“Perhaps you don’t know the people you should. My grandfather was an important man in MI5. He was the one who told me about Wassermann in the first place. Told me that not all Nazi War Criminals were punished as they truly deserved.” Ibramovicz squinted at me, his rage evident even as he agreed with my words wholeheartedly. “I began to grow curious about such a man, and when my partner,” I reached up and grabbed the hand Frazer had placed on my shoulder, “indulged me, we discovered the truth. Believe me or not, but that is the Seal of Solomon, and I’m looking for a buyer.”
For a few seconds, he looked at me. The passage of time made me feel like it was endless, though. As though he was reading into me, and at that moment, I just felt so young, like a baby in comparison to this man who had seen, done, and dealt with so much. I couldn’t even begin to imagine the people he met with in his line of work, and how much experience that gave him over us.
The sheer fact he regularly handled Drekavac, an Ancient, was enough to petrify me.
I didn’t care if Frazer and Stefan were Ghoul slayers extraordinaire, that wasn’t much hope against a gun the fence potentially had in one of the drawers in his trashy desk.
“If it’s authenticated,” Ibramovicz began slowly, “then I may have someone interested in buying that particular piece.”
The second those words fell, my heartbeat increased and steadied instantly. I knew that if, by a flash of my expression, I portrayed any relief I felt, he’d smell a rat and all the work we’d gone through would be for naught.
He seemed to stare at me for an age as though testing my resolve, but I tried to remain passive, tried not to look as strung out as I felt.
“We have a meeting with Wilmut Schneefarbe later on,” Frazer stated, his tone cool and calm. “If you can arrange a meet with the buyer beforehand, then you’ll get our business.”
Fury flashed in the other man’s eyes. “Schneefarbe is a money-grabbing—”
“A lady is present,” Stefan bit off, the words as angry as Ibramovicz’s who instantly flushed.
The fence cleared his throat. “Apologies. But I’ll be in touch. Same number, correct?”
“Yes.” I tipped my head to the side and passed him a card. “We’ll be taking the goods with us.”
“But—”
“No buts,” I told him with a smirk. “You and I both know what we’ve got here. We’d be fools to leave it behind. The buyer can view it for himself and bring any technicians he’d like to authenticate the piece. As it stands, it has to happen in front of us or not at all.
“This ring is going to pay for my grandchildren’s university education,” I assured him with a smirk. “I don’t intend on just giving it away for free because some shady businessmen think I’m a moron because I’m young.”
Nostrils flaring, the older man dipped his head. “I understand and I’ll be in touch.”
I got to my feet and held out my hand. Begrudgingly, he stood and clasped my fingers in his. I was impressed that he didn’t try to squeeze the heck out of my hand considering he was angry with me.
“It will be a pleasure doing business with you, Herr Ibramovicz.”
The man’s tight smile told me he wasn’t sure if that was likely, but he was more irritated than suspicious, and in my eyes, that was a definite win.
❖
Eren
Five days later
Prahova Valley, Romania
“Eren?”
The hushed murmur had me stirring in bed. “Eve? What is it? Are you okay?” I asked, as I leaned up on my elbow to stare at the darkened doorway where she was standing.
She seemed to whisper into the room, her body sliding through the darkness in a way that had everything inside me surging to life. I wasn’t sure why she was here, but I wasn’t about to complain either.
“Can I get in with you?” she replied softly, but even as the first words slipped from her mouth, I’d lifted the cover and was inviting her into bed with me.
When she settled next to me, she released a soft sigh. I wasn’t sure where to put my hand, if I was being honest, but she decided for me, curling into me so our legs entwined, and we were huddled up next to one another.
“Not that I’m going to complain, habibi, but what’s wrong?”
She tensed, then pressed her face into the nook between my shoulder and neck. “Nothing.”
“Sounds like something to me,” I countered, reaching up and stroking her hair. It was like silk in my fingers and it slipped against my skin just as that delicate fabric would.
