by Unknown
“She’s almost too delicious to drink dry. She could be enjoyed for quite a few hours.”
Jolie’s face never looked away from the vampyre named Dieter. She concentrated on him, since he was going to be her one shot at unraveling all of this.
“Mona, I think I may wish to keep her for myself. Can I let her live and play with her for a while?” asked Dieter, running his palms over her body.
When they cupped her ass, Jolie could hear the rage brewing in her mate.
In fact, the detective was feeling jealousy too.
“No, but she will be enjoyed by us while she squirms beneath our mouths. Now, bring her here. I’m hungry,” Mona stated, as she licked her lips.
Jolie could sense the woman’s eyes roaming up and down her body, and she wasn’t ever going to be her snack.
It wasn’t happening.
Dieter sighed in disappointment. “Go to her,” he stated, releasing Jolie’s hand.
Jolie remained still as she silently called for her mate and Flynn.
It was time.
Again, he sent the command and this time, she turned her head and stared right into his eyes. “No, I don’t think I will.”
All three looked at her in shock.
Dieter tried again. “I order you to go to her!” He sent energy into her body, and Jolie hungrily drank it in.
His actions didn't even faze her.
Reaching up, Jolie placed her hand on his chest before she opened her mind to his to begin draining him of life. She watched him gasp before collapsing to the ground.
There was a rustling sound from behind her as Jacques and Flynn exited the darkness.
“What is this?” asked Mona.
“This, Mona, is the last chance you’ll have to kill another human,” she smiled, baring her fangs.
“Who are you?” she asked, trying to escape into the shadows. Unfortunately, her body was as stiff as stone.
“I’m Jolie Harcourte. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?” At the look on her face, she knew the answer. “I’m afraid that I must now take your life, but first you’ll tell me who is missing from this little party so I can find them too.”
“I won’t be helping you,” she said, trying to be haughty, but the fear in both of their eyes caused it to lose some of its effect.
“Fine then. I’ll just kill you sooner.”
Jolie glanced at her mate, sending him a silent message, right before she glided across the alley to the other male on Mona’s arm.
The look on his face said it all.
He was scared shitless.
Reaching out a hand, she touched the vampyre’s face. She swept through his mind searching for his guilt or innocence. After reading his memories, she pulled back from him.
“You’ve been a bad vampyre, Dorian,” she said, making a tsk-ing sound as she put her hand above his heart. She began draining him of his life and taking care of their enemy. Fear, pain, and horror lived in his eyes as she could feel his heart trying to continue beating under her hand.
It didn't matter. It was a losing battle.
Suddenly, his eyes closed, and he fell to the ground.
There was a gasp from Dieter and Mona.
“You’re next.” Fire flared in Jolie’s eyes.
Mona sent energy into Dieter, hoping that they would be able to overcome the odds.
Dieter rose to his feet and turned toward the men. Brogan automatically drew his guns, but Jacques didn’t even flinch. He was too busy holding Mona still.
When Jolie raised her hand, Mona snickered. “Dieter, I command you to stop.”
“He’s my guardian, Jolie, you can’t control him.”
It was Jolie’s turn to laugh, since Dieter was now hers to use as she saw fit.
“How is this possible?”
“Mona, when your guardian was bringing me out here, he kissed me.”
“So what?”
“I bit his lip and drank his blood.” Jolie smiled as Mona screamed in fury. “He now listens to my commands.” To prove a point, she motioned to Dieter. Despite his struggles, he walked to her side and fell to his knees. “I have a feeling that he will tell me all I need to know.”
“No,” she said, tears streaming down her face. She looked toward Jacques and Brogan, as if pleading.
“Mona, Mona, Mona. One is my mate, and the other is my guardian. They wouldn’t betray me,” she stated, fangs gleaming. “Goodbye, Mona,” she said, moving toward the vampyre. Leaning down to the decaying male on the ground, Jolie pulled a dagger from a sheath on his body.
