Dark Embrace (Principatus) (14 page)

Her question, spoken in a trembling whisper, took Jacob completely by surprise. As did the ridiculously tight black mini-dress barely covering a young body far too plump to be considered healthy. She looked at him, large, round eyes ringed with smudged black makeup, her pasty-white skin marred by pockmarks and fresh acne, her lips painted black. Circling her right wrist were the words
Edward Forever,
written repeatedly in elaborate but amateurish script. Around her fleshy neck hung an ornate silver locket.

Jacob bit back a curse. Damn it, he knew exactly what this woman was.

Vamp groupie.

“A what?” he asked, making his voice sound incredulous even as the torment of Melissa’s memory frayed his patience bare.

“A vampire,” she repeated, taking a hesitant step toward him. “I heard there was a vampire living here. A whole nest of them. I…I wanted to…to…”

She didn’t finish, her black-lined eyes shimmering in the waning moon’s thin light.

A dull throb thumped in Jacob’s chest where his unbeating heart sat. Part anger, part grief. “Why do you want to know?”

The woman, barely in her twenties by the smell of her nervous sweat, tried to assume a haughty pose. “I want to offer myself. I want to become a…a…”

Her bravo deserted her and she stumbled back a step, her teeth catching her bottom lip.

Jacob studied her, his chest tight. The foolish child presented an opportunity he couldn’t ignore. Defenseless, naïve and stupid, she was perfect. All he needed to do was rip out her heart, bathe in her hot blood and let her petrified wails rise up to the heavens as he drained her dry, and he would be the Principatus’s next target.

With the girl’s death, he would have no need to initiate the confrontation. Inari Chayse would come to him.

“Are you…” The tremble was back in the woman’s whisper. The air grew cloying with her fear. And her hope. “Can you…”

He thought of his wife, of what had happened to her. Of what Haral had ordered to happen. He thought of a war between Principatus and vampires and the innocent human victims of such a war. He thought of the overlord on the other side of the iron fence beside him, sitting safe and smug in the belief he was untouchable.

He thought of Melissa and her blood-matted hair…

Jacob felt his fangs lengthen in his mouth, and he fixed the ridiculously dressed young woman with a steady gaze. “You really have no idea the danger you are in, do you?”

Inari snapped to her feet, her heart smashing into her throat. Fists clenched, she glared at the vampire standing at the foot of her bed. “Don’t you ever get the hint?” she snarled, the sight of Ezryn in her room, her home, infuriating her. And filling her with traitorous, wanton joy.

He grinned, folding his arms across his chest. “You’re sending mixed messages, assassin.”

She folded her own arms across her chest, not wanting him to see how quickly her nipples pebbled at his words. “How can you be in here? I extended no invitation.”

Ezryn cocked one of his dark eyebrows. “I opened the door and came in. I must admit, I am as surprised as you. Perhaps it has something to do with the magic between us.”

She pulled a dismissive face. “There is no magic.”

He grinned, and Inari bit back a whimper at the sudden glint of fangs. “I disagree. How else would I know you were on Oxford Street earlier this evening? How else would I know you needed my rescue in Kings Cross only a few moments ago?”

The questions sent hot anger twisting into Inari’s chest. She jutted out her chin, forcing an expression of sheer contempt on her face. “I didn’t need your rescue. You think I couldn’t handle a few human males?”

“I have to wonder,” he murmured, standing directly in front of her before she could register the fact he’d moved. His thighs brushed hers. His chest pressed against her breasts. His eyes held hers in a hypnotic gaze Inari felt all the way to her very center. “Considering your complete failure to
handle
me.”

Without breaking eye contact, he placed his palms square on her chest and shoved her backward, driving her flat onto the mattress. He slammed his right knee between hers, pushing her legs apart as he bent over her, grabbing her wrists before she could strike out at him and pinning them to the bed. Hot tension knotted in Inari’s belly. Damn, he was quick, even for a bloodsucker.

