Page 33 of Unholy Gambit: Checkmate in Blood (A Paranormal Halloween #5)

“ Etta

When the meeting was over, Marco asked me to follow him to his office. “You’ll need a new identity when we move. Is there a name you’d prefer?”

“Nothing cute.”

He smiled. “I wouldn’t let them give you a cutesie name.”

“I doubt there are many people out there named Maleficent, so that one’s probably out.”

His eyebrows pulled together. I’d concerned him. Again . “You don’t have to be the dreaded one this time, Etta.”

“You just gave me one of your vampires.” I turned to Leesa, who’d crawled on all fours behind me, as ordered, and was kneeling just inside the door.

She was terrified, and for good reason — she’d probably rise once, but it was doubtful she’d manage to rise two evenings unless I took steps to keep her alive.

“We’ve talked about the necessity of properly introducing me to the coterie.

” I told Marco, and met his gaze again. “I knew I’d find someone in need of punishing; their fear always calls to me.

We both know that every vampire in every state of your territory will hear about Leesa in the coming days.

I can’t be just another vampire in your coterie. ”

I can see most vampire’s darkest fears just by looking them in the eye. The weakest, I don’t even need eye contact. The strongest, I need to touch — skin-on-skin.

When Marco blood-bound me, I lost the ability to see his deepest fears, but I knew him before he became powerful. I already knew every one of his fears. It didn’t matter though, because he had enough control to keep from being afraid. He knew the trick — I only have power over those who fear me.

He stepped closer to me and put his hands on my shoulders.

“We’ll figure it out. You are going to be just another vampire in my coterie.

Kendra made friends. You will as well.” He looked at Leesa, started to say something else, but seemed to change his mind.

“The slayer will have heard your reputation. Be prepared for contact. Don’t try to attack him if he shows up in a supposedly secure area. He enjoys doing so.”

“Just shows up?”

He nodded. “Abbott believed he did it as a passive threat, as if making sure supernaturals know the big-bad slayer can get to us when we think we’re safe and secure. I’m told he hasn’t made it into the lower levels of the coterie house, but he’ll be able to come into your office at TBC.”

“Can I see his image?”

He closed his eyes, opened a larger telepathic conduit, and I saw his memories of the man.

As with all slayers, Ryan looked ordinary.

Neither tall nor short, with dirty blond hair one might just as easily call light brown.

I couldn’t pick his eye color up in Marco’s memory, which wasn’t surprising.

I expected they would be brown. Nothing about the slayer would make anyone remember him.

Vampires with my particular gift either go crazy or turn dark.

Marco and I were approaching a thousand years old.

To my knowledge, I’m the oldest known vampire with my talent who isn’t either locked away, enslaved, or in charge of her own territory.

I could be a Master if I wished, but I don’t want that kind of power or responsibility.

And I’ve held the madness off for so long, it’s a habit.

I met Marco’s gaze. “You made me a promise three centuries ago. I’ve held on only because of your vow. I know you’ll do everything you can to uphold it, but if we fail, I release you.”

“We won’t fail, Etta. You are not going to be my Maleficent. Kendra doesn’t have your talents, but she helped Abbott rule his territory with a combination of compassion and fear. We can make this work.”

“Compassion?” I let the word roll around in my brain. I still had compassion for Marco, and for a few others who’d helped me that first century, but it was hard for me to have it with anyone I’d met later.

“An assignment,” he said. “The guard just outside this room is one of the good guys. It’s safe for you to allow him not to fear you. Go talk to him, find his greatest fear, and then try to find a way to make him not as afraid of it. Don’t use it against him, help him with it.”

I turned to look at Leesa, and then looked back to Marco.

He wanted me to make friends while I walked with the vampire slave he’d just gifted me crawling behind me?

I’d likely drink her down and kill her the following day, but if I wanted to turn her into my personal valet, or a sex slave, or a well-behaved pet, or anything else, I could.

“I’ll walk her to your room,” Marco told me. “This is an assignment, Etta. Not a request.”

“I understand. Is he coming to Chattanooga with us?”

Marco nodded. “Yes. Go.”

I walked outside the door, saw the guard, and leaned against the wall across from him. “I’m Etta.”

“I know who you are. I was in there.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t recall your name.”

“I’m called Venom. Any new legal name will incorporate what I am called.”

I smiled. Marco had a plan, after all.

“You’re from Deces’ line?”

