Immortals After Dark 01 - The Warlord Wants Forever

Regin said. “ New Orleans may have once been the mystical melting pot of the world, but we control this place now.”

    “We can always send Mysty the Vampire Layer to battle them,” Nïx said thoughtfully. “Oh wait, she’d run off with them.”

    Regin added, “Or use her famed tongue assault to flail the skin from their bodies as they inexplicably line up to sacrifice themselves.”

    “Har-de-har-har,” Myst mumbled, half-listening. She’d been razzed about this continually. And she deserved it. She might as well have been caught free-basing with the ghost of Bundy. Of course others had overheard the jokes in the coven and the word spread. Even other factions of the Lore—like the nymphs, those little hookers—whispered about her unsavory predilection toward vampires. But it wasn’t vampires plural, it was only one.

    Wroth. She shivered. With his slow, hot fingers…

    In her bed late at night, when she touched herself, she always fantasized about him, remembering his hard chest and harder shaft, imagining his ferocity, his intensity, if he ever found her again.

    Truthfully, she thought he might have found her by now. She’d—accidentally?—given him her blood, possibly giving him her memories, which could lead him straight here. She often pondered that reckless kiss. She’d had no discernible intention of giving him blood, but hadn’t she known in the back of her mind that his fangs would be razor sharp with her sisters’ arrival? Had she wanted him to find her?

    She shook her head, needing to stay sharp. Annika, Daniela and Lucia were down there somewhere.

    “Lookit,” Regin said, pointing down. “Men that big shouldn’t get schnockered.”

    Myst turned her attention to a tall man who reminded her of Wroth from the back—why couldn’t she get that vampire off the brain?—though this one was much rangier in build. The man leaned against another massive male, hanging on to him for balance as they walked. She noticed her claws were curling.

    “Myst, can’t you control that?” Regin asked with a fleeting glance at her claws. “It’s embarrassing.”

    “Listen, I can’t help it, I like big males with broad shoulders. And I bet under that trench coat he has an ass that begs to be clutched.”

    Nïx offered, “And it’s not like she can put Band-Aids over them—”

    “Holy shite,” Regin exclaimed. “I see a glow. Ghouls, down by
Ursilines Avenue
    .”

    “Damn it,” Myst muttered. “In public again? They are hard-up recruiting then.” Ghouls were maniacal fighters out to increase their numbers by turning humans with their contagious bites and scratches. They had green, gelatinous blood, and the parish of Orleans went gooey every time the coven fought them.

    “Again.” Nïx sighed. “And there’s only so many times we can convince drunken tourists they’re extras in a sci-fi flick.”

    Regin slid her blade into her forearm sheath. “Stargate part twelve is officially on location.” She rose. “We’ll go canoodle the ghouls. You keep a watch out for vampires.” She made a ghostly wooo-wooo sound. “And try not to lift tail for any of them, ’kay?”

    As Myst rolled her eyes, her sisters linked arms and leapt down, moving so quickly they were like a blur. As usual, no one could see them, and if they did in this Lore-rich city no one registered it.

    Myst surveyed the glow from afar. It wasn’t that extensive, so she knew they could handle it. As eldest, Nïx was strong and Regin was wily. Besides, Myst had new boots on and she’d be damned if she’d lose another pair to the epic battle between buttery soft Italian leather and goo. Too many casualties already. It was terribly saddening. Really.

    Her attention easily fell once more to the man on the street, and she raised an eyebrow. If his front matched his back, she’d be tempted. It had been ages, literally, since she’d had a little some-some, and she deserved—

    She sucked in a breath, springing back against the dormer. The drunk was no drunk at all she saw when he peered down an alley, giving her his profile. The body she’d been ogling was that of her “estranged husband,” as the coven liked to tease her.

    He stumbled not from drink but from weakness, his build different because he’d lost weight. And that was his brother Murdoch helping him—helping Wroth find her.

    Shaking, she crept along the roof, pressing herself around the dormers, hoping to get away before he saw her. He