The Black God (#2, Damian Eternal Series) (12 page)

Within sixty seconds, she stood breathing
hard in the midst of the four downed vamps. This experience,
beating up Jonny’s vamps, was far more satisfying than she could
recall any other vamp confrontation being.

She crouched to rifle through the clothing
of the vamps and then stepped into the hallway to swipe the phone
she’d knocked free. Of the three phones, all were burners. She
frowned, disappointed. Brandon could only get a little bit of
useful information off them, though he had cracked some code if he
knew where all the vamps in the city were.

She checked out the two remaining rooms in
the house to ensure no humans were cowering in the corners. The
rooms were dark, and she paused briefly in each to let her sense
read what was present.

No more vamps. No trapped humans.

Ashley exited the second into the hallway
and froze.

“I warned you.” Jonny’s voice was soft. He
stood at the end of the hallway near the kitchen, dressed all in
black. He seemed to take up the space of the hallway with his broad
shoulders and lean form. He was unarmed, his intent gaze on
her.

Xander’s words of warning swept through her
mind. She began to seriously consider bolting out one of the
windows of the unoccupied bedrooms rather than face him. In the
dark, with the penetrating dark eyes starting to glow red, Jonny
was positively menacing. It didn’t explain the thrill racing
through her, but she did understand the reason behind her fear.

Jonny was dangerous. She’d ignored – or
perhaps overlooked? – the charged energy radiating off him at the
beach. She sensed the subtle flow of raw power better on their
second meeting.

Reassured her two deepest fears – dying or
being vamped – weren’t going to happen, she felt some of the effect
of his foreboding appearance lessen. She was faster than he was, so
long as he didn’t touch her, and Xander wasn’t going to let her
worst fears happen.

“I was just leaving,” she replied. “My work
is done.” She moved into the nearest bedroom with calmness she
didn’t feel then bolted towards the window.

Jonny reappeared between her and the window,
and she slammed to a stop so fast, she fell backwards. Ashley
rolled and vaulted onto her feet, expecting him to attack.

He didn’t. He simply blocked her path.

Retreating into the hallway, she drew her
knife and kept it hidden behind her thigh. She whirled and tried
the other room.

This time, she was expecting him to block
her path. He appeared. Rather than stop, she acted. Adrenaline
surged within her along with the rage she’d experienced for four
years. She smashed the knife into him, piercing his ribcage and
plunging it into his heart. Warm blood splashed her face and ran
over her hand and down her arm.

Ashley gasped at her own actions, a ripple
of unease tearing through her. She’d never killed anyone and yet,
she’d just plunged a knife through someone’s heart with no second
thought.

She released the hilt, her eyes flying up to
Jonny’s face.

“I’m not gonna lie. It does hurt,” he said
with a grimace. He raised a hand and calmly gripped the hilt of her
knife. “But you’re gonna have to do better than that.” He pulled it
free.

Xander wasn’t joking about
not being able to kill him.
She had
suspected all along her guardian was lying about the alleged
godslayer it took to kill Jonny in order to dissuade her. The sound
of her knife hitting the tile floor startled her out of her
disbelief.

“My turn,” Jonny said.

She twisted away from his first attempt to
grab her, whirled and ducked as he Traveled directly behind her.
The next minute happened in a blur of instinct and shadows. She
evaded, danced and maneuvered away from him.

And then he caught her. Or rather, her
whirling ponytail. Ashley’s head was yanked back. Before she had a
chance to twist out of his grip, his hand was on her throat and
then, his teeth sinking into her.

She stifled a cry. He wasn’t numbing the
pain like he had the first time. The tiny knives that were his
teeth hurt worse than paper cuts against the delicate skin of her
neck. The moment his skin touched hers, she was unable to react.
Her muscles relaxed despite her survival instinct screaming for
them to move. Jonny released her hair and wrapped the arm around
her back, pulling her into his body the way he had on the beach
except this time, she was able to feel every inch of his hard frame
against hers without the distraction of the seizure. His warmth and
scent invaded her space and senses, made the fire in her blood
light for a reason other than danger.