“I am.”

“No one feared you in particular. I’d have picked it up.”

“They only fear me if they have reason to.”

“That’s what I hope to accomplish.”

I hadn’t looked him in the eye yet. I didn’t really want to know his greatest fear, but Marco had ordered it, and he’s the Master.

I’d agreed to follow his bidding, so I met Venom’s gaze head-on and looked into his soul.

He didn’t have a single greatest fear, but rather a list. Near the top of that list was the fear of losing the security his place in Marco’s coterie gave him.

He’d been much like me before Marco took him in — tired of being the boogeyman, the Big Bad Vampire who disciplined the naughty vampires.

The junkyard dog. The punisher. The enforcer.

But Marco had brought him into the coterie as a guard. A soldier. He’d brought me in as his enforcer. I wasn’t going to have the luxury of being everyone’s friend.

“I won’t let Marco fail in this new venture,” I told him. “If I have to be feared and hated to support him, so be it. He wants things to be different for me, but I don’t see how they can.”

I sensed a trickle of fear and knew it could easily become a flood.

“Deep breath, Venom. If I scare you too much, you have my permission to bite me and hurt me, but not to kill me. I won’t call foul on a painful bite without lasting harm.

Marco suggested I might find friendship with you, and I believe he’s right.

You were once the vampire everyone feared.

The one who kept the coterie in line for his Master. ”

“I was.”

“I still have to be, but I’m going to try my hardest to make it so people only fear me if they’ve done something wrong.” I didn’t think it was possible, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t try.

“I could never pull that off when I was Exsequor.”

He was using the Latin term for Enforcer . My old Master had used the French term, Sbire, which sounds a bit like spear in English. I’d been his weapon, for sure.

“Marco points out that Kendra manages it.”

“Even now, you mention Kendra’s name and a spark of fear goes through me.”

I knew. I’d felt it, and it made me sad.

Whether he sensed my sadness, or just felt the need to be honest, he told me more.

“A lion I frequently feed from was present when Kirsten tortured someone, and when her friends tried to insist they do it for her, so she wouldn’t have to, she pointed out that Kendra had given her pointers.

My lion, Andreas, later met Kendra and saw her in action, and his blood is flowing through my body. ”

“I’ve heard several people mention Kirsten, usually in relation to Cora.” Cora is the wolf Marco is in love with, and the reason we were moving to Chattanooga.

“I don’t believe Kirsten was completely human when Marco first met her, but she at least smelled human most of the time. Something happened in the lead-up to the Big Battle, and she no longer smells even close to human.”

“What does she smell like?”

“Mother Nature, or some great Goddess of All That Lives. I do not know how to explain it.”

“I look forward to meeting her.”

He gave me a smile, and my heart slowed in my chest. It’d been so long since anyone except an old friend smiled at me, I wasn’t certain what to do.

“Do not try to find her fears, if you meet her,” he told me. “Something tells me she’ll know. She can be damned scary when angry.”

“Thank you for the advice. She’s somehow tied to Cora?” Marco was head-over-heels smitten with the werewolf, and wolves aren’t even the animal he resonates with.

“The story goes that an old god took over the pack, or was fighting the wolves’ Alpha for it and about to take it over.

Kirsten made Cora hers, so the old god couldn’t have her friend.

Her powers were new, at the time. Unknown, untested, uncontrolled.

She didn’t know what she did. Somehow, Cora is her wolf.

I’ve smelled the connection, but I don’t understand it. ”

“Cora is Alpha over tens of thousands of wolves. Does this mean they are truly Kirsten’s wolves?”

“I believe it might, but Cora is the Alpha, and Kirsten acts as the Alpha’s mate, rather than the Alpha. I don’t believe anyone knows for certain who is in charge between them.” He tilted his head. “I invite you to share the bounty of my lion when we rise tomorrow evening.”

He made the offer with formal wording, so I responded in kind. “I would be honored to bond with you in whatever traditional manner you offer.”

“I wouldn’t have made the offer if I thought you wanted to drink his fear.”

“Good.”

“Marco’s blood binding allows some of his coterie to share in his ability to feed from sex. I did not gain his abilities outright, but I notice a slight jump in power when I have sex with a powerful being.”

“I haven’t had sex with anyone powerful since I arrived and gave our Master my oaths.”

“You need to test it, to see if you’re affected. You are friends with him of old, so you know how it works, yes?”