“I won’t let him have my daughter,” he repeated. This time, his tone was cold and hard.
“She belonged to Alaric before she belonged to you,” the Seer said with a shrug.
“She’s not Smenkhare, damn you, she’s my daughter. She’s Al-Kenna. Alaric has no hold over her.”
“But he does. Even now, she’s begun to remember him. She dreams of him at night, did you know that, Warlord? She dreams of her life as Smenkhare.”
“You would send my daughter into the hands of our enemy?”
“No, Warlord. I would send your daughter to save the world.”
The jangle of beads had them turning toward the entrance. Galen stalked forward, his hands clenched into fists.
“Who the hell is there?” he demanded.
Quinn rushed in. He gave Galen a brief bow, gave Valetta a jerky acknowledgement, then launched into his explanation.
“Wait, wait,” Galen said, holding out his hands to stall Quinn’s confused recitation of events. “What are you saying?”
Quinn huffed. “There’s been an attack on the Ikarius compound in the Pyrenees.”
Valetta sat up in bed, eyes wide.
“Damage?” Galen demanded.
“All dead.”
“Impossible!”
“I’m certain of this. The fallen one, Raven, contacted us not five minutes ago to say he was on his way here.”
Behind Galen, Valetta gasped. “The fallen one? Here?” she asked.
Quinn related all Raven had told him a second time.
“Impossible. There’s been no disturbance here. The Seventh portal remains protected. I saw for myself this evening. Our sentries remain on guard even now.”
“Have you forgotten the ghoul attack we ourselves experienced?” Valetta demanded.
Galen shook his head. “No ghouls could overcome an entire Ikari compound.”
“Azriel is the father of the dark arts,” Valetta reminded him. “Do you think such a small thing is beyond his ability?” Before Galen could reply, she went on. “We can’t ignore this threat against us. You’re the Warlord, Galen, the leader of Ikarius. Azriel will attack here first.”
“That’s what Raven said. He told me he’s left a message for Alaric to come here,” Quinn said. “As leader of the Alliance, Raven is of the opinion that Alaric’s presence is necessary. With Alaric comes the might of the Alliance. Raven seems to think we can trust Alaric to stand beside us and fight.”
Galen glared at Valetta.
Valetta stared back. “It’s as I said, Warlord. And when he sees our Al-Kenna…”
But Galen didn’t hear the rest of the statement. He was rushing down the hallway and toward the Great Hall.
Chapter Five
Alaric loved the way the sleek leather felt against his skin. Loved the way the center seam bunched between his legs, just the tiniest bit painful. But the pain wasn’t unpleasant.
He rubbed a hand over his crotch, giving the group of females across the room a wink. Let them know he knew they were watching him. That their eyes had been on him since the moment he entered. Ah, but he loved the attention.
“They’re so obvious,” Damon complained.
Alaric glanced at Damon, who was leaning against the bar next to him and looking annoyed. Damon’s emerald eyes, which typically seemed too large for his face, were narrowed to slits as he darted glances around the busy club, giving dirty looks to anyone stupid enough to bump him; though, in reality, it couldn’t be helped. The place was positively packed. Still, Damon had one hand buried in his long, black-streaked, plum-red hair, the other held deep in the pocket of his trench, while he purposely set one boot into the path of foot traffic. Damon was clearly not in the best of moods. Either that, or he wanted to start a fight; though Alaric knew from experience that nobody was foolish enough to pick a fight with a man who stood nearly six and a half feet tall. Still, Damon was trying his best to aggravate people. He was doing a very good job of aggravating Alaric.
“Stop scowling, Damon,” Alaric ordered. “Nuno told us to meet him here, and since we’re here...” He let the sentence go unfinished. Let Damon wonder what he was thinking.
“We shouldn’t be here. We’ve too much to do for this, Alaric. My brother is a fool. We should feed, then gather the local vampire coven to your house.”
