Consumed (11 page)

A spike of anger shot through my system. “That’s one thing I’d never do.” Apparently there was enough conviction in that statement that not even Cristiano would doubt it, because he instantly quieted.

When he spoke again, his voice was calmer. “
Put Ava back on the phone
.”

“All right. But if I hear you trying to talk her into walking away from me, I’ll end the call.”

“
Interfering bastard
,” he muttered.

I grunted. “So she often tells me.” I held out the phone, and she grabbed it with a haughty sniff before backing away.

Her voice was quiet and hesitant. “Hello?”

“
Are you sure about this, Ava
?”

She looked at me for a long moment before answering. “Yes.”

Good, because she wasn’t going anywhere.

“
Why couldn’t you have picked someone…sane?
”

She smiled. “He has lucid moments, though they’re few and far between. And he’s a warm, cuddly bear at heart.”

I arched a reproachful brow as I advanced on her. She backed up, giggling. “You’ll pay for that, Ava.”

“
What did he say
?”

Still backing away, she giggled again. “Nothing. Look, I’m going to have to go.”

“
Wait, I’m not –
”

I struck quickly, snatching the phone and ending the call. “Warm and cuddly? I don’t fucking think so.”

“The land of denial is a toxic place to live.” She squealed as I suddenly slung her over my shoulder and began striding toward the bedroom. A giggle burst out of her as she demanded, “What are you doing?”

“Demonstrating that I may be many things, but cuddly isn’t one of them.” I dumped her on the bed, and she squealed again. I stared at her, lips pursed. “I wonder if I can get you to make that noise when I’m inside you. Let’s find out.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

(Ava)

“So let me get this straight.” I placed my empty NST bottle on the counter in front of me as I leaned forward in the breakfast stool. We’d migrated into his apartment just before dawn, since he hadn’t wanted to sleep in a bed adorned with pink, glittery covers. “You not only want me to give up my apartment and move in here, but you want me to do it tonight?”

Salem didn’t even look up from his breakfast. “Yep.” To him, this was a foregone conclusion.

It truly was a shame that I couldn’t reach far enough with my legs to kick him under the counter. “No.”

That made his head snap up. “Why?”

With anyone else, it would have been easy to explain – mostly because it was totally obvious. Our relationship was a few nights old; it made sense to give it some time before taking such a big step. But Salem didn’t think like other people. He didn’t think in terms of what was normal or what was reasonable to others. He thought in terms of what
he
wanted and what made sense to
him
.

To Salem, it made absolutely perfect sense for me to move in here. It wasn’t even arrogance. It was that he genuinely didn’t see the problem. “Look, I can’t just give up my apartment.”

“Why?”

“Because we don’t know for sure that our relationship will be a permanent thing.”

“Yes, we do.” Like it would be achieved by the power of his formidable will.

“Just because you
want
it to be permanent doesn’t mean that it
will
be.”

“Yes, it does.”

I suppressed the urge to bang my head on the counter. “Life isn’t full of guarantees. There’s always a possibility that we could mess this up.”

“No, there isn’t.” He punctuated that by shoving a forkful of egg into his mouth.

This time, I
didn’t
suppress the urge to bang my head on the counter. In fact, I did it three times; all the while digging deep – really, really deep – for patience. I didn’t find any. “It would be stupid to rush things.”

“Rush? This thing between us started three months ago.”

“Yeah, in your head.”

His brow very slowly slid up. “Are you saying it didn’t?”

“I’m saying that you like to think I’ve been yours all this time because you’re ridiculously possessive.” I wagged a finger. “Having someone blow hot and cold with me for three months does not constitute a relationship in Ava’s world.”

“That wasn’t me blowing hot and cold. That was me fighting with myself.” He took a sip of his coffee-flavoured NST. “In any case, it doesn’t change the fact that what’s between us all began the minute you arrived on the island. This was inevitable, Ava. It was just a matter of us both accepting it.”

“I’m willing to concede that this has been building between us for a while. But I don’t see how this means we should push things. No, we should wait; get to know each other better.” And slowly get him used to my hyper ways.

“We’ve spent the past few months doing that.”

“I would have thought the last thing you wanted was to share your personal space with anyone.” The guy was just so cagey and private.

He pushed aside his empty plate. “You’re not ‘anyone’. You’re Ava. You’re mine. You belong here, with me.”

