Seduced By Darkness Read online

  When her body trembled and her breaths sobbed, he shook himself and stopped. He crawled behind her and parted her buttocks, staring down at the neat little hole. He’d only ever desired to take Chessa that way. Only to conquer every last one of her inhibitions.

  With Inanna, he thought only of conquering her body. He wedged his thumb into her, pressing past the muscles that tightened to repulse his invasion.

  Her breath hissed between her teeth, and her head fell to the carpet.

  Nicolas would have thought the sadistic bitch had never taken it in the ass. Spitting into his palm, he rubbed the moisture over the head of his cock and placed it at her back entrance.

  Her bottom tensed and her fingernails dug into the carpet, but she didn’t shy away when he pushed into her, meeting strong resistance.

  He pressed his thumbs against the rim, opening her fractionally, and flexed his hips forward again.

  She murmured, low and throaty, and her back sank, pushing her ass higher.

  He dipped inside, tunneling in, groaning as her entrance clasped the head of his cock and engulfed him in sweet, hot heat.

  When he was deep enough to begin stroking into her, he gripped her hips, positioning her bottom to take his thrusts as they grew steadily deeper and harsher.

  Again and again, he crammed himself into her, pushing into lava-hot tissue that eased as he stroked, caressing his length.

  Her body shuddered beneath him, her cries growing louder, more unrestricted.

  When at last his groin smacked her bottom, he let loose, pounding hard, closing his ears to her high-pitched keening. She’d take him, all of him. For once, she’d be the one left wrung out as a dishrag.

  He slammed forward, dragged his cock out and slammed back inside, pistoning faster. Just as her quickening cries indicated she approached the precipice, he reached around her hips and pinched her clitoris between his thumb and forefinger.

  Inanna screamed, her cry sounding primordial, the deep, anguished caw of a wild bird.

  Nicolas felt his own release explode from his balls, slamming through his cock to erupt in a stream of cum that eased the clasp of the tissue burning around his cock.

  When they were both spent, he with his head flung back, his shaft riding her waning constrictions, she with her head resting on her clasped hands, Nicolas realized his relationship with Inanna, for better or worse, would never be the same.

  A faint scratching at the door roused them both.

  Inanna glanced over her shoulder as he pulled slowly out then lay on the carpet, her arms wrapped around herself.

  Nicolas gave her a questioning glance but strode on shaking legs to the door and opened it a crack.

  Pasqual stood on the other side, his gaze lifting beyond Nicolas’s shoulder and widening.

  Nicolas leaned into the opening to shut off the view, surprised to find some element of chivalry remaining in his conscience. Inanna needed time to recover.

  “Yes,” he said, his voice clipped. Anyone with a set of ears had to know they’d been screwing.

  “Alex called Simon,” Pasqual said, his cheeks reddening at Nicolas’s pointed stare. “Zombies rose at the morgue in San Gabriel.”

  Nicolas stiffened. “Is Chessa all right?”

  “Yes, they dispatched every one they found. They’re on their way back now.”

  Nicolas nodded. “Is that all?”

  Pasqual lifted his chin. “Does the mistress need anything?”

  Did Pasqual really care? The resentment burning in his eyes said so.

  “She’s fine. Leave us.”

  Pasqual’s back stiffened, and he turned on his heels, heading stiffly back toward the living room.

  Nicolas closed the door and turned.

  Inanna sat up, her chin rising. Her cool, sensual mask back in place.

  Satisfaction filled him, knowing the effort it cost her.

  “The zombies,” she said. “He used the witch’s powder?”

  “Seems like it.”

  “Then he’s west of the city?”

  Nicolas shrugged, pulling his pants up and closing them. “He could have planted it any time today. Moonrise released them.”

  “He’s clever,” she said softly, slowly. “Cunning beyond your imagination.”

  “One question.”

  She eyed him warily, but nodded.

  “I know he wants to punish me for keeping him imprisoned. You’ve had no contact all these years. Does he have a reason to come after you?”

