Passion Unleashed

Chapter 2

Serena Kelley was dying. Well, not literally, but it felt like it, what with the way the air was being sucked from her lungs by an extremely hot vampire who was kissing her senseless.

She wasn’t one to hang out in Goth clubs, but tonight’s nosebleed-Euro-Goth music at Alchemy had promised to bring in the vampires—both the wannabe’s of the human variety and the actual undead.

The music echoed off the walls of the old slaughterhouse so loudly it messed with her heart’s ability to beat, shocking her pulse into an uneven, chaotic rhythm. The smell of perfume, sweat, and sex was thick in the air, ratcheting up her libido. She moved with the crush of bodies on the dance floor, going with the tide as the vampire whose name she’d just learned guided her.

She sensed his hunger, his dark need, and yes, it was wrong of her to lead him on like this. Wrong to let him think he was going to get a meal and a notch in his coffin from her.

But what the hell. Every girl needed to flirt now and then.

Especially when flirting was as far as she could go with a guy.

“Come,” Marcus said, in that low whisper vampires could somehow make audible above any racket. “My table waits.”

Marcus was an old vamp, his formal, stiff speech part of his allure, and Serena’s hormones ran amok as he led her to a shadowed corner where several human groupies quivered like excited lapdogs at his approach.

Like so many older-generation vamps, he dressed in tasteful, conservative clothing beneath a midnight trench coat that helped him blend among the Goth and punk fashion in the bars. Glossy black, waist-length hair and ruby-red lips on a severe, pale face completed the look.

He waved his hand, and the lapdogs scattered, some of them cutting her jealous glares. She wondered how many knew he was a real vampire. Few who were deep into the vampire lifestyle actually believed in the undead. Those who did had a tendency to become Renfields—scraping, bowing hangers-ons who offered themselves up to be used in any way a vampire wanted.

Serena might have a thing for vamps, but she’d never stepped over the line to become a meal or a throwaway bedmate.

They sank into the booth, her black cargoes sliding across the faux-leather seats. Marcus wrapped his arm around her waist and tugged her into him.

Perfect. Because yes, she had a vampire fetish her boss, benefactor, and personal Aegis Guardian, Valeriu Macek, would have seizures over, and yes, she liked to live on the wild side. But she also liked to mix business with pleasure, and at this very moment, her business as a treasure hunter involved stealing Marcus’s very valuable, very antique bracelet off his wrist.

Slowly, carefully, she slid her hand over his so her fingers rested on the ancient Macedonian bauble. Marcus didn’t notice—his heavy-lidded gaze focused on her throat, and his erection prodded her hip.

“Shall we go outside, or stay here?” he asked, and she wondered if he knew she was fully aware of what he was.

The way he kept his fangs concealed told her he probably didn’t know. Then again, after hundreds of years of being undead, keeping them hidden had probably become second nature to him. And really, vampire canines weren’t all that obvious unless the vampire became excited, and then they’d erupt from the gums, elongating, growing… so erotic.

Serena tilted her jaw, exposing her throat enticingly. Distractingly. “Here,” she purred, working the bracelet with one hand, and running the other up his chest.

Powerful muscles flexed beneath her palm, and for the thousandth time, she wished she weren’t celibate. Wished she could let herself do all the stupid, risky things humans did when they were in their twenties.

Marcus’s smile revealed just the tips of his fangs as he leaned in, wincing when his chest crushed her pendant between them. He frowned at the grape-sized crystal. “That’s one hell of a jewel.”

“Gift from my mom,” she said easily, even though the necklace was far more than that.

The bracelet slid free. She slipped it inside a leg pocket in her pants and glanced at her watch. “Oh, would you look at the time! I’d better go. Don’t want to turn into a pumpkin.”

Marcus’s hand squeezed her biceps. “I am not finished with you.”

She smiled sweetly. “Oh, but you are. I’m no swan,” she said, using the term for humans who offered up their blood or psychic energy to vampires, though they usually believed the vampires were of the breathing, human variety—what true undead jokingly called fakires.

Rage iced over his dark eyes, and his lips peeled back to reveal daggerlike canines. Any sane human would be terrified, but not Serena.

She had a little secret. She’d been protected by a divine charm for eighteen years, since the day it was bestowed upon her at the age of seven, and no harm could come to her.

Not so long as she remained a virgin.

Marcus lunged for her throat. Serena angled away, and for no apparent reason, the vampire lost his balance, slipped off the seat, and landed in a heap on the floor. The groupies hovering nearby either backed away or rushed in to help him up, but he came to his feet in an explosion of anger.

His eyes narrowed and his fists clenched, but he hadn’t avoided being slain by Aegis Guardians for centuries by causing scenes. Wisely, he did nothing more threatening than curse at her, and then he whirled away in dramatic vampire fashion, the crowd swallowing him and his Renfields as they followed on his heels.

