Kali Sweet Series, Three Urban Fantasy Novels (Boxed Set) Read online

  “Oh, goddess be sweet, those people are whacked. Dalinda was there. With them. Apparently, Mrs. Stewart has had a change of heart and they’re…well, having a nice little three-way with D.”

  Closing my eyes, I sighed. “Dalinda’s using her magic on the wife, now, too.”

  “Seems like it. They asked if I wanted to join them.”

  A four-way? Eww. “I so don’t have time for this.”

  “I was thinking you should try hooking that Toel character up with Dalinda. She might divert his quest for world domination long enough for you to stake him.”

  Not a bad thought, except for the fact that, “Vampires are often immune to succubi.”

  “But they’re not immune to sexual gratification. Or love, for that matter.”

  Di’s motto: love will save the world.

  My motto: love is what screws up the world.

  “See you tonight.” If I lived long enough. I hung up before she could respond and dialed Neve. “Is it possible for a demon ghost to infect the living with sin?”

  “Hello to you, too, dear.” Her sarcasm rang more with worry than actual derision. “How are you after last night’s escapade?”

  “I’m fine. What about demon ghosts infecting the living with various sins? Is it possible?”

  She sighed. “I have no idea, but from my experience, anything’s possible in the world of earth-bound spirits.”

  Not exactly the unequivocal answer I’d hoped for, but good enough. “Thanks. I gotta run, but I’ll call you with more questions soon.”

  Tossing the cellphone on the desk, I scribbled notes on a blank piece of paper. Probably the only one left in the house after Rad’s explosion of creativity. On screen, I saw Hone arrive, locking up his car and waving at the security camera. I slipped out of the office so as not to wake Cole and met the humongous human at the front door.

  Hone looks like a defensive back for the Bears. He’s as broad as he is tall with a hefty dose of Hawaiian king in his DNA. He rarely swings his fists. All he has to do is look at most people and they run the other way.

  Inside, he’s a gooey mass of sweetness. He’s also a bona fide psychic. Those bad guys who do stay to tangle with him instead of running like good sense would dictate get their asses handed to them on a Hone-sized platter.

  “Kali Sweet, how you doin’ sweetheart?” He clasped my hand and drew me in for a hug.

  “Thanks for coming, Hone,” I said into his hulking chest. He set me back, gave me a smile. “Think you can keep an eye out here on my perimeter? Cole’s inside and I got the electronic security system on high alert, but I trust human intel more.”

  One of his large, beefy hands patted my cheek. “You know I’d do anythin’ for you, Kali.”

  “Haven’t seen any invite to you and Renee’s wedding yet.”

  The smile widened, showing off his pearly whites. “Soon enough, I promise. Givin’ my lady a diamond for Christmas big enough to sink one of them fancy party barges always cruising the lake in the summer.”

  I clapped him on the shoulder. “Good deal.” I handed him one of the ear buds Cole used for all his security details. “I’ll be inside. You need anything or see anything, holler.”

  “You got it.”

  The big man started a circuitous route to the right. I went back to my office.

  My cell display showed a graphic of a message envelope. I’d missed a call and it had gone to voicemail. My overprotective bodyguard had slept right through the phone’s ringing, which was good, I guessed. Regardless of his insistence he was fine, I needed him at maximum fighting capacity and there was no way he could be if he was chronically sleep deprived.

  I grabbed my phone, my heart doing a little squeeze at the thought the message might be from Rad. He might be a perfectly capable half demon, and my enemy lover at that, but I was still worried about him.

  When I heard Damon’s demanding voice in my ear, my heart stopped acting stupid and my nerves bristled. “Alexandru has informed me of your illness. Although I’m sure you’d rather ignore this problem to focus on Maria, it is of utmost importance we deal with your health matter first and foremost. Return to the Institute so Kirill can do a full physical evaluation. We will then discuss treatment possibilities and proceed with the most promising one.”

  Damon made it sound like I had cancer. While demons couldn’t contract human diseases, we had a wide and varied assortment of our own, many of them similar to their human counterparts. They rarely killed us, preferring instead to prolong the pain and suffering. The demon way of life…and death.

