Chapter 2

“Come one, come all, to the big top of the damned.” Bubba, six foot eight of luscious sex turned flesh, twirled his black top hat with a flourish. “See sights beyond imagination.” He pointed his polished cane at the red-and-white-striped tent flap. “Take a ride on the wild side.” 

That rich, velvety voice of his oozed sexual charm and those mundane blue eyes twinkled with mirth. Nordic good looks and a body that would have made Michelangelo weep. Big arms, big chest, big legs. The man was just big and uberhot. Which was why Luc had made him master of ceremonies, he could draw a crowd like no other. 

The hair, the voice, that gorgeous smile… all Bubba. But the eyes… total sham. His real eyes were a red so deep they could almost pass for black and were a dead giveaway that he was something other than human.

He simpered. He batted his long lashes at the ladies and men crowding around his platform, salivating with their need to get closer to him. In short, he made love to them. It was another type of glamour, and he was the best at it. Probably because out of all of us, he had the most wicked of appetites. 

It was Bubba who brought those of us with the more carnal cravings our bait. That voice wasn’t simply a call to sex, that was a call to obey. 

Any who entered were prey. They’d be wined, dined, their pretty little socks charmed off, and before the night was through, they’d all be dead. But let me state for the record, there is honor among thieves. 

We were careful. We didn’t kill indiscriminately. Anything good, anything filled with light, was not ours for the taking. We liked to think of our sessions as cleanup for the betterment of the human race. Not that we ever got thank-you cards in the mail for it—a point that many who were more feral than me liked to point out to Luc. But their cries fell on deaf ears. For better or worse, the Nephilim had turned over a new leaf. 

Long ago we’d killed arbitrarily, not caring who or what so long as we fed the beast. But since our… let’s call it conversion, we’ve stuck to the rules—only kill those who’d in some way inflicted unimaginable horror on others.

You’d think that would keep the menu sparse, but you’d be surprised how much evil is out there. We were well fed. 

A tall brunette, dressed to the nines in a barely there strapless dress and stiletto shoes, reached out to Bubba with a hand drowning in diamonds. Kohl-rimmed green eyes batted at him, drawing his attention exclusively to her like the good cougar on the prowl that she was. 

Bubba smiled. He grabbed her hand, planting a kiss on the knuckles. She’d been tagged. Her nights of swindling were over.

Bubba. Dear, dear Bubba. My misogynistic pervert. 

Okay, so maybe misogynistic was too harsh. He loved the ladies. He liked their looks, he liked their scent, but more than anything he liked them chopped into dainty little ribbons of fleshy goodness.

Wonder if Ms. Gold Digger would have been so quick to thrust herself at him if she’d known. Somehow, I doubt it.

I turned away from him. I couldn’t look. As a brother in sin, I loved him, but what he did turned my stomach. I knew he was as helpless to the demon as I was, and in so many ways I was grateful that lust was my only vice.

“Look at him pour on that farm-boy routine.” The deep voice belonged to none other than my boss. I nodded as his arms slid around my waist. He smelled of sex and absinthe. I didn’t need to ask to know he’d already sampled the night’s wares; his beast was sated. He came to me because even if we fed, Lust was a determined demon and when we could have sex, we’d take it. 

But to call our relationship anything other than sometimes volatile and always complicated was an understatement. 

He knew me and I knew him. We knew what it was to be controlled by Lust, but we weren’t bound to each other beyond meeting our physical demands. If Luc wanted to screw half the tristate area, it was no concern of mine. Maybe once, several thousand years ago, it had mattered. But those days were far behind me. If you asked him, I’m sure he’d be as quick to tell you as I would that what we have certainly isn’t love. History had proven that.

He leaned down, his shoulder-length hair brushing against my bare shoulders as he nipped with his too-sharp teeth at my ear. “Pandora, I’ve lost you again.” His voice had grown soft and husky with that perfect blend of man and beast. “Face me, woman.”

I shook my head. “Now, Luc,” I said with a hint of laughter, “you know better than to ask me that. One look at you and I’ll turn into some buxom Playboy pinup floozy.”

And that was the secret of my power. Of how I got any man I wanted. When Lust tagged you, she’d turn me into whatever her prey wanted. Blond, brunette, Asian, Hispanic, didn’t matter… I could do it all.

