Dark Embrace (Principatus) Read Free Page A

far into Kings Cross suburbia. She was alone on the street, surrounded by silent houses, sleeping cars and the low drone of hungry mosquitoes.
    And yet…
    The Principatus force within her stirred. Agitated. Alert.
    Wary.
    Inari turned on the spot, scanning the darkness. The back of her neck prickled again, stronger this time. Hotter.
    She narrowed her eyes, not for the first time wondering why the hell God had deigned to create a demon assassin capable of incomparable physical prowess without electing to add hyper-vision.
    “Shit.”
    Her muttered curse fell into the silence. She turned once more, her neck on fire, her gut churning. Someone was watching her, but whoever they were, they were keeping themselves hidden.
    She didn’t like it. Not at all.
    “What are you waiting for?” She held her arms wide, her call bouncing off the houses around her.
    A bird flew out of a nearby tree, the wild beating of its wings making Inari jump. She bit back another curse, shaking her head. Fuck this. If the demon wasn’t going to show its face, she had other things to—
    The fiery prickles on the back of her neck vanished. Just like that.
    Inari frowned, far from relieved. “What the hell?”
    She stood motionless, half-expecting an attack, half-convinced she’d imagined the whole thing. Something felt off. Wrong.
    The night stayed silent around her. Not even the sound of the startled bird returning to its roost destroyed the stillness.
    Inari let out a sharp sigh and stared into the darkness around her one last time. Nothing. With a shake of her head, she turned and ran up the road, back to the bright lights of the sexual capital of Australia. She’d make an anonymous call to the paramedics from a payphone, tell them about the human male bleeding in the gutter, give them his exact location and then find herself an empty seat in one of the Cross’ more reputable bars. It was one a.m. for Pete’s sake. If she wasn’t going to terminate some more demon ass, it was time for a coffee. If she was lucky, some idiot would try to pick her up before the sun rose and refuse to take no for an answer. At least then she could work out what was left of her agitation with a fistfight and go to bed more relaxed. Hopefully. She still needed her beauty sleep, damn it, whether she had the powers of a Principatus or not.
     
    Ezryn Navarr strode through the ballroom, his footfalls echoing in the cavernous space, his stare fixed on the overlord and his new bride seated on a raised dais at the far end of the room. It might be customary for master vampires to pay homage to the visiting overlord within the hour of his arrival, but Ezryn never bothered with tradition—even less with any practice meant to appeal to the self-indulgent egomaniac currently ogling the lush breasts of the woman perched beside him.
    Ezryn curled his lip in a silent sneer. The leader of the vampire race was a disgrace to his kind—wrapped up in his own importance, courting a dangerously disrespectful and violent attitude toward humans, obsessed with the accumulation of wealth and material possessions. The moron threw his considerable weight around without thought of consequence, his only concern the fulfillment of his every whim.
    It pissed Ezryn off. A lot.
    “Ho, friend Ezryn,” the overlord called, raising his hand and waving it a mere inch. His washed-out yellow gaze slid to his wife, and Ezryn’s fangs lengthened with contempt. The royal fool actually believed he could irritate Ezryn with his blatant parading? If that was the case, he was a bigger imbecile than Ezryn suspected.
    Suspected? You’ve known he was an imbecile for almost seven hundred years.
    The overlord flashed a wide smile, his pointed fangs glinting in the muted light from the many candles littering the ballroom. “You do us a great honor with your presence, Master Navarr.”
    Ezryn suppressed the urge to snort, casting the room a disgusted glance. Candles? Dark Ones, what century did the fat fool