The Bitten

by L. A. Banks

  Damali glanced around the room, her eyes connecting with Carlos’s briefly, but scanning the others. She had her long Isis with her, and then she smiled. “Is it cool for me to come in, or am I interrupting anything?”

  “You are more than welcome to come in here, darlin’,” McGuire said, but not going to her. He glanced at Carlos for approval to do so, but received none. Then he looked at the others in the room. “You are making the lady nervous, which is making our councilman nervous. The longer you do that, the more time goes by. So, my suggestion is that everybody relax.”

  Slowly but surely the tension in the room eased, the density lifted, and that’s when Carlos went to her. If he had to fight, he didn’t want her in the middle of the tackle.

  With caution, he collected her from Jose’s side, and Jose kept his eyes forward, scanning the group from behind dark sunglasses. All pro. Carlos was proud. J.L. and Dan seemed a little scary, but they had come in, hadn’t blinked. That was good. But the fumes surrounding him were not. The seal on the product he carried was leaking.

  He pecked Damali on the cheek as his hand slid around her waist, and he tried his best to numb himself to the sensation of her skin.

  “That performance was off the chain,” he murmured as they walked deeper into the private box to get away from Jose’s side.

  “I had a blast,” she said, her smile bright, but the tension in her body easy to detect through his palm. “I love Sydney—the crowd is awesome here.”

  “We all enjoyed your performance,” Amin said, his voice dripping desire. He glanced at his wife, and the electricity that passed between them put Alani on her feet.

  “Yes, you were absolutely fantastic,” Alani said, gaining a round of agreement from the other wives, who all went to Damali to hug her.

  Carlos watched very, very carefully, each hug, each continental kiss exchanged with a wary eye. Not one damned nick had better break her skin! Sensing his growing possessiveness, they wisely withdrew, even though their female voices blended into a laughing, celebratory harmony as Damali stepped away from him. He glared at the masters. Yeah, they could congratulate her—verbally. Fuck a hug.

  They nodded, understanding protocol.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “YOU ALL right, man?” Rider asked as he climbed into Carlos’s limo with Shabazz and Big Mike. “You don’t look so jakey.”

  He could feel Jose and Dan assessing him along with J.L. as they waited for the rest of the team to get in and close the door. Carlos looked up and sealed the window between them and their driver, giving the signal to pull off. His driver seemed a little dazed, pulled off wobbly like he was DUI. Not good. Something was wrong. Just the fumes off this shit were affecting everybody. Maybe it was the amount of product Jose was carrying? He wasn’t sure. But the effect was knocking his head back.

  Damali had been stone-quiet beside him, monitoring his condition through the palm of her hand in his. She gave Rider a look that said back off, and then glanced through the rear window at the other limos following theirs. It felt like the walls of the vehicle were closing in on him, and he couldn’t breathe. A cold sweat had broken out on his brow and he stained his suit sleeve wiping it away.

  “You got the product?” Carlos said on a short breath, speaking to Jose. He could feel his gums poised to rip and his vision was beginning to intermittently flicker red.

  “Yeah, we cool,” Jose said, producing a small plastic bag.

  “Are you out of your fucking mind?” Carlos bellowed. “Plastic, in here with me—next to her—and six nervous human male blood bodies with weapons!”

  “You said to put it in plastic—”

  “Yeah, so you could handle it. You had to seal it—put it in an equipment case—something!” In a flash Carlos encased the bag in a steel box right in Jose’s hand and opened the windows, a rush of air giving him a chance to catch his breath.

  “Oh, shit, Jose,” Shabazz shouted. “What were you thinking about?”

  “I thought it was just the contact from when he made it before in the suite—I thought—”

  “Shut. Up!” Carlos said, his eyes closed. “Everybody stop talking for just five minutes. I can’t go on the boat like this. You could have popped off a war in the damned VIP box.”

  “We have to—”

  Damali’s voice was the last one he could deal with. His glare had stopped her words, but it sped up her heart rate. The nerves in the close confines, multiple pulses, adrenaline spike all through it, made his hands shake.

