Bitten by Ecstasy: 2 (Dark Judgment) Page 3

  And what had her Florence Nightingale act gotten her?

  Weakness. Vulnerability. Lost. Wingless.

  Screwed.

  And not in a good way.

  What was that human saying? No good deed went unpunished.

  Damn straight.

  Agony suddenly ripped through her brain. The hot dagger of pain stabbed so deep in her frontal lobe, she staggered under the power of it. Lady. She stumbled to the wall of the nearest building and flattened her palm against the damp brick. Air whistled in and out of her tight lungs as she struggled to breathe past the psychic onslaught.

  Trouble. And close.

  Gasping, she shoved off the wall and lurched forward.

  “Hey! Watch where you’re going, bitch!”

  The insult rolled off her as she staggered through the throngs of people. She must have appeared as if she’d just stumbled out of a pub after imbibing one too many, but if only overindulging was the case. Damn, she wished that was the case.

  The farther she travelled down the street, the deeper the knife in her skull burrowed. The emotional attack had blindsided her, caught her unaware and unprotected. Now it was too late to erect a proper shield. The stark fear and suffering drew her like a fish being reeled in on a rod. The terror penetrated her flesh, soaking deep until she was coated in its suffocating darkness, until it became a part of her muscles and bones and she wore the horror and anguish like skin.

  Again, she paused. Bent over at the waist. Palmed her knees. She sucked in desperate gulps of air and cursed the vulnerability the Fates had deemed part and parcel of her “gift”. For precious seconds, she shuddered under the overwhelming weight. She clenched her teeth, refusing to bow, refusing to become any more defenseless and weak. Then, as she straightened, a great, pulsing wave rippled through and over her.

  And the screams of agony ceased.

  Sinéad inhaled and, for the first time in five minutes, her breath didn’t reek of horror and agony. Fisting her hands, she stalked down the sidewalk. The screams may have stopped, but she had her target. The momentary connection had left a psychic trail of breadcrumbs.

  Steely resolve lengthened her stride. She’d heard that particular cry for over two centuries, was intimate with it.

  Several moments later, she approached the mouth of an alley set between two tall, empty warehouses. Light from the streetlamps didn’t reach the passageway’s stygian depths. Didn’t matter. Whisk. Her sword whispered in the sudden silence as she slid it free from under her coat and the scabbard strapped to her back and stole forward. The business she was after was best conducted in the dark.

  As she stood in the center of the dank passage, several scents inundated her, surrounded her. She didn’t need heightened senses to pick them up. The rotting stench of tossed garbage. The stale, acrid pinch of old urine. The wet loam of the river. And underneath it all, the bright, metallic bite of human blood.

  Slashes of scarlet gleamed out of the darkness. The slits disappeared then reappeared as the thing in the shadows blinked.

  “You made the wrong turn, woman.”

  “On the contrary,” Sinéad said to the vampire. “You made the wrong turn when you decided to hunt in my territory.”

  Even though her human eyes couldn’t pierce the glamour every vampire utilized to hide the identifying tribmarks on their left cheek, Sinéad would have recognized the male’s otherworldly beauty in the middle of Phoenix Park during the Great Ireland Run. The predatory leanness. The smooth-as-glass alabaster skin, the just-a-tad-too-long-and-sharp incisors. And then there were the eyes. Under other circumstances, the black, bottomless gaze would swallow light into their obsidian depths.

  But now, as he lifted his head from the neck of the woman dangling over his arm, the narrowed glare was blood-red with hunger and rage. Slim nostrils flared as if sniffing the air and catching the tang of Sinéad’s humanity. His crimson inspection touched her dark hair, slid down her reed-thin body clothed in a black tank top, cargo pants, boots and ankle-length coat. The male’s scrutiny lingered on the steel, razor-sharp gladius clutched in her fist.

  “You’re not cruxim,” he snarled. Blood-tinged fangs dropped farther in his mouth. The wicked-sharp tips of the elongated eyeteeth grazed his bottom lip as he sneered.

