Read Online Liaison by Anya Howard - Free Book Online

Carina’s skin as I worked myself that night, and feel her beautifully molded limbs and every firm curve. My body pleaded for satisfaction, but again I denied it release. When I was finished this time, my mind was clarified of all else but the single purpose of my design. I could not sleep, yet I felt no need. I read for a time in bed . . . and when later the scraping commenced on the shingles, I knew no desire but to quiet my beloved until I summoned her. The command of hindrance silenced at once, all but her frustrated whimper.
    Then, abruptly, the whimper was silenced by another voice outside the door. Like the chords of an iron-strung mandolin it uttered, dismantling my composure and puncturing my focus. The words were alien to me, but the tone of their meaning held undeniable malevolence. At the sound of Carina’s fearful cry, I sat up tensely. The subsequent heavy impact against the house prompted me from the bed. I took the hammer from the crate, and hoisting it over my heart, I opened the front door.
    I saw nothing from the threshold, yet the soul-pricking voice grew ever more scathing. Following it to the eastern corner of the house with all the stealth at my disposal, I advanced on. At once my searching eyes found Carina. She wore a flimsy white silk gown, but her lovely knees had fallen to the ground and her arms crossed over her head defensively.
    In the shade, beside my Carina, stood her assailant. A towering woman in a clinging gown of purple velvet. Even with the moonlight to her back, her complexion glowed pale and flawless. Her voluptuous ruby lips were drawn back angrily, her dark eyes gleamed like the choker of black diamonds at her throat. Her hands were graceful, her fingernails sensuously long and sharply manicured. Upon one thumb she wore a wide ring with a large carnelian orb. As she continued to browbeat Carina, her voluptuous body shook so hard the moonlight sparkled in her flowing waves of dark hair.
    Her tirade stopped with a frightful silence, and as her face turned to me, her hazel eyes shone like two beacons pulling me toward some sensuous realm. Despite the lust that surged spontaneously in my loins, instinct avowed this creature was much more than a drinker of blood and life.
    She was an enemy of the living, birthed in chaos far older than tale or legend.
    Yet, this enemy possessed a flawless, tempting body, and a face so exquisite, it surely humbled the goddess Aphrodite. She drew herself to her full height, and her confident smile attested that already she had enslaved a legion of mortal men with the faith that evil design was inconsequential beside such beauty.
    But my heart was already mastered by my submissive Carina. With a growl, I ran forward and thrust the hammer between her fair head and the vampire.
    “Let her be!”
    The vampire’s eyes flared. For a moment, I saw the shock and terror in her eyes; the next moment, a force impacted my chest and sent me reeling back against the boards of the house. As I charged a second time, her lips pursed tightly into a crimson bow. With an exhale, she sent me reeling back again, this time so hard my skull thudded against the logs. As she clutched Carina by the roots of her hair, I raised the hammer high with my left fist.
    “Let her go, I say!”
    I rushed forth and grabbed Carina’s arm with my free hand. Her arm could not have been colder had she been carved of ice, and her tears—like globules of rose glass—confirmed that she was no longer human. But the melancholy and terror in her eyes melted suddenly into the canvas of night. A whirlwind spun me about, knocking me back against the house. I tried to run back to the spot where I had been assaulted, but the whirlwind was as impassable as limestone. My ears perceived no sound but its violent scream. I felt an intelligence from the unnatural zephyr, one that mocked the wrath that pulsed in my veins. The next instant it tore straight through the nearby wood, leveling the copse and