Hunger Embraced (The Hunger Series) (36 page)

“No problem doing it to me, but when it comes to pretty boy here, oh no, don’t want to mar his perfect chest.”

“What did you say?” He took the chunk of skin and laid it on the floor on top of his own. He dug a lighter out of his pocket and held the flame to the edge of the skin. It began to burn, reminding me of the odor in the air at a pig roast. Gross.

“Just you being squeamish. Ridiculous. Man’s a warrior and you’re worried about him being pretty.”

“No, no. You said something else. Something I… Never mind.” I pressed a kiss to Daniel’s lips, willing some of the energy my Hunger had hoarded during the mess in the tunnel into his body. It raced into him, pooling in his belly first and then spreading out until even the minor wounds healed. The energy brought him to life in every way, and he clenched me against his chest, ripping at what was left of my shirt. I shirked back and took a breath. Gregory reached between us, using one forearm to press him against the wall. Daniel snarled and pushed me out of the way before taking the larger man to the floor.

“Ride it out Daniel or she’ll blast you. Use your head.”

Gregory did his best not to fight back while trying not to get hurt. A much harder thing to do than you’d think. I sat on my butt a few feet away, not sure what to do. I could have sex with him and take some of the energy back, but this wasn’t the most romantic of locales. Then Gregory rolled them both over somehow and clocked him a good one. Daniel growled, shook his head, and Gregory stood at some imperceptible change in his body language.

“I am sorry,
cara
. Never have I felt so…” His eyes were closed, and he swallowed convulsively.

“Horny?”

“Close enough.” He sat up, and Gregory offered him a hand to stand. His chest wound was covered over with a slightly raised bunch of scar tissue that looked like a dragon. It was intricately detailed, tiny fangs and claws evident at its mouth and feet. The dragon curled in a ball and held something in its front feet. A cup of some kind.

Gregory let out a low whistle. “You’ve been marked my friend.”

I looked at Gregory’s chest and frowned. He had a dragon also, but instead of lying curled on his chest as Daniel’s did, it was reared up, rampant with wings extended.

“So have you.” I pointed to Gregory’s pectoral. He did his best to see the mark and pursed his lips. “Do you know what they mean?”

“The dragon symbolizes many things.” Daniel thumbed his new decoration and tilted his head. “I think for now they are a symbol of where our loyalties lie and whom we belong to.”

Two sets of eyes settled on me. “I—I didn’t do it on purpose!”

Searing pain erupted on my back and wrapped around to my belly button. I screamed and fell to the floor, agony blazing through every nerve ending.

The men knelt next to me and held my arms.

“Never seen this before—”

“The lass is unique.”

The pain died, leaving aching flesh that pulsed like a deep bruise in its wake. Daniel lifted the edge of my shirt and whistled.

“Damn girl, you don’t do anything half way, do you?”

“What the fuck are you talking about, Gregory?”

Daniel propped my head up so I could see my stomach. A huge dragon head colored my stomach in vibrant reds, purples, blues, greens, yellows…hell, every color I’d ever heard of. I blinked in surprise when it winked at me. The nostril ended just in front of my belly button, whiskers trailing below my waistband. The tail came from my right side and curled up in a question mark.

“I’ve never been into body art all that much.” I traced my finger over one of the eyebrow ridges and dropped my hand away when I thought I heard cooing.

“Come, we can sort this out later. We need to clear the rest of this nest.” Gregory stood and offered me a hand. I took it and lumbered to my feet. Better to stand than lay in goo any day.

“The upstairs is empty. I killed a few young Empaths and very weak Incubi. The rest had already fled. Stephan knew we were coming.”

“So we lost the majority of the Feelers and instead finished wiping out my father’s coven for Stephan. I bet he’s laughing his slimy ass off right now.”

“Feelers?” Daniel frowned, looking up from running his fingers over the brand curiously.

“Empath vamps.”

“And just what do you call the blood drinkers like Danny here?” Gregory indicated my mate with a thumb jerk.

“Suckers.”

He rocked back on his heels. “Uh-huh. And?”

“Uh, Eaters?” Gregory stared at me, a smile tugging the corners of his mouth. He made a “go ahead” gesture with one hand. “Fuckers, OK? I call Incubi Fuckers. Yes, I’m aware that that includes me.”

