Blood Spirit (13 page)

"Let
me know how that goes, gentlemen," Terek said as he walked toward the
stairs. As he reached the main floor, he heard Dante call his name. Waiting for
him, Terek felt the exhaustion of the past few days begin to take him over.

"Terek,
we didn't get a chance to talk. Some news, huh?"

"It's
very good. Just what I needed."

Dante
stood studying his face. "You okay?"

Pinching
the bridge of his nose, Terek forced a smile. "I'm fine. I just have a lot
on my mind."

"Anything
I can help with? It's the least I can do after all you've done for me. Of all
these guys, you've been like a father to me."

Terek
narrowed his eyes. Now he was like a father? "Dante, I was turned before I
was thirty. You were turned when you were twenty. Maybe big brother, but
father?"

"I
just meant you've been a vampire since the 1300s, and I was made vampire in the
1980s."

As
Terek turned to leave, he mumbled, "By that logic, I'd be your great
grandfather ten times over."

Dante
caught him by the sleeve before he could make it very far. "Seriously,
Terek. What's going on? You don't look like yourself."

Terek
had to admit he didn't feel like himself. This thing with Ilona preyed on his
mind, distracting him. Whatever he did didn't seem to work, and he should've sent
her away by now. But he couldn't.

"I'm
having a problem with one of my vampires," he reluctantly admitted.

"One
of your women?" Dante asked in a shocked voice.

Maybe
confiding in Dante was a bad idea. "It's nothing." Jerking his arm
from Dante's hold, Terek made his way across the monastery's entrance hall.

Dante
caught up with him and stepped in front of him to stop his progress. "I
didn't mean anything by that, Terek. What's going on? Maybe talking about it
would help."

Maybe
he was right. The truth was he had only Jasmine to talk to but to do that made
him feel weak. He was her sire and no matter how long she'd been with him, she
was still his vampire.

Hanging
his head, he said, "Yes, one of my women."

"What's
going on? Those ladies adore you. You're a legend."

"Well,
this legend can't get his newest vampire to even take his blood without
hypnotizing her," Terek admitted in defeat.

"So
hypnotize her. What's the big deal?"

"I
don't want her like that."

Dante
grinned broadly. "Oh, I see. You want her to want the legend."

Terek
shook his head in disgust. "I don't give a fuck about the legend business.
I never believed it anyway."

Dante's
face grew serious. "I get it, Terek. You care about her, like you do for
all of yours."

"This
one's different, Dante. I don't know why, but she's different."

Dante
raised his eyebrows in disbelief. "Different? Are we talking 'the one'
different?"

Terek
had let the thought pass through his mind that Ilona's refusal of his blood
bothered him more than it should because he saw something in her that he'd
never found in any of his vampires. In truth, if it was just about her needing
his blood, he'd hypnotize her and be done with it.

"I
don't know. I'm not even sure the one exists for me anymore. Maybe I had the
one I was supposed to have and don't get another chance."

The
surprised look on the young vampire's face made Terek feel foolish. What did he
know about the one anyway? Twenty-year-olds know only about their cocks.
Sighing, he shook his head. "Never mind. I'm just tired."

Terek
pushed past Dante and headed up the stairs to the room he stayed in at the
monastery. From behind him, he heard Dante say, "Haven't you just listened
to her thoughts to find out what's wrong?"

Turning
to face him, he said quietly, "I can't hear her thoughts. I've
tried."

"Then
I'd say that's where you start to solve your problem."

Dante's
words struck him like a thunderbolt. Of course! Before he could figure out
anything about Ilona, he had to find out why she was the only being he'd met in
seven hundred years whose thoughts he couldn't hear.

His
spirit buoyed, he felt suddenly renewed. "Thanks. I'll have to do
that."

Dante
shrugged and laughed. "Clyten and relationship expert. I should get
business cards made up with that on them."

Terek
rolled his eyes. "Good night, Dante."

"Anytime,
Terek."

