by Cynthia Dane
Betrayed… The weight of the collar would have drowned her in water. Even if she were a rusalka of Slavic lore deep inside, she could still drown, again and again, but the only one who could make that happen was a hunter. The hunter who now pinned her back against the wall, tightening the collar and pulling the leash taut.
“I’ve been tracking you for too long, Nightingale,” Vincent hissed in her ear, his hips pushing her against the wall. His cock stirred in his pants, and yet he didn’t stop threatening her like this. “Tonight it ends. Tonight I wipe your menace from this city and the earth as a whole.”
The siren felt something she hadn’t felt in at least millennia: fear. Terrible, arousing fear.
Chapter 14
“Release me,” Nala growled, struggling beneath Vincent’s weight. “What right do you have to do this to me?”
In truth, she was petrified. Her life could end tonight. Or, even worse, if the hunter didn’t eradicate her correctly, she could end up trapped between this world and hell, forever sliced in half. While that sounded like a just punishment to those afflicted by her blight, half a demon on a rampage on Earth was worse than a whole one minding its own business. If Vincent had been this cautious going in, then he was probably going to do the job correctly.
She hoped.
I’m hoping for a good demise? Curse me!
“I have every right in the world. It’s you who doesn’t have the right to inflict your horrors.”
He said it so banally, even after he released her from the wall and presented her to the room, collared and leashed. I’m trapped. Every siren like her knew that a hunter wrapping sweet metal around her throat was certain death. She was powerless to fight against this enchantment. Nala only had two options to ensure her continued existence. She either had to get him to let her go…
Or she would really have to seduce him.
Easier said than done. Hunters were trained to no longer feel the magic behind a siren or succubus. They were immune. No matter their own sexual desires, seducing a hunter was like killing one outright. Only few creatures had ever done such a thing, and every time it happened, the hunters got smarter.
By this day and age, they were probably invincible once their target was trapped.
“Please don’t,” she begged, forced to follow him out of the room while others looked on. This is the part where we have to be super careful. They didn’t exactly want someone calling the cops on Vincent. So when he tugged on her leash, he did so gently, urging her forward as she grasped his free hand and whimpered in his unsympathetic ear. “I’m not really hurting anyone these days! I haven’t killed anyone! It’s not my fault if people who shouldn’t be out looking for trouble succumb to me!”
It was tough being a creature like her. People never understood. They didn’t get that she couldn’t help who or what she was. Nala was born like anyone else – just because she was born deviant didn’t mean she had to give up her life. People were always hurting and killing themselves in the dumbest ways. Sure, some of her brethren took things too far and killed some dumbass by draining him of every bit of energy… but she had never done that.
“You know I can’t do that.” Vincent yanked, harder, forcing Nala to stay right by his side as they traversed the next room of the club.
“Where are you taking me?” Did she sound scared? She didn’t mean to sound scared. The last thing she wanted was for anyone around them to think she was scared. “If you kill me, they will come for you.”
Vincent stopped between rooms, pulling Nala as close to him as he dared. When he spoke, his breath hit her face with the force of a blasting furnace. “Nobody will come for me. Because they’re all gone. You’re the last one.”
Nala couldn’t believe it. Me? The last of my kind? Was that why she was so unbothered for so long? Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes as she was led out of the club and down the dark streets of Seattle. They weren’t too far away from the downtown district. They couldn’t be, considering the seedy club they emerged from. And, lo’ and behold, nobody looked at or said a damn thing about what Vincent was doing with this unassuming young woman. Nala stumbled through dirty alleys, wondering if this was where she would cease to exist, or maybe in that dumpster… or next to that homeless person…
“I’m not the last,” she insisted, as the cold started to get to her. “I would know if I was. I would know if my sisters were all gone from this world.”
“They are.”
“How do you know?”
Vincent stopped, staring at her in the sinister shadows. “Because I exorcised them all, like I will with you.”
It seemed so helpless. A seasoned hunter. A man who could kiss her and not succumb to her energy. This man was real. Experienced. Perhaps a demi-god in his own right…
Nala had a sudden thought, as he yanked on her leash and brought her close to the street again. Didn’t I sense my own energy around him? It wasn’t him in search of her. There was something else at play.
Hunters could certainly deafen their ears to the song of a siren. They didn’t all have to be eunuchs, although many of them in the old times were. But Nala knew, as she knew that she was a helpless creature in the thick of it all, that the only entity capable of spurning a siren’s kiss was a member of their kind, male or female.
The best hunter would be one of her brothers.
Nala tuned out her fear so she could concentrate. It was in time, too, for they entered the lobby of a grand, gorgeous hotel with crystal chandeliers and valets that spoke better English than a Shakespearean actor. Vincent hid the end of Nala’s leash beneath his sleeve and led her to the nearest elevator. She scanned the room, searching for any other possible source of the foreign energy she picked up on since the moment she first saw Vincent.
Just as she thought, there was no possible source. It was Vincent. It had to be him.
Did he even know? Was this why he was chosen to be a hunter? Because whoever brought him up knew that he was the only one who could spurn a fellow demon’s advances?
