Keeper Chronicles: Awakening (25 page)

“Your human blood is dominant. Demon blood can only be awakened through great anger or rage.” Gabe looked at her as warmth spread through him by her touch; her brown eyes reflected the green of the trees and gold of the sky. “I’m so sorry I had to put you through that,” he apologized, glancing down. “I hate that you have to know these things. That now you’re doomed to this life.”

Almost before he’d finished the last word, Rebekah leaned over and kissed him. Her blood still surged with demonic essence, making her more powerful than him right then, so when he tried to pull away, he couldn’t. As she bit his lip, licking at the coppery taste on his tongue, he stopped wanting to leave. He wanted nothing more than to be swallowed by her, devoured whole by her lust.

Eyes wild and frantic with need, she ripped off his shirt and pushed him down on the rock, mounting above him and grinding her pelvis into his. With a grin, he rolled her over and into Cape Creek, landing on top of her with a splash and kissing her beneath the icy water. She shoved him, hard, launching him up in the air and across the creek. The joy of her new strength shone through her skin whose light nearly rivaled that of the sun; her eyes sparkled. He barely regained his feet when she pushed him again, this time into a tree whose trunk splintered at the impact.

Gabe’s head spun, dizzied by the two blows, as the tree crashed to the ground sideways behind him. Rushing at him like she wanted to throw him again, he took her arms and twirled her around, slamming her into the remains of the tree that had just fallen. Her grin was one of ecstasy. Of vigor. Of life. She’d never looked more beautiful than she did at that moment. He had never wanted her more.

“Rebekah?”

The voice was faint but unmistakable, jerking him back to awareness. Beks turned around, startled, her eyes wide like a deer caught between the hunter’s sights.

“Rebekah, are you out here?”

“Gabe, I’m...” she sounded like she was about to apologize.

He shook his head. “Don’t. Just go. Before he sees the damage and starts asking questions.”

“But I...”

“Go.”

Gabe hid on the other side of the fallen tree and buried his head in his hands. Now that her blood had awakened, it’d sing out like a siren’s call to any nearby demon, announcing her heritage.

Making her a target.

He might as well have killed her himself.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Playing house with the human girl was beginning to bore him. Her pregnancy advanced nicely, but until another month passed, the child wouldn’t have developed enough so that its blood would be sufficient to break the seal on the gate. He didn’t have to be there while his seed grew. So many other tempting alternatives beckoned: blonde ones, brunettes, redheads even. All filled with luscious memories and blood. All full of sexual energy.

Sleeping with the same human more than once was redundant.

And he was getting hungry.

He had to stage the fight carefully enough that, when she found out about the pregnancy, she wouldn’t try to terminate it. His collection of dolls whispered that was a possibility. So he cooked her dinner.

One of the dolls had loved to make homemade pasta and planned to open a restaurant someday. When she had enough money. Using her knowledge, he spent hours in the kitchen making dough; stuffing the ravioli with a blend of Asiago and Romano cheeses, herbs and wild mushrooms; and preparing the white wine, garlic sauce. To go with the ravioli, he prepared a salad of wild greens and berries with raspberry vinaigrette and some garlic bread.

When the smell brought her into the kitchen, he had candles lit and the plates steaming on the table.

“What’s all this about?” she asked. Taking off the large yellow gloves she’d been wearing to clean upstairs, she washed her hands in the sink.

He pulled out her chair and helped her to sit. “There’s something I want to talk to you about. I thought it’d be best over a nice dinner.”

“Should I be worried?”

“I hope not.” He took his time pouring her a glass of Voignier, a tropical white wine with hints of peach and apricots. Pausing behind her, he let his fingers trail around the back of her neck, wishing that instead he could tighten his grip and block her airway. Suck the blood from her heart.

Nothing would please him more.

As if she could sense his intentions, she shrugged away from his touch. “I didn’t know you could cook like this,” she said, eating a forkful of ravioli.

He grinned. “There’s a lot about me you don’t know, but I hope we’ll have the time to learn.”

