by Evie Byrne
Gunnar gaped like a fish. Wat gave him a shove in the back, pushing him along after Eva. At first, she wove through the crowd, dwarfed by the rough looking men around her, almost invisible, but as the other patrons began to notice her presence, the crowd parted in front of her. Men and women turned to stare at her with mingled looks of fascination and desire. Without a doubt, she was the most beautiful woman in the room, and she was doing nothing to conceal her vamp-born glamour. In fact, he suspected she was playing it up. From the look on her face, she was enjoying herself.
She led the way to the long bar, which was lined with people on stools, with more people crowded between them, trying to get the bartender’s attention. When she approached, several men jumped to their feet and offered her a seat. She settled on a stool, crossed her obscenely bare legs, and smiled. Wat knew each man would think that smile was for him…and him alone.
Gunnar made to follow her, but Wat put a hand on his shoulder. “Best stay away from her. You don’t want those men to think you’re competition. They’re going to get all riled up soon enough.”
Gun nodded. “What’s she doing?”
“Playing with them. Like a cat with mice. That’s what they do, city vamps.”
The boy considered this, but not as if it were necessarily a bad thing. “Could I learn to do that, I mean, with girls?”
Wat squeezed his arm. “Listen to yourself. They’re not animals or toys. They’re our cousins.” The boy looked abashed, so he softened his tone. “Come on. I’ll buy you a beer. By the looks of things, this won’t take long.”
But he was wrong. Miss Eva Padilla Sosa was in no hurry it all. She and her newfound friends were having too much fun shouting and laughing and pounding tequila shots. And as they did, more men, and some women, came to hover around her like bugs around a porch light. He settled on a stool and resolved not to watch too closely. She’s dangerous, that one. And not for you. Most definitely not for you. He rested his hot forehead on his hand and spun his beer bottle in slow circles. Not for you.
He snapped out of his reverie when Eva leapt onto the bar and pulled a waitress up with her, a curvy young woman with hair the color of red wine and a skirt as short as Eva’s. They danced to a song he remembered hearing when he was out wandering the human world.
“You’ve got to change your evil ways, baby…”
Wat couldn’t resist watching, though he knew it wasn’t wise. They danced with their arms above their heads, hips grinding in fascinating circles, their short skirts hiking up high enough to show the curves of their asses. The waitress was cute, but Eva was a dark flame, boneless, far more graceful than any human. She slithered up and down the girl, skimming her hands over the waitress’s hips, belly, and breasts. The girl succumbed to her touch and instinctively offered Eva her throat. Eva took a sip, a move too fast for humans to discern. However, they did see the resulting long, ecstatic shudder that passed through the girl’s body—and roared their approval.
Wat shouted for another beer. He used compulsion, so the bartender rushed to serve him, leaving about fifty other people waiting. If you want the girl, Eva, take her. Finish it. This place was too warm. Too crowded. It stank. She was driving the crowd to frenzy. If she lost control, there could be a riot.
A blonde girl came to lean against the bar on the other side of Gunnar. Wat registered that she seemed shy and almost wholesome, especially for that place. And he noted Gunnar, equally shy, saying “hi” to her, but categorized that interaction as much less a threat than what Eva was doing.
The music pulsed through him, hypnotic and red-hot. Erotic energy pierced the air like shrapnel, hovered like fallout. Eva danced with her eyes half-closed, her arms held high, her hands inscribing magical shapes in the air. A couple at her feet began to kiss, to grind hips, to shed clothing.
His blood throbbed in his temples. Beneath the bar, his fingers shredded wood.
A woman with a lush figure and high, high heels mounted a pool table and began a striptease. One man rushed up to lick her ankles. Another climbed up to mouth her breasts.
The lights dimmed and turned the color of blood, throbbing in time with the pulse in his temples. Throughout the bar, couples began writhe together, falling into booths, retreating to dark corners.
Gunnar! Wat turned in a panic, but found Gunnar and the girl still beside him, talking a mile a minute about movies they’d seen. They hadn’t even noticed the orgy around them.
