by Stone, Ciana
Constantine straightened so that she was forced to tilt her head back to look up at him. “The likes of me? How you flaunt your ignorance with such a statement. You know nothing of me, Resa Vânător.”
“Then correct me.” She straightened, the movement putting her closer, close enough that he could feel the heat from her body.
He pushed back the sudden stab of lust, the need to seize her, take her. Hear her cry his name as passion overcame her. “So now we come to it.”
“It?”
“The reason you’ve sought me. The reason our encounters have been so…anticlimactic. The reason we both live, facing one another now. You want something from me.”
Resa’s first reaction was to lie and deny it, but she suppressed it and met his eyes, locking with and holding his gaze despite the near staggering force that hit her, making her body burn, her heart race and her sex grow moist with desire.
“Yes, I do.”
Constantine’s smile was knowing. Knowing enough that heat rose to her face. She refused, however, to look away. What was the point? He knew as well as she that the chemistry between them was potent. Denying it would be pointless.
“Then ask, Dhampir. What it is you want from me?”
“Answers.”
“Words?” He chuckled. “We stand here, our bodies straining to contain the energy that arcs between us and our minds screaming for us to give in to the hunger we feel, and you want only words?”
“I need answers.” She grimaced at the need that crept into her voice, wanting to show no vulnerability to him.
“And what of my needs, Resa Vânător?” He reached up to place one finger beneath her chin and tilt her head a bit more.
“Don’t do this,” she whispered before she could stop herself, and then hated herself for the weakness.
“Don’t do this?” His finger traced down her throat slowly, sensually. “Or this?” His words registered in her brain a moment before he lowered his head and kissed her.
She would not have been able to summon anger or indignation at his bold move if the kiss had been brutal or demanding. That she could have accepted, relished and later dismissed as a momentary insanity. But such was not the case. His kiss was one of tenderness. His lips brushed hers, the touch as light as the wings of a dragonfly. Ever so slowly his lips caressed, the pressure never increasing as his tongue snaked out to trace her bottom lip.
It was the kiss of a lover. And that scared her enough to have her putting her palm on his chest to push away. But he did not budge. She turned her head to the side, denying him access to her lips and letting anger swell. It was her best defense against the pull of the forbidden feelings.
“Afraid, Vânător?” His whisper against the side of her face forced her into deception.
“Hardly,” she scoffed, and used both hand to push against him.
He barely budged, just a slight sway backwards. His hands moved to cover hers at the same time he stepped closer, pressing her back against the rail, his hard lean form molding to her.
“You lie,” he said with a smile.
“You play dirty,” she replied, secretly exulting in the feel of him against her, all hard muscle. Including one that was pressing against her belly, making her acutely aware of his arousal.
“And you don’t?”
She looked up in surprise at the sincerity in his voice. “I came here for answers, not sex, Vampyre.”
“And what are you willing to pay for the answers you seek, Resa?”
Her name rolled off his lips, sounding exotic and sensual, evoking images of tangled sheets, damp skin, long breathy moans and flesh meeting flesh.
“How do I know I can trust you to tell me the truth?
His eyes glittered in the low light, sending a shiver skittering down her spine. “There is one way you can be sure.”
“What?”
“Take me home with you, submit to me, and you can know my thoughts.”
Resa’s insides turned to liquid when he said the words “submit to me”. A primitive, completely female need sparked to life and flared much hotter than was comfortable.
God, how she wanted to say yes. To feel his hands and mouth on her, to feel and taste every inch of him. To feel him inside her. To submit to him. It was her every fantasy rolled up into one, tempting package. And it was forbidden. Which made it all the more appealing.
But taking him home with her was out of the question. She’d long been aware that the Alliance kept surveillance on her comings and goings. Bram always knew when she was home, and when she had a visitor. There was no way in the seventh level of hell she was taking Constantine home with her. She might as well slice her own throat because the end result would be the same.
“I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
She shook her head, as much to clear it as in argument. “You know they watch me. If I take you home with me, neither of us will live the night.”
He chuckled. “I have no doubt that our coupling will be memorable, but I doubt it will kill either of us.”
She snorted at his tease. “Joke if you want, but the minute you step foot inside my house they’ll know you’re there and they’ll dispatch a team.”
“I’m much harder to kill than you imagine.”
“Iridium kills all of your kind. And the Alliance has special weapons constructed with an iridium blend, as you well know.”
Constantine regarded her in silence for a long moment. “Are you then, concerned for my safety, Resa?”
She literally jumped at the question. What was wrong with her? She was supposed to be making sure he didn’t draw another breath and here she was warning him of possible danger? Why?
The answer was already in her mind. Pandora had promised that the answers she sought lay with Constantine. Until she had those answers, she could not let him die.
What she didn’t want to acknowledge was that the thought of him dying filled her with a pain unlike any she’d known. She didn’t understand it. Didn’t want to. He was the last man she wanted to have feelings for. But as it went in the song Bram was fond of quoting, “you can’t always get what you want.”
