Hunger Embraced (The Hunger Series) (35 page)

A small part of me wondered where Gregory had gone. I could still sense his magic somewhere nearby through the connection we shared, but it was diminished. I could not see him, and it angered me, made me rage and hack at the Incubi unnecessarily. Limbs flew, and a thick coating of blood and entrails covered the floor until I found myself standing alone in the middle of the tunnel, ankle-deep in fluids.

I wanted him where I could bury the blade in his flesh, capture his soul, and then I would move onto Daniel. He would be a feast alone….

No, that wasn’t right. I shook my head and tried to clear it. Running my hand over my eyes only succeeded in smearing more blood through them. The sword whispered to me with seduction and cold promises of mastery over all who would seek to keep me imprisoned for their own uses, that even my mate was suspect. I tried to drop it or even will it back to being an overly large knife so I could sheath it, but it answered to no one. I was ridden by the magic in the blade, and it found in me a perfect partner. We both fed on blood and death. What was orgasm but a type of death? A release of the soul, momentarily freed of the constraints of the body. And this sword wanted souls above all else.

I tried to focus on Daniel and Gregory, screaming in my head for one of them, either of them to come and help release me from its grip, but if they could hear me they stayed hidden. I knew they were alive, but not where they were. Even in the darkness of the tunnel, I could suddenly see perfectly. It was like night vision without the funny green tint. Where the ability had come from I couldn’t say. The blade perhaps?

Oblivion’s Kiss rose of its own accord and propelled me across the tunnel to a place about ten feet ahead. A door set in the wall stood slightly ajar. I leaned to one side and listened for movement or noise. Nothing. The blade urged me through, sensing living beings on the other side that could help abate its terrible longing for life energy and living souls.

I held back, waiting and searching with my own magic. The sword could easily ride someone else if I was struck down. I was nothing more than the car it currently drove, and the thought helped me clear my thoughts of its seductive song.

“Are you there?”

“Yes…”
The Hunger sounded punch drunk and half asleep.

“Please help me get control of this thing.”

“I told you there would be consequences. It’s a different kind of magic than I am. I feed on sex energy. You’re riding death and souls. You’re the keymaster, sister.”

“Wait, what?”
Unreliable ass witch. I should have known she’d leave me to deal with this alone.

“Don’t kill the boys; you’ll hate yourself in the morning. I told you not to whine.”

“Motherfucker!” I kicked the wall, and the pain helped clear my head even more. I thought about drawing the blade against my arm and decided against it. If the sword liked the taste of me too much, it might just compel me to kill myself. Instead I dug my nails into my free hand until blood welled up. That helped me focus even more.

Daniel’s presence became clear to me then, a beacon on the other side of the door. He must have finished sweeping the upper floors for Empaths and ventured downstairs to assist us. Gregory was there too, somewhere, but he felt different. I wondered how they had both ended up in the same room. The last I had seen, Gregory had been buried under a tidal wave of starving vampires. The door was only open wide enough for me to scrape through while leaving a healthy dose of skin behind, but I did it anyway. The creak of the door might alert anyone within earshot.

The room was dark, with a bare concrete ceiling and a naked light bulb hanging—little bigger than a closet. The outer door opened into yet another room, this one some kind of storage area. I got closer to Daniel with every step and hurried, stepping over two corpses and a pool of blood on my way to the door on the far side of the room.

Recognizable energy met me as I emerged into the hallway. A creature that seemed familiar stood just outside the door. It was a horrible amalgam of man and monster; if I had thought the Incubi from the tunnel were terrible, this was something only born of a nightmare. It towered over me, white and hairless, arms and legs that were much too long to be on a human body hanging from an emaciated torso. I thought of a praying mantis and how the female eats the male after mating. But this was definitely male, and it would never be eaten by another being. Oversize, red eyes that were nearly eclipsed with pupils the size of saucers took me in before one arm swept toward my head.

