Darkness Taunts (7 page)

A solid oak door with intricate carvings on it marked the entryway to his room. A magic spell sound-proofed this part of the house and kept anyone from entering without his permission—except me and his second in command. When he didn’t answer after the third knock, which was the one thing he should have been able to hear, I decided to go inside whether he wanted me to or not. The magic barrier sizzled over my skin as I passed through it and opened the door. Low lighting in the cavernous room made it difficult to see until my eyes adjusted. I had to search out the vampire in question despite knowing his general direction. He stood a few feet from the four-poster bed.

His head was thrown back with a look of pure ecstasy on his face. A woman’s mouth was wrapped around his cock.  She was naked on her knees with her long, black hair flowing down her back. I had to admire her ability to take him all the way in like that, considering his size. When she withdrew a couple of inches, sucking noises reached me. Good lord, she’d make a vacuum envious. Where did he find these women anyway?

There was a time when walking in on him like this would have been mortifying. Over the last few months Nik had found numerous many ways to test my limits. I’d learned to put my feelings aside so even the most vulgar acts didn’t bother me as much as they once did.

I cleared my throat—time to ruin his fun. “Hey Nik, is this your newest accessory? I’d say she fits you nicely.”

He groaned and opened his eyes to look at me. The woman didn’t stop doing her thing. “Melena,” he sounded my name out real slow, “don’t suppose you want to join in?”

I smiled. “You already know the answer to that. We need to talk.”

He rubbed the woman’s shiny black hair as she began to do swirlies around his head. “Can’t it wait a few minutes?”

“No,” I said. “It can’t. I just spent a less than pleasant evening with Lucas. Apparently he has a job for me—one I have no idea how to do—but he says you know about it. I also had a run-in with his twin brother, Micah, who no one told me about. My life was bad enough before discovering there were two of them in this world.”

The girl at his feet was back to deep-throating him again. Nik closed his eyes. “In other words, you had a bad night and now you’ve come to ruin mine as well?”

“Pretty much,” I said. I couldn’t say it didn’t turn me on to watch, but I’d gone too long without my own sexual gratification. It didn’t bother me in the least to make him suffer since he got this kind of action all the time.

He looked down at the girl with longing in his eyes. “Blythe, love, you must stop.”

She pulled away from him inch by slow inch until his cock popped out of her mouth. “But I was just getting to the good part!”

Nik sighed. “I know. We will get back to it soon enough. For now, I need you to go lie down on the bed.”

Her brows knitted. “You want me to just lie there?”

He caressed her cheek and captured her eyes with his vampiric gaze. “Why don’t you play with yourself for a bit to keep yourself entertained? But no getting off without me. Understand?”

A glazed look settled over her face. “Yes, master Nik. Anything you wish.”

She got up and did exactly as he asked. As soon as I saw her hand reaching down to stroke herself, I turned my attention elsewhere. “Did you have to compel her?”

He walked toward me. “Unfortunately, yes. She’ll get herself off a half a dozen times before we finish talking if I don’t.”

I rolled my eyes. “Then let her. We can go somewhere else to chat.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” He grinned. “You’ve gotten good at keeping those fair cheeks from blushing, but I know the prudish girl inside of you is still gawking in horror. One of these days I’m going to break that icy shield you keep around yourself.”

I turned my face away. “I doubt that.”

Nik cursed. Fingertips brushed against my swollen cheek. “Who hurt you?”

I pushed his hand away. “It doesn’t matter. I took care of it.”

He gripped my shoulders. “I want to know who hit you now. Do not make me find out the hard way.”

“Nik, it doesn’t matter. Just leave it alone.” Things would not get better by him throwing his power around every time someone harassed me. I had to deal with this on my own or I’d never get any respect.

“Those marks are fresh enough I can smell the drops of blood. You’ll tell me who did this.”

Vamps didn’t have a much better sense of smell than humans, but get them close enough to blood and they’d home in on it fast. “I shot him in the head. I’m fairly certain he’s learned his lesson.”

