Scarlet Night: The Complete Trilogy

by Megan J. Parker

  Serena was shaking; her face a constricted mess of pent-up tears and pain that was growing beat-red around his clawed grip. Despite this—despite the growing agony that he could practically see welling within her—she resisted her own weaknesses and spit in his face. “You could arrange a fucking gangbang with the entire cast of ‘Magic Mike,’ and I’d still wait for him rather than settle with the likes of you!”

  Weakening or not, a lesson had to be taught.

  He couldn’t bring himself to grin in the face of her defiance when her mucus was trickling down his cheek.

  His fist landed with enough force to send her back, ricocheting off the padded walls of her cell and toppling back into him; the enchanted chains binding her jangling with the sudden movement.

  Maledictus rose to his full height as his grip on her shoulders tightened and he growled in her face. “At some point I’m going to have to make a note of correcting the wretched habit of your flapping tongue!” He threw her back into the corner with a meek sense of pride as she cowered in his shadow, reaching to the crotch of his body to work his genitals free of the accursed “pocket” they were nestled in as he took a step towards her “And, at the rate you’re going, that time will come sooner than you’d like!”

  Serena struggled to muster her strength, sensing a struggle coming up. “Take another step and I’ll be flapping my foot up your scaly ass!”

  Maledictus smirked at the threat. “Time to see if you can follow through with your chatter!”

  He came down upon her, dropping the full force of his weight against her to overpower any efforts she might’ve been planning. Serena’s left fist hooked around and slammed into his ribs—something snapping and shifting beneath his leathery hide—before she sacrificed her balled fists in an effort to push the impending force off of her. Muffled grunts and whimpers oozed into Maledictus’ shoulder, which he propped against the thrashing blonde’s throat to keep her pinned and still while he hooked one of his talons under one of the straps of her stained tank top. Serena growled against the restraint and lunged, trying to bite at the side of her attacker’s face; her teeth snapping as her fangs left a pair of ruby trails across Maledictus’ cheek. Hissing at her resistance, Maledictus cocked his head towards her and slammed several of the solid-bone horns along the side of his head into her face.

  Serena’s attack faltered and her eyes went cloudy as they rolled about in her skull.

  “Good little sluts should learn to sit still!” Maledictus growled as he yanked his talon back, cutting the first strap—sagging half of her top over her chest—and reaching across to do the same with the second.

  “Then maybe you should stop squirming, bitch!” Serena’s words, though every bit as snarky as he’d come to expect, were muddy with her dizziness.

  He raised his opposite hand and pinned her head against the wall, keeping her from biting him as he worked to rid her of her clothes. “Ever the defiant little shit, aren’t you?”

  She grumbled something.

  Curiosity got the better of him and he paused to look up at her, sneering. “What was that, bitch?”

  Serena’s vampire speed caught him off guard then. He hadn’t seen her right arm move at all, yet, in the blink of an eye, her hand was wrapped around the horn just behind his left ear.

  “I said,” her eyes came to settle as the defiance returned to her tone, “that your punk-ass hasn’t even seen defiance yet!” She gave a sharp yank, an elongated cracking sounding both outside and inside Maledictus’ head as the horn was snapped from his skull. “But I guess you don’t hear so well without any ears, huh?” Serena mused, spinning the pointed hunk of bone in her palm and pulling it back, “Let’s fix that, SHALL WE?”

  Maledictus shrieked in agony as his horn was stabbed into the side of his head, raking against several of his new teeth as it breached the back of his jawline.

  “Aw shit! Missed your brain,” Serena offered him a fake pout as she worked to yank her makeshift weapon free. “Let’s try that one more time!”

  “LET’S NOT!”

  Maledictus pulled the horn from his face and jumped back, kicking down on Serena again and again until the blind fury at her attack subsided to a slow boil. Serena cried, her body quaking under the assault as the burden of her wasted burst of energy—that momentary flood of adrenaline—began to wear off.

  “Enough of this dumb brute business!” Maledictus growled, cupping his left hand over the gaping wound on the side of his head. Extending the fingers of his right hand, he willed his old magic to take hold of the she-vamp and, as he watched her body strain against the invisible force, slammed her against the wall; binding her body with the enchantment.

  Serena struggled, and, as the realization that she was magically pinned settled in, she narrowed her eyes and opened her mouth.

  “Uh uh! No more of your snark, missy!” Maledictus pinched his thumb and middle finger together and Serena’s jaw snapped shut and locked. He smirked, “Why in the fuck didn’t I think of that before?”

  Serena’s muffled whimpers went from angered by her forced silence to panicked as Maledictus once again closed in on her. The need for brash, full-body attacks was past him—his magic hold on her offering him the ability to go about his task with more flamboyancy than ever before—and he felt himself fall into a swagger as he approached and worked one of his claws behind the remaining tank top strap.

