by J. K. Beck
But it was never enough. And each time she thought she was close, she was crushed once again by the weight of a much more powerful sorceress.
“Evangeline?” Serge gaped at the girl, trying to reconcile the fact that this young woman who’d been Alexis’s friend was really Evangeline.
“Mostly,” she said, her smile thin and tight.
“I took nothing from you,” Serge said. “Don’t do this. Don’t destroy Alexis. She’s innocent.”
“You took my life.”
“And yet here you stand.”
She snorted. “I had to destroy my daughter to do so, and her daughter after that.”
“Had to?” he repeated, finally understanding what she’d done. The vile depths of the magic she’d used. “Or chose to?”
“It’s your fault Tomas is dead.” Her eyes flashed wild. He forced himself to keep his voice calm.
“Derrick killed Tomas. Not me. Not Alexis. Take me, and let her live.” Beside him, Alexis murmured a protest, but it was weak. Her skin was gray and clammy. Time was running out. He forced himself to be calm, to think.
“Fool! I killed Derrick because there was no other way to torment him. You? You really seem to love her. What better way to pay you back than to make you watch her die?”
“Please.”
Her body convulsed, and for a moment he clung tight to hope. Then she gathered herself. “Please?” she repeated. “As if you have a right to beg. You’re vile, and you know it. You think she deserves you? That she’d want you?”
“You’re right. I was vile. And no, I didn’t used to think that I deserved her. I do now. She gave me the gift of making me believe it.”
“She was wrong,” Eva said. But her eyes … there was something about her eyes. “And why place blame? Soon you’ll both be dead and it won’t matter.”
He latched on to those eyes. It was Leena, he was certain of it. The girl was inside. Fighting, but weak, and time was running out.
“She’s your friend,” he said, hoping to give her something to grasp. Something to help her rally and fight. “How can you watch her suffer like this?”
Another convulsion, and Serge told himself not to hope. Not yet.
“Everything she’s done for you. All the time you’ve worked with her.”
“I haven’t worked with her,” Eva snarled. “I’ve worked only for myself.”
“Bullshit. You hate vampires? She’s hunted them for you. You were a team. She’s your friend. You’re destroying someone close to you. Hurting you as much as you hurt me.”
“No!” shouted Eva.
“Yes!” shouted Leena. Her eyes flew open, wide and full of pain—but clear. For now at least, they were clear.
“I can’t undo the spell,” Leena said. Her voice was raw, every word ripped from her throat. “But I can take it from her.” She nodded toward Alexis.
“No …” Alexis’s voice was weak. “No, you can’t. You’ll die.”
“I will anyway,” Leena said. “She’s stronger than me.” She winced, doubling over as if someone had kicked her in the gut. “I don’t have much time.” She focused on Serge, ignoring Alexis’s weak protests. “I’ll take the spell from her, and then you take the life from me.” She reached out and grabbed his hand. “I remember now—we’re mixed up enough that I have some of her memories. Take the life force … and then you can save yourself the way you once asked her to do.” Another convulsion. He squeezed her hand.
“Hang on,” he said. “You have to hang on for long enough.”
“I know. I can.” No more time to waste. She reached out and grabbed Alexis’s wrist. A cry wrenched its way from both of their bodies, and then Serge saw a diamond-shaped scar rise on Leena’s wrist.
“Now!” Leena said. “She’s fighting! Oh, God, she’s coming!”
Serge didn’t hesitate. He reached out, grabbed her arm, and drew her essence in. “Thank you,” he said, before her consciousness faded. “Thank you for saving Alexis.”
And then the girl lay dead on the floor, her body desiccated, the sorceress dead.
In his arms, Alexis clung to him, her face pressed against his chest.
He stroked her hair. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
“You had to,” she said, her voice stronger already. “I know you had to.”
He rocked her gently, letting her cry, wishing he could erase the grief, but knowing only time could do that.
After an eternity, she lifted her head. “What did she mean about saving yourself?”
He closed his eyes and reached deep inside his new soul, now filled with the bubbling, vibrant power of magic.
