Hunting Medusa: The Medusa Trilogy, Book 1 (39 page)

“Who’s acting like a kid now?” I smacked his hands away. He might have handled my assets in every conceivable way, but it didn’t mean he had permission to act as if he owned me. “Look, if we’re waltzing into a vampire nest, we’d be much better off having some real strength on our side. No offense to either of you, but you’re both human.”

Siobhan opened her mouth to protest, but I raised a finger. “And even a skilled human can’t face off against Grendel alone.”

Holden was still touching me, running his fingers up and down my spine, and even through the leather jacket I was tingling with awareness from his lingering presence. I didn’t tell him to stop. The last thing I needed to worry about right then was my lover getting handsy with me in front of people.

Just thinking of him in conjunction with the word
lover
was more of a problem than I was willing to deal with at the moment.

“So what’s the plan?” Holden looked past me to Shane. I could have hugged the vampire for giving the hunter his dues as the leader of this expedition. Maybe the blood veneer made Shane seem more respectable to everyone.

“The elevator is out of the question, obviously,” Shane said.

Siobhan raised her bloody hands as evidence. Holden’s nostrils flared as the smell of the girl’s blood fanned through the air. He sucked in a ragged breath, and since breathing wasn’t necessary for vampires, I knew he was taking a good whiff of her.

“Has anyone checked for the stairs?” Holden asked, his voice strained.

“It’s at the back, but a section in the middle is rotted through. Not passable.”

“A few stairs missing? That’s nothing.” Holden stepped clear of us and bounded across the patchwork floor with the ease of an alley cat prowling the city streets. His confidence was contagious because the three of us followed after him, less nimble, but still able to track his route.

Holden was waiting at the top of the emergency stairwell, which must have been constructed in a bygone era before concrete was the norm, and we all assessed the rot damage.

The stairwell wrapped around the wall, with a broken railing along the outer edge. Where the railings gave way there was a central column open all the way to the ground floor. Since we were ten flights up, I didn’t think jumping to the main level would be feasible for anyone but Holden, and even he couldn’t guarantee making it without a broken ankle. He was still a man, not a cat.

Each section was missing six or seven steps—about half of the stairs—and the remaining bits looked worse for wear. I wouldn’t have trusted Siobhan’s lithe figure on the steps, let alone Shane or Holden. The weight of a full-grown man would fracture the threadbare wood.

“So, genius, you were saying?” I turned my attention from the stairs up to Holden.

He sneered at me and jumped to the next riser. Holden landed smoothly, avoiding the center section of the steps, and gave me a haughty
I told you so
look.

“Throw me the tiny one,” he said.

Shane and I stared at Siobhan, who was shaking her head emphatically and backing away from us. “No. Nope. I have no intention of being tossed into the waiting arms of a vampire.”

“It’s okay, he won’t bite you,” I told her.

“It doesn’t escape my notice you said he won’t bite
me
instead of
he doesn’t bite
.”

“He’s still a vampire,” I reminded her, rolling my eyes.

“Yeah, and we came here to
kill
vampires.”

“Vampires pay your boyfriend’s rent.
I’m
a vampire.” My tone clearly conveyed I wasn’t in the mood to argue about the shades of gray when it came to the badness of vampires.

I grabbed Siobhan, and before she could wriggle free I shoved her off the top step. I was careful not to just knock her off the edge, but instead gave my push a little oomph so she went flying into Holden’s arms. He, in turn, carried the momentum a step further and tossed her down to the next riser.

Siobhan was flustered but still a warrior at heart. She landed in a crouch, her back to the wall, and scowled up at us.

We continued the system, ensuring there was never more than one person standing on any riser longer than a few seconds, lest we push the wood’s limits and send us on the express route to the ground floor.

After a few tense moments we were all on solid ground, regrouping behind Shane. I took my gun out, as did Shane, and Siobhan retrieved her baton. Only it wasn’t a baton anymore. I didn’t see if she squeezed it, twisted it or whispered some weird druid incantation, but the baton had extended and grown in length, transforming into a bow.

She unstrung the tiered silver necklace she was wearing, and as she looped it around the ends of the bow I realized it wasn’t a necklace at all. The crazy woman was wearing a bowstring as a necklace. She must have noticed my slack-jawed expression because she gave me an uneasy smile. “I wasn’t a Boy Scout, but I do like to be prepared.”

“Hey, who am I to judge? I brought a gun to my own wedding. I’d just be worried about an accidental garroting.” A bow was one thing, but where the hell was she hiding the arrow—

She slipped a small silver blade out of her belt and squeezed, and I watched in amazement as it unfolded into a full-sized arrow. Apparently the druids had come into the twenty-first century with open arms. Cool.

Holden was the only one of us to remain unarmed, and it made sense because he didn’t
need
a weapon. With no further need to worry about falling to our deaths, Holden led us down the nearest hallway just in time for the whimpering girl’s voice to escalate to screaming.

This time her screams
were
those of pain, and my heart hammered. Adrenaline pumped through me, and I restrained myself from running headlong into danger. I had a bad habit of being impulsive and putting myself at unnecessary risk, and though I’d started to control those urges better, I still had them.

Holden must have known what I wanted to do because he raised a hand as if he could use invisible force to keep me back. “Hold on.”

The screaming petered out into a pain-filled mewling noise like an injured animal. My pulse pounded in my ears, and I glared at Holden, silently insisting he get this show on the road.

Shane was getting anxious too because he edged past Holden and moved to stand outside the room where Grendel would be waiting. His large gun was trembling slightly in his hands, and I wasn’t sure if it was from fear, rage or both.

“Let’s just fucking do this,” Shane growled, and kicked the door open.

