"What are you?" he rasped. How could this fledgling vamp hold him like this? He was more than five hundred years old, and a Master.
"She is less than a week old, and already a more powerful Master than you could ever have hoped to become," Eli said, dropping to his heels and staring at Manuel.
"How?"
"I stopped the change, and followed another path,"
Tori said, her voice low and throbbing, full of some power Manuel couldn"t recognize. "An old woman showed me the way.
"Her name was Rosa. Do you have a ghost haunting you, Manuel? Someone you were bound to, someone you hurt?"
The vampire"s eyes widened and he struggled uselessly against the bonds holding him. "You lie," he rasped, a forgotten memory rushing to the fore as she said that name.
Kind eyes and a loving smile, followed by disappointment and shock and pain. The guilt he had left behind when he lost his humanity was returning, and he hated it. "She is long dead."
"Long dead, but not forgotten," a soft voice whispered.
"You"ve kept me chained to you, with every foul, evil deed, with every young life you ended, you kept me chained. I have watched you always. And waited."
The whisper had sounded through the night and all heard it. But only Tori kept her eyes focused on Manuel, kept her mind focused on the bonds she had wrapped around him under Rosa"s tutelage.
A rapid spate of Spanish fell from Manuel"s lips and he shook his head, staring in the air just beyond Tori.
Declan watched with wonder as a white, silvery cloud shifted and formed just in front of them. Formed into the face and then body of a young n.o.blewoman, her long hair bound up in the back, covered by a net that was strung with jewels. Her gown was long and heavily embroidered, with a low, square neck that revealed a smooth bosom, and two neat little pinp.r.i.c.k holes in her neck.
"How could you help her, Madre? She was meant to die, she hurt me and she was meant to die," Manuel wailed, sounding like a child.
The woman, so sweet and innocent looking, shook her head and said, "I gave birth to a monster. You became more of a monster as you grew. And when you were changed, it only worsened. I bore you, allowed you to become what you are now. And then you took her. And I saw my chance to make amends for the evils you have done."
Tori said quietly, "Rosa, you are not to blame for what he did with his life."
Sad, large eyes met Tori"s briefly. "A mother always feels guilt when her child goes astray," she said with a shrug of her shoulders. "I must make amends, and I must know that he will cause no more evil. And then I can rest."
Tori shifted and stood. "You do not need to see this," she said as she started to loosen the mental bonds that held Manuel captive.
"Yes, I do," she said with grief filling her eyes.
Tori leaped aside the moment she let the last mental rope fall, nimbly avoiding Manuel"s lunging reach for her. "Kill you," he grunted. "When you"re dead, she will die with you."
"She"s already dead," Tori said. "You killed her five centuries ago."
"Because she refused to see, I could have made her invincible and we would have lived forever, together." Manuel fell back, circling her, wary of the strength he could now sense in her. "I could have given her the world, but she wanted to remain human and mourn the death of the cowardly b.a.s.t.a.r.d she whelped first, the one who took everything that should have been mine-the t.i.tle, the lands, the woman I wanted. I killed him slowly, and painfully, like I will kill you."
He dove for her, but she was gone like the wind, moving faster, with more agility than a vampire. When he turned, searching for her, he saw her standing more than a dozen yards away, smiling at him serenely.
"What else did my beloved Madre show you?" Manuel demanded. "You are a fledgling. You cannot hope to defeat me."
Eli offered offhandedly, "Do you know what her first meal was? Aside from the steak she ate when she awoke after you changed her. The wolf. He was the first to feed her, and he did so willingly."
"Agile and fast, like a wolf. Sly, cunning, and strong like a vampire. Able to walk in sunlight and live as a human."
"Don"t you know yet what she is, my son?" Rosa asked, her white form hovering above the ground, between Manuel and Tori.
"That is legend," Manuel spat, moving to go around the ghostly form of his dead mother.
"She is legend. Legend made flesh. Only a handful of others like her have ever existed in the world. And you helped make her. Didn"t you suspect-when you couldn"t trap her mind before you sired her-didn"t you suspect she would be different?" Rosa asked, drifting away and allowing Manuel to see Tori again.
"My lady," Eli said quietly, dropping to one knee in a courtly gesture, waiting until her eyes came to rest on his bent head. "Let them finish it. Say your good-byes to your son, and let them finish it.
Sadly, Rosa said, "I said my good-byes long ago. He is not my son."
And she faded into nothingness, leaving Manuel to search desperately for her. "Madre, come back!" he cried, spinning to search for the insubstantial form.
"She doesn"t want to see you now," Tori said quietly.
