Wicked Soul

Chapter 5

FIVE

WARIN

“My name is Warin.”

The girl looked at him, eyes narrowed with mistrust as he sat down next to her. He was close enough to reach for her, and his palms ached to do so, but he resisted. Aleric was right—she didn’t trust him, and so far forcing physical contact hadn’t done anything to change that—quite the contrary.

“Not ‘demon.’ Warin.”

“But you are a demon.” She said it as a statement, but there was a question in her eyes.

“No,” he said. “Something else.”

“What?”

“My kind has many names. Nightwalker… Cold One… Vampire.”

“Cold One?” she asked.

Silently, he held out a hand toward her. Only after he closed his eyes, offering her the illusion of a measure of safety, did she gingerly touch her fingertips to his.

“You’re freezing cold,” she whispered, confusion and awe in her voice. “How can your heart beat when your flesh is as frozen as a dead man’s?”

He opened his eyes, capturing her gaze. “My heart does not beat.”

Shock and horror flittered across her face, but also… curiosity. Slowly, while keeping a wary eye on his face to ensure he wouldn’t move, she placed her palm against his chest. It was so warm against his skin, and he could feel the faint drum of her pulse. It was like being touched by life itself.

She kept her hand against his chest for several long moments, waiting for the thud of a heart that hadn’t beaten for centuries. When she finally gave up and pulled her hand away, her expression revealed more bewilderment than fear. “How are you alive? Are you a witch?”

He didn’t take offense to her question, even if Aleric muttered a Saxon curse at her presumption. She’d lived all her life in a remote village—anything unexplainable would be presumed to be witchcraft.

“It may be magic that animates my body, but no. I am not a witch,” he explained, keeping his voice gentle. Her curiosity seemed to dampen her fear of him just a little, and he found he liked it. For a moment, the glow of wonder in her eyes as she took in the magnitude of a man who could walk and talk without a heart beating in his chest seemed to win out.

Then her gaze fell on his mouth and a cloud of mistrust shadowed her face. She yanked her hand from his cool flesh as if she’d been burned. “You drink blood. I know what kind of magic flows through your veins. It is as black as your soul. If you live without a heart, then you must be a monster.”

“I am a monster,” he growled, his anger at her retreat surmounting his need not to scare her further. “I have slaughtered thousands more horribly than any human could ever replicate, and I feel nothing but elation at the memories of ripping flesh and snapping bones. Perhaps what gives me life is even the Satan you humans fear while you hide away in your churches and pray for salvation. It does not matter. Not to me, and not to you. You belong to me now, and you will give yourself to me—monster or no.”

Rose splotches bloomed on her pretty face even as she paled to rival the moon above them—fury mixing with terror. He saw it in her eyes, too, that same fire that had sparked before she slapped him the night before. With his gaze he dared her to raise her hand against him once more, almost hoped she would so he would feel the sting of her temper and the bloom of her life force against his skin. But she didn’t. Not this time. Instead, even though she was trembling so badly her words were jolted, she hissed, “I cannot stop you from doing to me what you want, monster, but know this: I will never be yours!”

The beast in his chest snarled at her words, wanting to force her to accept his claim. But the call of the approaching dawn made him push back the urge to show her exactly how powerful he was, how futile her desire was to resist him. Instead he stared her down as he got to his feet, letting her see every ounce of darkness within him. “You are mine, Thea. And you will be mine for the rest of eternity. The sooner you accept your fate, the less pain you will receive.

“Do not leave this clearing. I will return for you come nightfall. And then you will yield!”

Consciousness returned moments after the last rays of sun disappeared below the horizon. The low pulse of energy from the soil surrounding Warin’s still body seemed heavier this night—almost tangible. Or perhaps it was the energy inside him, drumming with the rhythm of a beating heart. Of her heart.

He lay still for a moment, letting the rhythm pulse through him until it filled his body almost as if life had returned to his flesh. She might not be a witch, but she was magic. No mere human could have captured him so completely, mind and body. Soul, if he’d had one she could claim.

Eager to see her again, to hold her in his arms and smell her addictive scent, he pushed through the loose soil covering him and rose from the grave he’d dug after leaving Thea in the clearing nearby.

The night embraced him with its buffet of scents and sounds of the nocturnal forest animals. The beast within raised up, alert and ready to hunt.