  Demon diseases affected our magic, our minds and threw our vices into overdrive. Kirill might have been the top disease archdemon around, but he was more adept at giving out infections, maladies and disorders than curing them. Putting myself in his hands was hardly a reassuring idea.

  Plus, I might be dealing with more than one type of health issue, as Damon referred to it. My capital sin had always been superbia, pride, with a little of the others thrown in for good measure. Maria’s succubus nature had gula, gluttony, and fornicatio, lust, at the forefront. Her strongest skill, though, was manipulating and escalating others’ vices so she could feed on them.

  With me, she’d played on my ego in order to create the most proficient and accomplished vengeance demon the world had ever known. For a time, there was nothing more important to me than doing everything she wanted and doing it so well, she loved and respected me more than the other demons in her court.

  Of course, that meant spreading pain and fear everywhere I went. Reveling in the blood and suffering of humans and supernaturals alike. Turning my back on the tiny seed of humanity my earthly parents had instilled in me until Maria had snatched me from them the day I turned nine.

  Remembering that day brought a flood of old, ugly memories to my mind. I sat in my office chair, swallowed down the lump in my throat, and forced myself not to push those memories away. If I was dealing with Maria again, I had to delve deep into the past whether I liked it or not. That’s where the answers were.

  Hand shaking, I poured a shot of whiskey and sank into my office chair. Recalling those memories hurt as much as my body’s withdrawal from the lack of Nudra’s blood in my system. As much as being whacked on the head had the previous night. If I let them, they’d consume me and I’d drown in guilt and self-loathing, but I had to examine them again for clues. Clues that might tell me how I could defeat Maria again, even if she was a ghost.

  One shot of whiskey wasn’t enough. As Cole snored and I dredged up my three-hundred-year-old past, I picked up the bottle and let the liquid coat my tight throat, fill the void in my cold, hollow stomach. If there was one advantage to accepting Dru’s blood offer—besides possibly saving my life and that of my slaves—it was the fact I’d be even stronger when facing Maria. At least that was one theory my brain had tossed up. Dru was the son of Vlad the Impaler, a born vampire, not one that was made. He’d lived longer than I had and his eminence in the Undead world equaled mine in the demon world. Surely the intermixing of our bloods would increase my already superior skills to unmatched heights.

  But would it be enough to handle a ghost? A spirit I couldn’t face head on? One who only possessed a physical body when she wanted to and who couldn’t be killed by simply cutting out her heart or beheading her.

  “Early to be drinking, isn’t it?”

  Rad stood in the doorway, the collar of his wool coat flipped up, his gold eyes peering from underneath dark bangs. His French Mediterranean coloring and thick lashes didn’t hide the shadows still under those beautiful eyes and my heart did a hard squeeze.

  Tight lines bracketed the corners of his mouth. The cheekbones standing above the coat’s collar stood out a little too much for my liking. His dark hair was a tangled mess like he’d just gotten out of bed.

  I’d been so absorbed in thoughts of Maria, I hadn’t noticed him on the security screen or heard him enter the church. But just like when I was seventeen, his presen
ce lifted me out of my nightmare and reminded me I could be benevolent and merciful as well as vindictive and cruel.

  I set the nearly empty bottle down, picked up Unquenchable Need and hustled him out of the office and into the living room so we wouldn’t wake Cole. “We need to talk.”

  He unbuttoned his coat and that’s when I noticed the pack of paper and box of new pencils in his hand. “Conversations that start with those words never end well for me.”

  Handing me the paper and pencils, he shrugged off the coat, tossed it on a nearby chair, the buttons raking across the strings of a guitar. A harsh, discordant twang came from them, seeming to emphasize his point. He motioned at a mound of trash. “Sorry about the mess. Didn’t think you’d mind me hanging out here since you’re living with Damon now.”

  Was that jealousy lacing his voice? “I’m staying at the Institute under Damon’s orders, not because I want to live there.” I handed the paper and pencils back to him. “What’s going on with you?”