“Who, Melena?” He moved over to his dresser and pulled a pair of pants on. At least I could stop being tempted to look below his neck now.

I shook my head. “Leave it alone. You’re only going to make things worse.”

Too fast for me to react, he shot around me and out the door. Crap. I took off running after him. Kariann stood in the hall again, grinning this time when I passed her.

“You didn’t really think he’d let that slide, did you?” she yelled at my parting back.

I held up my hand and flipped her off, which only made her laugh harder.

Forty-five minutes later every vampire and werewolf in the area who could be reached, plus a few other odd races, stood in a wide circle on the snow-covered lawn. The temperature had dropped to negative thirty. Those of us who couldn’t control our body temperatures huddled in our thick jackets and shivered. Nik had the mostly healed, and now wide-awake, vampire on his knees in front of him with a sword at his neck.

I was pissed. The stupid man wouldn’t listen to a word I said and insisted he had to make an example out of my attacker. I didn’t really care what these people thought of me, but if they chose to hate me, they should do it for my actions. Not because Nik had to put me on some kind of pedestal.

A lock of his black hair fluttered across his eyes as he spoke before the assembled crowd. “Hagan Cross, you are hereby sentenced to death by beheading for assaulting a woman you knew to be under my protection. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

The vampire in question spit on the ground near Nik’s feet. “The bitch deserved it. Everyone here knows her kind ain’t no good. If you had any sense, you’d kill her before she causes us real trouble. She’ll bring the angels and then you’ll know I was right.”

I was sick of events from before I was born being used against me. Centuries ago during the same time as the inquisition sensors made a pact with the angels to kill off as many of the supernatural races as possible. Thousands died across the world, though mostly in Europe. When the sups found out who instigated the attacks, they struck back. My race almost went extinct in the process.

It ended altogether when Lucas executed the sensor leader in charge, Henrik Nielson, leaving no one with the knowledge of how to call the angels. The fear of my race didn’t stop there, though. We’d been in hiding ever since, except for those like me who were discovered and held against our will.

“She won’t call on them,” Nik said.

He kicked Hagan in the face. His boot struck the younger vampire hard enough to send him flying back half a dozen feet. Blood spurted from his nose as he lay there moaning.

“Get up you piece of shit. The sensor you insulted saved my life and helped this town get rid of a dangerous enemy. You should be thanking Melena.” He paused to look at the people gathered around him. “She is not a threat to any of us. The abuse against her must stop.”

I stared at the ground, avoiding everyone’s gazes. I hadn’t done it for him, but to save my friend Aniya. It just worked out that he benefited from it.

Nik jerked Hagan back to his knees. “I’m done with you. May your afterlife be all that you deserve.”

The sword came down and went straight through the vamp’s neck. A few seconds later both parts of him disintegrated into dust. Despite what the man had said and done, seeing him executed bothered me. I didn’t care that he died, but I did care that everyone watching would see it as my fault. Stupid supernatural politics.

I broke from the crowd and went back inside. We still had to go over methods for dealing with the demon possessions. I wouldn’t be able to sleep until I knew something on how to handle them. The weight of the responsibility weighed on me now even more than before. People needed to see I wasn’t out to get them.

I settled into a chaise lounge chair set in the corner of the living room and closed my eyes. Six years in the military had taught me how to rest while remaining semi-alert. It helped that my senses heightened when I had nothing to distract me. I could monitor the movements of everyone in the vicinity and keep an eye on Emily back at the house while appearing to be asleep.

Some of the sups came filing in a short while later. The mood was tense and somber. A few of them walked into the room, but stepped back out as soon as they saw me. Yeah, I’d grown into a pariah of epic proportions.

“Are you just going to lie there all night?” Nik asked when he came in.

“It seems you like that sort of thing since you still have that poor woman playing with herself in your bed.” Judging by her mood, she’d have the orgasm of her life once he lifted his compulsion.

“Shit, I forgot.” He moved at vamp speed back to his bedroom.

I winced when the woman’s emotions hit a new high. She’d gotten her reward. Carpal tunnel might be a problem for her later in life, though.

