Dark Cravings (24 page)

“Yes.”

Julian’s mouth went tight. “A compromise, perhaps.”

“Talk,” Micah growled.

“If she drinks from me, she becomes my queen.” When I opened
my mouth to protest, he raised his hand. “Stand at my side when I need you
there. A couple of parties, a few meetings. If I plan to step into the role of
king, I need a strong show of power. If I had my fledgling by my side, it would
convince the court. You’re a queen, Ella. With or without me, Lizbeth’s death
solidified your position. It is the vampire way to keep what you kill. Her
throne, her money, her houses, her bodyguards, they’re all yours.”

“I don’t want any of it,” I snapped.

Micah spoke over me. “No sex, no blood.” His voice was a low
growl.

“You’re actually considering this?” I looked at Micah.

“What are our options?” Micah held his hands up.

I bit my lip.

“Do it, Ella,” Castro ordered.

“‘What’s the catch, Julian?” I asked.

“No catch. We are at an impasse,
min kärlek
. I want
you, you want the mongrel. If I kill him, you die. And if I let you die… Well,
there is no other that would replace you.”

That wasn’t exactly true. If I descended from the living
vampire line and inherited their genes, then so did Hannah. If she were turned,
would the same thing happen to her?

“I never knew you were so sentimental.” I coughed and tasted
more blood in my mouth.

“Practical, isn’t that what you always call it?” Julian
asked.

“Time is an issue.” Castro’s hand landed on Micah’s
shoulder. The demon squeezed, pulled Micah back and whispered something into
his ear. I tried to make out the words, but they were spoken too softly.

Julian removed his jacket and slid onto the bed next to me.
He pushed strands of hair from my face and cupped my cheek. The cool caress of
his finger stroked over my skin and my body heated from the inside out.

I closed my eyes. “Don’t.”

“What, no foreplay?” Julian pressed the length of his body
against my side.

My gaze met his and I imagined the sight was like two blue
flames merging. “Were you really sent to kill me?”

“Yes. But I couldn’t.”

“Why?”

“Because for the first time in four hundred years I felt.
Even devastated over the death of your father, you radiated life. I know you
never wanted this curse,” he touched the corner of my eye, “but I couldn’t let
you go.
Jag älskar dig
, Ella. Always. Forever. When you realize your
hunter isn’t the one for you, I’ll be here.”

Tears blurred my vision. I tried to lift my hand, to grasp
his hair and pull his neck to the side, but I was too weak. My gums pulsed at
the knowledge of blood, but my fangs didn’t lengthen. I looked up at Julian,
hated the way he looked back. Hated it because of the way his love swirled
unwanted sensations deep inside me.

“My fangs won’t come out.”

“
Tyst, oroa dig inte.
You’ve lost too much blood.”
Before I could protest, Julian brought his mouth to mine. Against my lips his
fangs lengthened into sharp points. He swiped his tongue against one razor edge
and the blood dripped into my mouth. The blood coaxed out the fangs he’d given
me but he didn’t pull away.

Julian titled his head and sealed our lips together. He
pushed his fingers through my hair, deepened our kiss. Memories swarmed me. The
two years we’d dated came at me in a rush. Every kiss, touch and stolen moment
played over my body and I gasped against my sire’s mouth.

Julian pulled back, his eyes hooded.

“There now.
Bedövning
.”

I looked over at Micah and guilt flooded me. Castro restrained
him. The muscles in his forearms bulged with the effort of holding him back.

The few drops of blood Julian had shed moved through my
veins, gave me strength.

“I’m sorry Micah.” I lifted a hand, threaded my fingers
through my sire’s hair. I tugged, hard, pulled him close. Julian made a sick
sound of pleasure in the back of this throat. I refused to think about it.

I sank my fangs into his neck and the initial urge I had to
tear out his throat faded. The fist of hair I held was soft, silky. My fingers
lost their grip, gentled as instinct took over. I cupped the back of his head as
Julian moved over me and settled between my spread thighs. Blood fell faster
onto my tongue. I slurped at the warmth running into my mouth. Julian moaned
and rubbed the thick length of his cock against my core. Pleasure spiked and I
fought it. This wasn’t the man I wanted.

“Enough!” Micah bellowed.

Julian was ripped from my grasp. Through narrowed, glassy
eyes, I watched my sire get thrown across the room. Micah loomed over him,
fists balled. Blood ran down the side of Julian’s neck, disappearing into the
collar of his shirt. The once-pristine white cotton was now marred with
crimson.

From the floor, Julian threw his head back and began to
laugh. Micah pounced on him. His fist in Julian’s face shut him up. Castro was
across the room in a blink, pulling Micah off before he could get in another
punch.

“No,” Castro said firmly.

