Sundown International: Unholy Trinity Read online

  Sundown International: Unholy Trinity

  Cat Marsters

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright ©2007 Cat Marsters

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  ISBN: 978-1-59596-609-4

  Formats Available:

  HTML, Adobe PDF,

  MobiPocket, Microsoft Reader

  Publisher:

  Changeling Press LLC

  PO Box 1046

  Martinsburg, WV 25402-1046

  www.ChangelingPress.com

  Editor: Sheri Ross Fogarty

  Cover Artist: Bryan Keller

  This e-book file contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language which some may find offensive and which is not appropriate for a young audience. Changeling Press E-Books are for sale to adults, only, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

  Prologue

  Paige Larsson had thought she was immune to every chat-up line ever invented, but the moment the vampire laid his hot dark eyes on her, she was lost.

  Of course, she didn’t know he was a vampire then. She only knew he was gorgeous, and charming, and smart, and funny, and sexy, and generally perfect in every way.

  But that was before he ripped her throat out.

  * * *

  The American woman had a far better body than he could ever have imagined under her hideously shapeless clothes. Her skin was perfectly pale and creamy, so white next to his, flawless all over, and her limbs were long and elegant, toned from hours of hard work digging up Egyptian artifacts.

  She stretched naked beneath him, her damp lips parted, her eyes fluttering closed. Rafael took a moment to appreciate her incredible beauty before he plunged hard inside her, making her big green eyes fly open wide and her perfect lips form an O.

  “You feel so good,” he told her, sliding in as far as he could go. She was hot, wet, tightly sheathed around him. Her muscles rippled around his cock, stealing his breath.

  “Likewise,” she panted, and formed a breathless smile. He laughed and dropped his head to nuzzle her neck. Her blood surged through her veins, pounding in time with his thrusts. Hot, strong, potent blood. He hadn’t bitten her yet, but he sure intended to. She had a strong mind; he’d have to make sure her defenses were well and truly down before he tried to make her forget the bite.

  The way she was writhing beneath him gave some indication that before long, she’d be totally insensible.

  “Your skin tastes delicious,” he breathed, lapping the sweat from her alabaster flesh.

  “Yes,” she gasped, shuddering delectably.

  “Your mouth,” he brushed his lips across hers, tasting her strength, her vitality, “is delicious.”

  She moaned and sucked his tongue into her mouth, just as she sucked his cock inside her.

  “I want to taste all of you,” he said, and slid out of her. He met considerable resistance -- her pussy clamped down on him, her legs locked around his waist, but Rafa just laughed and gently disengaged them.

  “All of you,” he repeated, licking her nipple, loving the quiver of it in his mouth. Then he slid down her body, tongue tracing a path, and nuzzled the blonde hairs between her legs.

  “Oh,” she trembled, and Rafa smiled, tasting the unique flavor of her. She was dripping wet -- had to be, to take him in -- and her juices coated her thighs. He licked her labia, and she sucked in a juddering breath.

  “Your pussy,” he murmured against her swollen flesh, “is the best taste yet.”

  Yet. He really couldn’t wait to feel her hot blood sliding down his throat. But first…

  Parting her with his fingers, Rafa slid his tongue inside her, where his cock had already stretched her wide. She whimpered, and then when he stroked her clit in time to his tongue-thrusts, she moaned. Her blood thundered through the artery in her thigh, intoxicating him even more than the taste of her, the feel of her slippery pussy gripping his tongue.

  Planting her feet wide on the mattress, she thrust her hips up, pushing herself closer to his mouth. Rafa smiled against her slippery folds. He admired bold women. It turned him on when they sought their own pleasure.

  It had been a long time since anyone turned him on like the American woman.

  He sucked her labia into his mouth, tongued her clit, thrust his fingers inside her, and she bucked and writhed and sobbed with pleasure. She was so pink and pale around his dark fingers. When she came, Rafa reveled in the hot, sweet taste of her, flooding his mouth.

