A Cat's Chance in Hell (30 page)

“
What?” Julius bit out impatiently, although the reality was gradually sinking in. “Gabrielle is up there breaking things by herself?”

Gregory held his breath as he squeaked out the words, “Yes, Sire.”

“
Damn,” exclaimed Kyle, now finished his personal pat down. “I forgot my phone at home, and I haven’t called her since this morning. I knew she’d be pissed at being left behind, but that,” he paused, his eyes going to the ceiling as something large hit the floor with a loud thud, “sounds extreme, even for her.” He made a start up the stairs but Julius grabbed his arm stopping him.

“
It’s my office she’s trashing, I’ll deal with it,” he said, a little grimly.

When Kyle started to protest Julius cut him off. “If she hurt you in a temper she’d feel horrible afterwards, I’m almost indestructible.” He glanced Alexander’s way. “I’ll call you if I need you,” he told him, dismissing the others with a wave and running up the stairs.

He slowed as he approached the doorway to his office. The door stood ajar and in the sudden silence he could hear her heart beating rapidly, her breathing rough with exertion, he could taste her anger in the air. He could also smell the faint trace of her blood; she had obviously hurt herself. He felt a moment of utter exasperation with her. He stalked silently through the doorway and stopped, taking in the scene with wide-eyed amazement.

She hadn’t noticed his entrance; she was too busy trying to find something unbroken in the mess, her temper not yet satisfied with the degree of devastation in the room. He was suddenly quite pleased that he’d resisted to the urge to put some of his more ancient pieces of art in his office. Nonetheless, there were still a few pieces in here that were irreplaceable, if not terribly valuable. The destruction was virtually complete. It was on a level with a small hurricane having started up in the centre of the room – nothing had been spared. Yet, despite his shock at the state of his private space, he still couldn’t help admiring the destructive force that was Gabrielle Bradford.

She was dressed in snug-fitting demin jeans, a tiny, midriff-showing halter-neck, black knee-length boots and Nex’s sheath. Though her back was mostly to him he could see a clean slice running across her right cheek bone, a trickle of blood running down to her jaw line. Nex was clutched securely in her right hand and her knuckles were cut and bleeding. Her hair was loose and as wild as her temper. If he hadn’t believed what she’d told him about her abilities being Vampire, there was no doubt in his mind now. Right now she was far more Vampire than human.

He realised in an intuitive flash that she was experiencing what Vampires referred to as Red Rage. A condition common in young Vampires; a state of uncontrollable fury, usually ignited by severe anger, but sometimes needing no more than a spark of annoyance or irritation. It often happened if a youngster hadn’t been feeding well enough. The only remedy was to restrain the Vampire until they calmed down and regained control.

He confidently decided that if she had this much Vampire blood in her veins, his power over Vampires would work on her too. If he could subdue her with mind control, there was far less chance of either of them getting hurt. He took another silent step into the ruined office and threw his power out towards her without warning, wrapping it around her and commanding her to stillness. As his power touched her, she spun around to face him, blood red eyes blazing in fury, confirming his assumption. It was called the Red Rage for a reason. She stood unnaturally still for a heartbeat as his power wove around her, cocooning and binding.

He moved cautiously into the centre of the room, carefully picking his way over a piece of his office chair and around an up-ended desk drawer without taking his eyes from her. Glass suddenly crunched under his boot and in the same instant Gabi’s eyes narrowed. Julius reacted only just fast enough to catch hold of her wrist as Nex streaked towards his heart. Not only had she broken his mental hold on her, she had moved every bit as fast as a Vampire and caught him completely off guard. She grunted with the effort of trying to wrench her wrist from his grasp. He was thankful that she didn’t have the full strength of a Vampire, but at the same time was very aware of the fact that she didn’t heal like a Vampire. He didn’t want to hurt her, though he knew he’d already bruised her wrists badly, and heaven only knew what extra damage she was doing to her existing injuries. She wouldn’t feel it in her current state, but once she came down from the Rage, she’d be in pain.

