Hot Decadent Rising (Breath of Darkness) (25 page)

“The video doesn’t prove anything. There
was no sound. Demetri likely planned to kill her, but he was stopped by Joseph
and Mia.”

“He was guarding her. He was keeping her
safe until they arrived. You saw him touch her. She was filled with heroin. She
should never have regained consciousness. He removed the drugs from her system.
He healed her. But why?”

“I don’t know.” Demetri was her greatest
source of power, but he was also her greatest threat. He was quite possibly the
most intelligent and powerful demon in existence. At over ten thousand years
old, his supernatural abilities and powers were utterly perfected, enabling him
to consistently, effortlessly use them with deadly precision. Attempting to
control him was dangerous, but she couldn’t quit just yet.  He didn’t even
know the little bitch. With all he had to lose she couldn’t think of any reason
for him to get involved in any way. She had to rein him in before he ruined
everything. 

“You sent him to help Kara.”

“Why would I do that?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t care. Your
problem is that Leland will care.”

As soon as she got possession of the
videos, Phillip Wicks was going to die. “Please leave.”

“What’s your answer?”

“I’ll do it.”

“You’re a smart woman. I’ll hand the videos
over to you as soon as it’s done.”

The moment he walked out of her office,
Mary lost it. “Demetri!”  Flying into a fit of unbridled rage, she lifted
her desk and tossed it across the room as she headed for the door.

She needed to remind him of why he had
no choice but to work with her rather than against her. She was too close to
achieving perfect immortality. She had to remain in control of him for a little
while longer or all would be lost. She glanced around the bar, but didn’t see
him.

“What’s wrong?” her bartender asked.

“Where the hell is Demetri?”

“Beats me. I haven’t seen him since
yesterday.”

“Where’s that little bitch he’s always
hanging around?”

“Emily?”

“Yes. Where is she?”

“Actually I haven’t seen her either.”

~Fifteen~

STARTLED BY THE sound of the alarm on
her cell phone, Kara woke up way too suddenly from the best ever erotic dream
she’d ever had. After a frantic struggle to get untangled from the sheets
twisted around her body, she leaned over and hit the snooze. Sitting up, she raised
her arms over her head and stretched her back. “Where do you think you’re
going?” A deep male voice whispered.

She froze.
“Eli.” She wasn’t the kind of woman to sleep with a stranger. Waking up next to
one was quite bizarre. “For a moment I thought it was all a dream.”

“Was it a good
dream?” His sturdy arms turned her around and pulled her against the delectable
heat of his impeccably masculine rock-solid body. He took her thigh and pulled
her leg up over his hip.

Running her
hands over his remarkably contoured chest, she kissed his neck and base of his
chin. “It wasn’t bad,” she teased.

He moved fast, lifting her as if she
weighed nothing, and then he settled her down on top of him. “Not bad. That’s
it?” He gripped her thighs as she straddled his waist.

“Actually, to be entirely honest, it was
better than that.”  It was difficult to talk with him moving his hips and
grinding his hard engorged flesh against her body. She wished she could stay in
that bed with him for forever, but she had to leave. Every second she stayed
she was risking being caught unaware by her father or his men. She refused to
continue to put Eli in danger. She had to leave him now. “It was pretty good.”

He wrapped his hand around the nape of
her neck and pulled her down and kissed her. “You’d better be kidding,” he
whispered against her lips.

“The truth is that you’re unlike any man
I’ve ever known. You’re too incredible, too spot-on, too out of this world to be
real. I was a little worried you were too much for me to handle.” She’d enjoyed
her share of able and willing lovers, but none had the skills to even come
close to comparing to his talents. “It’s too bad I don’t have more time to play
with you, but I really need to get going.” She started to get up.

 In one swift movement, he flipped
her over onto her back and positioned his body between her legs. “You aren’t
going anywhere. You aren’t leaving me,” he growled between clenched teeth as he
lowered his body over hers and bent his head to get closer as if to kiss her.
“We will be leaving together,” he whispered against her lips. “I plan to have
the rest of eternity to love you with my body.” 