“Please…”
Jolie wasn’t hearing it. “One of those girls was my friend and lived in my home,” she whispered into Mona’s ear. “That’s why I can’t let you die without pain,” she added, holding the knifepoint in front of her chest, above her heart.
Mona stared down at the blade as it floated in midair over her left breast.
Moving out of the way, Jolie stepped back toward Jacques and Brogan. “Die Mona. Die painfully.”
Jolie waved an elegant hand and the knife slowly slid into the vampyre’s body.
The woman screamed in pain.
Jolie moved so fast that Brogan jumped beside her. He watched in horror as Jolie grabbed a second silver knife, and slashed it wickedly across her throat.
Mona’s face went white as the blood began to bubble out of both wounds.
“You can’t do this,” she whispered, still locked in Jacques’s invisible grasp.
“I can and am, Mona. I don’t even want your filthy blood on my skin,” she said, wiping her hand on a lacy handkerchief. Jolie made a twisting motion with her hand and the knife turned painfully in Mona’s chest. More screams, and then nothing but silence.
“Let her go, mon amour.”
Jacques released his hold and swayed. The amount of energy he had used had nearly drained him. The alley began to smell like blood. Jacques felt his fangs lengthen in his mouth. “Jolie,” he called to her in a pleading voice.
She walked to him. “If Dieter moves, Flynn, I want you to pump him full of bullets.”
Brogan nodded as Dieter crouched in fear. “Jacques, come to me and feed,” she called, holding out her hand to him. When he approached, there was need etched into his face.
“Jolie,” he hissed, as she flung her blue and black hair over her shoulder so he would be able to feed on her white throat. Pulling her into his arms, Jacques could feel her pulse bounce against his tongue. He sunk his fangs into her neck so deep and fast that she gasped.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, as he drank hungrily.
Jolie relaxed into his body, allowing the feel of his mouth on her neck to calm and comfort her. When his fangs released her, Jolie already knew what she needed to do. It was time to finish it.
Dieter began begging for his life.
It made her laugh uncontrollably.
“Jolie, are you well?” asked Jacques, with concern in his voice as he licked her blood from his lips.
“I don’t know, Jacques. I really don’t know,” she replied, stepping toward Dieter. “Come here, Dieter.”
Both men observed her cautiously, not sure what was coming next.
“Please, no,” he begged, looking back and forth from Jolie and the dead vampyres lying on the ground behind him. “Please, Mistress. I beg for my life.”
Jolie ignored him as the terror covered him like a thin sheen of perspiration. She reached for his face and touched his cheek. Closing her eyes, Jolie focused on his mind. Digging in fairly deep, she took the information that she found there and used it to their advantage.
In his mind, she located the truth. He was indeed tied to Mona, but while he was one of them, he had been controlled by them too. Jolie saw the face of Cassiel’s companion, and she knew that Dieter was, if anything, a puppet being ordered to do the will of the more powerful. Jolie sighed and reached for her mate’s mind.
“Mon amour, what’s wrong?” asked Jacques.
“He was not guilt
y of the killings. Mona used him to draw the victims. His mind tells the truth. He’s innocent in the kill.”
“What will you do with him?”
“I don’t know, Jacques.”
She looked up into Dieter’s eyes. “What society do you belong too?”
“Mistress, I belong to Master Magnus’s society.”
Jolie looked at him and contemplated what they would do. Magnus’s society was almost extinct. The master had little control of what few vampyres were still claiming to belong.
Jolie turned toward Jacques and Brogan and sighed. “Come, Dieter.”
When she began walking out of the alley, Brogan just stared after her and Jacques.
“What are we doing?” He was getting that sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Immediately, Jolie reach for his mind.
“We are bringing him home with us.”
