Blood Enchantment (24 page)

“And stop looking at me like that!” she yells.

Slash cannot help the way he looks at her and says the obvious, “You're in heat.”

Adi rolls her eyes. “Gee, Einstein, ya think?”

There's no time for her willfulness at the moment. “We need to get out of here. Now. Where there are some Lycan, there are more.”

“Whatever!” Adi says, gently depositing the human on the ground, and stands.

She pokes Slash in the chest. “Those guys were
Lanarre
, Slash.”

Adi has a point, he admits to himself. “I'm aware of that, Adrianna.”

“Then why in the world did you kill them?” she cries, her heart in her eyes. She smacks his broad chest then cradles her hand. “Why, Slash? They'll
hunt
you for killing Lanarre. If I mean so little to you, why would you take the risk?”

Slash eyes her lips, full of blood.

Beautiful.

He bends to hover over her mouth. “Because there is no reason to take another breath—unless you're in it.”

Then his mouth falls on hers, ravishing every bit of plump flesh.

Slash tastes the blood of their enemies.

Bodies are scattered everywhere, the human female might live, die, or become a Were. But none of that matters. The female in his arms is all that’s important.

She squirms.

Slash reluctantly loosens his grip at her hips, searching Adrianna's face.

When her hand strikes his cheek, he doesn't move away.

“Stop lying to me!”

Slash chuckles. Adrianna's still pissed at him, and rightfully so.

“Jerk!” she screams in his face, touching the mouth he just kissed. His eyes go to her lips, and it's all he can do not to kiss her again. Her heat pushes at him, pummeling him.

But humans approach. “I'm sorry, Adrianna. But you must know…”

“I
know
that you're a dick. And that you slept with me then told me to leave. How
could
you?”

Voices can be heard not too far off. Their ears prick in unison.

Adi's tears cloud her eyes. Slash thumbs a few off as they fall, then sucks them off his digit, tasting the salt of her sadness.

“Stop,” Adi's voice quavers.

“
Never
.” Slash cradles her face. “I made you leave. I said what I
knew
would hasten it, Adrianna. Tramack could have come back for you. And then what would have happened? In my paralyzed and unhealed state?”

Slash sees in her face that she intuits the potential.

“So you didn't really want me to leave?”

He hates how small her voice sounds. He put that tone there. Him. He tips his forehead to hers, sliding his fingers to her neck and fingering her skin gently. “Adrianna, I love you more than the moon.”

“No Lycan loves
anything
more than the moon, Slash.”

“I am not any Lycan.” Pulling away, he stares deeply into hazel eyes gone gold with her beast. “I am the male who loves you.”

Humans appear inside the ruined doorway, take a look at the carnage, and start screaming and shouting.

Slash takes her hand and pulls her from the garage.

Adi tugs, and he turns to see why she's stalling.

Her eyes go to where the human female was, but she is gone.

Slash captures Adi in his arms and runs.

Tessa

She thought he'd gone, but Laz had visually tortured her with how quickly he moved.

He stands before her in a blur of red flesh.

Laz smooths his hands over Tessa's breasts, kneading them, and her core pulses once, aching for more. He seems to sense her need, dipping his hand to cover her mound.

When he slips a finger over her yoga pants and between her folds, she gasps then groans, pushing her hips against his seeking finger.

“Laz,” she says against his mouth.

“What may I do to ease you?”

Oh Moon, make love to me until I can't walk.
Tessa says, “I want to do this—I do, but we're in this place with all the Lanarre, and they know I'm in heat and—”

He presses his wandering fingers to her lips, and she kisses the tips. They're like bathwater against her flesh. “Then let us leave. We will escape this place, and no one shall rule us.”

Tessa wants that.

She wants
him.

“I am not Lycan. I can
never
be.” He tips her chin up, looking deeply into her eyes, and Tessa is lost in the smoke of his gaze. “But I was made for you—and you for me.”

“How, Laz? How is that even possible?”

He shakes his head. “I do not know. But what I do know is, there is a fragment of the demonic. Those of us that are not fully of the devil. And because of this ancient DNA, we can sometimes be given a second chance in a realm other than Hades. A roll of the genetic dice, if you will.”

He's so earnest, Tessa almost believes him.