“What do you mean, hope?” she asked, a slight tremor in her voice.

Humans were pathetic; word games like this were beneath him. One siren song would boil her into a sexual frenzy, making her do anything she wanted just to have one night with him. People have killed for the pleasure of his company. And recently. His song and the mesmerism it induced were keeping the Hunters busy chasing rumor and story—sightings fabricated by those in his thrall. The spells weren’t permanent, of course, and those he’d gotten to do his bidding eventually would wake up to wonder why they were covered in blood. Not his problem.

“Let’s eat first.”

Engaging in small talk about her day, he kept her busy through the meal, trying to look like he was really making an effort when in fact he wanted to vomit at having to grovel with a human. How was your day?
Oh, you know. Lots of cleaning. Everything has to be nice.
And your walk this morning?
Great, great. You know I love nature. But I want to hear about you. How was your day, sweetie?
Mine? Well, I had a lot to think about today. How’s the salad? It’s a new recipe and I wasn’t sure it’d turn out okay.
No, it’s great. Just great. I like the almonds. They mix well with the berries and have a nice crunch to them.

Once this was over and he’d used his unborn child to open the gate, he was going to enjoy slicing open her aorta and feasting on her blood.

She placed her fork and knife across her plate, signaling that she’d finished, so he did the same. No matter what human food he ate, it all tasted like ash anyway. No need forcing more down if she was finished.

“More wine?” He gestured with the bottle.

Her hands fidgeted underneath the table. She’d been nervous all evening—jittery, even. “Yes, please.”

Rising slowly, he brought the bottle over and poured her some more, looking longingly into her eyes. The dolls had helped him plan this part. Had assured him it would work.

He got down on one knee and took her hand. “Love, I’ve been offered a permanent contract. Three nights a week. Guaranteed pay.”

“Well, that’s—”

He interrupted her. “The contract is back East.”

“Oh.”

“I want you to come with me. We could get an apartment together, start a new life away from here and all the painful memories it holds. What do you say?”

She stared at him for a moment, a smile creeping at the corner of her lips so much so that he was worried she’d agree and go with him. The dolls had promised that this wasn’t the case. That there was no way she’d leave her family home. “I can’t,” she finally said, ending his worry.

He tried to look saddened. “But why?”

“This is my home. My life’s here. I can’t just pack up and leave with no warning and no real plans.”

He forced himself to look heartbroken. “I love you.” The words burned on his tongue. He needed her to feel guilty, to think that she was the bad person in this situation. That guilt would stay her hand long enough for their child to become ready to be sacrificed.

Rising up, he kissed her. She tried to pull away at first, tried to resist, but no one could fight his allure for long as he fed her a constant stream of emotions and images—everything she desired most. Now, however, with the pleasant images he also fed her scenes of death and blood and violence. Enough to scare her a little but not enough to make his touch unpleasant. Lust, he’d found, existed in a balance between longing and fear, between pleasure and pain.

And tonight he planned on testing her balance to the extreme.

“I want you one last time,” she whispered in his ear.

His body responded to her lust, feeding on it, devouring the sweet nectar of her essence. Ripping open her shirt, he exposed the soft swell of her breasts, so prefect and white. She really was beautiful. For a human.

As he let his teeth graze her warm skin, he smelled something different in her blood. Something irresistible. She’d begun to transform.

The child he’d planted inside her was half demon, and its blood slowly poisoned hers, mixing with hers, strengthening her for the agonizing birthing that happened when humans and demons mated. On its own, it’d kill her outright, but he’d been preparing her, feeding her drops of his blood slowly in her food and drink and during intimacy. Just enough to begin the change without killing her.

She would die, but only when he was ready.

Knocking the dishes off the table with a wide sweep of his arm, he tossed her up, following and pinning her to the smooth wood with his hips, her hands trapped above her head in one of his own. Her soft moans against his mouth, the way she arched her hips up into his, told him she was captured.

He could do whatever he wanted to her and she’d beg him for more.

The urge to torture her slowly, killing her as he merged with her, nearly overwhelmed the developing rational part of his mind.