Slowly, he stood, not quite able to believe that he could see the way. That he could, finally, suppress the darkness.
“She meant that she gave me the two things I wanted most in this world. You. And the power to keep the darkness locked deep inside myself.”
“How?”
“For the price of a kiss, I’ll tell you.”
“That,” she said, her lips brushing his, “is a price I’m very willing to pay.”
“Get it!” Alexis screamed. “Stake it! Stake it or it’s going to get me!”
“Well, don’t run toward me!” Serge hollered back at her. “Dammit,” he said as the daemon raced straight toward her. “Alexis, no!”
“Oh, man!” CeeCee turned to Serge with a pained expression. “Why didn’t you stake it? Now Alexis is dead!” She flopped back on the couch. “Jeez, Serge. Sometimes you’re so lame.”
He shrugged and glanced sideways at Alexis, who was holding back a laugh. “I don’t know,” he said, pulling her onto his lap. “She’s pretty spry for a corpse.”
“You guys are both lame,” CeeCee said. She looked toward the opposite couch where Luke and Sara sat talking. “At least you’re better than Luke. He can’t even get past the first level without the zombies eating his brain.”
“Thanks,” Luke said, aiming a wry grin at her.
“Want to play another one?”
Serge laughed. “I don’t think we have time. Alexis and I should be getting the call any minute now.”
As if on cue, the phone rang, and Serge lifted his hand, calling on the power of the air to bring the handset to him. He’d gone to the detention block that morning to feed. No longer did the beast say when, though. When Serge had been infused with Leena’s and Eva’s essences, he’d been able to work their magic. As Leena had suggested, he’d used that magic to subdue the beast and the daemon so that he was no longer ruled by the hunger. Could, in fact, keep both the beast and the daemon locked deep inside forever. Or pull them out and use them. Either way, he was the one in control now.
He’d wielded that control recently, using the power of the beast to take the life force of a jinn who’d killed not only his entire family, but half a dozen humans as well. Serge had spent the morning getting used to the raw power that flowed through him. Every jinn had a proclivity for a certain element, and Serge’s ability now centered on the air, giving him the ability to open wormholes in much the same manner that paradaemons could. More important than that, though, a jinn had the capacity to alter his appearance. To take on the form of another, even if only as an illusion. And since it was Serge’s mission to step into the shoes of a jinn who believed he was a target for assassination, that was the most important skill of all.
“Hello?” he said into the phone.
“We have the location,” the Israeli PEC agent they’d been working with told him. “You’re going to a formal ball in Cairo.”
“Hang on. You can give the location to my coordinator.” He handed the phone to CeeCee, who scribbled notes on the back of a take-out menu. She was happily ensconced in Luke and Sara’s home now, but she’d wanted a role within the PEC. And while she was too young and too inexperienced for anything heavy-duty, Serge had suggested that the girl act as a sort of intern, stepping in as an assistant when Serge and Alexis were in the field. It had been a suggestion that CeeCee had jump
ed on, and it had the added benefit of scoring major brownie points for “Uncle Serge.” Her daemon still hadn’t surfaced, but neither had the beast. And while both Serge and Luke were keeping a close eye on the girl, CeeCee herself repeatedly said that she was content, and that she’d deal with whatever came along. Serge was confident she would deal just fine.
Now CeeCee read the information back to the agent, then hung up and nodded at Serge and Alexis. “Okay. You’re ready to rock-and-roll.”
Beside him, Alexis lifted her bag of weapons and surveillance equipment. On this mission, she’d work with him by remote, feeding him the information he needed about the people he came in contact with while he played the roll of the target jinn. With any luck, they’d have an assassin behind bars by sunrise.
“Be careful,” Sara said as Serge reached out, drawing on the jinn’s power to open a wormhole behind him.
“You’ll call me when you want to come back, right?” CeeCee asked.
“We will,” Alexis said. “But don’t expect us for a day or two.”
CeeCee went to Luke and Sara, squeezing in between them on the sofa. “It’s going to take you that long?”
