I opened my mouth to tell him to shove it. Arys’s cool wind swept through me, and I knew he was there. This was going to go from bad to worse. When he came around the side of the house, he was promptly swarmed by demons. Shya barked an order to restrain him, to make him watch.
Watch what?
I wanted to ask but already knew the answer.
I met Arys’s dark-blue gaze and shook my head, willing him to stay calm. He shouldn’t have come.
‘How could I not?’ He asked inside my mind. ‘I can’t leave you here with him.’
Shya seemed reluctant to touch me. He told Falon to pin my arms behind my back and hold me steady. With my back to his chest, Falon held me so tight I thought my arms might pop out of the sockets.
“Gabriel, select one of these lovelies, whichever you prefer, and bleed them. Slowly. Make sure Alexa gets a good view.”
Having sated the worst of his hunger, Gabriel managed to do as he was told. Dragging a blonde from the pool, he pulled her close, pressing her wet, naked body to his. He whispered something in her ear, and she fell under his spell. Crap. He was good for such a newbie. She stared up at him with a silly smile, oblivious to the bloody bodies littering the ground around her.
Gabriel had changed. The quiet, brooding teenager was gone. In his place stood a vampire with the confidence and command that only came with power rooted in darkness.
“Why are you doing this, Shya?” I dared to ask. “Like really, what’s your goal here?”
Gabriel ran a hand down the woman’s body, and she quivered at his touch. Her arousal was enticing. I was eager for her to bleed despite the many he’d drained already. The bloodlust rode me, and I was slipping.
“You claimed not so long ago to lead the vampires and werewolves against me rather than for me,” Shya said. “Remember? I know you’ve taken steps to do that, aligning yourself with the Doghead wolves. So I’ve taken it upon myself to start my own army of wolves and vampires. Arys gave me Gabriel, and you will give me a wolf. Then I can create as many of each as I’d like. All of them descended from the two most powerful. Genius, isn’t it?”
“Oh yeah, that’s real fucking Einstein of you. I bet you’re proud of yourself.” My teeth banged together as Falon gave me a shake.
The horrible part was that it was smart. It could also never happen. Shya had to be stopped. If he continued on with this plan, it would spell disaster for the city whether he found the scroll or not. Torturing me with the bloodlust would work too. I would snap and go straight for that woman. And she would turn if I didn’t kill her.
The blood hunger always began in the pit of my stomach. This twisted, dark need, it ached and gnawed, wearing me down.
In a shocking move, Gabriel slid a hand between the woman’s legs. She melted at his touch, slumping against him and begging for more. As much as I told myself I didn’t want to watch, I couldn’t look away.
Falon’s grip tightened, drawing my attention back to him. If I could just get him to let me go, perhaps I could prevent the attack I knew was coming. I couldn’t hold off much longer.
Gathering the sensual energy flooding me, I focused on directing it at Falon. Immediately I felt him stiffen. Hating myself for doing it, I brazenly pressed my rear end against him. I was a woman, and I knew it didn’t take much to incite a response from a man. Falon was no different. His body betrayed him, and he grew hard against me.
“You’re making a very grave mistake, Hound,” he murmured in my ear, low so that Shya wouldn’t hear.
“Am I?” I asked coyly. “Let me go, and it stops.”
“Do you think you’re so powerful that even I will succumb to your wiles? Get over yourself.”
“You already have. A few times now.” My control was slipping. I watched Gabriel bite into his victim’s wrist and groaned with the effort it took to keep my focus on the fallen angel holding me.
Getting Falon to release me was my goal, but dammit if I didn’t enjoy his reaction. Knowing I could get to the fallen angel gave me an arrogant satisfaction. Too bad I didn’t have the courage to try such a thing on Shya. He frightened me too much.
“You want me,” I whispered, grinding against the bulge in Falon’s pants. I was going to really hate myself for that later. “Let me go, and nobody has to know how bad you want to take me right here.”
My movement was subtle, the barest of motions, but it was enough. Holding both of my wrists tightly in one hand, Falon grabbed a handful of my hair with the other and jerked my head back.
His breath was hot on my skin when he said, “I want what’s between your legs because you’re a manipulative bitch. That doesn’t mean I want you. In fact, it only makes me hate you more. If that’s even possible.”
