Incubus Moon (30 page)

I studied his face above mine, taking in his large, trusting brown eyes and generous mouth. Evidently, it didn’t take incubus magic to entice Niko. He wanted to be with me for me.

“You must be starving,” I said, sitting up on the bed.

He stopped me with a grin when I reached for the telephone. “Yes, but not for food.”

Horrible things had happened, were still happening. Niko was the one good thing to come my way through it all. How could I not give in to the heat of his gaze begging me to reach out and take what he offered, as if he’d somehow enchanted me?

He emptied his champagne glass in one gulp, letting it land with a soft thud on the carpet, and then leaned down to kiss me. His mouth was cool, the crisp flavor of the effervescent liquid an added bonus, and I returned his affection with equal enthusiasm.

His kiss was as gentle and wonderful as he was, but he broke it now to inch his way up my body, the crotch of his new linen trousers pushing out at my mouth. He lingered there for a moment, teasing me, and then rocked back on his hips to stare down at me with an impish grin.

Hunger
ignited in me. I reached up to bring him bring him down to me and covered his mouth with my own. An explosion of texture and flavor danced across our tongues as we sucked, chewed on, and rolled the chocolate-covered strawberry he’d been concealing.

I didn’t care that his shirt had cost me several hundred dollars. I ripped it open in one quick tug and pushed it back from his smooth, bronzed shoulders.

Niko chuckled and sat upright again, letting the shirt slip down his arms, his lean torso like dark honey in the dim lighting.

It was strange not to see bare breasts moving above me, but skin was skin after all, and the lust I saw reflected in his eyes was enough to push my
Hunger
over the edge.

I ran hands over his upper body, kneading its warm, muscular flesh, before lifting my torso to bring my mouth up to lap at the thin line of sticky-sweetness from the strawberry running from the corner of his mouth down onto his chin and throat. I sucked greedily on it, the coarseness of his stubble contrasting with the delicious sugariness that caused a riot of pleasure against my tongue.

He struggled with his belt buckle and trousers, but soon stood exposed and hard above me.

I hurried to get naked as well and kneeled in front of him. This was another first for me. I’d never taken a man into my mouth. I’d never wanted to. The thought of doing it now was both wildly intimidating and beyond exciting.

Temptation was staring me down and I could fight it no longer. I opened my mouth to receive what Niko was offering and marveled at the silky-hardness of him gliding over my lips, at the salty-sweetness he left on my tongue.

Before long, he tightened his grip on the back of my head, his thigh muscles contracting under my hands. When at last he threw his
head back, his body giving over to one exquisite shudder after another, I wrapped both hands around his hips and gripped his buttocks, pulling the fullness of him deeper into my mouth as he released himself into me with a deep moan.

Niko collapsed on top of me, kissing me and teasing my own excitement with a slow, deliberate grinding of his hips. “I want you inside me.”

I gazed into his eyes, fringed by dark, thick lashes, and needed no convincing.

“But I want this first.” He pushed back along the length of my body, taking all of me into his mouth. For a fleeting instant, I wondered if he’d ever done this with Dimitri.

As quickly as the thought entered my mind I silenced it. Of course he hadn’t. Dimitri Ravello was not a lover of men, or so he claimed.

I reminded myself that this wasn’t about Dimitri Ravello. Not when Niko was here with me. Not when he was the one my heart was telling me to nurture and love.

And as I tucked in behind him now and slipped inside, we both cried out in joy.

CHAPTER 32

I crept through the darkened sitting area of our hotel room toward the main door and gave the deadbolt a slow twist to unlock it. I cringed at the metallic clicking it generated in the still silence and glanced over my shoulder to see if the noise had roused Niko. To my relief, he was sleeping peacefully in the large bed in which we’d recently made love.

Niko
. What an unexpected revelation he was.

There was nothing logical about knowing someone for all of three days and feeling as though you were somehow meant to be together—especially when that someone happened to be another man. But that was exactly how my illogical heart and I felt. I needed Niko with me, needed to ensure his happiness and, above all, his safety.

Which was why I was leaving without him.

He’d be furious and hurt and wouldn’t give a damn about the envelope of cash I’d left for him on the nightstand. He’d cling to the promises I’d made in the note tucked inside it. Promises I had no right to make, because, truthfully, I wasn’t convinced that I’d survive this ordeal.

Mark and Christie Gold were certainly acute reminders that no one I cared about would ever be safe again unless I could put an end to Haemon and Kassandra.

The cold, hard reality was: There was no guaranty that I could.

Regardless of the outcome, I had to try to locate and save my friends. If I didn’t, more innocent people were going to die.

I closed the hotel room door quietly behind me and made my way to the bank of elevators. I was doing the right thing. The
only
thing.

The lobby was devoid of guests at this late hour. However, two taxicabs were parked just beyond the hotel’s main entrance, the drivers standing next to their vehicles smoking cigarettes and engaged in animated dialogue. The plan I’d devised was to hop the very first plane I could get on standby from Athens to Prague.

Thanks to Dimitri’s inadvertent slip back at the sanctuary on Rhodes, I knew this was where Haemon’s stronghold was located, and where he had likely taken my friends. Except that I didn’t get into either of the taxis.

Instead, I walked straight out of the brightly lit hotel and into the dark night beyond.

My body was still too juiced from making love to Niko. I couldn’t get my mind to stop revving. Walking would cool me down, help to clear my head. Sitting in the confines of an empty airport for hours until regular morning flights resumed would only push my already frayed nerves over the edge. So I walked and reflected on how much had happened over the past few months. Hell, over this past week alone!