  I’d said it quietly, gently. Didn’t matter. I saw it in his eyes. That defiance that swam under the surface of our relationship. As if I was always accusing him of something.

  Which in general, I was. He’d left me at the altar—a scared but determined young female demon who’d been willing to sacrifice everything in order to marry him—and I’d lived the past several hundred years believing he’d abandoned me that night. The very night I’d needed him the most. The night I’d defied Maria to be with him and found my parents and little sister crucified.

  I hadn’t known until recently when Rad came back into my life what had happened to him that night or the years that followed. How he’d been kidnapped by the Noctifectors, tortured and blackmailed into becoming one of them in order to infiltrate demon families and find their weaknesses so the demon slayers could wipe them off the face of the earth.

  Rad lobbed his paper and pencil supplies onto the coffee table and sunk into the fancy, padded leather chair stationed at the keyboard. “A furor poeticus wind blew. I needed a quiet space to let the inspiration flow.”

  Furor poeticus. Divine frenzy. Poetic madness. The gift of gods. Writers, musicians and artists craved inspiration, begged their muses to produce it and often went through elaborate rituals seeking it out. The Greeks called it ecstasy.

  Ecstasy was not showing on Rad’s angular face. Exhaustion, yes. The type of exhaustion that was soul deep, not just physical. I wanted to touch him. Calm the crazy hair, kiss the shadows under his eyes, massage the tension from his forehead.

  “You’re welcome to stay here as long as you want.” I stepped closer to him, studying the three-day-growth of beard along his jawline and the tight set of his lips. Even in the throes of obsession, he was perfect. Beautiful, his humanness flowing off him like sweet, dark syrup.

  I envied his creativity with words and instruments. Envied the way he embraced his demon side, giving into the chaos rather than fighting it all the time. “How many songs have you written this week?”

  He gaze bounced around the room at the dozens of scattered songs before locking with mine. “Two-hundred, sixty seven. Maybe more. I lost count.”

  My eyebrows shot up and my jaw dropped. “Is that normal when you have a burst of inspiration?”

  Running a hand over his face, he shook his head, looked down at the floor as if embarrassed.

  I held out the song in my hand. “Is this about me?”

  Defiant eyes raked over me, going from my feet to the top of my head. “They’re all about you.”

  He said it so softly, I almost didn’t hear him. Not knowing the proper protocol for having two-hundred and sixty-seven songs written about you in a week, I held his gaze and mentally flipped through potential responses. Thank you? Holy crap, that’s weird?

  Why me?

  “Rad, I…”

  One second, I was looking down into his eyes and the next, I was up against his body. He came out of the chair so fast, I didn’t even see him move. His arms wrapped around me, his mouth closing over mine. Pure carnal desire poured out of him. His lips were hot, warmer than the whiskey I’d downed earlier, and the kiss sucked the oxygen from my lungs.

  Salty air stirred my nose, the ends of my hair lifting. I couldn’t breathe, but I didn’t want to. All I wanted was Rad.

  Not just the beautiful, creative human, or the wild, stormy chaos demon. I wanted the mysterious, intangible thing that made him who he was. The one thing I could never touch.

  His soul.

  Two months ago, my world had been stable and my life had been good. I’d left the past behind and made plans for the future. I’d been helping humans, rather than hurting them, and had found peace with my past mistakes.

  Now, I was dying. I had two half-human blood slaves who were dying as well. I was vamp queen of Chicago’s Undead, and a rogue vampire I’d failed to kill wanted to wipe out the city’s entire human population. I was Rad’s sworn enemy and he was duty bound to sink a silver dagger in my heart.

  On top of all of that, a ghost from my past was infecting my friends with mortal sins, driving them crazy. She’d found my Achilles’ heel and was getting revenge for what I’d done to her.

  I should have pulled back, pushed Rad away. If I gave in, he’d want to feed as well as have sex, and I couldn’t afford to lose any more blood. Not until I decided what I was going to do about accepting Dru’s offer. Since my decision affected Rad and Arman, I needed to lay the cards on the table for them too.

