Blood Ecstasy (Blood Curse Series Book 8) (18 page)

After all, the gladiator wasn’t exactly known for his tact or his subtlety, at least not since Rebecca had known him.
 

Patricia rose from the couch and sauntered across the room, heading straight for Julien, and despite the fact that her pupils registered an inordinate amount of fear—she was clearly aware that she was in the presence of a predator—Rebecca reluctantly stepped out of her path and let her proceed. “Pat, this is Julien. Julien, this is Pat,” she said dryly, making the cursory introductions. The least she could do was behave like they were civilized, like she wasn’t feeding her friends to a lion.
 

Julien leaned back against the wall like the lazy, languid jungle cat Rebecca had just envisioned. He folded his arms in front of his chest and extended one hand to grasp Patricia’s in a touch so gentle, so innately seductive that it gave Rebecca pause.
 

And just what the heck was that?
 

Jealousy?
 

Rebecca grimaced.
No. Heck no!
 

She quickly dismissed the thought.

“Nice to meet you, Patricia.” His voice was like a silken sheath, encasing Patricia’s concerns like fingers in an elegant, bewitching glove, practically wrapping her up in velvet.
 

Was all that really necessary?
 

He gazed into Patricia’s eyes, and the woman nearly fainted.

Humph
, Rebecca thought, watching as his pupils widened.

Then, just like that, he was done.

He released Patricia’s hand; she blinked three times; and then she strolled back to the couch.

Bring the next one on.
 

Trevor Rainier checked the time on his Rolex.
 

Damnit, he was forty-five minutes late.
 

Ah well, that just meant he would make a grand, unforgettable entrance.
 

He sauntered confidently to Rebecca’s front door and then paused to collect his thoughts. He had waited a lifetime for this moment—at least it felt like it had been a lifetime—and he wanted to play it out just right. But more than that, he wanted Rebecca…

Back in his influence.

Back in his arms.

Back in his life, for good.

He knocked briskly on the door, three times, before reaching for the knob. It opened without resistance, and he ambled into the room.

The women recognized him at once and began to greet him with pleasant salutations, but he refused to give them a passing glance, let alone a reply. His eyes scanned the space in a millisecond, probing with military clarity, searching for just one face, scouring for only one woman…

Rebecca Louise Johnston.

And there she was.

Dear God.
 

His heart skipped a beat in his chest.
 

She was breathtaking—
his Rebecca
—and for a moment, he almost forgot why he had come. He almost forgot his anger and his vengeance. He almost forgot his rage. Hell, he almost forgot his own name. There was only her and those mysterious topaz eyes; her wavy brown locks; and that gorgeous, slender body. His lips parted to breathe her name with reverence, but he was brought up short by a bestial growl.

What the hell?

Had Rebecca recently purchased a dog?

Trevor’s eyes immediately shifted from Rebecca’s pale, stricken expression
to the face of a very large man—
no, a giant
—standing far too close to Trevor’s woman and leaning possessively beside her. The guy was a walking slayer with bizarre gray eyes and the most unnaturally-colored hair Trevor had ever seen; and despite the fact that Trevor was a card-carrying heterosexual, he couldn’t help but notice the absolute perfection of the man’s incomparable features.
 

And it instantly chapped his hide.

Hell, the guy was not just good-looking: He was beyond a cover model of a magazine, or a professional athlete, in his prime. He had the body of a mercenary, the stealth of a tiger, and the face of an ancient Greek god, like something only an artist could create.
 

And Rebecca was now clinging to his arm.
 

Something inside of Trevor snapped. “Hey, baby!” he crooned in a lude, lascivious tone. “Miss me, lover?”

Rebecca gasped in alarm, and that made Trevor smile.
 

The VOSU women were quickly putting two-plus-two together, as well, and that suited Trevor just fine. They’d be easier to control if they knew who he really was, and that he hadn’t come to swap pitiful stories about victimization. “Oh,” he drawled by way of explanation, and for the benefit of everyone in the room, “your friends know me as Jake—I was at last Thursday’s meeting. But, of course, you know me for who I really am: your fiancé. Did you get the gift I left for you? On your bed?”

The muscle-bound individual jerked like he had just been struck by lightning, and his eyes registered something so murderous in their depths that Trevor took an involuntary step back. The giant shoved Rebecca behind him and cocked his head to the side like some predatory animal, flashing his teeth in warning.

His teeth?

Seriously?

Trevor did not wait around to see what the crazy bastard was going to do next.
 

He reached into the inner lining of his jacket, withdrew a loaded Colt .45 revolver, and extended his right arm to the side, pressing the barrel of the gun, taut, against Nancy Thomas’ temple. “I think you might wanna chill out, asshole!” he barked. “First and foremost, that’s my girl you’re standing in front of. Second, and more important, I won’t hesitate to light up this entire room, kill every slut in the house. And last, but not least, I don’t like your ass—not one bit—so you might be the first to go.” He puffed out his chest, turned up his lip, and spat on Rebecca’s floor, feeling more powerful than he had ever felt before. And then he slowly pulled back the hammer for effect.
 

“Rebecca, get your ass over here.
Now
!”

sixteen

Julien Lacusta had just sent the last of the five VOSU women, not including Rebecca, back to their seats, having
uploaded
all the memories and sensory information he needed to track their stalkers, when he heard three brusque knocks on Rebecca’s front door. He turned his head in the direction of the sound and watched as the handle began to rotate. And then, just like that, a human male of medium height strolled brazenly into the room.

His hair was dyed black and covered with a baseball cap.

His expensive glasses barely concealed crazed, desperate eyes, and his pulse was racing far too fast for the situation, though he was trying to control his breathing.

