Midnight Ash (A Blushing Death Novel) (16 page)

The moment I cleared the doorjamb, I stabbed the dart into his neck and closed the door behind me. Frat boy collapsed to his knees in a heavy thud of overworked muscles and dead flesh. I slid my hands underneath his arms and tugged, dragging his heavy ass to the couch against the far wall.

It was a nice couch, brown leather that appeared worn and lived in. Frat boy was heavy, and I focused on my muscles burning with the effort, dragging his 220-pound ass across the floor.

The door opened behind me, shifting the air and the quality of silence in the room. I didn’t have time to draw my gun. I didn’t have to. I knew the scorching heat of Dean’s power licking at my skin before he could close the door behind him. I turned, dropping the frat boy on the floor with a soft thud as his head bounced off the floor.

“What’d you do?” Dean asked with a soft chuckle as he strode past me and crouched beside the limp lump of vampire on the floor. He shot me a quick glance then picked up frat vamp and flung him on the couch like he was a 20-pound sack of potatoes. I only had a second to look around me but it gave me shivers nonetheless.

An entire wall of the white on white room was covered in whips of every size, length, and shape. Just below that was a row of restraints hanging on hooks from smallest to largest. One of them was silver threaded rope, hanging innocently next to leather cuffs.

“I tranqed him,” I bit out. “Now get him sitting up with his hands on his chest. I’ve got a bigger fish on the line,” I ordered. Dean had a weird, contented little smile twitching at the corners of his mouth that I didn’t understand. He did what I asked and that was the important part. I pressed my ear against the cold metal of the door to listen. I didn’t need to listen. I felt him coming down the hallway, searching for me. He burst his bubble and was letting it all hang out, shoving his power out to run free and find me. I thought the lick of his chilly power seemed almost happy.

I felt it, the minute he found me. His power caressed me, tingling across my skin like electricity. He was halfway down the hall quicker than I wanted.

“He’s coming,” I whispered. I glared back at Dean, standing silent and imposing next to the frat vamp still out cold. Even with his hands clasped behind his back, Dean looked like a bald menace, like he could tear the building apart if he wanted. He probably could.

Shit!

“He’s probably going to smell you first so try to look, I don’t know . . . non-threatening.”

A look of incredulity crossed Dean’s face that made me want to smile. The Alpha was well over six feet tall, built like he just got out of the military, shaved completely bald by choice and I’d just asked him to look non-threatening. It was part of his job to be threatening. He was the embodiment of intimidation. I wasn’t sure he knew the meaning of the word . . . non-threatening.
Good luck.

Dean moved back behind the door, hiding.
Cute!
He met my gaze one more time. “You sure?” he asked with a small smirk and an entertained glint in his olive-green eyes.

“Yep,” I said as I hopped on the couch and straddled the unconscious vampire lying beneath me. The doorknob turned with a soft grind of metal on metal. I threw my head back and let out a soft moan of false pleasure. The vampire’s power consumed the air around me, filling the room with his chilling curiosity like someone running a cold prickly pear all over my skin.

“Why would you waste your time with such an unworthy specimen?” the vampire cooed as he closed the door behind him. He took several steps forward into the room with a carnal smirk lighting his violet irises with desire. His gaze was intense and his focus narrowed in on me to the point of ignoring everything else around him, including the very large werewolf no his right.

The vampire was a slim rail of a man with long chestnut hair well past his shoulders. He had soft features, handsome in an Arabian Sheik sort of way. His dark hair flowed behind him as if the wind was always in his face. His skin was unnaturally dark for someone who hadn’t seen the sun—from my estimate—in several hundred years. He glared at me like I was something to possess.

“I was waiting for you,” I said with an enticing glint in my eye as I met his gaze over my shoulder.

Dean made his move like a shot, silent and quick, behind the sheik, catching the vampire in a bear hug before he was able to react. The vampire looked down at the thick, strong arms wrapped around his chest and turned a quirky, almost pleased smile to me.

“If you wanted to play, darling, all you had to do was say so,” he almost sang. I stepped off of the frat vamp and headed for the wall. He watched my very distinct and controlled movements as I approached the wall. He squirmed in Dean’s grasp as I yanked the silver-threaded rope from the wall and flashed him a dangerous glare and empty eyes.

