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JARDINE WAS BEGINNING to think she would never learn more about the mysterious artifact from her anonymous source. She’d been skeptical when she’d first received a letter about the mysterious item. It told her an object had been smuggled into Nox and that it could be harmful to Lord Kreaton.
When Sebastian had confirmed that the relic was real, her hopes that the Immortal Triumvirate might be vanquished had been renewed. She’d told one of Raum’s scouts that she needed information on how to use it. The demons were supposed to be searching for rumors about it. That had been several weeks ago, but she hadn’t heard anything from them yet. She was still no closer to discovering how to use the object.
Feeling the need for air, Jardine ordered her kiss to stay in their mansion, then slipped outside. She sped through the streets and wound up in the park where she’d met Xiara Evora several times. Someone had beaten her there, but it wasn’t the Guardian of Nox this time. It was someone who looked startlingly familiar. She stared at the ridiculously handsome man with pale yellow eyes and short black hair. The master vampire reached for her daggers without even realizing it.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he said. Even his voice was attractive.
“You look like someone who died a long time ago,” she told him.
“Was his name Tannic?” he asked and she nodded. “He was my father, or so I was told.”
“What are you doing in the Vampire District?” she asked, making no move to sheathe her weapons. “Your kind can’t feed on the undead.”
“My masters sent me on a mission,” he said cryptically.
Jardine’s eyes dropped to his silver sword and silver dagger and her upper lip lifted. “You’re an assassin, then?” she asked.
“Yep,” he said cheerfully, but she sensed his wariness in the way he held his lithely muscled body. His ears were slightly pointed and his body was larger than Tannic’s had been. It seemed he was only half incubus. He seemed to be half elven as well. “I don’t have a quarrel with you,” he went on, but he didn’t put his weapons away either. “It would be a shame to kill a woman as beautiful as you without a good reason,” he added charmingly.
“Your incubus magic won’t work on the undead” she said dryly. Her vampiric charisma wouldn’t work on incubi either, or so she’d heard. “Who did you murder this evening?” she asked conversationally while trying to decide whether she should extinguish his life.
“A master vampire by the name of Ingrid,” he replied, showing no fear of her at all.
“Hmm,” she mused with a small smile. “Ingrid was evil to the core and she treated her kiss horribly. It is no great loss that she is gone.”
He blinked at her for a moment before regaining his poise. “You’re not going to slaughter me in retribution?”
“Not for killing someone I despised,” she said and sheathed her daggers. He hesitated, then sheathed his own weapons and sauntered over to her. “Whom do you work for, assassin?” she asked.
“My name is Malachi,” he told her. “I work for the Immortal Triumvirate.”
Jardine wasn’t surprised to learn the rumors of a secret Assassin Guild were true. “We long believed your rulers had hired killers to do their dirty work,” she said darkly.
“We don’t kill because we have a choice,” he told her bleakly. “They raised us to be murderers. They put spells on us that tell them when we’ve completed our missions. If we disobey our orders, we die.”
“The Triumvirate are even more abominable than I’d realized,” she said as he studied her face closely. She found herself just as captivated by him.
“You have no idea how depraved they are,” he said and reached out to touch her cheek. She could have torn his arm from its socket, but she allowed him to brush his fingertips across her skin. “What is your name, lovely lady?” he asked.
“Jardine,” she replied. He was so warm and his scent was alluring. She hadn’t fed in a couple of weeks and her gaze dropped to his throat longingly.
“I’ll make you a deal, Jardine,” the incubus said.
Her eyes snapped back to his warily. “I’m not fae,” she reminded him. “I’m not bound by my oath.”
“I know,” he said with a cheeky grin. “Let’s call this an experiment.”
“What bargain do you wish to make with me?” she asked, curious despite herself. She rarely interacted with beings from other species, except to feed from them. She had to hoard her energy to feed her kiss now and went hungry herself more often than not.
“I’ll willingly allow you to drink from me, if you escort me safely from the Vampire District,” he offered.
Jardine’s fangs descended before she could control herself. She was over five hundred years old, but she was reacting to the incubus like she was a brand-new fledgling. It just showed how insidious prolonged starvation was to her kind. “I accept your bargain,” she said. She could practically feel the hunger from her kind who lived in the nearby houses. If they caught the scent of his blood, they would go into a frenzy.
Malachi didn’t protest when she took his hand. He did his best to keep up with her as she sprinted to the slums near the river. Most of the houses in this area were vacant. Too many had died during the war that had erupted on Halloween. There weren’t enough new arrivals to fill all of the abandoned buildings.
Jardine stepped into a vacant house and drew her meal inside and closed the door. Malachi pushed his hood back, then gently tugged hers back as well. He was a full head taller than she was, but he solved the problem of their height difference by picking her up. Jardine’s need for blood kicked in and she wrapped her legs around him. “You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, then he turned his head to the side to offer her his throat.
The master vampire pressed her lips against his warm skin, then ran her tongue along his vein. He shivered in reaction and his grip on her waist tightened. He didn’t flinch when her fangs pierced his flesh. The incubus groaned and grew hard as she drank from him. She ground herself against him, feeling the need to have him inside her as she fed, but she resisted her carnal urges. The last thing she needed was to get entangled with a man who wasn’t even from her species while she was in the middle of a rebellion.
When she’d had her fill, Jardine licked her lips and lifted her head. Malachi’s eyes were locked on her. She saw his desperate loneliness and her dead heart went out to him. He leaned forward and she didn’t draw away when he kissed her. It was tender rather than fierce and she was left with a strange longing when it ended. “The bridge to the Fae District is a short walk from here,” she said as he placed her back on her feet.
“Thank you for upholding your end of our bargain,” he said, then took her hand and kissed the back of it. While he was aching to bed her, now wasn’t the time, nor the place for a tryst. He winked, then sprinted away before any ravenous, masterless fledglings could happen by.
While she hadn’t heard from the anonymous source yet, Jardine’s spirits had lifted a little. Anything was possible in Nox. Even with most of its energy being hoarded by the Immortal Triumvirate, magic still existed. Maybe the City of Night longed for different rulers, ones who would undo the harm that had been inflicted and restore it to how it was meant to be.
Jardine touched her lips and found she was smiling. The unexpected encounter had given her a small reprieve from her normally dreary existence. Malachi’s blood had infused her with unaccustomed strength. She almost felt as if she was floating when she headed back to her mansion. She now had enough energy to conjure up enough blood to feed her hungry kiss for the next week.
