The Nightlife Moscow (Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Suspense) (The Nightlife Series Book 5) (5 page)

Aaron sat in his chair and watched Michelle. He stroked the
hair from her forehead and wished there was some way he could leave this
godforsaken frozen city and enjoy his life with the amazing, psychotic, yet
wonderful women he’d managed to surround himself with. He imagined what it
might be like to travel the world in class with Michelle and Katya at his side,
even Urvashi–
when she felt like it
. No worries, no wolf packs, no
Russian vampires hunting them at every turn.

He sighed and let the anxiety flow away as Urvashi had
taught him.
Find your center
. She had coached him through numerous sessions
of meditation, and he needed that sense of calm badly. He tried to block out
the scuffling noises, gruff voices speaking Russian, and the rank smell of old
blood on Michelle’s wounds. Little by little the stress drained away. Only
Aaron existed, sitting in his chair. All concerns disappeared as he found his
well of inner strength and tapped into that mystical place inside his mind.

Click, slap, bang. “Hold the bloody door would you?”

Katya’s voice broke his meditation and he slowly opened his
eyes to see her and Ivan shouldering Nikolay’s unconscious weight between them.
Veins and tendons popped out of Ivan’s neck from the strain of lifting over two
hundred pounds of dead weight. He grunted with each step. “On the bed.”

Katya lined up beside the bed. She pegged Aaron with a look.
“You better be right about this. I don’t want her to hurt him. He’s already a
mess.” They settled Nikolay on the mattress next to Michelle, like a slab of
beef waiting for her to wake up and snack on.

Aaron’s stomach growled at the scent of the fresh blood. He
hadn’t fed to satisfaction for days. And the wolves were already over-tapped,
especially Katya. She looked at him with dark rings around her eyes, the need
for another bite ever present.

It was becoming difficult to bite her without feeding, but
he would do it for her.

She leaned down and sniffed at Nikolay, then glanced at
Ivan. “He’s going to be fine. We just need to get him eating, so he can change.”
Ivan nodded at her and settled into the chair on the other side of Michelle’s
bed.

His eyes flicked to Aaron and back to Katya. “You should get
some rest. I will watch them. They aren’t going anywhere soon.”

Katya patted the older wolf on the shoulder. “Thank you.”
With barely restrained need, she came straight for Aaron and grabbed his hand
to pull him towards the door.

Ivan nodded as Aaron silently followed his bloodslave to
find a private place to give her what she craved so badly.

* * * *

Michelle woke to the weight of a warm body squishing the
mattress at her side. The strong scent of blood and dust assaulted her senses.
She snuggled up against the warmth, though it smelled vaguely of dog. She
opened her eyes to a series of partition walls arranged into the shape of a cubicle
room, and a high corrugated steel ceiling with open steel support girders that
crisscrossed every which way. On the mattress next to her lay Nikolay, the russet-haired
Russian wolf. Shirtless and unconscious, his chest still bled from bullet wounds.
Seemed as though he’d been arranged at her side – just for her.

How thoughtful.
The wolves weren’t usually so
forthcoming.

“Breakfast in bed?” Ivan snickered from the other side of
the room, sitting on a chair watching her. She looked down to find herself
completely nude. The blanket covering her slid down as she sat up. She looked
back up to Ivan. He didn’t even blink as he stared at her bare breasts, a cheesy
grin stuck to his stubbly face. “Go ahead. Aaron tells us it will be good for Nikolay
if you clean his wounds.”

Michelle watched Ivan for a moment, adjusting to the strange
new paradigm of feeding from the wolves. She knew the wolves didn’t trust her
enough to turn their backs on her, but, for whatever reason, something had
changed. She turned back to the meal beckoning her attention. The man didn’t
wake, but his chest rose and fell with his breathing, and his heart beat was
stable. Without delay, she began meticulously cleaning away the blood from his
chest. As she leaned forward, she let the blanket slide down further, showing
her bare back and the top of her ass to Ivan as she lapped up every last drop
she could get from Nikolay.

She lacked at the wound, wishing for more, when a warm,
callused hand squeezed her butt cheek. “I think he’s good now.”

