Embrace of the Damned

by Bast, Anya

  “You are hereby punished for your crimes, Broder Calderson. Eternally.”

  Broder had no doubt of this, but he could barely rouse himself to care.

  “Don’t be disheartened,” Loki continued. “I am not an evil god with no sense of the human heart. Exactly one thousand years from now, if you have been a worthy warrior you will have a woman. Not just any woman—the woman of your every desire.”

  And then Broder truly knew he was damned.

  ONE

  ONE THOUSAND YEARS LATER … TO THE DAY

  Jessamine’s boots clicked on the pavement of the parking ramp, echoing through the empty structure. It was late and she was alone. If she’d had any other choice, she would have been home and in bed right now with a good book, rather than walking through this creepy parking garage with every bad movie cliché about such places riffing through her already freaked-out mind.

  Her tote bag, stuffed with all her paperwork, rested over one shoulder. Her hand was secured in her pocket, pepper spray unlocked and at the ready. She didn’t take any chances. Not these days. Life had suddenly grown too unpredictable for that.

  Her hands still trembled from what she’d just done. She wasn’t certain she could ever do it again. How she’d managed to do it at all still eluded her. She hadn’t received any concrete answers from the risk she’d taken tonight, but sometimes lack of information was meaningful, too.

  And, wow, she’d taken a huge risk.

  Now all she wanted was to get home, sort through the confusing results of the evening, and figure out what to do next.

  As she rounded one of the thick concrete walls, a man stepped out from near the elevators. Jessa hesitated, watching him carefully, her hand ready on the pepper spray. He was a good-looking guy dressed in a black linen shirt, a pair of jeans, and black boots. His face had a GQ-handsome quality to it, light blue eyes and well-trimmed facial hair around his sensual mouth. His hair, black and slick, was styled to perfection. Her best friend, Lillie, would have swallowed her tongue. Just her type.

  Normally she’d think yum. Tonight he set off every warning in her body. He was the type of polished man that usually put a woman at ease, but her mind never strayed from Ted Bundy. He’d been a handsome, polished guy, too.

  He watched her with attention beyond that of some guy waiting for an elevator. His fascination with her every move did little to flatter her. She walked past him, doing her best to hide her impulse to break into a run.

  “Be careful tonight,” said the man in a rich voice that reminded her of warm chocolate.

  She missed a step, tried to smile but was too on edge. “Excuse me?”

  “They know what you are.” He paused. “They’ve been watching you.”

  What I am? She pulled up short, stunned by his words. The comment sent a shiver through her, a jolt of fear followed by a sharp jab of anger. “Are you trying to scare me or are you just crazy?”

  The edges of the man’s mouth quirked up and he slid his hands into his pockets. “My name is Dmitri. I’m a friend.”

  “A friend, sure. The kind of friend who wants to rape and murder me, maybe.” Her hand clenched hard on the pepper spray. If he took one step in her direction, he’d get it full in the face.

  For a moment it appeared as though his eyes went completely black. It rocked her back a step. Impossible. “I’m not the one who means you harm. I’m just trying to warn you, Jessa.”

  Now she was really scared. How the hell did he know her name?

  Jessa bolted, breaking into a run, checking over her shoulder constantly to make sure he wasn’t following her.

  What that man had said made a kind of sense she didn’t want to examine. She had no idea who Dmitri was, but it was possible he was telling the truth. Maybe they were watching her. Maybe they did know what she was. Maybe they did mean her harm. It wasn’t paranoia if they were really after you, right? She just wished she knew who they were.

  How much strangeness could a woman handle before she went insane? She was afraid she might be about to discover the answer.

  When she determined Dmitri wasn’t following, she slowed her pace, rounding the corner that brought her to the lot where she’d parked her car. Her heart pounded fast enough to make her eardrums thrum and her hands were shaking. She needed to get home, to the safety of her well-locked apartment. She needed time to breathe, collect her thoughts.

  Jessa approached her black sedan with a sigh of relief. No echo of a man’s measured footsteps had resounded behind her; no gloved hand had covered her mouth and drawn her into the shadows. There was her car; she was safe. Yay. She tried to muster some enthusiasm for that happy news and failed. She was exhausted and frightened.

  Pulling her keys from her other pocket, she unlocked her doors remotely. Just as she touched the door handle, someone cursed loudly. Her head whipped up and she spotted a man with medium brown hair holding a briefcase on the opposite side of the row of parked cars. He looked harmless, like some accountant or businessman who’d been working late.

  In one hand he held a briefcase and he was using the other hand to shade his eyes as he peered into the driver’s-side window. He swore again, his voice sounding squeaky and distressed.

  She almost ignored the worried man, got into her car, and drove away, but she hadn’t been raised that way. “Are you all right, sir?” she called loudly from her safe place beside her car’s driver’s-side door. Her voice held a nervous, distracted tremor. She didn’t want to deal with this right now.

