Кейти Макалистер - Sex, Lies, and Vampires

I drank in his essence for one last moment before stepping back. "I'm more frightened of what will happen to us if I do not do this. No"—I put my palm on the cold wetness of his shirt, holding him back—"this is my decision. I have to do this. So rather than spending the next half hour arguing with me about it, why don't you just pretend we've already hashed it out and I won?"

He opened his mouth to protest, but instead acknowledged that I was determined to go forward with my plan. Grudgingly he gave me a gift—his support. "We will face this together, Hasi. Always together."

I faced Adrian, his hands on me as we stood before the statue, our hearts as tightly bound as our minds. The statue sat inanimate on the table, but from the corner of my eye I could see snakes of power emanating from it, flickering and twisting as if they were alive.

Ready ? I asked Adrian, raising my hand to touch the starting point of the curse bound to his chest.

I love you, Hasi , he answered, his eyes so full of the proof of his declaration that I almost wavered in my determination to end his torment once and for all. Instead I pressed my finger to the beginning of the curse, jerking back as my arm immediately went numb from cold.

"Heed me, Asmodeus, lord of darkness, master of night." The cold crept up my arm to my shoulder, toward my head. A sudden warmth stopped the flow as Adrian's hand on my neck kept the cold from freezing my brain.

My finger swept around the first of six knots that made up the curse, untangling it as I spoke. "By my blood, I turn this hex placed upon the man before you. By my bones, your power does now take flight."

Pain and rage crackled along my skin as I moved through the second knot, my hand shaking so hard with cold and fear that I had a hard time keeping my finger on the curse. "By my heart, I disperse your will through and through."

Light, white-hot and filled with a scream of fury, burst into my head. The horrible sensation I'd felt ten years before gripped me, tearing me apart as the need to stop, to preserve myself, warred with the knowledge that I was the only one who could save Adrian.

You have already saved me, Hasi. You can never fail me, no matter what the outcome. You have given me love where I have known none. Beyond that, all else pales.

Adrian's words, soft and warm, insinuated themselves through the light and pain, lessening both until I could focus my mind again.

My finger traced through the fourth and fifth knots. "Where there was pain, now joy remains. Where there was darkness, light will reign."

With a cry that came close to shattering my eardrums, Asmodeus burst forth from the figure, his body mangled and twisted, a personification of evil so horrible I could not bear to look at him. I tried to turn away, but his eyes fixed on me, and as he raised his hand, my body exploded in sheer, unending agony. I arched against Adrian, his presence in my head drowning out in the light that began tearing my brain apart. My body was numb on the outside, the cold gripping it so I could not move, but on the inside, my soul wept blood as Asmodeus's voice echoed in my head.

You will die before I release my servant to you.

Then I will die , I screamed, fighting to make my arm move, to make my finger trace the pattern of the last knot. It wouldn't move. It was locked, frozen with cold.

Pain caused my legs to buckle, but I did not fall. I was blinded by the pain and light, but I knew it was Adrian who held me up. It was his hand that was the warmth I felt on my frozen arm, his love that bound us together and gave me the strength to fight on when I wanted to surrender to the pain. On the verge of unconsciousness, and sick with the knowledge that with each passing second more of my brain was being destroyed by my act of charming the curse, I moved my finger through the last intricate swirls and twists of the remaining knot. "Battered, beaten, torn, and harmed, by my love, this curse I charm."

Die, then ! Asmodeus's vengeance swept over me, ripping me from Adrian's arms, swinging me up in a maelstrom of pain, fury, and eternal anguish. The light in my head grew until it spilled out of me, turning the world into one unending moment of agony. I sank into it sick with the knowledge that I had failed.

I can't move my legs.

Can you not?

I can't move my arms either.

Ah. Why is that, do you suppose?

Hmm. Let me think about it. Maybe the large, sweaty vampire draped over me has something to do with it.

Dark One, Hasi. I am a Dark One, not a vampire. I have explained this to you time and time again, and yet you insist on referring to me in the popular vernacular. Besides, it is honest sweat. You cannot scorn it.

I opened my eyes and smiled at Adrian, pulling my arm up from where it had been pinned when he collapsed on me after making the sweetest love possible. I trailed my fingers over the lovely contours of his bicep before skimming my hand down his side to pinch the very firm flesh of his behind. "Even wet with the honest sweat of a job well done—and it was a job very well done, not that you need me to praise your sexual prowess anymore—I adore you."

"As is right," he said smugly, his head dipping to nip the skin of my shoulder.

"Ow! The dining car is closed! You had three courses already, you can't still be hungry."

He growled into my neck. I am always hungry for you, Hasi .

I grinned and trailed my fingers across the back of his neck, one of his particularly ticklish spots. "You just like flaunting that soul around, that's what it is. I have nothing to do with it—you'd probably be just as happy making love to a hole in a tree so long as you could do it with your soul enhancing all the feelings."

"A hole in a tree!" he yelled in mock outrage, flashing his fangs at me. "You forget who you are speaking to! I am powerful! I am feared! I am—"

"—sexy as hell, and you know it."

His lips curled into a self-satisfied smile. "Woman, you will be punished for such abuse!"

He rolled over, pulling me with him as he prepared to render his version of punishment, which always ended up in wild bunny sex.

"Are you done yet? It's been three hours!" Came a peevish voice from the doorway.

I eeked and scooted down Adrian's body until the blankets hid most of me. Adrian glared over my head at the boy standing in the open doorway. "I have told you before—now that Nell is with us, you must knock before entering our bedroom."

I slithered off Adrian, shimmying over to the far side of the bed, reaching out from under the blankets to feel for the bathrobe Allie had lent me. I had been wearing it when Adrian ripped it from my body. Maybe it had slipped under the bed.

"I did knock. You didn't hear me. She was laughing."

"Nell has a name. She is my Beloved. You will treat her with respect, and not refer to her as she."

My hand, scrabbling around under the bed, closed around a dry, round object. I froze.

"You like her better than me!" Damian shouted. "She smells funny! How can you stand to be around her?"

Adrian rolled his eyes and sat up in bed. "We have had this discussion before. You are my son. I love you. I will always love you. But I also love Nell, and if you give her the chance and stop rejecting her advances, she will take you into her heart as well."

"Oh, yeah, like he's going to allow me to do that," I muttered as I pulled the object out from under the bed.

"Are we going to the museum or not?" Damian demanded, ignoring his father's request. "She said we could go. I want to see the mummies."

I stared down at Ginger's head. His jaw cracked open in a grin. I slapped a hand over his mummified lips to stop the coo of pleasure I knew he was about to make.