Before Marcus figured out she’d lifted his bracelet, she needed to haul ass—

Something flashed in front of her. No… inside her. A crisp pop burst in her ears, echoing from somewhere in her head. A wash of nausea made her break out in a cold sweat. Instinctively, she reached for her pendant, let the cool, smooth orb comfort her.

Except, the comfort was short-lived. The pendant glowed. A warning. Her cloak… compromised. She was exposed.

Jerking to her feet, she stumbled toward the exit on wobbly legs. She needed to get home. Back to Val’s mansion.

Because for the first time in eighteen years of living a carefree, sheltered life, Serena was afraid.

Byzamoth fell back in his seat, panting, body shuddering. Orgasmic waves of power pumped through him, the name he’d just learned breaking softly from his lips.

Serena Kelley.

He hadn’t known the identity of the human he’d been seeking, but everything about her was now as clear as a witch’s crystal ball.

Too quickly, the power fizzled, leaving him weak, but no less ecstatic. His palm burned, but it was a lovely pain, easily endured. He opened his fist, where the cause of the discomfort, a golf-ball-sized orb known as Eth’s Eye, glowed red. Red instead of gold, because it had been used for evil rather than good.

Exhausted, he let his head fall against the seat rest and gazed up at the ceiling of the Israeli house he’d commandeered this morning. The family who’d inhabited it lay at various angles around him, dead eyes staring blindly. The youngest female virgin had volunteered herself as the blood sacrifice Byzamoth had needed to activate the evil capabilities of Eth’s Eye.

“Volunteered” was probably too strong a word, but in any case, Byzamoth had gotten what he wanted. He’d found the most important human in the universe, the one who would be instrumental in kicking off the most significant event in demon history.

“It’s started,” he said to the demon standing in the living room entrance.

Lore entered, a massive male covered from neck to toe, including his hands, in black leather that matched his short hair. He was one of the most efficient killers Byzamoth had come across, a male whose touch killed everything his bare hand came into contact with.

Byzamoth might be immortal, but even he gave Lore a wide berth.

“I don’t give a shit about your war. I want my money.”

“Why the rush?”

“My partner failed to kill the Vampire demon. I need to finish the job.”

Byzamoth waved his hand. “You’ll get your payment, but it won’t matter. Soon, money will be worthless. Pain will be the new currency.”

“Yeah, well, right now cash buys beer, so hand it over.”

Byzamoth smiled. Even now, the underworld would begin to stir with the sense that something was coming, even if that something was still a mystery to them. Few would understand the significance of what Byzamoth had just done, which was to lift the divine cloak of invisibility that had shielded Serena from demon eyes for so long.

For years she had walked the Earth disguised as a normal human, and few, if any, were the wiser. Until now.

Fortunately for her, she was still charmed and still the keeper of the necklace, Heofon, and no one could take either away from her—not against her will.

No one but a select few individuals. Like Byzamoth.

He had every intention of taking them against her will.

And when he was done with her, he’d be in possession of the most powerful weapon imaginable, and demons would finally rule the world.

Doctor Gemella Endri sat in UG’s conference room with her sister and Eidolon’s mate, Tayla, at her right side and Shade at her left. Eidolon and doctors Shakvhan and Reaver sat across from them. Tension thickened the air, growing more oppressive as the night went on with no new, feasible ideas for how to save Wraith

Who had been sedated after Shade and E told him he was dying. Wraith had taken the news surprisingly well, but neither Shade nor Eidolon had trusted him to not immediately take off after the second assassin. They wanted him here, where they could monitor his health, though they had to know that their little brother wouldn’t be held immobile for long. That demon couldn’t sit still, and doing nothing wasn’t in his DNA.

Making matters even worse, the hospital had been plagued by odd equipment and structural failures. All of the windows lining the inside of the administrative area had cracked, the lights in the cafeteria flickered constantly, and the third-wing lava bath had leaked, destroying the sulphur-steam room next to it. Eidolon had been kept too busy with the problems to concentrate on medicine, because every time he fixed one thing, something else would go wrong.

“I had a consult with an Orphmage this morning,” Gem said, “but he was no help.”

She hadn’t expected the powerful Cruentus mage to be of assistance, but it had been worth a shot. Cruenti had a bloodthirsty love of killing that didn’t stop even at their own species, so she’d thought that maybe a Cruentus mage capable of the vilest of death magic would know something about how to interrupt mordlair toxin.

He’d been more interested in how to get some for himself.

“I could try again—” She broke off with a gasp.

A sinister wash of energy rolled over her, followed by several smaller concussions, as if a stone had been dropped into tainted water. She was about to ask if anyone else felt it, but from their expressions, she definitely was not the only one at the table to experience the… whatever it was. Even after the tiny waves stopped, the uneasy feeling remained, a sense that something evil had ripped into the very fabric of life.

Something bad, something very, very bad had been set into motion.