His fingers skate lightly across her features, and she shivers. Trembling with want, she shakes beneath the heat of his touch. “The myth is that you will know your Redemptive immediately, but she will not know you. You're more than a freedom from the prison of my station. You're a chance for happiness and a new life. You are labeled correctly. Tessa.” He kisses her softly on the mouth, and she helplessly moans against him. “You are my redemption.”

“Lazarus, Lazarus, Lazarus,” a low voice chastises, and Tessa whirls.
The horned fucker.

Laz shoves her behind himself protectively. “Praile.”

Praile puts his clawed hands, tipped by ebony nails, on his hips and cocks his head. “Yes,
Praile
,” he mocks. “You have frustrated me to no end.”

His gaze falls on Tessa, and whatever brave thoughts she entertains, flee.

It's fair to consider he's going to want a little payback.

Tessa tries to inch away.

Laz glances at her. “Do not leave my side.”

Praile's eyes narrow, sighting them like an eagle with prey in range. “This lowly female bitch shall die a slow death.” Praile grabs his dick through loose pants and squeezes it. Tessa's eyes go to his hand at his crotch. “All better, my little mutt. Despite your reprehensible actions.” He glowers at her as though she gave him a paper cut.

That makes Tessa so
much
more scared than an outward threat. She feels her bladder give a little hiccup.

“You've interrupted the Master's important work, you pathetic female. And that work will commence and be seen through.” His eyes move to Laz. “I don't know what provoked you to leave me bleeding and dickless in the dirt of the angelic compound, but I will see a punishment so terrible it will be as though you eternally perish.” Praile taps a short black nail against his chin. “Actually, that is the exact definition of residing in hades. Sublime.”

Tessa finds her voice. “And when you put it like that, I'm sure Laz will just run and volunteer for your brand of bullshit.”

“Lazarus,” Praile says, giving him a look so full of malice that Tessa's knees feel weak.

Laz squeezes her hip where his hand rests.

“Move aside and let me take my revenge on a female who would think to injure a high demon in such a fashion.”

Tessa scans the blackness outside the windows.
Where are the Lanarre?
The silence is loud.

Her eyes meet the demonic’s.

Praile smiles. “They sleep, little bitch. There is
no one
to help you. Lazarus knows his place. Whatever infatuation he might have mentioned so he might stick his hot ineffective wick in your pathetic pussy is false. He will not turn his back on the Master and survive.” He spreads his deep-red arms in a gesture implying how reasonable his words are. How absolute.

His horns glow like spikes of shadowed ink on his head.

“Laz didn't lie to me.” Tessa glances at Laz, whose face is like pale-red stone.

He shakes his head, offering a slit of a grin. Small spirals of steam leak out as he speaks, “We are demonic. Deceit is like breathing for our kind. Test him, Were female.”

Tessa looks uncertainly at Laz, who continues to stare intently at Praile.

“Did he tell you that you were his Redemptive, perhaps?”

Tessa's breath catches in her chest, and she whirls to face him again.

Praile's laughs gleefully, tipping his head back. Gales of perverse chuckles tumble out of a mouth. His tongue and teeth are black, and his gums are very red. “Do not feel too aghast. Every demon has from time to time desired a little tail from the surface.” He smiles, and thick steam streams from his mouth. Eyes like black obsidian discs of pure evil regard her.

“Laz,” Tessa says in a low voice. “What is he saying?”

Laz takes a step away from her. Her fingertips trail over his smooth back as he walks toward Praile.

“Have you had her yet?” Praile asks, and Laz shakes his head.

“Did you do as I ask? Feign our getaway, so that the Rare One will be unsuspecting?”

Laz nods. “Yes.”

Tessa swallows her gorge. Not a great time to let hurt, nerves, and the potential for a smackdown get the best of her.

Praile claps his hands, rubbing them together. “Excellent. Now…” His glittering black orbs study Tessa. “I do believe we have a little time for sport with this one before the Lanarre wake from their little nappy.”

They turn and face Tessa.

Laz's eyes are as dark as Praile's.

They move toward her, and Tessa's screams fill the cottage.

*

Drek

Drek rushes out the front entrance to his home, and the sound of a female's screams shatter eardrums sensitive to a pin dropping.