Damon’s Spanish accent sounded melodic over the Industrial Rock music blaring through the speakers, but Alaric refused to be charmed by him tonight. Ignoring Damon, Alaric scanned the crowd and grinned. Hordes of young human men and women were packed in rooms that had been fashioned to look like a medieval dungeon. They dressed in black. Black leather, black patent leather, even black spandex. He’d seen tiny little women leading men nearly his size around by a leash and had laughed at the humor of this. Men playing the slave and women playing the master, it was all too rich and too fantastic. It always amused him to come here. In the center of the club on the ground level, inside a barbed wired fence, was a dance floor, though not much dancing was happening on the black and white checkered tiles. The people seemed more interested in hopping up and down, stomping their feet to the music, and casting their fists out around them in every direction. Perhaps sometime this night he and Damon would enter the barbed wire.
He smiled down at two females who passed, offering seductive smiles that promised more, he was willing to wager, than they were willing to give. At least, when it came to him.
By the light of a full moon, he wished he’d thought to bring a mirror. True, he already knew the striking picture he and Damon cast. Two darkly beautiful men clad in skintight leather pants and identical leather trenches purchased from a goth boutique a block away from this club. Damon with his angelic features and piercing emerald eyes, and he with his long waves, pouty lips, and translucent eyes. How many lascivious offers had they received already, and they’d only just arrived? But he wanted to see once more for himself how they looked.
“Nuno has done wonders with this place.”
“You know Azriel has taken Charity,” Damon interrupted. “Things are reaching a head. We cannot—”
“You presume to tell me what we can and cannot do, Damon? How very rich of you. Have you forgotten how you begged me to bring you to Prague so you could be a part of this in the first place? Now that we’ve returned to the States, you think you can dictate to me?”
Damon glanced up at Alaric. “I don’t presume anything—”
“Raven, Myrddin and Aliceanna have gone after Charity. I’m confident they’ll be successful in retrieving her. We’re meeting with the east coast Coven Lords in two days in New York. I’ve already made the necessary calls to set things in action.” He glanced at Damon from the corner of his eye. “All is in order. The vampire covens will do as I wish. We have more than enough time to prepare for the meeting. The meeting is precisely why we’re here. If we don’t have beastmen backing us, the numbers of the Alliance will be cut in half. So relax and enjoy one hour of pleasure. Indulge, Damon, or at the very least, silence yourself so I may indulge. Scan the crowd for a meal if you must, but cease your incessant nagging.”
Alaric watched a slim blonde saunter in their direction, balancing a tray that held two drinks. He frowned at the plastic cups.
“The ladies at the table,” she said when she reached them, pausing to point across the room to the table of women he had winked at, “requested I bring these to you and your friend with their compliments. They hope you’ll join them.”
Alaric removed the plastic offerings, handing one to Damon, who scowled. Alaric thanked the waitress and she moved on through the crowd. Gallantly, Alaric hefted his cup overhead and gave the ladies a bow.
Giggling, they waved back.
Turning his back on them, he slid onto his bar stool and faced the bar. Damon followed suit.
“See, Damon, they buy us drinks. They too want you to relax. If you’re hungry, take one of them to a quiet corner and have at her. In a place like this, no one would ever notice.�
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“Feed in the middle of a packed nightclub?” Damon deposited his cup on the bar and turned to face Alaric. “Please. Let’s go. We have to prepare for the meeting.”
“You the guys waiting for Nuno? Well, he says to come on down. Can I fix you up something else to take with you?”
Alaric looked up to see the bartender, clad of course in black leather, moving toward Damon’s discarded cup. She wasn’t unattractive; in fact, she was rather pleasant-looking. Looked rather like a twenty-year-old Goldie Hawn.
When she felt Alaric’s eyes on her, she looked up, faltered for a moment, then recovered. Alaric knew it was his eyes. They were always a shock to people.
“What do you suggest?” Alaric asked.
“Not from ‘round here, are you? Your accent,” she explained.
“No. I’m from Germany, but the Americas have become a second home for me.”
She gazed at Alaric, a faint smile on her lips.
