Dark Embrace (Principatus) (33 page)

Inari stared at her, motionless, angry and aching. In the very center of her existence, the core of who she was, a pulling sensation itched. A yearning she’d never experienced before but recognized all the same. The bond between her and Ezryn. Even now, tortured by confusion and contempt—both for herself and the arrogant vampire—she wanted to go to him. Wanted to be with him, not just sexually but completely. Wanted to see him, feel him, hear him. Every sense she possessed ached for him, an inescapable itch growing inside her. And despite the distance between them, she
knew
he felt the very same.

The bonding bite. Why else would Ezryn have bitten her so if not because of what she was? God, what a fucked-up situation.

She let out a bitter sigh. “So, I
am
succubus once more.”

Tianya shrugged. “Maybe? Maybe not. My long-dead soul says no, but what do I know? I’m a ghost.” She paused, giving Inari a mischievous grin. “But consider this—when you were succubus, you consciously and deliberately fed on the sexual energy of your prey. Have you done that to Ezryn Navarr?”

Inari stared at her sister, her blood roaring in her ears. There had been no conscious decision to drain the vampire. In fact, she’d fought her desire for Ezryn every time he touched her. And if she
had
fed on his lust, why did she feel so drained? So exhausted?

But what other explanation is there, Inari? The moment Ezryn first saw you in the Pleasure Pussy he sank his tongue into your sex. The next time he all but ravished you on a footpath. The time after that he threw you on the bed and fucked you until you both screamed. Why would he do that if not under the influence of succubus force?

She dragged her hands through her hair and looked at her sister. “I know what a binding bite does to a vampire. Why would he willingly expose himself to such weakness?”

Tianya gave her another entirely too ambiguous smile. “Love?”

“Love?” Inari let out another sharp snort. “He’s a vampire, Tianya. He has no soul. He is incapable of love.”

“There are many creatures in this world with souls who do not love, Inari. You do not need a soul to feel.” Tianya’s smile softened. “A soul does not give you the ability to love, nor the ability to know what is right and what is wrong.” She paused, her eyes clear and direct and intense. “I was loved more deeply, more strongly by my soulless succubus sister than any human I knew.”

Inari’s throat squeezed tight. Tianya had her there. Her love for her kid sister knew no bound or limits. Never had, never would. Not even death could make it otherwise. She blinked back tears, hating every second of this conversation. Hating that her sister was dead, that she could never hold her or hug her again. Hating that every word Tianya said only made her ache with ridiculous hope. Dangerous, insane hope for a future she’d never dreamed possible.

Tianya studied her with unreadable eyes. “Does the master vampire make you feel good?”

Exasperation shot through her. She threw up her hands, her pulse thumping in her neck like a trip hammer. “He makes me
feel
, period. Happy, sad, furious, insane, scared. Christ, the bastard makes me feel emotions I never knew
existed
, let alone ones I didn’t think I could experience again. I want to kill him. I want to hold him. By the Powers, I want to spend the rest of eternity just looking at him.” She stopped as prickling heat razed her flesh and the itch in her core erupted. What was she saying?

She shook her head, fixing her sister with a flat stare. “I hate him.”

Tianya burst out laughing. “No, you don’t.”

Inari ground her teeth. “Yes, I do.”

Her sister raised her eyebrows, a pointed action so similar to her own Inari felt a little chill ripple up her spine. “Because he makes you feel? Are you sure it’s hate in your heart, Inari Chayse?”

Tianya’s question sank into Inari’s confusion and she stared at her sister, mouth turning dry. O
h, no. Not that. Not…

“You know what, sis?” Tianya said, her laughter abruptly absent from her voice. “I’m sick of the angst. You’re a three-hundred-year-old demon assassin, not a moping teenage girl with a crush on a vampire. Despite the fact you’ve done nothing but try to kill each other or fuck like rabbits since the second you met, the master vampire makes you happy. Accept it, deal with it and move on.”