Her terror beats at him.

Tahlia’s escape set his nerve endings on fire. The farther she is from him, the more Drek realizes he's made a grave error in judgement.

He trips over a body and catches himself on a stout wood porch post. Looking down, he finds Bowen lying on his back, snoring softly.

“Bowen!” Drek yells, toeing him.

Nothing.

He peers into the gloom of the woods. Lanarre guards litter the ground, appearing to have dropped where they stood.

Drek turns, making sure Tanya is still secure against the pole. He gives her an apologetic look and leaves her.

“Wait!” she shrieks. “You can't just leave me here!”

He strides toward the sound of screaming that makes the fine hairs at his nape stand at attention.

Drek halts when he gets a whiff of an odor as offensive as vampire’s, though most Lycan are unable to smell, either.

Demonic.

A layer of red vapor hovers like poisonous gas over the sleeping Lanarre.

The screams make more sense now.

He moves to the guest cottage, his eyes rising heavenward in search of a white bird
—his chosen.
Drek was too ignorant to see and act accordingly.

He jogs to the steps, imagining Bowen’s commentary had he been awake and by his side.

A low voice growls words that let Drek know what he is dealing with—not an enemy, but a relation of sorts.

That's why the Lanarre sleep but are not dead.

Drek will handle this spawn of the devil.

His gaze moves a last time to the inky blanket of sky dotted with the stars like coarse, sprinkled salt.

Tahlia is not there.

When the door doesn't open, he rams it with his shoulder, and it bursts wide.

The demonic are converging on Tessa.

She's wolfen and in fighting posture.

Drek moves in to assist, and the distant sound of birdsong reaches his ears.

The music distracts him, and thoughts of Tahlia crowd his logic, enticing his mind that it might be she.

Drek’s hesitation is his undoing as the demonic attacks.

Slash

Slash doesn't stop running until his legs grow numb. His lungs are an oven of slow-burning fire. He and Adrianna are deep within the bounds of the woods. Safe.

For now.

Slash slows to a jog, feeling gimpy because his limbs refuse to cooperate. When he stops, he gently swings Adrianna around by her arms. She sways, and Slash draws her in against him.

“If I'm exhausted, you must be beyond exhausted,” she says against his heaving chest.

Slash is. But he's been through more than this. So he simply nods.

Adrianna pulls away, looking worse for wear. Her hair is matted with leaves and needles.

Slash smiles, gently pushing the mess of her hair back from her forehead.

“I must look like shit.” She stares at her feet.

Slash scents her uncertainty, and so much more.

“Adrianna.”

She looks up at him, and Slash fights to not give her the profile of his face that remains unscarred.

“We will get cleaned up. We will feed. We will rest.”

She puts her hands on her hips, hazel eyes flashing. “And this too shall pass? Pfft!”

She stomps away, and Slash follows her. Each step he takes is agony. Slash returns to his human form and scents for food.

He scents nothing he can hunt without shifting again, and he's out of steam. His mate is in heat, and Slash doesn't think he's seen the last of her temper after their misunderstanding.

Adrianna suddenly whirls, and the small hairs of his body rise in response to her beast—and her heat. Slash stifles a groan. Regardless of how beat he is, his beast senses his mate's hunger.

“You took us away from the rain forest?”

Slash nods. They don't need to travel deeper into Lanarre territory. What they would do to him for killing the Lanarre would be slow and without mercy.

Adrianna takes his hands. “I'm still so pissed at you, I could spit.”

Slash has only silence.

“But—” She gives him troubled eyes. “I guess what you said makes sense. I would have never left you otherwise.”

“I know,” Slash says.

They smile cautiously at each other. “But what about my heat?”

Slash wearily swipes his head with a hand. “It's not typical. However
,
it was probably our coming together that caused it.”

“I'm young for heat, Slash.”

He nods and pulls her to him, wrapping his arms around her.

“Can't we just—you know—not.”

He chuckles. “I'm afraid not. I couldn't keep my hands off you if I tried.”

Adrianna's eyes fill with tears, but she doesn't cry. “I'm too young to have a whelp, Slash.”

He cups her chin. “You were not too young to become my mate or share your body with me.”

High color floods her cheeks. “You got me there.”

