Downbeat (Biting Love)

by Hughes, Mary

  “You could have done that downstairs.” Bo growled.

  “I also thought to fill you in on Nosferatu’s new candidate for first lieutenant. I’ve seen him in action.”

  “The megavamp,” I added.

  “Damn you, Zajicek,” Julian said. “Why’d you take her to that damned ball in the first place?”

  “Be reasonable,” I said. “He didn’t know Gravloth would be there.”

  Julian’s gaze switched to me, cooling to a frustrated violet. “That’s not my point.”

  “Do we care right now?” Nixie said. “We’ve got bigger pots to fry.”

  “We know about the monster,” Logan said. “Luke already filled us in. Oh, Rocky.” His gold gaze switched to me. “Luke’s at your place, watching over your mom.”

  “Thanks.” A weight lifted from my shoulders. “I knew they were together but it’s good to get an update.”

  “We have Luke’s intel,” Julian said. “We don’t need—” he swept a finger to point at Dragan, “—his.”

  “Really?” Dragan raised mildly sarcastic brows. “You know everything about this vampire?”

  Julian planted knuckles on the table and half-stood. “We know enough.”

  “Peace, Julian.” Logan waved him down. “We know that the SWATed-up guards tried to destroy him at the ball and failed.”

  “Humans,” Julian said. “He’ll be no match against us.”

  “Humans with flamethrowers,” Dragan said. “Ladies and gentlemen, I think you should be worried. I’ve heard not even vampires can kill him.”

  Bo rolled his eyes. “Rumors. Big deal.”

  Dragan shrugged. “That’s as may be. More importantly, the ancient Enkidu says Gravloth is a Soul Stealer.”

  “He is the one who killed my master?” Rounin stood. His eyes blazed. “If it takes my life, he will die.”

  “Enkidu?” Julian’s eyes boiled for a different reason. “What the fuck are you doing dealing with him?”

  “He’s a client,” Dragan said. “He’s also Elias’s friend.”

  “That trickster is no one’s friend.”

  “Boys,” Liese said. “Could we vampire rampage later? If humans can’t kill this Gravloth, and vampires can’t kill him, we have a problem. What can kill him?”

  “That’s the question.” Dragan’s slight nod said he appreciated her intervention. “I’m trying to discover the answer. One piece of good news for you. Camille is not at all happy with this turn of events. I think you can use that. Giuseppe doesn’t care, but he plays the long game. He’ll have plan embedded within plan.”

  “You know an awful lot about the bad guys, Zajicek.” Julian’s fangs were emerging and Bo’s low growl underlined the lawyer’s words. “Know what I think? I think the reason you know all this is because you’re working with them. You’re in cahoots with Camille and Giuseppe, and in bed with Nosferatu.”

  “No need to get insulting,” Dragan said mildly.

  “Settle,” Logan said. “He’s only bringing us information.”

  “In our secret room in the middle of a secret meeting,” Bo said.

  “He plays both sides,” Julian said. “Maybe he’s here because he’s also gathering info on us.”

  “I’m simply here to drop Raquel off,” Dragan repeated. “I thought to give you information in exchange for your help, but if you’re not interested…” He lowered his hands and turned to go.

  Julian pressed something on the underside of the table. A click was followed by a low buzz.

  All the hairs on my arms stood straight up.

  Julian whipped out a switchblade, a long wickedly pointed thing. “The room is electrified. No way out.”

  Dragan’s eyes flashed red as he glared over his shoulder at Julian. “This is quite rude.”

  “I’d have said expedient. Fight me, Zajicek. I’ve been wanting to take your head and heart.”

  Dragan turned, elegant and dangerous. “You go too far, Emerson. This is Steel’s household.”

  “So it is,” Logan drawled. “I do believe the safest thing for everyone is for Zajicek to be under house arrest until this crap is over. Rounin, put the anti-vamp cuffs on him. Take him upstairs to one of the spare singles and lock him in.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The big samurai pulled a pair of metal cuffs from his vest arsenal. As he came around the table toward Dragan, I asked Dragan with my eyes if there was anything I could do. He gave me a tiny reassuring smile and shook his head.

