Into the Darkness Read online

  “Uh…actually, no.” His hand braced against the wall next to her, and he crowded closer. “I’m not supposed to even talk to you,” he whispered.

  Perhaps, she could kill two birds with one stone. After all she’d be less tempted by Rene if she did have a little snack. “But you’ll let me feed?” At his nod, she touched her upper lip with her tongue. “Um, how?”

  “You just suck,” he said, his voice purring.

  She almost laughed and didn’t bother hiding a grin.

  He pulled aside the neck of his black T-shirt. “We’d better get out of the hallway. However, I keep the key to the door. No funny stuff.”

  “Sure. Nothing funny about it,” she murmured. She opened her door wider and let him step inside, her pulse pounding at the delicious thought she could have him and escape, too. She hoped like hell Rene didn’t waken before she’d had her fill, because she didn’t know how she’d explain her compulsion.

  She latched onto the young man’s arm and pulled him into the room.

  He turned to lock them inside and deposited the key into his pocket. When he straightened, he flashed a quick glance at Rene still sleeping on the bed and lifted an eyebrow.

  She pressed her finger to her lips to tell him they’d have to keep quiet. She clasped his hand and pulled him deeper into the room. “You’re too tall,” she whispered. “Would you kneel down?”

  He shrugged and knelt in front of her, just the right height for her to snuggle close to his neck. An eager supplicant.

  Nervous about what came next, she lifted a shining strand of his hair to give her something else to concentrate on rather than his warm, male musk and sweet breath. “What’s your name?” she whispered. “I think I should know since I’m about to eat you.”

  His white teeth flashed again. “Gerard.”

  “I like that.” With her hands resting on his shoulders, she leaned over him and licked his neck, feeling with her tongue for just the right spot. When she found his strong, thudding pulse, she let her fangs descend and quickly punctured his skin.

  His breath gasped, and then a low groan followed.

  Thick, hot blood spilled into her mouth, almost too fast for her to swallow.

  His hands reached for her hips, and she realized he was turned on by her bite—and that she was also becoming aroused. As he sank on his haunches, she let him guide her down onto his lap, spreading her legs wide to straddle him as she continued to drink.

  His groans grew louder, harsher. His hands tightened and he pushed her forward and back on his lap, dragging her over the ridge growing at the front of his trousers.

  With his clothed cock grinding into her sex, and his rich, delicious blood filling her belly, she let herself enjoy the moment. She pressed closer, tugging down the edge of the throw to rub her bare breasts against his chest. She couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t get her fill of him.

  When his hands slipped away from her hips, she barely noticed.

  The door slammed against the wall behind her, but she continued to feast and rut. Only when strong arms encircled her belly and squeezed the breath from her, did she open her mouth to gasp.

  The red haze subsided. In its place rushed a dawning horror. The insistent throbbing between her legs dulled as she stared at the blood sluggishly streaming down the young man’s neck to soak his T-shirt.

  A hand gripped her jaw and forced her head to turn.

  Chessa leaned close, disapproval drawing her brows down. “Lesson number one—you don’t kill your meals!”

  “He’s dead?” Natalie asked weakly.

  “He will have to be turned,” said the man holding her against his chest—the Frenchman. “Lesson number two?”

  Rene had rolled to his side as far as his chains would allow when he’d been woken by groans and gurgling sounds within the room.

  Silent throughout, he’d watched Natalie astride a young man, dry-humping while she’d fed until he passed out. Hot fury at her betrayal seared through him. He didn’t know why he hadn’t let them know he was awake, maybe he’d been curious to see how far she’d take the other man.

  When the door burst open and Chessa and a dark-haired man rushed inside, he lay back and pretended to sleep, curious to see what would unfold next.

  He felt like he was watching his own fate play out. That might be him the next time Natalie lost herself in bloodlust.

  Chessa knelt on the floor and propped the young man against her chest. “Natalie. Natalie!” she called again when Natalie continued to stare at the blood soaking his clothes. “Pay attention, we haven’t time, his internal organs are shutting down. You bit him—you save him! Those are the rules.”

