I took inventory again. Dim light from sconces bolted to stone walls. Assorted chains, whips and saws hanging from hooks. The coppery smell of dried blood and the sharp smell of disinfectant. Under both, the lingering taint of fear.
A stainless steel surgical tray, draped with a white cloth, stood beside me.
Yep, it had been awhile since I’d been in one, but this was definitely straight out of my Old World past. The shelves lined with quart jars of blood were a nice touch though. Queen Maria would have been impressed.
Not a big fan of torture, nausea cramped my stomach. I tried to move, but my body from forehead to ankles was belted to a bumpy, wooden table by leather straps. The rough leather chafed at my skin and the wood bulging and rippling underneath me bruised it. Cool, damp air sucked at the visible skin between the straps, so while I couldn’t lift my head to look down at myself, I surmised I was naked.
Even my fingers were individually secured to the table, splayed apart so I couldn’t touch any of them together. No touch, no magic.
No way out.
Nudra.
This wasn’t bluster anymore, this was the real deal, and unless he’d transported me back to Rome or some other ancient location, I had to be in his house. Under the other smells, I detected the scent of lawn chemicals. Green grass, a well-cared for lawn, equaled suburbia. Nudra’s residence was listed on the Council’s file as downtown Chicago. Maybe my brain cells were fried, or Nudra was even kinkier than I thought. A vamp king and lawn chemicals. Too weird.
If I’d been making one of my checklists for the torture chamber, I could have checked off creaky door as the man in question, or vamp in this case, entered the room. From what I could see from the corner of my eye, his conservative Madhouse suit had been traded in for a red silk shirt and harem pants.
The sight was so unsettling, I shut my eyes against it.
“Playing possum, Kalina? That doesn’t seem like you”
Forcing my chin to move against the strap holding it, I told him to suck off and then screw himself in Italian. It was less effective without the hand gestures. “Kidnapping a Council employee violates Code 6A, Section 2 of the Bridge Mandates. Punishment is imprisonment.”
He chuckled and I heard the rattle of stainless steel—or was it silver?—surgical implements near my head. I cracked open one eye to see if he was doing what I thought he was doing and sure enough, I wished I hadn’t looked.
In one hand, he held a silver dagger, similar to the one in my dreams of Rad, turning it over and over to catch the scant light from the nearest wall sconce. “I asked you nicely to join me and you refused. Now I’m afraid, I can’t be nice anymore.” He smiled, evil intent evident as he placed the tip of the knife at the outside corner of my left eye. A fierce burning took up residence where it touched my skin and I forced myself not to react. “Unless, you’ve had a change of heart?”
Completely immobile, unable to use my powers and staring at a silver knife that could do substantial permanent and painful damage to me…the logical side of my mind thought it prudent to reconsider his offer. Since it was Sunday, no one would notice me missing and no one would come looking for me any time soon, either. What to do…what to do…
Hmm, maybe he didn’t understand Italian. “Fuck you.”
He removed the knife tip and the repulsive reek of burned skin filled my nose. I coughed, and he skimmed the knife tip down the side of my neck, trailing a stinging sensation with it. “Once you have blood slaves, you’ll change your mind. You’ll wish you had come to me sooner.”
Blood slaves? Me? Nudra had definitely been sniffing too many lawn chemicals. “I’m not a vamp. I’m a demon. We don’t use blood slaves and I would never take one even if we did. What you do to them is horrific. You’re an atrocity. I should have staked you when I had the chance.”
The silver tip sank into my neck, drawing blood and Nudra licked his lips. Warm blood rolled down the side of my neck and onto the table. “A blood slave will give you what you want, Kalina. The ability to feel what humans feel. To experience what they experience. That connection…it’s the closest you’ll ever come to being one of them.”
A self-defense mechanism, my blood was repulsive to other supernaturals as well as humans. “A human would have to drink my blood to become my slave, and my blood smells and tastes like gasoline to them.”
The knife moved lower to my exposed stomach, cut me again. Deeper this time, causing me to flinch, even though I steeled myself not to. He laughed as if proud of himself. “Not anymore. I injected you with some of my own blood. My blood.” He pounded a fist on his chest. “You taste like me now, my dear demon. Humans can’t resist you. Once they’ve tasted your blood, they’ll be addicted.”
My world jumped the shark, as they say, and everything inside me went very still. This was bad—the kind of bad you don’t recover from.
The room swam in front me. My career with the Council, my life as an enforcer for them was over. Everything I’d worked so hard for, gone.
The door to the room creaked, followed by the shuffle of feet. Once again I was afraid to look, but compelled to anyway. An older woman and a young man stood inside the door, eyes locked on me. Locked on my blood. Their nostrils flared and I swore under my breath.
Nudra drew the knife over my hip, sliced down my inner thigh. I locked my lips together, refusing to give into my internal scream. Seeming satisfied with his work, he motioned the others over. “Victoria, Arman, this is your new mistress, Kalina Dolce. Drink her blood and it will give you the power you desire.”
