15. Frostbite & Fuckboys… A Crash-Course in Vampire Handling

Her darkness wreathed around her and slithered ahead as she stormed toward her suite.

The taste of ash still clung to her tongue. Jaw rippling, claws primed to slice, heart beating out of her chest. His scent stained the hall. Her shadows lapped it up despite her glaring. She didn't bother with a key.

The door gave way to her boot and exploded inward. Shrapnel peppered the suite as she stalked in.

Bergamot and blood hung thick—Ashton's scent.

Hers lay under his. He was a thief, a liar, false poet. Her coat flared behind her as she followed the stench of citrus to the lounge room. Her serpentine tendrils patched the door behind her, sealing them in as she stared at the sight before her.

Shirtless, he lay sprawled across the chaise, reading a hunter's dossier he must have stolen from the church. A half-smoked cigarette dangling from his free hand.

And a machine with a glowing screen hummed on her coffee table. He'd wrapped a bandage around his wrist. Her mouth twisted, hands fisting.

She hadn't injured his wrist, her mind spun, trying to figure out what his game was. Was the smoking a new habit or another thing he'd hidden? It didn't matter.

He'd pay for every mark he'd left on her life.

Ashton did not look up as she bypassed him and strode for the mini-bar. Her hand shook as she poured whisky into a tall glass, downing it in one go.

The burn as it sank into her hollow stomach eased some of the agony of her failed feed. The smut lingered. Her heart kicked against her sternum, thoughts a raging fire.

Every part of her vibrated with the impulse to tear, maim, and burn. Her least favorite parasite cut through her droning mind.

"If you missed me, all you had to do was call," he drawled, voice syrup-slow and smug as the Devil. "Damaging property and getting kicked out won't help."

The crystal shattered in her grasp as she turned in a slow circle. Her gaze honed in on him, blood dripping on and melting the broken glass.

He just smiled, brow cocked, silvered scars glimmering under the lights as it grew darker outside. No fear existed in the bastard, only hubris.

She didn't hesitate. She crossed the room in a blur. Heart steady again, but an inferno raced through her veins. Liora grabbed him by the cold neck and hauled him up.

Shadows lashed the dossier to the wall as she pinned the vampire against it. Her claws sinking into his throat. His head thudded twice as fractures spread like a creeping halo up the drywall. His smirk deepened.

An animalistic snarl escaped her bared teeth at the sight of it, muscles straining to flee or fight.

"I own this place," she hissed. "You think this is a game? Thanks to you, hunters are swarming like locusts. Thanks to you, I'm seen as your fucking keeper. I don't keep vermin."

Ashton hummed, low and resonant, the sound shuddering through her grip. It seemed to burrow into her bones. Her knee slid between his thighs, pressing hard in warning.

Her lips pulled back, as she scowled up at him. His scent intensified. Snow dusted pine and ripe pomegranates, melding with the bergamot and burnt laurels.

He sniffed the air, quicksilver eyes recording her harried form as his chuckle raised the hair on her nape.

"Is that why you're shaking? Or is the truth too hard to accept?" He leaned into her claws, blood trickling down his neck. She grit her jaw against its lure. "You tried to feed, didn't you? Drank some poor bastard dry... and puked him right back up. Shame. I warned you."

Her grip faltered. Shadows more akin to scolded dogs than weapons as they refrained from shredding him. Of course.

Of course, he smelled it on her. The acerbic tang of failed consumption was a shameful, wretched thing for demon her age. Her body flushed with roasting heat, cheeks burning behind her glamor, and a scream crawled up her throat.

His voice was soft, lethal, almost intimate and she hated that something inside her recognized it. Shoved the feeling down, down, down until she couldn't find it.

"You should've come to me. My blood's the only thing that'll stay down now."

Her heart raced faster, battering its way through her ribs, heat spreading behind her cheekbones as she resisted the urge to wail. She hadn't known this could happen. She'd thought her blood would either save him or kill him.

