by Lexi Ostrow
Nightmare in Steam
Alliance of Silver and Steam Book 1
By Lexi Ostrow
and
Published by
Hot Ink Press and Steamworks Ink
imprints of
Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing, LLC.
Novi, Michigan 48374
The right of Lexi Ostrow to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him/her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it was published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Cover art by:
Dreams2Media
Edited by:
Elizabeth A. Lance
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 Hot Ink and Steamworks Ink
All rights reserved.
Dedicated to my mom, for all the help and support she has always given and continues to give me as I achieve the dream.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
Chapter 1
Lucius looked over the scribbled note again, trying to force his eyes to understand what it was saying. The handwriting was hardly legible, a scrawl at best, but it wasn’t preventing him from reading it. Comprehending what it was ordering him to do, that was the issue. As an assassin contracted to a very powerful demon, he didn’t have the ability to not do what the note asked. That didn’t make figuring out how to do it any easier. He’d fucked up time and time again and now it meant he had a debt to pay, or face execution. Lucius wasn’t a demon meant for torture. In fact, he was a lesser demon, cloaked in human guise and everything. It meant most of the powerful species of demon wanted nothing to do with him. Which made ripping them off in gambling halls incredibly easy, they felt he didn’t have the talent to win. Made stealing steamy nights with married women a simple act too, because he oozed something human men didn’t, danger.
Problem was, the one time he got caught, it was by a demon mere pegs down the ladder from the demon running the show. People thought that Lucifer was in charge down in Hell because of a religious myth. He’d been in charge, but only because he had fought his way in and took over from the demon that had been there before him. Hell wasn’t his creation; it had always been there. But he wasn’t in charge. Sure he’d been the head for centuries. But a Fallen Angel had fallen on purpose, to take over Hell and launch revenge on the Pure Angels who’d wronged her. So now, a dainty little slip of a woman, Seraphina, was sitting on the second most powerful seat in the world. The first belonging to the King of the Pure Angels, who was ironically still just another demon wearing cleaner wings. Thankfully she’d enjoyed Lucius’ talents in the bedroom and had offered him a deal for sleeping with her favorite warrior’s wife. Demon for hire, contracted assassin for whoever she wanted - human, demon, angel- it was his new job to put them down. A task that was much harder in Victorian London than it had been in the Dark Ages for sure. He was a very old demon. Thousands of years had passed and he’d managed to survive nicely until a hundred years back when he’d fucked up.
For the most part Lucius enjoyed the tasks. He was a Nightmare Demon, a being who could suck the souls from victims after terrifying them to death. He kept a piece of the soul for energy, lady Fallen got the rest. Sure, he could invoke whatever he wanted in dreams, he didn’t always kill either, but he needed the soul to react to a dream so he could feed. Without a soul he would die sooner or later. So killing them made Seraphina happy and it gave him the strength he needed.
That didn’t mean he wanted to do what was on the blasted note. Growling, he crumpled the flimsy paper in his hand and tossed onto the floor. Seraphina wanted him to go after the Alliance of Silver and Steam. It was damn near suicidal, not to mention impossible since he couldn’t function well in the daylight and they didn’t fucking sleep at night. The Alliance of Silver and Steam was a thorn in the backside of demons everywhere. Somehow they’d learned about the existence of demons, from Pure Angels was his personal bet, and had made it their goal to take them all down. Not necessarily one by one either. Sometimes they just blew shit up and blamed others. Either way, they were more than just demon hunters. They had tools at their disposal that the rest of London hadn’t yet discovered. Lucius had never been on the receiving end of a weapon of theirs, but he’d seen the secret motorbikes barreling down the back alleys more than once. Not to mention he’d seen the charred remains of a demon unlucky enough to tangle with those strange guns of theirs.
“Take down the Alliance she says. Kill a guild member to gain access to their memories in their dreams she says.” He kicked open the door to his home in Whitechapel and breathed in the scent of despair. Living in Whitechapel might dent his image as a gambler, but it was perfect for his line of work. Nothing said easy to kill like humans barely hanging onto their pathetic lives by a thread. Disease always hit this borough first and it wasn’t uncommon to find someone dead in the gutter with a blood trail running behind them every few days. He didn’t have to don his best clothing if he was going to get around and blend in where he was going, but he sure as shit needed to dress better than he would if he was hunting here. Top hat, frockcoat, and cane added the right amount of money look to his drab attire of breeches and a billowing shirt.
He tapped a drunk passed out on the corner with his toe. Yup, good old Whitechapel. Why couldn’t he just kill people over here? The Guild of clock workers that hid the Alliance of Silver and Steam was a pain in the arse of a walk and he couldn’t secure a carriage here. They didn’t come to Whitechapel and Lucius didn’t blame them. It just meant he walked a lot and would walk more tonight.