Someone flipped on the strobe lights, and Wat’s world transformed into a series of silvered snapshots: Eva crouching on the bar, her hand extended to the crowd. A man up on the bar beside her, his smile broad and white. Eva pressing her body to his. The man’s big hands spread across her ass, his fingers inching beneath her skirt.
The bottle in Wat’s hand shattered. He picked glass shards out of his hand, his eyes riveted on the show, no different than any of the other men standing around the bar, entranced by her. Wanting her.
Eva ripped open the man’s shirt, ran her hands up his bare chest, caressed him, and then bit him above the right nipple. The man shuddered. A thin line of red ran down his belly. The watchers moaned. Wat ricocheted between revulsion and desire.
Eva licked her lips and looked up, her vision slicing through the crowd, seeking Wat, finding him. When she did, her eyelashes lowered like a veil, denying him her gaze. She turned her head and bit into flesh again.
This was revenge. This was a tease. This was a slap in the face.
He imagined her blood filling his mouth—forbidden, but so sweet.
His cock strained against his jeans.
Beneath the snaking bassline, he heard gasps and moans. The place began to smell of sex.
Eva’s victim fell to his knees, stunned. Finished with him, she shoved him off the bar, extended her hand into the crowd again and dragged up another man. This one was young and handsome and dark like she was. He wore faded jeans and biker boots. She grabbed his head and kissed him. The kiss turned long and molten.
Wat began to tremble. He braced his hands against his knees but could not stop shaking. He told himself to leave, but could not move.
Eva broke the kiss, took her chosen one by the hand, and began to walk down the bar with him. Wat leapt after them.
Wat’s mouth went dry, and his fingers tingled. His focus narrowed to a single point. Her. He shoved his way through the crowd, reveling in the way bodies scattered before him, in the surprised terror on the faces of those who met his eyes. Blood and bone, he craved the kill.
Eva and her chosen prey exited through a pair of emergency doors by the end of the bar. It took him a little longer fight his way across the floor. He banged through the doors. Nostrils flaring wide, he stood in a yellow spill of light, casting around for her scent. When he caught it, his teeth lengthened, and he sprinted into the darkness. They’d come out in the truck lot. The steel sides of the trucks rose around him like canyon walls. He darted through them, searching.
He lost her scent abruptly—lost it when she got into one of these trucks, he realized. But then he heard it: her laugh, low and throaty. In seconds, he’d honed in on the red Peterbilt. Again she laughed. He threw open the door and jumped in the cab. They lay tangled on the cot in the back of the cab. The trucker swore, moved—he was slow, irrelevant. Wat picked him up and tossed him down onto cold gravel. From above, he compelled him. “Go. Forget.”
He turned to Eva. She hissed like a cat, her teeth gleaming. But she was trapped in the back of the cab. For her, there’d be no escape.
A scrap of poem drifted through his head.
"And now I go / To far lands / Never to return.”
He ducked into the rear compartment. Eva flew off the bed, sending her claws at his eyes, her knees to his groin, her elbows to his gut. He felt no pain. He shoved her back on to the bed and braced his arms on either side of the low door. The blood pounded in his temples. In his groin. When he spoke, he didn’t recognize his own voice.
“Take off your sweater.
”
At first, she stared up at him, her eyes sparking with defiance, but then her eyelids turned heavy, whether from submission or pleasure or something else, he didn’t know and didn’t care. She tugged the sweater over her head. Beneath she wore a black brassiere, a foreign device which molded her breasts into two high rounds. They rose and fell with her quick breaths, and her belly fluttered. “That, too,” he said.
With shaking fingers she unsnapped a clasp between her breasts and shrugged out of the straps. Her breasts were small and proud, their nipples tight brown buds. His heart pounded in his chest, faster than at any kill. His own hands shook as he reached down and tugged her skirt over her slender hips, down her muscular thighs. She lifted her booted feet and kicked free of it. Now she was shaking from head to toe, but not with fear. No, not Eva. She reclined on the bed, splendid in her wispy black underwear and high boots, her eyes full of the same primal challenge he’d seen after the hunt. He unfastened his jeans. Planting her boots on the edge of the cot, she opened her knees.