The sword whistled through the air and severed the hand and its terrible claws, but I was thrown to the floor with the force of the impact. My right elbow and hip took the brunt of the blow. Even riding on the energy of all the dead vampires I had fed on, numbness raced up my arm and pain flared in my leg. The creature screamed in horrible shrieking agony and charged me. I scrambled backward on my ass into the doorway I’d just left—anything was better than standing still and getting bulldozed.

A familiar dark head appeared over one of the monster’s shoulders, and a partially transformed hand wrapped around the throat from behind, ripping at the skin with three-inch claws. A gush of blood erupted from the wound and poured down its shriveled chest. The creature reared to a stop and picked him from its back with one negligent hand, flinging him into the far wall with a crunch and thud. Gregory didn’t get up.

“No!” My skin felt sticky and crusty, and the smell of the blood filled my nose. I knew I had to take its head off or it was going to take mine. Gregory’s energy ebbed, flickering in the far reach of my awareness.

The remaining arm swung wildly at me. I raised the sword weakly to shield my face—my right arm still mostly useless. Oblivion’s Kiss took the arm away at mid forearm. Another howling shriek followed a spurt of blood. The sword screamed right back, wanting this soul and this blood more than it had any of the previous it had tasted.

I lunged to my feet and charged it as it backed up, hacking at the right leg until it was separated at the thigh. The creature fell onto its back and tried to scoot away with its one remaining leg. This had been a person, but all I could concern myself with was killing it first. The sword slid through its neck with ease, singing in my head in happy tones and colors.

With nothing to block my view, I could finally see Daniel. He slumped against the wall a few feet away with one arm wrapped across his midsection.

“There you are!” I ran to him and sank to my knees at his thigh. He was gray and sweating, the front of his shirt soaked with blood, the leather vest long gone. I wasn’t sure about Gregory, but Daniel was savable.

“Let me see it.” He shook his head no. “You need blood.”

“I would have to drain you to heal.”

“I am flying right now. You can’t hurt me.” It wasn’t entirely true. Fighting giant magic sex monsters is pretty draining. My arm thrummed from elbow to shoulder. I bit down on my wrist, which hurt like crazy—they always make it look like no big deal in the movies. I shoved it at his mouth. He stubbornly refused to open his lips even when I ground it against his mouth. “Look, there are probably more vamps in here that need killing, and Gregory may be dead, and now you’re being stupid! Drink the damn blood!”

He ran his tongue over the wound, tasting me, and then sank his fangs into the holes I’d just made. Bites during sex were incredibly pleasurable. This hurt like hell. When he let go, I picked his arm up off of his stomach. It was bad. The bulge of intestines was visible in the rents in his flesh.

“You’re going to be killed outright if you sit here with me much longer. Leave me.”

I didn’t bother to remind him I’d die if he did. “I killed all the vampires in the tunnel. Are there any upstairs?” He shook his head no. “So quit worrying about it. Why haven’t you healed yet? You should be doing better than this. And how did it get you anyway?”

He looked embarrassed. “Ambush. I told you I was forbidden to be with you. This is my punishment.”

“What, getting gutted? The Council didn’t tell you to come here. The Goddess did. I don’t understand the connection.”

“I told you my tattoo is in effect a tracking device that raises my own magical ability. It can also be used to punish. The Council has not only removed the ‘boost,’ they have also made it so I heal more slowly. They are sucking energy from me.”

“You’re healing slow enough to die from a wound like this?” I swallowed panic.

“Not under normal circumstances, but I am a sitting duck, as it were.”

“And Gregory?”

“If he has not risen yet, he may be in much the same circumstance. I did not realize what was happening until that creature gutted me.”

My feet couldn’t get me to where Gregory lay fast enough. The last thing I wanted was for anyone to die for me. He lay crumpled at the base of the wall, barely breathing. The back of his head was a mess of blood and bone, and there was a nice man-shaped hole in the cinderblock wall above him. I bit my wrist again and trickled blood into his mouth, worked his jaw when he didn’t stir to swallow it.

I could see the tattoo on his chest beneath the blood and grime. It had changed. Normally they looked like a sword with the hilt to the top and a snake twined around it oruboros style. Now the sword pierced the snake’s body just behind the head.

