The Strigoi Chronicles Box Set

by Nya

  Approaching with some trepidation, I found, to my surprise and delight, I had to bend down to get a good look. The overall appearance was familiar: straight brows, olive complexioned, square jaw. Unremarkable, mostly.

  Except now the new Dreu, the demonized Dreu, sported facial hair, close-cropped as if five or six days out from a shave, but under control, not wheezy and careless. The hair was different also, shaggy with streaks of a lighter color. Maybe grey, maybe not. It came to my shoulders in that metrosexual, angsty way of self-aware angry young men who paid a fortune to Raoul to make it look like they hadn’t been to a stylist since puberty.

  Instead of fortyish, I glowed with the inner vibe of a man in his late twenties, early thirties. Turning to Jef, I asked, “How tall am I, do you think?”

  My assassin spun me around, eyeballed my broad forehead in relation to some mystery mark on his own frame, and announced, “Six, six-one.” He did not look disappointed. Far from it. If I had to guess, my money was on him thinking he’d just won the lottery, especially after whispering in my ear that my height wasn’t the only thing showing significant improvement.

  We both stared at Willy. Jef hissed. I gawped.

  Fuck celibacy.

  Before we could make it so, Nurse Nasty you-hoo’ed from the entry alcove, informing us, me mostly, that a fresh set of properly sized travel togs awaited my pleasure. Jeffy grimaced and put a finger to his lips warning me to keep my mouth shut.

  He did the thanks, how kind, say howdy to his most royal, we’re fine, see ya in that strange guttural tongue I shouldn’t know squat about. When he was certain s/he’d disapparated back to wherever Demon Central stashed their genetic mistakes, he procured the new clothing and helped me dress.

  That made me feel like a six year old but being re-birthed from petite into size normal by modern standards set up a slew of challenges in the hand-eye co-ordination spectrum. I was thankful for his assistance. And I wanted to get the show on the road.

  As Jef had said to Rafe, Pops wasn’t going to be forgiving about delays. I’d asked for a bye week, not a bye month of Sundays. The longer that nuke remained unaccounted for, the higher the odds of something bad happening.

  My brain tip-toed around the issue of Fane and all the questions that branched from such a simple statement…

  It’s a new wolf. A young one from what I hear.

  And does this new alpha have a name?

  Fane. They call him Fane.

  My demon adjusted the seat for a larger-sized ex-monk, I adjusted the jeans to accommodate my assets and we nodded to each other.

  Jef asked, “You ready for this?”

  The old Dreu might have lied, saying yes when it was really no. Big boy Dreu had an agenda and some new reasons to see the quest to its logical conclusion.

  So I said, “Yeah,” and meant it.

  Jef drove up the steep incline, turned left and headed back the way we’d come. I knew why without asking. The pack would have vacated the dacha fronting as a castle. Instinct, strangely shared without verbal communication, hinted that the answers we sought were in Romania.

  Jef popped a disk into the CD player and concentrated on driving.

  Me … I settled back and let my thoughts wander. There was one more stray notion niggling at the base of my brain, one word that didn’t fit.

  So I asked, “You want to tell me about the archangel thing?”

  His lips flat-lined in the bluish reflection from the instrument panel, giving his profile a succinct scowl of displeasure.

  I expected any number of responses, most of them of the fuck off variety, but instead he surprised me with, “It’s a long story.”

  “S’alright, I’ve got time.”

  “No, you don’t babe. You really don’t.”

  Chapter Three

  We skirted north of the Danube delta, following the M3 according to the signs, then crossed into Romania and blew through Galati. Jef guessed it was seven or eight hours to Bucharest from the villa, but not as the crow flies. The highway, such as it was, bent south, following the curve of the coastline, though well inland.

  At Slobozia, Jef stopped to refuel, finding one and only one diesel station open for business in the wee hours of the morning.

  When he folded his huge body back into the vehicle, he said, “Maybe you better go in, pick up a map. I’m starting to fly blind here.” He peered into the weak fluorescent glare from the one operating flood and scowled.

