Read Eternal Kiss of Darkness by Jeaniene Frost Online Freevampiresnovel.com

Chapter 1

  Mencheres smelled claret even before he defenseless the bawdy smell of ghouls clustered on the ground floor of the decrepit warehouse. They showed no concern when he walked inside. Another inhalation revealed it was vampire claret 2 of them stank of. The other four didn't have that coppery aroma clinging to them, but from the predatory gazes they leveled on Mencheres, they intended to rectify that.

"A young vampire went missing from this surface area recently," Mencheres said by way of greeting, ignoring the way the ghouls began to circumvolve effectually him. They looked to be in their late teens, and from the energy in their auras, they were teens in undead years likewise. "Short blond hair, tribal tattoos on his upper arms, silvery piercing in his eyebrow.

Goes by the proper name Trick," he went on. "Have you seen him?"

"Not smart to be out so close to dawn, vampire," the ghoul with the heaviest scent of blood drawled without answering Mencheres's question. And then the ghoul smiled, showing he'd filed all his teeth to points.

Instead of inspiring fear, the sight annoyed Mencheres. These ghouls thought they had the advantage because of the impending dawn, only dawn would only sap the force of a new vampire. Even with his power level cloaked to where it would feel like he was merely a immature vampire, if the ghouls were wise, they'd wonder at Mencheres's lack of hesitation in confronting them.

Then once again, if they were wise, they wouldn't have killed Fob in the same expanse they used every bit a home. Information technology had but taken Mencheres an hour to track them down. Such stupidity wasn't just blatant disregard for vampire and ghoul law; it also endangered the secrecy of both their races. In some other mood, Mencheres would have killed the shark-toothed ghoul without farther chat, then rounded up the remaining five for public penalization later. After all, Mencheres didn't require their confession to know they'd killed Trick. Non with the olfactory property of vampire claret on them.

The ghouls were lucky, because today, he wasn't looking for retribution over Pull a fast one on's murder. Maybe it was a good affair he'd lost his visions of the future, Mencheres reflected. Otherwise, if he'd foreseen that this was how he'd finish his eons-erstwhile feud with the decadent Law Guardian, Radjedef, he'd question his own sanity.

But if he hadn't lost his visions, none of this would be necessary. Acrimony flashed in him.

Afterwards 4 thousand years of seeing glimpses of the time to come, to suddenly take his visions gone was as crippling as it was unexpected. He'd long lamented the frustration of having visions that some people paid no heed to; but now that they were gone, for all his other powers, he couldn't protect those he cared for. A friend's recent, accusing words rang in Mencheres'due south heed. Why at present, when I need you the near, are you of no use to me?

Radjedef might have hated Mencheres for factory ennia, but he was as well clever to come up later on a foe who could counter most hostile moves earlier they were even made. Now that Mencheres's visions were gone, this was Radjedef'due south best chance. As both men knew, Radjedef wouldn't hesitate to apply his considerable power every bit a Constabulary Guardian to manufacture charges against Mencheres for crimes that had never taken place.

Radjedef was no stranger to bending the constabulary to suit his own purposes. It was something he'd done even before he had become a member of the powerful vampire ruling council.

His old enemy might relish the upcoming confrontation and all the encarmine coll ateral damage it would doubtless involve earlier ane of them emerged a victor, but Mencheres would end this before information technology started. It rather pleased him to imagine the frustration Radjedef would feel at being denied the opportunity to implement his elaborate plans for vengeance.

Then when the half dozen ghouls pulled out their silver knives, grinning in that vicious, anticipatory way, Mencheres simply stood there. This would get bloody, merely he was no stranger to claret. Or to pain. Both had been his companions for far longer than these ghouls could even imagine.

He bandage 1 look at the predawn sky, wondering briefly if the sun shone in the afterlife.

Before the sun was high, either he or the ghouls would discover out.

Kira walked down Ashland Avenue, the 2nd-to-last street before hers. A sudden breeze blew her pilus into her eyes. They didn't phone call Chicago the Windy Urban center for nothing.

She pushed stray pieces back behind her ears and shifted her heavy backpack onto her other shoulder. After all the times she'd toted her backpack to and from work, Kira would accept thought information technology wouldn't experience as heavy every bit information technology did. Notwithstanding, she was lucky her boss immune her to apply the visitor car on stakeouts, and besides, many people who lived and worked in the West Loop didn't own cars. They only didn't take to comport around the various cameras, camcorders, binoculars, and other necessary stakeout items that she did.

At to the lowest degree it had been a productive night. Her surveillance of her client's cheating wife finally paid off in the version of several incriminating photos that Kira dropped off at her office earlier she'd taken the Green Line dorsum to her neighborhood. She could slumber in as belatedly as she wanted to today, and even her exacting dominate wouldn't have a matter to say about it.

