Sweet Ruin

FOUR

New Orleans

PRESENT DAY

Oh, gods, Rune, so close! Pleasepleasepleaseohgods, yes, yes, YESSSSSS!”

When Jo’s super-hearing picked up a third woman screaming her way to ecstasy—from the same location—her curiosity got piqued.

Time to finish up with the guy she was strangling.

She’d pinned him up against a brick wall, unmoved as he squirmed. He’d come into her territory, carrying a pimp cane?

In Jo’s mind, pimp cane signaled open season. Then the fucker had used it on a prostitute, a girl younger than Jo. The chick huddled on the curb, cheek swelling as she watched Jo delivering punishment.

“You gonna come back here?” Jo asked, though he couldn’t answer. She squeezed till things broke; this guy’s windpipe was crushed. “Huh?”

Staring at her eyes, he tried to shake his head.

“You do. You die. Get me?” He attempted a nod. “And if you ever hit a woman again, I’ll come for you. You’ll wake up with me hovering over you in your bed, your very own nightmare.” She flashed her fangs and hissed.

He started to urinate—occupational hazard—so she tossed him across the adjoining parking lot.

The girl gazed up at Jo. “Thanks, Lady Shady.”

My moniker. Somehow Jo’s alter ego had morphed into some weird-ass villain protector of prostitutes. Could be worse. “Yeah. S’cool.”

As Jo dusted off her hands, she heard another scream. “Rune! Rune! YES!”

All three ecstatic women had called out that Rune guy’s name. This I gotta see.

Though the girl was watching her, Jo went into ghost-mode. Invisible and intangible, she headed down Bourbon Street toward the screams, her feet never touching the ground.

Since she’d arrived in the city a few months ago, she’d been doing a lot of spying. The uncanny things—and beings—she’d witnessed here had lit a hope in her she hadn’t felt in years.

No longer did she gaze at the stars, losing herself in dreams of having her brother back with her. No longer did she pass endless days and nights¸ zoning out with comics or TV.

Jo was zoning in.

A wasted pedestrian stumbled through her, and shuddered. So did she. Tourists were rank. They sweated like crazy, gorged on mudbugs and garlic bread, and boozed to kingdom come, like pre-detonated puke grenades.

Would she puke if she drank from them?

She’d never bitten anybody. The smell—of whatever the guy had eaten for dinner, or the starch from his collar, or the slobbery pets he’d cuddled—warded her off. Or worse, he’d reek of cologne.

Axe cologne.

How could she put her tongue on skin saturated with that crap? Until someone invented a fang condom, she’d continue stealing from the blood bank.

A few blocks off Bourbon, she came upon a high-walled courtyard. A water fountain splashed within. The woman was screaming even louder; the sound of slapping skin quickened.

Hmm. Maybe Jo could possess one of the participants, live vicariously through her. Aside from an initial shudder, the “shells” never knew she was inside.

Or Jo could pick their pockets. Her rent-by-the-week motel room was filled with loot. She pretended each stolen prize was a gift to her—a bridge to get to know someone better—just as she pretended each possession was a visit.

A connection.

Having never made a friend before, how could she know the difference?

Her compulsions to steal and to possess others had grown worse lately. Maybe she needed a real connection. She’d had so little real interaction she wondered if she’d been resurrected at all.

Sometimes, she had nightmares about floating away. Who would even notice her absence?

As Jo eased toward the entry of the courtyard, a fourth woman’s voice sounded: “It’s so good, Rune! My gods in heavens! YES! Never stop, never stop! Never, NEVER!”

Jo floated to the cracked-open wooden gate, peeking around to see a wicked scene.

A half-dressed blonde was pressed against the ivy-covered courtyard wall by a tall dark-haired man with his pants at his thighs. The woman’s lithe legs wrapped around his waist as he bounced her.

Must be Rune. What kind of name was that?

Three other stunning women were sprawled naked on a lounge sofa, heavy-lidded as they watched him pounding the fourth.

This guy had just screwed them all? Line ’em up and knock ’em down? Ugh. Forget possessing any of them.

Jo floated to the side to see him better. He looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties, and apparently he had serious stamina. He was attractive, she supposed. His eyes were nice, the color of dark plums, and she liked his thick black hair. It was carelessly cut and longish, with random small braids. But he had rough-hewn features—a fighter’s crooked nose and a too-wide jaw.

His long, lean body, however, was smoking hot. He must be nearing seven feet tall, would tower over her five and a half feet, and every inch of him was ripped. A thin shirt highlighted his broad chest and chiseled arms. His bared ass was rock-hard. His powerful thighs would nicely fill out those black leather pants bunched above his knees.

He had a bow slung over his back and a quiver strapped to his calf. A knife holster was clipped to his wide-open belt.

