Kiss Me Deadly Read Free Page A

The longtooth would be ash in no time.

Chapter 3
    S tupid, brave little witch. Standing there with fists raised and defiance shining about her like diamonds dipped in oil. He’d waited a long time for this moment. The road back from ash and bone had been difficult, if not impossible at times. And it was all because of Ravin Crosse, vigilante vampire hunter.
    Nikolaus crossed the kitchen floor in three strides. Fitting his hand up under her chin, he slammed her against the refrigerator. The room reeked of herbs and smoke and a spiced sweetness. Witch smells. No doubt she’d been brewing a wicked spell.
    He lifted her petite frame with ease, crushing his fingers about her windpipe. And yet, she struggled. She was feisty. Her bare feet hit every part of his thighs and even glanced across his groin.
    He felt nothing, so long as he kept his eyes burned onto hers. Brown, they were, like mud. She slashed at his chest and arms with fingernails that would have drawn blood had he been wearing anything but leather.
    And then she spat on him, hitting him directly on the cheek.
    She stopped struggling then. Nikolaus supported her fey weight completely. Wide, enraged eyes took in his reaction.
    Or rather, his nonreaction.
    “That’s right, witch.” With his free hand, he swiped away the spittle and showed his fingers to her. The blood sat upon his flesh as if nothing more than mud kicked up in a fight. “Your blood is like water to me now.”
    The risk had been worth it. He’d not doubted for a moment her blood could have harmed him further than it already had.
    “Impossible,” she croaked. “You’re a vamp! Who—who are you?”
    Moving his hand from her throat and slamming his other palm against her shoulder, he held her pinned. As he lunged into her, her foul witch smell laced with herbs and a piquant citrus scurried up his nostrils and into his sinuses. The essence of witch disgusted him. He should be done with her right now.
    But he’d waited for this moment too long. Not once had he rushed anything important. He would make his suffering mean something for the entire tribe.
    “My name,” he said, “is Nikolaus Drake. I am lord of tribe Kila.”
    “Oh, yeah? Last I checked, Truvin Stone was leading those infidels,” she said.
    “Stone merely fills in while I have been away.”
    “Yeah? Nikolaus Drake is dead.”
    The nerve of her. And he stood right before her!
    She clutched his forearms with both hands, but he did not relent his grip. “I killed Drake, I know it. A stinking vamp!” Again she spat, landing on his chin. “You smell like one. You look like one. But—”
    “But your damned poisonous blood has no power over me now.”
    Twice now she’d spat upon him. Any other vampire would have been a sizzling pile of ash right now. Nikolaus knew the feeling. Too well.
    “You don’t remember me, witch?”
    He slammed her hard to get her to stop struggling. Dark liquid spattered her forehead, nose and cheeks. Blood leaked from the corner of her mouth. The sight tempted him. Gabriel’s reminder that he should take some of her magic distracted him momentarily.
    “Two months ago you attacked tribe Kila. Why? Without provocation? That night, I became another notch on your gun. Well, erase that notch. I didn’t die.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “I am a phoenix.” To recite the word filled him with pride. Any vampire who survived the death cocktail was termed a phoenix, for the vampire literally did rise from char and ash to struggle back to life.
    “Bloody hell,” she marveled. “No, it’s impossible to—You’re a phoenix? But that means you would have had to—”
    “Kill me once,” he growled. “Never again.”
    Wheezing as he drew in a breath, he ignored the ache in his lung and dug his fingers into her shoulders. The blue T-shirt she wore stretched under the pressure. Slamming his hips against her torso, Nikolaus pinned her effectively.
    A mist of something rained down from above the fridge,