Fear began to edge out her anger. She pushed
against him, unable to budge his grip on her when her body was
responding to his power rather than hers. The bleeding had stopped
from his chest. He was healed as quickly as Xander claimed he
would.

“Stop!” she whispered finally, starting to
panic at the idea Jonny wasn’t afraid to draw Xander’s anger.

Jonny sucked her blood a moment longer
before withdrawing from her neck. “If I didn’t know better, I’d
think you liked being my dinner, Ashley.” His voice was husky and
low. He nuzzled the tender skin.

She shivered.

“I warned you,” he repeated. “What made you
come here?”

The question struck her as odd despite her
fear. “Vamps,” she replied.

Jonny nipped her and she flinched. “Nothing
else?”

“Aside from wanting to kill you? No.”

“Don’t let this happen again, Ashley.”

She was beginning to think Xander was right.
Fucking with Jonny was going to end with her a bloodless husk.

“Do you understand?” he asked without
lifting his head.

“At least I’m on my own two feet this time,”
she said, hating the feeling he had the upper hand.

“Wrong answer.” He bit her again, this time
even harder, and she arched against him, pain flooding her.

“Stop!” she gasped and slammed her fists
into his chest with what strength she could muster. “Please,
Jonny!”

He lifted his head, one hand remaining on
her neck. “Tell me you understand for real this time.”

“Fine!” she spat out the words. She wasn’t
able to kill him, couldn’t fight him at all once he touched her,
and he didn’t care enough about the past for her revenge to mean
anything at all. Why she was torturing herself, she didn’t know,
except she was just so angry with him still. Near tears with the
urge to scream out of frustration, Ashley struggled to be free of
him. “Let me go.”

He obeyed, and she scampered out of arm’s
reach, senses rattled and emotions raw. The wounds at her neck were
healed, but the memory of the hot pain slid through her. If any
part of him were the boy she remembered, he’d never purposely hurt
her like he just did.

“They’ll be out for another ten minutes if
you need to rest,” he advised.

“Rest
?” she repeated. “Because you think I’m weak!”

“Because I drew a lot of blood. You should
be woozy.”

“I’m not.” She whirled and strode down the
hallway towards the kitchen. She felt little different, aside from
the emotional wreckage each interaction with him caused. She had
beaten his vamps and yet lost once again. Combined with her fear
and begging him not to hurt her, she was more infuriated than ever.
“How did you know I was here?” she asked warily. “The vamp tipped
you off, didn’t he?”

Jonny nodded.

“I won’t make that mistake again,” she
growled.

“I’ve given you your final warning,
Ash.”

“You know what, Jonny?” she demanded and
turned when she reached the kitchen.

“I think I can guess,” he replied, his face
shadowed by the dark hallway. Mild amusement was in his tone.

“Yeah. Fuck you.” Ashley stormed out of the
house and onto the sidewalk. She swiped up her gear and tore off
the mask. She was agitated for more reasons than she could
identify. For a split second, when he held her against him, she’d
almost been … aroused.

And that was worse than pleading for him to
stop hurting her.

Jonny watched her go. He licked the last of
her blood off his lips. There was no falter to her stride, no
lessening of her focus or tension or any other indication she was
affected by the blood loss.

Which left him … intrigued. He’d taken a lot
from her, about three days worth if she were human. It was the
first time in years he’d felt full. He was disciplined in managing
his bloodlust, both for the sake of wanting to remain under the
radar and the fact he hadn’t yet been able to shake his respect for
human life. He had grown less concerned about it for sure, yet he
was still gentle with those whose lives he sacrificed to his
hunger.

Furious after she stabbed him in the heart,
he had wanted to teach her a lesson only to find he was the one
learning something. He hadn’t thought her anger ran so deep and
intense as to truly want him dead. The girl he’d known was
gone.

What was left was a little harder for him to
categorize. A woman more spirited and interesting than the fragile
girl he remembered.

