Sigils and spells, p.82
Sigils & Spells, page 82
The rest was a blur. Tearing clothes. Hands on her body and her screams echoing into the night. They were too strong and she didn’t know how to fight them. Glowing eyes and teeth that shouldn’t be that sharp ripped at the soft parts of her flesh, their fingers searching out places that she’d never shared with anyone, let alone being forced in a dark alley. It was all too real. Like the monster movies she’d been terrified of as a child, because part of her was afraid they were real.
“What are you?” She’d sobbed. “Let me go!”
“I think not, precious.” The fiend leered at her again and she watched him change. A snout appeared where a face had been only moments before. Coarse hair sprouted from his skin and she heard his muscles crack as he lifted his head to howl.
The others joined in their jubilation but stayed human, their eyes and too sharp teeth the only real evidence they shared his proclivities. They toyed with her. The men, now partially shifted into wolves, let her up, giving her the illusion of escape only to catch her a few feet down the alley and have at her once again. Her fear bled from stark terror to a gut clenching hate.
Their guttural laughter made her want to kill them. The revulsion kept her alive and the knowledge that if she ever did get up, she would find a way to make them pay for what they had done. Bloody and raw, she lay there, the unyielding concrete at her back waiting to bleed out.
Shock and horror warred with the hate and it won. It was the safest place she knew and she clung to it, trying to convince herself that the rest was a figment of her overworked imagination.
At least that’s what she wanted to believe.
One of them moved, giving her the opportunity to run if she could have moved, her eyes riveted on the hazy street light on the main drag. Then two more male forms came into view, their faces tight with rage. The taller man was a brooding presence with long dark hair that reminded her of that guy in the Bram Stoker Dracula movie. The other a muscular golden haired god with liquid eyes she wanted to fall into. If he these were the angels of death, then she would go willingly.
“And here you are. I thought I heard the barking of dogs in my alleyway.” The dark haired man spoke with cultured menace, the power in his voice sending shivers down Mari’s spine.
His teeth glinted in the half light.
What was going on?
“Your alley, Roark?” The golden haired man regarded him with a sardonic smile.
The men, now almost completely wolves, crouched down over Mari’s body, low growls reverberating from their throats.
“Well, it isn’t theirs.” Roark barred his teeth and hissed, lunging forward with his walking stick aimed at the beasts. He struck the middle one between the eyes stunning him.
“Fenris?”
“Got it.”
The smaller of the three wolves lunged at the muscular blond man and he knocked the creature back on his haunches. Then the fray began. It was a blur of movement and startled yelps.
When all was done, one wolf lay still and unmoving at the Fenris’s feet and the other two had vanished from sight.
Fenris kicked at the carcass in front of him, his lips twisted in disgust. “The Protectorate Council won’t like this.”
“No.” Roark knelt down on one knee in front of Mari, her breath coming in shallow gasps. “They’ve crossed the line again, Fen. I can’t let them claim another one.”
Fenris stepped over the wolf and approached Mari, kneeling at her side. “What are you going to do? Leave her to shift? Kill her?”
“You could take her across to Faery.”
Fenris shook his head. “And upset the balance? No. The veil between Faery and the mortal world is closed for a reason. I’ll not have something else come through if I open it.”
Roark sighed. “Then you leave me no choice.” He stood and twisted his cane, a long sword emerging from the walking stick.
Terror gripped Mari.
He meant to kill her. She’d been so ready for death a moment ago, but now that it was staring her in the face, she grew afraid once more.
A tear slid from her eye, dampening her hair.
Fenris gazed down into her eyes and reached for her blood stained hand, gathering it into his own. Her breath hitched at the colors she found there. And peace.
“Hello, witchling.” His voice was soft, eyes ever assessing.
The witch in her recognized him. He was a prince of the Wild Hunt. Wild magic swirled around him and healed part of her tattered soul.
“You…” It hurt to speak. Or to move…breathe. Anything. It would be easier to die. Part of her wanted to.
“Do you want this? Do you choose death?” He brought his lips to hers and pressed them against her gently. “Or do you choose life?”
Something inside of her leapt at his kiss even as her ravaged body lay dying.
“Fenris…” Roark hissed, his eyes burning red. “I have never brought over another to this life.”
The Fae lifted his head from Mari and considered him then turned his eyes back to Mari. “Don’t you think it’s time you did?”
“It will go against everything. All the rules we’ve set in place.”
Fenris stared at him with quiet intensity. “And this hasn’t? You and I both know Duncan would never stand for what’s happened any more than you or I did. He keeps his wolves in line. I can promise you tomorrow night I’ll be at his door discussing the matter. But right now? Now we have a young witch bleeding out on our streets. Tell me, Roark how fair that is when I can see the magic fading in her eyes for every second you delay?”
“Fuck.” Roark growled. “You gamble with fate.”
Fenris barked out a harsh laugh. “No, vampire. I gamble with nothing. This girl…” He angled his head down and Mari saw the golden green of his eyes. His full lips turned up in a half smile and he reached down to brush a strand of hair from her eyes. “This girl will surprise us all.”