  “I told you!” Carlos yelled at her. It was reflex; her brothers couldn’t even draw. He’d snatched her so fast and had kissed her so hard, hands at either side of her face, fucking him up as she opened her mouth and returned it hard. I want you so bad right now I’m losing my mind. Don’t speak. He could feel her thoughts gathering, her words about to lacerate him more because she wanted him like that, too.

  He let her go just as fast, pushed her away, needed to get out of the vehicle and walk to the damned ship. Just one more time . . .

  “Do not answer me in a mind lock while I’m high.” He slumped back, put his forearm over his eyes, sniffed hard, and breathed through his mouth, constantly running his tongue over his teeth till his fangs retracted.

  “Don’t do that on the boat,” he said more calmly after a while. “I ain’t myself, and could blow this whole mission.” He sat up and stared out the window, refusing to watch how the wind was cascading her locks over her shoulders, or how her mouth had plumped from the hard kiss.

  Why was it so hard for them to understand what this was like? Damali had even walked on the dark side for a moment with him, and she still couldn’t fathom what this was all about . . . her humanity and hope would always be her blind spot. Frustration became fury, if she would only understand! Yes, master vampires had suave, superior intelligence, mind control, and powers beyond human comprehension. Yes, they had become masters of the game, were wealthy and had access to learning all the refined arts.

  But all of that was focused on one goal—the relentless pursuit of pleasure . . . their greatest strength, their greatest weakness . . . seduction with the purpose to feed and mate and mate and feed in an endless cycle. At the core of what their realm represented was raw lusts—all of them—concentrated on level six. The drug only brought that out; her biology was the Light’s weapon to draw that out of masters, make them show their true fangs in a weakened, compromised state. But she, like all women, only wanted to see what she wanted to see in her man, the good side ignoring the bad. He’d told her he was only vampiri! And in this state, pregnant or not, he would fuck her to death if she didn’t stop.

  He kept his eyes closed with the wind on his face. As his breathing began to normalize he focused on the issue at hand, making sure none of the Guardians had any illusions about what they were dealing with tonight.

  “Amin took a full hit, and is messed up bad,” Carlos said quietly. “Tetrosky isn’t far behind him, on just a half. The man dropped fang in public in front of his wife—which ain’t his style. Xe is dangerous like a motherfucker right now, but wants a double hit more than he wants his wife. McGuire is liquefied . . . you can pour him into a martini glass and drink him.” He looked at Damali hard. “But he will not be denied after waiting for you this long. Kill his ass quick and be done with it. Don’t dick around with him and tease him—he’s unstable, like all of us are.”

  “You made more?” Damali said, her voice an accusatory whisper.

  All Guardian eyes were on him.

  “I had to. No variables. Sent it to Jose in case his stash was low. Needed to test it on the ride down from Queensland to see what the tolerance levels were.”

  For a moment, no one said a word. Damali sat back slowly, but her eyes raked him. “You didn’t take any, did you?”

  He laughed. “Are you crazy?”

  “No offense,” Big Mike muttered, “but you seem a little on the edge, bro.”

  “Between the performance and the c
ontact, yeah, I’m lit. But not because I ever take my own product. Never did that, not even while living. And do I look like I need to take that around her?” Carlos stared at them, disgusted. “Give me some credit. In the distribution game, I’m all pro.”

  Too offended for words when they didn’t answer, Carlos kept his gaze out the window just trying to breathe.

  Safely boarding the ship wasn’t her greatest worry, getting off of it, with her squad intact, was. Damali glanced at Carlos’s huge Hellhounds that kept the other masters at a distance. They walked a lazy, snarling, hungry path between her and Carlos and the masters standing not far away with their wives engaged in tense chitchat. She held onto the rail, her side pressed against Carlos, her grip tight on her Isis, her gaze scanning the backs of her men, who also weren’t too far away. She declined a bottle, saying she’d eaten well before the performance and was still too full. She kept glancing at the water, wondering why the wave caps were pink, and why there were lots of fins in it. Fucking sharks to deal with, too?

  She needed to get a transmission to Carlos, but he’d told her not to go into his mind. Not on the boat. But when an extremely large fin surfaced and slid beneath the stained water, she had to have a private discussion.

