The Warrior Vampire (9 page)

Naya belonged to him as much as he belonged to her.

Pain radiated in his skull as myriad voices closed in around him. Ronan doubled over, clutched at his head as he squeezed his eyes shut. Images rained down on him:
Mikhail, searching the city for the female who'd awakened his power and saved their doomed race. Claire bloodied and unconscious, hanging lifeless in his friend's arms.
Ronan's mind grew hazy, as though a blanket of fog had settled over him, and he gave a sharp shake of his head to dislodge the hold of the Collective from his mind.

In quick succession a barrage of memories swamped him. Mikhail, Claire, Jenner … Another bank of fog settled and cleared. Siobhan's dark raven hair and bright emerald eyes loomed in his mind's eye. She lay beneath him, writhing in ecstasy as he pounded into her. The sting of her bite was a welcome pleasure as her fangs punctured his skin. And a troth, freely given, that he was powerless to escape.

Ronan gasped as though breaching the surface of deep water, desperate for air. The Collective threatened to pull him under once again, but he fought its pull, forcing himself to remain in the present. A derisive snort filled the silent space as he gave his head one last violent shake. He was worried about someone giving Naya to another male? What about the blood troth
he'd
given to another female?

Gods fucking damn it. What a clusterfuck.

He focused his attention back on the conversation going on out in the living room. He knew little of the male with whom Naya was speaking, but her anxiety permeated the air with a sharp citrus tang that spiked Ronan's protective instinct. She'd promised to run her dagger through his chest if he stepped even a toe out of line, but he refused to cower in her bedroom while the scent of her distress burned his nostrils.

Fuck it.

He strode through the door without a thought to the silver cuffs still hanging from his wrists with links of broken chain. Naya turned to face him, the murder in her gaze doing nothing to cool Ronan's lusts. It seemed the angrier and more violent she got, the more he wanted her. Sick.

“Naya…?”

The male standing beside her—Santi—took a defensive stance, legs braced as though in anticipation of attack. His dark eyes narrowed as he assessed Ronan, and Santi's jaw squared as he clenched his teeth.

“I told you to stay put!” Naya seethed. The sharp, spicy scent of her annoyance banished that of her earlier anxiety. “Are all vampires this obstinate or is it just you?”

Santi's eyes widened. “Vampire?” He sprang to action, reaching out to guide Naya behind him.

Wrong move, asshole.
Ronan's secondary fangs ripped through his gums. He wanted nothing more than to sink them into the other male's flesh. A predatory growl escaped from between Ronan's teeth and he let out a feral hiss. Santi's pupils elongated as he answered with a similar, decidedly feline snarl.

A shifter. Awesome.

“Everybody just calm down.”

Santi made no move to release his hold on Naya. His fingers bit into her arm, and though she made no outward show of discomfort, it sparked Ronan's bloodlust and the need to commit violence burned through him. “If you don't want to die today, shifter, I'd suggest letting her go.”

“Santi.” Naya's tone was panicked and it served to further agitate Ronan. “You can't tell Paul he's here. You can't tell
anyone
. Promise me.”

The shifter's eyes narrowed, the once deep brown irises now blazing gold. His pupils were narrow black slashes and his incisors had elongated in his jaw. “A vampire, Naya? They should be extinct. What is he doing here? Why? The elders need to know.”

The tang of Naya's fear scorched Ronan's nostrils, and the icy cold that had penetrated his veins not an hour ago threatened to surface once again. Naya's brows gathered sharply above her eyes as though she sensed it as well.

“Ronan, put a lid on it,” she warned. “I'm fine. You're fine. We're all fine.” She didn't look fine. Her scent sure as hell didn't smell fine. And you could bet that male's hands on her weren't doing a gods-damned thing to make Ronan feel fine. “Santi, let me go.”

The male released her arm in an instant and some of the ice retreated from Ronan's veins. He resisted the urge to reach out and pull her to him, knowing it would do nothing more than spark her ire.

