John placed the knife against the other’s kidney. “Step away from Harley, or this one dies.”
The three undercover agents of Lucifer exchanged a series of glances. At some wordless signal, the one in John’s arms shoved himself backward onto the knife. Wet ash splattered over John’s jacket.
Stunned, John gaped at the Fallen that approached him. “What is this?” he asked in French.
“Please, man, you gotta help us,” one of them whispered.
“We want to go home.” The other looked over his shoulder as though expecting Lucifer himself to pop up like a jackin-a-box.
“You want to die?” John asked. This made no sense.
“But you gotta make it look good, okay?” the first one whispered. “Or he’ll catch on.”
“He who?” John whispered back. “What’s going on?”
“The man below.” At John’s widened eyes, the Fallen’s voice deepened. “We want out. You’re our ticket.”
Before John processed what the other man said, a familiar voice called out.
“May I join the fun?”
A blast of rosemary confirmed the identity of the speaker. His vampiress had returned! The sky seemed to ring with the powerful notes of the “Hallelujah Chorus.”
The Fallen glanced behind them. When they saw Valerie with knives in her hands, their expressions turned worshipful.
“Impale us, favored one!” In a rush, they dashed their chests on her weapons. Their bodies collapsed, and like fireworks, ash fell in a graceful chrysanthemum pattern.
John met Valerie’s confused gaze.
A slight pink blush decorated her high cheekbones. Her magnificent hazel eyes still shone with secrets, but happier ones. Her black coat framed her pregnant figure.
Wait, what?
Vampires couldn’t get pregnant.
Valerie’s first words struck him dumb. “Are the Fallen getting dumber every day? It’s like they want to die.”
“Ah …” John took in Valerie’s remarkably rounded figure.
“Yes. You can say it. Knocked up, preggers, enceinte. Take your choice. Come on; let’s get this guy to the hospital.”
John called the emergency number while Valerie attended Harley’s contusions. “He’s going to be just fine in a few days. He’s part were-hippo. His skull is remarkably intact.”
Eventually, the ambulance came and left. What seemed hours later, the police finished their reports. Only then did John place his hot hand on Valerie’s hard stomach.
“How did this happen, chou?”
“Not a clue. I was hoping your family records might have some insight. Let’s get out of here.” Valerie sniffed him. “And please tell me that bakery has éclairs.”
John’s heart’s door opened, and spring burst into bloom inside of him.
Who cared what the Fallen were up to when love enfolded him so very securely?
CHAPTER 5
Maxwell swallowed his drool as he cut into his breakfast kipper. The Rebels stripped themselves of all earthly pleasures when they left in their huff. No taste, no sex, no scents beyond those that suited the theme of Headquarters. In refusing to serve humans, none shared the joys of that work.
The Highest had warned them what Lucifer and his friends would be losing, but it seemed so unimportant then. Over eons, even profound memories of pleasure faded beyond recall.
Dressed in the form of Mina Harker’s father, his salivary glands worked double time remembering the divine brews of the Angel of Fermentation. Shaking with anticipation, Maxwell placed the first bite of his first meal in his ravenous mouth.
The smoky, salty fish blended perfectly into the baked egg that streamed across his plate like the Milky Way. The delights of the flesh were more than his deprived soul could handle.
Flavor exploded through his being like an orgasm. Not that he’d ever had one, but this had to be what it was like. The appendage between his legs twitched. Perhaps he could test that hypothesis later in the evening.
Mina Harker had created an alternative London, a little pocket in the folds of the multiverse, in order to create a haven for her damaged mind. She had populated it with imaginary family members, servants, shops, and parks as well as televisions, modern fashion, and electricity. As befitting a Victorian-style home, though, she had filled it with colored wallpaper, the textures of lace and velvet, and every form of knickknack available. His team was nearly helpless in the wake of such sensory overload and it was their first hour of the mission.
In this beautiful, detailed world, Radu Tepes had never ruined her life.
“Is the fish not to your liking, Father?” His so-called daughter, seated across from him at the long, ornate table, watched him with confused eyes. “You are eating so slowly.”
