And then, Ian lunged at her throat.
Like a wild, feral cat—his claws fully extended, his fangs dripping with saliva, his eyes gleaming harsh, crimson red—he dove at their mother with pure, murderous intent.
Julien tried to intercept him—gods help him, how he tried—but Ian was like a demon, possessed. He moved faster than Julien’s eyes could follow. He struck so hard that Harietta’s skeleton collapsed. He ravaged her jugular with such ferocity that her flesh, her cartilage, and her bones were in his jagged teeth before Julien could rise from his seat.
Spurred on by some primal, instinctive hatred, Ian decimated the woman’s throat with the ferocity of a beast. And just like that, in the blink of an eye, Julien’s mother was dead.
The liquid O reclaimed the vampire’s attention, and his eyes rolled back in his head as the memory drifted further and further away…
Thank the gods.
The blood seeping into his mouth; the soft, pliant body beneath him; Rebecca’s soft, erotic pleas demanding the warrior’s devotion were all he could feel, sense, or hear, and he whispered in her ear: “Tell me what you need, baby.”
Her breath caught in her throat. “You, I need you,” she moaned.
“Indeed, you do,” he rasped, satisfied that the compulsion had worked, that the madness had stopped, that he was at least feeling something he could control. He slid two strong, splayed hands down the small of her waist, over her quivering hip, and hooked his thumbs inside the band of her lace bikinis—
And then it hit him.
Like an oncoming train.
Dear celestial gods: He hadn’t converted her yet.
And if he took her right now, released his seed, and gods forbid, had even a passing thought about pregnancy, he would kill her before he’d even claimed her, before he’d even had a chance to get to know her. He was one mindless, drug-induced mistake away from being no better than his evil brother.
Julien jolted backward, recoiling from Rebecca’s touch, as he instantly released the compulsion. “Run, Becca!” he snarled. “Get away…and hide, but do not leave the house.”
She blanched, turning a sickly shade of green, as awareness and control slammed into her. He didn’t need to tell her twice. She scrambled from beneath him, rolled off the bed, and hit the ground running, scurrying out of the room.
She didn’t even bother to get dressed.
Julien moved with the same sense of urgency, shimmying to the edge of the bed, opening the nightstand drawer, and retrieving a strange-looking remote, a device created by Santos Olaru, one of the valley’s illustrious sentinels, who just happened to be a guru with technology, and Nachari Silivasi, a gifted Master Wizard in his own right: The device tripped both the alarms and the wards. The windows and doors would slide shut, secured by hidden, titanium bolts, and the magical wards, which kept people from crossing their barriers—in either direction—would also kick in.
With the push of a button, Julien’s house shut down.
No one was getting in or out.
And that included Rebecca.
He reached for a second item—also given to him by Nachari Silivasi—the pale blue crystal containing the Master Wizard’s memories from his time spent in the Abyss. Although Julien wasn’t looking forward to the viewing, and gods knew he had other pressing matters to attend to, the H was gonna hang around for at least thirty minutes, and he needed the information. If there was any part of his heart that was actually considering using this Blood Moon to make an untimely exit from earth—and there was—then he owed it to himself and Rebecca to examine it more closely.
He needed to be absolutely sure of his next move.
Heavens knew; he had already screwed things up, six ways to Sunday.
Shifting onto his back, he folded one arm behind his head, crossed his legs at the ankle, and caressed the crystal resting in his palm. As the images in the stone began to come to life, playing like a DVD on his visual cortex, he sank deep into the mattress…and watched.
seven
Rebecca waited in the dark, huddled beneath a heavy trestle table in a long, narrow hallway, just above the twisting, iron-railed staircase that led to the second and third floors of the elaborate mountain home. She was somewhere on the third level, and she had already tried every hall, every possible nook and cranny, every doorway and window, on every successive floor, with zero success—nothing would open, and she wasn’t about to go anywhere near the gladiator’s bedroom to try to retrieve her cell phone.
It wasn’t worth the risk.
