Sweet Ruin

by Kresley Cole

  Josephine returned not long after, distracting him from his thoughts. She wore a white robe and her necklace. Her small feet were bare. A minuscule silver ring circled one of her tiny toes.

  His attention roamed upward. None of her makeup had washed off. Those shadows still highlighted her eyes and cheekbones, and her translucent skin remained as pale as alabaster. She must have a glamour in place.

  His gaze locked on the helix rings at the top of one ear. Alluring female. "You don't see many immortals with piercings. At least, not freeborn ones." He'd been spared because no one relished drawing his blood.

  "Why?"

  "Long ago, they were used to mark slaves."

  "That so, huh." She sat at the table across from him, meeting his eyes with an unexpected directness--as if she were challenging him. Did he detect a hint of superiority?

  Strange. He held all the cards. "How was your bath?"

  "Water pressure was good. Always a bonus." Steam rose from her wet hair and the fire blazed, yet she rubbed her arms for warmth. Must be thirsty.

  He frowned. She'd taken her fill from him just a day ago, and older vampires could go long stretches without feeding. "Did you lose blood over the day? Feeding another, perhaps?" He'd never considered that she might have a mate or a child--because these things had never mattered with his interrogation subjects before.

  Now he found himself wondering if she'd rocked a babe to sleep with a warm bottle of her blood. A mother would do anything to get back to her offspring.

  Mothers made sacrifices. His own certainly had.

  And a child would mean a mate.

  "I've never fed someone else." So no child. Why should that relieve him so much?

  He pressed a rune carved into the table, and the dishes began to disappear. Another rune materialized a wine service.

  She jerked back and stared like a rustic. Did she live magick-free? Primitive.

  "You don't get out of the mortal realm much, do you?" He poured a goblet, offering it to her.

  "Wine's not really my scene."

  "I could sweeten it with my blood." A statement he'd never thought to say.

  She tilted her head, as if unfamiliar with the concept.

  "I have a vampire ally who lives on blood wine and mead."

  "Vampire?"

  Why would that mention make her heart speed up? Most of her kind could regulate their heartbeats. Perhaps she was younger than he'd thought.

  Then how had she traced with such control? He'd find out all her secrets soon.

  "Isn't mead from way back when?" she asked.

  Rune had to check a grin. "Blace is a very, very old vampire." The oldest.

  "Does he ever visit you here?"

  "No. Never." Rune had hidden knowledge of this place from even his allies.

  "Oh." She looked disappointed.

  What was her interest in another vampire? "Perhaps if you and I can become friends, I'll introduce you to him."

  "And what would it take for us to become friends?"

  "We'd need to establish some measure of trust between us. Sharing information about ourselves."

  "That sounds okay. I'm curious about a lot. Like those symbols everywhere. What are they?"

  He could give a little to get a little. "Runes. My mother's people were Runic demons. They had the power to harness and intensify magicks with these symbols. I happen to have fey magicks innate within me."

  "So if I carved those symbols, they wouldn't wash my dishes?"

  "No. Magick must fuel them." Strong magick. He'd been into his seventies before he could depend on his powers.

  "How many runes are there? How'd you learn them?"

  "Before she died, my mother taught me as many as she could remember. But there were thousands more." Each consisted of fairly basic shapes layered or connected in various, intricate ways.

  He'd memorized every one, had been able to draw them in such meticulous detail that she'd started calling him Rune. He didn't even remember his given name. She'd also taught him reading and languages. By the age of nine, he'd mastered both Fey and Demonish.

  "There were thousands more? Where'd all the symbols go?"

  "Runic demons have gone extinct." Old fury seethed. By the time he'd gotten free of Magh and had gone to search for any Runics, they'd been stamped out. He would never know his people.

  A thought arose, like a balm in his mind. The Morior are my people.

  Josephine asked, "Couldn't you use runes to neutralize your poison?"

  Theoretically, the runes could do anything. "If I knew the correct symbols and combinations."

  "Tell me more about them."

  Now he knew she was stalling. Most people's eyes glazed over when he started talking about this subject--one he alone loved.

