Moonlight and Diamonds & The Vampire's Fall (45 page)

Chapter 29

B
lade existed in a bleary state of exhaustion and orgasmic high. He was aware of his brothers' presence. They wandered near the couch where he lay, talking about everyday things such as women and who was going to help Stryke with the construction work. Every so often he would smell a human woman's perfume, and she would coo over him. One of his brothers would explain to the nameless woman how he was sick, and as a dying man he wanted one last kiss from a beautiful woman.

He knew what they were doing. It was a sneaky method he'd never engage to get blood. But he needed the blood and was too weak to protest the trickery, so he didn't argue. After about the fifth or sixth woman, he licked the wound on her neck and used his vampiric persuasion to make her believe she'd had a blind date with a man she had liked but wasn't interested in seeing again, as he'd done with those previously. Kelyn drove her back to town.

Trouble was off in the kitchen making something that smelled awful. Meat. Blade did hate the smell of cooked meat.

“Where's Zen?”

“You up and at 'em, bro?” Trouble's head appeared from over the back of the couch. He was chewing on something Blade didn't want to know about. “Hungry?”

“Not for that crap.”

“How you feeling?”

“Alive.” He patted his chest. Had the stake moved out of his body about a quarter of an inch? He was sure when Kesabel had sliced it off it had been shaved even with his chest, so much so he'd been skinned. The skin had healed. “How many days has it been?”

“Three. You're holding on, though. Getting stronger with every neck you tap. Kelyn was right. We just keep feeding you blood and your body will heal. Soon enough it'll push that stake right out.”

Blade shuffled up to a half sitting position. A dizzy wave washed through his skull. “Where is she?”

Trouble's jaw pulsed. “Uh, I told Zen to leave you be.”

“She left?”

Trouble shrugged. “It's best for the both of you, bro. Sure you don't want something? I made deer sausage and kraut.”

Blade had to forcibly keep from gagging. “I need Zen. She wouldn't have left town.”

“She didn't leave town. Hey! Sit down. You have to rest.”

Blade stood, wobbled and caught a hand on the back of the couch. This infirmity was for the birds. He needed to move, to finish what he'd started. “I need to find Zen.”

“Dude.” Trouble pulled off a pink ruffled apron—where he'd found that, Blade had no idea—and tossed it aside. “Fine. But tell me one thing. Do you love that chick? The one who doesn't know what she is? The one who brought a war between the angels and the demons to your doorstep?”

“Hell yes.”

Trouble's smile preceded his feisty punch of fists before him. “Yes! Then let's go find her.”

“Just me.”

“I don't think so, man. You're wobbly at best. You're going to need more blood. I can hook you up with this chick—”

Blade clutched Trouble's shirt and jerked him to a stunning silence. “Just. Me,” he muttered. “You get that nasty smell of meat out of my house before I return.”

“Dude, you are no fun when you're dying.”

“I'm not dying,” he muttered as he wandered down the hallway to clean up.

* * *

Zen had denied the Casiphean crown in favor of choosing him. It was the right choice. The only choice. But Blade did not forget the promise he'd made Zen. After showering, he dressed and headed in to Tangle Lake, to Zen's favorite clothing store. It took some fast-talking and a little flirting, but he accomplished his mission.

Now with a black velvet bag in hand, he plodded through the forest, thick with undergrowth and few worn paths. The paths had been tromped down by his father and siblings when they went out for a run in wolf shape.

After Trouble had come clean about Zen's whereabouts he'd revealed he had suggested Zen go to his parents to stay while Blade recovered. And Kelyn had taken her there.

Blade couldn't believe she'd agreed to it. And then he knew Trouble could be persuasive, if not intimidating. But the last thing he needed right now was distance from the one vital being who gave him life. He was suffering. The stake would take another week or two to completely push out, and that meant lots of blood to invoke the healing process.

It hurt like hell, but he was thankful that Simaseel hadn't ripped it out of his chest. The demon Kesabel had saved him. Guess not all demons were worthy of death. For without the demon's quick action he wouldn't be wandering through the woods, stumbling here and there because he wasn't at full strength, in search of a woman.

