Once he got a taste, something base and instinctual told him he wouldn’t be able to make himself stop. He’d been so close to the edge of his restraint in the gallery. Only the sound of her voice had pulled him back from the brink.
All he’d wanted was a night out of their mountain citadel, away from the looming promise of death. He thought the jovial atmosphere of the festival would distract him from all that was to come. Instead, it had thrown it right in his face. Christ, he was a catastrophe waiting to happen, already more beast than man. He shook his head again. “I’ll fucking kill her,” he rasped.
“You won’t.”
Acid washed through his gut. “You willing to risk an innocent woman’s life—or her soul—to see which of us is right? I’m not.” He shuddered, the danger of becoming like his evil enemies one of his greatest fears. “Leave her be. I’ll not have it any other way.”
Jakob lowered his chin and his shoulders lifted and lowered in a weary sigh. When he raised his gaze again, Henrik hated the grief and resignation he saw there, hated that he couldn’t go through this without dragging everyone around him down, too. “What do you want to do, then?”
“Get the hell out of here. And find some goddamned Soul Eaters to rip apart.” He pressed his arm to his side, feeling the satisfying weight of the holstered gun there. What he couldn’t take care of with his bare hands he’d happily dispatch with the clip of bullets poisoned with the blood of the dead.
His brother gave a tight nod. “Sounds like a plan.”
Side by side, they stalked the length of the alley. Henrik clapped Lars on the shoulder. “Up for a fight?”
The warrior grinned and flashed his fangs. “Always, my lord.”
“Then let’s go find one.” He led them out of the alley, but didn’t miss for a moment the way Jakob placed himself in the way of turning right, back toward the direction of the gallery, and the too-appealing-for-her-own-good woman. So be it.
Henrik turned left, toward the waterfront and one of the main concert stages for the festival. The crowds would be heavier there, giving the Soul Eaters more opportunity and more cover to make a grab.
The three warriors pressed through the teeming streets, a path opening before them as the humans’ instincts made them shy away. Which was just fine by the king. He didn’t want to tangle with mortals anyway.
Notice you also don’t want to eat any of them?
His footing faltered as the observation struck home.
“My lord?”
He shook his head without meeting Lars’s questioning gaze. Concentrating on the humans they passed, Henrik sought to identify each person’s unique scent and the rhythm of their heartbeat. And...nothing. Not a single one tempted his bloodlust. Or his cock.
Then why had the woman? Kaira, she’d called herself.
Henrik cut the inquiry off at the knees. Curiosity was a dangerous animal where she was concerned. He couldn’t allow himself the luxury of exploring the unusual desires she’d raised in him. Going down that road led to two equally bad outcomes—her, dead and soulless, and him, a giant leap closer to becoming that which he most hated.
So he wasn’t going to ask the whys of it. No matter how much the mere memory of her scent wound him up inside.
They reached the plaza in front of one of the central festival venues. They made a sweep around the plaza and retreated to the shadows. Watching. Waiting.
Nothing.
Sonofabitch.
The night dragged on. The hour grew late. The crowds thinned.
The monster inside him grew restless. It stalked back and forth within his mind growling and rattling its chains until the noise grew unbearable. Rage filled his chest so fully it was hard to breathe.
Jakob tensed beside him.
A split second later, Henrik picked up on it, too—the fetid stench of evil. Soul Eaters walked among them.
He methodically surveyed the crowd.
There. Four of them entered the plaza where he and his warriors had earlier.
Henrik’s body was in motion before he’d made the conscious decision to do so.
They were halfway across the square before their enemies became aware of them. The quartet paused, then turned on a dime and backtracked the way they came. Didn’t mean they were giving up their quest for human victims, though. In their blind desperation for blood and souls, the Soul Eaters shared none of their vampire brethren’s reluctance to reveal their existence to humanity. While a select few influential humans known as The Electorate knew of the existence of the immortals and allied with the vampire kings to defeat them, the mass of mortals did not. It was better that way for everyone, and protecting that secret was one of the constant battles he and his warriors fought.
Outside of the plaza, their enemies broke into a preternatural run. Henrik followed in pursuit. The four of them represented his path to freedom from the jaws of the beast within. At least for tonight. He wouldn’t stop until they were dead. Or he was.
He paused at an intersection, anticipation thrumming through his veins. Jakob and Lars came up behind him. Henrik extended out his senses. For a long moment, he couldn’t pick up a trace of them. Then he smelled it. Blood. Warm. Spilled. Spilling. A growl rumbled up from his chest.
Instinct led him toward the scent most fundamental to the survival of his kind. Halfway down the block, he spun into a dark alley, just wide enough to hide a long row of industrial garbage cans.
Just beyond them, two figures stood pressed against the wall.
“Dum faen.” Dumb fuck. Henrik muttered under his breath as he stalked toward the Soul Eater, so blood-drunk he apparently didn’t hear the warriors’ approach. “This one’s mine.”
The faint, infrequent thump of the victim’s heartbeat told him the damage was done, but the fact that the man retained any cardiac rhythm meant his soul remained intact. Henrik wrenched the Soul Eater away before he could consume that final reward. The human crumpled in a lifeless pile to the ground.
The king let the beast loose.
And, damn, it was far too easy to do.
Like an exorcism, his own demons raged and fought. He lost all awareness, all sense of time and space. All sense of self as he battled the Soul Eater.
Hands grabbed at him, yanked him back. Henrik focused on the new targets, gnashing his teeth and swing his fists. Voices finally penetrated the choking fog of violence suffocating his mind, his humanity.
Jakob and Lars.
“He’s dead. Henrik, he’s dead,” Jakob said. “It’s done. The dawn will take care of the rest.”
His gaze sought proof of the Soul Eater’s demise and found it in the broken body on the pavement. Or what was left of it.
He stopped fighting their grip and let himself be dragged away.
His breathing was a freight train in the night, sawing in and out of burning lungs. His pulse throbbed in his now swollen, shredded knuckles. Warm liquid oozed over his face in too many places to count.
The king nodded, or tried. He wasn’t yet sure of the connection between his sentient self and his physical actions.
It wasn’t until the pain hit that he trusted himself again. Head hanging on his shoulders, he looked down at his torso. Coat destroyed. Shirts and skin beneath hanging in torn strips. Blood dripped from his face, but his hands were useless to wipe it away. More of the crimson covered the skin there, too, as if he’d bathed in blood. His own and his enemy’s.
Christ, he hadn’t felt a moment of the Soul Eater’s effort to defend itself. He’d been totally unaware.
White-hot fear lanced through him, and a sob ripped up his throat.
This is how it’s going to be. This is what lies before me.
A scream pierced the thick silence. And again.