  Her glance slid away, but not before he’d detected a glistening hint of sorrow. “He’ll want revenge on me most of all.”

  Chessa smoldered in the seat as Alex kept his rapt attention on the narrow, dark road.

  Everything she’d learned about him, or hadn’t, more precisely, came back to bite her in the ass.

  No biting, for instance. She’d assumed he didn’t enjoy being lunch to a bloodsucker. Now, she wondered what she would have discovered about him if she had.

  Blood would always tell.

  His speed during the chase through the morgue grounds wasn’t something he could explain blithely away either, if he bothered to try.

  Further, he’d known exactly how to take them out. She supposed he could have learned it watching horror films, but even if he’d believed those stories, they’d never have been able to outmaneuver the monsters. They’d been too damn fast. Hollywood’s zombies moved so slow a child could outrun them.

  His likability factor, the way he’d wormed his way into her bed and confidence so quickly—that should have been the ultimate clue.

  Chessa didn’t like anybody. Yet Alex with his sly amusement, as though he laughed constantly at a private joke, had intrigued her. He hadn’t been fazed by what she was. Had helped her find her meals when she’d been beyond hungry. He’d slid his way under her clothes and into her body when she’d craved more than a little fast food.

  The question now was what brand of night crawler was he?

  A Revenant? Somehow, that seemed too easy an answer.

  And mulling over her first meet and greet back in the office, she didn’t know his full name, where he lived, where he’d come from.

  Why hadn’t she grilled him?

  Sure, her mind was pretty consumed with her problems—Rene’s defection, Nicolas’s seduction. A city sinking beneath a seamy underworld of chaos, water, and creatures of the night come to prey on the defenseless.

  Was he a were-creature? The possibility he hid an animalistic streak seemed just as unlikely seeing as he hadn’t presented a single characteristic even in the throes of a powerful orgasm. And every vamp knew weres had little self-control.

  Besides, why not bare his wolf’s fangs and rip the heads off the zombies rather than risk his shots going wild in the heat of battle?

  Too, weres and vampires had duked it out generations before she’d ever been born, finally dividing up the New World into regions, complete with intricate treaties that spelled out the consequences, savage ones, if any dared break them. Why would they mess with something that had worked and averted battles for so long?

  A mage, then? Only he didn’t seem to have the temperament, nor did he carry any of the trinkets mages were fond of—no crystals or magical powders. Nor did he appear to have an interminably dull fascination with fate and the roles of practitioners of the arts.

  Could he be a demon, then? If a mage could wave his hand in front of his face to transform into a Generation X video store owner, why not a demon? With the use of darker magicks, why couldn’t one present an irresistibly attractive package—a sexy, smirking cop with a body to die for?

  Diabolical! That had to be it.

  She straightened in her seat and shot him a glance, half expecting him to change before her eyes. Demons came in many forms, amoeba-sized varmints that attached themselves to humans and burrowed into their cerebral cortex, causing all sorts of mental disease. Some possessed dark, twisted bodies to reflect the evil in their souls. Some possessed no form
at all, except one they borrowed, like their friend The Devourer.

  Could Alex, the real man, have been possessed like that? She could see the definite advantages a devious intellect would want to seize. Sexual gratification being high on most demons’ lists, Alex’s body offered endless opportunities.

  Feeling a little relieved her mind was working again and pushing past the handsome package to look deeply into the man, she settled back, deciding to watch him closely and see what transpired over time.

  He’d have to show his hand sooner or later.

  “You’re thinking too hard,” he drawled. “I can hear the squeaking gears turning.”

  “Are you saying I’m not intellectual?”

  “I’m saying I know you have questions. You’ve been too quiet since we left the morgue. You just haven’t figured out the right ones to ask.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Do you think I’m too stupid to figure it out myself?”

  “Course not. Even if I did, do you think I’d say that?” he said, grinning. “I’ve seen you in action, sweetheart.”

