Bloodseeker - Colin's Conquest Part 27

"Well, that is rea.s.suring." She popped off before she realized what she did. To her relief, he laughed.

"You know, Joanna ... most women would fight each other to be in your place."

"So, why don't you go get one of these gladiators instead of me?"

His teeth snapped together with a resounding click. "Because, you imbecile, you survived the metamorphosis when dozens of others have died. Colin doesn't deserve you. I do! I am sick of being alone."

"You can't just kidnap me and expect me to be your mate, Nikos. I'm Colin's wife and I will be his forever!"

His body rigid with anger, he stalked over to where she stood and grabbed her chin with one hand. Gritting his teeth, he stared her down.

"Must I continue to repeat myself? I told you before to forget about him. Soon he will be destroyed and you are mine. Do you hear me, Joanna? Mine, mine, mine!" Releasing her chin, he ground his lips against hers in what he thought of as a pa.s.sionate kiss and held her snug in his arms. She would rather kiss a cobra and she made sure that she thought about it long and hard so he would pick up the message.

He loosened his grip and she struggled out of his arms to stand before him, her eyes blazing with anger. The semblance of tranquility, he met her stare. His calm expression angered her even more and her hands itched to slap the bland look off his face.

"You can't destroy Colin. He's no weakling, you a.s.shole." Nikos let his eyes drift down the front of her now rumpled party dress and back up to her face, a smirk on his own lips.

"Ah, such loyalty. Soon you will feel that way for me." A strangling gurgle gushed from Joanna's throat as she laughed and gagged at the same time.

"Over my dead body, Nikos!""Whatever turns you on, my dear Joanna."

"Ha! You couldn't turn me on if I were a b.i.t.c.h in heat and you were the only male on the planet!" Crossing her arms in front of her chest, she tilted her chin up and peered down the length of her nose at the pompous blood seeker. To her surprise, he burst into gales of laughter, filling the small room with his booming voice. Putting as much hatred as she could muster in her gaze, she glared at the roaring fool until he ceased his insane laughter. Taking a deep breath, he exhaled and stepped closer to her, gripping her tight around the wrist.

"You might not be in heat, but I can say this much for you ... you do indeed know your true nature."

"That's..." About to agree with him, she noticed the smirk on his face and realized he referred to her being a b.i.t.c.h. Raising her hand to slap the grin off his face, she swung with all her might at his head. With little effort, he caught her arm in mid-swing and brought it back down to her side.

"Tisk tisk. Bad girl, Joanna."

"You a.s.shole!" She brought up her knee and connected with his groin. It was a reflex action and she was sorry she'd done it as soon as she saw his face. The air rushed out of his lungs in an audible whoosh and his fingers bit into her arm, but his face revealed no shock or pain and it frightened her more than a grimace. The grin vanished! With exaggerated movements, he dropped her arm, turned around, and left the room without saying a word.

Her stomach twisting into knots, his quiet exit worried her more than a show of temper ... something deadly about the silence. In just a few short minutes, she heard his footsteps returning and in a panic, she ran to the bathroom and locked the door. Hiding in the bathroom was a futile attempt to keep away from him, but like a little girl cowering under the bed covers from the monsters of the dark, she stood in the shower with the curtain drawn. In a flash, he wrenched the door open, tore it off its hinges and sent it sailing across the room. The dog growled, then yelped as he was struck or kicked, then went silent. Joanna's knees buckled and she crouched in the tub trying to catch her breath. She had gone too far, he would certainly kill her now. Oh noooo. Oh s.h.i.t. Oh G.o.d...

Milo waited around Colin's cabin for several hours, hoping that the ancient and beautiful Linnea would appear but he was disappointed. Jamie waited for him back at the hotel and he didn't want to leave his donor alone for very long, especially since he'd gone a little too far with his last feeding and left Jamie very weak. He needed to be nourished in the worst way. d.a.m.n shame that Colin's wife, the siren whose call he and many others answered, was now gone.

He knew right away that she was taken, not even interested in one as handsome as him. That is why he almost lost control with Jamie. His imagination running wild with thoughts of the woman ... but not Colin's woman. Linnea...

