by Michele Hauf
“Used? No, I—”
He could not deny biting her thigh had been cruel and unusual. If he could take it back he would. But he’d thought she’d understood it had been beyond his control.
“I’ve been under your persuasion all the time.” Her voice wobbled and he thought he smelled a salty teardrop.
“No, Lark, I told you I would never do that.”
“Liar!”
The blunt end of the stake landed hard upon his chest. The warmth of her fingers wrapped about it and slammed against his body, permeated his skin.
Why did she believe he’d persuaded her? He had not. It was something he reserved only following the bite, and he’d never used it after biting her because she had given him permission—
Hell, had the Order convinced her of this? She was too strong for such underhanded tactics. No matter how she felt regarding his betrayal of her trust, she must not believe he could ever persuade her against her will.
“How did they do it?” he asked. “Make you believe that lie?”
“This is tiring,” Rook said from somewhere to Domingos’s left. “Reduce him to ash so we can get out of here.”
“You would not grant a dying man a last wish?” Domingos tried, unsure what, exactly, would be his request, but it was a time buyer.
“That’s not the way we do things,” Rook answered.
But Lark said, “Tell me. What the hell do you want before I ash you, longtooth?”
* * *
The heat of him was intense. Standing so close to him, Lark could feel the essence of Domingos race all over her body. The stake remained, right over his pounding heart, ready for termination. She had only to squeeze the paddles. He did not smell like rum and champagne—they’d had sex less than twenty-four hours earlier—so he must have showered. Yes, she’d left him in the shower. His familiar smoky scent instead rose to taunt her.
At the time they’d made love, she had felt in her body, in control and that she was doing exactly as she wanted, and not being coerced. Maybe? Sorting out her thoughts was difficult now that she knew he’d persuaded her.
And now he had the audacity to convince her the Order was lying to her? Idiot vampire.
Today she would claim kill number seventy-three. No matter that déjà vu rattled inside her brain, threatening to bring up tears. Twice now she’d been forced to stake a man she had thought to love.
You did love them. Both of them!
She slammed the door on Lisa Cooper. Lark was who she had become, and that woman didn’t need tears. This staking was going to be much easier than the last time.
The vampire had requested a last wish, which he did not deserve, but she did want to hear what he thought was so important before she ashed him.
Her finger twitched on the titanium shaft. “Tell me!”
Domingos spread out his arms, not seeing her, yet his dark eyes seemed to look right through and into her soul. “I go to my grave willingly and gladly knowing it is my lover who wields the stake. I had hoped it would be this way, if it was to ever come to this.”
“Stop stalling and tell me your last wish,” Lark demanded.
She didn’t want to listen to his pretty words, in his voice that strafed along her spine and melted into her soul, becoming her. Was this more vampiric persuasion?
“Very well.” Domingos bowed his head toward hers and nuzzled his nose aside her ear. She stiffened, knowing Rook watched keenly. As well, the other knights stood but a few paces behind the vampire. “Kiss me,” he whispered. “And then kill me, because your kiss will devastate.”
Lark stepped back, drawing the stake away from him, and looked down and aside. Kiss him? What a ridiculous request. She would never.
You must! He is the man you love.
Twisting her head against the intrusive voice, she had the thought that the vampire’s madness had worn off on her. Hearing voices? Was it possible Rook had lied about the persuasion? How could she believe it so deeply? Yet if she struggled for that belief, then something must be off, yes?
Hell, she was confused. And her heart seemed to clatter against her rib cage, while her hands had grown clammy. If she delayed much longer she’d find herself back on the kitchen floor, kneeling over a man who begged for the stake to be free from the threat of vampirism.
You don’t need to go there now. Domingos makes you strong. Trust him!
“Give the vampire what he wants,” Rook announced from behind her. “It will serve you, our wayward knight, fitting punishment to kiss the enemy.”
Lark shook her head, refusing. She gripped the stake so hard her bones ached. She could not. She would not. Not after his betrayal—
And yet how she desperately wanted to kiss Domingos one last time. To perhaps learn from his kiss the real truth.
You know the truth. Don’t lie to yourself.
He’s never lied to you.
“Please, Lark,” the vampire said so softly, she thought she might be the only one in the room who could hear. And something about the tremble in his voice cleaved to her core and rattled her need to remain the unattached machine who had slain dozens of creatures without so much as a blink.
Sighing, she stepped forward, but inches from the vampire, and decided a quick peck on the cheek should fulfill his absurd request nicely. Yet when she leaned in, Domingos’s mouth found hers and without touching her elsewhere he held her there, endlessly. The world receded. The knights standing nearby ceased to exist. In fact, the Order no longer existed. She was merely Lark—or perhaps even Lisa Cooper. Taking what she was given, and answering back with a desperate need.
Freedom. Don’t sacrifice it again.
And she fell, deep into Domingos, nestled by his darkness, and sighing into his madness. A vampire whose bite made her crave and plead for yet another and another bite. Not her enemy. Simply a man who had been wronged in such an evil way his very soul had been contorted.
