Carnal Sacrifice (8 page)

That close to Delaney, he could feel his heart and hers pounding in mutual terror. She moaned and covered her face with her hands. Jaden froze in panic.

“You’re sick,” Val said, every word an ice pick of contempt. “You suffer from a mental affliction. But I will do everything within my power to make sure this never happens again.”

“Oh God. Oh God,” Delaney murmured, as though those words, repeated like a mantra, might save her from what Jaden knew was coming: shame. Humiliation. Despair.

And Val had delivered that in vitriolic style, all night long. Delaney remained quiet, face averted, while he and Val waged epic battle over one thing: his right to love her. The next morning, two years to the day that her father had died, Delaney was gone.

Now, they were here, together. None of it had made any sense until an oracle traveling as a black rhythm & blues guitarist named Johnny Electro spoke to him one night. According to Johnny, Fate had a hand in the game.
“It’s destiny, man. The chick you dig is like Moses leading the tribes out of Israel. You’ll know when it’s time to seek her out. There will be portents.”

There had been. Everywhere he looked, he saw Delaney—in concert crowds, in car windows, jogging along the Santa Monica Pier. Her scent was on his T-shirts, in his car, on his skin. One of the concert promoters had been a dead ringer for Delaney. He’d almost taken her to bed. But at the last minute, he realized it was impossible. She was a woman with feelings, not a substitute for his one true obsession. It wouldn’t have been fair to her.

Then Val had booked a trip to Peru, and if that hadn’t been a portent, he didn’t know what was.

“I can’t believe how warm it’s gotten,” Delaney called back to him. Several steps ahead of him on the trail, she turned around, looking very much like a high priestess of the Andes with her hair flowing around her and her face bathed in the moonlight.

Jaden had been so wrapped up in his own thoughts, he hadn’t noticed the heat. He recalled that the temperature normally dropped rapidly after sunset. She slipped her parka off and then tied the sleeves around her waist.

“Is this…normal?” he asked.

“Heat in late autumn in the Andes? About as normal as not ever.”

He strode up closer to her, worried now that Val was out somewhere in the dark with a new plan of attack. His mother, whom he must now sadly accept as having already embraced her inner demon. She would be lost to him soon, and he would grieve that loss.

“Well, we know who’s behind it,” Delaney said. “And I’m sure she didn’t do it as a favor.”

“Maybe she’s trying to reinvent the place as a new Los Angeles and open a shopping mall.”

“Yeah, right.”

“What’s her game, do you think?”

“If she makes it hot enough, all the snow will melt.”

“And if the snow melts?”

“We’ll have flooding like you’ve never seen or could even imagine. This is no spring thaw where the snow melts gradually. We’ll get sheets of water twenty feet high. Everyone will be washed off the mountain.”

“How long do we have before it blows?”

“I don’t know exactly, but at this rate? Probably less than three days.”

Jaden ran one hand through his hair and forced himself not to worry. Nothing must interfere with the ritual. If Delaney sensed he was distracted and upset, she would be too.

“Try not to think about it,” he said. “I’ll find a way to stop it from happening, I promise. Let’s just get you to the temple.”

* * *

Delaney half expected the temple to have been blown to smithereens, compliments of Val and her destructive alliances with ancient Peruvian gods. Everything seemed to be fine, maybe even suspiciously so. The great vaulted room with the light-filled oculus at its peak was as silent as a tomb. Yet did she detect a sense of expectation? There was an energy to this place that even her mortal flesh could feel.

“This way,” Jaden said.

She followed him across the chamber to a set of stairs leading up. The stairwell was dank and smelled of mold, but there seemed to be a separate chamber at the top. He led her through the arched doorway and smiled, anticipating her surprise.

“How did you know this was here?” she asked, blinking in wonder. “It’s beautiful.”

The chamber was itself a smaller version of the Great Room, a pyramid with an oculus. But a mirror of polished metal had been installed on one wall, and beneath it was a makeshift dressing table, a stone that was flat on the top, laden with combs and brushes and painted earthenware.

