Hot Decadent Rising (Breath of Darkness) (5 page)

For the first time, realizing that his
voice was only in her mind and she was alone in the darkness with an unknown
creature, she hesitated for a few seconds. “What is it? What’s down here with
me?”

You don’t want to know. Go now or you
will die.

***

With excruciating
pain tearing through his body, Zack Savage became suddenly and completely
aware, but the pain wasn’t his greatest concern. Nor did it have anything to do
with his arms being chained above his head. He wasn’t alone. Someone was
drawing near. And that was very bad. But why? He felt confused and disoriented.
He wasn’t used to feeling out of sorts. Demons didn’t have trouble with memory
loss. At least he didn’t.

Closing his eyes,
he extended his mind to scan his surroundings. It was cold, damp, and the air
was musty. He reached further and heard the sound of water moving. A river. He
took a deep breath through his nostrils and smelled stale musty air.

No matter how hard
he focused he couldn’t remember what had happened to him. Frustrated, he yanked
on the chains holding his arms over his head, but they remained intact.
Normally, he could’ve easily ripped them from the stone walls.

He knew they were
enhanced with a spell. He started to focus on the spell, but stopped when he
felt the gentle presence of a young female in his mind. Focusing on her
location, he cocked his head to the side and listened. He heard the faint sound
of footsteps slowly, purposefully moving toward him. He felt excitement and
anticipation. Then he suddenly remembered why it was bad that he hadn’t woken
up alone.

Stay away,
Emily. You can’t help me.

I’m not going to
leave you to be tortured by them anymore. I can’t.
Remaining absolutely
still, he continued to expand his mind until he could hear her breathing and
her heart beating. He felt her fear. He searched for the source of it.

Rage slammed into
him. He felt anger and lust. Murderous lust. Vampires and ghouls were stalking
their prey, Emily. His woman. Why? Because she was coming to save him.

He lifted his head
and once again yanked on the chains. They didn’t budge. As he tried to focus on
the spell reinforcing them, he realized it was no use. His power was blocked.

Emily’s image, a
vision of her making her way through dark tunnels pursued by vampires flashed
in his mind. She couldn’t possibly defend herself. He started to drift into a
sea of darkness and pain. He struggled to remain conscious, using every ounce
of his concentration and his strength. After a time, he realized Emily’s
footsteps were closer. Again, he focused on her.
You promised you wouldn’t
look for me.

Her warmth filled
his mind.
I crossed my fingers.

Being so deeply
connected to her, he knew the vampires were closer to her now, nearly on top of
her. Her heart was pounding. She couldn’t be sure of where she was going. She
knew she was going to die. And yet, she was determined to save him. She was
extraordinary.

After one more futile
attempt to yank the chains from the wall, he reached for her mind. He didn’t
know what else to do. Rather than speak to her he willed her to come closer to
him. He figured he might be able to help her or at least use a spell. If she
were to get near him, he might have enough power to hide her. His logic was
flawed. He couldn’t even break the chains holding him, but he had to try. It
seemed to be working. He felt her getting closer and closer. Somehow just
knowing there was hope, though it was small, stirred his strength. He felt a
dark, violent power wrapping around him, filling him as he continued to lead
her to him.

Eventually, he was
able to see through her eyes. He knew the instant she turned the last corner
that would lead her to him. He felt her hesitate for the first time as she
sensed something powerful and violent calling out to her, drawing her to it. It
was him. Her instincts were leading her to run away from him. He couldn’t allow
it. Not now. She was too close. He reached for his power again. He found some.
It wasn’t much, but he grabbed onto it. Using it, he forced her to continue,
even as everything inside her was screaming at her, warning her to turn around
and run from him.

The moment she
entered the chamber, Emily looked up at Zack. He knew he looked horrible. He
was bruised and bleeding from several gashes covering his body. The vampires
were getting closer. His first instinct was to take her in his arms, to shelter
and protect her. He looked up at his arms stretched and chained over his head,
and then he looked down at her. He didn’t have his full power, but perhaps he
had enough to create and illusion and hide her. “I won’t hurt you. Get behind
me.”

