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“So was I.”
He said it softly, but I could easily hear the guilt and regret in his tone. I knew he’d been forced to do things he hadn’t wanted to. The energy of his words told me he’d probably deserved death at one point, too.
“I’m interested in who you are now, not who you were then. My goal is to keep humans alive from this point forward, not to avenge the deaths of those from years ago.”
Evan pulled into the coterie house driveway, and I got out with Etta. He pulled away, and I grabbed her by the bicep and walked to the edge of the cliff with her. “Levitate us down, Etta darling.”
She did so without arguing, and I pressed her against the stone wall of the cliff and kissed her. I always have a plan, but I didn’t, on this night. I wanted her. I needed to taste her, so I did.
Etta wasn’t human warm, but she wasn’t vampire cold, either. Her lips opened for me, her arms went around my neck, and I pressed the front of my body to hers. Her heart beat for me, and mine pounded away in my chest.
Slayers most often mate with other Slayers, but occasionally one of us falls for a non-predatory shifter. We have to be too careful with humans, and we aren’t attracted to the monsters.
But I wanted Etta. This vampire was under my skin, and now I needed to be inside her. My dick throbbed against her stomach, and I stepped back, lifted her in my arms, and then pressed her against the wall again without breaking the kiss. She wrapped her legs around me, and now my dick was cradled in her groin with only a few layers of cloth keeping me out of her. My heart raced faster, and I intensified the kiss. Lips against lips. Tongues dancing against and around each other.
One of her arms moved from behind my neck to my shoulder, and she pushed. I kissed her harder, and she pressed harder, so I ended the kiss, but didn’t move. She was still pressed against the wall, our lips millimeters from touching, and I knew she’d feel my dick pulsing against her pussy, in time to my racing heart.
“What are we doing, slayer?”
“Kissing.”
“Aren’t there rules against this?”
“For me personally? There used to be, but you seem to be my exception. For slayers in general? It’s a grey area.”
She met my gaze and I was oh-so-careful not to try to control her with mine. I got nothing from hers either. Etta was being careful, too.
“I promise to try my best not to fuck with you with my gaze,” I told her. “I’ll probably fuck up at least a few times, but I’m trying not to.”
“I can’t give you that promise for longer than this night.”
“What do you know of Augustus, in New Orleans?”
“Blade. He’s moved the slayer known as Blade into his private suite in the New Orleans coterie house, and she can come and go without oversight.”
This was going to be a longer conversation than I’d planned. I let her go and sat on a log, trusting her not to kill me. We were supposed to be getting along, and someone was going to have to trust the other first.
She sat across from me, waiting. I’d brought the subject up, so it was my story to tell.
“Blade was my protégé, once. I trained her. She’s mine, but not sexually. More like a little sister, or a niece.” I met Etta’s gaze again. It seemed a luxury, and I hoped she’d agree to this longer term. “I was raised by a sect that believes all monsters should die. Because of the agreements with the Concilio, they can’t just kill willy-nilly, but the least excuse, and they execute. If you take enough blood the human has to take a sick day at work, or is even an hour late, my parents will kill you. Doesn’t matter that the human will be fine with no lasting effects — you interfered with their life, so you die. Vampires aren’t people to them. Only monsters. Before the Slayers and Concilio negotiated terms to end the constant war between the two groups, they killed any vampire or predatory shapeshifter on sight. I left that sect because I realized there are some monsters who try to do good, but you have to know I’ll still take out any who are harming humans.”
She tilted her head. “And then your protégé started dating one of the head monsters.”
“I’d moved from my parents’ sect to another before she started fucking him, but I was still ready to end his existence when I first found out they were an item. More than mere fucking. She acted as if they were in a relationship, partners, and I was certain he’d bespelled her.” I looked down, realized I had, and met her gaze again. “It was a close call. I very nearly ended him, but she fought on his side, against me. I’d assumed she was under his spell, so I was careful with her, but there are red flags that show when someone is bespelled, and she had none of them. I tested her, while we fought, and she was her own person, completely.” I closed my eyes, remembering the pain of betrayal I’d felt. “I turned my back on her. Stopped speaking to her.”
“I take it you’ve renewed your friendship?”
I nodded. “We got thrown together on a job. She and I are...” I shrugged. “You know what we are. The top two Slayers in North America, in the top five worldwide. We get the hardest jobs. We were sent to California to take out a serial killer together, as a team. One of the wolf cops picked up a weretiger’s scent at the crime scenes and reported it to the Concilio. Our spies picked it up, so we went to investigate.”
“The Concilio didn’t care, did they?”
I shook my head. Their only concern was to ensure humans didn’t find out about supernaturals. “The weretiger was bound to Oakland’s Master of the City. Blade was required to visit him upon arrival since she’s dating the Master of New Orleans.” Basic vampire politics. Etta would understand. “Augustus wouldn’t let her walk in alone, which meant I ended up doing a job with the two of them.”
“Three years ago?”
I nodded. We’d killed the Master Vampire and his weretiger boyfriend, and Augustus had sent a vampire from the New Orleans coterie to take over the city.
“Blade and Augustus were a true couple. He listened to her, she listened to him. They worked together. Mutual respect. He trusted her to know the slayer end, she trusted him to help with the vampire parts. By the time we parted company, even I trusted him a little, and I’d never trusted a vampire at my back before. Ever.”
