Warrior Rising

by Linda Winstead Jones

  “You’re hurt,” he said as he positioned himself beneath his own third-story balcony.

  “So are you.”

  “You should’ve gone with Kevin Brown to the new headquarters. Someone there could fix you up.”

  “I will heal.”

  “I don't suppose I can convince you to leave the demon dog behind."

  Naturally, she shook her head.

  Sorin wrapped an arm around Indikaiya, and for once she did not argue or curse. In fact, she leaned into him. Why was she being so agreeable? He understood very well why he wanted her here, what he wanted from her, but she had made it clear…

  She answered the question he did not ask aloud.

  “Like it or not, you are needed at this time,” she said, sounding almost logical, speaking almost without emotion. “You have proven yourself, and unless I’m mistaken you are past the need for feeding.”

  She could not have surprised him more. He leapt, for the first time in a long while forced to expend great effort in order to do something that was usually so easy it took no effort at all. They landed on his balcony. He did not immediately drop his arm, and she did not push away.

  “I do need to feed. Are you offering?”

  When Cupcake bit his forearm — drawing blood, this time — and Sorin cursed, Indikaiya moved the mutt aside.

  “I see no other option.” Her eyes hardened as she took a step away from him. “Take more than is offered, and I will gut you.” At that, she fingered the handle of one of the knives she wore.

  “That won’t kill me.”

  “No, but it will be very painful, I imagine, even for you.”

  Indeed, it would.

  She would do it, too. Gut him. Hurt him. Turn that sword she wielded so well against him. In all his life, as a man and as a vampire, he had not known a woman like Indikaiya. He would not have even bet that such a woman existed.

  He would soon feed on the blood of an Immortal Warrior. What would that be like, he wondered? He would not have to wonder long.

  It was worth any number of injuries…

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Indikaiya was surprised by the lair Sorin led her into. He slid open a glass door, pushed aside the drapes, and waved her in before him as if he were a gentleman. From the exterior it appeared that this building was well kept, charming to be sure, but hardly extravagant. The large apartment on the third floor, however, was a different matter. Sorin did like his creature comforts.

  Stepping from the small balcony into the living space was very much like stepping from one world to another. Instead of battlefields there was luxury. In the leather and dark wood furnishings, in the paintings on the walls, in the small sculptures and fine colored glass. Instead of the sound of gunfire and metal on metal and the screams of humans and vampires alike, there was a deep and complete silence.

  She wasn’t surprised that the large room was dark. Heavy drapes covered the windows — and the balcony door, as Sorin entered and allowed them to fall behind him — but her eyes quickly adjusted to the lack of natural light. Sorin stepped past her and turned on a lamp, and she almost wished he would turn it off again.

  In the dark, she could ignore that he was badly wounded. In the dark, she would not see the blood. Not all of it was his, but… most.

  The small dog she had just collected burrowed into her, warm and fuzzy, panting a bit madly. She held onto to the dog a bit too snugly and stroked its matted fur.

  Sorin nodded at Indikaiya. “You’re hurt.”

  Had he been studying her own wounds as she had been studying his? “I will heal.” Not as quickly as he did, but not nearly as slowly as a human. She moved the dog aside, catching it in the crook of one arm, and drew the strap of the leather shoulder bag over her head and dropped it to the floor. She studied the ugly gash on Sorin’s right arm, waiting for it to knit closed before her eyes as his wounds normally did. It did not. “Why aren’t you healing?”

  He stepped toward her. “Considering the amount of energy I’ve expended tonight, it’s been too long since I fed. I’ve been weakened.” It was a hard admission for him to make, she could tell. “You know that. Otherwise you would not have offered your own blood.”

  Looking at him now, she had a fleeting doubt about her earlier offer. He could drain her in seconds. Maybe she would get in a nice stabbing wound in the process, but she’d be gone, whisked back to her own world to wait to be called again, before she could take his heart or his head. She was a Warrior, but she did not possess a vampire’s speed. She’d seen him use that speed often during the night.

  Was he too weak to call upon it now?

  The dog — she could not bring herself to call it by the ridiculous name of Cupcake — was exhausted, as she and Sorin were. Had this animal been in battle? Had her master lost his life fighting the beings this dog so obviously despised? They would never know.

  Indikaiya grabbed a pillow from the sofa and placed it on the floor. The dog settled there with a sigh and was almost instantly asleep. They would need to find food for the animal, but first — sleep. For the dog and for her.

  Sorin took her hand and drew it to his mouth. Here? Now? She held her breath as he placed his lips on her hand as if she were a fine lady in another time and he was a well-mannered gentleman. She doubted Sorin had ever been well-mannered, no matter what his station in life. He turned her hand over and exposed a scratch near her wrist. While she watched, barely breathing, he kissed the minor wound and then… and then he licked her.

  The scratch healed before her eyes, as quickly and completely as his wounds did, when he was at his best. When he was fed and strong.