Love? What the hell just happened? And yet,
despite the fact he’d nearly ruined everything by uttering the word
love
,
she was helpless to resist his invitation with his impressive hard length
pressed against her aching entrance. He kissed her. He swept her away. It was a
long, slow, passionate kiss. Oh, his mouth…oh God, she would never forget the
things he accomplished with his hot velvety tongue and lips. He was too gifted
in every way, including size, to be a living breathing man.

He’d taken her to higher peaks of
pleasure than she’d ever thought possible. She wanted to spend more time
savoring his kiss, but it was time to leave. “I can’t stay here with you any
longer. It a shame we hadn’t met earlier. ” What had caused her to have sex
with a stranger on what she was certain was the hardest, lumpiest mattress in
the dirtiest run down hotel Albany, Oregon had to offer? “This can’t…we have to
stop. I never intended for this to go beyond one night.” She had to get out of
the bed. Staying in one place for more than a few hours was too dangerous.

His eyes saw too much. They burrowed
deep within her soul as they went from dark-brown to a hypnotic glowing
golden-brown. They were beautiful. They were unlike any other she’d ever seen.
She felt him in her mind, sorting through her thoughts, searching for
something. Slowly he lifted his lips. It was not a smile. It was a snarl that
revealed sharp lengthened canines. “You are my mate. You will not leave me. I
will protect you. I will make sure you get your revenge.” It wasn’t an
invitation. It was a demand plain and simple.

His teeth should’ve scared the hell out
of her, but instead they aroused her. Suddenly nervous, she laughed out loud.
“You’ve picked the wrong woman to claim. I’m not mate material. I’m not free to
share any more time with you. I wish we could have more time together, but we
don’t have it.” Dealing with real life issues was much more of a bummer than
before. She’d like to escape reality and continue to enjoy his expertise in the
art of lovemaking. She would like the opportunity to humble his overbearing
ass, but it simply wasn’t an option. She had to come up with a plan to get the
impossible done and her time was running out. “As much as I’d rather stay here
with you for a while longer, I’m leaving.” She could see his anger and
frustration. He wasn’t used to being defied.

“You can’t just walk away from me as
if…” Silencing him a wolf howled. He went completely still. He was staring into
her eyes, but she knew he wasn’t seeing her. The howling was followed by an
eerie chorus of it. It was the freakiest thing ever. She could’ve sworn the
sounds came from all around. “Go and take a shower. I need to go out and see
what is going on.”

She swore she didn’t see him move, but
he was out from under her, out of the bed and fully clothed standing over her.
“Huh.”

“Don’t leave this room.” As if fully
expecting her obedience, he walked out of the room.

She sat there on the edge of the bed for
a few minutes. What the hell just happened? He was gone. The best lover she’d
ever had, just got up and left without so much as giving her a farewell kiss.
No. What was wrong with her? She didn’t like feeling all needy. Yes. He walked
out of the room, but he would be back. She couldn’t wait for him. He didn’t
understand the danger she would place him in.

She got out of the bed and made her way
to the bathroom. She opened the door and turned the light on. She was shocked
and appalled. More appalled. It was the nastiest, scummiest bathroom she’d ever
seen. The stench caused her to gag.

She took a quick cold shower in water
that reeked of rotten eggs. After drying her body off with the most disgusting
stained towel she’d ever seen, she got dressed and packed a few items,
including the gun Nikolas had given to her.

After putting her jacket on, she pulled
the hood of her sweatshirt over her head and left the hotel room to walk to her
car. She was nervous. She couldn’t be sure if her father’s men had somehow
already identified and found the car Nikolas had given her. 

With any luck, within the next few
minutes, she’d be reunited with the car and no one would be there waiting for
her to return to it.  She needed to make her way up north, closer to
Latourel Falls, where she would set into motion her plan to get her father to
meet up with her.