A second millennial who veiled her femininity from all the males on the planet. He desired her from the moment he spied her across the crowded club. Odd that Colin never once mentioned his creator was a female. They had been companions for several years when Colin still moved about with the working cla.s.s. Hmm. He would just have to keep in touch with this new family and hope for the best. Hope that Colin would recover his mate and destroy the malefactor stupid enough to abduct her. Of course he would ...

Colin never failed at anything. Sickening when you thought about it, but he would swallow his jealousy and stick around. Where Colin went his creator was sure to surface. Linnea, the tiny celestial beauty ... She had no mate. Milo knew the perfect candidate.

Linnea arrived not long after Milo left, almost as if she planned it that way, but she had not. She appeared in the den with Colin and Ben, a whirlwind of disheveled clothing and untamed tresses.

"I'm terribly sorry, my child. I should not have been preoccupied with personal matters and I have allowed your wife to be taken. I should've been guarding her more wisely. I knew she was at risk."

Colin did not know what to say, how to answer, so he lifted his arms, a helpless gesture, a silent cry for compa.s.sion, for rea.s.surance, for a modic.u.m of hope. She moved into his arms, holding him to her, stroking his knotted and tense back as he crushed her face into his chest. It felt so good to be needed and she would not let him down again, no, not this time.Lifting her head from his chest, she looked up to meet his troubled eyes. The sorrow there crushed her more than his arms ever could, but the anger behind that sorrow was good, very good. This emotion he would need. The sorrow, she could vanquish, right now.

"I can track her, my son."

Twenty-Six

"Peek-a-booooooo." A sing-song voice, his breath stirred the flimsy shower curtain as he spoke. A dragon's sigh fluttering the milky vinyl with such wicked serenity. From her false sanctuary Joanna's imagination ran wild with the various horrible things he planned.

His head shot through the curtain into the stall, fiery eyes glaring at her, an insane grin exposing his sharp white fang teeth.

"I see you." With his index finger, he beckoned for her to come to him. "Come along now, Joanna. It's time for your punishment.

You know I only do this because I love you so much." He sighed and beckoned for her again. When she cowered away from him, his voice increased in volume.

"Come on now. Don't make me angrier than I already am or your poor pooch will suffer along with you." The overwhelming urge to vomit rose in her, burning her throat and she swallowed several times to quell it.

"Leave that dog alone, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d, or I will make you wish you had never laid eyes on me."

Taken aback by her retort he let his hand drop. Then his anger returned and he clamped his fingers around her wrist, yanking her out of the shower. Her dangling body flew out of the bathroom into the bedroom like a limp rag doll, landing against the wall in a painful heap.

Before she could recover, he set upon her again, his hands tangled in her hair in painful fists as he half drug half flung her on the bed.

Worrying about the safety of her unborn baby, she curled into the fetal position, hugging her knees to her chest. Several minutes went by and nothing more happened. Listening for him, she heard Nikos breathing nearby, but he stood still. Cautious, she unfurled her body enough so that she could see him.

Standing a few feet away, still as a frozen cadaver, he stared at her stomach. The longer he stared the redder his face became. She forgot to veil her thoughts!

Meeting her panic stricken eyes, he moved his bottom jaw back and forth, rubbing his chin with thumb and forefinger.

"I cannot allow you to bear his nit, Joanna."

Nikos ignored her sharp intake of breath and kept talking as if she had no reaction. "How you have managed to do the impossible, I don't know. Although I find the prospect of having two women instead of one very appealing, it must be undone. The odds are in favor of a male nit anyway."

He advanced towards her with slow, cruel steps, an automaton graced with a blood seeker's beauty, the malicious sneer marring his features.

For a moment the fear paralyzed her, but then she threw her hips over and rolled away to escape him. He was too quick. In a flash, he vaulted onto the bed and straddled her waist, holding her down by sheer weight. His eyes never leaving Joanna's flushed face, he unb.u.t.toned his shirt and flung it off the bed.

After gathering both her wrists in only one of his mighty hands, he leered down at her. "We'll make our own babies, Joanna."

The revulsion so obvious on her face with the curled upper lip, crinkled nose, eyes gathered in the center almost to the point of making her cross-eyed should have been enough to pa.s.s her feelings on to him.

