by Tracy Tappan
“NO!” Dev’s heart ripped out of his chest. His boots smoked as he skidded up to his wife, his breath wheezing out of him. He fell down onto his knees beside her, his entire body numb. Flashbang remnants burned his eyes and the scent of blood over-saturated his senses. He wrenched the hood off his wife, saw blank eyes through the tangle of her hair, and let loose an anguished yell. “Marissa!” He clasped her lifeless body to his chest, his throat pumping hard with a flooding onrush of tears. No, no, no, this wasn’t happening. The limo’s receding tires kicked debris into his face.
Jaċken ran up to him. “Dev…” His strong hand landed on his shoulder. “Let go of her, man.”
“Get your hands off me,” Dev snarled, a wild savagery building in his chest. “You’re not taking her. I’ll fucking kill you if you try.”
Jaċken removed his hand, but his voice grew firmer. “Listen to me, Nichita, dammit. That’s not Marissa.”
He shook and shuddered. What—?
“If your mate was dead, your radar would have you flat on your back right now. Look at her,” Jaċken barked.
Slowly, shakily, he lowered Marissa to the street. He smoothed bloody hair off her face, and—the bullet had exited through her right eyeball, but still…he could tell… He hugged his own chest and fell back on his heels. All-encompassing relief stole his strength.
It. Wasn’t. Her.
The warriors gathered around.
“Nichita…Christ, that scared the crap out of me.”
“Can you believe that asshole killed this poor woman?”
“Who is she?”
“Dev, brother, you okay?”
Dev looked up into Thomal’s face. “Yeah, I…” He placed a hand over his chest. Not even a ping. “Marissa is okay. Completely okay.” He shifted his gaze and frowned at the dead woman. “Fucking Parthen murdered an innocent just to up the stakes with us.”
“It’s a damned clear message,” Jaċken agreed grimly.
This war was only going to get worse.
Dev dragged a hand through his hair. “Where the hell is my wife?”
Sirens wailed in the distance.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Jaċken said. “We’ll head someplace safe, then develop a plan for finding her.”
Thomal helped Dev to his feet, and he staggered on the way up. If it wasn’t for the oil-drum-load of adrenaline still pouring through his system, he probably would’ve collapsed, performed a groan-and-yack number, then finale’d by going unconscious. The long hours of stress had his blood-need on a steep climb, and it wouldn’t be leveling out until he could confirm with his own eyes that his wife and unborn child were all right.
Jaċken’s cell beeped. He glanced at the screen, then looked up at Dev, exhaling a breath. “It’s a message from Cleeve. Marissa has called for a transport. She’s at the downtown rendezvous point.”
Dev’s head fell back on his neck, gifting his eyes with a view of the stars. “Now that’s some news I can stand to hear.”
Their group raced for their cars.
“Damn,” Thomal said behind him. “How do you figure she got loose?”
* * *
Earlier…
Pändra scanned the shelves of books in her father’s library. Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, James Joyce…
She didn’t really fancy any of them. She was just biding her time. Waiting.
John Keats, Rudyard Kipling, Chaucer… She turned toward the bookcase across the—
He was standing in the library doorway.
She froze, but didn’t flinch. Didn’t swallow, either, even though her throat had suddenly turned to chalk. She supposed she ought to be proud of that.
“You released my hostage,” her father informed her. “An extremely important prisoner to me, Pändra.”
“I did,” she admitted in an even tone.
Apparently, he didn’t care overly much for the lack of remorse in her response. A barb of electricity lanced off him and shot spears under her skin, like a thousand clawing cockroaches, eating her from the inside out. Against her best efforts, her stomach sagged with fear. Her status as his favorite bedamned, Raymond’s punishment was going to be a bastarding kick in the arse.
“Explain your behavior,” Raymond demanded.
