Min looked about at her surroundings,
the street, the bushes, the other houses neighboring her home,
before she stepped into the house, checking to see if she could
spot Günter hiding in plain sight. He was tricky and a master at
The Hunt. Did she really think he’d be so sloppy as to let her see
him as he trailed her?
And she didn’t, finding the street both
silent and abandoned.
Unfortunately, that is exactly how she
found the inside of her house too: empty and silent. He should have
been there, waiting for her. She had been so certain where he’d be.
Certain he’d been there before she’d decided to stop at the bar and
garner Günter’s notice. She waited, trying to keep calm. But the
longer she waited, the worse she felt, the more her mind began to
play cruel tricks on her. She kept imagining Luca being chased by
the wolves. And though a vampire was more than a match for most
single wolves, Günter wasn’t your average wolf. He was alpha of his
pack, and a highly trained assassin, hunter, and soldier. And that
was another thing, he wasn’t a lone wolf, he was the master of a
powerful and highly trained pack. He could fight and kill anything
he came across, and had, until the elusive and maniacal
Elaina.
Oh god, there was that too. Elaina was
in the city, and Min knew from Luca’s memories that she was a
monster, cruel and vicious, and insane. She had to warn him of her,
too. He needed to hide, to leave the city.
But deep down Min knew that even if she
could hide Luca from Günter and his pack, that she could never hide
him from Elaina. She had lived his memory of her calling him from
halfway across the known world. He hadn’t even been able to feed,
only able to rest when the sun rose and his body forced him to dig
and scrabble into the earth. He hadn’t been able to stop until he
stood in front of her. And she’d laughed, and she’d tortured him
for days, keeping him starved and broken until he had thought he
would lose his mind.
She paced the rooms of the downstairs
desperately, mentally calling out to him again and again, just
about to go out into the city and start searching for him, when
finally she heard the front door creak open. Had she left it
unlocked? She couldn’t remember. She tensed, listening for
footsteps. If she heard the steps it was Günter, and she had failed
at subterfuge completely. But as she listened, she heard nothing at
all. Luca came into view, staring with terrible, haunted eyes at
her in the dim light of the parlor. His eyes were filled with red
blood tears, and Min was taken aback by the idea that a vampire
would cry bloody tears. He looked about the room, closed his eyes
as if listening to something, and then inhaled deeply. At last he
turned from her, saying nothing.
“
Where have you been?” Min
said as she moved to him. “It’s not safe for you—”
His face flashed with red-hot anger as
he rounded on her. “Where have I been?” He moved until he was
leaning down, his beautiful mouth a vicious snarl. “Where have you
been?”
“
What do you mean? I’ve been
waiting here for you.”
He laughed snidely. “Oh yes, I’m sure
you’ve been beside yourself with worry.” His eyes had cleared, and
were now balls of green flame. “How long, may I ask, were you with
the werewolf?”
Min stared up into his eyes, feeling
the blood drain from her face, and from her hands, turning them
cold.
“
Were you in his bed, or did
you two just go into the back of that shitty little bar and screw
in the restroom…maybe the mop closet?”
Min felt her breath begin to speed, as
well as her pulse. “You were there? You saw us?”
“
Thank you for not trying to
deny it. How forthright.”
Min reached out and grabbed him,
looking to the windows in the room, relieved nothing was staring in
at them. “Did he see you? Please tell me he didn’t see you.” Her
voice sounded so very desperate to her.
“
Not that it would have
mattered, but no, I left before either of you could notice
me.”
Relief flooded into her blood, cooling
the burn of fear, and soothing the rasping in her lungs. “Oh, thank
the goddess.”
Luca pulled away from Min, glaring at
her with disgusted eyes. “What, don’t want your wolf lover to know
you’ve been fucking a vampire?”
“
Yes!” she said too quickly,
with far too much relief. Then she shook her head, “I mean no. No,
he isn’t my lover…not anymore…but yes, I don’t want him to know
about you. He can’t know about you.”
Luca was about to scream at her when
she reached out and grabbed him again. “Günter isn’t just some
werewolf, or ex-lover, he’s the Lord of The Hunt!”
Luca’s eyes cleared of his disbelief,
and widened at the realization of what she’d just said. “Hunt? You
mean like The Hunt they tell of in the old country?”
“
The very same. And the man
you saw me with tonight is the leader of The Hunt in this country.
He’s very powerful, and skilled to destroy anything that gets in
his way.”
Luca shook his head. “I can take care
of myself. A pack of ravening dogs won’t be the end of
me.”
“
They’ve been destroying
your kind for centuries. And they travel en masse. Once they pick
up your trail they won’t stop until you’re dead.”
“
I’m already dead,” he said
cruelly. “Or haven’t you noticed yet?”
“
But that’s not all.” Min
felt a terrible jolt as the image of Elaina laughing with
blood-tinted fangs flashed involuntarily through her
mind.
Luca jerked back from her, gasping. His
eyes turned wide with fear. He’d seen it too.
“
Elaina,” they said in
concert.
Luca strode over to the window and
looked out into the night in silence.
“
Günter and his men tracked
her here. She killed his sister, Marina, and then led them straight
here, straight to you.”
Luca looked to Min, his expression
riddled with fear. “Why hasn’t she called for me?”
She could feel his fear—so powerful
that he was consumed by it. She looked up and then pulled his face
to hers, kissing him, trying to give him some comfort, something
else to concentrate on. And it worked. Slowly that fear died, and
his hunger for her took over. And it wasn’t the coldness of his
bloodlust; it had heat to it, as if nothing else was alive within
him except his need for her.
