by Lara Adrian
MASTERS
OF
SEDUCTION
LARA ADRIAN
DONNA GRANT
LAURA WRIGHT
ALEXANDRA IVY
ISBN-13: 978-0-991647507
MASTERS OF SEDUCTION
© 2014 by Obsidian House Books, LLC
Cover design © 2014 by CrocoDesigns
MERCILESS: HOUSE OF GRAVORI
© 2014 by Lara Adrian, LLC
SOULLESS: HOUSE OF ROMERAC
© 2014 by Donna Grant
SHAMELESS: HOUSE OF VIPERA
© 2014 by Laura Wright
RUTHLESS: HOUSE OF XANTHE
© 2014 by Debbie Raleigh
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the Author.
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Unabridged audiobook edition forthcoming.
MERCILESS
House of Gravori
Lara Adrian
CHAPTER ONE
A gust of hot wind and fine, rust-colored sand twisted like a dervish in front of Devlin Gravori’s hard-set face as the hatch of his private jet opened and he prepared to disembark from the long flight.
When he’d awoken that morning, he could not have guessed that before day’s end he would find himself several hours away from his island citadel in the Adriatic sea, arriving at this small desert airport in a forbidding corner of the Middle East that had once—long, long ago—been known as Mesopotamia.
Then again, when he’d begun his day, Dev had no idea that his brother had been killed.
The shock of it, the piercing grief, clung to him as it had the first moment he’d learned the news.
Golden, charming Marius…dead.
Murdered.
Dev’s fists clenched as the memory of what he saw earlier that day filled his vision. Marius and a human woman, both nude, sprawled together in tangled white sheets that were soaked with sweat and semen and a terrible pool of their combined blood.
The woman had been stabbed through the heart—a certain, instant death for any mortal.
Marius would have been harder to kill.
Just shy of four hundred years old, he had been younger than Dev by several centuries, but no less formidable. They were Incubi, a demon race that fed on sexual energy and had existed for as long as Heaven and Hell had been at war over the souls of mankind.
Devlin and his brothers of the House of Gravori—and every Incubus in the nine other Houses of their race as well—were something ancient and dark, close to immortal.
There were few ways to slay one of their kind, and fewer individuals who would dare.
Whoever had sliced open Marius’s throat in the midst of his sexual feeding last night had been aware of one of the surest methods.
If Dev had to guess, the slayer had taken advantage of Marius at his weakest moment, attacking from behind as the Incubus was having his carnal fill of his Thrall.
The human female had been slain with equal stealth and precision, no doubt while Marius was bleeding out. His big body slumped across her from the waist down, the woman had been pinned beneath his dead weight on the bed. A deep puncture wound had gaped at her breast, her fair skin sticky and dark with her life’s blood.
The killings had been expert, and nothing if not thorough.
Except for one telling flaw.
Dev carried that evidence on him now, to an unannounced confrontation on what had forever been sacred, neutral ground.
Scraping a hand over his short black hair, he headed down the Gulfstream G650’s stairs in his charcoal gray, custom-tailored Italian suit and gleaming leather shoes. He hadn’t bothered to change into more appropriate attire for this meeting. If the trappings of the outside world offended, Dev didn’t give a damn. He’d been called directly from his corporate office to the crime scene that morning, then had been en route to this swath of arid, heat-choked land within the hour.
Ironic that the lofty audience he sought now should be hidden in a place as hellish as this.
He muttered a curse. Nasty words, spoken in the ancient language of his demon ancestors.
“It’s not too late to turn back, Dev.”
The calm, deep voice belonged to Ramiel, the captain of the House of Gravori’s Watchmen. The dark-haired bodyguard deplaned along with Dev, dressed in black pants and a fitted black T-shirt that clung to his broad chest and massive biceps. Elaborate tattoos declaring Ram’s House affiliation and profession wrapped the Incubus guardian’s forearms.
Ram shared Dev’s bloodline; a distant cousin, but as loyal as any brother. And the Watchman was coolheaded and steady, where Gravori’s Master was apt to strike hard and without warning at the first sign of attack.
Like the scorpion that had been the sigil of the Gravoris for eons, Dev’s wrath was swift, blinding.
Utterly merciless.
It had earned him the nickname “Devil” Gravori, a reputation that followed him in both his business dealings and in all other areas of his life.
Today, he was prepared to demonstrate the full force of that reputation in one of the most hallowed courts of the immortal realm.
“You don’t have to do this,” Ram went on. “Not like this.”
“The hell I don’t,” Dev snarled.
The sight of Marius’s killing was still raw in his mind. Every detail would be burned into his memory forever. Grief raked him, but it was fury that had put him on the plane and sent him here with a thirst for vengeance.
In the chest pocket of his suit coat, the errant object Dev had retrieved from beneath his brother’s body felt like ice resting over his heart. “No one crosses the House of Gravori with impunity. Not even them.”