The girly part of me actually liked the caveman thing, which was severely frowned upon by the independent woman in me. “Look, we shouldn’t try to sing before we can talk, or we could fuck things up.”

“Isn’t the phrase ‘don’t try to walk before you can crawl’?”

“Not when I say it.”

The corner of his mouth kicked up into a quarter of a smile. “Why fight me on something you want as much as I do? And you
do
want it.”

“Because,
as I’ve already explained numerous times
, it’s too early in the relationship for this.” I jerked in surprise as he suddenly appeared at my side in less than the time it took to blink.

Swerving my stool to face him, he cupped my chin, pinning me with his frustrated gaze. “You’re talking like this is one of your casual flings, Ava. It’s not. It’s far from fucking casual.”

“I never said it wasn’t.”

“You gave yourself to me. What’s more serious than that?”

“I’m not saying this isn’t serious –”

“You knew how tight I’d hold you. You knew just how possessive and domineering I’d be.” Releasing my chin, he cocked his head. “How old are you, Ava? Human and vampire years in total.”

I shifted in my seat, suddenly and inexplicably feeling a little defensive. “Twenty-eight.”

“So young.” He ran the tip of his finger from my temple to my jawline. “I’ve walked this Earth for over eighty years. When you reach that age, when you have such a long history of memories, experiences, mistakes, and regrets, it’s much easier to be introspective. Much easier to know what you really want, just how important it is. And just how hard you’ll fight to keep it. We take it for granted that the people around us will always be there. That’s not how it works.”

“You lost someone very close to you.” This was the grief that Fletcher had mentioned.

“One minute someone’s there, the next minute they’re gone. Just like that.” He clicked his fingers. “You and I both have very dangerous jobs. Jobs that can take us away from each other so very, very easily.”

I understood what he was getting at. If something happened to him in the future, if I lost him, I would feel that I had wasted time with the whole ‘let’s wait a while and see how things go’. And I would hate that I’d wasted it.

Fletcher hadn’t been wrong when he said that Salem wouldn’t be an easy person to be with, that he was darkly possessive. But then, I’d already known that. Known that I’d thrown myself in the deep end with someone who would demand everything from me, who would become my second skin if I let him. It would have been scary if it wasn’t for that odd ability he had to make me feel safe.

Even now, with him looming over me, tension radiating from him, and his face a mask of frustration and torment, I felt safe. I also felt myself losing the battle to be mad at him. How could I, when there was no much pain in his eyes? I wanted it gone.

Slumping in my stool, I sighed in defeat. “You’re good at this.”

“What?”

“Getting your way.”

The shadows left his eyes and his mouth curved into a
full
smile. I nearly fell off the stool in shock. Moving to stand between my legs, he threaded his fingers through my hair. “Remember that next time you think about fighting me on something.”

I snorted, amused. “You’d be bored if I always let you have your own way.” I wanted to ask him about the loss he’d hinted at. But I didn’t want to dig up the pain again, didn’t want to lose that panty-dropping smile. I’d shelve my questions for now.

“You could never bore me.” His mouth was mere inches from mine when there was a knock at the door. My entire body seemed to sigh in disappointment. “Later,” he promised me with a growl.

I followed him out of the room, expecting it to be Will, or maybe even Gina. As such, I was surprised to see Sam and Jared at the door. “Evening,” Sam greeted with a smile as she entered. Salem and Jared exchanged curt nods.

“We stopped by your apartment first,” Sam told me. “When you didn’t answer, we figured you’d be here.”

They’d been looking for me? A lifetime habit kicked in, urging me to instantly declare…“It wasn’t me. I wasn’t there. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She chuckled. “You’re not in any kind of trouble. If you were, you’d probably be able to use that sweet, innocent face of yours to get out of it. We just have some questions that we hope you can answer.”

“Oh. Not a problem, then.”

Salem came to my side, curling his fingers possessively around my wrist. “What’s going on?”

“Like Sam said, we just have some questions for Ava.” Jared’s intense, hazel gaze then locked on me – it was hard not to squirm. “When we were in the brothel, the demon we found in the attic mentioned The Underground. You knew what she meant.” I nodded. “So you know about demons?”

“A little. One of the people I was friends with when I was human…Well, it turned out she was a demon. I didn’t find out until after I Turned. Since I was preternatural too, she felt comfortable enough to reveal what she was.”