Being a private investigator meant tuning in to her surroundings, which came naturally to Kira, but her focus sharpened even more when she rounded the side by side corner. Walking this particular stretch of road during the daylight was fine, but now, information technology made her uneasy.

She was glad the sun had started to peek out. The line of dilapidated warehouses were supposed to exist gone by now, just the lingering recession had slowed their razing and rebuilding. The stretch of cruddy buildings meant the rent in her edifice farther upwards the block was much lower than information technology would be once shiny new apartments replaced the graffiti-laced, abandoned units, but it also meant that she had to be watchful at present. Muggings weren't uncommon in this expanse.

She was near past the last of them when raucous laughter jerked her head effectually. It had come from within i of the warehouses, and information technology sounded more than ugly than amused.

Keep walking, Kira told herself, patting the pocket of her backpack where she kept a gun. You're virtually dwelling.

That harsh laughter rang out once more, this time, right on the heels of what sounded like a pained shout. Kira paused, listening hard. If it had been later in the day, the noise from cars and pedestrians would've drowned out anything coming from the warehouses; only with most people still sleeping, she next caught what sounded like a loud moan. Whoever had fabricated that sound was hurt, and when it was followed by more of that ugly laughter, Kira knew the two were related.

She slipped her backpack off, pulling out her jail cell phone while walking faster toward the safe of her apartment edifice.

"Ix one one, what'due south your emergency?" a vocalism intoned afterwards Kira punched in the numbers.

"I want to report a Code 37," Kira said.

"Say again?"

"Aggravated assault," Kira amended, surprised the dispatch operator hadn't registered the police code. She gave the address of where the warehouse was located.

"Sounds like the bottom floor," she added to exist more specific.

"Please concord while I transfer you to that station," the operator replied. Moments later on, some other voice asked what her emergency was.

"I'm reporting an aggravated set on," Kira said, non bothering with the code this time.

She gave the accost and information once again, her teeth grinding in frustration as she had to repeat twice what she'd heard.

"So you never actually saw an assault?" the dispatch operator asked.

"No, I didn't get in there," Kira said stiffly, non walking at present that she was close to her apartment building.

"Right," the at present bored-sounding vox replied. "What's your name?"

"I prefer to be anonymous," Kira said later on a intermission. She had a history with the constabulary that wasn't necessarily pleasant.

"Nosotros'll ship a

car effectually," the operator intoned.

"Cheers," Kira muttered, and hung up. She'd done all she could. Hopefully it would be enough for whoever'd made that awful noise.

Merely when she started to walk toward the front door of her building, her steps faltered.

Instinct told her to turn around and head back to the warehouse. It would be five to 10 minutes before the patrol car arrived. What if the unknown, injured person didn't have that long?

Never attempt to be a hero, kid. Leave that to the shields.

Her dominate's admonition rang in Kira'southward mind, but instead of making her experience better, anger rose. If not for her ex-husband, she'd be 1 of those "shields. " She'd aced the police academy, gotten her certification in law enforcement, and she was just 2 blocks away from that scream, not several minutes similar the patrol motorcar.

Mack'south voice, deep and scratchy, sounded through her listen side by side: Save ane life. That had been her mentor's ideology. If Mack had been more like her boss, Kira might exist dead.

Not standing on a sidewalk debating whether or not to help someone in need.

Mack wouldn't take hesitated, badge or no badge. Who did she want to be like, her old friend Mack, or her jaded dominate, Frank?

Kira spun around, heading back toward the warehouses and the source of that scream.

Mencheres let out a long moan when the silver knife slashed into his sternum. When the ghouls first started cutting him, he hadn't made a dissonance, and they'd drawn their blades even more slowly across his mankind, taking his silence as a challenge. And then he grunted, moaned, and fifty-fifty shouted. It helped; they grew more excited, their cuts went deeper.

Soon, he'd have to cull between using his energy to cloak the fact that he was a Master vampire, or using his power to protect himself from the worst of the pain. He'd lost too much claret to go along doing both. Just if his attackers had a grain of sense, revealing the extent of what he had coiling inside him might brand them run away. No, he couldn't chance that. Pain it was, then.

Mencheres dropped the mental barrier he'd erected between himself and those relentless, seeking knives. Immediately, his body felt similar it was on fire, the argent causing an intense, agonizing reaction as it sliced through him.

With his barrier to the pain down, a new problem arose. Every new cutting or stab wound roused the swirling energy in him that craved retribution. Mencheres forced it dorsum, concentrating on keeping his aura tamped down, fighting his urge to kill the ghouls even though his power demanded to exist released.