"She only came because she wanted you to know how you brought this upon yourself. And that she is the one who finally found a way to stop you. You swore she never would, and she swore she would.
"She was right."
"No, Huntress, she was not," Manuel said, turning to face Tori.
Huntress.
Not just a Hunter, but the Hunter, the one all others would turn to if they failed. Tori felt the flood of knowledge hit her mind, and absorbed it, as Eli and Rosa finally let her know what she was meant to be.
Huntress.
"Come and get me, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d," she taunted, her jaws aching and empty. Her fangs slid out, longer and sharper, glinting and deadly, as Manuel rushed her.
With a strength and skill she hadn"t known she possessed, Tori caught him, spun him and flung him.
She leaped and landed on his back, lashing out along the mental path and binding him. "I want you to know the fear I felt," she crooned in his ear as she grabbed hold of his hair and jerked his head aside. "I want you to know the fear Rosa felt. The fear all your victims felt when you stole their lives."
Rearing back, she struck, sinking her fangs into his neck and feasting. His blood, once tasting so bitter, slid down her throat like liquid gold and flooded her with a blinding light, washing through her body in caressing waves. She felt the moisture gather between her thighs, felt her nipples tighten and harden as she fed.
His fear filled the night and she gloried in it.
His heart kicked up, ten beats, forty beats, ninety. Each panicked heartbeat pulsed more blood, more strength from his body into hers, until his heart faltered and stopped altogether. When she drained the last of the sweet blood from his veins, the energy building inside her broke and she shattered, climaxing with a cry as she fell from Manuel"s still body and into Declan"s arms. She came, cream flooding from her body to soak her jeans, all her muscles clenching, then relaxing, leaving her dazed and replete, staring up into the star studded sky, seeing nothing.
"That was...unlike anything I have ever seen," Eli said sometime later. He stood guard over Manuel. Though his energy was depleted, the vampire still lived, and could still escape, if the mental ropes Tori had on him slipped. Declan"s c.o.c.k was hard and throbbing against her hip and she whispered, "We are all sick, perverted freaks. I just came after I drained a man dry, and you two got hard-ons from it."
Declan laughed into her hair, cupping her crotch, feeling the moisture that had soaked her, breathing her scent in. "Sick and perverted. Can we do it again?"
Eli cleared his throat and nodded to the still body at his feet. "We need to finish this. Tori?"
She eyed the body nervously. The knowledge that ran through her brain told her she could kill him completely if she took his head. Or the sun could finish the job. She couldn"t imagine taking his head and all three of them knew it-through the mental bond they shared-one that was wide open right now.
She knew before he spoke what Eli would suggest. "If you leave the bonds on, the sun will finish it."
She also knew it would be long and painful. She would feel it, and experience it. "No. That is too brutal. I will not be a monster, not even to kill one," she said softly against Declan"s chest.
A shutter seemed to slide down, blocking her from him as he settled her on the ground, stroking one hand down her hair.
She rested, reveling in the total satisfaction, the bliss that filled her body. Eli barely glanced at Declan, his golden gaze rapt on her face. "I think perhaps I should fear you as well," he said, half joking, "if killing a vampire puts that look on your lovely face."
"He was evil. That was what made it so sweet," she whispered, her lids drifting down. "The death of evil fulfills me."
A soft mental stroke had her eyes opened and she stared up into Rosa"s face. Make it quick, she pleaded, her eyes full of grief and pain. He is not my son, but he was, once.
Tori reluctantly nodded. She had started this, and it was her responsibility to see it done. But before she could figure out how to behead the vampire, Declan had returned. She watched in confusion as he doused the still body with gas.
Rosa"s body jerked with a sob, and Tori gripped her tightly in a mental hold, trying to comfort the sorrowful woman as Declan tossed the gas can aside. Manuel"s eyes flew open, but the bonds still held , and he couldn"t move.
The flaming match fell from Declan"s hand and the Spaniard went up in flames. A long, painful, hideous shriek filled the air and then all was silent. It took only a few seconds for the body to turn to dust. As soon as the flesh was consumed, the flames went out, the wind blowing the dust around.
Rosa gently shrugged Tori"s hold off. And for a moment, her ephemeral form solidified and she reached out, caught Tori"s face in her hands, rising on her toes to kiss one cheek, then the other. "My thanks, always," she murmured.
And then she started to fade, her body becoming glittering white and sparkling, like faerie dust, Tori thought, before it drifted upward, flowing up and away from them.
"Be at peace," Eli said softly from the safety of the porch. He had moved away from the body quickly once he realized what Declan was up to and now he moved back to them, studying the scattering pile of dust, the charred gra.s.s around, dampened by the water Declan had thrown the minute Manuel"s body went up in blazes.