  "You have some on your body, don't you?"

  "I do." As she'd soon see. "A few are protection symbols, and a couple help with tracing."

  "Why would you need help?"

  Landing on a moving target like Tenebrous was challenging for any being. Plus . . . "I didn't grow up with that talent." Magh's demons had taught him to teleport--by repeatedly throwing him off a mountain into rapids. In time, he'd figured out how to avoid the fall. "I use some runes for communication." Whenever someone drew Rune's contact symbols, the tattooed band around his right wrist would light up. A blue glow meant the Morior needed him back at the castle; white meant his nymph spies were alerting him about Nix's return to Val Hall. "The link can stretch as far as the Elserealms."

  "The whatta who?"

  "Else, as in uncanny and strange. Those dimensions are exceedingly so. My official home is Perdishian Castle in Tenebrous. It's the capital of the Elserealms and the base of my alliance." Not a secret.

  "What does it look like? Is your place there better than this one?"

  Better than . . . ? Vexing female! "Perhaps I'll tell you more--when you start talking about yourself. For instance, do you have a mate or family?"

  A hint of sadness flashed over her face. "Neither. I'm all by my lonesome."

  A lone vampire without even a coven? Maybe that was how Nix had recruited her. Two could play at that game. If Rune turned Josephine to their side, he could bring Orion a powerful female vampire, an asset.

  "Do you have a Mrs. Rune you routinely cheat on?" she asked.

  He gave her a thin smile. "I'm all by my lonesome."

  "No little Runes running around? Would that take another dark fey?"

  There was no possibility of his siring offspring. He hedged. "My kind is very rare in the Elserealms. In Gaia, it's more accepted for different species to breed. Even fey and demons."

  "Have you been with a dark fey?"

  "I haven't." But he'd once gotten so close. His first brothel master, a sadistic pig, had bought two rare females, promising one to Rune if he satisfied a particularly perverse client over an entire season. The things I did . . .

  Rune had been moments from kissing the dark fey female--before he'd been yanked away, his bargain ignored. How the master had laughed.

  The prick had sold off the pair. When freed, Rune had searched for them in vain.

  Yet as much as he'd burned for that kiss, he craved Josephine's more. The thought made him uncomfortable, so he said, "I have a lead on a dark fey female in your very city."

  The vampire seemed to mull this information. "So you've never been able to do whatever you want in bed?"

  "Correct." He longed to twine his tongue with another's as they traded moans of pleasure. He hungered to go down on a female for the first time, to taste her warm honey, straight from the source. He swallowed. He could with this one. "But you learn not to miss what you can't have." A lie.

  She gave a bitter laugh. "Bullshit."

  "You sound like you speak from experience. What do you miss that you can't have?"

  She studied the sash on her robe. A dead end.

  For now. "Tell me about Nix."

  Josephine raised her face. "Why are you hunting her?"
>
  "I'm an assassin by trade." He'd been a killer for longer than he'd been a whore. "She's my target because she seeks to bring down me and my allies." She'd bring down the entire Gaia realm and all its connected planes if she continued unchecked.

  "Who are your allies?"

  "Brothers. Not by blood, but by choice. We've banded together for most of my life."

  "But they're not dark fey?"

  "They're immortals of all different species." Though they had little in common on the surface, each Morior sought something in Gaia.

  When asked what he desired, Blace had cryptically told Rune, "I want my blood." Typical for a vampire, he supposed.

  Allixta intended to find and punish the rebellious witches who'd settled there.

  Sian refused to specify, would only say, "In Gaia lies my future."

  Before she'd been recruited into the Morior, Allixta had cursed Sian with a spell that caused unbearable agony. Delirious, the demon had muttered about a treacherous fey girl with one amber eye and one violet.

  Maybe Sian yearned for vengeance. He was the only being Rune had ever met who despised the fey as much as he did.

  And Orion? Their liege intended to stop an apocalypse. . . .

  "Enough about me, Josephine. I don't even know where you hail from."