“What the hell was that?” E rasped, seeming more affected than Gem, but then, he was full-blooded demon, and she was half human, less sensitive to the tides of evil.

Gem shook her head, which did nothing to get rid of the impending feeling of doom.

“Reaver?” Tayla leaped to her feet. “Shit!”

All heads turned to the fallen angel, who sat in his high-backed leather seat… convulsing. Instantly, the doctors and Shade, a paramedic, had him on the floor and were assessing his condition, but this wasn’t a medical issue, and both Gem and Tayla knew it.

“Leave him alone.” Tayla’s voice shook as badly as Gem’s hands.

Thanks to their half-Soulshredder parentage, the sisters could see that Reaver had split wide open along the seam of an invisible scar that ran from his throat to his groin.

Soulshredders possessed the ability to see scars, both physical and emotional, that no one else could. Their species used their ability to expose old wounds, exploit them, make them worse. Gem had spent twenty-six years battling her nature, sometimes unsuccessfully. But her nature also gave her a lot of advantages when it came to her job.

Gem moved in, crouched next to Reaver as he seized, sapphire eyes rolled back in his head. The other docs were still crowded close, and as Tayla joined Gem, she shoved them all aside. Dimly, Gem heard E ask what the hell was going on, but her full attention was on Reaver.

He grabbed Gem’s wrist with one hand, squeezing so hard she had to clench her teeth to keep from crying out. “Someone found… her.”

She placed her hand on his chest next to the emotional scar that had come apart as if he’d been unzipped. As a Soulshredder, she could use her power to mend scars as well as make them worse, though her mixed blood diluted her ability, and something this big was way too much for her to handle. Still, she had to try.

“Who, Reaver? What are you talking about?”

He didn’t seem to hear, was muttering, mostly incoherently. “Serena… Sentinel… exposed… fuck.”

Gem was confused as hell, but Tayla leaned in, placing her hand next to Gem’s. “Reaver? What about Serena? Do you mean she’s charmed?”

Reaver didn’t answer, but his convulsions eased into mildly spastic twitches. Something ugly reared up inside Gem, made her want to keep the scar open, to probe harder and deeper. The impulse to dig and cause pain terrified her, and she jerked her hand away, only to have Tayla grab it and put it back.

“This is important,” Tay growled, her own Soulshredder instinct surfacing. “We need to learn more.”

Gem took a deep, ragged breath and demoned up. Ruthlessly, she dug her fingers into his scar and tugged, as Tayla did the same. Reaver screamed, but Gem ignored the sound, got into his face.

“Who is Serena?”

“Kelley…” Reaver groaned, muttering in a language Gem didn’t know.

“She’s a Marked Sentinel?” Tayla asked, and Reaver froze. Then, suddenly, in a blinding flash of light, he flew across the room as if he’d been knocked senseless by a Gargantua demon and landed in a crumpled heap against the wall.

“Shit.” Eidolon hit the intercom on the wall and called for a stretcher, and in moments, nurses and another doctor had arrived to wheel Reaver into the emergency department. Doctor Shakvhan went with him, leaving Gem with Tayla, E, and Shade.

Shade was pacing the length of the room, fists clenching reflexively. “Someone want to explain what the hell just happened? Anyone else feel that weird vibe right before Reaver turned into Seizure Boy?”

“I did. Freaked me out. I can still feel it.” Tayla rubbed her arms, as if she were suddenly cold, and Eidolon tucked her protectively against his chest.

Pain and a sense of longing bubbled up through an old wound. Gem was happy her sister had found love, but she couldn’t snip the thread of jealousy that had woven its way into her heart after Kynan had left her ten months ago—just when they’d finally found their way to each other.

“Me too.” Gem cleared her throat of the bitterness that lingered in her voice. It wasn’t Tayla’s fault Gem had lost the love of her life. “Something is stirring in the underworld.”

“I don’t like it,” Eidolon murmured. “This could be bad.”

“Or,” Shade said, crossing his arms over his broad chest, “it could be nothing.”

“Right,” Eidolon said wryly. “Because Reaver often collapses into seizures and speaks in tongues.”

Tayla broke away from Eidolon. “Reaver said something I think could be important. For Wraith.”

E and Shade went taut, and Gem tugged on one of her black-and-pink braids. “The Marked Sentinel thing?” When Tayla didn’t answer, Gem put a hand on her sister’s arm. “Tay?”

Tayla nodded. “There are stories—rumors, really—in the Aegis… about humans charmed by angels. No one knows why, or if it’s even true, but the stories say that these humans are invincible. Immortal.”

“How does that help Wraith?” Shade asked.

Tayla hesitated until Shade cleared his throat. She shot him an annoyed glare before speaking. “According to legend, Marked Sentinels can give up their charm to someone else.” She shuffled her feet, clearly uncomfortable sharing intimate Aegis secrets even with her own brother-in-law. “If we can find this Serena Kelley, Wraith might have a shot at survival. All he has to do is take her virginity.”