Bozena and Sveta (Neuripra) (8 page)

“
Keep your eyes on your duties soldier. You're not here to flirt with the project,” I snap back, becoming increasingly irritable.

He turns, the light cloak shadowing him and glowing brightly into the darkness with luminescence, “Akae, there are no rules. Bar one. If anyone can heal Bo
žena, it would be me. She's a child of light turned dark through fear. I am the antithesis of fear. I am the antivenin to her misery.”

“
No! No Arsay, you are not going to touch her! Do you understand me? You touch her and I'll make sure you can't manifest here again.”

“
That's your pride talking. If I don't manifest here what a very dark world it will be.”

Chapter 10

Božena:

Darise comes around the bar counter, kissing me in the customary way, three times.

“
How are you sweetheart?” he says, smiling and frowning together.

“
I dunno. I feel bipolar these days.”

He nods sagely, “You should have stuck to the vampyre. We're less complicated.”

A hot arm presses up against mine at the bar and I twist nervously at the contact, looking onto Jowendrhan's blue eyes, “Wise words. You should listen to him Zena.”

Oddly I can tell Jo is joking, but Darise felt serious.

I swivel my attention back to the man on my left, “You're mortal now Darise. Why would you even say that?”

He gives me a dark smile thick with unspoken promises and secrets, “Am I? How can you be so sure?”

I look back to Jo, expecting an answer – clarification – something.

Jo dips his head, his brown hair turning snow white when his eyes flare to quicksilver, “He's a changed man, Zena. I was getting lonely being the only vampyre in this city.”

But Sveta's cousin is half vampyre - half neuri. “You aren't alone. Make friends with Aisyx,” I say.

Darise snorts, caressing his hand down my back before moving behind the bar, refilling my wineglass and leaning close, facing me from his post on the other side. “There's a war going on Zena. We need all hands on deck.”

“Or all hands on dick would work just as well,” laughs Jo.

It makes me smile. He's got such a filthy mind, I adore him. We have murderous history between us, but I still harbor a soft spot for Jowendrhan.

“The last time I put my hands on your dick you nearly broke them off,” I tease back.

“
Last time they were on mine I thought you were going to keep me cumming for a week,” Darise snarks.

“
Fuck off Darise. I'm not interested. You are way too complicated.”

We had one night together, just one. He betrayed Zaria by coming onto me and then shot at her new boyfriend Zauran, killing Seithe when he missed.

Fear twists my core when I look at him, and I lower my voice to a whisper, “You shot at Zauran. Your kind of crazy I do not need in my life.”

Jowendrhan joins in the group whisper, “It's like old times hey Zena? Darise shooting at the innocent must remind you of your mother.”

“And her boyfriend,” I snap.

La-freaq, these two have known me much too long. I can't believe they knew me when all that shit went down.

This is just making me tense. The last thing I want to think about is when mama got arrested for shooting at a woman in the dead of night. It was premeditated and planned. I don't care how she defended it, that's not a sane way to behave.

Darise plops something into my wine with a slight of hand, and it starts to fizz at me. “Drink it, it'll chill you out. And for the record Zena, I'm no longer mortal. The next time I fuck you I'm not letting up until you come back to the vampyre camp.”

“Next time? There won't be a next time. So, what are you?” I say, examining the effervescent cabernet.

“
He's vampyre,” Jo answers for him.

“
Why?” Losing interest in frothing wine, I look at the Snow White of the vampyre world. Darise is deathly pale with dark eyes and hair, and the reddest lips on earth. “Darise, you wanted to be mortal your whole life, why give it up?”

“
Mortal killed Seithe. Mortal is fucking overrated. That's why!” he hisses with loathing.

I get it. How freaking stupid and insensitive am I, that I didn't get the hint? He gunned down his own brother in a crime of passion. Seithe was mortal too and died right in front of all of us. I can see how that would send Darise running back to the immortal side of the stream.

