Fred nodded, itching to begin. She had no idea of Pestilence’s time frame. He may be readying for his assault any second now.
“Why can’t you stop the Disease? Surely Death has more clout than a human?” A very cheeky smile pulled at his lips. “Even an Australian human?”
Releasing a sigh, Fred shook her head. “The Horsemen cannot interfere with each other’s purpose. We exist separately but as a holistic one. We cannot cancel each other out, nor stop the others’ action. The Order of Actuality will not allow an entity to directly impact on one of his or her designs. We, the Horsemen, are set into the Weave. We have our purpose and that purpose is paramount. Even someone as hideously horrible as Pestilence has a supreme place in the Weave. The Powers and the Trilogy would not have it any other way.”
Patrick pulled a face. “I figured that’s what you’d say.”
Fred laughed. Whatever Patrick was, whatever he was to become, he had the most unique ability to make her laugh. His sardonic, dry humor made her feel, of all things, warm and fuzzy inside.
That’s cause you’re in—
“What I can do,” she cut the thought short, not willing or able to deal with its implication now, “is prepare you.”
He gave her a puzzled look. “These Powers, this Trilogy…surely you can tell them what Pestilence is planning?”
“And tell them what? The Powers are not all benevolent, Patrick. The Realm is not the ‘heaven and hell’ assumed by human religion. There are those in the Powers who would gladly welcome the Apocalypse and the demise of man.” She let out a sharp sigh. “There are benevolent entities who would welcome it also.” Cocking an eyebrow, she gave Patrick a pointed look. “The human race has not been entirely well behaved during its time of rule. What you have done to the planet alone some deem worthy of decimation, let alone what you do to each other. There are many arguments already raging for the destruction of the Trilogy’s most favored, and I fear not as many voices calling for your support and salvation as there once was. If I were to announce what I think Pestilence is planning, and I must remind you, my theory is all still based on conjecture and the words of a missing seer and an author who preferred to remain anonymous, there is the distinct possibility some entities more powerful than I may decide to choose a side.” She frowned and shook her head. “We cannot risk that. Mankind cannot risk that. You are it. The Cure.”
Patrick blew out a harsh breath, and Fred thought sure she heard the word “fuck” vibrating on its expulsion.
“Now.” She rose to her feet and looked down at him. “Get off your ass and fling something against the wall again. I want to see if I can detect what you are doing. We need to make your ‘strikes’ as unexpected as possible.”
With a low grumble and a roll of his eyes, Patrick climbed to his feet. “I’m getting the definite feeling you’re a bossy bit of goods.” He brushed his palms on his thighs and scanned his living room. “God help me if I actually walk away from this thing alive,” he muttered, studying a particularly large armchair positioned in front of the small television. “How I’m going to handle being told what to do for the rest of my life is beyond me.”
A wicked, tight little thrill shot through Fred at his words. The rest of his life… The rest of his life with her. In Patrick’s mind, they were together.
Aren’t you thinking the same way?
An unexpected image of Steven popped into Fred’s head, taking her completely by surprise. She turned her head away, hiding her confused scowl from Patrick’s sight. Fang face’s demon did call to hers, did push buttons Patrick had yet to find. But she couldn’t think about that now. Things were tricky enough without the worry of an inconvenient love triangle getting in the road.
The sudden smashing of the television against the far wall made her jump and she spun about, gaping at Patrick who stood a few yards away.
He grinned, the expression both boyish and infinitely old. “Am I allowed to say that was fun?”
Unable to stop herself, Fred laughed. “I think you are.”
“Are you sure this is the kind of activity you want to be doing now?” Patrick wriggled his eyebrows at her. “I can think of other much more ‘hands-on’ training.”
The pit of Fred’s belly did a little flip-flop. She shoved her hands on her hips, cocking an eyebrow even as her sex throbbed with the thought of Patrick’s “hands on” attention. “What?” she said, just managing to keep her voice steady. “You want me to kick your butt around the room?”
