by Ts McKinney
His gray eyes turned stormy. “Stop it, Darkness. Don’t mock me. Don’t mock what we are,” he growled.
Disappointment flooded through me. “Dammit, Poppet. I really wanted you to be sane.” I honestly almost started crying. “I wanted to believe that somebody like you could really fall for somebody like me.”
“How long are you going to play this game? We both know you’re lying.”
Disappointment changed to anger. “Are you fucking kidding me? Did what just happen mean nothing to you?”
“I don’t sleep around, Darkness. I’ve fought my attraction to you. I lost. If it were merely physical, I would have found release another way. I can’t deny the chemistry between us.” He paused, a frown crinkling his brow. “Hell, I don’t want to deny it. I…I just need you to be honest with me.”
My blood sizzled. I could actually feel the burn as the thick liquid raced through my veins. A strange noise started thumping, capturing my attention and holding it. Gabriel was talking. I saw his mouth moving, but I couldn’t hear the words. The only thing I could hear was the incredibly loud beating of his heart. My mouth started tingling. I looked away from his lips and focused on his throat. The vein there…it thumped wildly in an erotic dance. Between the burn in my ass and gums, I became dizzy with an indescribable hunger—like nothing I’d ever experienced. An enticing scent tickled my nose, leaving me both hungry and horny. A wave of ecstasy washed over me. Pleasure rippled through me as I listened to the beating sound.
Gabriel’s words, the words I’d taken as the rants of a crazy man or an incredibly sexy role-playing game, tumbled around in my head, suddenly taking on an entirely new meaning. Hunger. Fear. Shame. Fear, again. An all-consuming fear that I was about to hurt Gabriel. My need to have him intensified with each beat of his heart.
“Darkness? Are you okay?” he asked calmly. His voice may have been calm but his pulse had sped up. The vein was fluttering now.
“No,” I answered between clinched jaws. Then I looked him dead in the eyes and said, “Run, Poppet. Now!”
He didn’t run, though. He simply lay there, staring at me in surprise at first, but then the look turned to disappointment. I watched as he raised his hand, more than likely to pull one of those subduing tricks he’d used on me before, but this time, instead of thinking it was wickedly sexy, I felt threatened. My mind screamed that I was in danger from the man who had just given me the most satisfying sex imaginable and that I needed to defend myself—to kill before being killed.
So, since he wouldn’t run, I did. My body reacted on pure instinct as I bolted from the bed with a lightning speed that would have made the Flash look slow. I heard him roar in anger, “Subsisto!” I felt the magic I’d naively believed to be fake bounce around the room, trying to tear into me. The closest exit was the wall of ceiling to floor windows that overlooked the city. We were three stories up, but I didn’t hesitate.
I smashed through the window, ripping through the reinforced glass like it was nothing, and then felt myself plunging through the air. Completely naked, of course. It would be my luck to die or break my neck in such a humiliating way. But even as I passed the floors and the unforgiving concrete of the parking lot came closer and closer, I felt the sizzle in my blood again. It made me feel invincible, defiant in a way. An odd pain flashed through my back, almost feeling like the skin and flesh were trying to rip open, but I didn’t have time to worry about what it meant. The concrete was feet away…and I landed, gracefully, like a cat. It barely even jarred my body, like maybe I’d jumped off a five-foot wall.
A woman screamed, either startled by my sudden appearance or my state of undress. Since I couldn’t explain either one of them in a way anyone might believe, I turned and ran again. Ran with the same speed as before. The building and people went by in a blur. As best I could tell, the people didn’t even seem to notice me, as if I was moving too fast. It felt scary and fucking exhilarating at the same time.
What had just happened and, more importantly, what was I?
Gabriel had asked me that question many times while he’d held me in his suite, but I’d thought him to be the weird one, not me. Now? I knew us both to be, well, whatever the hell we were. He’d claimed to be a witch and had pulled some pretty impressive parlor tricks. Me on the other hand—I’d been completely normal before I’d been forced into his apartment. No, before he’d put his dick inside of me—that’s when I’d changed. That’s when the hunger had roared into my body.
