Harlequin Nocturne September 2014 Bundle: Beyond the Moon\Immortal Obsession (19 page)

Chapter 17

K
ing nabbed the shooter, but the vampire clawed and snarled and spat blood at the Order founder. It was clear the creature wasn't going to talk. So when the vamp suddenly paused, his hand grasping one of King's biceps, his head tilting in wonder—the stake pierced his heart.

The hunter stepped away from the burst of ash and turned his back quickly to avoid the windy sweep of death. Wiping the blood from the stake across his thigh, he grinned.

He never tired of doing that.

* * *

When King returned, he informed Rook he'd had no choice but to stake the shooter. He wouldn't have gotten info from him in his wild state, and on his own he would have never been able to wrangle him and bring him in to Order headquarters. They planned to regroup tomorrow night.

It had been a long and emotional day. Rook sought a few hours of peace to sort his thoughts.

“I'm sorry,” he offered a half hour later as he and Verity walked through his kitchen.

The purple-haired witch wandered into the living room, not replying to his apology. She was tired.

And he was frustrated. Both he and King had done their damnedest tonight. Where the hell was Slater hiding? And when had a mere vampire played such an elusive game of cat and mouse with the Order?

It was as though he had the vamp right under his thumb, yet he couldn't crush him. Certainly they were reducing tribe Zmaj's numbers, but the important ones, number one and two, remained elusive.

Moonlight shone across the parquet floor. Two more days until the full moon. No time for rest.

King had returned to headquarters to search the database for clues. Verity had insisted he take her here because she didn't want to be alone tonight.

Could he make love to her, tuck her in bed and leave her sleeping while he slipped out to go in search of Clas?

He must.

She turned to him, opening her mouth to speak, so Rook caught her words in a kiss. They should probably talk. There was a lot to say about vampires and imminent vampirism and…

They'd talked enough earlier in the day. He'd laid his heart out on the floor for her to inspect, and she had tendered it carefully beneath her touch. He couldn't conceive of another wrenching discussion right now.

Tonight was for action, for touch, for knowing. For the compelling need to connect with that which he had lost.

“You smell like blood,” she whispered.

“I'll shower. Don't—”

She sat on his bed and toed off her shoes. “I'm not going anywhere.”

After he'd showered, Rook laid his lover across the bed beneath the streams of blue silk that had been a payment to him centuries earlier after he'd helped a Romanian family flee from vicious vampires. They hadn't gold or riches but had not wanted him to leave without something offered in thanks. The simple fabric was like spun gold to him.

Verity pulled him on top of her and hooked her ankle around his. Their bodies crushed together, he naked and sprinkled with water droplets, and she still clothed. He pushed up her shirt and tugged down her bra, wanting to get to her skin, her nipple, the sensitive spot at the top of her breast where he knew a few lashes of his tongue would release her from anxiety and set her off into bliss. And then sleep.

The modena from his hickey blossomed at the side of her breast. “Pretty,” he said.

“Means I'm yours,” she said in a tired voice. “Mark me all you like, lover.”

The world turned right when she was in his arms. Her kisses made him forget about the times he'd slammed a stake into a vampire's heart and had tasted ash for days after. Her dulcet moans made him forget the maddening death howls, a last protest at unavoidable death. Her skin made him forget how cool his skin was because he harbored a demon thanks to his inability to believe his wife's truths.

And her sigh sucked him out of the dark and into her bright, violet light that surrounded him with a hug as if it were her great-grandmother's quilt.

“Love you,” he whispered against her breast. “I mean it. I love you, Verity. You are my everything.”

Because she anchored him to the now.

* * *

Returning from the bathroom, Verity yawned and padded into the bedroom. She knelt at the corner of the bed. It wasn't on a frame, so the box spring sat directly on the floor. A skim of azure fabric dusted her shoulders. She liked it; it felt as if they were floating in the middle of the sea while making love with nothing to anchor them.

Rook sat up on the opposite corner of the bed, turning to face her and sitting with crossed legs, yoga style. Every sinew on the man flexed with movement. He wasn't bulked with muscles like a weight lifter, or even a werewolf; he was rather sleek and defined. Like a wildcat. A true hunter.

She was tired, but the sex had given her a second wind. She could never resist his sensual allure. Bending to crawl toward him, she stopped when he put up a palm. “Stay there.”

She knelt to sit on her heels, mocking a pout. Both of them were still naked. It was after midnight, and the moon sat high in the sky. She would sleep…soon.

