Dark Surrender (10 page)

But Luca didn’t want Min as food. He didn’t want her to be dead, or an eternal slave to him. He wanted her exactly as she was: strong, powerful, good.

But no sooner did he think that than the beast clamped its primal will over Luca, holding his body in its control. Luca struggled to move, but couldn’t. He struggled to speak, to try and warn Min, to wake her, but that too was not happening. The beast had far more power over him than he had ever imagined. It was so very strong. Of course, Luca had never resisted the beast’s will before. He’d always obediently let himself be taken over, reveling in the release, throwing in his own twist to the beasts hungers. They’d shared quite the partnership.

But now something burned inside him, something strong, something…something more powerful than the blasted, slathering beast inside him. Luca called to that part of himself and let it well up in his body, until its fire burned excruciatingly hot, but not just burning him but the beast as well.

As it writhed and screamed, Luca felt its absolute control over him waver and fade.

That was when Luca jerked his body, jerked it hard enough that Min woke with a start, and a “By the goddess!”

Min pulled away from him, and he felt the inert spell snap to attention again, pushing his raging and angry beast back down deep inside him. She looked up at Luca, and he could practically see the thoughts swirling in her head. That she’d let her guard down. That he could have taken her while she was dosing. She shook her head and pushed herself up and out of bed, away from him, wrapping a silken robe about her.

She was furious, that much he could feel—the heat of her anger coming off her in waves. But he wasn’t entirely sure she was angry with him.

He felt it when she shut herself down, as if she was suddenly standing behind an immense stone wall. He could see her, smell her, could practically taste her. But he couldn’t sense her.

But when had he started sensing her?

Finally she said “Your invitation is now revoked…Luca. Come back in three nights’ time—”

“
Three nights!” Luca shot up in bed, his body going tense with panic. “How can I—”

“
Three nights.” Min said, the authority of an order in her voice. “I need time to…to recover. I’m not a demon or immortal.”

You’re not exactly human either.
The beast growled.

Luca inhaled to protest. There is no way he could live without her for three days. She is the entire world to him now. To not look upon her, to not be able to touch her or taste her.

I’ll go mad…

Min’s expression turned softer, and for a moment Luca thought she was about to rescind his banishment. But then the cold steel returned to her eyes, the resolve…she has plans for him…he could nearly hear the thoughts swirling chaotically in her mind. And then the wall solidified once more, and he was cut off.

She leaned over, her silk robe falling open to show him the creamy goodness of her naked body. She pressed her lips to his, and then replaced her lips with her right index finger, making a hushing noise.

“
Come to me in three days. Now go.”

Luca dressed quickly as she beckoned him to follow her, down the stairs and out the front door. “Three days…Luca. Be standing right here in three days, at this exact time.” And she closed the door behind her.

Without the least bit of struggle Luca walked away from Min’s house, and walked for nearly an hour before he felt the all encompassing hold she’d had on him dissolve. Which wasn’t right. He should have been free to rant and rave the moment he crossed the threshold of her home.

Somehow her power over him was stronger than just the gris-gris, or the spell it conveyed. But how? And why? And what the hell was happening to him?

Only a week ago he’d been a blood thirsty creature of the night, and now he was a starving, soul hampered sex toy to a gypsy witch. A goddamned mortal.

But she wasn’t just a mortal was she. No, no simple human could possess so much power. Sure, a mortal could become a mage, and gypsies had always had more power than most of those…but her power was too much, too overwhelming…too inhuman.

Of course most of her was human, mortal. But there had to be something else in her blood, or she wouldn’t have such strength. Only three things it could be. One, the blood of the divine. From a god or angel. And she didn’t smell of that. If she were of that lineage, just the touch of her skin would be hurtful to a creature of darkness, even in its most diluted state. Two, she has demon in her. That wouldn’t preclude she was evil, but he’d seen how brave she was when she had an innocent to save. No, no demon blood in her, none that he could tell. Plus those with demon ancestry usually had an aroma to them, one of ash and fire, sometimes even sulfur and brimstone.

That just left the fae. Damn hard, if not impossible for a lone vampire to kill, and excruciatingly irresistible to any such vampire, their scent alone, not to mention their blood! If that were the case, and it probably was, then that could explain some of the things he was feeling when he was with her…and when he wasn’t with her. Maybe his soul wasn’t really stirring at all. Maybe he was just feeling withdraw, like a junky coming down from a drug fueled high. That would make things so much the simpler. But as he stood and stared up into the cloudless night sky over Augusta, and scented the air, he knew it was more than just a chemical thing. Whatever had been stirred within him was strong enough to not only resist the beast inside him, but to push it back like a dog on a chain.

He pulled in a long, uneven breath and then tried to clear his mind. Though he could hardly wait for the three nights to pass, so he could go back to her and be hers alone…there was the chilling knowledge that she had plans for him. And from the cold, steel like gleam in her eyes, it probably wasn’t going to be an enjoyable plan.

But he couldn’t even entertain the thought of not going back to her. She was his, and he was hers.

Three nights…three nights and then we will see.

*****

Chapter 11

Min sat in her kitchen, her silk robe tied at her waist, the tome with the passage about the vampire with a soul in her lap, the thrill and chill of the possible making her breathe too fast, her heart pound in her chest. Could it be possible? After all, she’d seen it with her own eyes. When he’d been inside her, on the bed, she’d looked up into those beautiful jade green eyes and had seen it. Shining like the light of a faint, distant star…the vampire’s soul.