Roark slid the sword back into his walking stick with an ugly snarl and knelt down on the other side of her, his eyes scanning the street for passersby. “You have to let her go. Give her to me.”
Roark slid her dead weight into his arms and placed his face close to hers, considering. “There is no turning back from this, my girl. You become my daughter, birthed in blood. What say you?”
“I…” Mari gasped as the breath was torn from her and darkness ebbed at her vision.
“Roark. Do it now!” Fenris roared.
Dimly she overheard a tearing of flesh and something drip across her too dry lips.
“Drink,” the voice hissed and teeth slid into her neck.
She’d chosen life and she hadn’t been sorry. She just wished Gibbs had been so lucky. The sadness in his eyes as he tried to reconnect with Bertrand was heartbreaking.
“I’ll try and get him to listen to me tonight. I just don’t want everyone to know about this, okay?”
“Yeah. Sure.” Gibb’s lips twisted and he shook his head.
Mari glanced down at her boobs swelling over the top of the bodice and groaned. Jared didn’t take no for an answer and Roark had been trying to get her to befriend the geeky vamp. The reason behind that wasn’t exactly a mystery. His sire was another blood royal and politically they would have been perfect match.
Funny how she couldn’t have cared less. All she wanted was to find Fenris and douse the fire that blazed through her blood. There was something dangerous and edgy about the Fae that made her want him all the more.
She dreamt of him the night before, his hand wrapped in her hair as he took her from behind, his cock filling all of her hollow places, both in her head and in her heart. The release of his fist from her hair only to tease and torment her body into a quivering mass of sensations as she skittered over the edge into bliss.
Goddess but she needed a vibrator. Or a drink. Something. Anything to quell the insane desire to mate with the Fae lord.
Just thinking about him now made her folds grow slick with want.
Get a damn grip. The man hardly knows you’re alive.
The Vampire Ball was in full swing, couples dressed in sparkling finery and glittering jewels paraded along the elaborately decorated dance floor in her sire’s home. In short. It was stuffy. And she’d been dragged downstairs to the event every year for the past decade in the hopes that she would find a prince among the fanged elite.
Not on her life. Or unlife. Or whatever.
Semantics.
Part of her wondered if setting her up with a teenage horn dog was supposed to spur her on to find her own partner. Mate. Whatever. The point was, she didn’t want one. Roark had been trying to push her into marriage, but so far she hadn’t been impressed with his choice in candidates. Jared was a hundred year old vamp trapped in the body of a sixteen year old.
She scoured the room for Fenris, frowning when she didn’t see him. An event like this usually brought out the Alpha wolf Duncan and the Fae lord. Jared appeared in her line of vision and she made out Gibbs’s dark laughter a few feet away.
“Shut up.”
“Be careful, Pigeon. Someone might hear you.”
She opened her mouth to retort but shut it again as Jared stepped in front of her.
Mari pondered how long he’d had the zits that covered his forehead and if he would ever get rid of them. When she’d been turned all of her injuries had healed. It was part of the package. She wanted to feel sorry for the kid but every time he flapped his gums, she felt the urge to hurt him. Badly.
“Good evening, Mari. Roark tells me you’re to be my escort for the night.”
She didn’t particularly like the way he said escort either. Kind of like hooker.
Hells no.
“I’ll dance with you once, but I have plans.”
“What kind of plans?”
If she had to stand here listening to him and his high pitched nasally voice all night she was going to do something drastic.
“I was going to get some air.”
“We can do that.” The twerp beamed up at her and Mari had to struggle not to roll her eyes. Gibbs laughter filled her head and she grit her teeth to keep from reacting. He placed his hand on the small of her back and attempted to guide her to the ballroom. Only he didn’t stop there. His hand kept creeping down and his face leaned into her, his hot breath on the skin of her shoulder. She walked faster, winding her way between couples, hoping by some miracle he’d gotten lost. But no. He was still here, his grasping, clammy hands reaching for her once again.
Ugh.
This was going to be one long ass night. She could see it already.
“A dance then?”
“Fine.”
He slid his arm around her, again sliding down to cop a feel. She grabbed his hands and put them back on her waist.
“Stay.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re a presumptive little shit, that’s why. Keep your hands where they belong or I’m going to feed them to one of the werewolves.”
The kid chuckled, a gleam in his eye. “You’re so sexy when you’re mad.”
Mari almost threw up in her mouth. All she wanted to do was wander the streets and experience Salem in full swing. And she would even if she had stuff dork boy in a potted plant. Ten minutes tops and she was out the door.
With Halloween almost here one of the favorite things she loved to do was walk the Psychic Fair and check out all the witchy action. Instead she had an octopus in training wheels trying to get to second base in the middle of the dance floor. He leaned into her, fangs extended.
She so didn’t need this shit.
“I’m not your personal juice box, boy wonder so get your fangs out of my face.” Mari growled and shoved the overanxious teenage vampire off of her for the third time.
She should stake him with a stir stick from the bar. Maybe no one would notice.
“What?” Jared whined, his fangs popping back into place. “I thought you were, you know…ready to…”
“To what? Shove my shoe up your ass maybe?” God, she hated the little shit. She should have just disappeared like she did every year. Roark would have been mad, but what was the saying? Better to ask forgiveness than permission? Something like that. She’d rather drink poison than socialize with her kind. It was either politics or who was going to meld Houses by marriage. And this kid.
