Dark Destiny (Principatus) (25 page)

She held her breath, drawing all her power into her core.

“Time for a time-out,” Patrick murmured, dropping the scythe to her breastbone. He hooked the very tip into the neckline of her shirt.

And sliced it open.

It was the first time Fred had ever been disrobed by anyone but herself. Wet electricity shot straight to her sex and she came. Just like that. She gasped, the sudden, powerful orgasm making her shudder, the cool air on her now fully exposed breasts making her already greedy for more.

A low groan of appreciation rumbled up Patrick’s chest and his eyes flared brighter. Hotter. “Beautiful. So very beautiful.”

Fred gave him a slow smile, the junction of her thighs sodden and pulsing. “Powerful.” She thrust out with her mind, shoving Patrick across the room.

He hit the wall with a soft, controlled thud, her scythe dropping from his hand, his eyes locked on her.

The invisible bands on Fred’s arm and ankles evaporated instantly and she was on her feet, prowling toward him with deliberate intent, the echo of her orgasm still radiating through her body. She “removed” her shorts with a thought, closing the short distance between them with two steps.

His breath heated her already flushed flesh. His jaw bunched.

She held out her arm and her scythe materialized in her hand.

Patrick’s nostrils flared.

Without a word, Fred pressed the flat edge of the blade to his chest and stomach, tip pointing to the floor, and slowly, slowly slid it downward. Past the waistband of his boxers, until its deadly length rested beside the rigid length of his thick cock. “Time-out,” she whispered on a grin.

Patrick’s nostrils flared again. His lips curled into a slow smile, he opened his mouth…and froze as a violent gust of midnight black smoke shot through the open window beside his head.

“Jesus!” Ven burst out, materializing in the centre of the room, human save for his elongated fangs. “You won’t believe what just…” He trailed off, his stare sliding from Patrick to Fred to Patrick again. “Am I interrupting something?”

“Bloody hell, Ven!” Patrick stormed. “It’s about time you learnt to knock.”

Ven snarled something in reply, but Fred didn’t hear it.

Because at the very second Ven formed in Patrick’s living room, the iconic hooded robe of the Grim Reaper covered her body. Without any conscious thought or decision from her.

And the base of her spine had begun to itch.

Really itch.

What in all the levels of hell was going on?

Chapter Eleven

Ven tasted sex and sweat on the air. He looked at his brother, a surge of something tight and uncomfortable churning in his gut.

Patrick glared at him, his eyes a dark shade of green Ven had never seen before. “What the hell have you been doing, Ven?”

Crossing his arms across his chest, Ven gave him a dark scowl. “Nothing as exciting as you, it seems, brother.” He shot Fred an even darker scowl. “Nice getup, Death. Goes well with your eyes.”

“Ven.”

Patrick’s growl jerked Ven’s attention back to his brother and he let out a short grunt. Since leaving the beach and the garroted carcass of the
q’thulu
, he’d been attacked by something far more horrific—guilt. Guilt for what he’d done to Amy, guilt for the way he’d treated Patrick before buggering off. He’d told himself he was going to apologise to both. He hadn’t expected to find a half-starkers Patrick with a completely starkers Death hip to hip in Patrick’s living room.

Another twisting knot tightened in his gut and he ground back a growl. He had no fucking clue what had just happened to him on the sand, but whatever it was, it was more important than what was going on between his brother and the Grim Reaper.

“Mind telling me what’s going on, Steven?”

Patrick’s arms were folded across his chest in a mirror of his own pose and a wry sense of comfort threaded into the knot in his gut. His brother.

“There I was,” he began, doing his best not to look at Death—what
was
she doing in that getup?—“minding my own business at the cliff beach when I’m attacked out of the blue by some fucked-up squid-faced thing some skinny bloke in a black suit who pops out of nowhere calls a
q’thulu
.”

“Black suit?”