It should've killed him, why it hadn't, why it had led to this now... she didn't know. Damn him. She twisted her talons deeper, pulling him down, face an inch from his.

"Your blood is poison."

He chuckled, a cool breath ghosting her lips, making her eye twitch. "Well, it sucks for you that my poison is the only cure for what you've got. Admit it. You need me." She huffed, but he was undeterred. "You turned me into your only food source. I'm the madness you now crave."

She gave a caustic laugh that sounded closer to metal plates crashing together. She squeezed his neck, rattling his head off the wall again.

He just grinned as her shadows swirled up his legs, moving faster than they had when she drained the hunter. Blood pounded in her ears. Vision clouding with smoke, breathing labored, as strength and adrenaline pulsed through her muscles."I want you dead," Liora said, her voice breaking and rising in pitch.

His hand closed around her wrist, waves of cold seeping out of his palm and under her flesh as her succubus purred at the contact.

"Same thing, Sweetheart. You need me. So I can make you feel like this."

He surged forward, fangs grazing her wild pulse, heightening it even more. Her retort died in her throat, venom dripping into her mouth. Disgusting and wrong, he didn't deserve it. Her magic still tried to drag him closer.

Ashton spoke against her skin, teeth not breaking it, but she hated it, too. She hated how his voice wound around her ribs like opium laced smoke. Hated how it made her demon perk up and echo him.

"Still want to kill me? Or do you want me to ruin you harder?"

The lustful, centuries-starved beast in her screamed in affirmation. Her darkness torn between obliterating him on her command and devouring him whole on their own. Traitors—all of them.

She'd punish them all.

"I want you to tell me what you stole from them. Tell me or I'll peel it out of you with my claws."

Her hand throttled, but Ash relished it. He pushed harder into her grip, more blood streaming down his neck. He'd known this was coming. Had sensed her fury before she arrived like a ball of flame scorching his dead heart.

He didn't answer her demand. He had one of his own. He let his muscles loosen, tongue tracing the shape of his fangs, as her heat poured into him.

"You're not the only one who uses aliases, Red. What's your surname? Bet it's as sharp as your claws."

Liora growled, the words frayed at the edges as she said, "Why? Planning to steal that too?"

He chuckled, managing a shrug as his hips jerked into hers with the tightening of her hand around his neck. He'd have to get that under control."Call it professional curiosity. Tell me, and I'll trade you a hint. A real one."

She sneered, but her shadows constricted reflexively on his wrists. Some had curled around his ankles like house cats. Her eyes fragmented with bruised violet starlight as he listened to the fervent sound of her blood shooting through her veins.

"You've taken quite enough from me. You'll get nothing more."

He wasn't that easily discouraged. He'd thought she'd learned that by now. An exaggerated sigh left him, eyes rolling before he winked and grinned at her.

"Are you like Beyoncé or Madonna? You don't have or need one? Come on, demon. It's just a name."

Curiosity killed the cat, but it seemed he had over nine lives these days.

May as well test it, he mused.

She frowned as she mulled over the risks of telling him, fingers flexing against his throat, thigh trembling between his legs. Her claws buried deep, sending a shimmer of sparkling nerves down his torso.

He stifled a pleased groan, cock hard and pressing against his trousers. Heat eroding his control as his entire body wanted to fall into it.

"I don't know who or what you're talking about. Of course I have one."

She winced, mouth snapping shut, eyes staring at nothing. Ash barked a laugh.

She didn't know who Beyoncé was? Not even Madonna?

Weird, but oddly, it made sense for her.

"How can you not know who Madonna is?"

Liora pressed closer. The fiery tension washing from her was like laying under the sun at the height of summer. While someone had you in a chokehold.

A perfect day for him, then. Her pomegranate, bergamot, and grave dirt scent infused his every sense. There was a slightly charred sweetness hanging at the edges.

