Night Hungers (10 page)

“You are going to kill me? I think not, child. I will, however, give you a choice.

Would you like to die outright, or would you prefer to die slowly? I prefer slow myself—

for my dinner, you see. Your terror makes the blood so hot and spicy.” Zane watched her move around her. DePaul was herding her toward the stairs that Zane could feel just to her left. “But if you wish to go quickly, I can do that as well. Remove your throat as I feed upon you. What do
you
say?”

Zane pulled the silver blade out from her ribs and paired it with the one from her back. Both were pure silver and had a razor sharp edge to them. They had also been enchanted by the queen after her trial and sentencing. DePaul laughed when Zane pulled them before her body.

“Bring it on, bitch. You should know that my blood will kill you if taken without my permission and I’m so not giving it to you. So this dancing around is for the birds. I’m really tired and I want to go home. I can feel your weakness and your need to rest. So how about we get this shit over with and you let me kill you?”

The attack was quick. DePaul leapt at Zane’s throat, her mouth opened wide. Fangs, stained with blood and sharp as a point, touched Zane’s neck but didn’t break the skin.

But the claws, her claws dug deep into Zane’s body. She felt her lung collapse and her kidney burst. Breathing became difficult and she knew that she wasn’t going to be able to stand much longer. If she didn’t kill this bitch now, Zane knew she was going to cut her to ribbons and she would bleed out.

Zane couldn’t raise her arm to remove the vamp’s head. Gathering as much of the energy in the small chamber as she could, Zane pushed a blue ball of pure energy into her mouth as DePaul opened it to rip Zane’s throat out.

~CHAPTER 11~

“Well, I’m off to rest. I’ll see you guys to—” Pain ripped through him. Aiden could feel his kidney burst within his body. His left lung stopped pumping. The world started to fade as he started to fall to the floor. He could hear his brother shouting at him, screaming at him. Aiden couldn’t speak, couldn’t think past the pain. Then it just stopped. The pain stopped as quickly as it had hit him. Staying on the floor, he held up his hand and took a cautious and slow breath.

“I’m fine. I’m all right. I don’t know what...Zane. Zane is in trouble. I could feel her pain. Someone...no, something...a vampire hurt her. But she’s... Christ, she took the pain.

She took it from me. I know she did. I have to find her.” Aiden got up and nearly fell back to the floor, would have if his brother hadn’t been there to catch him. Dizzily he sat in the closest chair and put his head into his hands. He could still feel her pain, but it was if he was feeling it from a long distance.

“You told me you didn’t bond with her. How is it possible that you can feel her pain without the bond? Aiden, what’s going on?” Tristan sounded worried and pissed.

Aiden chuckled. “I wish I knew. I know she’s hurt badly. I don’t know how I can feel it. She was with a vampiress in a small room, no, a chamber, underground. I can...she’s hurt, damn it. I have to go find her.” Suddenly, the room expanded then tightened in a way that seemingly sucked all the air out and then back in.

“You can’t. She wouldn’t let you help her even if you did find her. Hello, Aiden St.

James. My name is Melody. We’ve not had the pleasure of ever meeting. I’m the Queen of Magic and Zane works for me.”

Before Aiden stood a vision. She was dressed in maternity jeans and a man’s simple dress shirt. Her large belly looked bigger because of her small frame. Her hair, dark as sin, hung down her back in a riot of curls and tangles. Her face was perfect, dark eyes and sculpted brows. Her nose was small and turned at the end in a perfect aristocratic slope.

Aiden had heard the family talk about her. Even little Emma had. This is the woman who showed his niece the unicorns and dragons. He knew it as soon as she shimmered into the room.

“Why can’t I find her? I need to...why did I feel her pain? Is she...fuck, this is stupid.

Where is she and how badly is she hurt?”

Grinning, Mel answered him. He didn’t like that grin. “She is hurt very badly, but she won’t die. I made sure of that. Her body will heal until she is no longer in mortal danger and then she will heal as she normally would. Fast, but not like you would. Not yet at any rate.” Mel sat down in one of the kitchen chairs and a basket of fruit appeared in front of her. She pulled out a banana and started peeling it as she continued. “I was as surprised as you were that you could feel her pain. I thought when I told you to ask for a boon from her that you would ask her to mate with you. I can see now that you didn’t.

