by Cat Devon
“How to hunt demons?”
“Yes.”
“And humans?”
Damon nodded. “Vegetarians mostly.”
“Whaaat?”
“They’re healthier. You get more vitamins that way.” He reached out to close her mouth, which had dropped open. Brushing his thumb over her lips, he said, “I’m just teasing you, little witch.”
He was teasing her all right. Her lips were humming and hungry for the touch of his mouth on hers. Passion rose within her like the flames had risen from the floor vents.
“I need a cold shower,” she muttered.
Damon instantly released her. “Go ahead. The surveillance cameras are off in the bathrooms now.”
Zoe fled upstairs, but there was no escaping her desire for Damon. No amount of cold water could cool the heat and no amount of lathering with Sunshine soap could remove the memory of his touch. She tried, she really did. But when she stepped out of the bathroom wearing only a towel around her body and saw Damon waiting for her she wanted him as much as she had before. Maybe more.
“I had the camera turned off in here,” Damon said. “You don’t have to fear me. You don’t have to run from me the way you just did.”
“You thought I ran because I was afraid?”
“Weren’t you?” he said.
“I ran because you touched me.”
“And that turned you off after hearing how I became a vampire.”
“It turned me on. Not the vampire stuff. Your touch. You, Damon.” Her trembling fingers caused the towel to accidentally slip.
Damon was there in half a heartbeat. His fingers rested just above her breast. Gazing down into her eyes, he moved her hand away from the towel.
“I want you.” His voice was hoarse.
“I want you, too,” she whispered.
He removed her towel and with it any chance she could hold back the wave of desire coursing through her naked body.
Moving with vamp speed, he yanked off his black shirt and pants and underwear. Now he was as nude as she was and she couldn’t get over how good he looked without clothes. Yes, she’d seen him shirtless, but wow. The vampire was built. And he was aroused.
So was she. Dampness pooled between her thighs and it wasn’t because of the shower. It was because of Damon.
Still, she felt she had to warn him. “There’s a curse that says no man can make an Adams witch happy.”
“I’m not a man,” Damon said. “I’m a vampire, and I can make you very happy.”
He moved in and took possession of her mouth, parting her lips and dueling with her tongue. Then he licked the roof of her mouth with such delicate strokes she thought she’d go crazy. His kiss scorched her in a carnal way.
Lowering his hand, he slipped his fingers down past her abdomen to slide them through the curls at the gateway of her vagina. Now his touch scorched her in an incredibly intimate and carnal way. His erotic caresses down there were beyond anything she’d ever experienced.
When her knees gave way, he scooped her in his arms and carried her to her bed. Did she want him to take her with vamp speed? Did she want it all to be over in a split second?
He dragged his teeth over her bare breast. No fangs. Did vampire sex involve fangs? Maybe she should have asked a few questions ahead of time. But could she when her entire focus was on the intense pleasure and anticipation he was creating? No way. Let him ask the questions.
“Do you like that?” he said.
“Yes,” she moaned.
He remembered the way he’d touched her before, the night she’d had the nightmare, and repeated the caress.
“How about this?” Now he added the new element of laving his rough tongue over her nipple.
“Definitely.” She threaded her fingers through his hair and held him in place. While his mouth focused on her breast, his talented fingers moved lower, sliding over her pelvis and homing in on her clitoris. Once there, he took his time, brushing his thumb over the tiny bud that was such an intense erogenous zone.
Zoe arched her back as shards of raw hunger pulsed through her body. Kissing his way down her body, his tongue replaced his fingers as he stroked her there with warm laps and wicked lunges. She came hard and fast. Not once but twice … three times.
Lifting his head, he smiled that sexy smile of his. Lifting his body, he positioned himself between her legs. Zoe couldn’t fathom how she could possibly climax again and she tried to warn him not to be disappointed …
He drove into her with one powerful slide. She closed around him as his thrusts created a friction that was both blissful and insanely wild.
Her vagina clenched as her orgasm took over, increasing to a mind-blowing ecstasy. He stiffened in her arms and within her body as he reached his climax. It was magical, it was raw and reckless.
“It was over too fast.” Zoe didn’t realize she’d actually whispered the unsteady words aloud until Damon smoothed her bangs from her eyes.
“That was just the beginning,” he said.
“Really? I mean, I wasn’t complaining. It was incredible. Just the beginning, huh?”
“Oh yeah. There’s lots more. Let me show you.” And he did.
* * *
Damon sat straight up in bed. Something was wrong. He was alone in Zoe’s rumpled bed.
It was barely daylight. Too early for night to have completely given up its darkness. Where was she? And why had he fallen asleep? That never happened to him. Vampires didn’t need much sleep. Did it have something to do with her being a witch?
Damon grabbed his pants from the floor and moved at vamp speed. There was no sign of Zoe on this second story of the house. The scents coming from her workroom didn’t allow him to focus on finding her that way, but a quick search confirmed she wasn’t in any of the upstairs rooms.
He looked down from the top of the stairway and saw Zoe’s grandmother standing there, tears streaming down her face. “Zoe is gone. She’s been taken!”
Chapter Twenty-two
“That’s not possible,” Damon said. “You had a protection spell around her.”
