Dancing Dragon (21 page)

Without the spell I had a measure of control over my body, but that call he created, to make me want to play with his Light, to meld mine with his, combined with the power of his eyes - a power I hadn't quite managed to determine - was turning the tables and time was running out. Panic engulfed me, familiar and so unwanted. My body threatened to shut down. I swallowed past the outright fear at that thought - what could happen if my body ceased to fight back - and struggled to stop myself reaching for him, releasing my already barely contained Light. Giving in.

It was too late and I knew it. I was lost and he had won.

Suddenly, I felt my butt hit the cold pavement beneath me and my breath leave me in a rush. Cold infused my body, an aching emptiness raced through my veins and the sounds of a battle broke through my subconscious mind.

Then the harsh realisation of what had just about happened had me leaning over and emptying my stomach on the ground at my side.

Fucking fairy. I hated him. I despised him. I was.
So. Damn. Scared.
Of him.

I would fucking kill him.

My silver knife was in my hand and I entered the brawl before me without a second thought.

If I had wondered what powers a member of the Fey had before, I was under no illusion now. Light filled the small lane we were in, flashes of lightning shot down from above, rolling storm clouds covered the night sky and clashes of thunder deafened the air. A mini tornado twisted through the space, barely missing Michel, crashing into a shop window, shattering the glass and devouring the shop owner's wares inside.

Rain began to pour, huge droplets of hissing water, splashing into ankle deep puddles that hadn't been there a second ago, drenching our clothes, blinding our vision and steaming and bubbling as lightning continued to barrage the lane, sizzling off pools of liquid electricity beneath our toes. The air was alive with the power of the weather, a force beyond any imagining I had ever seen before. I knew storms could be deadly, but this was on a whole other plane.

Michel simply flew through the air to avoid the missiles, but unable to land a blow against a being that controlled the elements. It all happened so fast, from the moment I had got to my feet and had taken in the disastrous scene before me, until the earth shattering second Lutin's lightning pinned Michel to a wrought iron fence some distance down the road, like a butterfly in a display case, arms spread wide, body immobile, waiting for Lutin to end it all.

Did the fairy know that if he killed Michel, he would be killing me? Would that knowledge save my kindred?

I took a step forward to yell at Lutin, but was stopped in my tracks by the appearance of several more vampires, all dark shadows in the night, all meticulously avoiding the electrical puddles, dancing from one spot to the next, homing in on the fairy. Michel's security detail, coming to his aid. A little late boys, I thought numbly, side stepping a lightning bolt meant for a vamp who had jumped out of the way at the last second.

Michel remained pinned in agony, as electricity rippled through his body holding him fast to the six foot fence. His skin began to glow, his muscles contorted, his face locked in a grimace of immeasurable pain, his hair a static wave of midnight strands crackling around his head. I didn't have time to soothe the ache in my chest, I didn't have time swallow the fear, I didn't have time to think, just act. Must get to Michel, must save my kindred.

It was like pushing through a forcefield, or at least what I thought pushing through a forcefield would feel like. Sharp stabs of pain as the electrical impulses bombarded my skin, thick walls of invisible power, engulfing my body, stealing my breath, hammering into my head and chest and torso. I shielded with my arms as best I could and forged on through the near impenetrable wall before me. My only thought to reach Michel, to somehow pull him down off that fence, out of that electrical maelstrom of pain and torture. I had no thought of what touching him or the metal would do to me, just an undeniable urge to free him, to hold him, to touch him.

Stay back,
ma douce
.
His thoughts were stabbing knives in my skull. I don't know if that was because he was unable to shield his own suffering as he threw that thought to me, or if he was simply lashing out instinctively and unaware his thoughts were slicing into my skull.

I fell to my knees and held my head tight, barely aware of the battle raging around me, the storm building above me, the lightning crackling in ever faster flashes, the thunder now a continuous roar, the rain bullets from the sky. I had to close my eyes for a moment, just to stop from fainting from the throb inside my head. I swallowed slowly, thickly, pushed against the wall of pain and managed to get a handle on the agony in my mind. I took a deep breath in and opened my eyes in time to see two vampires get fried by the lightning and burst into dust.