Julian rose to his feet. With the back of his hand, he wiped
the blood from his mouth. His eyes were heavy-lidded, his gaze slumberous. I
knew that look, had spent two years of my life obsessing over it. When he
flashed me a half grin, he looked drunk. Or well fucked.

“If you say one word, I swear to god…” I warned.

Strength returned to me. Each breath came easier than the
one before. I looked down, parted my shirt and watched the dark line of
cauterized flesh fade to pink. Then the sweats started. I fell back to the bed,
gasped at the unbelievable pain inside me. I could feel my damaged organs begin
to repair and heal.

Micah rushed to my side, all the while glaring at Julian.

“What did you do to her?”

Julian smiled, reached for a hand-rolled cigarette in his
pocket. “She’s healing.”

The awful fluttering against the walls of my stomach faded
and I found I could breathe. I sat up, cringed at the tight, pulling sensation
of my belly.

“I’m fine.”

Micah pressed his lips against my forehead, my cheek, my
nose, my lips. His mouth consumed mine and I welcomed it. Our kiss deepened.
Micah didn’t erase the remnants of Julian’s taste, but he helped ease it. No
matter how much I’d once loved Julian, it didn’t change the fact that he’d
broken my heart and stolen my life.

“I love you,” Micah said against my mouth.

“I love you too,” I whispered.

From across the room, Julian’s laser-hot gaze cut through my
moment with Micah. Anger and hatred filled the bond with my sire. I turned to
look at him, but he was already striding out the door.

I’ll be in touch.

I think I hurt his feelings.

Too. Fucking. Bad.

“Ah babe, don’t be such a chicken shit,” Micah said as he
removed me from the elevator.

The slick metal doors dinged shut behind me. My heart
started to race.

I looked up and down the deserted hallway. “Maybe I should
have let you fly solo on this one. Eli doesn’t need us both here for this.”

Micah readjusted the small, wrapped box in his hand so he
could sling an arm around my shoulder. The weight of him settled my right side
a little lower than the left. When I went to pull away, he drew me even closer.
As a wobbling unit, we began advancing down the corridor.

He pressed his lips against the side of my head. “Shut up,
babe.”

As we walked, our boots squeaked on the freshly mopped
linoleum floor. The sharp lemon scent of disinfectant drowned out the stench of
blood and sickness. I wiped my wet palms on my pants. Although the hospital we
were in was pristine, I couldn’t help the flashback to the asylum. Instead of smooth,
white walls there was flaking paint. The shiny beige floor morphed into
chipped, dirty concrete. The closed doors of the patient rooms became dented
metal.

Apparently, one week was not enough for me to shake the
constant replay of my time in that hellish sanitarium. I’m still a demon hunter
and now, supposedly, a vampire queen. Despite this, I’m scared shitless of
hospitals. My new phobia is embarrassing, really, considering the vampires and
demons I’ve come face-to-fist with. I’d sworn Micah to secrecy and threatened
him with dismemberment if he told another living soul.

The only thing keeping me moving was Micah dragging me past
one closed patient door after another.

The smooth baritone of Micah’s voice eased some of my
tension. “Eli and I aren’t like you and Hannah. We aren’t going to cry, we aren’t
going to hug and we sure as hell aren’t going to ‘express our feelings’.”

I scoffed but on the inside, my panic was losing its grip. “There
was no crying or hugging.”

Micah’s rich, throaty laughter echoed down the hall and
earned us a nasty glance from a gray-haired nurse. With a plump finger against
her glossy lips, the nurse shushed us as we passed.

Totally unrepentant, Micah raised his voice just a little. “That’s
’cause you, Ella, are a heartless bitch.”

The fist aimed at the hard curve of his bicep was
intercepted. He spun out of reach and turned to face me, walking back so he
could look into my eyes. In the fluorescent overhead lights, his irises looked
more blue than green. I focused my attention on him and ignored the parked
metal gurney. Yellow mattresses. Rusted bedpans. Archaic wooden operating
tables…

I gave Micah a dirty look. “Nothing says heartless like
matching coffee mugs that read, ‘Stand back. I’ve got fleas’ and ‘Demons do it
better’. That’s a really thoughtful gift, Micah.”

His grin was pure rogue. He lifted his package and gave it a
gentle shake. Porcelain clinked together.

“How else am I supposed to tell him he’s going to turn furry
once a month? Or that his brother isn’t exactly human?”

For a second, Micah’s smile faltered. Over the course of the
last week, Eli’s condition had gone from critical to miracle. The doctors had
no explanation for the rate at which Eli’s body was mending the damage the pack
of wolves had done. We had an explanation—lycanthropy. I put my hand over
Micah’s to stop him from opening the door to Eli’s room. Lip between my teeth,
I looked up at Micah and wondered if he saw how helpless I felt. Weren’t things
supposed to get better when the bad guy—or girl—was dead and you were in love?
“You forgot the mug that says, ‘Your dad is an asshole and we’ve all been
evicted. Surprise! You’re homeless’. How can the Agency do this?”