They were alone in the elevator. Well, not completely alone. A camera taped them in the corner. They would still have to be careful.
“You’re quiet, for a woman who is about to be exorcised. I’m sure you know it won’t be pleasant, and you’ll never be allowed to come back to this realm – forced to suffer wherever you’re sent.”
“Is that what you think it is? Repentance?”
“Why else would you have been born as you are?”
Nala cocked her head. Although she couldn’t see it on his face, she saw it in the mirror before them. Guilt. Shame. Perhaps he did know who he was after all.
Was it possible? Would one of her kind betray them all out of guilt for who he was? For how he was born?
“So you’re one of those who was taught that anyone like me must be a demon. Excuse you, nobody gets to call me a demon except me and my close friends. Wherever they were.” Whoever they were… it had been a while since Nala could have real friends. Not since everyone scattered to their own private hunting grounds. To be killed by this asshole. Oh, excuse her. “Exorcised.”
“You do nothing for society except harm people. How many men have you tainted with your poisoned kiss?”
“Don’t forget my poisoned pussy.”
“Whatever.”
“Look, I’m not crazy about the idea of us having some philosophical discussion about my existence while you get ready to kill me. So let’s cut the crap. You want me to go away because you’re under the impression that I was sent to this earth to be punished by my overlord or whatever. I’ve heard all the theories. The truth, sir, is that I didn’t ask for this kind of life. It was foisted upon me at birth. What choice did I have when I became conscious to having a mother who tried to prepare me the best that she could? If I want to keep living – and I do, thanks – I have to drain a man’s vitality. I don’t kill the poor bastards who have the time of their lives. Okay, so there was that one guy who passed out for three
days because he didn’t know how to give up. But he lived! And was infertile after I was done with him, but… he already had five kids.”
“Five kids and a wife.”
“You want to talk about guilt and shame? How about a guy who can’t keep it in his pants. I didn’t make that guy stray. He did it on his own. He made the conscious decision to follow me and stick it in me. It was consensual. Don’t give me your fucking guilt trip about how…”
“How he had no choice? How his mere human brain melted at the sound of your song? There’s no man on this earth who can resist a siren’s temptation.”
“You did. Back in that club. You kissed me, and I felt your dick start getting hard, and yet you had the wherewithal to collar and leash me like you’ve been trained to do.”
“Indeed I did.”
The elevator opened. Vincent led her down the hall, to a room he had a key to. His den of deceit and lies. That’s all Nala could think as the door opened and she was dragged into a five-star hotel room.
How could she appreciate the expense when her uncertain future lay before her? Vincent dragged her to the large bed and unceremoniously pushed her on it.
This was it. Nala had to fight.
Yet how could she when she was enchanted with her collar? Every thrash of her body was met with more resistance. Vincent was much stronger than her. He could pin her down, easily, which he did as he pulled out bind after silk bind, each of which were probably also enchanted to keep her from moving. As she feared, she could not move as both wrists were tied to the headboard.
She looked in Vincent’s cold blue eyes, appealing to him with the only tool she still had. He will never release me. I must seduce him.
“Hey, no, no listen…” Her legs kicked as he pulled her boots off and tied her ankles together. “You’re not seeing the whole picture here.” Although Nala struggled, she couldn’t stop the ceremonial bindings happening above her head. Vincent weaved designs that were as old as her kind. They looped in and out of the headboard, falling around her head, connecting to her wrists and arms, draping across her breasts as they threatened to spill from the top of her dress. “You’re not any different from me!”
Her shout echoed in the large bedroom. Vincent stopped. “What do you mean by that?”
She had to laugh. Was he really that dumb? Hot, but dumb. “You’re one of my kind. I know it as much as I know myself. From the moment I saw you, I knew that you were one of my brothers in creation. I see the guilt in your eyes. You say that we are born to repent for sins we once did long ago. Sins we don’t even remember. Maybe performed in some world far away from here. Were we really, though? Is that why you hate yourself so much? Is that why you have this tremendous power, and you use it to become the perfect hunter? Are you going to eliminate all of our kind from this world until you’re the only one left? Then what? Will you die too? What a fucking martyr you are.”
“I am no martyr. I am doing the right thing.”
Nala withheld a hiss as he continued his weaving. When she craned her head back, however, she noticed something very, very wrong.
This wasn’t the ceremonial design of eradicating a siren from the realm of men.
This was something else entirely. Nala had never seen it in her life, but she had heard about it, and she had seen the legends played out in books and told from the lips of her old brethren.
“What are you…?”
“You’re right, Nightingale.” Vincent finished his knots and loomed over her, a sinister grin spreading across his face. “I am exactly what you think I am. A monster. A beast. I know what it’s like to thirst for a person’s energy and then harness it for myself. What do you think I’ve been doing all this time? I’ve never touched a mortal woman, though. Every siren I’ve taken to a bed like this has only known pleasure before she left this world. It was fitting, I thought, but you’re different. You’re the last one. After you, I’m supposed to be banished as well? It doesn’t work like that. I don’t care what they say. That’s why I saved you, the most beautiful and vivacious siren of them all, for last. You’re too perfect to send to some other realm. Think of all the good you could do here. With me.”