There were puddles of greyish muck all over the road, not clear pools of water, but thick sludge ridden mounds of vampire residue, mixed with rain. How many of Michel's vampires had met the final death? Only four remained, I couldn't remember how many had turned up to rescue their master, but too many goopy puddles abounded for my liking. I flicked a glance at Michel, whose eyes had closed and who looked to be no longer breathing. He'd closed in on himself, in that preternatural place that vampires go to; to heal, to find peace, to escape.

I'd seen it before, it was nothing new. Usually a short lived moment, but never longer than a few minutes. I watched as time slid painfully by, vampires fighting for their lives, no longer just their master's and a fairy prince coolly controlling the mayhem surrounding him. Orchestrating the moves, directing the show and from the look of dazzling light sparkling in his eyes and the mirthless grin on his lips, enjoying every second of it. And still Michel did not move, did not breathe, did not fight back, did not escape his electrical trap.

Lutin would kill every vampire here, including Michel. That would kill me too. I had always calmed myself with the knowledge that when Michel died, I would also. Neither of us would have to go on living without the other. I even convinced myself that we would meet up in
Elysium
, the afterlife, together. That our time on Earth was only part of what lay ahead for us both. We would always be together, him and I, and despite recent events, I never, ever wanted it to be any other way.

If Lutin killed Michel, I would not have to face the world without my kindred. Without the man I loved. Truly loved. I realised in that instant that he
was
my world. To hell with vampire dominance, possessiveness and ridiculous punishment urges and anger control issues. Michel was mine.

I felt this in the bottom of my soul, so much a part of who and what I am I could no longer distinguish between my love for Michel and my inherent desire to breathe, to hunt when the pull called, to live. They were not mutually exclusive. I may come to my senses and argue for freedom, for release from his control, but I would never stop loving this man. I would enter the fires of hell, I would destroy the world, I would make a deal with the devil, if it meant Michel lived.

The four remaining vampires were holding their own, which meant they were avoiding the lightning, the electrically charged puddles of water and the mini tornadoes streaming through the space between us. I realised that none of those dangers were reaching me. I was still on my knees on the ground where I had fallen from Michel's pain-filled thoughts in my head, but somehow Lutin was protecting me from the fallout that engulfed everyone else. Even through a battle, he protected his
elska
, the
mœðr
who would provide him an heir.

Bastard. He had no idea how important these vampires were to me. I fingered my silver knife, but Lutin was flashing so quickly from spot to spot, avoiding the vampires who doggedly continued to attack, albeit futilely, so landing a blade on a target with that sort of speed was impossible. But I had other means of taking an enemy out and make no mistake, Lutin was my enemy. If he hadn't truly have been before, he was now. He had attacked my kindred. This was now war.

I stealthily, as quietly as I could manage, pulled all my Light together, feeling Lutin's Light in the air around me and instinctively grasping that too. Hauling it all inside, moulding it to a weapon for me. My Light. His Light. A blindingly beautiful Light that was beyond anything I had accumulated or fashioned before. The Fey Light responded to me as easily as my own, as if it was simply another part of what I am. It combined with my Nosferatin Light and became so much more. More power. More magnificent. More lethal.

I let it build until I was a blaze of Light within and unable to contain the glow anymore and then lashed it out, like a heat seeking missile, toward the fairy, before he saw the Light engulf my outer body, sending a blinding white cadence through the night.

It hit him squarely in the chest. The storm stilled, the tornadoes disappeared, the electricity in the air hummed, contained, trapped, but charged and ready. I pushed against his shields, I shoved hard against his mind, I felt him rally his reserves, but I'd stolen his Light too, he didn't have enough to fight back with anymore. His Light was my Light and I was now in control, not him. It made me realise that maybe earlier he
had
needed my Light to help heal him, that it hadn't been a ploy after all. Perhaps there was a limit to the amount of Light he actually had in this world, but then did it matter? He could control the air, the sky, the weather. Who needed to rely on just Light, when you could rain down a cyclone on your enemies heads?

