Zauran

by Poppet

“What have you done?” he says, as if I just walked into court stark naked.

  He's looking at the spot where Zauran bit me.

  “What have you done?” I shove back, not caring that my hair yanks painfully when I shunt him away.

  Jowendrhan taught me how to be hyper-aware. We spent time together while he and Venix tutored me so I could be in a relationship with Darise. I needed protection from the red eyed vampyres but they've all left our territory now, following his sister Ellindt to greener pastures.

  Jo is my friend. Granted, he did kiss me at the first available opportunity, and it's only because of it that I can summon him to me mentally. Once you've shared body fluids with a vampyre they can reach you anywhere and any time you call for them.

  Neuri are restricted in that arena.

  My mind is racing - the only viable way for Sveta to know Jo's moves was either if he followed them and spied on their activities, or, he was eavesdropping on Jowendrhan's thoughts when he was in Pravus.

  Unless neuri have other powers I'm not yet privy to, like premonition?

  Staring at Jowendrhan's cold cobalt glare my thoughts are speeding, trying to organize the Jo-Sveta saga.

  Same mate?

  I'm neuri, when we set our heart on something it's a commitment we can't break.

  Oh god. Jo just started the war again!

  *

  Zauran:

  I know something is wrong the second I kill the bike's engine, parking next to the other two motorbikes outside my home. I can hear the shouting from here.

  Kicking the stand down, I bolt for the door, shunting it open and charging inside, following the sound of raised voices to the lounge.

  “Sveta, god damn it you are such an ignorant moron! She's a fucking human! What part of that don't you understand?!” yells Ryan, shoving Sveta in the shoulder so hard he stumbles back against the wall to catch his balance.

  Aisyx hems Sveta in. “Where does she live? Tell me!”

  Ryan helps to corner him, “Aisyx calm down. You can't go near her until she's come into her power.” Then he flexes his arms aggressively at Sveta, “What the fuck did you do that for? How are you going to explain it to Zauran when he gets here?”

  He smacks him hard in the forehead with the flat of his palm, drumming Sveta's skull into the wall behind him.

  “Tell me what?” I say, the bottom falling off my world with complete dread.

  The three of them hinge like synchronized divers, staring at me as if I just pumped five shells from a shotgun between them.

  Silence descends, so heavy it starts to squeeze my lungs.

  “What the fuck happened?!” I look to Aisyx, “Where's Zaria? She must think war broke out with you three behaving like delinquents downstairs.”

  I can just picture her up there hiding, with eyes the size of golfballs, waiting for it to calm down enough for her to escape the crack-house.

  They give each other the shifty glance, the kind that has a world of undesirable and unspoken possibilities.

  Shit!

  “What the fuck happened?” I yell again, ready to unleash my power and force it from them. “Start confessing before I begin tearing off limbs.”

  Ryan steps forward with Aisyx, a wide muscular wall protecting the dipshit behind them.

  “Sveta, what the hell did you do?” I say to the coward shielded behind my kin.

  Cocky as all hell, he pushes through, breaching between Ryan and Aisyx to stand in front of them.

  He lifts his chin to stare down his nose at me. “Jowendrhan turned Božena last night. In a fortnight she'll be a complete vampyre, and I need to get to her before she starts to see through walls and vanish at will.”

  “Fuck that!” booms Aisyx. “She's mine! If anyone needs a vampyre it would be me!”

  “Get the next one and stand in line! I found her first. I found her before she became vampyre, she's mine!” says Sveta, like a kid who seriously needs a good ass whipping.

  I cut their conversation off, “I don't give a flying fart about Božena. Where is Zaria? What happened?” Then I glare at Sveta, “And for the record I found Božena first and this is MY territory. I decide who and when.”

  Stepping closer I stare my little brother down, “Unless you'd like to fight me for the right to call the shots around here? Until you best me you are under my law and you will behave accordingly.”

  Looking tense enough to wrestle me if I start losing it, Ryan answers, “Zaria called Jowendrhan to save her from this fucker.”

  And he slams his palm against the back of Sveta's head, shunting him halfway to me and flopping Sveta's anarchist hairstyle all over his face.

