Beautiful Death

by Christina Moore

  “The stakes seem a bit high. We would be naked within the hour.”

  “I know,” he said wiggling his eyebrows.

  She grinned hard, unable not to. “Or more accurately, you shall be. You cannot best me.”

  “Ha ha. Okay, if that’s too much, then how about for each point scored the other has the choice to lose a piece of clothing or tell something personal about themselves?”

  Ash harrumphed. “Bare your body or soul?”

  “Yeah, why not?”

  She considered it for a moment. While she did love sparring for the sake of it, these new rules did sound rather fun. And fun was not a word that found its way into her vocabulary often. In fact, that she could call any part of taking in a stranger that wasn’t who they thought he was, having her memories stripped and having to finally put an end to Malik fun was a surprise to her. Because truly, since Tristan’d been with her, she had quite a bit of it.

  “Any other rules to this game?” she asked.

  “Nope.”

  “One more suggestion? To make this less dangerous, we use no weapons. How is your hand-to-hand combat?” She didn’t want to cut him again. She couldn’t bear to smell his blood and not taste it. It was hard enough knowing how his lips felt only to be denied touching them again.

  He shrugged. “Been a bar fight or two.” Most he started. But he wasn’t sure if he wanted to go hand-to-hand with her after what he saw her do to Desmond last night. Besides, he didn’t hit girls. Well, not until that chick at Yuki’s place anyway. Damn.

  “I see,” she said sounding unhappy. But then, she knew this, heard him thinking about it nights ago with many other things she was surprised to learn about him. Things she would have never of guessed he’d been involved with. Then again, it was amazing the things one could do when pushed past their limit, things they thought they were never capable of. She knew this hard truth all too well.

  Ash placed her sword aside and took stance, fists out with a tiny grin. “Do not hold back because I am a girl. Think only of me as your enemy.”

  Free of his practice sword, Tristan grinned in return, putting his hands up. “Okay, but don’t complain when I hit you.”

  “You mean, if. Hajime!”

  Ash dove. Tristan yelped, jumping back. He didn’t move fast enough and she caught him on the chin. He gave a groan and toppled on his feed, but managed to stay upright. She hadn’t hit him nearly as hard as she could have. They both knew it.

  Grinning hard she practically sang, “Point.”

  “Fiiiine,” he moaned, but was smiling. “Truth or dare?”

  “Pardon?” Ash asked confused.

  “Never mind,” he grumbled as he righted himself. “Shirt or question?”

  “Oooh,” she drawled out, eyeing him hungrily. “I get to choose? Hmm, I have seen you nude after all…”

  He shrugged. “You got the point.”

  Ash’s grin spread into a dark sneer and he wondered what he got himself into. “How about a compromise then? The winner of the point may ask a question but the loser may choose to strip instead of answering.”

  “All right. Fire away.”

  After a moment’s hesitation she said, “Tell me about your mother and father.”

  He dropped his arms to his side, face fallen into a deep frown. “Wha—what kind of question is that?”

  “The shirt then.”

  “No, no. It’s—whatever. Mom, Julia, she was the most beautiful woman, inside and out. Dad, Vincent, well, Spike everyone called him, I actually looked a lot like him. Both were doctors, very accomplished doctors.” He looked down to his feet, lost in memory. “I can remember going with them to the hospital when I was younger and thought that they were superheroes. Everyone loved them. They helped so many people and never asked for anything. The greatest tragedy was their deaths.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Whatever. It’s part of the game, right? Besides, I’ll get you back. Don’t worry.”

  She laughed. “Very well, show me what you have, Uruwashi.”

  He was a little angry that she made him say those things, then went so far as to call him Uruwashi, and lunged at her. She managed to dodge, but he kept at her with a deep focus, swinging at her with a vengeance. He was so into it that he almost didn’t notice when he actually hit her with a low blow that glanced off her elbow and took her in the side. She harrumphed, but didn’t double over.

  “Point,” Tristan said, withdrawing for a moment. “What do you really look like?”