By law, all the guilds of the city were in an industrial section of town just outside Rotherhithe. Couldn’t have the pollution getting in the way of the nobles on their Sunday strolls now could they?
Twenty minutes after he left his hovel of a home he stared at the grandiose tower of a building that was London’s only clock worker guild. It stretched only five stories high, but the building was a work of black painted brick and wrought iron work that made it look intimidating; and that was without knowing what lurked on the inside.
He propped his body up against a wall across the street. He didn’t sleep to invade dreams, but he wasn’t at a functional level of consciousness and since he needed to be within a few hundred meters of his target, leaning against a wall was the safest way not to draw attention. It was twilight and someone would assume he’d stopped for a rest on the way home from a local pub. Idiots really. That’s what made humans such easy targets. They had no idea what was crawling right under their noses. Except for the Alliance of Silver and Steam.
C
losing his eyes he let his senses do the work. He could feel people who slept. The fashion guild and tapestry guild on either side of the clock worker guild held troves of sleeping victims. But his mark? Three people at best. “Well that’s three more than you thought you’d find,” he grumbled to no one at all and let his consciousness search for the deepest sleeper, the one that would be easiest to infiltrate. “Gotcha, my dear.”
His target was a sleeping female, older in age by the days standard. Her energy pattern felt near thirty and five in age. Her health was strong though and he felt a small tug of remorse at what he was about to do. He could sense her energy level and know things about her, even though he wouldn’t have a visual till he went to work. Wrapping his metaphorical fingers around the energy of the woman he slowly slipped into her subconscious and ordered her brain to conjure up an image of herself - he hated not knowing what his victim looked liked.
Lucius wasn’t ready for the sucker punch when she did though. This woman, Eliza Kempe Dorley, according to her brain, was stunning. Long locks of blonde hair fell to her waist. Her eyes were round, doe like and a serene golden brown that almost looked like honey covered chocolate. It may have been her lips that were tempting him the most. They were small, pouty and just red enough to want to kiss. He let his eyes trail down her body and whistled as they did. She was short, but had the curves to know how to tempt a man. His prick pulsed to life in his trousers and he bit the inside of his cheek to stop the erection from forming. Sex was not a nightmare and he needed to kill this beautiful Eliza.
Slowly he allowed himself to form in her dream. He was likely not her nightmare, but something was demanding he played with her first. She didn’t gasp when he appeared; they never did because he did so in the beginning of a dream, a way to seem more natural than anything else. He took her hand and placed a kiss on the top of it. His lips felt warm even to him on her tanned skin. She gasped sharply, but did not pull away. Instead those beautiful eyes landed on his and he couldn’t stop the blood from rushing to his prick. Images spun out of control in his mind about those eyes staring into his while her pouty lips wrapped around his cock. He groaned unintentionally, this was going to make killing her harder.
Then she damned them both.
She didn’t say a word, simply stepped closer to him, tugged his frocked cape in her hands and leaned up; even as the action tugged his head down. Her lips slanted against his before he had a chance to jerk backwards and once they did, the spark that jolted through him ensured he didn’t move a muscle.
She tasted of chocolate and the smell of lavender, probably a perfumed hair rinse, drifted up to his nose. His cock was fully awake now and ready to be released. She groaned and the action let him slip his tongue inside her mouth, deepening the kiss. She wasn’t shy, but fairly inexperienced as far as he could tell as their tongues danced together.
Lucius wrapped his arms around her back and pulled her into him, his body grinding his rapidly thickening erection into her body. He could smell her arousal and the scent of it made him harder than ever before. Her hand trailed up his neck and twisted in his hair causing them to lock together more. He was hungry for her and she seemed just as hungry for him. Her other hand ran over the muscles of his stomach and stopped at the bulge in his pants. She massaged him through the cotton of the pants, his shaft her play-toy while her mouth was his. He couldn’t function beyond devouring her mouth with his as her hand drew him toward a climax.
His arm unwrapped from her body and found her breast, perky and firm, he kneaded the delicious body part while she began to increase the friction to his cock. Their breathing was loud in his ears and the mewls of pleasure she made paired with the way her body had begun to gyrate against him was all it took.
His release slammed through his body, his prick shooting his seed into his pants in spurts. She mercilessly didn’t stop playing with him until his orgasm was finished and he smiled against her mouth when he felt her body twitch and buck against him. She’d come to her own release simply from his kiss. Fuck the power he could have with her, buried deep inside her body.
The thought pulled him from his lust-induced haze back to normal, well almost normal, thinking patterns. He tore his mouth away from hers and almost buckled at the knees when he saw how swollen her lips were and how he’d yanked down her bodice to play with her breast. Next time I’m going to suckle those rosy peaks into my mouth while ensuring her pleasure comes from more than just a kiss.
