Blood Hunger (An Adult Paranormal Romance) (Deathless Night Series #1) (15 page)

     The first half of the plane ride to Seattle was uneventful, other than Aiden’s insistent overtures of friendship to Emma, which consisted of him sitting in the luxury seat facing her, and intermittently regaling her with stories of his riskiest sexual exploits and trying to convince her that she is, indeed, a witch.

     Around his tenth or eleventh try to goad her “witchy side” into appearing, her head fell wearily back onto the headrest and she released a groan of frustration. “Aiden! I’m telling you for the last time, I am NOT a witch! I can’t see the future! I can’t control the weather, or fire…or anything! And even if I could,
which I can’t
, but even if I could, I shouldn’t be trying to do any of that while forty thousand feet in the air!!”

   
 
“So you’re telling me that nothing unusual ever happens when you’re around?” he insisted.

     “That has nothing to do with anything…” she began.

     “Just
try,
” he insisted, as she threw up her hands angrily.

     They both turned to Nik, who, up until now, had been sitting quietly across the aisle keeping a wary eye on the two of them.

     “Would you please tell her that she
is
a witch?”

   
 
“Would you please tell him I am NOT a witch?”

   
 
Talking over each other, they returned to arguing amongst themselves.

     “I am not!”

   
 
“You
are
!”

   
 
Nik’s patience, both with the arguing and the monopolizing of Emma’s attention, had come to an end.
“Enough!
”
he roared.

     They were acting like two recalcitrant children. The dirty looks they were now shooting at each other reiterating that fact. And didn’t that just piss him off. “I am NOT the parent here, goddammit!” he shouted to the plane in general.

     “Of course you’re not the parent, mate,” Aiden scoffed. “That would just be silly, as
Luukas
is the Master Vampire.” Cocking his head to the side, he regarded his friend’s grumpy countenance. “Nik, there’s something eating at you. You just haven’t been yourself since you brought Emma here aboard.” Snapping his fingers, he exclaimed, “I know! Would it help if we talked about it?”

   
 
Nik widened his eyes at Aiden, and with a pointed glance towards Emma, who was busy trying to look as disinterested as possible, told him,  “No. It most certainly would
not
help to talk about it at this moment.”

   
 
Sitting back in his seat, Aiden crossed his legs and steepled his fingers under his chin. “I disagree. I think it would help immensely to get a certain
something
off your chest, so to speak.”

   
 
He was going to kill his best friend. He really was. Slowly. And so very painfully. “I’m warning you, Aid…Shut. Up.”

   
 
“Oh, come on! Let’s hash it out, as they say. We have nothing else to do at the moment, and we still have a few hours until we land in Seattle. I promise you’ll feel better.” With a naughty smirk, Aiden winked at Emma.

     Nik’s mind spun, frantically trying to think of a way to shut him the fuck up. He needed something to distract him.

     “Emma. You are a witch.
”
He hated throwing her under the bus, but if it would distract his so-called friend…

   
 
“What?!” she cried.

     “I told you so!” Aiden crowed happily.

     Well what do you know? It worked.
He was really going to have to remember that trick.

     “Your family comes from a coven of witches that dates back as long as we do, probably longer. I tried to tell you about this last night, and I understand your reluctance to hear it, really, I do, but…”

   
 
She was so tired of arguing about this. “I. Am. NOT…”

   
 
Slashing his hand sharply through the air, Nik cut her off. “You ARE.
Every
woman in your family, and some of the men, as far back as we can remember, have been witches. Your
mother
is a witch.”

   
 
“My mother??”

   
 
“Your
sister
is a witch. Unless there’s been some weird mutation in your gene pool when it comes to you, specifically, you have to be one too. The only thing that changes is the level of power from one person to another.”

   
 
Emma stopped arguing, a thoughtful look coming into her eyes. “If this is true, how would I have lived my entire life and not known?
Why
wouldn’t I know?”

   
 
“I have no idea.” He was just as baffled as she looked.

     Aiden chimed in, “Maybe if we tell her some of the history?” Getting the go-ahead from Nik to continue, he went on to explain, “See, basically it boils down to this: There are two kind of vampires, good ones and bad ones. We,
”
Here he indicated Nik and himself, “are the good ones, and we call ourselves, simply ‘Vampires’. The other group, the bad ones, is known in our world these days as the ‘Legion’. Now the Legion, they are some
wonky
vampires. Leeha, their leader, is the worst one. She’s fabulously mad, and quite beautiful. Her arse alone makes a man want to…” Making appreciative grunting noises, he squeezed the air with his hands.

     “I don’t think Emma cares about her ass, Aid,” Nik cut in, picking up where Aiden had left off. “But as he was saying, she is totally fucking psycho, and her followers are right up there with her.”

   
 
“Occasionally,” Aiden elaborated, “when a vampire is turned, they come out of it just, not quite right.”

   
 
“Long story short,” Nik continued, “Leeha is one of those Vampires. She was made a vampire illegally. Kidnapped as a human child by one of our males. He raised her secretly as his daughter, and on her 25th birthday, he turned her without permission from Luukas.”

   
 
Emma interrupted to ask, “Why would he need permission?”

