Zauran

Copyright  2012 Author Poppet

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed by a newspaper, magazine or journal.

Ebook First Edition

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Chapter 1

Zauran:

After lock up, I am just starting up the car when I spot her.

Killing the engine, I survey the slender wraith with a waist so tiny you could use her as a toothpick. Winding down the window I rest my arm on the top of the opening, taking the opportunity to lean my head out and inhale deeply.

Neuri don't have acute sense of smell, we have acute sense of spirit; and I can smell hers from here. It's how we track, making us the most sought after bounty hunters on the planet. We catch the escaped convict every time.

Watching her make her way to the doors and read the closed notice, she runs a fingertip over glass to the opening and closing times. The wind picks up across the dawn, billowing her skirt into rising and clawing her hair.

She turns from the wide red doors fighting down the skirt, losing the battle with the flimsy scarf and staring at it when it kites away in the gust. Long black hair falls heavy to her waist with its escape, and her disappointed expression finally aims the deepest sea blue eyes at me.

God help me, there are three of them.

Three identical women, which shouldn't be possible.

I knew it. I know that scent, my libido recognizes it just fine.

Backlit with a sky so red it looks like cranberry syrup, she tiptoes her way between debris in my direction.

Stepping out of the vehicle, I square my shoulders, wishing I was on the bike this morning.

“
Can I help you?” I say, when she reaches me.

“
Hello. I hope you can. I'm looking for Darise.”

“
Why?”

“
Oh, um, it's a bit personal.”

She sucks her swollen and sexy bottom lip in, staring up at me with dewy sensuality, and I'm sorely tempted to misbehave. This is like being with Zaria; she smells, walks, talks, and smolders like Zaria.

Reining back the impulse to shove her up onto the hood and bring her into the new day the orgasmic way, I manage to say pretty smooth and charismatic, “He's left already, come back tonight and he'll be here.”

“
I don't suppose you have a number for him?”

“
Yeah, matter of fact I do.” Zaria is going to kill me, but I think this one is worth the risk. I release my power, knowing she's now staring at my black eyes covered with color. Delving deep, I ask, “What's your name?”

“
Božena,” she says in a thick husky voice, licking her lips and releasing sexual images through her eyes into mine.

Wow, Darise has been a busy boy.

“
What do you want with him?” I probe.

“
I moved away, we were dating. I'm back now and was hoping he still worked here.” Her voice is soft, her breathing labored. It's provocative.

Withdrawing my power, I offer her the slip of paper I used to scrawl his number down while she was enthralled. He never did deserve to claim Zaria as his own anyway. This woman is a walking gift from an interfering God.

“
Who are you?” she smiles, with lust coating her tone into deep and demure as she looks me over.

“
Zauran.”

*

Zaria
:

A neuri blocks my path as I stare up the steps to Pravus' front doors. The bouncers don't seem to give a damn either, their inky demonic eyes are trained on me as if to see what I'm going to do about the stranger in ebony, looming over me in bold intimidation.

I recognize the feeling now, of having him infiltrate my mind with his own. He's reading me – assessing me.

He's rifling through the chambers of my heart, looking for secrets and dreams. He looks like the kind of pirate who searches for chests of shame, so he knows how to emotionally blackmail you. I have no such treasure, he's wasting his time.

The doors are double and spacious, and yet he fills them. Impossibly, his shoulders are so wide he manages to leave two inches of space on either side. It was built for the supernatural men and demons who come here, and for that he has the gods to thank there is a place a man that large can come for a drink.

Finally he moves, twisting around me like a wicked shadow caught in a gust, to wisp his way around obstacles. It shrieks sensation from my nape to across my muscles, bunching tension in an odious ripple all the way down my spine.

I sense him behind me. I'm listening with pure paranoia when he inhales so hard and deep it sounds like wind whistling a haunting wail through pine needles.

“
You are one mysterious creature,” he says in a low whisper.

His voice is the most unique I've heard. It's like a god whispering through the strings of a harp, prisming it into segments and sending it out in several different tones at once. It reverberates, strumming magma into my blood, scalding all the way to my eyebrows and back down to my toes, circulating with every panicked beat of my heart.

Swallowing fear, I take the steps to the doors, needing to escape,
now
.

“
Zaria!” calls after me. It's deep, dangerous, clandestine, and sinful. It's wrath with angelic wings.

So, he found my name while he was in my head.

Pivoting, I look at him, not even gaining height advantage from the top of the four steps, “Yes?”

“
Tell Zauran, Ryan is in town.”

I look him up and down, doing my best to clutch tight to my obstinate streak. “Are you Ryan?”

