"What do they want?"
"They want all the freaks dead. Funny. I don't feel like a freak. Unless le freak, c'est chic?" She shrugged. "To be fair, they only rise up whenever immortals do."
"Man, if there's one thing Carrow hates, it's being punished for a crime she didn't commit." Luckily, that didn't happen often, as Carrow perpetrated more than her share of crimes. Her last offense? Stealing a cop's horse to ride into Pat O'Brien's. Carrow's defense? She'd needed an accessory.
Mari had once asked Carrow why she so readily got into trouble with the law - the public indecency and intoxication, the vandalism, and so on. After all, Carrow could harvest power without jail time. "Is it just to get back at your parents?"
Carrow had answered, "At first, yes. Now it's just tradition. ..."
When Nix said nothing, Mari grew still. "Immortals haven't risen up, right, Valkyrie?"
"Have we not?" She frowned. "I'll have to check my inbox. But I'm fairly certain we were going to, maybe, just a jot. Like against industrial polluters and people who take candy from babies. Those who drive slow in the left-hand lane and men who wear Members Only jackets, naturally."
Mari gaped at the other Valkyrie. Not all of them looked surprised. A couple raised their chins. "Have you all gone as crazy as Nix?"
Though few in the Lore dared to cross her, if anyone would, it'd be her half sisters.
Nix continued, "Things came to a head with this Order a few years back when they overestimated their firearmy might, and made an incursion against us. Even with their technology, all were massacred. 'Not to be borne!' they said. So now they study us for weaknesses. I can't fault them, really. If humans presented any kind of mystery, we'd probably vivisect them as well."
Vivisect? Mari swallowed. Dissecting while the subject was still alive. Her voice broke when she asked, "How do I get to Carrow?" When Nix merely shrugged, Mari vowed, "I'll go to the mirror, Nix."
Mari was a captromancer. She could travel through mirrors, could touch them to focus her powers, and could gaze into them to divine secrets. Slight problem with the latter. Though she could commune with a mirror and have Carrow's location in seconds, Mari would likely entrance herself into a mystical coma, possibly forever.
Nix "uirked a brow. "And what would you tell your overprotective Lykae husband? If he found out your intentions, he'd spank you."
Bowen would, in fact, go ballistic if he got a single werewolf whiff of this. He'd never allow it - even though the Lykae had begun to fear that one of their own had been snared by the people who'd taken Carrow.
"Because we are friends, I am offering my services as a surrogate spankee." Nix said this playfully, but she rubbed her forehead as if it ached.
Mari studied her expression, realizing that Nix looked tired. "I won't go to the mirror if you give me something I can use."
Suddenly Nix tensed. When her amber eyes began to glow, the other Valkyrie eased forward, awaiting whatever foresight - or insight - Nix was about to divulge.
"They're on an island, undetectable by our kind," she said. "It can't be seen by boat or plane, nor located on any map. To find it, you have to look for something else. To reach it, you have to uncover the key."
Riddles now? "The key? What is it?" Mari demanded.
"Who."
"What?"
"Where? Why? When?"
"Nix!"
"The key is a who. Not a what."
"Then who is it?" Mari said. Oh, gods, please tell me.
"Don't remember." Over Mari's sputtering, she said, "I recall he's an immortal male. Filled with evil. Obsessed with something as intangible as smoke. Find him, reach the island." She rose. "I have much to do, young Mariketa. And I can't tell you anything more, because I know nothing else." Gazing at the ceiling, she tapped her chin with a claw-tipped finger. "Ooh, oooh, except for the fact that Carrow is soon to die!"
Chapter 7
Malkom sprang forward, snatching the female's ankle just as she dropped from the ledge. She screamed, was still screaming as he flung her up to safety.
She landed on her belly, clawing at the sand to get away from him, but he clutched her slim leg tight in his fist. Though she thrashed, she gained no ground.
Why was she resisting him? Confusion roiled. Why can she not recognize me as I have her?
Her scent was so feminine, so maddening to him. Lust assailed him as he raked his eyes over her back, her narrow waist, her flaring hips. Her body begged to be mated. At the thought of impregnating the female before him, his horns straightened even more, and his shaft pulsed in his trews.
But she surprised him with a mule kick that connected with his mouth, splitting his lip.
No, do not taste the blood....
Against his will, his tongue flicked his lip. One hot drop made him even more crazed. All his vampire instincts rushed to the fore. His newly beating heart thundered, his chest heaving with breaths.
The instinctive drive to plant his seed - the seed she'd brought forth - was overwhelming him. He'd produced it for her, but he couldn't lose it until he was inside her. The throbbing pressure turned to pain.
Cannot fight this!
When she kicked out again, he planted himself betwixt her thighs, capturing her wrists behind her back with one of his hands. As she flailed, the remains of her skirt rode up her hips, baring ... a sight such as he'd never seen before.
Her undergarments were gone. In their place, she had a thin band of shining silk that encircled her hips, then dipped between the curves of her shapely backside.
Astonished, he beheld this vision with his body shuddering and his c**k about to explode.
She still resisted beneath him. And some part of him wanted to release her, to not do this thing he seemed driven to do.
To not use her as he had been used.
But her thrashing goaded the vampire within, made him want to pin her down, made him desperate to drink her. His demonic instinct clamored for him to come inside her body, to mark her neck and claim her as his own.
Both natures commanded him to take her neck.
When she reared back in her struggles, her mane of hair tangled in the brush, baring her neck to him. Beneath the strange collar she wore, the skin was pale and smooth, ready to glove his throbbing fangs.
Never had he bitten another. Reminded of this, rage scorched him inside. A remembered rage. How hard the Viceroy had tried to make him drink.
Now Malkom knew that the long-dead vampire would win. Because there was no way to stop this.
The pain, the frenzy. In Demonish, he rasped, "Forgive me." Then he dropped his body over hers, his head descending to low on her neck. Into her creamy skin, he plunged his fangs.