“Tomorrow is…”
When she broke off, I murmured, “The beginning of the end?”
She gulped. “How did you know I wanted to say that?”
Because it was how I was feeling.
I’d been staring up at the ceiling, contemplating what exactly could go wrong tomorrow, and because there were so many ways in which disaster could strike, it wasn’t making resting any easier than usual.
Even if I didn’t sleep, I could zone out, but that just wasn’t happening today.
We were in Stefan’s personal hell—Romania. Had traveled here this morning once Ibramovicz had contacted us and informed us his client was interested in what we were selling, but we had to travel to this small town to meet with him.
I’d never been both terrified and excited before now—I mean, I thought I had, but nothing to this level. Still, this was a time for firsts, and I was experiencing them all around this woman at my side.
“When the Ghouls are gone, Eve, then we can—”
“Can, what? I mean, without them, what will creatures even do?”
The philosophical question had me frowning. “Just live? Not have to fight a war they were born into?”
She tensed. “Without purpose, we’re nothing.”
“Stop being so astute,” I teased, gently rubbing her scalp as I stroked her hair. “We have no idea what’s going to happen, Eve, but that doesn’t shake our own purpose, does it?”
“If I’ve to stop being astute, you’re to stop being so wise,” she chided dryly, and sighed into me. “I’m not scared.”
“Aren’t you?”
“No. I’m not. I promise. That’s the strangest thing of all. I’m really not fretting, but… my thoughts are everywhere, you know? I just can’t seem to shut down.”
“Me either,” I admitted, staring up at the ceiling once more. There was a patch of damp that had been irritating the shit out of me ever since I’d noticed it. Every time I looked at it, it seemed to move, and yes, I knew that was insane, but the darkness and the shadows played tricks sometimes. When a car drove past, flashing the beams of light from the headlamps inside, it made it flicker which had my overactive imagination zooming into being.
“You know if you didn’t have to be a soldier—”
“Which, after we’re done, I won’t have to be,” I pointed out.
“Yeah,” she murmured on another sigh. “After that, what do you want to do?”
It took me a second to realize how floored I was by her question. How genuinely unsure I was about answering.
All my adolescent life, I’d been heading for one path—war against a race that had outnumbered us for centuries.
But Eve was right.
If what we did worked then…
Freedom.
At least until more Ghouls were born, but that meant their numbers could be controlled, surely?
A breath shuddered from my lungs at the thought. “Anything?”
She hummed. “Yes. Anything.”
“Then I’d be a photographer.”
I felt her astonishment—literally. It throbbed inside her, along with a million questions I knew were on the tip of her tongue. “Why?”
“Because a photo can replace a thousand words.” And I’d learned that if words could burn, a photo could cut you to ribbons.
“What would you photograph?”
“Anything and everything.” I didn’t tell her about the million pictures I
had of her on my phone. It wasn’t me being a creep, I was just capturing her essence. The essence of the woman who had Chosen me.
“What about you?” I asked after she fell silent. “What do you want to do?”
She shrugged. “I wasn’t born to be much else than a wife and mother, so I pretty much know that that’s the last thing I want to do.”
I couldn’t stop myself from snickering at that. “Girl power?”
“Does that mean what it sounds like it means?”
Another snicker. “Yeah.”
“Okay, well, girl power.”
“You could even hashtag that.”
She huffed. “Not that insta stuff. I don’t get it. Why do people keep taking pictures of their coffees? It’s all the same!”
I grinned at her, but she couldn’t see it in the darkness. “Remember what I just said? A photo can replace a thousand words? Each picture can mean a few things. The poster could be showing off about where they’re drinking. Or, they could be just telling their people where they’re at—inviting them to come along too if they’re close.”
“You and I both know they’re showing off.”
My grin widened. “Sometimes.”
She huffed again, then in a small voice, whispered, “Eren?”
The change in tone surprised me, but what concerned me was how she’d tensed. “What, habibi?”
