Fashionably Hotter Than Hell: Book Six, The Hot Damned Series (16 page)

“You need blood,” I said tersely.

“And a hooker if you happen to have one of those in your pocket,” he added.

“The manwhore game is unattractive and beneath you,” Raquel informed him angrily. “You’re dying and aging. Someone did this to you and I highly doubt it was a flighty paramour.”

“You are both correct on all of your observations,” he said staring off into space. “I’ve tried to put the puzzle of my latest predicament together yet I’ve come up empty.”

“Enemies?” I scanned the cage for any weakness and found none.

“Too many to count,” he replied with a hollow laugh.

“Where were you right before this happened?” I asked as I rolled up my sleeve and searched for the largest artery in my wrist.

“I was at a gathering with an excessively large amount of pompous undead assholes—I’m almost sure it was yesterday. Maybe I was at the Summit.”

He frowned as he observed me and pulled himself to a sitting position.

“Pot, kettle, black on the asshole part,” Raquel muttered as she watched my actions with curiosity. “What are you doing?”

“He needs blood and I’m going to feed him,” I explained as my fangs dropped and I bit into my wrist.

“You can’t go near him,” she said frantically.

Her concern for my wellbeing moved me. I turned and winked at the woman who had invaded my every thought for centuries. “That is astute, my love. However, let’s see if a stream of my blood can make it past the wards.”

“You’re hot
and
brilliant.” She quickly hugged me and promptly rolled up her own sleeve.

“Certifiable is more like it,” Gareth mumbled as he crawled as close as he dared to the edge of the cage.

“Been called worse, motherfucker,” I replied with a grin. “Open up.”

Gareth opened his chapped and torn mouth and waited. I aimed and fired. I had to work quickly. I healed as quickly as I could open my vein.

The blood made it past the enchantment but fell short of passing through the bars. Gareth stared numbly at the pool of blood just beyond his reach.

“Damn it,” I hissed. “I need a better artery.”

“Your neck,” Raquel insisted urgently. “If I nick it instead of piercing it, it will spray longer and farther.”

“And you know this, how?” I asked amused by the gory knowledge my mate possessed.

“For a while I fancied being a doctor—even went to medical school. The non-aging thing became a problem, so now I just stick to reading medical journals for fun,” she explained.

“Smart
and
sexy. Damn, but I lucked out,” I stated proudly.

“Dying over here,” Gareth reminded us in a tone dripping with sarcasm.

“Right. I can’t really see to aim well if we use my neck. How much strength do you have to move?” I asked as I hoisted Raquel up to bite me.

“Enough,” he said flatly.

“I can help with the aim,” Raquel said. “Get on your knees, Heathcliff. It’s closer to Gareth’s mouth. If I knick your artery correctly the blood should spurt about eighteen inches. On a human it would only last about thirty seconds, but we’re not even remotely human.”

“Medical journals?” I asked her with raised brows.

“Medical journals,” she confirmed with a giggle.

“Isn’t it amazing we bleed yet have no heart?” Gareth said absently as he forced himself to his knees.

“We have hearts. They just don’t beat,” Raquel corrected him.

“Speak for yourself,” he mumbled.

“So cynical,” she snapped as she let her fangs drop and prepared to bite me.

“Not all of us have been lucky enough to find our true mates,” he countered softly.

“Well if you’d quit sticking your thing into everything without a pulse, you might have better luck at finding her,” she accused.

“Now where’s the fun in that?” Gareth parried with a smirk. “I hate to disappoint the ladies.”

Raquel’s laugh was muffled in my neck. I even had to chuckle at that one. Gareth’s reputation with the
ladies
would be a difficult one to live down. If he ever was blessed with finding his true mate, there would be Hell to pay.

Raquel peeked over at her brother with an evil little grin. “You’ll find her, Gareth. And when you do, I hope I’m there to see it. Whoever the
lucky lady
is… she’s going to kick your sorry ass.”

“Would you care to lay a bet on that, sweet sister?” he challenged.

Her pause was thoughtful and her indecision was short. “Yes. Yes, I would.”

“And your wager?”

“The Renoir,” she stated without hesitation.

“The one hanging in the Musée d’Orsay?” he asked with a wince.

“Yep.”

“That seems a little steep.” He laughed and shook his head. “You drive a hard bargain.”

“It’s yours, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Of course it is,” he huffed indignantly. “Auguste gave it to me himself. It’s simply on loan to the museum.”

“Well, you can un-loan it when you lose,” she announced grandly. “It will look wonderful in my bedroom.”

“You do know I offered to turn him,” Gareth let us in on a little known fact.

“And he declined?” I surmised.

“Maybe and maybe not,” Gareth said evasively. He grinned at me. “Go to the Musée d’Orsay on a Tuesday and you might find your answer.”

“All right, enough bragging, Gareth,” Raquel chastised. “Auguste is most definitely alive and quite charming. I’ll have him to tea once we deal with the shit show we’ve obviously fallen into.”

“That’s it,” I said loudly.

“That’s what?” she asked confused.

“I remember my terms.”

Raquel grinned and Gareth looked perplexed.

“You promised Astrid you would take up swearing. I don’t believe you’re holding up your end of that creative and alarming bet,” I announced with a sly smile.

“And how would you have this information, my mate?” she inquired suspiciously. Her sparkling eyes narrowed to slits. It reminded me of our more destructive times…

Shit. Busted.

“I may have been present during that conversation,” I admitted sheepishly yet wildly turned on by her ire.

She glared in silence—clearly displeased.