“Touch yourself the way you like me to touch you,” he said. “I want to watch.”

Dashing her tongue across her lips, she nodded. Anything he asked of her, she would do. Because she wanted to please him. Because in pleasing him, she was pleasing herself. And because she liked the idea of him set aside, a witness but also a participant.

And because that meant their thoughts would be on something other than the dire.

So she drew her palms up the sides of her torso to cup her breasts. Squeezing her nipples, she moaned softly, closing her eyes as she tightened the squeeze and then made it softer, gliding her palms over her nipples in a feathering brush.

She glided a hand down her stomach, circling her navel and catching Rook's intent gaze. Her hunter, his legs crossed and shoulders straight and back. And there in his lap, his cock jutted upward, intent, as if also watching. His jaw pulsed, and she knew he was participating in the touch.

Slipping a finger into her folds, she wet it and slicked it across her clit. Slowly, lingering, polishing. A hum giddied in her belly, and she closed her eyes to fall into the sensation.

“Look at me,” he groaned on a lusty growl.

She met his gaze, yet flashed her look away to the window, then back to his. Could she look directly at his intense eyes while she pleasured herself? It was so intimate. More intimate than allowing him to sup between her legs. For he was the voyeur and she the performer. Yet this audience had come to see into her soul, be damned the flames she could manipulate for a thrill.

Then come take a look, she thought to that other voyeur, the one who watched with glowing red eyes.

Yes, a performer.
That's what I am
. And that made it easy to hold her lover's gaze. Her audience would not release her, and she wasn't about to flee. Rubbing her fingers faster, she neared the edge. Squeezing her thighs heightened the intensity of the need to release, to surrender to the perfect coil of pleasure.

Rook's mouth was parted. His breaths came quickly. Burnt peaches, tobacco, and male desire scented the air. Beneath the fall of azure, Verity found the truth in his eyes, and in that moment she released her breath and was finally able to accept him for all that he was, and—

—trust him.

The orgasm soared through her. She hushed out a giggly sigh and thrust back her shoulders, then curled forward, bending toward the exquisite thunder in her core. She fell to her side and rolled to her back, stretching out her arms and legs. Her hair spilled over the edge of the bed.

Rook leaned forward onto his elbows and played with her hair, rearranging it off her cheek and mouth as she breathed heavily through the after-orgasm. Mmm, her body was hot, lax and spent. And the flutter of his fingers along her hairline, across her cheek and there, at the join of her ear to her neck, stirred up tiny jolts of sensation.

Yes, she trusted this man. Completely.

His face moved over hers, his eyes tracing the contour of her head, meeting her gaze, smiling, then trailing to another point of her he wanted to explore. A delicate kiss touched her eyebrow. And another at the bridge of her nose.

“You are beautiful,” he whispered.

His fingers floated down her arm, skimming the hairs. Propping his chin in his other hand, he lay there, his head near hers, watching her from the side. She didn't turn to look at him, only closed her eyes to better track his barely-there touch.

A butterfly danced over her stomach, touching down briefly, then lighting at the join of her thigh to her torso, where she was slick with perspiration. She arched her back, felt her nipples tighten, her core swirl.

Where had his touch gone? She needed it back.

And then it was right there, tapping, tapping at her clit. Not roughly, only so lightly that she quickly rushed forth to feel it, to own it, to surrender to it.

And at her ear, he whispered, “Encore.”

With only two taps of his finger, she burst again, the endorphins of orgasm flooding her body in a warm rush that didn't flail her about in abandon, but instead hugged her in a full-body sigh that touched her very soul.

Her soul and Marianne's soul.

Verity tilted her head to the side. He kissed her mouth, his fingers at her mons curling into her to hold her, pressing into the humming sensation that would not cease.

Bliss.

She fell asleep under her lover's thumb.

* * *

Verity woke to the smell of copper pennies. It was strong. She felt it on her tongue and at the back of her throat. And in her gut she felt an intense and annoying hunger. She needed sustenance. All it required was a drink of something warm and thick.

Sitting upright on Rook's bed, she looked about and spied her lover's back. He stood in front of the steel cabinet on the far wall, unaware she had woken. Dressed in full leathers and his long black coat, he sorted something inside the cabinet. The room was light. Dawn seeped quietly through the cracked window.

When had he slipped from bed? Did he intend to go out now during the day? Or had he returned from somewhere?

“Rook?”

