The Wild Side: Urban Fantasy with an Erotic Edge Read Free Page B

and let it out slowly. “I had a lover once. He betrayed me. Heartbroken, I gave myself to the river and the river changed me, tied me to it with the curse of lost love. Still grieving, I sang.”
    Vicki rolled her eyes. “Oh yeah, singing. Very proactive. You should’ve kicked his ass.”
    Lorelei blinked, frowned, and said, “Times change.”
    “Assholes are eternal.”
    She blinked again, then nodded. “True. The sailors who heard my song tried to get to me but the river protected me and took their ships. Took their lives.”
    “I know this story . . .”
    “I can stop if you’re bored.”
    The barrier between them continued to hold against her assault. “Go on.”
    “If you’re sure.” When Vicki growled, Lorelei nodded and continued. “One day, a handsome young man named Fredrick Droege braved the river for my song, for me. He told me he loved me. Why wouldn’t I believe him? He’d risked drowning, risked death to hold me. He owned a shipping company and he convinced me to sing only for him.”
    “To sink the ships of his competition.”
    “So you have heard this story.”
    “Not that unusual,” Vicki snorted. She’d have been a lot more sympathetic had she not been used the night before, had Chris Adams not died. “Let me guess. Fredrick Droege lied about loving you.”
    “He did. And when I tried to leave him, the curse of love betrayed, that had bound me to the river, bound me as firmly to him. When he died, I became just another asset of the company, controlled by his son and then his grandson and now his great-grandson, Albert Droege. I have given them power and power has corrupted them.”
    “Yadda yadda. Same old. But if there’s no company there’s nothing for the curse to tie you to. That’s why you had me destroy the offices.”
    “But it wasn’t enough.” A graceful gesture indicated both the dressing room and the club beyond. “They give me this, an audience for the songs I choose to sing to keep me happy.”
    “Bird in a gilded cage.”
    “It’s concrete.”
    “It’s a metaphor.”
    “Fair enough. The point is, I’m still not free. I need you to deal with the people who run the company. Begin with Albert Droege, work your way through the board of directors, and finish in the mail room if that’s what it takes.”
    “Deal with?” Vicki snorted and folded her arms. “Nice euphemism. I don’t care how corrupt they are, you can’t make me kill for you.”
    “Actually, I can.” She drew the comb through her hair, her smile cruel. “Who was he, Nightwalker? Who did you betray?”
    * * *
    Vicki watched in amazement as Henry exploded out into the light, face and hair a pale blur above the moving shadow of his body. The gunman on the nearest rack got a shot off just as she knocked him into the air. Henry’s howl of pain drowned out the ripe melon sound of the gunman’s head making contact with the concrete floor nine meters down.
    The smell of Henry’s blood rose to obliterate the singed sulfur smell of the gunpowder, the hot metal smell of the spent casings, and the warm meaty smell of the men below. Henry’s blood. The blood that had made her.
    The Hunger ripped aside all controls.
    When they were all dead, when the screaming and the running was over, when she stood with Henry in the midst of broken bodies, she drew in a deep breath of the rich, meaty, blood-scented air and laid her palm flat against his chest. Leaning forward, she licked a bit of blood from the corner of his mouth.
    Henry caught her tongue between his teeth, carefully so as not to break the skin.
    She moaned against his mouth, pushed a body aside with the edge of her foot, and dragged him to the ground. They managed to get most of their clothing out of the way without destroying it and then it was flesh against flesh and a strength that could answer hers. No need to hold back. No need to be careful.
    So Vicki let the Hunger have its head again.
    She dragged his mouth back down to hers as she