He flinched, but a mage didn’t remain in the employ of a temperamental vampire without a set of titanium balls. He pasted a smile on his lips as he smoothly moved to kneel in front of her, his hands running an intimate path from her knees to her upper thighs.
“I may have my faults, but you need me.”
She polished off the last of the blood and set aside the goblet.
“Unfortunately,” she conceded in disgust. She deeply resented having to rely on the treacherous rat. But while Kata had some magical talents she was a mere human and Marika had no powers to keep her alive. Not unless she made her into a vampire. A tempting thought, but one she couldn’t afford to indulge. Not when she’d lose her one last connection to the missing child. “It would be so much easier if she were immortal.”
Sergei chuckled, sliding his hands between her thighs to caress her with a skill that took centuries to perfect.
“Perhaps easier, but you would miss me if I were gone,” he husked.
“So sure of yourself?”
The pale eyes shimmered with ready heat. “I fulfill more than one purpose.”
With a blur of motion she planted her foot in the center of his chest and sent him flying into the far wall.
“Later,” she growled, rising from the divan. “I want to know what is bothering Kata. Let me see her.”
“See her?”
Marika narrowed her gaze. “Are you deaf as well as stupid? I said let me see her.” “Yes. Of course.”
Straightening, Sergei dusted off his expensive suit and stiffly moved to the heavy wooden door across the room. Marika followed behind, waiting as the mage fumbled with the lock and at last led her into the barren room carved from stone.
She curled her lips at the stench of mold and nasty things rotting beneath the stone. Unlike her innate powers that called upon nature, Sergei was forced to use blood and death to create his spells.
Magical hack.
Bypassing the stone altar stained with blood that was set in the center of the floor, he halted beside a small depression filled with stagnant water. Then squatting at the edge, he waved his hands over the surface, muttering words beneath his breath.
Marika impatiently waited at his side, alert to any hint that Sergei was attempting to deceive her. The fool would learn that a nightly skinning was nothing compared to what would come next.
The water began to swirl, as if being stirred from beneath, and Sergei’s chants deepened, echoing eerily through the cavern.
At last he reached beneath his jacket to withdraw a slender stiletto and sliced a small wound at the tip of his finger. One, then two drops of blood hit the water, spreading over the surface with a strange shimmer.
Marika bent downward as an image began to form, slowly revealing a woman who was stretched on a narrow cot in a dark, iron-lined cell.
A woman who bore a striking resemblance to Marika.
The same black curls and pale, perfect features. And if her eyes had not been shut they would have flashed as dark as midnight.
Even her lush curves were the same beneath the shroud that covered them.
Perfect twins.
Or at least they had been before Marika had been turned.
Once she’d awoken as a vampire her ties to her previous life, including her family, had been severed. Or at least they should have been.
Any memories of her past life were forgotten, but there had been a persistent voice whispering in her head that refused to be ignored. For weeks she’d struggled to rid herself of the annoying buzz. Then she’d spent the next weeks hunting down the source of the aggravation.
It’d been a nasty surprise to discover an exact replica of herself living among a caravan of gypsies.
Her first impulse had been to kill the bitch.
That would put an end to her intrusion into Marika’s mind, not to mention the creepy knowledge there was an identical copy of herself walking around.
But some mysterious impulse had halted her bloodlust.
Almost as if she’d glimpsed into the future to sense she would have need of her dear, sweet sister.
“You see,” Sergei said. “Sleeping Beauty safely tucked in her bed.”
Marika frowned, infuriated by the stab of fear that pierced her heart. Kata might be a mere human, but she had gypsy blood flowing through her veins. Which meant she possessed a unique ability to injure a vampire. Something her tender heart had been reluctant to do in the early days. Back then she still thought of Marika as her beloved sister. Stupid female.
But over the last decades each time Sergei had released her from his spells Kata had been crazed, striking out so swiftly that it had been a miracle that Marika hadn’t been harmed.
She wasn’t about to put herself at risk again. “She’s stirring,” she hissed.
Sergei frowned as the woman in the watery vision turned her head, almost as if aware she was being watched. “Yes.” He shook his head. “That shouldn’t be possible.” “It shouldn’t be, but obviously it is. Find out why.” “I could wake her and …”
His words were squeezed to a halt as Marika grabbed him by the throat and shoved him against the roughly hewed wall.