Fred’s sharp voice made Ven frown and he gave her a quick scowl. “Yeah. Black suit. Greasy hair. Looks like he hasn’t cleaned his teeth in, oh, I don’t know, a millennium Anyways, he—”

“Pestilence.”

Both Death’s and Patrick’s growl stop him. He frowned at them, the tightness in his gut returning. “Yes, he was a pest. A bloody great big pest. Can somebody tell me why some drongo with bad hair, a face as ugly as a hat full of arse-holes and even worse dental care turns up at my beach and sets a
q’thulu
on me? And while we’re at it, what the bloody hell
is
a
q’thulu
?”

He was ranting. He knew that. His mouth was running off and he’d slipped so far into Australian vernacular he could almost see his high school English teacher crying into her perpetually cold cup of tea. But while he was ranting he didn’t have time to think about the obvious connection between Death and Patrick. While he was carrying on like an idiot he didn’t have to face the fact he’d become something much, much more than a vampire. Something with more power and purpose than he could begin to comprehend.

Jesus, when had life—sorry, when had being undead—become so bloody complicated?

When the little piece of goods in the black robe turned up in Patrick’s bedroom.

Ven snorted, the sound short and frustrated. “Women,” he muttered.

Death’s eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?”

He shook his head, stormed across to the sofa and flopped into it. “Nothing.” He gave his brother a frown. “I see you got your clothes off again.”

Patrick glared. “I see you forgot your manners again.”

“By the Powers.” Death threw up her hands, the arms of her robe billowing about her head like a black shroud. “Will you pair stop it?” She shoved the hood from her head and scowled at them both. “You’re brothers. Behave like it.”

An unexpected chuckle bubbled up Ven’s throat, its warm mirth taking him by surprise. “What?” he laughed. “You want us to wrestle each other to the floor until someone yells ‘uncle’?”

“Or punch each other in the arm repeatedly to see who throws up first?” Patrick offered, giving her a grin so cheeky and goofy Ven wanted to hug him there and then. His brother. No matter who he was standing around half-naked with, Patrick was still his kid brother. Just a little more…special then some.

Like you?

The thought stilled Ven’s easy laugh and he frowned, sinking back into the sofa to stare at his feet.

Like him.

“Fang face?”

What was he now? And why him? What was going on?

“Steven?”

He glared at his feet, a dull ache in his gut the first reminder since leaving the beach he still hadn’t fed. Well, whatever he was, that hadn’t changed. He still needed to feed. He closed his eyes, letting his thoughts turn to his hunger for a moment before biting back a curse. He still needed to feed on blood. Human blood. So much for being a better standard of monster now.

“Steven!”

Patrick’s shout jerked him out of his reverie and he pulled a face at his brother. “What?”

“I said, what happened at the beach? What did Pestilence say? What did he do? What’s this
q’thulu
and did you kill it?”

“Pestilence—stupid bloody name—rattled off some crap about breaking rules and then disappeared up his own—what?” He turned his glare on Death, who was staring at him with such intensity his skin felt like it was being trampled by a swarm of ants.

Her eyes narrowed and she tilted her head to the side. “There’s something different about you, fang face.”

“Yeah. I almost had my butt sucked off by a squid monster, which, by the way, was not as erotic as it sounds.”

Death shook her head again. “No, that’s not it.” She moved from Patrick’s side to stand before him, staring down at him with eyes no longer blue but an iridescent white.

He gazed into those eyes, feeling the force, the power of their infinite depths. A shiver rippled through him, cold and hot at once, and before he could move, she reached and placed her palms on either side of his face.

“Hey!” he yelled, indignant, ignoring the ironic fact only two hours ago he wanted nothing more than to have her hands all over his body. “What the hell are you—”

He didn’t finish.

With a sharp hiss, Death jerked her hands from his head, fingers wide, eyes wider. She took a step backward, staring at him with something close to horror on her face. “By the Trilogy…”

Her stunned murmur faded away.

