female, he would have gladly obliged, but after all they'd been through and knowing Tara as he did, something had to be wrong.
"Baby, talk to me," he said, kissing her face, her mouth, and her throat in a fast spill. Her wails of ecstasy were slicing at his libido, and even he wasn't sure how he was able to hold on without fracturing into cellular bliss.
"You're a councilman---just do it!" she shrieked.
Yonnie stopped moving for a moment and stared down at her. "What did you say?" he whispered very carefully.
Tara came out of the pleasure haze with him still lodged deep within her. "I don't know . . ." she sobbed, her voice catching in her throat. "Why are you torturing me?" He grabbed her jaw roughly between his fingers and turned her head to expose her throat. "No humans, ever," he whispered, feeling a new level of control simmering inside him. Something had definitely gone down.
"But why?" she moaned, arching her back to take more of him in.
"My Chairman's edict... unless I hear it directly from Rivera that he's changed his mind."
"He's no longer a vampire, Yonnie. He's no longer one of us." Her eyes were wild and desperate as they searched his for answers.
"He'll always be the one who elevated me--that's enough, no matter what he is now. My brother never lied to me... whatever's messin' with your mind I don't trust." He kissed her forehead, sensing a powerful darkness there that had been strong enough to compromise Tara's iron will. If it got to her, then whatever it was had to be serious.
"Then just do me," she said breathlessly, not sounding herself. "Forget the human."
Yonnie lowered his mouth to Tara's throat, siphoning a gasp from her as his fangs raked the fevered skin of her neck. "I won't go against our brother, or fuck up a chance to get out of Hell. But, V-Point, baby... any night of the week."
Lilith sat down very slowly on Dante's old battered throne, feeling it come alive at the armrests under her caress. As the red velvet fabric knitted itself together beneath her she closed her eyes, leaned her head back, and released a slow, burning breath of satisfaction. She would miss Dante sorely, no matter how insidious her treachery had been. He was special.
But that was then and this was now. She watched without emotion as the Vampire Council Chamber on Level Six began to reorganize itself and the abandoned, pentagram-shaped table slowly gurgled to life with black blood now pulsing in the veins of the marble. So much waste, so much strain on the empire... she well understood her husband's rage. She would not incur his wrath again with failure.
Concentrating on Carlos Rivera's essence, Lilith waited. The dark side of him that had been born from her machinations put tears of pride in her eyes---the entity had been so foul. Then the good one had killed it... just like the female Neteru had slain her Dante. The loss of her would-be heir, a dark Rivera, was profound, leaving a visceral hole in the evil empire--one of no less magnitude than Dante's demise.
Lilith glanced up toward the cavernous ceiling, enraged that even vampires in the new male Neteru's old family still would not submit to the lure of human blood or the temptation of an elevation, and were still loyal to the Neteru team. Guardians hadn't even been fully compromised!
Revenge gripped her and her nails grew to talons that penetrated the armrests. The Neterus would pay.
Slowly, through the haze of sudden fury, she felt it. The sensation came into her spine like a lightning strike and made her throw her head back and screech with laughter.
"Oh, Carlos . . ." she whispered, clucking her tongue. "Now I know your dirty little secret--the one thing that will fell you and will make you lose your mind. I own your greatest fear... and now I can turn the blade in your side, thus hers, just like she gored my womb. Wait until Damali sees this."
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER TWO
Malibu, California Damali stared into the bathroom mirror as she brought the towel down from her damp face. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the past slithered through her. Everything that Carlos had ever done wrong came to life within her mind like a hot coal burning the good memories away.
"You can run but you can't hide," she told herself quietly, and took her time puttering around in the tiled sanctuary with the door closed.