He stared forward, refusing to slow his pace, let alone reconsider where he was heading.
Ramiel grimly strode alongside him, across the sunbaked dirt tarmac, where a local driver in an off-road SUV waited. The vehicle had been hired to take them deeper into the desert, toward a ridge of jagged, haze-shrouded mountains that loomed like a dragon’s spine in the sweltering distance.
The driver wouldn’t be able to deliver them the entire way. The place Dev needed to go would not be found on any map or road or shepherd’s path.
For the last leg of his journey, to enter the neutral ground of the Nephilim court, Dev would need to rely on demon magic to transport him.
And hope to hell that same demon magic would get him out again when it was over.
When they reached the idling SUV, Ram paused. The Watchman’s face was grave, filled with dread and doubt. “Confronting the Three simply isn’t done, Dev. You know that. They are the balance. They have the power to enforce Nephilim law. They have the ear of the Sovereign as well.”
“The Sovereign.” Dev grunted. “It’s been more than five hundred years since the Council awarded the Obsidian Throne to the House of Marakel. Since then, things between the Nephilim and the other Incubi Houses have been anything but balanced. If you ask me, we’d all be better
off if we cleared the decks and started over. Beginning with the Incubus seated on the Throne.”
Ram exhaled an oath, low under his breath. “For fuck’s sake, Dev. First you fly out here determined to demand an audience with the most powerful Nephilim in the realm, and now you stand here talking about treason.”
Dev shrugged. “Change is coming, just not soon enough for my liking. The Three are due to step down in a handful of years, and if Marakel does not produce an Incubus heir before long, his House will die out the same way Akana’s did.”
Ram gave him a dubious look. “Yes, and in the meantime, the Three can—and will—do whatever they please, all in the name of peace. If you won’t listen to reason, then at least let me stand with you in front of them today. As captain of Gravori’s Watchmen, I’m sworn by blood and steel to ensure your neck stays intact.”
“They wouldn’t dare,” Dev assured him.
Ram’s answering gaze was sober. “Tell that to Marius.”
Dev didn’t appreciate the reminder, even though the warning wasn’t without merit. But he wasn’t about to let anyone stand between him and the trio of Nephilim priestesses whose hands, he was certain, were somehow stained with his brother’s blood. Ram may have pledged his life to Devlin as the Master of the House of Gravori, but Dev’s presence here was personal.
And if it turned into a battle, he’d be damned before he let anyone else fight it for him.
“There are worse things than death,” Ram murmured. “Prison and torture in the Oubliette, for one.”
Although the Watchman was right about that, Dev dismissed the thought of the infamous supernatural prison with a hissed curse.
“I can’t let Marius’s death go unchallenged, Ram,” he said, his tone permitting no further argument. “Someone needs to answer for my brother’s slaying. Someone needs to pay, blood for blood.” Dev’s hand came up to the place where the proof of his suspicion rested, cold against his heart. “I won’t leave here without collecting on this debt.”
CHAPTER TWO
The audience with the Three was about to end in tears and disappointment.
Nahiri knew it, even before the Nephilim mother’s chin began to quiver with emotion. The woman was on her knees in a reverent pose, her demure daughter beside her at the base of the broad marble stairs that led up to the elevated platform at the head of the temple’s High Chamber.
At the top of the eight polished marble steps, seated behind a tall screen crafted of pierced sandalwood painted with gleaming gold leaf, the trio of Nephilim priestesses presided, unseen, over the temple and all within it.
Nahiri stood at the bottom right of the stairs. Like the mother and daughter seeking counsel, Nahiri was clothed especially for this chamber sanctuary, in an undyed linen tunic and pants, simple calfskin sandals on her feet. But strapped crisscross from shoulder to waist on both sides of her body were the woven leather sheaths that held the weapons of her station.
Nahiri was a Blade.
More specifically, she was a Temple Blade, one of less than a dozen Nephilim warriors responsible for guarding the High Chamber and protecting the Three.
Not that anyone had ever dreamed of doing them harm.
To Nahiri and the other Temple Blades—to all Nephilim, in fact—the exalted Three, being half human, half angel, were practically deities in their own right.
For nearly three hundred years, they had occupied this temple as supreme, sacred advisors. Like the Three who served before them, their lives were devoted in selfless counsel to the Sovereign on the Obsidian Throne, and to the larger Nephilim and Incubi populations that existed in secret alongside mankind in the outside world.
The decisions and edicts of the Three were intended to keep the ultimate peace, and to ensure harmony and balance between the Nephilim and the Incubi, above all things.
Unfortunately, for the mother petitioning the Three today on behalf of her daughter, those decisions did not always align with the whims and wishes of everyone who was granted an audience in the High Chamber.
Nahiri stood motionless at her post as the Nephilim mother attempted to persuade the Three to reconsider her request here today.
