Blood Enchanted (Blood Enchanted, Book 1): A Vampire Hunter Paranormal Romance Series (8 page)

"I cannot leave," he managed to say, voice low and uneven, fangs glinting at the edges of his lips.

"What do you mean, you cannot leave?"

"I used a spell to enter your home undetected. An ancient Persian spell that requires the shedding of blood to break. Without which I literally cannot be forced past your wards."

"That's ridiculous. I've never heard of any such spell. And you already shed blood when my stake broke your skin."

His head shook. "Not my blood. Yours."

Oh, for crying out loud.

"Nah-ah. Nice try. Now, get the fuck out!" I knew it wouldn't work, I hadn't invited him in to begin with, but I had to try. So I added, "I rescind your invitation."

Nothing.

Zip.

Just a strained silence, full of echoes and shadows, as though the old vampire invitation spell was trying to work but we couldn't
see
it or hear it, at all. As though it existed outside of this realm and was doing its thing somewhere else.

"Any other ideas?" he asked casually. "Because all it would take is one small taste of your blood and I would be gone."

I stared at him. He was mad. A bubble of incredulous laughter spilled out of my mouth.

"How gullible do you think I am?" I asked, shaking my head in disbelief.

"Very well," he replied, and then proceeded to sink down to the floor and make himself comfortable.

"What are you doing?"

"Waiting for you to fall asleep and then breaking the spell."

I sucked in a sharp breath. Not going to happen.

But I was tired. That Light attack I'd used on Alain had drained me dry, only adrenaline had allowed me to continue to function so far. Adrenaline and that deep seated sense of anticipation and desire. It was playing havoc with my body right now.

But there was no way I could let this vampire stay. He held Luc against his wishes. He'd invaded my home. Damn it all to hell, I should be staking the bastard, bugger finding out where Luc was. Hakan would never tell.

My stake was still in my hand. I fingered it.

This wasn't the only course of action available to me. I could pull my cellphone out and dial Alain. He'd have his daylight servants here in an instant, or he'd brave the sun and come himself. He'd surely have a way to break this spell, if the spell existed at all.

But calling Alain went against everything I was too. Asking for help had always been my greatest character flaw. I could handle this. I could deal with this and avoid recriminations from my father's spy master, or from Papa himself.

I'd fought hard for my independence, for the right to live outside of the Plaza's walls. My mother had backed me, had placed her will behind mine. I couldn't let her down. I couldn't let myself down either.

I watched as Hakan closed his eyelids, without a care in the world. His breathing slowed and deepened, purely a vampire trick of appearing disarmed. He wouldn't be, he'd be alert to my blood pumping furiously through my veins. To the scent of my frustration and confusion. To the subtle shift of my body for a fight. He acted as though he was falling asleep, but he wouldn't be.

But would he expect me to stake him?

Inside my stomach twisted, that ribbon of awareness twirled with ever increasing speed.

Don't do it
, it seemed to be saying.
He means you no harm
, it added with a flourish of peace and comfort, trying to make me feel something other than I should.

I couldn't trust it. I didn't understand it. If it was on my side or not, I just did not know.

Sweat beaded my upper lip, my hand shook as I raised the stake. My flash across the space between Hakan and myself was clumsy, my legs wanting to refuse the command to move forward, my arms wanting to deny the charge to attack.

Hakan's eyes flicked open as the stake entered his chest. Surprise and hurt registered there, swiftly replaced with respect.

I missed the vital organ. He wouldn't meet the final death. And as a level one
Sanguis Vitam
vampire he could survive the staking, as long as he had a powerful vampire remove the stake from his chest. In the meantime, he was compromised, and I'd lose a precious silver stake.

I'd ended up straddling his thighs, my chest rising and falling too quickly, moisture threatening my eyes.

"No regrets," he whispered. "You are Nosferatin."

No
Sanguis Vitam
accompanied the words. I missed it. Too late.

"You knew I'd do this," I murmured, my lips numb with the knowledge of what I'd done. My gut instinct had been right. He wouldn't have hurt me. He was still testing the kindred he had in his sights.

"Of course,
hayatim
. I should have been disappointed had you not." He smiled, it looked pained. He was hiding the effects of the silver well. "What now?" he asked.

He was mine to kill or pardon. He was completely mine to condemn.

There was no way in hell I could bring him the final death. I hadn't when I staked him. I couldn't now when he was weakened by my attack. I refused to think too closely on why, even as the answer blared loudly inside my mind.

You are mine
.