Chapter Eleven

Marc
Verrater stretched his body after a good day's sleep. Rolling Emily off him, he
swung his legs off the bed and padded over the marble tile floor that felt
great under his feet. Out in the other room, he picked up his phone from his
desk. Checking his cell, he saw calls and texts from a number of his fellow
Archons but nothing from Knull.

"Fucking
lazy bastard. He's probably holed up in some whore's apartment shirking his
fucking duty."

As
he scrolled through his messages, he was pleased to see his idea about the
blood was being so well received. The plan was a good one, if he did say so
himself. Get vampires addicted to a blood replacement product—yeah, that had a
great marketing sound to it—and then they'd be far less hassle when he and his
fellow Archons completed their takeover.

It
was genius. And it would work.

Most
vampires, like most humans, were sheep. Easily led sheep. A few famous vampires
saying they love it and they'd have a hard time keeping it on the shelves.

Marc
snorted in disgust at how lacking his race had become. Capable of living
forever if they did it right, most of his kind were useless shells, blind to
their potential, or worse yet, apathetic to it. When they were staked, it was
no loss.

God,
they disgusted him! It would be fun to watch them fall over themselves to buy
the very thing that would lead to their enslavement.

But
the beauty of the plan was even better than that. They'd love the new blood
product, but then something newer, more addictive, would begin to show up.
First, in the big cities, but then in every town and hamlet across the globe.
If the blood replacement product was like caffeine, the thing they'd replace it
with would be like crack.

And
they'd beg for it.

He
scrubbed the last vestiges of sleep from his face and sat down on the sofa in
front of the massive wall of windows in the living room. The view of Corsica it afforded had impressed even him when he first saw it.

A
fuck lot nicer than that Avignon shithole.

Life
was good, and it was getting better. One Son down—well, two if Collins was
counted—and a third one losing his vampires by the hour. Chuckling at the
thought, his mind quickly switched gears as he considered how Phillips was
succeeding at killing the Romanian's vampires. If somehow that hapless clown got
lucky and got the Romanian himself, he'd be unstoppable.

Fuck.

His
mood ruined, Marc dialed Knull's number and was forced to listen to some
classical music instead of ringing. The irritating sound only added to his
disgust.

"Hello?"
Knull's gravelly voice sounded into his head.

"It's
eight o'clock, Knull."

"I
know. I know. I guess I slept in. You know how it is." Knull chuckled as
if he'd just told some dirty joke, and Marc grimaced at the idea of what
sleeping in meant to someone like Knull.

"No,
I don't and I don't fucking care to."

"Sorry.
I wish I had better news. I don't have any good leads on your girl yet."

Marc
sighed in disgust. How fucking hard could it be for a hunter to find one woman?
Wasn't that the sum total of his job?

"And
my men have run into a situation with Sampson's vampires."

Waiting
for an explanation of this situation, Marc heard only silence. "Do you
plan on telling me what it is?" he asked in frustration.

"We
can't seem to find them."

"What?"

"They
aren't where they're supposed to be."

Standing,
Marc began to pace back and forth in front of the window. "You have all
the resources of the Archons at your disposal and you can't find one goddamned
sire's vampires? Isn't that what a fucking hunter does?"

"We
got the first couple but then none. We can't find them."

Running
his hand through his hair, Marc stared out at the Corsican landscape. "Do
you or any of your Algonquin fucking roundtablers working for you have a theory
where these vampires could be or how they got there?"

"Uh...Algonquin
who?" Knull asked in what Marc knew sadly wasn't feigned confusion.

"Do
you have any idea why they're missing?"

"My
guess is that they're being hidden by the other Sons."

"Fucking
do-gooders! How is it six vampires can accomplish what you and your team
cannot?"

Knull
stammered his defense. "I...well...sir, they have all the resources of the
Order at their disposal."

"You
aren't truly comparing the Archons with a bunch of ancients who still believe
in prehistoric nonsense, are you?"

"No,
sir. But they must be helping them because we can't find them."

Marc
stood silently, trying to find some place in his mind that wasn't crowded with
failure from this idiot on the other end of the line. "Do you have
anything good to report, Knull?"