She tightened her grip on the soft brown throw blanket wrapped around her shoulders, which she had snatched from the great room, and winced at her curious choice of words: Gladiator.
That wasn’t exactly accurate, was it?
The male had claimed to be a vampire.
And, as bizarre and utterly psychotic as that might sound, Rebecca had begun to believe him. After all, he had known her name in an instant; he had moved her body through space, using nothing but his mind; and bless her for being crazy enough to believe it, but the male had flashed a wicked pair of fangs—fangs he had used to bite her, to siphon her blood, and to somehow seduce her like she was some sex-charged siren who couldn’t get enough.
She shuddered at the memory, feeling curiously ashamed.
Dear angels and saints, she had wrapped her ankles around him, writhed like a harlot beneath him, and practically begged him to take her—to use her like he owned her—and she would have seen it through.
How had he done that to her?
And with nothing more than a mere suggestion: You’re going to desire every moment of this. Rebecca Johnston didn’t do one-night stands, and she certainly didn’t go out of her way to seduce a brutal captor.
Yeah, Rebecca was pretty damn sure: Julien Lacusta was not a human male. He was a vampire, or at least an incredible magician, and if any part of what he’d told her was true, then the rest could be true, as well: the Curse, the twin sons, the terrifying Blood Moon, and maybe the fact that he was trying to…somehow…spare his own life.
She bit down on her tongue, trying to stifle a scream—it was all just way too much to process, and she felt like she was going insane. She brought her wrist to eye-level, a reality check of sorts, and stared at the very real emblems and symbols etched into her flesh.
The insignia of Hercules.
That’s what he had said.
And he hadn’t been high on morphine, or crack—or whatever it was that he took—at the time. Before she could consider the implications any further the fact that the vampire also ingested drugs, she heard a heavy set of footsteps meandering down a hall, on the first floor of the dwelling.
Oh shit, he was awake!
She backed further beneath the table, curled her body into a ball, and practically held her breath, trying to remain perfectly still…and quiet.
The footsteps continued through the great room, toward the foyer, and they were unerring in their progression—it was almost as if he knew exactly where she was. She tilted her head to the side, listening more intently, as he began to make his way up the staircase, his footfalls growing louder with every step.
No.
No!
No, no, no, no, no!
He paused on the second floor, but only for an instant, before he continued to climb the stairs to the third. And then, just like that, he took three long strides forward, advancing down the hall, and came to a sudden stop, about five feet away.
“Becca, come out from underneath the table, baby. We need to talk.”
Julien knew that Rebecca was terrified, and of course, he knew where she was hiding: beneath the slender wooden trestle in the third-story hall. He was a seasoned, instinctive tracker, with incredible intuition and skills. Finding Rebecca in his own familiar home had been no more challenging than taking candy from a baby. Her scent, her blood, her heartbeat—everything gave her away—including his own familiar imprint on the throw blanket she had donned.
&
nbsp; He closed his eyes and tried to chill, taking a moment to think.
Nachari Silivasi’s memories, the time he had spent in the Abyss, had been sobering at the least; terrifying, without apology; and a major gut-check of the highest order. Julien didn’t know what he was doing, and he didn’t know what he wanted, going forward. But one thing was crystal clear: He didn’t want to end up there, in the Valley of Death and Shadows, not if he didn’t have to. Beyond that, he knew himself, at least peripherally: He knew why he took the H, he knew why he needed to be alone, and he knew that he could not function, or think, or reason when he was flying high. He was nothing but bare savage instincts, then—all his demons running loose—despite the fact that he was too zoned out to meet them.
But this?
Having his destiny here, hiding like a lost little lamb trying to avoid the slaughter, naked and afraid in his home? Running from the beast inside him?
Ah hell, this was beyond the pale.
Despite the fact that he was standing at a fork in the road—he could go left, he could go right, or he could just stand still—he needed to pull it together, if only for Rebecca, and show the female some warmth. Well, warmth was too strong of a word. He was still Julien Lacusta, after all. But he could at least show her some courtesy, let her know he wasn’t always a beast—he wasn’t always high—and offer her some basic consideration, perhaps a modicum of respect. More than that, he could at least try to get to know her, see what makes her tick. Maybe there was something she wanted, needed…desired…something he could give to her that she’d be willing to exchange for her required role in the Curse.