Giving him a
curious look, she shook her head. “I know you’re not going to hurt me, but I
can’t waste time hiding behind you. They’re close behind me.”

Of course she was
right. Getting behind him wouldn’t do much of anything to protect her other
than hide her for a few moments. But he was desperate. He started to struggle
with the chains, but it was no use.

She looked up at
his arms. “Stay still. I have the key, but reaching your wrists is going to
take some fancy acrobatics.” 

The vampires were
seconds away from the entrance of the small cavern. “Just get behind me.”

Obviously ignoring
him, she put the key between her teeth and started to climb up his body.

Within seconds, the
room was filled with vampires. One yanked her away from him. Before he could
process what he was seeing, the room was empty and silent. The vampires were
gone. She was gone. Her scream shattered the silence. It was the most
terrifying scream he’d ever heard, but it was not as frightening as the sudden,
absolute silence that followed.

The power and
strength of his kind instantaneously returned to him. Along with something
else. He felt something new living inside his blood, but he couldn’t identify
what it was. It was powerful and unstable. It was dark and deadly. No. He
suddenly realized what it was. It was death. Vampire blood. During his
captivity, he’d ingested vampire blood.

Roaring his
outrage, his incisors lengthening, he easily ripped the chains from the
ceiling. In a matter of seconds he’d pried the shackles from his wrists. He had
to move quickly if he had any hope of helping Emily. He already felt the hunger
for her blood burning in his gut. He had no way of knowing how long he could
control it.

Without bothering
to scan the area to pinpoint each vampire’s position, he focused on her
location. He rushed to her using supernatural speed. When he reached her, she was
on the ground, cowering in a corner of the tunnel several yards away from the
chamber where he’d been chained. She struggled and pulled away from the rough
brick wall and got to her feet. Several vampires and ghouls surrounded her.
Rage exploded in him.

He was unable to
contain the rage because of the vampire blood in him. The tunnel walls started
to shake and crumble.

Almost instantly,
he’d managed to get in front of her. There were too many vampires to fight and
keep her safe at the same time, especially when his power was so unreliable and
uncontrollable. He created a barrier to hold them back. This would buy him a
few minutes to figure out what to do next. It wasn’t strong enough to last. He
figured sheer desperation was the only thing allowing him to create the hedge.
He bent down and wrapped his arm around her to help her up.

“Do you know how to
get out of here?” He kept his arm around her, because touching her felt so
good.

“Yes.” She pointed
down the tunnel. “I don’t know how far it is but there’s an opening in the
ceiling down there.”

He scooped her up.
“I’ll carry you so we can move faster.” His head started spin. His heart was
pounding. He had no idea what kind of damage the vampire blood had done to him.
“Put your arms around my neck.” She did, but when she looked up at him, he saw
fear in her eyes. Did she sense the influence of the tainted blood in him?

“It’s going to be okay,” he lied. He
didn’t have any idea how, or if it was going to be okay. Her pulse was
mesmerizing him and the scent of her blood was seducing him, but luckily,
regardless of the confusion the vampire blood was creating in his mind and
body, protecting her was his greatest need at that moment. “Trust me.” He hoped
like hell he wasn’t asking her to place her trust in her killer’s keeping.

“I do.”

Using supernatural speed, he got to the
end of the brick lined hallway in seconds. Looking up, he realized the opening
was too narrow for his wings. He bent his knees and jumped instead, heading
immediately for the exit.  Once he’d taken them outside, he stood on the
pier and looked out at the river, still holding her in his arms. The change in
him was instant. Getting outside the tunnel and building had restored his
power. He shifted to his home in Yakima, Washington.

“I told you to stay
away. Why did you come back?” He waited, but she didn’t reply. He lowered her
onto her feet. When she tried to look away from him, he held her face in his
hand to force her to look at him. “Why?”

“I’ve been helping
Demetri search for months. He didn’t like that Mary took you from him. And I
couldn’t leave you to be killed.”