Rather than reveal his secret gluttony, Maxwell changed the topic.
“I have received news that might be too much for your heart. But I cannot keep it from you,” he said, keeping in role as the concerned parent.
Here was the crux of his mission. Lucifer had ordered a trap for Lance Soleil. Threaten his Guide, his best friend, and almost lover, and the angel would fall right back to where he belonged—riding the endless movers in the airport of futility instead of bringing light and hope to those who were lost. If John Janté’s life couldn’t pull Lance out of hiding, then nothing could.
Mina’s hand fluttered to the slight slope of her left breast, the very picture of the fragile, protected Victorian daughter. Blue veins throbbed under her cheesecloth-translucent skin. Her already big brown eyes carried dark green circles around them, revealing her weak heart and poor circulation.
No one really knew what Mina Harker really was. She slept at night and went out in the sun. She ate food. Her gap-toothed smile revealed no fangs.
Like a vampire, however, she loved ostentation. She wore a necklace of pink pearls larger than Maxwell’s thumbnail. Her earrings dangled down the full length of her neck, encrusted with more pearls, diamonds, and some colored stone he couldn’t identify. Her hair swirled around her face in a sixties-inspired updo; her shoes were some high-heeled objets d’art.
“What is it that I should know, Father?” Mina asked.
“I found your husband.” Maxwell dropped his answer like a dead body in the middle of the breakfast table. She choked into her monogrammed linen napkin at his casual tone.
“How?” she demanded, anger shoving color into her face.
In answer, Maxwell pointed a remote at the ornate sideboard. A carved panel rose, revealing a state-of-the-art flat-screen television.
The screen blinked into activity.
“Today, a French citizen in Geneva heroically saved the life of Dr. Harley Ramsey, a prominent physicist at CERN. One of Dr. Ramsey’s coworkers, a system administrator named John Janté, interrupted an assault on the black scientist by a group of known white supremacists.
“The alleged attackers have disappeared. Dr. Ramsey is in good condition at an undisclosed hospital.
“Our viewers may remember Mr. Janté from his part in the role of discrediting American vampire Radu Tepes last year. This is the only statement Mr. Janté had to give.”
The dark-haired Frenchman appeared on the screen, a large purple bruise swelling his eye and cheek to grotesque proportions. He waved away the cameras as he mounted the steps to an apartment building in downtown Geneva. “It was nothing. You’d all do the same thing, too. Good day.”
Mina’s eyes flashed an unholy color.
“Him!” She shoved herself away from the antique table. Her hands gripped the marble edge. As she moved toward the television, Maxwell saw shallow indentations in a perfect rainbow of fingerprints. Not as strong as a vampire, but something else altogether.
Something guttural and violent roughened her childish voice. “He destroyed my Maker. Bring him to me. Alive.”
Like an ice cube in boiling water, the brutal passion disappeared back into her body. Her elocution smoothed back to properly educated speech. The raging
beast inside of her dissolved into a proper Victorian lady with a weak heart.
“Yes, please.” She dabbed at her lips with a monogrammed linen napkin. “I feel faint. I must rest.” Gesturing with a limp hand, Mina ordered the housemaid to follow her mistress upstairs.
Maxwell leaned away from the table, the food smelling less wonderful. He and his team exchanged nervous glances. Something dreadful boiled beneath Mina’s fragile surface, something that could foul up their plan.
What had Radu Tepes done to this woman?
CHAPTER 6
London, 1885
“He’s coarse.” Mina Murray pulled her friend Lucy Westerna away from the bookstore window. Lucy had been exchanging furtive glances with the gentleman outside the shop.
Mina shuddered. The gentleman was Radu Turciful, the latest darling of London’s gossip.
“He’s exotic,” Lucy replied, her eyes glinting in curiosity. “You know he spent time in Constantinople?”
“Istanbul,” Mina corrected, her discomfort making her sound stuffy and cold. “Yes, I know. His name means Turkified.”
