Blood Lust
A self-destructive necromancer. A vampire hitman. And a spell gone horribly wrong.
If Daniella had to predict her own death, it would not have been by the hands of a vampire. But Daniella was a hedgewitch and necromancer. Her talents did not lie within divination and clairvoyance, but in the conjuring and commanding of spirits and the healing of human souls.
Still, she looked between the abyssal magic that was etched under her skin and the handsome blond behind the desk in front of her. If she’d had to guess, it wouldn’t have been Death by Vampire written on her tombstone.
“I didn’t realize that owing you a favour meant owing you my life, Jed.” Her voice was flat, even to her own ears. The markings under Daniella’s skin flared and flashed, eating the fear that she felt at being in the presence of a predator.
And he was a predator.
Blue-as-an-arctic-sky eyes gleamed at her from above an alligator grin as the man swung in his chair and rose to his full height.
All vampire men with Caucasian bloodlines were blond, tall, and broad. Their women were also tall, but slender, wiry. They weren’t like the creatures in books, who could turn unsuspecting love interests into beautiful, perfect creatures of the night. No, they were an evolutionary branch, sharing a common ancestor with humans. But they were bigger, stronger, faster. The difference between tigers and domestic cats.
Jedidiah DuPoint, or Papa Jed as the locals called him, was a sabretooth among tigers. Square-shouldered, broad-chested, and older than New Orleans herself, the vampire kingpin ran every vampiric operation in the state of Louisiana. Nothing happened after dark without Jed knowing about it. Nothing magical and worth knowing, that is.
The hair on the back of Daniella’s arms rosed as Jedidiah circled around her. His laugh reverberated in his chest, hollow and menacing, and cold.
Vaguely, she was aware of the wild noises of the nightclub, The Dollhouse, from beyond the walls of the office. She was aware of the hundreds of voices shouting over music, of the energies and magics of their bodies as they thrashed and danced. They were almost imperceptible in the office, except that the silence of Jed moving around her made the noise beyond the walls obvious.
“No one has said that you need to die, Sugar, just that you need to pay your dues.” His thick, Southern drawl was not of this time. It was sharper: cut glass and aristocratic. It seemed to rake down her spine and draw blood. Not an image that she wanted in the forefront of her mind while a vampire stood behind her back.
Daniella did not give in to the urge to look over her shoulder as he crossed behind her. She didn’t give the man the satisfaction of knowing that she felt unnerved. Another emotion for the demon that lived under her skin to gnaw contentedly at. Good riddance.
Steeling herself, she made a show of studying her long nails and said, “Forgive me, Jed. I fail to see how what you’re asking is any different from me literally dying.”
He was fast. Hands clamped down on either side of her chair, the sudden impact of his body rocking the chair forward enough to make her gasp in surprise. The vampire loomed over her back, breath catching the back of her neck and her ear, warm and humid. A low rumble filled her ears as he growled in satisfaction, catching the scent of her surprise.
Danger. Death. Run. Run. Run.
Her instincts beat the message through her body by means of her pulse, almost mechanical, as the emotional component of her fear was consumed by her demon. It was moments like this that made Daniella glad she’d fed the demon her heart. Fear would get her killed. If she ran, Jed would pounce like the animal he was. Best to sit. Best to play dead. So much of her felt like it was dead already that it didn’t make a difference.
“All I want, Daniella, is an exchange of skills. That’s what you came to us for, isn’t it? A particular skill set to help your sister and your brother-in-law. Birth certificates, Social Security numbers, licenses, credit scores… they don’t come cheap, and forging them well enough to pass the bar is a feat second only to planting an identity into the system like it’s been there a lifetime. Seems a fair trade for a little bit of spellcraft and necromancy, don’t you think?”
In a fluid motion, Jedidiah tilted her back and spun her chair around. When he set her down, his face was inches from her own. “Of course, we made our deal based on an exchange of quality for quality. If you don’t think you can deliver your end of the bargain, just let me know. No harm done. I’m sure that we can find someone else and save your talents for another task…”
The silence between them was loaded. Daniella held her breath, waiting for the other boot to drop. When it didn’t, she said, “And the unspoken ‘but,’ that you’re waiting for me to inquire after?”
He stepped back, circled around her again, purposefully putting her back into a position of disadvantage. He might have been testing her, or he might have just moved to a more comfortable position. It was impossible to say.