It was a small drawback to their closed feeding loop that he'd figured out when the hunger pangs started up again just before her return. Her hold on herself would drain faster, she'd get hungry faster and faster.

He'd also lost his immunity to the sun within the day of separation from her and no access to her venom. He'd have to test—

"I don't follow fickle mortal trends. Answer me. What. Did. You. Take?"

He shook his head. "Nope. Your name first. Then I'll tell you a secret. That's the deal."

He smiled as she growled and shook him. Her shadows slipped over his shoulders like a stole. Just holding him as she glowered at them.

"Fine, you insolent braggart." She pushed up her toes, hot breath thawing his frigid lips, as she spat the words out. "Voss. Liora Voss. Happy?"

Ash's grin faltered, a flicker of... something crossed his face, a sharp twisting sensation in his gut. Too fast to name before his smirk resurrected itself. His frosted fingers curled around her throat. Enjoying the wild thrum of blood under her warm skin and the flare of shock in her dark gaze.

"Voss, huh? Sounds like an overpriced vodka brand."

The air shifted. Somewhere, a star winked out. Its last light swallowed by nights endless embrace.

Ash's tongue brushed his canine, sharpening. His fangs throbbed with a sudden pressure. It was a twin to the ghostly ache he'd experienced when he'd unearthed her human portrait from the cryptomancer's vault. Liora Voss.

It was a name that felt like a key fitting in a lock he hadn't known was there.

"It's Dutch." She said too quickly, tone threaded with her usual disdain, but a vulnerable edge made him study her face. "It means fox. Now, spit it out before I pull it out."

His nonexistent pulse spiked, phantom throbs that died as fast as he once did. He wished she would. He'd savour every painful moment. Voss.

Fox. Ashton Elias... Elias meant "Yahweh is my God" in Hebrew. But his mother had named him after the constellation Orion. The hunter.

Foxes outwitted hunters. Fitting, he mused. He shook himself. A deal was a deal. He was a liar, but he'd meant it when he offered it.

"The hunters needed a new test subject after they killed their last two. Turns out, I'm the perfect specimen."

Then a voice that wasn't his or Lioras purred in his mind.

Told you he's different—let him prove it. He can serve us.

His smile was sadistic as he realized what it was. He leaned in, thumb brushing over the leather covering her collarbone brand. The one that pulsed gold when he used her human name."Durable. Adaptable.

Hungry."

His gaze dropped to the scar he'd left on her throat, silvered and indelible—never to be forgotten. "Sounds familiar, doesn't it, Red?"

His glacial touch tiptoed up the column of her neck, along her jutted jaw. The bone creaked, she'd tensed it so tight. Her shadows didn't seem to know whether to recoil or soak it in.

Her claws sheathed, leaving his flesh with a shink of finality. He missed them instantly. Had to grit his teeth to keep from demanding she do it again. She did not look appeased, but his tiny confession must've been enough. For now, at least.

"You're a stain I'll scrub out. Nothing more."

He heard it, though. Her heart fluttered, skipping a beat at the lie. His teeth grazed her earlobe, voice a slick tone of utter delight. "Then why's your demon purring? Why do your shadows keep clinging to me like they want to keep me?" His frozen hand slid down her spine as she tensed herself.

The wood floors warped as her magic erupted. Shadows swirling and pinning him, heat and humidity rose as her eyes transformed to black holes. He gasped, eyes wide as he beheld her. Magnificent—she should let it out more."Enough of your games, leech." She roared it, the words slamming into the room.

He didn't back down. He'd weather every storm she threw at him. Braced for her claws in his chest, hoping for it.

"Careful. If you keep giving me names, next you'll want to claim—"

Liora threw him across the room before he could finish his statement. He hit the minibar, bottles exploding. Expensive venom laced liquor splashing.

Glass glittered in his raven hair as he rose, still grinning. Bourbon pooled like blood around his feet.

Liora sheathed her blood-wet claws, chest tight, and a throbbing tension gathering in her temples. "I'm not playing. I won't be your bodyguard."