“It's not about ʻgetting you.ʼ” Slash lets his hand drop, and he stares off into the woods, his eyes searching the pockets of gloom. “It's that we're mature enough. And for whatever reason, our union was strong. We complement each other well, or this would not have triggered such a response.”

“You're the old guy. I'm just a young pup.”

Slash had felt guilty about that. But no more. She pursued him. He fought it. Fought his feelings and desire. Fought his lack of confidence over his attractiveness. Finally, she'd convinced him.

In all the years of Slash's life, he'd never been moved to have a mate. And when he was, she's been barely out of whelphood and was the most stubborn, mouthy female he'd ever met. Slash was reticent in comparison. What did the humans say?
Ah yes:
opposites attract.

No shit.

“Hey,” Adrianna calls softly, startling Slash from his thoughts.

He grabs her hand and lifts it, kissing the layer of skin that is grimy from their trek through the woods—and their killing.

“I'm not going to just hump right now out in the woods. I don't care if my crotch goes up in flames.” She crosses her arms, and Slash barks out a laugh.

“I think I might be able to restrain myself just long enough to find shelter.” His lips tilt.

Adrianna runs her finger over the worst of his scar—the one that mars his lips—and he allows it. No one but him has ever touched his scar.

“When did this happen?”

Slash's smile fades. He figured he would have to tell her sooner or later. “It was a war between Lanarre and Were. It's when their dominance was firmly established.” Slash laughs, but it's hollow inside the thick woods.

“I assumed the Lanarre have always been top of the food chain.”

Slash widens his stance, crossing his arms and tucking his palms underneath his biceps. He rolls his lips together, absently bending the small ball of scar tissue between his lips.

“Slash.”

He looks up. “Sorry. I'm scattered.” He taps his temple, procrastinating the storytelling.

“The Lanarre are really no more than the strongest of us. This was well before your time, but it shows a lack of historic study of Lycan.”

Adrianna nods. “So shoot me. Not into books.”

The corner of Slash's lips turn up.
So young.
“Packs of Lycans would gravitate toward similar werewolves. Before we knew it, the weak congregated with each other—”

“And so did the strong,” Adrianna finished, understanding flooding her features.

He pointed at her. “Exactly.” He chops his hands away from his body, “So females began to become sick. Too much interbreeding of the same types of animal. Diversity was lost.”

A sick expression pastes itself on Adrianna's face.

“The males didn't thrive, but they weren't so easily taken by death.”

Slash meets her eyes significantly.

“
That's
when our females became scarce.”

Slash nods. “It was the malesʼ faults for not recognizing the problem and putting a protocol of prevention in place soon enough.” Slash feels his face screw up in disgust.

Adrianna is uncharacteristically quiet.

“When the Reds found that they were down to only a few viable females, we knew that we needed to refresh the gene pool.”

Adrianna leans forward, and Slash squeezes her shoulder. She shivers. A wave of need rolls through them.

Slash gasps as though warm bathwater has been poured over him.

He clenches his teeth. “Adi.”

She shivers again. “Can't help it—and can I just say how weird it is that you call me that?”

Slash shakes his head as though he can shake off her heat. The strongest of the sensation subsides, but a residue lingers like an electrical charge over his skin.

They let a minute pass. Finally, Slash thinks he can speak. “When talk reached us of the Lanarre hoarding females, at first we didn't think it was possible.”

Adrianna stares at him, eyes wide.

“All of us, from Alaska, from here, converged on the various Lycan packs.”

“How many?” she asks.

Slash's eyes go wolfen. “All.”

“The Great Massacre.”

Slash gives her a slight nod.

Adrianna searches his face. “Even I know of that. They used liquid silver on their own kind.”

His smile is sardonic, his finger traces part of the scar of his face. Her eyes track the movement. “Anything to protect their females.”

“But they wouldn't be
protecting
us. They'd be
keeping
us,” Adrianna says, hand to chest.

Slash nods. A soft prison is still a prison.

Adrianna approaches him. He doesn't flinch when she lightly follows the worst of the scarring. Her finger runs from the small bumpy line that bisects his eyebrow, narrowly missing his eye then resurfacing like a jagged lightning strike at the highest bridge of his cheekbone, where it swoops to make a curling small knot of flesh at his cupid's bow.