“He fascinates me.” Lucy’s gloved hand picked up a book on the curious lands of the people in question. “Mr. Turciful is so learned about the world.”
“He smells bad,” Mina whispered.
Lucy gasped in shock at the overly familiar observation. “What is wrong with you, that you have become so inappropriate?”
Mina swallowed a frown and buried her face in a thick book. Ever since the strange man from the wilds of Eastern Europe arrived in London last month, Mina’s world had been disrupted.
Her fiancé, Jonathon, who had been handling Mr. Turciful’s affairs, had gone missing. Her parents were enchanted by his stories of the lands of One Thousand and One Nights. Normally respectable, Lucy had taken to staying out all night, sneaking away from her friends in hopes of running into him.
Worse, no one believed Mina’s stomach churned with revulsion whenever he turned his gaze to her. She sensed something avaricious when he looked at her. Worse, she had been haunted by terrible dreams from the moment he had locked his hazel eyes on her. Dreams of wolves, untamed forests, and two brothers bound with their tangled resentment and love, forever fighting each other.
Once she had a dream of shocking eroticism, of someone she knew was named Vlad. This dream man resembled Mr. Turciful, but his eyes were shadowed with secrets and unspeakable sad thoughts instead of greed and plots.
In this dream, she was a bride, Ilona, ready for her wedding night.
Her husband, Vlad, was a warrior, famed for his ferocity and savagery. Unsure of what would happen, Ilona entered the chamber. Vlad surprised her; his ruthlessness hid a gentle touch and a surprising shyness. Excited by his endless caresses, she begged him to remove his shirt so that she could return the favor.
The scars on his body spoke of more abuse than even the most punished criminal she had ever seen. Despite the damage, he sported a beautiful torso: flat and hard with surprisingly puffy and sensitive nipples. Ilona delighted in the shocked noises Vlad made when her lips nibbled at his skin. It was almost as if he’d never been touched.
Vlad’s soft facial hair and mobile lips teased her as he explored every inch of her. She screamed with desire when he placed his lips on her lower places. Any fear she’d had over this act had been tamed by the tenderness of this dangerous man.
After the candles had guttered out and he had breached her maidenhead with his cock, he shared gifts with her. Soft, valuable lace, spices, and rare silks brought from the Orient: things to delight the senses. In her dream, he taught her to defend herself and made sure she was cared for in every way.
He was cautious, but unendingly solicitous of her pleasure, her needs.
But he didn’t love her.
As Mina pulled herself toward wakefulness, the last thing she saw was diamonds the size of her thumbnail falling into a pile of dust.
Mina lay in her sweaty bed, the gut-wrenching smell of Mr. Turciful’s sulfuric odor bitter in her nose. The dream returned again and again, until Mina Murray was at the end of her endurance. Even sharing a bed with her husband did not stop the assault. Exhausted, she agreed to meet Mr. Turciful one afternoon for an excursion into the city.
Radu Tepes cradled Mina’s head in his hands. She had led him on a merry chase, even to the point of marrying Jonathon Harker. But Draculs were unstoppable, unbeatable, and pitiless.
She swooned on the chaise longue, perspiration beading on the tops of her small breasts. His goal was literally within his grasp. His long, careful preparations had brought Ilona to the forefront of Mina’s mind.
“Did she consent?” Vlad’s hated voice came back to Radu. His miserable big brother had interrupted a wonderful little interlude Radu had arranged with a visiting cousin. Radu ground his teeth at the memory of Vlad shaking him like a naughty puppy. Vlad’s miserable self-righteousness wouldn’t stop Radu this time. His snotty older brother had left London weeks ago.
Radu refused to consider that his stalking had fatigued Mina to such an extent that her mind could not comprehend what he was doing. In his little world, Mina was begging him to make her his bride.
Nothing would break her from his thrall. His kid gloves disguised his lack of body temperature. The night obeyed his command, allowing no noise to enter his house’s parlor. The fire barely crackled. He’d laid pinecones to burn, guaranteeing that the room smelled of the fresh forests of home.