Dean was much stronger than I’d suspected. The Arabian Sheik put up a good fight but never gained an inch in Dean’s muscled embrace. I drew my gun from the holster at the small of my back and aimed at his forehead without hesitation. His gaze narrowed on the long line of the barrel and I gave him my best blank stare, letting him see death in my gaze.

“You won’t shoot me,” he said with a twinkle of delight in his violet gaze and a cocky attitude, as he relaxed in Dean’s grip.

I strode over to the sleeping vampire on the couch and jammed the gun, point blank into his chest, just over his heart. I fired two shots of the silver ammunition in quick succession. The frat boy’s eyes burst open, his pupils dilated with a sudden understanding as a quick scream of disbelief shrieked through the room. His body shriveled into decomposition as the magic left him. I turned back to our hostage with my arm extended and comfortable, the gun pointed again in the center of his forehead, and a malicious smile curling my lips.

I closed the distance between us and pressed the searing hot barrel of the gun against his cold skin, burning his flesh. I handed the rope to Dean and caught his gaze. There was a moment that I saw surprise flash through those deep olive-green eyes.
The Gaoh hadn’t expected me to pull the trigger either. In an instant, the surprise in his expression was gone and the calm confidence was back. Now everyone was on their toes and paying attention.

Dean took the rope from me without a word or another glance and tied up the Arabian Sheik who wasn’t struggling any longer. He watched us with a shocked expression widening his eyes and stiffening his shoulders. Dean glanced at me again but he didn’t look scared. I couldn’t read his expression, somewhere between pride and . . . anguish. It didn’t matter. I had both men’s rapt attention and that’s what I really wanted.

The smell of burning flesh filled my nose as the vampire’s skin singed under the press of the silver-threaded ropes. But the rope sizzled in Dean’s grasp, too, as he tied it around the vampire’s arms and legs. He ignored it, without a flinch or even a wince and I knew it had to hurt.

Dean shoved the vampire down onto the couch with his ankles and wrists bound behind his back, hogtied. The Sheik sat next to his decomposing comrade, putting several inches between him and the dead vampire. The frat vamp decomposed slowly, leaving behind a shrinking shell of a body. The Arabian sheik kept inching away, shifting his eyes over to glance at the decomposing vampire every few moments.

“What’s your name?” I asked with a tone an octave or two below my normal speaking voice. It was deep, commanding, and pulled from somewhere I couldn’t name.

Dean’s body tensed at the tone. I glanced at him from the corner of my eye. He seemed fine, but the atmosphere in the room had changed. The air was thicker, static, and tension made it hard to breathe. Magic and the heat of his power swarmed around me in a hot humming summer breeze that I didn’t understand and didn’t recognize.

Dean smacked the back of the vampire’s head with a hard crack. “Answer,” he ordered. I gave Dean a quick genuine smile. He nodded but wouldn’t meet my eyes.

I turned my attention back to the vampire and gave him an expectant look.

“Eyad,” he whispered, gruff and reluctant.

I thought I heard a growl but I couldn’t be sure. I was surprised how easily he buckled under so little pressure. This guy had some serious power to back up his threats but he didn’t seem to want to use it or couldn’t. I wasn’t sure which and that made me curious.

“Why are you hiding?” I asked. His eyes shot to mine in recognition. “Yeah, I know you’re hiding or binding your power, Eyad. I can feel it leaking all over me like a sewer main leak.” I couldn’t keep the distaste from my tone or the agitation making my heart race. The whole thing made me feel uneasy.

“I should not have stretched my power,” he said almost to himself. “I’ll regret this in the end,” he finished with a terrified realization in his voice.

“Who won’t like it? Why?” I snapped.

“I won’t tell you.”

“You will,” I said with a malicious smile tugging at the corner of my mouth.

His gaze raked over me before his shoulders slumped in resignation as my meaning sunk into him. “Who are you?” he asked.

“That doesn’t matter. Who?” I badgered.

“Our King. He doesn’t like shows of power that are not his own.”

”Why?” Dean asked in a growl that sounded dangerous.

“I couldn’t help it,” Eyad said, wide-eyed and distant as he avoided Dean’s question. “You called to me, power to power. Before I knew it or could stop it, I was following you.” He gawked up at me with terror in his eyes. “What are you?” he whispered again as a single blood-red tear ran down the side of his nose.

I ignored his question. I didn’t know the answer.

The Sheik took a deep breath and screamed in deep, primal frustration. “I’ve lived for hundreds of years to be undone by a woman . . . a human,” he bit out with scorn. He dropped his head to his chest and growled, the sound rumbling in his chest like a Harley-Davidson shifting into gear.