She drew in a choked breath. Groaning internally, fingers trembling as she fisted them behind her back. Everything in the atmosphere reeked of him.

She had no escape from it. She abruptly felt as if her skin had shrunk until it drew too taut and translucent over her weary bones. Too delicate to contain the morass of unstable emotions boiling within her.

"You'll learn to fight. Starting tonight. You'll either succeed or I'll carve you into pieces small enough to flush. Both would amuse me."

Ashton wiped the blood from his lip, licking it off his thumb as he held her gaze.

"Promises, promises. You'll need sharper claws to flush me, Liora."

She ignored him and escaped to the bathroom. Shadows formed into wolves guarding the locked door as she scrubbed her skin raw under the scalding shower. Freesia soap clogging the steam.

Desperately trying to cleanse his scent from her. It wasn't enough. It would never be enough.

The abandoned factory on the city's wasteland edge set the scene for Ashton's first lesson. It was a corpse of forgotten industry. Most mortals gave it a wide berth.

A behemoth of haunted desolation, they claimed. It wasn't, but humans were gullible and easily manipulated. It was to be the stage on which she'd make a weapon of him, or let him die trying."What's next, Red? A haunted hotel? A sewer dwelling clown? Fuck, I'd take the clown at this point," he'd said as they entered.

She just flicked a shadow over his insipid mouth, muzzling him, until she'd chained them both inside. She had painted runes in the dirt outside with her blood, ensuring no one could sneak up on them.

Algiz. For protection and strength. To keep the hunters at bay. To keep everything but her and her new acolyte at bay. Ashton had observed, always watching her.

Asking asinine questions she didn't deign to answer. Not when she could feel the void in her draining faster than it should. She refocused on her surroundings.

Rusted machinery loomed like the ribs of some long dead leviathan reaching toward the sky. Moonlight speared through fractured skylights whenever the clouds shifted, illuminating rusted conveyor belts frozen mid-crawl. Massive metallic millipedes.

It painted Ashton's smirk in bone-white and shadow. Dust and rust decorated the old place.Liora's heels struck the concrete like blows of a hammer.

Each click reverberated through the vast, hollow space, like a heart on the verge of flatlining. There was a slow drip of water timing them, the misting rain seeping through the perforated ceiling.

Her leathers creaked softly as she turned and eyed him with a doubtful expression. Her heart rate dropped, muscles coiling, and her shadows awaited the brawling, bloodthirsty.

She squared her shoulders and fixed her usual haughty mask on her face. Liora slid a blade free from the holster on her right arm, serrated, not Silverthorn, and tossed it to him.

He made no move to catch it. It clattered to his feet.

She sighed, hands burning to rip through him. Her voice was cold and precise, an order, as she said, "Pick it up. And try not to cut your own throat this time."

Her shadows writhed as he grinned, teeth gleaming and arrogance dripping from his mouth.

"Aw, thanks. Are you still sore I outlasted you last time?"

She held her tongue. He bent, lazy, deliberate, eyes never leaving hers. A muscle in her jaw feathered as she glared back. The knife glinted as he twirled it. It was a street magician's deception, smoke, and mirrors.

"How does this work? Do I have to do that whole 'wax on, wax off' routine? Or do I get to pin you this time?"

Liora didn't dignify him with a response. She advanced in a streak of leather and blackest magic. She spun, leg arcing through the stale air.

Her kick was an exorcism. A small smile lit her lips as she moved. It sent his borrowed knife skittering away into the darkness.

Its clang resounded like a bell. Her heel smashing into his solar plexus. The crunch of bone harmonized with the memory of shattered treaty glass.

This was the hunter's true language. Silverthorn, and star-rot bullets shredding Accords she'd forged in bloodied diplomacy. Let them come. She'd gift-wrap their hypocrisy in vampire entrails.

The violence eased some of the pressure building in her lungs, in her veins, and furiously caged heart. Ashton crashed into a steel beam, ribs splitting.

