Nicolas didn’t have to examine it closely to know it was the same stone he’d held in his mouth when he’d confronted the demon in the water. While he hadn’t looked closely at the etched inscription at the time, the stone was the same deep carnelian red, the same smooth oval shape and weight. His stomach clenched. “How’d you get this?”
“You tell me.”
“Simon,” he bit out.
Alex held his gaze, his expression shuttered. “He borrowed it from me.”
“Why?”
“To protect you from the demon.” Alex reached down and flipped the amulet to the other side.
Nicolas bent close and saw a depiction of three winged angels plucking at a nightmarish creature with dangling breasts whose long fangs were bared above the belly of a flailing infant boy. The relief sent a chill through Nicolas although he couldn’t have explained why.
“The three angels are Semangelof, Senoy, and Sansenoy. The inscription on the other side is a prayer meant to repel the lilum.”
“Fairy tales,” Nicolas said, closing his hand tight around the amulet.
“Simon gave you the stone to place in your mouth to keep the demon from entering your body. He clings to his new host and enters through the mouth.”
Nicolas sat still for a long moment, letting that bit of news sink in. Not that he believed any trinket could stop a demon. “I’ve been guarding him for over eight hundred years. Why the hell didn’t he give me one of these before? Why aren’t we all armed with these tokens?”
“This is one of a kind. Ancient. Carved and blessed by those three angels.”
“Angels.” Nicolas snorted. “Why is it yours?
For once, Alex’s expression held no trace of humor.” Because Simon kept it safe for me. Gifted me with it when I was a child.”
“He kept it from me even though he believes it has power over The Devourer?”
“He swore an oath to hold it until he’d met me.”
Nicolas understood oaths. Knew how powerful and costly they could be. A friendship he’d valued for centuries disintegrated like Revenant ash as he stared at the amulet.
“If it helps, Simon knew you wouldn’t need it before yesterday.”
“Is he a prophet now, too?” Nicolas asked, bitterness tightening his throat.
“I swear he’s a friend,” Alex said softly.
Nicolas bolted from the armchair, staring into Alex’s steady blue gaze. “Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m Alex. Chessa’s new partner,” Alex said evenly. “Let’s leave it at that, for now.”
“Get out.”
Alex nodded and strode toward the door, opened it, and turned. “You know, I’m on your side.” He flashed a small, tight smile and closed the door quietly behind him.
Nicolas stared after him for a long time, wondering which fucking side he was talking about.
“Hi, I’m Bernie. I don’t s’pose I can catch a ride with you? I’m headin’ out to San Gabriel. Gotta grandma to find.”
Standing beside the gas pump, the white-haired gentleman looked him up and down and must have concluded, erroneously, that Bernie didn’t look like much of a threat.
Bernie’s face had been an unexpected boon. His wide affable smile and glinting chocolate eyes had lulled several victims—up until the last moments of their lives.
This old man wouldn’t be any different.
“You’re a ways from the city,” the old man said, eyeing Bernie’s New Orleans T-shirt.
“They say they’re shipping out bodies from New Orleans to a temporary morgue. Have to take a look for Grandma there.”
The old man’s expression softened. “Sure, I’ll take you. I understand being worried about folks.”
Bernie smiled and reached to shake his hand. “Pleased to meet you, sir.”
“Dalton Allen. Hard times make fast friends.”
Bernie suppressed a grin and slid into the car, burrowing his ass into the seat while enjoying the scent of leather and car. He knew the word, had seen the conveyances, and thought he remembered how to drive one from the memories he’d sucked from Officer Watson as he’d died.
He glanced at the old man as he climbed into the car beside him. His heart would be old, pruny—might make a nice snack, though.
Then again, he didn’t want anyone knowing where he was heading, not just yet. They’d know soon enough. He’d want to savor the surprise.
Dalton started the car and pulled back onto the highway, pointing west.
Bernie let his gaze follow the sights through the bug-spattered windshield. The long black strip of tar-scented highway stretched like a ribbon, edged on either side by tall, green trees.
Bernie’s human body, while it had a finite lifetime, could afford him the joy of sunshine warming his face.
“Well, you’re in luck,” Dalton said. “We don’t have far to go. You been hitchin’ your way out of the city?”
“Yes, since early this mornin’.” Three rides, four meals. But he hadn’t been able to use their cars after he’d killed them. He’d made too much of a mess when he hadn’t convinced them to leave their cars.
He still had a stack of T-shirts from the witch’s store in the plastic bag he clutched on his lap. At least he’d been able to wash up and make himself presentable to the next “ride.”
They entered a small town, passing houses and shops and a surprising number of vehicles.
“This is it,” Dalton said, pulling up across the street from a row of white tents, some fully erected, others surrounded by people in the process of raising them. “This is the morgue, but I don’t think they’ll let you just walk in there. Checkpoint’s around that side,” he said pointing. “They’ve been finding bodies all day long. Such a shame, all those folks drownin’.”
Bernie nodded and murmured something.
Must have convinced the old man he gave a damn, because he kept rambling. “Even found a few old corpses washing up. Some have been in the ground for years. They just have to look at ’em all.”
