Masquerade (Vampires Realm Romance Series Book 10) (9 page)

He wouldn’t allow her to slow down, not when they were both in danger.

“Uniform,” he pushed the word out and doubled his speed.

Sophis barely managed to keep up with him but he didn’t relent. They crashed through the bushes and into the cover of the trees. He pulled her behind one of the broad trunks and pinned her there with his body, placed his hand over her nose and mouth to silence her breathing and held her as she struggled.

It was a cruel way to force her to stop breathing when she hadn’t forgotten the need but he wouldn’t risk her giving away their position.

He leaned in close when she wouldn’t stop thrashing around and clawing at his hand, bringing his mouth near to hers.

“Silence,” he whispered softly. “I will release you if you will not breathe.”

He felt her swallow and nod.

Vivek eased his hand away from her mouth, ready to replace it if she so much as drew a single breath. He knew it was difficult for her not to breathe but it was necessary. He had forgotten the need himself shortly after turning one hundred, far earlier in his vampire life than most. It was rare for him to feel the need to breathe at all now but sometimes he couldn’t help himself.

Like when he was fighting Sophis.

Vivek leaned to his right and peered around the tree trunk. A crossbow bolt zipped past his ear and thudded into the tree a few metres behind him. How the hell had the hunter spotted them? Vivek growled and scanned the darkness in the direction the bolt had come from. He had a few seconds before the hunter reloaded and could fire again.

He spotted the man in the trees that lined the side of the park at a ninety-degree angle to the one where Vivek hid with Sophis.

Night vision goggles.

Damned hunters and their toys.

The crossbow was a compact model, a type that folded out. No wonder Vivek had thought the man would be only carrying stakes. What other weapons was he concealing in that jacket of his?

Vivek wasn’t about to hang around to find out.

He watched the hunter raise his weapon, dodged the bolt that flew at him, and then started to make a break for the man.

Sophis beat him to it.

She broke cover on the other side of the tree and was halfway across the grass before Vivek could react.

He growled and went after her, sprinting in an effort to catch up. He wasn’t going to let her fight alone. They didn’t know if this was an enhanced hunter or not.

The hunter reloaded and fired another round. Sophis dived to avoid the bolt, hit the damp grass, rolled onto her feet and sprung forwards, launching herself into the air. She snarled as she flipped over, tucked her left leg in and extended her right. The heel of her black riding boot smashed into the man’s shoulder, sending him crashing to the ground.

Her landing was off.

She hit the ground perfectly but skidded on the wet grass, ending up on her backside.

Vivek roared, drawing the hunter’s attention away from her as the man got to his feet, and barrelled into him, taking him back down and landing on top of him. He grunted on impact and Vivek slammed his right fist into the man’s jaw. Judging by how quickly the man’s reactions came back online, he was enhanced. The hunter grabbed Vivek’s wrist, shoved it upwards and tipped him off balance.

Sophis was on the man before he could attack.

She leapt on his back, wrapped one hand around his forehead and yanked his head backwards. The man cried out and her lips parted in a vicious smile, revealing her fangs. She struck but the man brought his elbow back, smashed it into her side and knocked her off him.

Vivek pushed to his feet and took the man on, throwing punches in quick succession to drive him backwards, giving Sophis a chance to recover. The man ducked and dodged, strafing left and right to avoid each strike. Vivek doubled his effort, using his speed to his advantage, toying with the hunter and wearing him down.

A low snarl sounded in the darkness and the smell of Sophis’s blood hit Vivek like a tidal wave, swamping his senses and sparking his hunger back into life. He drew a deep breath to catch the sweet scent and savour it.

The smell of it and the thrill of the fight collided into one deep pounding in his veins, one violent need to taste fresh warm blood coating his tongue and easing down his throat.

Sophis joined the fight, kicking the man in the back of his leg to force him onto one knee and then catching him with a sharp uppercut. Vivek snarled when she moved between him and the man but she growled back at him, exposing her fangs, her silvery eyes challenging him to try to intervene.