The weight of Arys’s gaze was heavy upon me. He’d watched me manipulate others, like Jenner, and he had enjoyed it. He wasn’t enjoying it now. I was willing to bet it had something to do with Falon’s reaction to me when I’d taken his blood in Vegas. Arys had watched Falon kiss me in a moment of power-influenced passion. It wasn’t real, but that hardly mattered. The action spoke for itself.
Falon did a good job containing himself. It wasn’t good enough. Shya eyed us with anger burning in his red eyes. He intervened with a shot of power that threw Falon and I apart. I landed on my knees just a few feet from where Gabriel licked the blood from his victim’s wrist.
“You may have power over vampires, but you do not have power over my demons,” Shya hissed, giving me a shake as I tried to get my feet under me.
“Falon isn’t a demon,” I challenged, unable to just shut up. Shya brought out the worst in me. “If he can’t resist me on his own, then he deserves to be manipulated.”
Shya was furious. So much so that he grabbed the arm of Gabriel’s victim and thrust her bleeding wrist in my face.
“Let’s test your resistance, shall we?”
The woman practically oozed lust. Blood dripped from the wound, taunting me. I never stood a chance. With her bleeding arm inches away, the last of the fight went out of me. I simply wasn’t strong enough to resist after what I’d recently been through. I needed it.
Ravenous and crazed, I snatched her arm from Shya and ran my tongue over the bleeding punctures before biting deep into her flesh. Regret would come later. In that moment I was lost to the bloodlust. It consumed me completely.
Blood coated my tongue, tangy and warm. I drew hard on her sex-charged energy. Right away I felt the rejuvenation begin. It flowed through me, strengthening where I was weak while sating the hunger. It wasn’t enough. The vampire within me needed to take everything she had to give. I took her down beneath me, unmindful of those who watched. There was nothing but me and her.
I went for her throat while she clung to me in a mesmerized state of arousal and oblivion. The euphoria held me in its grasp, taking me to heights I never wanted to come down from.
Shya put a quick end to that. He grabbed my hair and violently flung me off the woman. To keep me from going at her again, he surrounded her with an energy circle.
Wiping blood from my chin, I glared daggers at him. I was still riding the high, and it was difficult to concentrate on reality after having been so brutally brought back to it.
At Shya’s command, two demons from the pool orgy came forward to fetch the injured woman. They carried her off, into the house. I watched her go, feeling strangely detached.
“At least I got something out of you,” Shya sneered. “As long as I’ve got you here, I’m going to take you for everything I can.” He extended a hand, pointing at Arys across the yard. “Arys, please join your wolf and I at the fire.”
Shya’s wings flared with a loud snap that hurt my ears. The demons holding Arys released him. Many of them had ceased to pay attention to us. They were all engrossed in their sin of choice.
Arys swept me into his arms and buried his face in my hair. “I’m not leaving you again. I don’t care how dangerous it is to be together. It’s more dangerous to be apart.”
Senses heightened from the feed, my emotions were on overdrive. I held onto Arys as if he were my lifeline, which in many ways he was. I concentrated on the way he felt pressed against me and the sound of his devotion as he murmured in my ear. Just in case we were parted, I needed to memorize these details.
“There will be time for the dramatic lovers’ reunion later. If you don’t somehow find a way to fuck up what happens next.” Radiating condescension, Shya turned his back on us and stalked over to the fire, forcing us to follow or risk his wrath.
He stood outside the pentagram of fire. He motioned for us to stand beside him, which we did, albeit with great suspicion. A few demons gathered around the exterior of the large circle.
A glance back toward the pool revealed Falon preventing a hotheaded Gabriel from joining us. Good call. Whatever Shya had planned, there was no way a newbie vampire with power like Gabriel’s could handle it.
“Don’t enter the circle. And don’t speak to the demon I’m about to summon, even if he speaks to you.” Shya held out a hand and a dagger appeared, laid across his palm. It was the same blade he’d used to hack off a lock of my hair and bleed me while I lay paralyzed in my bed. I’d recognize the dragon etched into the blade anywhere.
Arys stood between Shya and me, keeping as safe a distance between us all as possible. I held tight to his hand, refusing to let him go. His presence was empowering, filling me with a sense of completeness I never knew I was missing until we were together.
