Dark Surrender (6 page)

As if something invisible were pulling him, the vampire awkwardly staggered to the window and ducked on through it, stepping onto the roof outside. Min gathered up his clothes and tossed them through the threshold of the window.

“
Thank you, vampire…I needed that.” She slid the window closed, threw the latch and locked it. She looked one last time at the naked, seething vampire before pulling the drapes shut.

*****

Chapter 7

Luca stood on the shingled roof and stared, incensed, at the point where the witch had disappeared behind her curtain. The show was over, he was naked and still starving, and she was no doubt laughing in her bedroom—laughing at him!

Filthy gypsy whore!
He thought as he pulled his clothes on.
I’ll rip her pretty throat out…gorge on her blood and snap every bone in her…in her luscious, beautiful body…starting with her neck!

His mind raced with all the things he wanted to do to her. Torture her, kill her, strangle her until she was at death’s door, then let her lovely neck go so she could revive…then do it all over again.

How dare any human think she could use me—a vampire—as a sex toy!

She will pay…I will kill her and every living thing in her retched life.

He was so angry, teeth gritted so hard, he could have broken a fang! Luca pulled on his boots and then his shirt, and plotted his revenge.

First her mother, and her grandmother (if the hag still lives), then any siblings or friends…her dog if she has one, and her physician…her pharmacist and lawyer…and most assuredly her boyfriend!

The thought of the witch…of
Min,
having a lover, a man you slept in her bed and fucked her in that bed…

He punched the stone wall of the house with the sudden fury that thought elicited in him. Another man having her? He would not allow it
. She is
mine
now…

Below, a young man passed by across the street, practically the very spot Luca had been occupying before the witch had invited him in…and began her little game.

Luca dropped from the roof and crossed the street without making a sound, and with such speed he fell into step beside the young man in an instant. The man was younger than Luca had been when he’d been changed, no more than a boy of eighteen. His flaxen hair was shaggy, and his flesh still moist from a shower. Though some scents lingered: the rum he’d drunk, the girl he’d just been with. He too had just had sex, undoubtedly now on his way home to pass out in his own bed.

The freshness of the blood that pumped through his veins was irresistible. The young man turned and looked at Luca. A small confused smile pulled at the sides of his mouth right before Luca reached out and pulled him into the shadow of a building, then sank his fangs into the boy’s straining throat. Luca held his victim with one hand against his heaving chest—he could feel the terrified flutter of his heart—one hand clamped over the boy’s mouth to muffle his screams. The glut of the boy’s blood rushed sweet and smooth over his tongue and quenched the hellish thirst the witch had ignited in him.

The boy tried to push Luca away, but Luca grabbed his arm and wrenched it away until it snapped.

As Luca drank, the boy’s body grew limp and his heart pounded out its final beats. He released his hold on him and let him crumple to the unforgiving pavement. Luca licked his lips and breathed in deep gulps of the night air. Though he didn’t need it, breathing had always given him solace, an almost physical comfort.

The boy was dead now, his body drained nearly completely of blood, his skin cold and grayish blue. Usually Luca would have already surged away through the city on the hunt for another kill. He always killed two or three a night. But for some unfathomable reason he stood there in the shadows and stared down at the boy he’d just killed. The endless possibilities the man he could have become…all snuffed out by Luca’s hunger.

He did not feel badly for what he’d done—he never did. If anything he was always filled with the desire to go off and do it again, like an adrenaline rush, but so much the sweeter. Yet somehow he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the boy he’d murdered. Something was different, something was wrong. But whatever it was, be it emotion or something more mentally alarming, Luca could not guess.

But a compulsion emerged above everything else: the need to hide the body. To move it somewhere the witch would not learn of it.

Senseless…

Luca reluctantly leaned down and drew the boy’s corpse into his arms and slung him haphazardly over his shoulder, then moved with preternatural speed until he was on the other side of the city before he dropped the young man’s remains in the river. He stood on the shore and watched as the black waters churned the body around in its wake and the current ushered it off. The body finally sunk about a hundred feet from shore.

Why should I care if the witch found out?

The vampire stood there by the shore, staring out into the night, pondering with great discomfort that very question.

*****

Min woke to the sound of rain on her window pane. She loved the sound of rain, always had. She could remember sitting on the front porch with her mother and little sister, all three of them silently rocking on the swing. The pattering of raindrops and the sounds of passing cars sluicing the rain-slicked streets were like a comforting symphony to them. It had been one of the few things in life that they all shared a love for.

Min rolled over on her back and stretch out her arms, back arched, she groaned contentedly—she was sore, but in a very good way. It had been far too long since she’d indulged in her physical desires. A voice deep inside growled that it wouldn’t be the last.
His
scent hit her then—she’d slept the whole night in it, a sweet, rich aroma that she would have associated with death, with vampire, but after last night it made her body heat up in pleasurable anticipation.

She clenched her mouth closed, as well as her eyes, and held her hands over them in horror. She’d invited a vampire into her house! Into her very bed! She cried out in frustration and rolled onto her side. Pangs of regret and guilt coincided with every little ache and pain her body told her about.

“
I can never do that again,” she groaned.

But you can…but you will…

Min shot upright in bed, rubbed her eyes and then pulled her long hair back out of her face. She caught her reflection in the vanity across the room. She was naked, which she hadn’t been when she went to bed. She remembered slipping into a new, not nearly seductive nightgown before she shambled herself into her bed.