He laughed and, without the slightest change in expression or the slightest tensing of his muscles, a cushion launched itself from the armchair now facing a blank wall and flew across the room, whacking Fred in the side of the head before she could blink.
She snatched it from her shoulder as it began to tumble to the ground, fixing Patrick with a glare. “Think you’re clever, don’t you.”
He didn’t say anything, but his eyebrows wriggled again.
A rolling wave of warm bliss traveled through Fred. From the top of her head all the way down to the tip of her metaphysical tail. She was happy. Patrick made her happy. Happier than she’d ever felt.
So, don’t just stand there grinning like a prize-grade moron. Get him ready to win. So you can feel like this forever.
The last word echoed through her soul and she clenched her fists, locking her focus on the still-grinning Patrick.
She threw herself at him, dissolving her form into a blurring dart of blackness. Slicing through the air as insubstantial as smoke and faster than light.
A wall of rock-hard ice smashed into her. Folded around her. She felt the air she’d just been defying crush down on her.
Too easy.
She didn’t know whose voice murmured in her head, hers or Patrick’s or some other entity. She didn’t want to ponder who may be observing the moment, but it ignited her demon. There was no time to treat Patrick with kid gloves.
With a flick of her metaphysical wrist, she shattered the force pushing down on her. Pestilence would not play fair, so neither would she.
In a shimmer of silver light, she snatched her scythe out of thin air and swung it at Patrick in a blurring arc.
His eyes snapped wide just as the head of its solid wooden staff struck him under the armpit. He careened sideways, his hip smashing into the edge of the sofa they’d only recently made love on, sending him tumbling to the floor in a flurry of arms and legs.
She destroyed the distance between them in a single leap, bare feet planting on the sofa’s ridge, her arms already swinging her scythe back in preparation to deliver another blow.
A fist she didn’t see smashed into her chin in an uppercut that detonated a galaxy of stars behind her eyes. She flipped backward, scythe falling from her hand, white pain ripping through her chin and jaw. Her feet thumped against the floor, spread wide, taking the shock from her landing just as Patrick leapt to his feet and fixed her with a wide grin from the other side of the sofa.
“This is what some would call dicing with Death.”
Fred grinned back. She could detect a steely tone in Patrick’s cheek. He was only just warming up. “This is what I call an arse whooping.”
He snorted. And, eyes erupting blazing fire, he “picked” her up and flung her across the room.
Her back and arse hit the armchair, and before she could propel herself out of it, invisible bands lashed around her wrists, her ankles, pinning her to the ridiculously comfortable piece of furniture.
She struggled against the unseen hold, her sex instantly wet and heavy with lust. Now was not the time to get horny. Aaargh!
Pussy throbbing, pulse pounding, she shot Patrick a quick look.
He stalked towards her. There was no other way to describe the way he moved. Captor to captured prey.
Grinding her teeth, Fred strained against the force on her wrists to no avail. She couldn’t shift her hands from the chair’s armrests no matter what she did.
Flicking her stare to her fallen scythe
on the floor beside the sofa, she willed it to her.
There was a ripple of disturbed air and the most iconic weapon of death whipped across the room—only to be snatched from its journey by Patrick as it shot by his head.
He continued to walk toward her, holding her scythe like he’d been born with it in his hand. Another impossibility connected to Patrick Watkins—no one but Death herself should be able to wield the device.
Eyes burning, he raised the instrument of death and leveled its razor-sharp tip to Fred’s eyes.
She held her breath, drawing all her power into her core.
“Time for a time-out,” Patrick murmured, dropping the scythe to her breastbone. He hooked the very tip into the neckline of her shirt.
And sliced it open.
It was the first time Fred had ever been disrobed by anyone but herself. Wet electricity shot straight to her sex and she came. Just like that. She gasped, the sudden, powerful orgasm making her shudder, the cool air on her now fully exposed breasts making her already greedy for more.
A low groan of appreciation rumbled up Patrick’s chest and his eyes flared brighter. Hotter. “Beautiful. So very beautiful.”