None of it mattered.
 

Not at all.

Julien recognized the human’s vile scent in an instant.

He felt his noxious vibration.

So, Trevor Rainier had an iron set of balls, and he thought he could stroll right into Rebecca’s living room and…and do what?

A feral grow escaped Julien’s throat, and Trevor met his seeking gaze, silently appraising the vampire from head to toe. Whatever he saw must have ticked the human off because he immediately turned his attention to Rebecca and sneered. “Hey, baby! Miss me, lover?”

Rebecca gasped in terror, clung to Julien’s arm, and the vampire’s entire body tensed.
 

Trevor smiled and
belatedly regarded the group as a whole, through the guise of speaking to Rebecca. “Oh, by the way”—he paused for effect—“your friends know me as Jake. I was at last Thursday’s meeting, but of course you know me for who I really am: your fiancé. Did you get the gift I left for you? On your bed?”

Julien felt his chest and shoulders jerk with a fury he could hardly contain.
 

Such was his need to kill the arrogant cretin where he stood.
 

Right here.
 

Right now.
 

He shoved Rebecca behind him, restrained the growing impulse, and surveyed the room instead: The women were in shock, their human minds trying to process the new information in an instant, trying to register the fool’s deception, even as the idiot took a cautious step back.

Yes
, Julien thought,
prepare to run, little rabbit. I am going to devour your entrails for supper.
Despite his desire to remain calm, Julien tilted his ear toward his shoulder and flashed his fangs in warning.
 

This seemed to get the rabbit moving, but rather than turn tail and run, like any halfway intelligent being would do, the jackass reached into the inner-lining of his jacket, withdrew an old Colt .45 revolver with a polished pearl handgrip, and pressed the barrel of the gun against Nancy’s temple.

Nancy’s.

A woman who had already suffered two broken arms at the hands of a stalker.

Julien felt the air rush out of his body, but before he could determine his next, lethal move, Trevor stared him down and narrowed his eyes in menace.
 

Was the son of a jackal insane?

Just how desperately did he want to embrace a hideous and painful death in a public forum?

“I think you might wanna chill out, asshole,” Trevor snarled. “First and foremost, that’s my girl you’re standing in front of. Second, and more important, I won’t hesitate to light up this entire room, kill every slut in this house. And last, but not least, I don’t like your ass—not one bit—so you might be the first to go.” He swelled up with some seriously misplaced confidence, cocked the hammer on the gun, and barked a command at Julien’s
destiny
. “Rebecca, get your ass over here.
Now
!”
 

Julien didn’t know whether to laugh, howl, or set the entire apartment ablaze with his eyes, scorching the fool—and his pitiful revolver—to ash in the process. He felt Rebecca stir behind him, and her emotions swept over him like a wave: She felt both trapped and responsible for the situation, pressured to go to Trevor and ameliorate the situation. He immediately snatched her by the arm. “Don’t. You. Dare.” He turned his full attention on Trevor, regarded the silly revolver, and smiled. “You’re gonna shoot that woman, Trevor? In front of me?” He tsk-tsked with his tongue, running it along the dual sharp points of his descending fangs, even as he allowed his eyes to glow red and his lips to curl back in a snarl. “Oh, I really don’t think so.”

He pointed at the gun and crooked his finger; and just like that, the barrel changed directions and angled toward the floor. “First and foremost, Rebecca is
mine
, and you are a walking corpse. Second, and more important, you just pissed off a
vampire
—I don’t think this is going to go as you planned. And last, but not least, I don’t like your ass either, and that’s putting the sentiment mildly. So you
will be
the first to die.” He hissed, loud and drawn out, like a man-sized snake issuing a feral warning. “Now then,
you
get your ass over here.
Now
!”

Trevor wrinkled his brow in confusion and alarm.
 

His palms grew instantly moist, and he dropped the gun at his feet as his knees began to tremble.
 

That’s right, little rabbit, reality is finally sinking in
, Julien thought.

Despite the abject terror seizing Trevor’s body, he began to shuffle forward toward the vampire, like a puppet on a marionette’s strings, and that’s when Rebecca jumped between the two males, her back facing Trevor, and pressed both palms firmly against Julien’s chest. “Please,” she voiced with urgency. “Julien,
please
. I’m begging you. Not here. Not now. Not like this.”

Julien spared her a dismissive glance and frowned:
Did she have any idea what she was asking?
The enormous self-control he was already exercising in that moment? How absolutely deep and primal his rage now went? It was taking everything he had not to paint the walls in Trevor’s blood, outline the portrait with strips of his peeled-back skin, and punctuate the canvass with the jackass’s innards.
 

He glanced down at his
destiny
and shook his head. “Step away, Rebecca.”

Her hand stiffened against his chest. “No. Look at me, Julien. Please. Look at me.”

He stared at her with incredulity, even as Trevor continued to pace forward, trembling and weeping like a dolt.

“Not in front of the women, tracker. They’ve seen too much horror as it is.”

He shrugged with indifference. “I will wipe their memories…later.”

At that cryptic statement, and before Rebecca could respond, Patricia seemed to finally come on board with the whole macabre scene: Her dark, ebony eyes instantly registered awareness as her brain processed the preternatural turn of events, and her neurons started firing on all cylinders. She leaped from the couch, sprinted for the door, and the other women immediately followed out of instinct.
 

Julien swept his hand across the frenzied room, tossing each individual woman back into her seat with the mere stroke of his wrist. “Sit down, and stay as you are until I release you!” he thundered, unapologetic if his actions were too brutal or harsh.