“Fine,” I muttered. “It wasn’t my most noble moment. I was cloaked and hid my scent. I was a desperate man, my beautiful girl—anything to be near you.”

“Stalker much?” Her eyes flashed and she slapped my shoulder.

God, that was hot.

“I think it was quite brilliant,” Gareth chimed in. “I’ll have to remember that one—very underhanded. So darling sister, let’s hear a little sample.”

“You’re serious?” She wrinkled her nose and groaned. “It’s not me. I feel silly.”

“You’ve always been a smidge uptight. I think some inventive profanities might do you good, and God knows I could use a laugh,” Gareth commented.

“I will have your head and Astrid’s very soon,” she muttered as she closed her eyes and searched for something rude and offensive.

She could have my
head
whenever she wanted it. Holding her and watching her squirm as she tried to fulfill her end of the obscenity dare was delightful.

“Shall I start?” Gareth offered mildly with raised brows and a half smile.

“Go ahead.” Raquel threw down the gauntlet with a snort.

“Pecker jockey,” he announced with pride.

“Creative swearing only—not self description,” she told him.

“Good one!” he said with a pained grunt of laughter. “Your turn.”

“Forgive me,” she muttered to the sky.

With her eyes scrunched shut and an endearing blush high on her cheekbones she let it rip. It was as if we were ridiculous and naughty pre-pubescent teens. I was entranced by her—everything about this woman delighted me.

“Bitch sniffer, ho gobbler, ball wad, asswaffle,” she shouted and then buried her head in my shoulder. “Are you idiots happy now?”

“
Ball wad?
” Gareth questioned gleefully.

“
Asswaffle?
” I added as my body shook with mirth.

“You’re both
rectum buckets
and I’m done. We have more important business than to enjoy my lack of four letter word prowess,” she snapped and quickly nicked my neck. “Open your damn mouth, Gareth. Incoming.”

My mate was correct on all accounts. The nicked artery spurted the blood approximately eighteen to twenty inches and Gareth was adept at moving enough to catch all of it. We repeated the process several times with my neck artery and then several times with Raquel’s. Gareth’s color came back and he looked less haggard. However, the aging process didn’t reverse—at all.

“How do you feel?” I asked him as I licked the open wound on Raquel’s neck to close it.

“Stronger. My power is coming back, but my body feels strange,” he revealed as he stood without a problem.

He tested the strength of the chains. Unfortunately they held him fast. The spell that trapped him screamed of Demon origin to me. We would need a Demon to break it—or possibly a half Demon-half Vampyre.

“There was a debate,” he said as he remembered more from what had happened before he ended up bound and chained. Gareth absently touched at the wounds quickly closing on his head. “The Old Guard is quite unhappy about relinquishing their funds to charity.”

It had been my cousin Astrid’s idea for all of the undead to share their massive fortunes with the humans and their plights. Being that she was a True Immortal of unnatural strength and basically almost impossible to kill, the Vampyres of the world had grudgingly agreed.

“Are they trying to stop it?” Raquel asked.

“You might say that,” Gareth replied as he paced his cage.

“How?” I asked. “Did you go against the Old Guard?”

“I don’t know how… and yes I did,” he claimed. “Although I’ve not yet met the infamous mate of my brother, I happen to agree with Astrid’s edict.”

“Do you think that is why you were put here?” Raquel asked as she paced, unconsciously mimicking her brothers moves.

“Possibly,” he surmised. “But removing me from the picture does very little to end the ordinance.”

“He’s right,” I agreed. “However, we need to start somewhere. Getting you out is paramount. Something else is going on. The blood should have reversed the aging—it didn’t, which leads me to believe the cage has something to do with that part of your problem. Only a Demonic spell could do something so vile.”

“And your plan?” Gareth stopped his pacing and stared at me.

“Hang on for a damned second,” I ground out. “I’m developing it as I pull it out of my ass.”

“Well there’s something to look forward to,” Gareth mumbled as he ran his hands through his hair in agitation.

“Shut up,” Raquel hissed at him. “Unless you have something productive to add…
zip it
.”

“We need Astrid here,” I stated. “She can most likely break the spell and possibly deal with the old bastards who are having problems with the new law.”

Both Gareth and Raquel stared at me like I’d grown two heads.

“What?”

“As much as I’m looking forward to meeting Ethan’s foul-mouthed and charitable mate, I think your plan has many deadly holes,” Gareth replied. “The Old Guard wants her head. I would assume that’s why Ethan has kept her away from the Angel Summit.”

“Because she’s making them tithe… they want her dead?” I was surprised.

We were a selfish race, but money was something that could be replaced.

“That’s only part of it,” Raquel added. “Her blood relation to Satan and her very young Vampyre age has many distrustful and furious. It’s one of the points I relayed to Ethan when I came to tutor Samuel. Astrid’s safer staying away from the Old Guard and the Summit. The Angels take issue with her too.”

“The Summit with the Angels is not going to be a peaceful little get together like you might assume given those in attendance,” Gareth added.

“Do you have any other facts to back that theory up?” I inquired.

“No, it’s a gut feeling,” he replied. “I do think Astrid will be a major source of consternation there.”

“Holy Hell, does she know any of this?” I asked already knowing the answer. If Astrid knew they were gunning for her, she would step into the fray both with gusto and engulfed in an inferno of sparkling flames.

“Ummm… no,” Raquel said slowly.

“Well, she needs to know,” I said as I imagined Ethan’s reaction to my telling her. It would not be pretty. However, Astrid finding out after the fact could be catastrophic, which would be far worse.