“You’ve been with
Demetri?”

“Yes. He’s my
friend.”

He wrapped one hand
around her throat and squeezed just enough to frighten her into wondering if he
would kill her. “Demetri is dangerous. Do not go near him ever again. I am
dangerous as well. You have to stay away from me or you will die.” As he looked
into her eyes, his hunger, his need for her blood increased drastically until
it became a powerful obsession. Being a demon, he’d never known hunger. From
his youth, his body had been a self-sustaining vessel. He’d enjoyed and
consumed food on a regular basis, but it was never a necessity. His focus
started to narrow in on the sensation of her pulse against his fingertips. He
closed his eyes briefly and tore his thoughts from a path he had no wish to
travel.

Though he kept his
hand wrapped around her throat, she calmly reached up and placed her palm over
his heart. “You’re wrong. You’re just afraid to take what you need from me.”
Her gaze never once wavered from his.

“What do you think
I need from you?”

“My blood,” she
whispered, her lips trembling just a little. “You need my blood to survive.”

“You know what
happened to me?”

A single tear fell
from her eye. “I was there. It was my fault. I wanted to stop them. But I was
too afraid.”

He released her
throat and gently wiped the tear from her cheek. He knew the instant the warm
moisture touched his flesh that her pain would always be his greatest agony.
“You don’t have any blame to carry.”

“Mary managed to
steal you from Demetri because I led her to you. She handed you over to a
vampire named Jeremy Lang. Demetri was very mad. He searched for you. He tried
to force Mary to tell him where they’d taken you, but she wouldn’t tell him
anything. She thought Demetri planned to kill you, and she wanted you alive.
She believed she could find a way to control you. She planned to use you to
kill other demons.” Taking a deep breath and releasing it with a sigh, she looked
around. “Where are we?”

“My home.”

It happened so
suddenly. He was consumed by insatiable thirst for her blood. It was insane.
His dragon was roaring at him to fight the thirst for her blood.

Closing her eyes,
she tilted her head to the side to give him access to her neck. His entire body
trembling, he hesitated.

“It’s all right,
Zack. Take from me what you need to survive. I’m not afraid.” He felt as if he
was under a spell, but he was too powerful to be lost in a spell. “Do it now.
Take my blood.”

His blood turned to
liquid fire and rushed through his veins. He felt many sensations all at once.
His body had never been so entirely aroused. Needing to get closer, he caught
her hips and pressed her against his body as his tongue teased and teeth scraped
back and forth across her neck. His teeth sank deep. He heard her cry out his
name. Fearing he’d hurt her, he almost stopped. But then, merging her mind with
his, she shared the pleasure that his mouth drawing blood from her body and
taking it into his was giving her.

As he felt her
pleasure, he began to focus on and share his pleasure with her. He was hard and
swollen, so in need of ramming his cock deep inside the tight, silky heat of
her body. The hot, spicy taste of her in his mouth, the feel of her body moving
restlessly against his, and the soft sounds of her moans were pushing him
beyond all hope of control. Her knees buckled, reality struck him hard. He was
taking her blood. He was killing her. He forced himself to stop feeding on her.
He picked her up and cradled her against his chest.

She frowned. “It’s
not your fault. You’ve been without enough for too long. It was how they
controlled you. Mary said so. You needed blood to survive.”

It suddenly dawned
on him that she’d already considered that freeing him from the chains could
possibly turn into a suicide mission. She’d known that he would need blood and
that he would take it from her.

“Why did you come
back, Emily?”

“I already told
you. I couldn’t leave you to die. And it was my fault you were turned.”

“None of this is
your fault.” He didn’t know what remained of his powers, but instinct kicked in
and he started to impart healing energy into her body.

“What are you doing
to me?” she asked.

“I took too much
blood from you. I’m healing you. You’ll be fine. You’re going to sleep for a
while. When you wake up I’ll be gone. We’re in Yakima, Washington. This is my
home. It’s yours now. Demetri is not your friend. Don’t go near him ever again.
Stay until I return. You will find all that you need here.”