"Stakes," Mencheres said, calling him past the name the others had used. "Are yous inexperienced, or is this just the best y'all can do?"

The ghoul snarled at the insult, hacking a deep line in Mencheres's thigh as a response. Another ghoul took concur of Mencheres's waist-length black hair and sawed a hunk of information technology off at the shoulder.

Mencheres's anger rose again, night and deadly, seeking to merge with his power to exist given form. He forced it back, knowing if he released his control for fifty-fifty an instant, all of the ghouls would die. And they hadn't served their purpose nonetheless.

"Put the knives down and get away from him," someone gasped.

Mencheres swung his gaze toward the sound with the same amazement the ghouls showed. Had he been so distracted by his own thoughts - and the ghouls by their torture

- that a human being had actually managed to sneak upward on them?

The proof stood on the other side of the room, posture in a classic shooting opinion, gun pointed at the ghouls clustered around him. The woman's eyes were wide, her face pale, simply she held her weapon in an unwavering grip.

This was a complication he didn't demand.

"Leave at present," Mencheres ordered. Her warm mortal body would exist too tempting for the flesh-eaters to resist if she didn't flee at once.

"Well, well," Stakes drew out, leaving his knife embedded in Mencheres's thigh. "Look hither, guys. Dessert. "

A clicking sound indicated the woman's thumbing back the hammer. "I'll shoot," she warned. "All of y'all, put your knives downward and get abroad from him. The police are already on the style . . . "

Her vocalism cracked every bit Stakes moved away from Mencheres. Most of what they'd done to him had been blocked from her view past the ghoul's trunk, but when Mencheres was fully revealed to the woman'south gaze, she stared.

The ghouls charged.

Mencheres knew he should practice nothing. Should stay lashed to the edifice's support axle, pretending to be helpless, and let the ghouls impale her. After all, he'd had an objective when he ready out to this place, and information technology didn't involve saving a reckless human being.

Just in the unmarried second that it took the ghouls to reach the adult female, another idea rose within Mencheres, overcoming his practicality. She'd tried to save him. He could not let her dice for it.

Power ripped out of him, slamming into the ghouls. The bloodied ropes effectually Mencheres began to unwind themselves, whipping about like snakes as Mencheres blasted more of his power into the six ghouls. The strikes were weaker than normal from his blood loss, but the sudden high-pitched shrieks coming from the mankind-eaters ended as abruptly as their assail on her. Past the time the ropes all vicious abroad, and Mencheres strode over to the adult female, none of the ghouls could even move.

Mencheres kicked Stakes of out the way to reveal the adult female underneath him. She was gasping, blood coming from her mouth in a thin trail, more pouring from the gaping wound in her stomach. His hesitation had been plush. The ghoul managed to wound her mortally before he'd stopped him. In mere minutes, the adult female would bleed to death.

She stared up at him, anguish showing in her expression, followed by a horrified understanding equally she glanced down at her stomach.

"Tina," the woman whispered. And so her stake green optics rolled back into her caput, and she passed out.

Mencheres didn't pause this time; he sliced his fangs across his wrist and held the wound to her rima oris. No blood flowed. Of class - the ghouls had drained all his claret.

He swept the woman upwards in the adjacent instant, taking her to the pole he'd so recently been lashed to. Then Mencheres scooped up a handful of blood that pooled on the flooring, forcing information technology into her mouth. Her pulse was now erratic, her animate almost nonexistent, but he ignored that, making her swallow.

Sirens approached. The police were almost here, only as she said they would be.

Mencheres scooped upwardly another handful of his blood, rubbing information technology onto the gouge in her breadbasket. The woman'southward hot blood mingled with his, only simply for a moment. So her bleeding stopped, the edges of her flesh pulling toward each other as she began to heal inside and out from the regenerative effects of his claret.

Two car doors slammed. Mencheres left her on the ruby-red-smeared floor while he went over to the ghouls. Their optics were the just things that could move as he stared downwards at them.

"If y'all had killed me at once, you might take lived another few days," Mencheres said coldly. Then he flexed his power in a short, controlled burst. A popping sound preceded vi heads rolling away from the ghouls' bodies in the adjacent moment.

Footsteps approached the warehouse. Mencheres paused, glancing over at the adult female. She'd regained consciousness, and she was staring at him, her pale gaze riveted with daze and horror.

She had seen his fangs. Watched him impale the ghouls. She knew too much for him to get out her here.

"Police," a voice called out. "Anyone injured in here . . . ?"

Mencheres snatched upwards the woman and flew out of a cleaved window earlier the officers had a chance to gasp at the carnage they found inside.

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