And there, deep within his kiss, she remembered that she loved this man because he was kind and gentle with her, and had allowed her to see beyond the foolish need for blind revenge. He had given her hope, and in turn she had given him back his music.
And she knew, against all reason, this man had not manipulated her. Why she believed otherwise was a mystery she would solve. But until then...
“I love you,” she whispered into his mouth.
Domingos grabbed the stake from her hand. With his other hand, he wrenched her body around, gripping her hard up under the neck. She allowed it, not wanting to fight, not wanting to put herself back on the side of the man who glared at her now, the one who had trained her, the one who had lied to her.
How had he made her believe the lie?
King, her conscience screamed. It had been his doing.
“Back!” Domingos demanded. “Or I stake her in the heart.”
He shuffled backward toward the wall, and remembering his blindness, Lark made a slight adjustment in his trajectory by easing him to the right and toward the door.
“Let him go!” Rook shouted to the knights who approached their escape, hands reaching for their stakes and weapons. “Idiot longtooth won’t get far. He’s blind.”
“She’ll lead him out of here,” Debraux, one of the knights, protested.
“Maybe.”
Lark met Rook’s eyes and couldn’t read him. Was he giving her a head start? Or merely playing with her? She knew it was the latter. He would let her and Domingos get outside, yet while it was night, she wouldn’t get far with a blind vampire. The knights would be on them in minutes.
Minutes were all she needed.
Gripping the door, she opened it and tugged Domingos through. He slapped the stake back into her hand as she directed him to take the stairs down. Using the wall as a guide, he stumbled once, but made it to the ground floor with ease.
“You can’t see anything?” she asked as she tugged him down the street and turned abruptly into a narrow, dark alley.
“No, but you lead well. I can he
ar their footsteps clattering down the stairs.”
“Then we’re going to silent mode. Trust me?”
“I do.”
“I love you,” she said, and wanted to explain about why she’d believed he’d persuaded her, but there was no time and it was too risky to make any noise.
“Love you back.”
And that response fortified her need for survival.
Dodging behind parked cars, as they passed, Lark scanned inside the interiors for keys. They wouldn’t be so lucky. Grabbing Domingos’s shirtsleeve, she ran with him alongside her, not moving as fast as she’d like, but not wanting to risk him stumbling.
His hand slid down to clutch hers. He’d trusted her, even when she had been prepared to stake him. Somehow he had known that, by asking for a kiss, she would remember. Or perhaps he had not, and simply loved her that much.
Ahead queued a row of brick buildings, most in disrepair and with boards nailed across the glassless windows. This section of town was undergoing construction, and the sidewalk dropped away to exposed dirt. She clutched his hand tightly and did not slow her pace.
Pulling him into the abandoned brick building, she tugged him down against the wall. “You need blood,” she said. “So you can see.”
“Yes, but there’s no way—”
She pressed her wrist to his mouth, stopping his protest. “Do it.”
He gripped her wrist with both hands and shook his head. “I’ve taken too much from you, Lark. Mercy, but I almost killed you at the hotel. I have no right—”
“Don’t argue with me, vampire. If you love me, you’ll save us both by getting back your sight and strength. I need you to win against the knights.”
Fangs entered her wrist in a painful piercing. Lark moaned with the pain and pleasure of it, then pressed her face to his shoulder to muffle the noise. He sucked greedily from her. It felt so good that she struggled not to sink into the giddy coil of orgasm that always accompanied his bite. Never had she thought an orgasm could prove a threat. There’d be time later to reason out that strange thought.
When they heard her fellow knights’ footsteps pounding across the packed dirt and construction debris outside, Domingos tore away his mouth from her wrist.
“Christ, it’s dark, but I can see now. My sight is back, and so is— Fucking cats!”
Upon hearing Domingos’s outburst, the knights clattered toward the building. And while her lover began to bang his head against the wall, raging against the madness within, three knights with stakes appeared from around the corner.
Chapter 22
Lark was impressed that Domingos stepped before her, trying to protect her as the knights approached. But the two of them could work better as a team, so she stepped up alongside him and twirled her stake. She winked at her vampire lover.
He winked back and nodded, indicating that she take the floor.
“Boys,” she said to the knights who stood before them. “Three against two? Those odds will work for me. What do you say, Domingos?”
“Not even a challenge.”
“Traitor!” Debraux yelled, and charged toward her.
The other two knights, Moore and Dumas, headed for Domingos.
Stepping before Domingos, and hooking her arms back and within his, Lark levered up from the ground and he supported her as she kicked Debraux in the jaw and sent him reeling toward the other two knights.
“Should have had on your fancy boots with the blades,” Domingos said as he set her down and went for Moore. The vampire punched the knight in the gut and deftly dodged the swing of the stake.
Much as Lark worried a stake was going to eventually end up in someone’s heart—and she prayed it wasn’t Domingos’s—she couldn’t keep an eye on him and win this fight. So she abandoned that worry and charged into the fray.
Dumas’s arm clocked her across the chest, forcing the air from her lungs. Gasping, she maintained her footing and slashed around with her fist, squeezing the paddles to release the stake, which cut across his scalp and sliced a crimson line above his ear.
