Grace was just now beginning to admit that Jacob, and maybe the others, were nothing like Mason. It was still hard to fathom since Mason lived for decades with these men, was their close friend and supposedly spent a good portion of his time paroling the dark streets of the French Quarter at night, streets ripe with the violent underbelly of New Orleans history and present, protecting innocents from harm. But, according to what she had been told by Abby, Mason had changed recently, none of them suspecting he was capable of betraying not only the vows he had made with his brethren, but of turning on an innocent he was sworn to protect.
She knew now that she wasn’t going to get over her insecurities and fear by simply keeping her distance. There had to be another way.
Damien reluctantly rolled off of Abby’s soft body, her low groan as she rolled over making him wince with guilt. He hadn’t intended to fuck her again tonight knowing she would be sore after the excesses of the afternoon. He had accompanied her upstairs to see her settled in for the night before he took off, but when she stripped out of her clothes with all the shyness of a street hooker and gave him a sultry, expectant look out of those irresistible blue eyes, all his good intentions flew out the window.
“I think I’m going to need another long, hot soak if I want to move tomorrow,” Abby muffled into her pillow, making no attempt to get up.
“Stay in bed, Abrielle. You’ll feel better by morning.” Leaning over, he kissed her forehead, the only part of her face not covered. The heady feeling of being able to safely take her whenever, and wherever, he wanted had him as revved up as much as the increase in his strength, which was much more than he had ever experienced after sex with anyone else. “I have to see to something tonight, but Jacob will be here. I’ll be back in time to see you off before work.”
Abby roused enough to peak out of the covers, worry cooling her overheated senses. She could tell by his grim, determined look that she wouldn’t like what he thought he had to do. “Where’re you going?” she asked suspiciously.
“A place I never thought I’d willingly return to, and that’s all you need to know right now.” No, he never thought he would return to that house of horrors, but if Isabelle was alive, and was behind this rash of rogue attacks, there was a chance he wouldn’t return to Abby. As difficult as that possibility made this decision, they, or any of the brethren and their mates, wouldn’t have much of a future if she wasn’t stopped. He was under no illusions that he had the strength and power to defeat Isabelle alone, but he was hoping to discover exactly what they were up against and that his elevated state would give him enough momentum to deflect and survive an assault from either Isabelle or her minions.
“You’ll be careful? I didn’t wait this long for you to come to your senses only to lose you now. I’ll be really pissed if you don’t come back to me in one piece, Damien,” she warned him, the thought of him getting seriously injured or killed making her want to beg him not to go. But that wasn’t who she was and definitely wasn’t who he was. He had never stood idly back when someone was being threatened. Now that it was not only her, but his comrades and their women also, she knew he would do everything in his power to keep them all safe, taking most of the burden on himself for reasons he still refused to share with any of them.
“Well,” Damien drawled with a grin, “I’m thinking make-up sex just might be worth pissing you off. Of course, I’d have to be in one piece for it, so be sure that I’ll come back whole. Behave, Abby.” He left the room before she could say or do anything that might change his mind.
Damien found Jacob outside with both Tasha and Micah. The cats had a pleased, sated air about them, which meant there was little left of the alligator Micah had saved Grace from. He tried not to be angry at the woman for what might have happened, but it was difficult. Not only could his beloved tiger have been seriously wounded, but she would most certainly have been killed by that man-eater and that would have been a death sentence for Jacob also. He had to shoulder part of the blame for the entire incident, which is why he was able to keep his irritation in check. Had he been more diligent about keeping an eye on the alligator infestation on his property, he would have seen that gator and taken care of him before one of the cats tangled with it. The smaller reptiles were easy, stimulating prey and a good food source for the tigers, but that one’s size alone made him a risk not worth taking.
“Is Grace okay?” he asked Jacob when he joined him on the veranda. He was starting to look strained and Damien wondered how much longer Jacob could hold out without turning to someone else for relief. He knew how hard that struggle was and didn’t envy him his dilemma.
“She’s fine,” Jacob returned shortly, not wanting to discuss Grace right now.
Damien reached over and squeezed his shoulder in silent support then said, “I need to take off for a while. Can you find something to amuse yourself till I get back?”
Jacob looked at his friend and didn’t have to ask to know he was going to seek answers. Respecting his need to confront Isabelle alone this one time, if it was her behind these attacks, he nodded, replying, “No problem. Be careful, Damien.”
“Always.”
“Imbecile’s!” Isabelle screeched as she paced the large gathering room in her mountain lair, her anger echoing throughout the stone-walled mountain cavern. Piles of ash that used to be rogues littered the floor, their early deaths the result of her temper tantrum when they returned to report all recent attempts on the brethren’s mates had failed again. Twelve rogues remained, although there were a few of them who weren’t going to survive the results of her wrath much longer and several who were already nearing the point of insanity that they were of little use to her. “Out of my sight, all of you!” she demanded before she could annihilate the rest of them, leaving her with not only no way to ease her never ending sexual cravings, but with even more minions she was going to have to replace before resuming her efforts to rid herself of the cursed brethren.