The vampire rotated her hand until it lay palm up in his grasp. Laying his free palm over her glazed eyes, he kissed the inside of her wrist. He unbuttoned the dainty mother-of-pearl buttons that clasped her silk glove to her fair arm.
Snowy white British skin always showed the map work of blue veins. Such a contrast to Ilona’s darker complexion. He traced the three branching veins with his tongue, enjoying the way her breath caught at his caress. The downy hairs on her neck rose under his gentle stroking. The pulse in her throat pumped harder.
As the veins plumped, he lowered his mouth to her vulnerable flesh. Gently, he sliced his fangs into her skin. English women lacked the spice and danger of his native land, but their delicate constitutions gave their blood the light sparkle and consistency of champagne.
He could turn her with this first bite, but each blood taking would render her more pliable. Then he would give her his tears, sweat, and blood, and he could live with his beloved Ilona again.
CHAPTER 7
The spring sun heated John’s apartment until the air washed over Valerie like hot, sodden seaweed. Three weeks after the attack, she pored over photocopied pages from yet another obscure tome. Relaxing in the rocking chair John had found, she held the magnifying glass over the passage she needed.
The one who can look upon the face of the sun will …
She frowned over the obliterated word.
Destroyed. Again. Somebody, somewhere, at some time, knew what she had become. And they had eradicated all knowledge as thoroughly as only bored churchmen could do.
Valerie and John had followed the trail of medieval documents to a nearby monastery. Valerie didn’t hold much with Swiss monks; after all, they were the ones who had told all those terrible lies about her back in the day. Vivisection? Really? Those guys really knew how to carry a grudge.
She tipped her chin until her bump came into view. “We got nothing, kiddo.”
“Why do you worry about so much, Mom-moo?”
“I’m a first-time mother. I get to worry.”
Unconcerned, the baby rolled. “I bet John-Dad will be home soon.”
“He should still be at work.”
“’Allo!” An unexpected voice called up from the street. “Bonjour, petite chou.”
Valerie stretched her neck to look between the railings of the balcony.
“Told ya.”
“Nobody likes a smarty-pants, kid”, she muttered, waving at John. “You are home early.” Her voice careened down the front of the building.
The upstairs neighbor pounded on their floor. “Be quiet!” an angry Swiss accent shouted.
John’s laid-back attitude had infected her. Instead of strong-arming their neighbor into cowering, she laughed at the imperious orders.
“The bakery called. They had made almond croissants just for us.” Disregarding the grumpy neighbor, he shouted and brandished a white bag with all the flourish of a tango dancer.
She raised herself up from the chair, still compensating for the mass of her new breasts. John’s gaze dropped appreciatively to her changed body, and then reluctantly returned to her face. Her nipples stiffened against her bikini top and her thighs clenched against the seam of her swimsuit. Since she had moved in, they had been circling each other like cats in heat. His warm eyes, his compact but sleek body, the way he wore scarves in that stylish French way, all jacked her libido to fang-aching levels.
How could she desire John with every cell, but yearn for Lance? Would she be betraying one love to pursue another? What if Lance returned?
Valerie couldn’t stop her hands from tracing her body from shoulders to hips even if she had cut them off. John’s expression changed from open and cheerful to blistering sensuality. His lids drooped, his nostrils flared, and his pointed tongue traced the inner curve of his lower lip.
Arousal swelled her breasts.
What would becoming lovers with John do to her?
Her wet vagina offered explicit suggestions of what John could do to her.
“May I come in, mon coeur?” John’s sensual voice shook her legs until she could barely stand.
Valerie fled back into the apartment. She wrenched open the small refrigerator and grabbed one of the pitchers of John’s blood. She didn’t get a glass; she just poured it down her throat as fast as possible. His blood was sweet, like apples and honey, as valiant and truthful as he was. The second pitcher gushed into her mouth. She finished it before John could reach the door of their apartment. She braced her arms against the hard metal of the appliance and squeezed her eyes shut.
Dracula's Desires Page 3