“Your Graces, please, I beseech you. Each generation of my family has been chosen to send one of our daughters to the Harem in her twentieth year. Why not this time? Why not my daughter? It is an honor we have always accepted most humbly—”
“As you should,” said one of the Three, a mild but measured response drifting down from behind the obscuring screen. “Selection is an honor that cannot be requested or petitioned. It is a sacred duty that must be protected and preserved.”
Although she respected the Nephilim way of life, Nahiri was relieved that as a Blade, she was ineligible for the Harem. The idea of being sent away to breed with the Incubi who visited the pleasure palace made her shudder inwardly. She’d heard enough tales of the Incubi’s insatiable, unholy appetites and overwhelming sexual power.
She’d listened in appalled fascination to the stories some of the other Blades told in the temple dormitory late at night—stories they’d heard from Nephilim sisters and cousins on the outside about all of the things rumored to go on within the silk-draped walls of the Harem.
Wicked, deviant things that made Nahiri’s cheeks flush and sent heat pooling between her legs, even now.
Awkwardly, she shifted on the soles of her feet, trying to ignore the unwanted stirring of her body. As she moved, she felt her long black braid swing against her spine.
Her perfect soldier’s posture broken, Nahiri winced and hoped no one had noticed.
Naturally, someone had.
The shifting of her stance caught the attention of the Temple Blade posted on the other side of the High Chamber staircase. The tall blond Nephilim lifted a pale brow in Nahiri’s direction, smugly noting the flaw.
Of course, Valina would enjoy seeing Nahiri squirm. The two had been in a silent competition with each other from the moment they both arrived at the temple to train as Blades at the age of eighteen. A decade later, they were still rivals.
Valina’s stunning beauty won favors from everyone who looked at her, but the Blade was also a skilled fighter. Though she was not quite as skilled—nor as disciplined—as Nahiri. It was that slim difference that had won Nahiri the right side of the High Chamber stairs as captain of the Temple Blades, while Valina stood as her second on the left.
Even though pride was frowned upon in the temple, Nahiri couldn’t help taking more than a little satisfaction in the position she had claimed through hard work and devotion to her duty.
Spine erect, expression placid, she stood at attention as the Nephilim mother and her daughter were dismissed by the Three and began to take their leave.
The pair had barely made it to the arched double doors when the fine hairs on Nahiri’s nape started to prickle.
A stirring energy was gathering swiftly outside the Chamber.
The tall door swung open, admitting a startling burst of heat. It shot through the room, carrying with it a metallic punch of ozone that blasted into Nahiri’s nostrils. Like the approach of a violent storm, the air turned electric.
Then it came alive in the form of a man.
A very large, menacing man.
Incubus.
Nahiri knew it even before the raven-haired demon materialized fully and lifted his dark head. His citrine gaze was narrowed, his stance aggressive, big hands fisted at his sides.
Alarm rushed over the room like a flash fire. Nervous whispers and anxious murmurs hissed through the ranks of the other Blades. One of the newer trainees let out a shriek.
Only the Three seemed unmoved by the intrusion.
Not that the Incubus seemed to notice.
Nor did he care.
His disregard was plain enough in the way he’d arrived, rudely disrupting the Chamber. But his attire added further insult. Instead of dressing appropriately for an appearance on sacred ground, he wore clothing from the outside, from the world o
f man. Modern, sophisticated clothing that somehow made him seem even more foreign and savage in this place.
The coal-gray suit he wore outlined every broad line and muscled inch of his body. At his throat, a patch of smooth, tanned skin showed beneath the unbuttoned collar of his crisp white shirt, hinting at lazy days spent under the sun.
Decadent, Nahiri thought disapprovingly. It didn’t take much to imagine what she guessed to be a pampered, debauched lifestyle of sloth and pointless indulgence.
She tried not to imagine anything more about the sex-feeding demon, least of all how he and his kind were gifted with the power to seduce even the most unwilling soul.
She felt the depth of that power crackling in the air all around her as the Incubus stepped forward, neither waiting for, nor seeking, permission from the Three to approach.
Nahiri settled her hands on her weapons as he stalked up the center aisle in arrogant, long-legged strides, his entire demeanor bristling with menace. Yet for all his arrogance and rudeness, he was handsome. She might even have been tempted to call him beautiful, if not for the savage scowl that knit his brow and twisted his full lips into a furious snarl.
Even in rage, his face was arresting. Brutal and fierce, full of hard angles and unforgiving lines, his was the kind of face that would’ve told anyone looking at him that he was something more than human.
Something long-lived, darkly formidable.
Something very dangerous—all the more so because of his enticing, rugged appeal.
Judging from the many agog faces of her fellow Blades, Valina included, Nahiri had to guess this was one incredibly powerful Incubus.
Hushed whispers drifted toward her from the other Nephilim.
“Isn’t that the Master of Gravori House?”
