Harlequin Nocturne September 2014 Bundle: Beyond the Moon\Immortal Obsession (50 page)

“Just as you will want to point that thing at me,” he replied.

“I didn't want to point this at you.”

“You are waking to your destiny. It takes work, effort and vigilance to tamp those instincts down and then learn to control them. We will learn to adapt.”

He'd said
we.
A flutter resulted, close to the place he had just found and conquered.

“I want to go home. Take Stewart home,” Madison said.

“There are vampires in the States,” he pointed out.

“I don't care if there are. I don't want to care.”

He nodded, and said in a manner that told her he had considered the question before, “I wonder if Florida really smells like oranges.”

Gauging the meaning of this caused Madison to feel anxious for a very specific reason. Back to that term...
we.

There should have been concern over this. Yet the marvelous being beneath her had proved trustworthy several times over in the brief time she had known him. He had helped to lead the authorities to the missing girls. He had reunited her with her brother.

Christopher St. John had rid the world of one set of very bad vampires, and in the process, had saved her ass a couple of times. And he was better than brilliant in bed.

Better than anything in bed.

Her immortal lover had well earned her trust. As strange as it seemed, he also filled the pockets of emptiness that she had long harbored.

He was smiling, damn him.

He'd read that in her mind, too.

“Some of Florida smells that way,” she said, answering his question long after he'd asked it. “Do you have a sudden craving for fruit?”

“Ever since I met you,” he said.

Madison smiled, widely, fully, expectantly. That simple reply was his way of telling her that he would go with her to America. He didn't seek permission because he knew what her answer would be. Communication along the thread binding them worked both ways.

They were going to be together. Their unique relationship, merely beginning, had a long way to go, but looked promising.

Understatement.

Madison's face flushed. Intelligence warned that she should be running in the other direction. St. John's task in London had finished. She assumed he'd have another. He was, after all, the Protector.

Maybe that new task would be aimed at taming her and her terrible new instincts. Maybe he was
her
Protector, after all, and had been meant for that particular task, all along.

“In time, you'll tell me about my genetics?” she said.

Maybe he'd tell her what his title actually meant, and about his life before and after being granted immortality. Maybe he would tell her about that image of the garden, and the fountain she'd envisioned in it.

She'd given up trying to picture St. John the mortal, the man, but there were enough of the good parts to make her realize with perfect certainty how badly she wanted him with her, whether she accepted her own bizarre destiny, or not.

“Yes,” he replied. “I can do that. I can tell you some of what you want to know.”

“Some?”

His smile met her.

And well, damn. She had no idea how to make this work. More questions would arise. More answers would come. In the meantime...

There were vampires in Florida.

And plenty of beds.

Florida. A state large enough that freaks like Stewart and St. John and herself might go unnoticed if they behaved. With two Slayers and an immortal the likes of Christopher St. John about to descend, Miami's rogue vampires didn't stand a chance.

Mere centimeters above her lover's pale skin, Madison moved the tip of the stake, drawing her name in the air.

Slayer.

She said, “If that's what I'm going to be, whether I want it or not, I'd better face facts.”

When St. John smiled up at her in earnest, the light in his face eager and hopeful, the blue in his eyes again receding into a flat, liquid black, Madison knew what this meant. She knew it before acknowledging the feel of his erection.

Handing him the stake, and with his hints about
forever
in her mind, Madison tossed the hair out of her eyes, squeezed her legs tighter around his hips...and smiled back.

* * * * *

Keep reading for an excerpt from BEYOND THE MOON by Michele Hauf.

We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Nocturne story.

You harbor otherworldly desires….
Harlequin Nocturne
stories delve into dark, sensuous and often dangerous territory, where the normal and paranormal collide.

Enjoy two new stories from Harlequin Nocturne every month!

Connect with us on
Harlequin.com
for info on our new releases, access to exclusive offers, free online reads and much more!

