Dark Embrace (Principatus) (36 page)

He threw himself into the agony, welcoming it. Cherishing it. Feeding on it. And the chains snapped.

“No!” Haral squealed, scurrying backward through the door.

“Jake! No!” Ezryn’s shout scraped at his fury, a compelling voice he could not ignore, but could not obey either. Not at the moment. All that mattered was what had to be done—and what had to be done was the utter and complete decimation of Haral Navarr.

Jacob flung himself at the fat, gibbering vampire, a clear and rational part of his mind noting the horde of guards charging into the ballroom at the overlord’s screech. Their presence meant little. He landed on Haral with fluid speed. Hands fisting in the fat fuck’s velvet collar, feet planting against his disgustingly flabby gut, Jacob slammed him to the ground.

Haral squealed again, eyes bulging. “Get him!
Get him
!”

The overlord’s wails filled the air, almost drowned out by Ezryn’s roar, “Jake! Get off him! You’re leaving yourself—”

Jacob smashed his fist into Haral’s face, mashing his knuckles against the vampire’s cheek. He felt the bone shatter, and cold satisfaction speared into his incensed hate. “For my wife,” he snarled, smashing his fist into the vampire’s jaw. “For my friend.” He slammed his forehead into Haral’s nose. “For my kind.” He grabbed two handfuls of Haral’s hair to pound his head into the floor.

Haral flailed and bucked beneath him, squealing and screeching like a gutted pig.
“Get him! Get him!”

“Jake!” Ezryn roared. “You need to—”

The wet sound of flesh being torn apart slapped against Jake’s consciousness, and he jerked his stare from Haral just in time to see Ezryn rip a guard’s throat out beside him. Two more vampires launched themselves at his master, their eyes wild with fear. In the corner of the room, the chained women squealed. Human women. Defenseless against a vampire’s true power.

Just like Jacob’s wife.

“Get him!”
Haral screeched, thrashing beneath Jacob, hot spittle spewing from his mouth in thick tendrils, blood pissing from his nose in ropey snot.
“Kill him!”

Jacob hissed and smashed his forehead into Haral’s shattered nose again. “I should have done this fifty fucking years ago,” he snarled, smacking the wailing vampire’s head to the tiles over and over again. “But better late—” he slammed his fist into Haral’s jaw, his cheek, his temple, “—than never.” He grabbed two fistfuls of Haral’s hair and sank his teeth into the side of the overlord’s face, biting deeply into the cold flesh before yanking his head away and tearing half of Haral’s cheek off.

Stare locked on Haral’s mashed, oozing face, he spat out the chunk of cheek muscle. “For my Melissa,” he whispered, an icy calm falling over him. He pulled back his arm and opened his fingers, his nails growing into long, hooked claws. Perfect for tearing a deranged, sadistic, walking corpse’s dead heart from his fat, fleshy chest. Perfect for killing the overlord.

“N…no…no…” Blood bubbled past Haral’s split lips. “D…don’t.” His head lolled, eyes rolling.

“Jake!” Ezryn yelled. “Stop! You can’t kill the overlord, no matter how much he deserves it. You have to stop. Now.”

Jacob bared his fangs in a silent snarl. “Good riddance, Harry.”

Haral’s head dropped to the side, bleeding eyes focusing on something behind Jacob. “Kill…him.”

“Stop!” Ezryn roared. “Don’t shoot!”

A sharp sound splintered into Jacob’s fury, and he jerked his stare up from Haral’s face. To find three vampires surrounding him, aiming stake-cocked crossbows
 
straight at his chest.

“I am Ezryn Navarr.” Ezryn’s growl ripped at the silence, powerful with command and menace. “
First
born of the First Family, true and rightful overlord, and I order you to lower your weapons and stand down.”

Jacob glared hard at the vampires standing over him. They flicked each other silent glances, their pale faces draining white.

“Stand
down!
”

Faces whiter still, they staggered away from Jacob, eyes uncertain, crossbows wavering.

