Master of Darkness (20 page)

Eden Faveau might not be psychic, but she
made a very strong impression. Especially when she was shouting at the top of her lungs.

“Shit.”
Now the one person he thought was safe was here. He smashed a fist angrily into the wall.

Then he raced toward the front room to see just how much trouble Eden was in now.

Chapter Twenty-two

“T
ouch me there again, and I'll kill you,” Eden warned the Prime she'd managed to kick in the balls.

He'd been too busy fondling her to consider that she might be able to defend herself. Maybe he didn't think she'd recovered from the Taser shocks, or maybe he didn't think women could fight. But he'd just learned a lesson.

He surged up off the floor with his fangs and claws extended. A second vampire grabbed her from behind and held her still while the first Prime stalked toward her.

“I'm going to slash your face, first.” He touched his sharp claw points to her cheeks, then pulled his hands back so she could get a good look at them. “Scared?”

“Of course she's scared,” a familiar voice drawled.

Eden managed to turn enough in her captor's grip to watch Laurent move into the room with a dangerous fluid grace. The effect was rather like a cheetah loping into a room full of pussy-cats.

She barely recognized him.

“Melodrama.” Laurent sighed.

Then he grabbed her by the hair and pulled her out of the other Prime's hold. He forced her head back with casual ease, twisting his fingers in her hair. “You don't need to ask permission to terrify someone. Just
do
it.” He leaned close to whisper in her ear. “Fight me, and it will really hurt.”

Though the body pressing hard against her back was familiar, she barely recognized his voice. Her neck ached and her scalp burned from the pressure.

He spoke over her head. “If you touch her again, Alexos, I'll be the one to kill you.”

“Of course he will,” a new voice said.

Laurent let go of her head but kept an arm around her waist, tight as a steel band. She glanced toward the newcomer and felt jarring fear as she recognized the Prime from an old photo in his dossier.

“Justinian.”

His gaze barely flicked her way when she
spoke his name. He concentrated his attention on Laurent, and he smiled. Eden couldn't fathom what that meant. Why was Laurent here?

Justinian came to stand in front of Laurent and gave him a nod of approval.

The monster was older than in the surveillance picture, but the debauched angel beauty was still there. The photo only hinted at the coldness and arrogant contempt that permeated this creature's being, though.

“Did the hunter follow me here?” Laurent asked.

“Oh, no,” Justinian said. “I sent for her.”

The steel band around her waist tightened further, bringing a gasp of pain from her. Laurent knew she was hurting, but he didn't ease up. She was tempted to struggle, but something about Laurent's dangerous tension as he faced Justinian warned her to keep quiet.

“Why?” Laurent asked.

“Another present.”

“You are being far too generous.” There was nothing polite in Laurent's tone.

“Very likely,” Justinian answered.

He was smiling, sounding pleasant, but Eden recognized the implied threat in every word.

She glanced at the four other Primes who were hanging back, watching and waiting. They
looked mean, and they looked greedy. Or maybe hungry was a better term—hungry for violence, hungry for power. Hungry for her, she realized as she noticed the way they darted heated glances at her. It made her skin crawl.

A couple of them didn't look very healthy, either; they were more pasty than pale. Dawn users, she guessed.

“I was surprised you didn't bring her with you,” Justinian continued.

This drew Eden's attention away from the rest of the audience. She could barely breathe as it was, but she held her breath, waiting for Laurent's response.

“You were offering me something better,” Laurent said. She felt his shrug all along her body. “No reason I can't have them both.”

“A harem is a Prime's right,” Justinian agreed. “But I was thinking about the female's other use. You did acquire her to unlock the secrets in the Patron's computer, didn't you?”

“Acquire?” Eden was too outraged to keep quiet this time.

Laurent's free hand came across her mouth, effectively silencing her. He had complete control of her. And it was growing clearer by the second that Laurent was just as ruthless and evil as the other Primes gathered around her like
carrion feeders. She was dizzy with fear, confusion—and growing revulsion.