  The man glanced at her, seeming surprised to find her there. He adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “I locked my keys and my cell phone in the car. Stupid,” he muttered. He turned back to the automobile, staring into the window as though he could reach through the glass and grab his stuff. “It’s late, the building is closed, and—”

  “No problem,” Jessa called to him. “I’ve locked my keys in my car before, too. I’ll call a locksmith for you. I’ll tell them it’s a green Impala on level three of the Handburg parking garage. They should be here soon, okay?”

  She opened her car door, intending to sit down and fish out her phone to make the call, but the man walked over to her instead.

  No. He didn’t walk, he ran … or something. Damn, the guy could move fast. One minute he was way over there, now he was right beside her.

  She backed away from him, alarmed. Had she imagined that?

  “Wait. That will be expensive. Do you mind if I just call my wife? She’s got an extra key.”

  He flashed a bland smile at her, a bland smile on a bland face. She looked down and saw the gold wedding band on his left hand wink in the dim light.

  She must have imagined it. “Sure.” She dug into her bag and pulled her cell phone out. “Here you—” The cell phone clattered to the cement as bland suddenly turned brutal. The veneer of nice, harmless man peeled away like an aging patina.

  Oh, no.

  Jessa stepped backward as the man’s thin lips peeled into a gruesome smile, revealing sharp white teeth and … were those … fangs? How could that be?

  “Jessamine Amber Hamilton?” Even the man’s voice had changed. He ripped off the glasses and threw them to the pavement.

  She shook her head, unwilling to answer, and took another step back. Her fingers closed around her pepper spray. He was between her and her car. That needed to change. Getting to her car meant she could make it out of here alive.

  Rage blossomed inside her. She just wanted to go home! Jessa stopped retreating. “Get the hell away from me right now.” Her voice came out a whole lot stronger and more assertive than she felt, but she needed to treat this man like the dog he was—and show him who was alpha. If she didn’t act afraid, maybe he’d back off.

  The man tipped his head to the side, looking oddly alien. Then he smiled a waaaay creepy smile and said, “No.”

  “Fine. You asked for it, asshole.” She pulled the pepper spray from her pocket, aimed it at the man’s face, and pulled the trigger.
The pepper spray hit him straight in the eyes, but he didn’t flinch. All he did was swipe a hand across his face and leer at her. It was as if she’d shot him with a water pistol. Then, if the fangs weren’t weird enough, his eyes bled black … completely black. Hell-spawn obsidian black.

  Okay, that was not normal.

  The smell of the pepper spray stung her nose, made her eyes water. It was potent. Any normal human would be writhing in agony on the floor of the parking garage by now. Why wasn’t he?

  The man narrowed his creepy black eyes and smiled, revealing—unmistakably this time—two shiny sharp fangs.

  It appeared she had her answer; this thing wasn’t human.

  A growl issued from the back of his throat that raised the hair along her nape. She dropped her bag, turned, and ran. He tackled her immediately, rolling her over and looming above her. She fought him—punching, biting, scratching—but his strength was as unnatural as his teeth. And his grip was cold, freezing. Where his skin touched her, she went numb.

  His mouth, with those shiny fangs, descended toward her face, ice-cold saliva dripping from their knifelike points.

  She screamed.

  He could feel her.

  Her presence burned through every fiber of his body, screaming at him to find her. It had rushed through him the moment Loki had untwisted the cosmic laws that bound him—unlocked Broder’s ability to be with a woman. His chastity belt. That’s what the Brotherhood of the Damned called it, a darkly comedic term for the magick that kept them from intimate contact with any other person.

  You could call Loki many things, but not a liar. At least not this time. It was exactly a thousand years since the day Broder had been taken for the Brotherhood. Just as Loki had promised, he was free—at least for a time—to taste the fruits he’d been forbidden.

  He could feel her.

  From the moment he’d been freed, she’d pulled him toward her. This was the one woman allowed him in all the world and nothing was going to keep him from her.

  He raced his cycle down the rain-slicked streets of Washington, D.C., the reflection of the lights from the intersections he rode through gleaming on the wet pavement and the ends of his long, rune-laced leather coat flapping behind him.

  His blood sang hot with the supernatural scent of her. She wasn’t far, just a few blocks away. His body tightened with need, his heart rushing with adrenaline triggered by her nearness. She would be human, that was always how Loki did it. Not Valkyrie, not witch. Human. It complicated things for the Brotherhood and amused Loki, the bastard. He never made things easy.

  One thousand years he’d been in the Brotherhood of the Damned. One thousand years of offing Blight, one by one, hoping to find that single agent from whom the sliver had been taken that pierced his soul. If he could find that one agent of the Blight, he would be free to die.

  Most humans dreamed about immortality, but most in the Brotherhood dreamed of death—of peace, of rest, of change of any kind. Love was just a dream … death, something to strive for.

  Immortality for the Brotherhood was hell.

  Kill the agent of the Blight from whom Loki had extracted the sliver lodged in Broder’s soul and the sliver would die, too. The countdown clock of his physical life would resume.