  “How?” Natalie croaked, unaware smears of blood remained around her mouth and chin.

  She looked like a goddamn zombie.

  “Open your wrist,” the dark-haired man said. When she still didn’t move, he brought her hand to his mouth.

  A cry of pain had Rene wincing along with Natalie as her wrist was slashed and then placed to the mouth of the dying man.

  But he didn’t move. Didn’t drink. His lips remained slack.

  Chessa tilted back his head and pinched his chin to open his mouth wider. Then she rubbed his throat, trying to force him to swallow the blood.

  Rene thought for sure the bastard had bought it. The blood pooled in his mouth and overflowed his lips. Chessa and the dark-haired man shared a tense, charged glance.

  Finally, the younger man’s hand twitched on the floor.

  “That’s it,” Chessa crooned, stroking his hair as he started to drink. “What’s his name, Nic?”

  The dark-haired man’s jaw tensed. “Gerard,” he said, his voice thick.

  “That’s it, Gerard. Drink. You want to live, baby? Drink!”

  Slowly, one tiny swallow at a time, he regained strength, gurgling at first as he fought down the blood dripping steadily into his mouth, choking, and then drawing ravenously against Natalie’s wrist.

  His parchment-pale features regained color until at last he opened his eyes and jackknifed out of Chessa’s arms to curl into a ball, whimpering with pain.

  “Nicolas, get him out of here, he’ll need time to recover.”

  Nicolas put his arm beneath the young man’s shoulders and hefted him into his arms to carry him out, leaving Natalie and Chessa kneeling there, blood trickling now from Natalie’s arm into the carpet.

  “Inanna’s not gong to be happy,” Chessa said, her gaze on the dark, stained carpet. Looking pissed off, her eyebrows nearly meeting, Chessa lifted Natalie’s arm and placed her lips around the wound on the younger woman’s wrist. She sucked and licked until the wounds closed.

  Throughout, Rene had barely breathed, observing the transformation from dying to dead, and beyond. He shuddered at witnessing the birth of another unnatural creature and wondered how he’d ever look at Natalie quite the same way. She was no longer an innocent, but a demon.

  Chessa turned his way and caught him staring. She must have read something in his expression, because she stiffened. “Natalie, go get a shower and stay there until I come for you.”

  Natalie, her face pale and fragile, followed the command like an automaton, shuffling toward the door and closing it quietly behind her.

  Chessa dug into the pocket of her dark trousers and pulled out a key. “I think you know what’s going to happen here now, don’t you?”

  “Cheech, get me the fuck out of here, now,” he said, letting her see the tension and desperation in his face. “You know that’s not what I want. You know I don’t want to die like that.”

  Chessa leaned over him to unlock his handcuffs, one at a time. As she reached, her small, firm breasts rubbed against his chest.

  Rene’s arms were already screaming with agony. Too much so to fully enjoy the softness pressing against him. He was afraid to move his arms because he knew he wouldn’t be able to hide his pain, so he kept them in place as she circled around the end of the bed to release his feet.

&n
bsp; When at last the chains dropped to the floor, she lifted his foot and started to massage it, working her way up the calf, then helping him bend his knee as he gritted against the agony.

  Her gaze averted from the part of him he couldn’t control as he reacted to the ministrations of an attractive woman, someone he’d wondered about from time to time and had, in his weakest, horniest moments, considered as a sexual partner.

  “Must be a bitch, not being able to hide a single thing you think,” she said, as she gently placed his leg back on the bed and reached for the next.

  His lips twisted in self-derision, not bothering to deny he was hard because she touched him. “Yeah, kinda makes a guy vulnerable.”

  She took a deep breath. “What you saw before—”

  “I saw Natalie fuckin’ kill that guy.”

  “What you saw,” she repeated slowly, “doesn’t happen often. We have rules. We learn discipline.”

  He turned away his face.

  “Usually, we only do that when we are asked, and only when someone’s proven their loyalty to the coven. The reason Gerard was at that door was because we were ready to turn him and bring him into our security team.”

