Red-Headed Stepchild

I took a deep breath and nodded my acquiescence.



“Ah, Sabina,” he said. “Your strength continues to impress me. I can hardly wait to taste you.”



He moved forward. My hands curled into claws under the metal restraints. I struggled to sit still as he bent down. His breath caressed my throat. The invasion of personal space caused me to jerk back, but he grasped my jaw with one hand to hold me in place. I blinked rapidly as he ran his lips over my jugular. A memory of the vamp in the parking garage doing the same thing caused bile to rise in my throat. Before I could chase away the memory, Clovis’ fangs broke skin. Searing pain shot through my neck, causing me to gasp.



After a moment, the pull of his mouth on the vein was matched by a pulsing in regions further south. A new sensation of pleasure-pain pulsed through me. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders, pulling me closer. My body yearned toward his. He sucked harder as if trying to swallow me whole. And Lilith help me, I wanted him to. I didn’t stop to think about why I suddenly wanted to give him my blood, I just did.



The whole ordeal lasted too long and not long enough. He pulled his fangs away, but came back for one final caress with his tongue. He murmured something, but I was too dazed to understand it.



His face came into view, blurry through the tears I hadn’t noticed falling. Inexplicably, his eyes glowed red in the dim light and a pair of small horns bulged from his forehead. They disappeared so quickly, I wondered if I was hallucinating. His mouth and chin glistened red when he smiled. “You’re mine now, Sabina Kane.”



My head felt like it was full of helium and my hands were shaking. At the same time, I was squirming with need. No one had ever told me it would be like that. It wasn’t so much that I gave him blood; it was more like he’d fucked my vein. And now, inexplicably, I yearned for him to fuck other parts of me.



His eyes glowed in the dim light as he watched me. “You taste like sex and magic,” he said. “I can feel your power running through me.” Clovis stretched his arms out wide, expanding his chest. His robe gaped, exposing the hard planes of his pecs, which were sprinkled with droplets of my blood.



I shifted in my seat, hoping to ease the ache in my groin. Clovis seemed to notice my discomfort and smiled.



“How do you feel, Sabina?” he asked. His eyes showed me he knew exactly what was going on. But I’d be damned if I was going to beg.



“F-fine,” I lied. “Are we done yet?” I needed to get out of there or I was going to do something else I’d regret.



“We’re finished,” he said. “However …” He let the word hang in the air, as if he expected me to ask more questions. I didn’t give him the satisfaction. I was too busy trying to think unsexy thoughts.



“If you need assistance relieving some of the … side effects, I’d be happy to lend a hand.” He actually leered at me. By this point, I was tired of his dramatics. I just wanted out of there. Regret was starting to pour through me like acid. I didn’t know what he’d done to my mind to make me so pliable during the feeding, but it was wearing off. Plus, my neck was killing me.



“I really need to get going,” I said. “Could you please take off the cuffs?”



He looked disappointed. “If you insist.”



He made quick work of the locks. “You know, Sabina, we would make an excellent team.”



I rubbed my wrists and then shook them, hoping to regain feeling. “Team?” I was too distracted by my impatience to leave to pay much attention to him.



“Think about it. You’re half mage, I’m half demon. We’re both vampires. Together we could be unstoppable. A power to contend with.”



“I’m not looking for power.” I stood and gingerly touched the wounds on my neck. Already they were healing, but the pain remained.



He laughed. “Don’t be naive. Everyone wants power, Sabina.”



I looked him in the eyes. “Not me.”



He stared at me for a moment. “Perhaps you will change your mind.”



“Don’t count on it,” I said. “Are we done here?”



He nodded and stepped back. “We need to discuss your role in the sect.”



“Sounds good,” I said, backing toward the door. “But I really need to get home to ice down my neck. Can we talk about it tomorrow?



He paused for a moment. Shock showed in his eyes. He wasn’t used to being blown off. That was too damned bad, because I wasn’t staying in his presence another minute.



“Tomorrow night will be fine,” he said finally. “And, Sabina?”



I turned from where I was about to open the door and waited.



“We’re not finished,” he said. He looked at the bed meaningfully. A threat lurked in his eyes—or was it a promise?



I nodded, not knowing what to say. “Good night, Clovis.”



I stumbled down the temple steps and into the night. The cold air was like an antiseptic, cleansing me of the stench of what I’d just done. I took a couple of deep breaths, hoping to clear my head. Self-recriminations swirled in my brain.