"The
Romanian's vampires are dropping like flies, I hear. Phillips' men have been
bragging it's only a matter of time before they find him. That's good
news."

"For
Phillips, Knull!" Marc bellowed into the phone.

"But
for the Archons overall, no?"

"I
don't care about the Archons overall. I care about you finding Solenne and
bringing her to me and for your men to wipe the rest of Sampson's vampires off
the face of the Earth."

On
the other end of the phone, Knull began groveling.  "I understand, sir.
We'll find them, sir. And I'll bring her to you. It will happen."

Marc
pressed his thumb on the red End Call button and threw his phone across the
table. Somehow tapping his cell phone screen didn't provide the satisfaction
slamming the phone receiver had years ago.

If
Knull and his incompetence was all the night held for him, he'd make damn sure
he found some happiness before he was forced to go to work.

Storming
back into the bedroom, he found Emily still sleeping soundly, taking up far too
much of the bed with her spread eagle position. Naked, she looked inviting as
she lay there on her stomach, and Marc's cock stiffened in response to the
lovely sight she made. Her nicely plump ass as much as beckoned him to enjoy her,
and as he crawled onto the bed, he yanked her to him by the hips.

Half-asleep,
her torso and head flopped around like a fish out of water until he tugged
roughly on her hair to straighten her.

"Marc!
I was sleeping!" she cried as she attempted to pull away.

Another
hard pull on the back of her hair made her cry out in pain, but she quickly got
on all fours in front of him. One hard thrust with his hips and he was into her
up to his balls. She wasn't quite wet enough, so he reached around and with his
fingertip fondled her clit.

Emily
turned her head to look at him over her shoulder, and Marc saw the schoolgirl
expression she always put on because she knew he liked it. She was nothing if
not accommodating.

"Mmmm...you
should have told me you were in the mood," she said in a sugar sweet voice
as she arched her back.

"Don't
talk."

Instead,
she moaned, a little too loudly if he were to be honest, until he jerked her
hand away from fingering herself. "Get down on your forearms."

The
one thing that was nice about Emily is that she did what she was told. Her
almost constant chattering about inane topics made him want to kill her
sometimes, and she often seemed to be underfoot, which irritated him to no end.
But she was obedient.

Emily
lowered to her forearms, giving Marc an angle that felt much better. Leaning
forward, he fisted her hair with his left hand, pushing her head into the bed
as he drove into her cunt.

In
this position, it didn't take long before his balls tightened up to his body,
and seconds later, he exploded into her, pumping jets of cum into her willing
body. When he finally finished, he pulled back away from her, swatted her ass,
and headed for the shower.

At
least there would be something good about this night.

***

Terek
awoke as the sun set and wished he was home in Spain in his own bed. With
Ilona. His talk with Dante had left him hopeful, and for the first time in
days, he hadn't gone to sleep with more problems than he'd had when the night
started.

Maybe
the kid is beginning to grow up.

A
quick shower that was nowhere as enjoyable as his Roman bath at home and he was
dressing to return to Spain. On his way out, he'd check on Sasa and then it was
time to take matters with Ilona into his own hands.

The
door to Vasilije's study was open a crack and as he grabbed the door to open
it, he spied Sasa sitting behind the desk alongside Thane. As he silently
watched, she fed from his wrist, eyes closed, looking utterly content.

Terek
knew it was completely innocent. How had Thane explained it? One friend to
another to help out a fellow Son? The problem was that it looked anything but
innocent. Thane was obviously enjoying himself, if the look in his half-lidded
eyes was any indication, and Sasa seemed happy as she held his wrist to her
mouth. They appeared quite at ease with one another, and Terek wondered if
she'd look like that if she were feeding from him.

As
he watched, a feeling that he was intruding on a private moment came over him.
What anyone else did was none of his business, and the reality of the situation
was that Vasilije had left her without an option regarding where she was to
find blood. That he was so careless was an understandable mistake, considering
what he was dealing with, but a mistake nonetheless that he'd have to confront
when he returned.