“
What are you doing
?”
Harry thrashed beneath him, spittle showering Jacob’s face.
“
What the fuck are you
—”

“Stand Ezryn roared. “Stand
down
!”
down n—”

Ezryn’s command stopped dead. Jacob swung his head toward his master, cold fear destroying his fury in an instant.

Ezryn’s eyes were wide, his stare fixed on the hall’s closed door. A look of absolute dismay etched his face. “May the Dark Ones have mercy on us all,” he whispered. “She’s here. God’s assassin.”

Ezryn stood motionless, even as the itch in his gut—the bond between him and Inari—burst into a wild inferno. She was here. And she was furious.

A scream rose from the other side of the dark room. Another. Another. Someone screamed something he couldn’t understand, a wailing cry full of abject terror.

A solid thump shook the room, as if something had hit the wall on the other side.

“Kill him,” Haral croaked again from beneath Jacob, but no one was listening to him. All eyes were locked on the gaping door. Waiting…waiting…

“My lover.” The whisper fell from Ezryn’s lips at the exact second the itch in his gut exploded afresh into rabid life. The exact moment Inari Chayse stepped through the doorway into the ballroom, as petite and sexy as always, looking for all the world like a goth Daisy Duke in knee-high boots and a black leather corset.

Her gaze found him instantly, the corners of her lips curling even as her eyes blazed with seismic rage.

Ezryn’s tight throat squeezed tighter. The itch in the pit of his core vanished, replaced by a joy so pure, so elemental he blinked.

Dark Ones, he loved her.

Who? The Principatus or the succubus?

“The Principatus!” Haral cried, thrashing under Jacob’s pinning weight.

The guards’ eyes widened. A collective hiss filled the room, and a warped sense of pride slashed through Ezryn as he watched each one stumble back a step from the unassuming woman standing in the doorway. They were petrified of her. A cold grin pulled at his mouth. Good. So they should be.

“Get her!” Haral screeched. “She is mine!”

Ezryn roared, his vampire
croi
surging through him. Every deadly, demonic instinct took over. He threw back his arms, flinging the guards holding him across the room.
“No!”

He leapt the distance between him and Inari, icy alarm devouring him. Haral would not take her. He would die before he let his brother even touch her.

He planted his feet on the floor and reached for her, his stare locking on her eyes.
I will—

“Ezryn!” She screamed, lunging at him, horror distorting her face at the exact second a crossbow bolt speared into his back high on his left shoulder. Excruciating agony ripped through him. He screamed, twisting his body to snatch at the pointed length of wood. He tore the stake free of his flesh, spinning away from Inari’s distraught face to glare at the guard staggering backward, crossbow wavering in his hands. “Not a wise move.”

“Ow, you fucking bastard!”

Jacob’s furious shout punched into Ezryn’s rage. He turned to his general just in time to see Haral shove him away from his body. Blood gushed from Jacob’s side, and it took Ezryn a split second to see the stake buried into his friend’s armpit.

Fuck.

Haral leapt to his feet, human façade gone. “I’m going to rip your gods-cursed head off, Ford.”

“Try it,” Jacob spat, his face contorted in pain even as his eyes flashed cold hate.

Two guards threw themselves at Jacob just as three threw themselves at Ezryn.

They slammed into him, smashing the butts of their crossbows against his face, his chest, his ribs.

Why aren’t they staking you?

The incredulous question shot through the pain erupting in his body a second before the chilling answer destroyed that pain. His twin wanted him alive.

“Get me the Principatus!”

The triumph in Haral’s shouted command made Ezryn’s gut churn. He reeled backwards, spreading his arms to protect Inari, and the guards struck him again and again with their crossbows. Dark Ones, how was he going to keep her safe?

From the corner of his eye, he saw the two guards raining blow after blow down on Jacob, each struggling to avoid the vampire’s savage counterattack. Blood poured from the stake wound in Jake’s side, the thick length of sharpened wood jutting from his flesh like a surreal growth.

Fuck. How was he going to get them
all
out of here alive?

“I want the Principatus!” Haral screamed, and Ezryn felt a solid wall of something cold and contemptuous hit him from behind. It was coming from Inari. If the situation hadn’t been so dire, he would have laughed. It seemed his lover didn’t like his brother either.