Not just any woman. The one woman who made him believe he could do better.

The gurgle of the falls signaled he was near his destination. Behind the falls was a cove of rocks where he and his brothers often rested after swimming up the stream. The water was always cool but refreshing. He was compelled to strip and plunge in, but that could wait. He had to find Zen.

A scurry of rabbits bounced to his right. Overhead, a dazzle of dragonflies, their iridescent wings catching the sun through the tree canopy, bobbled in the air, flying the same direction he was headed. The hiss of a snake clued him in on one slithering beneath the fallen leaves and grasses. And a doe leaped into view before him, glanced his way, then dashed onward, but not as if she needed to flee.

They were—all of them—headed somewhere. Together.

And then Blade felt it, the distinctive vibrations that scurried over his skin and hummed in his veins. His faery alighted within and his furled wings shivered. For moments he forgot the pain of the stake in his heart. A gorgeous perfume lured him forward, near the stream's edge, where, lying on a wet stone, he spied the halo.

She stood there, arms spread out and head tilted back. Facing him, he saw her eyes were closed as she communed with nature. Calling out to all the creatures that arrived the same time as he did. The doe walked up to Zen and sniffed at her fingers. She opened her eyes, and without startling the deer, smiled and whispered something he couldn't hear.

Clad in a floaty white dress that was so sheer he could see her dark nipples, with a start, she noticed him. The doe didn't dash away; instead, it stepped to the stream's edge for a drink.

“Blade.”

Dropping the velvet sack near the halo, he approached cautiously, so as not to frighten any of the animals that surrounded Zen as if she was a Disney princess and they were waiting for her to break into song. But once close enough, he rushed into her arms and pulled her in for a hug.

“I needed you,” he whispered aside her ear. “Had to find you.”

“You've found me.”

“What are you doing out here?”

“Your brothers told me to stay away while you healed.”

“So you did?” He pulled back and studied her eyes. They were violet, like Kelyn's eyes. And the markings on her arms were bright white. He traced the curving lines inside her elbow. She was faery. “I would have you stay with me. Always.”

“I didn't want to interfere in the healing process. And Trouble said there would be women. Lots of them.”

Good ole Trouble. Never as much help as he thought he was.

“There weren't that many,” he offered. “And I only drank their blood. Needed it to heal.”

“And it worked?”

He tugged up his shirt and she pushed it higher to reveal the end of the severed stake sticking out of his chest. “Still more to go.”

“You should be home. Resting. Drinking blood.”

“Zen, seeing you makes me stronger. Don't ask me to leave.” He twined his fingers in hers. “Please, let me stay and look at you.”

“Look at me?”

“You are gorgeous. You've become, haven't you?”

She nodded. “Yes. Full faery now. You like?”

“I like you no matter what.”

“I'm still waiting for a kiss. It has been days. I should think—”

He kissed her. Soundly. Firmly. Deeply. He kissed her so she would know that she was his and he hers. He kissed her to let her feel his pulse and know he was alive. He kissed her to taste her sweetness and know her strength. For she was strong and powerful.

And she was his.

“That's better. I won't ask you to leave. Ever,” she said. “In fact, I want to show you something. But only if you promise to sit down on that rock there by the bunny. You are more pale than usual and you're swaying.”

“Fair enough.” When he landed on the rock, Blade realized he needed the rest more than he could have imagined because his head swam, as did his brain. Yeah, more blood was a necessity. He should have found a donor before searching for Zen. “What do you want to show me?”

“I've been spending my days out here in the forest just sort of...becoming.”

He lifted a brow. “And?”

“This is what I've become.”

Bowing her head, the breeze listed through her copper hair. The rabbit sitting next to Blade sat up on its hind legs, as did the pair of squirrels on the other side of him. A red fox poked its nose through a frond of greenery and sniffed the air. A lush scent of flowers filled the atmosphere, accompanied by the ozone aroma of rain. It was a heady scent that seeped into Blade's being. Zen's innate perfume. He placed a hand over his heart. The wound had stopped aching.