"Never." She growled at him through clenched teeth and fought with all her might to get away. Laughing at her struggles, he brought her hands up to his mouth and sank his fangs into the vein of her left wrist. Stabbing pain shot up her arm and into her breast as she felt the pull on her already drained veins with every swallow he stole.

Growing too weak to struggle, she laid near unconsciousness waiting for the blackness to come. Her baby couldn't live with this lack of blood and she was almost to the point where she didn't want to survive either.Nikos dropped her arm and slapped her face again and again until he brought her back to a state of semi-alertness. He bent to her ear and stuck his hot, sticky tongue in and out of her ear ca.n.a.l.

Then he whispered into her damp ear. "I want you awake for this, my dear."

Once again the bile rose in her throat, choking off any retorts she had been about to deliver and she whimpered when he shredded the beautiful mauve satin dress off her body with hateful taloned hands.

In one fluid motion, he flowed off the bed and removed his remaining clothing. Just as quick, he ripped Joanna's panties off and hopped back on the bed, nudging her knees apart with his own hairy legs. His hot body rested heavy on her desiccated frame and she prayed for unconsciousness that was not forthcoming.

In one violent unforgiving motion, he rammed into her dry body. Joanna screamed, but her scream died as her strength waned.

Pumping into her again and again, he stopped only to slap her face if she let her eyes close. She tried to keep her mind detached from the rutting boar atop her aching body, but still she wished him dead with every brutal thrust.

Holding her chin in his potent grip, he turned her face toward him and pressed his lips to hers. She hoped that he would try to stick his tongue in her mouth so she could bite it off. But he was smarter than that. Instead, he lowered his head to one breast and then the other, biting her nipples and sucking like her unborn infant never would, because of him.

He slowed his stabbing cadence and withdrew from her raw and bleeding body watching her disgusted expression with relish.

He ran his tongue between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and down to her navel. "Now, we will rid you of this unfortunate burden."

Sobbing as she felt the stinging of his fangs on her lower abdomen, she tried to buck him off of her. He rammed his teeth even farther into her, attempting to drive them straight into her womb. With both hands she pummeled his head, but she didn't have the strength to dislodge a mosquito much less a powerful centenarian.

Nikos gasped and went flying across the room with such force that he went through the sheetrock wall, landing in the bathroom, his backside in the toilet. Trying to focus her dulled eyes, Joanna strained to see what happened. Then, she heard a wonderful sound, a deep boyish laugh.

"That's where he belongs!"

A deeper, much beloved voice spoke close to her side. "Everything will be all right now, Jo." He covered her body with a sheet, tucking the sides under her to keep her as warm as possible.

"Colin?" Her voice quiet, but he heard.

"Yes, little one, I am here."

"Kill him for me."

"I fully intend to, my love. Now you must replenish yourself."

Gashing his wrist open with his sharp teeth, he let the blood flow onto her cracked lips. She felt the sizzling warmth and clamped her mouth onto his wrist, swallowing great mouthfuls of his revitalizing blood. Strength flowed back into her debilitated body with every gulp.

"Colin! Not too much from you right now. You need your power to contend with the a.s.shole climbing out of the toilet." Ben nudged Colin away from Joanna's bedside. "I'll gladly give my blood." Ben extended his wrist to Joanna and smiled.

"Now, Colin." He jumped to obey Linnea's call, but stopped to whisper to his battered wife.

"You drink from Ben now, Jo. We must have you strong."Nikos stood naked and dripping, facing Linnea in the small bathroom. He didn't cower, but Colin could tell he was awestruck by the older blood seeker and he did not know how to react.

Colin stood outside the bathroom doorway, his glowering eyes boring into his enemy's broad back, power surging from deep within his mind, and the very center of his soul. The room and all around him dimmed with the exception of the naked wretch, for it was on his form that Colin focused all his energy.

Nikos prepared to flee, his muscles clenched, his calves, thighs and b.u.t.tocks rippling as he prepared to run for his life. Too late, resistance was futile.

Turning, toes squeaking on the wet tile floor, Nikos' movements so sluggish he appeared to be in slow motion, he clutched both hands to his chest, shivering, his features contorted with pain. He tried to speak, his voice coming out a raspy whisper.

