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Authors: Maggie Shayne

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BOOK: Demon's Kiss
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“You know where they are?” Reaper asked.

“No. But when you leave to find them, I'm going along.”

“Absolutely not.”

She met his eyes and smiled, a slow, sexy smile that seemed to speak volumes. “You're telling me no? Since when has that ever worked?”

Reaper closed his eyes and let his head fall back onto the seat of the car.

“Who
are
you?” Seth asked her at last.

She smiled. “I'm Roxy. I'm the oldest living human with the Belladonna antigen. At least, as far as I know.”

Seth lifted his brows. “But I thought we—they all got weak and sick and died young.”

“All but me.”

“How old are you?” he asked.

She fluttered her lashes. “How old do you want me to be?”

Seth's throat went dry, and Roxy released a bark of laughter and slapped her own thigh. “Don't worry, pup. I wouldn't want to hurt you.” She gave him a wink, then bobbed her head toward the windshield. “Here we are.”

 

Roxy's place was a tiny cottage that looked like something out of a child's fairy tale, all cobblestones and little green shutters, flower boxes overflowing with fragrant herbs, gardens flowing like colorful streams around the place and between the flat stones that formed a meandering path to the front door.

She parked her car and glanced nervously at the sky. “Best get him inside, son, before dawn.”

“I can manage on my own,” Reaper said. But his voice sounded so weak and pain-racked that Seth thought he might as well have said, “I can't lift my little finger without help right now.”

“Fortunately,” Roxy said, “you don't
have to
manage on your own. You've got Seth now.” She smiled at Seth, and there was so much affection in the look that he wasn't sure if she was hitting on him or just being friendly. The woman was a puzzle. He had no idea how to take her.

He didn't ask, though. Just got out, opened the back door and got a grip on Reaper's shoulders, so he could help him inside.

“Right through here,” Roxy instructed. From the waist down she was wearing a long, flowing skirt in bright splashy colors. From the waist up, she wore what looked like a leotard. Skintight, revealing a figure that was close to perfect, short-sleeved, with a V-neck all plumped full of cleavage. A moonstone glittered from a long chain, resting between her breasts. She jingled when she moved, and he realized it was due to the ankle bracelet she wore, along with flat, woven sandals that looked to be made of straw or something.

Seth looked at her face again, baffled by his inability to guess her age.

She just smiled more warmly and tipped her head, so her hair fell over one cheek. “This way. Put him in the guest room. It's actually a walk-in closet, but I keep a bed made up in there for my undead friends.” She opened a door and stood aside to let Seth pass, with Reaper's arm drawn around his shoulders. Reaper was silent, except for little grunts of pain every time he put weight on his leg. Seth figured it was taking all the guy had just to stay conscious at this point.

He helped Reaper ease his way onto the twin bed that sat at the back of the large-closet-slash-minuscule-bedroom. Roxy hurried away, then came back a second later with a porcelain basin full of water and a basket full of other items. She sat down on the edge of the bed, put the stuff on the nightstand, then went to work with a pair of scissors, snipping the leg off Reaper's pants, so she could better get to the wound.

“Duct tape,” she said, eyeing the patch-up job Seth had done. “Hell, I don't know if I can even improve on this. It's not bleeding.”

“And it'll heal as soon as the sun comes up, right?” Seth asked.

Roxy nodded, dipped her washcloth in the basin and began washing the drying blood off Reaper's thigh. “You should drink, Raphael. You're as weak as a kitten from the blood loss.”

Reaper met her eyes, then shifted his gaze to her neck, where it lingered and became suddenly intense. Seth felt hot under the collar and thought maybe he should leave the room.

Roxy said, “In your dreams, Raphael. I have bags in the fridge. I can heat it first, if you're craving a little warmth, though.” She glanced at Seth. “Come with me, and I'll get you some, too. And then you'd best get to the basement. There's another bedroom down there. You'll be safe and comfortable.”

Seth nodded, still not clear on what the relationship was between Reaper and Roxy. They seemed close. Almost intimate. He wanted to ask but sensed he wouldn't get an answer. And it was none of his business, anyway.

He followed Roxy into the kitchen. She stopped at the fridge, turned and faced him. “He's not going to want you to stay with him.”

“I know.”

“You have to stay anyway. He's going to need you, Seth.”

Seth frowned, searching her face. She had eyes as deep and dark blue as sapphires glittering up from the depths of the sea. They were fringed by the longest black velvet lashes he'd ever seen on a woman, and all that hair, all that long, curly red hair, seemed too soft to be real.

“Are you listening, Seth? This is important.”

He focused on her eyes again. “I'm listening. He's going to need me. But how can you know that?”