  Ash was taken off guard and came to a sudden stop. “What?”

  “You’re only pale because of your vampire superpowers, right? What’d you look like before?”

  She didn’t like the question, but answering did no harm. “Olive flesh, dark brown hair. Blue eyes. I told you, I am Greek.”

  He smiled. “Beautiful.”

  She wasn’t sure if he meant then or now and didn’t care. She did not want to bring up her past. Irritated, she dove at him with a cry.

  He jumped back, just missing a jab at his middle. “Lucky, lucky...”

  Ash looked angry when she came at him again and got careless. She left herself wide open with a hit that would have rocked his head back if she could have followed through. Instead he planted both palms to her chest bone and shoved. The vampire stumbled back, eyes wide.

  “Another point for the human.”

  “Uruwashi,” she hissed back.

  He smirked but it wasn’t a nice expression. “What is your power? What can you do that took all of your color away?”

  Her jaw tightened, cold eyes staring at him. “My power? You want to see what I can do?” she said, making it sound more like a threat than an affirmation.

  “Yeah,” he said, cracking his knuckles, stalking slowly towards her. “Yeah, I do.”

  She considered him a moment and then tugged the hem of her kimono from her pants, movements rough and angry.

  “Really?”

  “What?” she snapped. Despite not needing it, she was wearing a bra underneath her top. Too bad the thin lace didn’t hide much. With the extra layer gone the hakama slipped down her hips showing a slender waist. Tristan groaned thinking it was super sexy but was going to make his focus super shitty.

  “You’d rather strip than tell me what it is that you can do?”

  She took stance, looking angry.

  “Fine,” he said, “have it your way.”

  With a cry he swung out again. She blocked, countered, missed with her right, landed with her left. He gave off a little oomph when he felt the hit all the way through his arm, to his shoulder and started to lower his guard. Only, Ash had other things in mind as she kept swinging. He couldn’t keep up and took the next five hits.

  “Uncle!” he finally yelled and she stopped, panting as she glared at him. “God. What’s so terrible that you’d rather beat the shit out of me than tell me? What are you so afraid of?”

  “Who says I am afraid?” She came for him again, but it was a halfhearted attempted. He caught her hand before it could connect with his jaw and jerked her to him.

  “I thought you said you’d stop lying.” She glared up at him and when she tried to pull her wrist away, he only tightened his hold. If she were human, he’d have left a bruise. “What are you so afraid of?” he asked again.

  “I am not afraid.” She could pull from his hold with no effort and yet, she couldn’t find a reason to.

  He leaned down, looming over her, getting into her face. “Bullshit.”

  She growled a primitive noise that made his body tingle with goose bumps and swung out at him with her free hand. He took the hit to his cheek, an open handed slap, without flinching. “You do not know anything about me.”

  He took a step into her, forcing her back until she hit the fence. She yelped, having not realized they were so close. She was being careless, so not like her at all. Tristan used his larger body to trap her, looming over over her. “No. You’re right, I don’t. And I’m tryi
ng to change that, but every time I gain an inch, you pull back a foot. What is it that you’re so damned afraid of? Is it me? Because no matter what, I’d never hurt you, Ash. I may be your enemy, but I am never your foe.”

  “That… those are the same thing.”

  “You know what I mean. Ash, just,” He sighed. “Just talk to me. Is that so hard?”

  “Yes,” she answered in a tiny voice. “It really is.”

  He relaxed, still looming over her, expression softening. “You asked me once to believe in you. And I do. I trust you, Ash, despite all the weird shit and no-quite-lying lies. Is it so much to ask for a little trust in return?”

  “No. But—” She stopped short.

  He let go of the wrist he was holding, slowly slipping his grip along her arm and took her face into his hands. “But what?”

  “It is difficult.”

  He nodded slowly, searching her pale eyes as if he’d find the answer for everything he ever wanted to know in them. All they told him was of misery and sorrow. Pain and despair, fear—all the emotions she felt over the last three-hundred and forty years. The culmination of a life he didn’t understand to create the woman, the vampire before him with such strong convictions and emotions that she was in a word, an enigma.

