Unchained, the Dark Forgotten (2010) (44 page)

“Really?”

She moved under the bedsheet. He drew his breath in suddenly, touching her face, sliding his hand down over her breast. Angling over her, he left a long, lingering kiss on her lips. “You’re so beautiful. If a trifle impatient.”

She felt the softness of his hair, the harsh brush of his stubble. The contrast of textures was exciting. Then his mouth was on her breasts, her stomach, then nipping the soft flesh of her thighs. He was just this side of masterful. That was what she needed. She didn’t feel like proving herself tonight. For once, she wanted someone to simply want her—nothing complicated, no thinking required.

His mouth was on her, tasting her, sending a sweet-and-sour need through her belly. She felt her heels dig into the sheets as the tension grew, desire sharp as the finest steel. Cursing under her breath, she felt the waves of sensation pounding through her as he brought her to the edge of oblivion, then backed away, then brought her there again, only to steal her finish once more. She flung her head back, arching her neck, eyes squeezed shut in delicious frustration.

“Goddess, I’m not immortal; let me go before I break!”

“Are you asking nicely?” he teased, closing his lips around the peak of her breast at the same time his fingers slipped inside her.

And that did it. With a wild gasp, she opened her eyes, the pool of lamplight by the bedside dissolving into a golden aura as tears of release spilled down her cheeks. She came under his hand long and hard.

She was still burning with pleasure when he slipped his hard length inside, easing in with a few leisurely strokes. His chest muscles did an interesting dance as he shifted his weight onto his arms, doing a slow, slow push-up to bring his lips down to hers. Ashe could see a vein in his arm pulse as he hovered there, intimately inside her, yet holding himself apart. Her nipples just brushed his skin, trembling against him as she breathed. She began to pant, her inner muscles spasming, clenching around him.

He groaned, giving in to the urge to thrust. She felt the slide through her whole body, a friction that overflowed her senses. She rose to meet it, slick with anticipation. His next thrust was harder, barely banked power.

“Again,” she breathed, reaching up to grab the bars of the headboard. “You don’t need to hold back.”

He let his mouth trail over her neck, down between her breasts, and then the rhythm took them both—slowly at first, Reynard lingering over the motion, then more and yet more greedily, driving into her without mercy. She came first, the sound of his name on her lips bringing him to climax in a shuddering rush.

Afterward, they lay entwined, reluctant to separate. Finally, sweat drying in the chill air, Ashe began to shiver. Reynard made the first move, retrieving the covers to pull over them. Ashe curled into his chest, basking in the lassitude after lovemaking.

It had been perfect. Epic.

There was no reason for this to ever end. She had him. Life was good.

“My love,” Reynard said, running one finger down her cheek.

“What?” Ashe curled deeper into his side.

“You have very, very cold feet.”

She swatted him with her pillow.

T
alia might be dead, but she still had a bad case of the creeps.

The scent of blood swamped her brain, swallowing sight and sound. She hesitated where she stood, her vampire senses screaming that something was wrong. That much blood was far too much of a good thing. The elevator doors whooshed shut behind her, stirring a gust of recycled air. Stirring up that maddening, tantalizing, revolting smell.

Talia blinked the hallway back into focus. This was her floor of the condo building, and home and Michelle were at the end of the hall. She fished her door keys out of her purse and started walking, the glossy pink bag from Howard’s banging against her leg as she walked.

Now her stomach hurt and her jaws ached to bite, but more from panic than hunger. That much blood meant someone was hurt. There were a lot of elderly people in the building. Many lived alone. One of them might have slipped and fallen, or maybe cut themselves in the kitchen. Or maybe someone had broken in. . . .

Talia quickened her stride, following the scent. She pulled her phone out of her shoulder bag, the rhinestones on its bright blue case winking in the dim overhead light. She flipped it open, ready to dial Emergency as soon as she figured out who was in trouble. She was no superhero, but she could force open a door and control her hunger long enough for basic first aid. If there were bad guys, oh, well. She’d had a light dinner.

