Master of Darkness

by Susan Sizemore

  “Are you all right?”

  Her hand was on his shoulder. It was warm—and comforting.

  He pushed it away as though it burned.

  He didn’t need a human’s touch for anything but pleasure. Justinian was right—break them, use them, make them pay for their life in the light, and—!

  Then Laurent calmed down as he suddenly recalled that he was using Eden. She was his ticket to all the wealth he’d ever dreamed of.

  “I don’t mean to be scary,” he murmured in his most soothing tone.

  She eyed him warily. He suspected she was holding a weapon in the hand he couldn’t see, and he didn’t blame her. “What’s the matter with you?” she demanded.

  He told her the truth, all the while reveling in the irony of how the truth could be twisted. “Hearing about Justinian’s past had a strong effect on me.”

  “Gave you a longing to rescue all those maidens in distress, did it?”

  He heard the longing that the Clan boy beside her really was a hero, and it twisted something inside him. He reminded himself that he did not come equipped with a conscience.

  “It’s too late to save anyone,” he told her.

  Then his attention was drawn back to the outside world. He smiled.

  “Something wicked this way comes?” she asked, alert to his reaction.

  He nodded. “And just when I’m in the mood to do some damage.”

  She was suddenly hyper alert, and all business. “How many? Where are they coming from.”

  He reluctantly admired this side of the mortal, even though it was no way for a female to behave. “Modern women,” he murmured.

  “Don’t know our place,” she added for him.

  “I could rise to the bait and say something sexist and sexually provocative here.”

  “But we don’t have the time.” She started the car and eased out of the parking space.

  He stroked her bruised thigh. “Remind me to kiss this and make it all better. Where are we going?”

  She turned toward the nearest exit. “We don’t want a riot at the mall.”

  “No witnesses or collateral damage,” he agreed.

  “Do you think they’ll notice that we’ve been waiting for them to ambush us?”

  He chuckled. “Tribe boys? They have the same instincts as a greyhound—they see a rabbit and they run after it. In this case, a bug,” he said, patting the dashboard.

  “A tricked-out bug,” she answered. “Don’t let her staid outer appearance fool you.”

  Laurent looked the mortal woman over with growing hunger. “Oh, I won’t,” he told her.

  He felt the heat of her blush across the short distance between them, but resisted the impulse to stroke warm, soft skin. Her attraction to him was further balm to his frayed nerves, and he was going to make very good use of that attraction.

  Then he focused on their opponents. He let his shielding down for a moment, sending a bolt of surprise and fear, as though he had just discovered them. He’d felt a trio of them circling the perimeter of the huge parking lot; they’d been faintly aware of the mental scent he’d been broadcasting at a very low level. When he lowered his shielding he picked up more information, as well as broadcasting it.

  “A pair of Manticore,” he said. “And a Hydra, I think. The Hydra is hunting alone.” He pondered the meaning of this. “Two for me, one for you, maybe.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “My guess is that the Hydra is involved with the drug dealers. It’s likely that the dealers want the human hunters to leave them alone. He probably intends to make an example out of you.”

  “Interesting,” Eden said. “So if they aren’t together, can we use that against them?”

  “Get them to mix it up with each other? Turn it into a hunting dispute?” That would make an excellent diversion to get the Manticores off his tail long enough to get the computer. “I like your thinking, girl.”

  She gave him a disgusted look, but otherwise let the girl go. “We can take them out while they’re fighting each other.”

  He nodded, though fighting the others was not part of the plan he intended to carry out. “Good strategy. They’re all after us now. Let’s find a place were we can bring them together.”

  “Stay in the car.”

  “I’m not staying in the car,” Eden answered. “Stop being chivalrous.”

  “I’m not being chivalrous. I want you to keep the engine running while I get the Manticores to chase me.”

  The night before, it had all happened so fast that she’d gotten through the action without thinking about it. Years of training fueled by adrenaline took her through the attack on the vampires. Now, with weapons and an ally by her side, she was nervous about the whole thing. She wasn’t sure if bickering with Wolf was helping her nerves, or making them worse.

  His high-handed We’ll do this, this, and this wasn’t helping.

  “I am not just your wheelman,” she told him. “If they’re after both of us, we should both show ourselves.”

  “You can’t run fast enough.”

  She knew that the Manticore Primes were following them in a van as she drove sedately along an empty street lined with warehouses. They’d been playing hide-and-seek on the city streets with this pair for some time now, trying to make the vampires think that they were attempting to elude them.

  Wolf claimed to have a headache from the mental threats the others were tossing his way. He also claimed the Hydra was nearby, watching the chase and getting more and more annoyed with the Manticore interference in his hunt.

  “This is such a waste of the night.” Wolf slapped the dashboard. “Don’t these idiots know I’m on a tight schedule?”

  Eden glared at him. “You’ve got hundreds of years. I’m the one giving up my vacation for this.”

  He glared back. “Right, you want to go see volcanos. Why? Do you have a magic ring you need to get rid of?”

  Eden laughed. And realized that perhaps the vampire was running on nerves as much as she was. Or maybe it was all adrenaline and blood lust in his case.