Nik returned a few minutes later. “Now that you have me all to yourself, you can stop sulking.”

I didn’t bother to open my eyes. “Are you done making my life even more difficult than it already has been?”

He sat down next to me on the chaise. “It had to be done, Mel. I can’t have them undermining me behind my back.”

I cracked my eyes open. “This wasn’t really about me. It was all about your stupid manly pride.”

“Don’t be like that.” Weariness made him look older than his early thirties appearance. I could almost see the weight of his actual twelve-hundred years in that moment.

“How about you pass along the information I need so I can go home and get some sleep,” I said.

He stood. “Come with me.”

I heaved myself up and followed him to his office on the second floor. He spun the combination on the wall safe behind the desk while I stood waiting. After opening it, he pulled out a very old-looking book and a much newer notebook.

His fingers ran over the leather-bound cover in a kind of reverence. I could sense some kind of preservation spell on it and knew it must have been much older than it appeared.

“This was in my family for several generations before my sister received it. After I turned her into a vampire, she gave it to me for safe-keeping. Gytha was the last surviving sensor of our line and when I turned her, it ended.”

I froze. “Wait, Gytha was a sensor? I didn’t think we could be turned.”

Nik’s eyes turned distant. “The survival rate isn’t high, but the times were too dangerous to keep her mortal. She was my last living relative and I didn’t want to risk losing her. Gytha hated her abilities enough it didn’t bother her to lose them. All of her immunity to magic went away. She retained a higher sense of awareness for anything supernatural, as well as sensors, but it only worked at close range.”

“I had no idea it could be done.”

He rubbed his face. “As I said, it rarely works, but it is feasible. It’s the reason I ask you to stay in on full moons. There are at least two cases I know of where sensors turned into werewolves.”

Something new to worry about—as if I didn’t have enough. “Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”

“I thought you knew. Why do you think I blamed Lucas for Gytha’s death for so long? She must have found Henrik Nielson for him. None of us knew what the man looked like, but she could have figured it out.”

“So what is this book?” I asked.

He opened it and smoothed out the pages. All the text was in a language I couldn’t read.

“This is where my family recorded all they learned about the supernatural races. Their strengths and weaknesses. Their habits. Everything they knew is listed here and none of it has been used since they died.” He lifted his gaze to mine. “Do you understand the importance of this?”

I nodded. “Why show me this now?”

He sighed. “You’ve been no more interested in using your abilities to help people than Gytha was in her time. Now that you’ve agreed to work on the demon situation, I’m willing to share this with you.”

He handed me the spiral bound notebook sitting on his desk. “I’ve translated the parts of the book dealing with demons and, in particular, possessions. Use it for your work in Juneau. If you continue to show interest after you’re finished there, I’ll translate more.”

 I wanted to know what else might be in that ancient tomb, but I wasn’t sure I wanted the responsibility that came with finding out.

My hands clutched the newer notebook tightly. “I can’t make any promises.”

Resignation filled his eyes. “I understand.”

“No, I really don’t think you do.”

I walked out of the office and headed home.

Kariann was kicking my ass and it sucked even more than all the other times she’d done it. To be fair, the six centuries she’d had to build her strength and experience gave her an unfair advantage. She’d smacked me with the flat of her sword at least a dozen times already. I was going to end up meeting Lucas tonight looking like a worn out punching bag—not that he’d care so long as I got the job done.

“Thinking about pretty boy isn’t going to help you fight any better, little sensor,” Kariann derided.

“What makes you think I’m thinking about Lucas?” I asked. Damn that last sword strike made my arm numb.

She laughed. “You just gave yourself away. I had no idea who you were thinking about, but figured you’d tell me.”

“Whatever,” I said. “I’m just pissed at him right now and not thinking clearly.”

She struck at me again. “Sure you are.”

I blocked and slammed her kneecap with the heel of my boot.

She stumbled back and flashed her teeth—fangs included. “I’ll be damned. Maybe thinking of him does help your fighting skills.”