He was hungry.

Thoughts of burying his fangs in Thea’s creamy neck made his c**k harden, and he hummed with pleasure at the thought of her warm body moving beneath his while he slaked his thirst with her crimson blood.

Yes.

Hopefully she’d had enough time while he slept to accept his claim.

Movement to his side alerted him to Aleric's awakening. He waited for his brother to push through the grave next to his, blue eyes sparking with the same thirst for life as they had every night for the past two centuries.

“I’m starving,” he said the second he was free of the ground, offering Warin a fangy grin. “Are you sharing your pet?”

Warin narrowed his eyes at the auburn-haired vampire, a possessive snarl rising in his throat. “She is mine!”

“Sure, whatever.” Aleric raised both hands in surrender, but that didn’t stop a huff from escaping him. “Guess I’ll hunt. But this far away from civilization, it’ll probably mean we’ll sleep apart come dawn.”

“Eat a deer,” Warin said, his attention wavering as he pushed his preternatural senses toward the clearing. The only sounds of life seemed to be from a family of foxes and the rabbit they were hunting. “I want you close.”

“Ew,” Aleric said, a revolted grimace marring his clean features. “No f*****g way. I’m not drinking animal blood while you feast on that feisty little human. If you want me to stay close, at least offer a wrist—“

“Shut up,” Warin snapped.

“I’m just saying—I’m your brother. I’d offer you my pet.” Aleric sulked.

“Shh! Listen.” Tense, painful pressure built in Warin’s gut, right below his ribcage. He pushed his fist against it, trying to ease the swirling sensation of intense dread.

“I can’t hear a thing,” Aleric said after a moment’s silence. He frowned at Warin.

“Exactly,” Warin muttered. He sprang forward, launching himself through the forest, not waiting for Aleric. The pressure below his ribs increased to the unbearable for every step. Why couldn’t he hear her? What if something had happened while he slept?

What if she was…?

He stopped abruptly at the center of the clearing. The fox family had moved on upon his approach, dragging the rabbit carcass with them. The creek he’d bathed in the night before trickled merrily to the east. Wind rattled leaves on the tall trees surrounding him and carried with it only the scent of the forest.

She was gone.

“Well, that’s what you get for refusing to use Compulsion.” Aleric's pragmatic tone ripped him out of the sense of drowning. Warin stared at him, trying to make sense of what he was saying.

“Seriously, brother, I know you’ve not been one for using charm when a nice dose of fear will do the job, but if you’re going to threaten a girl with r**e and t*****e, maybe Compel her before you leave for the night.” Aleric strolled over to the ashes left over from her campfire and kicked a charred log with the toes of his boot. “Looks like she left the second the sun cracked the horizon.”

“I didn’t threaten…” Warin’s voice died when his own words echoed in the back of his mind. The sooner you accept your fate, the less pain you will receive. His Sire had spoken those same words to him so many times. Pain had always followed. Pain so severe, it had broken him from the inside out.

If he had been able to, he too would have fled from the wielder of that treacherous promise.

The pressure below his ribs sunk, turning to a hollow pit in the depths of his gut.

He’d spoken those words many times since he killed his Sire, to a multitude of people. So many of their faces blurred into a shapeless pink mass, the only distinguishable feature being a wide, open, wailing mouth.

Pain.

It was all he knew. Pain. Force. And the s******c pleasure of imposing his will on the pitiful creatures he captured to sate the beast inside.

In a rush of clarity so sickeningly clear it made the pit in his gut ache, Warin knew why Thea had run.

She had run from him like he should have run from his Sire. Because she had seen him for what he truly was.

Monster.

He had told her himself. Told her those same words his Sire had told him. Over and over.

The blurry image of the thousands of souls he had tormented for his perverted pleasures flickered and faded until Thea danced for his mind’s eye, screaming in agony.

The agony he had promised her if she resisted his will.

“Warin?” Aleric's voice seemed to come from far away. Worry marred his deep baritone. “If you didn’t plan to hunt her, why didn’t you Compel her? You must have known she would flee.”

“I can’t,” he whispered. “I can’t Compel her. I can’t hurt her.”

“What do you mean, you can’t?”

“I have to find her.” He pulled his mind back from the swirling vortex threatening to swallow his sanity and stared at the ground. Seconds later, he picked up her trail.

Warin ran.