Chapter 24
Azrael
Azrael hadn’t thought the night could get any worse, but he’d been wrong. It appeared to be his MO recently. Because across the crowded floor of the club he’d crashed just moments ago was Nate.
What were the fucking chances that of all the clubs and dives in the universe he’d come across the one archangel he most wanted to avoid? Before he could whip his curdled brain into getting out of there, Nate had not only caught sight of him but was striding towards him.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Nate sounded irritated. “Following a lead?”
“Getting pissed.” To underline the point, he tipped the contents of his glass down his throat. The complete lack of reaction as the alcohol hit his stomach reminded him that he’d ended up back on Earth. Why had he teleported to that primitive little planet?
“You won’t get hammered drinking that shit.” Nate threw an entirely too casual glance around the club before returning his focus to Azrael. “This got anything to do with the dhampir?”
The fact that his current state had everything to do with Rowan was despicable enough. But for Nate to assume such a thing was intolerable.
“The dhampir has been neutralized.” He thought of her lying on his sofa, looking fragile and innocent. The psychic blast he’d given her would keep her unconscious for at least twenty-four hours, but he doubted he’d have a solution as to what to do with her by then.
Even asleep, her toxic siren’s call had beckoned him to her side. No female had ever affected him the way she did. He was like an addict, and she was the drug he craved.
But she was trained to seduce. Trained to entice and bewitch and ultimately betray. Gods damn it, she had been genetically engineered to lure Sakarbaal’s enemies into her silken web. Even now, when he knew every depraved thing about her, his fascination with her was as destructive as ever.
The fact he should have been able to see through her wiles was irrelevant. He hadn’t. And the knowledge was eating him alive.
She should be dead. As far as the rest of the fucking universe was concerned, she was dead.
No one would ever discover he’d been unable to carry out such a simple act of retribution.
“Can’t believe Sakarbaal thought that plan would work.”
The phial Rowan had intended to plunge into his blood was in his coat pocket. If it hadn’t been for Nico’s warning, would Azrael even now be in Sakarbaal’s power?
It galled to be in the arrogant vampire’s debt. Twisted his gut to know that Nico was aware of how Azrael had been utterly bedazzled by the dhampir’s lure. He was an archangel, and archangels didn’t owe others or become blinded by a female’s treacherous wiles. That he owed a vampire and had been deluded by a dhampir just made the whole mess that much more contemptible.
“There was never a hope in hell it would work.”
Nate shrugged, dismissing the matter. “What brought you here?”
“The search for mindless sex.” After leaving Rowan, he’d planned on spending the time in an orgy of sexual depravity so that when he returned, her fatal allure would leave him cold. So far, the closest he’d got was eye contact.
Nate offered him a sardonic grin. “Is there any other kind? Though you might want to give this place a miss.” The humor drained from Nate’s face. “It’s been marked by demons.”
The realization that he hadn’t taken advantage of any of the offers he’d had tonight because he couldn’t get Rowan’s scent out of his psyche drilled through his brain. It took more effort than he’d ever admit to drag his attention back to the other archangel and his rabid loathing of demons.
Not that he had any love for them, but Nate’s hatred boarded on obsession.
In any case, as far as he was aware, demons didn’t bother slumming it on Earth. They hadn’t since the time their mutual goddess had banished her first Children from her sight, before she’d turned her considerable talents on creating her beloved archangels.
“There’s nothing here that interests me anyway.” Because all I want is a woman who possesses green eyes, black hair and the heart of a traitor.
He shouldn’t crave her when she was out of his sight. But raw need burned inside his chest. A need that filled him with both despair and hellish anticipation at the knowledge she was incarcerated in his home.
“In that case,” Nate said, “fuck off somewhere else. I’m trying to be inconspicuous here and you’re ruining the effect.”
“Fine.” There was a club in Manhattan he’d yet to try, where off-worlders came to slum it with the oblivious indigenous inhabitants. “Enjoy your demon hunt.”
He teleported and found himself standing in his villa.
Rowan was no longer comatose on his sofa.
He cursed violently and the instant flare of fury that his subconscious had smashed what remained of his good sense and taken him home instead of Manhattan vanished.
He’d blasted her with enough power to keep a human under for twenty-four hours. But she wasn’t human. She was half vampire. He’d known that but still hadn’t compensated for her enhanced abilities.
Because he hadn’t wanted to risk damaging her damned brain.
He wheeled round and scanned the villa. It had been eighteen hours since he’d left her. He stalked through the villa until he reached the bathroom and ripped open the door. Her scent lingered in the air, mingling with an intoxicating echo of frenzied sex and unfulfilled lust. It twisted through his groin like a ravenous dragon and his muscles tightened and cock hardened even though she wasn’t there.
Where the fuck was she? The villa was halfway up a mountain, surrounded by forest. He’d likely find her out on the veranda, disoriented and confused. Next time he left her alone he’d make sure he immobilized her properly.
As he reached the bedroom doors awareness prickled over his skin. For a second he imagined Rowan was behind him, watching him. He swung around and his gaze caught on the door to his weapons cache.