With a sweep, her wings unfurled behind her. They were quartered as if a dragonfly's wings, and though clear they shimmered a coppery sheen to match her hair. They fluttered and then snapped out behind her and began to flap, lifting Zen from the ground.

Legs bending, then straightening as if a ballerina doing a plié, she giggled and clasped her hands to her mouth as she looked down at him. “Aren't they cool?”

He stood, following her as she floated up about ten feet from the ground. “You are the most gorgeous woman I've laid eyes on, Zen. And you sparkle.”

“I know! Faery dust. That's the coolest part!”

“Can I join you?”

“Please!”

He tugged off his shirt and his wings snapped out. That startled the animals, but only for a few moments, and they sneaked back to witness as he soared up to hug Zen.

“I'm completely faery now,” she said. “Your mother said so. My eyes have been this color for days. What do you think?”

“I think I'm in love.”

He pulled her into his embrace, and his tattered wings curled around hers, twining within one another as they hovered above the forest floor. The dragonflies circled them, and birds fluttered close by.

“You feel that?” he asked.

“Oh, yeah. When our wings touch that's ten kinds of all right. We could have sex like this, floating in the air, clinging to one another with our wings.”

“I think we should.”

She placed her hand over the stake. “But first you have to heal.” She circled the wood, and in her wake a glittering of faery dust coated his skin. “You can bite me, yes? My ichor won't harm your vampire?”

“It won't, thanks to the ichor that runs through my veins.”

“Then, bite me, lover. Take my blood for your strength. And to make me yours.”

He didn't vacillate with the consequences, because damn the consequences. He'd waited too long for this.

Blade sank his teeth into Zen's neck, drawing out the sweet, warm ichor and drinking from her deeply. No blood tainted her ichor, neither the dark taste of demon blood nor the deadly blue angel stuff. She moaned and her body hugged to his, her breasts conforming against his chest. Their wings flapped slowly, turning them minutely. Zen's faery dust spilled onto the water below, sparkling in the sun.

And as he drew her life into his body, he felt the immense power infuse him. His muscles spasmed and Zen grasped on to his arms, but he kept his lips against her neck, drinking of her. Marrying himself to her in the unspoken act of shared life.

She was
his
queen.

And the ache in his chest burned suddenly. He grunted. Zen sighed up from the exquisite pleasure of his bite and met his gaze. “What is it?”

“I think your ichor is healing me.” He looked down.

She gasped as they watched the stake ease its way out of his chest. The skin around it tightened as the stake narrowed to the point, and when it was out it fell to the water below. Blade's skin knit and healed completely. He felt his bones repair and the muscles about his heart sew into strong fabric.

She kissed the bare spot where once the deadly stake had been. “Did I do that?”

He smirked and wiped a smear of ichor from his lip. “You sure did. That's some powerful ichor in your veins. Born of the angels and forged by the demons. You, Zen, are exquisite.”

“You're pretty awesome yourself. Can you love a faery?”

“I already do. Can you love a vampire faery?”

“Best gift I've ever received.”

“That reminds me...I brought a gift for you.”

“Really? You mean I get something more than your love?”

“It's on the ground by your halo.” He clasped her across the back and they descended to the soft, moss-frosted earth. Handing her the velvet bag, he waited for her reaction.

“Oh, my mercy!” She pulled out the crown, which was the cheap display-model tiara from the clothing store she had tried to buy with little luck. Sun glinted in the rhinestones. It was gaudy, but suited for her.

“Would you trade a halo for that?” he asked.

She toed the halo toward his foot, ignoring it for the prize in her hands. “You have to ask? You can give it to the halo hunter. Just let me try on this gorgeous crown.”

“You are my queen,” he said as he placed it on her head and kissed her.

“Take me home with you,” she said. “And never let me go.”

“I promise to hold you always.”

* * * * *

Read on for a sneak preview of
GODDESS OF FATE
by Alexandra Sokoloff