"It wasn"t her fault," Tori said softly, staring up into the sky. The glittery silver cloud was gone from her sight, but it was a sight she was certain she would never forget. For a brief moment, she had felt that light inside her, felt the peace, the warmth, the love and acceptance.
And her fears had faded. She wasn"t evil. That soft beautiful light had filled her, and soothed the lingering doubts.
She wasn"t a monster.
She was the Huntress.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Eli stood in his chambers alone. He had sent his bedmate away after he had awoken and fed. Her sweet blood had filled his belly but he still ached.
He heard them coming. He remained by the fireplace, staring down into the deadly flames. And he wondered, not for the first time, if he would ever have the strength to touch that fire and let the flames burn him, and release him.
"It would be no release, Eli. Merely an escape, a weak one at that," Declan said from behind him.
Tori stood in front of him, her hands linked with Declan"s, which were crossed in front of her waist.
"When do you plan to return to your home, Declan?"
Eli asked, his tone bored.
"Soon enough."
"Tori will need to mark her territory, so that the ferals know a Master Hunter now protects it."
"I"m aware of that," Declan said.
Eli turned back to stare into the fire. "I had planned on either training her myself, or finding another vampire Hunter to do so. Our strengths are different from yours, and I had intended she be well aware. But you already know what you need to know, don"t you, Tori?
Huntress?"
"I haven"t sifted through all the information in my head, Eli. I don"t know what I know or don"t know. I certainly don"t know how that knowledge came to be there. But I know that if I need you, you will come," she said quietly.
He heard soft m.u.f.fled sounds behind him but he didn"t turn to see. "You know I will." They had forced themselves deep inside him, inside his head, his soul, and his heart. Eli wanted to hate them for that.
It was so much easier to simply exist, to keep all others at a distance so he didn"t feel their departure so deeply when they left, or died. She was moving closer and Eli stiffened his body.
The jealousy inside his gut was a deadly thing. But it wasn"t a jealousy for her, exactly. Rather that Declan had found a mate, something Eli had been searching and hoping for. And he hadn"t ever found it.
When her hands landed on his waist, his eyes closed.
"What do you want, Tori? If you"ve a need to feed, Declan can take you out. Or ask one of my people." But go, and leave me be.
"We want to keep a promise." Her slender feminine hands reached for his shirt, hanging loose and open over his lean belly, and drew it down his arms.
When she pressed against him, Eli knew what sounds he had heard. She was naked-he could feel the firm, warm push of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s against his back, the hard peaks of her nipples, pressing tightly against him. He whirled away from her and stepped back, staring at her lithe nude body.
Declan had flopped into a chair, naked now as well, one hand cupping his b.a.l.l.s, stroking his shaft idly while he watched. Tori stared at Eli with hot, hungry eyes. "You"re a part of us, Eli. We feel you inside us. I do not like to know you are hurting."
"So you plan on the three of us living together, a happy threesome?" he asked mockingly.
Her lips quirked at that and she shrugged. "I love Declan. He has my heart. But we want to be with you."
"One more time?" he queried, shaking his head. "The last thing I need is to be with you and make me want you more and more, and know I"ll never have it again."
Declan asked roughly, "Who said you couldn"t? Tori wants it, I want it. You want it."
"So you are willing to share her? Let me f.u.c.k her?" Eli demanded, feeling the l.u.s.t build inside him, side by side with the despair.
"If we weren"t willing, we wouldn"t be here. Take what is offered, Eli," she murmured, moving closer and trailing her hands down his smooth, muscled chest.
One hand paused briefly over his heart, pounding hard and heavy against his ribs, then they moved lower, to shove his pants down, freeing his aching flesh. She caught his c.o.c.k in her hands, stroking lightly as she asked, "Isn"t that what you told me?"
Eli grabbed her and whirled, pinning her between the wall and his body. Turning his head, he stared at Declan with tortured, hungry eyes. "Will you let me have her? Just me?" Declan"s eyes glittered and narrowed. But he nodded slowly. "If Tori is willing, I will."
"And will you stay, and watch? Suffer what I have suffered?"
Declan smiled sadly and shook his head. "I can not suffer as you have. I have her heart. But we can share our souls, her body." Settling in the chair, Declan started to pump his c.o.c.k with his hand. "Your time will come, Eli. You will find your match. Until then..."
"Until then," Tori repeated, catching his mouth with hers and tangling her tongue with his. The fat flared head of his c.o.c.k probed her l.a.b.i.a and she arched in invitation.