They moved from deep, wet kisses to
pulling each other’s clothes off. Min became naked first, and he
licked and suckled every sensitive part of her body, from her
breasts to her belly, from the backs of her knees to the softness
of her inner things, and then her quivering sex. Slowly he lapped
at her opening, one hand clasped on her inner thigh, the other
running gently over her body. He looked up at her as she tried not
to scream, but gasped and writhed instead. He finally came up
between her legs, hard and long and ready, and she seized his mouth
with hers, tasting herself on his soft, cool lips. He thrust into
her mercilessly, and she threw back her head as she finally
screamed his name. He nuzzled at the silky flesh of her throat as
he pushed in and out of her, harder and faster, until he was
battering himself into her. She opened up to him, so wet, so very
hot.
Min lost herself. Somehow her touch had
soothed his fears, as his touch soothed the lingering pains in her
body. When he climaxed inside her he fell onto her, his body
sweating, though still cold, his breaths coming in gasps, though
she knew he didn’t need to breathe at all. For a long moment he
stayed there, his face pressed against her breasts, so very still.
He looked up into her eyes, his own glittering with happiness, his
smile so very young.
Min smiled back, befuddled. Besides the
obvious rush of sexual euphoria, why was he suddenly so happy? But
with his next deep, long kiss, Min no longer wondered, she just
gave herself to him, heart and soul, not caring about what might
happen, not giving a damn about the consequences of giving her
heart away. She could no longer keep it from him.
Sated and exhausted, Luca gathered Min
up in his arms and carried her upstairs to her bedroom, holding her
in his arms until she fell asleep.
Chapter 17
Through all his fear over
hearing of Elaina’s return for him, he still couldn’t get over the
fact that he could hear Min’s heart. It pounded in her chest, every
beat calling to him, pounding out its every throb
for
him. He didn’t know
what it meant, but somehow, something inside him told him that Min
loved him, she finally loved him—like pulled to like.
When she finally rolled away from him
in her usually fitful sleep, he moved gently out of her bed and sat
in the darkness of the night, watching over her, waiting for the
inevitable dawn. He’d pulled on his clothes and when he looked up
to the bedroom window, there stood Elaina.
A moment later, as lightning streaked
the rainless sky, summer lightning, she disappeared. She wasn’t
using her power over him. But just seeing her had been pull enough.
Fearful or not, impending pain or no, she was his maker, and he
needed to find out exactly what she was doing there, what her
intentions were, and what she wanted with him. He hadn’t needed Min
to tell him that she’d led the werewolves to town because of him.
She was the slyest, craftiest immortal he’d ever met. If she hadn’t
wanted the pack to follow her, they couldn’t have. So it had been
her wish for them to.
And when he walked out of Min’s house
and could still catch her scent in the air, it meant she was still
close, and she was waiting for him. Oh god, it made him tremble.
What would she do to him? Then the worst thought occurred to him.
What would she force him to do?
That thought alone made him stop as he
swept effortlessly over a ramshackle rooftop. If that was her game,
to make him kill what…who was most important to him, then he could
only do one thing. He had to run. And now.
But as he turned to go back the way he
came, there she stood, beautiful, powerful, and still utterly
insane. He could see it in the sparkle of those fearsome black
eyes. She loved every moment of her twisted, tyrannical afterlife.
The excitement in her eyes was unmistakable; whatever she’d been
planning was about to be unleashed.
“
You can’t run from me, my
beautiful boy.” She drew closer, and he stood stock still, trying
not to let her sense his fear, though he was sure she could smell
it on him. She walked as if she were dancing to a tune only she
could hear.
“
I know.” His voice was
harsh, the words clipped.
“
Indeed you do.” She smiled
that terrifying smile, the one she gave right before she’d strike,
the one all her hapless victims saw right before their doom. The
one he’d first seen the night she’d turned him, torturing him,
taking him from god and life itself. “So, whatever deluded you
enough to decide to run from me?”
“
I wasn’t
running.”
“
Don’t lie to me, my beauty.
It may have been a while, but I know you…I know that something has
changed in you.”
Luca laughed. “Nothing has changed. I’m
still the monster you made me into.”
“
And since I made you, I
know exactly how different you are now.” She stalked around him,
her feet tapping lightly on the roof, her eyes never leaving his
face. She reached out and touched him, and a shock of familiarity,
of terror, struck Luca instantaneously. She laughed a good solid
laugh that dissolved into maniacal giggles. “I can smell it on
you…that, and I just saw it with my own eyes: you lying in a
mortal’s bed, not fucking her, not feeding on her, but comforting
her—taking comfort in her.” She stopped and looked up directly into
his eyes. “Whatever are you thinking? As if there could ever be a
happy ending between the two of you. She’s the heroine of the
piece, and you’re the monster. Unless we’ve fallen into a Disney
cartoon, the monster never gets the girl.”
“
I’m not—”
“
Yes you are, my beautiful
boy. Somehow she has revived what I and three hundred years of the
hunger had long killed!” Her voice cut like glass through his
flesh. He knew he wasn’t in fact bleeding, but it hurt all the
same. She hugged herself, looking momentarily confused, but then
looked up at him, her frightened little girl eyes morphing back
into the glittering nightmare they usually were. “But all is not
lost.”
She stood there, silently gazing into
Luca’s eyes, until he finally asked, “What do you want,
Elaina?”
Virtuous concern bloomed in her
expression, her eyes melting like the darkest chocolate. “To show
you that you have choices, options; there are many options to your
quandary.”
“
You want to help me?” It
was a trick. Some game she was playing, some fantasy that had
wrapped itself around her mind like some fanatical silk.
“
That’s all I’ve ever wanted
to do,” she said simply. Amazingly her words tasted like
truth.
He laughed, and it wasn’t a good sound.
It was bitter and edging on this side of madness. He was ridiculing
himself with that laugh, for even for a moment believing a word
that passed her lips.