A Shadow in the Reaping by Brynne Weaver
Chapter 29
"No. No fucking way," I snarl.
"I get a sense you have a problem with this particular establishment. Care to elaborate on why that might be?"
"Absofuckinglutely not."
"But look at the sign," Ashen says, pointing to the brick building in front of us. His voice is laced with far too much amusement for my current state of hunger to endure. "It says 'Under New Management'."
"Go fuck yourself."
"There are douchebags here. I guarantee it."
"So do I. You're one of them."
"You will find both tequila and lunch. It's the perfect solution."
“I’ve lost my appetite.”
“There’s a connection here. Mila and Bobby shared something in common.”
“That’s fucking gross imagery I never needed in my head.”
“Just a quick little investigation. The link to Semyon is here, I can feel it.”
“If you make me go in there, I will never have sex with you again."
Ashen laughs. The sound is richer and more musical than the song still playing in the car. I turn my gaze from the familiar bar across the street as Ashen leans toward me and rests an elbow on the center console of his car. His eyes make a languid pass of my skin and rest on my lips. "You lie."
I put on my fiercest vampire glare, but it feels like a thin mask. "Do I?"
Ashen shifts out of his seat and prowls across the narrow space of the vehicle. He braces one hand against my door and looms over me.
I smell silk. I smell unlit cigars. I smell the decadent blood that pulses in his neck as he draws near. "Yes, you do," he whispers, letting his breath rest on my skin before he presses his lips to my throat. "And you are terrible at it."
"Why don't we go somewhere else, anywhere else, and I'll show you what a terrible liar I am," I say as Ashen trails a line of kisses down my neck between another laugh. One of his hands flows beneath my shirt, following the lines of my ribs and tracing the scalloped lace of my bra.
"Indulge me."
"I’m trying to indulge both of us."
I feel the smile in Ashen's lips as he kisses my jaw, drawing closer to my mouth. “Vampire,” he purrs, “I need to check the club but I do not want to leave you here alone.”
“Then don’t. Let’s drive away.”
That smile again, it drags across my skin. Ashen’s breath mingles with mine as he kisses the corner of my lips.
“Come with me, vampire, and I promise to make it up to you later.”
My desire is like a planet with a gravitational pull all its own. I let my hands flow up the muscles of Ashen’s arms, over his chest, down his waist. I grab hold of Ashen’s belt and tug his hips closer. He pulls his lips away to search my face as I release the clasp of the buckle. “Only if you make it up to me now first.”
Carnal fire erupts in his eyes. Ashen stares at my mouth as I drag his zipper down with a slow and teasing hand, tooth by tooth. He looks ravenous, like he can barely restrain himself from tearing the car apart. I bite my lip around a merciless grin and go even slower.
“And how do you propose I make it up to you now?” he asks through a ragged breath as I work the button free on my jeans and pull them down beneath him. I press the button to recline my seat, keeping my eyes on Ashen. He leans down and devours me with his kiss, a growl rumbling in his chest as I wrap my hand around his length and guide him to my opening.
“Fuck me,” I say. My core feels raw and empty with my own words. I’m desperate to have him inside me, to have him fill me, for my flesh to stretch around him. But I wait with the silken tip of his erection paused at my damp entrance, wanting to drive us both mad for a moment longer.
“You know I will not deny you anything, vampire,” Ashen says, and drives into me. I cry out with the intensity of it, the pleasure of it. It’s so much better than what I was aching for. He withdraws to slam into me again, and again and again and again, our kiss urgent, our tongues plundering. He braces himself against the car door and grasps my hip with his other hand, pushing deeper until I’m not sure where he ends and I begin.
A wild thought detonates in my brain, that we could mate right here. It would be a bloodbath. The car would be a write-off. And it wouldn't really be inconspicuous, not that we’re being very inconspicuous right now, fucking in the front seat of his car. The lot we’re parked in might be empty, but who knows if someone might turn up and catch us. But that's part of the allure.
Right now, though, I don’t give a shit about people, or consequences, or the world. It could be burning down around me and I wouldn’t care, because the exquisite thrusts keep coming, over and over, deeper and deeper, drowning me in desperation for more. My bones feel like molten metal, liquid and searing hot. Ashen’s hand moves from my hip to my stomach, then up further still to pull my bra down and run his calloused palm over the smooth skin of my breasts.