My heart pounded when Shya began to chant. The language he used was unrecognizable. It sounded ancient, certainly not a language still in use. He tossed in a powdery substance, and the man tied in the center began to tremble. It soon became an uncontrollable shake.
Shya extended the dagger to me, hilt first. “If you don’t mind, Alexa. Just a few drops to invoke the summons.”
With eyebrows raised, I smiled nervously. “You’ve got to be kidding me. What’s the catch?”
“No catch. Not this time. You’re safe on this side of the circle. He’s the sacrifice.” Shya pointed at the bound man and continued to thrust the dagger at me. “I need mortal blood. Yours is guaranteed to get some attention. You have my word that you will be safe.”
This didn’t feel right. Everything in me resisted. I would not assist in sacrificing this man. “No,” I said with stubborn refusal. “I’m not helping you hurt anyone.”
“Don’t say I didn’t try to be nice about it,” Shya snapped. He shoved by Arys and grabbed my hand. Holding it out over the flames, he slid the blade over my palm. “Whatever you’re thinking, Arys, don’t even try it.”
Shya shook a few drops of my blood into the fire and released me. I jerked back, retreating from the pentagram, afraid to be too close. The scent of sulfur was immediate. I coughed as the thick odor irritated my lungs. Yellow smoke clouded the circle. It seemed to be contained, unable to seep beyond the border, but I still had to hold my breath against the sickening stench. When the smoke cleared, I almost dropped into a dead faint.
The demon standing inside the circle was easily one of the most horrific things I’d ever seen. It had a man’s body, well built with thick muscles that bulged and rippled. Black wings like Shya’s spread out from its back. However, it had the head of a goat atop that perfectly sculpted body. Blinking near black goat eyes at us, it looked us each over in turn. And then it spoke.
“Shya. I should have known. Only you would be fool enough to summon me.” The demon’s voice was low and gravelly. It sniffed in my direction and smiled. It was a strange looking thing.
“I need a favor, Saber,” Shya said, fearless. After all, he was the master of this situation. The goat demon was trapped, unable to do more than scrutinize us. “I need help finding the key to Lilah’s kingdom.”
The goat burst into laughter. It sounded very human, but coming out of that animal face, it was both ridiculous and scary.
“Still chasing that dream, are you? She rejected you. Is that why you still want what was hers? For spite?”
“Because it is mine by right. I served her endlessly. She was my queen, my everything. And she abandoned me. I deserve what she would never give me. Even if I have to take it myself, it will be mine. Help me, and I will allow you to reign with me.” There was genuine emotion in Shya’s tone, something I rarely heard. Lilah had broken his evil little heart.
Saber stared at Shya, wearing a mocking grin. I blinked several times, still unable to believe I was seeing a grinning goat. I’d be seeing that face in my nightmares.
“I have no desire to reign in Lilah’s kingdom whether she sits on the throne or not. Nor should you. Consider what will happen when she breaks free of the angels’ cage. She will return and make you suffer.”
Despite the scary face and creepy demon vibes, Saber was making sense. Shya was an idiot if he thought Lilah wouldn’t return to her throne the first chance she got. Although I hoped for my own sake that the angels wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
“Then I suppose that is the risk I’m willing to take. Now, will you help me or not? You know of the scroll’s whereabouts, don’t you?” The calm Shya exuded seemed forced. He was desperate and trying hard to hide it.
“It’s just eating away at you, isn’t it? The need to have those who oppressed you grovel at your feet.” Saber crossed his arms over his beefy chest. Eyeing Shya up like he was a worm, the goat headed demon snickered. “No, I do not know where the scroll is, though I do know something about it that may be of use to you.”
“What is it? Tell me.” Shya’s snappy demand brought my gaze to him. So far this short interaction had been very enlightening. I was beginning to understand Shya’s motivations. It went much deeper than the need for power. He was also seeking vengeance.
I had witnessed Lilah talk to him as if he were dirt. She had basically told him he was worthless. Apparently demons had feelings too. I wondered if just maybe Shya had even been in love with Lilah. In my experience it was love that spawned the greatest revenge stories.
“You must promise me something first,” Saber said, and his creepy goat eyes landed on me. “I’ll tell you what I know, and you let me take the Hound.”