Dark Embrace (Principatus) (7 page)

“No,” she whimpered, shaking her head even as her legs came up to wrap around his hips.

That she seemed to know his very thoughts didn’t bother him. In fact, he found the notion entirely pleasing. He longed to see her face, her reaction to every delicious thing he planned to do to her. To see her righteous soul fight against her depraved lust.

What you plan to do to her? Kill her, right? That’s what you plan to do to her, what you must do to—

He shut the thought down, uninterested in its significance.

Shifting his hips a little, he withdrew his finger from her sex, her sharp cry of denial bringing a smile to his lips. “Do not fret,” he murmured, rolling the pad of his thumb over her clit.

Her eyelids fluttered closed for a moment, and her teeth pulled at her bottom lip. The pulse in her neck beat like a trapped moth.

The sight made Ezryn’s balls grow tight, and he pinched her clit between thumb and forefinger. “Tell me your name.”

She shook her head, struggling to free her wrists from his grasp. “No.”

He pinched her clit again, her hissed-in breath making his cock twitch. “Tell me your name, Principatus, or I will keep you on the edge of your orgasm for an eternity.”

Wet heat gushed from her sex, drenching his hand, and he smiled, letting her see his fangs. She was dripping with pleasure. Pleasure
he’d
milked from her. “Tell me your name,” he repeated, dipping one fingertip past her folds. Two fingers.

She arched against him, her eyes blazing emerald hate and hunger. “Fuck you.”

Ezryn chuckled. “Unusual. Do you answer to ‘fuck’ or ‘you’?” He plunged two fingers into her pussy, hard, brutal, scissoring them inside her tight sex. She gasped, her eyes beseeching him, her pussy constricting. “Now, tell me your name.”

“Inari,” she cried, bucking into his hand. “By the Powers and God, I am Inari Chayse.”

Her name scalded his senses. He could taste her power in every syllable, see the might of her force in the breath she expelled. Her pure scent curled into his being, infusing him with energy beyond his comprehension.

You’re insane.

He growled, driving his fingers into Inari’s sex, feeling her pleasure coat his hand, her breath heat his face. He wasn’t insane. He was alive. Alive. Dark Ones, he felt
alive
.

Living energy poured through him. Consumed him. His eyes widened and his blood roared in his ears. Staring down into Inari’s blazing eyes, he heard her heart thumping, a frenzied beat his body hungered for. She was close to the edge. Close to release. And he would give it to her. Master vampire to captured Principatus. Hunter to prey.

He drove his fingers deeper into her sex, his cock so engorged he could barely think. She cried out and he captured the raw sound with his mouth, driving his tongue past her lips.

She bucked beneath him, fought against him, her tongue battling his, her legs pulling him closer. He rammed his hips forward, wanting nothing more than to sink his cock into her hot wetness, incapable of withdrawing his fingers from her exquisite heat for the split second it would take to do so. His head swam. The heady scent of her desire poured into his being, the potent scent of her assassin’s soul turning his prick to a pole of agonizing lust. Dark Ones, he’d never wanted to fuck someone so badly. So desperately.

He invaded her mouth with his tongue, licked at her even teeth, nipped at her lips. He wriggled his fingers in her sex, stroked her clit, circled her anus. He would take her there. Later. Again and again. After he’d had his fill of her sweet, tight pussy, he would claim her ass and make her scream his name.

Your fill? Dark Ones, is that even possible?

The thought sent a surge of incredulous pleasure into his core and his balls turned hard, aching for release. He would
never
take his fill of her. Her taste set him on fire. Her scent made his still heart pound. She was a creature of lust and divine justice. She was his enemy, his hunter, his prey, and he would bind her to his existence and keep her as his own forever.

Is this before or after you kill her?

Ice-cold realization flooded his veins. He froze, staring down at her. She
was
his prey. She was his target. If he didn’t kill her, hundreds of his kind would be slaughtered. Methodically butchered by his brother for no other reason than jealous spite.