She turned to find Ivan leaning over her, an expectant look
in his eyes. His hand was still on her ass, and she kind of liked it there. The
big man reminded her of her lover so many years ago in France, a large Norseman
who’d given his life bringing Michelle back to sanity. Both men had powerful physiques
and a subtle, confident humor.

Almost nose to nose with the wolf, she licked her lips. “What
can I do for you?”

Ivan’s gaze trailed down her body, to the edge of the
blanket that had fallen to expose her full nudity. “If there is any way I can help
you recover, I am at your service.” His hand still hadn’t left her ass.

She reached up with both hands to his prickly face and let
her fingertips trace his powerful jaw lines. She slid her hands down to his
shirt collar and began unfastening the buttons all the way down. “
Oui
, I
could use your help.”

* * * *

Aaron cuddled up to Katya, nose buried in her hair. It was
their only time alone together since they had arrived in Russia. The dusty bed
tickled Aaron’s sinuses and the old mattress spring coils dug into his side
uncomfortably, but, he considered himself lucky to have these few moments of
peace with her.

He could relax when Katya slept. Awake and brooding, Katya’s
presence dominated his thoughts, kept him alert for the next drama scene to
avoid. Maybe once they were past this insane vampire hunt, he and Katya could
have a decent chance of finding some level of normalcy. She seemed willing to
integrate with him and Michelle. The way she handled intimacy with Michelle had
surprised him.

“How do you get into these messes?” He murmured to himself
and marveled at the crazy whirlwind of his life up to this point.

A few months ago, he’d been a simple waiter in an Italian
restaurant. An average guy chasing after his bratty ex-girlfriend, Delia. Then
Michelle walked down the New York sidewalk and straight into his life,
rewriting the very fabric of his soul. He awoke reborn, with a master – a French
vampire femme fatale – Michelle. He’d acquired a predator’s taste for the hunt.
Through Las Vegas, and their misadventures in Paris, Aaron had been freed of
Michelle’s control, only to land in the hands of a new master, Urvashi. From the
US to France, and England, his life had been one fucking mess after another.

And poor Anastasia. Out of his mind on heroin, he’d married his
bloodslave. They never had a chance at a honeymoon. His newlywed wife died in
his arms in the Vegas desert, scant hours after saying their vows.

Bastard Colombian cartel.

Through it all, Michelle had kept him sane. His connection
to her, their love, she was his anchor. No matter what happened, he would
always have Michelle.

Now he had Katya, too. Aaron dug his nose deeper into
Katya’s hair to let her scent wash away the mess of his life. Katya was his
latest disaster, and far more complicated than Anastasia. What possessed him to
do these things? Was he nothing more than a predator satiating his needs on the
most beautiful woman within reach?

He’d begun to think that might be the case. “A fine mess we
have here, Katya. I hope you can forgive me someday.”

She murmured something unintelligible and cuddled closer to
him. Her ass, covered only by thin cotton panties, spooned perfectly up against
the lump in his boxer shorts. He could take her right then, bite and fuck her
to his heart’s content, and a powerful urge to do exactly that nearly undid his
resolve, but that’s not what Katya needed.

She needed a break
. If holding her in the wee hours
of the morning was what she needed, then he could give her that much happiness.
He owed her at least that much.

The click of the door opening preceded Aaron’s sense of his
master’s entry into the room. Though Urvashi’s formidable mental shields kept
him from digging into the privacy of her mind, she couldn’t keep him from knowing
her whereabouts or tasting her moods. They were psychically tethered, a mistake
of one errant bite. He knew she wanted to talk,
now
.

Aaron put his finger to his lips to shush Urvashi as he
slipped away from the warmth of Katya’s tender ass and sat up in bed. He
covered his bloodslave in heavy, coarse blankets and stood up to slip his pants
on and tipped his head towards the door to draw his master out of the room.
Katya needed her rest.

Closing the door behind them on the way out, Aaron caught a
strange look on Urvashi’s face. “What? What’s up?”

She stared at him, her head cocked sideways, thoughtful.
“I’m trying to decide if you’re a fool infatuated with every piece of ass that
walks by, or if you’re one of those rare men who can actually love many
different women … at the same time.”

