Darkness Burning Read online

  Alex, the bastard, only grinned. He walked toward them. “Enough with the reunion. Let’s do this.” He put his arms around them both, and Nicolas hugged a wriggling Chessa close to his chest.

  Bright, white light engulfed them, and Nicolas blinked for several moments before he could see where Alex had brought them. “A cave?”

  “Are you burying me inside a goddamn mountain?” Chessa said, her voice rising.

  “A few rules, Chessa,” Alex continued as though she hadn’t spoken. “My domain is yours. Make yourself comfortable while you’re here. When I come back to bring you food, do not try to kill me, or you’ll be stuck here an eternity. I’m your key out, so be nice.”

  Chessa’s blistering glare should have fried Alex where he stood. Nicolas felt better at the angry heat radiating from her body. She wasn’t loving Alex now.

  Her hot gaze whipped back to him. “Nicolas, are you really going to let him do this?”

  Nicolas brought her as close as her burgeoning belly would allow. He smoothed his hands down her back, memorizing the feel of her curves. “Chessa, I need to know you’re safe. Protected from the beast and the sabat. Give me this peace of mind to do what I must. Please.”

  Chessa’s lips worked, pressing into a thin line, then crimping downward as her shoulders and chin lowered in surrender. “Anything more I need to know, Alex?” she said without looking toward him. Her gaze remained on Nicolas, as though wanting to commit his face to memory.

  “The mirror is enchanted,” Alex said. “You may touch the frame, but never, ever touch the glass.”

  “I’ll keep away from the mirror,” she mumbled. “I’m gonna look like hell in a few days anyway.”

  “There’s bottled water in the bureau, and wine.”

  “How will I feed?”

  “I’ll return to you,” Alex replied.

  Nicolas drew in a deep breath. Chessa’s lack of self-control when she grew hungry was what had landed her in her current predicament.

  “I’ll offer her blood only, Nic,” Alex added wryly.

  Nicolas nodded, not having any choice other than trusting Alex for now. “I fed tonight,” Nicolas murmured.

  “Go ahead and let her take her fill. We have time.”

  A blessed reprieve. Before Alex could change his mind, Nicolas pulled Chessa to the sofa and sat down, helping her straddle his lap to lean over him—her preferred position for feeding. He canted his head and sighed as her lips trailed along his neck, then her fangs sank deep, piercing his jugular. Her hot mouth suctioned against his skin, pulling blood toward the wound. Arousal spiked instantly between them.

  If he’d been alone with her, he’d have dragged away their clothing and made love to her while she’d fed, but Alex watched, and Nicolas wasn’t willing to share another intimate encounter with the Born vampire now that he understood the power he possessed. He wouldn’t risk the bond of loving he shared with Chessa. Wouldn’t expand it willingly to include the Born who’d already sired her child.

  Call him selfish, but he’d also decided he never wanted another man to serve her sex with her meals.

  Nicolas felt a moment’s remorse, remembering the sweet woman he’d taken before the sabat had met. If he was going to place strictures on Chessa, he’d have to be willing to make his own sacrifices.

  Chessa rubbed her open crotch against the ridge firming beneath his trousers, moaning while she drank deeply.

  “I know,” he whispered. “It’s gonna be hell.”

  Her hands slipped down his chest, molding the curves, sinking into the hollows beneath, then trailing lower.

  Nicolas’s body shuddered as she sucked particularly hard, sending blood rushing toward her mouth in a dizzying rush. His cock swelled thicker against the rub of her hand.

  “Go ahead, Nic. She’ll be here a while,” Alex said softly as he lifted a bottle of wine from a cabinet and poured himself a drink.

  Nicolas groaned, trying to hold onto his resolve, but he slipped his hands beneath Chessa’s blouse, clasping her full breasts with his open palms. Chessa whimpered against his neck, and her thighs trembled around his hips. And because Nicolas couldn’t stand the thought of not having her one last time, he pulled down the elastic band at the top of her stretchy pants and slipped them over her hips.

  After a few awkward moments of Chessa trying to aid him but not wanting to come off his neck, he had her lower body stripped and his pants opened at last.