  “I want to say I understand, but I don’t. I really don’t Ash.”

  She looked down, unable to meet his eyes. “I know.”

  “Hey.” He lifted her chin to make her look him in the face again. His next words never got a chance to leave his mouth because he was moving in to kiss her instead. Gaining just a tiny spark of control, Tristan managed to avoid full contact and kissed the side of her mouth. And moved lower until he had his lips pressed to her neck. He may not have been able to kiss her mouth, that didn’t mean he couldn’t indulge in the rest of her delicious body.

  Ash sighed under him and gave herself over to the moment, wrapping her arms around his back. She shut her eyes, clinging to him as if he would save her from everything she ever feared. As a vampire, it was hard to admit fears. And yet, they had more to fear than the humans. More to lose.

  Tristan pressed closer, pushing his groin against hers so that she felt him very clearly through the thin cotton pants. She groped at his backside, pulling his hips hard against her. He reached between them, covering her breasts. The lace of her bra was softer than he had expected it to be, but what he wanted was the hard buds hidden underneath. He had the bra off in seconds and tossed it aside. She moaned and then her hands were at his waist, slipping inside his underpants over his ass. With a deep groan against her neck, he lifted her against him. She wrapped her legs around his middle and he lowered them to the ground on his knees, her back pressed against the fence.

  “Oh god, Ash,” he said through the kisses to her neck. “I...”

  I need you so badly.

  Ash moaned something in return he didn’t understand. Seconds later she pushed against his chest. He sat back and frowned at her.

  “I,” she started softly and then more firmly, “We cannot do this.”

  “What—I mean, really?” Okay, so sex without kissing did lack a certain connection, intimacy, but it was so hard to deny the lust that built between them. Maybe it was all they needed to do, get it out of their system and then they could move on.

  Too bad they both knew that wasn’t true.

  Ash cleared her throat, climbed off of him and turned to retrieve her bra. “I think we should call it an evening.”

  Kneeling there in the cool grass, he slumped and shut his eyes. "Whatever," he mumbled and shook his head, feeling like he was having some nasty déjà vu.

  Gain an inch, lose a foot.

  He gathered up his sword and clothes and shuffled off to his room, leaving Ash behind to do whatever it was she did when she wasn’t killing her own kind or spinning her version of truth on unsuspecting Americans.

  Tristan fully meant it when he said he trusted her. And that wasn’t something he gave easily, especially not these days. He just didn’t understand what he had to do to earn Ash’s in return. Maybe she was too ruined by her dark past. He had to believe that anyway. Because if her standoffish demeanor was all about what her sadistic Master had done to her, then that would mean it wasn’t Tristan, for once, and maybe—just maybe he could still fix things between them. Because no matter what happened in the future, near and—karma allow—far, he desperately wanted Ash at his side. He couldn’t explain that need, only that a part of him felt right when she was near. Maybe it was his obscure heritage, his tainted blood mucking up the works. Maybe Ash was what he’d been looking for all this time. Or maybe… she was never meant for him at all.

  18: You & Me & the Devil Makes 3

  A COLD hand over his mouth pulled him from a deep sleep. Tristan swung out, blind in the dark. A hand grabbed his and pinned it to his chest. He groaned under the hand covering his mouth and opened to bite. Just as he got the cold flesh into his mouth, his stomach tingled and tightened. He felt the press of breasts to his arm and the familiar scent found him, and he knew who it was without her soft whisper in his ear.

  “Shh, Tristan. It is only me.”

  “What the hell are you doing?” he whispered back, blinking up at her in utter disbelief.

  She opened her hand, releasing the arm she pinned to him and pressed her palm to the hot flesh of his chest, over his heart. “You are not wearing the charm,” she hissed, fingers curling against him to scrape along his skin.

  “I forgot okay?” Ash may have been confident in its abilities but he still felt silly believing in it.