“Hopefully it won’t take any time at all,” Serge said. “But I thought we’d stay for a while.” He kissed Alexis’s temple. “Maybe take a cruise down the Nile?”
She hooked her arms around his neck, molded her body to his, and brushed her lips over his ear.
“I think that sounds like heaven,” she said, and then she kissed him, so hard and so deep that he barely even noticed when the wormhole closed around them.
And he certainly didn’t notice the sound of CeeCee’s voice trailing after them as the vortex sucked them away. “They get to have all the fun …”
For Shauna, editor extraordinaire
ALSO BY J. K. BECK
When Blood Calls
When Pleasure Rules
When Wicked Craves
Shadow Keepers: Midnight (e-original novella)
When Passion Lies
Can’t get enough of J. K. Beck’s sexy
Shadow Keepers? Get ready to sink your
teeth into When Temptation Burns, coming soon
from Bantam Books.
WHEN TEMPTATION BURNS
On sale 7/31/2012
Turn the page to take a peek inside.…
“Your turn, Kevin!” Stu yelled, rubbing his fist, his knuckles red from having just pounded the shit out of Jordan Lowe’s nose and jaw. “Go for the nose. Come on, Kev, nail the fucker!”
Kevin Whalton cringed; Stu’s shouts were making him even more nervous than he already was. He glanced around the darkened alley, half-hoping there’d be someone else in the shadows behind the locked-up Laundromat. Nobody.
“Fucking hell, Kevin. Now.”
He jumped, scared as a rabbit, but he did what his friend demanded. He tightened his fingers into a fist, lashed out, and watched as his knuckles smashed into their victim’s nose.
No—not a victim. He had to remember that. Had to remember who was the dangerous one here. Because if everything Wes and Stu had told him was true, Jordan Lowe could never be a victim.
Jordan’s head slammed back, making a sick crunching sound as it impacted the brick wall. He howled—literally howled. A low, pained keening that bounced off the wall and filled the dark space around them.
Kevin glanced back at Stu, who was miming punching movements and shouting, “Hell, yeah! That’s the way! Get in another—come on, man, show the freak what you’ve got.”
Wes stood a couple of yards from Jordan, his mouth pulled into a tight smile. “You fucked with the wrong people, puppy dog. We know what you are, and we are so going to take you down.” He swiveled his head to look at Kevin. “Another. Get in another.”
Kevin hesitated, a little sick to his stomach. Less than an hour before, they’d all been having drinks at a bar a few blocks down. Everything had seemed perfectly normal then. Hell, Wes and Stu actually knew Jordan pretty well; they’d been hanging with him for weeks. But tonight they’d pulled Kevin aside to tell him that they didn’t trust Jordan. That they were certain he was a mole. And that Kevin was going to want to see the shit that went down.
Then they’d put something in the guy’s drink. And when Kevin had asked Stu why, Stu had just grinned and said that if they didn’t dose his drink, Jordan would be able to rip all their fucking heads off.
At the time, Kevin had believed it, because why the hell would Stu lie about what Jordan was? About what he could do?
Now, though …
Well, now Jordan looked whipped. Like he couldn’t beat up a six-year-old girl, much less three college sophomores.
“Goddammit, Kevin. Are you a fucking pussy or what? Hit the mongrel bastard! Hit him!”
“Do it!” Wes added, and their voices bolstered him. Made his muscles tighten and his pulse quicken. “Goddammit, do it now—do it and I swear to God the unholy fuckwad will show you that everything we’ve told you is true!”
That did it. Kevin lashed out, his right fist connecting hard with Jordan’s temple even as his left jabbed into the kid’s gut. Jordan went down, doubling over as he clutched at his stomach. Then he looked up, and Kevin stumbled backward.
Holy fuck—Jordan’s eyes were yellow.
Yellow and wild and full of hate and anger.
Kevin shivered, not sure what he was seeing. Not sure what to believe. He’d gotten in with Wes and Stu and the rest of them because they’d told him what was out there—and that they needed his help to stop it. To stop them. But until tonight it had all been theory and conjecture and folks making speeches about what they knew and what they believed. Until tonight Kevin had never actually seen one of them. Hell, he hadn’t even been sure if he believed in monsters or if he just wanted to get on Wes and Stu’s good side.
