Carnal (Her Dark Desires #1) (15 page)

“What
was she like?” I asked, fascinated. It all sounded very “Jane Austen.”

“Attractive,
with fair skin and strawberry blonde hair. We hit it off, and I fell madly in
love. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until after we were married I discovered she
didn’t love me at all. She’d only married me for my money.”

I
gritted my teeth, already hating her.

“It
took a year of denying our marriage was a sham before I came to my senses. One
day I came home early and discovered my wife in bed with another man. It broke
my heart. When I came to my mother and father, hoping for advice, they said I
should just ignore it. That it was never about love. It was that day I learned
they saw me only as a pawn, another piece on the board they could move to make
more money.”

Well,
that sucked. His parents made my hoity-toity ones sound like saints.

“What
happened to your wife?”

He
sighed. “Oh, she eventually left me for the man she was seeing. Drunk with the
grief of a broken heart, I stumbled into a pub, and that’s when Erys found me.”

“Erys?”

He
smirked. “A very charming and seductive Red Witch. She offered to change me
into something powerful, a being that wouldn’t think twice about what Sylvia
had done to me. Feeling lost and desperate, I accepted her offer. So she made
me into an incubus.” He smiled wistfully. “I was… clumsy those first few
years.”

Now
that
amused me. I had a hard time picturing someone as inherently sexy
as Hector being clumsy in the bedroom.

“I
took Erys as a lover. As my Master, my siphoning ability could not harm her.
She taught me everything I know, including how to take the perfect revenge.

“I
waited three long years before tracking down my old wife. She couldn’t believe
her eyes. Her lover had apparently taken a younger woman as his mistress and
was rarely home to comfort Sylvia. She was very lonely, and it was all too easy
to seduce her.” His gaze darkened. “I took so much life from her that she died
in her sleep.”

My
jaw dropped. That little evil voice in me cheered, “Hooray, hooray, the bitch
is dead!” while the side with a conscience said, “He murdered his wife! Run for
the hills!”

Hector
had drawn very still. “It’s not what it seems. I didn’t intend to murder her. I
hadn’t realized I’d drained so much energy from her. Later on, I found out
she’d stumbled across another incubus about two weeks before me, and he’d also
seduced her. Her energy levels were already low before I found her.” He winced.
“I truly regret killing her. I mean, I wanted to for what she did to me, but I
never intended to go through with it.” His eyes met mine. He looked… scared. “Do
you think I’m evil?”

I
blinked. “No. I think you’re human.” I took his hand and squeezed. “It wasn’t
your fault she died. She sowed her seeds and brought it on herself. You definitely
didn’t deserve to be treated that way.”

He
swallowed and nodded. I hated seeing him so sad.

Reaching
up and cupping his cheek, I made him look at me. “Thank you for telling me.” I
smiled. “I don’t think any less of you.”

He
let out a breath, sounding relieved. And very scared. “I was so afraid to tell
you the truth, for fear it would drive you away. I haven’t felt this way toward
a woman in centuries.”

That
warm, fuzzy feeling enveloped me. “But you barely know me.”

“Some
souls recognize each other,” he said, tracing my bottom lip with his thumb.
“Like kindred spirits, they seek each other out, searching and feeling empty
until they find one another.”

I
smiled, loving the sound of that. “Where did you learn that from?”

“Erys.
She believed in soul mates with all her heart, though she never found hers. She
was… killed.”

“Oh,”
I said softly. “I’m sorry.”

“It
happened a long time ago,” he murmured.

I
could see Erys’s loss still ached inside him. Hector was all alone in the
world, like me.

I
hugged him. “Maybe her soul mate had already passed on, and she’s reunited with
him or her now.”

He
smiled, hugging me back. “Yeah. Maybe.”

His
eyes dropped to my mouth, and I kissed him without hesitation. Not many things
in my life had felt right, but this sure as hell did.

Falling
for Hector Aurelius was one of the best things I’d ever done.

A
chill ran over me, like we weren’t alone. Dismissing it to my imagination, I
kissed him harder, gasping in excitement when he started sinking lower down my
still naked body. “I’m going to make you come again,” he growled. “I want to
taste you. I want to lick up every last, sweet drop.”

No
complaints here.

I
had started to close my eyes, breath held, when I sensed Hector tense. My eyes
snapped open. “What is it?”

An
icy draft glided past, seeming to caress my skin in a way that almost felt
violating. Shivering, I sat up and rubbed my arms.

Hector
didn’t look at me. His gaze was pinned to the treeline, a frown set to his
mouth. “We’re not alone.”

“What?”
Grabbing my dress, I pulled it on and stood when a familiar voice said, “Hello,
doll.”

Hector
had shoved me behind him and was on his feet in one smooth move.

Heartbeat
spiking with terror, I chanced a peek around Hector.

My
eyes widened.

Damien,
clad in the same black leather trench coat I’d seen him in the first time we
met, stood there grinning back at me.

Chapter 11

THE
AIR DROPPED IN temperature until frost began to form on the vegetation around
us, slicking the blanket with a fine white sheen.

Frost…

I
looked at him sharply. “You’re the one who was in my room the other night. And
who left that message on my windshield.”

Hector
looked between us, eyes narrowing. They shone with red, through that could have
been my imagination.

Damien
smiled, eyes sparkling as if he found my revelation amusing. “Very good,
Sally.”

“Why
are you following me?” I said.

“You…
arouse me.”

That
sent shivers through me, but they were far from the pleasant ones Hector gave
me. “Stay away from me.”

