“I’m not threatening you, lackwit,” she snapped, took a deep breath, and tried again, her power settling back inside her. “The female is vital to my plans. I would prefer you not kill her before she’s of use.”
“Oh, well that makes sense.” He knew he’d irritated her, and it gave him warm fuzzies deep inside. “Why didn’t you say so?”
Instead of showing annoyance, she laughed. “You’re adorable even when you’re not trying to be.” Such a freaky goddess. But that’s why he kind of, almost, liked her when she wasn’t getting on his last nerve.
“Of course I am. Everyone knows nachzehrers do it best.”
She winked. “A wolf in vampire’s clothing. Go get your prey, Kraft. And please, find that artifact. If we lose it, you won’t be fighting anyone ever again.”
That would be less than ideal. He lived to battle. “The lycan should be here soon.” In truth, she should have arrived already, ready to greet him when he woke at sunset.
“Here.” Hecate handed him his phone. “I had Mormo track her down her for you. She’s at the Ribald Unicorn at the bazaar.” She frowned. “I can’t see the future, not often. But I do know danger waits for you there. You need to hurry.”
“Always there is a hurry.” Kraft muttered under his breath as he left her. But before he’d gotten out of earshot, he heard her once more.
“When you get back, we’ll talk about your dream.”
He walked faster, not wanting to talk about that, let alone remember it. Well, not all of it. Dreaming wasn’t something Kraft should have been able to do. He never had before. But he couldn’t deny he’d had one weird-ass experience the previous day. He still recalled snippets, though much remained murky. What stood out were visions of having sex with the lycan, feeling her plump breast in his hand.
And like that, his cock stirred and his heart raced, his reactions out of his control.
Unacceptable.
Losing control for a nachzehrer was anathema. Control kept the rage in check. Some, like Kraft, had the ability to destroy everything in their path without that rigid adherence to discipline. He’d lost himself less than a handful of times in his life, once here with the Night Bloode, in fact. Had that been embarrassing. But it had also been somewhat necessary, so his new kin could see what he was capable of.
Falling prey to lust had its own pitfalls, but at least he kept a hold of his rage. He’d have to figure out how to combat this odd desire for the lycan without revealing his weakness. In time, he’d master it as he’d mastered everything else in his life.
Hell, he was even working on not feeling so wary around Khent by picking fights with the conceited dickbag.
With a positive outlook on things, Kraft grabbed the keys to the Land Rover and drove to Capitol Hill. After parking, he received a flurry of texts. With a frown, he read what amounted to a shopping list for Mormo and all the females in the house. A laundry list of herbs, incantation ingredients, and a few silver items that would cause him no small amount of discomfort to touch had been added to his chore of recovering the lycan.
And that would be while dealing with a community of beings who tended to loathe his kind.
He smiled. What a perfect way to spend his evening.
“Sorry,no can do. You’re not welcome, fanger.”
Apparently, Kraft’s first fight of the evening would begin before he’d entered the bazaar. He’d figured the gargoyles standing guard might have a problem with a vampire wanting inside, but he hadn’t realized allegiances had formed around the neutral marketplace. The bazaar, as all magir knew, was supposed to cater to everyone dealing in magir and black market items. No clans, packs, or covens should have had any say over who could come or go otherwise. MEC even turned a blind eye to what went on inside, so long as no one complained.
“I don’t think he gets it,” one of the massive, gray beasts grumbled, in human instead of his true form—that of a hulking creature made of stone with the horns and tusks of his demonic ancestors. “We need to call in for the okay.”
“Call who?” Kraft asked, waiting like a good boy. He lifted the nearest gargoyle by his thick neck, causing the other two to tense and harden into stone, preparing to fight. By keeping the gargoyle off his feet, Kraft had ensured that at least one of them would remain in his more fragile, human form. Only through contact with the earth could gargoyles shift into their stone shapes.
“The new boss,” gargoyle number two snarled. He looked indistinguishable from his buddy, gargoyle number three, in stone form. Smartly, they kept their wings tucked back, because Kraft would smash those first, the only point of weakness on a gargoyle’s stone shape. And even then they sometimes grew back.
Kraft asked in a polite voice, “Who’s the new boss? Hell, who was the old boss? I thought the bazaar was open to all.”
“What clan are you with?” the one struggling in Kraft’s grip managed to ask while wheezing and clawing at Kraft’s hand.
“Nunya.”
“Huh?” Gargoyle Three asked.
“Bizness.” Kraft tossed the one he’d been holding at Gargoyle Two, then launched himself at Gargoyle Three.
They broke through the double doors and into a raucous venue, causing a bunch of magir to scatter. Kraft felt his bloode pumping and grinned as he let the gargoyle beat on him a little. He didn’t like an unfair fight, after all, and thinking he was doing some damage made the gargoyle work harder.
But when Gargoyle Two joined the party, Kraft had to settle them down fast. One gargoyle was nothing. Two could be a little challenging, and he didn’t want to get too mussed before seeing Riley again.