"What ... are ... you ... doin ... uhhhh?"

Blood dripped from his nose, at first a slow drip then thickening into a steady flow. Still clutching his chest, he dropped to his knees as the blood poured from his nose, ears, and mouth forming an ever widening pool of maroon on the harsh, white tile floor. His eyes wide and bloodshot, he stared in horror as his life drained away and he could do nothing to stop it. Then, the shades dropped down over those bloodshot windows to the outside and he fell face first to the floor.

Colin and Linnea moved in as soon as his head hit the tile, turning him over and sinking their fangs in all over his body ... his arms, hands, thighs, ankles, groin, chest, and even his blanched face, draining him dry.

Leaving the husk of Nikos where it lay they went back to Joanna's side. She sat up unaided on the bed now and color brightened her cheeks. Colin's heart expanded in his chest until he thought it would penetrate his ribs as he absorbed the sight of his chosen one, alive and well.

"But you are going to kill him, aren't you, Colin? He has..." Her voice broke, and then she began again, her words laced with pain.

"He has done terrible things to me." Colin gathered her into his arms, stroking her hair and back while she cried.

"He is no more, little one. I squeezed his heart like an orange until there was no juice left in it. Then Linnea and I drank the freshly squeezed juice down to the last drop."

He paused in his speech, but continued to stroke her back. She loved the feel of him, the smell of him, the sound of his heart beating under her head.

"I love you, Jo. I wish I could take all your hurt away."

"Oh, but you have. As soon as I heard your voice, all the pain and anguish vanished to remain only as a distant memory faded by time." Pushing herself up from his chest she gazed into his smoldering eyes. "I knew you were coming for me when the dog showed up. I just knew that you had sent him to me somehow. Can we keep him with us?"

The puzzled look on his face worried her and she dared not ask, but she had to know. Had Nikos killed her dog before he raped her?

"What dog? I sent no animals. I came for you myself!"

"Well, if you didn't send him, then who did?"

Colin shook his head. "Joanna, there is no member of the canine species here."

"The big shepherd lying right over there, Colin." Pointing at the vacant spot on the rug where the dog had been, her mouth dropped open ... nothing there.

"Did you see a dog on your way in? A big black and tan shepherd?" All three of the others gave her a negative shake of their heads. "I know he was here! I drank from him!"

Ben and Linnea smiled at her and left the room, giving the pair some privacy. Taking her small cool hands in his, Colin soothed her.

"There were no animals here when we arrived and I heard none leaving during our approach. Let us forget about it for now and concentrate on getting you home where you belong."

Again he heard the tiny, hesitant, m.u.f.fled voice. "Colin?"

"Yes, beloved?"

"Do you suppose the baby is O.K.?"

He didn't answer right away, still holding her hands in his larger ones, watching her expression as it changed with her thoughts.

"Yes, Jo I am sure the baby is fine. My son is strong."

As they eased away to give Colin and Joanna their s.p.a.ce, a glint of metal caught Linnea's eye just at the edge of the worn hallway carpet. She bent to pick it up. Hmm. A dog tag. Turning it over she read the name printed there and felt like someone just kicked her in the chest. She read it again and again and it still remained the same. One word, centered in the middle of the tag, "Jeremiah".

Ben stopped to see what Linnea found, but she crinkled up her eyebrows and scowled at him then with her fingertips on his chest, she pushed him away. Her face relaxed and she smiled, lifting the corners of her delicate mouth.

"It is nothing, really." Guilt flooded her features when she saw Ben flinch and rub his chest where her fingertips injured his young flesh. Taking a step toward him, with her arms lifted in compa.s.sion, she winced herself when he backed away, the fear obvious on his face. He stumbled and hurried away from her even as she spoke.

"I did not mean to bruise you, truly I didn't. I am so sorry, Ben ... Ben..." She called to him but he didn't stop, didn't even turn his head. Sighing, she looked back down at the dog tag and shook her head. The last thing she wanted to do was cause injury to Colin's young neophyte! d.a.m.n but she could not control this incredible strength. It was the tag. The d.a.m.ned tag.