“You mean from cemeteries?” Bernie chortled inside.
“Caskets washing up, all floatin’ down the river.”
“Like Moses in a basket?”
Dalton gave him a quelling glare. “Hardly. It’s ghoulish, grim. Wouldn’t want the job of fishin’ ’em out.”
Bernie hadn’t wanted that job either. See where it had gotten him?
“Guess they’ll have to wait for the waters to recede before they find more.”
Many, many more, Bernie hoped. He turned to the old man and gave him a smile. Dalton didn’t know it, but it was his lucky day. He fingered the small cloth bag in his pocket and decided not to leave another clue on the morgue’s doorstep. Soon enough, with the rising of the next moon, there’d be plenty of evidence of his fine plan.
Then let Nicolas and Inanna try to find him.
Chessa awoke with her nose smashed against Nicolas’s neck. She leaned a little away and drew a deep breath, drinking in his rich, manly scent and the odor of stale sex. Every part of her body ached deliciously.
She needed a bath, but she didn’t want to move, not yet. Not with the satin smooth skin beneath her fingertips and the beat of his heart thudding beneath her palm.
For the first time in a long time, she just wanted to savor being held by a man. His arms, even in sleep, clutched her close. As though she mattered. As though her absence would be noticed. As though he believed he possessed her.
And he did. Not through the force of his sensual seduction, powerful as that was. Rather, he’d trapped her through his dogged persistence so that she took note of how much he cared.
Seemed he’d always been there for her. He’d always been a fixture in her life. All the way back to Ardeal.
As a child she’d watched him training his team on the lush green grounds, or leaving on some dark mission with his face drawn sharp and hard, fierce determination etching his handsome features, making him seem larger than life.
Forever, Ina
nna had depended on him, kept him close and seemingly tethered to her side. The ancient bitch understood his worth and manipulated his deep sense of honor.
Chessa had been attracted to him even before she’d been “reborn.”
But she’d known from the time she was old enough to notice men, he wasn’t to be hers—that she had to take a human mate. She’d been carefully educated, primed for her role among the coven, and knew that with her first bite of a living man would come true love.
If she’d fantasized about Nicolas, she’d been enough of a realist to know he would never be hers.
Inanna had chosen David Thibodaux as her mate. She’d picked him up in a bar and dragged him back to Ardeal when Chessa’s season began.
David had thought he’d enjoy a quick tumble with the mysterious dark-haired woman who’d seduced him. Instead, Inanna had brought him nearly drunk with arousal to Chessa’s bed.
He’d pierced her hymen and given her the first taste of blood. In that moment, they’d been bound.
Nine months later, she’d borne his child, and they moved into a cottage on the estate. David had taken to life as a Revenant with zest. Training with the security team. Running with the patrols. Cleansing New Orleans and the surrounding areas of rogue vampires who refused to recognize the authority of the coven.
With her little Ana to fill the hours when they were parted, Chessa had grown content with David, caught up in the excitement of her newly developing hungers. Sating her awakening sensuality with her lover and husband, while sharing blood and sex with the minions who served their needs.
Life was an orgy of self-absorbed pleasure. Only Ana kept her grounded, kept her hungers reined.
The night her life at Ardeal ended, she’d come fresh from a private dinner with Inanna, Pasqual, and a local man named Arnaud. Arnaud had been only too eager to bare his throat and cock. Filled, her body still tingling with pleasure, Chessa had walked along the graveled path to her cottage to find the front door gaping, blood smeared on the stoop.
Her heart thudded and her stomach clenched in horror as she stepped over the threshold to take in the sight of her husband and daughter, both lying dead among the shambles of their small, cozy home.
The first person who’d run to investigate the source of the screams had been Nicolas.
He’s picked her up, carried her to the main house, shouting to his team to search the estate. He hadn’t let her go until he’d stripped her, washed the blood from her, and settled into a chair with her until Inanna arrived to attend her.
He’d been so very tender in the days that followed, careful not to discuss the graphic details of what they’d found, but giving her enough to quell, at least for the moment, her insatiable desire for revenge.
When she’d gotten past the shock, she’d followed those leads, but never found the individuals responsible for the murders.
Her husband’s handsome face she could barely remember now, but her little girl’s, spattered with blood, her body savaged, pink ribbons still tied in her hair—that image remained imprinted on her memory.
Their loss had been the catalyst that determined she’d never care that deeply for anyone again. Her grief had nearly destroyed her. She’d fled Ardeal, drank her way through more bars than she could count, finally arriving one morning on a hotel balcony, waiting for the sunrise.
She’d stood naked, watching the sunlight climb down the wall beside her and halting on the trellised bougainvillea—waiting for the sun to scourge her flesh. Wanting to feel the agony before she died.
She’d closed her eyes and clenched her hands around the iron railing just as light peeled down the last few feet.
A thickly hewn arm encircled her waist and drew her back against a tall, hard body. His almondy musk, always recognizable to her, gave away his identity. “Dammit, Nic, what are you doing here?” So close. If he’d just waited a few minutes more…
He grunted softly behind her and pulled her from the balcony into the bedroom.