  Her heart reacted to the sensation of his mouth on her flesh, innocent as the touch was. There was nothing innocent about the way he looked at her when he tilted his head to the side to smile and catch her eye. He stood, shifted her vest aside, and licked at a gash on her shoulder. His kiss took away the pain entirely, and she could feel the wound healing, inside and out.

  Indikaiya closed her eyes. She was a Warrior, but she was also a woman. It had been a long time, a very long time, since a man had touched her in this way or any other. She was always separate from the others. Alone. She did not crave sex, and as for romance… she had long ago dismissed that notion as foolishness. Still, vampire or not, Sorin was a fine example of the male form, and he did have a certain charm.

  She tried to shake off the thoughts of Sorin as anything other than a despicable monster and an unfortunate and temporary partner. If she considered anything more it was because she was as tired as he was, and her mind and body were playing tricks on her.

  He brushed a few strands of hair away from her throat. Now that he had taken care of her injuries — most of them, anyway — he expected her to take care of his, as she had said she would. Indikaiya held her breath as Sorin kissed her neck. Just a kiss, for now.

  She should be immune to his vampire tricks, to his unnatural magic. But at the moment she felt not at all immune to Sorin.

  “Are you sure?” he whispered against her skin.

  No. Yes. No. “Yes,” she whispered, tilting her head to the side to make sure he understood.

  The sensation of his fangs entering her throat didn’t hurt, as she’d thought it might. Instead the twinge she experienced was surprisingly pleasant. It was intimate, as intimate as the sex she had told him he could not have, not with her. Strangely enough, it was a relief when his fangs punctured her skin, as if she had been waiting, waiting, waiting. They had been partners for days, and now they were joined. One. She felt him not just at her throat but through her entire body, and she remembered what it had been like, so long ago, to lie with a man. With love, yes, but also for the sheer pleasure of the act.

  Indikaiya imagined Sorin lying beneath her naked, filling her. She imagined him atop her, driving deep while she screamed his name. Heaven above, she could almost feel him, as if he were already there. She could smell him, feel his skin pressing against hers.

  Shak
ing off the all too real sensations was difficult, but not impossible. In all honesty, though she pulled herself back from them — what choice did she have but to fight for distance? — those images did not fade entirely. They stayed with her, more like a memory than an imagining.

  She thought of warning him again not to take too much, but she didn’t. He knew. He understood.

  They were linked, at this moment, and he understood everything.

  Her head began to swim, just a little, and instantly he withdrew. He kissed her again, and she knew the marks on her throat would heal. No one would ever know what had happened here. There was no choice about that. She did not want her fellow Warriors to know that she had offered her blood to a vampire. She definitely didn’t want them to know that she was actually considering…

  “You want me,” he whispered, his mouth against her throat where he had taken healing and life.

  She could deny it, but it was too late for that. “And if I do?”

  “I am here for the day. You are free to leave, or you can stay.”

  He released her and stepped away, and she saw that his wounds were now healed. Blood remained, his leather jacket was sliced in several places, but there was no evidence on his flesh that he had been injured.

  “I need rest, as you do,” she admitted.

  “We both need more than rest.”

  His jeans were worn so tight, she knew exactly what he needed.

  Release, pleasure, connection with another human being. Neither of them was human anymore, but they had once been and some needs — needs she had not expected to experience here and now — remained.

  Indikaiya did not understand how courtship worked in this modern age. All she knew was that she was not of this age, and would not pretend to be. In Atlantis, the females had possessed much power. Like their males, they took what they wanted without artifice. They lived their lives to the fullest, in the years when life there had been so good. Before war. Before great loss.

  There was so much loss in this world. So much pain. Was it really so terrible to take pleasure when it presented itself?

  She began to work the fastenings down the front of her vest. “Remove your clothing,” she commanded.

  Sorin, for once, did not argue with her as she issued orders.

  * * *

  He felt good. So good. A diet of Warrior blood would agree with him, not that he expected Indikaiya to volunteer in any case that wasn’t an emergency.

  Of course, he had not expected this. Not at all.

  He should not be surprised by the way this encounter had begun. Indikaiya was not a girl to be flattered and wooed. She did not need to be coerced or glamoured — he would not even dare to try. She was a woman and a Warrior, a being as powerful as he had ever been. When he’d tasted her he’d known that power, as well as her new and unexpected need for him.

  She did not rush to remove her clothes, and neither did he. Still, neither of them dawdled. Eye to eye as they shed their tattered and bloodied garments, this was a new and much more pleasant battle.

  Indikaiya had a fine body. Very fine. Firm and lithe, strong and soft, she was perfection. And she was not shy. There were no shielding hands over her breasts or her mound, no coy glances to the side as if she might be having second thoughts.

  He dropped down in front of her, cradled her leg, and licked the cut on her thigh. The wound was not a serious one. It would’ve healed on its own in short order. But he could not bear to see any imperfection on such an otherwise perfect body. He did not want her to hurt.

  And no, he did not mind at all licking her thigh, allowing his tongue to trail up to taste her, to kiss her until she shuddered. Only then did he shift away and stand.

  “There’s a bed in the next room.”