  Then he shifted half an inch, and sank his fangs into her femoral artery.

  Her blood gushed into his mouth, pumping fast with the force of her orgasm. Blood tasted so much better like this. Mingling with her come on his tongue, it was the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted.

  Pleasure zipped through Rafa. His cock rode the mattress, harder than ever. He needed release, needed to come. Blind with it, he drew his fangs away from her groin and surged up her body to plunge back inside her.

  Wet with her own orgasm, she offered no resistance as he shoved in deep, her pussy clamping around him in the hottest, tightest grip he could ever remember. Intoxicated, entirely unable to think, Rafa withdrew then thrust in deeper, deeper, pounding into her as her hands gripped his shoulders, her fingers digging into his muscles.

  Control slipped away from him. The beast came roaring to the surface. Blood, it cried, blood and sex. Her pulse hammered wildly beneath the thin, pale skin of her neck. His cock throbbed inside her. Her body pulsed beneath him.

  More, more, he needed more.

  Rafa’s fangs tore into her throat and her blood spurted into his mouth, a hot, rich torrent. As his orgasm overwhelmed him he growled low in his throat and ripped deeper, feasting on her body and her blood.

  By the time the beast subsided, her blood had slowed to a trickle.

  She lay still.

  Her heart was silent.

  Rafa stared in horror. She was dead. He’d fucked her into the ground and killed her. Pulling back, shaking, he took in the blue tinge of her white skin, her bloodless lips, the smear of red on one thigh and the ruin of her beautiful throat.

  A vision of Jamie hammering a stake through his heart ripped into Rafa’s mind.

  He had to bring this woman back, and there was really only one way to do it. Tearing a hole in his own wrist, he held it to her lips.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, coaxing the blood into her mouth. “I’m so sorry.”

  Chapter One

  Paige huddled miserably in the back of the taxi as it careered around a corner at a hundred miles an hour. Felt like a hundred, anyway. Under her heavy veil, she couldn’t exactly see how fast they were going.

  It had been two days since her interlude with the dark vampire. Two days since she woke up with an aching body, a raging thirst and the worst love-bite in history. Two days since the merest hint of sunlight through a gap in the curtains had burned her into wakefulness, and two days since she’d stared into the mirror and seen… nothing.

  How the hell any of this could actually be happening, she had no idea. She was praying to every god she could think of -- and she knew of quite a few -- that it was all a dream, or at least a bad allergic reaction. Vampires didn’t exist. They couldn’t.

  Even so, she could only think of one person who’d believe her when she said she had honest-to-God fangs. Jamie might make Fox Mulder look sane, but he�
�d know what to do.

  She really hoped he’d know what to do.

  * * *

  “So,” Sofie said, teasingly, “who’s this girl you like?”

  Jamie didn’t glance up from his computer screen. “Hmm? What girl?”

  “She walks in shadows under the sun,” Echo said, and Jamie rolled his eyes.

  “Is that one of your visions again? Have you been peeking into my personal life?” He opened the file on Shrevnik demons and scanned it for anything useful.

  “Aha,” Sofie said, “so there is a girl!”

  Jamie sighed, and this time he did look up. Sofie was perched on the edge of her desk, her legs twined together, the picture of innocence. Echo, a massive sword strapped to her back, was investigating a potted plant. They were supposed to be classifying a demon who’d attacked in the Trastavere district last night, but since Sofie knew nothing about demons and Echo just killed them without asking questions, it was Jamie who was doing all the work. As per usual.

  “There’s no girl,” he said, and went back to his computer.

  “Come on, Jamie,” Sofie’s accented voice was teasing, “a handsome young man like you?”

  He ignored her.

  “Echo’s never wrong.”

  He ignored that, too.

  “Besides, a little bird told me you were mad about some American girl.”

  Echo giggled. “A large vampire, not a little bird.”

  Jamie groaned and swung his chair around. “He talks too much.”

  “Only inside his head,” Echo said.