“I thought you might have your own expert,” Laurent said.

The older Prime laughed. “Nonsense. As usual, you were trying to thwart me.” He put an elegant hand on Laurent's shoulder. “From now on we won't play those sort of games, my son.”

Son?

Eden felt ready to faint.

The shock from the other vampires jerked her back into the present.

“Son?” one of them demanded. “He's been running with the hunters slaughtering us!”

Justinian swiftly turned and raked claws across the younger Prime's face. “With my permission!” A deep snarl rumbled from his throat, and everybody backed away. He glared for a couple of seconds, then nodded as gazes dropped. Justinian turned back to Laurent. “You see what I have to put up with?”

“They're a handful, all right,” Laurent answered. “Do you want to use my blood slave's computer skills now?”

“Take the day with her,” Justinian said magnanimously. “You know I do my business at night.”

Eden was overwhelmed by the news that Laurent
was a Tribe Prime. Even worse, he was Justinian's son.

She wanted his hands off her. She wanted to spit in his face. Most importantly, she wanted to kill him.

Instead he dragged her along behind him like a rag doll, up a flight of stairs and into a heavily curtained bedroom. He kicked the door closed, tossed her onto her back on a wide bed, then turned on a dim overhead light.

“Well, isn't this another fine mess you've gotten me into,” he said, looking down at her with his hands on his hips.

“You scum-sucking maggot bastard!” was her reply.

“I'm a bastard, all right. But if you call me a son of a bitch I'll be tempted to hurt you.”

“You're Tribe. Manticore!”

“Yep.” The succinct word was not spoken with any relish.

Eden noticed that her cheeks were wet; she was crying in front of a lying Tribe bastard. This only made the anger and humiliation worse. “I slept with you!”

“And you're likely to be sleeping with me again.” The way he looked her over reminded Eden that she was lying on the bed like some barbarian's war prize.

And he'd called her a blood slave.

It was said that blood slaves were completely addicted to their Tribe masters. She and Laurent had shared blood. She'd thought it was a mutual gift—of trust, of pleasure. But he must have been doing it simply to use her. How much did it take to turn someone into a helpless addict?

She'd been so naive. Stupid. Gullible. All those years of training had been forgotten almost from the moment she met him.

All because he was so damn beautiful, so challenging, so charming—so good in bed.

She sat up, her head and stomach reeling. “I think I'm going to be sick.”

He crossed his arms. “Well, that certainly feeds my ego.”

“I was an idiot to trust you.”

“Not exactly an idiot. I'm a very accomplished liar. Perhaps
liar
isn't the right word. Actor. You saw what you wanted to see, Eden. I went along with you. We even kicked some Tribe butt. Now, didn't that make you happy?”

“Not as happy as it will make me when I kill you.”

He smiled. Then the smile turned into a long, deep laugh.

“It's not an empty threat,” she pointed out.

He stopped laughing, but there was still amusement
in his eyes, where before they'd been hard and angry. “I love a woman who talks like that,” he told her. “It must be genetic.” He looked surprised for a moment, and added. “In fact—”

He made a strangled sound and turned his back on her. He muttered something she couldn't make out.

“In fact, what?” she demanded.

“You don't want to hear it.” He faced her again. “You won't believe me.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Love,” he answered. “
I
don't want to believe it. I've never been so scared in my life, but I have to say it. I love you, Eden Faveau.”

“You're saying that to hurt me.”

“I love you,” he repeated. “There's nothing I can do about it, nothing I want to do about it—except prove it to you. But discovering it right now is damned inconvenient for both of us.”

Whatever it was he meant by love, she did not want to know. “Liar. Scheming rat bastard liar.”

He shrugged.

It annoyed her that even though he'd revealed his true identity, Laurent was still acting like—Laurent. Downstairs in front of the other Primes he'd been all macho and nasty, but once they were alone, he'd reverted to the Laurent she'd thought she'd known for the last several days.

The Laurent she'd been so attracted to.

“Did you put a glamour on me?” she demanded.