  She knelt above him, letting him guide his cock toward her entrance. When the tip slid between her wet folds, they both groaned and she sank, taking him inside her in one long, shuddering downward thrust.

  They rocked together, gently at first. Chessa withdrew her fangs, lapping desperately against his skin to close the wounds. Then she lifted her head, pressing her forehead to his. “How can you leave me here? Alone?”

  “It will kill me, ma petite.”

  “I almost hate you for this.” She rocked, grinding on his cock and tugging her shirt over her head.

  Nicolas wished he could let her take him however she craved, but the need to leave his mark, to remind her who spurred her lust to unimagined heights, had him cradling her body against his and turning her to settle her back against the seat of the sofa.

  He placed one foot on the carpet, a knee deep in the soft cushions, and hooked his arms beneath her knees, bringing her sex higher to fit more snugly against his. Then, holding her gaze, he pulled her knees toward him and, at the same time, thrust hard toward her womb. He began to stroke into her—slow, hard strokes that circled and slipped side to side, caressing every inch of her channel, drawing honey from her depths that bathed them both in liquid heat.

  Footsteps shuffled beside them, and Nicolas snarled a warning. But Alex sat down on the carpet beside the couch and lifted an arm over his shoulder, his cuff rolled up as he offered his wrist. With his back to them both, he settled beside them, sipping wine while Chessa sank her teeth and fed, her eyes never leaving Nicolas as he fucked hard into her moist cunt.

  Nicolas drew out the moment as long as he could, savoring a slow, rising tension that had Chessa’s torso writhing, her legs tensing over his bent arms. When her orgasm peaked, she clamped hard on Alex’s wrist, forcing a sharp exhalation from him. Nicolas knew it could have been pain, but knowing the bastard, it had to be his own release sweeping through him. Nicolas was beyond caring whether the other vampire found his pleasure—a wave of primal triumph expanded his chest, gripped his balls, and tightened his thighs and buttocks until cum squeezed through his cock in scalding jets of relief.

  He pumped through his orgasm, long past the last ripples of pleasure from Chessa’s honeyed walls, until his breath rasped and his whole body trembled. Only then did he lean over her, kissing her forehead while she finished feeding from Alex. Then Nicolas kissed her lips, taking the blood pooled inside her mouth, swallowing it as she smeared her mouth against his, sharing the flavor of her meal.

  When their lips tightened in a shared smile, they turned their faces toward Alex, who watched them with a lazy, satisfied smile of his own.

  “Think that might last you a while, Chessa?” he asked silkily.

  Her soft snort was followed by a delicate wrinkling of her nose. “Why does this place smell like wet dog?”

  Nicolas felt a grin stretch his lips.

  Alex’s expression turned a little chagrined. “I brought a friend here. She’s into dogs.”

  Nicolas narrowed his gaze. Alex and the were-princess, here? Nicolas didn’t remark on the strong scent of sex in the air, but he knew Chessa couldn’t miss it either. Let her think about that. Vampires had a natural aversion to weres, which made Alex a rather kinky bastard.

  “Better say your good-byes,” Alex said softly, getting up and returning his glass to the bureau.

  Nicolas pulled Chessa up and slipped pillows behind her back, settling her legs along the sofa. “You should rest.”

  She raised her face, panic flaring in her widening eyes.
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  Pain lanced through his chest—swift and sharp. “I’ll see you soon,” he said, his voice gruff.

  “Don’t you let anything happen to you. I’ll cut out your heart myself if you do.”

  “Nothing will happen, ma petite,” he said, framing her cheeks with his palms. “You’re my whole world, everything I want. I’ll be back for you.”

  Her dark eyes glistened with unshed tears, but one corner of her mouth lifted. “I’ll be waiting.”

  Nicolas sealed their lips with a hot, hard kiss, then stepped back.

  Chessa offered him a teary smile. Nicolas felt Alex’s touch on his arm, and she disappeared in blinding light.

  Back in the bedroom once more, Nicolas squared his shoulders. “They’re probably wondering what’s keeping me.”

  “We weren’t gone for longer than a moment.”