“WHAT?” he yelled in her mind. “Are you crazy? He helped them kill those women,” he reminded her, and then paused. “He helped them slaughter, Louisa!” He watched as Jolie turned slowly to face him. The look on her face was one that he hadn’t ever seen before. It was somewhere between rage and wrath.
Immediately, Jacques stepped between them, trying to protect the detective and warn him to back off.
“Flynn! Don’t question what you don’t understand!” How she wished she could tell him more, but it was out of her hands. For now, she needed his trust.
She wanted it in the worst possible way.
It was something that he needed to freely give.
He was so frustrated, that he stopped speaking in her mind. “I have to question it. Obviously, out of the three of us, the logical one needs to stand up and say something. I seem to be the only one thinking straight. He was part of it, vampyre control or not, and now we’re bringing him home like what? An orphan?”
“You don’t understand, Flynn. Let it go,” she warned once more, thinking back to her own youth when she was an orphan. This was so much more, and he wasn’t getting it.
“Hell no,” he said, as he reached for her arm. He spun her to face him and was met with Jacques’s hiss and Jolie’s angry glare.
She raised her hand and Brogan couldn’t help but feel her forcing him to reach for his gun.
Jolie hated this, but she needed to prove a point. She needed to make him understand.
No one spoke in that alley as the only human fought valiantly to overcome her compulsion and ignore her plea to take it from the holster.
Jolie waited as he slowly lifted it toward her heart. Never would she let him point it at himself, she couldn’t bear it. For this, it would have to be her.
“Take my life, Flynn.”
He shook as his sheer will tried to fight her.
“I need your trust,” she stated in his mind.
“Stop it!” he bellowed, as sweat coated his forehead. He saw in his head what she was projecting to him.
Jolie wanted him to place the barrel of the gun against her chest where her heart was, and pull the trigger. He fought so hard that his hand shook from the strain, and she looked as calm as a summer day. “Please,” he whispered, as he stepped to her and placed the gun against her chest. He watched in horror as his finger slid to the trigger and prepared itself to pump her lovely body full of bullets, until she died.
“I’m sorry,” he admitted, doing anything at that point to not hurt her.
As soon as it was said, the control broke and Brogan dropped to his knees.
“Detective, do you see how easy it is for someone stronger to get the weak to do what they want?” She knelt down beside him but didn't touch him. What she wanted to do was hug him and tell him that she was the one who was sorry.
That moment would haunt her.
The look in his eyes would chase her.
What she knew was coming was hard to swallow, but she had no choice. The victims had to come first over her heart.
In that moment, she knew the sacrifice that she was making, and it killed her.
“I could have had you pointing that gun at a child, or a nun, or yourself. Don’t question me, Flynn. You’re not my equal, and don’t understand what I do.”
He nodded, unable to speak. It was as if the spell that had been over him was broken.
The truth was evident in his eyes.
As far as he was concerned, it wouldn’t ever be the same again. He was Detective Flynn Brogan, and he couldn’t bend more to be part of their lives, especially not if they were going to let this man get away with what he did.
Yes, he’d bend the rules because there was justice, but now, there was none.
“Come,” she said and everyone followed.
One did so out of love.
One out of trickery.
And one purely out of fear.
No one spoke the entire trip home. Jacques drove in silence, trying to get Jolie to talk to him, and then Brogan tried to do the same.
Unfortunately, neither was having any luck with it.
Brogan sat warily in the back next to the vampyre who had baited the women who were killed. He stared at the back of Jolie’s head, and he could feel dread creeping into his body. He knew she was powerful, but she could have killed him in that alley.
Shit, what had he gotten himself into?
This might have been the biggest mistake of his entire life.
He had made an error in judgment.
Jolie heard all his words and wasn’t surprised. What she did was inexcusable, but still she hoped that he would understand without her having to speak the words.
She needed his trust.
She wanted so much more.
Until he believed in her, she couldn’t tell him her plan.