She passed units 1508, 1510, and 1512, her high-heeled ankle boots silent on the soft green carpet. She paused at each door—1514, 1516—listening for clues. A television muttered here and there. No sounds of a predator attacking its prey.

Unit 1520, 1522. The smell was coming from 1524, at the end of the hall.
Oh. Oh!

Unit 1524 was her place.
Michelle!

She grasped the cool metal of the door handle and turned it. It was unlocked. The door swung open, and the smell of death rushed into the hall like surf, drowning Talia all over again.

Instinct froze her where she stood, listening. There was no heartbeat, but that didn’t mean much. Lots of things, herself included, didn’t have a pulse. Reaching out her left hand, she pushed the door all the way open. The entry looked straight through to the living room, where a big picture window let in the glow of city lights. It was plenty of light for a vampire to see by.

“Michelle?” she said softly.
There’s no one here. She must have left.

Talia couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe anything else. She set down her purse and shopping bag and slid her phone into her pocket.
Get a grip.
But her hands shook so hard, she had to make fists to stop them.

She left the door open behind her as she tiptoed inside. She’d lived there for two months, but suddenly the place felt alien. Lamps, tables, the so- ugly-it-was-cute pink china poodle with the bobble head . . . They might as well have been rock formations on another planet. Nothing felt right.

Her boot bumped against something. Talia sprang backward, her dead heart giving a thump of fright. She stared, organizing the shape into meaning. A suitcase. One of those with the pull-out handle and wheels. Big and bright red.

It was Michelle’s.

“Michelle?” Talia meant to shout this time, but it came out a whisper. “What the hell, girl?”

She groped on the wall for the light switch, suddenly needing the comfort of brightness. The twin lamps that framed the couch bloomed with warm light.

Her stomach heaved. Now she could see all that red, red blood. Scarlet sprayed in arcs across the wall, splattering the furniture like a painter gone all Jackson Pollock on the decor. Talia shuddered as the carpet squished with wetness.

The smell could have gagged a werewolf.

She dimly realized one of the bookshelves was knocked over. There had been a fight.

“Michelle?” Her voice sounded tiny, childlike. Talia took one more step, and that gave her a full view of the living room.
Oh, God!

Suddenly standing was hard. She grabbed the wall before she could fall down.

Her cousin, tall and trim in her navy blue cruise-hostess uniform, lay on her side between the couch and the coffee table. Drops of drying blood made her skin look luminously pale. Beneath the tangle of dark hair, Talia’s gaze sought the features she knew as well as her own: high forehead, freckled nose, the mouth that turned up at one corner, always ready to smile. Born a year apart, they’d always looked more like twins than plain old cousins.

They still looked almost identical, except Michelle’s head was a yard away from the rest of her body.

Talia’s eyes drifted shut as the room closed in, darkness spiraling down to a pinpoint.

Talia’s grip on the wall failed, and she started to sink to the floor. The wet, red floor. Sudden nausea wrenched her. She scrambled to the kitchen, retching into the sink. She’d fed earlier, but not much. Nothing came up but a thin trickle of fluid.

She heaved again, the strength of her vampire body making it painful. Talia leaned over the stainless-steel sink, shaking. The image of her cousin’s body burned in her mind’s eye. Whoever had done it had meant to kill
her
. Taking the head was the usual way to execute vampires—a lot more certain than a wooden stake.

She died because of me. They thought she was me
. Talia’s breath caught, and caught again, air dragging through her lungs in tiny gasps that finally dissolved into sobs. She pushed away from the sink, grabbing a paper towel to mop her eyes. There was no time to fall apart.

But she did. She pressed the wadded towel to her mouth, stifling her moans. The tears were turning to a burning ache that ran down her throat, through her body, and out the soles of her feet.

This was no good. She had to get out of there.

Before whoever murdered Michelle came back.

