Dark Embrace (Principatus) (5 page)

Why did she let him?

Cool lips moved over her chest to her left breast, brushing the aching tip of her nipple. “Because you want this as much as I do,” he answered in a whisper. Sharp teeth scraped at her nipple, a mischievous bite that made her gasp and buck her hips harder against his teasing hand.

“Curse you,” she ground out, writhing on the mattress. Her pussy throbbed, heavy and full with a desire so potent she could barely breathe. “Just fuck me. Please.”

Her raw begging made him laugh, and he bit her nipple again, punishing her for her outburst. “You know what you have to say, Principatus.”

She shook her head, every fiber in her being straining for him. Wanting him. Oh, by the Powers and all things holy, she wanted him. It was wrong, more than wrong. It was insane, lunacy, but she wanted him all the same. Was lost without him. “I will not,” she groaned, squeezing her eyes shut. “I cannot.”

He slid his cool lips to her other breast, petting her pussy with lazy, tormenting strokes. “I know you want to feel my cock inside you, Inari Chayse.” His voice caressed her senses like icy mist. “All it will take is one word.” He slowly, slowly slid one finger into her sex, and she moaned, ramming her hips upward, taking that wriggling finger deeper into her wet heat. “One word, Principatus,” he continued against her breast, sliding another finger into her folds, “and it will be my cock fucking you, not my hand.” He took her nipple into his mouth and rolled its hard form between his teeth before sucking it with bruising force. She cried out, gripping the silk at her wrists in tight fists, pain and pleasure spearing through her.

“One word, Inari,” her lover went on, moving his lips up to her jaw, her ear. “You know what it is, don’t you?” He withdrew his hand from between her spread thighs enough to find her clit with his fingers, pinch it between their tips and then sink back into her pussy once more. Three fingers this time. Three long fingers driving her closer to the brink, closer to a precipice he would only let her tumble over when she uttered what he wanted to hear. The one word she never would say.

He traced his tongue over the shell of her ear and she trembled. “One word, Inari.” He nipped her earlobe with his teeth, scissored his fingers inside her sex. “Say it for me, my stubborn little assassin, so we both can be as one. Say it, say it.”

She ground her teeth, rode his hand and felt the word begin to form on her lips. Felt it form on her tongue. Felt it form in her soul. Just one word and he would claim her as his own. One word…

Master.

She opened her eyes, that one word on her lips. And saw his fangs extend. Glistening with saliva. Ready to pierce her—

Inari jolted awake, her ragged breath stripping at her throat, burning her lungs. She flicked her gaze around her dark bedroom, shame and dismay flooding through her. The same dream. The same vampire.

Scrubbing at her face, she let out a strangled groan, struggling to calm her rapid heart rate. Damn it, what was going on with her?

She stretched across her bed and snared her old wristwatch, a present from an enamored seventeenth-century watchmaker she’d fed on for over a decade. The tiny hands mocked her and she groaned again, slumping back to the mattress. Forty minutes. That’s all the sleep she’d had. A mere forty minutes of sleep, and she’d had the same goddamn dream she’d had for what felt like forever. The same cursed vampire doing the same cursed thing to her. What in all the levels of the Realm was
wrong
with her?

Immediately, an image of the vampire from her dreams filled her head, his dark eyes glinting red. He smiled at her, an arrogant grin that barely curled the corners of his mouth. His black hair fell over his smooth, pale forehead in a tousled mess, the thick strands brushing eyebrows equally black and thick.

The pit of her belly squirmed with instinctual interest, her pussy throbbing with unnerving awareness, and she groaned.

Why did she continually dream about a bloodsucker bringing her to climax after climax after climax with just his hand night after night after night? Worse still, why did she crave more than his fingers every time she woke?

Because you’re an ex-succubus who hasn’t had sex in twenty years? Because since your rebirth as a Principatus you’ve spent the better part of those twenty years hunting and destroying vampires and shapeshifters and all manner of demon-kind, and your previous demon existence is fucking with your already messed-up psyche?