  Nicolas nodded, then narrowed his eyes. “Don’t forget to feed her. Often.” He drew a deep breath. “Pleasure her if you must, but don’t fuck her, Alex.”

  Rather than the sly grin he expected, Alex’s solemn gaze met his. “I’ll take care of Chessa. Not myself.”

  Without replying, Nicolas swallowed and turned to the door. The sooner he trapped the beast, the sooner he could kick Alex the hell out of his life again.

  No matter that he was really beginning to like him.

  Alex took the stairs up to his apartment, treading slowly, his thoughts turning inward. Foremost on his mind now was the fact that he had to tell his mother, Natalie, that her birth mother was dead.

  With daylight a couple of hours away, he meant only to make a quick stop to change his rumpled, dirty clothes and apprise Simon of all that had happened since they’d last spoken. He wasn’t sure what he’d tell him about his brushes with Inanna. The encounters had left him disturbed, raising questions about the memories he’d unearthed.

  He’d been glad for Nicolas’s presence when Erika’s body had been discovered. Had Inanna come upon him without the buffer of Nicolas, he might have given himself away.

  As it was, as soon as Inanna had entered the garden, he’d felt that same odd feeling—his body clammy and cold, his mind pulling away into the past.

  He recalled the first memory that had come unbidden when he’d touched Inanna’s hand. The ancient ones occasionally bobbed to the surface of his mind, offering indistinct, blurred images and fragments of conversations. Useless for the most part.

  However, when he entered the vicinity of an ancestor, something about the chemistry of their interaction, whether physical or not, released their shared memories. Usually he could control it, functioning on one level while the memories poured through him. With Inanna he’d found it impossible to resist following the slender thread of memory so he could unravel more of the complicated weave.

  Inanna had been insatiable during that long-ago night.

  Silver moonlight, nearly bright as day, illuminated their gleaming bodies.

  The warrior at last succumbed to the aphrodisiac and her strong allure, taking her maidenhead, surrendering his will to hers. Together, they howled as they climaxed, undeterred by any fear of detection. Her father, having fallen beneath the spell of her mother twenty years earlier, had recognized the need stirring in his daughter to take a mate.

  Just as her mother had done before her, Inanna chose not to complete the blood-bond, knowing she would need the protection of a human mate in this sun-drenched climate, resisting by sheer force of will the instinct to feed from the man who would sire her child and thereby turn him into an immortal companion.

  So substituting one hunger for another, she sated her appetite throughout the night, using a magical oil on his cock to make his desire impossible to ease. But the oil was not replenished this last time.

  The room had become stifling hot, so they threw open the doors leading to the balcony outside his chamber. Inanna stood naked, her fingers curving around a smooth, marble railing, her back bent low as the man standing behind her rutted into her tightening sex.

  Below her, moon-silvered fronds of date palms bordering the pool moved limply in the night air.

  “Husband,” she moaned, claiming him for her own. Her gaze lifted from the view of her father’s palace garden to the endless expanse of desert beyond the tall gates. This was her kingdom, her duty to her destiny about to be fulfilled.

  “Inanna,” he groaned, and then stiffened as his seed spurted deep inside her.

  Inanna gasped at a cramp working its way through her womb. I have conceived, she thought triumphantly.

  Her husband leaned over her, his strokes slowing. He kissed her shoulder, then withdrew from her body before turning her in his arms.

  But not before Inanna saw the pale figure beside the pool, her face turned upward to watch the couple embracing. Her sister’s face twisted with hatred.

  Inanna smiled slyly, reaching between Dumuzi’s legs to grasp his slick cock, causing him to moan loudly.

  Alex had been released from the memory only after Inanna had been led away by Pasqual. He’d ignored Nicolas’s questioning stare. He’d shaken off the lurid memory, feeling unclean, wondering what had become of Dumuzi and feeling sympathy for the warrior who’d been caught between two sisters’ ambitions.

  Alex slumped in a leather chair across from Simon, who sat at his wide, scrolled-legged desk doing his mystic-thing—staring at Alex over his steepled fingers as though he could sink into his mind. Not one of his talents, or so he’d often claimed.

