Slave to the Night (The Brotherhood 2)

Elliot sighed as he stared up at the ceiling. "I have not laid eyes on her for four years. Not since that fateful night in Bavaria."

"Bavaria?"

She fell silent for a moment, and he became aware of her full breasts pushing against his ribs. In the past, whenever he thought of the dreadful night he turned from human to demon, he'd look to his ravenous appetite to numb the pain. Until today, he had not cared where he put his cock.

"Tell me about the night you met her." Grace ran her hand over his chest, the motion soft and soothing. Her tone held a rich, seductive quality and he wondered if she had her own form of mind magic. "Tell me all the things you've never dared to tell another."

The rhythmical sensation relaxed him; soon his mind drifted back to the night Satan's disciple stole his humanity, stole his soul.

"I remember it was raining, although the sky appeared clear and I recall looking up and wondering what had happened to the dark clouds. I see it now as an omen, a warning of what was to come."

He sighed deeply. What he would give to feel the rain on his face again. What he would give to make a different decision, take a different path.

"It all started a couple of days before. I'd been drinking in a tavern with a lady I'd met earlier in the day," he began. "Her husband had been drinking with us, too. But he drank quickly, two drinks to every one of mine. When his head hit the table, he began to snore, and we laughed. She told me she admired me, told me I could have her if I was quick about it. She was older, yet still possessed a certain charm I could not refuse."

"It didn't matter to you that she was married?" He could hear her disappointment.

"No, Grace. It didn't matter." Now he'd started his story the words poured out like water through a breach in a dam; he decided he'd tell her everything. "There was an old graveyard just a short walk from the tavern. Rows of grey, dusty mausoleums lined the cobbled walkways to the east. Each stone building was littered with tall spires shaped in various images of a cross, stretching up so high the tops prodded the inky sky. To the west, there were tombs surrounded by iron railings, graves with broken headstones."

He fell silent not knowing if he could continue.

"You took the lady from the tavern there that night?" Her voice sounded softer now as she tried to help him finish his story. "While her husband slept."

"That night and the night after."

He knew what she was thinking. Before he'd turned, he had no problem taking the same woman twice.

"On the third night, things were different. I felt a heaviness in the air, an intense pressure, which I put down to a fear of her husband waking from his drunken slumber. I … I heard a voice in my head calling out to me, an ominous warning. But my desire to have the woman again obliterated everything else. We followed the same routine as the previous two nights, went inside the open mausoleum where it was dry, a little warmer." He dragged his gaze away from the spot on the ceiling and turned to look at her. "You do not want to hear any more of this, Grace."

She gave a weak smile. "I think you need to tell someone about it. You have buried your feelings, Elliot. You have feigned indifference, but whatever happened that night has affected you deeply."

"Perhaps. Though it is easier not to think of it."

"I know. But I'm here for you. You must continue."

He believed she did know what it felt like to have lived through a nightmare; she still carried scars, too.

"I had barely even begun when the lady from the tavern thrust her hand to her throat as she suddenly struggled and gasped for breath. Her eyes grew wide, fat and round, almost bulging from their sockets. Then, as quick as it had started, she could breathe easily again. Panic flashed in her eyes and she muttered to herself, answering silent questions. Then she turned and fled."

"What did you do?"

"I stood there, shocked and confused. I heard the voice in my head and then a woman appeared in the doorway, the hood of her travelling cloak pulled up to hide her face. In the small confines of the tomb, she seemed to have some strange power over me. Her soothing voice caused me to drift off to sleep like a babe rocked in a cradle to the hum of a sweet melody."

"Was that the woman who bit you?"

"Yes, but I only have a vague recollection of it. When I woke, my clothes had been stripped from my back, my arms held wide by iron chains threaded through metal rings in the wall."

"You are my slave now," she said. "You are a slave to your own passions, a slave to the night."

"She spent what seemed like days taunting and tormenting me, telling me all about the monster I was to become, although I know we could not have been there for more than a few hours. After she'd sunk her teeth into my neck, I must have lost consciousness."

Grace looked horrified. "What happened when you woke?"

"I thought I'd been dreaming." He couldn't help but snort as he recalled feeling an overwhelming sense of relief. "But then I noticed the branding mark burnt into my chest and when I tried to leave the mausoleum the sun scorched my skin. I fed for the first time that night." He exhaled deeply and blinked rapidly to block it all out. "It was a long time ago. I have managed to find a way to reclaim some semblance of a life."

Grace placed her head on his chest, and while they lay in silence, the devil's taunts occupied his thoughts.

No one would want him. No one could ever care for a bloodthirsty beast.