  “The last time I saw lava, I was running from it. I don’t like running from things,” she told him.

  “Runnin—”

  “Let’s do this,” she said, and braked, spun, and gunned the little car toward the large van.

  “This is not the plan!” Wolf shouted as the van swerved out of the Volkswagen’s way.

  The van scraped the side of a building and came to a halt. Eden spun her car in another tight turn and came to a stop. The Manticores were already out of the van and running toward them.

  “Go!” she called to Wolf.

  He was out of the car instantly. The trio of vampires met in the street, full in the glare of the VW’s headlights.

  Eden moved quickly, but armed herself before setting off toward the fight. She stayed in the shadows. And she watched the shadows. The vampires moved in a swift, silent dance. And the shadow that came out of the shadows moved with equal speed and silence. Eden saw the Hydra Prime because she was concentrating all her attention on finding him. The moment she was certain that the moving darkness was her quarry, she fired a crossbow bolt at him.

  The short arrow was made of hawthorn, tipped with silver, and treated with a garlic-based coating. Any of the three ingredients would stop a vampire, but this centuries-tested combination had saved many a mortal hunter’s life. She’d killed a vampire with such an arrow last night. Right now her intention was to wound.

  The arrow hit the vampire in the shoulder. He yowled in pain, but that didn’t stop him turning and running toward her. This didn’t give her time to aim carefully as she shot the vampire again. The second hit was in the thigh, and this time he went down.

  “And stay there!” Eden called as she ran past the downed vampire to help Wolf.

  “Get back!” Laurent shouted as he noticed Eden’s approach out of the corner of his eye.

  Worry jolted through him, taking him totally by sur
prise, fueling his anger at the Primes he was fighting. He didn’t need help. He didn’t want her help. A girl could get hurt in this kind of brawl.

  A fist jammed into his jaw.

  He could get hurt in this kind of brawl!

  He swore, and kicked his attacker in the chest.

  As the first Prime flew backward, the second came up behind Laurent.

  “Traitor!”

  Why did they always feel the need to talk? The trouble with vampires was that they were always into melodrama—and it wasn’t just his fellow tribesmen. Only the Family members seemed to make any effort at just getting on with a normal life.

  “Why couldn’t I have been born into a Family?” he muttered, and turned to knock the first vampire down again.

  It dodged around him.

  The second one came up behind him again, and whispered in Laurent’s ear. “He offers an exchange of property.”

  “Justinian has nothing I want.”

  “He says you will—once you think about the cravings you share.”

  “This is a fight, not a negotiation,” Laurent answered.

  The first Manticore was moving toward Eden, and the second joined him.

  She was kneeling in the middle of the street, taking aim with her crossbow. She couldn’t take both of them with her medieval weapon; one of them was going to rip her throat out.

  “That’s my human!” he shouted, and rushed to her defense.

  Things happened too damn fast with vampires! She’d been well trained, but seeing the triple blur of deadly speed coming toward her was almost panic-inducing. She held her ground and fired an arrow.

  Her target dodged easily, then they were on her.

  She managed to spray concentrated garlic juice into the face of one of them.

  While he dropped to the ground screaming, the second one grabbed her by the upper arms. She caught a glimpse of fangs and glowing eyes, then claws bit deep into her flesh and muscles, and there was horrible pain. The thing lifted her to her feet and the fanged mouth bent toward her throat …

  Then the third blur was upon them.

  Knocked to the ground, Eden clutched at her bleeding arms while a battle swirled at light speed around her. A body fell heavily beside her. The head followed a moment later.

  Everything went black for a while, after that.

  The next thing Eden knew, Wolf said, “Drink this, it’ll help.”

  She took a sip of warm liquid that sent energizing lightning through her, then a hungry gulp. At first she thought it was hundred-proof moonshine. Then she realized she was drinking vampire blood—and all she wanted was more.

  Chapter Nine

  “That’s enough.” Laurent gently eased Eden’s head away from his bleeding wrist. She shuddered and moaned in a way that excited the hell out of him, but he was firm. “Save some for me.”

  He wasn’t in the habit of sharing his blood with anyone, but she’d been bleeding profusely, and his reaction had been automatic. It was pure self-preservation, that’s all—she was his ticket to a better life.

  He rose and helped her to her feet, noticing that the one she’d stunned had gotten away. He turned Eden away from the remains of the one he’d killed, but he gave a quick glance over his shoulder.

  He hadn’t realized he’d used so much force. But the impulse to save Eden had been so strong…

  He didn’t get it.

  “We have to get out of here,” he told her, glancing up at the sky. Somewhere along the way he’d lost track of time. He was feeling light-headed, both from the loss of blood and from the pleasure that came with it. Giving was as much a rush as getting, and he was hard from it.

  “What was that for?” she asked, sounding wasted and ragged.

  She leaned heavily against him, and he was tempted to pick her up and carry her. But once she recovered from the orgasms, she’d realize she was fully healed—maybe even strong enough to carry him.

  “Medicinal purposes, to stop your bleeding. It worked,” he added.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “Horny.”

  She nodded. “Right. That’s one of the effects vampires experience when they share blood with mortals.”