  Simon didn’t really need to look into his mind, because he knew Alex would eventually cave and tell him everything he needed to know anyway. Alex just didn’t like having to share tonight’s unsavory details.

  Where to start? With the visions he’d had of Inanna’s past? The lover she’d drugged and stolen from beneath her sister’s nose? And since when did she have a sister? Alex was bothered by the fact that he hadn’t remembered that detail.

  Should he tell Simon everything that had happened between him and “Sarah”? He’d taken her because he’d had time on his hands and she’d amused him. Utterly selfish of him. That he’d found himself drawn to her and resentful of her previous lover—so much so that he’d abused her—sat like a heavy stone squarely in the center of his chest.

  That he’d forgotten the one “Golden Rule” he’d adhered to all his life—“Thou shalt not fuck without a condom”—was most embarrassing of all. He never forgot; he’d forsworn the use of one only once, intentionally, with Chessa.

  Now he’d impregnated a human woman, making her prey for the Underworld. So perhaps he should start there. Then maybe he’d never have to get to the part about kidnapping Gabriella and seducing her cooperation out of her, or talk about the wrestling match with Nic, or leaving Chessa in his escape pod…

  “Busy night?” Simon asked, a small smile tipping one corner of his mouth.

  Alex gave him a baleful glance. “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “You got her address?”

  Alex didn’t bother asking whose address. Simon already knew. “From the driver who took her home.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Thought you should at least be apprised that—”

  “Erika’s dead and Chessa’s in your special place?”

  Alex narrowed his gaze. “Never mind. Guess it was a waste of time coming here.” He raked a hand through his hair, annoyed with Simon and himself. “Tell me, Simon…was I supposed to impregnate her?”

  Simon hesitated, then gave him a careful nod.

  “Will she come to harm because of me?”

  Simon’s face remained inscrutable.

  Alex’s heart sank. “Is it already too late to save her?”

  “You’re following your path, Alex. Just let things happen. Act on your instincts.”

  Cold dread filled Alex. Simon had no reassurances to give him. “I don’t accept that. I have to change it. It’s possible. I have freedom of choice.”

  Simon’s steady gaze softened. “But which choi
ces will give you the outcome you desire?”

  “It isn’t always just about me, Simon. She’s innocent.”

  “As a newborn.” His agreement came too quickly.

  Alex stared, sure there was some hidden meaning he should be able to ferret out. “Is there anything I need to know?” he asked, between clenched teeth.

  “Go find your little bird.”

  Alex remembered the tattoo that stretched across Sarah’s lower back. “You keep a journal, right? Is that how you remember the details? Hundreds of years have passed from the time you watched this unfold the last time. Tell me, you don’t just remember it all.”

  Simon gave him an enigmatic smile. “I’ll bring Chessa a warm meal.”

  Alex rose from his seat, frustration and growing dread weighing on him. “Simon, what if I don’t want to do this? Don’t want to be what you’ve all shaped me to be?”

  “I’m not a puppeteer. You have free choice. Follow your heart. I’ll go to Natalie and let her know about her mother.”

  At the door, Alex glanced back, catching a look on Simon’s face that deepened his own churning emotions. Simon seemed tense, his bearded Templar’s face set in stone. “We’ve had this conversation before, haven’t we?”

  This time Simon’s smile was full, a generous flash of white…and genuine.

  CHAPTER 14

  A low, ominous growl rumbled from the shadows beneath the two-lane bridge spanning a narrow bayou. Almost at the end of the bridge and ready to turn and follow the dark, empty street toward a destination she couldn’t quite recall, Miki felt her heart thud dully in her chest.

  She walked faster, trying to keep her steps muffled, but the growling grew, slowly building to an ominous resonance that whittled at her courage. Turning onto the sidewalk beside the street, she spied a distant streetlamp, fixed her gaze and hopes on it, then freed her hands from the pockets of her jacket, her blackjack held tightly in one fist.

  Closer now, the light was a golden beacon, but a scraping sound—no, several, like sharp claws digging at the pavement—came from behind her. The low-pitched growl was now an ear-piercing whine. And the sounds were getting closer.