  “Can we talk?” she asked quietly, looking over the side of the yacht. Marlene and Father Patrick had to know there was some huge, predatory shit in the water. Their getaway plan was by small speedboat.

  Carlos pulled his attention from the master he was talking to. “In a little while,” he murmured. “Paciencia, por favor, mi tresora. Okay?”

  Be patient? Sheeit. She knew he was working it to the bone, had to stay in drug kingpin character, but there was a serious problem. “I noticed there are sharks in the water,” she said, interjecting herself into the male-dominated conversation. “I saw one huge monster, big enough to knock a small speedboat over.” She saw her squad visibly stiffen. Okay, at least her crew got the message. Maybe they could transmit that to Mar. But Mar and Father Pat had also dropped some heavy science about the key that Carlos definitely needed to know. Speedboats as a getaway plan presented a huge issue for her team and the key. But how was she supposed to work with her mission partner if his ass was high?

  “Right you are, little lady,” McGuire said, asking for permission with his eyes to pass the dogs and Damali’s squad. He waited for a moment until Carlos nodded and eased up his hold on her. “The ladies like to watch them feed. They’ve been pouring out bottles to draw them all night,” he said, taking Damali’s hand and bringing it to his lips. “Care to stroll the decks with me, and watch what happens when they drop a human-helper?”

  She watched her team blanche, but it was showtime. “If Carlos doesn’t mind?”

  “Of course he doesn’t mind,” McGuire said, overly anxious and overstepping his bounds.

  Carlos monitored the other masters. “Take one of the dogs with you, baby.”

  “She doesn’t need one of those beasts, she’ll be with me.”

  McGuire was openly challenging him, and had tightly threaded his arm around Damali’s waist. Carlos glanced at the Guardians; they had to be cool. The other masters sensed it, too.

  “It’s all right, man,” Carlos said, forcing a chuckle. “I’m sending one of the dogs so you don’t get rushed. Want your hit now while you take your stroll, or when you come back?”

  McGuire struggled with the decision. “How about if I take one for the road in my pocket?”

  Carlos shook his head. “You need to do that down in a stateroom. You walk the decks with it, and you’ll give every vamp you pass a contact. Do you really want to—”

  “Wise man,” McGuire said. “I’ll come back for it. Your lovely wife and I should chat, get acquainted, before we go downstairs. I’ll show her around a bit. Fair?”

  Again Carlos nodded, watching the envy congeal in the others. McGuire’s smug smile was about to touch off a blood battle; he could feel it. This was how they’d planned it, this was what everyone had agreed upon—but theory and the real deal were always two different things. Shabazz was so tight he was about to bust a blood gasket. Big Mike was about to lose it and just start shooting buck wild; he could feel that, too. Rider had a mental target on the back of McGuire’s skull. J.L.’s Uzi was practically bouncing with pent-up readiness, and Dan was gonna shoot off his own foot if he fingered the release on his crossbow one more time. Carlos placed a hand on Jose’s shoulder to keep the man from drawing as he passed him. Everybody stay cool.

  “Why don’t you gentlemen take a stroll, take in a few sights,” Carlos said to Damali’s men, his eyes sending a quiet message. They needed to fan out, position themselves by the agreed-upon targets. “The women on the boat are fine. There’s human food, and I know you have to be ready to bust a grub after the concert. Find one of the servers—shrimp, mud crab, five-spice duck, Emu prosciutto, flying fish roe and wasabi . . . liquor out da ass,” Carlos added, trying to sound relaxed and to get them to cool down enough to leave Damali alone with McGuire. They had to chill to play this smooth. “Damali will be fine. She’s with McGuire and one of my dogs.” He dismissed them with a glance that the other masters couldn’t see as he rounded them. “All right? Be cool.”

  Begrudgingly the Guardian team nodded, filing away from him in a slow-moving huddle. Once out of earshot, Carlos sighed and approached the other masters. With Damali no longer at his side and having gone off with McGuire, he only had three masters to immediately contend with, if it got ugly.