He chuckled. “And what’s wrong with that?”

I chose to ignore that comment. That bastard would like nothing more than for me to turn into Marilyn Monroe meets Pamela Anderson: thin, busty, and babaliciously blond. But I wasn’t turning. Not while I had my riders behind me. 

I tried to bury the nasty thought that I also didn’t want to turn because I was still royally peeved I hadn’t figured out Billy.

“Oh, I see.” Luc came to stand beside me. “You’ve tagged yourself a live one.” He laughed, but the sound wasn’t exactly pleasant.

Again, I ignored him. My prey was my business. I didn’t bother him about his. 

The ride was coming to an end. I walked toward the controls, the entire time watching them. Their heads were bent. Belle wore a smile that said very clearly Billy was gonna score tonight. That wasn’t what bothered me though. It was the look of hunger, need, reflected on his face that made me tremble. 

And when they kissed, I swear it was magic. I closed my eyes, for a second feeling as if it were his lips pressed to my own, his hot tongue sweeping my mouth. My heart hammered. Lust screamed at me, banging at the walls of her cage. 

She wanted to be fed and she wanted to be fed now. Luc’s gaze was fixed on my face. I felt it like a hot brand.

“I know that look.”

“What look?” I glanced at him from the corner of my eye, making sure not to make contact.

His jaw clicked. “You want him.”

I shrugged. “He wants her.”

“Then take him.”

I planted my hands on my hips and turned to him, pouring as much of my anger into my gaze as possible. “I don’t do that. Unlike the rest of you heathens, I’ve got rules.”

“Rules are meant to be broken, Pandora.”

The ride was done. I slammed the button, lifting the lap bar, and growled at him. “That’s where you and I are different, Luc. You don’t get me now, you never will.”

I felt him. I tried not to look. I tried to ignore him. Pretend Billy didn’t exist. But I felt the brush of wind sweep against my arm as he walked past me. Then he looked at me. Stopped and studied me.

I heard Luc inhale, saw Belle turn with a question in her eyes, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t have ripped my gaze from his if the world was burning down around us.

In that moment, in that second, I felt a connection to something I’d never known before. I saw me in his eyes. Pandora. Not a reflection of lust, but me, and he was drinking it up.

I shivered.

“Billy?” Belle’s voice finally cut through the spell.

“Coming,” he muttered and when he finally turned, all I could do was take a shaky breath and lean against my booth on knees that felt suddenly too wobbly to hold me up.

“What the hell was that?” Luc snarled, glancing over his shoulder.

I shook my head, still smelling sandalwood everywhere. I had no idea. I rubbed goose bumps on my arm that refused to go down.

“You know what, Pandora… just”—he clenched his jaw—“whatever.”

I watched him go. His feelings were hurt. He tried to pretend he didn’t have them. They all did. They all pretended to be hard. Bad. Evil. But that’s where I’m different. I’m tired of pretending. 

I should go after him. 

I should do lots of things.

But I stayed where I was. Riders came and went. My antipathy grew stronger and stronger, knowing Billy had probably left already. Why was I so intrigued by him?

I hate to admit this, but I keep looking out into the crowd, hoping for one more glimpse. A sighting. My lips twitched. 

He was just a man. Another pretty face in a sea of plenty. Surely there was someone else out there who’d make both Lust and myself perk up with delicious anticipation. But the thought was a lie and I knew it. No one else had ever intrigued me like that. And for someone as old as me, that’s beyond amazing.

An hour later I finally had to admit defeat. He wasn’t coming back. It was late and the crowd was starting to thin out. The goose bumps were still there. I was feeling scratchy, uncomfortable in my skin. I scratched my arms, trying to exorcise the feeling of tiny ants crawling all over me.

It was Lust.

Billy had made her come alive and now she needed feeding. I could try to ignore it. Say screw it and go to bed. But I’ve tried that before. Let’s just say it wasn’t pretty. Think PMS a millionfold. She could turn me into a raging hormonal wench—better for everyone if I just did the dirty now.

I sighed, hung the sign on my wheel saying it was closed, and headed to Bubba’s tent.

He was standing outside, leaning against one of the poles, a half-smoked cigarette dangling from his mouth. Red eyes the shade of fresh blood glanced at me. Obviously he’d gotten his fix. I shuddered at the thought.

“Dora?”