“Look around, Seth.”

He did. The place was cozy and completely cluttered. There were bundles of herbs hanging upside down from every possible location in the kitchen and beyond it, in the little dining room and the sitting room, which were really one very large room with two parts. He saw a crystal ball on a glass pedestal all by itself. Incense was burning, sending spirals of fragrant smoke throughout the place. Chimes and sun-catchers and plants hung near every window. The dining-room table was covered with tarot cards, spread out in a mystical and complicated pattern, their images graphic and somehow disturbing.

Seth took it all in, and then returned his attention to her.

“I know,” she said. “The same way I knew to be where I was when you had that accident that wasn't quite an accident. I know
him.
I've known him since he was a little boy at the hematology clinic where we were both patients. I already knew I had the Belladonna antigen. And I knew what it meant, though the doctors didn't. I was a student of the occult and the paranormal even then, you see. An expert already. Raphael didn't know anything. He was just a child with hemophilia and a rare blood type. I've been watching over him ever since.”

“Kind of the opposite of the way it's supposed to work, huh?” Seth asked. “I mean, don't vamps ordinarily watch over the Chosen?”

“There's nothing ordinary about me, young man. And you'll never meet one of the Chosen who's anything like me.”

“I totally believe you.”

That comment brought a quick smile to her lips. Full lips. Moist. Nice white teeth behind them, too. Little laugh lines appeared at the corners of her eyes when she smiled, and when her expression turned serious again, he could still see the tiniest traces of them.

“I'm going with you on this mission, Seth,” she said. “Raphael is a loner, and he's going to fight us. But he has two partners now, and we aren't going to take no for an answer, are we?”

“I owe him my life. And this mission is leading me someplace I need to be. So, yeah, I'm in.” He thrust out a hand. “Shake on it.”

Roxy smiled slowly, and closed her hand around his. She squeezed, and said, “Mmm. Strong. I like that.” She released his hand, handed him a glass and said, “Come on, Seth. I'll take you to bed now.”

He thought his feet would be glued to the floor, but they moved to follow her as she pushed open a door and descended a set of stairs down into the dark basement. He watched the sway of her hips, the play of her long thick hair over her shoulders, and he wasn't sure whether he was hoping for or fearing whatever might happen at the bottom. Sure, she wasn't his dream woman. But she sure as hell was something.

It didn't matter, though. She simply pushed open another door, flipped on a light and stood aside to let him pass. He walked into the room that was to be his. She said, “Good rest, Seth. And don't worry about Raphael. I'll see to it he's safe until sundown.”

“Good night,” he said, out of long habit. He was going to have to stop doing that, he thought. A vampire should say good day or good rest or something, not good-night, not when he was forever going to sleep in the morning.

Roxy stepped out of the room and closed the door. Seth thought she had to be old enough to be his mother. He also thought he could develop a serious case of lust for her, if he let himself.

He got undressed and slid into the bed. But as the day sleep came in like a dark wave to claim him, it wasn't Roxy's face he was seeing in his mind's eye.

It was that other face, that frightened, innocent face with the exotic eyes pleading for his help.

5

R
eaper was lying in the bed, as instructed, surrounded by the freshly laundered scents of the white sheets and leopard-print comforter, when Roxy returned with his sustenance. She handed him the glass, and he drank and prayed she didn't want to stay and talk until the sun came up.

She sat down on the bed, though, so he figured he was doomed. Still, it wouldn't be more than a few minutes before dawn came and saved him from her knowing, probing mind.

“You're fuming,” she said.

“I don't like being attacked by my own kind.”

“Bullshit. You relish a good battle. You're fuming because you needed help tonight.”

He slid her a look. “Don't go there. I didn't need help.”

“No? You know you would have died in that car, Raphael. You were bleeding out, unconscious and about to go up in flames. Your stubborn fledgling hunk refused to leave, even though he could have been toast.”

He nodded. “You don't have to sing his praises to me, Roxy. I know he has the soul of a hero.”

“Really?” She seemed surprised to hear him say something nice about Seth.

“You think I would make a vampire out of an ordinary human? Even one with the antigen? No, he's special.”

“I agree. You, um, might wanna think about telling him that.”

“And let it go straight to his head? Please.”

“You're a mean bastard, you know that?”


I'm
mean? Could you have teased the poor kid any harder, do you think?”

She shrugged. “I was only being myself.”

“Right. It's not your fault young men want you.”


All
men want me, hon. Young, old, humans, vampires. There are
dead
men who want me. Is it any surprise your young Seth wants me, too?”