  “She's with Jo?” I clarify; iced rage begins to pump through me. “Why?”

  Aisyx manages to look guilty when he says, “She wanted to warn her friend, but Sveta just told me about a new lady vampyre and I kinda lost my sense for a while there.”

  “Nice going Sveta. You cornered my mate in my home and then scared the shit out of her so bad she defected back to the vampyre camp to get away from you.” I am losing it, I can feel the turquoise flooding my eyes, burning and hazing the world into pure energy.

  “Get out! Get out of my territory! Don't you dare step back in it!” Striding, I'm beyond the ability to be amicable, gripping his hair and escorting him out, desperately wishing I could thump him into a bloody bag of compost.

  “Zauran, don't be stupid dude, Jesus she's just a chick...”

  “My fucking chick!” Hurling him at his bike, I walk out with him to stand in sunshine, effectively using my bulk to block my doorway, “Fuck off! Fuck off before I kill you!”

  “Zauran, you can't do that. You're his alpha. He needs a leader, guidance...” Ryan's tone is soft, private, but I am way too pissed off to give a shit.

  “Ryan, how long have you waited? How long have I waited? And then the youngest has to screw it all up for us!”

  “Shit,” he mutters, rolling his sleeves up again and aiming for his own bike. Slapping the back of Sveta's head when he reaches him, Ryan snaps, “You, me, mountains, now.”

  Sveta honestly looks like a teenager again, staring at me with embers in his eyes, holding back tears.

  Manipulative little prick.

  Turning my back on them I go stalking inside, “Aisyx, at least tell me she was dressed and fed before you exiled her.”

  You made her feel so unwelcome and threatened.

  I picked up enough of what happened from Sveta's guilty conscience. An ass whipping wouldn't cut it. Not the way I'm feeling right now.

  I need to calm the fuck down before I hurt somebody.

  Her jeans catch my eye as I'm stomping through to the den to get a potent alcoholic sedative. Stopping abruptly, I'm blinded with the green rage overwhelming me.

  “You made her flee... naked?”

  My voice is tremulous and hoarse. Snapping back, I stampede through the house in a rage.

  I'm going to fucking kill him!

  *

  Božena:

  I'm not sure why I lied to Darise about where I'm staying. Maybe I was testing him to see if he'd take me home instead of automatically assuming he could pitch up on my turf to screw me over again, literally.

  Sitting up, I can hear the traffic from Mije Kovačevića Street. As Zira Hotel is on a corner it's probably also traffic from Cvijićeva Street.

  The style of this hotel is modern, angular, monochrome and cold. Lying here on sterile white sheets, I wish my head and heart would catch up.

  I need coffee, that will make the room stop floating.

  Sitting up, I have that unsettling sensation of weightlessness. Clutching the sheets with sweaty palms I wait for it to subside, using the grip to steady myself.

  My head is buzzing, it singes my ears and spikes my eyes, and I grit my teeth to slip off the bed and stand, hoping fresh air will settle me.

  Can I go in the sun?

  Agony splices my head right down from my crown to the bottom of my spine. T
he sear makes me gasp; bending, gripping my head and applying pressure.

  I'm going to be sick. I need to eat.

  Oh god!

  Oh god god god god...

  Please tell me I don't need to find a chamber maid and bite her to feed.

  The thought sends lurgy through every blood corpuscle and I launch for the en-suite bathroom to retch drool into the lavatory.

  Shaky, lightheaded, I slide to sponge up the cold of the white tiles. I'm slick with fever and need to cool down – I need... need...

  Oh hell, I don't know what I need.

  I'm no longer human and I haven't a clue what's normal, what's not. I could be dying, I could just be adjusting, I could need food, or drink, or blood, or...

  Oh god.

  *

  Sveta:

  “Listen to me...” says Ryan, as if he's still my alpha.