It had always been this way for Alaric. Even before he drank from the eternal fount, women and even men had been inexorably drawn to him. There had always been the offers from ladies who thought he might be the answer to their prayers. The men who swore they’d never bedded another man before. Always, he’d been desirable, always he’d been pursued, and always he’d known his was a face to be grateful for. This didn’t change when he became a blood drinker; rather, his transformation into the insatiable undead thing he was today only served to magnify his appeal. His charm seemed to double, his carnal appetite tripled, and his beauty became unparalleled. He’d never been saddled with the need of luring his victims into quiet corners, hunting them in darkness to strike them down in a hidden alley of whatever city he’d decided to haunt. No, his victims came to him under the light of city streets, sought him out and begged him for his blood kiss. They reveled in any attention he bestowed on them. This woman behind the bar, this young Goldie Hawn, wasn’t any different. If Alaric chose, he could bid this woman to come out from behind the bar and offer herself up to him. Fortunately for young Goldie, however, Alaric wasn’t so disposed. No, tonight he had Smenkhare on his mind.
Young Goldie stared a beat longer, then seemed to remember herself. “You want a drink. Right. Ever have Sex on the Beach?”
Alaric gave the besotted bartender a flash of white teeth. “Is that an offer?”
She went crimson. “Um,” she said, “I should show you to Nuno’s office.”
“Why don’t you,” Damon interrupted, making no attempt to hide his ire.
It was nearly ten minutes before they’d made it down the stairs, through the maze of halls, and to Nuno’s office.
“By the light of a full moon,” Damon murmured in Alaric’s ear, “you’d think Nuno was the vampire. Could he possibly get his office any further underground?”
“I doubt it.”
The bartender rapped three times on a reinforced steel door. Before she’d pulled her hand away on the third knock, the door was yanked wide. Dim light shone through the opening and great clouds of smoke billowed from the room and into the corridor. Frankincense was heavy on the air, giving the scene the feel and smell of an opium den. But as the smoke cleared, Alaric saw an exquisite woman with a mass of ruby-red hair standing in the entrance, waiting. Hand propped on one hip, she gave him a slow smile.
“Alaric and Damon, I presume,” she said in a honeyed voice. “You’re both more lovely than Nuno said you would be. Please, come in.”
Alaric gave the bartender a nod of thanks, then stepped across the threshold. Slowly he drank in the sway of feminine hips encased in patent leather. He felt the pulse in his throat quicken. Never a good sign.
“Nuno is always underestimating my appeal,” he explained, “and Damon’s.”
The door was shut behind them, he presumed by the dutiful bartender.
“Who are you?” Damon demanded.
“A friend.”
“Where is Nuno?”
She paused, mid stride, to look over her shoulder. “Feisty, aren’t you. Nuno said as much.”
Damon sneered. By now, disgust was emanating off him in great waves. “We don’t have time for games.”
Alaric scanned the room. The antique desk set into a corner, the expensive carpets placed haphazardly on the floor, and the numerous candle stands filling the room with flickering light were all quintessential Nuno. “This is Nuno’s office,” he murmured. “How horrible. No wonder he’s never allowed us down here.”
She went to the desk, but didn’t move to sit. She stood beside it, arms folded over her chest as she passed glances from one of them to the other.
“This is Nuno’s office,” she agreed.
“And where the hell is Nuno?” Damon asked.
“Getting to know Gilda?”
Both men turned to face the new voice. From a door Alaric hadn’t noticed until now, a man stepped into the room. At first, Alaric could only see his silhouette, but he knew from the voice who the speaker was. And that cocky swagger could only belong to one person.
“Nuno.” Alaric started in his direction, arms spread in welcome. “How did things go with the female?”
Nuno stepped into Alaric’s arms and the two hugged. “She’s here. You can see for yourself.” Nuno stepped back and stalked toward Damon, who didn’t like to be hugged.
“Back off,” Damon said.
“Come now, little brother, my little Duarte, you cannot mean you don’t want to hug me. I’m so pleased you’ve finally come to visit my club, I’m overcome with emotion.”
Damon sighed. “We don’t have time for this, Alejandro.” He spoke Nuno’s full name in a mocking voice and punctuated his words with a sneer. “We’re here on serious business.”