The men began to snicker, and I couldn’t help but laugh too. It was a good way to blow off steam.

My foot nudged a dismembered arm out of the way. It was easier to look at it and think of it all as props from a movie than actual body parts. The thing’s claws had been huge. It would have ripped me to shreds if the sword hadn’t taken charge and moved my arms the way they need to go to chop it up. Something gold glinted on the finger of the hand I’d just pushed aside with my toe, and I bent down to pick it up.

It was my father’s signet ring.

Chapter Twenty

I’d been doing really well compartmentalizing things up to that point. So what if I had wielded a magical sword and hacked people to bits, claimed two of the Council’s warriors for my own, used my magic as a weapon, and been reminded killing while feeding was more fun than sucking a little off the top of an orgasm.

Oh, and I had a huge ass tattoo. And it might have winked at me.

Seeing my father’s ring on the floor, still attached to a severed limb—a limb I’d chopped after he’d attacked me as a huge ravening monster proved to be too much. I sank to my knees and sobbed. I could only imagine the horror I looked like with blood and entrails all over my body and streaks running down my cheeks through the middle of it. Just call me Carrie. Too bad I didn’t have telekinetic powers to collapse the house down on myself.

Daniel took my face in both hands and crouched down to make eye contact. “Don’t look at him, Miri. Don’t.”

But it didn’t matter. I couldn’t un-see it. Shudders wracked my frame, and I launched myself at Daniel.

Wet, meaty sounds filled the air, then the thump of a door being closed.

The heavy weight of a hand on my shoulder followed by the smell of fresh pine needles reached my nose. “There was nothin’ you could have done, sweet. It’s not your fault.” Gregory’s brogue colored the words until they were almost indecipherable. The rasp of his beard stubble tickled my cheek when he leaned in to kiss me.

I tried to burrow into Daniel’s neck further. Anything to get away from what I’d done.

My father hadn’t been dead after all. Until I killed him.

“He’s trapped.” Grit smeared in my eyes when I wiped at them.

Daniel moved until he could see my face. “Who’s trapped,
cara
?”

My back relaxed a fraction into the long strokes Gregory rubbed up and down my spinal column. “My father. Oblivion’s Kiss has him now. And she won’t give him back.”

Fine lines bracketed Daniel’s eyes and mouth as worry entered his eyes. His attention shifted to the man behind me.

“I’ll go upstairs and make a final sweep to ensure things are clear.” Gregory pressed his lips to the crown of my head. “Not your fault, you understand? Not your fault at all.” The warmth of his heavy palm disappeared.

Daniel sat and maneuvered me into his lap. “Miri, you didn’t know. None of us did. I imagine your father is relieved to be free of this existence.”

“Yeah,” I whispered. “But now he’s trapped somewhere else. In the knife.”

“How do you know?”

I kept my eyes trained on the tanned arm circling my waist. “I can tell. The blade, it communicates with me. It was excited by the fight. It helped me kill them. And when we got in here, it—” I swallowed, unable to continue.

“OK. OK. One thing at a time.” Love swamped me through our bond, and to a lesser extent from Gregory. They both worried for me, empathy flowing in a continuous stream. I closed my eyes and was happy the Hunger didn’t have anything snotty or glib to say.

Gregory appeared in the room in front of us. One second the space was empty, the next it was filled with a huge man straight from a horror movie. If I hadn’t been shell-shocked, I’d have screamed.

“No one alive. Several drained humans stuffed in closets and under beds, that sort of thing.” He cracked his knuckles.

“How many do you think we missed?” Daniel’s chest rumbled under my ear when he spoke.

“No way to know until we start cleanup.” Gregory crossed to the door I’d come through and opened it. “Have to try and count them.”

“Make sure you keep the heads. All of them.” I squirmed to sit up, and Daniel loosened his grip. “Babd is already pissed at me.”

Daniel stood and offered me his hand. I took it and rose to my feet as well, then hugged him from the side. “I have to help Gregory. The bodies must be burned.”

I clapped my hand over the mark on his chest and was reassured by the pulse of magic that flowed down my arm. “Let me help. I’ll get the heads in a neat pile.”

“No need to do that. Your mate and I can handle things.”