  Cutting the throttle on my customized chopper from a bike dealer in Krnjača, I refuse to remove my sunglasses as I glare at Ryan, “No you listen to me. Zena and Zaria are different. I can't touch Zaria, but Zena is free bait right now. No vampyre has the right to this land, Venix ensured it. They were ousted, and Zauran was given the authority to expel any vampyre misbehaving. I would say turning a human inside our territory, into a vampyre, qualifies as grossly overstepping the boundaries.”

  “Sveta, that's exactly what Zauran did to Zaria last night. That's the pot calling the kettle black–”

  “And he wouldn't have done it if you hadn't shown up and threatened him! This is our turf! The vampyre don't belong here! And before Zena becomes vampyre I need to investigate. I need one on one time with her to decipher exactly what it is that makes those girls different.”

  That shuts him up, he has the same question he wants answered.

  Shoving black shades up onto his obsidian dark hair, he narrows his eyes at me, showing me the warning of purple fire covering his irises, “What are you going to do?”

  “I'm going to Zira Hotel. It's the hotel she's staying at. Right now she's weak, her body is going through metamorphosis, and her darling vampyre just kidnapped Zaria which means he's distracted. It's now or never Ryan. We move on her now, or we may never get another opportunity.”

  Chapter 14

  Zaria:

  “Jowendrhan let me go!”

  “What did you do last night, Zaria? You are wearing Zauran's mark on your neck.”

  “What do you think I did last night?” I snap back, scratching down his arm and stomping on his foot.

  “Where are your clothes? Fuck, Zaria! You just turned your back on Darise as if he was nothing to you.”

  “I am nothing to him! The cheating asshole was sucking someone's face off last night, and it wasn't mine! And like Phoebe she looks just like me!” Wrestling with him, becoming breathless, I snarl when I look up at him, exhaustion building in me fast, “But you would know that as you two obviously like sharing your girlfriends because you're the one I know fucked her and turned her into a vampyre!”

  He releases me, taking a retreating step to stare silver eyes down at me, “How the hell do you know?”

  “The supernatural world is full of gossips, Jo. How could you?! You just started a new war!”

  I'm so angry and disappointed with him I give him another bitter shove.

  It doesn't even move him. He seems shocked and stands statue still, gaping at me, his eyes flicking through colors so fast it's making me dizzy to look at them.

  “Darise lost me the second he went trawling for a new me.”

  He blinks, snapping his focus back onto me, “She's an ex girlfriend of his.”

  “Božena, renamed Zena by the almighty Jowendrhan,” I sneer sarcastically. “You two idiots just did the one thing you shouldn't have. Pravus is no longer your hunting ground, it was given to the neuri! You just voided all peace agreements. You started a war Jowendrhan! A fucking war!”

  I can't help it, tears sob out of me. “I can't lose someone I love in another war! I won't! Make it right, set it back, undo whatever the hell you did. I love you, and Venix, and Darise, but more than that I know I love Zauran! I will not have the men I love, my adopted and extended family, at war! I won't lose any of you!”

  Bashing his chest, I know I'm borderline hysterical. “I won't!”

  He lets me attack him, a hundred emotions flicking over his features one by one as the situation hits him.

  “Take me home!” I'm in no mood to be here.

  Not that I have any clue where 'here' is.

  *

  Božena:

  Noise creeps over the cold bathroom floor where I lie splayed in a puddle of my own sweat and pain.

  Footsteps come closer and I stare at the slightly ajar door, praying it's Jowendrhan.

  I need mercy. I need help!

  “H-llo?” I croak through parched lips.

  A tall man with twilight-citrine and chestnut hair steps into the room.

  The scent of leather and dust overwhelms me with a potent waft of testosterone. God, he's dripping the hormones off him as wildfire chases out of his eyes in an amber mist, snaking tendrils of his musk at me.

  “We meet again,” he smiles, lowering to his haunches to tilt his head at me.

  He looks vaguely familiar but my thoughts are scattered like dandelion seeds in a gale. Nothing sticks, stays, holds still. The room is spiraling and swaying like kelp in the high seas.

  His face wavers and morphs like it's melting. I'm stuck in a Salvidor Dali painting and I'm shaking with such ferocity my teeth are rattling.

