A Wicked Desire (Creatures of Darkness 3) Read online

  A Wicked Desire

  by

  Kiersten Fay

  Published by:

  Kiersten Fay

  Copyright Kiersten Fay 2016

  Smashwords Edition

  All rights reserved.

  www.kierstenfay.com

  This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, and events portrayed in this novel are products of the author’s imagination.

  License Notes:

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only, and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, recommend them to Kiersten Fay’s website above, where they can purchase a copy.

  Thank you for respecting the author’s hard work,

  and please enjoy.

  Table of contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Note To The Reader

  Other Books By Kiersten Fay

  About The Author

  The terrifying thing about the supernatural world isn’t learning that it’s not some tall tale filled with fairies and unicorns and little gnomes that fix shoes. It’s a world of harsh realities, of darkness and danger, blood and pain, sorrow and suffering. It’s carnal. It’s seductive. It’s consuming. And it’s inescapable.

  The terrifying thing about the supernatural world is discovering that you’re part of it.

  ~Coraline Conwell

  “I take what I want, when I want, and fuck all the rest.”

  ~Knox

  Chapter 1

  In the warm confines of her bedroom, Coraline peered through the divided panes of her second-story window. She wrapped her arms around herself as though the chill from the storm outside was somehow invading her personal space. It was merely a light falling of puffy white powder, but it held all the menace of a raging blizzard.

  She sighed.

  It seemed the snow had followed her west from the forbidding mountains where she and Bray had escaped the cruel doctor, who’d considered them little more than animals in his ghastly experiments. Though she knew he was dead, his cold, detached smile, the dim light gleaming off his round spectacles as he stalked closer still haunted her dreams.

  She glanced at her wearied reflection in the window. Her full lips were pressed into a frown, making them look thinner than normal. Blonde locks framed a face that was marred by two dark patches just below her eyes. Under heavy lids, her irises, normally a vibrant mahogany, were a bit dull today.

  Yet another night of restless sleep.

  Some time around three in the morning, she’d torn out of bed on a shriek, struck with the horrific sensation of being held down, immobilized, while the doctor had sliced deep into her chest cavity. Alone in the dark, it had taken several minutes to rein in the wild beat of her heart and to realize she was safe and back at the cottage.

  Had Bray been with her, he would have enveloped her in his warm embrace, soothing and distracting her with searing kisses till she purred with contentment.

  Goddess, how she missed him.

  He, Trent, and Oz had left the cottage three days ago, heading back to St. Stamsworth, where Bray would begin a much-needed regimen of inoculations against the sun’s harmful rays. Vampires had done a wonderful job of leading people to believe it was a myth that they could not stand the sun, when it could, in fact, kill them. Not instantly, as far as she knew—at least not the older ones. She had witnessed the terrible phenomenon firsthand.

  She still got anxious when she recalled how close Bray had come to dying that day. There was no unmitigated fear like the knowledge that you were about to lose someone who has become integral to your existence, unable to save them.

  But she had saved him.

  She still couldn’t fathom how. Magic? Was it the bond? There hadn’t been a whole lot of time to contemplate it then. Not as they’d raced across those snow-covered plains for their lives.

  Now, seemingly with all the time in the world, she didn’t want to think about it, dreading what it meant.

  She was changing.

  Morphing into some abstract, incomprehensible being, a version of herself she couldn’t quite get a grasp on. She was like a stranger in her own body, a body that could do things to boggle the mind. A body that needed…

  To stave off some of her worry, she tried to think of her transformation as a kind of evolution, but in reality, she feared she was degenerating into something a little more savage. A little more carnal. Motivated by nothing more than basic instinct.

  And yet, she was more herself now than ever. Yes, she felt different. Confused. Uneasy. But she was also stronger. More energetic. Especially after vigorous bouts of sex—because I’m a freaking succubus!

  To be fair, she was only half succubus. The other half was from some kind of ancient witch line, apparently. She’d only found this out a few months ago when her husband, Winston, had been murdered.

  That was when her life flipped sideways.

  She tried to recall when this transformation had started. Had it been when she’d met Mace? From the start, there had been a strong sexual attraction between them, even though she’d been terrified of him in the beginning. Or perhaps it was triggered when Saraphine had released the binding spell that had kept her magic buried all her life. Or had it begun sooner? With Winston? She had certainly been desperate for his attention there in the end, dressing up in that sexy costume, preparing to surprise him in that hotel room—so much blood.

  She shook herself out of that memory.

  It didn’t matter when her transformation had begun. The fact was that it had started. It was happening now. She would figure out how to deal with any repercussions that might arise. One more obstacle in her arduous life. She’d been through so much already. Altering one’s own essential nature should be a cinch.

  Yeah, right.