“Come with me, vampire,” Ashen murmurs in my ear before burying his lips and his hot breath into the crook of my neck as he drives into me. He’s not talking about the club this time, that much is clear. My hands slide beneath his shirt and press into the thick muscles of his back. I scrape my nails down his skin, drawing blood. He growls into my throat with pleasure and gives a gentle nip to my shoulder.
The scent of blood, the feeling of Ashen’s thickness as he thrusts into me, his hands on my skin and the warmth of his breath as he kisses and bites… it all fuels the engine in my heart to claim him as mine in blood and give my own in return.
My fangs descend and coat my tongue in sweet poison. Ashen drills into me as I fumble with the top few buttons on his shirt until I can pull the collar past his shoulders. My lips carve a path of cool kisses from his clavicle to his neck. I open my mouth above his jugular and let my teeth and tongue graze the salty sweetness of his skin. Ashen groans at the caress of my fangs and his thrusts grow stronger, his thickness filling me with every pounding stroke.
“Drink, Lu,” he whispers into my neck. His voice is strained with the effort of holding back as every thrust pushes us closer to oblivion. “Drink and come with me.”
I don’t drink, because I know it’s something I won’t be able to stop if I do. But the idea of it undoes me. An intense orgasm tears through my core and claims my breath from my lungs. Wave after wave, it keeps pulling me under. I drown in a sea of sparks, calling Ashen’s name as he spills into me.
It takes a long moment for our breath to recover. Ashen rests his forehead to my shoulder and I run my fingers through his dark hair, every inhalation filled with his scent. I think I could stay here forever beneath the weight of him, feeling his heart as it thunders in his chest, listening to his whispered adorations. “You are a force of nature,” he says to me. “An elemental force of nature.”
Even though I wish we could stay, we don’t, of course. Life and the world that claims it enter my thoughts as I recover from the desire I just drowned in.
"Come on, vampire," Ashen says as he slips out of me, laying kisses across my face until I smile. "Let's get this done so we can move onto more fun things."
Once we’ve cleaned ourselves up as best we can, Ashen reaches behind me and pulls my sword from the back seat, laying a final, lingering kiss on my neck as he rests the katana across my lap and climbs into his seat. I look at the saya and think about the wars fought with this blade so long ago. I don't know if I was more reckless then, running off into those bloody battles after Tomoe Gozen, or if I'm more reckless now, falling in love with a demon who is meant to destroy me.
"All right, vampire?" he asks after we get out of the car and stand by the hood, looking up toward the bar. The giant silver letters loom across the brick like trapped and angry spirits. The Maqlu, it says, molten black flames licking the letters. I clench my jaw and stare at the rendering of fire that burns the words above the door. "Vampire?"
I look at Ashen and feel the bright blaze of red light that consumes my pupils. I give a single nod and tighten my grip on the silk threads wrapped around the handle of the sword. Before I can convince myself to steal the car and drive away, I stalk across the street toward the club, Ashen meeting my strides as he keeps to my left shoulder.
"I heard many theories of who killed Bobby Sarno on the roof of his own club. An ancient clan of shapeshifting witches. A vengeful angel bent on sending a message to the covens. Reality, it seems, is even more surprising. Was it truly you?" Ashen asks as we keep to the right of the building, heading down a narrow alley toward the back entrance. I nod but I don't meet his eyes. "Why?"
"You already know why."
Ashen falls silent. He looks up at the building and I feel his body tense beside me. "The Maqlu," Ashen says, more to himself than to me as the translation of the words on the brick takes hold. "The Burning."
We stop at the corner of the club to listen, but there are no sounds, no voices. I smell tobacco and brandy, the scent of ink warmed by skin. Ashen grasps my wrist and I turn toward him as smoke envelops our legs and climbs past my waist. Flame coils within Ashen's eyes.
"He was the last one that was there. The last on my list," I say before he can ask a question I don't want to answer. "He got what he deserved."
Ashen keeps his fiery gaze on mine for a long moment before he gives a single nod. His hand stays wrapped across my skin. The smoke dissolves but the heat still burns in his eyes.
"Try not to kill any witches until we have answers," Ashen says, bending his head to keep his unwavering stare locked to mine. It burns an indelible mark right onto my soul. "Once we're done, take them all."
"Why? They weren't there."
"They knew Sarno, and that's close enough."
Hellfire erupts across the sword Ashen grasps in his free hand, and when he's ready he lets go of my wrist, his fingertips following my palm, down the lines of my fingers, down the pads of flesh at their tips. The heat of his touch leaves mine but his eyes linger for a moment longer. His rage stays locked behind within like a beast that roams behind bars, waiting for its chance to be released.
