Eternal Kiss of Darkness

Chapter 12

Mencheres snapped his suitcase shut, taking a final look around the bedroom. It was the last time he’d see this tiny space with its unappealing décor. He wouldn’t spare a thought about leaving under normal circumstances, but it was symbolic of his decision. He wasn’t coming back. Not to this room, or this house, or this city. He’d lingered here too long already, loath to severe that final connection to the human who still haunted his thoughts even though he’d kept his vow not to follow Kira again.

Gorgon came into the room, his blue eyes somber. The Nordic vampire could sense his sire’s moods, especially now with the normal shielding Mencheres maintained slipping as he looked around again. Selene, Kurt, and Sam had already left the day before. It was time for him and Gorgon to go. He could delay no longer.

“The plane is fueling?” Mencheres asked.

“Yes.”

Mencheres gave Gorgon a dry smile. “You need not go with me, my friend. I have told you many times that you should occupy yourself with other things aside from my domestic duties.”

Gorgon smiled back, stretching the scar that ran down the length of his cheek. “And I have told you that what I choose to do with my time is my concern.”

Gorgon’s loyalty was required as a member of Mencheres’s line. His friendship was not. Neither was his genuine affection and concern. Some things simply could not be commanded by fear, respect, or power.

Mencheres didn’t say it, but he was grateful to have Gorgon by his side, knowing the vampire cared for him beyond the bounds of obligation. If he told Gorgon how much of a comfort he’d been during the past several harsh centuries, it would add to Gorgon’s determination to stay—which held Gorgon back from what he should become.

“Why do you refuse to ask me for freedom from my line? You know I would grant it to you. You are past the time when you should be your own Master.”

Gorgon squeezed Mencheres’s shoulder. “When you no longer need me, I shall leave.”

That would be soon enough. The grave loomed ahead whether he sought it now or not. Perhaps he would stage his death to appear as though Radjedef had done it. The thought sent cold satisfaction through Mencheres. You seek my end, Radje, but when it comes, I shall ensure that it brings you down, too.

Gorgon’s mobile phone rang. “Probably the pilot,” he murmured, walking away.

Mencheres steeled himself not to take another look around as he left the room and went down the hall of the third floor. The air was still faintly scented with lemon, Kira’s essence lingering as if she were a spirit taunting him.

Mencheres walked faster, taking the stairs two at a time. When he was free of this house, he would be free of reminders of Kira, breaking the strange, hypnotic sway her memory seemed to hold over him. He had no time for this useless longing over a woman who was fated not to be his.

“Sire.”

Gorgon’s voice cracked through the empty house, filled with an urgency that made Mencheres spin around in midstep. He ascended the stairs without touching them this time, flying up to the third floor.

Gorgon’s countenance was stony as he held out his phone. “You need to take this.”

K ira watched Flare through one eye and a haze of pain. After he’d dragged her and Jennifer upstairs into a section of the club that was empty of anyone except two other equally abusive vampires, he’d continued to demand that Kira tell him what vampire sent her here. She refused. The beatings to her face grew more severe, but still, she wouldn’t break her promise to Mencheres. Then Flare had taken her hand and slowly crushed it in his fist, smiling the entire time.

The agony from her bones splintering under that merciless grip had been more intense than anything she’d felt before. Flare kept his hand closed over her shattered one, continuing to squeeze, while his other hand began to yank up her skirt.

“How’d you like to be fucked while I squeeze your hand tighter with every pump, hmm, sweetie?” Flare crooned.

Kira thought she’d pass out from the pain, which would have been a welcome respite, but she stayed conscious. Everything in her rebelled against breaking her word, but this animal meant what he said. From his expression, Flare would enjoy it, too.

“Mencheres,” she gasped out. “He didn’t send me here, but . . . I know Mencheres.”

Flare let go of her so abruptly she fell over, her vision blackening for several moments. When Kira could focus again, she saw Flare exchanging a wary glance with the two other vampires.

“That’s a fucking problem,” the bald-headed one muttered.

“If she’s telling the truth,” Flare countered. The cheerful expression he’d worn for the past hour slipped, and he began to pace. “Put her over there. I need to check this out.”

The bald vampire hauled Kira up, sitting her in a chair. Everything swam in her vision for a few moments at the agony from her hand being jostled, but she took several deep breaths and kept herself from screaming. Jennifer edged a little closer to Kira’s chair, not touching her but staring at her with silent sympathy.

Kira stayed quiet while Flare began making a series of phone calls, repeating to several people that he urgently needed to get through to Mencheres. She had no idea what sort of response Flare was getting, but every so often, he would throw a calculating, probing glance her way.

She wasn’t sure which felt worse: the pain or her shame at breaking her promise to Mencheres. Still, she couldn’t have allowed Flare to carry through with his threat. From what she knew of Mencheres, he’d understand.

