Zauran (11 page)

Beating Ryan to that state line is going to be a challenge... unless...
unless
I can coax him to go after Phoebe.

Now that's a plan and a half.

Tonight was most informative. Listening to Jowendrhan's thoughts, Darise's, and Božena's – the world has taken on a clarity it didn't have this morning.

Cornering the horny human, I lean an arm on the wall next to her chair, smiling down at her and sheathing my eyes with fire, “Hello sweetheart. I'd like to drink you... I mean, get you a drink.”

I bet I look lecherous; and just as fuckable as I am repulsive. I can't help it, I desire a non-human woman and they just don't exist. So to amuse myself I've become
a peddlar of perversion.

I'm damn tempted to finger this chick right here in her dark corner. So many women get off on the public thing. The idea of public sex, for some reason, is a turn on.

She should have stayed home with her Bob. A
b
attery
o
perated
b
oyfriend is a helluva lot safer than me.

But the ditz just swoons closer, reaching for my face to stare her fascination at my eyes. Ridiculous, Serbian women should know what neuri look like. They should know who we are and what we do. It's hard not to shake my head, and force myself to keep still while suffering the fawning scrutiny.

And no, I don't work-out, sugar. I don't need to.

Listening to her thoughts I am getting harder by the second.

*

Božena and Jowendrhan:

“
Where are we?” I ask Jo, looking around.

This place is monochrome, cleaner than a pediatric ward, and so devoid of personality it's foreboding. Despite the walls and tiles being gleaming white, it feels stifling and the opposite of spacious.

It gives me the unsettling sensation of being caged.

“
This is my crypt,” he says with another threatening smile.

“
Your... er – uh... seriously?”

He laughs, and it's a sharp contradiction to everything I've witnessed from him tonight. His laugh is so natural and delightful it could make babies coo.

“
It has no windows or doors, that's why I call it a crypt.”

Turning to face him I notice the way he seems uncomfortable, pulling at the neckline of his long sleeved iron gray shirt as if it's restricting him.

“
Why no windows or doors?” I guess that explains the intuitive reaction of feeling imprisoned.

He literally rips his shirt straight down his torso from the neckline, pulling it off and shedding it, discarding it with a careless toss onto a long white leather sofa.

“
Sorry,  I find clothes entirely too hot.” He gestures to the wall behind him, unfazed parading in front of me with shadows and dim lighting caressing his build into walking art. “We can't have windows Božena, you surely know that?”

“
Why not?”
I didn't know that.

His laugh strikes me again when it overpowers the soft music. Stepping closer, seeming somehow three times larger than he was in the disguising dark of Pravus, he blocks out my view of huge black and white photos hanging on the wall behind the sofa.

Very arty, clean, sterile.

Stark eyes contrast with white hair, and a dangerous smile aims at me in all its long fanged glory.
“
Božena
, you don't mind if I call you Zena?”

My friends call me that. “Hmmm, that all depends.”

Stepping closer so I'm dwarfed by his height and musculature, he drawls in a slow low spell, “Depends on what? I don't make false promises. I offered you danger and I fully intend to take you through a war zone of sensations. I will deliver.”

He leans on the word
fully
with meaning. But I end his sentence... deliver...
you from evil
.

My tastes are not evil, they're just... different. Pain reminds me why I love life, it makes me grateful for the air I breathe, it shocks us out of complacency and the mediocrity of living inside routine.

I don't remember his hair being able to turn white.

Burning hot hands slide down my arms to link possessive fingers with my own, lifting each hand to kiss my knuckles, his teeth gradually peeking out further over the cushion of his bottom lip.

“
My hair turns white because Venix left and Seithe became mortal. I'm now the only elder left in my clan.” He says it in a low murmur, as if praising me. It's a manipulative tone he employs.

Wow, his voice fondles my nerve endings, arcing a quiver through my veins. It weakens me.

Deadly.

His tone is annihilation disguised by the warmth of a baritone slowly webbing its silk around me, shutting out sight, making breath difficult to draw, binding hands and bonding ankles.

There's no running away now.

His nearness is intoxicating me. His voice is such fluid poison it loosens my muscles and burnishes my blood.

“
Zena, my home has no windows because I'm half angel. When you bring me to orgasm, when my vampyre takes control of my body, I'm blinding to humans. The light we emit is so bright we could be seen from space should anyone be looking. We don't like drawing attention to ourselves...” He trails off, surveying me as if I'm the morsel the minions placed on the dining room table for his midnight feast.

“
Really?” I say. My voice comes out in a tremor, and I'm only asking to buy time, to get my wits and attitude back to front and center.

“
Look at the floor, not at me.”

“
Jesus, into domination much,
master
?” I say with sarcasm.

He aggressively grips my head and pivots it on my neck, “When I say look down it's in your own best interest not to argue but to comply. If you like your sight learn to follow instructions.”

And with these words drawled with derision as if he's chastising a child for being naughty, the tiles under my feet instantly become so bright with reflected light it makes my eyes water and dark spots react across my vision with the frenzy of an epileptic fit.

Okay then, look away when he unleashes his inner angel.

Stunned, squeezing my eyelids tightly together, I'm worried the blurring tears will ruin my make-up.

“
I prefer you without it,” he whispers into my ear, like a familiar lover complimenting me.

