The Siren Series 2 (2 page)

“Faction scum,” Tarrin casually addressed the
six that Constantine had not yet had the pleasure of ending.

The Faction leader laughed. He was a huge brute
of a male, but still easily five inches shorter than Tarrin. “You
will not receive aid from this one.” He nodded in Con's direction.
“Nor will you receive help from my motley crew.” His eyes met
Tarrin's with impunity. “We follow no one. However,” his eyes swept
the curvaceous and lightly muscled figure of Lucia, “we will be
happy to fuck her Druid cunt in a bath of your blood. First, you
die.” He smiled, revealing fangs that were laced with the blood of
the innocent he had dispatched moments before coming upon Con.
“Then, we will breed her into the ground.”

Tarrin had a talon embedded inside his throat
before he could retrieve the breath from his last word. He plunged
it in again and the Faction grabbed his own throat in the universal
sign for choking, stumbling back with arterial spray leaking out of
his fingers like a geyser.

“I must avenge my own honor, Tarrin,” Lucia
said, staying him with a palm on his forearm as the Faction bled
out.

“I cannot bear to think of another taking you by
force.”

She turned her deep green eyes on his, the
molten gold roiling in the depths. “No one will ever touch me in
that way again, for I have an overlord to my body, my soul.”

Constantine rolled his eyes at their poetic
interchange. What in the fuck was this soul mate bullshit? Could
they get on with the blood letting?

Tarrin ignored Constantine's aggravated sigh and
answered her, “I do not wish to breathe air without you.”

“Fuck. Off,” a Faction screamed in a banshee
wail and expertly stabbed Tarrin in the side. His talon struck
between two large ribs.

Lucia spun, taking off the hand of the one who
had stabbed her mate. She landed beside him in a crouch, emitting a
soft hiss.

Constantine smiled, for a female she fought
well.

Con had allowed himself to become distracted.
The void that Ember made as she had snuck off was a cool spot in
his psyche.

However, he could not take after the tart while
his nemesis had misconstrued vital elements. Con knew that the
Exotic pair now served as trusted advisors to the King and Queen of
Vampire: Kier and Holly.

That fucking bastard.
Mate his ass
. He'd
gotten soft in the head to take a female. Con gave a disgusted
snort as Tarrin allowed Lucia to make the killing blow on the
Faction who'd have bred a virgin Ember and then killed Con.

It was an excellent turn of events that Con was
now relieved of that adversary.

Unfortunately, Ember had vanished and he had the
full attention of the one vampire on the planet who might have a
fighting chance of bringing Constantine down.

The five Faction who remained backed away
further.

“Your breeder has fled,” Tarrin said, eyeing the
Faction who remained, their death in his dark eyes, his words for
Con.

Constantine replied, “She is not my breeder.”
His heart belied the words.

Lucia gave a throaty laugh. “Lie to yourself,
Constantine of the Exotics, Mer, Druid and
other
,” she said,
listing his blood identity as though it was something to be proud
of instead of persecuted for.

“Your actions speak truer than the lies to which
you cling.” She smirked and he wanted to damage her.

Tarrin's eyes narrowed at his expression.

“You will die for your offenses,” Tarrin
growled.

“Against whom?” Constantine asked.

“For the death of Desmond, Prince of the Mer,
and the kidnapping of the Princess.”

Right,
and monkeys
flew out of his ass
.
Did they know
why the fucktard had to die?
Constantine
began to fold his arms over his muscled chest. He was not able to
get thoughts of Ember out of his head. Now he must attempt to
convince these two of his innocence... With those distractions, he
utterly missed the strike even as a talon plugged him from behind,
bursting through his torso on the other side.

“
Fuck!” Con bellowed, pissed
he'd been nailed; pissed that it hurt like a reverse vacuum of
burning and sucking agony. Then Tarrin met him from the front,
taking advantage of his weakened state, the distraction of the
Faction a perfect avenue for the Exotic to move toward him like a
dark wall of muscle. He was the biggest Druid male Constantine had
ever laid eyes on aside from Kier but he moved with grace,
regardless of his size.

