A Dark Kiss of Rapture (8 page)

Her head moved on his chest as her gaze slid
from the television to the digital clock on her cable box. “It
feels like so much longer than that.”

She sat up despite his protests and
shifting, moving to straddle him. He watched her, riveted by her
elegant sensuality. She was way, way out of his league, but somehow
he was making her happy. She caught the pull of her zipper, one
that ran from cleavage to waist on the simple but pretty strappy
emerald dress she wore.

“Ready for your surprise?” she asked, with
sparkling eyes.

“Hmm... A surprise.” He gripped her thighs
beneath the hem and squeezed. “You’re all I need.”

“And I’m what you’ll get.” The dress parted
and she drew it over her head.

Jesus.
He went hard all over. Her
delicate breasts were cupped by mere scraps of green satin framed
by black lace. The wisp covering the sweet flesh between her thighs
was nothing more than a tease. The whole sparkled with crystals and
contrasted beautifully with her creamy skin, dark hair, and peridot
eyes. He lost his breath for a moment, along with his brain.

“A surprise,” he murmured. “And a gift. God.
Kim. You shred me.”

Her greedy hands slid up beneath his shirt
and her mouth sealed over his. She took him. And fisting her hair,
he gave.

* * *

They spent Sunday morning being deliciously
lazy, rolling around in bed and talking about their work. Raze
could say little about the particulars of what he did, but he told
her he traveled a lot and worked in teams occasionally. He told her
about Vash and Syre, Torque and Salem, smudging details as
necessary to get the gist across. It was easier than he would have
thought to talk so much. Kim made it easy by listening attentively
and refraining from asking questions he couldn’t answer. In return
he strove to be as honest as possible under the circumstances.
Eventually, he’d tell her everything. After he discussed it with
Syre and Vashti.

Kim talked about her job as a medical
laboratory scientist and he listened raptly, amazed that of all the
people he could’ve found this depth of connection with he’d found
one who spent her days looking at blood. She was, in her own way,
as drawn to the vital substance as he was. What were the odds?

She was a trust fund baby, which allowed her
to do what she loved for a living. Most of her friends were also
her co-workers and Janelle had been her best friend since grade
school. As he’d expected, Kim had been engaged once, shortly after
graduating from college, but she’d broken it off when she realized
she wasn’t ready to settle down.

Shortly after ten, she went into the kitchen
to grab breakfast and he returned a call from Vashti that he’d
missed while indulging in Kim.

“Vash.” He kept the video off and held the
phone to his ear. “News?”

“The team of six I sent arrived this morning
and they’re already sweeping through what’s left of your list of
known Grimm haunts. They have orders to gather what intel they can
and pass it along to you. You’re primary, so stay available.”

“Of course.”

She snorted. “You could’ve been hunting last
night.”

“Yes. And probably should’ve been. But it’s
my time now, Vashti. After all these years, it’s finally my time.
I’m not wasting it hunting down a crazy bitch who won’t be found
until she’s ready.” He heard the doorbell ring and pulled on his
jeans. “I rattled her cage yesterday. She’ll be crawling out soon,
because she’ll want to deal with this on her turf and I’ve
threatened to leave. I bet she makes a move by tomorrow, and I’ll
be out today making myself as easy a target as possible.”

“I’ve emailed the cell numbers of your team.
Touch bases with them and—”

Raze killed the call when Kim entered the
room with a dozen Black Beauty roses. There was laughter in her
eyes and a mischievous smile on her lips.

“I guess this is a hint,” she teased. “I’m
glad you approve of my oral skills, since I certainly enjoy—”

Shoving his phone into his jeans’ pocket, he
brushed past her on his way to the front door. “Did those just
arrive?”

“Yes. Raze, are you—”

“Lock the door behind me. Don’t open it for
anyone except me.” He was gone in a flash, taking the stairs at the
end of the hall, his heart racing with a sick panic. He raced down
the single flight of steps to the first floor and skid into the
lobby of the apartment complex in his bare feet. The lone elevator
car was empty and the doors sat open, but when he turned his head,
he saw the logo’d back of the delivery person disappearing out the
revolving glass door.

A female. Blond hair tucked up under her
ball cap.