  “Outside it, too,” Jamie said. He pinched the bridge of his nose. He was tired, his eyes were blurring from staring too long at the computer. It was late and he wanted to go home and eat. And sleep. “There is no American girl. Look, you’re psychic, Echo, and you’re a werewolf, Sofie. You ought to be able to tell I’ve been nowhere near any girls, American or otherwise.”

  More’s the pity.

  Sofie took a sniff, and looked disappointed.

  “Nearness isn’t about distance,” Echo opined, and then her head snapped round as if something across the room had caught her eye. She went utterly still, like a dog scenting blood.

  “What?” Jamie said.

  “It’s coming.” Echo bounded across the room toward the window.

  “What? Where?”

  “Skargko. Torrevecchia,” Echo said, as she yanked the window open, and then she was gone, just stepped out and vanished into the darkness.

  Sofie and Jamie stared a while.

  “Well, I guess that puts an end to our search,” Sofie said.

  “Our?” Jamie said, picking up the phone with one hand and typing the name into his computer with his other. Information on Skargko demons came up on screen, and a quick scan told him it matched the characteristics of last night’s killing.

  “Yeah,” answered his boss.

  “The demon’s a Skargko,” Jamie told him. “Echo’s chasing it to Torrevecchio. Call her; she’ll never remember to tell you.”

  “On my way.”

  Jamie put down the phone and rubbed his eyes. He glanced up at Sofie, who was marking something on the map of Rome behind her desk. Not long since retired from the Prague police force, she still used police techniques to map out paranormal activity.

  She looked back at him. “You go home,” she told him. “If they need more information, I can call it up, now that I know the name of the demon.”

  Jamie hesitated. Sofie was still new at the paranormal investigation thing; but on the other hand, if anyone called him for support he’d probably be asleep at his desk.

  “You need sleep, Jamie,” she said, gently. “You’ve been working too hard.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “No one else spends as much time here as you do.”

  No, Jamie thought, you all have lives. He stood up, stretched, felt the muscles in his back creak in protest at too many hours spent sitting at his computer. Sleep, he thought, sleep would be good around now.

  “Okay,” he said, grabbing his coat. “I’m going. But if you need anything --”

  Sofie gave him a look that reminded him it wasn’t far off the full moon. “I’ll call someone else. Sundown will still run without you, Jamie.”

  Yeah, it would, Jamie thought as he stumbled down the stairs and retrieved his Ducati from the garage. Sundown would probably run just fine without him, which was a depressing thought. Despite his encyclopedic knowledge of all things undead, he was still only human, and therefore light-years behind his werewolf, vampire, and psychic colleagues. Hell, the only other human there was Reaver, and he barely qualified.

  Depressed now, as well as exhausted, he rode home and almost didn’t see the dark bundle filling his doorway until it stirred, and he realized it was a person.

  Not for the first time, Jamie wished he lived somewhere with an entry buzzer, not just a doorway straight onto the narrow street. Feeling for the stake and silver dagger inside his jacket, he said, “Excuse me.”

  The bundle lifted its head. It was a woman, swathed from head to toe in a voluminous veil. For a second he wondered if a stray nun had wandered into his path, but he was miles from Vatican City, and besides, why the hell would she be sitting in his doorway?

  Then she lifted the veil, and Jamie almost choked.

  “Paige?”

  She started to scramble to her feet, and Jamie dropped his keys to help her. “What are you doing here? How long have you been here?” He took her hand. “Christ, you’re like ice!”

  Her body felt small in his arms, too small, like she’d lost weight, and he hugged her for a little longer than was strictly necessary. It had been too long since he’d seen Paige, too long since he’d touched her. Turning up without any warning like this was playing havoc with his self-control.

  “I didn’t know how long you’d be,” she said, pulling back and giving him a slight smile. “I thought I’d wait.” She shook herself, grimacing, and Jamie fumbled for his keys, shaken just by her presence.