  Then Rounin clicked the cuffs on his wrists. Though the lieutenant looked bigger because of his broader body, seeing the two vampires side by side, Rounin was actually a few inches shorter than Dragan. Still, I wouldn’t have wanted to be in a fight with the samurai vampire. He pressed something on the cuffs and a light glowed green.

  Dragan held the cuffs at eye level. His gaze was intense as he studied them. “Electrified?”

  “Low level,” Logan agreed. “They also sense density. If you try to mist they’ll zap you solid.”

  “Nice.” Dragan grinned at Rounin. “Shall we?”

  Logan nodded at Julian. Julian growled but reluctantly pressed the button under the table, and the hum died. Sissy opened the door and the two lieutenants escorted Dragan out of the secret room.

  I started after them.

  “Rocky, wait.” Liese waddled toward me.

  “But…” I stood there, watching Dragan being led away, my heart thudding painfully against my breastbone as if it were trying to run after him.

  “Why don’t I show you your room?” Liese gave me a quick sideway hug then released me and motioned me to follow. “Your guest room, which we keep for guests.”

  I followed her, confused. “As opposed to one you keep for enemies?” Lots of people think Nixie’s hard to understand, but frankly Liese gives her a run for the money.

  “Listen to me.” She walked backward in front of me, blue gaze earnest. “It’s no secret that whatever a guest finds she can make free with, food, books, whatever.”

  I heard the music in her voice but wasn’t quite sure what it meant. When I searched her face for an explanation, she only nodded and smiled innocently.

  “This way.” She led me through the stairwell door into an office corridor. “We’ll take the elevator. I’m supposed to avoid excess exertion.” She patted her distended tummy. “For them.”

  The corridor wrapped past a dozen offices. “All excess exertion?”

  She grinned. “No, I can do that. But Logan has to do all the work.”

  In the elevator she pressed the button for the fourth floor. “We overbuilt, so we have two open single rooms. Both are on the fourth floor.”

  “Um, okay.”

  “Don’t worry, they’re all furnished. Including some great books. Have you read any Douglas Adams?” The elevator doors opened. “Here we are.” She waddled down a short hallway and opened a door. “The other open single room is right next door.”

  I nodded, not quite getting the implications, but in my defense I was worried about Dragan. “Thanks, Liese. Goodnight.”

  It wasn’t until I sat on the bed in my small efficiency and heard the footsteps in the room next door, the kind made by a graceful man pacing, that I got what she was trying to tell me.

  Dragan was in the next room. Maybe I could get to him.

  I peeked out. Rounin stood guard over the door. He must have been inside the apartment settling Dragan when Liese and I came in.

  The samurai’s head swiveled to me. His black gaze was empty, dead—the stare of a man with nothing to lose. Those eyes bored straight through my head. My chest tingled because I’d inhaled and stopped breathing.

  I grinned quickly and ducked back into my room. Now how to get past Rounin to rescue Dragan? Maybe I could come up with an errand for the samurai, one he couldn’t just radio to Sissy or Zinnia. Too bad Elena and Nixie wouldn’t help me because they and their husbands didn’t trust Dragan. Liese might, but…

  Only the two empt
y guest rooms. For guests.

  Maybe Liese already had helped me.

  What else had she said? She’d emphasized “secret, find, free.” Free Dragan, find his secret? Dammit, couldn’t she have told me straight out? But I suppose with Julian and Bo at DefCon Three and vampire hearing, that was out of the question.

  If only she and Logan hadn’t incarcerated Dragan in the first place. Although I understood why, only too well. Friendship. They had to go along with Julian and Bo and the rest.

  Find Dragan’s free secret? Good grief, even a backward brain fart would be better.

  Backward. Liese had been walking backwards when she’d said those words.

  A thud came from the wall, as if Dragan had thrown himself into a chair against it. The thud had a strangely hollow echo.

  I spun toward the sound, my heart beating faster. Maybe I didn’t have to come up with a brilliant plan to get Rounin away from his post. Backward, the words were free, find, secret. To free Dragan, I had to find the secret—the secret passageway.

