Vampire Mistress (Vampire Queen #5)

He recalled her desperate emotional hunger, the need to have him and Gideon fill her, kiss her, wipe it all away. Gideon had been surprised that a woman would want that, but for some things, Anwyn thought more like a man. She needed to destroy Barnabus's hold on her flesh, do whatever was necessary to keep it from permanently branding her with fear. Above everything else, Anwyn couldn't abide being weak and afraid.

So he'd left her with a vampire hunter and gone to hunt her attackers. He hoped that his abrupt departure had sent her an unspoken message, that everything was going to be fine, because they were going to make it so. But it wasn't the only reason he'd left her with Gideon.

How could he fault her for guarding her secrets? She didn't know why he'd been as intrigued as she was when Gideon had first crossed their threshold. Fate had brought to Anwyn's door a vampire hunter whom Daegan had been monitoring across various parts of the country for months. However, as far as he could tell, an astounding coincidence was all it was.

He thought about when he'd handed Gideon back his knife. The man's hands had the rough skin of a man with no façade at all. Gideon had had admirable luck as a hunter, too admirable to be all luck. But like so many in this profession, he was carrying enough baggage to stock a 747. Though life had eaten away at him deeply, Gideon had swallowed depair, integrated it with the battle-ready toughness at his core. He was too stubborn or stupid to abandon the honor code that was destroying him. Ironically, for that and many other reasons, Daegan had known Gideon could handle being with Anwyn. He'd care for her even if it tore his soul to shreds, because he was used to that feeling.

Most important, Gideon hadn't been connected to what happened to her. In fact, he'd stood at her back, where Daegan should have been, when Barnabus had dared to set foot over the threshold of Atlantis. When James had sketched him the brief details, Daegan's blood had boiled, imagining her surrounded by the violent filth of those three. How could her trust in him, already limited, be anything but damaged beyond repair now? Gideon had surrendered to her, given her more of his soul in one night than Daegan had done in five years.

He shook off the weight of such thoughts. They wouldn't do Anwyn any good. Trust issues aside, the cruelties or kindnesses of the gods had given her two men who could provide her the different things she needed now. While it only added to the throbbing pain in his chest, being here, knowing what she was enduring, Gideon was the one who could give to her emotionally, though Daegan's lips twisted as he remembered the man's response to that.

Yeah, look under ‘nurturing' in the dictionary and you'll find my phone number.

“You don't know the effect your surrender has on her heart, vampire hunter.” Something Daegan couldn't give to her, because it wasn't in a vampire's nature. He was Dominant, through and through.

He'd overwhelmed her soul and body, time and again, exulting in the way she gave herself to him, knowing that his desire to possess her overrode his feelings toward any other, but it hadn't been enough.

Not as long as she was human.

Another reason that any chance they would ever have complete trust between them was gone.

Damn it, enough of this.He'd contacted James, had him relay to Gideon he was going to be gone at least until the following night. As much as he wanted to speak to Anwyn, she wasn't likely in any condition to speak to him. He needed to be ruthlessly calm for this, and hearing her in distress wouldn't help.

But soon he would find his target. Then he would vent his frustrationsand get back to her side.

As he drove, he reviewed what he knew about his prey. While he hadn't come into contact with Henry Barnabus before, he already had profile information on him. The bastard had been the next assignment on Daegan's list. He'd hoped to take him out where he'd taken out his sire, but Barnabus had been here, not his normal hunting grounds. Daegan had dispatched his sire much farther west two weeks before.

Sydney Lawrence had made Barnabus a vampire without Council approval, one of the most serious Council violations, but he'd been made without authorization himself. Lawrence was a mental patient who escaped from his hospital after a Council fugitive, Elliot Bernard, had decided to turn him for amusement.

Elliot had been part of the recent failed uprising against the Council, and he'd been sowing trouble here and there ever since. One might call that foolish, because it left a trail of bread crumbs to follow, but Elliot was impulse-driven and narcissistic, weaknesses that too many “made” vampires had. Which was perhaps why he'd chosen to turn vamps among the criminally insane.

Daegan had taken out Bernard in Rhode Island six months ago, and dispatched Lawrence when he was snacking on the still-warm blood of an eight-year-old, cradled in his arms like a doll. He'd been having his meal on a pier at two in the morning. From a distance, it had looked like a father tenderly holding a sleeping daughter.

