He stopped and stared down at her,
naked and quaking for him.
Made love?
Luca could not remember once in his three hundred
years thinking that phrase. It had always been just about sex and,
of course, feeding. But never had he thought of love during any of
it. Especially not with his maker. No, fear and hate, that was what
he’d felt for Elaina.
But right that moment, as his
preternatural body moved of its own accord, crawling onto the bed
and up atop Min, pushing himself into her once again, he knew that
he indeed felt it. He loved Min. And the thought, the knowledge of
that, made something hot flicker inside him, something strange and
alien…but somehow familiar. What had only been a spark moments ago
now burned like a torch. It was engulfing him, overwhelming him,
and he didn’t want to do a damned thing to stop it. It could burn
him to a cinder, as long as he could stay with her.
Min’s hand flew out and slapped against
his chest, her arm straight and strong, holding him away from her.
That one move made that torch inside him flicker and shudder with
pain. She was pushing him away.
Her eyes sharpened to slits, and she
simply stared up at him.
No, no, no…she’d finally decided to be
done with him. Somehow he’d displeased her. Or maybe she had just
gotten hold of her sanity once more, and was now wondering why in
god’s name she had a filthy, murdering monster like him in her
bed.
Fear all but snuffed out the fire that
had been burning inside him, but then she reached with both hands
and grabbed him not too delicately by the sides of his face and
pulled him down to her, into a burning, succulent kiss. The fire
inside him rekindled and blazed like a bonfire, and he melted into
Min’s embrace, their bodies becoming one, and somehow, in a way he
couldn’t begin to describe, they became one in more than just that
way as well.
~*~
When they were done and sated, Luca
held Min to him, listening to her heart and her breathing slow,
feeling her warm body soften and dissolve against his. When he
closed his eyes, all he saw was her, and when he opened them, there
she lay, soft and warm and his.
Mine.
He held her, not daring to
breathe—thankfully he didn’t have to—and watched her as she dozed
in his possessive embrace. His thoughts had been blessedly
empty…that was, until he felt her slip into sleep. That was when
the beast’s voice struck with its usual perfect timing. It was a
master at knowing exactly when to speak, when to push its wants and
desires, and somehow to make them feel and taste like one’s
own.
If she is asleep…could you
not bite her?
The beast rumbled inside
him.
Could you not drink her blood, and
then bring her over?
Or, maybe you could
just make a meal of her, kill her outright, extinguish her wondrous
beauty—not just because she has power over you, but because to kill
something so beautiful has its own pleasure?
Luca felt his teeth worrying at his
gums, yearning to elongate, to become what he was meant to be: a
monster, a killer.
Min breathed, nearly sighing with
contentment, her lush, strong body so warm and soft against his,
her expression so innocent. She was not innocent. She was good,
yes, she was good. But she did not possess true innocence. But that
didn’t make the innocent look on her beautiful face any less
compelling or attractive to the beast inside him. The beast wanted
blood, wanted violence and death. The beast looked upon his Min
like a lion standing over a fresh kill. All hunger and
possession.
Mine,
Luca thought bitterly.
No,
the monster inside him hissed.
The
witch is mine.
Luca could all too well see how
exciting it would be to allow his beast to take over. Especially
now that Min was asleep, her magicks would be unfocused—there
still, lingering in the air—yet inanimate. They could have her
exactly as they wanted her.
But Luca didn’t want Min as food. He
didn’t want her to be dead, or an eternal slave to him. He wanted
her exactly as she was: strong, powerful, good.
But no sooner did he think that than
the beast clamped its primal will over Luca, holding his body in
its control. Luca struggled to move, but couldn’t. He struggled to
speak, to try and warn Min, to wake her, but that too was not
happening. The beast had far more power over him than he had ever
imagined. It was so very strong. Of course, Luca had never resisted
the beast’s will before. He’d always obediently let himself be
taken over, reveling in the release, throwing in his own twist to
the beast’s hungers. They’d shared quite the
partnership.
But now something burned inside him,
something strong, something…something more powerful than the
blasted, slathering beast inside him. Luca called to that part of
himself and let it well up in his body, until its fire burned
excruciatingly hot, but not just burning him but the beast as
well.
As it writhed and screamed, Luca felt
its absolute control over him waver and fade.
That was when Luca jerked his body,
jerked it hard enough that Min woke with a start, and a “By the
goddess!”
Min pulled away from him, and he felt
the inert spell snap to attention again, pushing his raging and
angry beast back down deep inside him. She looked up at Luca, and
he could practically see the thoughts swirling in her head. That
she’d let her guard down. That he could have taken her while she
was dozing. She shook her head and pushed herself up and out of
bed, away from him, wrapping a silken robe about her.
She was furious, that much he could
feel—the heat of her anger coming off her in waves. But he wasn’t
entirely sure she was angry with him.
He felt it when she shut herself down,
as if she was suddenly standing behind an immense stone wall. He
could see her, smell her, could practically taste her. But he
couldn’t sense her.
But when had he started sensing
her?
Finally she said, “Your invitation is
now revoked…Luca. Come back in three nights’ time—”
“
Three nights!” Luca shot up
in bed, his body going tense with panic. “How can I—”
“
Three nights,” Min said,
the authority of an order in her voice. “I need time to…to recover.
I’m not a demon or immortal.”
You’re not exactly human
either,
the beast growled.
Luca inhaled to protest. There is no
way he could live without her for three days. She is the entire
world to him now. To not look upon her, to not be able to touch her
or taste her.
