While Dew struggled to unfasten his belt, Brook bit his neck.
Rune commanded, "Harder, dove."
Yes, Jo had seen weird things in the course of her voyeurism, but this male trying to relive her own bite was bizarre. Despite herself, her fangs sharpened into points.
"I said harder," he grated.
I would bite him till he howled for mercy.
With a mouthful of his skin, the nymph mumbled, "I'm 'iting as 'ard as I 'an!"
"It's no good." He made a sound of frustration. "Leave off, Dew."
Brook released his neck and jerked her thumb at the other nymph. "She's Dew."
That nymph had finally managed to unfasten his belt and was reaching for his fly.
"Whatever." Rune flexed his claws. "Draw back. I'm about to bleed."
"So freaking hot," Brook breathed, but she leaned far back.
He stuck two claw tips into the remnants of Jo's bite. Piercing his own neck, he gave a mindless groan and his eyes slid closed.
With a whimper, Dew fumbled to get his pants undone.
As his throat worked, blood trickled down his neck. It was so freaking hot. That dark, rich blood of his. To have just one more taste . . .
Ruined.
But unlike the nymphs, Jo did have pride. She wanted him only for the things he'd taken--and now was the time to strike.
Her scent.
Rune's eyes shot wide when he caught that lush thread of meadowberry. Was he imagining it?
No, Josephine was materializing right in front of him. "Oh, Ruin . . ." Her shoulders were back, her chin raised. Her hazel eyes glittered.
He dropped Brook. Without a glance down, he shoved Dew's hand from his fly.
Had the vampire seen his attempts to mimic her bite? His fantasizing about her as he used two stand-in nymphs? At least he hadn't yet brought out her thong.
"Poor Ruin. I'm often imitated." She gestured to the nymphs. "And never duplicated."
Why did he feel guilty about the females, as if he'd been disloyal?
He was ever loyal to those that mattered. Josephine meant nothing to him. Nothing more than a mystery to be solved--and a liability to be handled.
A liability with the most exquisite bite.
In a whiskey voice, she said, "If you hadn't decided to capture me, I would've fang-fucked your neck till you screamed."
Filthy, wicked girl. I want her NOW.
She smiled, flashing those sharp little fangs, and his mind went blank. As if his legs knew better than he did, they stumbled toward her. "Josephine."
When she held up her ripped thong, his steps faltered. She'd rolled him again? He'd never felt her. Never scented her until now.
How? How?
Next she waved to her necklace--which was back around her slim, pale neck.
He swallowed hard. They both knew what else had been in his pockets.
For the second time tonight, she raised his talisman with a mean smile.
Bluff her. He shrugged. "Still just a trinket, vampire."
"Are you a liar on top of everything else, Ruin?"
"It's pronounced Roon," he said absently. "Not Roo-in."
"Of course, Roo-in. Enjoy the rest of your evening." She nodded at the nymphs. "Ladies." She began to disappear.
He vaulted forward, arms outstretched, but the only thing left of her was her echoing laughter.
THIRTEEN
Hours into the morning, Jo tossed and turned in bed, determined not to think about the dark fey's blood. Or anything else about him.
Like his grin--slanted, a touch sneering.
Or his scent--leather and evergreen.
Definitely not his body--long, tall, with rippling muscles she wanted to bite.
She'd already gotten off in the shower to fantasies of him, had even sunk her fangs into her own wrist. When she'd tasted his blood mixed with hers, she'd come over and over, until she'd dropped to her knees in the tub. . . .
Now she glared at his trinket, sitting on her bedside table. "Dickwad." She punched her pillow.
At the beginning of the night, he'd been unemotional with that blond nymph, like a robot. He'd coldly informed her, "I'm coming." He'd all but yawned as he'd gotten his nut.
With Jo, he'd bellowed so loud the whole city had heard it. Why would he want to be with others when he'd liked her best?
They'd been good together.
Briefly. Before he'd decided to kill her and all.
When would it be her turn to find a partner to hold her hand? She pined for her own groom, one who'd gaze into her eyes and tell her, "You are everything."