“No.”
He smiled through his pain. “You’re still worried about the curse?”
Her fingers tightened. She was not pleased that Kata had outmaneuvered her. Again.
She dare not allow the little bitch to awaken, and yet she could not simply allow her to die.
Not when there was still the possibility that Marika could rule the world.
“Careful, Sergei, you’re not the only mage in London,” she said in a frigid warning.
“You can’t mean Lord Hawthorne?” Sergei’s expression twisted with a jealous hatred of the rival mage. “The man’s a third rate magician who hasn’t been worth a damn since he lost his imp apprentice.”
“He would serve my purpose.”
The pale eyes flashed with annoyance at her mocking taunt.
“Yes, but could he serve you?” he hit back, his insolent gaze running a path down her curves exposed by the thin material of her gown. “You’re a demanding mistress, Marika.”
It was a valid point. Few men survived a night in her arms. Not that they complained. Most of them died with a smile on their face.
But she had reached the end of her short patience. Her fingers squeezed until they were a breath from crushing his larynx.
“Find out what’s bothering my twin and find out quickly.” He hissed in pain. “Without delay.”
Tane was a vampire feared throughout the demon world.
Rooms emptied when he entered. Clan chiefs barricaded themselves in their lairs when he approached their territories. His name was used to terrify foundlings.
He was the vampire that even vampires feared.
With good reason.
Which put him at the very top of the food chain.
A pity all his power and props were worth jack shit in the cold, clinging mists.
Silently cursing the strange surroundings, he followed Laylah through the thick fog, her arms still filled with the unconscious gargoyle.
He’d devoted grim centuries to ensuring he would never again feel like an impotent bystander, no matter what the situation. He was a take charge kind of vamp and his ruthless power made certain no one questioned his authority.
Now a pint-sized mongrel had managed to drag him into this damned maze of endless fog, stirring ancient sensations he’d buried along with his massacred clan.
“How do you know where you’re going?” he demanded.
She tossed a mocking glance over her shoulder. “I just fumble around until I find the place I want.”
He growled low in his throat. “Laylah.”
With a sigh she returned her attention to the dense mist spread before them, walking with a confidence that set Tane’s teeth on edge.
It was bad enough to be stuck in the bizarro place without being able to see if there were any dangers lurking nearby.
“What do you want me to say?” she rasped. “It’s not something I can explain. I think of the location I want to go and start walking. Eventually I sense that I’m there.”
He grimaced. It wasn’t exactly an explanation that offered comfort.
But then again, would anything offer comfort at this point?
What the hell had he been thinking when he’d tried to stop Laylah from disappearing?
He always allowed his warrior’s instinct to guide him. It was the only way to survive for nearly a thousand years. So why hadn’t his instinct warned him to allow Laylah to escape with a wave of his hand and a pat on his back for being rid of the nagging, ill-tempered female?
Because when she was near it wasn’t his warrior’s instinct that was driving him, but an instinct far more primitive.
Why not admit it?
He had gone far beyond his duty to track down a stray Jinn mongrel. Not even Styx would have blamed him if he’d chosen to return to his lair and report that the female had managed to slip away while he was battling for his life.
As Charon he was expected to hunt down those rare vampires who drank blood tainted with drugs or alcohol. Few creatures knew that a vampire could become addicted, or that it would eventually drive them to madness.
And it was up to him to keep it that way, not to chase after Laylah like a hound in heat.
So why had he?
His gaze lowered to her slender body barely covered by the shorts that snugly cupped her perfect booty and the muscle shirt that did nothing to disguise the soft mound of her breasts.
The mere thought of having her pressed beneath him, her lips crushed beneath his kiss, and those slender legs wrapped around his waist …
His gut twisted with a ravaging need he hadn’t felt in centuries.
Shit.
He didn’t know why this particular woman stirred his darkest passions, or how she managed to bewitch him to the point of reckless stupidity.
All he truly knew was that he’d let his cock do the thinking instead of his brain and it had led him straight to disaster.
Angered more with himself than the woman who had slowed, as if they were nearing their destination, Tane moved to her side, his fingers clutching his dagger as if it could stem his rising dread.
“And how do you get out?”