Alaric smiled despite himself. Damon and Nuno were as different as night and day. Being around the two of them always proved amusing. Where Damon seemed genetically incapable of doing anything but play by the rules, Nuno could never be counted on to do what was expected. And Nuno knew it drove his brother crazy. Alaric was convinced at times that Nuno was disagreeable and unpredictable simply for the pleasure of getting under Damon’s skin. And the differences between the two weren’t limited to their personalities. Where Damon was refined and delicate boned, Nuno was rugged and built like a brute. He had a mass of auburn hair that hung down his back in unruly waves he did nothing to tame. What most people didn’t know, though, was that the two loved each other with a ferocity most siblings never shared. If it hadn’t been so, Damon would have been nothing more than decades-old dust and bones long ago.
“Isn’t my little Duarte a handsome devil,” Nuno proclaimed to the room at large.
“I rather think I look better.” Alaric made a show of strolling to the center of the office and turning in a slow three-sixty.
From across the dim expanse of the candlelit room where she stood beside Nuno’s desk, he heard Gilda chuckle. It was a seductive sound. Teasing and sexy all at once. He’d nearly forgotten about her, though he couldn’t imagine how he’d done that.
The simple recollection of her brought her scent to him. It was a strong fragrance, a cocktail of perfume and human blood. It was nearly intoxicating in its force, and suddenly he had to work to keep his hunger under control. If he looked at her, he knew he’d see the outline of her arteries just below the surface of her skin, and that would be it for him. He’d want to taste her then, press his lips to the flawless ivory skin at her throat and make a tiny gash. Drink from her until his hunger was nothing but a memory.
What the hell was Nuno thinking, bringing her here?
Nuno grinned. “Still conceited as ever, I see, Alaric.”
Alaric forced his attention back to Nuno. “Well, even if you don’t appreciate me, your lovely friend does. Gilda, you said?”
“Yes, and…where did that other one go? My Pandora found them for you, as a thank-you for allowing us to use your house.”
As if on cue, the office door opened, letting in a cool gust of air that lessened the swe
et smell in the room, then shut. Alaric turned to see another woman entering the room. This one was a blonde, and she was as lovely as Gilda.
“This is Carol,” Nuno announced, one hand absently playing with her blonde strands.
“They’re both very nice,” Alaric began, but Nuno held up a hand for him to stop.
“Yes, time is of the essence. But on the phone, you said you were just in from Prague. Long flight, no? Pandora and I assumed you both would be in need of a little sustenance.”
“What are you saying, Nuno?”
“I’m saying if you’re hungry, you don’t have to be.”
“You mean, they’re ours?” Damon asked. “To feed on?”
“They know what we are, then,” Alaric added.
Nuno laughed. “What do you think? But they’re only appetizers, boys, a light meal. I don’t want them sucked dry.”
Alaric turned to face Gilda, saw she was panting now, her heavy breasts nearly spilling from her corseted dress. “And this pleases you?” Alaric asked her. “You want this?”
“Yes.”
“She’s a vamp groupie,” Nuno interrupted. “So’s the other one. Ever since that damn Anne Rice movie, everyone’s crazy over vampires. Can’t account for taste, but there you go.”
Alaric grinned. “Nuno, you never cease to surprise me.”
“So, you are hungry. Good. Eat up so we can get on with this meeting of yours.”
Alaric didn’t need any further prompting. He advanced on Gilda, moving so fast she let out a surprised chirp when she found herself pressed to the far wall, pinned beneath him. Moving too fast for the human eye to see, he clasped her wrists in one hand and held them over her head. He pressed them to the wall. He tried not to play the beast, but he couldn’t resist pressing his body closer to her, applying just a little pressure to her wrists to let her know now that she’d offered herself to him, there wasn’t any turning back.
Nuno had been right, damn him, he was hungry. It was two days since he last fed.
He felt his canines elongate, felt the end of each tooth grow to fine points that he tested with his tongue. He knew from the pleasant tingle he always felt moments before feeding that his lips were reddening, his eyes becoming lighter, changing until they looked the eyes of the dead thing he really was. His nails lengthened until they were as sharp and deadly as claws. He knew when Gilda released a low scream that his skin had already changed. Had lightened until he was as white as porcelain.
Nephilim War: Book 2 Page 6