And didn’t that just sound effed up, any way you turned it?
He sighed. Ah hell, it was what it was.
He opened his eyes and scrubbed his hand over his face—damn, was this really happening, now?
Yeah, it was.
It really, freakin’ was.
And he needed to mend some fences.
Pronto.
He paused about five feet from his destiny’s perch and tried mightily to gentle his voice: “Becca, come out from underneath the table, baby. We need to talk.”
She jerked, inhaled a harsh, shallow breath, and then she grew inhumanly still.
He took a couple of steps forward and squatted down to place a soft white terrycloth robe on the floor, and then he added a bottle of Perrier water and a tray filled with cheese and crackers to the mix—hell, it was the only food he kept in the house—he didn’t have that many human visitors. “Angel, I know you’ve got to be cold, and you haven’t had anything to eat or drink since you got here—you’re probably hungry.” And didn’t that just make him the ass of the year. He sighed in exasperation. “Look, I know exactly where you are, beneath the table, so there’s no point in continuing to hide. Why don’t you just come out, put on the robe, and have something to eat. At least have a drink of water, and I’ll back up, have a seat at the top of the stairs. Nothing confrontational, baby. Just you and me…talking.”
He backed away from the olive branch, such as it was, and waited.
When she still didn’t come out, he made his way to the top of the staircase and sat down with his back flush against the wall, his legs sprawled out in front of him, and his feet crossed at the ankles. “C’mon, baby,” he implored her again. “I am not going to hurt you, and I am not going to mess with your mind. I promise.”
Rebecca looked like an adorable little turtle, slowly peeking her head out from beneath the heavy table, and for the first time, Julien became aware of just how beautiful she truly was: Her golden brown hair was filled with soft, silky S-curls that framed her gently rounded chin on the way to her slender shoulders. Her gorgeous, hooded eyes were nearly topaz in color, a rich smoky blue. And her naturally curved, arched brows were perfect in shape and fullness, accentuating her elegant features. She could have been a model if she chose, perhaps if she were a couple of inches taller, but either way, she had the kind of raw, organic beauty that turned heads in casual passing and probably stopped traffic on a daily basis.
And she didn’t carry herself as if she knew it.
Always, a major plus.
“Do you think I’m a freakin’ mouse?” she murmured, gesturing toward the tray full of cheese, as well as the water, as she crawled out from beneath the bench. “Or just too stupid to recognize a mouse-trap when I see one?”
Julien chuckled deep in his throat. Touché. “No, love, I do not. I think you are human, and you need to stay hydrated. I think you need something to eat.”
She clutched the meager throw blanket as she reached out to snatch the robe. “If you give me back my phone, I’ll order a pizza,” she quipped. “Look away.”
Julien turned his head to the side and laughed again. “I can order you a pizza. Is that what you want?” He waited, listening for the fall of the blanket and tuning in to the brush of the robe, the sound of the terrycloth sash twisting into place as she tied it.
“I want to go home,” she said crossly. And just like that, the light-hearted banter had come to an end.
Julien met her serious gaze. “I know you do,” he whispered, “and I completely understand. But that is not a wish I can grant.” He inclined his head toward the tray. “Please, at least have something to drink.”
“Like you did?” she replied curtly. Despite her courageous demeanor and her obvious irritation, the words were followed by a spike of fear. It was in her eyes. It was in her scent.
“Becca,” Julien breathed, softly. “I’m…I’m sorry.”
Her expression betrayed her surprise. “For what?” Her tone was increasingly caustic. “For biting me in the throat or making me act like a whore?”
A low, feral growl escaped Julien’s throat. “In a thousand lifetimes, under a thousand compulsions, you would never be that, not to me. And that is not what happened in my room.”