  We’d been avoiding conversation ever since the ‘Dreu’s running out of time’ remark, or at least my interpretation of it. Though he might have meant it a dozen different ways, ‘the monk’s got a limited lifespan’ had been my take on the cryptic comment. The undercurrent and subtext had been menace personified. My damn fool curiosity had apparently triggered an alarm. As much as he was bound to me through my own juju, the fact remained that he was Michel du Velours’ man and had been for years. Milennia, even. That kind of ‘time’ trumped my measly sojourn on the planet by a considerable amount.

  It wasn’t the first time, nor would it be the last, that I had a suspicion the hangman was very close. Who or what tied the noose and released the latch was still a roll of the dice and had I been a betting man I might have taken a look closer to home, perhaps even as close as the seat next to me.

  That thought should have turned my intestines into a puddle, but the new, improved me understood demon mentality, and the skewed rules they lived by, much better than I had just two days previously. Those rules pertained just so long as I proved useful, as long as the rights of succession factored into their power structure. Dreu, son of Michel du Velours and Aveline du Languedoc, was the genetic anomaly that offered a ray of hope for demon kind in salvaging a gene pool in dire need of options that didn’t depend on wooing the likes of Nurse Kinky.

  Jef shoved some bills my way, interrupting the pleasant mental interlude of imagining taking the Kinkster on the ride of her life. I didn’t want to, personally, but idle curiosity often won out when all you had were ancient scrolls and overactive hormones.

  Jef muttered, “Bring me something to eat.” He was about to say ‘sire’, the words forming on his lips, teeth gritted, the hiss starting far back in his throat. At the last minute, his tongue twisted and flipped a ‘please’ out there, to hang like a challenge.

  I grabbed the bills, deciding to ignore his pique. If the word ‘archangel’ got his thong in a knot, I’d file it away for future reference. It wasn’t as if I didn’t have a clue this time around. A few hundred years under Papál indoctrination, and having access to restricted writings during a brief, but lovely, visit to secret Vatican archives, afforded Dreu the monk a unique perspective on all things biblical.

  I knew a thing about that particular subject matter. I also knew this: there are archangels, and there are … archangels. And the small but significant fact that I’d yet to detect any evidence of amputation on my lover’s capacious and glorious back and shoulders was a little detail that spoke volumes about how far he’d yet to fall.

  Redemption’s a bitch and no one appreciated that more than moi.

  The sleepy-eyed teen in the makeshift store gave me a once over when I entered and went back to dozing. I could have stripped the joint and he’d never notice. In point of fact I came close, scooping potato and beet-based products into a plastic bag. I nuked two mystery meat pies in a bland doughy wrap, grabbed two bottles of water, threw some bills on the counter and hustled back to my lover. He was staring, eyes forward, tapping his fingers on the wheel. In profile he looked like any annoyed father waiting for his kid to come out of the restroom.

  Leaning in the driver-side window, I deposited the horde on his lap and said, “Be right back.”

  “Where are you going?”

  With a straight face, I said, “I have to pee,” and trotted around the corner of the building toward what I assumed was a restroom. I was wrong, my bad. I should have gone left, but my snitty assassin didn’t know that so I waited by a dumps
ter and counted to twenty, then counted to twenty again, in French, just because I could.

  Sauntering out, zipping up my jeans, I realized the fucker was already pulling out onto the road. He paused just long enough for me to jump into the slowly moving vehicle, then gunned it, laying rubber as they say.

  Without being obvious I glanced sideways and caught the hint of a smirk on his devilish face. The bag of pseudo-food lay on the console between us. Before I could suggest we pull over to eat, he ducked into a parking lot and drove behind an abandoned warehouse, idling for a few minutes, probably to get his temper under control.

  I was used to being an irritant, the splinter on the ass of the universe, the grate of nails on the cosmic blackboard. I wasn’t used to being hauled out of a vehicle and thrown onto a grassy surface and having my clothes stripped by a demon blowing pheromones like Victoria Falls on steroids.