He reached for her again and she slapped his hands away, her irritation growing.
“Why don’t you go play at the kiddy table? I have to go.”
“But you just got here,” he whined, kicking his polished black dress shoe against the floor in a juvenile action.
God.
“Yeah. And I’m leaving so get off me, troll.”
Mari’s lacy black and silver dress was pretty, but it the underside itched like the very devil. Not to mention the thong the sales woman talked her into to match her garter and stockings was riding so far up her ass it might as well have been flossing something.
“You can’t leave. Not yet. I…have to ask you something.”
“I’m done. Sorry.” She went to move past him, her heels hard on the polished wooden floor.
Roark would be pissed, but one more minute of Jared and she was going to do something drastic. Besides, her Sire could want her to befriend the pain in the ass vamp all he wanted, but he wasn’t the one who had to repel the little twerp’s advances.
Jared scurried to cut her off, lunging forward, fangs out.
Onlookers gasped, then tittered with laughter as she repelled him, knocking his scrawny ass to the floor.
“Watch out, Pigeon. I don’t think he’s quite ready to give up yet.” Gibbs commented drily.
“No kidding.”
“Who are you talking to?”
“No one.”
Damn it Gibbs.
Hells bells. And she wasn’t supposed to make a scene either. That made it harder to leave. Jared scrambled up and came at her again but this time she was ready.
It was like being propositioned then humped by your best friend’s kid brother. Or a giant mosquito. So she swatted him. With her fist.
“You heard me, asshole. Back. The. Fuck. Off.” The skin of her collarbone was still recoiling from his fangs scraping across her flesh in an effort to reach her neck.
Little fucker.
“But…Roark said you had to be nice to me.” He gave her a smarmy little smile and raised his chin.
“Oh? You want me to be nice?” Mari did a quick scan of the room, her eyes narrowing on the French doors. She stalked out to the open patio leaving the push of the crowd behind.
When Jared reached out to grab her again, she used her foot to kick his heel out from under him and he fell to the flagstones with an audible whomp.
“Here. You want something to make tonight memorable?” Mari reached beneath her dress and tugged at her thong, amused at the wide eyed expression on the little maggot’s face. Hell. He probably thought she was going to give it up to him. Not even if pigs flew and the world was taken over by flying Minions in grass hula skirts.
She slid the offending thong down her legs and kicked it off. Reaching down, she used the lacy underwear to bind the little bastard’s hands together.
“Are you going to spank me?”
“Oh. This is priceless. Wait till I bring tell the others.” Gibbs snorted, the deep belly laughs making her frown.
“You’re horrible.”
“Who are you always talking to?”
“You really don’t want to know.”
The wood pushing at the fly of his pants about made her gag.
“You wish.” Instead, she tugged him up from the ground and hooked his wrists to the handle of one of the hanging metal planters leaving him straining on his tip toes.
“Hey. Where are you going? Mari!”
Mari glanced back at the ball room, startled to see Bertrand gazing out the window. Could he see him? She whispered a spell under her breath and hoped to the Goddess it worked.
“Gibbs. Window. Nine o’clock.”
“Oh! Mari. I love you!” The ghost sailed past her, hopefully to have a meaningful encounter with his old lover. She was sure she’d hear about it in the morning either way.
“Where are you going?” Jared screeched, struggling against the tightly bound underwear.
Perhaps she should rethink her hatred of thongs. Maybe the things did have a purpose after all.
She didn’t answer. Instead, she whistled to herself and smiled up at the moon, her teeth sharp in her mouth. It was time for some action and she knew just where to go. The witches were out there was no stopping her now.
CHAPTER 2
“Another one.” Fenris stared down at the body of a murdered pixie and another fracture worked its way through his heart. Her broken body lay, wings broken, her limbs encased in skinny jeans and a tattered sweater with a bottle of what appeared to be doctored honey lying near her outstretched hand. Her lips were pale, her eyes glazed over in a sheen of death. Her other hand lay closed in a fist around something that appeared to be a chain but he couldn’t see what it was the way it was pressed against her body.
Seeing her there reminded him of one of the first near death’s he’d come across when he and Roark, the vampire Master of the City had begun to sweep the streets. The rogue wolves had only begun their reign of terror and Duncan was so grief stricken by the recent death of his mate he was in no fit condition to rule. The wolves knew it and there were those among them who decided to take advantage of the situation.
When he came upon the young witch in the alley, he had no way to discern just how complex the situation would become. Roark was still not entirely happy with him after he pressured him into turning the girl. Mari.
Fenris didn’t regret it. The longing in her eyes as she stared into his was enough to take his breath away. He came to Essex House often to speak with Roark about goings on in the city, each time hoping to catch a glimpse of her.
She haunted his dreams and that didn’t even begin to cover how massively fucked up that was. The girl had just been mauled within inches of her life ending and there he stood, his cock twitching in his pants wondering how sweet her lips would be to taste and how tight she would feel as he sank inside of her.
