Dark Embrace (Principatus)

by Couper, Lexxie

  “I let the demon that killed you escape,” Inari snapped, cutting her sister’s humored questions short. “I let him fuck with my head and get away.”

  “Oh, that?” Tianya said, the question making Inari’s stomach roll. “And now you seem to have lost any ability to transform into your Principatus form, yes?” she continued, as if she knew exactly where Inari’s tormented train of thought was going.

  “And now I seem to have lost any ability to transform into my Principatus form,” Inari repeated, the words a low murmur.

  She let her gaze move over the floor, studying it with an unblinking stare. Maybe red plush pile carpet? The kind Hollywood was fond of laying on the floor of almost every brothel depicted on film. A fitting floor covering given her past existence, to be sure.

  “Could this be a self-imposed punishment?” Tianya piped up, a judicious tone in her voice no eighteen-year-old should have, even one dead for over two and a half centuries. “Could you be crippling yourself with guilt?”

  Inari closed her eyes for a quick moment, her throat thick. Guilt. Her sister’s murder, the leech demon’s escape…all her fault. And as much as she’d like to think her wretched grief came from nothing else but guilt, her mind kept coming back to one thing, one moment in the evening’s nightmare of events—Ezryn uttering six damning words.

  I can’t stop thinking about you.

  She swallowed at the tight lump in her throat. Succubus. She was succubus once more. Surely that was the only answer for a vampire wanting her, wasn’t it? She was a demon assassin and Ezryn was a demon. By that indisputable fact, there could be no other reason he would desire her.

  He’d had hunted her down, seduced her, fucked her and now the succubus force she’d once wielded over men had ensnared him and he kept coming back for more.

  She bared her teeth in a grim smile, her gaze flicking over the space between her feet.

  Yes, definitely red plush pile. The color of blood. That way, when I kill the bloodsucking bastard no one will notice the stain on the carpet.

  Tianya laughed. The sound made Inari’s nerves fray further. “When you kill him?” The air swirled behind Inari, a cool caress on her tense back, and she closed her eyes, refusing to shiver. “Seriously, sis, we both know you’re not going to kill the vampire. Lick him, maybe. Kiss him, definitely, but kill?”

  “Shut up, Ti.”

  “No.”

  The single word struck Inari in the back of the head with a violent smack, hard enough to make her teeth click together. She flinched, and a surprised gasp caught in her throat. Tianya’s legendary patience, it seemed, had snapped.

  “Why do you see me, Inari Chayse?” Tianya’s voice scraped at Inari’s right ear, her dead sister sounding more demonic than the ghost of a human should. “You’ve done so for a long time now, weeks before the master vampire came into your life, so we know I’m not just the product of sex with the bloodsucker. There must be a reason. Am I a ghost? The product of your loneliness? Your guilt? Am I your voice of reason or a curse you’ve inflicted upon yourself?”

  Inari didn’t answer. Hot tears welled behind her eyelids, and she blinked them back. She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t.

  “Well?”

  “I see you because I love you,” she ground out, her eyes stinging. “Because I didn’t save you when I could have.”

  “Bullshit,” Tianya snapped. The air above Inari’s crackled, as if each microscopic particle there had suddenly turned to ice. Very cold, very angry ice. “You were a sex demon doing what you were born to do when I died. I never expected you to save me, and I never blamed you for my death.”

  “But the demon…the leech…” Inari swallowed again. “Because I refused him, he came after you.”

  “Did you want to have sex with him?”

  A repulsed shudder rolled through Inari and she shook her head. “No.”

  Icy air trickled over Inari’s neck, down her shoulders, her back. She shivered, her skin breaking out in ripples of gooseflesh. “Did you tell him to find me in Salzburg? Did you give him my location?”

  Inari ground her teeth. “Of course not.”

  “Then stop it.” The air crackled with icy temper again. “I’ve had enough. I never expected you to save me, Inari, but I sure as hell expected you to save yourself.”

  Inari jerked her head up, glaring at the image of her sister standing before her. “What does that mean?”