  The assassin straddled me, panting like a dog, and everything that could bulge, was … impressively. I hoped Papá’s Platinum MasterCard had a high enough balance to account for extra trips to the Big & Tall Men’s store, because at the rate our clothing got shredded, we were going to need it.

  That or take to wearing a kilt.

  Jef growled, “I will not wear a skirt, forget it.”

  Oops, thinking out loud again…

  While I enjoyed a quickie, this level of ardeur seemed excessive, even for my demon. I mumbled, “Was it something I said?” but decided to pursue that train of thought at a later time, distracted as I was by the sheer power of the assault on my prostate, the frenum ladder of carnal delights sweeping away all rational thought.

  I had a suspicion about what was going on under that cap of blond curls but for once decided to keep my own counsel instead of blurting out each and every random notion that popped into my skull. Vamps were well-known for their filters, as in not having any. The half-going-on-three-quarters demon-me wasn’t helping.

  Choking back his bellow of fuckohfuckyeahfunkinggood with one hand across his luscious lips and the other pressed hard on the back of his scalp, it took more strength than I would have had as the diminutive Dreu to gain a measure of control over the situation. As it was, the effort left me gasping for air for my demon-sprouted lungs.

  When the steamer left the dock it sailed for the vehicle and I cringed at being abandoned in Nowheresville, Romania with dicey identification and Euros I couldn’t convert in any meaningful way if my life depended on it.

  I needn’t have worried. Hawt and handsome returned with the bag of food and proceeded to chow down every morsel. When he finished, he took a swipe at his wrist and shoved it against my mouth.

  Charming, my prince of demonhood. The taste reminded me of borscht, not in a judgmental way, it just did. Petite Dreu could make do with a pint or so at a time. Six-one and change demanded more to satisfy the hunger. I needed to take care that I didn’t deplete Jefrumael in a feeding frenzy and accidentally take him to a point of no return, not the good kind, rather the one that’s hard to come back from.

  After I closed the wound, we lay there, sweat pouring off our bodies. As a point of interest, vamps don’t sweat. It’s a mercy, really, because the nature of the fluids comprising Vampyr physiology made it difficult to blend in. That other bit, that part and parcel of the mythology that claims we cry bloody tears, was right on the mark. Ergo, we’re not known for displays of emotion, at least not of the angsty teen girl or PMS human female variety.

  The fact that I lay next to a demon, both of us sweating bullets from our recent exertions and both of us fully charged and ready to set sail again, and gasping for breath I didn’t really need, made for one of those whoa, shit moments.

  I asked, of no one in particular, “What’s happening to us, Jef?”

  “Hel if I know, babe.”

  He reached for me but I scrambled to my feet, swaying precariously. Not only was I down a quart of semen, I needed a bath and I needed to go into stasis, or at least take a nap for a couple hours, to recharge my system. When Jef stood and faced me, the reason was evident. I was still growing.

  Jef did a ‘huh’ and measured me with his eyes, acknowledging the obvious.

  Whispering, “How tall do you think?” I awaited his expert assessment.

  “Six-two at least.” His entire body vibrated with appreciation.

  Going smarmy, I asked, “Does that turn you on?” It was meant as a tease. Apparently demon lover assassin took it as drop and do me, leaving me to hie to my very happy place, biting my lip to keep from echoing lover boy’s earlier sentiments.

  Vampyrs were usually the smart ones in the room. However, we were outside, behind a crumbling old brick and concrete Eastern Block failed monument to commerce with no windows, on a muddy, grassy strip of vegetation, in southern Romania. Looking for a pack of werewolves and my long-thought-dead former lover and ball licker wolf, Fane.

  Brain cells tripped over the ‘former lover’, bells tolled, angels sang, and I took a baby step closer to choosing door number two.

  The one with the archangel and a boatload of huh, what the hell is up with this guy…

  Watching the blond curls bob up and down without him having to set me on a pile of magazines to make up for the height difference was a bit of a hoot. But, to be honest, I was down to spare change, despite Jef’s heroic effort to break some unspoken record, not that I didn’t appreciate the attempt.

  Jef was the one to finally snap out of the lust cycle, suggesting we head to Bucharest and a decent hotel where we could hole up, clean up and think on what the royal bejeebers was happening to both of us.