Salem spoke to Jared then. “Why the interest in demons?”

“An hour ago, we were contacted by a vampire from Sebastian’s line,” he replied. “He was instructed to pass us a message from a demon named Knox Thorne.” Jared looked at me. “You know him?”

“I wouldn’t say I
know
him. I met him once, but we didn’t really talk much. My friend belonged to his lair before she mated into another one, so I saw him at the celebration of her mating.”

“Well, it seems that the demon who was held captive in the brothel belongs to Thorne’s lair.”

“What was the message?” Salem asked Jared.

“Thorne wants to meet with us. According to the messenger, the guy’s pissed and he wants to know about the vampires behind the existence of the brothel.”

Sam’s expression was grim. “We can’t afford to give him any intel. It’s one thing for us to track and destroy the bitch as punishment. But if another species was to attack her, the woman’s entire line would want to retaliate, despite that she deserves whatever comes her way.”

Jared nodded. “If a war then begins, we’ll be forced to choose a side. I wouldn’t want to defend her, but it wouldn’t be good to side with demons over our own kind. We’d no longer be trusted to protect vampirekind.”

“A war between vampires and demons could even make other preternatural species nervous and worry they’re next,” Salem pointed out. “They could decide to attack us first, considering it the best form of defence.”

“Exactly,” said Sam. “We’ve agreed to meet with Thorne. If we hadn’t, it would not only have been considered an insult, but it would have made him think that we aren’t taking all this seriously. The problem is that I don’t know much about demons, and I don’t want to go in there blind. All I could find out about Knox Thorne is that he’s a ruthless businessman who runs a chain of hotels, casinos, restaurants, and nightclubs.”

“He wants us to meet him at one of his hotels,” revealed Jared. “But we need to know what we’re dealing with here. Demons are pretty insular and private – it’s hard to understand them. The last thing I would have expected to learn was that a demon is a fucking billionaire who mingles in perfectly with unsuspecting humans.”

“That’s the thing about demons,” I began, “they hide in plain sight. You won’t find them dressed in leather, holed up in bars. Demons like power and control and challenges. A lot of them are CEOs, politicians, bankers, lawyers, police, and people in the media.”

“What’s The Underground?”

“A subterranean location that’s apparently like Vegas on steroids. I’ve heard that they’ve got casinos, bars, fighting rings, bistros, and clubs down there. My friend said they even hold concerts in The Underground.”

“And if I had teleported to their personal playground with an injured demon, they would have pounced on me,” Jared realised. “What about demons themselves? What are they like?”

“They aren’t naturally evil, if that’s what you mean. They can be good, bad, or something in between. They’re notoriously sexual, they have addictive natures, and they enjoy adrenalin rushes. Like with us, there are different breeds. I’m talking
lots
of different breeds: reapers, harpies, incubi, succubae, hellcats, hellhounds – the list goes on.”

Appearing pretty fascinated, Sam tapped her chin. “Which breed is the most powerful?”

“From what I learned, none are more powerful than the other. Whether a demon is powerful or not depends on the individual.”  

“You said they’re not evil, but the thing we saw in the attic – that was fucking evil,” maintained Salem.

“Demons are a lot like shifters; they have a dualism to the soul. Whereas shifters share their soul with an animal, demons share their soul with an entity which is – essentially – a psychopath. Their eyes turn black when the inner demon surfaces; that’s what we were dealing with in the attic. Some do hand over full control to their inner demon, become rogue, but they’re quickly dealt with. Demons police their own pretty well.”

Jared took a moment to digest that before speaking again. “What about their hierarchy? Where does Thorne sit in it?”

“Their hierarchy isn’t like ours, they don’t have an overall leader. Demons belong to different ‘lairs’, and each lair has a dominant figure. Thorne’s the leader of his lair, which is a pretty large one. That means he has more influence than most. He’s widely respected amongst his kind.”

“Great,” mumbled Sam. “We couldn’t have pissed off a lowly lair, could we?” She sighed. “What’s he like? I want to know who I’ll be meeting.”

“In a word, daunting. Seriously, I’m not easily intimidated or freaked. But that guy scares me – mostly because he’s not trying to be scary. He’s really smooth and charismatic, but you can just
feel
that his calm can change in the blink of an eye. And he’s really…” I hesitated, knowing this wouldn’t wash down well with Salem.