Bloodlust hazed his vision. Her ladyship
hadn’t expected him to be there when she went after Kim and she was
arrogant enough to forego the quick kill. She wanted to play, like
she had with the Cubs fan.

He pursued, uncaring of his bare feet and
chest. She was climbing into the back of an unmarked van when her
driver—Lake—saw him. The vampress hit the gas, sending Francesca
tumbling into the interior. Raze dove into the open doorway,
tackling the baroness as the van jerked back into the flow of
traffic to the blaring of horns and squealing tires.

She fought, her claws raking into his flesh,
her fangs bared as she hissed like a wild creature. A gun went off,
the bullet whistling by his head. Raze crushed her to his chest and
rolled, using her body as a shield against the shooter in the
passenger seat. Her ribs cracked in the vise of his grip.

Her scream pierced his ears. As Lake skid
around a corner, they nearly fell out of the open van door. Gaining
his knees, Raze threw Francesca backwards into the passenger,
startling the man into firing. The bullet lodged in her back, her
eyes widening with agony. Horrified by what he’d done the man
dropped his gun and it slid on the metal floorboard into Raze’s
waiting hand. He took out the minion with a shot to the head and
grabbed Francesca by the wrist, yanking her into him so he could
pierce her throat with his fangs.

As her blood pumped down his throat, he
caught everything she knew—every plan she’d made, every minion
she’d told about those plans. He learned the identity of the
traitor who’d been providing her with Fallen blood and he knew how
to find the names of those he needed to hunt. Not so many, but that
wasn’t what disturbed him.

He released her before the silver poisoning
from the bullet tainted the blood he drank. She slumped to the
floor. Lake screamed and hit the brakes, sending him crashing back
into the bench seat.

“Take another step,” he warned,
straightening, “and I’ll kill you slow instead of fast.”

She paused, sobbing, standing in the apex of
the open door and the body of the vehicle.

Raze gestured her back into the van with a
jerk of the pistol. When she returned to the driver’s seat, he
directed her to drive to Baron’s safe house.

CHAPTER 8

Francesca, Lady Seagrave, eyed the big
vampire who prowled around the refuge she and Baron had created
together and felt the hatred sizzling in her blood along with the
silver that burned like acid. He was lost in the recording he
listened to on her wireless headphones, his face a mask that
revealed none of his thoughts. But he had to hear what she’d heard
through the bugs she’d placed in his hotel room. The tenderness and
affection that had developed between him and his mortal lover were
evident in every word they spoke to each other, every breathless
cry and pleasured moan.

It was going to wound him terribly when he
lost her, perhaps even break him considering how long he’d gone
without anyone being necessary to him.

The crash of something breakable shattering
on the floor sent a jolt through her. There were others in her
home; two men Raze had called to assist him. They were presently
rifling through her things, watching the videos she’d made of
certain memorable kills. They watched and listened with such
horror, as if it was a surprise that a vampire should hunt prey.
That’s what was fundamentally wrong with those in power of the
vampire nation—they acted like animal rights activists who
advocated vegetarianism, an impossible stance when ruling those who
could be nothing but carnivores.

Mortals were food and sport. It was a joke
that vampires should hide their existence and scrape for scraps to
eat when there was so much to be had. The Sentinels were powerful,
yes, but Syre had never once made an attempt to break out of their
rigid boundaries. Who knew what they could accomplish? She and
Baron envisioned a world in which vampires ruled as they should.
She hadn’t Changed to live like this. What was the point of having
so much power if you never wielded it?

Raze yanked the headset off his ears and
shot daggers into her with his gaze.

Her mouth curved. “It’s my right to take her
from you. Baron gave her to you as surely as if he’d introduced
you. You wouldn’t have been in Chicago to meet her if not for
us.”

“Were you planning on going through my
entire black book?” he shot back. “Taking out every person I’ve
fucked?”

“Oh no,” she crooned, nursing her vicious
fury like a babe at her breast. “She’s special to you. Not like the
others. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been at her place this
morning. You would’ve taken what you wanted and left before
sunrise. I miscalculated how quickly and deeply you fell for her,
but it doesn’t matter. She’ll die, whether or not it’s my hand that
kills her. You have so many enemies, Raze. She won’t last a minute
in the grand scheme of things.”