He fell. Fell far, fell achingly slow to lay over her. Their chests heaved together, their noses brushed, and he was kissing her. The world narrowed to her sweet, warm mouth, the hungry interplay of lips and tongue. “Damn you,” he growled.
She moaned and fisted her fingers in his hair. His lips ground against her razor sharp teeth. He slid his hands under her cool, smooth back and drew her tight against him. He tasted blood, his own and hers. She shuddered again and again, her hips rising against his. Blind with need, he reached down, took hold of his hot, throbbing cock and pushed in, pressing aside the scrap of wet silk.
“Ah!” she cried, wrapping her legs around his hips. His eyes rolled up as he sank into hot, tight, satin wetness. “Fuck, yes!” she cried again, her head falling back as he pressed in, taking her, taking all of her, until he was sheathed, and she pulsed around him, their bodies humming and vibrating with the tension of wanting, an avalanche of need.
He withdrew and took her again. Slow. Savoring every inch, while his body trembled under the restraint of his will.
“Oh, Jesus!” Her nails sank into his shoulders, her boot heels into his flanks.
He’d never felt so hard, so tight, so heavy. She panted and writhed under him. He reared up on his hands, looked down at her hungry eyes, her bruised, aching lips, and gave up on restraint.
He thrust into her again and again, faster and faster, as the world disintegrated into rolling waves of dark, hungry ecstasy. He could never have enough of her. He gathered her close. Her hands were urging him one, nails raking his skin, her hips rolling, smooth and liquid and hot. Sweat gathered on his low back, dripped down his sides. He buried his face in her neck, breathed her skin’s scent and the musk of their coupling. The cot creaked on its hinges. His belly slapped against hers. Her skin gleamed with sweat. She was slippery, inside and out, all soft skin and yielding flesh and—it wasn’t quite enough.
He flipped her over, rough handed, seeking what, he did not know, and took her from behind, driving a bestial moan from her throat. Her bottom was round and ripe, the space between her thighs filled with him. His lips twitched with a snarl of satisfaction as he watched himself thrust, watched the force of it travel up her delicate spine. She looked back over her shoulder at him, her expression wanton.
Burning up, he ripped off his sodden shirt and vest. He lifted her up on her knees, so her back pressed against his bare chest, so he could cup and squeeze her breasts. Her head fell back to rest on his shoulder, her perfumed hair swamped his nose. Tempted by the length of her throat, he ran his tongue up it, tasting her sweat. She reached up, locked her hands behind his head. They moved together, slower, every move the darkest, deepest pleasure he’d ever known. Unbearable. He reached down between her legs and stroked her at her parting. She stiffened, her breath catching. Inside, she contracted. He stoked her faster, his fingers wet and slippery. She moaned, her voice low and broken.
And at that moment she was helpless, pinned between pleasure and pain, entirely in his control. She gasped his name. His blood leapt with excitement. He moved inside her, deliberately, hooking deep and holding. She was quivering. She was his. He pinched one of her nipples, and she fell into racking shudders. He held her close, feeling the storm shake her, his own release near. Still, he wanted more. He drove into her helpless body, his hands on her breasts, his mouth on her shoulder, her neck. His teeth scraped her throat. Blood called, a cry deeper than reason. His teeth opened and closed on her throat, just beneath her jaw. And she didn’t protest. She sighed in complete submission. The dark beast in him howled with triumph, and he came. Silently. Violently. The hot jetting of his ejaculation overpowering, very like pain. Her blood filled his mouth, filled his mind, and for a while, he knew nothing else.
It was like surfacing from deep waters. Her blood coursed through his veins. His mind floated, unhinged, rich with knowledge of her, his body sated past exhaustion. He lay on the bed, half on top of her, their limbs tangled, their flesh still hot and moist. A wound and a smear of blood marred her throat, irrefutable evidence of what he’d done. He’d attacked her, taken her like an animal, and, unsatisfied even with that violation, had gone on to take her blood.
Mother of All, what have I done? Could Eva forgive him? The beast within bristled and stalked and didn’t care what she thought. It wanted to do it again. Unbidden, his hand reached out to touch her, to trace the line of her throat, the tender curve of her breasts, the lean lines of her belly. He could not help but touch her, to need her still.