Bending forward and swinging her leg up high, she clocked the knight who now clutched his ear right across the face, hearing the cartilage in his nose crunch. Dumas went down, cursing her with a nasty oath.
Domingos’s shoulder crushed up against her back as he stumbled away from a punch. He rolled through the hit, somersaulting backward over her and landing on the ground before her. Another wink reached through the darkness and tickled her heart. God, she loved that vampire!
Domingos’s smirk quickly dropped and he charged toward her, grabbing her by the wrist and swinging her out of the way just as Moore’s body collided with his. Lark landed before the other knight, who stood holding the stake in challenge.
“You would side with a vampire?” Debraux asked. “Typical woman.”
“I’m not typical of anything.” Lark kicked high, knocking the stake from his grasp. Landing the move, she spun and swung up her fist, clocking him aside the jaw and dropping him in a blackout at her feet. “Was that typical, buddy? Yeah, I don’t think so.”
Domingos yelled. She turned to see Moore toss a handful of dirt at the vampire’s face. The dust cloud disoriented Domingos. Moore swung the stake toward her lover’s chest and planted it with his fist.
“No!” Lark stepped over Debraux and landed on Moore’s back. Her hand grasped the fist he had wrapped about the stake just as the paddles were depressed. The repercussion pulsed up both their hands, away from the vampire’s chest—yet the stake did not cut through muscle.
Domingos charged Moore, bringing him down, with Lark still clinging to his back. She landed on the ground hard, her breath chuffing from her. The two men scuffled while she lifted her head to assess the other two. Still down, though Dumas was groaning, and would be up soon enough.
She saw Domingos form a spade of his hand above Moore’s chest. The same move he’d made before ripping out the werewolf’s heart.
“No,” she said, but it was only a gasp.
If he killed a knight, he’d start a war. The Order would not rest until it had hunted down Domingos LaRoque and made him suffer.
But who was she to demand he restrain himself? He fought for his life. And hers.
Grabbed from behind, Lark grunted as Dumas landed beside her and yanked her arm, twisting her body about so she sat up to face him. “Say goodbye to your vampire,” he said with a sneer.
“You say goodbye to Moore.”
The vampire struck, plunging his hand toward Moore’s chest. Lark and Dumas watched, frozen in a defiant hold against each other. And when Lark thought Domingos would rip out Moore’s heart, instead the vampire released a primal yell and shoved the man aside. He stood over Moore and delivered a hard right fist to his jaw, knocking him out cold.
Relieved, Lark exhaled. Domingos stalked toward her and he grabbed Dumas. Another iron fist took out the knight and left him sprawled on the uneven dirt ground.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said, pulling her up.
Gripping her by the back of the head, the vampire pulled her in for a hard kiss. He tasted like dirt and blood, but she only held him tighter and kissed him harder. Here was where she belonged, in the arms of the one man who would never betray her, and whom she trusted completely.
“You didn’t kill him,” she said.
“I have no beef against him. Any of them. Unless, of course, they had managed to kill you.”
“I’m still in one piece. And they are starting to rouse.”
He tugged her out of the building, and the twosome ran into the night, elated to have escaped what should have been sure death.
* * *
Rook and King stood in the shadows beneath an eighteenth-century limestone building that had once been a patisserie yet was now a bookshop that offered explicit tales bound between discreet covers.
Rook had preferred the patisserie, even though he hadn’t been into all that sugar and frilly decorated sweets. He felt sur
e King had fond memories of the shop; he had dated one of the shopgirls for a while.
“This is his favorite spot?” King asked.
The man leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. He rarely worked in the field, and the fact that he’d worn a white shirt over gray slacks tonight proved as much. Not so easy to blend while wearing white.
“Every week, intel reports.” Rook nodded across the street. “That’s him.”
The Levallois principal exited the Noir nightclub across the street from the bookshop, a sexy redhead squeezed into a tight pink dress under his arm. She stumbled, stepping out of one of her überhigh heels and drunkenly floundered to get it. Remy, probably not too drunk, stood back, watching her with a lascivious grin. Order intel reported the pack principal was a known womanizer.
Although he understood King had more intimate knowledge of the wolf, Rook wasn’t sure what that implied. Friends for a long time—hell, they considered each other brothers—they still didn’t tell each other everything.
Rook hadn’t the patience to watch this drunken tête-à-tête, and he sensed the same impatience from King’s ready posture. Clad in black, Rook blended with the shadows as he moved in swiftly, slamming the werewolf against the graffiti-littered wall of the nightclub, just outside the line of streetlight that beamed across the garishly painted wall.
The idiot woman asked what was going on.
“Get out of here!” King ordered her, and she turned and ran back inside the club, muttering something about always picking the wrong man.
“We have unfinished business,” Rook said to the wolf, who did not struggle, but he could feel the man’s strength beneath his hands and knew if he didn’t maintain authority the wolf would overtake him.
“You did not slay the vampire,” Remy said. “You’re right. We do have unfinished business. Never thought the Order was so inept. You must be King. We have a connection, and you know it.”
“We are connected in no way,” King said calmly. He nodded at Rook, and Rook understood the order implicitly.