Before turning down an alley at the corner of St. Anne and Royal streets, I swiped a pair of sweatpants from an open market. To be honest, the super speed was fucking cool, but it didn’t feel so great to the bits between my legs, and I was partial to those, especially after Gabriel had woken up my sexual side. At the end of the alley, I stopped, not because I was tired, not even breathing hard, but to slide my legs into the sweats and take a few minutes to try and figure out what my next move needed to be.
Was I exactly what Gabriel had called me—a vampire? Had Gabriel awoken a bloodlust in me that I wouldn’t be able to control? Would I begin slaughtering innocent people as they casually strolled down the Quarter? Would men, women, and innocent children die just because I needed a fucking blood snack? Fuck, did I sparkle in the sunlight?
Leaning my naked back against the cold brick wall, I pondered my own question. No, I hadn’t felt the urge to drink from anyone else as I’d breezed through the city. Only Gabriel. It had only been Gabriel’s heart that I’d heard thump, his pulse that I’d been mesmerized by. I licked my lips just thinking about it. Could I have killed Gabriel? I really liked him. I really, really liked him. As my mind thought back to what just happened, I realized that I hadn’t wanted to kill him, just to taste him. Instinctively, I’d just known that we were a danger to each other…a danger I wasn’t willing to risk. If I’d hurt him, I would have ended up hating myself.
Okay, I needed a list of the facts.
Gabriel said he was a witch, some kind of Législateur, which meant absolutely nothing to me, but he’d acted like it should have made me want to bow down and worship him. He’d thought I smelled like a vampire, but the scent hadn’t been strong enough to convince him of my supernatural DNA, his words, not mine. I’d just jumped from a three-story building with the grace of any Marvel superhero on the big screen. I was in the sunlight, not burning…nor sparkling. I’d never craved blood until sex with Gabriel. I had that stupid block of lost time due to my mysterious illness. Oh…and people were dying from the poppets I’d made.
Yep, that about summed it up. I was screwed. Royally. Right up the ass. Not the good kind of screwing Gabriel had given me either.
I turned toward the wall and banged my forehead against it as my mind searched for answers that I already knew I wouldn’t figure out myself. I also realized I had absolutely nowhere to go, nobody to turn to for those much-needed answers. Dominic was nothing to me—had been nothing since even before Gabriel had gotten me out of his grasp. Oddly enough, Gabriel, the witch that had just tried to zing me with his magic, was the only person I trusted. I trusted him, but knew I couldn’t go back there. From the things he’d told me, that whole Législateur thing made him obligated to control creatures like me.
The bottom line was that I was fucked seven ways to Sunday.
“Hello again, Marchand. I’ve been searching for you. Where, pray-tell, have you been hiding?”
Dominic’s whiny voice coming so unexpectedly from behind me sent shivers down my spine. I spun away from the wall to face him. Dammit, make that fucked eight ways to Sunday. I looked up and there he stood, looking as intimidating as ever. While his tone had been friendly enough, his eyes blazed with fury. I’d broken his cardinal rule. I’d left him. Even worse, just being near him caused the thoughts in my head to begin to jumble again. Whatever power he’d used to keep me under his thumb for the past year came flooding back. His presence sucked away my power…my willpower to control my own actions and thoughts.
As
a last-ditch effort to protect myself, I forced words out of my mouth. “Leave me alone, Dom. It’s over. Whatever you’ve been using me for, it’s over.” Even my vision blurred at my act of defiance.
He bellowed out a laugh. “Oh, no, Marchand. It isn’t over, at least not until I say so.” He stepped closer and my back flattened against the wall. “As you so eloquently said, I’ve been using you…and there’s so much more of you to use. Come along, doll. Let’s not make a scene.”
My feet moved toward him and my hand reached out to take his. My mind screamed in defiance, but my body obeyed him. It was as if I no longer had any control over myself. Dominic held all the power.