“I-I need to feed.”
My eyes flared wide in the dark. “Your Vampire?”
“Yes.” She shuddered. “I-I haven’t tasted anything not from a bag, and the Vampire doesn’t come out as much as the others and I sleep it off when she does, but…” Another shudder. “She’s insistent.”
It was easy to call the souls inside us ‘she’ and ‘he.’ Referring to them as though they didn’t belong to us. As though they were separate entities because, to some small degree, they were.
But somehow, when Eve said it, it felt even more real than it did for regular creatures. Maybe it was. She was Jannah, after all. Who truly knew what the fuck they were capable of?
“My blood is yours, Eve,” I told her softly, meaning every word and trying not to be turned on. I’d kept a lid on my arousal, wanting to wait for the right moment, needing Eve to Claim me at her own pace.
The Lorelei had been chomping at the bit. So insistent now that he dominated the entirety of my being, since the other souls had been pushed aside the night of the McAllister attack.
“I might hurt you,” she whimpered, and I realized that was her concern.
She didn’t want to hurt me.
God, I couldn’t have loved her more if I tried.
Licking my lips, I whispered, “Would you think ill of me if I said I wanted the pain?”
She tensed. “Why?” Her horror was evident.
“Sometimes, it feels good.” I didn’t admit there’d been a time when the pain was the only thing that could get me through the days.
I didn’t need her to know that shit about me. Shit I’d buried in the past with my old life. One day, when she was more confident, she might ask me about the scars on my legs, the proof of how I’d sliced into my own skin to just stop the hurting, to replace my internal pain with one that could be externalized. How I’d used a broken shard from a mirror to escape the mental anguish that was burying me… But that was for another time. Another place. Not tonight. Not in this bed.
“It does?” Her confusion bled into her words, but she turned her face into my throat and murmured, “Are you sure?”
“Deadly.” My voice was low, a husky rasp as excitement filled me at the prospect of her feeding from my vein. For her first time.
When her blunt teeth butted against the thick skin at my throat, a strange kind of ecstasy swirled inside me. It hurt but it hurt good. It was a delicious agony that had me closing my eyes, waiting on her to pierce my flesh.
Eventually, when she did, we both moaned simultaneously. Me because it felt good, her because she savored my taste. Her first taste of fresh blood.
Drinking from a bag was like tasting apple juice from a carton.
From the vein? It was like freshly squeezed juice from the fruit.
My lips would have twitched at the comparison, but I was too busy willing my cock to behave.
Jesus, why did everything she did have to be so potent?
With a shiver, I let her take her fill. I was capable of feeding two of my brothers if they happened to fall on a Vampire day at the same time, so I knew I could satisfy Eve.
What did surprise me was how she moved. With each suck and pull of blood, she writhed against me. Eve’s revulsion of feeding from the vein wasn’t unusual in female creatures. To the point that they would only feed from their own gender because it repulsed them, and they only did it because they needed the nourishment.
Eve, however, was turned on.
And I wasn’t about to complain when she rolled us back, so I was lying flat out on my back, and she straddled me. The heat of her pussy rubbed against my cock as she pressed down, pinning me in place with her teeth and sex, and I let her. Content to be used by her at that moment for whatever she needed.
When she pulled back, I realized she’d taken more blood than anticipated. Not enough to endanger me, but enough to tell me that she needed more blood than one of my brothers could provide alone.
Making a mental note to warn the others of that fact, I held her hips to support her as she forced herself upright, propping herself up by pinning her hands to my chest.
“You taste delicious, Eren,” she whispered, sounding intoxicated and cute as hell. Her hips rocked, pushing her pussy down against my cock. “I bet you’ll feel delicious too.” She licked her lips where droplets of my blood had fallen. “Are you ready for me to Claim you?”
I heard the Vampire in her words. Not just Eve. But both halves of her dueling.
Over me.