He wanted the kill as much as she did and he wasn’t going to back down. He craved the blood and the fight, the pain of battle and the sweet reward at the end of it. Hunger burned in his gut, lust for violence a heady drug that drove him to obey, and he could think only of sinking his fangs into this man’s throat and drinking his fill.

He despised hunters.

Vivek went to rejoin the fight but the sight of Sophis stopped him.

She moved swiftly, her punches and kicks executed to perfection, a beautiful dance that mesmerised him. He had never seen her fight like this, with such grace and such deadly precision. She countered each punch or kick the hunter aimed at her, evading him or blocking and landing her own blow. She was alive with the instinct to fight and feed, driven by her need for blood to restore her strength and finish healing the wound on her back given to her by another hunter.

Vivek had taken that man’s life as payment for what he had done to her, but Sophis would take this man’s life as her own form of retribution.

And he would allow it.

Sophis shifted behind the man, caught him by the chin and viciously pulled it up. She sank her fangs into his throat through his dark shirt and the rich scent of blood flooded the chilly night air.

Vivek watched her, breathing hard, unable to tear his gaze away. The sight of her bordered on erotic as she dug her claws into the man’s jaw, piercing the skin, and moaned as she drank deep from his vein. Vivek bit his lip. His fangs cut into it and filled his mouth with the taste of his own blood. His body stirred again and hunger hit him like a blow to the chest, knocking him. The sight of Sophis and the feel of her pleasure as it flowed out of her and shimmered across his senses coupled with the strong scent of the hunter’s fear as his life faded away intoxicated him. Vivek almost took a step forwards, hungry to join her in tasting the man, but stopped himself.

This was her kill, beautifully executed. Entrancing. If he dared to join in, she would turn on him too.

Sophis lifted her head and an arrow of desire shot through Vivek’s heart as she drew back, dark blood glistening on her lips. She licked them, capturing only half of the nourishing liquid. The rest of it enticed him, urged him to go to her and kiss it off her lips, to delve his tongue into her mouth and share in the taste of the hunter.

To take her and make her his.

Vivek turned away, curled his fingers into tight fists and blew out his breath to steady himself.

He wanted to feed too, needed to kill. This feeling had nothing to do with Sophis. The denial was weak, so flimsy that it easily shattered and his gaze roamed first to his shoulder and then over it to her.

Sophis dropped the hunter’s body and tilted her bloodstained chin up. Her eyes met his, almost white in his heightened vision, and her chest heaved as she breathed hard. The scent of her arousal permeated the air, the divine smell causing every muscle in his body to tense, winding him tighter until he was close to crossing the narrow strip of ground separating them and claiming her mouth and then her neck.

He shifted to face her.

Her eyes darkened and dropped, raking over his body, burning him wherever they touched. They lingered on his chest, his stomach, his groin. The length of his uniform jacket would conceal the granite-hard bulge in his black trousers but he couldn’t hide the scent of desire as easily. She would smell it on him, the same heady need that was currently controlling her. It urged him to go to her, to steal this moment. She was open, willing, and hungry for him.

Vivek turned away again. Not for him. She was lost in the haze of her feed, aroused by the fight and the taste of fresh blood. The moment that intoxicating feeling passed, she would look at him as she always did, with hatred burning in her eyes.

He sensed her move and glanced at her when she came to stand a few feet away from him. She cleaned her face with the sleeve of her black jacket, erasing the remaining drops of crimson he had wanted to lick away, stealing them from him.

“I didn’t see anything,” she said and Vivek turned to face her, confusion knitting his eyebrows. She kept her gaze fixed on the grass. There was an edge to her expression that bordered on shy. It wasn’t the first time this evening that she had looked that way around him.

“The hunter was human.”

“I thought that if he was enhanced, if he had our DNA in his body, that his blood might hold memories.”

Vivek looked over his shoulder at the hunter’s corpse. He could understand her reasoning. The man had recovered too quickly from Vivek’s initial punch and had been too strong to be anything other than enhanced. Perhaps the gene that allowed vampires to see memories in each other’s blood was the one that also granted immortality. The one that required death as a catalyst to bring it to life.

