Honoria Ravena Page 12

  I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t hear anything.”

  “You’re probably still a little weak.”

  I sauntered to Zarek and held out my hand. “The keys.” He stared down at me for so long I thought he wasn’t going to give them to me. “Zarek. Please.”

  He pulled me into a hug and kissed my forehead. He rested against me like that, breathing in my scent. I hesitated before wrapping my arms around him. The physical affection made me incredibly uncomfortable, especially since I still wasn’t even sure I liked him.

  He released me and stepped toward my brother’s cell. I watched him. Vampires weren’t known for being gentle. Not to mention I was a vampire hunter he’d captured, who’d just pissed him off. He unlocked the bars and Jason stepped out slowly, eyeing Zarek like he was tempted to jump him.

  Zarek crossed his arms over his massive chest and glared him down. “I wouldn’t, boy. Your baby sister just pissed me off. I won’t lay a hand on her, but I’ll grind you into paste and use you to paint these walls.”

  I frowned. What happened to threatening to hit me back?

  He turned to me. “Now, you were babbling about something before we came here. Spill.”

  I nodded before my gaze slid to Jason. “Do you remember the name of the vampire who killed our parents?”

  Jason flinched. We Sumners liked to keep our feelings bottled up. It was an unspoken rule that we never brought up the death of our parents. After a few seconds, he shook his head. “Was his name even said?”

  “See, I don’t know. I’ve never remembered it, but last night I had a dream.” I shuddered. “And I heard it.”

  Jason ground his teeth. “Yeah, I have those dreams a lot.”

  Zarek rubbed his head. “God, you guys need therapy. The amount of conflicting emotions I feel coming from you is giving me a fucking headache. I’ll never have two fledglings at the same time again.”

  Jason scowled at him. “Anyway, what was the name, Regan?”

  “Navarro.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Navarro?” Jason turned to Zarek. “What does this guy look like? Is he a kid?”

  Zarek laughed so loud I jumped. “If you really want to call him that. Yes, he was turned at fourteen, but he’s no kid. He’s a merciless killer. Children aren’t supposed to be turned into vampires. The younger they are, the more vicious they are. They’re stuck. They have minds of adults, but they’re physically stuck. It makes them bitter. They usually enjoy torturing their victims before they kill.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “Every vampire tortures its victims.”

  The stare Zarek fixed me with was so vicious I thought I might burst into flames. When he spoke his voice came out quiet, like he was trying to keep from shouting. “Are you that close-minded? Do you think Alaric torments his victims? Do you think I do?”

  He marched toward me and grabbed my arms, jerking me closer. “The little mind games I’ve played with you are nothing. I mean torture, like on the rack. Branding, castration, bites that burn up the mind like wildfire. You have no idea what a vampire like that will do to a person. If you did, it would make you so sick you’d never eat again.”

  “By the time he’s done with them, they’re mindless shells staring into space. They can’t even fight him anymore. What I admire about you is your fight. I’d never do that to you or anyone else.”

  He released me so quickly I stumbled, and then he was gone.

  Laedan gave me a nasty smile. “You’re having a brain-to-mouth issue today, aren’t you?”

  I scrubbed my eyes. “Apparently.”

  “So, this Navarro asshole killed your parents, and now he’s after you. Why?”

  Jason and I just stared at him. I shrugged.

  “Well, campers, let’s go ask the man you just pissed off.” Laedan took off up the stairs as we exchanged a glance. He spun around and patted his thighs like he was calling puppies. “Come on, kids!”

  I rolled my eyes and started after him. “You aren’t funny.”

  “Sure I am.”

  He led us back through the club. We stepped into Zarek’s room. He was spinning in his office chair.

  Laedan scratched the back of his neck. “Boss, are you five?”

  Zarek pushed off the desk and spun around again. “It helps me think.”

  “How can nausea and dizziness help anyone think?”

  He stuck out his foot and came to an abrupt stop. “Who were your parents, Regan?”