But pining was a problem. Whenever she was filled with yearning like this and she did manage to doze off, she risked her own type of sleepwalking.
Sleep-ghosting.
She would go intangible, sinking through her bed, through the floor, and then into the ground. Nothing could awaken her before she opened her eyes to total blackness, shrieking and scrabbling for the surface.
If she ever solidified underground, she could die--already entombed.
Worse, what if she didn't sink? What if she floated? The stars seemed to beckon her. . . .
Finally Jo relaxed enough to drift off, and the strangest dream arose. She was in a boggy field, toiling under a scorching sun. She wiped her gritty forearm over her sweat-drenched face.
No, not her arm. Not her face.
Rune's? Somehow she was seeing a scene from his point of view.
The castle's bells tolled. His head whipped toward the sound. My father is dead. The mortality curse that had befallen Sylvan's leader had ended even a regent's immortal existence.
Serves you right for trying to colonize the Wiccae realm, old king. Rune felt no sympathy for the distant sire who'd spared his life but had never graced his bastard with a spoken word.
The demon slaves who worked these fens shoulder to shoulder with Rune turned away. To them, a baneblood like him was already dead, and good riddance. They feared his poison. They wondered why he hadn't been stoned to death as an infant like all the other dark fey halflings.
Perhaps that would have been a mercy.
Because with the king's death comes mine.
For all his fifteen years, he'd known his days were numbered. But when the king had fallen in battle, bespelled by a warlock general, Rune had thought he'd have at least a few weeks more to plan.
Now panic filled him. How to escape? The queen's demon guards would soon come for him.
For his head.
His eyes darted. Crossing the fens with no food or fresh water would be suicide. He bared a claw, drawing blood to ink an invisibility spell on his forearm. His powers were undeveloped. Maybe this time the combinations of runes would work.
As his black blood spilled, laborers swooped up their young and fled, cursing him to the hells.
Frustration boiled inside him, and he yelled, "I never wanted to be like this!"
Concentrate. Another carefully crafted symbol. Just as his dam had taught him. Only one more left--
Royal guards traced into the fields, seizing him.
He fought wildly, but the guards' armor repelled his claws and fangs. The demons had already transitioned into full immortality, were massive brutes. They bound his hands to prevent his clawing. They muzzled him to prevent his bites.
Taking me to the executioner.
Yet once they'd beaten him down into the mud, they made no journey to the block. They hauled him to a bathhouse, stripping him and scrubbing his skin like an animal's.
As he'd thought daily since he could remember: Gods give me the power to destroy Sylvan's royal house. His colonizing, slaving, rapist father had succumbed, but what of the rest of his execrable line? The now-widowed queen and her spawn, Rune's half siblings.
The guards dressed him in fine breeches, a billowing shirt, and shoes that pinched his feet. Leaving his hand bindings, they removed the muzzle, then traced him into an echoing chamber.
Unused to teleporting, Rune wobbled on
his feet. Was this . . . the royal court? They must've taken him to the capital, to the Forest of Three Bridges. He gawked at the riches around him.
A single female awaited him: Magh the Canny, the queen who loathed him, begrudged his very life.
A mere scratch across her neck would bring her to her knees. But he could do nothing with his hands bound. The guards would block him before he could get his fangs into her.
She was seated upon her elaborate throne, her cutting blue eyes studying him. "You refuse to bow before your regent?" Her crown was a circlet of polished gold, and it rested far too comfortably atop her regal blond head.
Seething, Rune forced himself to bow.
"How old are you?" she asked.
"I've survived the fens for fifteen years." He was strong and hardened, could do the work of two adult demons.
"Such bravado, cur."
"My name is Rune."
Her eyes gleamed at his challenge. "Your face isn't handsome. And yet I understand you've made many conquests among the highborn females of this kingdom."
Reminded of his success, he drew on the patience he'd learned when seducing empty-headed, thrill-seeking feodals. "Yes, my queen, they have honored me so." Rune had slept with all those highborns to uncover his dam's fate after she'd been taken from him. But none had been able to help him.