“No
can do,” Damien said. “Once a paranormal’s caught my attention, I’m like a dog
with a bone. I can’t stop chasing it.”

“What
are you?” Hector growled.

Damien’s
smile was pleasant enough, but the same coldness that had taken to the air
lingered in his eyes. He sized Hector up with clear loathing. “Someone a lot
more powerful than you, incubus.”

An
orange glow began emanating from Hector’s whole body, and wisps of flame curled
around his fingertips. “I’m no ordinary incubus.”

Quicker
than I would have thought possible, Hector hurled a dagger made out of fire at Damien,
who leapt out of the way with a hiss, narrowly missing it.

I
gasped, staggering back. Hector’s eyes swirled with fire. He looked like a
demon straight out of hell.

“Get
in the car!” he yelled. “I’ll cover you.”

I
didn’t hesitate. Running as hard as I could, I jerked the door open and climbed
inside. My hands shook so hard, I was having a hard time buckling my seat belt
when Hector opened the driver’s side door and sat down. Reaching over, he
snapped the belt home, then cranked the key. The engine had only roared to life
when he yanked the gear back into reverse, then jammed it into drive. The tires
spun for a few seconds, pitching up dirt and gravel before the car shot off
like a bullet.

I
held onto the doorframe as we hurtled through several potholes before at last
swerving onto the empty highway and gunning it down the road. “What was that?”

“I
don’t know,” he growled, eyes glued forward, though he kept glancing back at
the rearview mirror. “I couldn’t get a lock on his signature, which means he’s
a hybrid.”

“No,
I meant where did your fire powers come from? Incubi don’t have those kinds of
abilities.”

His
grip tightened on the steering wheel. “It was gifted to me from Erys, when she
died.”

“You
were there?”

“She
died in my arms.”

My
heart broke at the pain in his voice. “You said you could tell Damien was a
hybrid because of his shifting signature?”

He
glanced at me. “You know him?”

“It’s
a long story.”

“We
have about ten minutes.”

Fair
enough. I gave him the truncated version of my alley encounter with the
homeless vampire, how Damien had swooped in like a dark prince and saved me,
and the subsequent eerie messages that led me to believe he could be stalking
me. Hector’s hands fisted around the steering wheel so hard I feared he may
break it when I told him how the D.P.I. had dismissed my claims.

“Don’t
worry,” Hector said, determination filling his handsome face. “I won’t let
anything happen to you. I swear.”

I
bit my lip, thinking. “You never answered my question.”

He
raised a brow.

“About
hybrid signatures.”

“They
shift, constantly on the verge of being one thing then deciding to be something
else at the last minute. It makes it very hard to detect exactly what type of
creature you’re dealing with.”

“Could
you tell at all what Damien was?”

He
shook his head. “No, this one is strong, even by our standards.”

“Great,”
I muttered.

Both
of us froze as something roared from the distance, an ominous sound that set
the hairs on end all over my body, as if the damned themselves were screaming
in agony. “Did you…?”

“Yes,”
he said gravely.

“What
was it?”

He
took a deep breath and let it out in a rush. “I don’t know.”

I
trembled, hugging myself and wishing I didn’t feel so vulnerable.

Hector
reached over and squeezed my hand. That warm, tingling energy wrapped around
me, making me feel like everything was going to be all right. “I made a promise
to you. Know that I will keep you safe, at any cost.”

“But
you don’t know me. I can’t ask you to-”

“You
don’t have to. I’d do it anyway.”

“Why?”
I insisted. “Why would you risk your life for someone you’ve only known less
than a month?”

His
eyes met mine. “Because we’re connected.”

Without
elaborating, he took the wheel in both hands as we rounded a curb at sixty.

I
nearly lost my meager dinner as the car lurched, feeling like we were going to
tip altogether, but we stayed planted on the ground. The road got curvier the
closer we drew to Elysian, and I decided not to distract him further with
conversation. It’d be sad if we’d gone to all this trouble trying to escape and
ended up dying in a car accident.

Hector’s
words echoed in my head. “Connected,” he’d said. How? I’d felt unusually drawn
to him, but I’d thought that was merely my lust talking.

Could
there be more to it than that?

In
no time at all, we were back at Elysian. Hector grabbed his cell along the way
once we were in an area that had reception, and he called up the front gate,
explaining to them what had happened. When he pulled up along the drive and
screeched to a stop, the door was promptly opened, and armed guards pulled me
out of the car and escorted me into the building. They formed a protective
circle around me as we walked.

Hector
spoke with them in hushed tones as they ushered me downstairs. I noticed no
students lurked about, which I found unusual, even this late at night.

“The
students have been ordered on lockdown, as you requested, sir,” a burly man
said, who I assumed was the captain.

“Good,”
Hector said with a nod. “I want at least five guards with her at all times,
understand?”

“Yes,
sir.”

I
raised a brow. The captain sure didn’t question Hector, like I half expected
from policemen, thanks to my run-ins with the D.P.I. “Where are we going?” I
hadn’t been in this part of the building before. The appearance was very blasé
compared to the elegance throughout the rest of the place, seeming to get
blander the lower we went.

“They’re
taking you to the emergency bunker,” Hector explained.

“You
have a bunker?”

He
shrugged. “You never know.”

Wasn’t
that the truth?
Paranormals
were just as guilty as humans for inciting violent wars, made even trickier -
and often times, bloodier - thanks to the magic most of them wielded. Though
we’d had peace for a century now, it didn’t mean alliances weren’t strained
between races, and even within clans, covens, and packs. There would always be
politics, no matter the breed, and in that, there would always remain the
assurance of war.