  "Earth," she said. "Texas initially."

  That explained her drawl. "You're not afraid of the vampire plague in the mortal realm?" She was probably immune; she'd withstood his poison easily enough.

  Yet she looked as if she'd never heard of the sickness that had wiped out females of her kind. "Very little frightens me." She rubbed that necklace.

  "Those are bullets."

  She dropped her hand. "So?"

  Did she keep them because she'd been shot? Rune's fangs sharpened, the demon in him rousing protectively. His fey half was quick to point out that Rune himself had contemplated beheading her--and still hadn't decided Josephine's future. "Who shot you?"

  "It doesn't matter. It was a long time ago."

  "Those are modern bullets. How long ago could it be?"

  She jutted her chin. "It's past."

  "I wonder if your friend Nix grew angered when someone fired a gun at you. Perhaps an oracle like her could have warned you what would happen? Or was she busy granting wishes to others?"

  Josephine merely stared at him.

  "Tell me how you met Nix." Nothing. "Did your parents die in the last Accession? What was your family name?"

  Silence.

  "You won't answer any of my questions?" He sighed and rose. "I have other ways of making you talk. On that note, it's time for bed. . . ."

  NINETEEN

  Jo stood and turned toward the fire, keeping her back to him. Time for bed?

  After her shower, she'd tested her ghosting, and yes, she could possess him, even in his super lair. If he tried to force himself on her, she had a place she could hide.

  Inside him.

  He'd been a world away from her previous shells. She'd sensed his power from their first meeting, but inside him, she'd been cocooned by his strength. She'd even perceived his warmth. His heartbeat had lulled her--

  Was he removing his boots behind her? He was stripping!

  Don't turn around, don't turn around. "What are the other ways you'll make me talk?"

  "They involve sexual torture." His voice had grown huskier.

  Huh? "Are you going to use whips and chains on me?"

  "Only if I think you'd like that." He was so matter-of-fact, as if her participation were a foregone conclusion. "More generally, I'll use orgasm denial."

  Just as he'd done when manipulating that nymph. Once the blonde had agreed to do his bidding, he'd rewarded her with orgasms. Good girls get rewards?

  "Until you give me information about Nix, I'll edge you for hours, for days even, if that's what it takes."

  She frowned at the flames. He said that like it was a bad thing? Before last night, her hookups had always ended with her instructing her partner how to get her off, him failing, and her saying, "Oh, for fuck's sake" and then doing it herself.

  Taken all together, her sex life totaled about forty minutes, less than an episode of Walking Dead.

  Three guys. Seven times. Afterward, she'd always wished she'd watched TV instead. A year or so ago she'd quit altogether.

  Edging would mean Rune actually got her to edge. For hours.

  And every second she was with him meant he wasn't out hunting, wasn't accidentally shooting innocent Valkyrie acquaintances.

  Where do I sign? If she neared the brink, she could seduce him to finish her. She might not have tons of experience, but her shells had, and she watched people going at it all the time. If she factored in his thrilling reaction to her bite, Jo figured she could throw him for a loop.

  The way she saw it, they were basically about to fight each other, scrapping for the upper hand--except it'd feel good.

  She was amped! Her only worry was that Rune wouldn't hold out long enough to make it interesting.

  "Ah, your heart beats faster, female. You're right to fear this. Your secrets' lives are about to end."

  God, his voice. Husky but rumbling. Her breaths shallowed. Don't look. . . .

  Naturally she did. When had she ever not looked?

  He stood beside the bed, unbuttoning his shirt. In the courtyard, she'd seen his mind-blowing ass and a side view of his dick. After her hook-up with him, he'd pulled up his pants so fast she'd gotten only a glimpse of the full package. But she'd never seen his chest.

  His shirt gaped open, revealing tattooed runes. One circled his navel, another stretching across his collar bone. As her gaze swept over his chest and rigid pecs, her nipples stiffened, straining against the material of her robe.

  In the firelight, his skin was tan, except for a few lighter-colored scars over his chest and abs. Those marks--taken together with his tattoos--just made him look like more of a badass.