Inca tapestries in brilliant colors were pinned to a canopy bed made of woven tree branches. A pillow, also Peruvian, sat on a low stool in front of the mirror. Delaney realized this had all been done for her, a space in which to prepare for the carnal sacrifice. “Do you like it?” Jaden asked her. “I know it’s not Rodeo Drive, but—”

“I love it. But how did this happen? I know you didn’t smuggle a mirror in your backpack. And I don’t remember seeing you scavenging for material to make a bed.”

If she hadn’t known him so well, she might not have seen his face cloud briefly before he replied, “We’re not alone here. I’m sure you know that.”

“Here?” she said. “As in
here
here? Why haven’t I seen anyone else?”

“They’ve been waiting…well, for me, actually, to familiarize you with the idea of…”

“Oh.” She set down her backpack. “So the men are here, then. They helped to do this.”

“Not just men. Women too, There are many who have chosen not to feed off humans and who have grown disillusioned with immortality.”

“Women?” Delaney swallowed hard. “I’m not supposed to, you know, sleep with them, am I?”

Jaden gave her a wicked smile. “Not unless you want to. No, these women are here to assist you, to help you get ready for the ceremony. They will serve in the capacity of handmaidens.”

Delaney shed her flannel overshirt, grateful for the heat but mindful of what it signified. “This is so crazy. All of it, crazy. Your mother, and now this madness. Some part of it really bothers you, though, apart from what you’ve said so far. When are you going to tell me what that is?”

He hesitated. In an obvious bid to buy time, he set down his backpack and the guitar case. She waited.

“The ceremony is tomorrow night. In order to have you, I must share you. So far, I’ve done a good job of keeping you for myself.”

“So? It’s what I want too, you know.”

Jaden shook his head. “I must make a sacrifice as well. Like it or not, the root of love is possession. It goes against everything I want personally, these terms and conditions. I really wish it had been some groupie who had been chosen by fate to be the means of our deliverance. But it was you.”

“Why was it me? I’ve wondered.” Delaney sat in front of the dressing table and studied her face, wavy in the polished metal mirror, like something from long ago. “There are plenty of women more beautiful, more skilled at lovemaking.”

Jaden came up behind her. He placed his hands on her shoulders and smiled at her in the mirror. “I disagree with both statements. No one knows why you were chosen, but you are the One. And now I’ll say that the time has come for you to realize your potential, and for me to stop being selfish.”

“Why does that sound so ominous?”

“Not ominous. There’s an encampment out near the watershed. Three of your four lovers await you there. A Native American named Wolf. A blond man named Lucan. And a tall dark-haired man named Roark. We decided to start with three. Your fourth lover, Cade, had to sit this one out, and for all I know, he won’t ever talk to me again. But we’re determined to initiate you slowly. You won’t need to introduce yourself or even explain anything. They’ll know. For them, Christmas comes early this year.”

She turned and then wrapped her arms around his waist. His hands automatically went to her hair. “I don’t want to do this,” she whispered. “I don’t want to do anything that might hurt you.”

“We can’t afford to see it that way. You have a sacred birthright. And as you’ll see, sleeping with one vampire or a hundred won’t affect your love for me or mine for you. It’s a different thing entirely. This is simply carnal.”

With visible reluctance, he pulled away and headed toward the door. He faced her there. “The moon is almost full. Good light to see by.”

“Yes,” she said, still troubled.

“Your beautiful hair. Wear it long. I know they’ll love that.”

* * *

As she walked toward the watershed, Delaney forced herself not to think about anything other than the greater good of their mission. She wasn’t cheating on the man she loved; she was liberating him.

But this meant liberating herself from old beliefs about fidelity. When she did, her body came alive like a cat anticipating the next stroke of a hand. When she didn’t, she shrank before the enormity of what she was about to do.

The truth was, she was nervous. Guilty, nervous and, if she had to own it, more than a little curious. She was about to do something she had never thought herself capable of. Sex with strangers. As she’d stood in her dressing chamber and washed from an old stone water basin someone had mysteriously provided, her thoughts had circled around little else. These men were here for no other purpose than to pleasure her. No, not men: vampires. Vampires who could just as easily devour her if they chose to.