Ven gaped up at her, his heart hammering, his mouth dry. “What? What did you feel?”

“Tell me what’s going on, Fred?” Patrick appeared at her side, and a detached part of Ven’s mind, the part not freaking out at Death’s strange behavior, noticed his brother seemed to move and speak with a confidence he’d never possessed before. It seemed Ven wasn’t the only one who’d undergone a change today. But what did it all mean? And was it for the good?

Death flicked Patrick a quick look, her forehead furrowing. “I need to test something. I think…” She turned back to Ven, regarding him with an expression he could only call guarded. “I need to take you both somewhere. Now.”

“Where?” Patrick asked, and again, Ven was struck by the poise and self-assurance in his baby brother’s voice and demeanor.

She looked at him, her teeth worrying her bottom lip. A tiny jolt of something that may have once been desire worked its way through Ven’s chest at the sight, but he ignored it. Whatever he was, Death sensed it and was confused by it. Confused and apprehensive.

That wasn’t good.

He stood up, brushing past her and his brother. “I’m not going anywhere until I’ve had a feed,” he threw over his shoulder on his way to the front door. “I’m starving, I’m tired and I smell like fish piss. After I’ve had a bite, a sleep and a shower, probably in that order, then you can start drawing up travel plans. Until then…” He stopped at the door and turned around, tipping a sarcastic wave their way.

Death looked at him from across the room, eyes white. Glowing. “Sorry, Steven.” Her voice rumbled through him like thunder. “But I’m not asking.”

Apprehension flooded through Fred. She stared at Steven, even as she felt Patrick step up behind her and smooth his hands over her hips, as if he knew what she was about to do. That he may very well be able to do such a thing should have scared the metaphysical shit out of her and had her tailbone itching like an insane demon, but it didn’t. Not anymore. Nothing about Patrick Watkins scared her anymore. His brother on the other hand…

She braced herself, knowing she was about to break one of the highest rules of the Realm, but unwilling to risk any other course of action. Not yet. Not until she had her answers. She needed those answers. The human race needed those answers.

Reaching out for the brothers with her mind, folding them into her existential vortex, she pictured her next location.

And transubstantiated them all to the Realm.

Patrick stared at Death, unable to take his eyes from her. They were somewhere dark, somewhere warm, but he’d yet to take in his surrounding. Where he was didn’t matter at that very moment. At that very moment what mattered was how Fred was behaving.

Like she expected to be attacked.

She stood frozen, long, dark hair blacker than pitch, pale skin even paler in the soft, muted light. The infamous Grim Reaper’s robe she’d worn in his living room was replaced by black denim jeans, black biker boots and black silk hoodie, but the casual items of clothing did nothing to hide the tension in her body, the sublime coiling of every muscle, ready to…what? Attack? Defend?

Moving his stare to her face, Patrick hissed in a quick breath. Her eyes smoldered with white, burning light, like the infinite fires of some eternal energy force. There was power in those eyes he’d never witnessed before. Power and pain and menace. For the first time since seeing her, he recognized her for what she was—an entity of sheer and absolute force. It sent a shiver through his body. It made his cock pulse.

Bloody hell, Patrick. Now is not the time.

He rolled his eyes and let out a harsh sigh, shaking his head in disgust.

“Well.” The tension suddenly flowed from Fred’s body and she smiled. “That clears up one thing.”

“Clears up what?” Ven snapped, and it took a second for Patrick to realize his brother stood to his left. In full vamp mode. “Where the hell are we?”

“Not hell, Steven,” Fred replied, turning to Ven. “Home.”

Patrick watched her give his brother a wide, cheeky grin and a shard of something dark and wrong stabbed into his chest. Something a lot like jealousy. He ground his teeth, another surge of disgust roaring through him. Here he was, caught up in the middle of the coming Apocalypse brought about by some wanker with what, in Patrick’s mind, could only be called “short-entity syndrome”, and he was getting jealous? Jesus, he needed to get his act together.