  Sinéad smiled. “Oh I’m something else entirely,” she said, sinking into the battle stance she’d assumed for hundreds of years. Leaning back on her right leg, she extended her left and, with both hands fisting the hilt, drew the sword high beside her right ear.

  Though adrenaline flooded her veins, she held steady and studied the vampire over her bent left arm, not daring to blink. One misstep and she would be littering the dirty ground in ribbons of skin. She no longer had her wings, supernatural strength or speed, but she hadn’t lost her training along with her immortality.

  Still, the odds of her walking away from this unscathed were slim to not-a-chance-in-hell.

  “You should have retreated when you had the chance,” the vampire said and, with a careless flip of his arm, tossed the limp body of his victim to the dank ground. Sinéad didn’t wince or glance down at the thud of flesh connecting with asphalt and brick. Taking her eyes from the true menace for even a second meant her death along with that of the unconscious woman—if her soul hadn’t already escaped her motionless form for whatever afterlife she believed in. “Now I’m going to teach you a lesson about interfering where you have no business.”

  “Sweetie, I majored in Interference 101,” Sinéad drawled, grinning. Delight sang through her, an aria of blood and death. She’d been created for this—for battle. She crouched lower, tilted the sword forward until the tip of the blade pointed at the vampire’s throat. “Now c’mere and give me your head like a good lil’ vamp.”

  His lips peeled back from his teeth in another hiss before he leapt the several feet separating them. He was a blur in the air, his pale skin her only point of reference as she charged forward at a dead run. She swung her sword over her head and the jarring clang of claws meeting steel rang down the blade, through her arms and settled in her shoulders.

  Shit. Her breath caught in her throat but she contained the gasp of startling pain behind clenched teeth as she was reminded with crystal-clear clarity how human she really was. As a cruxim, the blow would’ve been negligible. But now… Shoving aside the throbbing taking up residence in her sockets, she wheeled around to face the entrance of the alley and her enemy.

  The vampire struck again, his movements lightning-fast. Hundreds of years of training and hunting kicked in and she parried and countered almost every attack, managing to keep up with him. Barely. The few nicks she inflicted on the vampire’s nearly indestructible body weren’t nearly deep enough to debilitate him—just royally piss him off.

  Her harsh pants echoed in her ears as her mortal body weakened at a rapid pace. She couldn’t continue much longer. She swallowed past the bitter resentment burning a path up her throat. If she’d been cruxim the battle would have ended minutes ago—she would’ve have the vamp at her mercy, his blood pouring down her throat then writhing at the point of her sword. The arrogant male couldn’t have been more than half a century old. His lack of fighting style, overconfidence and impatience displayed his immaturity. And yet it was she who teetered on the verge of defeat. The muscles in her arms and thighs trembled. Sweat stung a shallow cut on her forehead.

  Fuck it. She resumed her battle stance, drew her sword up again and wiped the moisture away on the arm of her coat. If she was Fated to die in this grungy, piss-soaked alley, it would be with a sword in her hand.

  “This is pointless, woman,” the vampire cajoled, arms held out to the sides as if inviting her into his lethal embrace. “Let’s stop this now and I promise I’ll make your death painless.”

  Liar.

  From the several feet dividing them, she could read the promise of screams and agony in the flames lighting his eyes.

  “And I promise before I take your head, I’ll carve your wee
peter off and stuff it in your mouth to shut you the hell up.” She sank deeper onto her back leg even though her body screamed in protest. “Man. Vamp,” she scoffed. “You’re all the same. When will you ever learn? Less talk. More action.”

  His howl bounced off the brick as he lunged, razor-sharp nails slicing down toward her throat while the other hand slashed the air several inches from her stomach, nearly filleting her. She sprang back, slipped, stumbled and slammed to the ground. The bone-jolting impact pummeled the air from her lungs.

  Glittering stars crowded her vision before she shook them off.

  But those few precious seconds ate up too much time. Way too much time.

  The vampire crouched over her, eyes blazing red in his beautiful, gloating face.