“That’s always the way,” Dean mumbled under his breath, rubbing the palms of his hands together where the silver rope had burned him. It was healing but silver wounds healed extremely slow. Those blisters would probably still be on his hands in the morning.

“You have nothing to lose by telling me what I want to know other than your long miserable life,” I said in a manipulative voice I hoped would put the vampire on edge. I stalked closer to him, ignoring the Gaoh and the push of hot power that licked at my skin. I needed to focus. Dean’s heat permeated through me, touching things low in my body that it shouldn’t. I couldn’t think as want fired low in my belly.

The vampire looked up at the ceiling with a sad expression as his shoulders slumped. He rested his head on the back of the couch as time ticked away. We had to move this along. Dean’s power licked at me as if it wanted to taste me.

“No, I have nothing to lose,” he murmured. “I’m dead anyway.”

“I can make it quick and painless. I doubt that your King would do the same,” I hissed, stepping up to him. I was close enough that the toes of my boots touched his brown leather shoes.

Eyad nodded his resignation.

I crooked my index underneath his chin and tilted his face up to meet my eyes. His cheeks were stained with the long crimson streaks of bloody tears. His eyes held understanding and the acceptance that comes with death.

“You make death seem so pleasant, as if you were bathed in blood,” he whispered. His eyes darted about me, searching the air around my body for answers to some question he hadn’t asked.

“Who is your King?” I asked. I needed to gauge his honesty and I wanted him to stop looking at the air around me. It was creepin’ me out.

“Darshan,” he answered, his voice surprisingly strong as his violet eyes focused on nothing, on me and yet not.

“Why would he hurt you?” I asked. I couldn’t say why I asked that particular question instead of all of the others that floated through my mind but it seemed very important at the time.

“Even if I managed to survive your interrogation, the possibility of betrayal would linger in his mind. He will dispose of me as an example to the others.”

“Betrayed?” Dean asked over my shoulder. He was close. Close enough that I could feel his hot breath on my neck as it grazed my skin.

I swallowed.

“He is power hungry,” Eyad continued. “He wishes to regain what was lost and be a power in this country as he was in his own, centuries ago.”

“Who are you to Darshan?” Eyad knew some serious shit. I hoped he wouldn’t be missed but that wasn’t my luck.

“His third,” he said, squaring his shoulders as he lifted his chin in defiance. Arrogant to the last.

“Did he contract Midnight Ash?” I asked.

His face dropped from confident to humble as my question registered and his eyes filled with fear by the sheer mention of her name. He cowered against the back of the couch, silent as he stared at me.

“Did he hire Middonaitoshoo Asshu?” Dean growled. Midnight Ash’s true name rolled off his tongue as if he’d spoken it a hundred times. It was a fierce sound that rumbled through his chest and resonated deep inside me. Power radiated around him, hot and igneous.

I bit my lower lip hard as she purred through my mind at his strength,
home . . . warm . . . ours
.

I turned my attention back to the quivering vampire on the couch. It was safer.

“Yes,” Eyad whispered.

That was all I needed to hear.

“WHY?” Dean ground out through clenched teeth as he stepped up beside me. His shoulders squared and his fingers reached around me to clench the arm of the couch. He leaned forward into Eyad’s space, making the vampire shy away as he turned surprised eyes to the angry werewolf.

Darshan wanted to rebuild an empire with vampires like this? He couldn’t, not with the vampires he had now. He’d never be able to hold the territory. Darshan would need more powerful vampires at his side to hold it. He could get that in Ohio.

“He wants to expand his power,” Eyad answered, but I was starting to understand the implications. Darshan didn’t have the muscle for an all-out war. He’d paid Midnight Ash to do the dirty work for him, distract us, and weaken us for the scavengers. I pulled my bowie knife from my right boot and grabbed Eyad’s long dark hair with my left hand. I stared into the violet depths of his eye and knew that if nothing else, I had to give him this, a quick death.

That
was the extent of my mercy.

A warm, strong hand enclosed mine, clutching the knife and my hand in his grip up to the blade’s hilt. I froze as Dean’s scorching power burned through me, sending hot pulses through my being. Dean was only a breath from me. His scent filled my nose with something rich, familiar, carrying the scent of wet moss on a spring day along with the musky scent of male.