Because deep down inside—in the dark, twisted place you fear to explore—you want to be claimed by a vampire? A master vampire?

Letting out a low growl, Inari threw herself from the bed and stormed across her room. She didn’t want to think about that last question. It was too…disturbing to consider.

Leaning her flushed forehead on the cool glass window, she stared at the cityscape ten stories below. It was still dark, the sun not even close to illuminating the sinful mecca that was Kings Cross.

“Argh!” Inari threw up her hands and turned away from the window. She needed to get laid. If she weren’t so sexually frustrated all the time, she wouldn’t be having freaking wet dreams about a master freaking vampire.

Then go out and get laid. Obviously dusting that vampire earlier did little to ease your tension. Go find a male, preferably human, and fuck the dream out of your system.

The suggestion sent a wet shard of heat straight into her sex, and she pressed her thighs together. Oh, if only she could. She wanted to so badly. The need for sexual release ate at her every minute of her existence, but she didn’t dare risk it. As appealing as daily multiple climaxes were, she didn’t
want
to be a sex demon again. She didn’t want to return to that life, and she feared one moment of sexual connection with another being, no matter how soulless, would feed the succubus still inside her waiting to be nourished. Waiting to be freed.

Which meant she currently held the all-time succubus record for abstinence.

It was safer that way.

And you’d throw that safety record right out the window if the vamp from your dreams walked through your bedroom door. You know that, don’t you?

Inari ground her teeth, ignoring the little voice—
that
little voice—in her head. Crossing to the cupboard, she grabbed her vest from its hanger. She was going out again. It may be—she flicked her watch a quick look—two forty-five in the morning, but if she didn’t leave her apartment right now, go to a club, or a pub, or a bowling alley or…or…shit,
something
, she’d just end up masturbating to the memory of her dream and feeling wretched the second her empty, unsatisfying orgasm faded from her body.

Tugging on the black leather garment, she snatched her skin-tight black jeans from the foot of the bed and pulled them up her legs and over her butt. It was a clichéd outfit to be sure, the kind Hollywood seemed infatuated with when it came to anything related to vampires and demons, but she wore it for a reason. Bait. She was tiny, barely five foot four, and the body-hugging clothes made her look even smaller. Well, except for her boobs. Like all succubi, her boobs were full and heavy and round—the stuff of most men’s fantasies—and the corset-style vest did little to conceal their lush shape. It made her the perfect target for some absolute shitheads though, shitheads who wouldn’t think twice about taking from her what they wanted, whether she said they could or not. Which made
them
the perfect target of her Principatus rage when she couldn’t find a demon to tear apart.

She yanked on knee-high stiletto boots and slid her blade into the top of the right one, beside her calf where she could get it in a hurry if she needed to. It was illegal to carry knives on your person in Australia, but with the help of a little glamour incantation she’d picked up from a love-struck warlock a century ago, anyone who saw the blade would think it a long-stem red rose.

Which came in handy. In more than one way.

Looking at herself in the full-length mirror propped against the far wall, she pulled in a long, slow breath. She looked sexy. No, more than sexy. She looked fuckable.

A bitter smile twitched at the corners of her mouth and she turned from her reflection. She hoped she got some violent, brutal action before the sun came up.

Before she really went insane.

The delicious scent of sweat, sex and human flesh threaded through Ezryn’s nose and into his body as he and Jacob walked into the Pleasure Pussy, Jacob’s premium nightclub catering to Sydney’s underground paranormal residents.

“I’ll get us a drink,” Jacob shouted over the noise, the muted lighting shrouding him in shadows.

Ezryn nodded, his stare fixed on the show currently taking place at the end of the club’s main extended stage. Two females and one male, all fae, danced together around one thick, gold pole, three purple-hued spotlights capturing their every move. The females, stunning creatures with high cheekbones, large, liquid eyes and lean, sinewy bodies, wrapped themselves around the lone male, their limbs entwined with his. The male’s long, solid cock pressed against his belly, its distended head deep purple, tiny beads of glistening pre-come squeezing from its tip.