  “Carve off my dick, will you?” A terrible, lovely smile curved his full, sensual lips. “Now that gives me ideas,” he purred, straightening to his full height. His hands fell to the tab of his dark pants. “Maybe I’ll have you suck my cock before I bleed you dry.”

  * * * * *

  Two days.

  Two interminable days and nights of searching the city of Dublin. For her. The cruxim who had fed him her blood, addicted him to her taste and then abandoned him like an unwanted newborn on a doorstep. No bye. No hope you feel better soon. Not even a get the fuck out.

  Just…nothing.

  He’d woken up one morning to find the house she’d brought him to empty, void of her fragrance. To hippogryphs, all creatures carried identifiable smells as if their scents were coded into their DNA and captured in their blood. Humans smelled of the earth they were formed from according to some of their religions’ creation stories. The ethereal sídhe emanated the bouquet of eternal spring and the sea.

  The absence of the cruxim’s lightning-striking-earth scent had informed Bastien she’d deserted him. Leaving him hungry and hurting. And not just for blood.

  A vivid, clear image of the cruxim jumped into his head. It didn’t have far to leap. Thoughts of her had leased a corner of his mind five months ago and refused to be evicted. Especially when he slept.

  Long, thick hair the color of moonbeams contained in a tight ponytail. Almond-shaped, silver eyes in a face bards and troubadours would have dedicated epic poems to. A tall, slender body, no thicker than a tzamara, with a fluid motion as graceful as the lovely melodies played on the thin reed flute of his homeland. Music brought to life.

  And her wings. High above her head arched gorgeous, midnight wings that flowed like dark water to her heels. His stomach tightened against the punch of lust to his gut. He despised the jolt of desire, resented it. Images of a statuesque, lovely female with gold skin and long chocolate curls should’ve plagued him—as chocolate as the plumage and silken hide that covered her hippogryph. Alesia. His best friend. His love. The woman who, even now, prepared to marry another male.

  Yet the female his cock rose for was the same woman responsible for ripping away the life he’d known.

  Even if Bastien convinced himself he could return to Patros—the hippogryph seat of power and his home until five months ago—and endure the pain of witnessing the woman he’d loved marry another male and bear his young, Janus wouldn’t allow it. Purity. Superiority. Segregation. Those were the hippogryph king’s obsessions. If he discovered Bastien’s secret, the king would destroy the deygma, the abomination, among his people.

  He had two choices now—exile or death.

  A low, feral growl rumbled in his chest and rolled up his throat. The night wind blew his hair back from his face and a middle-aged couple shot him a startled glance and flinched. They gave him a wide berth, scurrying down the damp sidewalk, huddled together under their large, black umbrella.

  Their horrified reaction doused the surge of lust in an arctic wave, leaving him cold—bitterly cold. He should be immune to the pity or revulsion people revealed when they glimpsed his scars. But only half of him was a beast. The other half was a man. And the pity, disgust and horror sliced deep into the heart Evander had tried to rip from his chest.

  Yet none of the jabs to his pride compared to the first blow delivered five months ago. When measured up against that rejection, the others he’d received since were like playground taps after being K-the fuck-O’d by Mike Tyson.

  Lifting a hand, he poked a fingertip at the thick ridge of raised flesh on his chin. The unyielding tissue didn’t budge beneath his touch. He didn’t need a mirror to follow the path of the scar over the corner of his mouth, past his nose and under his eye where it abruptly broke off. His finger smoothed across the tapered end before continuing on to the slash that bisected his eyebrow and disappeared into his hairline. Two slightly less thick but just as obvious scars scored his cheekbone. As unsightly as his facial disfigurements were, the patchwork of damaged flesh covering his chest and abdomen was much worse.

  Those first weeks he’d studied the marks almost obsessively. As if the longer he analyzed and dissected the mutilated flesh, the scars would eventually disappear. Five months later, he still looked as if half his face had been just about ripped off, and the details of his near-evisceration were etched into his mind and flesh-like runes in prehistoric stone. Still, while the skin on his body may have stitched together, his soul remained as gaping, bloody and aching as the day he was airlifted from the boulders in those salty, rough waters.