Standing inside the room was one of the largest men I’d ever seen, undead or otherwise. He towered over seven feet, and his hair was a scraggly, grease-coated mane falling beyond his shoulders. Like Shane, he had a layer of blood over his bare chest and forearms, but in one meaty fist he was holding a skinny girl—no older than twelve—around her neck. It was hard to tell if the blood on her was from his skin or a fresh wound.

Behind him, on the periphery of the room, were three vampires. They were a normal size, but next to Grendel they looked like toddlers.

The girl started crying when she saw us, gasping sobs that racked her whole body. Grendel gave her a rough shake to silence her.

“I was beginning to wonder if you fools were just going to tromp around in the hall all night, or if you’d ever knock.” His voice was a deep, booming rumble, and it made me imagine the whole floor quaking with each word.

This guy was scary.

I’d killed scarier.

Her prey is within her grasp…but this one has a few tricks of his own.

In Pursuit of Prey

© 2012 Savannah Jordan

Of Gods and Consorts, Book 1

Sekhmet is on the prowl for a new consort. Over the course of an eternity, the Egyptian goddess has filled her divine bed with easy sexual conquests, but each encounter has left her heart more hollow and empty.

Now she’s stalking something challenging. Something complicated. Finally, prey that makes her purr with anticipation, prey that’s worthy of her predatory nature. A human soul.

For his band’s success, Mace Reynard made a deal with a succubus, and now she’s draining his life away, one screw at a time. After the latest encounter, he needs to recharge and rethink his life…until a goddess drops into it and uses all four of her sexy little cat feet to complicate the hell out of it.

The sexual and emotional kismet between them is more than either of them ever thought possible, but the succubus isn’t giving up her meal ticket without a fight. All she needs is one little rift between the entangled lovers to swoop in and erase Mace’s heartache—and his memories. Forever.

Warning:
Get your towels ready! This story has a sex goddess, a rock singer with a penchant for powerful women, and sex hot enough to make you want to share a shower with them.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
In Pursuit of Prey:

Blacklight bounces from posters, dies in the bright strobing flashes, shouts in a white-blue echo from the low-cut shirt of the chick grinding on the bouncer. She could be a ghost—he pays her that much attention. After enough nights in clubs like this, not much impresses. Especially not barflies like that, flitting from club to club, guy to guy, bed to bed. As I approach, the chick careens past grind and into grope, and Tucker Moses, badass bouncer with morals, pushes the barfly off.
 

“You strike a deal, Mace?” he shouts over the dancehouse music throbbing in the air.
 

“Hell no.” I stop beside him and grab my guitar case at his feet. “I still need to respect myself in the morning. Louie wouldn’t pay enough.”

A minute shake of his close-shaved head. “I hear ya, man.”

“If you get a night off, you should stop by. We’re Seduction’s new house band.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

I nod, clap him on his beefy shoulder and walk past. He won’t come, and I know it. Tucker talks a good story, but he’s a regular here. If he isn’t working, he’s holding up the far corner of the bar and drinking.

That particular back-alley funk—stale beer, fresh puke, hot asphalt—wafts up when I open the rear exit of Louie’s sleazy dive, The Backdoor. Definitely not the type of place we normally play, and tightfisted Louie isn’t the kind of manager I normally deal with. I’m tempted to rub my nuts, thinking they should be sore with his constant attempts at lowballing me and the band.

Neon green paper floats above the paving. I kick The Backdoor’s flyer proclaiming the best drinks at the best prices. Anyone who’s been to the local bars knows that’s bull. Louie’s soda-to-syrup ratio is always off, in favor of his miser reputation, and it waters down all the mixed drinks. Plus, he doesn’t stock top-shelf liquors or keep anything other than crappy beer on tap. Sure, The Backdoor’s drinks are cheap, but you get what you pay for in that joint.

If our band Diablo’s Decadence didn’t want the big leagues, I wouldn’t have even bothered with an ass like Louie. It takes money to hire a manager, and it takes booking gigs and filling seats to make money. Being the house band for Seduction is one thing, radio airtime is another.

It might be time to pay my personal benefactor a visit. It’s give and take, and she doesn’t take money.
 

Future years, or current success? I asked myself that once. Now, I’m not sure I made the right choice. The sex is amazing, the payoff is great. The price? Bits of my life—a week here, a month there—paid to a woman who has a knack for making things happen.

I pass a wino clutching his paperbag-wrapped bottle, huddling in his house of cardboard. Tattered and stained, his clothes look like recent rescues from the dumpster his shanty rests against. He could’ve been one of her past lovers. I could still end up like him. Being with Naami is like performing a gig on the edge of a razorblade. Exquisite torture, brilliant clarity—one wrong step and she can take all I have left.
 

Too many nights I argue with myself about what I’ve done and wonder if it’s worth it. Reality might blow, but it’s better than the alternative.

Hell, if I really look at things, Diablo’s Decadence could’ve easily earned the gigs and growing fan base on our own.
 

And we should, I think. We should.
 

One building away from the mouth of the alley and a tremor of something passes over me. Feels like lightning cracking very close—a build of energy, a flash of power and then nothing. Most people would dismiss it, if they would notice it at all.
 

I notice.

I know that feeling.
 

Someone or something powerful just arrived in town. A similar power surge hits me whenever Naami appears. Before I can engage my brain and think better of it—if I were smart I would turn and run in the other direction—I follow the same inner compass that led me to the succubus draining my life away one screw at a time. An inner pull guides me around the alley mouth, up one block and then a short jog through another filthy back alley.

Then I skid to a stop.

Power slicks over my skin, even a block away.
 

It vibrates in the air, invisible and still swirling away in the lines of my tattoos. Someone definitely is there. A blonde mane of wavy hair, and she’s curvy as hell, dressed in little more than a length of thin, white material. The energy shift I felt must’ve been her coming here.