  But this. This was a new goal. This was different from the last thousand years of his life. This woman promised warmth, companionship … pleasure. A respite from the endless cycle of killing and death.

  He was close now. He gunned the engine of his cycle, ran a red light. The city was empty, winding down into night. To his left was a parking garage. In it was his woman.

  Broder gunned the motorcycle inside, his blood a torpedo headed straight for her.

  TWO

  Fangs scraped Jessa’s throat and the man’s huge body—he’d seemed so harmless a few seconds ago!—anchored her to the parking garage floor. No amount of screaming seemed to help and the only thing going through her head right now was oh, shit on repeat.

  She’d always wondered what her last thought would be.

  Suddenly the man was gone. No, wait, not gone—launched.

  One moment another drop of freezing-cold saliva dangling on his fang had been about to drip onto her cheek; the next moment … nothing.

  Pushing up on her elbows, she watched as the man careened through the air like a wadded-up piece of paper to land near a big black motorcycle, apparently her savior’s mode of transport. A huge guy with dark hair and dressed from head to toe in a long, ancient-looking leather duster strode after the man … thing … whatever it was. And he looked pissed.

  Biker Guy grabbed Fanged Thing by the front of his shirt and hefted him. They struggled and she wasn’t sure who was going to win. Fanged Thing was stronger than he seemed. Alarmed, she crab-walked backward until she hit the tire of a nearby car. Fanged Thing growled and snapped at Biker Guy, but he wasn’t taking any guff. Then Fanged Thing punched Biker Guy in the side and wiggled out of his grasp.

  Okay. Time to go. Wrong guy winning.

  Her breathing came out harsh, panicked. After taking a moment to collect her thoughts, she scrambled up, going for her tote bag, her fingers scrabbling on the filthy pavement to collect her car keys.

  Good etiquette might dictate that she remain and thank her liberator, but she’d had a good look at Biker Guy and, frankly, even if he were victorious in this battle, the cure looked just as threatening as the illness.

  Hands shaking, she scooped her cell phone up and opened her car door. Portions of her arms and shoulders burned with cold. Where Fanged Thing had touched her or dropped saliva, her skin had turned a light gray. Whatever. She’d deal with it later. Right now, she had to get out of there.

  A distance away, she saw that Biker Guy had cornered Fanged Thing. Fanged Thing cowered in Biker Guy’s presence, raising his hands to shield his face and yelling, “No, no!”

  Biker Guy pulled a huge gleaming silver dagger from somewhere on his person; it had been hidden by his long coat. The blade flashed in the light, swooped … and was knocked away as Fanged Thing completed a tricky move by sweeping Biker Guy’s legs out from under him. Biker Guy went down hard and Fanged Thing was on him, inhuman growls issuing from his throat and dangerous jaw snapping.

  It didn’t look good for her leather-clad savior.

  Okay, really time to go.

  Jessamine sank into the driver’s seat and started her car engine with shaking hands. The sound made Fanged Thing’s head snap up. In that same moment, the silver dagger flashed upward and sank into Fanged Thing’s chest. Fanged Thing exploded into … glass? Or was that ice? Were those ice pellets? Could it really be … she squinted, watching the ice, or whatever it was, settle onto the biker dude and the floor around him in glimmering shards and tiny chunks.

  Biker Guy looked up at her, the blade he’d used to explode Fanged Thing dripping with water … or melted ice.

  Eyes wide, hands shaking, mind blown, Jessa gunned the engine of her car. Tires squealing, she was out of there.

  She raced around the levels of the parking garage, hands white on the steering wheel, going as fast as she could without careening into parked vehicles. The sound of her tires squealing on the pavement echoed throughout the parking structure. Just as she’d nearly reached the exit ramp, the rough sound of an engine reached her ears and a black motorcycle appeared in front of her car … and stopped, blocking her path.

  Jessa slammed on the brakes, sliding on the pavement, hot rubber scenting the air, and stopped the car a breath’s space from Biker Guy’s leg—he looked completely unworried.

  Her breath shuddered out of her. She gripped the steering wheel and stared through the windshield at the man, taking stock. A chunk of her long hair had come free from her ponytail and lay over her face. It rose and fell with her panicked breaths.

  Her savior was good-looking. Intimidating, for sure. Dangerous seeming, no doubt. Not GQ handsome like Dmitri. This guy looked like he’d just been sprung from prison with that heated s
cowl on his face.

  He was tall and he was ripped. The roll of his muscles could be seen easily underneath his clothes. What was worse, and completely inappropriate, was how he made her respond—like a woman to a man. It was instant, primal, and wholly unwelcome. This man made her whole body sit up and take notice.

  Even so, he was definitely not someone she’d want to encounter in an empty parking garage late at night.

  Yet, she’d thought Fanged Thing had looked completely harmless before he’d vamped out on her, and this man had probably saved her life. She thought about that Dmitri guy and his creepy warning—which had turned out to be true. Could it be that this was Opposite Night, when all the decent-looking men were dangerous and all dangerous-looking men were decent?