Pulling away from his embrace, she turned to face him, realizing her mistake. She’d only stood naked before him once before—the night her world had fallen apart.
Then he’d stripped them both with quiet efficiency, and stepped beneath the shower with her to wash away her husband’s and sweet Ana’s blood, which covered her from head to toe. His naked body had been a comfort—so tall and strong.
She’d quivered like a palsied human, her teeth chattering throughout, until he’d wrapped her in a towel and seated himself in an armchair to hold her, stroking her back and arms until Inanna roused to take charge.
This morning, she was all too aware he saw everything she was. Lost, alone, ready to die.
Not wanting to hear his disappointment, she’d tried to deflect him. “You’re always underfoot lately,” she complained, trying with bravado not to let him see how disturbed she was by her nakedness. “It’s becoming annoying. People are talking.”
One side of his mouth curled. “And since when do I care what people say?” His gaze swept down her nude body. “What were you planning, Chessa?” he asked softly.
Her chin came up. “None of your business. Why are you here? Have you been following me?”
“You need a keeper,” he drawled.
“I don’t need anyone,” she’d retorted, her voice raw.
“I’ve come to take you home.”
She shook her head. “It’s not home. Not anymore.”
His lips tightened. “Everyone’s worried about you. No one’s seen you in weeks.”
“How did you find me?”
“You haven’t been exactly…circumspect…since you left. I followed a trail of meals here.”
With his gaze slipping downward, she curled her fists to resist the urge to place her hands over all the places he paused.
Even back then, his notice had disturbed her. Aroused her. That had been the problem.
She hadn’t wanted to be drawn, to reawaken. That path led to painful yearnings she never wanted to feel again. “I’m staying here.”
Nicolas hadn’t left her alone that morning. He’d stayed for several weeks, redirecting her anguish. He’d found her a mentor on the police force, someone willing to teach her what she’d needed to know about investigative skills so she could find for herself her family’s killers.
All along, she’d known finding the monsters who’d stolen away Ana would be an elusive goal, but it had been one that had kept her alive all these years.
Nicolas’s chest wasn’t moving as deeply as it had before.
“You’re awake, aren’t you?” she whispered.
“Have been for a good few minutes, but you were so deep in thought I didn’t want to intrude.” He turned his head to catch her gaze.
Feeling absurdly shy given all that had passed between them, her gaze fell away, drifting over his face.
Relaxed, his features were beautiful, perfectly symmetrical. His brows were dark wings that arched above deep brown eyes. His nose was straight, a little long, but well suited to his Gallic good looks. His lips were full, the upper bowed and stretching quickly into a soft smile as she continued to stare.
She lifted her gaze to his and found him waiting. “I never thanked you,” she said softly.
His smile slid wider. “The pleasure was all mine.”
“That’s not what I was talking about.”
Amusement slipped from his face, and his arm tightened around her. A large, warm hand moved down to her hip to draw her flush against him. “No thanks were necessary. I’m just glad I was there.”
She didn’t need to say what she was talking about, because, as always, Nicolas was already there.
So intuitive, he always seemed to know exactly what she was thinking and exactly what she needed.
Although she thought she already knew, she asked. “Why?”
He swallowed, this time his gaze flitting away. “I think you already know why. Until you can say the words, let’s just leave it like this.”
&n
bsp; Relieved, and inexplicably disappointed, she nodded.
She was such a coward.
Chessa cupped his cheek and leaned forward to press a soft kiss to his lips. Then she rolled to her back, gently urging him over her. “I know missionary’s not your thing, but…”
His face hovered over hers, studying her for a moment before he swooped down to kiss her lips. “If it means I can be close, I don’t mind at all.”
Chessa moved her legs from underneath him and opened them wide around his hips, bending her knees to tilt up and ease his entry.
He came slowly inside her, waiting for the moisture to ease his way. His hands smoothed down her arms, and his fingers threaded through hers. He brought them up to the pillow beneath her head as he began to move inside her. Pumping slowly, purposefully, he glided deep, straight, establishing a rhythm that didn’t vary. He stroked as inexorably as a heartbeat.
The gradual rise was one she could note, step by step, within his expression—his slackening lips, reddened cheeks, the tightening of his jaw—and she knew he could see the clues of her heightening arousal written all over her face.
How much more intimate could this get? It wasn’t just fucking anymore.
Nicolas was becoming part of her, twisting into her with a ruthlessly gentle determination.
Closer than she’d ever felt to him, her lips began to tremble, her eyes welled with tears. “I don’t like feeling weak.”
“This isn’t weakness, chérie,” he said, his voice a deepening rumble. “It’s vulnerability. It’s you giving yourself to me.”
She shook her head, looking away, drawing deep inside for the courage to admit the truth. “I’m…afraid.”
“I won’t leave you.”
“You can’t promise me that.”
His forehead met hers as he rasped, his voice thick with emotion, “Stick with me, and we can both watch each other’s backs.”
She shook her head, wanting to deny him, wanting to hold onto her stubborn promise, but not wanting to break the connection they were building.
A relationship with Nic, this deep, this potentially loving, would be all-consuming. She’d have to reconcile with her past and with Inanna.
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