Cloak of Deceit: An Alex Moore Novel (14 page)

And then the voices came.

Only a faint whisper in the back of my head at first. Barely noticeable. It grew to a clash of dark, sultry words brushing against my mind like a storm of feathers.

“Alex?” Carl whispered. His heart beat faster, pumping more blood than I could swallow into my mouth until it seeped out the sides. My lips lost their purchase on his slick skin.

He cried out in pain, digging his fingers into my back.

Use the power his blood gives you.

I couldn’t tell if they were my thoughts or not, and that scared me, but I couldn’t withdraw. The voices grew louder. The black wave built inside of me.

No!
I released my hold on Carl’s neck, and he clung to me as I screamed, wild and terrified, like a trapped animal. I had no escape. The hunter was inside of me, already a part of me.

Use your powers.

“No!” I yelled, shaking my head. I opened my eyes to see Carl aglow with a blinding white light. His fear rose up like something tangible, tying itself to mine to create a panic that ground down all logic.

Use them. Make us stop. Force us out. Use your powers.

Though he tried to hold on, I scrambled away from Carl, slipping on the pool of blood gathering underneath us.

“No, no, no.” I kept my face averted from the light of his aura as I tore my arms from his grip. The voices raged on in my head, pulling me down into the black abyss. “Please, no!”

“Alex!” Julian’s voice rang crystal clear through the chaos of terror, the bell-toll of a sanctuary through a flutter of birds. Suddenly, he was there, standing over me. Thankful beyond words and too stunned to get up, I crawled towards him. He knelt on the floor and caught me in his arms.

There was a moment of numbness where I wasn’t aware of anything but Julian, and then a woman’s voice, high-pitched and frenzied, cut through my shock. I turned in Julian’s embrace and looked over my shoulder to see her and someone else bent over Carl. He had passed out. All the beauty and vigor had drained away from him. It was spread across the floor in a red smear, and my shirt was soaked in it. I nearly puked.

“Oh, God, Carl!”
What did I do?

Julian shushed me and wrapped me tighter, but I had to watch.

“I killed him.” I was too horror-stricken to put any strength behind the words.

The slender black-haired woman stood up as two more men entered the room and lifted Carl between them. She finally turned her irate gaze on me.

I blinked back at her in awe. She was exotically beautiful, with smooth, eloquent features and surrounded by a cloud of charcoal grey static that whipped like a hurricane. One of her eyes was a vivid green, the other a soft lilac. Both burned with a hatred I hadn’t had time to earn, even given the circumstances.
Monique
. I knew it without words, and she knew I knew. She looked over my head at Julian, and her expression instantly softened.

“You said I had nothing to worry about.” Her smoky voice carried a heavy French accent.

“I didn’t think you would,” Julian responded. I startled at the sound of his voice, then relaxed back against him.

“It is not the first time you were wrong.” Monique narrowed her eyes at me. “I should have known better. You cannot predict what will happen with one like her.”

I frowned at being talked about as if I weren’t there, but didn’t say anything. Something unspoken passed between them. Monique sighed before looking at me again.

“He will live,” she said. I could almost hear “no thanks to you” echoing after. “I will have a clean room across the hall made up for you.” She paused, giving Julian a weighted look, then glided out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Chapter Nine

J
ulian held me, not speaking a word, until I stopped shivering. Finally he leaned away and looked down at me. I gazed back, my face rigidly fixed in wide-eyed shock.

He sighed, squeezing my shoulders. “I’m sorry. I should have been here.”

“Why weren’t you?” I asked, cold, distant.

Julian’s chocolate eyes looked pained, and his jaw clenched. “You remember what I told you about our instincts. Being so young, you won’t have good control of your sexual impulses. I thought you would want some privacy.”

Seriously? He hadn’t wanted to embarrass me by being a voyeur? I wasn’t sure if I should be flattered he had my sense of propriety at heart, or pissed that he was okay with me having sex with some random stranger.

He brought one hand up to rest on my shoulder, then his fingers traced lightly over my neck, and my healed bite mark. I closed my eyes, cursing my body’s instant reaction to such a simple touch from him. “The first time you take blood from a live donor is always intense. It gets easier.”

“I could have killed him. I could have turned him!” I worried at my lower lip as my vision clouded with tears.

Julian shook his head. “Your body hasn’t started making the chemicals yet. It usually takes about a month. I wouldn’t have let anything bad happen, Alex.” There was a sympathetic inflection in his voice, the same gentle understanding that made me so comfortable with him at the beginning of our short and volatile relationship. It still had the same calming effect.

“You didn’t tell me it would feel like that.” He hadn’t told me I would turn into a ravaging sex fiend while tearing through flesh like a beast. My stomach heaved.

Julian gave me a bitter smile as he slid off his bloodied coat. “I hadn’t thought there would be a need. I told Carl what to do in case I was gone too long. He jumped the gun. I’m sorry, Alex. I didn’t prepare you because we’re not supposed to take human blood from the vein anymore. The Code forbids it.”

“You mean the Cloak forbids it.” Not that either of us were in the habit of following their rules anymore. I frowned from my splayed position on the floor as he crossed the small room to the sink.

He didn’t answer me, just removed a washcloth from the cupboard and wet it down with sharp, jerky movements.

“I thought you were an enforcer for them, upholding the Code and all that.”

“I am,” he bit off, then turned and peeled off his black T-shirt. “I was.”

“What are you doing?” I swallowed the lump that formed in my throat at the sight of so much of Julian’s naked skin. My instincts were still going haywire, sending jolts of excitement through my belly.

“You need a new shirt,” he said. I thought I detected a trace of humor, but couldn’t be sure. I didn’t find one iota of funny in this situation. He tossed his shirt in my lap and knelt in front of me with the washcloth poised and ready.