Tarrin tore Constantine away from the
Faction who'd speared him from behind and tossed him away with one
hand on his neck. Con flew, thinking how similar this battle was to
the one he'd just suffered through with the Demon, Brolach.

Fuckers.

Rage fueled Con and as he flew, he grabbed
whatever was within reaching distance.

It turned out to be Lucia's long mane of
hair.

With a wailing yelp, she went with him,
jerked on his momentum through the air and weighing nearly a
hundred pounds less, she traveled alongside, her scalp on fire, the
golden strands holding.

Tarrin roared and like a bull, charged.

But it was too late, the remaining Faction
fell on Tarrin like locusts. While his mate was in the arms of the
one who had promised an abuse whose punishment deserved a worse
consequence than even death.

Tarrin would mete that out. But first, he
must move through the Faction who kept him from his precious
Lucia.

Constantine saw the six Faction swarm Tarrin
and smiled at the first break of the night. He fell hard, taking
the delicious Lucia with him. Con could have easily allowed her to
take the brunt of the impact but wrapped her in the cage of his
arms, protecting her in the fall. His blood pumped out of his wound
and he lay with her on top of him.

He had the boner of his life. Her mate
fought six vampires, all of whom were soldiers of the Faction, the
most virulent of all vampires. With nothing to lose their mindset
was always balls to the wall. It was the only way they fought.

Lucia looked down at Constantine and
wondered if he would kill her while her head spun from the fall and
she was vulnerable.

He did not.

Instead, his fangs burst from the flesh of
his mouth and he sat up, jerking her against him and sank his fangs
into her neck. She moaned as he tucked her against his body, his
rigid dick cramming itself against her hip.

“
Do not,” Lucia whispered as
he violated her with his mouth.

He pushed a loose golden curl from her
temple as he suckled at the humming pulse of blood like candy that
pulsed in his mouth, clutching her tighter. With each pull, his
strength returned and the roar of her blood on his tongue
replenished him, closing the grievous wound in his belly.

Tarrin came upon his mate being raped for
her blood and a black veil of rage descended. His body was covered
by the gore of others, his entire being exhausted from the battle
with the Faction. But a new core of strength rose within him.

Lucia needed him.

Now.

Con lifted his mouth from the Druid breeder
who was also Exotic and her head lolled against his chest, her eyes
droopy and partially glazed. Female vampires were at their most
vulnerable after being fed upon.

Constantine placed a talon along side the
twin holes he had just left on her supple neck. “Don't think it,
Exotic, or I will kill her.”

“
No, he won't,” Lucia said
dreamily and Tarrin scowled, edging closer.

Constantine laughed. “Test me, Druid.” He
placed his talon against Lucia's throat and a paper thin line of
blood formed. Tarrin hissed, clenching his dark fists in impotent
rage.

“
I beg for an audience, no
more.”

“
You take what is not yours,”
Tarrin said in a voice choked by his anger.

Constantine shook his head. “I was needy.”
He swept his palm down the front of his body. Beaten and broken but
moments before, the blood taken from Lucia was now knitting him
together before Tarrin's eyes.

“
You are a vile representative
of a vampire,” Tarrin said.

Constantine thought about it for a
heartbeat. “I know,” he replied.

Tarrin's eyes flicked to Lucia, her drugged
stupor something she wouldn't shake for at least another half hour.
She'd be no help in this. Tarrin heaved a disgusted sigh.

“
What are your
terms?”

Constantine met his ebony gaze, just the
whites visible in the deepest part of the night. However, dawn was
approaching. Con could feel its sure promise.

“
Amnesty.”

Tarrin's brows dropped like a brick over his
eyes. “From whom?”

Constantine asked for the moon,
“Everyone.”

Tarrin threw back his head and laughed. His
eyes found Con's again, taking in the fact that his mate's life lay
in this sadistic male's hands.

“
I killed Desmond, ally to the
Druid and Reaper to spare his own sister the plan he had for
her.”