She balanced out the weight on her feet. She’d rather not, thank you. His understanding of her motivations wouldn’t lessen the degree of his castigation. But then…further defiance on her part would surely worsen it. “You let Videön torture a woman to death, Raymond. I didn’t hack into the girl’s delivery schedule for that, and I sure as bloody hell wasn’t going to let another woman get killed.” Although, in honesty, she was more taking a stand for herself than acting out of remorse for a couple of strangers. She’d reached the top limit of Raymond’s terror, damned sick of all the times she had to rush to do his bidding, and sicker still of standing at attention in his almighty sun room when anything wasn’t done to his exacting specifications. What had finally pushed her over the edge? Her computer skills had been used to take a life—she herself had been used. This was the first time Raymond had exploited her so directly, and even though it was true she’d been bred to be used, that had never sat well with her.
“I thought you had more spine than that, my pet.” Disappointment lay heavy in Raymond’s tone.
Admittedly, that stung. She hesitated only a heartbeat, then slipped off her immortality ring and set it on the library desk. “I have spine enough.”
Raymond glanced at the ring, then his cold, blue eyes assessed the length of her body, not as a father to a daughter, but as an enemy to an adversary.
Her lungs buckled inward as if she’d taken a hard belt to the chest.
“I have to busy myself with finding a decoy woman now. But…” Raymond sauntered toward her, the tap of his Gucci loafers across the marble floor managing to sound both elegant and lethal. “I daresay I can spare the time it takes to break that plucky spirit of yours.”
Chapter Forty-five
Two and a half weeks later: Community of Ţărână, November 28th, Thanksgiving, 4:15 p.m.
Half-clothed and panting, Marissa rocked her hips steadily back and forth on top of Dev’s lap, her legs straddling his muscled thighs, the two of them pressed together in the large, brown leather easy chair in their living room. She hadn’t been able to stop herself; as soon as they’d left the party, Marissa had started messing around with Dev, touching and kissing him, and by the time they’d reached home, they’d been too excited to make it upstairs.
They’d just returned from Thanksgiving at the Bruns’ house, surrounded by friends and family, which Marissa had really needed. With the holidays fast approaching, she was feeling a little bereft of family. This would be her first Christmas without her mom, plus Natalie still wasn’t in her life—there was just too much wreckage on the road between the sisters for Marissa to have figured a way around it, yet—and on top of that, Dev was estranged from his mother.
But this afternoon’s get-together had confirmed that she did have family. Tonĩ was now Marissa’s…well, her something-or-other, now that Tonĩ’s brother, Ãlex, was married to Marissa’s sister-in-law, Luvera. How many dates had those two lovebirds gone on after Luvera had spent a weekend in jail for fraternizing with a male Vârcolac? All of three? Ãlex now sported a beautiful blue-and-red dragon tattoo on his back, with an eye, the enchantment designator of a Soothsayer, sitting just off his dragon’s nose.
Jaċken’s brother, Nỵko, had also been at Thanksgiving. But not Shọn. In a shocking decision, the court had temporarily banished the youngest Brun from the community as punishment for his crimes, sending him to live topside in Tonĩ’s former house, now equipped with metal shutters. Shọn would work night shifts stocking shelves at a grocery store and go to twice-weekly therapy sessions with Karrell, the community therapist: a Vârcolac married to a regular who’d been living topside for some years now.
In other drama, Homicidal Maniac Jøsnic still hovered
as a threat, but the Topside Om Rău had been thwarted in their plans to breach the community. As it turned out, Candace hadn’t given up any information about their entrances, despite what she must’ve gone through. A plaque to honor her sacrifice had been mounted in the grand entrance hall of the mansion. No Traveler went topside without a guard these days, but since most of the business they conducted had to be done during the daytime, a warrior escort wasn’t a long-term solution.
Kimberly was still working topside, even though she was now a known associate of the Vârcolac. She’d moved to a different office and had hired a full-time bodyguard. And, no, a human male was no match for a demon Om Rău, but a guard would provide an extra set of eyes and a cell phone to call for help, and, anyway, it would just have to do. Sedge wasn’t about to allow anyone to stop his wife from doing the work she absolutely adored.