  I shrugged. “Alec and Giselle Sumner.”

  “Shit. I’d hoped they would be okay…”

  “You knew our parents?”

  He nodded. “A lot of vampires come through here asking for sanctuary.” He glanced at Laedan. “Well, not just vampires, but anyway, I’m well-known for giving it because I’m one of the few vampires no one will fuck with. Hell, you’re even safe from the king here.”

  Jason stopped him. “Whoa, wait, our parents weren’t vampires.”

  I interrupted him before he could go into a rant. “Yes, they were.”

  “And how do you know that? You couldn’t even remember that night whenever we did talk about it.”

  “Like I said, I had a dream. Mom said she was a vampire. I guess we both blocked it out, or maybe in the confusion you didn’t hear it, and I did. Who knows, but they were.”

  Jason shook his head. “How? I thought vampires couldn’t have children.”

  Zarek sighed. “Under certain circumstances, they can. If a vampire bonds with a human, then that human can bear his children. Those children are called Gifts, because they’re so rare. A Gift can conceive easier. It still requires a blood-bond.”

  Jason glanced at me. “Did you know Gifts were children of vampires?”

  I shrugged. “I figured they were just a special breed of sensitive humans. I didn’t know they were children of vampires until Zarek told me. And even then, I didn’t particularly believe him.”

  “So a female vampire can carry a child to term?”

  Zarek nodded. “Yes, but the sperm supplier would have to be human. One side of the DNA has to be human. Don’t ask me why, I’m not a scientist. That’s just the way it is.”

  Jason stopped pacing. “So how did our parents have us? They were both vampires.”

  Zarek shook his head. “No, your mother was human. They wanted two children, so they had them close together, and then he turned her.” He leaned forward in his chair and clenched his hands together. “Anyway, when they came here, Giselle was pregnant, and this is no place to raise children, so they ended up leaving. Alec was young for a vampire. He had dreams of a white picket fence in Suburbia. He wanted Giselle to be some little soccer mom. Giselle wanted it, too, but she didn’t have her head in the clouds like Alec. She knew Navarro would come for them, and she asked that I teach them both to fight before they left. See, Alec was Navarro’s fledgling. The first one he had made since his move from Spain. Giselle was just fifteen when Navarro kidnapped her and took her with him to the States to be his sex slave.

  “When he made Alec, he’d given Giselle to him as his first blood. Usually, Navarro doesn’t share, but he was tired of Giselle. She was nineteen and too old for his tastes. He was hoping Alec would kill her. But Alec… God, I should have known who you were the second I fought you. Alec had more determination and fight in him than that. He’d never murdered anyone and wouldn’t start with the angel who’d been tossed into his cell naked and bloodied.

  “So, Alec healed and gained Navarro’s trust enough to let him out of his cage. Even though Giselle didn’t speak a word of English, they’d still managed to fall madly in love. Alec realized the situation and wanted to get her out. When he discovered later what exactly Navarro had been doing to her, he wanted to go back and kill him. Giselle and I kept him in a cell for a solid week before we convinced him not to go back. I don’t think we would have won, except Giselle told him she was pregnant. All the fight went out of him after that.”

  He stared at me.
“I should have known. With your fight and those long red curls, I should have known exactly who you were.”

  He shook his head again as if bringing himself out of the past. “I just got off the phone with Alaric. When he rescued you from Navarro’s assassins, he decided to officially adopt you under vampire law. He also requested that the king give him a protective warrant for you. This keeps any vampires from killing you legally, and it kept you safe from Navarro.”

  “Well, then, what the fuck happened? Why is he after us now?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? You’re vampire hunters now. You’ve committed treason against the society that took you in.”

  Jason rolled his eyes. “We’ve hunted for years. What took Navarro so long?”

  Zarek shrugged. “He probably put you out of his mind. He figured you were untouchable. Most children raised by vampires won’t hunt them. Also you were probably hard to locate.”

  “So what do we do now?” I asked.