  Tianya raised her shoulders in a little shrug. “It seems to me the Powers have had enough of your pathetic dithering and decided to send someone who will save you, whether you want him to or not.”

  “And the vampire is that someone? Ezryn? A master vampire sent to save an ex-sex demon?” She let her expression turn overtly curious, crossing her arms over her chest and cocking her head to the side. “Tell me, little sister, what do I even need saving from?”

  “Yourself. You’ve spent so long denying what you were, what you are, letting it scare you and control you, that until the master vampire came along sex had become nothing but a ghost more haunting than me, and I gotta tell you, I’m pretty damn haunting.”

  With a snort, Inari dropped her head again, returning her stare to the floor. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. Shit, you’re not even here. I may as well be talking to the wall.”

  “Interestingly enough,” Tianya said, “I find myself thinking the same thing.”

  “Ha,” Inari barked. “When did you become a comedian?”

  “When you became a stubborn pain in the ass.”

  Inari snarled at Tianya through her fingers. “Go away,” she muttered.

  Tianya responded with a short laugh. “Not until you tell me why you are denying so furiously—and irrationally, in my opinion—what you feel for the vampire.”

  “Hate?”

  Tianya cocked an eyebrow and didn’t say a word.

  Inari let out a violent breath. “Because I don’t know if what I’m feeling for Ezryn is real or the force of the monster I once was. How can something so…so…powerful be real? And if it’s not, if I am succubus again, will I lose more of my soul every time I let him touch me? Every time I draw pleasure from his body, will I become less what I am and more what I was born?”

  She slumped, the ache in her chest all-consuming. Succubus. How was it the thought of being a sex demon again made her sick to her already sick stomach? Made her want to cry and scream with furious rage?

  “I don’t want to be a sex demon, Ti,” she whispered at the floor, angry tears stinging the back of her eyes. “But I want the vampire more. So much more. Every fiber in my body wants him in every way imaginable and then some.” She blinked, her vision turning into a watery blur. “When I should be wondering why I can’t transform any more, why I can’t ‘feel’ my connection to the Powers, I’m thinking of the bloodsucker. When I should be wracked with disgust over the empathic leech demon’s escape, I’m wondering what Ezryn is doing now. When I should be eaten alive with guilt over your death, I’m longing for the arms of a master vampire to comfort me. What do I do, Ti? Tell me?”

  Silence answered her.

  She closed her eyes, knowing Tianya’s ghost—or whatever she really was—had once again left her. “Christ, Chayse,” she muttered under her breath, “you’re fucked up.”

  And still no farther ahead with what you are going to do about Ezryn.

  The heat between her legs pulsed again, and she bit back a curse. Two hundred and eighty years of being a succubus should have left her immune to sexual lust, and yet the mere thought of Ezryn had her wet. As always. Was it a glamour?

  She shook her head, frustration eating at her. Couldn’t be. A vampire’s glamour did not work on a succubus or a Principatus.

  But are you still Principatus?

  Cold unease curled in the pit of her belly. What if the way Ezryn reacted to her, the explosive sexual energy between them, had nothing to do with natural desire and everything to do with what she was? What she’d always been
?

  She pushed herself to her feet, killing the terrible notion as she tugged at her clean clothes. She needed another shower. She still felt like the empathic leech demon’s vile, green blood was caked in her hair, like his spittle dribbled down her face. Another shower followed by some food and then some sleep.

  It’s not the leech you need to wash from your psyche, is it?

  She let out a contemptuous sigh. It wasn’t. No matter how cold the shower she’d thrown herself into the second she’d arrived home, no matter how vigorously she’d cleaned her teeth, her body still remembered his touch. She needed to wash Ezryn’s scent from her flesh. Remove the taste of his kisses from her mouth. If she had to use a whole tube of toothpaste, she’d clean away any hint of his kisses before climbing into bed. If she didn’t, she’d only fall asleep and into his arms in her dreams. If that happened…

  No, she needed to close her eyes and escape the memory of his touch, not relive it.