Ashamed, I reach out, covering his hand with mine, “I'm sorry. I can be so thick sometimes.”

“
You know what's thick,” Jo says, pressing his head against mine like a conspirator. “My dick.”

“
Jeez!” I burst out laughing. The man is incorrigible.

Leaning away, resting heavily on one arm to brace his weight while he twists his body to face mine, he moves my long hair off my shoulder, the way a lover would, “But you already knew that.”

His expression is downright scandalous, and I feel caught between hell and the deep blue sea stuck between Jo and Darise.

Guilt ferments my insides every time Jowendrhan stares deeply into my eyes. Is it so wrong that I enjoyed what he did... what
we
did...

He hurt me, but he also made the hurt stop. He's a walking double edged sword that cuts and heals simultaneously. I can recall the pleasure from his bite as clearly as if it happened yesterday. It tingles my blood with instant delight remembering our crazy night together. He would win hands down in a toss up between him and Darise. Jo is wildfire sexy who delivers.

He's 6 ft 3 - or 4, carved, wide, absolute temptation on legs who only ever wears leather jeans. He's most girls walking wet dream,
and
he's handsome. Darise may be older, but Darise is more the quiet shy type who thinks he's a stud because of his bloodline, but he falls way short in every department.

I dated him first, but that was a very long time ago. I was young... and desperate.

This is too hard.

Blinking furiously, I swivel my wine by the fragile stem, hiding my focus inside the tiny vessel of dark red fluid.

To drown my shame, I lift it and swallow it all, my eyes closed, inhaling the bouquet laced with alcoholic fumes. It burns, and the heat is comforting.

I should have eaten before coming here.

Twisting back to the bar, I place the emptied chalice down, only to be caught in Darise's accusing stare.

Oh god. Shit! I forgot that after a vampyre has kissed me they can hear every single thought in my head.

Strike out.

I'm with Sveta now. Don't you guys get it?

*

Sveta:

The sensation sneaks up on me. It's akin to having a ghost blow in my nape.

Sitting straight, it's automatic to look behind me, smothering in invisible cobwebs. It's the warning vibration I know all too well. The net is closing, danger is near... is
here
.

Flicking over to neuri vision, I survey the shadows, breathing deeply to scan for recognizable spirit.

Zena is here, I can smell her. So is Jowendrhan and.... Here one second, gone the next. Standing so abruptly I send my chair clattering across the office, my body pumps to readiness when my muscles expand for combat.

Inhaling, slowly, I trace the resonance. A vampyre walked in here. Materializing and vanishing so fast Zauran didn't even notice.

What the hell do they want?

Axing to face Zauran, I warn in slakax, “Wkhv duh vhdufklqj iru vrphrqh.” (They are searching for someone.)

Very few people alive speak slakax, if we've got lurkers they won't have a clue what I just said.

Flicking his focus to me, a frown furrowing his brow, his eyebrows shoot up in exaggeration when he notices my appearance. Neuri blend, we don't walk around pumped up like Atlas ready for action. We only look like this when deeply moved by emotion or threat.

“Do you think they heard us?” he whispers, using the range below human and vampyre hearing.

Making him wait for my answer, I track the room, searching and examining everywhere before daring to relax.

Whoever was here is definitely gone now.

“
I need to get to Zena. If she goes outside, or they are inside... fuck! It doesn't matter Zauran, they'll find out sooner or later.” I reach over and thump his shoulder with my fist, harder than I intended, “Thanks for letting me use Pravus, and I'll see you Saturday for a can of whoop ass.”

I don't wait for an answer, urgency riding me like a chariot of megawatts. Bolting down the passage, I shoot into the club, doing instinctive tactical recon before slowing to a mellowed saunter, melting deeper into the hub.

She's there at the bar with her old boyfriend Darise, and her old lover Jowendrhan. How fucking cozy. I bet those depraved boys are into gang bangs when the mood suits them.

Circling the floor, I check my guards are at their posts, each of them giving me an imperceptible nod that they've kept all eyes on the target and nothing happenstance has occurred.