As for Marissa? She wasn’t going anywhere for awhile. She wouldn’t even think of asking Dev to let her out of his sights after the debilitating scare he’d had, and, frankly, that was no skin off her nose. She was ready to settle down and be at peace, done chasing after some remodeled version of Marissa. If she truly believed in herself, well, then, she’d better get going with that. She wasn’t naïve enough to ignore the reality that she’d still struggle with self-doubt on occasion, but right now she was happy and satisfied.
Being constantly surrounded by people who loved her really helped.
Ah, yes, Marissa’s best gal pals had been at the Brun party, too. Tonĩ-Marissa-Beth were the Three Musketeers these days, Kimberly was the Fourth when she was around, plus Hadley was a regular buddy. All four women had been at the party, having a hoot together. Beth had her new baby with her, a boy named Garez who’d been born during the full shutdown without a hitch. The baby’s father, Arc, hadn’t been present, though, or Thomal.
The Costache brothers had gone topside on a routine mission to investigate another Topside Om Rău kidnapping, and they hadn’t made it back in time for the Thanksgiving feast. No incoming messages suggested why they were late, but no one was too worried about it. The community’s communication system was still a little glitchy since the shutdown, and the two warriors still had several hours until sunrise.
So now, with worries behind them and the day’s festivities over, Marissa and her ultra-hot hubby were topping things off with some great, calorie-burning sex.
Groaning, Marissa pumped up and down on top of Dev faster. He was so big inside her, so hot and impossibly solid.
Dev buried his fangs into her throat erotically deep, and she moaned louder against the hard, hungry draw of his mouth. He surged his hips upward, the friction of his long, thick member building an inferno of desire low in her belly. Her spine melted as the first pleasurable flood of Dev’s Fiinţă turned into a deluge of ecstasy. Her head swirled, and the living room sparkled brilliantly around her, every color glowing. A strained plea for more broke from her lips, and she drove her hips up and down frantically on Dev’s—
He grabbed her waist and stopped her, yanking his fangs out of her throat. “Hey, hey, hey,” he protested breathlessly. “Doc says we gotta be careful of your cervix while you’re pregnant, Riss.” With his hands on her hips, he slid her off his erection.
“Wait,” she panted. “I’ll be careful. Don’t stop.”
He tipped her carefully down onto the carpet.
“No, Dev, come on…”
“Simmer down now.” He landed on his hands and knees over her, looking vaguely like the Human Torch from The Fantastic Four, his shoulders and chest stained with streaks of red that were, apparently, the result of some practical joke he refused to tell her about.
“Honey…” She lifted her pelvis to him. “Please.”
He set a hand on her belly and gently pressed her back down. “I’m going to take care of you, sweetheart, don’t worry.” He bent his head and brushed his lips across her stomach. He dipped his tongue into her navel, then rained a path of soft kisses toward her springy triangle of curls.
She squirmed restlessly, missing his fullness inside her. She twined a fist into his hair. “Come back here.”
“Don’t think so,” he murmured. “Your little honey pot’s so good right after I’ve fed.” He pushed her thighs apart and sank down between them, inhaling deeply. “So wet,” he moaned, then covered the entire slit of her sex with his open mouth.
She cried out and shuddered, her hand falling away from his hair as he began to devour her. His tongue thoroughly explored the slick contours of her sex, the moist heat of it delving into her shivery opening, then returning to the wet folds that surrounded it, again and again.
She groaned low in her throat and went boneless. Was there anything hotter than a man who truly loved the taste and smell of a woman? The way Dev took her so voraciously, he was one of them, and it always, instantly sent her into towering heights of pleasure. Her sheath throbbed in exquisite pain, clenching tight, tighter… “Oh. Oh.” She took hold of her knees and pulled her legs back, shamelessly opening herself wider to him. “I’m going to come, Dev. Yes…”
“Ah, good.” He reared above her. “That means your nipples are nice and—”
“Devid! My God, what’s wrong with you? Quit stopping!”
“You’re coming too fast,” he said, lapping his tongue over the erect bud of her nipple. “And I’m not done with you, yet.”