  He lifts his arm to his mouth, giving me a fiery stare with orange flames curling around his unnaturally black eyelashes, and then he smiles with long teeth showing, removing his arm from his mouth and holding me down with it.

  I fear I'm in the nuthouse and have completely lost my ability to logically discern what is happening.

  Men don't have fire in their eyes. Vampyres always have long teeth, not just magically make them appear, and I'm strapped down to the cold floor with such strength it bites agony into the back of my head.

  “I'm not human. Go on, take a drink, it will ease your pain.”

  His voice is a drug, hypnotizing me, pulling me into the pyre of his eyes and curling sienna sunset out of him to drape over me. Into me.

  Calming, the pain receding, spicy heat pops my taste-buds into instant fever with the fluid trickling into my mouth.

  I want to lick those eyes, they are so intoxicating and beautiful. The longer I stare at them the more the entire world recedes.

  “That's better,” thrums sexily over me.

  I'm vaguely aware of a warm hand wiping hair off my face.

  I lose him briefly, but the heat he's spun into my chest stays there, warming me and keeping the chills at bay with the fire he's kindled.

  Tepid moisture swipes over my skin, and it occurs to me that he's cleansing me of my perspiration, erasing the fever.

  Hoisted, I'm held ear to chest, stuck in the cradle of thick muscular arms, and I close my eyes to listen to the lullaby of his heartbeat.

  Every inhalation rubs the leather of his waistcoat into my pores, bringing with it the driftwood of his day... dust, fire, wind.

  He smells so alive.

  Feels so alive.

  Laid to rest back on the soft folds of my hotel bed, I'm compelled to lock my gaze with his, unable to break the fixation and growing lust. Erotic images are spinning like a mirror ball across my thoughts, skipping to him naked over and over and over again.

  It seems inconsequential when he removes my satin underwear and places it in the front pocket of his ink black jeans.

  Leaning over me, staring deeply into my eyes with his well built arms bracing his weight, he whispers melodically, “Touch yourself.”

  And imagine it's you... yes!

  Still unable to break the lock of his gaze, I obey, wishing I could close my eyes. Strong hands guide my legs so my knees tent, and he moves slowly back to watch me.

  “
Open yourself more, let me smell you.”

  This is so deeply erotic and wrong, I'm loving it.

  My dull heartbeat thumps like a singular bang on a gong, vibrating sin through my veins to pound heat into my sex, to gloss my fingertips where I rub and caress, wishing it was his tongue.

  “You want my tongue?” he purrs in a deep husky baritone.

  His laugh is wicked and decadent. It brings a smile to curl my lips into a crescent. He is walking pleasure and his voice injects it right into my chest.

  Withdrawing my hand for me, he inhales deeply before sucking slowly on each finger, one by one. He breaks the padlock of his gaze, leaving me floating inside a lava-hued mist of fiery orange light.

  It's all over my body like a cloud of euphoria, tingling my skin and hardening my nipples. The blast of hot breath and the pressure of his tongue thrust my spine into a shocked buck, my lungs pulling in air so deep it hurts.

  Slipping my fingers into baby soft hair, I inhale the wildfire, slurping languid lust deep into my womb, into my blood, into my soul.

  Somewhere far away a woman shudders and a moan of pleasure breaks the strange underwateresque silence. Warm breath skates over my skin when a hot tongue covers my nipple, suctioning with brutal force before slipping higher to my throat.

  A sharp pain pins my neck under my ear and the orange haze tightens round me, mingling with a new color.

  Paprika red bursts spirals through the mist and I'm exploding with so much orgasmic pleasure I fear I'm about to go into cardiac arrest.

  Blistering lips cover mine and a velvet tongue runs over my own.

  With a hot gasp he says, “Thank you Zena. You've just helped me push back at tyranny.”

  He kisses my eyelids closed.

  “Sleep. I'll see you again... soon.”

  Drowsy, unable to think alone, I allow the voice in my head to guide me back into that tranquil bliss of deep sleep.

  I don't know if I'm hallucinating, but I hope to keep dreaming about him. The king of fire and erotic clouds brings a tempest of euphoria to my body, my blood, my mind.

  *