Bitten by Ecstasy: 2 (Dark Judgment) (5 page)

“Get out of my head,” Sinéad snarled, moving lightning-fast for a mortal. Though the top of her head only grazed his shoulder, she still managed to push her face into his, her lip curled in a menacing sneer. If she’d still been a cruxim, he probably would’ve caught a flash of a wickedly sharp canine. “Try that again without my permission and you’ll be the newest soprano in the Vienna Boys’ Choir.”

Horrified and amused, Bastien held his hands up in the age-old gesture of surrender. Then lowered one to cover his crotch. “Sorry,” he apologized. When she continued to glower at him, he dipped his head in further acknowledgment of his trespass. “I’m sorry, really.”

Sinéad eased back a step, staring him down for several more seconds before resuming her path across the room. Bastien followed, surrendering to the need to keep her within his sight but maintaining a careful distance. “You don’t seem to have an issue with your mental shields.” She grunted and he pressed forward. “So if you don’t hunt anymore, what did I walk up on tonight? A date gone horribly awry?”

The flat of her hand slapped a white-painted door and it swung open. The door swayed like a pendulum behind her a second before he entered a large, cheery kitchen. Bright-yellow paint coated the walls and the sets of cabinets above a white, porcelain sink. The decorating was a hodge-podge of old and new. White-and-blue speckled granite counters flanked a huge stainless steel, top-of-the-line stove Paula Deen would have drooled over in jealousy. Even a microwave perched above the stove. A round blonde-wood table flanked by four lattice-backed chairs sat in the middle of the floor, inviting guests to come and dine on the food prepared in the amazing kitchen.

A dull thud followed by a metallic clatter dragged his attention back to the most incongruous chef he could have imagined. His eyebrows jacked toward his hairline as Sinéad shifted toward the industrial-sized refrigerator, granting him a full frontal view of…
dinner
?

“You eat this shit?” he demanded. Damn, he didn’t know which hurt worse—his offended sensibilities as a doctor or his stomach, which had been prepared for a meal including at least two of the basic food groups. Instead she slapped a can of chips—or crisps as Sinéad would call them in her light brogue—a cardboard box of puffed, sugared cereal and a jug of milk on the counter.

She slammed the refrigerator door and tossed him a glare over her shoulder before reaching up, opening a cabinet and withdrawing a bowl from a shelf.

“I’m new at the whole eating thing, if you remember,” she said, jerking a drawer open. The jangle of silverware filled the air as Sinéad curled her lip at him. “Besides, I don’t recall inviting your opinion of my diet or extending an invitation into my kitchen, for that matter.”

Every reminder of her humanity sliced at him, leaving tiny bleeding cuts on his soul. Yeah, he had no clue what she had done to him, what he’d become as a result. Yet he retained his power, his strength, his immortality. He was altered, true, but still a hippogryph. Yet Sinéad, born into a race of warriors, had been stripped of the characteristics and strengths that had defined her for the countless years of her existence.

Wasn’t this a kick in the nuts? For the first time since discovering what he’d become, he considered how Sinéad had been affected in this effed-up equation. Though anger and hurt still seethed in his gut, compassion sidled into his chest like a crafty thief. Both he and Sinéad were isolated, cut off from their people because their lives had collided and resulted in cataclysmic changes. A tiny section of his soul urged him to haul her into his arms, hold her close and offer the comfort she would undoubtedly reject. Probably with a well-aimed fist to his face. Good thing that compassionate part of him was small.

“Move over.” He accompanied the gruff order with a bump of his hip against hers, snatching the bowl and spoon from her grasp at the same time. Ignoring her outraged huff of breath, he replaced the chips and cereal in the cabinets, but left out the milk. He might end up needing it. “You have any meat or vegetables in that monolith you call a refrigerator?”

Sinéad grunted but returned to the appliance and opened the door wide. A blast of cool air streamed across the nape of his neck. “What do you want? I have hamburger, chicken, eggs and some other stuff the girl in the store said I should have.”