  She huffed and climbed off the bed, retrieving her trusted sword, Murasaki Kaeru, from the floor. That’s when Tristan noticed she wasn’t dressed at all, wearing just a wispy excuse for a nightgown and the custom shoulder holster with both guns. “Get dressed. Are your weapons close by as I instructed?”

  Tristan sat up and nodded, feeling confused as he noticed the noise coming from the front of the house, the sounds of banging and yelling from at least two men. “Are those…?”

  Even in the dark Tristan could see the weariness in Ash’s expression. “We seem to have more unwelcomed guests this evening.”

  “Christ, that Yuki and her—”

  “No. Not from Yukihime.”

  “You mean?”

  “They belong to Malik.”

  Tristan hopped out of bed and dropped to the floor, looking for his pants. He could admit, if only to himself, that he was worried. He knew how to handle himself, but that was against others of his kind. Vampires were another thing. And while he knew he’d eventually have to face them, well, guess he wasn’t so ready to die just yet.

  “No need to be dramatic,” Ash whispered.

  “You—” he started, angry, but then realized Ash was messing with him, trying to distract him to calm. “Funny.” He slipped into a pair of jeans he found halfway under the bed, completely forgetting boxers. Where the fuck was his gun again?

  Ash cleared her throat. Tristan looked up to find her holding out the gun. He took it and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, darlin’.”

  She bristled at the greeting, but he didn’t notice as he fussed with the small thigh holster and winced when he pinched himself.

  “What’s going on?” He happened to glance up and gave start when he saw the clock. The night before last was the night they went to Yuki’s. Yesterday they had one last sparring session before Ash was going to return to Yuki’s and demand that she tell them where Malik was. That Ash thought the old loon’d even know bothered Tristan, but he was too in his head to bother saying anything. Their sparring session didn’t turn out quite like he thought it would and just left Tristan more confused about what they were to each other. A simple distraction or a passing fancy...? Anyway, after the session was ended early, Ash left the house alone on Tristan’s insistence that he refused to return to that place. She didn’t like leaving him unattended but, in truth, needed to be away from him for a while. He heard her
return shortly before dawn but didn’t bother talking to her to find out what Yuki was holding back. He stayed up a few hours more just to enjoy the warmth of the morning sun but he went to bed early enough that he would have woken before her, before nightfall. It was almost midnight now.

  “I only just woke myself.”

  “But that’s—”

  “A Master vampire interfered, forcing us to sleep while the others moved in.”

  Tristan stopped tugging at the holster around his thigh and gave Ash the frightened look that last statement deserved. A Master vampire? They could do that kind of shit? And it may be here, now?

  “Master is no longer here,” she answered.

  Tristan let out the breath he was holding. “Master?” he whispered, though it came out nearly a hiss.

  Ash’s face shifted to shock for only a moment before clearing. “The Master,” she amended.

  He gave her a look, not believing the little slipup. Fledging vampires were one thing, but toss in a nasty, powerful Master and he wasn’t sure how well they, he, would fare. Make that Master vampire Ash’s former and he knew things wouldn’t end well.

  “There are only three. But they have split up,” Ash said, turning for the door. “I... I cannot sense Haruka anywhere. Be on the lookout for her.”

  Haruka? He hoped she found herself a good hiding spot before they got to her. Would she even understand the danger she was in?

  Tristan followed Ash out of his room in nothing but jeans and a gun that was almost too small for his hands. They stopped in the hallway outside of the Great Room, listening to the vampires fuss at each other in Russian.

  “Do you know what they are saying?”

  Ash sighed. “Essentially, they will slaughter us for killing Aaron and his new scion. Rotten bitch, who does that vampire slut think she is with her human pet? So on and so forth, nothing of any real importance.” Again she sighed and pulled gun.

  “Guns?” he asked. “Is that okay?”

  “They are lesser vampires. A gun will do however, we must be sure to cut their heads off or burn their bodies once they have been incapacitated. We must hurry, I am worried for Haruka.”