A few hours ago we’d gotten notice, in the form of a dozen
heavily armed paramilitary hunters, to vacate the premises and hand over all
Agency property including weapons and research material. Apparently, the saying
I’d grown up with, “once a hunter, always a hunter”, didn’t apply when you were
fired.

Our plan was to get Eli off the grid before the Shadow
Agency came to intervene. With Richard at the helm, neither Micah nor I knew
what he would do.

Micah swept his thumb over my abused lip and gave me a soft
smile. “That’s too long to put on a cup.” He bent, pressed his lips to mine.
“We aren’t homeless. You own a dozen different houses. And considering they
belonged to Lizbeth Tepes, I’m sure they have plenty of weapons until we can
get our own made. You’re alive, Hannah and Eli are going to be okay and we’ve
got Roy on our side. We don’t need anything else except each other.”

Moisture filled my eyes and my nose tingled. I cupped the
back of his head and ran my fingers through his hair as I gazed at him. “I
totally fucking love you.”

He slid his hand down my back, cupped my ass and pulled me
tight against him. Our mouths met for a long, lingering kiss with lots of
tongue and just a little bit of teeth. He pulled away and grinned. “Let’s do
this.”

Micah didn’t bother knocking before he opened the door to
Eli’s room and strode in as if he owned the place. The second my gaze landed on
the bed, images flashed before my eyes. Hannah, naked and restrained. Bleeding.
Bruised. Dirty.

The memory cleared until the only thing I saw was the clean,
white room and Eli. With his freshly shaved head bowed toward the hands folded
in his lap, he sat sideways on the newly made bed with his long legs hanging
over the side. The green hospital scrubs he’d most likely charmed from one of
the nurses strained tight over muscles that hadn’t been there a week ago.

Eli glanced up at our entrance and his eyes brightened. The
smile that curved his lips could have powered a small village. Micah showed the
exact same expression on his own face. The two brothers looked at each other,
and in those few silent moments, I heard all the things Micah couldn’t say out
loud.
I love you. I’m damned glad you’re alive. You’re my life.

Micah strode over to the bed and smoothed his hand over Eli’s
nonexistent hair. I felt the affection gesture to the tips of my toes—that was,
until Micah pressed a palm to the middle of Eli’s forehead, pushed and pitched
Eli back.

“I can’t get used to the hair.” Micah all but dumped the
gift he’d brought into Eli’s lap the moment his brother regained his balance.

Eli ran his own hand over his scalp and winced. “Me either.”

“I like it, makes you less geeky and more badass.” I walked
across the room and pressed a soft kiss on Eli’s forehead. His skin was hot.
Unfortunately, his temperature had nothing to do with a fever.

“How’s Hannah?” he asked.

I shrugged. Hannah still hadn’t made it out of the Vault.
With Castro and Dante, wrapped around her little finger, who could blame her?
“They removed the stitches yesterday and her cast will come off in a few weeks.
It’ll be a while before she can sleep with the lights off, but she’ll pull
through.”

Eli’s jaw tightened. “It’s my fault she got taken. I should
have seen them coming, kept her safe.” A range of emotions flashed in his eyes.
Hatred. Guilt. Anger. The normally dark shade of his irises had lightened into
a clear amber. Already the changes were taking effect. Was the wolf already
inside him? I didn’t quite understand the logistics of shape shifting.

I picked up his hand and squeezed until he met my gaze. “I’m
the one who should have kept her safe. My job, not yours. Castro warned us and
we didn’t move quick enough. Lizbeth was a sadistic bitch, Eli, don’t blame
yourself for that.”

He shook his head. “You don’t get it. When I went to pick
her up she was flirting with the guy she went out with the other night, the
quarterback. That guy is a total moron and it pissed me off that she was
letting him paw all over her like she was some bimbo. So I told her as much. We
argued. She slapped me. Then I kissed her. I never saw them coming. I should
have been paying attention and I wasn’t.”

“She slapped you? That’s hardcore, bro,” Micah said just as
I blurted, “You kissed her?”

“It doesn’t matter. Lizbeth is dead, right?” Eli asked.

Micah nodded. “Makes a man wish he could bring her back from
the dead only to kill her again.”

Eli’s eyes dropped to the gift in his lap. He shook the
package and gave Micah a skeptical look. “If these are coffee mugs, I already
have a dozen.”

“Just open it, douche bag,” Micah teased.

With one long arm, Eli reached for something tucked into the
two-drawer cabinet next to his bed. He pulled out a blue bundle of tissue paper
and tossed it to Micah. The somber mood shifted.

“It isn’t exactly wrapped,” Eli said as Micah caught his
present.

I looked between the two now-grinning idiots, who looked
like kids on Christmas morning. “What is wrong with you guys?”