Her growl of frustration melted into a moan of agonized ecstasy as he began to suckle her, lavishing attention on the pert nipples he so openly adored. His lips tugged on her, his tongue rolling over the crinkled tip, sending heat spearing from her nipple down to her womb. Her spine lifted on its own. A little pulsation rippled along her sheath, and a raw sound pushed passed her lips.
Her husband’s cue for more torture, evidently.
Still kissing her nipple, his hand curved into the silky vee of her sex. He pushed a finger inside her, drew out her lubrication, and caressed every swollen petal with it, skimming over her clitoris, then away, teasing it again, then drifting to another part of her.
She panted urgently.
He lifted his head from her nipple and gasped a breath, his pupils huge and fathomless. “I’m nearly insane with how good you smell right now.”
The deep muscles inside her tensed and ached. “Then quit being a pain.”
“Yeah, all right.” He dropped down between her legs again and tongued her clitoris.
She jerked and nearly screamed.
“You’re so creamy now, Riss. I love it.” He penetrated her with his finger again, and her thighs shook, her breasts heaving rapidly. Pressing his face against her, he licked her with slow, languid strokes, over and over, his soft goatee brushing against her, his finger a steady in-and-out friction inside her body.
Her eyes rolled nearly into the back of her head as her nipples tingled and sharpened. The beginnings of her orgasm coursed through her on an undulating wave and then the muscles in her pelvis clamped hard, her climax crashing through her on an intense eruption of ecstasy. A low noise came out of her as the lingering traces of Fiinţă in her body strengthened the pulsations of her orgasm into something surreal. Shiny lights dotted the sides of her vision and for one amazing moment, it felt like her body soared.
“Oh, yeah,” Dev growled, rising above her. His arms hooked the backs of her knees and he toppled her to the carpet, plunging inside her, not too deeply, but the size of him still filled and stretched her with such power and heat another orgasm rolled instantly through her. He made a guttural noise as her sheath clutched him, and she felt his member throb in answer.
“Ah, hell. Good thing you’ve already come because I…” His voice trailed off on a hard exhale, the movement of his hips already turning jerky. “Shit, shit, shit.” He thrust faster, driving just short of the entrance to her womb on every stroke. His lids drooped low and his nostrils flared.
She detonated for a third time, and he stiffened, letting out a ragged shout. His face contorted into an expression of sav
age pleasure, his shaft spasmed inside her, then with a long, rushing hiss, he sank down on top of her.
Their chests moved together hurriedly as they fought to catch their breaths.
“Oh, God, Dev,” she moaned. “That was fantastic.” She was covered in a fine sheen of sweat, and her heart wouldn’t stop pounding. Pounding, pounding…
Dev lifted his head. “Go away!” he shouted.
She whisked her eyes open. Someone was knocking on their front door…?
“Dev,” Gábor called from the other side. “Bro, if I’m interrupting something, I’m sorry, but open up. This is important.”
Cursing, Dev pulled out of her and rose, trailing his fingers lightly over her belly as he did; he probably touched their child thirty times a day.
She rolled to her knees and fumbled her dress on over her head. Her underwear was still looped around her ankle.
“Why don’t you go upstairs, Riss.” Dev hauled on his pants and tugged his scrunched-up shirt down.
Gábor pounded again. “Nichita!”
“You’d better answer it,” she said, pushing to her feet and yanking up her panties.
Dev crossed to the door and yanked it open. “Jesus, Pavenic. What gives?”
Gábor stepped just inside their living room. “Hey, Marissa. Sorry,” he repeated, then focused on Dev, his usual devil-may-care expression gone. “Tonĩ wants you at the hospital right away.”
Instantly sobering, Dev grabbed one of his suede boots from by the couch. “Shit, what’s going on?”
“Arc and Thomal just got back and…” Gábor ran a hand over the prickles of his buzz cut. “Something happened to Thomal.”
Marissa inhaled with difficulty. “Dear God.”
Lips white, Dev snatched up his other boot and shoved his foot into it. “What the hell do you mean something happened? Is he injured?”
“No. Uh, some chick…” Gábor’s face reddened and his lips twisted. “Ah, shit, Dev. Some chick really messed him up.”