  She could tell herself all she wanted that she’d get through this, but all bravado aside, she felt ready to shatter. More so in Bray’s absence. Her heart longed for his return.

  Much of her captivity had been a blur, singed by terrible moments of perfect clarity. The things she’d had to do. Warm blood cooling on my fingers.

  Through it, Bray had been her rock. He alone had kept her from breaking under the mad doctor’s torturous care and then through their harrowing escape. Without him near, she felt off-kilter. As if a crucial part of her was missing, like an arm or a leg cut off at the joint.

  She had to remind herself that he wasn’t going to be gone forever. He’d be back in a few weeks. He had to be. They were bonded. That meant only her blood would sustain him. Without her, he would become
malnourished and weaken, possibly even die.

  She shivered.

  It wouldn’t come to that.

  He’d assured her he would call in a couple days. She’d commandeered Mace’s phone. That would ease some of her riotous fretfulness, but three days had passed already, and not a single ring. Almost obsessively she checked the battery’s charge, tested and retested the volume. Everything was in working order.

  He was busy, of course, due to his unscheduled five-year stint away from his clan and his job at the VEA (Vampire Enforcement Agency), an organization of vamp law enforcers. Very top-of-the-food-chain.

  At one time, her greatest fear had been being claimed by one of the various vampire clans as one of their human servants for the purposes of food, or more nefarious appetites. Being bonded to Mace, Knox, and now Bray, she supposed she was now tied to one of the most powerful vampire organizations in existence. Whether that was good or bad, she was undecided.

  Though Mason and Bray proved to be more civilized than some of their brethren, Knox was a wild card. Like him, the whole of the vampire nation was ruthless and heartless when it came to the rest of humanity, often treating them like second-class citizens. Like walking blood bags. In some cases, kept like animals in pens, and treated no better. Although, the VEA was meant to prevent such cruelty.

  She leaned her forehead against the cool window. Down below, she spotted a stray flower jutting from the snow that was working hard to cover everything, a discordant blotch of pink against fluffy white powder. It was as if the flower had been caught unaware by the encroaching winter and refused to bow down to the changing of the season.

  Positive or negative, change was the only constant in life. You either accept it or fight against it tooth and claw. That flower was a fighter.

  Stupid, stubborn thing. Soon it would be dead.

  The door to her room creaked open.

  “How is he?” she asked, not bothering to turn around and face Saraphine—their prisoner of sorts, though Cora hated to think of her that way. Especially since the other witch was being blessedly cooperative.

  “He’s breathing normally again,” Saraphine replied.

  A muted sigh trotted out of her lungs. “Good. Thank you.”

  Mace had taken a turn for the worse. The curse was working fast, eating away at him as if from the inside out. Saraphine was doing her best to halt the progression, and Ms. Windshaw’s protection spell flared brightly around his neck. How long would it hold? The once-blue glyphs were now bright orange. She had to assume that was a bad sign.

  If Bray was her rock, Mace was her heart, broken with regret.

  Not only was he dying from a hex placed on him by the witch/wraith, Sadira, she herself had inadvertently freed, but upon her return, he’d learned of her blood bond with Bray.

  She wasn’t sure exactly what Bray had told him on the matter, but Mace had wanted little to do with her afterward.

  She glanced over her shoulder at Saraphine, still standing by the door. Heavy black boots flared around her calves and had a swatch of steel on the toe that added a bit of hardness to her skintight red pants and black halter with a heart-shaped cutout in the front. Straight black hair hung past her shoulders, ending just shy of her thin waist. Along with the talisman that protected her from being possessed by Sadira, who still haunted the cottage, Saraphine wore several other necklaces of various lengths. The chains were pulled taut by heavy pendants, crosses, skulls, and crystals.

  Mace’s salvation rested in the hands of a seventeen-year-old.

  Eighteen next week, Saraphine had reminded her when she’d teased her about her age.

  Young or not, she appeared just as tired a Cora felt. The consequence of combating Mace’s curse? Or from the constant use of magic to keep up her shield? Cora could barely see the outline of it, just around her shoulders, like that thin film around a soap bubble, though there was no glossy shine. It was meant to protect her from Knox—the two were locked in a conflict that Cora couldn’t manage to mediate. Saraphine thought Knox had murdered her Grandmother; Knox denied it. Saraphine wanted him dead; he’d made it clear he would not allow that to happen, and had no qualms about killing Saraphine if he had to.

  They were at an impasse.

  If Bray was her rock and Mace was her heart, what did that make Knox?

  Her aggravation?

  Furtively, Saraphine glanced down the hall before entering the room and closing the door behind her.

  “When do you want to do another session?” she whispered. Sara had been teaching Cora to invade someone’s mind while they were completely unaware, or better yet, unconscious—Knox liked to slumber on the couch in the living room, often while watching kung-fu movies and, on occasion, porn.