  At the rate we were going, the only thing we’d be finding was a set of Glocks shoved up our asses by a very irritated Michel du Velours. Or Rafe. The medic had access to interesting devices, some of them nice, others not so much. Actually, it wouldn’t surprise me to find half of demon kind queuing up to do one or both of us, and not in a pleasurable way.

  We dressed in one of the spare sets of ubiquitous jeans and tee-shirts, a matching pair of navy blue sans logo over stone washed denim. My tee bulged in the biceps, chest and shoulders. Lithe Dreu was bulking up and filling out. I wasn’t sure I cared for that. The petite me had been fairly nimble and flexible. It’s not easy to watch one of life’s goals twitch away, especially when you are in the process of getting the one thing you dreamed of your entire existence: to be imposing, noticeable, a force of nature.

  Auto-fellatio was a blip, a bonus, and really, did I need it when I had the energizer bunny of all demonhood ready and willing to service my every sexual fantasy?

  The greedy ex-monk said uh-huh, uh-huh; tall, dark and in-need-of-a-shave wasn’t so sure.

  When we pulled out onto the road leading to the four-lane, and ultimately Bucharest, the sky was lightening over my right shoulder.

  As if reading my thoughts, something that happened with increasing frequency now, Jef said, “Hang on, babe. We’re about an hour out. We’ll find something near the suburbs, okay?”

  I murmured words to the effect that I was fine, when clearly I wasn’t. If I told him now, if I revealed what I thought I knew, there was no way to predict how he’d react. We were both operating on frequencies set to detonate, our bodies fine-tuning into instruments neither one of us knew how to play correctly.

  With my body reacting to so many fractal disharmonies, I finally had to acknowledge that an unhealthy dose of intuition was wreaking havoc with my nervous system. Sifting through all those competing energies made it tough to lock in on just one thing, so I shut my eyes and concentrated on what had my hairs standing on end. But before I could voice my concerns, Jef said, “We’re being followed.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Bingo.

  The assassin nodded, flicking his eyes from the rear view mirror to the road, then to the side mirror.

  I said, “I’ll watch, you drive.”

  “Do we outrun them?”

  “No.”

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” His lips twit
ched with the faintest of grins.

  Instead of answering, I said, “Is there enough credit on the charge card?”

  Jef did a peripheral vision thing and asked, “What did you have in mind?”

  “We’re going to need a bigger bed…” The speedometer spiked but I cautioned, “Don’t lose them, okay.”

  Despite the increasing morning commuter traffic, it wasn’t hard to keep track of the parade. I mentioned, “There are two cars, hopscotching like we won’t notice.” I mumbled ‘asshats’ under my breath. When he didn’t respond, I asked, “Jef?”

  He chewed his lower lip, weaving from one lane to another, staying with the flow.

  Again, I said, “Jef, wha—?” but stopped when I saw the motel a half mile away on our right.

  My assassin pulled in, parked and we both startled the nice reception lady by our imposing appearance. Jef asked for king size beds in adjoining rooms and I gawped in confusion. It wasn’t until we were safely ensconced in one that he explained.

  “You didn’t think one was going to be enough, did you?”

  Chapter Four

  Sunlight filtered through the gauze curtains. I yawned and stretched, not easy to do with Jef sprawled on top of me. Blood crusted in a random, lacey network toward his collar bone. I’d gotten a little too frisky with the artery, not that he complained, but again I needed reminding to take care with him. Whatever our boundaries were, they clearly weren’t infinite. Either one of us could do permanent damage to the other.

  For the time being I was sated so I moved the mountain into a bunkering position, blocking the weak rays from impinging on my naked skin. With the new me it was down to a tingle in direct rays, but that was to be expected.

  Curious about whether or not our stalkers were still hunkered down in the parking lot, I did an end run around my demon’s sleeping form and angled toward the far wall, creeping along it, not so much to avoid the sun’s rays but rather not to allow the weres a glimpse of someone … I struggled with the term, then remembered … ‘making them’.