“Get me the Principatus!” Haral screeched again. “Get her, get her, get her!”

“Inari Chayse is not just a Principatus, Harry,” Ezryn heard Jacob snarl, pain distorting his voice to a strangled breath. “She is a succubus.”

“And a damn good one.” Inari’s calm, matter-of-fact voice sounded behind Ezryn. “Watch.”

A sudden wave of concentrated pleasure crashed over him, through him. His balls rose up, tight and hot with instant lust. His cock surged with hot, eager blood. He spun around, his body on fire with molten desire, and stared at Inari.

Have her have her fuck must have her

Scalding lust ripped through him. His cock strained against the inside of his trousers, rigid and throbbing with want. His mouth filled with saliva, his fangs extended farther.

Want her, want her, want her

He craved the taste of her flesh on his tongue, hungered for the feel of her nipples in his mouth. Lusted for the tight, wet heat of her sex, her ass around his cock. Lusted for it. Needed it. Had to have it. Had to have her. Now.

Want her, want her, oh fuck, want her now

And then the uncontrollable, consuming lust was gone. As if it hadn’t been there at all.

He gaped at her, the ghost of his overwhelming desire still throbbing through his dick in a fading, empty heat. Dark Ones, was
that
the power of a succubus? Had he really thought she’d turned that power on him before?

Real. What you’ve felt for her all this time has been real.

A wild moan rose on the air above him, killing the joyous realization. A raw gasp, a hitching groan. He spun back to the guards behind him, stunned disbelief robbing him of his ability to speak. Each one was on their knees, crossbows hanging limply from their fingers or dropped to the floor altogether. Each one gazed at Inari with open, unadulterated, ravenous rapture.

“I will fuck you all,” she murmured, her eyes smoldering with green fire. A chill shot up Ezryn’s spine. Her body, her face said she was a being of sexual appetites, willing and waiting to bring absolute pleasure, but he was bound to her, he
knew
her, and what he felt folded through the sensual purr made his balls shrink.

Rage. Powerful, icy, righteous rage. The rage of a Principatus.

“I will let you possess my body,” she went on, her eyes glowing hotter, greener. She lifted her hands to her breasts, skimming her knuckles over the taut tips of her nipples pushing against her top. The action elicited another groan from the vampires staring at her, their lips growing wet with drool. “I will let you use my body, abuse it, devour it. All of you.” She shuttered her eyes with a coy downward glance, stroking the sides of her breasts, her ribs, her hips with her fingertips. “If you all do something for me.”

“What the fuck is going on?” Haral’s shout cut the moans, but not one guard moved or tore their hungry gaze from Inari. “Get her!”

“Anything!” the guard to Ezryn’s right burst out, swaying toward Inari. “Anything for you, my goddess.”

A husky giggle slipped past Inari’s lips, and she touched the tip of her tongue to her top teeth. “Anything? Then so be it. Tear your dicks from your bodies and stuff them down your throats.”

The brutal, shocking order came from her on a breathless whisper. Ezryn’s throat squeezed tight and he stared at her, Jacob’s stunned gasp barely registering.

“What?
What?
” Haral yelped.

Ezryn turned back to the guards, shocked to see each and every one ripping at their flies, their crotches bulging, their eyes feverish.

Dark Ones, they’re going to do it. They’re really going to do it.

“Stop!” Haral bellowed, glaring with shocked fury at his guards. “What are you doing?”

A sharp bark of mirthless humor sounded to Ezryn’s right, barely audible over the hideous noises of pleasure, tearing flesh and muffled gagging. “It’s pretty fucking obvious, isn’t it, Harry?” Jacob said, his voice a jarring mix of revulsion and impressed awe. “They’re yanking their cocks off and choking on them.”

“No!” The overlord shook his head, disbelief twisting his face into a contorted mask. “No!” His stare jerked to Inari and a shard of acrid unease stabbed into Ezryn’s chest. “How…how?”

“I believe you wanted me, Haral Navarr?”