  His jeans were low-slung, revealing the trail of black hair leading down from his navel.

  "My heart's beating faster because I'm ready to get busy," she said, removing her necklace and setting it on the table. The only thing she could tell him about Nix was that she couldn't tell him anything about Nix. Yet Jo liked all the focus on the Valkyrie and not Thad. She'd keep it that way. "But if you want to keep talking instead of doing?"

  Surprise crossed his expression. "And of course I'll deny you my blood."

  Oh. Not so good. If anything else were at stake, she'd sing like a canary for his blood.

  But more was at stake.

  She would be winning tonight. And when she did, maybe she could score her freedom as well. If she could just get him to accept a wager. . . .

  "Come to bed, Josephine. We're both adults. We both know what's about to happen. I haven't even nicked my skin." When he shrugged from his shirt, his torso flexed in a drool-worthy display, every sinew contracting. His shoulders were broad, his arms long and strong--

  Her eyes widened at his right arm. A tattooed sleeve of intertwined runes covered his skin from his shoulder to his wrist.

  Red hot, Rune. Red. Hot. His generous biceps bunched when he tossed the shirt away. As his dick hardened, his jeans forced his erection to grow toward the side; it stretched to his hip.

  He knew the effect he was having on her, and his lips curved into that slanted half grin/half smirk, the diabolically sexy one that made her pant--the one that said, I'm about to do filthy things to every inch of you.

  Just to stoke her need, he daubed the tip of his tongue to the corner of his mouth. That tiny movement made her thoughts seize on his mouth--which he'd no doubt intended.

  What would he do with that tongue? Those lips? Would he give her a blood kiss?

  His eyes darkened to the deepest magenta as he raked his gaze over her body, as if plotting all the places he was about to sample.

  She was getting a taste of the smoldering sensuality of his fey half. Jo like. She found herself grinning ba
ck.

  Before she got too caught up in things, she should pitch her wager. "You wanna make a bet?"

  "About what, dove?" He started on the bulging fly of his jeans.

  "You're going to try to get answers from me. And I'm going to resist you. We should wager who'll win."

  "I have thousands of years of experience with this. And no one has ever resisted me--even when I had one hand tied behind my back. Now? There's no chance of it."

  "So you've been a sexual torturer for thousands of years?"

  "Aside from an assassin, I am also a secrets master. Often I acquire them through my own brand of interrogation. Face it, female, your ass is mine."

  "If you're so certain, promise you'll let me go if you lose." Then she could return to find Thad. To start her new job of watching over him.

  "What will you give me when I win, other than all your secrets?"

  To protect the one she loved, she would withstand this guy. If she failed, then would anything else really matter? "Whatever you want."

  The dark fey was obviously liking that prospect. The magenta of his irises began to bleed out over the whites of his eyes. "That's a far-reaching offer. You have no idea what acts I'd commit upon your body. . . ."

  His words should've intimidated Josephine; she leaned in closer with interest. "What's to stop you from doing them now?"

  "I've never forced a female in my life. I've never needed to. I wouldn't start with you."

  She raised her chin. "Do you take the bet or not?"

  "Oh, I'll take it."

  "How can I be sure you won't back out?"

  "We'll vow to the Lore, of course." As every immortal in the realms did.

  "Yeah, of course," she hastily said.

  Her flashes of ignorance about the most basic things puzzled him. Perhaps she aligned with the Forbearers, an army of male vampires created from mortals. They were a soldiering mass of cluelessness about the Lore. Though she wasn't a turned human, she might've been raised among them.

  She flicked a hand at him. "You go first."

  "Very well. I vow to the Lore to release you from my imprisonment should you withhold your secrets." His defeat was a ridiculous notion, but he played along.

  "Right. I vow to the Lore to let you do whatever you want to me if you get my secrets."

  Whatever I want. His cock pulsed with anticipation. What would he begin with? How could he decide? The starved man presented with a bounty . . .

  "Oh, and one other thing."

  "Hmm?" His eyes leisurely devoured her.