With every thrumming beat from the multiple speakers embedded in the club’s walls, the females stroked the massive erection, their long fingers painting the male’s smooth, pale flesh with his own excitement, their tiny tongues lapping at the silver smears in time to the sultry music.

Ezryn’s own cock twitched at the sight. He’d never been one for skin-shows. He had nothing against voyeurism, nor ménages for that matter—he and Jacob had shared more than one willing female since moving to Australia. Impersonal, dirty fucking relieved their sexual hunger but didn’t touch their tormented hearts. Something about performing the act for money lessened its appeal. This skin show, however, seemed to pique his interest.

Or is it the idea of hunting a Principatus that has your juices flowing?

The dark thought made him clench his fists. It was true. As civilized as he was, he was still a predator, still—according to the insulting definition used by all Principatus—a demon. Hunting the very thing created by the Highest of Powers to terminate his kind gave him a rush he didn’t want to think about.

Perhaps you really
are
as barbaric and unevolved as Harry. No better than your brother and undeserving of the—

“Decided we need something stronger than whiskey for the occasion.” Jacob’s voice rose over the din, cutting the unsettling thought before it could finish. With a grunt, Ezryn turned his stare from the copulating fae on the stage to the vampire on his left.

Jacob handed him a squat glass half-filled with an angry purple liquid and raised his own glass in a casual toast. “To Fat Harry. May he be dusted by a Buffy-wannabe using a termite-infested stake.” With an evil grin and a flash of fangs, he lifted his glass to his lips and drained it in a single mouthful.

Ezryn cocked an eyebrow. “To my baby brother,” he murmured, raising his drink. He pressed its cool rim to his parted lips and swallowed.

Liquid fire poured down his throat, turning his gut into an inferno. He gasped, biting back a choking cough. “Dark Ones, Jake, what
is
this?”

Jacob’s evil grin turned positively demonic. “Carpathian mountain water. Trust me, you don’t want to know how I get it.”

Ezryn licked his lips, his gullet burning from the inside out. “I’ll take your word on that.” He scanned the writhing crowd, taking note of who and what enjoyed the attractions of Jacob’s club. Vamps, weres, the odd warlock, a banshee or two, numerous demons and more than one human offering themselves to whichever paranormal creature pressed their buttons, taking their life into their mortal hands with every second spent in the strip joint. He turned back to his friend, the smoldering fire in his gut abating a little. “I’m going to check out the booths.” He handed Jacob his empty glass. “Get me another one, will you?”

Jacob chuckled. “They’re your organs.”

Ezryn grinned. “My lifeless organs.”

Leaving his general, he moved into the crowd, the scent of sweat and sex pervading his senses. Detecting a Principatus was never easy. If it were, the assassins would not be the lethal, effective killers they were. They looked human, sounded human, felt human—that was until they shifted into their
other
form. There was no mistaking them in
that
form. When they were in their human form, however, they were undetectable. But to a master vampire such as himself, one centuries old with all the power that comes with age, not to mention the supremacy of his bloodline, the Principatus could be identified by scent. Sweet, delicate, like mist on a rose. Pure in its composition yet steely in its intensity.

If the Principatus he hunted
was
in the Pleasure Pussy, her scent would lead him to her.

And then, to use a tired phrase, the game would begin.

Weaving his way through the sweaty mass, Ezryn pulled in another breath. Sex. He smelled sex. A lot of sex. Pheromones, ejaculate, saliva. Human, demon, mage.

His cock stirred and he ground his teeth. With the level of sexual activity in the place, was it any wonder he was on edge?

He shoved past a particularly thick group of humans, clenching his fist at the overly friendly hands skimming his ass, his hips, his crotch as he did so. Everyone in the Pleasure Pussy, it seemed, was here for one thing and one thing only. To fuck. There was no way he would tolerate that kind of contact outside the club, but he ignored it now. Well, tried to.