He spun around, a stake in hand and a black cloth that he'd been using to wipe the stake clean clutched in his fingers. “You're awake. I, uh, slipped out for a bit. Couldn't sleep.”

“More vampires?”

He nodded and turned away from her, placing the stake in the cabinet. Cleaning the blood from his weapons. She knew it because the smell was strong. He must have slayed more vampires while she was sleeping.

The luscious aroma lured her to the end of the bed. She wanted a taste. To dash her tongue along the cool titanium column as if it were her lover's erection. To lick it clean and savor the flavor of life.

“Goddess,” she swore softly and grabbed her clothes. Dressing quickly, she looked by the sides of the bed for her shoes. “I need to leave.”

He caught her at the bedroom door. Sunlight glinted on the blades at his collar. “What's wrong? I will do anything to find Clas. Are you mad that I left you alone? You were perfectly safe here.”

A ripple tensed her gut and squeezed inwardly. Verity winced and shook her head.

“Verity? Do you feel okay?”

“I'm not sure. Just need to leave. Go home and shower. You have Order stuff to deal with.”

“Not anymore. I'm home. I want to—hell, are you in pain?”

She tried to wrestle free from his grasp. He had blood on his coat. Somewhere. Perhaps in his hair? It smelled so good. Even better than his usual scent.

“Please, Rook, the blood.” He let her go, and she stumbled backward to catch herself in the open doorway. “I can't be around the smell of it.”

“Right. Sorry.” He gripped her arms again and pulled her in for a kiss, but all she could concentrate on was the scent of vampire blood. “I'll see you home. Let me shower again, get the blood off me, then I'll drive you. I don't want you to risk walking home alone. It's dangerous out there.”

She nodded and backed into the living room. As the shower turned on, Verity slipped into her shoes and took off. He was right about it being dangerous for her to walk home alone.

But she felt it was even more dangerous to remain and succumb to the scent of blood that lingered in the air.

Chapter 18

S
he is hungry for blood
.

“Hell.” Rook fisted the wall. “Are you sure?”

You have seen helpless humans in the throes of the irresistible blood hunger.

Indeed. One of the things that touched him most was witnessing a bitten human begging for blood as the wicked hunger took over. Either a victim, they begged, or their own death.

She needs distraction. Until you can kill Clas.

“Then I should go after Clas. I wish I could release you to look after Verity.”

Clas will keep. She may not.

Rook nodded. Oz was right. If Verity so much as tasted blood, that was all that was required to begin the transformation to vampire. She did not want that. He did not want that for her. He wasn't sure he could continue to love a witch who was also a vampire.

Why not? Your best friend—

“Enough.” Rook punched the wall again and marched toward the front door. “This is different.”

Also, Slater was out there jonesing for witch blood. Verity had moved so the tribe leader could not find her, but what's to say the vamp hadn't discovered her home?

He'd go to her. Guard her against Slater. Distract her. But his mind would be distracted by the vampire he must kill to save Verity and to save his soul.

His best option? Call in another knight. Tugging out his cell phone, Rook sorted through the names of knights currently in the city.

* * *

Charging into her home, Verity aimed for the fridge. Hunger gnawed at her, forcing her to think things like “A sip of blood would hit the spot” and “I wonder if I have any raw meat?”

From the fridge she pulled out a jug of orange juice and drank the cold liquid until she had to gasp for breath. The sweetness did not appeal. She put it back and took out the blueberries, quickly popping the plump jewels into her mouth. Again, too sweet. Not at all satisfying.

“What am I doing? I'm not going to drink blood. I'm stronger than that. I can do this. I just have to make it past the full moon without tasting blood, and I'll be fine.”

Squeezing her palms to her cheeks, she shut her eyes, mentally tallying the days and then the hours. Less than forty-eight. “I can do it. I have to.”

Maybe a hot bath would put her thoughts away from hunger. Soaking always did relax her muscles and lure her mind toward peace.

Dashing up the stairs, she darted into the bathroom and turned on the water to fill the tub. Stripping off her clothes, she paced in the bedroom. Her spell table was cluttered with herbs, vials and accoutrements of the craft. She usually kept a live dove in a cage because they were always useful for spellwork. But the cage was empty now, taunting her with its lack of bird coos.

“Animal blood would not begin the change. Would it?”

She shook her head and shuddered. “What am I thinking?”

Walking back into the bathroom, she sat at the tub's edge and bent forward, placing her head on her knees. Her hair spilled down her legs, and she touched the cool tile flooring with her fingertips. Maybe if she tried a few yoga moves like Rook did, she could avert the cravings.