  Rene gave her an incredulous stare. “You aren’t worried about the fact he disobeyed an order?”

  “That’s something we’ll work on. We’re not really worried about that—he was under the spell of our little Jezebel in there.”

  Under the spell? Was there more at work than just an attraction, something mystical? The thought encouraged him. He might be able to fight this.

  “You wanna try sitting up?”

  Rene blew out a breath and nodded.

  Chessa put her arm beneath his shoulders and helped him to sit. He lowered his arms, gasping at the pain shooting through his shoulders and upper back. Once the worst had subsided, he opened his eyes and gave her a weak grin. “Now I really am gonna need to piss. And no, you’re not holdin’ it for me.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed.

  “Darn. You just crushed my dreams.”

  Rene laughed, and then groaned in agony when his feet finally met the floor, but he stretched, forcing blood into muscles that had been asleep.

  He glanced down at Chessa standing next to him. Her glance slid slowly over his naked body. “You know, Cheech, if things had been different before I met you…”

  She shook her head, a hint of regret shadowing her gaze. “I don’t understand, Rene,” she said, her face uncharacteristically somber and sincere. “I know your wife died in a car crash. Not by a vampire’s bite. You have to let go of your guilt sometime. You deserve happiness.”

  He blinked hard and looked away. “Whatever. I still have to piss.”

  Her back straightened. “Come with me.” Chessa led him out the room and across the hallway to another bedroom.

  He glanced around another comfortably appointed bedroom. “What, no bondage equipment here?”

  “No, we save that for assholes.”

  Glad the old Chessa snapped back, he gave her a crooked grin.

  She opened an inner door and stood back. “Don’t bother trying to go out the window. The grounds are patrolled by some really nasty creatures.”

  “Werewolves?”

  “No, mastiffs.” She gave him a saccharine smile. “You change your mind about me holding it?”

  He narrowed his eyes and entered the bathroom, locking the door behind him. Although she could bust it down in a heartbeat, it still felt good to lock her out.

  Chessa slumped against the wall and sucked in a deep breath. She could have waited a month of fucking Sundays for a day like this.

  She’d been pulled away from her nap the moment Gerard was seen entering the bedroom. Natalie was way ahead of schedule. A chip right off the old block. Her mother had never learned to regulate her hungers.

  The door clicked open and Rene walked out, still naked. He hadn’t availed himself of any of the towels hanging from the rack. “Must be really comfortable in your skin,” she said, dropping her gaze down the front of his body.

  “It hardly matters. The whole point is for me to have sex with her twenty-four-seven—until I’m bat food.”

  “If things got out of hand, we’d step in.”

  “Like you did for old Gerard.”

  “That was unexpected.”

  As she escorted him back to his room, he hesitated at the door. “Are you going to chain me, again?”

  “You gonna miss having an excuse not to give it up?”

  His gaze narrowed. “Fuck you.”

  “You’d like that?” She lifted one brow to mock him. “Want us both?”

  The force he used to open the door slammed it against the wall. She must have struck one helluva raw nerve.

  Once inside the room, Chessa reached up and tilted back his head, surprising him with the strength of her fingers—she knew by the way he sucked in his breath. But he didn’t step back out of her reach.

  She traced the slight indentations left from his first bite. “I hate to tell you this, partner, but your life is forever changed.”

  “Nothing’s changed—I’m just takin’ a vacation. I’m goin’ back to my life when this is over.”

  “You really think you can leave her—walk out of this house and not look back? You’re bound to her.”

  “I’m not turned yet, and I won’t ever be.” The vehemence in his tone relayed a stubborn resistance to his fate.

  “You’ll beg for it in the end. The blood bond between a Born coming into her season and her first mate is strong—stronger than either of you. You don’t need the cuffs anymore. You’re already chained to her, tighter than any steel.”

  Rene’s tense jaw and bunched shoulders didn’t worry her a bit—he was fighting himself.