Oblivion’s Kiss shrank back to knife size before I could even voice the question. Perhaps it was done feeding. I laid the edge against his chest and slid it under the skin in a swift movement, taking off a strip that was four inches wide and six inches long. I pinned it to the floor with the blade. A high-pitched wail hit me behind the eyes before being cut off abruptly. The blade sang in triumph.

Uh oh. I’d probably just done more than remove a magical bug. And that damned blade knew it. Crap.

The wound welled up with blood, and I found myself resisting the urge to lick it away. Gregory still did not stir. My eyes clenched shut against the sight, every instinct screaming at me to drain him and feed on his death energy.

It was time for my Hunger to pay her way.
“Wake up! Daniel said I can share energy. It’s time to get philanthropic, and I need you to help.”

“Why? He has served his purpose. He’s mostly dead anyway. Isn’t he the one that said the weak die?”
She yawned. It was total crap—if anything she flew on more energy than she’d ever had before.

I wanted to throttle her.
“He is not weak. And he is my friend. You will help me give him energy, or I’m going to do my damndest to starve you for the next month.”

“There’s no way you can hold out that long. You’re way too horny to manage it.”

“Really? Wanna try me? And now I can feed off blood. Show me. We’ve got plenty to spare.”

She ignored me. I closed my eyes and concentrated on using my magic, but in reverse. Like before, it came out in slow pulls like half-frozen taffy.

Energy filled my mouth until it spilled over, trickled down my chin, and clogged my throat. My arm and hip felt better, thank God. I leaned over him carefully, holding his head in my hands to kiss him while pouring sweet golden energy into his body. His eyes flew open. He grabbed and pinned me to the floor with an erection pressing into my stomach before I had an opportunity to react.

Gregory snarled at my lips and ran his hands roughly over my sides and breasts. He licked one side of my face, cleaning the blood away. I retracted the flow of energy and tried to speak, but he shoved his tongue into my mouth and nearly choked me with it. I shoved at his chest where the muscle still wept blood. The pain must have cleared his head, because he let me go and gulped air. He shook his head rapidly and took a few deep breaths.

“What have you done now, lass?”

“I saved you. Now get off before I do something regrettable to your cock.”

Probably not the right choice of words. His eyes flashed a golden, pupilless yellow, and he ground his groin against me. A growl poured from his lips that I’d never heard outside of the Discovery Channel. It wasn’t a human voice growling. It was a predatory animal.

“I mean it, Gregory.” This time the energy that hit him wasn’t gentle or soft; it punched through my hands with as much force as I could muster, and he flew off me right into the wall again. He rolled to his feet and straightened to standing height, shaking his head rapidly. When he looked up again his eyes were normal. He pointed to the blade where it was stuck in the floor.

“Is that stuck in the concrete?”

“Yes,” I shrugged.

“Through my tattoo?”

“Yes.” We looked down at it. “I think we need to burn it.”

“Best remove Daniel’s too, before you go setting fire to things. It might hurt him otherwise.”

“Why?”

“The tattoos give us a link with other Guardians. If you are close enough to another when he has been injured, especially if the tattoo is involved in the injury, you can feel it. I don’t want our boy to feel like he’s being burned alive. No telling what cutting it off did.”

Good reasoning. The knife came out of the floor, and I handed the piece of flesh to Gregory. It was his skin, let him deal with it. I wiped my hand on my jeans, and he snorted.

“Kind of a waste of time right now, seeing as you’re covered head to toe.” I glared at him, and he threw his hands up in surrender. “Just saying.”

“How did you get out of the tunnel?”

“Used my special mode of transportation. I was pretty well surrounded when I felt something change in your magic. Thought I’d better get the hell out and find your mate to bring you back before you killed us.”

“Good thinking.”

We knelt on each side of Daniel. He had passed out while I healed Gregory. The stomach wound was no better, but it wasn’t worse either.

The blade rested against his chest, and I frowned at it. It seemed an injustice to mar such a perfect specimen of male beauty. And the blade liked this entirely too much. Gregory reached over and grabbed my hand. He slid it through the skin in one quick swipe. I felt a pop in my aura when the tattoo came free.