She knew the trails very well. He
didn’t. And, as far as she knew, his men didn’t. Meeting him there would give
her an advantage. A slight advantage because he had a dozen or so armed guards
and though she had a gun, she’d never actually fired one before.

In fact, prior Nikolas giving it to her,
she never touched one. She’d taken it into a gun shop to get more bullets.
After laughing at her for having a gun that was too big and better suited for a
man than a little feeble woman, the old man behind counter showed her how to
load the bullets and take the safety off. That was the extent of her knowledge
about guns. She hoped to have time to test it out before she had to use it for
real. If not, she hoped it was as easy as aiming and squeezing the
trigger. 

She made her way through a small wooded
area between the hotel and the abandoned building. She was relieved her car was
still there, but she didn’t rush to get in it and go. She remained hidden in
the tree line and studied the area to make sure no one was watching for her to
return.  It was a dark and dreary midwinter morning. Crouched down on her
knees she waited for about an hour. The wind was bitter cold. The sun was
covered by a thick blanket of clouds and didn’t offer any warmth. Her hands and
feet were numb, her ears ached.

While waiting she started to think about
Eli. The day had started out awful, waking to remember she had to walk away
from the best lover she’d ever encountered really sucked, but it was destined
to get a million times more unpleasant.

Waiting was getting her nowhere. She
wouldn’t know if her father’s men were watching the car for sure unless she
exposed herself. It was time to stop stalling. She was going to die anyway so
it didn’t really matter if she died right now. Well it sort of mattered. It
would prevent her from killing him before he killed her. She left the tree line
and more shocked than relieved that bullets didn’t start flying, she ran across
the parking lot towards her car. 

***

“Where
the hell did they go?” Eli had been in the abandon factory searching for the
vampires that had been watching the hotel. The vampires had been waiting him
out for most of the night. They wouldn’t have just decided to give up. The only
way they would’ve been able to hide from the pack was if they’d used a cloaking
spell. Since they were on alert it had to be powerful. Possibly demonic. He
thought about his past few encounters with Demetri. He also picked up on her
father’s scent. Just the fact that the tainted vampires were working side by
side with humans, to aid humans was beyond odd. It was downright preposterous.
“I think Demetri Demidov is involved.”

“If you’re right that’s a huge problem.
We can’t properly protect her in town. There’s too much activity, too many
sounds and smells all around. Everything is unfamiliar. We need to move her. We
need to get her to a location the pack is more familiar with as soon as
possible.”

He didn’t need to be told that they
needed to get Kara out of town, but he didn’t bother telling that to Cain. He
was pleased with the younger wolf’s ability to remain calm and use reasoning.
He wasn’t feeling calm at all. He had left eight of his strongest men to watch
Kara’s room. He knew she was safe, but that didn’t stop him from worrying.
Though they hadn’t alerted him of any trouble, he had a nagging feeling that
something was wrong, that she was in imminent danger. He tried to shrug the
feeling off. Surely it was only an effect of knowing her father had been there
and the vampires had intended to snatch her away from him. 

Cain grabbed Eli’s shoulder and turned
him around and pointed out the window. “Holy shit, Eli. Is that Kara?”

Eli shook his head. He blinked once and
then twice. He couldn’t believe his eyes. She was trying to leave him. Why?
He’d told her to stay in the room. Why would she outright defy him? “Where are
the men I left to watch over her room?”

“There’s no time to worry about that.
Look over there.” Though Eli immediately saw it, Cain pointed at a group of vampires
that had circled her and were moving in her direction at a speed her human eyes
would never be able to follow.

Eli reacted instantly, but the vampires
were on her by the time he’d shifted into his wolf form and crashed through the
window. Being ten stories high and injured by the glass as he went through it,
he hit the ground hard. Ignoring the pain, forcing his body to move, he ran
toward her. He didn’t even bother to turn to make sure Cain followed. He didn’t
need to. He trusted the young wolf.