The older the demon, the more potent the blood. The older the vamp, the more controlling. My blood was powerful on its own. Another reason it was nauseating to any creature who tried to ingest it. A demon with that much power was a nuclear bomb times ten. Mixed with Nudra’s vamp blood, though, it was twice as potent, maybe ten times as potent, since we were both so old.
The woman slid in between me and Nudra to bend her head over my stomach. Nudra stroked her hair as her lips touched my skin.
“No!” I yelled, but she didn’t stop and the vampire king looked down on me with half-closed eyes as if her drinking my blood excited him.
“Victoria is head of the Satrina Arcanum.” He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. In his office, I’d felt his power rising. This time it was stronger, flooding my senses with a cloying need. “She desires to summon Hell’s Queen to come forward and walk the Earth again.”
Satrina was another name for Lilith, Hell’s Queen and the Mother of Demons. In essence, she was my mother. As old as the Earth, older than any creature I’d ever encountered. She was Adam’s first wife, but refused to obey him, so God threw her out of Eden and cursed her womb so she would never bare human children. She bore demons instead.
And while I may have admired her audacity, I sure as shit didn’t want her walking the Earth again, mother or not.
Arman, more boy than man, met my gaze before he leaned down to kiss my neck. Soft lips, cool as spring water, touched my burning hot skin. He drew back for an instance, licked his bloody lips and smiled at me. His eyes were cat eyes, greenish-gold and titled up at the corners. So young. So stupid.
I fought against the leather straps restraining my forehead and chin. “Whatever Nudra told you, it’s not true. Whatever he promised, it’ll never happen.” The argument was useless. Arman dipped his head again for a second helping of the Kali Liquid Dinner special.
As if I’d been stunned with the merc’s baton a second time, my body went rigid from the simultaneous assault of him and Victoria. A lightheadedness washed over me, and with it, a strange sense of euphoria, accomplishment, success.
Victoria and Arman’s feelings were now my feelings. Nudra’s as well. He was drawing emotion from the mix of our bloods. Drawing power. I glanced at his face, and sure enough, his eyes were closed in vampire ecstasy.
Feeling my hateful gaze on him, he opened his eyes. “Arman wishes to control his werecat side,” Nudra explained,
reaching across Victoria to touch the kid’s hair.
“Were…cat?”My voice shook, partially from rage and partially from the incredible feel of wild, undisciplined and ferocious human emotions electrifying every organ, every cell.
“Cheetah. Anything that crosses his path triggers his animalistic nature. He runs it down and attacks. Can’t live among humans because he can’t control the animal inside him. With your blood, he will.”
No, no, no. I struggled once more against the bonds, the table under me seeming to come to life and drive the wooden lumps and bulges deeper into my body. With sudden clarity I realized the table was made of the wicked corkscrew willow branches.
Black dots danced in front of my vision. A dull roar filled my ears. I started babbling and turned to my foul-language life preserver in an attempt not to blackout. Nudra chuckled, clearly amused.
Once more, the door creaked open. A voice said, “Master, there’s been a security breach on the south wall.”
My brain yelled, yes, and did a fist pump. Maybe someone had figured out I’d been kidnapped. Hell, at this point, I’d take a frickin’ raccoon tripping a security wire just to give me a minute to think without Nudra getting off on me.
The vamp king grabbed Vicky and Arman by the back of their necks, breaking their holds on me and shoving them toward the door and the minion still standing there. “Take them to the guest wing and lock them in one of the bedrooms.”
Before they disappeared from sight, he leaned over and licked blood from the inside of my thigh. Disgust rocked me from head to toe. I hated him more in that moment than I’d ever hated another supernatural.
His flat eyes now shone with lust and excitement. “With my blood now in your veins, you belong to me. You’re my blood slave, just like Victoria and Arman are yours. Which means we have much yet to share.”
Blood bonds couldn’t be broken unless the master or slave died. There weren’t enough curses or hand gestures in the world to convey what I wanted to say to him. I opted for a statement of fact. “I will kill you before this day is over.”
“How very Hollywood of you.” He wagged a skinny finger. “But I’m your master now, my little vengeance demon. Remember?”
He sauntered out, confident in his vamp world, and I hated him all the more. I was now a vampire king’s bitch. That would certainly score points with the Council. How had I let Nudra get the jump on me? I was always careful, especially with vampires because they were so unpredictable. This time, though, I’d blown it and all because I’d been so eager to see Rad.
Damn him all to Hell.
Whether from Nudra’s blood coursing through my veins, the loss of my own blood from Vicky and Arman’s dinner feast, or the sheer loathing I had for myself, my vision became a blur of black dots again. Fight it, I told myself, but control over my body drained away with every drip of my blood onto the table. I forced words to form on my tongue. “Help me,” I called out, in case the raccoon was nearby.
The only sound was the echo of my voice back at me. I closed my eyes and the black dots took me under.
Chapter Five
“Kali. Ka-li.”
Someone was shaking my shoulders. I cracked an eye open and Rad swam into view. He was disheveled, clothes caked with mud, face streaked with dirt, hair wet and starting to curl at the ends.