I shook my head, lifted my hand to one of his fangs. He opened his mouth to accommodate the move, a growl emitting from the back of his throat. More purr, than threat. A small prick on the pad of my thumb, a bubble of blood pooling on the tip, and I swiped it along his bottom lip.

For a moment he just held my gaze, then his tongue darted out and he licked the blood clean. His eyes rolled back in his head, his chest heaved, which must have hurt with all that silver piercing skin, and then he shuddered.

Words in a foreign language spilled from his tongue. Beautiful, lyrical, incomprehensible.

Then with a snap of his lids upwards, ice-blue and silver stared back at me.

"You are mine,
hayatim
," he declared.

My lips parted, the words almost escaping on their own. I tensed my jaw and refused to utter them. I was nobody's to command.

He huffed a pain-filled laugh, lifted a heavy hand to wrap gently around my throat, holding me captive, when we both knew he hadn't the strength.

Then he murmured, barely audible now, as sweat graced his skin in a sickening show of his pain, "Let the games begin."

I stumbled backwards, heart pounding, blood surging, my stomach doing somersaults of delight, while my consciousness screamed in defiance. And Hakan Bahar slowly faded into shadows and disappeared into the darker recesses of my home. For a second I thought he was still there, but my stomach had settled, that new talent quietening as though it hadn't caused a monumental amount of shit for my life.

Oh, freaking Goddess. Just what the hell had I done?

W
ell
, there were two things I could take away from this debacle, at the very least. Hakan Bahar did not intend to kill me. And he was a level one
Sanguis Vitam
vampire. All the rest - the hunger, the respect, the words - could all have been an act.

Bahar was a political player, of that I was certain. Being drawn here, if he had in fact been drawn here at all, was for more than just a woman.

He wanted power. Power talked.

I refused to believe there was any other possible explanation. Hakan Bahar wanted power, and he was using my brother to get it.

My hands fisted, nails biting into skin. Memories of this morning - visceral and real - surged through to my very core. I rolled my head on my shoulders. Sucked in a cleansing breath of air. And then knocked hard against the closed door before me.

Frank would have known I was already here. He would have known the moment I entered Newmarket; I’d felt eyes on my body for the past few minutes. What accompanied those eyes I could only guess. But shooting the daughter of the Champion in the back was not the wisest thing for the head of the ghouls to be involved in.

The door to the Guts & Glory sports bar opened, displaying a darkened interior within. No one stood on the other side; they were either behind the door itself, or Frank was being overly cautious.

“I come in peace,” I offered, taking a step across the threshold. The sickly sweet scent of years worth of spilled beer met my nose, as my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting.

The large screen TV was on down one end of the bar, something nondescript flickering across it. Darts hung suspended on a dart board; forgotten. Half empty glasses and a basket of spare ribs sat on a table just to the side. A wash cloth lay crumpled on the bar’s surface. A cigarette burned down to the stub in an ashtray next to it.

I’d interrupted.

I stepped into the middle of the room, my back itching with the need to check behind the door. It was no use, I couldn’t help it, I was nervous enough as it was being here, knowing what was about to transpire. I glanced over my shoulder just as the door swung closed. No one was standing there.

The ghouls were twitchy.

“Frank,” I called into the strained silence.

“You’ve got a flippin’ cheek, showing your face here,” a gruff voice said from behind the bar. The shadows shifted, and Frank materialised. It was a neat trick, one his predecessor, Pete, hadn’t quite mastered.

That’s why Frank was in charge now.

“Your ghoul almost reneged on an info exchange,” I said with a shrug of my shoulders, approaching the bar.

Frank held my steady gaze with an emotionless one of his own. He was tall and lean, had nondescript brown hair and a bushy beard. Sharp hazel eyes, long face, and high cheek bones. All of it hiding the strength, both in physique and intelligence, that he commanded.

And he wouldn’t be alone. I forced myself not too look too hard into the shadows.

“You open for a trade?” I asked, slipping onto a stool in front of the bar. I swung my hair off my shoulder, giving those watching surreptitiously, from safely within their dark corners, a glimpse of my Svante.

It may not possess a dancing dragon hilt, but no supernatural would mistake what it was: A replica of my mother’s own sword.

“Depends,” Frank hedged, pulling out two glasses from beneath the bar’s surface. He started filling one from the tap. Dark ale, my usual drink of choice when I came here.

“Not like you to miss an opportunity to learn something,” I commented mildly, but inside my mind was reeling. Frank was playing the part, I should have been relieved, but he was clearly nervous. Sweat had started trickling down his neck, and into the bushy edge of his beard.