  Zarek’s gaze shifted to me. “We kill Navarro, and then you’re under my guardianship. The king can’t protect you anymore. It’s against his personal rules to help anyone that ever hunted. Besides, you’re vampires now, the protective warrant would be useless. The king rarely guards our species. He believes we should be able to take care ourselves, and if we can’t, then we deserve whatever happens to us. Most of us were turned for our battle skills. Later, it became about beauty, but in ancient times it was all about the skills. The king was turned after a battle. I was turned after a battle. Most of the old ones were.”

  I was curious. “How were you turned?”

  “I was a warrior of the Dorians that invaded early Greece. One of those sissies stabbed me in the back, and I was left to die as the fighting continued. The man who turned me was far older than those early Greeks and lived apart from them. He’d been watching the battle, because what else is there to do when you’ve already lived an eternity and you’re looking at forever? He was impressed with my skills, and he’d been alone for a long time. So, he turned me. And the rest is definitely history.”

  I snorted. “No shit.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Zarek turned to my brother. “Jason, you look exhausted. Laedan, escort him to the bar. You need to eat, too.”

  Jason glanced at me and I nodded. I’d be fine with Zarek. I hoped, anyway. They left, and we were alone.

  “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry if I’ve insulted you. Surely you understand. My parents were killed by your kind in front of my eyes.”

  “They’re your kind too, now.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “Yeah, and I’ve got to admit that pisses me off. You shouldn’t have turned me. My brother told you I wouldn’t appreciate it.”

  “You’re not pissed, you’re afraid. You just can’t admit it, being the heap big vampire slayer you are.”

  I cringed. He was right. I’d become what I hunted, and that terrified me. In my experience, vampires were dangerous murderers. Even Alaric occasionally killed his prey. He showed no remorse. I didn’t want to kill like they did. And since I’d spent my life hunting vampires, they would be after me. I would never be safe.

  He squeezed his eyes shut. “And as I told you, I couldn’t watch you die. Maybe I could have saved you through our blood-bond, but I doubt it. Besides, this way you aren’t a slave, you can leave anytime you please, if I allow it.”

  “If you allow it?” I shouted in disgust. “That’s the same thing as being a slave to you. If you allowed it, I could have left then, too.”

  “Yes, but then I had power over your mind, and if I bound you closer to me to save you, I would have had more. This way I’ve got power over you for a limited amount of time. If you escape after that time and block yourself from me, I might never find you.”

  Power crackled around him as he stalked toward me. I backed up until I hit the wall. He braced his arms on either side of my head and loomed over me.

  “But you’ll have to escape first. I have no plans to let you go. I want you, forever. I’ll keep you in that little cell during the day if I have to.”

  I refused to cower. “I enjoy my freedom, Zarek. I’ll never love you. Is that what you wanted? My love? How could I love something I hunt? Someone who is holding me captive? You’d better keep me away from the weaponry; I’d love to kill you.”

  A grin lit his face a second before his lips crashed over mine. His tongue thrust between my lips. What had I said to elicit this reaction? I’d threatened him, for Christ’s sake. I tried to pull back, but he grabbed a handful of my hair and held me to him. His tongue twined with mine and I groaned. God, he was good at that. My brain didn’t stand a chance when he kissed me like that.

  I wrapped my hands around his waist and pulled him toward me. His erection pressed into my belly and I gasped. My pussy clenched with need. My mouth muffled his satisfied chuckle.

  He drew back slightly. “That’s definitely a gift of vampire blood. It makes you so very responsive.”

  He undid the buttons of my shirt and parted it, eyeing my breasts. My nipples tightened under the scrutiny and he sighed. “You’re beautiful.”

  I blushed. No one had ever called me beautiful before, including Nate and my ex-husband. “Uh, thanks.”

  He smiled and when he kissed me this time, it was gentle slide of his lips against mine. He kneaded one of my breasts and his other hand slid down my back. He squeezed my ass before his hands moved to his pants, sliding them down enough to free his erection.