  Chessa snorted. “All you’ve seen is me getting my butt kicked by a zombie.”

  “Chessa, I know you’re smart. And I know you could have determined how to take them out all on your own.” He flashed her megawatt smile. “Mad at me for telling you how?”

  She realized she was, actually. She hadn’t liked the fact she’d gaped at the first one, uncomprehending even though she’d known about Madame Fortun’s powder.

  What she liked less was the reason for her inattention. A silver bullet up her cunt that had her half out of her mind with arousal.

  That wasn’t her. She was all about the job. Somewhere in the last few days she’d lost herself. “Are you going to answer my questions?”

  “Maybe, but they’re going to have to wait.”

  “Why’s that?” she asked, her suspicions rousing again.

  “We have a problem,” he said, nodding ahead and slowing the car to a crawl.

  She turned her gaze, her eyes widening as she spotted SUVs parked sideways in the road. A road block. “What do those knuckleheads think they’re doing?”

  “Waiting for us.” Alex whipped the wheel, taking the car to the edge of the road and executing a neat U-turn in the center of the highway, but trucks barreled their way from the opposite direction.

  “We’re going to have to make a run for it, baby,” he said, unbuckling his seat belt before he’d ground the car to halt.

  “You don’t have to sound so cheerful about it.”

  “You’d rather I cry?”

  “You and I are going to have a heart to heart when we get out of this mess.” She unbuckled her belt as well and grabbed the door handle. “Who do you think they are?”

  “Who else? Revenants.”

  Was he one of them after all? Had he led her into a trap? Would he pretend to put up a fight now and surrender when they were completely surrounded?

  She didn’t plan on waiting to find out, slamming open her door and rolling into the ditch beside the road, coming to her feet to sprint into the dark forest beyond.

  Footsteps crunched hard and fast in the underbrush behind her, but she didn’t stop to figure out who was on her tail. She shrugged out of her jacket, dropped her holster, and ripped her shirt off, never slowing her pace.

  More rustling ahead forced her to change direction as two men stepped from behind trees and raced toward her.

  She let the one on the left come close then shoved up her hand into his face at the last moment, breaking his nose. Then she spun on her heels and raised her leg to kick the chest of the man coming from her right, lifting him off his feet. She didn’t pause to see whether he fell, just kept trucking through the woods.

  She ran with the wind at her back, popped her wings from the long, slitted pouches between her shoulder blades, flapped down to catch the wind and lifted from the ground.

  Behind her, footfalls silenced, which didn’t mean she was out of the woods, so to speak, just yet. Scanning the ground below her she saw the first burst of gunfire before she heard the report of a weapon. She careened left in the air then right, then keeping close to the treetops soared until she was out of the bastards’ line of sight.

  Only then did she breathe a sigh of relief and give herself over to the joy of a freedom she seldom indulged. Living in New Orleans, in close quarters with a thickly populated city, wasn’t conducive to keeping a secret of this magnitude.

  She followed the dark ribbon of highway heading East toward home, tamping down her worry for Alex. She’d abandoned him, but he hadn’t exactly done a lot to win her trust.

  He’d promised explanations, but now she might never know the truth. If he wasn’t one of them, he was another sort of creature. Let him use his “gifts” and his cunning to figure out his own escape. Now, she had to worry about how she could sneak back into the city without someone claiming to see an angel falling from heaven.

  A loud flap behind her drew her curious gaze. Her mouth gaped. Alex came like an avenging angel, his wingspread wider than hers, his face a mask of fury.

  “Fucking unbelievable,” she whispered as he bore down on her.

  Alex was Born?

  CHAPTER

  13

  “Not one fucking word,” he’d said before leading her into the city, his powerful wings giving her enough of a draft to stay right on his tail, although by the time they crossed over the city limit, she was exhausted.

  They passed the Quarter, eerily quiet due to the curfew and inky darkness, except for pockets of light where bars had rented generators to keep the refrigerators going, and apartment-dwellers kept candles burning in their windows.