“See?” He grinned again. “I can shove you around too. Of course,
I
make sure you have a nice soft landing, unlike you.” He slid his knee farther up her inner thigh. “The sidewalk is not the most comfortable of landings. My ass still hurts, by the way.”

She gave him a melodramatic pout. “Oh, poor baby.”

His eyes flickered with red heat. “Going to make you kiss it better later.”

The promise made her belly knot some more—and her pussy constrict. “In your dreams,” she snarled, wishing her body would behave itself.

“Tell me,” he said, his grin turning smug, “have you ever had a vampire lover before, Principatus?”

Inari’s sex constricted again. By the Powers, what was
wrong
with her? “If you think I’m going to answer that, you’re a moron.”

With a sudden jerk, Ezryn yanked her arms above her head and captured both her wrists in one fist. “There are many, many answers you will give me over the course of the night, Inari Chayse.” He gazed down into her face, his black eyes dancing with that same smoldering red heat she’d seen in the strip joint. “Let’s start with this one.” He trailed his free hand down her arm, over the upward thrust of her breasts to the top button of her vest. “Just how hard do you want me to fuck you?”

Inari narrowed her eyes, doing everything she could to ignore the molten pit of hunger her sex had become at his question. “Get your hands off me, vampire, before I rip your unbeating heart from your chest and shove it down your throat.”

Ezryn cocked one very dark eyebrow. “That hard?” He fingered the button with a cheeky flick before tearing her vest open. Her breasts fell free and she gasped, arching her back. He traced the puckered nipple of each one with slow precision, watching his finger’s path with smoldering eyes. “Let’s start then, shall we?”

He dropped his head, crushing his mouth to hers with brutal force. He plunged his tongue between her lips, battling with hers before Inari realized she’d opened her mouth to his assault. She growled and bucked beneath him, desperate to free herself.

Ezryn lifted his head and chuckled at her actions, skimming his fingers from her breasts to the waistline of her leather pants. “Do you really want me to let you go?” He dipped his fingers beneath the snug line of her trousers and stroked the smooth curve of her mons. “Do you?”

Inari stared up at him, the pulse in her neck a thumping cannon.

No. She didn’t.

Shamed heat flooded her face and she turned her head to the side, the fire in her sex blazing hotter. Tighter.

“Oh, Inari,” Ezryn murmured, his voice like velvet smoke on her flushed flesh. “You should not present me with such a beautiful neck.” He tightened his fist on her wrist and Inari felt his weight shift between her legs. “Not when you smell like heaven and look like sin.”

Cool lips brushed the side of her throat, just below her ear, the contact followed immediately by the gentle flick of the tip of his tongue. Inari hissed in a breath, her sex constricting on a cock that wasn’t there, every muscle in her body snapping tight. She rolled her head, pushing his mouth from her neck with a sudden blow of her chin just as she jackknifed her legs up around his hips and locked her ankles behind his back. “Bite me and I’ll pull your fangs out.”

Ezryn looked down into her face and chuckled again, the action sending rumbles of duplicitous sensations through Inari. “You say the nicest things, Principatus.” In a dark blur, he returned his mouth to her neck, his lips nibbling on her flesh. “And your skin tastes so…so pure. And yet at the same time so dirty. As if the demon you once were still lingers in your new soul.”

Inari sucked in a sharp breath. Ezryn’s soft words ignited her fury. And her fear.

The demon she once was.

Succubus. Did he know? Was that why…

“Tell me,” Ezryn rasped against her cheek. “What kind of demon
were
you before your rebirth? Because I want to know. So very, very much.”

Inari lashed out, smashing her fist into the side of Ezryn’s head. He crashed sideways, rolling from her body. Without pause, ignoring the screams of denial in her core, she scrambled to her knees, plunged her hand under the pillow closest to her and closed her fingers around the long, silver stake she always kept there. Just in case of emergencies.

“What are you going to do with that, little girl?”

Ezryn’s growl snapped her around. She locked her stare with his, the stake icy against her palm. “Turn you to dust.”