His blood roared through his veins, at once hot with lust and icy with dawning horror. He could not let his kind be butchered, no matter how intoxicating she was. He had to kill her. He had to—

Inari whimpered, her eyes aglow with undeniable pleasure. “Please,” she whispered. “Please…Master.”

The title caressed his ears, raw with capitulation and surrender. Thrumming with want and desire. One word that spoke a million—she was his for the plucking. Completely and utterly his.

And he had to kill her.

No.

Cold refusal stabbed into him, sinking into his chest. His cock throbbed. His balls rose, his body hungering for her with every fiber of his being. Greedy not for her blood, but her warmth and pleasure. Craving for it. Connecting to it.

And he had to kill her. Now.

“For every night you choose not to obey my command, I will slaughter one vampire who chose to rebel against my ascension.”

His brother’s ultimatum hissed through Ezryn’s head, and he reeled backward, disgust and dismay slamming into him with surreal force. He staggered back a step, his undead body screaming in infuriated denial. Dark Ones, what was he doing? He had to kill her.

Confusion flashing over her exquisite features, Inari pushed herself upright, her stare locked on his face. “What…” She licked her lips, a frown pulling at her dark eyebrows. “What…”

Ezryn clenched his fists, driving his nails into his palms. “I can’t.”

Her eyes widened before, with a snarl Ezryn felt in the very pit of his stomach, they blazed up in furious white fire. The Principatus rising to the surface.

The assassin finding her target.

The hunter finding its prey.

“Go,” she growled through gritted teeth. A violent black hue rippled over her sun-bronzed skin like a shimmer of absolute death, and she squeezed her eyes shut. “Now.”

Ezryn stared at her, his groin tight. His demon’s soul stirred, starving not just for her pleasure and the pleasure she awoke in him, but for her blood, her life as well.

Kill her, Ezryn. Fuck her to within an inch of her life and then kill her. She is a Principatus,
the
Principatus. Kill her. Do what you have to do and…

And make her yours.

The last thought was a hot blade piercing his cold heart, and he bit back a strangled cry.

Inari bared her teeth. Another black shimmer rippled over her flesh. Ezryn spun on his heel and moved through the strip club in a blurring streak.

Away from the Principatus and the hungry confusion twisting through him, the sound of her wanton surrender still whispering in his mind.
Master
.

Chapter Three

Inari slammed the door of her apartment shut behind her and pressed her forehead to its cool wooden surface. What in all the levels of hell had just happened?

What? Do you mean showing everyone on Oxford Street your backside as you fled home in a pair of torn jeans? Or your complete and utter sexual capitulation to a master vampire?

With a sharp hiss, she banged the side of her fist against the door. “Fuck,” she muttered. Both were bad. Even though she did have an ass a Victoria’s Secret model would envy, she still didn’t relish the idea of it popping up on YouTube after some dickhead videoed her semi-naked sprint with his iPhone. The latter however… “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“Well, that was a tad childish, don’t you think?” a humored voice said behind her. “And I thought
I
was the baby sister.”

Inari let out a ragged sigh and squeezed her eyes shut, her already churning stomach rolling some more. “Go away.”

A light chuckle followed, the sound soft and musical. “I can’t.”

Driving her nails into her palms, Inari turned around and glared at her kid sister. “Yes, Tianya, you can.”

The other woman, a more petite version of Inari with blue eyes instead of green and a smattering of freckles across a small, upturned nose, grinned. “Let’s not start this again.” She crossed the room with ethereal grace, her fingertips almost skimming the back of the sofa as she came to linger near Inari’s coffee table. “So tell me, sis, did you really call a vampire Master?”

Inari ground her teeth, slumping against the door. “Stop it.”

“And you used the word
please
?” Dark eyebrows shot up in mock amazement. “What kind of succubus are you? What kind of Principatus, for that matter?”

Inari dragged her fingers through her hair and glared at her sister. “Be quiet, Tianya. Go back where you came from.”