Mate with her, I mean.”

“You spoke to me that day? Why? What business is it of yours if she mates with me or not. I know who you are, but what does that have to do with Zane?”

“Aiden, I don’t think you should piss her off. Mel has a...she can be—”

“Don’t finish that, Bailey. I’m too hormonal to be nice today. As it is, Shamus is already pissed at me too. I just wanted to see what was going on and why he hadn’t bonded with her.” Mel turned back to him and smiled. This one didn’t reach her eyes.

“Why haven’t you? She is your other half, you know?”

Aiden could feel Mel searching his mind and he let her. When she had found the reason why, Mel didn’t seem any happier about it than he had been. He sat back in his chair and waited. She didn’t disappoint.

“Why that stupid, stubborn...you know, there are days that I wish I had let her have her wish. All she had to do was tell me what really happened. But oh no, not her. Miss Zulu Alpha Nine had to just take all the blame. I knew she didn’t—”

“What did you call her?” Aiden looked sharply at Bailey when she had asked. The pain in her voice was heart-wrenching. Aiden looked at his brother and saw that he had paled as well.

“The first time I met her I asked her what her name was and that’s what she said. I remember telling her what a stupid...Bailey? Honey? Tristan, grab her.”

Another being shimmered into the room and put his arms around Mel. Shamus, Mel’s mate and the king, Aiden thought as he followed his brother into the living room.

Bailey was telling him to put her down. But both men had seen her nearly pass out and Aiden was glad Tristan didn’t listen to his mate.

“I’m sorry, Bailey. I never meant for you to find out this way. Me and my big mouth.

I knew about the other lab, but didn’t put the two of them together until recently,” Mel said as she held Bailey’s hand.

“Then it’s true. She’s like me. We weren’t the...Griff and I looked. For years we looked for another lab. But we weren’t the first, were we? We were the last. Oh that poor girl. How long...how long as it been, Mel?”

“Zane is about seventy years old, I would guess. She’s been working as a part of my elite guard for about fifty years, give or take. I...she was there when the building blew, the lab that is. I was angry with Sherman and I know that I...I wasn’t fair to her. There wasn’t even much of a trial. I even held it right there in that room covered in blood.”

Aiden watched as Shamus held his mate to him. “Zane was one of the first ones to be made there. I felt the magic one day and I couldn’t get there until everyone was dead. I came inside and she refused to tell me who was there, who did those things... Some of those beings were so mistreated it’s no wonder that they did what they did.”

“Zane is different than me. More advanced. How is that possible if I was made later, when technology was more advanced?”

“They would have had to start over with your works at the lab. She destroyed everything when she blew the building. Computers weren’t...they were still doing things on paper then and she just destroyed it all. You’re right. She is more advanced than you.

The things she can do, it’s amazing.” Aiden watched Mel shudder as she spoke.

Apparently, everything she could do wasn’t so nice.

“But that doesn’t explain my bond. How could I feel her pain so sharply? I took her blood only—wait! She did take mine. But it was only a drop. She said it was to communicate with me.”

Aiden thought about her panther and how she had hit him. He could still feel her jaws clamped around his neck and unconsciously rubbed his hands over his throat. She could have killed him so easily.

“I honestly don’t know much about her. I can read her mind, but it is so complicated that it takes so much energy to sort through it. I think she can feel me enter and jumbles things up just to throw me off.” Aiden looked up at Shamus when he snorted. “Aiden, meet my mate Shamus. He’s an ass.”

“Hello. I’m Aiden St. James.” Aiden shook his hand. “Why do you laugh? What do you know about her?”

Shamus shrugged. “Have you met Tess? She and Zane could fill an entire book on how to get on Mellie’s last nerve. Tess is a good friend of mine, but when I see her coming to the castle to talk to Mellie I run the other way. She and Mel can be very volatile. Don’t get me wrong, it’s hilarious, but dangerous when they start using their magic.” Shamus shrugged again, this time with a huge smile. “Zane is the same way. I run, but I love to hear them go at one another.”

