Alaric grinned and watched Damon grit his teeth and give a dramatic shudder.
“Alaric the Cruel,” Damon murmured.
Alaric’s grin widened. “Indeed.”
“Sounds perfectly horrible to me.”
* * * *
Damon leaned back in his chair, glancing around the fuselage at the lush interior of Alaric’s jet, trying to reconcile Alaric’s surroundings with Alaric the vampire and failing. Everything, from the Italian leather seats to the ornate woodwork around the cabin, was as over the top as its owner, but nothing spoke of the predator hidden beneath the layers of beauty and opulence. For Damon, whose predatory instincts weren’t so easy to hide, he wasn’t accustomed to living in such luxury. He’d learned quickly, though, that Alaric could only exist if a troupe of servants catered to his every whim.
Damon let his eyes rove Alaric’s body and decided he couldn’t fault Alaric his eccentricities. In fact, as Damon watched Alaric, his golden-brown hair lying neatly across his chest in loose waves, Damon knew he’d never fault Alaric anything. Alaric was simply too perfect, too extraordinary to ever feel anything about him save complete adoration and absolute devotion.
“At the very least,” Alaric said, breaking the silence that had fallen between them, “Raven finally saw fit to have at Charity as he should.”
Damon had to think for a moment to remember what they’d been talking about. But, then he remembered. Charity and Azriel. “I nearly forgot. Charity is half Nephilim. She’ll have taken in Raven’s essence when they had sex. She’ll have some of his abilities.”
“Ironic, to say the least, her being half Nephilim. The one thing that can save her is the very thing that’s put the entire world in danger. If she crosses into Hir na Gog, the Nephilim there will mate with her, then each other, all of them taking on her human essence and thus becoming able to cross the boundary separating our worlds. I figure we have a few days, a week maybe, before Azriel wears her down.”
“Is that all?”
“Unless Raven, Myrddin, and Aliceanna are able to find her. Hopefully if they don’t and war comes we will have gotten the Alliance to back us in fighting the Nephilim.”
“I’ll hope for the best.”
“You better do more than hope,” Alaric advised.
* * * *
Sighing again, Alaric settled his head on the chair’s headrest. He was tired, but he could deal with fatigue. What he couldn’t deal with was his present state of arousal. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the cause, either. Before Azriel had taken Charity, he and Damon had amused themselves with her. They hadn’t really planned to harm her—that would have been disastrous. But he hadn’t been playing at desiring her. Charity was such a beauty...and so much like the one he’d lost so long ago. And Charity was only half human, so he could have slept with her without worrying about her safety.
How long had it been since he’d had the pleasure of bedding a woman, anyway? How many decades? It had been centuries since he’d made love to a human female…but then, making love and fucking a woman were two different things; that much, he knew. The last human he’d made love to was Smenkhare. But now, as always, he couldn’t bear the thought of her. If he thought of her, he’d see her face, see the fear in her eyes those last moments of her life, and feel his own fear. It was still so fresh. Fifteen hundred years, and it could have been yesterday for as much as it still hurt. If only he’d given her the blood, brought her over…
He shook his head clear. No, what he needed was a lush, soft, and silken woman beneath him.
Among the vampyr there were few females, which typically meant if he wanted the company of a woman, he’d have to find her among the human population. For many reasons, this presented problems. For one, he wasn’t human. When his release came, it didn’t come in the manner of a human male—as a fountain of semen. He was vampyr, a species of being comprised mostly of blood. When his release came, it came in a rich crimson flow. He’d had many a human lover watch in horror as the blood dripped from her womb moments after mating with him. Clearly this was an overreaction, but it was a problem nonetheless.
Another problem was blood lust. In such a heightened state of sexual arousal, blood lust was at its peak. For his kind, sex was more than an exchange of pleasure and genetic material; it was an exchange of pleasure heightened by an exchange of blood. There was a pleasure in blood that was unequal to any other pleasure he’d ever experienced. So, he wasn’t always able to control himself with human females.
As a young vampire, he’d too often plunged deep within a woman’s womb while simultaneously sucking that luscious crimson elixir from a small gash in her throat. As soon as he set his lips to the delicate flesh and began sucking, the females went mad with need, moaning for him to stop while simultaneously begging him to never let the pleasure cease. Eventually, when they grew quiet, he’d rise from the bed sated, only to realize he’d inadvertently taken the poor thing’s life. Very depressing, that. It was one thing when his intent was to suck a human dry; it was quite another when he did it by mistake. So, he’d had to learn to content himself with immortals.
But Charity, half Nephilim creature that she was, would have been safe. He could have fucked her to his heart’s content, feeding on her and transporting her to a level of erotic euphoria she’d never before experienced. Hell, he would have even allowed her some of his blood if she were so inclined. That would have really driven her mad.
Smenkhare had loved the taste of him.
“We’re fifteen minutes out,” Damon said, pulling Alaric from his thoughts. “Should you call Nuno and let him know we’re coming?”
Alaric nodded. It was past time he stopped seeing Smenkhare’s face, stopped hearing her voice in his head. She was gone, dead, and beyond his reach. “Yes, Damon. Go ahead.”