As they pulled into the driveway of the house, Jolie was the first one out of the H2. She walked into the main dwelling and waited for Dieter to come to the threshold. She held out her hand to the vampyre, and he looked beyond terrified.
“Welcome to my home, Dieter. Enter.”
“Mistress,” he replied, lowering his head and crossing into the house. “Why am I here?” he asked, confusion clouding his face. “I don’t understand. Are you going to kill me?”
She watched him carefully. “How old are you, Dieter?”
“Two hundred and three years old, Mistress,” he answered, as he continued staring at the ground.
“Look at me, Dieter.”
He did what she asked.
“Do you wish to live?”
He was surprised that she would even offer him the opportunity. He assumed that he would be killed. Dieter only hoped that it wouldn’t be as painful as it was for Mona. “Yes, Mistress. I would like to live, if it pleases you.”
Jolie said nothing as Jacques moved to stand beside her. Taking her hand in his, the vampyre proved his trust.
This was exactly what she wanted from Flynn. Even though Jacques wasn’t privy to what was bouncing around in her brain, she needed his support and he gave it.
Without questioning her, because he knew her.
“We’re going to allow you to live.”
His beautiful face went completely blank, as if trying to detect the trick. “I don’t understand,” he said.
Yeah, he wasn’t the only one. Brogan was worked into a tizzy at that moment.
“Did you kill those women?”
“No, Mistress, I swear,” he said, lowering his head again.
“We’ll allow you to come to our family,” she stated.
Brogan actually gasped in disgust.
Jolie ignored him. “I’ll have to take more blood, and so will Jacques, so we’ll have control over you.”
“Mistress, I wouldn’t betray you.”
Jolie helped him stand. “Let me have your neck and give Jacques your wrist.” So far, everything was going as planned. When he complied, Jolie and Jacques bit down at the same time. Together, they swept through Dieter’s mind. She left little suggestions as to his allegiance and his masters. When they pulled away, Dieter again
fell to his knees and swayed.
“Thank you, Mistress.” He kissed her hand.
“Jacques will show you your new room. You’re not to contact anyone you once spoke to, and later you’ll tell us what you know about the killings. We need to know who was working with Mona.”
“Yes, Mistress,” he replied peacefully, staring into her eyes. His entire face was lit up, only accentuating his beauty. He stood and pushed his straight blonde hair back from his face. His blue eyes flashed boyish charm, especially at the human detective. “Anything you ask, it’ll be my fondest wish to do.”
Jolie turned as Jacques escorted Dieter out of the room. “You disagree with me, Detective?” she questioned.
“Does it matter what I think, Doctor?”
“Oui, I believe it does,” she answered. In her heart, it really mattered most. It was time to tell him everything that he needed to know. As she walked toward him, he stepped back, as if he was terrified of her touching him.
That cut at her heart.
“No,” he stated, shaking his head.
Maybe it was best if he didn't know. He wasn’t ready to be part of their world, at least not completely. He needed time to calm down and dwell on it.
“Flynn, if I wished you harm, I wouldn’t need to physically touch you.” Jolie walked to him again, and again, he stepped back.
She sighed. “I understand.”
“No, I don’t think you do,” he answered, knowing before tonight, he would have followed her without question. Now, he wasn’t sure. Remaining completely still, he stared defiantly into her eyes.
“What would you have had me do?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He pushed his hands through his hair, needing to get away from her. “Look, I’m tired, so I’m going to bed.” When he turned and walked away, Brogan could feel the empty void returning. Gone was hope and a chance at a future he believed he deserved.
Now, Flynn needed space.
A lot of it.
Heading to the bedroom, which Jolie had supplied for him, it somehow didn’t feel as warm and inviting as it once had. Maybe he didn’t have a place in their lives. Lying on the bed, he closed his eyes to block out the ache of loneliness. He reached through the silence to seek out Jolie and Jacques’s minds, and instead of finding peace, he found bleakness. They didn’t reach back for him. In fact, he had hit a wall.