She briefly wondered why he never finished the verse and if it could be applicable to her now. She would forsake want in favor of need. What she needed was answers and her best source was making an offer. She couldn’t take him home, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be alone with him.
“What about taking me home with you?”
He threw back his head and laughed a rich deep sound that was about the sexiest thing she’d ever heard. “Ah yes,” he said at length. “I’m sure you’d receive a royal welcome.”
She shrugged in understanding. His kind hated her. More than a few had tried to kill her. Some had come close. She was as hated to them as they were to the Alliance.
“Then neutral ground,” she proposed. “There are plenty of hotels around.”
“I have a better idea,” he said. “A place that is private where we will be undisturbed.”
“Where?”
“Come with me and find out.” He offered her his hand.
She considered it for a moment. What she was about to do went against everything she’d been taught, everything she’d been trained to believe. Was she strong enough to go against a lifetime of training? And was all that she’d been made to believe nothing more than lies, invented in some sick power struggle?
“You are more than strong enough,” he whispered. “For this one night, let us agree to set aside all preconceived notions of one another. Forget all we’ve been told. Disregard all rumor and myth. For this one night, let us agree to share only the truth. And when the night has ended, then you can decide what to do with the knowledge you’ve gained. You have only to submit to me once and all you seek will be yours.”
“Okay,” she agreed and took his hand. It might be the most stupid thing she’d ever done but she had to do it. Win or lose, live or die, she wanted to know.
&n
bsp; Constantine’s eyes narrowed dangerously a split second before she sensed them. Dhampirs. Three of them. And they were close.
Resa did not stop to consider her actions. She snatched her sword from its scabbard and offered it to Constantine. “I assume you know how to use this?”
“I’ll manage,” he replied as he took the sword from her. “They seek to box us in.”
“You think?” she countered, snapping her blades into her hands. With the lake to their backs, the hunters could close in on them from all three sides.
Resa opened her mind to their presence. “I know them,” she spoke low.
“There is yet time to escape,” Constantine replied.
She shook her head. She’d already read what was in the minds of the hunters. They were not just there to ensure that Constantine died. They’d been given orders to eliminate her as well.
She’d been betrayed.
She cut him a quick look. “They’re not just here for you.”
His eyes glittered like hard jewels at her words. “Then let them come.”
She saw the first one. A tall, muscular man she’d known all her life, Ethan. He approached from her left, his pace slow and measured. She knew the drill. Give the others time to move in, coordinate the attack.
“You don’t want to do this, Ethan,” she said as she felt Constantine shift slightly beside her, angling to the right.
She sensed another approaching from the direction in which Constantine watched. Amilee, a woman older than herself, hardened and bitter from years of killing, who had few friends and many enemies.
“You betrayed the Alliance,” Ethan answered.
“Worse than that, you betrayed Bram.” A new voice came from in front of them.
Resa’s eyes moved to see the man move toward them, shoving one side of his long coat aside to free him to draw his sword. Joseph was the most deadly of the three. Older than all of them, he’d fought at Bram’s side since she was a child. Had helped in her training.
“It appears that I am the one betrayed,” she commented.
All three stopped a few yards away. “I come bearing a reprieve, Resa Vânător,” Joseph announced. “Kill this abomination. Now. With we three standing witness to your loyalty and all will be forgiven.”
Resa heard the lie in his voice, knew that no matter what she did, she was marked and the Alliance would not let her live. Pandora was right. Nothing was as it seemed. Bram, the man who’d raised her, had been like a father to her, had betrayed her. Signed the order for her execution.
All because she wanted answers. That told her that the Alliance was not what it purported to be. They harbored secrets that, if revealed, would destroy them, have their followers turn away from them and their lies.
And the answers to discovering those secrets stood beside her, facing what were once her compatriots and friends.
She took one step forward. “Tell Bram,” she cut Constantine a quick smile before finishing, “fuck you.”
Constantine was surprised at the speed of her attack. Before the man she called Ethan could react, Resa had flown at him, knives flashing. Constantine saw him counter with his sword as the woman to his right attacked, her sword slashing at him.
Her speed was nothing compared to his and he dispatched of her with one swift blow. Her body fell with a weighted thud as her head thumped against the metal railing and fell to the sidewalk.
Constantine heard a scream from across the street but had no time to focus on what attention they might be attracting. Joseph moved in with remarkable speed and skill considering his age. Constantine whirled on him to see Resa dive at him from behind. Her arms reached around his neck then withdrew in a slashing motion. Blood spurted from his throat, his head all but severed from his body. He managed to take one more step before he collapsed.
Constantine saw the crowd of people on the street across from them. Many of them had cell phones to their ears and the number of onlookers was growing. Soon law enforcement would arrive. It was time for him and Resa to make their departure.
Resa snapped her arms to retract the bloodied blades back into their harnesses on her forearms. Her chest, neck and face were splattered with blood. She started toward him, staggered and stopped, a look of shock coming on her face.
Constantine tossed the sword aside and ran to her, catching her as she crumpled. He saw the cut in her vest and ripped it open, revealing the gash in her chest.