  Whoa. “Hey, we’re still fighting here.”

  He licked my bottom lip. “Oh, are we? I couldn’t tell. I thought we were at the angry make-up sex stage.”

  He lifted me so my breasts were level with his face. I was forced to wrap my legs above his waist to keep from falling. His erection slid against the lips of my pussy. He grazed his fangs across a nipple before rolling his tongue across it and sucking it into his mouth.

  I threaded my hands in his hair, fighting the urge to press him closer, and tried to push him away. He grumbled and brushed his fangs against my breast, threatening to bite me. I stopped tugging on his hair, not willing to fight over that particular spot.

  “I can’t think when you do that.”

  “Well, I can’t imagine why I’d want you to.” He took one hand off my waist, and I was forced to steady myself on his hard shoulders. Even those distracted me. His muscles were like steel covered in warm skin.

  He strummed my clit with his finger and I bucked, rubbing myself against his erection.

  “See, when you are thinking, you’re bitching at me, but when I do things like this…” Groaning, he thrust two fingers into my cunt and I let out a high-pitched moan. “Mmm, so snug and wet. When I do things like that, you buck against me and make all sorts of pretty sounds. Do you get it now?”

  He seemed to have that incredible ability to turn my mind into mush. All I could think about was his hard cock sliding into me. “God, I don’t even know what we’re talking about.”

  His laughter rolled over me. He pulled me away from the wall and stumbled toward the bed. We tumbled onto it, and Zarek braced himself over me. He stared down at me with that dark, hungry look in his eyes before he flopped onto his back, bringing me along with him.

  “Ride me, Regan.”

  I eyed him as I ran my tongue over my fangs. There was no way I could pass that up. His flushed shaft arced over the lower planes of his stomach. I straddled his waist and lowered myself onto his thick cock. He slid his hands up my thighs to my hips and yanked me all the way down.

  I cried out and panted. “I thought I was driving?”

  He drew back and thrust into me. “You’re too slow.”

  I closed my eyes and smiled as I met his strokes. “You’re so impatient. God, you feel bigger this way.”

  I ground myself down on him and hissed as the delicious pressure began to build. Curls of fire slid up my spine with every thrust.

  “Open your eyes. I want to see them.”


  My eyes fluttered open, and I stared down at him. He was gorgeous. I watched the thick vein in his neck throb, and it made my pussy clench.

  Zarek gasped under me and tossed his head back. I wanted to sink my fangs into his throat. I could smell the blood rushing under his skin. I could hear the thump of his heart.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and turned away. “Oh, God.”

  “Damn it, Regan. We’re both close, keep going.”

  I hadn’t realized I’d stopped moving, but I knew if we didn’t stop now I was going to bite him.

  He growled something in a language I didn’t understand, and then I was on my back. I gasped, shocked, and my eyes popped open. He drove into me and I shrieked.

  “You are a vampire.” He slammed his hips against mine. I raked my nails down his back. “Accept it.” Thrust. “And move on.” Thrust. “I gave you the option of drinking from me willingly, but if I have to force you, I will. I’ll be damned if I’ll let you die on me.”

  Fire cascaded down my nerves. I shouted his name as the orgasm ripped through me. My fangs sliced my lips as I tried to keep from piercing his neck.

  “Bite me, damn you!”

  His neck came level with my face, and I couldn’t resist. I sank my fangs into the soft skin of his throat and drank deeply. He shoved into me once more and came with a roar.

  He collapsed over me, panting. I took one last swallow of blood and drew back. We both groaned as he pulled his limp cock from my body. Rolling off, he gathered me into his arms and wiped a thumb across my cheek. I hadn’t realized I’d been crying. I rested my head on his chest.

  “How did you know I’d have problems taking blood?”

  He shrugged. “You had trouble drinking from Laedan, and you were starved at the time. I figured you’d put up a fight.”

  I nodded.

  “You’ll be okay, you know. You’ll get over this and be happy again.”