The Siren Series 1: Ember (8 page)

Ember watched the males struggle and
repeated, “Stand by the treaty, Fire Lord. If there be a maiden
with blood of the Mer she is to be returned to the Sirens. You know
this,” Ember said, disgusted with his unabashed branding of the
girl.

He looked at Ember, knowing who she was.

Brolach knew
what
she was as well, though she did not.
He saved that morsel of information for later. “And if she be
demon? Then what shall we do?” he asked in that voice of roaring
flames and Ruby whimpered again, she wanted his tongue on her
parts, she wanted the flaming rod of his cock piercing her secret
passage.

She'd well and truly lost her mind.

Brolach chuckled at the innocent and tender
waves of desire that came off the girl. His cock throbbed and
burned to plunder her, yet he held back. There were simply too many
of the sea for him to fight this night. They would put out his heat
as surely as he stood smoldering before them.

However, he would give this princess of the
Mer something to think about. Brolach had achieved his goal: he had
tasted of the girl, protected her from males who would defile a
rare female demon. She was not a full-blood, yet she had enough to
be mated.

Brolach had tasted of her fire.

It was good.

He would return and impregnate the female,
she would spread her pale legs and he would burn inside her ripe
wetness, her Mer blood putting out the fire as it scorched her
flesh.

Ruby would pass out from his attentions and
he would fuck her without tiring.

But not this night. Brolach looked at the
mongrel vampire in front of him and recognized him as the most
dangerous supernatural present. He had a look about him of profound
indifference.

He did not fear death. And in not fearing
death, he was dangerous.

Brolach and Constantine faced off.

“
Don't hurt the girl,” Ember
warned him.

Constantine snorted, “You would be well
aware of my violence toward a female, Ember,” he said slowly, as if
she were stupid and Brolach cocked a brow.

Interesting interaction between the Mer
princess and the dangerous guard,
Brolach
thought, amused.

Brolach hit upon a truth: they
but used him for his mixed heritage.
Brilliant.

“
Leave the female or I shall
kill you, demon.” Con's talons slid out and Brolach smiled. “You
shall try, half-breed.”

“
Sticks and stones, fire
dick,” Constantine said and with a move too fast to see, he took a
chunk out of Brolach's tail.

Brolach gave a grunting howl that was a
hoarse bellow to the Mer who grimaced at the heated sound, the
spray of warmth coating Constantine in a heat so fierce, so raw,
that he gasped for oxygen.

When his gills burst he needed every bit of
what they gave him because Brolach had wrapped that bleeding tail
around his waist and had yanked him closer.

It burned his vampire flesh in a branded
circle and Constantine fought screaming by the slimmest of
margins.

The other Mer moved in and Constantine
growled, “Get the girl!”

Brolach was unprepared for Constantine's
utter lack of fighting strategy, he was brutal and spontaneous,
using his fangs and talons in tandem, grabbing Brolach's tail like
a rope, burning his hand as he did. Con jerked Brolach to him as he
tore his throat out with his razor-sharp talons.

Brolach fell, gurgling low in the flesh of
his neck that swam with his black steaming blood.

“
No!” Ruby cried softly.
“Don't kill him... he saved me!” she cried, running to his side as
he went down.

Fucking please,
Constantine thought, pushing the trembling female away with a
soft thwack and she tumbled onto the grass as the young Druid
picked her up.

Constantine arced his wrist in a move he'd
done thousands of times if he'd executed it once and moved in to
take the head of the fire demon who lay at his feet when the
sharpened tip of the tail pierced Con's gut, the barbs jerking Con
forward then whipping him against the tree in a flying spin, chunks
of his torso dislodging when the tail released him.

He flew into the unforgiving bark, snapping
the trunk and flying through to the tree that stood behind it.

Fuck that was a nifty trick
, Con thought with grudging admiration, his vision swimming
as he slid down the trunk.