Chapter Four
Galen entered the smoky chamber and blinked until his eyes became accustomed to the gloom. The scent of incense was heavy on the air, merging with the potent aroma of burning wood and chicory coals. Beneath those smells was one that had his cock rising to attention, despite his intent to keep this meeting formal. The sweet perfume of a feminine body covered in natural musk oils. Groaning under his breath, he pushed through the curtain of richly patterned scarves, their reds, gold, and lavenders a marker of the woman within, and stepped into the ornate bedchamber.
A fire roared in the hearth, but he barely noticed. Stretched across the high wrought iron bed, dressed in nothing but her scented oils and a smile, was Valetta. She was just as exotic, just as exquisite as she’d been the first day he saw her. Her skin shone in the firelight, reminding him of white satin, as silkily smooth as it had been that first day he looked upon her. He felt an urge to touch her, to reach out and run his hands over her smooth flesh just so he could feel her body come alive beneath him.
“Finally,” she said in her husky voice. “I thought you forgot.”
“And you, Valetta,” he said formally, “seem to have forgotten the point of this meeting. You’re to tell me if you’ve seen anything I should know about.”
The Seer sat up and stretched with a feline grace that belied her years. “And you, my Warlord, are as formal as ever. Come sit beside me. Tell me how it went. Did anyone volunteer?”
Her smile was broad as he approached the bed. She’d never been one to say, “I told you so.” She would never allow such a common phrase to fall from her lips. But then, she never had to. Her superiority was written all over her face. She knew when she was right, and for Galen, it was more than he cared to admit.
He ignored her and shrugged out of his shirt.
“And that thing,” she said, pointing at his sword. “You know I never allow such implements in my bed.”
He grinned. “Ah, so you’d have me helpless and at your mercy.”
“Never helpless, Warlord.”
He removed his sword and set it aside on the low table that served as her nightstand. “Is that so?” He hefted one thigh
onto the edge of her bed and gazed at her, still enchanted by her exotic beauty. He loved the play of white teeth against creamy skin, and loved the long, loose curls of her blonde hair. He loved to touch it, feel its springy texture between his fingers while he drove himself into her. She was so different than he was, his opposite. Her skin was a rich shade of ivory, while his skin was tanned golden brown from his hours in the sun on the training fields. Her blonde hair grew in curls, while his was long, red, and straight. She was as thin, as wispy as a willow, and he was large, broad shouldered, and heavily muscled. She was mysterious and mischievous, while he had always been practical and serious. The polar opposite of him in every way, save the one way that counted.
“You know how it went,” he said.
“Hmm,” she responded thoughtfully. She rose to her knees beside him and reached to her side table for a bottle of oil. Slowly selecting one from the half dozen spread out, she chose a red oil whose fragrant tang enveloped him as soon as she uncorked the bottle. “You can’t say I didn’t warn you.” She poured some of the oil onto her hands and rubbed them together, filling the room with the scent of jungle flowers and wild blooms. “But was it really so bad as all that?”
Reclining until he was lying on his stomach, he groaned when she began massaging the oil into his tight muscles.
“It was bad,” he said. “Not one man came forward.”
“So what now?”
He shrugged. “What other choice do I have? Either I send someone against their will, which would be a disaster on such a mission as this, or I go myself.”
She ran her fingers over the tightly bunched muscles in his arms, massaging in the oil.
“Are those your only choices?”
He thought of Al-Kenna then. So small and proud and adamant. He thought of her on the field today, striking down ghouls as easily as if they were children. When one had gotten its hands on her, though, strangled her, he had seen red. The thing should have counted its lucky stars that Al-Kenna was able to dispatch it before he got his hands on it.
But ghouls and vampires were different creatures entirely. Ghouls weren’t bred to fight like imps and they weren’t taught to think. Ghouls were scouts. Nothing more. Dispatching ghouls with quick ease didn’t mean she was ready to face such a creature as Alaric, a vampire who was bred to fight, taught to think, and had the strength of ten men.
Still, he knew if he’d allowed it, she would walk right into the lion’s den—as Gerald called it—and face down the Alliance until they either came around to her way of thinking or killed her. Probably the latter; and if that happened, there wouldn’t be any chance at a reconciliation. He’d kill every vampire and every beastman he could until the streets of Baltimore ran red with their blood.
“Are you still with me, Warlord?”
“Of course. Where else could I possibly be with one as you near to me?”
“Ah, Warlord, your lips drip honey. But I was asking you of the meeting. Do you really see only two solutions?”
His voice grew hard. “Those are the only viable solutions, Seer. I know you and Al-Kenna have been conspiring, so I’ll tell you as I told her. No.”
“I’ve said nothing to the girl. Any ideas she has are her own.”
“Save the idiot lies you’ve filled her head with all of her life. That she was born to save the world. She believes that. I didn’t realize quite how strongly until today. You’ve got to set her straight. She won’t listen to me. She’s as strong willed as you.”
Valetta sat back on her heels and let her hands fall to her sides. “You can’t change a person’s fate, Warlord. Even you’re not so strong as that.”
“Oh, no.”
“I told you when you brought her here, she was born—”
“Lies. Nothing more!” he shouted over her.