  “I expected nothing less,” she said, walking past him with her head high, as if he hadn’t just had his mouth on her. Damn, she had a nice ass. Long legs, perfect ass, small waist, shapely back with a braid — which was a bit worse for wear after a night of battle — swaying as she made her way into the bedroom.

  Indikaiya stopped at the side of the bed, looked at him, and with a wave of her hand ordered him into it. Instead of immediately complying, he stood close to her and bent down to kiss her tempting lips.

  She backed away from him before their mouths could do more than brush lightly. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m trying to kiss you,” he explained.

  “Kisses are for love, for romance. It is not necessary. All I want or need from you is this.” She grabbed his cock, firmly but thank goodness not too firmly. When she moved her fingers, he almost embarrassed himself.

  “As you wish.”

  She released her hold and gave him a gentle shove that sent him tumbling onto the bed. When he was there, on his back with his penis hard and poking straight up, she climbed on top of him.

  Sorin had never been with a woman who did not need to be romanced at least a little bit. He had never been ordered to shed his clothes. No one ordered him to do anything. No one but Indikaiya. He liked it.

  His Atlantean Warrior was strong and soft, beautiful and stern, and all woman. She knew what she wanted and had no problem commanding it. She was already wet as she guided him into her body, wet and hot and so damn tight he could’ve come then and there.

  He did not. Sorin was nothing if not controlled.

  She rode him, easy at first and then hard. Eyes closed, perfect breasts swaying, she rode. He had not expected to find this kind of beauty, this kind of connection, in a time of war. That was his last clear thought, for a while, as they swayed together and apart. There was only need, his body and hers, pleasure.

  Indikaiya came with a gasp and a cry. That cry sounded almost — surprised. Surprised that she’d come so quickly? Surprised that he was the one beneath her? Her movements slowed, and as they did he grasped her around the waist and spun them both so that her back was against the mattress and he was on top of her.

  He thrust into her once, twice, and then he caught her eye. “My turn.”

  “That seems only…” The word “fair” was so garbled it was barely intelligible, as he drove deep. She shuddered a little, finding pleasure again.

  This was a woman he could spend all night with. No tricks, no glamour, just raw pleasure given and taken.

  Sorin did know how to give. He definitely knew how to take.

  * * *

  Kevin Brown stopped well clear of the front entrance to the library. An old house, but the sign out front indicated that it was, or at least had been, a library named after a long dead politician. A fucking vampire had given him this address. A vampire. Anything could be waiting beyond those doors.

  But he had seen the vamp kill two of his own kind. At this point, what did he have to lose? He couldn’t continue to fight alone. His choices were easy. Run and hide, die within a matter of days, or join up with other fighters.

  Kevin stood where he could be seen from the front windows. Any decent gathering place for those fighting the vamps would have some kind of lookout. Sure enough, he hadn’t been standing there more than a minute when the curtain in the window to the right of the front door moved. Kevin nodded at the window, and held his hands up, palms facing forward. He would never do that at night, but by the light of day he could be without a weapon in his hand.

  Not for long, though.

  He shouted, looking at the now-closed curtain. “I’m here for Jimmy. A couple of kickass blondes sent me.”

  After a moment, the front door opened and a man about his age — which was twenty-four. He was really hoping to make it to twenty-five — stepped onto the porch.

  “I’m Jimmy. Who sent you?” The man was obviously suspicious. Given all that had happened in the past week, he’d be a fool not to be.

  “A couple of blondes. One vampire, the other… something else. She said her name was Indie something.”

  Jimmy relaxed, a little. “I wondered if they were still alive.”

  “Alive a
nd fighting, as of two hours ago. They gave me this address and told me to ask for you.”

  “Come on in.” Jimmy stepped back into the library, leaving the front door open.

  Kevin hesitated. What waited beyond those doors? He hitched his shoulders and walked forward. Shit, what did he have to lose?

  He walked into the library, looked around cautiously trying to place the exits, the potential traps, the blind spots, and then he followed Jimmy to the east side of the main room and a door that opened onto a small interior conference room. He kept one hand on his dagger. The other was ready to draw the shotgun. Overhead lights illuminated the room but there were no windows. That in itself was alarming. He looked around, he studied those gathered there — men who were studying him just as intensely — and drew in a deep breath.

  “Holy shit.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “You drink only from me,” Luca ordered.

  She should’ve learned by now not to argue with him, but she had not. “You need all your strength. I can’t…”

  “At this point, you would likely kill any human you attempted to feed from.” His argument was based on fact, and was delivered in that way. Luca didn’t lose his temper, he was a master of control. “Not feeding would drive you to the point where you’d not be able to resist the humans in our ranks, and there’s no way to know what damage such severe hunger might do to the baby.”

  It was not Chloe’s imagination that her strong, capable, two-thousand-year-old lover almost choked on the word baby. He was not unaffected by her condition. Their condition, if she were being honest.

  He had not said so, but he knew she was worried. About her, about the child. How could she tell him that she was sure everything would be fine? She couldn’t explain how she knew, why she was so certain.