“Yes, but she’s immune to magic now,” Gram said.
“She had sex with you,” Bella told Damon. “That made her lose her powers. You kept yours but she lost hers.”
“Do you still have your powers?” Damon asked Zoe’s grandmother.
“Yes, but I can’t save her. She’s immune. You have to save her. You killed a witch once. Now you have to save one.”
“Where is she?”
“The demons have her in the tunnel,” Zoe’s grandmother said.
“How do you know that? The surveillance cameras were off. Did the cameras down here show who took her?” Damon said.
“Uh, that would be a negative,” Neville said through the surveillance system. “And I now see three demons and one witch on the scan of the affected area of the tunnels.”
“You’re going to need help, Demon Hunter,” Bella said. “You can’t do it alone.”
“Watch me.”
“The cat is right,” Pat said.
Damon hadn’t even realized that the older vampire had joined them, that’s how stunned he was by the news that Zoe was a captive. He had to get his shit together or all would be lost. He couldn’t focus on the fact that having sex with him had left Zoe vulnerable to attack.
“I should have had her wear her mother’s amethyst necklace with the bear carved into it,” Damon muttered.
“You said it was a myth, that it wouldn’t help her,” Zoe’s grandmother said.
“That’s when I thought she had the protection spell. Maybe the amethyst amulet thing isn’t a myth,” Damon said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Pat said. “Even if normally it may have protected Zoe from demons, it wouldn’t do so once her magic was gone. There was nothing you could do. If anyone is guilty, it’s me for not finding the passage about this sooner.”
“What are you talking about?”
“About the part where
you having sex would make one of you lose your powers,” Pat said.
Damon shook his head, trying to make sense of it all. “The cat said that.”
“I’m not a cat. I’m a familiar,” Bella said. “And I only know because it suddenly appeared minutes ago in the Book of Spells written on a page that was previously blank.”
“What, that having sex with a vampire would make a witch lose her powers?” Damon said.
“It’s only true for you and Zoe in particular. It’s all tied up with the Book of Darkness. Touching the book made her vulnerable in a way none of us could have anticipated,” Pat said. “I only discovered all this when I found a passage copied from a papyrus dating back to the great library in ancient Alexandria. You remember I told you my sire had given me some illuminated manuscripts pertaining to mystical powers in ancient times? I’m so sorry I didn’t find this information about you and Zoe sooner.”
Damon was tormented by the thought that Silas had Zoe. He felt as if the demon had reached into his chest and ripped his heart out. Not that he had a heart. Or emotions. Or fear. Until now.
How could this be happening? The fact that he’d had sex with Zoe had changed everything, including him.
“The only silver lining, if there is one, is that there is a way to reverse the curse and get Zoe’s magic to return,” Pat said. “At least that’s what it says in this illuminated manuscript. The original sources go back thousands of years.”
“The demon book didn’t look that old when I saw it,” Gram said.
“Yes, well, the Book of Darkness has the ability to mask itself and to appear and disappear,” Pat noted.
Gram threw back her shoulders and faced Damon. “There is a silver lining, as Pat said. There is a way to save Zoe and restore her magic.”
“I have to get Zoe back,” Damon said. “Whatever it takes.” He checked his smartphone to see if Simon had answered or sent a message via Words with Friends, which had been their secret means of safe communication. Instead he saw one word. DEARIE.
Shit. The demon had been playing the online game with him. Damon was going to eviscerate him.
Damon felt his fangs emerge as he went full vamp. He could feel his eyes darken. He needed to go into warrior mode.
“Do you love Zoe?” Gram demanded out of the blue.
Damon looked at her in disbelief. That was the last thing he’d expected to hear her ask him. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“It’s critical,” Gram said.
“I’ve only known her—”
“Time is irrelevant,” Gram said. “We’re talking about a vampire and a witch here. Do you love her?”
“Why does it matter?”
“Because it may be the only way to break the curse and restore Zoe’s magic to her.”
“I have to rescue her first and then destroy the demons. The rest can wait.”
“No, it can’t. You can’t rescue her without breaking the curse.”
“The one about no man being able to make an Adams witch happy?” Damon said.
“She told you about that?”
He angrily pointed to his fangs. “I’m a vampire, not a man.”
“Exactly,” Gram said. “You alone can save her. But only if you love her. Do you?”
Did he? How else could he explain this gaping emptiness he felt without her? The way she’d gotten to him from the very beginning, aggravating him and arousing him at the same time. The little things he noticed about her, like the way her bangs fell into those stunning eyes of hers or how she would swirl her hair around her finger or the way she smelled or the distracting questions she’d ask him.
Did he love her? Shit, yes. It wasn’t wise, wasn’t logical, wasn’t anything he’d planned. Sometimes karma was a bitch. Or maybe his karma was a witch.
“Do you love Zoe?” Gram repeated.
“Yes, I do,” Damon said.
“Then you can bring the magic back to her.”
“How?”
“Simple. You kiss her,” Gram said.
Damon waved her words away. “This isn’t some stupid freaking fairy tale.”
“No, it’s not. It’s a nightmare.”