He coughed, groaning and grinning, blood flecking his lips. Still, the bastard wheezed and laughed."Fuck. That's hot." He pushed off the beam, spitting blood as she scowled. "How am I supposed to learn when you look like that?"

It was always the same with men, women, and everything in between. Always about how she looked. How she made them feel. It was never about her. The sound that tore from her was primal.

She was on him before his words could echo. Mind flashing back to him using her human name, every bit of agony she gave him was payback for that violation. Her fist gripped his navy blue collar, smacking his skull against the steel.

His blood smeared her knuckles. It thrummed against her skin, frozen, alive, singing to that thing he'd implanted in her chest. Her pulse skipped in answer. Her succubus preened.

"You're a liability. A stain. And I won't let your stupidity get me staked. You don't deserve my pain."

His hand closed over her wrist. Too slow, human. "Liar. You love my mess."

Cold bloomed where his hand gripped. She'd gotten used to the standard chill of his fledgling power.

This was arctic. Her mind eddied out, breath fogging as it left her in short bursts.

Her mouth opened and closed uselessly. Frost spiraled up her arm in glacial filigree, glittering, searing her veins with glacier needles.

The cold burned. It was akin to diving into a winter lake, every nerve electrified by hypothermia's hum.

Liora recoiled, and a bead of gelid sweat rolled down her neck. Her venom thrashed in her veins. It was a beast caged, her magic shuddering to break loose as her arteries briefly glowed cobalt.

"What is this?"

Ashton laughed. Wild and vividly unhinged. Eyes crystallizing frost in his pupils. "Surprise, demon."

His winter-kissed skin burned worse than the witch's branding iron. Another violation, but this one was self-inflicted. She'd handed him this weapon when she allowed her venom to mingle with his cursed blood.

It was a risk she'd thought wouldn't come to much.

She should've known. She should have known this leech would bring nothing but trouble. His thumb brushed her elevating pulse.

Steady, mocking. She swallowed convulsively as she throttled a shiver. He still held her wrist in his other hand. Encasing her arm in a gauntlet of ice.

"Like it?" He murmured, breath clouding, curling off his lips as his gaze locked on her sneering face. "Call it mutual adaptation. Your venom's one hell of an artist."

He traced a frigid fingertip down her rippling jaw. It left a pearlised trail that steamed as her heat melted it. His voice was the whisper of silken sheets twisting around her limbs.

"Don't worry, Red. I'll thaw you out." He winked at her. "Eventually."

Her chin lifted. There was a visible tremor in her claws as they unsheathed. She shattered the rime with a snarl, shadows erupting like black flames as they wreathed around them both. His new sparkling decay fascinated them.

"Do you think this changes anything?" Her talons pricked his throat, drawing gelid beads of obsidian. "You're still a stain. Just a failed experiment."

Iron and stagnant water permeated the air as Ashton's blood cut through it.

He chuckled. Head shaking. "I haven't failed, Liora. I'm evolving. And you can't stand it."

"You're not adapting—you're mimicking. It's a tawdry parlor trick."

But her pulse kicked up, a treason her ink-spill ribbons harmonized."Keep lying. Maybe you'll believe it one day." His self-glorious expression, jaw and cheekbones chiselled from marble, never once faltered.

She let him go. Hands itching to smack and claw every inch of him she could reach. Adrenaline spiked high, blood hot and roaring in her ears. Her black tendrils snuck around his ankles, slithering shackles.

"Again. Better this time. Keep your cheap tricks to yourself until you can land a decent punch."

He straightened, rolling his shoulders, smile all fangs as he lunged. Vampire speed, turning him into a blur. All windmilling fists and unchecked strength.

Liora rolled her eyes, giving a low scoff. A swarm of bees took over the hive of her mind. She sidestepped him. Dropping low and sweeping his legs out from under him.

He hit the concrete with a tooth clacking thud, swearing. She circled him, head shaking, mouth flattening, and wondering why the fates had cursed her so.