But he believed now. Fuck, yeah, he did.
“Don’t fight it, pup,” Wes said, giving Jordan a kick.
“We wanna see. Don’t we Stu? Don’t we Kevin?”
“Shit, yeah,” Stu said, bouncing like a boxer itching for a fight. He pulled out a knife, the blade glinting in the dim light from the alley’s streetlamps. “Scared, fucker? It’s pure silver. That’s gonna hurt.” He lunged forward, the blade aimed at Jordan’s stomach, but at the last second, Jordan thrust his arm up, moving fast considering how battered he was, and knocked the knife to the ground.
Quicker than Kevin could see, Jordan had Stu pinned on the ground. “Think you’re clever?” he rasped, his body bent over Stu’s. “How clever will you be when I rip your head off with my goddamned teeth?”
Jordan’s skin started to ripple, and Kevin could see his bones shifting beneath his skin. A loud roaring filled Kevin’s head, and his knees started to give out—fuckin’ A, he was about to faint.
“Kev! Kevin!”
Wes’s voice pulled him back, and he blinked, groggy.
“Get Stu’s knife, man! Now!” As Wes spoke, he was lunging toward Jordan with his own knife. Kevin couldn’t move; he couldn’t do anything but stare at the creature in front of him. Holy shit; they’d told him what would happen, what the kid was. But telling and seeing were two different things. And seeing was fucking terrifying.
“Now, goddammit, or Stu’s dead!”
Jordan was clutching Stu’s head in his hand, and he slammed it against the asphalt with a sickening thud. The noise spurred Kevin to action, and he darted sideways for Stu’s lost knife, then rushed forward, leading with the point of the blade. He felt the resistance as the tip hit Jordan’s skin, then the give as it slid into the muscle, the full force of Kevin’s weight pushing it right to the hilt, right to the bone.
On the other side of the creature, Wes was jabbing, too, his mouth moving, his words a mishmash of unintelligible curses with only a few words like silver and fucking and werewolf coming out clear.
Another roar echoed—only this one wasn’t inside of Kevin’s head. It was coming from Jordan, who’d reared back, arms flai
ling as he knocked aside their knives and climbed to his feet. Kevin braced himself, certain he would need to do battle with this, this thing. But then Jordan turned and loped off down the alley, leaving Stu curled up in a ball and moaning on the pavement.
“Catch him!” Wes cried, pulling out a gun and firing it so close to Kevin’s head that for a moment he thought he was deaf. He wasn’t, though, and Wes’s shouts pushed through the cotton that now seemed to fill his ears.
“Goddammit, I missed the fucker! Catch him! Run! Shit, we have to catch him. If he gets away, we’re dead. We’re totally fucking dead.”
He was dead.
No other possible outcome.
He’d been stupid. Lazy and reckless, and somehow they’d found him out.
And now he was dead, or he would be soon enough.
Except he couldn’t die—not like this. Not without letting someone know how bad it was. How close they were. And how dangerous.
His legs pumped as he moved down the alley, the weakness unfamiliar after so many years of pure, glorious strength. He’d known about the dangers of silver, of course. What werewolf didn’t? But he’d been arrogant and foolish enough to believe they’d never get him with it. To believe they’d never find out about him. That he’d be smart. That he’d be safe.
He’d been an idiot, and soon he’d be a dead one.
Not once in his wildest dreams had he imagined that they would lace his drink with colloidal silver. But they had, and he’d drunk it down, and it had ripped his advantage away from him right then and there, weakening his muscles and making his mind fuzzy and confused.
Once he figured out what they had done to him, he managed to get away, pushing through the thick Friday night crowd to the kitchen, then out the back door through the alley. He’d run aimlessly in the dark, just wanting to put distance between him and his tormentors. He’d thought he’d lost them, had even leaned against a Dumpster to take a deep, self-satisfied breath.