  I started in the kitchenette and rapped on the shared wall. Solid. I moved left, rapping as I went, into the living room area.

  At the bookshelf, my knock echoed.

  I shook my head. “It can’t be this easy.” But I scanned the shelves, found Liese’s copy of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and pulled. The bookshelf swung silently away from the wall, revealing a hole. It was that easy. I ducked and squeezed through.

  I emerged into a faux fireplace on the other side, momentarily grateful no one had lit the gas log. Dragan sat in a chair next to the fireplace, fiddling with his handcuffs. He looked up as I stepped into the room.

  “Raquel, what perfect timing.” A snap and the cuffs fell to the floor. He stood. “I was about to escape.”

  I smiled. “I came to help you escape.”

  “Two minds.” He closed the gap between us and took my chin in his fingertips, raised my face. “But a single thought.”

  Our eyes met. Longing filled me. This could be the last time I’d see him while the Soul Stealer threatened. After that, well, if Dragan was here to investigate the rumors, once the monster was taken care of, he’d leave.

  This might be the last time I saw him. I couldn’t let him go without something to remember me by.

  I grabbed his head, lifted myself on my toes and stared into his eyes. The burning desire I saw there nearly incinerated me.

  I whispered into his breath, “If Rounin hears us he may investigate and discover you’re free. You may lose your window of escape.”

  “I don’t care.” He wrapped arms around me and crushed me to him. I offered my mouth. He bent and devoured me. I rejoiced in the hunger I felt.

  He broke off the kiss to strip me of my sweater with no subtlety or seduction, grabbing the hem and tearing it over my head. I was with him, ahead of him, throwing off the bra. What we’d started at the hotel had simmered into explosive need for us both. He cupped my breasts in his hands, bent and suckled one while pinching the nipple of the other. I gasped, liquid fire pouring into my pelvis.

  I fumbled with his shirt. He released me and suddenly his body blew apart in my hands. His clothes fell to the floor.

  He snapped back naked. His dark nipples were taut, his cock was fully engorged and his eyes on me were living fire.

  A shiver went through me. I wanted to be truly alive, yes. But what had I unleashed?

  While I was standing there staring, he swept me off my feet. He carried me to a narrow bed covered in a sheet and thermal blanket. He didn’t seem to care that it was too narrow for us both. He lay me on it and shucked my shoes. Then he unsnapped and unzipped my jeans, pulled them off and pushed my legs apart.

  He knelt and pressed a long, open-mouthed kiss to the crotch of my white thong. Shocking need stormed through me and I writhed under him. He hooked the narrow band of cloth and pulled it aside. Air cooled my damp skin. He leaned forward.

  “Wait,” I panted.

  He paused, eyes flicking up to me. “Are you still not acclimatized?”

  The sight of his fevered eyes between my thighs was my undoing. I squirmed out of the thong. “Let’s find out.”

  “Good. Because I can’t wait.” He opened my legs and went down on me.

  His mouth ravaged my pussy, hot and wet. I arched hard. He tongued, he kissed, he sucked. Shudders rolled through me. My rasping breath and thudding heart filling my ears.

  He thrust a finger into me. I was so wet it slid home. He sucked lightly on my clit and began to thrust the finger rhythmically. I nearly went through the roof.

  Mindful of the vampire outside the apartment door, I only squeaked, twisting the blanket in my hands. “You,” I panted. “Finger’s nice but I want you.”

  “Raquel,” he groaned against my pussy. “I want you so badly I quake with it. Feeling you, so hot, so wet—” he thrust a second finger inside, “—clenching around me, I’m going insane with need. But I have no protection.”

  “Fully stocked guest room? Check the bedside table.”

  Fast as lightning he zipped open the drawer. He groaned again, this a sound of deep satisfaction. I heard a rip and saw him roll one hand along his jutting cock.

  And then he was between my legs on his knees and his eyes blazed into mine. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes,” I hissed. To convince him I lifted my chin, exposing my throat.

