Hunger Embraced (The Hunger Series) (34 page)

Gregory shuffled into the tunnel military guy style, low and close to the ground until all I could see was a black lump I assumed was him. He made a low whistling sound, and I stepped into the tunnel, pulling the door shut behind me until only a sliver of light remained. Now I was mostly blind. Even vampires need a little light to see.

My hand clenched reflexively on the handle of the blade. Something was wrong in here. There was a charge to the air, a feeling…and a smell I couldn’t identify. It reminded me of sour sweat. Nasty sheets left on a bed after a sex marathon. That was it. My fangs ran out and into my bottom lip, and I couldn’t resist touching my tongue to them, slicing it open on them. How did Daniel manage to talk around his?

The tunnel was wide enough for two of us to stand side by side, but it would be tight, especially with Gregory’s wide shoulders. He started forward in that strange side stepping way of soldiers and cops who are trying to make a small target. I could just make him out a few feet ahead of me. I wondered if he could sense the wrongness that I did. A smell didn’t mean much to me. My nose hadn’t been operating like this for long, so I wasn’t sure how to interpret what it told me.

“Miranda, there is something in here with us. It feels wrong somehow.”

“OK, that tells me nothing other than I should have worn Depends down here. And I can kinda feel that myself. It would be too good to be true if Stephan left everything unlocked without some kind of trap though, wouldn’t it?”

“Stop with your bullshit remarks. Can’t you feel it? It is like us, but not.”

A scratching clatter sounded up ahead. I stopped and dropped into a crouch. I hadn’t learned much at the three-night self-defense course I’d taken years ago, but one thing had stuck. If you’re scared, there’s probably a good reason. So run away.

I couldn’t run away, but I could pull out a huge ass knife and stab the fuck out of anything that moved too close.

When it first came into view, my stomach fell to my knees and then heaved itself into my chest cavity. The vampire was a horrible mixture of what my Hunger had looked like in my vision before I had fed from Daniel and a human man. It wore the remains of an expensive suit and tie, but no shoes. I imagined the shoes had fallen off or been ripped off to accommodate its feet. Impossibly long toes tipped with claws spread out on the ground, and the fingers appeared to have extra knuckles as well. Oversize black eyes fixed on Gregory and it hissed, fangs dripping spittle and chunks of what might have been flesh. Gregory raised his crossbow and shot it right between the eyes before it had a chance to charge.

The shot may have been a mistake, because it flung itself at him in a single thrusting leap from the floor. With its arms wide to each side and a horrible shriek, the monster tried to grab him and latch on. If he was surprised that it didn’t drop from the arrow, he didn’t show it. Gregory was a blur of motion, stepping in closer to the flying vampire and punching it with a fierce right hook that took it back down to the ground. There was a snap and crunch, and then he stood on its chest with one boot and yanked its head off with his bare hands. I was really glad I hadn’t had any food in the last few hours or I’d have thrown up on myself. He dropped the head and kicked it to the side of the tunnel with all the care of a man punting a soccer ball and then dragged the body over to the side as well.

I must have made a sound because he smiled grimly at me and pulled the strap to the cross bow over his head. I guess he could use it as a club if he needed to. The strap would really kill range of motion. I’d known we had to kill other vampires, other living beings, but I guess I’d pushed how brutal and bloody it would be out of my mind. It is one thing to think about killing in the abstract, quite another to participate in it.

I jogged ahead and joined Gregory.

That feeling of wrongness was still there, riding the stale air of the tunnel in spidery electrical currents up my arms. There were more of them, lots more. Maybe my father’s entire coven. If the Goddess had known that this was down here and hadn’t warned me, I was so going to kick her ass.

“Can you feel them?”

“Yes, lass.” Gregory moved in front of me. “Back up a bit.”

“Have you ever seen this before?”

“No. Perhaps Stephan has bred a new bloodline.”

“No, this is not a new strain.” A set of eerie, yellow eyes swung around to meet mine. I could see them because they reflected what little light managed to spill into the tunnel. “I think this is what happens when you starve the Incubi. I’ve seen something similar before.”

The clattering scrapes grew louder, and I realized I’d been hearing it for awhile and hadn’t known it wasn’t background noise. Daniel continued to tug at my subconscious as he moved about the upstairs. So far nothing had happened that changed the low-level thrum of his energy. It relieved me to know he was safe—for now.