Fred gave him a slow smile, the junction of her thighs sodden and pulsing. “Powerful.” She thrust out with her mind, shoving Patrick across the room.
He hit the wall with a soft, controlled thud, her scythe dropping from his hand, his eyes locked on her.
The invisible bands on Fred’s arm and ankles evaporated instantly and she was on her feet, prowling toward him with deliberate intent, the echo of her orgasm still radiating through her body. She “removed” her shorts with a thought, closing the short distance between them with two steps.
His breath heated her already flushed flesh. His jaw bunched.
She held out her arm and her scythe materialized in her hand.
Patrick’s nostrils flared.
Without a word, Fred pressed the flat edge of the blade to his chest and stomach, tip pointing to the floor, and slowly, slowly slid it downward. Past the waistband of his boxers, until its deadly length rested beside the rigid length of his thick cock. “Time-out,” she whispered on a grin.
Patrick’s nostrils flared again. His lips curled into a slow smile, he opened his mouth…and froze as a violent gust of midnight black smoke shot through the open window beside his head.
“Jesus!” Ven burst out, materializing in the centre of the room, human save for his elongated fangs. “You won’t believe what just…” He trailed off, his stare sliding from Patrick to Fred to Patrick again. “Am I interrupting something?”
“Bloody hell, Ven!” Patrick stormed. “It’s about time you learnt to knock.”
Ven snarled something in reply, but Fred didn’t hear it.
Because at the very second Ven formed in Patrick’s living room, the iconic hooded robe of the Grim Reaper covered her body. Without any conscious thought or decision from her.
And the base of her spine had begun to itch.
Really itch.
What in all the levels of hell was going on?
Chapter Eleven
Ven tasted sex and sweat on the air. He looked at his brother, a surge of something tight and uncomfortable churning in his gut.
Patrick glared at him, his eyes a dark shade of green Ven had never seen before. “What the hell have you been doing, Ven?”
Crossing his arms across his chest, Ven gave him a dark scowl. “Nothing as exciting as you, it seems, brother.” He shot Fred an even darker scowl. “Nice getup, Death. Goes well with your eyes.”
“Ven.”
Patrick’s growl jerked Ven’s attention back to his brother and he let out a short grunt. Since leaving the beach and the garroted carcass of the q’thulu, he’d been attacked by something far more horrific—guilt. Guilt for what he’d done to Amy, guilt for the way he’d treated Patrick before buggering off. He’d told himself he was going to apologise to both. He hadn’t expected to find a half-starkers Patrick with a completely starkers Death hip to hip in Patrick’s living room.
Another twisting knot tightened in his gut and he ground back a growl. He had no fucking clue what had just happened to him on the sand, but whatever it was, it was more important than what was going on between his brother and the Grim Reaper.
“Mind telling me what’s going on, Steven?”
Patrick’s arms were folded across his chest in a mirror of his own pose and a wry sense of comfort threaded into the knot in his gut. His brother.
“There I was,” he began, doing his best not to look at Death—what was she doing in that getup?—“minding my own business at the cliff beach when I’m attacked out of the blue by some fucked-up squid-faced thing some skinny bloke in a black suit who pops out of nowhere calls a q’thulu.”
“Black suit?”
Fred’s sharp voice made Ven frown and he gave her a quick scowl. “Yeah. Black suit. Greasy hair. Looks like he hasn’t cleaned his teeth in, oh, I don’t know, a millennium Anyways, he—”
“Pestilence.”
Both Death’s and Patrick’s growl stop him. He frowned at them, the tightness in his gut returning. “Yes, he was a pest. A bloody great big pest. Can somebody tell me why some drongo with bad hair, a face as ugly as a hat full of arse-holes and even worse dental care turns up at my beach and sets a q’thulu on me? And while we’re at it, what the bloody hell is a q’thulu?”