I’ll go mad…
Min’s expression turned softer, and for
a moment Luca thought she was about to rescind his banishment. But
then the cold steel returned to her eyes, the resolve…she has plans
for him…he could nearly hear the thoughts swirling chaotically in
her mind. And then the wall solidified once more, and he was cut
off.
She leaned over, her silk robe falling
open to show him the creamy goodness of her naked body. She pressed
her lips to his, and then replaced her lips with her right index
finger, making a hushing noise.
“
Come to me in three days.
Now go.”
Luca dressed quickly as she beckoned
him to follow her, down the stairs and out the front door. “Three
days…Luca. Be standing right here in three days, at this exact
time.” And she closed the door behind her.
Without the least bit of struggle Luca
walked away from Min’s house, and walked for nearly an hour before
he felt the all encompassing hold she’d had on him dissolve. Which
wasn’t right. He should have been free to rant and rave the moment
he crossed the threshold of her home.
Somehow her power over him was stronger
than just the gris-gris, or the spell it conveyed. But how? And
why? And what the hell was happening to him?
Only a week ago he’d been a
bloodthirsty creature of the night, and now he was a starving,
soul-hampered sex toy to a gypsy witch. A goddamned
mortal.
But she wasn’t just a mortal was she?
No. No simple human could possess so much power. Sure, a mortal
could become a mage, and gypsies had always had more power than
most of those…but her power was too much, too overwhelming…too
inhuman.
Of course most of her was human,
mortal. But there had to be something else in her blood, or she
wouldn’t have such strength. Only three things it could be. One,
the blood of the divine. From a god or angel. And she didn’t smell
of that. If she were of that lineage, just the touch of her skin
would be hurtful to a creature of darkness, even in its most
diluted state. Two, she has demon in her. That wouldn’t preclude
she was evil, but he’d seen how brave she was when she had an
innocent to save. No, no demon blood in her, none that he could
tell. Plus those with demon ancestry usually had an aroma to them,
one of ash and fire, sometimes even sulfur and
brimstone.
That just left the fae. Damn hard, if
not impossible for a lone vampire to kill, and excruciatingly
irresistible to any such vampire, their scent alone, not to mention
their blood! If that were the case, and it probably was, then that
could explain some of the things he was feeling when he was with
her…and when he wasn’t with her. Maybe his soul wasn’t really
stirring at all. Maybe he was just feeling withdrawn, like a junky
coming down from a drug-fueled high. That would make things so much
the simpler. But as he stood and stared up into the cloudless night
sky over Augusta, and scented the air, he knew it was more than
just a chemical thing. Whatever had been stirred within him was
strong enough to not only resist the beast inside him, but to push
it back like a dog on a chain.
He pulled in a long, uneven breath and
then tried to clear his mind. Though he could hardly wait for the
three nights to pass, so he could go back to her and be hers
alone…there was the chilling knowledge that she had plans for him.
And from the cold, steel-like gleam in her eyes, it probably wasn’t
going to be an enjoyable plan.
But he couldn’t even entertain the
thought of not going back to her. She was his, and he was
hers.
Three nights…three nights
and then we will see.
Chapter 11
Min sat in her kitchen, her silk robe
tied at her waist, the tome with the passage about the vampire with
a soul in her lap, the thrill and chill of the possibility making
her breathe too fast, her heart pound in her chest. Could it be
possible? After all, she’d seen it with her own eyes. When he’d
been inside her, on the bed, she’d looked up into those beautiful
jade green eyes and had seen it. Shining like the light of a faint,
distant star…the vampire’s soul.
It hadn’t been merely demonic fire, nor
could it be glamour, for she had control over him and his powers
once he passed her threshold. It had indeed been his soul. But how
could a vampire have a soul? It was impossible.
She sat there perfectly still, but she
was thinking furiously fast. Questions echoed, answered by other
questions, all bouncing off each other, forming a cacophony of
thoughts and feelings in her head.
However it had happened, it
was exactly what she needed, just when she needed it.
He
had come right to
her.
She needed time to think, time to
research, and time to plan.
Over the next three days Min
practically memorized every word the book had to say about using a
vampire’s soul to pull another’s soul from the ether. Even one lost
to the spirit world. The spell would find the soul, capture it and
bring it back to her, to its host body.
Between the magic shop and her own
supplies at the house, Min had almost all the ingredients she
needed. She had to call in a few favors to find real Mongolian
snapdragons, but luckily one of her customers, a member of the
coven on campus and a professor of botany, had recently traveled to
Europe and had brought back a cutting. It had flourished in her
backyard, and had begun to bear fruit just that month. Resilient to
the cold weather…but again, a Georgia winter wasn’t that much
different than a European summer.
So she had everything she needed to
bring back her mother’s soul, to restore her to life. She even had
the impossible, a vampire with an honest to Hecate soul. And he was
coming to her of his own volition too.
But there was a passage at the end of
the spell that spoke to what would become of the vampire. And as
she read that the ritual would steal the immortal life from him,
ending all that he had or would be—it stopped Min in her tracks.
This shouldn’t have bothered her. She had slain so many of his kind
in her life. But then again, she had never taken one of his kind to
her bed, or had such feeling for one…for any man, actually. And
then there was the little matter of him having a soul. It was the
entire reason for killing him, for using him in the spell, in the
first place. But it also made it too much like sacrificing a human
being. It was the divine spark that made us human. How could she
just snuff it out?
But Min knew she had to. There just
wasn’t another way. She’d been searching for months, her and her
sister, and had found not a shred of information about what had
happened to her mother. No, she loved her mother more than she
would love anything else in this world or the next. She had to
sacrifice him. She had no choice.