When the vampires emerged into the weak light from the crack in the door, I almost peed myself. They crawled on the ceiling, walls, and floor in a moving wall of gray-toned flesh and long, spindly limbs. Some of them had the remnants of clothing on, but most were naked. It occurred to me that there might be something worse than having them bite me or beat me to death.

I reached out to my Hunger.
“Why are they naked?”

“They’re hungry, and they sense food. There doesn’t seem to be any real sentience there. Only the magic riding a body it cannot get free of.”

“So if we don’t kill them…”
I didn’t want to complete the thought.

“They will kill you by feeding. And it will take awhile. A vampire makes for a very good meal, not like humans. Humans look good, but there’s not much there. More an appetizer.”

“Fuck.”

“I wouldn’t recommend it, but if you really want to…”

“Ha-ha. Aren’t we funny?”

Gregory hacked, stabbed, and pummeled anything within arm’s length. Blood spattered the walls and floor of the tunnel and ran in rivulets down his body. I understood now about Gregory not wearing a shirt. The vampires fell around him, but for all that he cut them down, the close quarters and overwhelming number allowed the Incubi to claw and bite while he tried to deal with another vamp.

How long would he be able to keep it up? I stood about five feet away, letting my weight bounce from one foot to the other feeling useless. When a vampire dropped onto my back from the ceiling, my heart jerked in my chest. I deserved a face palm of magnitude five.

A scream tore from my throat as we collapsed to the floor with it riding me down to the ground. Fangs pierced the side of my throat, and I bucked my back, trying to throw it off, but it wrapped one arm around my chest and used the other to yank at my pants. Oh God, it was trying to strip me. I managed to get my arm around enough to sink the knife into its thigh, and it shrieked when the cold burn of the blade parted the skin and muscle. The blade sang through my head in excited tones, drawing energy and power from the blood.

The wound wasn’t deep enough to do real damage, and the vampire responded by slamming my face into the ground. I rolled my eyes up enough to see that Gregory was surrounded now and taking more damage than he gave. We were losing. I found it ironic that I was an Incubi vamp and I was about to be killed with sex. Perhaps it was the universe’s way of collecting a debt. I killed Tommy with sex, and now I would die the same way.

The Fucker fumbled at the waistband of my jeans, its claws digging into the skin at the small of my back as it tried to yank them down. There was little pain, only the hot wetness of my blood. I realized that meant the wound was pretty bad. Paper cuts always hurt more than a gash. Its teeth were still dug into my neck but it wasn’t swallowing my blood anymore so much as using it as a way to force me to hold still. The more I struggled, the more the holes in my neck tore and increased my blood loss.

“Help me, damn it! Help us. Or we’re dead.”

The Hunger shook her head and paced.
“I don’t know how to without sex. You did it earlier on your own.”

“Shit.”

I reached for my magic and coaxed it a bit at a time. Being bitten and clawed made it hard to concentrate. The reflex I’d used to attack Adrian was now offline.

The magic finally filled my body, and I sent it out to settle around the vamp on my back, hoping to latch onto its aura. There wasn’t much left. It was slippery and full of holes, but I finally gripped it with my Hunger. A weak trickle of energy flowed into me, and the vamp’s teeth slid out of my neck and his arm loosened and then fell away. I pushed up with my knees and dumped him to the side. The knife plunged into his chest before I had time to even consider what I was doing.

When I wrenched the blade free, there was suction, almost as though it didn’t want to come. I took the head off with one clean swipe and promised myself I could cry and puke later. Now was for living. My magic dropped like a sparkling blanket around my shoulders, and I wielded it without remorse, trying to let it settle on the vampires that surrounded Gregory. The Incubi swarmed, and he had disappeared from view. My magic slid off the horde, finding nothing to latch onto.

But I could feel the energy that drove them—it was as familiar as an old coat or worn-out jeans. Their magic was in a frenzy as mine had been for so many years when I had kept it locked away and separate from myself. Instead of trying to feed on them, I let my magic mingle with theirs. A sharp hiss filled my head, pain flaring in the middle of my forehead until I thought my eyes were going to burst.

“What are you doing, you fool?”