Now she did turn, in time to see him settle against the desk with one long leg crossing over the other as he braced himself against the heavy oak top. He canted his head as he looked at her like he was considering her question. That grin of his didn’t look off because of his fangs. In fact, that grin didn’t show his fangs. It simply didn’t reach his eyes. Cold and deathly still, arms and legs extended, the alligator waited for the minnow to make her move.
Having put her at a disadvantage by turning her chair around, Daniella could only listen to the vampire as he continued.
“It’s just like I said, Daniella. Quality for quality, timeliness for timeliness. It would be a shame if some general bit of maintenance slipped through the cracks. If the wrong person picked up the phone during a reference call or background check. Someone with no recollection of your brother-in-law.”
He shrugged, and the message was clear. What Papa Jed gave, Papa Jed could take away.
Shit.
Daniella stood long enough to return her chair to its proper position, buying herself time to think. She collapsed into her seat, rag-dolling, and hoping the carelessness of her gesture was more than a sordid attempt to show she was not put off her stride by the vampire king.
Lies, lies, and more lies, Ella Lanoue. Shame, shame.
She ignored her own internal commentary in favour of saying, “You want me to single-handedly stop an entire group of demons from trafficking on your turf.” Daniella crossed her arms over her chest. “If I do this, then we are more than even. I walk away from you and The Dollhouse, and we never speak to each other again.”
Jedidiah canted his head in the other direction. His grin was fixed in place, but he was thinking. “Sure, Sugar. Fair will be fair. How you do it is entirely up to you, as long as it gets done, and it can’t be traced back to me and mine. How’s that?”
“And if I die in the process? What happens to my sister and her husband, then?”
That laugh again. Ice water from the darkest caverns being poured into her bloodstream via her ears.
“Don’t die, Daniella. That’s my advice.” He reached behind him, picked up a thick ream of paper, and held it out to her: the contract that bound Daniella to a single favour of Jedidiah DuPoint’s choosing. “Go on, girl. Claim your freedom.”
Daniella took the contract, read the words that had been added since the last time she had looked at it a few months prior. An outline of her task. Signing it would magically bind her to the agreement, but it would bind Jed to his side of the bargain, too, and that was what was most important of all.
A deal with the devil to be released from another deal with the same devil.
You’re good at making deals, Ella, she told herself. Better be good at getting out of them.
She took the pen he offered her, signed her name in a flourish, and ignored the way the mechanism bit into the pad of her finger. Her own blood seeped into the page as ink, and the magic in her blood and the contract mingled and emitted a metallic tang of ozone and pennies that filled the room.
She handed it back.
“A deal’s a deal.”
Jed’s grin widened. He brought the contract to his nose and breathed in deeply while his ice-blue eyes locked onto hers. Dark pupils constricted, and he emitted another rumble. This one was satisfied. Almost a purr.
“It’s a shame that Jayden couldn’t manage to keep you, Ella. You would have made a fine little queen for the club.”
For the first time since she had stepped into the office, Daniella felt her fear and anger break over her enough to colour her expression. She sneered. “Jayden was a pig in wolf’s clothing,” she spat the words as she stood. “And I didn’t come here to talk to you about my ex or to relive whatever twisted fantasies he had in store for me.”
Jed tossed the contract on his desk behind him. “Fair dues, Sugar. But for what it’s worth, a queen is meant to be a queen. The way he treated you.” Jed shook his head. “Well, you just say the word, and I’ll do you that favour, too.”
“And owe you something else? No thanks, Jed. I’ll stick to keying his car the next time I see it in the parking lot.”
He laughed. “I like you, girl. I’ll be sad to see you go.”
She swung her bag onto her shoulder. “Are we done? You’ve given me a lot of work to do and not a lot of time to do it, so I need to get back before sunup.” Her mind was already setting itself to the task of generating ideas to get her out of this mess as quickly as possible.
Jed nodded and held out his hand.
It was a bad plan to shake hands with a vampire, but it was a worse plan to snub a mob boss.
His hand swallowed her own in his grasp, and he clamped down on it and pulled her a step closer. “Steady onward, Daniella Lanoue. And if I can give you a word of advice before you depart?” He dropped his head lower, his mouth by her ear as he whispered in the cool rumble of caves of ice, “Don’t fuck up.”