  But then, hadn’t he always been? Ever since she first turned up in the student bar on the arm of a friend Jamie couldn’t even remember now, all blonde hair, clear green eyes and infectious smile. And strictly off-limits.

  Of course, by the time she and whoever-he-was had broken up, Jamie had told himself to get over her and was seeing another girl… but he and Paige had always stayed friends. Had shared an unbelievably grotty flat in Lambeth with a succession of unbelievably grotty flatmates. Had paraded new boyfriends and girlfriends and cried on each other’s shoulders when it all went wrong.

  And through it all, despite whatever girl he had been seeing at the time, Jamie had been madly, deeply in love with Paige. But he’d never tell her that. Wouldn’t risk losing her if she didn’t feel the same way.

  “It’s a mess,” he said, ushering her into his tiny apartment and flicking the lights on. “Sorry.”

  “I’ve seen worse,” Paige said, and this he knew to be the truth.

  “I’ll put the kettle on,” he said, moving toward the kitchen, and Paige let out a tiny bubble of laughter.

  “Right,” she said. “God, Jamie, I’ve missed you.”

  In the kitchen now, grateful she couldn’t see how he was desperately gripping the edge of the work surface, Jamie managed, “I’ve missed you, too.”

  “‘Put the kettle on.’ It’s so British. Whenever there’s a crisis of any kind, you always put the kettle on. Make tea. Tea makes everything better.”

  For the first time, Jamie noticed the slightly hysterical note in her voice, and glanced through the doorway to see her standing right where he’d left her.

  “Crisis?” he said, and then he really looked at her, and nearly dropped the coffee mug he was holding.

  The first time he’d seen Paige she’d glowed with incandescent health and vitality. But the woman in front of him now resembled nothing so much as one of the mummies she was always digging up. Limp, unwashed hair, sunken cheeks, grey
skin, and eyes that were just sunken holes in a skull.

  Then she peeled back one cracked lip with her finger, and one pearly white fang gleamed in the light.

  Jamie felt his heart stutter. “Is -- is this -- ?” he began, but couldn’t get any further.

  “It’s not a joke,” Paige said flatly. She pulled the scarf off her head, baring a raw, angry red tear on her neck. A vampire bite.

  Jamie forced himself to take a deep breath, then let it all out in one go. He didn’t want to say the words. “You’re a vampire?”

  “Well, I have the fangs and the thirst and I can’t tolerate sunshine -- hence the veil -- and when the guy next to me on the plane ordered garlic chicken, I nearly threw up from the smell. And I like garlic.” Her face tightened. “At least, I used to.”

  She was a vampire. Paige was a vampire. His beautiful, luminous Paige was a rotten bloody vampire.

  No wonder she looked like death.

  “And the worst part is, everyone I meet, I just keep staring at their neck, at the veins. I can feel the blood pulsing through and I want it, Jamie, I want it so badly. And I thought, well, you know all about vampires, I know I always laughed at you for it, but you do, and I’m sorry, and I was just hoping you could… help me. Please?”

  As if he was capable of saying no to any request she made.

  “Of course,” Jamie said. “Stay right there.”

  And with that, he was gone. Paige stood blinking in the empty apartment, wondering what the hell he was doing. He’d just grabbed his motorcycle gloves and helmet and swung out the door, and here she was, wondering if he’d gone to get a stake or something. After all, she’d never really asked exactly what it was he did out here. He could be part of some holy crusade against the undead.

  Oh God, she was undead.

  For a second or two, Paige thought she might burst into tears, but she hadn’t done that since she was a little girl and wasn’t about to start again now. She hated women who dissolved into tears at the drop of a hat in order to ensure some male attention.

  Not that Jamie was here, but that wasn’t the point. The fact that she’d had to come to him and throw herself on his mercy rankled more than a little. Paige wasn’t a fan of being helpless in any case; but at least, she told herself as she sank onto the sofa and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, she wasn’t so stubborn that she couldn’t recognize when she was way out of her depth.