Tarrin's face screwed into a frown of
disbelief. He came closer and Constantine tsk-tsked him. “Come no
further.”

Tarrin stopped. “What plan?”

“
A mass breeding.”

Tarrin's shock bled through his reserve.
Constantine let him mull it over and what it meant to him.

Finally, Tarrin asked the question that was
the smartest, “And you took issue with this? You? How is that
possible? You: the pillager of females...”

Constantine met that direct gaze and his
answer was as good as the question had been, “I don't know.”

Dawn trembled before them and Con's skin
began to smolder, Lucia and Tarrin's following suit.

Lucia roused and shoved Con away, standing
unsteadily.

“
You have not killed him?”
Lucia asked incredulously, gazing at Con.

Tarrin shook his head. “He tells a tale of a
mass breeding for Ember,” but his glare told another story, his
anger had a taste in the air.

Lucia swung her suspicious gaze back to
Constantine, studying his face as he brushed off his leathers and
tight fighting tunic. She began to smile, thinking his behavior was
more smoke and mirrors than anything else.

“
What?” he asked in a terse
voice.

“
You want her!” Lucia stated,
quirking a brow, studying his usually vacant expression.

Constantine turned, keeping his front facing
Tarrin. He'd received a stay of execution. But like a vicious dog
that had been kicked one too many times, his dark gaze followed
Tarrin with caution. Con knew that he could overpower Lucia, though
he was not interested in that. Tarrin might be one he could
not.

“
Any male wishes to fuck a
breeder. That is not so strange,” Con replied, a shrug in his
voice.

Tarrin watched his mate circle Constantine
like a shark and it was all he could do not to protect her, ask her
to step away. Tarrin knew now that Con had been bluffing. He had
almost no weakness, however, Con was soft to Lucia. Was it possible
that no being, humanoid or vampire, had ever taken up for
Constantine in all his existence? That the only one who had, Lucia,
would be safe from his typical hatred for females... for all?
Tarrin did not know, but he was watchful of Constantine. His very
unpredictability made him dangerous.

Lucia did not care for Tarrin's
over-protectiveness. It was just something that she had grown to
tolerate. Something Tarrin could not help. He was far too Druid to
curb the instinctual impulses of his heritage. She was female and
Lucia was his mate. It was a biological directive.

“
It is more and you know it,”
Lucia said with sure knowledge.

Con hated that she could see through him
that easily.

“
Dawn comes,” Tarrin stated,
the smoky haze lying over his skin a telltale sign of the sun's
strike against him.

“
Not Druid enough, Exotic?”
Con asked.

Tarrin observed the smolder of Constantine's
skin and replied, “As much as you.”

“
No, more. You could not do to
females what I have and claim Druid,” Con said in a bid to get his
guts splattered. Given what had transpired between him and Lucia,
he was almost suicidal with his commentary.

Constantine was suicidal in all things. He
had nothing to lose, he lived for the moment, in the moment.

They stared at each other and Tarrin gave a
slow nod. “True.”

He folded his arms across his big chest and
as the sun split the deep midnight of the sky in a wash of
tangerine colors, Lucia asked, “Where is she?”

“
Hiding in a hole somewhere
from the Big Bad Constantine,” Con answered with thinly laced
sarcasm.

“
You are a bad seed, Faction,”
Tarrin said and Lucia gave him a look.

Con chuckled. “Your opinion of me matters
not, Exotic.”

“
It might matter a good deal
more if I pluck your limbs from your body.”

“
Gentlemen,” Lucia began,
fixing her gaze on Constantine. “You will not drink from me without
my permission,” she told Con.

“
He will die if he touches you
again,” Tarrin asserted as a dark promise.

Con grunted. “I was dying from a mortal
wound, I was simply improvising.”

Tarrin was conspicuously silent at Con's
justification and it troubled Lucia. Tarrin was a reactive and
spontaneous warrior. His calm could mean many things.

“
Let us shadow walk, dawn is
here,” Tarrin said, breaking into her thoughts. Lucia took in the
blood-like sunrise spreading and deepening the sky. They could not
be caught in full daylight.