I nod back, ready to engage in the game and scare the beastie boys off my chick.

When will you get the message? She's mine motherfuckers!

The cowards spot me and vacate her side, scattering like the irritating fleas they are. Blood sucking scum.

*

Božena:

A man who is obviously too handsome for his own good smiles at me. His eyes are mischievous, as if he's harboring wicked thoughts and is tempted to subject me to them.

I hold his dark gaze for a moment too long, and then pin my focus back on the crowd of music surfers riding the swells on the dance floor.

While my stomach roils with passionate interest, I bide my time before flicking my gaze back his way.

He's still watching me.

Snatching my attention back to the bottles behind the bar, tension and excitement wrestle inside me. I wish he'd look somewhere else so I can take my time studying him.

Feigning fascination with my wine, I tilt the glass this way, then that, lifting the delicate goblet up and inhaling the bouquet. I wish I was a connoisseur who can detect hints of citrus, chocolate and vanilla, who could note the Sangiovese grapes are speciality chianti, and I wish I could know that they survived a late frost and had the hottest summer which brought out the crisp sweetness of the varietal.

But I don't know any of that shit and I'm done pretending I know what I'm doing, because all I want to do is look back at that big bad boy who is holding the wall up.

Sneaking a glance his way, my heart heaves dramatically at his incredible stature. He's watching the dancers and lovers performing the mating ritual on the smokey focus point of the room.

His silhouette is smooth, strong, defiant... sssssexy.

La-fabulicious-freaq, he's singeing hot.

My focus is riveted to him. It's delicious visually tracing the strong muscles of his neck to his shoulders. He's wearing a leather waistcoat and jeans, his jacket clutched in a fist, hanging by his hand to tickle the top of his boot.

Dim shadows force the vein on his shoulder to stand out as it curls into his substantial bicep, and the forearm he has suspended is rippling with more veins and ample strength. Everything about him is sexy, capable, able, rough, cashmere, a contradiction of gentle and hard, smooth and rugged, wild and restrained.

The stubble gives him that reckless ruffian appeal, the straight nose, the moody eyebrows, the stubborn chin, the 'don't fuck with me' hairstyle that bristles as much as his 'strip me and hurt me' vibe, everything he is makes me crave touch.

What's it like feeling the smooth heat of that arm, tracing the supernatural muscles bunched in his arms and chest, teasing anyone with a pulse and hormones to lick their way down the divots and planes of that skin, to unbutton the leather shielding his body and taste all the way down to that silver buckle on his belt.

Just staring at that belt is making me overheat.

His movement jerks my attention up to his face, and I'm frozen at him catching me licking him with my gaze.

I feel guilty, except he's flashing me a supernova smile while his dark eyes fracture the red lighting into gold dust.

God, he's just so fucking beautiful.

Embarrassed, heat flaming up my neck and burning into my cheeks, I whip my attention back to the crowd milling around the club, socializing and flirting, meeting and greeting, feeling and kissing...

It's become impossible. Helpless, I'm drawn back to look at him, spying him shouldering between strangers, walking to the other end of the bar, studiously ignoring me while a smug smirk taunts his lips into a twitch of a smile every third second.

Leaning both arms on the bar he orders his drink, and then sends his focus back to me, boldly meeting my stare and holding it hostage.

Full lips compress and I watch him swallow, in slow motion, the entire room fading as if we're the only two people alive.

It's making me outrageously horny.

He looks down, deepening the dimple in his chin which the stubble fails to camouflage.

Aw, it's so damn cute. He looks shy, as if my overt lusting is embarrassing him.

Shattered, I dive back into my wine, sipping it, trying to find the hidden undertones in the thick liquid, looking for the elusive hints of fuller flavor.

Remembering belatedly to breathe, I half inhale it in instead of swallow. With my eyes watering, I struggle to hide the cough, hastily putting my crystal goblet on the bar and suffocating on a quiet choke.