It was ajar.
Senses red alert, he marched across the room and flung the door open. And came to a crashing halt as he focused on the glaring space where his piece de resistance usually took pride of place.
She took my katana.
He’d psychically knocked her out. He’d been so sure she was completely in his power it hadn’t occurred to him that she’d attempt to escape.
But she hadn’t merely escaped. She’d armed herself too.
Fury burned through him, but it was directed at himself for not anticipating this. For assuming she would behave in the way he expected her to behave. How could he know how a dhampir would react in any given circumstance? For all he knew she was out there right now waiting to ambush him.
Fists clenched, he glared around at the weapons he’d collected over countless centuries. Every item evoked memories, good or bad. Every piece a cherished part of his long existence.
He could arm himself to the teeth before he went searching for her, but if he couldn’t bring down one vengeful dhampir with his bare hands then he might as well plunge that fucking phial in his own neck.
The twin moons gave plenty of light to see the way Rowan had gone. She’d hacked through the vegetation like she didn’t give a damn if he followed her. The lack of stealth clawed through his nerves.
It was like she taunted him.
She couldn’t have gone far. It wouldn’t take long to catch up with her and reclaim the weapons she’d stolen.
Reclaim her. He shoved the last thought from his mind, disgust curdling his gut. What would it take to annihilate this perverted hold she had over him? There had to be a way he could counteract her poisonous allure.
But first he had to find her. His pride demanded nothing less.
Less than an hour later he reached a river and the blatant trail halted. It would have taken her a good two hours if not longer to have covered the same distance, but she was nowhere in sight.
So much for finding her collapsed and exhausted. Th
e realization that, once again, he’d underestimated her did nothing to improve his mood.
What was he going to do with her when he did find her? He was responsible for bringing her here. He couldn’t let her wander freely, when he had no idea what she might do to the peaceful mortals of this planet. So what was the answer? Construct a fortress to hold her prisoner for the rest of her cursed existence?
How long do dhampirs live for anyway? A human lifespan? A vampire’s?
Could Rowan be immortal?
The idea was horrifying. She might live for countless centuries. Was he seriously contemplating keeping her captive until she died, no matter how far in the future that event might occur?
Dawn broke on the western horizon and he still couldn’t get the notion of Rowan’s possible immortality from his mind. Because it wasn’t only horror that blazed an acidic trail through his blood. It was a fathomless ache of perverted hope that her tainted blood would keep her alive… indefinitely.
Chapter 25
Rowan
As the sun reached its zenith on this crazy mixed up world, Rowan couldn’t hold back the inevitable any longer. Sweat prickled her skin, tremors wracked her body, and with a sick sense of relief she fell to her knees and vomited up her previous night’s supper.
The violent gripping pain that twisted her stomach instantly eased, as if the poison eating her gut had been ejected. But she knew better. It wasn’t the food that had poisoned her. It was her own body turning against her. Craving its fix of amber acid to keep her primitive urges under control.
She squinted at the sun that rose from the wrong horizon and imagined the phials of medication hidden in her car. But it wasn’t the glowing amber fluid that filled her mind’s eye. It was the thick, crimson promise of fresh blood flowing over her tongue and sliding down her throat.
Filling her parched body with the sustenance she had so long been denied.
Sakarbaal. It was his fault for filling her veins with his foul blood and polluting her reason. All she should be feeling right now was the agony of withdrawal, the way she had seven years ago. But no matter how much she wanted to believe it she knew it was a lie. Taking Sakarbaal’s blood had only brought to the surface the underlying craving she’d lived with her entire life. The need for fresh blood was part of her nature, a part that had been suppressed by the Enclave because everyone knew that dhampirs couldn’t be trusted to control their own urges.
Her fingers dug into the earth before she pushed herself upright. I won’t give in to the bloodlust. Her mother had been human, and she would never forget it. She was only half vampire and she wouldn’t let that half rule her.
Gritting her teeth, she pushed forward through the never-ending forests. Mountains soared all around and the river flowed to her left although she no longer waded through it. She had no idea what direction she was heading. But it didn’t matter. Because she wasn’t on Earth. There was no way she could get off this deceptively beautiful planet by herself, but she’d be damned if she’d return to Azrael’s villa and beg for help.
He wanted her dead, even if he hadn’t killed her yet. She tried to push him from her mind, but he was a poisoned barb that had hooked itself into the fabric of her being.
His look of revulsion as he threw her heritage in her face haunted her. The disgust in his voice as he called her dhampir echoed endlessly around her mind. He wouldn’t care about the state of her deteriorating health and that was why she wouldn’t bury her pride and appeal to his better nature.
He didn’t have one.
But there was a darker truth she didn’t want to face. I don’t want him to see me like this. Despite knowing he’d never felt anything for her, she wanted him to remember her the way she’d been in London.
It was stupid. But the same pride that would never allow her to beg him for mercy refused to allow him to witness her descent into the hell of withdrawal and crazed bloodlust.