He was ranting. He knew that. His mouth was running off and he’d slipped so far into Australian vernacular he could almost see his high school English teacher crying into her perpetually cold cup of tea. But while he was ranting he didn’t have time to think about the obvious connection between Death and Patrick. While he was carrying on like an idiot he didn’t have to face the fact he’d become something much, much more than a vampire. Something with more power and purpose than he could begin to comprehend.
Jesus, when had life—sorry, when had being undead—become so bloody complicated?
When the little piece of goods in the black robe turned up in Patrick’s bedroom.
Ven snorted, the sound short and frustrated. “Women,” he muttered.
Death’s eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?”
He shook his head, stormed across to the sofa and flopped into it. “Nothing.” He gave his brother a frown. “I see you got your clothes off again.”
Patrick glared. “I see you forgot your manners again.”
“By the Powers.” Death threw up her hands, the arms of her robe billowing about her head like a black shroud. “Will you pair stop it?” She shoved the hood from her head and scowled at them both. “You’re brothers. Behave like it.”
An unexpected chuckle bubbled up Ven’s throat, its warm mirth taking him by surprise. “What?” he laughed. “You want us to wrestle each other to the floor until someone yells ‘uncle’?”
“Or punch each other in the arm repeatedly to see who throws up first?” Patrick offered, giving her a grin so cheeky and goofy Ven wanted to hug him there and then. His brother. No matter who he was standing around half-naked with, Patrick was still his kid brother. Just a little more…special then some.
Like you?
The thought stilled Ven’s easy laugh and he frowned, sinking back into the sofa to stare at his feet.
Like him.
“Fang face?”
What was he now? And why him? What was going on?
“Steven?”
He glared at his feet, a dull ache in his gut the first reminder since leaving the beach he still hadn’t fed. Well, whatever he was, that hadn’t changed. He still needed to feed. He closed his eyes, letting his thoughts turn to his hunger for a moment before biting back a curse. He still needed to feed on blood. Human blood. So much for being a better standard of monster now.
“Steven!”
Patrick’s shout jerked him out of his reverie and he pulled a face at his brother. “What?”
“I said, what happened at the beach? What did Pestilence say? What
did he do? What’s this q’thulu and did you kill it?”
“Pestilence—stupid bloody name—rattled off some crap about breaking rules and then disappeared up his own—what?” He turned his glare on Death, who was staring at him with such intensity his skin felt like it was being trampled by a swarm of ants.
Her eyes narrowed and she tilted her head to the side. “There’s something different about you, fang face.”
“Yeah. I almost had my butt sucked off by a squid monster, which, by the way, was not as erotic as it sounds.”
Death shook her head again. “No, that’s not it.” She moved from Patrick’s side to stand before him, staring down at him with eyes no longer blue but an iridescent white.
He gazed into those eyes, feeling the force, the power of their infinite depths. A shiver rippled through him, cold and hot at once, and before he could move, she reached and placed her palms on either side of his face.
“Hey!” he yelled, indignant, ignoring the ironic fact only two hours ago he wanted nothing more than to have her hands all over his body. “What the hell are you—”
He didn’t finish.
With a sharp hiss, Death jerked her hands from his head, fingers wide, eyes wider. She took a step backward, staring at him with something close to horror on her face. “By the Trilogy…”
Her stunned murmur faded away.
Ven gaped up at her, his heart hammering, his mouth dry. “What? What did you feel?”
“Tell me what’s going on, Fred?” Patrick appeared at her side, and a detached part of Ven’s mind, the part not freaking out at Death’s strange behavior, noticed his brother seemed to move and speak with a confidence he’d never possessed before. It seemed Ven wasn’t the only one who’d undergone a change today. But what did it all mean? And was it for the good?
Death flicked Patrick a quick look, her forehead furrowing. “I need to test something. I think…” She turned back to Ven, regarding him with an expression he could only call guarded. “I need to take you both somewhere. Now.”
“Where?” Patrick asked, and again, Ven was struck by the poise and self-assurance in his baby brother’s voice and demeanor.
Dark Destiny (Principatus) Page 18