His fangs glinted at her as he gave her a small grin. “Really?”

He chuckled, stepping back from the bed and lowering the zipper of his fly. His cock jutted from the opening, thick and hard, and she couldn’t stop the whimper in her throat as she watched him toe off his boots and slide his trousers down over his hips. He kicked them aside, standing before her naked save for his open shirt. He held his arms out from his sides, his grin growing wider. “I will make you a deal, Inari. You stake me with that shiny silver thing in your hand, and I will willingly turn to dust. I won’t even complain when you suck me up with your vacuum cleaner.” His eyes twinkled as he took a step toward her, his fangs catching her bedroom’s muted light. “But if I take it from you before you can do so, you will surrender your body to me and let me do with it what I will.”

Inari’s sex constricted at his words, and her breath caught in her throat. “And that’s it? No questions? No blood?”
Are you even considering this, Inari? Are you?

His stare locked on her face. “No blood. But I have one question first. Why are you scared of me?”

“I’m not scared of you.” She met his stare, chin jutted. “I’m annoyed by you. I’ve had kings and slaves alike trembling in fear of me. Monsters from the sub-levels of Hell, first-order demons, semi-Powers, demi-dieties all giving me their terror.” She climbed from the bed and stood straight beside it, her fist tightening on the silver stake in her grip. “Yet you don’t show an inkling of respect. You piss me off.”

Ezryn laughed, an infectious sound she fought to ignore with all her soul. Laughing? How could he even think about laughing? “You should know, Principatus, that fear and respect and anger aren’t interchangeable.”

She clenched the stake tighter. “You are right. They aren’t. The last master vampire I defeated learned
that
lesson very quickly.”

That infectious laugh rumbled in his chest again. “I hate to disappoint you, Inari, but
I
have never lost to a Principatus, especially when the outcome is so delicious.”

Inari shut out the thick heat his smug drawl ignited in the junction of her thighs. “Then I look forward to kicking your ass tonight.”

He laughed again. “As do I.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Although kicking isn’t exactly what I have in mind with your—”

She leapt at him, face flaming.

He moved before she could strike him, streaking across her small bedroom area in a dark blur to crouch motionless on her dressing table. Resting his elbows in his bent knees, he grinned at her. “I’ve never fought naked before.” His eyebrows rose once in a suggestive expression Inari could only call cocky. “It’s quite liberating.”

She rolled her eyes, the pit of her belly knotting. “You’re not naked,” she pointed out, wishing to hell her body would stop reacting with traitorous excitement. “You still have your—”

He snapped straight and removed his shirt before she could finish her sentence.

Oh.

Inari stared at him, her mouth dry. His chiseled upper body gleamed under the room’s warm light, giving his pale skin a sun-kissed sheen. His chest was broad, smooth and untouched by hair. His stomach was flat and sculpted in all the right ways. A few scars marked his ribs, but rather than mar his perfection, they only heightened the sense of dangerous allure that radiated from him in waves. Her pussy fluttered again, and she jerked her gaze back to his face, stopping herself from inspecting his lower body. The sight of his naked beauty would do evil things to her sanity.

His grin stretched wider, black eyes twinkling with mischief. “Better?”

Yes. Oh, yes.

She shoved the wanton answer aside, as she did the irrational, ludicrous urge to grin back at him.

Don’t you dare smile at him, Inari. He’s the enemy.

She ground her teeth. She’d never had an enemy look so damn gorgeous. This definitely wasn’t fighting fair.

Ezryn’s gaze roamed her face, his grin turning contemplative. “It eats you up, doesn’t it, Principatus?”

She tightened her grip on her stake and forced herself to glare at him. “What does?”

“The unexpected feeling of happiness you experience when we’re together.”

Inari’s heart leapt up into her throat. She sucked in a sharp breath, gripping her stake tighter still. By the Powers, how did he… “You are the most conceited individual I’ve ever known, vampire.”

He gave her an accepting nod. “Probably.”