“Don't—”

She shot him a look, a dangerous one. And he knew better than to presume to tell Roxy, the most independent female on the planet, not to sleep with his pain-in-the-ass charge. She slept with whomever she wanted. And God help anyone who presumed to judge her for it.

He licked his lips and started over. “Don't break his heart, okay?”

“I'm not planning to jump him, Raphael. He's got important work to do, and a night of my incredible body would only distract and confuse him.”

“Important work, huh?”

“Hell, yeah. He's on a mission, that one. I don't know what it is—don't think he does, either—but it's practically sparking from his aura. Something big is in store for him.”

“So he keeps telling me.”

“Believe him.” She got up from the bed. “Sleep, now. At sundown, the van will be packed and ready to go.”

“Roxy—”

“You don't have wheels of your own anymore,” she reminded him. “You can't go on foot, after all.”

“I can get a car.”

She shrugged. “Fine, get one. I'll follow you.” She reached out a hand, as if about to lay it over his, but then she hesitated, because she knew he disliked touching unnecessarily. Drawing her hand away, she went on. “I know you hate accepting help, Raphael, but you'd damn well better believe me when I tell you that just this once, you need it. I feel it all the way to my gut. You'll die if you don't let Seth and me go with you.”

“And you and Seth could die if I do.”

“We won't—”

He reached out and grabbed her hand, maybe just to show her how damn serious he was about this. “You know what I'm capable of, Roxy. You're the
only
one who knows. Anyone who's near me for any amount of time is at risk.”

“All the more reason to take me along. I won't let you hurt him. Or me. Believe me, I can handle you.”

“No, you can't.” He released her hand. The sleep was coming on strong and fast, but he had more to say. “I'd planned to come to see you while I was here. I'd planned to ask you to keep Seth, teach him until he's ready to be on his own.”

“Yeah, I already figured that out. But it's not going to work. We're going with you. If you're so worried that you might hurt us, then I'll see to it we're both armed.”

“You wouldn't be willing to shoot me. I know you—” His eyes fell closed. He opened them again. “You'd be too afraid of killing me.” Again his eyes closed.

“You let me worry about that. As if I'd hesitate to kick your oversized ass to the grave and back if I thought you were gonna hurt me. Hell, Raphael, don't kid yourself. Now, get some sleep.”

He tried to reply, but the sleep was on him before he could make a sound.

 

Vixen waited in the cell, wondering what was taking so long. She still wasn't sure she could do what they asked of her, but she couldn't stand any more torture. Why these people delighted in causing pain, she could not fathom.

Their footsteps came, just minutes before dawn. Briar was not alone this time. The one called Jack was with her. Longish brown hair, shot through with streaks of blond, parted on one side, so that it tended to fall over his eyes. An unshaven look that was always just that. Never more, never less. As if he meant it to be that way. Light blue eyes, almost shockingly pale.

Jack looked at her, smiled slyly, shook his head slowly. “Damn, she is a pretty thing, isn't she?” He stuck his arm between the bars of her cage and made smacking sounds with his lips, like calling a pet. “Come here, hon. Let me feel that silky hair, hmm?”

She backed up to the far wall, her eyes wide and darting from Jack to Briar. Of the two, it was the female she most feared.

“Fine,” Jack said. “Your loss, babe.” Then he turned to Briar. “So what is it you wanted to show me?”

“She's not human.”

“No, not anymore. Not since Gregor changed her.”

Briar shook her head. “Not even before. She's a shape-shifter. Spent half her time as an animal.”

Jack grinned. “Right. Briar, have you been feeding on crack addicts tonight or what?”

“Gregor knows. That's why he wanted her. He had me stake out the places where she tends to show up when she's in human form and tell him her habits, so he could follow her. He set a trap, caught her in it when she was an animal, then waited for her to shift back and transformed her.”

Slowly Jack's smile died. “He didn't make you do it for him? You know, he didn't have you suck her blood and then make her drink yours…?”

“No,” she said with a disgusted look.

Jack pushed a hand through his long hair and shook his head. “Damn, that would've been hot.”

“She's a shape-shifter. Are you even
getting
this?”

He shrugged, then looked at Vixen. Then, frowning, he
really
looked at her. His brows drew together. “Vixen. And that hair. And those eyes.” He glanced at Briar again. “You saying she's some kind of a fox?”

“Pull your hair back, Vixen. Show him.”

Vixen lowered her head, but not in shame, for she knew no such thing as shame. But she hated defeat. She hated obeying the girl with the blackest heart in all the world. Still, she pulled her hair back, and Jack looked, and then his brows shot up.

“Are her ears slightly…pointed?”