  Inari’s gut churned and she stormed to her tiny bathroom, flicking on the cold water and only the cold water. She needed to do all those things, but most of all she needed to forget her sister’s hideous death.

  And her own complete failure to avenge it.

  She stepped under the icy needles of the shower, welcoming the cold shock on her flushed skin. By the Powers, she was fucked up. And it was nothing more than she deserved.

  Undone.

  The word whispered through her head. One word with so much meaning.

  The last word she’d heard from the Powers.

  Can’t stop.

  Ezryn’s confession followed, more harrowing than even the Powers’ proclamation.

  Inari slammed shut the water regulator. She stepped from the shower cubicle, a heavy beat thumping in her chest as the memory of the arrogant vampire’s words rolled through her. “Damn it.” Standing under cold water wasn’t going to fix her problem. She could stand under the shower spray until she grew gills and she’d still have no solution to the situation. She had to do something. She’d always been a proactive person, going after what she wanted rather than waiting for it to come to her. Regardless of what she was now—sex demon or Principatus—hiding in her home whining and carrying on stupidly about the carpet wasn’t helping.

  She snatching a towel from the rack and rubbed herself dry, the course cotton abrasive on her skin. Knotting it between her breasts, she prowled through the tiny living area of her apartment, throwing angry glances at the night sky outside her window.

  What should she do? Tianya was right about one thing, the idea of killing Ezryn left the pit of her belly empty. Whatever was going on between them—and she had to be honest, something was going on, something smoldering and inexplicable and way too intense—Inari knew she could not drive a stake into Ezryn’s unbeating heart. If the Highest of Highest materialized here in her apartment and commanded her to do so, she couldn’t. If she’d been serious about turning him to dust, she would have done so yesterday. Instead, she’d fallen asleep in his arms.

  So what’s your plan now?

  The thought echoed Tianya’s earlier question and Inari let out a ragged, frustrated sigh. Forget him.

  Her chest constricted. Cold pain wrapped around her. The idea was wrenching but it was for the best. Forget him and find the empathic leech demon. Go after Tianya’s killer and make him suffer. Make him wail and plead and grovel for her forgiveness as she ended his vile existence. And after that…track down Ven Watkins. Ask him what she feared to know—was she still Principatus and could she have sex without destroying her soul? Or was it already too late? Was she succubus once more?

  Crossing to her bedroom, she unknotted her damp towel and tossed it onto the foot of her bed. She was going hunting. Principatus or no, she was going hunting and she needed to dress accordingly. Who knew, if she really was succubus once more, perhaps she could kill the leech with sex.

  A snort of disgust sounded at the back of her throat, and her stomach rolled. She would rather rip out her own heart than fuck the leech to death. End of story.

  She flung open her cupboard doors and yanked out the tightest black denim shorts she owned, her favorite black satin, boned corset and her most comfortable and practical knee-high Doc Martins. She was channeling English punk rocker to be sure, but it fit her state of mind—rebellious. The ironic fact she was partly rebelling against herself wasn’t lost on her.

  Five minutes later, she shoved her knife into a hidden holster at the small of her back, tied her hair into a knot at the back of her head and fastened two thick, solid silver slave bracelets around each wrist. As striking as they were with their ancient glyphs worked into the silver, they weren’t just for show. If needed, both could crack a man or demon’s skull open quite nicely.

  With God’s luck, she’d get to use them tonight. She had to admit, the thought of splintering the leech’s skull made her very happy. Very happy indeed.

  She turned on her heel and faced the broken full-length mirror in the corner of her bedroom, the one she’d thrown Ezryn into only last night. Refusing to linger on the memory of that moment, she studied her splintered image reflected back in the cracked glass. She looked good. She looked sexy. She looked…tormented.

  She drew in a long breath. Okay, Chayse, are you ready for this?

  Her pulse quickened. Her stomach churned. She pulled in another breath, ready to face what the night held for her. And froze when someone knocked on her apartment door.

  He’s here.

  Inari stared into her reflected wide eyes.

  He’s here.

  Her pulse leapt into violent life, thumping in her neck like a trapped moth.