“Finally got through,” Flare said with a sharp glance at her. “He’s coming to the phone now. Moment of truth for you, sweetie.”

Kira suppressed a shudder. Flare didn’t need to add that what happened in the next few seconds determined whether or not she would die. She already knew that. The question that loomed in her mind was whether or not she could stand what Flare would do to her before he killed her.

“This is Mencheres?” Flare asked. “Yeah, sorry to bother you, but I have this human at my place who insists she belongs to you.”

“I said I knew him,” Kira corrected at once, coughing a little at the blood in her mouth.

A heavy hand landed on her shoulder, five fingers tightening in warning. Even that slight movement blasted more pain through her hand.

“Shhh,” the bald vampire blew out threateningly.

“She’s about five-five, dirty blond hair, pretty. Name on her driver’s license is Kira Graceling,” Flare went on.

He straightened from his easy slouch in the next moment, his expression turning grim.

“Uh-huh. Right. No, she’s mostly fine . . . in a club called Around the World on State Street, Chicago Heights. Why don’t we—”

Flare clicked his phone shut. “He hung up, and he said he’s on his way,” he told the room at large.

The bald vampire’s hand left Kira’s shoulder. “Shit, bro.”

“I didn’t fucking know!” Flare snapped. “I mean, what’re the odds?”

Kira was weak with relief at hearing that Mencheres was on his way, but there was too much subtext going on for her to know if that meant she was out of danger or not. And she was having a hard time concentrating while mind-blistering pain continued to sear through her.

“You might want to fix her up,” the vampire with the dreadlocks stated. “If Mencheres is coming to get her himself, then she’s higher up on the food chain than just a blood snack to one of his people.”

“Maybe not. He’s gotta be local, since he said he’d be here in twenty minutes,” Flare replied almost sullenly. “And if you’re right, he’ll be more pissed if she tells him I fucked her up, but he can’t see for himself that it wasn’t bad.”

Not bad? True, compared to what the ghouls had done to her, Kira was in stellar condition, but how cruel Jennifer’s time with him must have been if this is what Flare considered “not bad.”

Jennifer. More shame swept through her. Some savior she’d turned out to be.

“How close are you to Mencheres?” Flare asked her suddenly. “You fucking him, or just feeding him?”

Kira turned her head away in silent refusal to answer. If she read the mood of the room correctly, Flare wouldn’t dare beat her anymore unless Mencheres got here, then left her with Flare out of anger for Kira’s breaking her word. But she didn’t believe Mencheres would do that, no matter how upset he was at her for revealing that she knew him.

Though this was hardly the way she’d hoped to see him again.

“Not gonna answer me, huh?” Flare said, with a glint in his eye. “Smart girl, knows I can’t touch her with the big dog coming to get her. But I can touch Jennifer, because she’s mine. ”

Flare was behind Jennifer in an instant, his fangs cutting a thin red trail down her shoulder. Kira was on her feet before she even had a chance to wince at how much it hurt her to move.

“I’m not sleeping with Mencheres,” she got out through gritted teeth.

Flare let Jennifer go. She stumbled off to the other side of the room, looking scared but not hurt aside from those two red scratches. Dreadlocks and Baldy made noises that sounded like relieved whoops.

“That’s a load off,” Flare muttered.

“Oh yeah,” Dreadlocks said. Then he laughed. “Know how dead you’d be if you worked over the first woman Mencheres has taken up with in how long?”

“He’d be grinding your bones to make his fucking bread,” Baldy joked, to more laughter.

“Scared me for a minute,” Flare admitted, not looking afraid now.

Kira glanced away from them. Maybe if she concentrated very hard, she could focus on something other than their smirking laughter or the pain radiating up her arm. She leaned against the wall with her good side, closing her functional eye, taking in deep breaths and trying to mentally will herself away.

Unfortunately, even after several minutes of trying, no meditative technique Kira tried could hold up against the throbbing anguish in her hand. If Flare let her go, she could use some of the blood in those vials at her house to heal herself. But could she take some of that limited supply, knowing it might result in robbing Tina of a year or more of life?

“Do you feel that?” Flare muttered.

Kira opened her eye in time to see the two doors across the room explode outward, ripped off the hinges by some invisible force. They crashed onto the floor with a thud that seemed to reverberate around the room. Flare, Baldy, and Dreadlocks jumped, backing away.

Then a tall cloaked figure swept into the room, long dark hair swinging with his rapid stride, charcoal-colored gaze turned to blazing green.

Kira’s heart felt like it skipped a beat. Mencheres.

His eyes seemed to meet hers without pausing over anyone else in the room. Then Mencheres stopped, his features hardening like sand turned to glass. The fury that emanated from him was palpable, making her heart skip a beat again.

Was her beaten condition the reason for his anger? Or was Mencheres that furious at her?