Admittedly, he’d never looked better. “What…” My lips were dry and stuck together. I wetted them. “How’d you find me?”
“Saw a black SUV speeding away from the church when I showed up. Took me a minute to figure out you’d been kidnapped. I tried to follow them, but they lost me outside of Oak Park. I had to track down your precious Council and get them to help me locate you.”
“Oak Park? Where are we?”
“Naperville. Nudra’s compound. You wouldn’t believe this place.” He looked me over, grimaced. “You’re supposed to keep that red stuff on the inside, you know.”
Il saccente. Smart ass. “No shit, Captain Obvious. Unstrap me.”
He did and never once ogled body parts he shouldn’t, which I appreciated because I was so out of it, he could have groped me and I wouldn’t have lifted a finger. He cut the straps with the silver knife, then stuck it in his back pocket. Racked with a bone-deep cold, my body shook violently as he helped me sit up.
Removing his shirt, he slid it over my head and worked my arms through the sleeves, my limbs as floppy and weak as a string puppet. The shirt was wet and muddy but warm with his body heat.
Best. Shirt. Ever.
When I pushed off the table, my knees buckled and I went down. Rad caught me before I hit the stone floor. “Not so fast there, hot shot.”
“Is the Council here?”
“They sent me ahead to confirm you were being held against your will. I’ll call them.”
“Forget it.” I brushed hair out of my eyes with shaking fingers, and though it killed me to do it, I wrapped my arms around his neck. I needed to get my wits about me before I faced the Council. “Just get me out of here.”
He lifted me with ease, securing his arms under my shoulders and the backs of my knees. We were headed for the door when we heard shouts outside and the handle turned. Rad snapped the ancient deadbolt into place, jamming the door.
Jostling me as he ran to the opposite end of the chamber, he headed toward a raised wooden platform with a coffin in the center. Dim light reflected off the top of the highly polished black lid of the coffin. Blood red satin curtains on the wall behind it created the illusion of a dramatic headboard. Surely Nudra didn’t sleep here, did he?
“What are you doing?”
Rad set me on the floor, one arm around my waist to steady me. “Hiding.” He lifted the coffin lid. White satin and fresh grave dirt sat inside. “Get in.”
Normally, the very idea would have sent me screaming in the other direction. Delirious, I laughed out loud instead. The door knob rattled violently behind us. “Why don’t you snap your fingers and start a fire or blow the roof off or some other distraction so we can get out of here?”
With one quick movement, he picked me up and tossed me into the coffin. The smell of moldy dirt hit my nose. Gross! Rad shook his head. “Already tried. Nudra’s got some kind of anti-magic spell on the structure. It’s tamper proof.”
He launched himself into the coffin, pinning me up against the satin before dropping the lid. Dark and musty, it smelled like Nudra. Rad had me weak and at his mercy with that damn silver knife in his pocket. My body shook harder.
“Shit, Kali,” Rad whispered in my ear. My back was to his front and he spooned his body against mine. His arms went around me, solid and reassuring.
“I can’t help it,” I whispered back. “Nudra injected me with his blood. I’m having a bad reaction.”
“He did what?” Rad ground his teeth, his jaw working against my skull behind my left ear. “I’ll kill him.”
“If anyone gets to kill him…” My teeth chattered hard. “It’s me.”
Rad gave me a squeeze, sighed. “So when did you go blond?”
We were lying in a vamp’s coffin, trying to avoid bodily harm, and he wanted to revisit the subject of my hair. Nudra wasn’t the only one I was going to kill as soon as I got my strength back. “Two-hundred eighty-five years and…” I counted up the days. At least my brain wasn’t fried if I could still count. “Nine days ago.”
He turned my body, maneuvering me to face him. Not an easy job considering our close confines and my dead weight. “You bleached your hair because of me?”
I couldn’t hear anything outside the coffin, but something told me that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. “I didn’t bleach it. It just…happened.” The morning after my first Rad nightmare to be exact. “On its own.”
That shut him up. Or something else did. He leaned down, sniffed my neck where blood still oozed from the knife wound, and then without warning, he nuzzled my skin. An arc of white hot electricity danced between our chests. Literally. It lit up the inside of the
coffin, bouncing off the handle of the knife sticking out of Rad’s back pocket and reflecting in Rad’s eyes where lust, deep and dangerous, sparked to life. “Man, you smell good.”
Oh, shit. He was half human. “Rad, whatever you do, do not—”
Too late, he licked my skin.
Chapter Six
Average shelf life for demons is not much longer than it is for humans. Not because we’re susceptible to disease and old age, but because we live with the seven deadly sins. You know, gluttony, pride, lust. While humans can, and do, send themselves to Hell for dabbling with sin, demons are the sin. Each of us embodies at least one. In other words, it’s in our DNA. We can’t escape it. Humans have the opportunity to overcome their vice and make it to Heaven. Demons, not so much.
The moment Rad’s lips touched my neck, I tried to pull away from him. I did. But the confines of the coffin wouldn’t allow it. The instant my blood touched his lips, he was a goner.
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