She despised her weakness in not only succumbing to her grief those first few years after losing Vladamir, but in trying to replace him. She had loved every evil bone of her mate, lived to rise each night in anticipation of whatever malicious entertainment he had come up with to entertain her. She should have heeded the words in the Book of the Crescent Creed and realized there was no replacing a true mate. Back then, they had both sought blood from the wounded and dying on battlefields, of which there was never a shortage of and no risk of questions being raised over the cause of death. Those they didn’t convert to be used for their pleasure were left gutted, making it look like they had bled out, a viable explanation for their depleted blood count. That was how she had come upon Damien, the first mortal to bear the mark on his palm that made him able to survive the transformation.
Greed for a lifestyle she had grown to crave made her attempt to change Damien, and the more he resisted her efforts to embrace her evil nature, the more determined she became to win him over. She had been obsessed with him and when he escaped her and sought her out only to save a new conquest, she had grown careless in thinking he would never attempt to harm her. He had committed the ultimate betrayal by leaving her for dead, and by the time she had re-established herself after remaining underground for a century, she had discovered all but five of the brethren had found their mates, making them a force to be reckoned with if they came after her again.
Isabelle looked around the playroom with fondness. Chains dangled along the walls to secure victims and looked completely at odds with the colorful, plush pillows strewn on the floor around the wide sofas and chairs. The entire room screamed sex and violence, the splatters of blood on the walls and floor ma
de her lick her lips as she savored memories of screams of pain and agony that had enhanced her pleasure. It was in here that she held her fondest memories of her long existence with Vladimir. She wasn’t ready to give up her life, let alone any of the pleasures her immortal status afforded her, which meant she couldn’t let up on her efforts to find the mates of the unattached brethren and kill them before they could complete their bonding, giving them the numbers and the strength to defeat her.
Damien materialized in Isabelle’s private chamber, which wasn’t surprising since this was where he had spent a portion of his waking hours the year he had lived here. When not drawn to the room, and the woman who occupied it, by desperation for both blood and the strength to go on that he could get from sex, he remained holed up in his private chamber deep in the bowels of the mountain, far away from everyone else he had turned a blind eye and deaf ear to. The room was just as he remembered it with two mirrored walls, a large, gaudily draped bed and the far wall decked out with an array of blood-stained stakes. It looked lived in, which was his first clue Isabelle was alive and well. The screech of rage resonating from down the long narrow hall was his second. Eager to get this over with, he followed the angry curses to the largest room in this mountainside monstrosity, a room he had only entered once the entire months he had cowered here, refusing to face what he had become, fearful of what he might do.
Desperation brought on by starvation and weakness had driven him out of his chamber when his need after Isabelle had cut him off for several weeks could no longer be denied, not if he wanted to live. What surprised him most when he had sought her out in the room he had avoided, was how badly he wanted to live, if for no other reason than to leave this place of debauchery and at least try to make it on his own. An all-out orgy was in full swing and he had been so far gone that he never questioned the metallic smell of blood, just assumed it was from the feeding and sexual frenzy going on. Damien had joined Isabelle more than once in a three- or foursome, had spent many nights in her room wallowing in some of the perverted acts he saw going on in that large room that night. His need had been so acute, he never hesitated when Isabelle walked over, took his hand and drew him in.
He stood in the doorway now and listened to her rant, watched as she dispatched with several rogues, never giving them a chance. When the room emptied of the ones spared from her wrath, he greeted the woman he had thought he sent to hell a century and a half ago.
“Well done, Isabelle. Now you’re short playmates.”
Isabelle whirled at the sound of his voice, that voice that could have her pussy weeping in seconds. She quickly masked her surprise at seeing Damien leaning negligently against the doorframe, his tall, deceptively lean body seemingly at ease, those dark eyes not missing anything. Smiling slyly, she murmured, “Welcome back, my love.”
Damien snorted, curling his lip. “I was never ‘your love’, thank God. How did you do it? The sun was peaking when Jacob and I left you bleeding out.”
Her jaw tightened at the reminder of his treachery as Isabelle moved slowly toward him, wondering what he was doing here. He had to know he couldn’t defeat her alone. “I used up one of a cat’s nine lives and got mine back. Where’re your do-gooder friends? Hiding? Waiting to pounce? You risk a lot, Damien.”
“I’m alone, this time. I had to see for myself that you had returned from the dead.” And to see what they were up against this time around, he thought as he watched her warily. She was still a strikingly beautiful woman with a wealth of coal black hair that fell down her back in a thick, ebony waterfall. Her face was pale except for the twin splotches of color on her cheeks, remnants of her angry tirade. Her obsidian eyes looked soft as velvet, unless she was angered or aroused, then they burned with the fires of hell, the vehemence and ardor of her fanaticism that tainted everyone unlucky enough to draw her attention easily read. “You don’t seem to have suffered much from your wounds.”
Isabelle felt a swift return of her anger at the casual way he mentioned her suffering. “Maybe I should summon my pets back and give you a sample of what I suffered,” she hissed, flashing him her fangs.
Damien chuckled, knowing it would irritate her further. “Spare me your theatrics and wasted threats. You know as well as I do that I could turn that paltry group to ash with one hand tied behind my back.”