Dark Longing_A Novel of the Dark Ones

by Aja James

  Slowly he raised one hand and examined its back.

  The knuckles were raw and red, but none were bleeding, the skin around them intact. He shook his head again to clear it. Flashes of memory came to him, blinking in and out like lightbulbs that needed to be changed.

  There was a fight.

  No. There were several.

  He had sustained heavy injuries.

  But he had escaped the pit.

  Where did he go?

  Someone had caught up with him. Who…

  A blinding stab of pain exploded behind his right eye, and he gouged the heel of his hand into his eye socket in an attempt to stop it.

  Gasping from the still dizzying pain, he tried to search his mind again, but it was no use. He could not recall anything after escaping into the tunnels.

  Strangely, however, he remembered the faint, bittersweet fragrance of tamarisk blossoms. Yet he was certain he had never seen the tree up close and personal, certainly not in New York City. He was somewhat shocked he even knew that there was such a tree by such a name.

  Gabriel took several deep breaths and tried to collect his scattered thoughts.

  He was currently sitting on the cold floor of a storeroom full of dusty trinkets and tattered wares. Nana Chastain sat patiently beside him, regarding him with concerned, but opaque eyes.

  She was hiding something.

  Even so, he couldn’t help but trust her. At the same time, a wave of resentment and confusion burned through him.

  “You brought me here,” he said rather than asked, looking back at his hands. The wheels of his mind whirred even more slowly when he gazed upon her.

  “Yes,” she agreed. And that was all. No further explanation forthcoming.

  “How did you know where to find me?” Gabriel questioned, the haze in his brain starting to lift, though barely.

  She inhaled deeply and let out the breath slowly. “There is much to tell you,” she answered at length, which told him exactly nothing. “Let’s get back to Benji first. You must also rest.”

  “I can’t,” Gabriel shook his head. “The Russians—”

  “Will not discover your location,” she finished for him. “I have made certain of it.”

  He glanced at her sideways, for the first time taking in her attire—skin-tight black leather with hidden compartments for weapons, a shoulder holster that crisscrossed behind her back, the handle of something visible to the side, knee-length combat boots and fingerless gloves on her hands, her golden hair bound in a tight braid lying like a fishtail over one shoulder.

  Clearly, she had not been out making social calls when she’d found him. She knew about the Russians, knew about the fight club. What else did she know?

  Who the hell was she?

  Benji first, Gabriel decided, questions later.

  He levered himself up on both arms and tried to get to his feet. His body ached and throbbed everywhere, and it took him an inordinate amount of time to get up, but finally, he stood, weaving only slightly off balance.

  Gabriel had to stand still for several moments as the world slowed its spinning around him. He felt lightheaded and nauseous in addition to the ever-present gnawing pain in his muscles, his bones.

  “You will need to rest,” she repeated, putting one of his arms around her shoulders, supporting some of his weight.

  “And to feed.”

  “A Blooded Mate shall be the only other which she requires to complete and sustain herself. She shall take his blood, his seed and thrive with the nourishment of his body. He shall take her blood, her essence and bask in health and vitality.”

  —Excerpt from the Ecliptic Scrolls.

  Chapter Eight

  Gabriel lay exhausted and aching but wide awake in the king-size bed he shared with Benji in a luxury apartment unfamiliar to him, inhabited by complete strangers.

  Who seemed to be acquaintances of the resourceful Nana Chastain.

  Benji was obviously becoming fast friends with the two women, a veritable chatterbox when Gabriel arrived shortly after a breakfast of waffles by the looks of it. His son seemed rather in awe of the lone male in the group, but it was a shy reverence rather than fear.

  Gabriel could sense no danger or threat from Ms. Chastain’s friends, and it made sense that even the Russian mafia would be hard pressed to find them here.

  Gabriel himself would not have ever expected to find them here.

  Brief words were exchanged among the group, mere introductions and greetings, and no questions were asked. The younger woman with dark hair gave him a long penetrating look, but that was all.