“Oh for the love of—” Once again, Bastien moved her out of the way, this time with a small nudge to her shoulder with his palm. A hiss seared his ears seconds before sharp, pointed nails scored the flesh over his ribs. He jumped, squelching a surprised yelp. The bite of her nails hadn’t hurt. His skin was too tough for her human claws. But damn if his stomach didn’t clench under the ticklish sensation, making him jerk away from her touch. Her eyes narrowed into silver slits, the corners of her generous mouth turning up at the corners into a smile he’d have called—in a word—evil.

And hot.

Damn, why the dangerous, wicked look probably responsible for threatening many a vampire should send a bolt of lust from his chest straight to his cock confounded him. Maybe the bloodlust had more side effects than he’d considered. Hell yes, she was a gorgeous female, human or cruxim. But she didn’t resemble Alesia. Not in appearance and damn sure not in temperament.
Well, to be fair the two females share one thing in common
, a small, bitter voice hissed. Both had rejected him because of what he was—or wasn’t.

He frowned. “Don’t even think about it.”

He tracked her until she leaned against the stove, arms crossed. Once assured she would stay put, he dipped his chin and took inventory of her icebox. Not much. But enough he could put together a fast, hearty dinner. His glance slid over to Sinéad. The cruxim’s slim, almost delicate appearance belied the power and magic the winged Amazons embodied, rendering the females nearly indestructible. And feared.

Yet she seemed thinner. Compared to the last time he’d seen her five months earlier, the fine cheekbones and jaw were even more pronounced against her skin, the large, heavily lashed eyes like oval silver coins in her lovely face. He’d witnessed her battling the vampire in the alley, seen her lying flat on her back with Death crouched over her. If he’d known then she was human, fighting with a human’s physical frailties and limitations, Bastien would have taken more time with the bloodsucker. A rumble built in his chest, rolled in his throat as a vivid image of what he might have found in the dark passage if he’d been seconds later flickered on the screen of his mind. Yes—his fingers flexed around the bag of mushrooms—if he’d been aware of her true state, he would’ve made sure the vampire suffered more than a quick beheading.

He sucked in a deep breath, relaxed his grip on the vegetables, delivered a soft kick to the refrigerator door and returned to the kitchen counter. He emptied mushrooms, onions and tomatoes out of their containers. Shit, he had to get his ricocheting emotions under control. In the space of thirty minutes in Sinéad’s company, he’d vacillated between rage, exasperation, arousal and protectiveness. He’d tracked her down for one purpose—an answer and solution to the
deygma
she’d converted him into so he could return to his life. No other reason prevailed above finding a cure to his cursed addiction.

Didn’t mean he couldn’t feed her in the meantime.

“Where are your pans?”

When Sinéad tipped her head in the direction of the cupboard near his feet, he bent at the waist and opened the door. Quickly, he removed a couple of cast-iron pans and, straightening, settled them on the eyes of the gas stove.

After sliding a knife free of the butcher block, he set about chopping vegetables. She remained quiet as he worked and the fast, efficient slicing didn’t take long at all. Soon the delicious aroma of sizzling mushrooms and onions sweetened the air and elicited a hungry grumble from his gut.

He turned to the hamburger. He wasn’t a chef, but he did enjoy cooking. Nutrition and a strong, healthy body were as important as magic when it came to healing. It had always been his practice to meld all realms of medicine—practical and supernatural.

“You said you no longer hunt.” He resurrected the topic abruptly abandoned for the subject of food and patted the ground beef into several thick patties. Before long the sputter of frying meat joined the hiss of sautéing vegetables. “Why were you out there tonight?”

A beat of silence. Then a soft sigh. “Taking a walk. I got restless. Tired of being cooped up in here.”

Bastien nodded. He understood perfectly. Two months with Nicolai and Tamar hadn’t been prison, but he’d been trapped by his secrets, incarcerated by the raging bloodlust and horrifying red eyes and fangs that separated him from his best friend.

“How did you find the vampire and the woman?” he prodded. “I barely heard the battle and smelled the blood. You no longer have those abilities.”

Her full lips firmed, rolled in on themselves as if trying to bar the admission from leaking forth. “I…felt her,” she finally ground out. “Her pain.”