She didn't know any yoga. And she was really hungry. The athame she used for the dove. Had she cleaned it properly?

As she shut off the water, she heard the knocks on the front door. Had someone been down there a while? She wasn't going to answer it. She was naked, and…

“Verity?”

He'd followed her? He'd told her to stay, to let him drive her home. She hadn't considered the danger while walking and—hell. She hadn't locked the door after returning home because she'd been so aggravated. And still was.

“You home?”

“I'm up here!” she called.

Considering dashing out for a robe, she stayed put. Rook had seen her naked. And—why was he here?

Pray to the goddess he'd showered.

“I'm in the bathroom,” she called when she heard his footsteps top the stairs. She slipped into the water, reached back to coil her hair into a chignon, and then stabbed a wooden hair stick through it that she kept beside the tub for just such purpose. “You can come in.”

The door opened a few inches, and Rook peeked in. Seeing her in the tub, surrounded by a cloud of bubbles, he entered. “I told you to wait for me. I worried.”

“I made it home fine.”

“I see that. Do you want me to leave?”

“Have you showered?”

“Yes.”

“Then stay, please. I'm glad you're here.” His hair was wet, and she could only smell the luscious tobacco and peaches. Thank the goddess. “I was…just trying to—I need a—hell, I have to tell you. I want you to trust me.”

“Is it the blood hunger?” He strode in and squatted before the tub.

Verity nodded. “That's why I left so quickly. I didn't want you to see me like that. And you had blood scent all over you.”

“Sorry.”

“You couldn't have known. I'm so hungry, but nothing I eat satisfies. And I keep thinking about how good blood would taste.” She pressed wet hands over her face. “I don't want to think like that.”

“I don't know how to make the cravings stop, beyond killing Clas or getting you past the full moon. Much as I want to stay here, not leave you alone, I need to get out on the streets to find Clas. So I've, uh…called in another knight to watch your house.”

“You think that's necessary?”

“Very.” He pressed his palms together in front of his nose. “Kaz won't get here for a few hours. He has an appointment he can't miss. But when he arrives I have to leave. Right now I can sit and talk to you. Distract you.”

She nodded, catching her breath in a relieved sigh. “I'd like that. I like it whenever you're around. I like you.”

“That's a good thing.” He turned and sat, his shoulders against the tub wall, and rested his hands on his knees. “I like you too. A lot. You know when I said I love you—”

“Oh, don't worry about that. I know it's something that comes out during sex. It's like fuck, yeah or more baby, please. Sex words.”

Rook scrubbed a hand over his hair, and it fell messily across his forehead. “That's the thing.” He tilted his head back against the tub and eyed her. “I really do love you.”

Verity didn't know what to say. His confession felt true. And it felt great. But it also felt ominous, especially when her gut lurched again, and she had to wince to keep from biting her lip to taste the blood. Instead, she busily spread the bubbles up her arm and neck.

“No comment?” he asked.

“I could love you, too. I might already. I want to love you, Rook. But I don't want to commit to that until I've beat this. You know?”

“I understand. You have my complete support.” He clasped her bubble-laden hand. “I will do everything in my power to save you, Verity.”

“And what of your soul? Don't you want to save yourself?”

“Will a soul save me? It'll give Oz freedom. But as for me? It'll return my mortality.”

She hadn't thought about that. The man had existed four centuries. When finally his soul was placed within him and the demon was set free, he would become merely mortal. He would age. He would eventually die.

“How long have you lived?” he asked.

“About a century and a half. But I…well, I've always considered this my last century.”

He lifted a brow.

“My great-grandmother Bluebell—”

“Of the magical quilt.”

“Yes, that fabulous quilt. She used a source twice, then said enough. She had no desire to live forever. Felt she'd done what her soul had been born into this realm to do. So she died of old age. I think about that a lot, and I know I don't want to live forever. Two centuries will be a long time, and so far it's been great. To grow old naturally seems a gift. I might not take another source again.”

“The centuries do wear on a person. When did you last take a source?”

They used the term so casually. A source was the unfortunate vampire a witch bespelled so she could then remove its heart and consume it while it still beat. That prolonged the witch's life another century. Not so much for the vampire. Vamps called sources ash.

“Thirty years ago?” she guessed. “About then. So I have another seventy years of immortality, and then if I don't take a source, well, whatever time should follow. I'd like to grow old with someone. Perhaps even a husband.”

He smirked and laid his cheek against the side of the tub.