  Gabriel found that strangely unsurprising. Something told him they were inured to seeing half-naked battered and bruised strangers with pint-sized children who randomly made use of their abode.

  Ms. Chastain—Nana, though he felt wrong using her name, she didn’t seem like a Nana—departed on her own after a few words with Benji. Sophia and Aella set up PS4 on the wireless TV and roped his son into an adventure game. Cloud, whom Gabriel recognized as a seasoned fighter just by observing his stance and movements (and Aella as well), showed him to his room which had its own en suite bathroom and gestured wordlessly for him to take a rest in the rumpled bed that was previously occupied by his son.

  When Gabriel gave him a loaded look, the warrior said, “There will be time enough for questions later,” and quietly closed the door behind him.

  As Gabriel contemplated the ornate ceiling above his bed, his stomach roiled with hunger and loudly protested his negligence. But the thought of food made him nauseous, even as his belly clenched on emptiness.

  His mind too busily whirring, he got up to take a shower.

  Opposite the mirrored wall behind the vanity, he doffed his blood-stained, tattered clothes and inspected his naked body. Dark bruises covered most of it, but no open wounds remained. The gashes he remembered sustaining from glass-wrapped fists were nowhere in sight. Only thin, pale pink lines indicated that he hadn’t dreamed it all.

  Impossible.

  Mentally, he knew this. But he took it in stride as just another bizarre observation in a day that made the Twilight Zone seem staid.

  He turned on the hot shower spray and got under it, letting the powerful blast rinse away the grime and blood that stuck to him like a second layer of skin.

  As he soaped his face and neck, he paused at the side of his throat. The skin was smooth and unblemished, but the area he touched felt tender.

  Gabriel staggered off balance as a wave of nausea overtook him.

  Slowly he slid down the glass wall of the shower until he sat on the porcelain floor tiles, hot water continuing to rain down upon him, misting the stall in a dense fog.

  Why couldn’t he remember?

  He closed his eyes and concentrated. A bright flare of pain exploded behind his eyes and against his temples.

  Darkness enfolded him.

  *** *** *** ***

  Third millennium BC. Silver Mountains Colony, hinterlands of the Akkadian Empire.

  Inanna blocked the spear jab with her shield, twisted her body to one side, and used the momentum to swing hard and fast with her sword at her opponent’s torso.

  He leapt back just enough to avoid getting sliced wide open, but remained close and continued to advance upon her, now swiping the long spear at her feet.

  She anticipated the move and somersaulted backwards as he continued to attack her lower body with lighting fast jabs. He was too quick despite her nimbleness and caught the heel of her boot with the point of his spear, taking her off balance.

  Down she went on her elbows, but only for a moment. It was long enough, however, for him to keep her there with the spear tip at her throat.

  Inanna huffed and blew a tuft of hair out of her face, leaning her head back and pulling her long tresses free of their braid. “One of these days, Alad the Great, I shall defeat you. Just you wait.”

  Her mentor extended a hand and a smile to help her up. “I await that day with b
reathless anticipation.”

  Inanna tried getting to her feet, but cried out when she put weight on her ankle.

  Alad was immediately crouched before her in worry. “What is it, did you hurt—”

  Still clasping his hand, she tugged hard, and as he fell, she rotated them both until he was lying on the dirt ground and she on top of him, straddling his lap.

  “Ha!” she crowed with victory, “are you breathless still?”

  Alad relaxed and lay prone beneath her, closing his eyes while a smile played on his lips. “You have defeated me, Inanna the Mighty. I beg your mercy.”

  She leaned forward until her long hair shielded them both behind a cascade of gold. When he felt petal-soft lips meet his, Alad’s eyes came wide open.

  The touch was so brief it was but a tickle, like the flutter of butterfly wings. Slowly she pulled a little bit back and stared deeply into his eyes.

  “You shall have no mercy, etlu mine,” she murmured with a soft smile, “I will have all of you forevermore.”