Neither answered. Micah tore at the tissue paper until he
found the blue porcelain mug beneath. He lifted it up, read the large green
letters that announced,
I’m a Blood Donor
.

Despite myself, I chuckled.

“Hilarious.” Micah elbowed me in the ribs.

I turned to him and we shared our own version of an idiotic
grin.
Blood donor
was a very loose term for what Micah and I now shared.
For the moment, though, we’d put the issue of mates aside. Just because our
situation was permanent didn’t mean we had to dwell on it. As if we had a
choice in the matter. We were taking things one day at a time.

“If you two start making out, I’m calling security,” Eli
said.

Micah and I turned to watch Eli fumble with the paper on his
present. Unlike Micah, Eli took his time to carefully remove the tape so the
paper didn’t rip. He opened the lid on the box and pulled out the first mug. I
found myself holding my breath.

Eli read it out loud, “Demons do it better”. The forehead I’d
kissed a few moments ago wrinkled in confusion.

Micah scowled. I stomped on his foot and gave him the look that
said he better start talking.

“You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you? Fine. I’m half
demon, imbecile.”

Eli blinked. He cocked his head. His gaze turned to me. The
grin was slow and accepting. “So, Ella, do demons ‘do it better’?”

Chuckling, I gave Micah a mischievous smile. “That depends
on what ‘it’ is.”

“TMI.” Eli chuckled and pulled out the second cup. This one
he didn’t read out loud. The smile was gone from his face when he looked up. “So
it’s true, then.”

“That you’ve got fleas?” Micah asked. “If you do, they make
stuff for that.”

I punched Micah in the arm. “God, you’re an ass.”

He bent, gave me a soft, lingering kiss. Against my mouth
Micah said, “Yeah, but you love me, remember?”

“Enough,” Eli shouted. “I liked it better when all you did
was argue.”

Micah’s grin faded. “The shifters that attacked you were Lizbeth’s
personal guard, they’ve approached us for a meet.”

At Micah’s words, I picked at an invisible piece of lint on
my pants. I still wasn’t quite comfortable with the notion that the underworld
thought I was the new vampire queen.

“It seems when Ella killed Lizbeth, she inherited all her
stuff. That includes her pets.”

I gave Micah a dirty look.

“What?” he asked.

“They aren’t pets.”

He ignored me and kept talking to his brother. “They’ve
offered you a place in their pack.”

“Hell no,” Eli said. “They almost killed me. They took
Hannah. You can’t actually think I’d want to join up with them.”

Micah held up his hands. “I don’t think one way or the
other, this is your decision. They say you’ll need help, a pack, to get you
through the transition. The Fenrir aren’t your typical bunch of werewolves,
which means you won’t shift into your typical wolf. We can find other shifters
if you want but I don’t know if they’ll be able to give you the help you need. These
guys are the underworld’s boogeymen. Now they’re Ella’s boogeymen. Taking the
meet and hearing them out isn’t a horrible idea.”

The door creaked open and we all turned as Castro strolled
into the room with a smile. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

I almost didn’t recognize him without all the smoke. I hadn’t
realized it was something he could control.

“We were just about to leave. Where’s all your smoke? Didn’t
want to set off the alarms?” I asked.

Castro flashed a sexy half-smile. “You are ever so charming.”
He lowered to press a soft kiss against my cheek and his lips sizzled against
my skin.

“Hands off.” Micah growled and pulled me into his arms.

“You’re no fun.” Castro turned to Eli. “Allow me to
introduce myself, Elijah. I’m Castro.” He gave an elegant bow.

Eli glanced between me, Castro and then Micah. He opened his
mouth to speak. Whatever he was about to say faded when the door opened. You’d
think it was two in the afternoon, not morning.

Richard—wearing a sneer that curled his swollen lip—waltzed
in. One at a time, six of the biggest, meanest-looking agency hunters I’d ever
seen filed in behind him. The last one shut the door. As a tightly training
unit, they drew their weapons in sync.

“I trained with those assholes,” Micah muttered and crossed
his arms over his chest.

I had eyes only for Richard. I took a great deal of pleasure
at the sight of his bandaged nose and blackened eyes. Maybe I should have let
Micah kill him. The pungent aroma of his fear filled the packed room. The scent
coaxed my fangs free.

I smiled and Richard stepped back, closer to his guards. I
wondered if he knew I was fantasizing about ripping his neck open.

Richard slid his hands into the front of his slacks and
addressed Micah. “So this is who you associate with, now? Demon lords?”

“That’s none of your business, you chicken-shit asshole.
What in the hell are you doing here, anyway? You aren’t welcome.” Micah moved
to my side and his anger washed over me. I bathed in the heat of it. At our
backs, Castro moved into position. Together we were a non-human barricade
blocking Richard from Eli.