Constantine growled, standing
in an unsteady stagger.
That fire fucker,
Con thought, one of his talons broken off at the
quick,
he'll suffer now
.

Con blurred to the demon who even then
healed the worst of the wounds Con had laid on him and suddenly the
girl wiggled out of the young Druid's hands, landing on the demon
and he wrapped her against him.

“
I will be back for you,”
Brolach whispered and whipped his tail around to the small of her
back.

Ruby cried out when she felt the fire brand
her skin. The pain was so intense she lost her grip on
consciousness and slipped out of his arms.

Constantine flew at Brolach and he slid
away, the heat of his escape was vapor and fire.

“
Fuck!” Constantine roared to
the sky as that black heat misted away and out of their reach.
“Were you fucking clowns going to help me in this battle?” he
seethed, his black eyes striking each Mer warrior in
turn.

Madden said in a dry voice as Brandon picked
up the naked girl, carefully not touching her scorched back, “You
were doing it all yourself you arrogant prick, you asked for no
one, just went after a Fire Lord half-cocked without answers.”

Con blurred to Madden, their noses nearly
touching. “There is no need for answers, fish man. What we needed
was action,” Constantine pounded his words in Madden's face.

But it was Ember's voice that broke through
the confrontation. “Madden is right, rash Constantine. Ask yourself
this: why was a demon so close to the sea, eh?” The warriors of the
Mer all nodded their agreement.

“
What the hell was it?”
Brandon asked, the girl tucked in against his chest, Ember's cloak
wrapped around her nakedness.

Constantine walked it off, pacing his anger
with his footsteps. He knew that his own inner demon raged for
release, raged for recompense. Normally, this would have been when
his former coven leader, Russel, would have brought a willing girl
to abuse. To submit to him. One that he could take and plunder. His
bones ached with the old need to finish what had been started. When
he could not get what he needed in battle, he could get very near
with the right type of sex.

Sadistic sex.

His guts screamed as they healed. He was in
dire need of blood, Con ground his teeth in frustration. Ember
approached him as if she knew.

Con shook his head even as his fangs
elongated. “No,” he said, whistling his restraint through fangs
grown long, shaking his head. He did not wish to alienate himself
yet again with a new group. For if he took blood from Ember he did
not know if he could restrain himself from choking her on his
cock.

He squeezed his eyes shut at the thought.
Wanting it.

Hating himself for wanting it.

Hating that he could not have what would
make him whole. Those desires all mixed together in the swamp of
his thoughts.

Brandon looked at the mixed-blood warrior of
the Faction, gills like a Siren, body of a Druid vampire.

But always, the heart of a Faction, his
leader's words... hell, his father- Beau. Their words rang in
Brandon's head. Every red flag waved about this guy. Caution wasn't
even a choice or speculation, it was an absolute.

He opened his eyes and a Siren's obsidian
gaze met Brandon's.

Brandon decided then, that no matter what,
he'd keep this dangerous fuck in his sights. There was something
unstable about him. And his fighting! Brandon remembered the
passionate savagery of his attack on the weird fire male in perfect
slow-motion recall.

Yes, he bore watching.

Constantine lost his internal battle to
blood lust, snaking out a hand and wrapping both palms around
Ember's upper arms. His fangs were at her neck before she could
draw breath. He mewled as he gulped, tears of sheer gratefulness
stung the back of his eyelids, her blood sung to his, knitting the
damage that had been wrought in a neat, sucking reverse pop of
healing that made his body itch with heat and then Madden was
tearing her out of Con's brutal hold.

“
You'll kill her!” he hissed.
“She is your blood source, and you are her guard. But know this,”
Madden said in a low voice full of righteous anger, the slits at
his throat flaring with his rage, “you do not harm your food,
Faction. And she is so much more than a meal.”

Con knew that, he had a raging boner that
pulsed for release. It was simple. He may have Mer blood, but he
was also vampire with a pesky dose of Druid and a kicker of Exotic.
Sharing a blood meal with a female of like blood made that Druid
part of his genetic make-up rear its ugly, uncompromising head in a
heart-stopping moment of compulsive mating that he resisted by
choice.