Every second wasted on his incompetence only gave the hunters more time to find them. All these years and she'd been the huntress.

This runt came along and suddenly she was prey again. If they got ambushed, she would get rid of him, at least. Peaceful, glorious silence would be returned. But until he fixed whatever he'd encouraged to grow between them, he had to live.

Egotism and all. The thought was a knife embedded in her spine. The old ache in her shoulder blades twisted and twisted. Back shivering with it, until she suffocated it once more. Never again.

And not here, not with him around to weaponize it. She repeated it, constantly and loudly in her head, but she was the only one listening. The wind whistled through the splintered walls.

Old oil and venom's bright bite hidden within its gentle exhale as it brushed her face. Ashton groaned, propping himself up on his hands.

"You fight like you fuck. All knees and fury. Who taught you? Rasputin?!"

Liora loomed over him, shadows swishing around her feet, checking him for injuries against her orders. Pathetic. Even her magic remembered the Accords' core tenet.

No supernatural shall slay another while common enemies hunt us. No mortal shall draw first blood.

The vow rippled through her mind in a dozen dead and alive dialects. Latin etched with a Florentine quill, Greek scrawled in Ottoman Blood. Arabic curving like a scimitars smile.

The smell of frankincense and iron filings clung to every syllable. She'd signed Accords in every tongue that ever named a monster. Now hunters spat on them with silver and ash.

She'd spit on their graves, salt their earth, and ensure they'd never rise against them again. Her dark tendrils had curled around Ashton as she returned to the present.  She silently berated them and called them to heel.

"He wished. Rasputin died begging. I taught him how. His last breath tasted like arsenic and regret. I wonder what yours will taste like.""I bet he died happy," Ashton said, smirking, unrepentant.

Her demon cheered.

Grigori could do little more than grunt. This one could entrance legions with wit alone.

She lashed out to drown it, teeth bared, and gaze tunnelling. Kicking his ribs, talons tearing into his bicep until blood rained like onyx jewels. This wasn't training.

This was extraction. Each strike purged another ounce of the debt he owed her.

For the bullet's secrets, and the way his laughter echoed through her vault of dead things, he'd die when she decided. When she could make a masterpiece of it. Not because some hunter pup landed a lucky shot.

Her muscles ached, tiredness settling like a crown atop her head, but her resolve only strengthened as they warred. It was a warm ball of energy low in her belly. Iron groaned as Ashton fell into it. Rot and rust flaked and fell, macabre snowflakes as his newfound power spread across the floor.

She stalked closer, unforgiving, her face cruelly composed. "He died slow. Ten days of his guts rotting. His grimoires? I burned them. His magic? Mine," she tilted her head in a calculated pause. "You'll die screaming."

She still heard the Mad Monk's screams every time thunder rolled. He scrambled to his feet as she took a defensive stance. Her claws twitched, screaming to rake down his back. Her succubus preened as he licked at the blood leaking from his mouth.

Growing hungry, already, despite the feast the demon had indulged in recently. Damn him. Why wouldn't he just die and stay dead? Burnt sugar seeped through her scent as she dragged in a breath.

She stifled it. Not again. Not until he'd earned it.

"Says the demon who moaned when I bit her."

Her fist cracked his jaw. Pain roasted her split knuckles. It soon bled into a pleasure she'd missed. He staggered back, laughing. The sound burrowed into her bones and echoed there, a vibration sending a shiver through her nerves.

He wiped a hand across his lips. "There's the Red I know. All bite. No kiss." His eyes flashed. "Don't hold back, I'm not him... I can take it."

She wanted to howl in reproach. His bloodied grin superimposed over the crypto-mancer's final smirk. Both thought themselves irreplaceable.

Both would find themselves very wrong. She'd whittle Ashton into something sharper than the Silverthorn she'd helped birth, then sheathe him in hunter hearts.

Her eyes narrowed. "Again."