She swiftly changed tactics. Shrieking, she twisted around, spinning into him, throwing her legs at his, trying to bring him down and break his hold at the same time. Julius kept his grip, falling as she intended but grabbing her with his right arm, keeping Nex under control with his left and taking her down to the glass strewn floor with him, trying to keep her body on top of his, away from the shattered pieces of glass and crystal he could feel slicing into his own back. With a small portion of his mind Julius could sense the other Vampires coming up the stairs, and he sent out a sharp mental command for them to stop, making sure one of them kept Kyle back as well. He found himself unusually grateful for his ability to think of numerous things at the same time, as he tried to keep Nex from his heart, Gabi from pulling free, and look for a spot on the floor without too much broken glass all at the same time. She attempted a head-butt to his nose and a knee to his groin at the same time, and he found himself hard pushed to keep his grip on her without hurting her further. The gash across her cheek was oozing blood, and the distraction of the scent wasn’t helping his concentration.

He finally spotted an area of the room that was relatively free of glass shards and let her go for an instant. She took the opening and quickly leapt back from him. He was ready and leapt after her, tackling her and throwing her down on a Persian rug. He grabbed for her wrists again, hissing as Nex caught his lower left arm and sliced him open from elbow to wrist. The wound didn’t slow or hinder him though, as he forced both her wrists above her head and covered her slight body with his own, pinning her down. With her immobilised underneath him, he quickly found the ulnar
nerve in her right wrist and pressed until her fingers slowly and unwilling released their grip on the sword. As Nex fell from her grasp, Gabi growled and hissed in frustration, throwing all her strength into heaving Julius off her body.

In the moment of abrupt clarity, she could suddenly see that it was a Vampire on top of her. His fangs were more fully extended than she had ever seen before; his face was a mask of strain, the muscles along his jaw writhing like angry snakes. The red mist hazing her mind began to dissipate, and she found herself wondering what the hell was going on. She knew she was angry, she knew she wanted to cause harm; to rip, to tear, to break, but she had no idea why.

“
Gabrielle,” a deep, masculine voice called to her, it sounded strangely stressed. She wondered fleetingly why that struck her as odd. The voice continued, it was trying to be soothing, but she was in no mood to be soothed.

“
Gabrielle, I know you’re angry, but I need you to try and be calm for a few moments. No one wants to harm you,” the reasonable tone of the voice was grating on her nerves, “if you take a few deep breaths the mist will lift from your mind, and you’ll start to feel more yourself.”

She tried once more to heave the Vampire off of herself, but even as she tried, she could feel the darkness evaporating and the rage begin to drain from her. As her other senses returned to her, she could smell blood, her own as well as another’s. She had never thought that blood smelt like anything but blood before, of course, she could distinguish between human and animal blood, but this blood had an entirely different accent to it. It smelled…enticing. Somehow delicious. She found her mouth aching with the need to taste it.

“
Ugh!” she moaned in disgust as her conscious mind processed that idea. She shook her head slightly, trying to clear the last of the fog. What was it with her and foggy vision lately?

“
Julius?” she asked cautiously, blinking as she focused on his tense face hovering above her.

Julius released a relieved sigh and loosened his grip on her wrists a little, his body softening slightly from the rigid cage it had formed over her.

She was suddenly extremely aware of the muscled length of his body nestled demandingly into the relative softness of hers.

“
Gabrielle,” he replied, looking down at her with a familiar tilt to his eyebrow.

“
What are you doing on top of me, why are you bleeding and why are your fangs so long?” she asked in a droll, husky voice.

The tension seemed to drain from his face in an instant, and he lifted some of his body weight from her, allowing her to move under him, though not removing himself from his disturbing position over the length of her body.