Felt her pain?
The impact of Sinéad’s words struck him like a sledgehammer to the middle of his chest. He wheeled to the side, staring at her impassive, guarded expression as shock clamored through him. “An empath? You—a cruxim—are an
empath
?”

A short jerk of her head.

Either the gift annoyed her, or admitting she possessed the gift perturbed her, but Sinéad didn’t appear delighted in hearing the word spoken aloud. Little was known among the immortals about her enigmatic race, but one thing widely recognized regarding the “black angels” was their marked lack of emotion. They were beings of vengeance and blood—vampire blood. Like the
Dimios
of the hippogryphs, the winged creatures hunted, judged and executed vampires who were their mortal—or immortal—enemies.

Executioners. Hunters.

Not sensitive tree huggers.

Another, almost as staggering, idea leapt into his head. His hip knocked the edge of the stove as he pinned her with a stare.

“That’s how you found me, wasn’t it?” he rasped. Even the mention of the encounter with Evander had the ability to drag the pain, fury and agony back, tagging the helplessness and shameful vulnerability along for the ride. “You felt my pain?”

Another clipped nod.

Exhaling, Bastien faced the stove again, picking up the spatula he’d retrieved from the silverware drawer. From the abrupt responses, Sinéad obviously didn’t want to speak of this gift. And, hell, as anger strummed through him like the plucked strings of a guitar, he didn’t want to loiter in the dark, bitter memories of that terror-filled time either.

“The thing you did with your sword.” He flipped the thick hamburger patties over to finish their cooking. “Do all cruxim weapons possess the same power?” After Bastien’s decapitation of the vamp, Sinéad had risen over the body and laid the tip of the sword to its chest. Before his stunned gaze, the creature had dissolved into an oily black slick over the cobblestone.

Sinéad hesitated, then unfolded her arms and palmed the edge of the granite counter behind her. “At the time we pledge our service to Lady Nef,” she began, referring to the goddess the cruxim worshipped, “we receive our
gladius
along with our assigned territory. The swords are endowed with magic capable of penetrating the near impregnable flesh of the vampire. They work as a…” she swirled her slim, elegant hands in front of her abdomen, “decoagulant on their bodies. It liquefies them from the inside out.”

“Handy way of getting rid of the evidence too,” he added. “Where are your plates?”

She shifted, her arms rising to a cabinet above her. A slice of honey-gold skin flashed as the hem of her black t-shirt parted from the waistband of her cargo pants. His lips tightened as his gums tingled. His fingertips itched, the pinch of his talons biting at the calloused flesh. Heat coiled in his gut, constricting before loosening and spiraling lower to his lengthening cock.

This wasn’t hunger—at least not for blood. When he’d left Nicolai’s home, his intention had been to search Sinéad out, demand she reverse his…condition, or help him figure out how to do it. And in the meantime, with his last reserve of cruxim blood gone, she could damn well supply his fix until they found a way to cure him of the craving. After all, she’d been the one to curse him. But the last part of the plan had been shot to hell. Since he’d first caught a whiff of her morning dew scent the need for blood had been replaced by another, greedier, deeper appetite. For flesh. Skin. Woman.
Her
. That’s what his body clamored for.

Shit.
He scowled. He’d been in the pleasure dens, had beheld the writhing, naked bodies of females straight out of the raunchiest fantasies. None of the eroticism in those spectacles had fazed him. Yet here he stood, salivating over a paltry slice of skin—skin like a sun-kissed peach…damn it.

Before he could turn back to the stove and hide his reaction, Sinéad lowered her arms, plates in hand. Her gaze clashed with his and, from the warmth still pumping through his veins, he could imagine what she glimpsed in his eyes. A slight gasp of air whistled between her lips and the quickening of her pulse reached his ears. The vein at the base of her throat throbbed faster under the thin layer of skin covering it.

“Damn,” he whispered and twisted around, focusing on the food he’d prepared as if it were radioactive chemicals requiring every bit of his attention or it risked detonation. Perhaps it was the foreign blood that churned these cravings harder and fiercer than any he’d ever experienced.