The merciless grasp of his fingers on my head morphs into a caress to trace down my nape and between my shoulder blades. Attraction frisks the skin where his fingertips paint and I'm reacting to his capricious moods.

He's a walking contradiction. Half angel, half not. Clearly one half is much darker than the light he just used to silence me.

I'm fighting an internal war between awe and cautious respect. The tone he used returned to husky seduction, and I struggle to meet his now brown eyes. His hair remains white this time and while I'm focusing his wide captivating eyes turn to iceberg blue.

“
Blue?” I swallow with difficulty against the confusion and fascination.

I thought I knew the vampyres, I was obviously deluded or blatantly misinformed.

“
Yes blue, it's me in vampyre dominant form. The only time you can call me human is when my eyes and hair are brown. When my eyes shine silver it's because I'm trying very hard not to let the passion of my inner vampyre come out to play hide and seek with you.”

When he mentions
passion
in that foreign accent, it flows through me like a tidal wave, washing over my head and forcing suffocation up my nose.

Giddy, I teeter unsteadily, still finding my ability to focus challenging with his home draped in muted shadows which barely cast light on the white of everything in here.

Including what looks to be a white marble polished block serving as a coffee table.

He snaps a finger in front of my nose, “Romance.”

A solitary candle ignites to dancing life in the center of the coffee table, casting a warmth over his half naked body and into his hair.

The music changes to melodic harmonies which are barely audible, and he's presenting me with a white Casa Blanca lily. The fragrance is strongly overpowering and heady. Touched by his unpredictable thoughtfulness, I clasp it, receiving a jolt of manifesting desire when our fingers connect.

“
Are you ready for combat, Zena?” It's a whisper sent to cocoon on my lips. He's bending over me so his head reaches my mouth and I'm succumbing to the amorous liquid starlight in his eyes.

My god he's glorious.

“
Half angel, it's a given.” I sense his smile rather than see it.

He's so close that my heartbeat is deafening my ears. His breath is so hot, so impossibly incinerating, it matches the molten sorcery of his eyes.

Scorching heat radiates off the skin of his chest directly in front of me, and it warms me, stealing oxygen the way a flame does, forcing me to inhale with the instant constriction in my lungs.

The opening of my lips is stolen by a gentle mouth.

His kiss infuses my body back into the wanton state I'd misplaced on our journey here. The sensation of his strong hands on my body floods back when long teeth dig inside my lip while he accosts my tongue with his own.

Combat? Will it hurt?

He removes the flower from my grasp, snapping the stem and tucking the blossom behind my ear.

“
Gorgeous,” exhales over my face like a blessing from his father in heaven.

An immaculate physique tenses, and I sense the danger emanating off him now when he closes his arms around me to pull me close.

Anticipation spirals my perception into a crazed swirl.

His head drops lower and long teeth pierce the fabric of my shirt, going right through my black lace bra, needling deep into my breast and chasing wildfire out in every direction.

It's such a shock my body explodes with volcanic shrapnel.

His strength has me locked in the vice of his hands and arms, and I can't flinch. Helpless, I inhale the dry desert cologne in his hair, bathing its shriveling parch into my pores, boring into me the way his mouth claims not just my skin, but my blood; my life.

My knees wobble with the potion pouring into my bloodstream and his mouth is ready when I sway, losing my strength with my head lolling back, my moan is caught with a red tongue and lips tarnished with my blood.

He drips the elixir onto my taste buds, riding pressure into my lips and ransacking my mouth. Sliding his tongue provocatively over my own he grips my body tighter to feel the hardness contained inside his leather jeans.

Oh god
. I can't focus when he ends the kiss and allows me to breathe. Desire is crippling me, it's so immediate and overwhelming my new underwear is being drenched from the inside out.

“
Yes it will hurt, in the best possible way,” he says.

The energy he's giving off is resolute and unyielding. He's committed to this moment and it cloaks his charisma with assertive authority.

This is my fantasy. I've always wanted to be taken this way. Lulled into the haven, torn into by the monster, having a soul infusion while he drinks my blood and splinters my sanity with bliss no human can fathom.

The preternatural power he exudes strips me of my will to fight. I've longed for this darkness because I believe it's only in darkness we are free to truly worship light.

He is light, he is darkness, and the thought of him worshipping and claiming me is beyond tempting. It's a secret manifesting from my childhood, grown into a dissatisfaction with humans and life. I came back to Darise because I've had enough of human fallibility and fragility. We are flawed, we're insufficient and substandard as a species. It's painful to breathe, to wake each and every fucking day to the same destiny.

Jowendrhan's glinting pearl glance tailgates my attention. Subpoenaed by the lust and glowing power in his eyes, I drift closer to mental asphyxiation.

I'm ready. I was born ready, biding time impatiently for this moment to finally bless my world and grant me mercy.

Supported with his strength, I don't resist when my buttons open and he stares at my nipples with his eyes flaring in hunger.

I feel drugged, high, feverish.

A low chainsaw inhalation tingles my nerves and shivers my skin. His hand waves over me like an artist ready to draw, but then the air moves and I become aware that he simply removed my clothes.

His wicked mouth lowers again as he lifts me into his arms, forcing my nipple into his mouth to flick it with harsh nips of a blistering tongue, then breathing on it so it tightens, to razor his long vampire teeth over it.

Jesus!

The effect has my sex throbbing and spitting. My stomach is writhing with wistful anxiety.