“You’re unpredictable, Ellie. You damn near had my ghoul in fucking tears.”

I smirked. The imagery
was
entertaining. But my gut was also twisting. Something wasn’t right.

“He had it coming, and you know it,” I offered. Glancing around the empty bar, my eyes snagging on the spare ribs. They were dripping in a red sauce; thicker than blood and I’d bet a lot spicier. But underneath they were still raw.

Ghouls tended to eat their meat raw…
and
in private. They fiercely guarded their heritage. But that wasn’t what had my new gut churning abilities humming. Twisted ribbons of unease flipped and flopped inside.

The basket was full.

The beers half empty.

They’d had an impromptu guest.

My eyes met those of Frank’s. He didn’t look away, almost a challenge.

Their guest was still here.

Now who would scare a ghoul?

I took a sip of the ale, letting the cool liquid drain down my gullet. Foam settled on my upper lip; I brushed it off with the sleeve of my jacket.

“So are we trading?” I asked, placing the beer stein back on a coaster. Guts & Glory might smell like your typical sports bar, but it was meticulously clean underneath the kitsch and cliche. Pete had insisted on that, and Frank had not seen fit to alter it.

“What you got?” he asked, picking up the crumpled white cloth and folding it. I watched his hands work, folding the material in half and then half again. Once he had it neatly settled, he slipped it down on the bench out of sight.

We wouldn’t be trading today. Frank
always
wiped the bar top when negotiating.

His eyes met mine.

Nothing. There was nothing there to say we were being watched. But I didn’t need a look. I didn’t even need my gut telling me to get the fuck out of here. Any halfwit with half a brain and an observant eye could tell something was off.

And if something was off with the head of the ghouls, then shit was about to hit the fan. Big time.

“I don’t know, Frank,” I drawled, feeling the weight of my sword down my back. My fingers itched to draw it. Light thrummed invisibly inside. “What I’ve got is worth a heap. Can you match a stellar trade of info?”

“Stellar, you say?” he grumbled, leaning his hip against the bar, acting as though the world was his oyster and he owned all the pearls in it. He was good. But he was still sweating. “When have I ever given you reason to doubt?”

I smiled. The ribbons spun faster and faster. Chills skittered down my spine.

My mother can
seek
out vampires. It is one of her prophesied titles. The Blood Life Seeker, or
Sanguis Vitam Cupitor.
Nosferatins can sense the Dark in a vampire, but they have to be facing the vampire to feel it. I couldn’t do what my mother could do. She’d been chosen by Nut.

But I am her daughter. Half of what makes me
me
comes from her.

I let my Light out through the room in a gentle rush of brilliance, fingertips of bright white reaching for every corner, every crevice, every shadowed hiding hole. Light swelled up inside me, swirled around the rafters on the ceiling, and then streaked under doors and into the back room.

Yes. There. Darkness. I couldn’t
see
it, not like my mother does. But I could touch it with my Light.

Frank blinked. It was a skill not many knew I possessed.

Two birds. One stone.

My eyes held the sparkling hazel of the ghoul’s across from me.

“Who is he?” I mouthed. The Darkness was in a back room and if watching through the closed circuit cameras Frank used, he’d see my lips move. I wasn’t hiding a thing. But speaking loudly seemed to invite danger.

More
danger. The Darkness pulsed beneath my Light. Danced with it. Tangled with it. Called to it.

Half of what makes me
me
comes from my father. He may not be all Dark, but he is vampyre.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Frank said deliberately.

“Not good enough,” I whispered back. We’d established an info exchange. Even if we hadn’t been trading. I’d just given him a doozy. He knew it. And I knew it. He had to pay.

He shook his head, ever so slightly. Regret marring his impassive features briefly. It might have been missed on the video feed.

“Run, Ellie,” he whispered in return. “Run and don’t stop until you reach your father.”

My Svante was in my palm in the next instant. That gut churning feeling moving my hands, shifting my body, lining me up to take the oncoming attack face to face.

A dark blur sped through the room. My sword came down; swiped at nothing. A streak of blood swelled up along a fine cut on the side of my neck.

I spun around to face the coming threat, my body on instinct, the ribbons inside my stomach twisting into gnarled knots. I breathed through my mouth; punching air as though I’d run a marathon. Adrenaline coursed through my veins, making my vision sharpen and my ears tingle.

A soft breath along the back of my neck. My elbow connected with something solid. But by the time I’d turned my head, my body swinging ‘round just as swiftly, whatever had been there had moved on.