  “Do you ever just stop to appreciate the power of the naked body, buttercup-bitch?” he asked as he offered the strap a few teasing tugs, refraining from using enough force to sever it just yet. “You look at all the shit out there that people can appreciate the sight of—fucking art and nature and all that whimsical crap—and you realize that nothing else—fucking nothing!—has as much demand for repeat views as, say, a nice pair of tits.” He sliced through the strap and Serena’s top fell halfway down her breasts, teasing the moment; he smirked at this. “Or, even moreso”—he accentuated his rant by dragging the claw down her cleavage and over the top of the tortured garment, tearing the fabric in a few places but leaving it enough to remain intact as he worked ever downward—“a waiting cunt.”

  Serena let out an enraged howl behind her locked lips, the impact coming off as a garbled growl with a few high-pitched moments where the air fueling the protest hiccupped in her no-doubt aching throat.

  She had been screaming and crying an awful lot.

  “See, a person can see a fine piece of art once and feel content with that; they could squat on their deathbed and say, ‘At least I got to finger my asshole to the Mona Lisa that one time,’ or whatever those dumb fucking meat-puppets think to themselves over such trivial nonsense. But you never—not even fucking once—will hear an old fart succumbing to that sweet, finalizing sleep utter the words, ‘I’ve seen enough tits in my life’ or ‘What I wouldn’t give to bury my face in one last—’” he sighed, realizing he was rambling. “Well, you get my point. Just look at you, for example: luscious golden hair,” he pulled his claw away from her lower belly and ran it through the strands that fell across her left shoulder—her right shoulder noticeably bare from the asymmetry he’d caused when he’d yanked the tuft out during his escape—and ignoring the stifled shiver that worked beneath his magic hold on her. “Then there’s these purple eyes of yours”—he teased the claw just in front of her terrified cornea—“and, of course, this body!” He finally ripped the tank top from her body, tossing it to the other corner of the room where she’d be unable to retrieve it, and freed her breasts from the confines of the black bra that waited beneath; opting to yank it off and letting the snapping material sting against his victim’s flesh.

  Then, just like that, there they were…

  He scoffed and shook his head, “It’s not like I haven’t seen them before, either. I mean—fuck!—I was nestled in Zaney-boy’s noggin since day numero uno; I have literally sat front-row-fucking-center for every lewd and depraved act. All the things you did to him—to us—and all the things you le
t him do to you; hell, begged him to do to you!” He smirked and leaned in, dragging his forked tongue across her right cheek; the open wound on the side of his face gliding across her jaw as he moved, “You know, most girls aren’t so fond of the back-door action, and your enthusiasm was certainly not going unnoticed.”

  Another stifled howl.

  Maledictus backhanded her, “Shut the fuck up, bitch! That was a compliment! All of this has been! You fucking think I’d go through all this trouble for just any piece of pussy? Huh?” He moved to hit her again and smirked when he saw her eyes twitch—the fear making itself known—and he chuckled, offering, instead of another strike, a few soft pats on her cheek. “There is something about you, Serena; something engaging; something compelling,” he narrowed his eyes at her, taking in the vision of her naked, heaving breasts, “Something… familiar.”

  His hand dropped to his side as his gaze wavered at a distant sight.

  Something…

  Familiar?

  Where had he seen her—

  Another of Serena’s muffled cries broke the swirling void of the ages in his mind, and, enraged by her interruption, he struck her again.

  And again.

  And again.

  “WHO IN THE FUCKING HELL ARE…” he paused, looking at the quivering, bloodied girl before him and spit out the last of his lingering rage on her naked chest. “Lesson over, bitch! Now it’s time for extra-credit!”

  He moved his hands—still shaky from the strange, ghostly shadows of whatever memories were calling to him—to separate Serena from her jeans. Again and again he fumbled with the task, growing evermore enraged by his own weakened resolve at—

  He paused.

  Weakened resolve?

  Then his magic would also be…

  Serena’s energy flared, and a wave of glowing purple strands—his body’s interpretation of the aura he’d seen her use so many times before—began to break free of his weakened magic hold on her.

  The hold on her mouth broke, and she took in a sharp inhale; the sight of her fully extended fangs offering a morbid mixture of arousal and concern in Maledictus.

  “Shit…”

  “‘Shit’ doesn’t even begin to cover it, you rape-happy smegma-stain!” she roared and threw herself from the wall, tackling Maledictus. As the two of them fell to the floor, she worked the enchanted chains that bound her around his throat. “Fucking disgusting, power-hungry, twisted freak!” Punch after punch was driven into the side of his head; the enraged blonde she-vamp targeting the wound she’d inflicted on him; each impact sending wave-upon-wave of searing hot pain coursing through his pinned body.

  Pinned…

  All around him, the purple strands held him to the floor—making him think of glowing thread that had him stitched to the padded surface—and forced him to endure the pummeling.

  Oh sweet irony…

  She was so the girl for him!

  The sheer perfection drew a series of cackles out of him as she continued her assault. Enraged by his reaction, she drove a knee into his groin; his laughter doubled. She drove her elbow in the broken rib she’d given him earlier; he howled in amusement.

  It was all too perfect!