“I guess we’re more alike than I realized,” she whispered a second before her eyes rolled back.
He’d not considered it. Being a breed, a Dhampir was susceptible to the effects of iridium. The cut from Ethan’s blade had poisoned her.
Never could he have imagined such pain as what tore through him when her eyes closed. Grief and rage as black and thick as the dark waters that formed the marshes populating the area, enveloped him.
Heedless of the onlookers, he gathered her up, using his ability to transform so that mighty wings sprouted from his back, ripping through the silk of his jacket. With one downward beat of his wings he took to the air, her limp form cradled protectively in his arms.
Chapter Four
Journal Entry
How does one explain in a few words, an entire history? What words can be used to make another understand the subtle nuances of a civilization eons older than any they know?
And why do I find myself wanting this half-breed woman to understand the history of my peoples and how I came to be exiled here on her world, labeled an unholy creature of myth, when in fact I am not? Why is it important to gain her acceptance? She is of the enemy, a creature bred and trained to hunt and kill those of my kind.
Why does she inspire such passion? And even more disconcerting, why do I feel such depth of emotion for her? It is illogical and unwise and yet my heart seems deaf to the warnings of my mind when it relates to her.
Now, however, I face the task of divulging great truths to her, truths that are powerful and could prove deadly to those of my kind on this world. Can I trust her with such truth? Where shall I start my tale?
Shall I speak of the many years it took for the survivors to rebuild some semblance of society? Each world developed according to its environment and its resources. Shadallah remained as it was, the center of our system. Hoarding what resources we possessed, the inhabitants of Shadallah became greedy and self-centered. If it meant that the people of the planets of Nuria and Valia must perish for us to survive, then so be it. Our duty was to the people of Shadallah.
Of course, the peoples of Valia and Nuria were less than appreciative at the attitude of the inhabitants of Shadallah. They were all V’Karian and should share what resources existed. The people of Shadallah did not agree.
Soon there were armies, borders to be guarded. But a world cannot stay cut off indefinitely if there are not people within its borders who are seeing to the needs of the many. No one wanted to tend to the task of raising food, or powering the stations that fed the cities with power. Soon shortages began to cause worry. We would either have to trade for what we needed with the other two worlds or learn to grow our own food and supply our own raw materials. But the people of Shadallah were not of the worker class. We had always been people of politics and science. Our technological achievements were closely guarded, giving us supremacy over the other two, more backward races.
With a climate that was not severe, and the gifts bequeathed to us from our union with the symbiotic race, the Vox Narr, the people of Shadallah remained as we had always been—clear skin possessed of a sun-kissed tint, glorious dark hair, strong physical bodies, and eyes the color of the flowers that grew in the gardens of the great temples, a shade of violet that could only be rivaled by occasional streaks of color in the sunset sky. Due to the constancy in appearance over generations, the people of Shadallah came to be known as the Pureblood, the D’Harahn.
* * * * *
A faint scratching sound brought Resa up through the fog clouding her mind and she blinked. Unf
amiliar surroundings met her eyes. A brief stab of panic had her lying very still, her eyes darting rapidly around the room.
The last thing she remembered was Constantine holding her in his arms. Was her memory faulty, her mind playing tricks on her, or had she really seen fear and concern in the depths of his violet eyes?
Her hands moved beneath the sheets along her bare skin. A bandage covered a large square on her chest. Well, she’d been wounded before. Wounds would heal. What concerned her was the way the metal of Ethan’s sword had affected her. Bram and all of the trainers had always assured the Dhampir that they would not be greatly affected by the iridium in the weapons, that their diluted Vampyre blood would prevent the fatal effects of the metal.
Was that just another of Bram’s lies? Tears threatened, making her squint her eyes tightly to fight them back. How could he have ordered her death? He, who claimed to love her like a daughter? What kind of sick, twisted love was that?
Or was it love at all? Had it ever been? Perhaps she’d never been anything more than a weapon for him to hurl at his enemies. As expendable as any of the many blades and arrows the Alliance had manufactured for their hunters.
Apparently her instincts about Pandora were right. She had spoken the truth. Nothing was what it seemed. And that meant that everything she’d ever believed in or held to be true was a lie.
She pushed back the pain that sought to overwhelm her. She would not grieve for Bram, for any of them. The Alliance was little more than a lot of liars, an organization founded on greed and deception. They might try to hide the truth but she’d discover it despite their efforts. She didn’t want or need them. She could make it on her own
And suddenly the enormity of it hit her. Without Bram and the Alliance, she was completely alone. They’d clean out her house, her bank accounts. Probably even erase her identity. Make it impossible for her to survive. That way she’d be easier to dispose of.
There was no way to stop them. She’d have to find a way to survive. To stay one step ahead of them.
But right now she needed to discover where she was. She sat up and saw him. Sitting in a chair by the window, writing in a small journal, occasionally dipping his old-fashioned quill pen into an inkwell that sat on the window ledge. Shafts of moonlight from the window slanted across his face, giving sharp contrast to the lines and angles, the strong patrician nose and chiseled jaw.