Aiden stood up. He needed to retire. He could already feel the sun beating on him.

He looked at his brother and knew he was feeling the same effects. But Aiden was no closer to finding Zane than he had been before. As soon as he turned to ask, Mel answered him.

“She’ll be at her lair. Her body returns there as soon as she loses consciousness. And before you ask, no, I don’t know where it is. I couldn’t find it if I tried. It was part of her sentence. She would be available when I called, but her personal life was her own and I could never interfere.”

“But aren’t you? I mean, this whole mate business. Isn’t that interfering?” Aiden asked quietly.

“No. You are her mate. I didn’t have anything to do with that. As soon as I found that out, I...she...I found out something recently. I think...I believe that my ex-mate Sherman is part of her DNA. I think that Sherman was responsible for her magic and for the labs. I think he may have taken some of the people from the future back in time to create a superior race of immortal beings for an army to take over the world, the human world. I feel...had I listened to my heart and not my head...without my magic when...”

Shamus picked Mel up and nodded to them all before they both shimmered from the room.

“Mother fuck, Shermie is back.” Although Aiden had a vague idea who he was, he was thinking Bailey might be right in her assessment of the situation.

~~~

Zane woke in her lair. She could hardly move. Her body was torn up and she was still breathing painfully. While she had slept her body had repaired her kidney and her lung, but the other wounds, the deep cuts and tears in her tissue and muscles, would take a lot longer. Her weapons were also back in place. Groaning, she rolled to her side and started to rise when she felt someone touch her mind.

“You need to mind your own fucking council, woman. I’m tired of working around
you and your kind. I have things I’ve set into motion and you’re fucking them up. What
will it take to make you stop listening to the Queen of Magick?”

Zane didn’t answer but followed his connection back. She could find him now, the man who threatened her. Simon Sinclair. He was also the one who attacked the master vamp. Touching his mind, she also knew what he was up to. He wanted Sara MacManus.

Not just wanted, but was obsessed with her and the realm in which she lived.

“I’m speaking to you, girl. You will answer me. What will it take to make you leave
this area never to return? I have plenty of money, and will have much more soon, very
soon if you mind your own council.”

“And what makes you think I need money? I’ve everything I have right here, thank
you very much. Whatever you want with the queen is none of my concern. I work for her,
we aren’t friendly. So go bother someone else and leave me be.”

Zane put him to the back of her mind. He didn’t know who she was, he’d not said her name. There was power in a person’s name and she had his. She reached out to the one person she knew would do something with the information. Zane believed he’d do anything to keep his mate safe.

“Master? I’ve information for you. A being just contacted me to leave the area. He is
after your mate and your realm. I can’t tell you his name without the permission of the
queen. He is the one who shot your home.”

Zane could tell he was shocked. First, because she contacted him through a mental link without them exchanging blood and secondly, because of the information itself. She could feel him choosing his words carefully. It made her smile that he didn’t want to piss her off.

“And you know this how? Am I to assume that he asked you for something and that
you didn’t give it to him? And why would I have to ask Mel for information that you have
that I need?”
Aaron asked her. Zane could hear the suspicion in his voice even through the link.

“Talk to the queen. I’m sure she’ll have no problem telling you anything you want to
know about why I can’t help you. You should also know that he doesn’t know your name,
or that of your mate. In the future, don’t talk to anyone unless they first say your name.

Both of you.”

“Why? I have...ah, power. He can’t hurt me without my name. Or at least that’s the
assumption. Thank you, my dear. I’m indebted to you.”

“Just take care of the babe, master. I’ve no need of another death upon my soul.”

Zane didn’t either. After doing this for as long as she had, there were many more than she wanted to account for.

Moving as slowly as she could Zane went into her bathroom, thankful for the weekend as she could laze about the house. Peeling off her torn t-shirt and pants, she looked at herself in the mirror.