She was obsessed and also far more capable
of withstanding his hunger than the humans he normally drank from.
Her body had healed as he sucked, but he hadn’t thought her capable
of replenishing the blood he was taking fast enough to be visibly
unaffected.

I won’t make that mistake
again
, she had said. It wasn’t an idle
threat. He witnessed the determination in her gaze.

“Wrong answer,” he said aloud though he
began to smile for the first time in weeks. He was starting to
think there was a different approach he could take with Ashley. She
wasn’t about to stop, and he needed his source of food.

His phone buzzed. Eyes on her form trotting
down the street, he answered the cell.

“Jonny.”

“Ikir,
you need to come back now. We found something you need to
see,” Charles said grimly.

Jonny hung up and Traveled without question.
If Charles were alarmed, something was truly wrong. He materialized
in the command center, expecting to see Valon and his vamps had
raided his home base despite moving it after the rogues broke
off.

Charles stood beside the hacker. The other
vamps were at their stations, monitoring the Guardians and vamps
under their respective regional assignments. On the surface,
nothing was wrong.

“What is it?” Jonny asked, approaching
Charles.

Charles motioned to the hacker, whose hands
were shaking.

“We, uh, found something,” Stuart said
nervously. “I was analyzing the Guardian database, trying to
identify and sort the different designations they use. They have a
record of Guardians who were vamped. It was encrypted, and it took
me some time to break.”

“Get to it.” Charles nudged him.

“Valon was marked by the Guardians long ago
when he turned eighteen and his powers began to emerge.”

“And?” Jonny prodded.

“Valon is a godslayer,” Charles spoke
quietly.

Jonny’s world froze for a moment. “That’s
how he was able to convince half the vamps to leave with him.”

“I think so.”

The hacker appeared braced for a beating.
Jonny knew the rep of his predecessor through Charles. The former
Black God, Czerno, had been mentally unstable, likely to kill
anyone who brought him bad news. Jonny had no intention of shooting
the messenger, but the tension building inside him was of a kind he
hadn’t experienced recently.

“No one hears about this,” he said and
touched the hacker on the shoulder. “You understand?”

Stuart jumped and then nodded
vigorously.

Jonny met Charles’ gaze and strode into the
hallway. Charles followed the unspoken order, and the two of them
walked onto the porch on the main level beneath his veranda
overlooking the ocean.

For a long moment, Jonny stood and stared
out into the dark night. Godslayers were rarely born more often
than every ten thousand years or more, according to what he’d
learned from the Guardians. He had accepted his immortality only to
discover there really was a direct threat not just to him but to
all he’d built. The first couple years of his reign had been
plagued by doubt and the ferocious wish that he could change what
had happened that led him to become the Black God.

Slowly, things had changed. He’d stopped
viewing himself and his position with horror and regret and began
seeing how he was going to make his reign different. Better. More
sustainable, without the constant wars fought with the White
God.

His mind racing, he reviewed everything he’d
done and came to a conclusion that left him a little surprised. He
wasn’t about to give up his position, as ill suited as he once
considered himself to be for the job. In fact, the idea of losing
the empire he’d begun to rebuild infuriated him.

“Valon is too similar to your predecessor,”
Charles said finally. “Under you and the catch-and-release
agreement with Damian, the vamps won’t have to spend their lives in
hiding. We have as much freedom as predators can ever expect.”

“I have no intention of
surrendering my position, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Jonny
replied. “My goal has always been to help the vamp life become a
legit subculture that doesn’t have to challenge the White God’s
obligation to protect humanity. I remember wanting to be normal
when I was vamped. Maybe it’s too late for some of the old guard,
but for the next generation,
my
generation, I want this life to be better. I want
all of us to have a shot at a shadow of normalcy.”

“I don’t remember what it was like to be
human,” Charles replied. “I was vamped a thousand years ago. But I
agree with you. We are a people like any other. We’re not animals
and shouldn’t spend our lives feeling like we are. I believe in
what you’re doing. We deserve a chance to live a life of our
choosing. Those who aren’t strong enough to control their
appetites, those with weak minds, will always pick the path that’s
easiest for them to follow.”