He craved more of her blood— the ultimate madness. If human blood was at all like Eva's blood, he understood why her kind fed on humans. Her blood was like a powerful drug, rich with intelligence, memory, soul, even words. Fragments of her thoughts flitted across his mind, evocative as poetry.
His touch roused her. Her eyes cleared, and she focused on him. Though he’d been inside her, tasted her sweat, her mouth, glimpsed her soul in her blood, he couldn’t guess what she was thinking. Her long lashes drooped, veiling her eyes, and a slow, sleepy smile spread over her lips. “That—” She said hoarsely. “That was very naughty, Mr. Regent.”
He couldn’t believe she’d smile at him after what he’d done. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
Who was he kidding? He’d do it again in a heartbeat, if he had the strength. “For none of it, to tell the truth.” he said with a sigh. “Seems lying about it only makes the offense worse.”
Again she smiled, her dimples flashing. “I’m not sorry, either.”
“You should be angry.”
She stretched, arching her back. “I’ll try to work up some indignation later.”
“You’re not hurt, are you? Other than—” he gestured toward her neck.
“I’d say you got the worst of it.” With lazy fingers, she traced a line of scratches on his cheek, a bruise on his ribs, nail punctures on his shoulders, bruises on his flanks, revealing to him all her tiny acts of revenge on his body. Every touch brought him more unspeakable pleasure.
She said, “You don’t do the whole bonded mate thing up here, do you?”
“The what?”
“It’s rare, but in some families there’s a tradition of pair bonding, which is initiated by blood. Like Alya and Mikhail. If you were one of those people, you could be bonded to me for life now, just because you drank my blood.” With a laugh she added, “You don’t have to look so appalled.”
Was she serious? Trying to scare him? “I’ve never heard of that.”
“Let me know if you exhibit any symptoms. Like loss of appetite…or insatiable desire.” Her hand drifted down his belly and circled his growing erection. That, he knew, had nothing to do with bonding and everything to do with his own madness.
He put his hand over hers, stilling it. “We can’t do this again.”
“Don’t worry. What happens in Rust Jaw, stays in Rust Jaw.” She kissed him. For a moment, he indulged himself, reveling in her plump, smooth l
ips, sweet as honeyed milk. In another moment, his tongue was in her mouth, hungry again, searching—and he was hard against her thigh. What did more sin matter now? He’d assaulted a trucker, forced a woman—sort of—would have—bitten her, certainly—forgotten every—
“Gunnar!” Gunnar was alone in that cesspit. With a girl.
Against his lips, she murmured, “Gunnar is fine.”
Suddenly he had a very bad feeling.
Chapter Nine
Wat jumped off the bed, buttoned his jeans, and found his shirt. There’d be no stopping him now. She rushed to dress just as fast. No time to screw with the bra—she left it for the trucker and followed Wat out of the truck. Once he hit the ground, he sprinted for the back door of the bar. She swore beneath her breath and struggled to keep up. He slammed through the door with her close behind.
The party had continued in her absence, she noted with some satisfaction. The Hole looked like Sodom and Gomorrah. She hadn’t seen so much skin in one place for a long time, maybe not since she’d attended that porn-studio launch in the Valley. Something crunched under her boot: a spray of Viagra tablets on the floor.
Wat scowled at the scene.
As if he could throw stones…
Eva suppressed her glamour. Not only did she not want to attract attention anymore, she wanted be invisible, so she took the extra step of wrapping herself in a cloak of Something Completely Uninteresting. Wat took no such precautions, but no one would mess with him in any case.
She hopped over a burly man passed out in the middle of the floor, his pants MIA, and a smile plastered on his face. The high step made her wince. Dang. She’d forgotten how vamp cocks were extra…extra everything. That tea better work.
“Dammit. Where is he?”
She glanced at Wat, eyebrows raised.
“He was right there.” He pointed at an empty stool.
She feigned innocent concern.
Wat scanned the area, sniffed, and then stalked to a nearby booth. In it, they found the Prince of the Northwoods Territory—gasp!—feeding on a human.