  But when I broke away from Rad’s lips, he said, “I need you, Kali,” and the hedonist in me rose to the task of quenching his unquenchable need.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I’m such a sucker. I never should have given into Rad’s desire, never given into my own. My life was already screwed up enough and the timing was wrong on many levels, but I didn’t care. The chance to stop things between us came and went in the blink of an eye. A single beat of my heart. I could no more control the lust pumping through my veins than I could make the sun set in the West.

  So when Rad dragged me down into the chair, positioning me on his lap, I ground my pelvis against the swell of his jeans. When he slid his hands under my turtleneck and tickled my skin with his callused fingers, I raised the hem over my head and shucked the shirt, then unhooked my bra. I wanted his moist mouth and skilled fingers touching me everywhere, and I wanted his skin bared to me as well.

  Selfish and greedy, I ripped off his shirt, sunk my hands into his hair and tugged his mouth to my breasts. As he locked on the first one, teasing it with his tongue and teeth, I took a choppy breath. “No drinking my blood today.”

  He murmured a response against the mound of flesh in his mouth, his rich voice sending a shocking vibration right through to my heart. I shuddered and nearly orgasmed right there on the spot.

  I hated to do it, but I extricated my breast from his mouth. “What did you say?”

  His attention stayed locked on my nipple and one hand pressed at the small of my back, forcing my upper body closer. “Why not?”

  Clamping onto his hair to keep his mouth off my breast, I shifted my hips and rocked back and forth on his lap, the ache between my legs nearly unbearable. I wasn’t thinking straight and I blurted, “Because I’m dying and I can’t afford to lose any more blood today.”

  He froze, those defiant eyes meeting mine, but now they were filled with shock and concern. “What the hell?”

  Oops. Probably should have dropped that bomb later. “It’s no big deal.” The devil take me, I was such a liar, but at that moment, consumed with lust, I couldn’t think straight. “I’ll get it figured out and we’ll all be fine. I promise.”

  “Kali…”

  I shushed him by putting a finger to his lips. “I said I’ll figure it out.” I replaced my finger with my mouth and kissed him hard, wanting to forget everything but the feel of his body against mine.

  Every time he resisted and tried to talk, I launched a new attack. Good thing he was consumed with lust
and snowballing desire, or I’d never gotten him to satisfy me. As it was, he would bring me to the brink of climax, regain control of his lust and back off, trying to get me to cough up the facts about the blood problem. Just when I thought I was going to have to pin him to the floor and shove my panties in his mouth to keep him quiet, his will broke.

  I’d always wanted to be human, to feel what humans felt. Being he was my blood slave, I felt what he felt. His emotions hit me in one magnificent sucking wave after another, pulling me under. Sure I had emotions, but not like these vast, sweeping groundswells of sensation. Excitement, passion, hunger, anger…impressions of a million seeds of consciousness and awareness that had nothing to do with magic. The very essence of being human.

  Naked and sweaty on the floor, papers clung to my damp skin as well as Rad’s, wrapping us in his music. A strong breeze twisted through the room in conjunction with Rad’s emotions, lifting songs from the furniture and keyboard and swirling them like paper versions of dust devils. At one point, Rad snapped his fingers, turning on the makeshift studio’s computer. A song he’d recorded flowed through the speakers, volume rising with the movements of our bodies.

  It was the song he’d started shortly after we’d gotten back together. He still hadn’t finished it but had switched lines around and added another verse. The deep, gritty baritone of his voice filled my head while he finally knelt between my thighs and sunk, hot and enormous, inside me.

  Listen to my music

  Listen to my heart

  Find the good within

  The past no longer ripping us apart

  I finally found my way

  No words of mine can ever say

  How much I miss you

  He pulled back, sunk deeper, trailing kisses down my neck and whispering the words against my skin. A flash fire of heat and desire shot from the apex of my thighs, up my torso and right through my heart.

  After all this time

  After all the wrongs