He pulled completely from her dream then. Panting, he opened his eyes and let the cool air wash over him. It did nothing to cool him down. He actually checked his pants and was shaken to find he’d come.
Shaken, turned on and terrified all at once.
There was no way he was going to kill Eliza Kempe Dorley. Not until she’d been screaming in pleasure under his body in the real world and not a dream. Orders be damned. He was going to complete them, but not with her. She would be safe until he could sate himself on the pleasure of her flesh and blood body.
Trying to shake off the need to storm the guild and take her now, he blew out three deep breaths, a calming technique his mother had taught him when he was a child. Slowly he felt the pounding blood in his shaft simmer down. “Go time number two Willan. Better make this quick.” The sky was beginning to glow with the first pink rays of a sunrise and while many people slept well past the dawn, his skills were harder to use when he had to focus around the bright light, which made him weak and essentially useless. Without this kill he’d likely find himself strapped to a table in an underground facility again. Last time had been all the warning enough not to fail again.
Closing his eyes he found the energy of a male this time. Good. The male was so young it almost stopped him from proceeding for the second time, but if he didn’t, the allure of Eliza’s sleeping energy was going to pull him back to her. He didn’t waste time once he’d entered the boy’s dream. It had been easy to seek out his fears in his mind because he was young and had so many to choose from. Normally he’d play with his victim, induced more than one fear. Not this time, not when he could virtually feel Eliza through the energy she was giving off. A quick and easy run of a vagrant breaking, entering and shooting the young boy for his presence.
Lucius always liked to wait for a few minutes after the kill before stealing the soul. If he moved too fast he wouldn’t be able to get it all and since he was sharing with a damn woman who only wanted the energy as proof he’d succeeded, he wanted to get it all. The effect of the soul passing into his own body wasn’t orgasmic or anything of the sort. But it was replenishing, like a cool washing on a sticky summer day or like eating at the king’s feast. For a moment he lingered in the energy left from his kill. Any second now the energy would deplete and he’d be kicked back to his curbside location, but something about being there as the energy drained away and the soul was stolen was as erotic as what just went down with Eliza.
When he opened his eyes next he was back outside the guild and he was startled to see hunters were filtering through the front doors across the street. The sky was still a mix of pink and black which meant he was watching the patrols come back from their missions. He’d heard rumors they could detect demon kind with a crystal set to read human versus demon blood and he sure as hell didn’t want to get caught up in that, so he turned and strolled casually back down the street he’d come.
He’d passed so many potential victims on the way home, it killed him not to stop and take just a little bit more. While he loved the kill, partially because it was needed to survive and partially because it made him feel powerful, he felt sick about killing the youth. He made it his goal to normally only take down the older victim’s. He’d cared too much for life to enjoy snuffing out a young one. He’d gotten slack for it from others of his kind before they were all killed, but he actually enjoyed the humans. They were easier to bed and gamble against than the demons so he needed them around.
Locking the door to the shack he called home, he tossed the
cape and hat onto the dusty couch. He needed to rinse away the feel of Eliza’s hands. He loved the rainfall of water from a shower when he bedded rich enough women, but it would be all cold water and boring smelling soap this morning. He tugged the shirt over his head and dropped it on the floor as he walked back to the small room he could use to wash. Cleanliness wasn’t his forte.
He almost tripped tugging off the trousers because his eyes landed on the very small, very dingy mirror he used to shave. Right on his right arse cheek was a swirling mark that hadn’t been there before this evening. The tell tale sign of a demon’s mating mark.
“Shit.”
Chapter 2
The buzzing of the alarmed clock on the tiny nightstand rang far too loudly in Eliza’s ear. She shoved her head under the duck down pillow and groaned into the mattress. “I’m going to kill whichever one of us figured out how to make a clock go off at a certain hour.”
Annoyed, she stuck her hand off the bed and knocked the clock to the floor. The chattering of the symbols powered by the small crystals was even more obnoxious clanging into the wooden floor.
“Ugh! Mother of all that is holy!” Eliza jerked her head out from under the pillow and jumped out of bed. She bent down and slammed the off switch on the clock. She heard the satisfying click occur that signified the cog and gear grinding together to stop the racket. “Blessed silence.”
She closed her eyes to absorb the peace and quiet and an image slammed into her head. A gorgeous male all over her, kissing her and touching her until she climaxed. His eyes were a soulless black, which made him all the sexier. His hair a chestnut brown that was cut shorter than society’s fashion trends. Everything felt so familiar, so real. Her body even rocked with pleasure as she thought about the orgasm racing through her. She shivered at the idea and realized why it felt so familiar. The dream.