Ashen turns away and I follow him to the heavy iron door that faces an empty loading dock. He tries the handle, but no surprise, it's locked with more than just metal. There are spells at work here, I can feel the hum of their current in the air. The scent of star anise and rosemary and mica infuse the unsettled air.
"How did you get in the last time?" Ashen asks as he unscrews a tiny spring on the end of the handle of his sword.
"The front door," I say, giving a shrug as Ashen looks up with a questioning brow. "Ediye helped with a disguise. Besides, it's not like he was expecting me. He thought I'd been dead for three centuries."
Ashen gives a faint smile and focuses his attention on twisting an ampule free of its compartment in the handle of his sword. He opens it and I smell sulfur and ground bone. There's some other shit in there too that I don't want to think too much about. Hair steeped in the scent of milk. The skin of something long extinct, sweet like powdered sugar and burned in cedar.
Ashen pulls a metal stopper free of the ampule and taps some of the dust within across the door handle before returning the vial to the hidden compartment of his sword. Static crackles and light arcs across the metal. Froth bubbles and drips onto the asphalt below. When it subsides, Ashen gives a swift strike with his sword to sever the neck of the handle. The bulbous metal head rolls to our feet.
We step into the darkness of a narrow, windowless, utilitarian corridor lit by a single fluorescent bulb. There's a door on either side and one at the end. I hold my breath in the silence. I lay my hand to Ashen's chest and he does the same. I close my eyes and concentrate on the sounds I can hear. Two heartbeats. The ripple of sulfurous flame. There's nothing else close. I shake my head and we breathe again, walking to the end of the hall.
The door is unlocked. Ashen pushes it open just enough that I can listen. Again, I hear nothing. We drift into the corridor like a poisonous gas.
I know every hallway and room here. I memorized them with Ediye months before I ever walked inside. Ashen looks down at me and seems to know I wouldn't have left Bobby Sarno up to chance, and he'd be right about that. If I was going to wait three hundred years, I wasn't about to fuck it up with poor planning. I was going to get away with it.
I jerk my head to the left. The offices are in that direction.
We follow the corridor of black painted brick lined with signed posters of artists and bands that have played in The Maqlu over the last several years. Most of the messages start with 'Dear Bobby,' or even worse, 'To Mr Sarno,' and it if my stomach wasn't so fucking empty I'd want to vomit all over them. Fucking prick.
When we're about halfway down the hall I spot a framed photo of Bobby with his arm around Cardi B. She looks a little grossed out to be fair.
My fist snaps out like a viper and I smash the glass.
"What the fuck, Lu?" Ashen hisses as he watches me pull the photo down and tear Bobby's smug, bloated face away from Cardi's.
"My bad," I whisper, patting her image back into the frame and dropping the half with Bobby's face next to my boot. I hold onto Ashen's fierce glare as I twist Sarno's ugly head into the shards of glass. "Sorry... so terribly sorry."
Ashen rolls his eyes and turns away, leading us to a corner with a right turn. He leans forward and listens, then motions for me to follow. Doors line either side. At the end is a turn to the left that leads to the public-facing section of the club, which won't be open until dusk descends. We drift past the first set of doors. Ashen is nearly at the second when I reach out and grasp his hand. He lurches to a halt.
I point one finger in the air. I tap my palm to my chest in the rhythm of a heartbeat. I hook my thumb to the left. The flame surges across Ashen's blade.
Ashen grips the handle. It keeps silent beneath his slow and careful hand. He pushes the door open and we step inside the office.
A man sits slumped forward in a chair, his hands bound to its arms, his ankles to its legs. A gag stained with bloody saliva is tied through his mouth. His chest is heavy with sleep. Even with the cloth across his tongue I can smell dehydration on his breath.
Jessie Fucking Bates.
He startles awake as though I called his name. He looks at Ashen, then at me, then back again. I see hope and relief in his eyes. Ashen glances at me and his emotions are buried beneath deep sediment like a creature hiding under the sand, waiting to attack. He stalks toward Jessie and rips the gag free of his mouth.