As his hand wrapped around mine, he whispered, “Oh, how I’m going to enjoy punishing you for running from me. I give you my word, it’s going to be worse than anything you’ve ever experienced before.” His hand squeezed mine as an evil grin slithered across his face. “I’m going to hurt you enough that you’ll never again even consider running from me.” He tilted his head as he stared at me. “However did you stay hidden, though? I used all my…resources to locate you, but it was as if you’d vanished into thin air, until this morning, of course. Where have you been?”
Dominic could force a lot of things from me, force me to do things I didn’t want to do, but I would never tell him about Gabriel. I would protect my captor with my last breath. “None of your fucking business, asshole.” Pain sliced through my head, knocking me to my knees. I wouldn’t have noticed it before but after spending time with Gabriel, the slight movement of his hand caught my attention. He’d used magic to cause the pain.
“He’s been with me, Monsieur Dominic,” Gabriel’s sexy voice suddenly broke through my pain. He had come up on the sidewalk without either of us, locked in our own drama, even noticing. Then, with a slight wave of his hand, the pain in my head disappeared. “Cloaked, from you, of course.” He took a step closer to Dom. “And if you have any intelligence in that ugly head of yours, you’ll hand him back over without a fight.” Gabriel grinned. “Because we both know it would be a fight you could never win.”
I felt a slight tremble of fear go through Dom’s body but his grip on my hand didn’t loosen. “He’s mine, baton. You have no business taking something that clearly belonged to me. I’ve done nothing to bring the Législateur’s wrath down on me.”
A soft chuckle tumbled from Gabriel’s lips. “No? You think we don’t know about your dealings with dark magic, Monsieur Dominic? Oh, the Législateurs know all about it. We’ve known for a while now.”
Dom drew his back up to try and make himself look even more intimidating. “Doubtful. If a baton suspected such a thing, you would have been knocking down my door.” He grinned at Gabriel. “But there were no knocks. I feel rather confident that you’re trying to scare me right now. It, however, isn’t working.” A stupid thing to say considering the fact his face was blanched white with fear.
He let go of my hand and held both his hands forward, palms toward Gabriel as if to say, nothing to see here. “I’m completely innocent of any use of dark magic and it’s against our laws for you to attack me unless provoked.” He dropped his hands and used one to smack my ass. “This belongs to me. We merely had a lover’s squabble. He leaves here with me.”
Gabriel’s eyes drifted to me and then back to Dom. “The reason there was no knock on your door, idiot, is because your magic isn’t worthy of our attention. You’re what people would refer to as…small potatoes—not worth our efforts and little more than a leger. I’d suggest you keep it that way.” His eyes turned back to me. “Do you want to go with this man, Marchand?”
Inside my head, I screamed no, over and over again. When my mouth opened, though, I said, “Yes, of course. I belong to Dominic.”
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed when I answered, but they turned to fire when he gave Dominic his full attention. “You would dare to use dark magic to control him? Right in front of me? What kind of fool are you, Dominic?”
Dom reached into his bag and pulled out a poppet doll. “The kind that holds all the cards, baton. The power your kind holds over this city is coming to an end. The warlocks are going to see to it.”
“You think to scare me with a poppet?” Gabriel growled. “Finis!”
I watched as magic soared from his body, causing the hand-stitched poppet to disintegrate in Dom’s hand.
“No, Gabriel,” Dominic hissed as he rubbed his burning palm against his pant leg. “But I do think to harm you with this!” No sooner than the words had left his mouth, he reached back in his bag and pulled out a small vial of some red liquid that looked like blood. He mumbled a word in some other language I didn’t know and used his other hand to fling the red liquid toward Gabriel. It splattered onto my lover’s face and outrage flew through me when I saw his skin begin to burn and sizzle wherever the liquid touched. Gabriel dropped to the ground to clutch his face. There were no cries of pain, but I knew he had to be in agony. Even in his pain, I watched as he tried to throw up a wall of magic to protect himself from another attack.