  “My love.” He fell on me like a wild animal, mouth on my neck, heavy body pinning me, belly scrubbing against me with his panting. His hips reared back, the head of his cock sliding into the wet hunger of my pussy. I tilted my hips to take him in at the same moment he drove forward.

  His first thrust filled me. I gasped.

  He groaned softly. I blinked at him; he looked like a man at the gates of Paradise. He said, “You feel beautiful. Even better than I imagined.”

  I couldn’t speak so I clasped his broad back with both hands and urged him to move.

  He wrapped arms around me in return and began riding me in great, undulating waves. His muscles lengthened and clenched under my fingers, power and beauty in motion. Music made physical. It thundered through me like pounding tympani and driving brass, like trilling winds and vibrant strings.

  Gone was the playboy; he was enthusiastically committed now, thrusting into me with single-minded concentration. His face in the throes of passion was fiercely beautiful. He surged and crashed into me as the ocean blasts the cliff, inexorable, relentless. Inevitably, the cliff comes apart.

  Especially if the cliff is meeting the ocean thrust for thrust.

  He was still a bad boy, a rule-breaker. But with him, I broke all the rules too. I went wild, grabbing his muscular arms and biting and licking whatever I could reach, and especially wrapping my legs around his hips and riding and grinding without fear that he would look down his nose in judgment at me.

  Because he was just as wild and abandoned.

  “Raquel…drahý…beloved. God, I’m coming.” His eyes roved over my face, huge black pools ringed with fire. “I must take you with me.”

  He opened his mouth and sank sharp fangs into my neck. Ecstasy speared me in twin bolts of lightning that forked and shivered into my skin and brain and heart.

  I shattered.

  He thrust one last time, so deep he struck my soul. As I burst in climax, so did he and two single orgasms became a soaring duet. Our joy sang on and on.

  Gradually he relaxed against me. Our skin was hot and damp where we pressed together. I lay under his heavy body, peace enveloping me.

  It was the last moment we might be together.

  And the first moment I knew I’d fallen in love.

  Suddenly Dragan raised his head with a hiss. “I smell vampire.”

  “Rounin?” I whispered, but it was hard with my panting and him heavy on me.

  “No. Outside the household. Approaching fast—”

  “Vengeance!” The roar from outside the room was barely recognizable as Rounin, it was so full of
rage and pain.

  A siren started whooping.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Dragan leaped from the bed to throw on his clothes.

  “Rounin, no.” That was Logan’s voice, but not as I’d heard before, except in half-remembered places. The insouciance was gone; his tone was hard and direct. “We must gather arms.”

  I yanked on my clothes. Dragan opened the door. “They’re gone.” He spun back to me. The passionate lover, even the elegant conductor was gone, replaced by a hardened, deadly serious warrior. “Steel outfitted these rooms to be vampire proof. Close the door and lock it. That’ll keep out any physical attacks. Squeeze this lever and slide it up. That will activate the electronic field and keep out vampire mist. Do not open this door to anyone but me, do you understand?”

  “No.” Fuzzy images crowded my brain, a dozen vampire fights suppressed. I didn’t remember the details but one thing stood out; my friends fought by their males’ sides. “I’m coming with you.”

  He made a frustrated noise. “I don’t know what’s going on but that siren can’t be good. If that stench is the Soul Stealer, you should stay here where you’ll be safe.”

  “You told me I’ve been playing it too safe. I’m coming.”

  He grabbed me by the arms. “Now is not the time to listen to what I said before. Stay here!”

  “You can’t make me.”

  “Can’t I?” He seemed to expand until he towered over me, his eyes black fire.

  I pumped steel into my own spine and glared up with equal fire. “Unless this door locks from the outside—and if it did Logan wouldn’t have posted a guard—I think I can safely say you can’t make me.”

  He stepped back. “Sakra. You’ve picked a fine time to start taking the initiative.”

  “You weren’t complaining a moment ago.”

  His frustrated expression didn’t change but a twinkle entered his eye. “I wasn’t, was I? Very well. But stay with me.”

  “Of course. I’m only so brazen.”