A tear ripped through the leather of my sleeve. The sound of fabric shredding filling the hushed quiet of the room. My
Sigillum
blazed brightly through the gap; mint green, lime, sage.

I was scared.

This was no ordinary vampire. This was no simple master.

Two
level one
Sanguis Vitam
vampires in Auckland City and my father wasn’t watching them?

I lowered my sword, tip to the floor, shoulders relaxed, both hands calmly fisted around the hilt. My chest rose and fell. My senses heightened. Those fucking ribbons danced and swirled inside like demented branches of a twisted tree.

Frank had disappeared. At a guess, all of the ghouls had. It was just me and a shadow, and my gut screaming at me to move, to run, to do what Frank had warned me to do. Anything but stand there and wait to be dinner.

Neither of us moved. A slick oily sensation washed through me, intimately related to those twisted ribbons deep down inside. This vampire was Dark personified. There was nothing here of Light.

My hands were full. Replacing my sword in its sheath could be the last thing I did before I died. But the need to palm a stake was excruciating. Nosferatin Pull finally springing to life.

This is what I was born to do. Stake evil, rogue vampires. If this vamp had been long in Auckland, it hadn’t yet hunted. But it hunted me tonight. I might not be a Norm, but part of me, a very small part, is still human.

The Pull recognised an innocent about to be drained dry.

It was almost enough to make you laugh. I even huffed out an incredulous breath of air.

I was far from innocent.

And then the reality of the situation came to me.

My mother would have sensed the Pull too, and would be making her way here right now.

I couldn’t let her walk in on this. She could handle it, I was sure. But finding me at Frank’s would raise questions I wasn’t prepared to answer. Even to my mother.

Mama could keep a secret. But she also could see through me in the blink of an eye.

Something had changed this morning. Something in me, something connected to the ribbons inside.

Something connected to my Nosferatin maturity.

Mama could
see
many things. And what she couldn’t she’d just ask her best friend to
see
in my aura instead. My Aunt Amisi was too damn perceptive by far. The last thing I needed was for the Egyptian Nosferatin to come and visit.

Auckland was already too full as it was.

The shadow finally moved. Temptation had caught many an impatient vampire. I couldn’t see his human form, just that which made him vampyre. Sometimes when my father moves, and I’m looking from the corner of my eye, I see his dragon. Beautiful, majestic, frightening. Green scales and leathery wings, breaths of pure fire.

It wasn’t a talent. I’d had it since I was a small child. I could see the vampire-within, but only when I wasn’t trying.

I’d taught myself to control it. I’d taught myself to calm enough so my body relaxed and my mind floated. It wasn’t easy. Especially when facing a very determined, very fast, very Dark vampire like the one I faced right now. But he was keeping to the shadows. He was hiding in plain sight. I had nothing to go on.

And to blast a vampire with my Light, I needed to see it.

I half closed my eyes, let his shape take form.

Bear. Black. Drooling. Insane with hunger and something else. Something red and pulsing, something attached to its hide as though a parasite.

I almost felt sorry for the beast, and then I slammed it in the centre of its chest with my Light.

I staggered to one knee, a gasp escaping. My grip on my Svante loosened, making me damn near drop the sword at my side. I sucked in lungfuls of air, shook the haziness from my vision, and concentrated on the vampire standing before. Transparent and extremely riled.

“Who are you?” I rasped, the effort required to contain him in a Dream Walking state almost too much after having just done the same with Alain. Mere hours apart, and with little sleep between them.

How could I have slept after what had transpired?

Alain had been the least of my daytime worries, but he had found a way to come back and haunt me now.

The vampire growled, red glow from his eyes as
Sanguis Vitam
attempted to break my hold over him. He was strong. Stronger than many I had faced recently. He didn’t look like he should be strong. He looked demented. Deranged. Half dead already.

Shame there was something off about him. Maybe he would have made a good match in an arena.

But we weren’t in an arena now.

Guts and Glory was still deserted. The smell of beer overridden now with the scent of ozone.

Fey.

Oh, fuck no.

I stumbled to my feet, sword swinging wildly in front of me, as the vampire raged against his invisible cage and the Dream Walk took every ounce of strength out of me.

I staggered, blinking spots away from my eyes. Where was that smell coming from?

The enraged vampire swung himself against the binds that held him, each thud of his big body felt like a blow inside my head. I couldn’t concentrate. Bile rose up my throat. My legs began cramping. My knuckles turned white with the effort it took to hold the Svante aloft.