  They flew toward a neighborhood she knew only too well. She’d been there days ago. Had extracted a virgin vamp from her partner’s home and discovered she’d lost him forever when he’d bedded the woman.

  Not surprised at all, she touched down in Rene Broussard’s courtyard.

  A curtain fluttered in an upstairs window. Someone was home. But who?

  Her heart beat fast, knowing the answer before Rene barreled out the door, Natalie fast on his heels.

  She stared into her former partner’s familiar face, and opened her mouth to greet him, but he shook his head and turned to lead the way into his home.

  When she passed inside, Rene glanced back into the darkness, scanning the quiet rows of darkened houses, before closing them all inside and locking the door.

  “Rene, how?” she asked, unable to curb her questions a moment longer.

  His smile, a slow sexy stretch of lips she’d kissed intimately finally gave her the greeting she needed. His arms opened and she swooped toward him, wrapping hers around his shoulders for a tight hug.

  After everything she’d been through the past few days, she finally felt as though something was wonderfully right.

  A cough sounded behind her, and Rene’s arms fell to his sides, releasing her. Chessa turned to Natalie who gave her a crooked smile.

  Remembering Rene belonged to this woman now, Chessa faltered, feeling awkward, not knowing where she stood in this relationship. They’d grown close—just days ago for her, but who knew how many hundreds of years ago for them.

  She crossed her arms over her bare breasts to cover them, knowing how ridiculous that looked. She’d had sex with every one of the people surrounding her now, but their concentrated attention made her feel vulnerable. Something she resented and her chin rose.

  It was all Nicolas’s fault. He’d opened the door to her emotions. He’d instigated her need to make a move on Rene in the first place to prove Nicolas’s attraction was only about the sex. Man, had that backfired.

  Rene’s gaze roamed her face and shoulders.

  Chessa felt a heavy weight descend on her chest. He was likely trying to match his faded memory with the reality of her appearance.

  “Miss me?” Rene asked, his sexy, growling voice sending a shiver up her spine.

  Hell,
yes! “I need some clothes,” she demurred.

  Natalie stood beside Alex, her smile pinched. Seemed she remembered too well Chessa’s attraction for Rene. That last night they’d managed to share something pretty wonderful. Chessa hoped she remembered that, too.

  Then her gaze landed on Alex, and the stuck gears in her head began to whir again. Standing with his arms folded over his bare chest, his wings tucked safely away, Alex’s grin was broad, his white teeth gleaming in the silver moonlight sifting through the curtains covering the narrow windows that flanked the door.

  She stared dumbly for a moment then opened her mouth, wondering if the inkling of suspicion creeping across her mind could be right. She’d been wrong about so many things. “Alex,” she said, her voice trembling, “you know them?”

  Alex leaned close, kissed her lips and whispered, “Hello, Auntie.”

  Nicolas found Simon and Madeleine in the kitchen. Their backs were to the door, their heads close as they whispered. Their intimacy was stamped in the idle hand Simon trailed down her back, and the way she nestled close. Her hair was mussed.

  Their engrossment had enabled him to enter without being noticed. He knew he intruded. After all, it was the last night of the full moon.

  He wondered how difficult it was for them both, knowing that in the morning, Madeleine would once again be consigned to her role as his familiar, perched on his arm, her intellect diminished.

  He’d seen the bird and the way she sought the mage’s affection. At least they had contact, even if they couldn’t fully express their devotion to each other, except for a few short days each month.

  An eternity of full moons stretched out before them.

  Nicolas had no misconceptions that an eternity with Chessa was highly doubtful. As soon as she discovered the secrets he’d kept, her hedgehog spines would ruffle up and he’d be left in the cold again. Forever.

  His subterfuge was no double-edged sword. There were three blades, and he always felt the weight of balancing his differing priorities because any one of them discovered would get him killed.

  “Tell me, Nic, are you going to wait until I ravish her on the tabletop before you announce your presence?” Simon asked, casting a wry glance over his shoulder.