"Ah, you can be glib of tongue. You must be to convince them to risk your toxins." She canted her head. "I suppose you must abstain from certain acts."
Kissing and kissing below. If only he could find a female dark fey to enjoy. Another halfling who'd been spared.
The queen continued, "But what of your leavings? Are you demonic in that manner? Have you a demon's mystical seal over your member?"
He scarcely believed he was discussing his seed with the queen. "I do." A demon could know the pleasure of a climax but couldn't spill semen. Not until he was inside his destined female and his seal disappeared.
In other words, never for me.
"I doubt abominations like you get a mate, especially since we've exterminated your ilk in Sylvan."
His claws ached to rend her flesh. But Rune had feared the same. How many times had he heard that dark fey were creations never meant to be, outcasts from the reach of destiny?
"I wanted my husband to obey convention and dispose of you as well. To allow such a lethal being to remain alive, even enslaved, seemed a tremendous folly."
Gods give me the power . . .
"But now I see more in you, and I can almost comprehend why those idiotic females risk your poison. You have the smoldering sensuality of the fey and the sexual intensity of a demon." She gazed past him. "It appears I have a use for you after all."
Chills skittered up his spine, and again he wondered if a stoning mightn't have been a mercy. . . .
Jo's eyes flashed open.
That hadn't been a simple dream--it was a memory of Rune's! She'd witnessed it as if from his eyes. She'd known his thoughts and language as if they'd been her own.
He'd suspected Jo would read memories from his blood. She must be--what'd he call it?--a cosas vampire!
What memory would he kill to prevent her from seeing? Surely not scenes like the ones she'd just experienced.
She burned to find out what that heartless queen had wanted from him. What use would Magh have for sensuality and intensity?
Jo found it baffling that the arrogant Rune had once been a slave. She felt unwelcome sympathy for him. How he hated the fey! And he despised his blood. He'd longed for a female of his own species as much as she'd longed for a partner.
No wonder he hadn't spilled semen on Jo. No wonder he'd been so stunned when she'd fed from him. He could do to her everything he'd dreamed of.
And yet he'd decided to kill her.
She pulled her knees to her chest, reeling from everything she'd learned. Entire worlds of freaks existed.
Fey and Wiccae kingdoms. Immortal dimensions with intrigues and wars.
Demons could teleport, or trace. Jo supposed she should get the lingo down. Tracing was disappearing and reappearing, traveling over distances.
So what did they call it when they ghosted or dematerialized or hung out in walls?
Could they?
If a fey world existed, then was there a place for creatures like her? Maybe her shooting hadn't turned her. Maybe neither she nor Thaddie had ever been human. What if they'd crossed over from some fantastical realm--perhaps from a nation of ghost vampires?
Seventeen years ago, the docs had blamed her memory loss on a head injury. That could be why she'd forgotten her birthplace.
She shot upright in bed. If she could find out for certain, she'd have to go to Thaddie, to explain their origin and their powers and this entire weird world! She ghosted with happiness; then embodied with a frown.
Right now she didn't have much to explain.
Rune might return to the Quarter tonight. Information for the taking.
An unwelcome realization arose: Rune the Insatiable Asshat might be the key to her reuniting with Thaddie.
FOURTEEN
A vampire has my bloody talisman.
Rune would rather have forfeited the Darklight bow. All day he'd stormed down New Orleans streets, seeking any Lorean to question about Josephine. Most took one look at his expression and fled. Even the nymphs had retreated into the trees or the river.
No one stole from him. No one was fast enough, crafty enough. It simply didn't happen.
Yet the vampire had.
Twice.
After she'd disappeared--taking her necklace, his bait--he'd interrogated the nymphs for any detail he might have missed, then he'd used those clues to try to unearth her lair. He'd been tempted to fetch Darach for the wolf's tracking abilities, but Rune didn't want to explain his new target. Besides, time moved differently in Tenebrous; tracing there and back would take several Earth days.
Damn that leech!
He found himself touching her bite mark yet again. A day later, he remained astounded that she'd not only bitten him, but fed.
A vampire consumed my befouled blood.
He pierced the remnants of her bite with his claw tips, seeking to recreate a fraction of the pleasure--only to fail.
