”
“Yes!” she yelled immediately as she wrestled away from him. Sam let her feet touch the bottom of the cage, but he held tight to her hand. “Something’s coming this way!” Seline said.
“Not just something . . . your hound.”
She stilled and stared at him with dazed eyes.
“When we were kissing, were you afraid?” he demanded. “Were you scared of me?”
She nodded, and it was like a punch to his chest. Fear and desire. They shouldn’t have merged for her. For them.
They had, and now hell was coming.
The other cages were falling from the ceilings now. Most of the folks had already fled El Diablo. Some stragglers were hiding behind the bar or crouching under tables.
Those claw marks were heading for Sam . . . for the cage that swayed drunkenly on a chain that looked ready to snap at any moment. Too much power in the air.
“The hound’s protecting you,” Sam muttered as he grabbed the nearest steel bar with his left hand and fought to steady them. “That’s why it went after the shifter and tore his throat out. That’s why it came after me in the truck . . . the hound fucking thinks it’s protecting you.”
A whoosh of wind came at them. Something—the fucking hound in question—slammed into the cage. The cage rocked hard to the right, to the left, and then that chain snapped. They fell to the floor with a bone-jarring crash. Sam twisted and tried to cushion Seline’s body with his own.
His hands held her tightly to him. He was sure that if he’d been human, his back would have broken when the cage pounded into the floor. As it was, the fall hurt like a bitch.
Then the cage bars started to snap—no, the hound snapped them.
Seline stared around with wide, stunned eyes.
Sam hurried to his feet. He still had his hold on her. No way was he letting her go. “You don’t know how to send the hound back, do you?”
She shook her head. “I don’t even know how the hell it got here!”
She didn’t know and only she could send the beast back. Talk about being screwed. Sam took a deep breath and tried to think of a way to survive.
“Are you going to kill me?” she whispered, and that fear flickered in her eyes again.
Sonofabitch. Growling, he pulled her even closer. His lips crushed down on hers. He tasted her, kept his mouth on hers, and drank her in, even as claws raked down his legs. “No,” Sam promised, his voice gritty as he lifted his head. “But when we get out of this, I am going to fuck you again.”
She blinked. He would have said more, but the hound’s teeth sank into his ankle and the beast dragged him away.
The hound’s image was slowly coming into focus. It looked like a beast made of smoke right then. Pale, hazy, but with really big teeth. Sam kicked, but the beast didn’t let go.
Fire won’t work. Rogziel had been right. Fire only made hellhounds stronger. Bullets wouldn’t keep the beast down.
Sam reached out and grabbed one of the cage bars. Metal snapped and popped. He shoved the bar right into the hound’s side.
The beast cried out and backed off.
Sam rose to his feet. Seline was behind him. “I’m not hurting her,” he said to the beast. Right, like reasoning with a hellhound was the way to go. “She’s mine, got it? So you’d better get used to seeing me—”
The hound—still with that pole sticking out of its side—lunged for Sam. The breath of hell came at him.
“Stop!” Seline screamed, and she pushed Sam to the side. Pushed him with that power she’d absorbed from the bar, then put her body in front of his. “Stop!”
It figured the woman didn’t know you were never supposed to come between a hellhound and its food. Especially not once tha
t hound had gotten a taste of its prey’s blood.
The hound snarled and tried to lunge around her. It didn’t look so ghostly anymore. The beast’s thick, matted fur was a mix of black and blood.
Seline’s fingers sank into that fur. “I said, stop!” Her voice had risen to a scream. “Don’t hurt him!”
The hellhound stopped. Its great body shook, as if holding back were an enormous effort.
Sam stood as frozen as the hound. Even masters couldn’t usually call back their hounds once the beasts had a taste of blood. Nothing stopped them but the prey’s death.
Seline caught the hound’s great head in her hands. The beast’s teeth were longer than her fingers, and the hound was way too close to her throat.
“Seline . . .” He inched closer to her.