No, he told himself. He couldn’t kill her yet. Her death came later. That was the plan. Then he could take all the time he wanted killing her.

Biting his lip, he kissed her, forcing her to ingest his blood. The reaction was nearly instantaneous as the demon blood already surging in her veins rose up with aggression and violence. She sunk her teeth into his shoulder, greedy for another taste, screaming with pleasure as the hot liquid squirted into her mouth. Using her tongue, she lapped at the wound softly, licking up ever drop his body expelled. Despite how alluring she smelled vibrating with his blood, he wanted this over with. There were other girls, other memories, to steal.

He unzipped his pants.

She screamed as he buried himself inside her—a sound of pleasure and pain and the intoxication of his blood. Some nice arteries fed the human breast, a few of them conveniently close to the surface. Slicing into one at the inner swell of her left breast, he fed lightly on her blood while she also drank his, bringing her achingly close to bliss and holding her there.

Memories of youthful trysts—of a first time in one of the upstairs rooms while her parents had gone out to dinner for the night—flooded into him. He’d been nervous and clumsy; she’d worried about her parents’ returning. What if someone stopped over? He loved her. She loved him. They’d always be together. Blah, blah, blah.

Her blood would sustain him in this realm for several days.

The child—his child—hungered, using her to consume as much of his blood as it could. He let the thing feed—no hybrid child could survive without a little demon blood—knowing that the memories his blood carried, the knowledge, would give her nightmares for weeks.

Bored with his food, he finished and pushed her face away from his shoulder. Eyes wide with fear, her screams shook the pictures hung around the room; he bent down and hummed his song into her ear until she was still.

There. Looking around at the mess they’d made, he’d thought to leave her like that: face bloody, lying in semen and ravioli, broken dishes strewn around her. It’d serve the human right.

But he needed her. Needed her guilt that she’d pushed him away to ensure the survival of his offspring, at least temporarily. Grabbing her, he flung her over his shoulder and carried her to the bedroom where he tucked her into bed after cleaning up the worst of the mess on her face and changing her clothing.

When she woke up, she’d not remember much after dinner finished except that he’d had to leave and she hadn’t wanted to go with him.

Upstairs, he took a moment to return the kitchen to normal before grabbing his bags and walking out the door.

Now the real fun could begin.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“This is the third one,” Colette said. On the ground in front of her, hands caked in dried blood and clothing reeking of gasoline, sat a gibbering young woman blathering incoherently as she rocked back and forth. Colette flipped open the stopper on the vial she carried and forced the girl to drink the yellowish liquid as she looked up at her husband. “How are we still a day behind? We know what the demon looks like, for heaven’s sake.”

Nicholas crouched next to her and helped her hold the young woman as the potion took effect. “I’m more concerned with how he’s getting these women to do what he wants. That factory fire—if it had been lit during the day—could have killed hundreds of people instead of three security guards. The news is starting to connect the accidents. They’re talking about a serial arsonist terrorizing the Pacific coast states. The Council will not be pleased.”

The wail of sirens grew closer, the sound a shriek in the night. Although they were a block from the fire, the heat still radiated that far, and a thin sheen of sweat covered her arms and face in slime. Using the council’s contacts in the region, they’d followed the demon wearing Adam Dillinger’s body halfway across Oregon and up into Washington over the past two weeks. Each time, they arrived too late to stop the accident. Each time, the demon had fled the scene hours before.

Snapping his fingers, Nicholas got the woman’s attention. “Hey, hey. I need you to listen to me. Can you do that for me? Nod your head if you understand.”

The mess in Colette’s arms nodded, her expression vacant.

“Okay. You’re still connected to the man who did this to you. Can you see him?”

She nodded.

“Great. I need to know where you are. Can you tell me that? Where is he?”

Screaming, the girl tried to worm back away from Nicholas, but Colette tightened her grip, not letting the girl leave. “I know it hurts,” Colette whispered. “But this will help us find him. The sooner we find him, the sooner this ends for you. Do you understand that? He’s going to kill you if we don’t find him.”