“A what?”

“You know, did you use your telepathic powers to make me attracted to you?”

“You wish. Then you wouldn't have to take responsibility for your actions. The blood we shared wasn't what drew you to me.” He shook a finger at her. “The seduction was mutual. Have I forced anything on you?”

“Not that I remember.”

“Eden.”

“Okay,” she admitted grudgingly. “No.”

“You wanted me because you wanted me.” He gave an unabashed happy grin. “Thank you. I'm not used to being wanted for myself.”

He sounded too honest, too vulnerable. This touched her, though he had to be playing her. “Oh, please,” she countered. “What's not to want?”

“I know. I'm perfect. But I generally don't get to know my partners or let them know me. You're my first.”

Eden couldn't stop her raucous, bitter laugh. She got to her feet. “Excuse me, but how do I know
you?
First you let me think you're Sid Wolf. Then the werewolf calls you Laurent Wolf. Now I
find out you're actually a Manticore.” She shuddered, and couldn't stop the grimace. She'd had sex—lots of really good sex—with a Manticore. “How did you convince a werewolf's legendary senses that you're a Wolf Clan vampire? Or was the werewolf in on a scheme to con me?”

“Werewolves are honest, loyal, and true. Shame on you for thinking one would do anything but bite a Manticore on the ankle if they got the chance. Joe just wanted me to help him find—someone for him.”

“The real Sid Wolf.”

“Yeah.” His voice was tight, and his expression had gone blank.

“But why did he ask you for help? Why did he mistake you for a Wolf?”

Eden wanted desperately to know, to really know, Laurent. If only to learn how she'd gone so very wrong in coming to care for him.

He didn't answer her immediately, and she saw a sadness and fear in his eyes that couldn't be an act.

Ridiculously, foolishly, she wanted to throw her arms around him. But she didn't move; she waited for him to make up his mind. About what? Whether or not to trust her? She was his prisoner; he owed her nothing. And yet…

He'd said he loved her.

“Love means trust,” she said.

Laurent cleared his throat, twice, and took a long, deep breath. “My mother,” he said. “Was … is Wolf Clan.”

Eden suddenly, vividly, recalled a conversation they'd had in her car. He'd asked her to tell him all she knew about Justinian.

“You do know that he started a war between the Manticores and local clans, including yours back in the 1880s? In fact, it was over his stealing a female from the Wolf Clan, wasn't it? We hunters don't know many of the details even if we did help run the Tribes out of town. Did you ever get her back?”

He had gone very still. Once again he was staring out the windshield, and his expression was blank. “No.”

For all that his answer was brusque and cold it made her aware that in some way he was hurting and vulnerable. It occurred to Eden that Sid Wolf was likely related to the kidnapped Wolf female. What was somebody else's ancient history for her might be a recent tragedy for the long-lived Clan
.

“Did you know her?”

“Your mother,” she said now. “She's the Wolf Justinian took. Oh, God, I'm sorry, I—”

He held up a hand to silence her. And gave
one of his fatalistic shrugs. “How is it so many people know more about my history than I do?”

She hesitated for a moment, then replied, “I don't. The hunters don't know about what happened to—your mother.”

She'd almost said
Clan female
in the depersonalizing way she'd been trained to think about vampires. If there was one thing Laurent whateverhecalledhimself had taught her, it was that vampires were people, too. Whatever other deceptions he practiced on her, she couldn't see vampires as just soulless monsters anymore.

“Not that some of us don't still need killing.” He picked up on her thoughts.

“You said your mother is Wolf Clan? Is she all right? Does Justinian still—”

“He sold her a long time ago.”

Eden was repulsed by this answer, but she was not surprised.

“I thought she was dead,” Laurent went on. “I spent years looking for her.” He gave a soft, bitter laugh. “Justinian never understood why I was always running away. Until I heard she died in a fire. I didn't think there was any more reason to search for her then. I guess I was wrong. We're telepaths,” he went on. “I don't understand why she didn't—” He shook his head. “Never mind.”