“You said this is similar to what you are. Help me. If we can control their magic, we can control them.”

“There is going to be a cost for this.”

“Shut up and help. I don’t want to be raped to death in a fucking tunnel.”

“Fine, but don’t whine to me later.”

A terrible gnawing ache filled me, spreading from the center of my body and along every nerve ending. My skin crawled with the power and ached for touch. All the Incubi turned to look at me in unison, and I held my hands out in welcome. A few began to crawl my way, but the others snarled or hissed, showing their fangs.

Sexual hunger and a gnawing emptiness in my belly turned my legs to mush. The creatures nearest to me were suddenly so beautiful, so desirable, that tremors rode my skin when they reached out to touch or lick along my body. The sharp graze of fangs and claws nearly brought me to orgasm.

Sound erupted from somewhere in the tunnel, but I paid no attention to it. All that mattered was the need for sex flowing through my body with each pump of my heart and brush of flesh on flesh. A snarling growl filled my head, and I tried to block it out; the sound was frightening and alien. The more I tried to run from it, the louder it became until finally I was cornered.

“You will not have sex with those creatures, Miranda.”

“But, Daniel, I’m hungry, so hungry…”

“No.”

I rose to my feet and tried to run from the voice.

“Stop. If you must feed you will use your fangs and nothing more. Master your Hunger; do not let it ride you. Intercourse with these things will kill you. Fo—”

The voice cut off, and the pain of a sharp tug in my aura ripped at my solar plexus. Then there was nothing. It should have been important, but I couldn’t remember why. A female had gotten close enough to lick my cheek, and she nuzzled my breast through what was left of my shirt. I snagged her hair and brought our lips together, getting a rush of energy that was burned away in the fire that raged through my blood. I bit down on her lip with my fangs and sucked the blood away, but it still wasn’t enough.

Her breasts rubbed against mine, claws scoring my sides. It should have been painful, but I was so consumed by the terrible beast riding me that all I could feel was pleasure and the need to feed. Her head turned to the side, offering her neck, and my teeth seated to the hilt. I tore at the flesh, swallowing the blood and chunks of meat. Blood filled my mouth, overflowed it, ran into my nose, and I choked but kept going until the body on mine became limp and I shoved it aside. Another took its place, offering another neck that was larger, more muscular. A male this time.

I offered no foreplay, following instinct and the need to obey the voice in my head that told me to drink, drink deeply, and not stop until the Hunger abated. He shuddered as I fed, and I let my hand grasp his penis and stroke it as I stole the blood from his body. He came on my leg and hand. The voice didn’t tell me to stop, and the terrible hunger for bare skin and sex fed on this male’s orgasm as he died in my embrace. It was a better feeding, more complete than I’d yet had, and my own magic bloated from the feast. My back and sides itched as damaged skin and deeper wounds began to knit together.

I pushed the magic away until I could begin to feel myself inside my own head again, beyond the haze of physical need and the terrible directive. The weight of the other bodies fell away as I sat up, shoving the vampires that clung to my legs and had buried their fangs in my wrists aside. The wounds closed as I watched.

I had another way to kill.

Oblivion’s Kiss slid from the sheath, and my magic caressed, touched, and flirted with the energy that resided within. It flared to life with a purring hum and lengthened in my hand until it was a double-edged sword that ran with blue and orange flames. Any vampire I beheaded with this blade would not have to be burned and scattered to the water. This blade offered final, absolute death. No reincarnation waited any who bore its edge.

It swung with whistling swiftness through three necks before the vampires could try to scatter out of the way. Their bodies fell limp to the floor in boneless heaps. I chopped again and again; blood spattered and flew, a hot thick rain on my skin. I opened my mouth like a child outside in a thunderstorm and drank it down. With each death the blade’s humming grew, and it became greedier. Oblivion’s Kiss directed my hand and body, twirling me in a deadly dance through the room, through proffered flesh. The vampires made no attempt to escape. They continued to offer themselves to me, too attracted by my magic and the promise of an end to their hunger. But it was a false promise, a lure that lay in front of waiting teeth at the bottom of the abyss. My magic no longer felt like a warm font of sparkling water, but cold and viscous. It flowed slowly and attached itself to the vampires in a sticky web that drained the life energy from their bodies.