Other ways to keep in touch:

Harlequin.com/newsletters
Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks
Twitter.com/HarlequinBooks
HarlequinBlog.com

Prologue

V
erity Von Velde's mother, Amandine, had the ability to determine the origin of a person's soul. So when Verity was born in the 1860s, Amandine had known her child's soul had once belonged to a witch—who had died twice.

Knowing she possessed a reincarnated soul helped Verity to understand the strange compulsions she experienced on occasion. The first time, at fifteen, had been on that horrible night she'd been compelled to rush to the forested village of Clichy, just outside of Paris, and had spied the bonfire. Amandine Von Velde had been betrayed by the witch hunter to whom she had unknowingly promised her heart. “Witch!” the crowd had shouted, and they'd laughed and clapped as the flames had consumed her mother's screams.

That night, left alone in the small cottage she had shared with her mother, Verity had fallen into a deep sadness. Years later, the compulsion had once again led her to the aqueducts beneath Paris where her grandmother, Freesia, had apported out of a Faery portal to hug the granddaughter she hadn't visited for years. Freesia had been born with a faery soul. Of all the witches in the Von Velde family, she was the only one with sidhe ichor running through her veins.

Freesia had carried with her the quilt Great-Grandmother Bluebell had made for Verity's mother. Because Bluebell had decided not to prolong her immortality and had died a natural death (which was rare for witches, even in a time when the burnings had begun to fade), her compassion lived on in the quilt. As Freesia had wrapped the quilt about Verity's shoulders, she'd felt the hugs her mother and great-grandmother could never give her again.

“I know your mother begged you never to trust a man,” Freesia had said as they'd stood beneath the city beside the gently flowing aqueduct waters. For men had been Amandine's curse and death. “But I would bid you trust the right man.”

Verity had liked the sound of that and had nodded, promising her grandmother she would give it consideration. When she began to protest that she did not know what to do all alone, Freesia had added, “Stay in Paris. It will take care of all you need. Trust your soul's compulsive ways. It is your birthright.”

Freesia then fluttered through the portal, and Verity would not see her lavender-haired grandmother for a long time.

Years after Grandmother Freesia's visit
—Paris, 1908

Verity tripped through the field grass that the city attendant had not scythed, for this swath of land that edged the forest was kept wild. Tourists did not venture off the paths or cobblestone roads that cut through the Bois de Boulogne. She would not normally skip through the overgrowth in a long skirt and button-up chemise, scratching at the buzzing insects, had she not been compelled.

Sometimes Verity's soul insisted so profoundly, she had no choice but to listen. And follow.

Now, she raced toward a massive tree stump that pushed up from the earth, its serrated edges jutting like castle crenellations. Thick, verdant moss coated the south side. The rowan tree must have fallen naturally from age or perhaps a lightning strike. The stalk, branches and leaves had long been cleared away, most likely for firewood.

Arriving at the grand root base, Verity sighed in awe. She had great respect for nature and knew all living things were connected, be they human, paranormal, animal or botanical. Kneeling before the trunk, she laid her palms on the cool moss coating and smiled. It must have taken four men to clasp hands and surround this tree when it had once proudly held court here at the forest's edge.

The wood pulsed with life. And there, in the center of the stump, which had been dug out by animals and insects over the years, grew four new shoots of life. All things renewed and lived on.

Much like her soul.

Reaching down, she played her fingers over the wood where it was wet from yesterday's rain and smelled earthy and sweet. Insects had not chewed through this part for it was solid and strong. The heart of the rowan. Verity felt the pulse. She curled her fingers within the core of the tree, and it pulsed again.

And yet...

She tilted her head, her dark, unbound hair spilling across the stump. The pulse felt familiar. Human? Perhaps, and long lost.

“A soul?” she wondered.

And then she knew, indeed, that it was. This is why
her
soul had compelled her here.