She shrugged; she’d witnessed weirder things on Bourbon Street. If he pulled out a little more, she’d be able to see his dick—

Whoa. Brow-raising. The brow-raising-est she’d ever seen.

How could he last this long? He wasn’t even out of breath. Maybe she’d have more sex if other guys had his staying power. Her handful of quick-draw hookups hadn’t been worth the admission price of a condom.

As she watched this tall stranger working his body—sometimes stirring his lean hips, other times withdrawing to the tip to slam back in—she wondered what his tanned, smooth skin would feel like. Smell like. When Jo was in ghost-mode, her super-keen sense of smell was weakened.

She’d bet Rune didn’t wear Axe.

Her gaze locked on the pulse point in his neck. The slow, steady rhythm was hypnotic.

Beat . . . beat . . . beat . . .

Amazingly, the tempo wasn’t speeding up.

How would he react if she pierced that pulse point with a fang? What would he taste like?

And still he was going. His stamina had to be supernatural. Plus, the women were almost too pretty. Jo suspected these people were otherworldly.

What she called freaks.

From her hidden vantages along New Orleans streets, she’d spied paranormal people doing inhuman deeds. Which made her wonder—what if she wasn’t some kind of abomination who’d been resurrected from hell? She might be one among many.

She reached for her necklace, fingering the string of misshapen bullets. She never took it off, still kept it as a token of the night she’d risen from the dead.

But her discovery of other freaks had made her start rethinking herself, her world.

Her decision to remain away from Thad.

She’d approached some of these strange beings with questions on her lips: What am I? How did I come to be? Are there others like me? Yet they’d fled her.

She had a feeling this male wouldn’t. She could talk to him once he got finished! She’d be on guard, of course, ready to bare her claws and fangs if things went sideways. . . . Jo supposed she still was like a feral cat.

Appearing lost, the blonde leaned up to kiss him, but he averted his face. Interesting.

The other three whispered to each other:

“I forget myself sometimes too.”

“Can you imagine what he could do with that mouth? If only . . .”

“Why’d he have to be a bane?”

The man must be able to hear their soft voices. He narrowed his eyes, his lips thinning with irritation, even midthrust. Jo felt sorry for him.

“Have you ever seen his black blood?”

“His cock isn’t poisonous, and that’s all that really matters.”

Poisonous? Black blood? He was definitely a freak!

The bouncing blonde cupped his craggy face. “MORE! I’m so close! Don’t stop, Rune, don’t stop!”

He stopped.

“Noooo!” the woman wailed.

“You want more? I won’t disappoint you, dove.” His deep voice had an unusual accent Jo couldn’t place. “But you can’t disappoint me. Promise me you’ll do as I’ve asked.”

He was using sex to manipulate the chick? What an asshole. Strike feeling sorry for him.

The woman’s expression grew frantic. “I will! I swear, SWEAR! Just pleasepleaseplease keep going!”

Rune chucked her under the chin and grinned at her; she seemed to dissolve. “Good girls get rewards, don’t they?”

Jo would laugh in his face if he talked to her like that. The blonde nodded helplessly.

He resumed with a harsh shove. The woman convulsed on his big dick, babbling between cries.

“This is what you want, dove?” he demanded. “My cock’s all that really matters, is it not? You can’t live without it, can you?” So arrogant!

The blonde whimpered, shaking her head. The other women gazed at him as if he were a god.

Jo’s plan to ask him stuff grew less appetizing by the second. Would he make her beg for information, or toy with her? But she stayed. She wanted to see him get off. To watch as he lost his iron control.

To see him vulnerable.

Her gaze returned to that pulse point. Would his blood truly be black? She fantasized about it coursing through his veins, all over that gorgeous body.

Her fangs sharpened. Her heart began to thud, her spectral breaths shallowing. She struggled for control. As ever, heightened emotions affected her ghosting, making it harder to stay intangible. If she materialized even a little, these freaks might be able to sense her presence.

Her body started to float downward like a weighted balloon. No, not yet. He probably wouldn’t be keen to talk if he discovered she’d spied on his orgy. She’d have to leave before she materialized, then “run into” him later.

The blonde began screaming in ecstasy. Though Rune was pummeling her, and she was orgasming all over him, he smiled and calmly purred, “I’m coming.”

The woman gazed up at him in moaning awe.

He briefly froze. Then his hips pistoned. Thrust, thrust, thrust, THRUST, THRUST.

With a smirk, he stilled. He was done? He’d just come! Jo had risked staying for that? If she’d blinked, she might’ve missed it.

When her gaze dipped to his ass and her breaths shallowed even more, she made for the exit. Over her shoulder, she took one last glance at his pulse point.

Its beat had never sped up.