  Alad shivered from head to toe at her husky words, his body growing heavy with need. Uncertainly, he wet his lips, wondering how he should reply.

  But she was on her feet in a flash, pulling him up with her. She grinned widely and declared, “I am hungry from defeating the race’s most fearsome warrior, starving really. Feed me before I faint.”

  Before he could react, she dashed away, sprinting like a gazelle toward their mountain cliff beyond the hills.

  “Come, oh Slow One,” she called from already some distance, “do not keep your mistress waiting!”

  Alad shook his head at her playful good mood, dismissing the feelings her casually given words had aroused, and jogged after her.

  When he caught up with her, Inanna was already sitting against their chosen tamarisk tree, eyes closed, a mischievous smile twitching on her lips.

  Alad sat down next to her, keeping a respectful distance between them.

  He gave her his arm and said, “Here, you said you are hungry,” and raised his wrist to her lips.

  Instead of taking what he offered and sinking her teeth into the strong vein there, Inanna held his hand and entwined their fingers.

  She did not want to feed from his wrist this day.

  She had not lied when she said she was famished. She truly was. But it was for more than just his blood.

  For seven summers she had fed from him on a weekly basis, sometimes more, sometimes less. But only Alad.

  Despite her fears that she would transform into a greedy monster like the vampires of lore the Elders told children to scare them into obedience, she never needed anyone else’s blood, nor did she desire it. Not even a twinge.

  Only her father and Alad knew about her “condition.” Everyone else treated her as ever before.

  When she had confronted Papa about who she was, and more to the point, who her mother was, he had provided no illumination. He had admitted that her mother was a Dark One, but that was all. No matter how many times she asked, almost every day, multiple times a day, from the time she was a small girl, he never revealed much about her mother.

  Inanna knew that her mother had dark hair and dark eyes, that she looked nothing like her, and only seven summers ago did she learn that her mother was a vampire.

  That was all.

  Having matured into a woman well-tuned to others’ emotions, Inanna had long since stopped badgering her father about the woman who birthed her. Every time she questioned him, his face became a mask of pain, so stark and excruciating, her heart broke for him.

  Her father had made one thing abundantly clear, however. No matter who she was, what she was, she would always be his daughter, and he would always love her, provide for and protect her.

  And so gradually, Inanna sealed away her curiosity. Nothing was worth hurting her beloved papa.

  She looked down now at her fingers entwined with Alad’s.

  Aye, she had fed from his wrist for seven summers. He had made her powerfully strong and kept her secret safe. As her body transformed from that of a girl to a full-blooded woman, her heart also changed.

  Not that she no longer loved him, never that. But rather that she no longer held him in awe. She had lost the girlhood infatuation and gained a woman’s deep, multifaceted, all-consuming love.

  A sensual love. A sexual love.

  A ravenous, gnawing desire that only he could fulfill.

  She had been patient, oh so patient, waiting every day for him to reciprocate her feelings.

  Verily she wore her heart on her sleeve.

  But Alad was nothing if not respectful. His touch was always brisk and purposeful on the rare occasions he initiated the contact, his gaze ever focused on her face, though she knew her body had filled out in all the right places to please a man.

  It drove her mad.

  Clearly, she would have to take matters into her own hands.

  She raised his wrist to her lips, still holding his hand, but instead of biting it, she planted a kiss there.

  Alad’s breath froze in his throat as he watched her intently. She unwound their fingers and held his hand in both of hers, gently rubbing a finger down each of the grooves that lined his palm.

  “The Elders tell stories about how these lines reflect our fates,” she said as she beheld his palm in fascination.

  Alad could barely hear her words, too busy trying to calm his rapidly accelerating heart and ignore the throbbing ache that was spreading through his body, coalescing below his waist.

  She turned to face him and trailed one hand gently down his face, his neck, stopping to rest where his heart thumped double-time in his chest.