Love might be stretching it, if she was implying he loved
her, too. Michelle, most certainly, and Katya, yes. But Urvashi? He wasn’t so
sure what they had qualified as love.

Aaron shrugged. “If you ask Michelle, she’ll tell you what a
fool I was when we met. If you ask Katya, she’ll tell you I’m still a fool.” He
smiled at Urvashi, trying to break the strange tension between them.

His master’s stare bored into him, and he sensed she caught
all the nuances of his evasive answer. Urvashi missed nothing. She was the most
perceptive and dangerous creature he’d ever met. He still didn’t know what to
make of her, especially after catching a glimpse of what hid beneath her human
mask.

He much preferred dealing with the mask. If Urvashi’s true
form was the thing he’d seen, then she most certainly was not human, probably
not of this Earth, and he was bonded with her from drinking her blood.

A little too much to handle right now
.

Urvashi’s electric fingers tickled Aaron’s collarbone. A
faint crackle of power hummed with her touch. He wondered if he was becoming
dependent on her, on the energy she exuded whenever they touched. She charged
him up like a living battery pack whenever they were close, and especially
during sex.

She smiled and he felt that powerful influence from her
again, a mood altering power she held over him. “Fool or not, I know you love
them, which is why I allow them in our lives.”

Allow?

He almost opened his fool mouth, but she interrupted him.
“In the future, you must consult me before adopting another pet into our little
family. We are bonded. Your decisions are not your own, not when they affect me
too.”

“Hey, you’re the one who told me how to heal Katya. I never
would’ve had sex with her if not for your assurances I could heal her.” A side
effect of his bond with Urvashi, Aaron had acquired Urvashi’s ability to
transfer energy through intercourse. Aaron hadn’t even known, not until Urvashi
admitted it while Katya lay dying in his arms.

If there had been any other way.

As it turned out, Aaron discovered this strange power
resided within him, and he gave every inch of it to Katya, over and over again
to save her life. Then he bit her, many times. Too many times. Bonding Katya to
him had happened before he even realized it. His instinct to acquire
bloodslaves felt as natural as breathing.

Urvashi watched him, waiting for his admission of the truth.
She always knew. No holding back from her.

“So, maybe I didn’t have to bite her so many times … I don’t
think there’s a way to separate sex and feeding, Urvashi. It’s not something I
can do.” Which explained why Urvashi owned his ass, this one failing. He’d
bitten her the first time they had sex, even after she warned him not to.

Fact:
vampires bite people
.

“Yes, Aaron. Let’s not make this a habit.” She twirled her
fingers towards the bedroom door, in Katya’s direction. “Our lives are
complicated enough.”

Aaron figured he best shut the hell up. There wasn’t much to
say in his defense, so he just nodded.

“Renault will be here tomorrow night. He’s bringing some
special supplies. The wolves don’t want to wait another minute, but I can’t let
them go forward without proper equipment.”

He couldn’t miss the ominous warning in her voice.
Damn
.
They were probably walking into a fucking dangerous mess.

The story of his life.

Aaron nodded again. He knew virtually nothing about guns and
gear. Urvashi had shown him how to slice and dice with a pair of katanas, but
his experience with guns was limited to the one and only time he’d used a pistol
on Michael Jamison, in London. Point and shoot until the gun ran out of bullets.

“Renault’s bringing weapons into Moscow?” Aaron and Renault,
Urvashi’s manservant, didn’t mesh very well. A former member of the wolf pack,
Renault had taken an instant dislike to Aaron.

Urvashi caught the negative tone and raised her eyebrows. “I
have my connections, and Renault does what he must to meet my needs. Getting guns
into the city is no small feat.”

Then it finally clicked, what she was saying. “You’re going
with us? Into combat?” He’d never seen Urvashi in a fight, though she’d shown
him a touch of her phenomenal power a couple of times. The idea of seeing her
cut loose on Dmitri’s mafia thugs put a smile on his face.

“Yes, I am, and so is Renault.”

Great.
Nothing like having a man who hates you
standing around with loaded weapons
.