Inari snorted. “Easy words for a ghost, Ti, or whatever the hell you are. I don’t see
you
moving on.”

“Ah, but I’m not the Principatus of the family. Nor the succubus.”

“Were you this annoying alive?”

“Yes.” A puzzled frown pulled at Tianya’s straight eyebrows. “Have you ever wondered why you were chosen to be reborn a Principatus?”

Something intangible stirred in Inari’s chest. “Because I chose not to kill an innocent boy barely old enough to be a man when ordered to do so by the First Horseman of the Apocalypse.”

Tianya tilted her head to the side. “There are many demons out there who, by their own choice, decide not to kill or torture or maim an innocent, and they do not become Principatus. So why you? Haven’t you once wondered why, of all the monsters preying on mankind, you were one to be elevated? Reborn? Don’t you think there must be a reason for that?”

“The boy was special. I’d never felt a soul more pure. More…divine. Like the soul of the Highest.”

“He was special. And he became more so. But Inari, were you chosen just because of who you saved? Or because of what
you
became when reborn as well? A Principatus capable of using fear and lust as a weapon? The two most elemental emotions of them all?”

An indefinable sensation stirred in Inari’s chest. It spread through her, making her skin prickle and her breath short.

“I think you still command the power of a sex demon,” Tianya went on, voice completely matter-of-fact. “I don’t think you ever lost it. If you really wanted to, Inari, I believe you could drive a man—or demon—insane with lust without even touching him. Just as you did when you were a succubus.” She paused, a pointed expression on her sweet, innocent face. “What a powerful weapon for an assassin of the Highest to have.”

Inari blinked.

Was that possible? Wouldn’t she know?

Why would you? It’s not like you had lessons on how to be a Principatus. One moment you were a succubus, the next, an assassin of God. One second your head is full of every way possible to make a male orgasm, the next you’re a walking killing machine with a single-minded drive to hunt and destroy all demon kind and a direct download of targets from the Powers. Ven’s the only other Principatus you’ve had any contact with, and you can count the number of words he’s spoken to you on two hands.

She blinked again and a roaring noise throbbed in her ears.

Tianya smiled, the expression so warm Inari’s heart ached. “It’s time to let go of your guilt, sis. Time to let go of the fear of who you are,
what
you are, and face what must be.”

“What does that mean, Tianya? What exactly ‘must be’? A happy-ever-after with a bloodsucking demon? And not just any bloodsucking demon, but the born leader of them all?”

“Why not?” Tianya grinned. “I’ve heard of stranger things happening. Like a human child being born to demon parents, for one.”

“That’s different.”

“Why?”

Frustrated, exasperated,
scared
of what her sister suggested, Inari dropped her head into her hands and scrubbed at her face. “Damn, I hate being confused.”

“Don’t be confused, In.” Tianya’s soft whisper tickled the back of her neck and a shiver rippled over her skin. “What you want is in your soul. You can feel it, I know you can. It’s like a little itch pulling you where you know you want to be.” There was a brief pause, barely a second, and then Tianya said, “I love you, sis. Forever.”

Her sister’s words jerked Inari’s head up from her hands and she stared at Tianya. Or would have if she’d still been there.

“Damn you, Ti,” Inari growled, glaring at the empty space where her sister had just stood. She grabbed at her bottom lip with her teeth, replaying every word Tianya had spoken.

Succubus. Assassin. Lust. Love. Everything she had said, Inari knew—
knew
—to be true. Everything.

“So what does that mean?”

Pulling a deep, slow breath, she closed her eyes and an image of Ezryn instantly filled her head, his dark eyes ablaze with undeniable desire, burning with irrefutable anger.

The itch in her belly flared, powerful and demanding. It pulled her, owning her.
 

She let out a ragged sigh. From the very second she’d laid eyes upon Ezryn her world had turned upside down. From the very moment his hands had touched hers, she’d become an emotional, physical and psychological mess. And now here she was, bound to him eternally.

What do you plan to do about that, Inari? What do you want to do?