“Do you think he was enhanced?” Sophis’s soft voice drew his attention back to her and he nodded. “Do you think they all are... the other six we felt tonight?”

There was fear in her voice and he could feel it in her signature too. She feared mentioning Aleksis and Izabella Romanov as though they were demons who would materialise if she spoke their names aloud. They weren’t. They were humans and he would prove that to her. He would kill them both and she would see there was nothing to fear. Enhanced or not, a vampire hunter was no match for one of their kind.

Vivek frowned. “I am not sure. Aleksis and Izabella definitely are. The rest... well... that is what we need to find out.”

He turned, picked up the body, and slung it over his shoulder.

“What are you doing?” Sophis said.

“Taking this hunter in for questioning.” He jostled the corpse into a better position on his shoulder and the confusion in her eyes only intensified. “If he is enhanced, as I suspect, then he will turn within a few days. We can question him then.”

“In a few days... when the ball starts in barely two?”

“Commander Tynan will have our heads if we return without the body.” Vivek wasn’t about to argue his point with her. “Need I remind you that we failed to question him? We should have used this as an opportunity to interrogate one of the hunters, not place our bloodline and the others in danger by killing him outright.”

Sophis stared hard at him and he thought she was going to argue about it anyway, but then she nodded. “You’re right. We need the information this man might have. If we are lucky, he will turn quickly and Commander Tynan will have no reason to reprimand us.”

Vivek scoured the area with his senses and then set off in the direction of the mansion.

He hoped that luck was with them and that the dead hunter would rise as a vampire.

They needed to know how many they were up against if they were going to win this war.

S
ophis couldn’t find her voice during the journey back to the mansion. She walked on the left side of Vivek so the body slung over his shoulder obscured his view of her, needing some time alone with her thoughts. The discovery that Aleksis Romanov was back in Saint Petersburg and gathering a small army of hunters that included his sister wasn’t the only thing playing on her mind.

What Vivek had said about her men haunted her. He was right and she shouldn’t have tried to blame him for their disobedience. The fault lay with her and her weakness. If she hadn’t done what she had, if the hunters hadn’t managed to injure her in front of her men, then she wouldn’t have lost control of them and they wouldn’t have lost their faith in her. Vivek had taught her better than to go charging into a fight without a strategy like a youngling.

Sophis clenched her fists and vowed that it wouldn’t happen again. She would grow stronger and not repeat the mistakes of her past.

The fight in the park with the hunter tonight came flooding back and the moment demanding the most airtime in her thoughts reared up again. She couldn’t shake the startling way she had felt as the haze from feeding had lifted and she had found herself face-to-face with Vivek. His desire had been unmistakable.

As had hers.

At first, she had tried to put it down to the effects of feeding but that excuse had died a little more with each silent moment that had passed between them. The longer he had looked at her with eyes full of fire, the harsh rise and fall of his chest emphasising the breadth of his powerful muscular body, the more intense her awareness of him had become. The scent of their desire mingling and filling her senses had urged her to go to him and satisfy the dark craving to finish what they had started earlier this evening.

Not the fight.

Where the fight had been going.

On some instinctive and feminine level inside her, she had been aware that things had changed during the flow of their battle and that they remained changed now. Vivek had started responding differently to her and, in turn, she had reacted differently to him.

Hideously differently.

It had felt too good when he had pinned her to the floor, his body against hers, sending heat chasing through every inch of her and igniting a lust not for violence or blood, but for him.

Every touch of his body against hers since then had sent sparks skittering over her skin and rekindled the embers of her passion.

Definitely disturbing.

She hated Vivek. He hated her. He had made that evident over the past decade or so, destroying their friendship in the process. What everyone said about them might have been possible once but it was impossible now.

Vivek muttered something, slowed, and came around the other side of her. She silently cursed him for it when he looked at her out of the corner of his eye. The streetlights washed over his face, softening the harsh line of his jaw and the straight angle of his nose, and turning his hazel eyes as black as midnight. Golden highlights threaded through his hair, weaving over the tangled dark waves. Sophis cursed him again and swore he was the only man in the world who could look even more handsome than usual under sickly sodium lights.