Her fingers feather against his lips. “You didn't die.”

“No.” He smiles beneath her touch, chuckling softly.

Adrianna punches him, and he catches her wrist before her fist lands.

“Come here.” Slash jerks her to him and plants his mouth against hers.

Adrianna molds her body to his, and Slash is soft and tender against her.

Only her.

*

“Oh my Moon! When will we get there?”

Slash stifles an irritated sigh. Sometimes Adrianna reminds him of her youth when he knew her as a whelp.

They trudge through the deepest part of the forest.

He stays her with a hand. “Do you see that?”

Adrianna scans the darkness, eyes narrowing. She finally sights what he already has. “That creepy Hansel and Gretel cottage? Yeah,” she says with exaggerated slowness.

Slash turns to her. “We must find shelter.”

Adrianna blushes, looking properly chastised. But her vague sadness pulls at him.

“Heart of my heart,” Slash says, placing his palm on her chest as he recites the ancient words of his kind.

Adrianna covers his hand with her own. “Soul of my soul.”

“What harms you, harms me.”

Adrianna's shoulders slump. “Fine. When you entreat the ancient words, only a real douche wouldn't reply.”

Slash grins suddenly. Sometimes it's not bad to be almost four hundred years old.

“I'm thinking about the nurse, Jenni.” Adi bites her lip.

“Let's walk to the little house as you share your troubles.” Slash holds out his palm.

She sighs but takes his hand. His wolf notices her nearness and touch. His beast roils beneath Slash's flesh uncomfortably. The urge to breed is unbearable, like an itch that is just out of reach of being scratched.

They move down a little slope where the trees thin, only to climb back up a gentle knoll. When they reach the top, the small dark cottage stands at odds with the surrounding forest.

Adrianna draws closer to Slash without being aware. He strokes the back of her hand with his thumb.

“I might have turned Jenni, and she's got no guidance. She might be wolfing around somewhere without a clue.”

Slash is half-listening. He
does
care about Adrianna's thoughts and self-doubts. But the male in him is uneasy.

Slash has not lived this long without listening to his instincts.

He steps forward to the broad, well-worn steps. They're unusually wide, given the small scale of the house. Slash notes old dirt and a general absence of habitation.

“I just bit her, and poof!” Adrianna's free hand swings up. “I don't know for sure if she lived or died.”

“Or crawled away to lick her wounds,” Slash says absently as he fingers the large pole that anchors the top of the steps.

Adrianna slaps his back, and he barely feels it. “You're not listening!”

He steps onto the porch. The old wood tongue-in-groove slats are edged with moss, slowly succumbing to the elements in their damp climate.

“What you should really ask yourself is what are the ramifications your bite might have while you're in heat.”

“What?!” Adrianna shrieks.

Slash covers her mouth with his hand, pulling her tight against his chest. His skin crawls. His eyes chase over the tops of ground-hugging ferns, moss, and discarded pinecones from trees that perpetuate life from the earth. The thick greenery suffocates the strangled moonlight.

His pupils dilate to access whatever light is available.

Nothing.

He slowly removes his hand, and Adrianna opens his mouth. Slash shakes his head, putting a finger to his lips. Her eyebrows whip up. But she's quiet, looking around the immediate vicinity. The forest is silent.

Too silent.

“I don't like it,” Adrianna whispers.

Slash gives her a cautioning look but wraps his fingers around her arm. With a jerk of his chin, he indicates the door.

Adrianna gives one more glance around the dim woods, the light eaten by the high canopy, and derelict moonlight, then she follows Slash.

He places his hand on the knob, old tin with a beaded perimeter, and turns the handle.

The door swings open on well-oiled hinges.

Twin barrels of a shotgun ease into his face from about a foot away. “Step closer, and I'll decorate my walls with your brains.”

Slash freezes.

Adrianna yelps.

The old woman with the gun chuckles. “Well, that ward didn't hold worth a damn. Come in, lovebirds.” She snorts. “Or are you waiting for some trolls to come knocking, eh?”

Slash stupidly holds his position, stunned.
What creature is this?

“Are ya daft?” She cocks an eyebrow to her snow-white hairline. “I said to come inside. I don't invite twice, Red.”