A slow smile curled her lips at the unexpected swell of warmth and acceptance rolling through her. She opened her eyes. “A happy-ever-after with a blood sucker.” She snorted a soft chuckle. “Who would have thought?”

Now all she had to do was convince said bloodsucker she hadn’t succubussed his ass.

Before he chanced his own existence and killed her.

The Pleasure Pussy writhed and pulsed and thrummed around him, a living, breathing testament to the power of sex, lust and desire. Fae strippers copulated on the runway stage, their sublime, ethereal beauty feeding the sexual appetites of the strip club’s patrons. Bodies moved against each other, feeding, fucking, watching. The air hung heavy with the wet products of their pleasure. Sweat, musk and blood.

Ezryn ignored all of it.

He stormed through the club, searching the crowd for a hint, a
hint
, curse it, of his general.

Nothing. He couldn’t see him, couldn’t smell him, couldn’t sense him.

He raked his hands through his hair, guilt and apprehension gnawing at his fraying calm. A feral growl rumbled in his chest. “Where the fuck are you, Jake?”

“What part of ‘I’d be a touched miffed if something were to happen to her’ didn’t you understand?”

Ven Watkins’s deep, smooth voice made Ezryn start, and he snapped his head to his right, finding the supreme Principatus beside him. The assassin stood calm and still, his tall, lean frame covered in an immaculate black suit, the black shirt he wore beneath the jacket open at the neck, a black tie knotted loosely at the open collar. His lips curled in an almost sardonic smile as he watched the skin show taking place on the stage. To a casual observer, he would appear the perfect package of a sexual being. Until you looked into his eyes. His eyes burned infinite, icy displeasure. He was not happy.

Ezryn met those eyes with deliberate defiance, every nerve ending in his body sizzling with rising agitation.
He
was not happy either. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you bit Inari Chayse.” Watkins gave Ezryn a long look. “With a binding bite.” He raised a squat glass filled with blue liquid to his lips and a detached part of Ezryn’s brain recognized it as Carpathian mountain water just before the Principatus drank the entire contents in a single swallow.

A sudden thump smashed into life in Ezryn’s temple. He narrowed his eyes and stepped directly in front of Watkins, forcing the assassin to follow his movement not just with his eyes, but his head. “How do you know that?”

Watkins’s eyes flared colder. “For a master vampire, you don’t know much about your enemy, do you?”

A low snarl vibrated deep in Ezryn’s throat. Anger sawed into his control, but he kept his expression composed. Just… Now was not the time to pick a fight with the supreme Principatus. “Inari is not hurt, nor is she harmed.” He cocked an eyebrow, meeting Watkins’s contemptuous gaze. “Trust me, I would know.”

“And yet you are here, in a strip club dedicated to the pleasures of the flesh.” Watkins cocked his own eyebrow. “Without her.”

Ezryn’s anger grew hotter. “Why I am here has nothing to do with you or Inari.”

“No, it has to do with your general. And your brother.”

Ezryn stared at Watkins, unnerved shock and irritated frustration a balled fist pounding in his stomach. “What do you know about Jacob?” he snarled, taking a step closer to the Principatus. “And what does my brother have to do with it?”

Ven’s eyes flared green ice. “Your brother is an idiot who has no concept of how to lead his people. He believes torture will get him what he wants.”

The ball in Ezryn’s gut punched harder. “Are you telling me Haral has Jacob?”

The Principatus said nothing.

A tsunami of incinerating rage flooded through Ezryn. He growled, the urge to shift completely into his true vampire form turning the blood in his veins thick and hot. If Harry had Jacob…

Struggling for control, he glared at the assassin standing before him. “You know why my brother is here, don’t you?”

Watkins barely inclined his head.

Ezryn’s anger burned hotter still. “Then why don’t you do something about it? You’re the Powers’ fucking golden boy. Help me end my brother’s tyranny and save my general.”

Watkins’s indifferent expression didn’t falter. “This is a blood feud, Ezryn. It does not affect me or those I protect.”