  Though Saraphine was convinced of his guilt, Cora wasn’t so sure, but he wasn’t exactly the portrait of honesty. If he were asleep, it would be the perfect time to get the solid truth from him without him even knowing.

  “Have you seen him around?” Cora asked. He hadn’t had his daily fix yet, and she expected him to come looking for any minute. She didn’t want him catching her practicing magic at all. Let alone suspecting what they were up to. That meant training with Saraphine in secret.

  “I haven’t seen him all day. Not that I’d go looking,” Saraphine replied.

  Cora opened herself up to the bond, searching for a hint of his presence. But as usual, he kept her blocked. He could be anywhere.

  “We should put a bell on him,” Saraphine declared sourly.

  She must have experienced his propensity for stealth. He had a way of sneaking up on people, as if he always plotted the perfect route for taking one by surprise. It was disconcerting.

  Cora glanced back out the window. A tiny gray ball of fur bounced from one snowdrift to another—Meeka, her familiar. She was in her kitten form right now, enjoying the start of winter. Lately, she preferred to be outside and was generally free to roam as she wished. In her larger, lionesque form, she was like something from the age of dinosaurs: long canines, lean muscle, and a growl that even set Knox on edge.

  As well it should.

  Were he to get out of control, Meeka was the only thing Cora knew of that could subdue him, aside from Trent, his sire. And maybe Bray.

  Meeka glanced up in her direction as if she could sense her master’s gaze, though Cora knew it was impossible for the little darling to see her. The entire upper floor, consisting of four large bedrooms divided in half by a hallway, was completely invisible to onlookers. According to Mace, Trent had commissioned the cottage to be bespelled during the start of the human uprisings, just after vampires had revealed themselves to the public at large.

  Aside from the concealed upper level of the cottage, there was a mystical barrier half an acre in circumference that somehow kept unwanted guests away—and recently she discovered it also kept Sadira inside, trapped in her ghostly form. Cora still wasn’t sure how it worked, but it was clear where the demarcation lay. Within the circle, the foliage seemed to have grown slower than the surrounding forest, which looked to be more than a hundred years old with ancient trees just shy of touching the clouds.

  Then there was the hidden underground compound, large enough to house hundreds, maybe even thousands of people if needed.

  Apparently, those had been dangerous times. Hell, these were dangerous times.

  “I should find Knox before we start,” Cora told Saraphine. “Make sure he’s…fed. I don’t want him discovering us.”

  Saraphine nodded and flopped onto the bed. “I’ll be here.”

  Cora slipped into the hallway and headed toward the stairs. She paused to peek into Mace’s room, adjacent to hers. To anyone who didn’t know better, he looked as though he slumbered peacefully, face up on the bed.

  But Cora did know better.

  His brow was bunched just a little too tightly, his jaw a little too clenched. She honestly couldn’t tell what was happening to him or how much pain he was in. She only knew that it broke her h
eart to watch him cringe in his sleep and clutch his chest whenever Ms. Windshaw’s protection spell flared brightly around his neck. How long would it hold?

  Unable to stop herself, she padded to his side and gazed down at his beautiful face. He had a well-defined jaw with a handsome curve leading to his thick neck. Though his eyes were closed, she knew them to be an engrossing gray-blue, and could be alternatively fierce or tender or, as she recently discovered, hurt. She wished she hadn’t seen that particular characteristic. Moreover, she wished she hadn’t been the cause.

  She hated that she’d hurt him, but Mace was not entirely without sin. By willfully keeping critical information from her, he had betrayed her too. He never flat-out lied to her, per se, but if evasion was a branch of martial arts, Mace was a black belt.

  He’d omitted so much: first and foremost that she was a witch. And after he’d revealed that little tidbit, he’d failed to mention she was also a succubus.

  Yet Mace had known the whole time and said nothing!

  Her resentment quickly dimmed.

  She ran her fingertips along the dark stubble at his jaw, then over his slightly parted lips, finding them as soft as she remembered.

  He’d concealed other things from her as well, things that he would have to answer for, but right now she just wanted him better.

  Without thinking, she leaned down and laid a gentle kiss on his upper lip, lingering just a little longer than she should.

  If he didn’t come out of it soon, she would have to force his fangs to break the skin at her wrist so she could get some of her strengthening blood into his system. Every time she did this, it seemed harder and harder to get him to swallow, as though the pain were too great.

  It’s all my fault.

  When she stepped away, she wiped her watery eyes with the back of her hand, returned to the hallway, and headed downstairs.

  The living room was the largest area in the cottage—above ground—with wood flooring and exposed stone walls. She passed a bookshelf that housed several old—and some not so old—books. Many of them were nonfiction: textbooks, biographies, popular history. Literature that might be found on some intellectual’s must-read list. Several were so old the titles had worn away.