“Naya, what in the hell is going on here?” The gold melted from Santi's eyes, and with it more of the cold drained from Ronan's gut. “With everything on our plate right now, don't you think his being here is a little coincidental?”

“What
is
going on here?” Ronan needed answers, and maybe he'd finally get them. He turned to his tight-lipped mate. “Naya?”

“Our business is none of yours, vampire,” Santi said with a sneer. In an urgent whisper he said to Naya, “We know nothing about them.
Him.
He could be creating the mapinguari for all you know, and you're keeping him in your
house
?”

Naya's jaw dropped as though words failed her. Ronan took a step toward her and she held up a staying hand.

“Look at him!” Santi said forcefully, throwing his open palm in Ronan's direction. “He's ragged and bloodied. Someone had him cuffed and bound, for the love of the gods!”

“I cuffed and bound him, Santi.” Naya's tight-lipped response nearly coaxed a smile to Ronan's face. “I found him last night after I dropped off the repo with you.”

“And you decided to keep him?” Santi replied in an incredulous burst. “This is beyond ill-advised, Naya. It's damned dangerous. Do you have any regard for your own safety?”

Ronan might as well have been a stray mutt she'd found by the side of the road. “Naya's safety is none of your concern, shifter.” Though Ronan had to agree that bringing a strange male back to her house showed a total lack of concern for her own well-being. Now that they'd found each other, he would make sure she'd not be so careless in the future.

Santi snorted. “Neither is it yours,
bebedor de sangre
. You are nothing to her.”

“Oh no?” Ronan's gaze slid to Naya and her eyes grew round and wide. A deep blush colored her cheeks, and her jaw set with a warning expression that coaxed a smile to Ronan's face. “Naya, would you like to tell your friend exactly what I am to you?”

A wave of emotion rushed at Ronan through their tether, and it didn't fill him with anything even close to warm or fuzzy. In fact, he suspected that had it been in her scope of power, she would have incinerated him where he stood.

“Santi, I have this under control.” Naya ushered the male toward the front door. “Let me handle this my way, okay? If Paul asks, tell him I'll start patrolling at full dark. And
please,
don't say a word about any of this.”

She opened the door and Santi stood in the threshold. “Naya, this isn't a good idea. At least let me—”

“
My
way, Santi. Promise me.”

“All right.” He gave Ronan one last threatening glare over Naya's shoulder. “But only because I know you're capable. If you don't check in, I'm going to the elders.”

Naya let out an audible sigh of relief that reached out through their tether, filling Ronan with the same sense of relief. “Scout's honor.” She held up two fingers before moving to close the door. “I'll call you later.”

Santi's golden gaze locked with Ronan's. The male's expression was pure menace as Naya slowly closed the door, shutting him out. Promised to one male, another beside himself with the need to protect her. It seemed Ronan's mate had drawn quite the pair of admirers. How many more waited in the woodwork?

“Mapinguari?” What he really wanted to do was question Naya about the male, Santi. Who was he to her that he could grab her by the arm and haul her behind him? But the thought of talking about the shifter set Ronan's fangs to throbbing in his gums. Discussing the creature she was supposed to be hunting seemed the safer course of questioning to take.

The term “mapinguari” was foreign to Ronan, and he thought he'd met everything that the supernatural world had to offer. Then again, he'd never come across anyone like Naya before, either. He'd met his fair share of witches. White witches who communed with nature, black ones who worshiped death. Humans who called themselves Wiccans and performed rituals in the hopes of manifesting a certain outcome. But he'd never in all of his centuries encountered a witch like Naya. She outshone them all.

“A demon,” Naya answered with a resigned sigh. “When magic infects a body that it's not meant to reside in, it corrupts the host. Supernaturals generally know not to mess with magic that doesn't belong to them, so it's usually humans who get themselves into trouble. Trying to harness a power they can't possibly comprehend. The magic attaches itself to the host, and from there it takes over. It manifests into something dark and unnatural. A creature hell-bent on destruction.”

Christ.
“And you hunt these things?”

Naya kept her hand wrapped around the doorknob as though it anchored her. “I do. I can hear the magic. I can control it. I hunt down any creature that tries to run off with magic that doesn't belong to it. I repossess the magic and kill the mapinguari.”