Sliding her fingers inside her ankle-high leather lace-up boot, a gift from her mother for her fifteenth birthday, Verity drew out the silver-handled athame. Her mother had always chastised her for carrying it about. One must honor the sacred tools of magic and keep them wrapped and tucked away until required to conjure a spell. Silently mocking her mother's nagging words—may she rest in peace—Verity tapped the wood core with the blade tip. “If I had kept this tucked away, I wouldn't be able to free you now.”

She worked at the wood, carefully carving around the core, which was about as wide as her fist and shaped like a
pain de campagne
. An hour later she'd set the core free. Verity turned and sat against the mossy base of the stump between two thick, twisted roots, smoothing her hands over the rough, moist core of the rowan tree.

“I know you belong to someone. What did he do to lose you?”

She pressed the wood against her chest and felt the subtle resonance of the long-lost soul and knew, without doubt, a man had sacrificed this soul in great sadness. She also knew that the man yet walked this realm.

Did he seek what he had lost?

“I'll keep you safe,” she promised. “Someday he will come for you.”

Chapter 1

Paris
—now

K
ing laid a manila folder on Rook's desk and then stepped around to stand beside it, arms crossed.

“Got time to take a look at this?” King asked Rook. “I'm getting itchy about Slater with the Zmaj tribe. He's been acting out through others. Over the past six months the tribe has turned sour. Too many murders linked to their vamps, and the increase in their numbers is disturbing. Slater is creating vampires without regard. I think it's time the Order stepped in.”

The Order of the Stake policed the vampires across Europe and took out the ones who proved a danger to mortals. One of the Parisian tribes, Zmaj, had been peaceable since its inception early in the twentieth century, but recently the Order's intel had noted a shift in power within the tribe. And a disturbing penchant for violence.

“I'll put our best knights on it.” Rook, King's right-hand man and the figurehead in control of the Order, tapped the keyboard to boot up the computer screen. “I might even scout them out myself. Been feeling the need to return to the field lately.”

“Is that so? I thought you'd grown accustomed to your cozy office chair.”

“That's just it. Do you know what happens when a man rests?”

King shrugged.

“He rusts,” Rook replied. “I haven't trained a new knight in months. I need to do something physical. Go beat in some vampire skulls and get the death punch out of the bottom drawer.”

The Order's knights called the specially designed titanium stake the death punch. Standard gear—no knight went on the hunt without three or four in his arsenal.

King, the founder of the Order, had recruited Rook about a decade into his project. They'd known each other since the end of the sixteenth century and had been friends and brothers through the ages. Rook loved and admired the man. He would do most anything he asked, and he knew the respect was reciprocated.

While King watched over his shoulder, Rook scanned through the Order's database on tribe Zmaj. Their computer network kept detailed records on all known vampires and tribes in Europe and the surrounding nations. Although they focused on vampires, the Order also recorded information on all other paranormal breeds because their work tended to overlap.

They'd been keeping an eye on the vampire Frederick Slater for more than a decade, since his creation in the early part of the twenty-first century. Before that, he'd been mortal for thirty years. The sick bastard had asked for vampirism. The tribe leader was aggressive and devious, yet used others to do his dirty work. And he had entitlement issues. Took things that didn't belong to him, such as expensive cars and nightclubs. And innocent mortal women he then turned into vampires. A nasty habit the Order had overlooked because he hadn't been killing them. Until now.

Rook opened the manila folder, a recent file on Zmaj. The first picture was a crime scene photo of a young woman lying in an alley, her neck torn out. Dead. A bloody handprint marked her cheek, a common indicator in the other photos that followed.

“Zmaj is marking their kills,” King noted, tapping the handprint. “Why?”

Rook had no clue. “Vampires tend to be secretive and hide their mistakes.” He shuffled through the photos, each flashing bloody handprints. “These kills are bold and blatant, as if they wanted someone to discover them. Or, rather, to know they are the tribe responsible for the death.”

“They've captured the attention of the mortal authorities.”

“Which means,” Rook said, “it's time the Order shut down tribe Zmaj before Tor has his work cut out for him.”