Francesca had to give him credit, his face
and body language gave nothing away. But she knew the impact of her
words. Tossing her head back, she laughed.

“You’re a crazy bitch,” he said grimly. “I’m
just wondering if you were always psychotic or if the Change warped
your brain.”

“I Changed for him. We Changed for each
other, so we’d always be together and you’ve taken him from me. And
for what? You’re as much of a Sentinel pet as the lycans. Now
you’ll
lose something irreplaceable. You’ve finally found
what you’ve been missing and it’s about to be ripped from you. I
hope you’ll see what’s done to her. I hope you watch while she’s
cut and torn and broken. I hope her screams stay in your head—”

There was a split second in which she
registered the gun in his hand. And then there was nothing.

* * *

Raze studied the baroness’s slumped head
with icy detachment. She remained upright courtesy of the
ingeniously heinous chair he’d found in her home—a chair with
silver-plated spiked manacles at the wrists and throat, and a
bottom and back with blades that protruded or retracted via a
handle on the backside.

Turning away, he looked around the warehouse
loft and considered what she’d left behind. There was an entire
bookcase of recorded atrocities stored in jeweled cases. It was a
collection that could never fall into a Sentinel or lycan’s hands,
or questions would be raised that had no good answers. Some of what
he’d seen would haunt him for years to come, minions who’d
succumbed so completely to bloodlust that they were little more
than ravening beasts. Raze wasn’t certain there was anything—even
the Creator’s command that the Fallen live endlessly with their
vampiric curse—that could prevent a war if Adrian believed vampires
were a threat requiring complete eradication.

After all, Adrian had broken other
commandments without punishment.

“This place is a house of horrors,” Crash
muttered behind him, tossing the disks into a crate to be
destroyed. “And they were proud of it. They could’ve kept all this
shit in a cloud or on a hard drive, but they wanted the visual of
how many kills they had under their belt.”

Raze’s phone vibrated in his pocket and he
pulled it out. “Raze.”

“How extensive is the infestation in
Chicago?” Adrian asked without preamble.

His back stiffened. “I’m taking care of
it.”

“If you think that’s going to be enough to
put me off, you haven’t learned anything about me in the last
several eons.” The smoothly modulated tone of the Sentinel’s voice
only made his words more disturbing. “Discovering a few hundred
armed minions in a heavily populated metropolis is a big fucking
problem. Tell Syre if he can’t get a handle on his ranks, I’ll take
the necessary steps to manage it myself.”

“Why don’t—”

“You and the six minions who arrived today
have forty-eight hours to wrap it up and clear out.”

The line died, leaving Raze cursing at an
angel who couldn’t hear him.

There were times when he thought there was
no way to clean up the mess the Fallen had made, times when he
thought even damage control was out of their reach. There were tens
of thousands of vampires policed by less than four hundred combined
Fallen and Sentinels plus a few thousand lycans. The odds were
against them in every way.

He’d felt helpless before, but now he had
something he couldn’t bear to lose. He would hunt down the ones
whose names he found here in Baron’s safe house, but that wouldn’t
make Kim any safer. As long as they were connected in any way, she
would be a target.

* * *

Back in his hotel room, Raze looked into the
video feed of Vash’s office on his brand-new iPad and caught her
up. “I got the list of Baron’s followers off his laptop and most of
the team is out hunting them now. They had me tailed from the
moment I arrived at the airport. While I was killing Baron at the
ballpark, the baroness was here in my room planting bugs.”

“So now we know why she wasn’t there that
night.”

“Right. That’s what I couldn’t get: why the
hell did they draw my attention? If they hadn’t dumped that body on
my porch, we wouldn’t be on to them now. Reviving Grimm’s doctrine
was a ruse. They used it to round up enough minions to put on that
show at Wrigley Field, but their real agenda was to get those bugs
on me for future intel gathering. We found them in every room of my
suite and on my iPad. They planted tracking devices on my bags.
They knew every move I made and would have continued to know, if
she hadn’t fucked up and gone after Kim this morning. The baroness
hadn’t planned on my being there.”