Tilting his head to captivate me in midnight mystery and long black eyelashes; untidy thick straight obsidian hair masks his eyes. He shoves hands into the pockets of his black jeans and the button up shirt goes so taut over his arms I expect to hear fabric tear. Black boots tipped in silver catch the light as he takes a step closer, to stare his primordial darkness into my soul.

Who does he think he is, the mafia? Yes, black makes him look good, but this much black is simply overkill.

No, overkill is when I rip my chest open to show you my scorched heart matches your shadow, and I'll always be that close to you.

“
Yes, I am Ryan,” he says, as if he didn't just drop a threat into my mind.

He offers me a card, snapping it impatiently with two fingers, “Get him to call me.”

“
It's rude to read my mind without my permission. Neuri know better than that. Pravus is a step toward harmony, not discord. Please don't do it again.” I take the card, aiming my attention back at him, and freeze with cold familiarity when his eclectic eyes gloss with a violet haze.

The compulsion is like paralysis, and I hate it. His exotic voice filters through my head,
Your spirit smells... mmmm... intoxicating. Did he drink from you?

I shake my head to indicate the negative, caught in the rapture of misting amethyst and indigo shadows slipping across his eyes. It's a phenomenon that feels so wrong, and yet so erotic, it leaves my soul splintering like an image over broken glass.

He steps closer, so I'm forced to stare at the opening of his shirt, hovering in stasis as my eyes drink in the view of a neck so strong it could bend lightning.

Did he... fuck you?

I shake my head again.

His mental laughter vibrates through my veins, chasing pyre flares into my blood.

Good. See you soon, Zaria.

And with that he swivels, taking hostile strides over the abrasive rasp of gravel, to a large motorcycle vaguely glinting in a pocket of raven-dark evil.

Released from his claim on my mind, the card in my fingers crinkles with an impulsive crunch. I hate that we can't lie to them under compulsion. I hate it!

Angry, I twist back to the carnal red doors of Pravus and stomp my way inside. Zauran's going to have to speak to these bouncers about protecting women from compulsion. This isn't on!

Who needs Rohypnol when you can simply swirl your eyes with alchemical iridescence and she'll do whatever you tell her to.

Taking the corner into the strobing red light inside Pravus, looking for Darise, I halt, my heart hammering uncomfortably in my ears.

I don't believe this.

This is not happening.

My fallen angel has his hand in a woman's hair as she dips her head, and flirtatious laughter scythes through the music straight to me - with stabbing clarity. She lifts eyes sparkling with happiness, before returning her captivated gaze to his.

His smile says it all.

How long has that bastard been cheating on me? With another woman who looks exactly
like
me
! The touch he runs over her cheek with his thumb whispers of familiarity and seduction.

Stuff you!

My heart is jamming my pulse and I can't breathe. Forced to retreat, I manage to make it back to the doors to lean heavily against the cast iron frame, asthmatically sucking in cold night air.

“
You okay?” says Zarak, from his bouncer post on the left.

“
Like you give a damn,” I grind out, glaring at the huge demon.

I'm not asthmatic, but shock has a strange way of constricting airways. These guards at the doors are super-beings. They are by far the most imposing walls of muscle I've ever seen, and they seem benevolent even though I think they're wicked incarnate.

Standing upright again, I give him the 'back away' stare, willing my pulse to calm down and not show any of them I'm weak.

You never know what they know,
or
what they are after. I'm in treacherous territory, without a map, and if I have an ounce of common sense I should leave, asap.

The demons make me uncomfortable with their pupilless eyes. That,
and
I don't believe a demon is capable of caring.

Racing down the stairs to my car, I flee the scene of the crime with bitter chills running their nails into my skin. It may be spring, but the nights are still damp and desolate.

It's a relief to be in the safety of the car, and I immediately lock the doors out of habit. As I'm flicking the heater on, a shadow falls over the window, blocking out the slither of faint moonlight with an omen of dread.

Glancing up, my heart skipping back into a voodoo drumbeat, danger beckons in every shadow and breeze, moving through boughs heavy with night veils.

Seeing nothing to fear, I glance at the rearview mirror with apprehensive instinct. A slipping silhouette of menace slides out of view, and I twist to stare out the back window, trying to catch a glimpse of what is lurking out there.

The night is a yawning chasm of welted shadows, and the moon dips behind a cloud as if helping the harbinger of my doom.

I need to get out of here.

Starting the car, I get out my phone and tuck it between my legs. I'm going to do the one thing Darise told me not to do. I'm going to see Zauran,
alone
.

Chapter 2

Zaria:

Heading out of Novi Belgrade I take Brankova Rd over the river, driving away from Pravus back toward Stari Grad.