“Mmm-hmm. And now she's going to try to shift back into her animal form. If she can still do it, she can be of invaluable help to Gregor. I mean, can you imagine the places she could get into where we couldn't fit? Hell, we could set her loose inside a bank, then have her shift back and let us in after closing.”

“Gregor's got more money than God already.”

“You can never be too rich,” Briar said. “You ready, Vixen?”

“I think so.”

“Then do it.”

Vixen nodded and sank down onto the floor. She lay down on her side and pulled her long, copper hair around her face. She closed her eyes and pretended to will her form to change. But in fact, she wasn't willing it at all. She didn't know if she
could
change, but she wasn't going to do it just for them. Especially not for Briar. She had to wait, because she wasn't sure she could fit between the bars. So she had to wait.

She lay there for several minutes.

“Dammit, Vixen, do it,” Briar snapped.

“I'm trying….”

“This is bullshit. She ain't a damn fox.”

“She is, I'm telling you. Do it, Vixen!”

Vixen said nothing, just lay there, trembling, because she could feel Briar's anger, and when that one got angry, it didn't go well.

“You are gonna be so fucking sorry,” Briar whispered.

Vixen heard the keys in her cell door. Yes. Finally. Vixen focused. She honed her energy and saw herself in her mind's eye as a fox, running free, and then she felt her body shrinking, growing smaller, vanishing into her long protective hair, until the hair was her tail, curled around her body like a warm coat and covering her face.

She'd changed. Just as Briar swung the cell door open and came charging inside, probably to hurt and punish her, she sprang onto her toes, her clothes falling away behind her, and darted right out of the cell, racing between Briar's feet, dashing past Jack, who jumped and dodged her as if in fear for his life.

“Well, I'll be damned,” she heard him say as she raced past.

“Don't just stand there laughing, get the damn thing!”

She didn't know which way to go and sought wildly for some means of escape. There! The door, and that gap in the bottom. Please, let her fit! She ran up to it.

Then the door swung open, and the master himself stepped in. She darted fast, intending to race between his feet and outside before the door swung closed, but Gregor was faster. He grabbed her by the tail as she rushed past and lifted her high.

“Well! So she can still do it after all!”

Vixen twisted her little body around, and sank her claws into his arm and her teeth into his hand. She sucked blood from him as he howled, and a hunger reared up inside her such as she had never known. They'd been starving her to keep her weak.

She drank all she could before he flung her away so hard that her body slammed into the stone wall and sank to the floor. Energy spent, she felt herself changing again, becoming a woman. A vampiress. She lay there, naked, her head aching, her tailbone throbbing, the taste of Gregor's blood on her lips.

“Jack, toss her back into the cell. Briar, you have some explaining to do.”

“I didn't mean to let her get out,” she began.

“Not about that. I understand you sent one of the drones on an assignment last night, without clearing it with me first.”

Jack scooped Vixen up into his arms, and she remained limp, not because she was acting, but because she was exhausted, half starved and in pain. He seemed to try to be gentle with her, as he carried her into her cell and lowered her down onto the cot that was the only piece of furniture.

“You said this person, this hit-man vampire, was coming after you,” Briar said. “I caught wind of where he was, and I didn't see any reason to delay and risk losing track of him again. So, yeah, I sent a drone to take him out.”

“Well, the drone failed. Any task that takes thought isn't exactly their forte. But that's irrelevant. Next time, Briar, do not even
think
about giving orders. I'm in charge here, not you. You have no authority.”

“But…but—”

Vixen heard pain in the dark one's voice. She was hurt and confused. The black-hearted bitch deserved it—and more.

“The thing is, Briar, I
want
him to come after me. I need him. Alive.”

Briar blinked slowly. “Well, you could have just told me that.”

“Easy, Briar,” Jack said. “Haven't you figured him out by now? He operates on a need-to-know basis. And you didn't need to know. Just like I didn't need to know about our guest here and her special abilities.” He looked at Gregor. “Even though I'm his right-hand man. Right, Gregor?”

Gregor shrugged, but the look in his eyes was chilling. “You complaining, Jack?”

“Not me. Not a chance. You're driving this rig, and I'm content to sit in the passenger seat and ride along. Always have been.”

Gregor grunted but said nothing more. Instead, he looked down at his hand, which was dripping blood. “Briar, come with me and patch this thing up before I bleed out. Damn. Good thing it's almost dawn. Jack, you see to the vixen here. Make sure she's staying put for the day. We can use her.” He took Briar by the arm, and left the horrible underworld where Vixen was forced to exist on stale air and darkness.

Jack closed the cage door, double-checked the locks, and then she heard his footsteps moving away. She expected that to be the end of her torment, but no. Only moments later, she heard his return, caught his scent.

BOOK: Demon's Kiss
11.54Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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