He'd reacted like a madman, couldn't even remember what he'd said to her. He thought he'd spoken to her in Demonish. He knew he'd bellowed so loud his throat had stung.
Part of him was glad of his response. Hardly that of a deadened man whose fire had been extinguished! Rune had felt with Josephine. Some buried cinder must have lingered deep within him, because it was . . . sparking.
His reaction to her--and hers to him--made him ponder the most asinine and far-fetched possibility.
What if she was his mate?
What were the odds he would meet a female whose scent put him to his knees--and who also happened to be immune to his poison? She'd told him, You smelled right.
No, no, there'd be no mate for Rune. Thousands of years ago, he'd concluded his kind didn't get a fated one, were cursed to be alone.
He'd never met a mated dark fey, had never heard of a second generation of his species. His own solitary years had cemented the idea in his mind.
Even if he got a mate, Josephine the vampire wouldn't be his. He'd reacted so violently to her and her bite because she'd mesmerized him.
Her scent enticed him more than anyone else's simply because she had the most alluring scent. Other men on the street had responded with just as much heat.
None of the other Morior had a mate. To take on such a glaring vulnerability would have to affect Rune's standing. He'd be damned to the hells before he relinquished his spot at their table.
Plenty of immortals would sell their soul to take his place. . . .
By late afternoon, Rune headed to the Lore shop the nymphs had mentioned. It was a ramshackle store with a symbol of the Lore in the window. The shingle read: Loa's Emporium
Perhaps he could find manacles here. He could definitely pry for
information.
Unshaven and wearing last night's clothes, he strode inside. A bell jingled above the door. Mortal wares crowded the shelves. A Lorean market must be concealed in the back.
A woman sat behind the counter, engrossed in a book. Her nearly sheer white dress clung to her dark skin, revealing a voluptuous figure. Loa, the proprietress?
He raised his brows. Well, then, this customer will be sure to return.
His response was yet more evidence he had no mate. If he'd found his fated female, then he wouldn't be planning to bed this buxom shopkeeper at his earliest convenience! He asked her, "Where can I find handcuffs, dove?"
She didn't look up from her book. "Back room. Aisles are marked."
"I don't suppose you've met a Lorean named Josephine? Brunette about five and a half feet tall." Unbelievable body, whiskey voice. "Fairly blunt." Bit of a bitch. "Wears combat boots and has piercings." Even secret ones.
The woman licked her thumb and turned a page.
"She lives in the city and prowls the Quarter. But she's species closeted." Josephine wasn't the only one. When he recognized what Loa was, he hid a grin. He'd bet she wouldn't want that known.
Without taking her eyes off the book--a tome on neuroscience--Loa said, "Too many beings to keep track of this time of the millennium. Accession calls them close. Ask the low creatures." Her accent was lyrical and drawling. Josephine's accent had been drawling as well, but in a different way.
"Among your wares, do you happen to have a lock of Valkyrie hair?" The nymphs had promised to be on the lookout for one, but he didn't hold out much hope. Information from them in the heat of the moment was one thing . . .
"You'd have better luck orderin' a Valkyrie head," Loa said.
He hadn't thought it would be easy. "Do you sell information?"
She finally glanced up. "By the looks of you, I'm thinkin' you can't afford the information I have in my catalog."
No? His wealth was so vast it was incalculable. He smiled at her, picturing all the relics he'd amassed over the ages, the ones that filled his private collection. Ah, the secrets he kept.
He found himself wondering how Josephine would react to his treasures. No doubt pure astonishment. How could she not be impressed? "Perhaps you're right," he told Loa, turning toward the back. He located the concealed doorway and entered.
Scents overwhelmed him. Every manner of Lore creature must have shopped here recently. Signs papered the walls: "Accession Savings!" "Fire Sale!" "Mass Death = Estate Sales!"
Affecting every immortal in the Gaia realms, the Accession was a mystical event that occurred roughly every five centuries, bringing Loreans into contact with each other--for better or worse. Some immortals would bond; others would war. Usually most of the factions fought against each other.