The hound growled. Screw that. Sam kept closing in on her.
“You’re so sure I’m its master.” Her voice was quiet now, void of any emotion. “Let’s find out if you’re right.”
The woman obviously didn’t understand the rules about hellhounds. They had been known to bite off the hands that summoned them. They could never be fully controlled.
Which was why they were always sent right back to hell when their job was done. That was the prime rule with the hounds—always send them back fast.
The hound’s teeth snapped together.
“Easy.” Seline didn’t look worried then. She was frowning as she stared at the hound. “You’re a big, ugly bastard, aren’t you?”
The hound blinked.
Her left hand smoothed over its side. “This is gonna hurt,” Seline warned. She grabbed the bar and yanked it out. Blood gushed and sprayed into the air.
But almost instantly, the wound began to heal. Seline dropped the bar.
The hound’s thick, raspy tongue came out and licked her shoulder.
“Uh . . . let’s not do that, again, okay?” Seline said softly. This time, Sam caught the faint tremble in her voice and saw her wince. “But you’re welcome.”
The hound’s head began to lower. Subservience. Acknowledgment that she was its master.
Well, damn.
Seline glanced at Sam. “I don’t think it’s so bad. Just a big dog—”
Bullshit. Sam reached out to touch Seline’s shoulder. In an instant, the “big dog” lunged up and slammed its claws into Sam’s chest.
“No!” Seline’s snapped order.
The hound froze.
“Tell the beast to go to hell,” Sam said. He wished he understood how to send a hound back, but that was one power beyond him.
“Go to hell,” Seline told the hound instantly.
The hound didn’t vanish. In fact, the beast appeared to be getting bigger, stronger. Not good.
When they weren’t in hell, the hounds survived by drinking blood and fear. They weren’t some cute freaking pets. They were pit bulls for the devil.
But Seline was petting the thing now.
Sam risked a fast glance around the club. The stragglers were rushing for the door. Smart. But even as those folks pushed out, two familiar figures hurried forward.
Keenan and his vampire.
Keenan took one look at the hound and froze. He grabbed Nicole and tried to push her behind his back.
Fuck.
Too late. Over the centuries, hounds had developed a particular taste for vampire blood.
Seline’s hound whipped around and leapt into the air. The floor shook as the beast hurtled toward its new treat.
“No!” Seline’s shout, but this time, the beast didn’t slow. Claws swiped out and cut into Keenan’s chest, but the Fallen didn’t move.
“Run, Nicole,” he choked out, “run.”
Wrong advice. The hounds liked the chase. Keenan should know that.
Keenan grabbed the hound’s paws. Sam rushed to help him, with Seline right by his side.
With a howl, the hound shook off Keenan, and Sam saw that Nicole hadn’t run away. She started kicking and clawing at the beast. Her fangs were out, and she was screaming for the hound to get away from her angel.
Before Sam could reach her, the hound tackled her and the beast’s teeth went for her throat.
Nicole stopped screaming, but the whole room vibrated with the sudden wild rush of fury that Sam knew came from Keenan.
Sam and Keenan grabbed the hound. They dragged it off Nicole even as the hound snapped and bit.
Then Seline was there. Her hands locked around the hound’s body. “Leave her alone! Leave them all alone!” Fury hardened her words. “Just get the hell away from us. Go back to hell!”
The hound whined. Its head lowered.
Then the beast vanished in a blur of smoke.
About fucking time.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Sam hadn’t been lying to her. Seline stared at her hands and realized her fingers were stained with ash.
She’d just sent a hellhound back to hell. She controlled a hellhound.
Oh, damn.
“Baby, are you okay?”
She glanced up at the voice, so deep with concern. Keenan had his vampire in his arms. Seline could see the blood pouring from the woman’s throat. Okay sure didn’t seem like the right word. More like get-me-to-a-hospital-stat.
“Drink from me,” Keenan said, his hands so gentle on the woman.