  Chessa locked him inside the bedroom, without the manacles, just as another of Nicolas’s team reported for duty at the door—this time a seasoned man, a vampire.

  She gave him a nod and continued down the hallway, down the curved staircase, shoving the maelstrom of emotion roiling inside her deep down where it couldn’t touch her. Where it wouldn’t show on her face.

  Dinner was being served in the dining room. There was no getting out of it. She’d taken so long with Rene, she was already late. Inanna’d had plenty of time to play with the seating arrangements.

  She entered the dining room and quickly noted only two empty seats. All heads turned toward her, and she stifled a curse.

  Candlelight lit the room from wall sconces and the ornate candelabrum placed near both ends of the long, ebony table. The place settings and the guests reflected Inanna’s preference for ceremony. The long dining-room table gleamed, and the scent of beeswax lay beneath the savory aroma of roasted meats.

  Everything looked so perfect and civilized. Succulent roasts, seared on the outside, bloody on the inside. Enough to whet an appetite, but nothing as garish as a blood-host sitting next to a vampire to supply the main course. Carnal appetites were meant to be appeased in private.

  Inanna waved her to the chair beside her. “Come, dear. Come sit beside me. It’s been so long, we have lots to catch up on.”

  Dragging her feet, she made her way toward the head of the table to the seat directly across from Nicolas.

  Erika sat beside him, her blonde hair piled high. Small diamonds in her ears sparkled as brightly as her smile.

  Everyone, it seemed, had dressed for the occasion, except her. If they didn’t like it, fuck them. She wasn’t going to play dress up. She wasn’t here because she had any real choices.

  Inanna had dressed in bronze silk that draped one shoulder and left one bare. Around her throat was her primitive carnelian cabochon with its carved phoenix on a braided gold cord.

  Chessa remembered playing with it as a child as it dangled between “Nanna’s” breasts.

  Inanna’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “So, it appears we have a new member of our family.”

  “Are we talking Natalie or the Revenant?” Chessa gr
owled. At Inanna’s disappointed moue, Chessa shrugged. “What? Should I call him ‘the walking dead’? It sounds more polite in French.”

  “You’ve offended Nicolas,” Inanna said. Her tone was soft, chiding.

  “She hasn’t offended me,” Nicolas murmured, his dark gaze resting on Chessa.

  She shifted in her seat, wishing he’d look anywhere but at her. She could still feel the bruises on her bottom where he’d gripped her hard as he’d taken her.

  Inanna sat back, sly amusement glittering in the glance she swept between the two of them. “Ahhhh, I suppose any barbs she throws your way this evening will be deflected, eh, cher?”

  Nicolas didn’t comment, but the look he shot Chessa confused her.

  There was no triumph, only a question.

  One she wanted to avoid at all costs. Would she seek him out again?

  CHAPTER 10

  Mercifully, Inanna veered the conversation another way. “Erika, what did you think of our baby girl?”

  Erika’s mobile face lit up. Her brown eyes and lips widened as she enthused, “Isn’t she beautiful? I never would have expected blue eyes. I wonder where they came from?”

  “Her father’s side, perhaps,” Inanna murmured, taking a sip of wine from her crystal glass. “It’s not as though we knew that much about him.”

  Erika’s smile dimmed, and she glanced away. “Well, it isn’t as though he could introduce us to the rest of his family once he’d joined us. I suppose we will never know.” She speared a bit of prime rib with her fork and popped it into her mouth.

  Chessa’s already fading appetite fled completely. Rene had no extended family. He was a perfect candidate for mating with a vampire. No blood ties to pull at his loyalties. Once he committed to Natalie, he would have no reason to regret the decision—nothing else to lose beyond his life.

  “You aren’t eating,” Inanna said.

  “I’m not much into nibbling.”

  “You’re such a city girl now. Into all that fast food.”

  The others sitting around the table laughed, confirming in her mind that she was the evening’s entertainment. They’d spoken only in hushed whispers since she’d entered, waiting for whatever amusing or shocking thing would come out of her mouth.