Physically, I was more powerful than ever. Convinced I also possessed other latent incubus abilities Dimitri intentionally failed to reveal, I was now brave (or foolish) enough to pit myself against two of the oldest and scariest vampires in existence, and do so without backup.

Perhaps I was confusing bravery with pride and a burning need for revenge.

I had a lot to consider as I walked, and the city seemed to invite me to explore her labyrinth of darkened streets. The famous hilltop ruins illuminated in the near distance called to me.

Athens, ancient temptress, was holding out her arms and begging me to fall into them.

An image of Dimitri and Eva arguing in the sanctuary flashed behind my eyes.

He was holding up that old book to her, furious that she’d let us escape. He’d needed more time to convince me not to challenge Haemon and Kassandra on my own, and he’d been prepared to subdue me by force in order to make that happen. Eva was to strip me of my incubus powers through sorcery, until such a time as Dimitri saw fit to have them restored.

I smiled to myself, knowing that I’d done the right thing by leaving the island and taking Niko with me. Dimitri Ravello may have saved my life—twice in fact—but he was clearly out to serve his own best interests.

I continued to navigate the hushed, residential streets leading to the base of the Acropolis, but suddenly stopped in mid-step. The enchantment that had lured me away from the hotel was beginning to fade. The warm, dry air around me had grown leaden, possessed real physical weight that caused a tingle to creep over my skin. I knew this sensation, had been subjected to it months before in Los Angeles, when I first thought I was being watched.

It was that same terrible feeling I’d experienced in Prague right before…

A wave of vertigo slammed into me with such force that I pitched against a parked car, its alarm shattering the dark night. I’d broken out into a cold sweat and felt as though my entire nervous system had gone into full fucking tilt.

A double chirp and flash of amber lights put an end to the metallic shrieking. For several moments, though, all I could hear was its shrill echo inside my head.

But as the sound diminished, another came to replace it. One that filtered over rooftops and crept from behind darkened windows, from the shadows between parked cars.

Haemon
. He was here in Athens!

I fought rising panic to summon every ounce of incubus strength to bring down my psychic shields. The vampire pushed right back. Haemon was strong.

Maybe too strong.

Left with either surrendering to him and being lost forever or getting the hell out of there, I chose the latter. Staying out in the open like this was tantamount to suicide. I had to get back to the relative safety of the hotel.

I no longer cared what my plans had been. They never seemed to work out anyway. There was no way I was going to leave Niko alone in this city and at the mercy of that fiend.

A man shouted at me from an upper floor apartment building, his angry words helping me to refocus on my more immediate problem. He was telling me to get away from his car.

How I’d understood this in Greek I didn’t know or care, because my own incubus will had managed to sever Haemon’s hold over me and propelled me into a full run.

I sprinted into the next block, the sense of impending danger matching my every stride. The fragrant Athenian night was no longer my ally. She refused me the shelter of her darkness, conspired against me, a network of obsidian eyes and invisible tentacles snaking their way along the deserted streets in search of me. The night belonged to the vampire Haemon.

He was close. So close I could
feel
him.

Shit! Am I even running in the right direction?

Another wave of vertigo gripped me and I lost my footing. The last thing I remembered was tumbling to the pavement.

I coughed to clear my throat of the dust and tiny coarse hairs sticking to my tongue and lips. My head throbbed and blood thundered in my ears.

When I opened my eyes, I had to squeeze them shut against stinging bits of fibers that scratched across their surface. Rolling my head to the side confirmed what I already knew: a rough cloth sack covered it. The other obvious fact was that I was in a moving vehicle.

I couldn’t recall being put into a car, only Haemon’s menacing presence as I ran, stumbled, and then fell. That I’d been abducted was obvious, but the scenario felt too human.

Why would a vampire bother placing a hood over my head?

Something else didn’t gel. I wasn’t at home in my skin. For one thing, my legs felt longer and my overall frame was too broad. This had to be another vision.

If it was, it came fully loaded with 7.1 surround sound and scratch-and-sniff smells. Also, the dream-like edges that had accompanied my earlier visions were totally absent. There was no sense of physical detachment from the setting.

My heart was also beating like crazy, my body pulsing with a mixture of fear and rage—human fear and rage. It smelled different, too. Muskier.

From the jerky ride, I reasoned that I must be traveling in a small truck or van. Stiff rope abraded my wrists and ankles, and the stink of rubber and greasy metal filled my nostrils.

Whosever body I’d woken up in was distinctly male. His balls were aching in this position, so I/we rolled over just as the vehicle hit a rut and something solid bumped up against us.

A body.

I felt the man go rigid and his fear redouble when we caught a whiff of perfume amidst the other odors. A perfume we both recognized.

“Christie?” Mark said in a choked whisper.

Once the connection had been made, I jerked upwards with such speed it felt as though I’d been cleaved in two. The disorientation, the sting of ropes biting into my flesh—into Mark’s flesh!—vanished. I was free-floating and staring down at two bound and hooded figures lying on the filthy floor of a utility van.

Of course!
One of the incubus gifts I’d read about in that old book was the ability to possess a person’s body while they slept or were in a vulnerable state. And right now, Mark and Christie Gold couldn’t have been more vulnerable.

Christie, I realized with rising apprehension, didn’t respond. Then I detected a slight rise and fall to her chest. She was alive!

Mark called out in a louder whisper, but she lay silent and unmoving. This just couldn’t be Haemon manipulating me into thinking I was seeing them. What was happening to my friends was real, and so was the danger into which I’d placed them.

My heart ached to see Mark’s fingertips blindly search for his wife’s, who’d rolled away from him during a turn. He scooted and tucked, rolling like an earthworm, until he could feel the skin of her arm, dotted with dark bruises and vicious bite marks.