“Zoe and I can’t have a future together—”
Gram waved his words away. “We’ll work out the details of that later. For now you have to save her and part of that is—”
“Kissing her. I get it,” he said impatiently.
“Bring the magic back.”
“And no kissing her on the cheek and no tongue, either,” Bella said.
“She’s right,” Gram said. “A simple kiss on the mouth, but you must love her in your heart or all is lost.”
“Then we’re in deep shit because I don’t have a heart,” Damon said.
“Yes, you do, Demon Hunter,” Bella said. “You may not have before, but you do now. You need to believe.”
“I believe what I can see,” he said curtly.
“You couldn’t see the connection between Zoe and you, but you felt it,” Gram said. “You fought it but I know you felt it.”
She was asking him to feel while he fought, and he’d never done that. Not since Gettysburg. Not since he’d become a vampire. Not since he’d become a Demon Hunter.
Loving Zoe was a problem, not a solution.
“I wouldn’t have believed love was possible had I not seen it between Daniella and Nick,” Pat admitted.
“Nick has more humanity than I do,” Damon said.
“True. But you are strong enough that love would not weaken you. This is your destiny.”
“Does that ancient manuscript of yours say how this turns out?” Damon said.
“No,” Pat admitted. “But it does say that the equinox plays a role in this. That the demons’ powers are getting stronger while there are more hours of darkness than light.”
“It’s always darkest before the dawn,” Gram said.
Damon’s eyes were drawn to the weird chair with the writing on it. Amid the cursive French phrases, two words in Latin in the middle of the seat stood out. They seemed to glow. AD FINEM—to the end.
He refused to believe that this was the end. He was a vampire Demon Hunter and he would succeed or die.
* * *
“Welcome to our humble abode, dearie,” Silas told Zoe.
“Did you bring Dr Pepper?” the first Guy said.
Zoe tried to make sense of her situation, but her mind was hazy. The last thing she remembered was cuddling in her bed with Damon. How did she end up here? Where the hell was she?
The tunnels. She was in the tunnels, wearing a tattered red dress. A tattered red Victorian ball gown like something out of Phantom of the Opera. She was lying on something cold and hard. Her hands were bound above her head. Her ankles were bound as well, and she wore sparkly ruby shoes that looked remarkably like those worn by Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.
“I apologize for the lack of amenities,” Silas said. “We couldn’t get out to the embalming room at the moment, so we brought the embalming table to us.”
Zoe could feel the cold metal of the table through the tissue-thin silk of her dress. Not her dress. The dress Silas had put on her.
“Mirror, mirror, get me out of here,” Zoe said frantically.
“No mirror in here. Not that it matters,” Silas said. “It’s no good casting spells, because you’ve lost your magic. Tsk tsk. Such a shame, dearie. You really should have listened to that hybrid when she warned you that having intercourse with the Demon Hunter would result in Vamptown going up in flames.”
Her protest froze in her throat as she got her first good look at the tunnel walls. Or more specifically, what was on the tunnel walls. Spiders. Millions of them. Rappelling down from the ceiling and the walls.
Silas waved his hand toward the insects. “Ah, I see you’ve noticed our little friends. I understand they are not faves of yours?”
“What do you want?”
“I’m supposed to say world peace, right?” Silas laughed
. It was not a pleasant sound. “I want the Book of Darkness, of course.”
“I don’t have it,” Zoe said.
“But you can get it.”
“If I could get it I would have already done so.”
“You just needed a little assistance, dearie. That’s where I come in. I’m here to help you.”
“By holding me against my will?”
“It’s a ritual requirement. Hence the dress and the shoes.”
“Ritual?” Zoe did not like the sound of that.
“Had you kept the Book of Darkness open longer, you would have learned all about this. Your ancestor, the witch Rebekka Adams, cursed me and sent me to hell.”
“You accused her of being a witch.”
“I spoke the truth. She was a witch.”
“She wasn’t hurting anyone.”
“That’s immaterial. I need the youngest witch from her family tree to assist me with the book.”
“You just said I’ve lost my magic.”
“That doesn’t change anything,” Silas said.
It sure changed a hell of a lot for her.
“You’re still a witch. Losing your magic merely made my job that much easier. I’ll have to thank the Demon Hunter for that.”
“He’ll come for me.” She wasn’t sure about that, but it was worth a shot.
“I’m counting on it, dearie. I’m going to kill him and your little cat, too.”
More Wizard of Oz references. Zoe struggled against the chains restraining her. She even tried tapping her shoes together and muttering, “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.”
“Don’t waste your energy,” Silas said. “You’re going to need it for the ritual.”
Zoe kept one eye on Silas and the other on the spiders. She needed a plan. Looking down, she realized the dress barely covered her breasts. She didn’t want to know how Silas had put her in that dress. Some things were too awful to think about right now. She just needed to stall him long enough to devise a plan.
He pulled out … an iPad. “Before we begin, here’s a short informational video about the ritual.”
“I can’t see anything laid flat out like this,” she said.
Laid out on an embalming table, she silently continued. Keep calm and carry on. The table was cold and hard and very uncomfortable but it wasn’t slimy with blood or anything. That was a good thing.