"Oh my God, I know you, I know you from that fucked-up Sanford place. Are you here to rescue me? Thank God. These guys, these fucking Russian guys just came into my house and took me. They fucking took me, man. They shoved me in a van and brought me to this factory and took a bunch of blood from me and then brought me here. I have no fucking idea who they are. They never said who they were or what they were doing or why they wanted me. I don't know what the fuck is going on, man. They just took me. What the fuck, man. They just took me from my home."
Jessie descends into pleas and swears as he squirms against his bonds. Ashen turns to me. Everything he's just tried to bury is right there at the surface. I can see it in the flame that seems both bright and black in his eyes. "I think we have everything we need to know from him," he says.
An arc of fire twists through the air. A crack splits the silence of the room. A scream fills the office as a severed hand falls free of its bonds and smacks the floor.
Ashen leans toward Jessie as he thrashes in anguish and cries to the stump he holds to his chest, his blood pulsing like a clogged fountain that spills into his lap. "That is for touching what does not belong to you."
A flash of steel, a burst of flame. Another scream. Another surge of blood pumping from a raging heart. The smell fills my nose and the back of my throat. I swallow the venom that floods my mouth as Jessie's other hand drops to his feet.
Ashen kicks Jessie's chair over and looms above the broken man as his body contorts in shock and distress. "And that is to ensure you can't touch yourself in fantasies of her. If she lets you survive, that is."
The fire dissolves as Ashen wipes his blade clean on Jessie's thrashing leg. The smell of urine mixes with the blood on the floor. Jessie wails and sobs. He kicks one of his own hands away in his desperate squirming. It flops over like a dead and slippery fish. How Jessie hasn't passed out, I just don't know, but kudos where it's deserved. Dude just had both hands cut off and he's still awake enough to snivel a string of obscenities.
Ashen rises and walks toward me. He looks a little calmer, though the dark flame still roils in his pupils. My throat feels thick with longing. The sound of Jessie's anguish seems to fade away as Ashen stops before me. "What's wrong?" he asks.
I swallow a sudden sting of tears before they can pool in my eyes. A coy grin pulls at my lips. "Ashen of House Urbigu... do you think I belong to you?"
Ashen gives a breath of a laugh. His smile fades. His eyes soften and the flame within dies to embers. He reaches up and lays his hand on the side of my face, letting his fingers trace the line of my cheekbone and the angle of my jaw. His gaze follows every movement of his slow and gentle caress. "No. You belong to you, vampire. But I will cherish any part you're willing to share with me."
I can see past every layer when I look in Ashen's eyes. Past decades of time burned to cinders in his wake. Past the souls stripped from bodies by his blade. I am witness to every moment of loneliness and rage and despair. I see the man within the empty fortress, the soul within the demon. Things that shouldn't be, but they are.
"I'll share every part that you're willing to take, and I'll take any part that you're willing to give," I say, taking a step closer and placing a hand on Ashen's heart, the other across the back of his neck to draw his lips down to mine. His kiss sets fire to my veins, lighting them like fuses. My heart detonates in my chest, an explosion of love and desire.
"Fuck you, assholes!" Jessie yells from the floor. His voice is slurred with the loss of blood. I pull away from Ashen and look over his shoulder. Jessie is struggling to his knees with the chair still strapped to his ankles.
"You might want to take care of that before there's nothing left to eat," Ashen whispers close to my ear before pressing his lips to my cheek. My eyes don't leave Jessie's sticky, writhing form. He slides in the blood that coats the floor, wailing like a lost child.
I slip away from Ashen and dance toward Jessie. I’m very excited about this one, so excited that I do a little clap. He's the meal that got away. Such a rare occurrence, and I do love a rare dish when I have the chance. I’m sure you’re not too surprised though. After all, it would be a shame if I lulled you into believing I could be something else, especially after what I told you in the beginning. We vampires adapt to what you want us to be, so we can get what we need from you, remember? But don’t worry. In this case, it’s what I need from Jessie. A long overdue lunch.
I rake my lower lip beneath the needles of my fangs and skip a little turn in Ashen's direction to find him watching me with a hooded gaze that's full of dark desire.
The rotation of my spin ends by Jessie’s side. I bend toward the desperate man. My hand slides into his hair and I pull his neck to my lips as he cries out to the indifferent walls that surround us.
"I sang you a lullaby the last time," I whisper into Jessie's ear. His feet squeak and slide through the blood that pools on the polished floor. "This time, I don't care how loud you squeal. Because if there's anyone here to listen, I'll kill them too."
With a smile of satisfaction, I crush my fangs to Jessie's throat and drink until the last beat of his heart.