“Are you ready to Claim me?” I countered, wanting to make sure that both sides of her were in agreement.
Call me an idiot for potentially dissuading her, but I wasn’t about to lose my fucking virginity unless this moment was perfect.
“I was born ready,” she teased, but in her eyes, I saw how deadly serious she was.
“Born ready? That sounds like you’ve been waiting for me a long time,” I teased back.
“You’ve no idea how long,” Eve rasped, and she surged upright, grabbing the hem of her sleepshirt—one of Stefan’s tees by the look of it—then hauled it overhead. The second it sailed over to the floor, my heart was frozen in my chest as I stared at the ripe mounds of her breasts, the delicate curve of her waist, and the solid flare of her hips.
She was all woman.
And she was all mine.
My mouth salivated at the sight of her, and my eyes were unsure where to settle, wanting to see all of her, to see every secret she held dear.
My gaze flashed from her tits down to her pussy, up to her eyes that sparkled as she watched me watch her. When she reached down to grab my hands, I let her, loving how she moved them to her breasts, letting me hold her there.
The soft flesh was giving beneath my fingers, and I squeezed and molded her nipples, loving the texture and wanting to taste them.
“Is this your first time, Eren?” she asked softly, and though I wasn’t sure how she knew that, I answered honestly:
“Yes.” I felt no shame in that either. The others had never pressured me, had never mocked me for my choice, but it had been hard to see the others getting their dicks wet while sticking to my resolve.
“Why?”
My lips curved as the truth hit me like a freight train. “Because I was waiting for you.”
Her sharp gasp sent shards of delight through me, but before she could say another word—my remark hadn’t been uttered with the need for a reply from her—I shot upward and replaced one of my hands with my mouth.
She tasted exquisite. Like sin and fire merged together. Born to make me fall into temptation, existing to make me
burn.
I grabbed her hips and pushed mine up, loving the feeling of our sexes grinding together. When she slipped her fingers down, pulling my boxers aside, I groaned as the feel of her satiny digits had me counting to a hundred so as not to come too quickly.
She pressed my cock to her pussy, and I felt how wet she was, how aroused feeding from me had made her when she rocked her hips, sliding her juices along the length of me. With each thrust, she moved from her clit to her slit and my head fell back as delight snared me in its grasp.
I couldn’t imagine a more heavenly sensation than my woman’s warmth.
Sensing I was hers for the taking, she leaned forward. I reached up and cupped her waist, feeling the raised flesh from where Reed had raked her with his claws during his own Claiming. As I traced the sensitive skin, she shuddered then dipped down farther and raked her teeth down the other side of my throat. I could feel blood oozing from her first bite, and though I knew it was stupid to let her take more, I wasn’t about to stop her. I wanted that bite of pain too.
As she tore into my skin, I groaned as, at the same time, she shifted higher, grabbed my cock, and sank down onto me.
Each slurp of blood was combined with three thrusts as she rode me, taking us both to a zone of pleasure we’d never experienced before because she’d never fed while making love, and I’d never done either.
She wasn’t ravenous like earlier. This time, her feeding was soft, sultry. More like a glutton taking her fill rather than someone starving.
And I was grateful for it, because I could feel the wooziness of blood loss hit me, as well as the weakness that came from being so close to climax.
When she pulled back, genuinely sated, her mouth moved over mine. Of course, I could taste the blood on her lips, against her tongue, but I didn’t complain. I loved her sensuality, her passion, and as she kissed me, her hips bucked against mine, and I was hers for the taking.
She fucked me hard, fast, not like how I’d imagined her Claiming me. It was raw and rough and pure and all Eve, and I wouldn’t change it for a second.
When I reached down and began to caress her clit, needing her to come so I didn’t shame myself by exploding inside her without her finding her woman’s joy first, she ground out my name, and I knew I’d die a happy man if I heard that for the rest of my life.
Nine Lives: The Caelum Academy Trilogy: Part THREE Page 17