By fear.

Constantine would never mate. He would never
love a female. It was an abhorrent thing to consider.

He backed away from Ember as her head lolled
against the warrior of the Mer whose eyes held Con's death.

“
Why do you still call me
Faction, Mer?” Constantine asked. He had been the one to fight the
demon fire lord. Could they not see it was he that had saved the
maiden? That had battled a creature renowned for murdering handfuls
of supernaturals...

“
When you cease to act as a
Faction, you will no longer be looked at as one,” he replied
simply, gathering Ember close as she gave Constantine drowsy eyes
that were hooded by the blood-share.

His former coven of criminal vampires
followed him wherever he went. If only he could escape what his
life had been. Yet he couldn't, he was the sum of those
experiences. If he was not as he was now, he would never have
survived it. As he gazed at the lovely Ember held so securely in
the arms of a fellow Mer, Con cast his gaze to the ground.

It was better that they not see what played
in his eyes.

Her sexual subjugation preyed on Con's mind
like a cloud full of rain that did not fall, images of his
dominance of her, mingling inextricably with the blood that fueled
his body. It healed him, setting Constantine back to rights.

He was too damaged for normal. Constantine
knew this. That others expected normalcy showed they did not
understand the depths of his depravity.

Con breathed through the temptation to tear
the maiden out of Madden's arms, beating him until he stopped
breathing so he could fall upon her, fucking her until she
begged.

Then fucking her more.

When Con regained a semblance that passed
for calm for him, his gaze rose and he met first the eyes of the
young Druid and those eyes knew him, perhaps seeing the hint of the
shadow that lurked within himself.

When his gaze shifted down he found the deep
gaze of the girl he had rescued.

Her eyes were black opal.

It sparked Constantine to move.

She was as Ember.

Yet more.

Like a moth to a flame he moved, those deep
eyes sucking him under like quicksand on fire.

For once, Constantine became oblivious to
his surroundings and when the blunt bite sung on the back of his
head, he slumped to the ground.

As he fell he vowed retaliation.

It was the Faction way.

It was Constantine's as well.

CHAPTER 7

Ruby

Ruby awoke, the room she lay in the strangest of
her life. She immediately tried to place her surroundings. Gone was
the dive she lived in on the pier.

A strange, stone-like ceiling greeted her,
seeming to suck in the ambient light of the day through its
multi-colored and translucent surface. She sat up and realized she
had a case of Ass Mouth. She was terribly thirsty and if she hadn't
known better, hung over.

Then her pussy gave a soft pulse and the
memories of the night before came roaring back.

Gawd,
she thought, putting her palm over
her face, blinding herself momentarily, I let that demon guy...
ugh.

Wait a sec,
Ruby thought. What were those
people? Were they people? Where was she?

She looked down at where she lay and realized
she was in bathwater in some kind of strange tub.

Ruby clutched the sides and rose.

Just then a built hottie came into the room and
got a great view of the whole tamale.

He didn't seem shy about checking her out
either.

Ruby tried to do the naked statue thing and
cover her slit and tits with her hands. She was doing a Walt Disney
and didn't know whether to sink back into the crazy bathtub or
stand there with her parts flagging a guy that was a stranger.

Ruby sank, the water pebbling her nipples at the
change of temperature.

He laughed.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph
. Ruby's face
burned with heat and she realized her traitor's skin had flared
like a fire engine, relaying her embarrassment and discomfort
perfectly.

Ruby watched his arrogant expression and wanted
to kick his ass but figured he could take her. Easily. He was so
smug standing there with that lopsided grin.

Fuck. Ruby felt stupid. Then she felt
scared.

She'd been attacked the night before, nearly
raped, saved by a demon dude who licked her till she came and then
the supernatural cavalry had showed up and saved the day.