   
 
“Because if we let every Vlad, Count, and Elvira make vampires willy-nilly, the population would quickly get out of control and we would run out of humans to eat
.”
Aiden informed her matter-of-factly.

     “Anyway,” Nik scowled at Aiden, “when Luukas found out what he had done, the male who did this was tried by our Council and sentenced to death by fire. Leeha was spared as we believed, at the time, that she wasn’t to blame for his actions. We’ve since learned that she was not as innocent in all of this as she appeared.”

   
 
Pausing to gather his thoughts, he stretched his long, muscular legs out in front of him and crossed his ankles, drawing Emma’s attention to his flat abs and the way his running pants pulled taut over the impressive bulge at the apex of his lean, muscular thighs. He bit back a smile as she tore her eyes away and asked, “What made you reconsider?”

   
 
“We found out later from the servants in his household that he had raised Leeha to believe that she would one day rule by Luukas
’
side, which is unheard of, and we don't know where he got the idea that it would ever happen. He’d taken her from her human family when she was quite young; he’s the only parent she remembers. When she turned about 14, he started…preparing her to be queen. He abused her as no daughter should be abused, and justified it by telling her that she needed to have sexual prowess to be able to win over the Master Vampire.
”
There was a flash of fang as Nik’s lip curled up in disgust.

     “So vampires do have relationships with other vampires?”

   
 
“No. Never. Which is why we were so shocked when we found out what he'd been telling her. Sometimes they’ll, uh, hook up, but they never stay together in a long-term thing. Once in a while though, a Vampire and a human will mate.”

   
 
Emma was confused. “But aren’t humans just food for vampires?”

   
 
Nik’s blue eyes burned fiercely into hers as he answered, “Not always, no.”

   
 
“See, Em…I feel like I can call you ‘Em’ now…Is that ok?” At her distracted nod, and ignoring Nik’s scowl, Aiden repeated, “See, Em, Vampires don’t mate with other Vampires because they can’t sustain each other. We can feed off of other Vamps, it doesn’t hurt us, but it’s kind of like eating a rice cake. You can’t live off of it. We need viable, live, human blood to survive, and since feeding and sex are so closely intertwined, it makes sense to have a human as your significant other. Personally, I find monogamy quite boring, I would never tie myself down to just one flavor, but to each his own.”

   
 
“But Nik drinks donated blood, from a bag…
”

   
 
Before Nik could defend his actions, Aiden added in all seriousness, “And you can clearly see how he suffers for it.”

   
 
She looked Nikulas up and down. “He looks fine to me.”

   
 
Going back to the whole mating thing, she resumed her questions. “What does the human get out of it? Other than being a food bank?”

   
 
“What do they get out of it?” Astounded that she would even need to ask, Aiden exclaimed, “They get protection, a longer life! They get to stay young, and beautiful! And, luv,
most importantly
, they get to experience mind-blowing vampire sex.”

   
 
“What Aiden is trying to say,
”
Nik blurted, “is that if a human is taken as a vampire’s mate, he or she will actually exchange blood with their vampire. Not as much as we drink, of course, but a little of our blood will go a long way.”

   
 
Emma’s stomach turned as she tried to imagine that. “That’s so gross.”

   
 
“Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, poppet.” Aiden waggled his eyebrows at her.

     Curiosity getting the better of her, she turned her attention back to Nik to ask, “So, what exactly would your blood do?” He didn’t miss the fact that she was asking
him
this question.

     “Um, well, if we exchanged blood, I would be able to find you anywhere. I would be able to protect you should anything ever happen. Also, my blood would keep you young and healthy, and you’d grow stronger than a normal human. You’d never get sick. You’d heal faster. It halts the aging process. You would be as immortal as I am as long as you were with me.”

   
 
“As long as no one cut off your head or ripped out a vital organ.” Aiden chimed in.

     Ignoring him, she asked Nik, “What would happen if I stopped drinking it?”

   
 
“You would begin to age at that time, picking up right where you left off,” he answered her.

     While Emma mulled that over, Nik tried to get the conversation back on topic, “Anyway, all this stuff isn’t important for you to know right now.”

   
 
“Mmmm, I don’t know, I think it is
very
important for Emma to know all of this ‘stuff’, and the sooner the better the way things are going…” Ducking quickly to the side to avoid the water bottle Nik chucked at him, Aiden watched it as it hit the floor and rolled towards the front of the plane. “You know, I’m beginning to feel a bit unappreciated here. I think I may just go hang out with pilot Bill for a bit.”

   
 
Shaking his head in disbelief at Aiden’s back, Nik waited until he shut himself into the cockpit before continuing, “So, back to the story. Leeha’s maker had told her all her life that one day she would rule alongside my brother. After he was sentenced, she started making advances towards Luuk on her own. He shot her down completely, and laughed it off at first. This went on for a number of years, until finally, one night, she requested that he come meet her in a secluded area just north of us. By this time, he was completely fed up with her, and had made up his mind to banish her from our area. He’d insisted on going alone, against everyone else’s wishes, as she demanded. We haven’t seen him since.”

   
 
Emma looked down at her folded hands, then back up at Nik. “But, how do you know for sure that Leeha has him? Could something else have happened?”