“You’re not…!”
He grasped the bust of her dress and tore it down, exposing one of her most prominent tools of seduction.
“Oh, yes, Nightingale. I’m going to make you my bride.”
Chapter 15
Nala strained against the binds holding her to the bed. Our marital bed my ass! Hell no. Hell, no! She didn’t think such a thing was possible. She had heard about this, but it was so far removed from her reality that she couldn’t imagine it being a plausible part of her existence.
“Why are you resisting?” Vincent leaned one knee against the bed while crossing his arms. “This is a great opportunity for you, Nightingale. You’ve been chosen. By the last incubus in this realm – to be his bride. Don’t you know what that means? Do you know how many of your sisters would have begged to have your spot right now?”
Nala grunted as she futilely pulled against the silk binds. “What makes you think I’m excited about this? Why would I want to become any creature’s thing?”
“One hour ago you were in that club rubbing up against me. How was that any different?”
I had freedom! There was a huge difference between two of their kind mating and becoming a beast’s bride. That meant every bit of power shifted to Vincent. It took all of Nala, except for her body, out of the equation. She would be no better than a mortal woman being torn apart by an incubus.
He had bound her. Enchanted her. Was he really a hunter? He sure knew how to work like one. Perhaps he was. That’s why he was so good. But deep down, he was still a plotting beast who would turn on his masters when the moment was right. For if the last of their kind were to marry, the power could very well take down swaths of reality. What better way to get back at his enslavers? By enslaving Nala!
She knew how this went. He would own her. She would be his. There was no escape. When two minutes ago Nala wanted to seduce him to secure her own future, now she wanted nothing more than to be released. Don’t say the safe word…. She had to remind herself that, taking herself out of the role-play she scripted. This is a part of the fantasy, okay? Sometimes she got so into her own world that she forgot she was supposed to be Nightingale, the last of her seductive kind. The creature who managed to seduce Vincent Lane.
She only hoped that he didn’t forget his part of the play.
From the way he tightened her binds a final time before grabbing one of her breasts and squeezing until she whimpered, he hadn’t. “Be rough. Be demanding. Be everything you’ve fantasized about being with me.” That’s what she wrote in the notebook in the corner of their hotel room. Now she looked her boyfriend in the eye, hoping he would come through. Unlike Nightingale, the real Nala wanted desperately to be his. “Go ahead,” she whispered. “Make me your fucking bride.”
Whether or not he heard her affirmation while he straddled her and fixed a kink in the silk binds, she had no idea. Vincent did not let on as he stood back up and started unbuttoning his shirt.
“Give up, she-demon. You’ve been trapped and caught.” Vincent lined his phone up so his screen was full of the intricate design he created in the headboard. Yeah, add that to your artwork. Go ahead. A flash nearly blinded Nala before he put his phone away. “You belong to me now. When I’m done with you, you will know what it means to be my bride. You will want no one in the world but me.”
He lowered his head, hot breath cracking in Nala’s ear.
“I’ll do to you what my brothers have done for millennia. You’ll be the first siren to know what it feels like to be seduced and claimed by the entities you call your brothers.”
Nala shivered. Nightingale recoiled.
In time, Nightingale will submit. This is our origin story. The Nightingale of The Aviary was a trained succubus. Her Master? The greatest – and the last – man of her kind to ever live.
She was his possession.
She was his bride.
Together they would conquer the sinful.
First, however, they had to fully complete and acknowledge the erotic ceremony that made them as strong as they would be.
“I’ve been dreaming of this for so long.” Vincent carefully splayed out Nala’s hair, creating a halo effect across her pillow. She no longer had the energy to fight him – she would rather save her energy for what he would do to her. “The day I would have Nightingale in my bed and make her my bride.” He lightly kissed her cheek. “I don’t expect you to go down without a fight. It’s not your nature to be controlled. As you’ve named yourself, you’re a bird constantly in flight. Constantly flying away, singing your sad song of seduction. I’m going to put an end to that today. I’ll clip your wings and make you mine. After tonight? You will do my bidding. You will want to do my bidding. Together we will rid this realm of those who truly deserve to be exorcised from humanity. I chose you not because your body calls to mine more than anyone else’s…” He pinched her nipple, as he always loved to do. Nala squirmed, whining in both pleasure and denial. “But because you have the right personality for the job I have in mind. I need a bride who will fulfill all the right duties. Not only please me physically… but be the feisty bird with a set of fearsome talons I desire.”
He flicked the nightingale charm on her collar. Nala whimpered. A whimper of anticipation… and possibly love.
“I’ll know if I made the right choice when I make my claim on you. I’ve already caught and trapped you, Nightingale. You can’t escape… but you can prove yourself worthy.”
Shivers shook her whole body. Was it because her exposed skin was cold? Because she couldn’t wait for what Vincent would do to her? Or because she knew she needed this as much as he did? When this is over, we will be stronger than ever. She knew it like she knew there were stars in the sky. A chasm of stars awaiting her arrival.