“
My fangs are at full length, because you’re bleeding.” He said this as though it explained the situation completely and in his mind it probably did, but Gabi was simply more perplexed. “I am bleeding because you sliced my arm open with Nex while I was attempting to subdue you, and I am on top of you because that was the only way I could think of to subdue you without hurting you.”

Gabi pulled her wrists free and brought them up to push at his chest, trying to move him further away, he winced slightly seeing the vicious red marks his fingers had imprinted on them. She stopped wriggling, looking bemusedly at her wrists and bleeding knuckles. As the haze continued to clear from her mind, a sharp ache began to pulse through her collarbone, and she stifled a groan.

“
I’m even more confused now,” she complained, starting to sound annoyed again. “What are you talking about ‘subdue me’?”

“
You probably want to try and stay calm right now. If you start getting angry again, I’ll be forced to ‘subdue’ you for even longer. Not that I’d mind,” he said with a devilish smirk on his diabolically handsome face.

The innuendo in his velvet voice sent a blazing hot zing roaring through her body, her nipples tightened in response and a breath caught in her throat. His head suddenly dipped with the swiftness of a striking snake, and he ran his tongue across the cut on her face, lapping up the trail of blood as he went. A shiver ran right through him as he closed his eyes and savoured the taste.

“
You taste absolutely delectable,” he purred in a rough voice.

She went dead still under him; he could taste her lust turn to uncertainty.

“
Don’t worry I won’t eat you,” he said dryly. “Not unless you want me to.” He left the sentence hanging, his expression turned to sinful, hopeful expectation.

She snorted; annoyance replacing the anxiety.

“
You idea of bondage sex is a bit too full on for my liking,’ she responded, showing him her bruised wrists.

“
I apologize for that,” he said, instantly remorseful. “If I could have been more gentle I would have, but you were trying to kill me at the time,” he pointed out, lifting his arm to show her the already healing cut, revealed through the tatters of his shirt sleeve.

In that moment her conscious mind was once again shoved into the back recesses of her brain. The sight and scent of Julius’s blood, still seeping from the deep gash, drew her like a moth to moonlight. She lifted her head and caught several of the blood drops on her tongue as they slid down his arm. She distantly heard him draw in a quick, surprised breath. The taste spread across her tongue, burning like a trickle of neat whiskey, warm and sharp like a strong red wine. She wanted more; she could feel an uncomfortable ache in her mouth, as though her canines were trying to push further out of her gums. She gasped as another drop landed on her lip and sucked it in greedily. Gabi opened her eyes to find him holding his arm near her mouth; she felt drugged, without a will of her own, but couldn’t bring herself to care.

“
Run your tongue over the wound, Gabrielle, it will help to stop the bleeding.” Julius breathed, his voice rough and unsteady, strangely accented by his extended fangs.

She found herself complying as though compelled, but not feeling any power flowing from him. She wondered, in a small, back corner of her mind, where the compulsion was coming from. As she licked the length of the angry wound, removing all traces of remaining blood, she realised that the cut was no longer oozing blood, she ran her tongue over it again, feeling almost disappointed that it was closing in front of her eyes.

“
Thank you,” he said in a deeply sensual voice, “now let me heal yours.” He bent his head to her cheek where the cut was still seeping blood.

She willingly turned her head for him. She gasped as his tongue gently lapped at the gash, carefully layering saliva over the area. The intense, burning pain of the wound immediately lessened into a warm, dull throb, and she sighed in relief. Even the escalating pain in her shoulder and ribs was subsiding, as though she had just been given a shot of morphine.

Next, he slowly, languorously brought her hands up to his mouth one at a time and cleaned the blood from her knuckles and a few smaller slices on the backs of her hands. When he raised his face to look at her again, his irises had bled to deep midnight blue, and his breathing was hoarse. She could feel his body hardening where it still lay close against hers, her body tightened in response, a blazing need igniting deep in her core.

It was evidence of their total distraction that neither of them heard or sensed the Vampires in the doorway until someone cleared their throat. They both froze instantly.