To honor Jaden’s suggestion, she wore her hair long, and felt it cascading down her bare arms, warm, soft, abundant. The night was suspiciously balmy, so she’d left her parka behind. Instead, she settled on shorts and the sleeveless tee she usually wore under warmer clothes. It was odd even to sit in front of a mirror and attend to something as frivolous as her appearance.

She had to stop obsessing about the strange weather and its implications. Thoughts about impending doom were hardly helpful to the cause. Instead, she wondered about the men who were going to make love to her. Jaden had said they were handsome and skilled at lovemaking. He’d also told her she’d be double penetrated. Her sex tingled as she imagined what that felt like.

It shouldn’t have surprised her to find that she’d worked up a sweat. As she hiked up the embankment, beads of it ran down her back. The ground leveled off, and there, not thirty meters away, were three of the most beautiful men, besides Jaden, that she’d ever set eyes on. Her heart did a double thump. Now she felt practically giddy.

The long-haired man, clearly Native American, was named Wolf, if she remembered correctly. Bare-chested like the rest of them, he carried firewood to their campfire.

The one with the biggest muscles was a blond man named Lucan. He had the classical triangular symmetry of the well-built. He too carried wood to the fire. When he leaned over, she could see the perfect contours of his backside and felt her mouth go dry.

The man tending the fire was dark-haired like Jaden—Roark, wasn’t it?—and might at first glance have resembled him. When he straightened, she could see that Roark was less chiseled, lean like a runner. He was also the first to see her.

Delaney froze. The other two had seen her now too. All three stood, illuminated by the flames from their campfire. The light bathed their naked torsos, delineating each carved ab and the smoothness of their chests. Even if she had just happened to spot them on the street somewhere, she would have wanted any one of them. The way they looked at her, their obvious desire, made her nipples pucker in anticipation.

Petrified, aroused, she walked toward them, feeling their gazes on every part of her body.
“For them, Christmas will have come early this year,”
Jaden had said. She felt as though it were Christmas, although whether hers or theirs, she wasn’t sure.

But she also felt drugged as she stood before them, her limbs weighted with need that had a bright sharp edge to it. Wolf came to her first. With a kind of reverence, he lifted his hand and traced the lines of her face, then cupped it, bringing her lips to his own. Her body responded hotly. It was a traitor, she realized, an all too willing participant, even while her heart was reserved for Jaden. But they didn’t want her heart. They wanted her.

Words weren’t necessary, and they didn’t use any. While Wolf continued to plunder her mouth, he broke contact only long enough to peel off her shirt and toss it away. Roark divested her of her shorts. She stood naked now, too turned on to be self-conscious. Within seconds, they were naked too.

Her pussy throbbed with desire. They were here for her, just her. They were here to bring unspeakable pleasure to her. Whatever she needed or wanted, they would do.

Roark replaced Wolf, who now focused his attentions on her breasts. She felt his tongue and teeth and lips on one while his fingers teased and pinched the other. The kinkiness of three tongues, thirty fingers, and three rampant cocks had the power to melt her brain. Jaden was clearly right about one thing: sexual ecstasy this extreme could truly drive a woman mad.

She felt strong hands urging her legs apart, and then Lucan’s tongue. He had unerring instincts about where to put it. Using feather-light flicks, he brought her swollen nub to peak attention. With Lucan kneeling in front of her, Roark standing over him, and Wolf to her side, the onslaught of sensations proved to be too much. Lucan pulled her labia apart and flicked his tongue across her clitoris again and again, an expert violinist drawing his bow across her taut, wet strings. Suddenly, her legs buckled. Roark kept her from falling while the orgasm surged through her. She cried out.

Lucan refused to let up. The moment her first climax set her down again, he added two fingers, twisting and penetrating, while his tongue continued its practiced assault. Wolf squeezed her nipples when she came this time, using pain to drive her higher.

Leaving her dizzy and shaken, Lucan got up to spread out their sleeping bags, forming a soft bed. Delaney couldn’t speak, couldn’t walk. Wolf swept her up effortlessly, and then placed her in the center. This time, he lay facedown between her thighs, and the others took point at each breast. Her back arched. She couldn’t take much more. Some part of her mind was about to snap. How was this possible, she thought dimly. What would happen when her circuits overloaded?