His mate was indeed extraordinary. “You hunt alone?” The thought of her chasing demons night after night without backup sent Ronan's protective streak into overdrive.

She rolled her eyes. “I do lots of things alone, vampire. Why? Worried?”

Yes
. “How big are these mapinguari?” If they were the size of a house cat or a puppy, he could rest easy.

“Depends on the type of magic that's been taken,” Naya responded with a shrug. “Sometimes no bigger than me, though once I fought a fully manifested demon that was pushing seven and a half feet.”

Gods.
Ronan's stomach tied into an unyielding knot. “And your elders, they expect you to do this? To hunt these demons and extinguish them on your own?”

“All by my lonesome.” Her flippant attitude did nothing for Ronan's ratcheting nerves. “I managed to take a big, burly vampire captive last night with no one's help.”

Ronan clamped his jaw down. She had, hadn't she? And damn it, she could have been killed. He had no recollection of last night, had no idea what sort of state he'd been in. Had he been in a state of bloodlust, he would have drunk her dry before his soul had even had a chance to return to his body. “You won't be going out alone tonight,” he replied. “I'm going with you.”

 

CHAPTER

7

“You can say you're going out with me until you're blue in the face, vampire. It's not going to happen.”

“I
am
going with you and there's not a gods-damned thing you can do about it.”

Naya sheathed the dagger at her back and tucked another into her boot. She bit down on her bottom lip to keep from letting slip the string of curses that she wanted to rain down on the very stubborn vampire blocking a path to her door, arms folded across his wide chest.

“It's not a good idea.” She had no idea what she'd be tracking tonight. It could be someone in the early stages of corruption, or it could be a creature from a nightmare, hell-bent on mayhem. Plus, there was the issue of Ronan's own volatile state to consider. The magic hadn't manifested since she'd found him in the parking lot last night, but it could resurface at any time. Until she figured out what it was that had attached itself to him, he was a variable she couldn't be distracted by.

That was the only reason she wanted him to stay behind. It had nothing to do with the fact that she felt oddly drawn to him. That the music in her soul soared in a beautiful symphony whenever he was near. Or that the memory of his kisses still burned on her lips, seared every inch of skin that he'd touched.

And she absolutely didn't want him to stay behind because if he tried to sink his fangs into her throat again she didn't think she'd stop him no matter her claims otherwise.

Gods, what was
wrong
with her?

“Don't touch that.” Naya snatched a ceremonial dagger used specifically for spellcrafting from Ronan's hand and set it back on the shelf. Her fingers brushed his and a current passed between them that sent delicious chills over Naya's flesh. His eyes flashed with silver and Naya wondered at his response.
Emotional? Physical? Both?
She swallowed down the lust that churned hot in her belly. She needed to get her head on straight and focus. No male had ever thrown her off her game to this extent.

The vampire was trouble.

“I'm not letting you go out there, unprotected.”

Naya paused, the air essentially knocked from her chest with his words. She checked the clip of her SIG and stuffed the gun into a holster under her arm. Suffused with pleasant warmth that radiated from her belly outward, she tried to shut out the sound of the music that lulled her into a subdued state of peace and security. It was wrong. All of it. The music, the way it shifted from pitch-perfect to chaotic, the rightness that she felt just being close to Ronan. The way she trusted him without knowing anything about him.

He was a dangerous male who radiated power. A dark aura of death surrounded him. She knew that he would bring swift and painful retribution to any creature that sought to do him—or anyone he held dear—harm. And whereas that should have put Naya on high alert, instead it only made her want to lower her guard for the first time in her life.

And the thought scared the shit out of her.

“You're a liability, Ronan.” He needed to lay low until she could decide what to do about him. Crescent City was a tiny town. He'd stick out like a sore thumb and the elders would know all about him by sunup. “I have to be on my toes out there and I won't be at one hundred percent if I have to keep an eye on you, too.” She added under her breath, “I should just chain you back up to the bed.”