  “I wonder if your fate includes me,” she murmured, “for I cannot imagine a future without you in it. You promised to be mine and only mine, remember?”

  Alad swallowed and gazed, mesmerized, into her deep blue eyes.

  For the life of him he could not speak or move. He feared the things he would say and do, for his tenuous hold on self-control was stretched taut to breaking point.

  Aye, he wanted to tell her, I am yours whether you accept me or not. My blood, body, heart and soul are yours to do with as you wish. There is nothing I would not give you, nothing I would not do to please you, though this love between us is forbidden by virtue of what we are.

  A union between Pure and Dark Ones was strictly prohibited, punishable by death within both race’s laws. But even if the law was not exerted, lore had it that a terrible wrath and calamity would befall the offenders regardless. True, Dark Ones, especially those of the upper echelons of society, often kept Pure Ones as Blood Slaves, but the bond was merely physical, not emotional or spiritual.

  Alad was well aware that Inanna wanted more than just his blood, his body, just as he knew that whether she wanted them or not, he had already given her his heart, his soul.

  They were playing with fire, and the heat was blazing hotter with each passing day. He had tried his utmost to prevent them from getting burned, but more and more, he was tempted to give in to the delicious inferno.

  “I want you,” she said clearly, firmly, still holding his gaze captive. Deeply, she drew in a breath, inhaling his scent, and nuzzled her face in the crook of his neck. “I shall feed here,” she murmured, her warm voice and hot words making his muscles draw tight.

  Her fangs sank into the vein at his throat smoothly.

  Alad jerked at the indescribable pleasure-pain that consumed him. As she drank from him, gently drawing on his vein, moistly sucking on his skin, the edge of pain dissipated and only a mind-numbing pleasure remained.

  So this was what it was to Nourish his mate, Alad thought as his arms came around her and drew her closer until she straddled his thighs, her legs locking around his waist, her core rubbing against his.

  Inanna gasped at the tantalizing friction. Maintaining the seal of her mouth on his throat, she ground down on the hardness of his manhood in an ancient rhythm as old as time.

  Goddess above s
he wanted more! She wanted them to be skin to skin, wanted to crawl inside of him, take his body inside of hers, his blood and seed filling her to the brim.

  Mine, a growl vibrated deep in her core.

  Forevermore.

  *** *** *** ***

  “So you have turned a human,” the vampire Queen said softly, almost bemusedly, “have you come for your punishment?”

  Inanna was allowed a private audience with Jade Cicada in the Queen’s personal chambers after she returned to the Cove. Briefly, she’d explained her discovery of the fight club and the vampire assassin she encountered. She then reported her transgression, and now awaited judgement.

  “I accept whatever retribution you deem appropriate, my Queen,” Inanna answered and went down on one knee, head bowed.

  Jade was wearing one of her sheer black dresses that covered her from neck to toes but left very little to the imagination.

  Slowly, she uncoiled her body from the massive bed she was lying upon when she bid the Angel entry, but she did not leave the warmth of her silken sheets, only straightening to a sitting position.

  She was loathe to leave her comforts, for the male who presently shared her bed still reclined behind her, his naked body radiating a delicious heat, his scent surrounding her.

  “Did you turn him against his will?” Jade asked her personal guard with mild curiosity.

  Inanna shook her head. “He was dying. I… I could not lose him.”

  Interesting choice of words, the Queen thought to herself. Not “I wanted to save him,” or even “I did not want to lose him,” but a reply that suggested her Chosen had no choice in the matter of letting this human depart from the living.

  Jade strongly suspected this turning was more than just a whim of the moment. Inanna did not volunteer more information, and Jade did not ask.

  The Queen inhaled deeply on a drowsy sigh. “Then it is perhaps good news for you that I find meting punishment for such transgressions too tedious to contemplate this morning.”

  She trailed a covetous hand down the torso of the male behind her, dipping beneath the sheet that pooled low around his hips. “I have more important matters to attend to.”