I saw the look of disbelief on his face, the resultant anger and rage at my actions, followed swiftly by the resolve to seek revenge. Men. They all believed it their right to control, discipline and subjugate their women. Well, not me. Not this woman. I pack a punch. I bite back. I am descended from the same line as Nosferatu, I will not yield.

I gave one final push of my Light towards him, with the express thought of sending him back to the motherfuckinghole he had crawled from and mentally slamming the door behind him on the way out.

He shimmered and flickered for a moment, suspended in all of my own and his borrowed Light, and then twinkled out of sight with a resounding pop, leaving behind an acrid smell of ozone and, strangely, peaches. Weird.

Michel thumped to the ground limply - but again breathing, raggedly - and conscious, the storm clouds swept away, the rain stopped, the lightning and thunder were no more and the four remaining vampires and I stood up warily and took in the night time sky, in all its darkened beauty, the hint of stars glowing through the ambient light of London.

I wanted to run to Michel, I wanted to check that he was OK. I debated the wisdom of that move, considering everything that had happened before tonight and also everything that happened before Michel had pulled Lutin off my body this evening. Part of me was thrilled at the confrontation that would undoubtedly follow, part of me was shaking with fear, but the biggest part of me, wanted to claim what was mine and never let go.

Michel's eyes were on me with an intensity that bore through to my soul and before I even took another breath I was in his arms. I don't know if he had come to me, or if I had gone to him, but it didn't matter, we were wrapped around each other and the world no longer existed at all.

His hands were all over my body, his tongue was almost down the back of my throat and a plaintive whimper of need, desire, fear, anger, want, possession, heat, lust and love bubbled up out of my throat and was sucked away into him. He groaned against me, his vampires doing God knows what around us; protecting, securing, shielding, I didn't care. I was in heaven.

And then we were moving through the streets, me in his arms, the lights of pubs and bars and restaurants flashing by in a blur, the sensation of more vampires surrounding us, blanketing us on all sides and then a door to a large imposing four or five storey house, a hallway, several flights of stairs, another door and then finally he threw me on a massive bed and climbed on top of my body.

His hands made quick work of my jacket, followed by a simple rip of my T-Shirt and snap of my bra straps, then his mouth found my nipples and this tongue and teeth set to work. Only a moment and then he was on to somewhere else. My skirt disappeared, my tights gone, my boots removed and then his own clothes in a lightning speed I couldn't even register the individual movements. And then my legs were shoved apart by strong, firm hands and he thrust in one swift motion deep inside, impaling me right to my core, claiming me as his, wiping all evidence of what could have happened with Lutin from my body with his own.

He didn't pause, he didn't go slow, this was an urgent claim, an animalistic possession, the right to my body undeniable and undefended by me. He was mine and I was his and I would let him mark me in whatever way he needed to dispel the images I could see tumbling through his mind as he approached me and Lutin in that lane. Images he was having difficulty banishing, but with every thrust, every pump, every fervent pound inside me, faster and faster and faster, they dulled, they muted, until his rhythm was unfathomable, his possession of my body complete and then he took my soul.

His fangs pierced the skin at the side of my neck above my pulse smoothly, his pounding never faltering, the headboard banging against the wall, the springs of the bed groaning under our frantic movements, my screams and moans beneath his body amplified by the growl from the back of his throat and my blood pulled from so deep within I felt a part of my very soul flow down my veins, out past his fangs and into him.

He moaned at the exact moment I felt a part of me leave and settle within him, he amped up the heat and fire he had made his piercing fangs become, bringing me higher as he continued to possess, pound inside me and make me his.

Come for me, ma douce,
I heard him whisper in my mind, so soft compared to his hard and fast grinding against me, so in contrast to his urgent movements and fervent desire to claim me as his own.
Now, ma belle, call my name. Let me know it is me you desire, me you want, me who holds your heart.