How could I have let Clovis take my blood? The thought of my blood flowing through him made me ill. What was worse, even though he’d been the one feeding, I felt as if I’d absorbed some of his darkness into myself. It was as though I had a black mark on my soul.



Sure, I wasn’t the most pure of beings—I killed for a living, after all. But one thing I’d never done was sell myself out for anyone or anything. And here I’d done just that for the Dominae.



Part of me wanted to march back in there and kill Clovis. The Dominae be damned. But the dutiful part of me, the one that had gotten me into this mess, argued that my mission was to find out his plans first. Killing him now would equal failure.



I hopped on the Ducati and brought it to life. The engine roared under me. I’d never felt so weak. Yet had Clovis been right? Did everyone crave power? I’d told him I had no interest in it, but I felt powerful every time I carried out a mission for the Dominae. Acting as executioner made me feel like an avenging angel dispensing justice in a world full of gray.



I took off down the road, speeding as if I could escape myself. I could only hope that the meeting tomorrow with Clovis would give me the information I needed. Then I would be free to kill him and return to my life.



But as the wind buffeted my body, I felt hollow, as if I’d somehow lost part of my soul back in that room.



16



Vinca said nothing about the marks on my neck when I got home. She had a knowing look in her eye, but it lacked judgment. To distract myself from thinking about what I’d let Clovis do, I grabbed the spell books out of my bag.



“Do you have a computer I can use?”



“Sure,” Vinca said. “Do you need the Internet?”



I nodded. When she came back, she had a sleek little notebook computer, which she sat up for me on the coffee table.



“It’s ready to go,” she said. “Whatcha doing?”



“I just need to do a little research.”



She must have sensed my reluctance to discuss it because she wandered off, leaving me to do my thing in private. When she returned, she set a pint glass next to me.



“What’s this?” I asked.



“I have a friend who works at a blood bank. I figured it’d be easier for you if you didn’t have to run out to feed all the time.”



I looked at her for a moment, touched by the gesture. I wasn’t used to someone thinking about my welfare, and it was kind of nice.



I wasn’t sure of the etiquette of thanking my nymph roommate for hooking me up with a blood supply. “Thanks,” I said, simply.



She watched me as I lifted the glass and took a tentative sip. I suppressed a grimace of distaste at the flavor of cold blood mixed with silicone. After all, she’d gone to the trouble, and I was so hungry I downed the rest of the glass in one gulp.



“Someone was hungry,” she laughed.



“Starving,” I said. “Thanks, Vinca. That really hit the spot.”



“Okay, I’ll let you get back to it.”



I nodded and watched her go down the hall to her bedroom. It looked like having a roommate did have some benefits after all. My neck tingled and my mood instantly lifted as the blood did its magic. No wonder I’d felt so crappy after I left Clovis. Loss of blood and sacrificing my dignity tended to make me a tad touchy. But now I was able to turn my attention from what happened earlier to my new task.



I moved the glass aside and got down to business. As I typed “Sumerian dictionary” into the search engine, I thought about how much the world had changed over the last few decades. If I had found Clovis’s books thirty years earlier, I’d be slubbing my way to a library or looking up linguistics experts at a local university for help. But now with a click of the button, I had thousands of pages of information at my disposal. I had to admit that as much as I disliked mortals, some of their inventions sure made a vampire’s life easier.



I started clicking through pages. After a few minutes, Vinca came back in and told me she was heading out to do some work in the flowerbeds. I worked in peace for about five minutes, until Giguhl slunk out of my room.



“Is she gone?” he asked.



“Yeah.” I clicked on a page with an extensive list of cuneiform symbols with definitions. When the page loaded, I shifted in my seat, excited to be getting somewhere.



A small, warm body rubbed against me, but I ignored it as I compared the symbols in the books to what was on the screen. A throat cleared. I scribbled notes. A head butted my elbow, causing my pen to scratch a black line across the page.



“Hey!” I said. “Do you mind?”



“May I ask what you’re doing?”



“No.” I scribbled a bit more and then read over the words. The spell seemed straightforward. All I needed was to light a white candle, sprinkle some salt, and chant a Sumerian phrase. Easy peasy.



“Where’d you get the books?” Giguhl asked.



“I borrowed them from Clovis.”