Tianya’s smile turned cheeky. A soft dimple dented the peaches-and-cream perfection of her left cheek. “Ah, if only I could.” She hovered her fingers over a large vase of roses next to the sofa, eyeing the flowers with a contemplative inspection before returning her gaze to Inari. “But I’m not going anywhere until you sort yourself out, no matter how much you scowl at me.”

Inari pulled a face at her sister. “You’re insufferable.”

“And you’re in lust with a master vampire.” The dimple in Tianya’s cheek creased deeper. “He’s quite cute, isn’t he? All dark and menacing and dominating. And those shoulders. So broad and straight. I can understand the appeal.”

Inari rolled her eyes, pushing herself from the door to move to the armchair opposite the sofa. She fell into it with a disgruntled huff. “Go away.”

Tianya laughed again. “No.”

Inari stared at the far wall, her pulse thumping in her neck. Against her will, she pictured the nameless vamp and her sex fluttered at the unsettling memory. He’d been just as handsome in the flesh as he’d been in her dreams—towering over her, at least six feet, four inches and all lean, sculpted muscle. His legs seemed to go on forever, thick and corded beneath his snug black jeans, his hips low and narrow. The perfect example of the Vitruvian Man, his body so sublimely proportioned it almost hurt to look at him. “What in all the levels of hell did I just do?” she muttered, fighting to erase his image from her mind. His jaw was square and his nose hawkish, perhaps even more so in reality. Its strength complemented the high angles of his cheekbones and the defined lines of his lips. She’d always had a weakness for a strong, noble nose, damn it, especially on a face that spoke of confidence and assured poise.

Assured poise? Don’t you mean arrogance?

Arrogant men had been her favorite target while a sex demon. Their very smugness used to push her buttons, and that fact hadn’t changed, even when she refused to let herself have sex again.

Would have tonight, though. If the bloodsucker hadn’t—

“Why did I just let a vampire…” The words choked in her throat and she shook her head again, raking her hands through her hair. “Why didn’t I stop him? Kill him?”

“Err, might it have something to do with the fact he was giving you more pleasure than you’ve had for twenty years? Possibly even longer?” Tianya’s voice lilted to Inari’s right, a soft chuckle tinkling in each word. “Or might it be because he’s the very vampire you’ve been dreaming about now for too many nights to remember? Killing him could be a bit counterproductive, don’t you think?”

Inari let out a disgusted sigh. “No, I do not
think
. I let a vampire I’ve never met before put his—a bloodsucking
demon,
for God’s sake…make me…do stuff to…” She faltered, her cheeks growing warm. Blushing? She was blushing? Oh, that was just freaking fantastic, wasn’t it? The nameless master vampire had made her do something she’d never ever done in her entire three hundred years of existence. Blush.

“You know,” Tianya piped up, “for a succubus, you seem to have great difficulty talking about sexual activity.”

Inari shot her sister an exasperated glare. “I’m not a succubus anymore, Ti. I’m Principatus, remember? A freaking demon assassin. I kill vampires, not fuck them.”

Tianya smirked, dimple flashing. “Pretty certain he was the one fucking you. With his fingers. And his tongue.”

“Go away!” Inari burst out, her whole face flooding with heat. She slumped back into the sofa, rubbing at her temples with trembling fingers. “How could I be dreaming about a vampire I’ve never met? A
real
vampire? What the hell does it mean?”

Tianya’s slim shoulders lifted in an infuriatingly delicate shrug. “Beats me,” she replied, her soft voice still humored. “When it comes to this kind of thing, I have no clue. I still can’t explain why
I’m
here. I’m starting to worry you’re more messed up than I thought.”

Inari squeezed her eyes shut again, dropping her head into her hands. “I may be messed up,” she growled through clenched teeth, a heavy pressure growing on her chest, “but at least I’m not dead.”

Silence greeted her declaration, and she raised her head from her hands and glared at her sister. Or at least where her sister should have been.

The room was empty.