Nicole’s head sagged back weakly, and Seline glimpsed her fangs. Then those fangs sank into Keenan. He shuddered. Not with revulsion, but with what she was pretty sure had to be pleasure.
“She’ll be all right.” Sam’s voice didn’t carry any concern. “Angel’s blood—even if the angel has fallen—is incredibly strong.”
Something to remember.
“How did I send him back?” Her gaze darted to the floor. To the scorch marks and the deep grooves that the hound’s claws had left.
“Guess you just had to get mad enough,” he said. “Mad enough to let that control of yours crack.”
Crack? It had fragmented there in that last terrifying moment. If she hadn’t been able to pull the hound back, Nicole would have died in front of her. “I didn’t want more blood on my hands.” She didn’t know Nicole. Just because the woman was a vamp, it didn’t mean she deserved hell.
Who did these days?
Sirens screamed in the distance.
“Humans . . . on the way to the rescue.” Keenan said this even as Nicole continued to drink from him.
“You’ve got her?” Sam asked with a nod at Nicole.
“Always.” Keenan’s answer was immediate.
Sam’s lips twisted. “Then get her out of here. Meet up with me at dawn, at Pedro’s place.”
Keenan’s brows rose. “You trust that shifter?”
“More than most.”
Keenan nodded and carried his feeding vampire toward the back door.
Seline didn’t move. She wasn’t sure where to go or what to do. Energy still pumped through her blood. She’d taken too much when she kissed Sam, she knew she had, but he didn’t look weak.
If the hound had killed him, Sam’s death would have been on her. She straightened her shoulders. “You need to go. Get away from me. What if I accidentally bring the hound back? You just—go.”
One dark brow climbed. “And what are you going to do? Stand here and wait for the cops?”
Maybe. Perhaps she deserved to be locked up. “You said the coyote shifter was dead?”
“Not by your hand. The hound killed him.”
The sirens were louder. “I meant to kill him. I took as much power from him as I could.” It was time for Sam to realize just how dark she was on the inside.
“If he’d still been breathing when I found him,” Sam said, “I would have killed him.”
His admission had her eyes widening.
Sam’s stare had dropped to the front of her shirt. “I can see the marks he put on you.”
She could feel them. “Just scratches. They’ll fade.”
Doors slammed outside. She glanced toward the fr
ont door. “How will we explain this?” Her gaze came back to him.
“We won’t.” He still didn’t move. “The cops will say the people who talk about a monster attacking them are all just high. Other events always have a way of being covered up.”
She knew many humans only saw what they wanted to see. “And the dead shifter? What happens when he’s found?” The front door rattled. She glanced over and realized that thick tables had been pushed in front of the entrance.
Sam. She hadn’t even realized he’d used his power to bar the door.
“There won’t be anything left of him by the time he’s found.”
Again, the way of their world. The real animals would have their turn.
“Come with me.” He offered his hand but didn’t step closer.
She shook her head.
His face hardened. “We both have too many enemies now. You need me,” he said, “and I—”
Seline turned away and headed for the back door. Her steps were fast. Get away. “I know, you’re addicted to me, right?”
Unfortunately, that addiction burned both ways.
Her father had been addicted, too. So addicted that one night, he hadn’t been able to stop taking energy from her mother. He’d taken so much that he’d killed her.
She pushed open the old door. Metal grated, and she glanced to the left, then the right. The cops hadn’t made it to the alley yet.
Seline hurried outside.
“It’s more than an addiction.”
She kept moving.
He followed. The soft pad of his footsteps should have been swallowed by the sirens, but she heard him. She’d always been too conscious of everything about him.
Sam grabbed her arm and spun her back to face him. He crowded her against the side of the narrow alley.
“Don’t move,” his breath whispered over her ear. “Cops are coming.”
And the cops thundered past the mouth of their hiding spot. Heading toward for El Diablo, and not even noticing the couple in the shadows.
But Sam didn’t release her when they were gone. She was too aware of the solid length of his body and the heavy press of his arousal against her.