Following the pyramid down to the bottom was standard procedure, so he'd taken out another of Elliot's older whelps last night, in the adjacent town. He'd been scheduled to go to New Orleans to take out another, but Daegan wished to God he'd bumped Barnabus and his two illegally made vampires up on the list. He would have tracked them and discovered them in the area sooner.

He'd been too damn busy this past year. Council rules worked only on vampires willing to follow them, or intimidated by the repercussions of not doing so. Lawrence had been gurgling on a hysterical laugh when Dagean staked him. The insane lived in a different world.

His fingers gripped the wheel, hard. Barnabus was a homeless schizophrenic, sired by a criminally insane male. Anwyn was the latest in a chain of made vamps characterized by weak blood, poor impulse control, and outright madness. Daegan couldn't avoid the significance of that, or the images they spawned, what could happen to her.

He'd seen a similar knowledge in Gideon's eyes, watching her initial transition struggles. The hunter knew that this might end badly. Would it be over before Daegan even returned? Would Gideon be forced to stake her, or choose to do it for her own good?

Typically, Daegan refused to give “forethought to grief,” as the William Blake poem said. Life was long for a vampire, and yet he already knew certain things would always be too short. Like the last time he'd held Anwyn in bed, listening to her read that very poem. He'd been stroking her hair, her cheek pressed against his bare chest, the book propped on his abdomen as her thigh slid against his. Her lashes had fanned her soft skin, her mouth curved in a slight, romantic smile, her mind immersed in the words. When he imagined her reduced to violent madness, no innocent safe from her, facing the need to put her down like a rabid animal, he felt a howling rage curl inside him, the pain greater than any he'd felt in a long time.

It forced him to stop thinking for several moments, take the necessary deep breaths. He'd taught himself to modulate his temperament, to be far calmer in demeanor and deed than most vampires. With his special circumstances and abilities, it was mandatory.

Daegan's jaw hardened. Unlike the vampires he'd dispatched—or was about to dispatch—Anwyn had strength of character. Plus, she had him to help her. As well as Gideon. At least for the time being.

Daegan remembered the tender way Gideon had removed that one slipper. With her many dark, pleasurable skills, Anwyn might have been able to help heal him, but Gideon Green would never surrender to a vampire Mistress. Once he was certain Anwyn was adjusted, Daegan was sure the hunter would decide to leave, no matter his feelings.

What he didn't realize was that Anwyn's feelings would take precedence over his own. If Gideon decided he'd overstayed his welcome before she decided she no longer wanted him, Daegan would make sure Gideon Green's far-too-uptight ass stayed at her side. He was going to make sure she had everything she needed, no matter how much of a challenge her needs posed.

And though the difficult hunter didn't yet realize it, staying at her side would benefit him as much as it would her. Daegan knew Gideon wouldn't be surprised to find out why Daegan had been monitoring him. Hewould be surprised to know Anwyn was the only thing saving him from an execution order.

It was getting closer to noon, and even the protection of his car windows couldn't stave off his increasing discomfort. Muttering another oath, he pressed down on the gas, knowing he had to take temporary refuge from daylight.

At dusk, he was prowling through the industrial district, leaving his car in a public lot. The warehouse district had fewer street people and a wealth of places for a vampire to hole up. For a vampire who had left such an obvious come-and-get-me taunt, Barnabus had proved tediously difficult to track down, though nowhere near impossible, because he was erratic, not clever. If he had more time, Daegan knew he could make the vampire severely regret trying his patience. And that was the least of his crimes.

Henry had been a social loner even among the homeless, one who couldn't attract friends or anyone to stroke his ego. What was merely pathetic in a human could become dangerous in a vampire. As a vamp, he'd been able to create drinking buddies and a fan club all in one.

It was after midnight when Daegan finally caught their scent through the crack of a broken window. He slid into the shadows outside the warehouse, every other thought melting away, leaving room only for the hunt. Finding an open window, he moved inside and lithely swung up into the rafters. He could move silently there and get a bird's-eye view of the goings-on below. He wanted to sit for a while, see what he could find out from loose tongues, ones he wouldn't have to waste time loosening himself. He tuned everything out, becoming nothing but a spirit that drifted, connected to nothing and no one but this moment and what had to be done.

“Dark Ghost” or “Black Spirit” was the meaning of the name his mother had given him, and he lived up to it, most of the time. Yet in Anwyn's arms he'd always felt surprisingly real, solid. Alive.

Glancing left, he saw a rat, motionless on the beam, a scavenger hoping not to catch the attention of a pure predator. The harmless creature might be in luck tonight, but Barnabus's luck had run out.