“She’s the only immortal born of the Ikari in over a century. The only immortal Ikari female in existence. Not even our son, Gerald, has been blessed with immortality.”
“She’s a girl, for crying out loud. And you know her immortality has more to do with her mother than it does me.”
“Then, why have you trained her?”
“What else could I do with her? Her mother was dead, I was all she had.”
“Her mother was dead at your hands, isn’t that what you mean, Warlord? You felt guilty, so to appease your guilt, you took the child.”
“Witch,” he sneered, fists clenched and held at his sides. “I had to kill her mother. I didn’t have a choice. You know that. When I found out what she was…”
“A rogue vampire, you mean.”
“Never speak those words in this house again. If Al-Kenna found out what her mother was…that she herself is born of a vampyr…”
Valetta shook her head. “I’d never tell her. It would kill her. But Al-Kenna was born to us, in this century, for this very reason. Do you think it coincidence that led you to her mother? Do you think it coincidence you let yourself be seduced by her beauty? Do you think it coincidence you lay with her? Al-Kenna was meant to be your daughter. She was meant to come to us. She was born—”
“She has only been on this earth for nineteen years, Seer. She’s not ready to face—”
“Alaric,” she interrupted. “He wouldn’t hurt her.”
“You’re willing to bet my daughter’s life on that.”
She shook her head again and held up her hands. “It’s out of our hands, Warlord. You cannot change a person’s destiny.”
“Watch me.”
The room fell silent.
She hardened her voice. “You may think differently when I tell you what’s happened.”
Every good feeling she had aroused in him, every newly relaxed muscle tensed at her tone. He got to his feet and faced her.
“What happened?”
“Please sit, Galen. You make me nervous when you loom over me like that.”
“Tell me.”
“Oh, very well then. What I warned could happen has,” she began, slipping easily into the persona of the Seer. “Azriel has the girl.”
“How can that be? She was protected by the watcher Raven. Looked over by the wizard Myrddin. Impossible.”
Despite everything he’d said to his men to the contrary, he didn’t really believe Azriel could overcome such overwhelming odds and win the girl.
“Azriel is powerful,” she said, then added as an afterthought, “and very beautiful. It won’t be difficult for him to overcome the girl’s will. She will be as…as a slave to him. He’ll use his body to reduce her to a mindless receptor of pleasure that wants nothing more than his cock between her legs and his body covering hers. In that state, she’ll do anything for him.” She eyed Galen.
“Did you see that as well?”
“In this particular situation, one doesn’t have to see to know what the outcome will be. After all, Warlord, I’m something of an expert on the subject.”
Shame washed over him, but the feeling was brief and easily cast aside. Valetta would always love and resent him for his domination of her.
“Sit down, Galen,” she said. “Time is of the essence.”
“The choice is simple, then,” he declared. “I must go.”
“No choice is ever simple.”
“When you’re left with no choices, then yes, it’s simple to make a decision.”
He bent to retrieve his discarded shirt, silently making his plans.
“If you go, Warlord, you will fail.”
He froze halfway to the floor. After a moment, he rose to his full height and stared at her. “I take it you’ve seen this.”
“I have. Not only that, Warlord. You will die as well.”
“I’m immortal, Valetta. Not so easily killed.”
“As you well know, being immortal only means you’re impervious to the ails of humans. No sickness will ever fell you, no diseases will ever take root in your body, and yes, you’re difficult to kill. Calling the healing properties of our people preternatural wouldn’t be
an overestimation in any sense of the word. But you can die.”
“As I already know.”
“And if you go on this mission, you will die. You’ll fail and Ikarius will fall into chaos. Without our strength to stand beside the Alliance, the Nephilim will rise victorious, and millennia of creations will disintegrate to nothing in a matter of years.”
He spun from her and began pacing the room. “You’re wrong!”
“I’ve seen it.”
Valetta was silent as he raged about the room, slamming his fists into the wall and cursing in the tongue of his forefathers, a language so old it predated written history.
“Disaster can be avoided,” she finally said after he’d quieted somewhat.
“Witch. Tell me now, Valetta, or as the stars shine in the night sky, I promise you I’ll strangle you.”
Unmoved, she settled back into the pillows.
“What?” he demanded “Tell me now.”
“Calm yourself, Warlord. This isn’t any easier for me. Al-Kenna isn’t my daughter, but I love the girl as though she were my own.” Her voice grew husky again. “You don’t have to go to Alaric. He’ll come to us. I saw this.”
Galen advanced on her, stopping only when his thighs were flush against the high mattress. “Alaric the Cruel? Here? Why?”
She shrugged. “The sight doesn’t work that way. I see what I see, and what I see is only a portion of the picture. But I saw Alaric here, within our walls.”
“I don’t want to hear anymore of this. If Alaric is coming, I’ll be ready. Just tell me when. I won’t let him have my daughter.”
“I don’t know when. He doesn’t even realize yet that he’s coming. But he is coming. And when he leaves us, he’ll leave with your daughter. We’ve known from her birth what lay before her.”
Galen held up his hand. She allowed her words to trail off.
Nephilim War: Book 2 Page 5