She drew back, and then, seeming suddenly self-conscious, she took a reluctant seat on the floor and folded her legs in crisscross fashion as she leaned over the tray. She took a small piece of cheese and plopped it in her mouth, chewing like she had to force the effort, and then she twisted the cap off the bottled water and took a long, generous drink.
Julien exhaled slowly, feeling surprisingly relieved. “About what happened in the bedroom,” he began, knowing they needed to face it head-on, “you’ve gotta know, that’s not who I am, a male who takes advantage of women…just because he can. That’s not what happened, Rebecca.”
She placed another slice of cheese on a cracker and slowly brought it to her lips, hesitating before she bit into it. “Then what did happen, Julien?” Her words were clipped, yet tentative.
He sighed. “When you came at me, by the window, you…you pushed a couple buttons…triggered some real ugly shit from my past. I wasn’t thinking clearly, and I didn’t want to hurt you—not that I would ever hurt a woman—but I just, I just wanted to change the scene. I made the wrong calculation. I made all the wrong moves.”
She nodded, slowly. “And the opium doesn’t help.”
He narrowed his gaze and looked right at her, sweeping his hand through his hair. “Actually, it does—and it’s not opium. But that’s my thing, baby, not yours. And it isn’t all the time.”
She ate the cracker, stacked another one, and then took a second drag of water. “Why do you get high?”
He jolted, just a little, a bit taken aback by her bluntness, but he supposed the question was fair. He shrugged a weighty shoulder and sighed. “It’s just…too loud, sometimes…the noise in my head. It gets dark…and heavy…and I just need a break.” He pursed his lips together in contemplation. “I’m a soldier of sorts, a tracker for my kind, the Vampyr, and I have a lot of serious duties—so my head is usually straight. And when I’m not working, I spend a lot of time alone—it’s just the way it is—and every now and again, I just need a break. A vacation from the noise.” He paused, considering his next words carefully. “You’ve seen me high more times in the last two
days than I’ve been in the last few months. It’s just a thing, baby. I don’t know what else to say.”
She eyed him intensely, like she was trying to see his soul, and then she continued to work on the tray, saying nothing in reply.
He cleared his throat. “And what about you?”
She raised her eyebrows.
“When I glimpsed your mind, when I made contact with your thoughts, I saw all kinds of random images: a support group, a shit-load of locks on your apartment door, a recent request for a concealed-carry license. What’s up with that, baby?”
Rebecca visibly paled. “You saw all that? You read my mind?”
“Didn’t read it,” he replied. “Just walked through the room.”
She furrowed her brow in consternation, and then she sat forward. “Well, as long as we’re being candid: When I was twenty-one years old, I met the wrong guy. I spent one year falling in love with him and another year trying to get away from him. He followed me from Nevada to New Mexico and everywhere between. He told me he was going to kill me, and I believe that he will try. So maybe that’s what you saw.”
Something dark, primal, and unexpected rose in Julien’s soul, and he clenched his hands into fists, trying to reroute the energy into his fingers. “What’s the bastard’s name?”
Rebecca frowned and shook her head. “What difference does that make?”
Julien licked his lips in a lazy glide of his tongue, and then they both drew back into a snarl. “Dead men should have something to put on their headstones.”
She sputtered, spraying water from her mouth in surprise. “You’re kidding, right?”
He chuckled, but there wasn’t a humorous tone in the sound. “Let me make something exceedingly clear, baby girl. You might think you’ve wandered into the lion’s den—and it just might be true—but the fact of the matter is this: You are safer now—with me—than you have ever been in your life. You may not know it. You may not feel it. But it’s true, just the same. And while you don’t yet understand all the intricacies of the Curse, all the complexities of my kind, there is one thing that has never changed: My species is extremely territorial. We are as possessive as we are loyal. And we don’t adhere to human laws. We are not bound by human conventions. That man”—he reached inside her mind to retrieve the stalker’s name—“Trevor: He was dead the day he met you. He was dead the day the gods chose you for me. And now? Now that I know what he has done to you…and your life…to your sense of safety, to your world? His death will not be swift or painless. Mark my words, sweet Rebecca; you no longer have a stalker.”