Before someone called the cops and they blamed her, because she was the monster found next to the body.

Talia braced herself against the counter and stared into the sink until her eyes blurred and she squeezed them shut. This was the moment when the movie hero swore revenge, made a plan, and went after the bad guy.

All she felt was gut-wrenching grief.

A rustling sound came from the hallway, as if something had brushed against the shopping bag she’d abandoned by the door.

Talia spun around, terror rippling over her skin. So much for her earlier quip of
bad guys, oh, well
. Macabre images flashed one after another through her mind. Sheer willpower pinned her to the floor, making her think before she bolted straight into danger.

Normally, she would worry about hiding her scent from another predator, but the place stank so badly, that wasn’t an issue. Plus, whoever had killed Michelle had to be human. Nothing else would have confused one of its own with a vampire.

Slowly, she peered around the edge of the kitchen doorway. A figure hulked in the threshold to the condo, backlit by the lights from the hall.

Talia shrank back into the galley kitchen, squeezing into the corner between the refrigerator and the wall. She shrank down, making herself small, bending her head forward to hide her pale skin with the dark fall of her hair. There was no need for her to breathe, as the absolute stillness of the dead would in this case work to her advantage.

Except terror made her want to run so badly her muscles cramped.

The fridge hummed, the hard surface vibrating against her arm.
Trapped!
Through the curtain of her hair, she could see the stranger’s wide shoulders blocking the hallway between her and the door. Her heart gave a single painful beat, jolted back to life by the adrenaline rushing into her blood.

Tears of outrage stung Talia’s eyes. She was frightened, absolutely, but she was also furious. Someone had killed Michelle, and now they’d come back.
Realize you screwed up?
she thought bitterly.
Figure out this is human blood all over your hands?

It galled her to be so helpless. Talia had weapons, but they were stuffed in the top of the hallway closet, gathering dust. She’d thought she’d never have to use them again. Prayed for it.

Apparently no one listened to a vampire’s prayers.

You’re hiding in a kitchen filled with knives.
Maybe she wasn’t so helpless after all.

She could see the figure’s shadow slide along the wall, stark against the bright patch of hallway light. His silhouette showed he was tall and big boned, moving with surprising grace for such a large man. She caught a sharp tang of smoke and chemicals, as if he’d been near an industrial fire. The smell drowned her vampire senses, choking out anything else his scent might have told her. He was coming closer, pausing after each step, his feet all but silent on the carpet.

Just a few yards more and he would be past the kitchen door. Then she could make a break for it. Even a fledgling such as her could move faster than a mortal.

Closer, closer
. The hiding place where she crouched was just inside the kitchen entrance. If she reached out, she could brush the toes of his heavy work boots with her fingers. Her fingertips itched, as if they had already grazed the dirty leather. He was so close that she dared not lift her head to look at him. All she got was a good view of jean-clad shins.

And then he was past. She rose in a single, smooth motion, balancing on her toes. One careful step forward, and she reached the counter opposite the fridge. Silently she slid a kitchen knife out of the block.
Just in case.
It was smarter to run than to fight, but he might corner her yet.

She heard his intake of breath as he reached the living room. She froze, the cool handle of the knife heavy and hard against her palm.

The urge to vomit washed over her again, but she didn’t dare make a noise. Not even to swallow. She could hear him, just a few yards to the right, the brush of cloth on cloth as he moved around the gory, glistening carnage in the next room.

Three, two, one
.

Talia darted toward the hall, inhumanly fast.

He was faster.

Huge hands grabbed her upper arms, hauling her into the air. She kicked, hearing a snarl of pain as the sharp heel of her ankle boot dug into his thigh. She tried to turn and slash, but the angle was wrong. Wriggling like a ferret, Talia twisted, using Undead strength to turn within that big-knuckled grasp.

She flipped over, dropping through the air as her attacker lost his hold. With an upward slash, she scored the knife along the flesh of his hand.