  “Ruin everything”—Serena caught him across the face with a left hook and then—“Think you’re badass”—she jabbed her locked fingertips into his windpipe; stifling the laughter for a moment before it flared up again—“Think that lusting after death and destruction are power”—a wave of punches rained down on his chest; Serena’s fists moving too fast to see—“Show you! Once and for all, I’ll show you!” Eager to inflict pain on him, she moved to gouge his eyes…

  And his right eye finally ruptured.

  “About fucking time!” Maledictus cackled.

  Serena shrieked in disgust, fury still causing her body to shake as she jumped back and began to shake the vile fluid from her left hand.

  Free of the onslaught and Serena’s auric hold on him, Maledictus swung his tail out—sweeping the retching blonde off her feet—and bee-lined for the door.

  “NO!” Serena spotted his efforts and threw her aura after him, slamming into his back and throwing him against the door.

  His right arm, taking the force of the impact, popped free of his shoulder—the reinforced siding of the door warping and a portion of the padded wall tearing around the seam—and the limb dropped several inches before swinging lamely at his side like a dead hunk of meat.

  Maledictus hissed in pain as he struggled with the jammed door. “Fucking bitch!”

  Serena fought against the enchanted chains, trying to free herself. “Yea, you better run, you fucking coward! Next time you bring that shit in here you’d better bring a pair of balls with you!”

  Finally getting the door open, Maledictus turned an infuriated eye on the she-vamp—unable to find any pleasure in her still-naked breasts and what they represented at that moment—and sneered. “Know this, rancid harlot: when I do take you, I’m going to make sure it hurts you!”

  The door slammed behind him.

  Serena stood, staring at the door for a long while. She wasn’t certain if she was waiting for the monster to return or if she was in some temporary form of shock and unable to will her body to do anything more than stare.

  The attack was still too fresh.

  She couldn’t bring herself to shrug it all off; couldn’t stream any sequence of vulgarity to make what she’d just endured alright.

  Maledictus was just as strong, just as stubborn, just as vulgar…

  But she… she had limits; boundaries that even she would not allow herself to cross.

  Like lying to herself.

  It was one thing to deceive an enemy—or, hell, even a friend—if it meant she could work it to her advantage. Telling Zoey that she’d be more careful the next time she drove was just her way of ensuring that her friend would be willing to hand over the keys on their next adventure. And convincing a rape-happy lizard-monster carrying the single-most destructive and evil force she’d ever encountered that she could be every bit the bitch she’d worked so hard to convince the world she was was her way of trying to keep it afraid of her. But she couldn’t, in all her acts of deceit, come to try to lie to herself; no matter how many promises of safe, slow car rides she’d offer to Zoey, she could never believe that she’d be so reckless as to actually endanger her best friend.

  Nor could she bring herself to believe that she wasn’t absolutely terrified.

  Serena’s body crumbled under her own weight then, fear and despair and exhaustion—her already starved system beginning to turn inward; punishing her for calling upon energy reserves that didn’t exist to fight—and she shivered with the realization that she wouldn’t be able to fight back if… she shook her head, once again unable to lie at herself—wouldn’t be able to fight back when Maledictus came back to finish what he’d started.

  She wasn’t even strong enough to retrieve her shredded tank top with her aura…

  Tears rolled down her cheeks as Serena began to sob, curling up on the floor and shivering against more than just the cold. “Zane… please, I need you… Where are you?”

  6

  Lighting the Way

  “Where’s Zane?” Nikki asked, stepping into the community room. Looking around, she noticed that it was emptier than usual and bit her lip. After the kidnapping of the clan’s still-young leader, half of the clan had vanished—seeing the disappearance as a chance to focus on their current missions without concern of new assignments or a curfew—while the other half had abandoned their previous missions and gone out on their own extended patrols for any clues to her whereabouts. This, it turned out, left the clan’s headquarters uncomfortably empty. “Damn,” Nikki shivered at the ghostly silence, “that’s eerie.”

  “Tell me about it,” Raith said, looking over at her. “Zane went out to meet with an informant that he thinks might be able to help. Why? What’s up?”

  Nikki frowned, “Did that Celine-chick go wi
th him?”

  Raith sneered at the mention of Celine, “Yea. He didn’t look too thrilled about it, but she was pretty adamant about going along. She was always like that…clingy and such.”

  Nikki rolled her eyes and took a seat beside him. “I don’t know. I’ve just been worried about him. I mean, with his ex popping up like this—piled on top of the disappearance of Serena—it just seems rough, you know?” She sighed, shaking her head, “There’s only so much someone can handle, especially a guy.”

  “You mean a guy like Zane?” Raith looked over at her.

  “I know what I said,” Nikki gave him a look.

  “Alright, fair enough, but Zane is stronger now; a lot stronger.” Raith smirked, “Since hooking up with Serena, he’s has become a lot more focused and dedicated, and while the situation is creating a shit-ton of chaos, I’m confident that Zane can handle it now more than he would’ve been able to before.”