She looked down over the edge of the bed and found her discarded gown. She had the rawest of memories slide into place, dreams about the vampire, dreams in bathtubs and in haylofts, and one in a public restroom as others moved unsuspectingly outside the stall they occupied, as Min and the vampire silently pushed each other through climax after climax. It was no wonder, since she’d spent the night rolling around in his scent like a…it was just too humiliating to think of what it was like.

She pulled on her bathrobe and then bound her hair back in a ponytail with a hair band. She padded to the bathroom and splashed some cold water on her face, and then made her way down stairs. On automatic pilot she started a pot of coffee. Feeling guilty or not, her stomach was rumbling obscenely, telling her she was starving. She got out some grapes and pre-sliced apples, and looked up to the box of bran flakes that she ate every morning without fail. They looked like little pieces of cardboard to her today.

She rejected them and opened the freezer. It was full of things Min would never ordinarily eat, but today she needed a treat, and a sugar fix, so she riffled through the gleaming boxes of frozen foods and pulled out waffles you cooked in the toaster, and a decadent egg, sausage and potato bowl that boasted sausage gravy and cheddar cheese. She decided she’d butter and syrup one waffle and then slather the second with the egg and sausage mix. She set out two plates, poured herself a glass of coffee, and waited for the toaster to pop, and the microwave to beep her breakfast’s readiness.

She was halfway through her meal, alternating between the two plates of food in front of her, when she heard the scrape of a key and the groan of the backdoor opening. In through the pantry trotted her younger sister, Andy, her hair a shock of auburn curls, face adorably feminine, and her smile infectiously beautiful. She bounced into the kitchen, slinging a heavy bag of books onto the floating island Min was eating at. She had been humming the theme music to Looney-Toons when she abruptly stopped and took in the sight of her sister with apprehensive eyes. Her dark blue eyes had always made Min think of stars, as if they were begging for some great artist to paint them into their midnight blue canvas. She was wearing a tailored jacket and matching skirt, something you’d expect donned by a librarian. But no matter what she did with her hair, the unruly brown and red curls always countered that primness with an untamed air.

“
You’re not dressed yet?”

Min nodded as she took a sip of her coffee. “Very observant of you.”

“
And you’re eating breakfast! This is very unusual for you.”

Min glared at her. “I eat breakfast every day, Andy. Lunch and dinner too.”

Andy gave her a glare of her own.

“
Okay, I might miss a dinner once in a while.”

“
Liar. I know you don’t do anything but scour the books after I leave every night.” Min knew she didn’t mean the Business logs, she meant the magic books she’d been reading nonstop for the last six months, eighteen…now nineteen days.

How sad was it that she knew so readily how long it had been?

“
I see you’ve gotten into my private stash of goodies. How naughty of you.” Andy plucked the last hunk of the syrup covered waffle from Min’s plate. “Speaking of the shop, not going into the store today?”

The shop.
Min had forgotten all about it.

She and Andy ran a small bookstore on Hagherty Blvd…well, a bookstore upfront, but a magic shop for those with enough mystical ability to see that the enchanted, beaded curtain at its back wall wasn’t really just a wall. The veil wasn’t too powerful, but it kept the non magical shoppers out of the mystical side of the fence.

Usually both sisters worked the store, trading off which end they worked based on their moods. They did a brisk business. Close but not too close to both the local university, and to two separate covens. One located on campus, the other no more than five blocks away in a rundown Victorian that group was slowly refurbishing.

The store had been their mother’s. They’d grown up cleaning shelves and learning the craft from her, and they both missed her more than they could say—so neither ever talked about it. They simply kept the store going, and Andy looked for old and forgotten text every weekend, while Min poured over them every night, looking for a cure.

A cure.
Guilt washed over Min as she looked at the bundle of books lying on the counter. She needed to ward off the house against the vampire she’d bedded last night. That was of vital importance. Without preparation, the vampire would most assuredly find a way through her protections, and then she’d be dead, or tortured or even worse. So she couldn’t just fall onto the books looking for what was never there. She would have to put them off.

She needed to have her protections bolstered and in place before nightfall. As she got up and poured herself another cup of coffee, she told herself that she wasn’t up for another fight tonight. But as her sore body moved to sit down again her mind flashed upon what she’d been doing that had made her so achy. The feel of his cold, smooth flesh, his hard muscles and even harder sex, how he had ground himself against and into her.

She shuddered and shook her head. When she looked up Andy was staring at her, a smile on her face.

“
What?” Min snapped laconically.

“
Nothing,” Andy taunted, leaning her elbows on the counter and getting that cloyingly romantic, moonstruck look on her face. “It just looks to me like you’re thinking scandalous thoughts this morning? Did you have a date last night?”

Min almost lied to her. She felt so ashamed, and yes, utterly moronic. But then she smiled and admitted, “Kind of.”

Andy perked up like a cartoon dog being offered a juicy steak. “Did he spend the night?”

Now that would be something…

Maybe a secret hidden compartment for daylight hours?

“
No,” her sister said, cutting her off as she tried to speak. “You’d have him leave as soon as you were—”

“
We’re through talking about this.” Min cut her off. She just couldn’t wrap her head around what she’d done, and talking about sex with her little sister wasn’t much less disturbing. “And you’ve got the store to run today.”

“
Yeah, yeah, yeah…take the fifth. But whatever you did—or with whom—you really,
really
should do it again.”

Min stood up and shooed Andy out through the pantry to the backdoor, assuring her, “I have way too much work to do to—”

“
Plan any immoral liaisons?” Andy sang.