His disgust was hard enough to bear. If she was going to die on this unknown planet then she’d rather die with the knowledge she retained at least a tattered shred of self-respect.
It wasn’t much. But it was all she had left.
Azrael
As night fell, Azrael forcibly acknowledged the fact Rowan had successfully managed to elude him on his own turf. For hours he’d trekked through the forest until the complete lack of trail or scent had finally smashed through his burning anger.
She hadn’t continued in the same direction. She’d backtracked along the river.
He’d taken to the skies then, a sure way to expend excess energy but for once it hadn’t helped. If anything, it merely fueled his fury that a fucking dhampir was playing him for a fool.
Again.
Savagely he kicked the scattered remnants of her campfire. At least now he was on the right track. And from now on he’d tail her like any other enemy. Coldly and efficiently, without letting his personal… irritation with her get in the way.
A couple of hours after dawn had broken, he came across a swarm of flies and insects crawling over something rank and unrecognizable. That she no longer bothered to bury the leftovers of her meals irked him on another level. She was deliberately leaving him a breadcrumb trail. Mocking him with the fact she’d managed to out-maneuver him at every turn. Did she really think she could evade him forever? Did she imagine he’d give up the hunt and allow her to roam freely on this world?
She was still alive only because he’d failed in his duty to eliminate her. When he found her, he’d make sure she knew exactly to whom she owed her continuing existence. If the only way to keep her contained was to chain her to a fucking wall, then that’s what he’d do. Because no one, least of all a creature who should never have been conceived in the first place, screwed with his head the way she did.
The sun began to dip towards the eastern horizon when he disturbed a few small mammals scavenging the remains of a butchered herbivore. He stared at it, wondering why it snagged his senses, and then it hit him.
She hadn’t even cooked this kill. Had she simply hunted it and left it for him to find? A flashing neon sign, pointing him in the right direction?
What was she trying to prove?
A faint, evocative hint of her scent drifted on the breeze. It came from the right, where the forest thickened, and he turned from the river and plunged into the green gloom. His pulses thudded in anticipation of finally hunting her down and showing her that when it came to a contest between them, she would never—could never—beat him.
But she wasn’t lying in wait for him. Her bag was on the ground, its contents scattered as though she’d feverishly searched for something. But no matter what she’d been looking for, why hadn’t she taken her belongings with her? Had he disturbed her before she could repack?
Possibly. It also meant she was close.
The smell of damp earth and ancient trees mingled with another scent. One of bloodied corruption and decay. A foul odor he recalled from nine hundred years ago when he’d slaughtered the spawn of the undead in a medieval forest.
He halted at the edge of a glade. Silver moonlight flooded the clearing, and the black silhouette of the far side of the forest gave a ghostly, eldritch hinterland.
Crouched in the middle of the glade, with her back to him, was Rowan. She slowly pushed herself to her feet, but she was oddly ungainly as though she was drunk.
Her hair was matted with filth and forest debris and an eerie shudder crawled along his arms. But instead of claiming her, he was frozen to the spot, and when she turned to him, his heart slammed against his ribs.
No…
Her unnaturally pale face was streaked with something dark and unnamable. As she stumbled towards him, brandishing his katana in both hands, he was catapulted nine hundred years back in time to that night in Romania.
The crescent moon had thrown the foreboding castle into sharp relief and heightened the foul abominations that shuffled to do their master’s bidding. He’d had no compunction in slashing them down
, destroying them in order to reach his target.
They were only dhampirs.
He’d done them a mercy, putting them out of their miserable, misbegotten existences.
Rowan was a dhampir, but she was beautiful, intelligent and graceful. He’d never seen the physical connection between her and Sakarbaal’s creatures. Even when he’d thrown the word in her face, even though logically he knew what she was, deep in his soul he’d rejected all the connotations.
Not Rowan.
But now, she was nothing like the woman who’d ensnared him in a scented web of lies and seduction. She was unwashed, unkempt, and the closer she came the less he could deny the truth of what stained her lips and teeth.
“Rowan.” It was a command to halt, but it was so much more. An agonized entreaty to wipe this nightmare from his vision and return to the woman he knew she truly was.
A spy who had betrayed his trust.
How much easier it would be, then, to treat her the way she so richly deserved.
She didn’t even pause. The twin moons bathed the glade in light, too much light, because when he looked into her eyes all he saw was a terrifying blank.
Soulless.
Instinctively, his wings unfurled, and her dead gaze shifted from his face. Instantly he leaped forward and gripped her wrists before knocking his katana from her grasp. She looked back at him and her eyes weren’t blank or dead. They were Rowan’s eyes, green and glinting and gods help him, but he couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe she was a condemned, soulless creature of the night.
“What happened?” Raw fury edged his words, but the anger wasn’t directed at her. It was directed against Sakarbaal, against Fate, against the cruel irony that the only woman who had ever snared his interest for longer than a moment was a creature he had most despised.
Nemesis: Paranormal Angel Romance (Realm of Flame and Shadow Book 2) Page 17