  Shit. He speared his fingers through his hair, dragging the strands away from his face. But then he remembered. With another harsh curse, he finger-combed the shoulder-length waves forward until his damaged cheek was concealed behind a blond curtain.

  His lips curled into a silent snarl and the slight tug on the distorted corner of his mouth sent a hot spear of fury through him. Evander was dead, damn it. And though the bastard’s death hadn’t come by his hand but Nicolai’s, he was glad Evander had suffered before he gasped his last breath. Delighted the traitorous rogue had realized he’d been defeated and lost everything precious to him.

  The thought of another’s pain should’ve been abhorrent—after all he was a healer. His purpose was to alleviate suffering, not cause or condone it. But Evander’s death didn’t bother him at all. As a matter of fact, he took immense joy believing the rogue had endured agony of body and spirit, and if his fierce satisfaction made him as much a monster as Evander then hell, his conscience would just have to deal.

  Again that word brushed the inside his skull. Monster. Bastien gritted his teeth against the silken lure wrapped in the seductive whisper that assured him there was nothing wrong with being wild, raw…powerful. With supreme effort and a steadily weakening will, he forced the sweet and dark temptation into a compartment in his mind, shut the door and twisted the lock. But the door would creak open again. Tomorrow, next week, next month, and then the time would come when the accusation would seem less horrifying and all the more beguiling…

  He slammed to a halt.

  Cocked his head to the side.

  Something…

  His vision sharpened as he allowed his hippogryph to slide out, take over his sight and hearing. Without moving, Bastien observed and scrutinized the crowds of people flowing toward him, surging around his still frame. Nothing unusual about the native Dubliners and tourists snagged his attention. But that…something hadn’t been his imagination…

  There.

  On the wind. Hushed. Soft.

  But there.

  On a burst of inhuman speed, he shot down the sidewalk as if an expert archer had plucked him from a quiver and released him from a bow. Fast. Unerring. Deadly.

  The congested streets gave way to a less sparsely populated section of the quay. Inhabited by more rats then people, the dilapidated buildings and busted windows didn’t offer the same warmth and inviting hospitality as the pubs, shops and restaurants on the opposite end. He stepped into the shadows thrown across the cobblestones by the towering brick structures.

  There it was again.

  A grunt. Curse. Thud.

  Blood.

  He reached
the mouth of the alley in three long strides. He spared a moment to cast a gyges around the street and the entrance to the alley, depending on the magical net to prohibit prying human eyes from witnessing what they shouldn’t.

  A thousand deafening waves crashed in his head in a thundering tsunami of violence. A crimson curtain slammed down over his vision as his gums tightened around the fangs dropping into his mouth. Flesh tore open over his knuckles, his nails cleaved open to reveal black curved talons, gleaming with promise in the thick shadows—a promise of pain, punishment.

  Death.

  Rage blasted through him like a furnace set to explode. He tipped his head back on his shoulders and loosed a roar. The combatants engaged in battle froze.

  A bright trail oozed down the forehead of the woman sprawled on the ground. His control fractured, disintegrated.

  Sinéad.

  Bastien crouched down, his knees glancing the damp, garbage-strewn gravel, the sharp tips of his talons clicking the ground.

  He pounced.

  * * * * *

  Oh shit.

  Sinéad gaped at the red-eyed beast blocking the alley opening. Her heart bucked against her rib cage then vaulted for the back of her throat. Holy Nef. Another vampire. Her fist tightened around the hilt of the sword the fool vamp had forgotten to disarm her of in his arrogance and lust. No way in hell could she take down two vampires. Especially not this massive creature filling the width of the passageway with his huge bulk.

  Her gut dipped toward the rounded tips of her combat boots even as she lifted the gladius from the ground…

  The air whistled above her head.

  “Day-am,” she rasped as the head of the vampire teetered on his shoulders before tumbling to the ground with a soft thump. Her astounded gaze tracked the rolling motion of the decapitated skull as arterial spray splattered over her face and chest like a macabre lawn sprinkler. She met the stunned terror forever frozen on the vamp’s face.