When Dom reached into his bag to pull out another vial of what I assumed was the same dangerous liquid, I roared, “Stop! You will not attempt to harm him again!”
Dom’s attention turned to me, a shocked expression on his face. “What. Did. You. Say?”
My vision blurred. The pain in my head felt crippling. I crumpled to my knees the same as Gabriel had.
“I’ll deal with you after I finish with the baton,” he snarled. He popped the top of the vial and flung his arm back to send it hurtling toward Gabriel.
That same instinct that I’d felt in Gabriel’s apartment ripped through me. Regardless of the horrific pain from whatever magic Dom had wrapped around me, I surged to my feet and did the only thing I could do…I knocked the vial from the air, whirled to wrap my hand around the back of Dominic’s head, and clamped my teeth into the tender flesh of his neck.
Dominic gasped in pain. Curse words spewed from his mouth as he tried to fight me but, in my grasp, his struggles felt like nothing more than a gnat’s strength. Blood poured into my mouth and down my throat. His struggles slowed and then ceased altogether. Curse words turned to gurgles and then everything from Dominic grew silent. He was dead and the only sound my ears detected was the flowing of his blood into me. It was a bitter taste, nothing I’d ever want to try again, but it left me feeling euphoric.
“Well. Well. What has awakened this side of your nature, young one?” a smooth voice asked from behind me, interrupting my feeding. I’d been so lost in my bloodlust that I hadn’t heard anyone else approach. Dropping Dominic’s lifeless body onto the pavement, I turned toward the intruder. It was Roman, Dominic’s older friend who came around sometimes. His presence here was probably no coincidence. He had more than likely been helping Dominic to find me. I’d never liked him, and I liked him even less right now. I started to lunge toward him but stopped when my eyes landed on Gabriel’s body lying on the ground. His face looked as if it had partially melted away, showing tissue and bone. Other than a slight rise and fall of his chest, there was no movement from him, no cries of pain.
The threat of Roman doing something to me was completely forgotten. A roar of pain ripped from my throat as I dove toward my fallen lover. Right before I reached him, a dark figure suddenly darted from the alleyway and his hand gripped the back of my neck to pull me away from Gabriel.
“No! Never a Législateur, fledgling!” I fought wildly against my unknown attacker, but it was useless. He was too strong—way too fucking strong. His touch was firm, yet gentle. And he smelled…different. Not like Dominic or Roman. His voice alone told me he wasn’t with either Dominic or Roman, because they only knew violence. Fuckers.
“Lord Julian. Lord Valen.” Roman said, falling back a step and clearly startled at their sudden appearance, his voice laced with surprise and awe. “Welcome to our city. What brings you to our lovely New Orleans? It’s been nearly a century since your last visit.”
Ahhhh, so Roman was afraid of whoever held me captive, or at least respected them enough to fake it. Good. Him being frightened brought me great joy. Gabriel lying on the pavement dying, however, brought me great grief and anger. I vowed to do something to help him…and my instinct kicked in again.
“Let. Me. Go! I can help him!” I roared as I kicked and clawed at my captor.
Ignoring me, the second man stepped forward from the shadows of the alley and addressed Roman. “I suggest you run away, little warlock. Your friend already lies dead on the cobblestones. Would you like to join him?”
Roman’s gaze shifted between the three of us before he slowly bowed his head. “Until next time, Marchand. Our business isn’t over.” With that threat hanging over me, Roman turned and walked quickly down the sidewalk.
The handsome man in front of me looked at the other one who held me in a death grip. “What will it be, Julian? Do I go after the warlock to ensure he isn’t planning on returning with reinforcements or do I get rid of that one’s body?” He nodded toward the empty shell that had been Dominic.
“I’m not leaving him alone,” the man holding me answered with a hiss.
The handsome man shrugged. “Figured you’d leave both jobs to me.” This time he nodded toward me, “What do you plan on doing with him? And the Législateur?” He looked me up and down in a non-threatening way. “Is he the one? The one you’ve been searching for? The one whose blood calls to you?”