  “You gentlemen care to go downstairs for a little taste of something sweet?”

  Smiles widened on the faces around him.

  “We thought you’d never ask,” Tetrosky said, waving his arm in a grand, sweeping, Old World gesture before Carlos. “After you.”

  “You promised us you had a little something for us, too,” Evelyn whined.

  “I am a man of my word, dear lady. Meet me in my room.” He paused and looked at them as they giggled. “All of you.”

  “Sir, the matter at hand,” Amin reminded him, pulling Carlos’s attention away from the women.

  “My bad,” Carlos said, and laughed as they walked. He knew all the delays and chitchat were increasing the tension, but that was the objective: yank their chains till they snapped. Slow walk ’em.

  They were already pissed at McGuire for his good fortune. All he had to do was go below deck, drop two hits each on these guys, then go find their wives. If the masters stayed in the room together, they were going to have to engage in a sudden-death battle to see who could get out of the room first to corner McGuire. It would be on. But he had to make sure the ladies were properly blitzed, or they could intercede. Second-level females could still be deadly, especially if the male didn’t have his full faculties. Plus Damali needed a chance to get to McGuire alone. Variables—too fucking many of them, and he was too high.

  As they entered the stateroom they had been in earlier, Carlos forced a belly laugh. “Damn, man, you could have fixed my table, and shit.”

  Amin chuckled and waved his hand to correct the problem. “I was . . . uh—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. Slipped your mind,” Carlos said, smiling broadly as he brought the steel box out of his pocket. “Double hits, all around, and we save McGuire’s till he gets back.”

  He carefully opened the box, shielding his nose with his hand as he leaned toward each master and allowed him to take out two red pills.

  “You’re not joining us?” Xe asked skeptically. “What’d you do, lace this batch with colloidal silver?” Then he laughed and put a pill in his mouth.

  But Tetrosky hesitated. “You don’t even want a contact from it?”

  Amin glanced at Tetrosky, and slowed his swallow of the second pill.

  “You guys just pushed your wives off on me. Four females, and you want me to go in there with them that high? What, and ruin my reputation? Never.” Carlos chuckled and shook his head, snapping the box shut, and then slipped it into his pocket. “I’m not ha
ving four fine females talk about me like a dog and put my business in the street. Shit, talking about how I busted a nut in two seconds and was slobbering on myself. Not tonight.”

  Tetrosky laughed hard with the others, relaxed, and took the drug. Amin finished swallowing as the first hard shudder consumed Xe. Carlos was on his feet and out the door before their fangs dropped.

  “You sure you don’t want to go downstairs, yet?” McGuire murmured against her hair, way too close to her throat for her liking. Even the ugly creature of a dog was snarling at the affront.

  “The night is young—”

  He had tugged her to him with such force that it almost knocked the wind out of her. “Tell the dog to back off,” he warned as the creature started barking. “It is really getting on my fucking nerves.”

  Damali glanced over McGuire’s shoulder. She could see her team in the distance, but they didn’t have a clear shot. And what did you tell a monster with six eyes and jaws that drooled acid? Sit, stay? “Chill,” she said, wriggling out of McGuire’s hold. “You just made it nervous. They don’t like sudden moves.”

  “I hope you do,” he said, his voice low and so quiet that she almost couldn’t hear him over the dog’s incessant barking.

  “Sit. Stay. And, uh, shut up!” she yelled at the Hellhound, totally amazed when it did. “Deep.”

  “Are you?” he said, coming closer to her.

  Oh, no, not one of these bastards that wanted to talk dirty in bed. Damali sighed. “You’re right. We should just go down to your room and get this over with.”

  “You sound so . . . unenthused,” he said, seeming offended, but still ready to go.

  “No, it’s just that the performance took a lot out of me,” she hedged, checking her tone and improving it. “That’s why I was stalling. I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

  His hand caressed the side of her face, his fingers trembling, his green eyes glittering with pure lust in the moonlight. “If you were bled out and limp, you wouldn’t disappoint me,” he said quietly, lowering his mouth to hers and coming away with fangs. “After your performance, I was devastated.”