  Who? Ezryn? Or the leech?

  Keeping her movements calm, steady, she turned and walked from her bedroom. She felt numb, and at the same time destroyed by fire. Her heart smashed against her breastbone, a painful tattoo that grew faster the closer she drew to her apartment door.

  She reached out her hand and wrapped her fingers around the doorknob, its solid metal form cold against her skin. Its chill radiated through her palm and up her arm. Pinched her nipples tight.

  He’s here. To kill you.

  Her pulse thumped in her neck at the ominous thought, quick and breath-stealing. She clenched her jaw, placed her left hand on her knife’s hilt and opened the door at the exact second the back of her neck erupted with prickling heat.

  A tall, blond and stunningly handsome man stood at her threshold, light blue eyes focused on her face, broad shoulders almost as wide as her doorway.

  Vampire.

  The word roared through Inari’s head. The itch on the nape of her neck grew fierce. She yanked her blade from its sheath, every molecule in her body instantly charged with potent force, ready to attack. To fight.

  “Inari Chayse,” the vampire said, a strong American accent roughening her name to almost a snarl. “If you want to survive the night, you need to come with me.”

  Chapter Nine

  Jacob studied the petite little thing standing before him and thought, Curse it.

  This close, he could see just how petite she was. Barely coming up to his chest, she looked as fragile as a china doll with features just as delicate, but that didn’t lessen the impact of her presence or the power of her sexuality. Damn it all, if he didn’t know Ezryn would rip out his throat, he’d sink his teeth into her flesh right this very moment and feed on her sweet Principatus blood.

  Dangerous, General Ford. Keep your fangs sheathed and your mind on the task at hand. Tasting Inari Chayse is not why you are here.

  He clenched his teeth. The aggressive hunger simmering through his veins was unexpected and worrying, but he welcomed it. His reaction to the Principatus was a sharp blow of harsh reality. He had to remember what she was, what Ven Watkins had told Ezryn she was—a succubus. A sex demon assassin of the order of Principatus.

  Vampires were not easily influenced by a sex demon’s force, but they weren’t immune either. That he was overcome with the in
stant urge to tear the clothes from her delicious body, bend her over the closest bench, chair, bed, stair rail and sink his fangs into her flesh and his dick into her sex told him she was a very powerful succubus. It reminded him he was walking a treacherous path.

  But it’s the only path you have available, Jacob. You’re going to have to walk it carefully.

  “I’m sorry, there is no time for me to explain,” he said, keeping his stare locked on the woman’s exquisitely beautiful face. It was safer that way. Just. “But you need to understand, if you don’t come with me now there will be a war between our two species mankind will have little hope of surviving.”

  Inari Chayse’s dark eyebrows pulled into a scowl and her grip on the wicked knife in her left hand tightened. “Understand this, vampire. I don’t know how you know who I am, or found your way to my door, but you have two seconds to leave before I turn you to dust.”

  Her husky voice played with Jacob’s senses, and despite her threat his dick jerked with lust. It was like listening to a siren’s call—every syllable she spoke threaded into his being and set him on sexual fire. Was it because she was succubus or Principatus? He’d never faced a Principatus before, let alone a female one. Was it the assassin’s very gender that aroused him? The idea of a creature born to be his mortal enemy in such a sexy, desirable form? He curled his hands into balls at his side. Fuck, he wanted to bite her. Now. And not just bite her. He wanted to bury his dick in her sex and let her ride his body until he came.

  All he had to do was grab her, throw her against the wall and—

  No. You won’t. You could not betray Ezryn any more than you could betray yourself. Besides, you can’t enter her home. She hasn’t given you permission.

  He bit back a curse, staying his right hand before it could test the invisible barrier separating them. If it wasn’t there, or it wasn’t strong, he doubted he had the strength to stop himself doing exactly what his body wanted him to do. If he did that, his plan would be shot. He hadn’t counted on the overwhelming hunger the woman evoked in him, but if he was to prevent Ezryn’s destruction, he had to control it. Inari Chayse was off-limits. For more reason than one.