I raised one eyebrow, wondering if he was purposefully trying to distract me from our conversation, or if it was just a side effect of being so aware of him. Even when he wasn’t there, I had Julian on the brain. And just like with any guy that revved my engines, it was getting me into trouble. “Are you going to give me a sponge bath?”

“If I must.” He took hold of the hem of my blood-soaked shirt.

I lifted my arms so he could pull it over my head. I was naked underneath, but didn’t feel one bit shy. He smoothed the warm damp cloth over my chilled skin, and what could have been erotic was only comforting. And totally confusing.

Every time I tried to get mad at him, he would do something so…caring. And yet, every time I tried to get closer, he shut me out. The worst part was, Julian didn’t know about my ridiculous attraction to impossible men. It only made me want him more. I was so screwed.

“Where were you anyway?” I tried to focus on something other than Julian’s smooth motions, or the heat of his body permeating my personal space. The only thing distracting enough was the puddle of blood where Carl had been laying. I could still smell it in the air, like budding apple trees.

It brought me back to reality, and I looked down to see that my hands were still covered with the sticky, cooling fluid. I could taste Carl, in my mouth, and his essence resonated in some deeper, darker place. I shivered. “I could have killed him, Julian. God. What am I?”

Julian gazed down at my hands, and when his eyes met mine again, they weren’t full of the horror I deserved, or even the sympathy I expected.

They were full of heat.

Blood and sex.
The two were inescapably linked for us. If I hadn’t comprehended it before, there was no denying it in that moment. I saw the dark place inside of me that I wished I could ignore reflected in Julian’s hungry face. Seeing that desire light up those rich, dark eyes, I couldn’t refuse it. I wanted him too much. I could have killed Carl, true. But up until the moment the voices had come, I had delighted in every swallow, and so had he.

The warmth of the rag slid away. Julian’s fingers encircled my wrist. Without breaking our momentary connection, he lifted my hand and pressed it against his lips. If I’d been standing, my knees would have gone weak. A smudge of Carl’s blood was left on Julian’s mouth, crimson rose petals. His tongue swept across the stain, and I shuddered at the intensity of what faced me.

Terrifying. Beautiful. Dangerous.

Julian.

How could I not want him? He was everything I’d ever wanted in a man, only he was so much more than just a man. He lifted my hand and ran his tongue the length of my palm, never breaking our eye contact.

My mouth opened, but no words came out.

He closed his eyes and sucked the guilt from my fingers, one by one. I forgot to breathe, tangled in the web of lust Julian spun around me. With no heartbeat, it felt like the moment could suspend forever, and I wished it would.

He lowered my hand and opened his eyes. He didn’t speak a word. Didn’t have to. The want in his face pulled me forward, irrefutable — like magnets.

I climbed to my knees and wrapped one arm around his neck, pressing my breasts against his naked chest. His arm snaked around my waist and locked us together. I rubbed my other hand over his wide, full lips, smearing them with red, and then spiked my clean fingers through his silky hair and yanked his head forward. My tongue swept out and licked him.

A low growl rumbled in Julian’s throat. He mashed us together, his tongue invading my mouth. The mixture of Carl’s blood and the sharp flavor of Julian met and fused inside of me. I felt as if I’d pounded back three Pit Vipers.

“Julian.” I gulped and leaned away. It would be so easy to lose myself in the feeling, in Julian, but I was still afraid. He didn’t know about the voices. I was even more afraid of telling him, because I knew he would stop.

And he might never start again.

“Don’t be afraid, Alex,” he answered in his low, honeyed voice. He stared down between us, his gaze stroking the front of my body with palpable heat. The back of my skull burst into a tingle that left a cold sweat trailing down my neck. Julian’s fingers traced over my shoulder, my collarbone, and down the slope of my breast to the nipple that ached for his touch.

I gasped.

“You asked me what you are. This is what we are, what we’re meant to be. Let me show you.” His voice was tight and careful, but my eyes were fixed on his mouth, on the pearly white fangs that winked at me from behind his human teeth, giving his words a slight lisp. The truth of those words pierced me to the core. Our bodies, our instincts, our blood, and something more basal, called to one another’s.

“But I’m not like you,” I said, before the courage left me.

“You are.” He ran his fingers lightly over the scar on my neck. His eyes were glazed and dark with promise. I could almost see my reflection in them.

“I wish I was.” I twisted away. I didn’t want to see the hurt or anger in his eyes when he realized what I meant.

“I don’t care about that.” He took my face in his hands and turned me back to him.

I looked up to see his familiar disarming tenderness. He leaned in to kiss me again. I wedged my next words between us. “You don’t care that the voices in my head made me lose control and almost kill Carl?”

Julian froze, blinked, and slowly pulled away. A frown overshadowed the passion that had lit his face a second before. I felt like someone had punched me in the gut.

“Voices?” he repeated, buying time to school his face. His arms loosened their hold around me.

I cursed my own stupid conscience as I slumped back to the cold, bloody floor. I nodded and pulled his bunched shirt over my head before the awkwardness of our abrupt mood-shift set in.

“The Grigori?” Julian’s fists clenched. He stood and stooped to pick up the washcloth.

I studied the floor and nodded.

“Why didn’t you say something?” he asked, his voice rising sharply.

He threw the rag to splat against the wall by the sink.

I cringed, then glared up at him. “Why the hell did you leave me here alone?”

He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. “I went to get supplies and check into some things.”

“Things?” I scoffed, and stood up. I went to the basin and washed the rest of Carl’s blood from my hands. It was
so
not a turn-on anymore. I yanked a towel off the nearby rack and whirled back on Julian. “You still don’t trust me.”