  He smiled at her lecturing tone. “We didn’t share. That—wouldn’t be polite behavior for a Clan boy.” He wanted to taste her, though. The scent of her blood gave him a hint of what her taste would be like.

  He deliberately stepped away from her.

  She wobbled a bit, but then deliberately stood straight and squared her shoulders. “Thank you,” she said, giving him a formal nod.

  He crossed his arms to keep from grabbing her—then he grabbed her anyway. And kissed her.

  This time her arms slid around him, her body molded to his, and she kissed him back. Heat seared between them.

  Her eagerness and the intensity of his own need stunned him. He wanted her—body, blood, and soul.

  If Laurent hadn’t taught himself to keep control of his instincts, he would have had her then and there. Fighting back the rising hunger for Eden was the hardest thing he’d ever done.

  Needing anyone is the most dangerous trap in the world.

  Laurent held Eden away by her shoulders. “We better get out of here.”

  It took her a moment to catch her breath and gather her wits. “We’ve turned the place into a crime scene,” she acknowledged. “I can get my people in to clean it up.” She glanced to her left. “But we can’t leave just yet.”

  Laurent looked at the sky. “You do remember that I don’t work days.”

  “I know.” She took his hand and tugged him toward the van that was skewed across the sidewalk.

  “And what happened to our original plan—partner? Weren’t we supposed to let them fight each other while we went for the computer?” He could scent the third vampire’s blood now and found this disturbing. “What did you do?”

  “I wounded one.” She paused for a moment and looked at Laurent contritely. “I’m sorry I acted on impulse. Your plan was a good one, but I saw a chance to get needed information and had to act on it.”

  She led him around the van, and he saw the wounded vampire lying between the van and the warehouse wall.

  “You need to interrogate him.” Eden stepped back and made a call on her cell phone while Laurent stared between her and the bleeding Hydra Prime.

  “I need to … ?”

  Then Laurent saw it from her point of view. The Hydra had come after her with intent to kill. To her, the bad guy was a dealer in a drug the humans considered dangerous. Besides, the minute the arrows were taken out, the Hydra would start to heal—and would likely try to attack Eden again. This war between mortals and Tribes had been going on for a long time, and neither side saw the other as sentient beings.

  Laurent didn’t know why he had any sympathy for mortals himself, but he always had. Maybe because he’d been hunted by vampires himself. He could never completely be on the humans’ side, but face it, Tribe vampires needed the ruthlessness of the hunters to keep their savage behavior in check. His whole species would have gotten itself destroyed by humans long ago if the reckless Tribes weren’t kept in check.

  Eden was one tough chick: she did what she had to to get the job done. He shouldn’t admire her for that. Deadly, free-thinking women were not attractive. In fact, he’d recently given a Prime from Clan Reynard that advice about his dangerous bondmate—not that the Reynard had listened. It bothered Laurent that he was beginning to see why Colin Foxe had found his Mia so sexy.

  There was a certain edgy sexiness to Eden that made her incredibly hot to him. Making love to her would be risky business. The thought of it made his blood sing.

  Of course, the downside was that if she actually knew who he was, she’d turn all her deadly skills on him.

  Of course, dealing with that would be kind of fun, too.

  Laurent shook his head.

  “Well?” Eden said, stepping up beside him.

  He slid his arm around her wais
t and drew her close without a second thought. “Well, what?”

  “Have you found out anything?”

  “What I know is that dawn isn’t far away. Are your people coming?”

  “On the way.”

  “Then we need to get going.”

  “You’re a telepath,” she reminded him. “Have you talked to him?”

  Laurent was outraged. “That’s invasion of privacy! Vampires don’t do that to each other!”

  “You do it to humans.”

  “That’s different. It’s for humans’ own good,” he added, trying to remember his role.

  This brought a snort of derision. “Are you Clan people really as noble as your PR claims? We’re in a hurry. All you have to do is read his surface thoughts. Make him tell us what he knows about Dawn, then we’ll let him go.”

  “I’m lying right here,” the Hydra rasped. “Ask me anything.”

  “I want truth,” Eden said.

  “Get these sticks out of me,” the Hydra said to Laurent. “The silver burns.”

  Laurent didn’t know why he was reluctant to probe the other vampire’s thoughts. The Hydra was weak, helpless to defend himself.

  Justinian would have ripped open an enemy vampire’s mind without any compunction; Laurent had watched him do it. He’d felt the madness descend on Justinian’s victim as well. He’d been told he was weak for feeling sorry for the victims, and it was true. Pity was weakness. Compassion was weakness.

  Indifference—now, that was an acceptable survival trait. He managed indifference quite well most of the time.

  The Hydra was staring at him, his expression full of pain, but also calculation.

  “What?” Laurent asked.

  “Don’t I know you?”

  He recognized the other vampire now; a scumbag with the unfortunate name of Roswald. They weren’t well acquainted, but they had worked a couple of smuggling operations together many decades ago.

  Laurent stepped quickly away from Eden.

  “You’re no—” Roswald began as Laurent knelt beside him.

  Laurent put his hand over the vampire’s mouth. “Silence.” He leaned close and whispered in the Hydra’s ear. “Rat me out, and you’re dead.”