“I know.” The handle of Oblivion’s Kiss was sticky and cool, but resting my hand on it gave me focus. If the damn thing was in the sheath, it wasn’t out making mischief elsewhere. “But I don’t want to be alone with nothing to do but think.”

“All right.” Daniel kissed me. “Wait here for a moment. I found a flashlight upstairs. You’re going to need it.”

Gregory stayed with me until my mate returned. I headed into the tunnel flanked by both men, who found hauled bodies out while I put heads in a neat pile. Well, not really neat, but they weren’t strewn all over the place any longer. A few of the bodies had to be decapitated. The work was horrible, but it was better than sitting and torturing myself with endless loops of “what if.”

Eventually we finished in the tunnel. Gregory returned to the upper floors to retrieve those bodies. Daniel forced me to lay down in the bedroom we’d escaped from the other day. He tucked me into the bed then helped stack the bodies in the huge fireplace to be burned.

Each time they transferred another vampire into the flames, a great gust of heat and light flared. A huge pile of gray ash grew in the bottom of the fireplace. Nothing would be left. Daniel explained that vampires burn hotter than normal folks.

I reclined on the pillows and watched shadows chase each other across the ceiling. Silent tears traced down my cheeks. It took a massive effort not to pull Oblivion’s Kiss out and listen to the song it hummed against my thigh. It had ridden me for a time and wanted another go round. I wondered if I could toss it into Lake Erie and get rid of it. But I had a feeling it would continue to show up around me regardless. I had fed it well. Even scarier than it coming back was the thought that I didn’t think I really wanted to throw it away, even given the opportunity.

I didn’t ask where they found my mother’s body. Daniel brought me her necklace. It was a huge heart-shaped ruby pendant surrounded by diamonds. I’d always thought it was gaudy, but to her it was a status symbol. I threaded my father’s ring onto the chain with it and put the whole thing into my pocket. I didn’t want to wear it.

I don’t know how long it took to burn all the bodies. I’d been all for just leaving them and letting them rot where they lay. The only part I needed I’d gathered up into a macabre pile. Plus, there was not a chance any of them would be coming back if I had killed them. I’d nearly ensnared Daniel and Gregory too; it was how my father had managed to ambush them.

When the last body had been reduced to ash, Gregory disappeared for half an hour and came back with two canisters of table salt he dumped into the remains and then stirred vigorously with a fireplace poker. It was too hot to bag up or they’d probably have gotten out some lawn and leaf bags.

Daniel came over and gathered me into his arms.

“I can walk.”

“I know.” He laid his cheek against the top of my head. “I want to carry you.”

We traveled back to the smaller house through the tunnel we’d entered to begin with. The congealed mess on the floor stunk. I had no idea if the guys were going to come back to clean it up later or just leave it. My vote was to leave it. Maybe it would be a nice warning to anyone else that tried to use the mansion or the tunnels under it.

I looked away when we passed the pile of heads.

The men had laughed at me for packing a bag of extra clothes to leave at the smaller house, but they were silent as we took turns showering in the bathroom that adjoined my old bedroom. There was no way we could go out in public covered in gore to get back to Daniel’s apartment. The water going down the drain was red and pink for a very long time.

I put on clean clothes. They shimmed back into crusty leather pants. And nothing else.

I couldn’t even muster the energy to enjoy the view.

We rode in silence back to the apartment. I’d been happy to climb into the backseat and lay across it. It was dangerous to ride without a seat belt, but I figured I’d just survived a bunch of starved vampires trying to munch on me, and committed patricide, so I was due a mulligan from the universe.

Later, I stripped and crawled into the middle of Daniel’s enormous bed, wondering if it was babyish to ask if both men could crawl in with me, when a familiar ring tone pealed in the air. Anna. I wondered how much she’d gotten from everything that had gone down this afternoon. She probably needed a stiff drink and an entire bottle of Motrin.

I slid from the bed and padded across the floor, digging through the pile of my belongings in the corner since Gregory had evicted me from the spare bedroom.

“Hello.” God, Anna was going to think I was drunk or something.

“I told you to come to me. But you are as disobedient as ever.”

“Who is this?” My heart pounded. I had a pretty good idea.

“This is Adrian. Your king. Your betrothed. You have not shown me the respect I deserve by attending me. That was a mistake.”