It hadn’t been merely demonic fire, nor could it be glamour, for she had control over him and his powers once he passed her threshold. It had indeed been his soul. But how could a vampire have a soul? It was impossible.

She sat there perfectly still, but she was thinking furiously fast. Questions echoed, answered by other questions, all bouncing off each other, forming a cacophony of thoughts and feelings in her head.

However it had happened, it was exactly what she needed, just when she needed it.
He
had come right to her.

She needed time to think, time to research, and time to plan.

Over the next three days min practically memorized every word the book had to say about using a vampire’s soul to pull another’s soul from the ether. Even one lost to the spirit world. The spell would find the soul, capture it and bring it back to her, to its host body.

Between the magic shop and her own supplies at the house, Min had almost all the ingredients she needed. She had to call in a few favors to find real Mongolian snap dragons. But luckily one of her customers, a member of the coven on campus and a professor of botany, had recently traveled to Europe and had brought back a cutting. It had flourished in her backyard, and had begun to bear fruit just that month. Resilient to the cold weather…but again, a Georgia winter wasn’t that much different than a European summer.

So she had everything she needed to bring back her mother’s soul, to restore her to life. She even had the impossible, a vampire with an honest to Hecate soul. And he was coming to her of his own volition too.

But there was a passage at the end of the spell that spoke to what would become of the vampire. And as she read that the ritual would steal the immortal life from him, ending all that he had or would be—it stopped Min in her tracks. This shouldn’t have bothered her. She had slain so many of his kind in her life. But then again, she had never taken one of his kind to her bed, or had such feeling for one…for any man, actually. And then there was the little matter of him having a soul. It was the entire reason for killing him, for using him in the spell, in the first place. But it also made it too much like sacrificing a human being. It was the divine spark that made us human. How could she just snuff it out?

But Min knew she had to. There just wasn’t another way. She’d been searching for months, her and her sister, and had found not a shred of information about what had happened to her mother. No, she loved her mother more than she would love anything else in this world or the next. She had to sacrifice him. She had no choice.

*****

Chapter 12

The three days trudged by so slowly for Luca. He was starved. Since their second time together he couldn’t bear to even think of feeding off a human. He was ruined.
She
had ruined him. And though his beast couldn’t cajole him into feeding on those delicious, succulent humans scurrying all around him, it was trying its best to tempt him with the witch’s blood. Whispering in his ear how wondrous, how earth shatteringly delicious it would be to devour her the next time he had her in his arms.

His dreams, so shocking to finally dream after three hundred years, were of nothing but making love to Min. And in each and every dream he felt the hunger for her so searing hot, and with each dream the anticipation was all the worse. He knew what he was about to do, and loathed himself as much as he hungered for it. Every dream ended with him feasting on her neck, sucking her life force out of her very veins until there was nothing left beneath him but a flaccid, cold corpse.

The dreams scared him as much as they left him hungering for more. He hated himself, but as the three days ticked away he found himself feeling that same anticipation in the waking world. His beast was growing, its hunger almost overpowering his need for her. Was it love he felt? Could something like him even feel such a thing?

Maybe he should just let the beast have her, if it could indeed break through her magicks. At least then he could return to how he was before she came into his life. He’d been so blissfully happy; now he was miserable.

Miserable or not, pulling against his two hungers—that for her flesh, and that for her blood—he found himself standing on the witch’s doorstep, on the appointed night, as he’d been told.
I am her faithful lapdog.

The beast inside him roared for her blood. It demanded vengeance for the witch possessing him so. But Luca swallowed that hatred, for there was something inside him, something out shining the terrible burning of his bloodlust. It was what it was, and though he couldn’t yet face it, he recognized the feeling. And though he hadn’t felt it since those long ago days when he was human, it was indeed love.

When Min at long last opened that door to him, the tension and warring emotions inside him simply evaporated. He gazed down upon her, utterly besotted by the sight of her, by the mere nearness of her proximity. He knew then and there he was hers. But even with this devoted feeling, the beast still called out to him, relentless, but seemingly farther away than was possible, like the distant howl of a wolf.

She didn’t smile. She didn’t look up into his eyes with her usual flirtatious manner. Her expression was so very careful, nearly blank, but for some telltale grave lines. She was hiding something. Luca knew he should be weary. It wasn’t safe to enter, and yet he moved forward when she invited him, and again, he felt the magicks that guarded the door, like electric sparks on his flesh.

She was dressed not in the silky robe, or a thin, wispy gown, as he had shredded the last time. But in funeral black: slacks and a blouse, and black leather boots. Her hair was pulled back from her face in a tight bun.

With a wave of her hand Min beckoned him to follow her. Walking straight to the stairs, min didn’t even look back at him. Her shoulders where tight, and she smelled of fear and something else, something tangy, not as sweet as fear, something more complex…guilt maybe. The upstairs was dark except for the light from one burning candle. She led him right past her bedroom, its door closed, to the end of the hall and stopped at that doorway, resting her hand against its dark stained wood.

“
Forgive me…” she whispered, “I have no choice.”

Luca felt something cold rolling out from under that door, something supremely evil. He didn’t want to go into that room. Every muscle in his body tensed, and he tried to turn and walk away. But Min had not told him he could leave her, so he stood and waited for her to open that door.

She walked into the room as if she couldn’t feel the pulsing, freezing evil contained within. She was a witch of light, and yet she couldn’t feel the malevolent presence in her own home. Had he been wrong? Was she indeed a dark sorceress, and communing with demons? If so, he was in grave trouble. A dark witch, a black one, lived to control things, to play with the living and the dead with gruesome results.