I wrapped my arms around myself. “Hey.” 

Ugh, I so didn’t want to do this. Didn’t want to step one foot inside the den of iniquity. I wasn’t a slut, though Lust forced it on me. I tried a couple hundred years ago to stop cold turkey. Stop feeding her. Stop having sex. 

Yeah, let’s just say lots of legends cropped up about monsters that went bump in the night after that experiment. 

“You hungry?”

He wasn’t asking about food. 

I nodded, feeling like a junkie going to her dealer, knowing the drugs were killing her but unable to stop the all-consuming need for more.

“It’s in your eyes, Dora.”

I glanced to my right. “I hate this.”

He snorted and flicked his cigarette on the ground, grinding it under his boot. “Got something in there that might cheer you up.”

“I doubt it.”

He grinned. “Has ol’ Bubba ever steered you wrong before?”

My heart thumped thinking maybe, just maybe, Billy was inside. I bit my lip and Lust stretched like a lazy cat curling up from a nap.

“Vampire.”

Anger sizzled hot and quick. I hated vampires. We all did. Bloodthirsty maggots. They needed killing. Cold, hard violence, always a razor’s edge below the surface, came roaring to life. Lust was pissed this wasn’t Billy, pissed she had to screw something so repugnant, but that would make the killing all the sweeter.

I smiled and Bubba nodded, holding open the tent flap.

I stepped over and around the pile of bodies bumping fuzzies around me—a Roman orgy at its finest. Tonight I wanted blood, violence. I wanted to shake Billy from my head. 

For the vampire it was just a matter of the wrong place at the wrong time.

The vamp was a pitiful whelp of a boy who’d been sired not long out of his teens. The tent’s red lights added shadow to hollows, made his face appear gaunt and skeletal. 

The stripper knew her role—one look at me and she was gone.

His black eyes grew wide when he saw me near. They filled with desire and heat. 

“Hey, big boy,” I cooed. “Wanna play?”

Instantly I felt my body transform into his idea of perfection. Tall and waif thin, hooked nails and long fangs. 

Ehh, to each their own. 

He reached out for me and I grabbed his hand. “I know a private place.”

He grinned and when he stood, he grabbed my butt, squeezing hard.

My stomach churned and bile rose in my throat the second he touched me. I hated this. Hated the slut Lust could force me to become. But I shoved it aside; I did this because I had no choice. I did this because if I didn’t, the demon side of me would become dominant and kill any innocent unfortunate enough to step in its path.

~*~

The vampire stared with sightless eyes, its still-beating heart held firm in my hand. After the sex, I’d lured him to a thicket of trees. I’d told him it was because I’d always fantasized about making love outdoors. Truth was I had to kill him away from prying eyes. I knew the game. I didn’t kill after sex often, but you didn’t live to be as old I am without learning the rules. The first and most important rule of the Neph: Leave no evidence. 

I threw his heart to the ground and stomped it underfoot. It looked and sounded a little like squishing a rotten tomato with your fist. The heart exploded in a crimson shower of blood and gore, and then it was consumed by black flame, charring it instantly and turning it into a fine black powder. A strong breeze picked up the particles and carried them away.

I dug a ditch with my bare hands. The damp earth sifted between my fingers like fine sand. What might have taken a human hours to do, I’d done in five minutes. With a hole suitable enough to bury a body in, I threw the vamp inside and kicked the dirt back over him until all that was left was a small lump of overturned dirt and debris. I ran my hand over the spot where he lay, pushing glamour into it so that if anyone passed by they’d get a vague sense of unease and scoot along. 

Standing, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, feeling his blood smear. It made me gag. I needed to clean up. Get him off me. Forget this had happened. Or what had caused it to happen. One day shouldn’t have been enough to turn me so desperate. I couldn’t understand it and it worried me. 

I was too lost to the thoughts in my head. I should have been more focused on my surroundings. By the time I figured that out, it was already too late. 

The sharp whistle of metal flying through the air rang loud in my ears. I looked up just in time to see a silver star rip into my upper shoulder. Shocked, I couldn’t move. Then I heard a loud thump and stood face-to-face with a pair of dull brown eyes.

My heart tripped. “Billy?” 

He snarled.

“I knew you were dangerous.”

“Shut up,” he growled, then a fist slammed into my temple and my world turned black.