Torsten Rindle did spin work for the Order. He was a master at convincing the mortal press that a vampire bite on a dead body was simply deranged fandom at its worst.

Rook closed the manila folder. “I'll take care of this personally.”

“See that you do.” King strode out of the office as silently and unexpectedly as he'd entered.

From the drawer at the bottom of his desk, Rook drew out a titanium stake. With a squeeze of his hand to compress the paddles, out pinioned the deadly stake from the sleek column. Pressed against a vampire's chest, the weapon pierced the heart and reduced the vamp to ash. Rook had created the stake centuries earlier, and as technology had improved, so had the original design. He took pride in the implement.

He spun the weapon smartly, slapping it solidly into his palm. A bloody palm print? “You just signed your death certificate, Slater.”

He stood and, with a keystroke, put the computer to sleep. In the closet at the back of his office hung a long, leather cleric's coat with a bladed collar and reinforced Kevlar panels on the chest and back. Leather pants, a cotton undershirt and a Kevlar vest hung inside.

Stripping off his crisply ironed gray dress shirt, he tossed it aside and caught a glimpse of his bare chest in the mirror inside the door. He proudly fisted the raised brand of the Order of the Stake on his left shoulder and announced, “Tonight I'll turn this city gray with vampire ash.”

* * *

With full intel on the Zmaj tribe, Rook had headed toward the seventh arrondissement, where most of the attacks marked with the bloody handprint had been reported. It was an affluent quarter where old money mingled with the new. The Eiffel Tower and Les Invalides attracted tourists, which led Rook to believe Zmaj was hunting either unknowing tourists or the established, yet oblivious, rich.

His steel-toed boots took the cobblestones swiftly, quietly. His senses were alert for sounds beyond the incessant traffic noises. The city never slept. It was something he had in common with Paris. The air was crisp with imminent autumn, a season he enjoyed because it softened the city's harsh odor as the ominous dread for winter settled in.

As the principal trainer and supervisor for the Order, Rook took knight trainees out in the city on the hunt, but he hadn't hunted alone in years. Not for lacking desire to stake some longtooths. He had simply been too busy training and running the Order. The paperwork involved in keeping their secret order an actual secret was ridiculous. He never could have imagined, four centuries earlier, filling out computer database profiles or making duplicates over an office copy machine.

The vampire population in Paris was high, but most of them enjoyed their anonymity from mortals and worked hard to keep it that way by not killing humans and thus raising the Order's ire. Best way for a vampire to ensure immortality? Avoiding a stake to the heart.

Yet there would always be the young and reckless vamps who deemed the world their playground and enjoyed the kill. They never survived long. And although the Order served only to protect mortals from vampires, Rook knew many breeds appreciated the work they did because keeping all vampires mythical in the eyes of the mortal population benefited everyone.

Some mortals believed in vampires, werewolves, faeries and all the other breeds that shouldn't exist. Those mortals were few and were rarely considered a problem. It was those who did not believe but then had been attacked by a vampire—forcing them to believe—who Rook wanted to keep far from the fangs of hungry vampires. Those victims who would scream, raise a holy stink and invite investigation, and Rook wanted to avoid that.

And the only way to do that was by ashing the culprits.

Closer
.

Directing his attention inward, Rook questioned Oz's statement.

Something feels...familiar
.

Rook always paid attention to the entity within him. Asatrú, an incorporeal demon, had been trapped within him for four centuries, accompanying him through this thing called life.

“What seems familiar?” he asked Oz. Sometimes he spoke aloud to the demon, but he could think the question and the entity would understand just as well.

It is a feeling. You are close...to something important.

Not far ahead of him, a female cried out.

Rook fitted a stake into both hands and ran toward the harrowing sound. It was before midnight, yet this section of the city was quiet and dark with only intermittent vehicle traffic. Ancient buildings that had seen war, revolutions, and the rise and fall of monarchies closely paralleled the street. The alleys in between buildings were claustrophobic. Street lighting was at a minimum. Not the optimal place for a lone female to go walking.