She traced the triangle of stubble beneath his lower lip. “Did you believe you were going to grow old with Marianne?”

He nodded. “We wanted half a dozen children and a big garden. That's all we desired, beyond each other. And love.”

Verity's throat tightened. Such simple desires taken from him so cruelly. And he, forced to kill his zombie wife.

“Maybe the two of you have found one another again,” she suggested.

“You mean with your soul?” He shrugged. “You are not Marianne. And that's a good thing. I miss her. I loved her. I will always love her. But now I love you. And it feels different and…”

“Wondrous.”

He gave her a bright-eyed nod.

“Listen to us. Two souls with incredible odds stacked against them. We're both a bit fucked, don't you think?”

“That we are. Though I've been fucked for some time now. Your fuckery is a bit more immediate.”

She laughed, and he did too.

He stroked his finger down her neck and under the water beside her breast. She tilted so her breasts were exposed, and he tapped the hickey. “I do good work.”

“And you do like to sign your work. Your shirt is getting wet from the bubbles. Take it off.”

“You trying to get me naked, witch?”

“As bare as I can manage.”

He slipped off his shirt and turned to dangle his hands in the water. He glided his fingers over the hickey again, then down her stomach and between her legs.

“Your distraction is working, hunter.”

“Now I know why you women are always cooing over bubble baths and those sparkly balls you like to drop in the water. It smells great, and the water is so soft.”

His touch entered her, and Verity spread her legs to give him easy access. He lazily toyed with her, closing his eyes and resting his chin on the tub edge. She didn't need anything intense, just the gentle pressure lingering, teasing.

“And now I know what to get you for Christmas,” she said. “Something sparkly to drop in your bathwater.”

“You're all I need in my bathwater.” He kissed the side of her neck, and his hand cupped her breast.

“So will you tell me how you met King? I assume it was soon after everything that happened with your wife's death.”

His hand tightened against her mons, and she sensed his entire body tense.

“I'm sorry. If you don't want to talk about this anymore…”

“No, it's fine. King and I. That's all good. He sought me out after he'd witnessed me slaying the vampires who had killed Marianne. I had hunted them systematically, about a week after her death. I didn't know what a fixer was at the time—that they were a super-powered being due to their alliance with Himself—so the fact that I took out six blew King away.”

“That's an odd name. King.”

“His real name is Charles.”

“Giles and Charles. I like Giles. You haven't used it since?”

“Never. I'm not that man anymore. Although King is certainly Charles. His full name is Charles-Maximilien de France, Duke of Angouleme, son of Henri II and Catherine de Medici.”

Verity thought the long string of names familiar. She traced the French history she knew. “The former king of France? Back in the sixteenth century?”

Rook nodded. “You may know him best as Charles IX. But you didn't hear it from me. It is a persona he guards closely. I trust you with the knowledge.”

“Thanks. So he is—was—a real king? Which makes him immortal. What
is
he, though?”

“Now that, I will never tell. It is his secret to own.”

“Amazing. But I thought—wasn't he assassinated?”

“No, that was his brother Henri. Henri was named king after Charles, and not long after he was stabbed by a monk, of all people. Charles's death was…different. The history books have it wrong about the poisoning. In a fashion. And that's all I can say.”

“Of course.” Verity met the dancing twinkle in Rook's blue eyes. The man guarded an actual historic secret. His best friend was once king of France. “Wow. Should I bow to him next time we meet?”

“Certainly not. First, he'd love that too much. And second, I'm not telling you any of this, remember?”

“Right. So you impressed him with your slaying skills and he signed you on?”

“Yes, he'd been working on developing an organization of hunters for a decade, but he hadn't had much luck. When the two of us put our heads together, everything clicked into place. We founded the Order and haven't looked back since.”

So she assumed King had been touched by vampire violence in some manner. Oh, the wonders she could wonder. But she would give Rook the trust he asked of her.

“King and Rook and the knights. You two play chess much?”

“Never, actually. Though the rook is one of the king's most valued pieces. I liked the name, and so did he. It works for me.”

“You two must be close, working together all these centuries.”

“We are. We know everything about the other. We are brothers. Comrades in arms. Friends.”

She captured his gaze and stroked a wet fingertip over his lips. “Have you ever been lovers?”

He tucked his nose against her neck to kiss her and said, “Yes.”

Such information heated Verity's core, and a twinge of desire tightened her nipples. To imagine the two men entwined in a loving embrace tapped into a fantasy of hers.