Page 23 of Unholy Gambit: Checkmate in Blood
“Maman told the police it was a man, too.” It’d been a man in both her memoriesanddreams.
He nodded. “I didn’t want the two of you to have conflicting memories. I molded yours as closely as possible to what you thought you saw and then made hers line up with yours.”
Her logical mind kicked in. With special magical vampire strength, women were probably as strong as men.
He must’ve read her mind again, answering thoughts before she voiced them. “With supernatural strength, gender is functionally irrelevant. Of the half-dozen scariest vampires I’m aware of, not necessarily the most powerful, but the most brutal, four are female and only two male.”
“You’re one of the males?” Aury asked.
A tilt of his head. “Not in my mind, but when others put that list together, I’m often on it.”
“Gavin, Kendra, Etta, so I suppose of the three scary ones I know of, two are women,” Ruby looked at Aury. “Two used to live here but have moved away. I’ve never met any of them, but the supernatural world is full of gossip. There’s a non-vampire who’s just as scary, and she’s a woman, too. Rumor has it she even tortured Gavin, once.”
Ruby narrowed her eyes at him. “I haven’t heard of an Axel, but odds are, you go by a different name when in other countries.”
“I’ve most recently been known as Ankabut, often shortened to Anka. When Aury was five, I was Arané. Before that, Demos.”
Ruby's face reflected the kind of horror that lives in the pit of your gut and the darkest corners of your mind, the monster who does unthinkable things, so bad he can't possibly be real — like Freddy Krueger had just stepped into her living room, dragging a bloody blade down the wall as he walked, smiling like she was the next name on his list.
Aury’s heart dropped cold and hard, like it missed a step on the way to her stomach and landed in her feet.
She turned to Axel, throat tight. Not for answers, but because her instincts had flared, and her friend looked like prey cornered by something that shouldn’t exist.
She didn’t speak. Didn’t breathe.
Just looked at him and waited for the pieces to start falling into place. Ruby had recognized at least one name, his reputation had crossed an ocean, and Aury desperately hoped his legend had grown with each telling, and he wasn’t the monster her friend feared.
He met her gaze without flinching, calm on the surface, but darkness flickered underneath.“As a human, I was bitten by a spider that should’ve killed me, closely related to the Brazilian Wandering Spider, but there was no effect. A tiny bit of pain for a few minutes, but nothing more. Now, understanding my original DNA, it makes sense, but at the time, it was seen as…”
He sighed. “I started raising venomous spiders, and it was one of the reasons I was so scary. Anytime someone in my vicinity died by a spider bite, people wondered if it was me. Sometimes it was, sometimes not. I still keep spiders now, as well as venomous snakes.”
Aury cataloged where her friend’s fear came from. Someone who kills with spiders and snakes would become legend, possibly one she hadn’t believed truly existed.
“Did you bring any spiders with you?”
“No. The charter company I prefer excels at keeping vampires alive while carting us around the globe, but draws an unreasonable line against arachnids.”
He said it with a completely straight face, and the wholeterrorthing fell apart. They’d have to talk about the spiders, but later. She needed to move the conversation to safer ground, and the flight reminded her of his list of names, where he’d made it sound like he’s no longer living in France.
“You aren’t in Toulon anymore? Where do you live?” She’d pictured him, all these years, still in the south of France.
“I lived in Marseille at the time, travelled to take out…” He started over. “I’m in Egypt, now. We can only live in a city for a couple of decades before people note we aren’t aging.”
“Are you Muslim?” Despitefeelingas if she’d always known him, as if they were carved into the same story, he’d lived centuries of a shadowy life she knew almost nothing about. He was a stranger who felt like destiny, and the contradiction twisted like a knife.
He shook his head. “Religion is a human construct. I believe the universe is…” He sighed. “I’m not an atheist; is that enough for now? We’ll need an entire evening to discuss such things.”
Aury nodded, and he looked back to Ruby. “I’ve promised Aury I will never lie to her, and that I’ll only interfere with the memory of her friends when absolutely necessary toThe Secret. I’d interfered with yours before I gave her the promise, but it means however you feel about me now is true, without any suggestions to alter your opinion.”
Ruby held his gaze a long moment, looked out the window a few seconds, and looked back to him. “You’re scary as fuck, but you once saved Aury’s life, and if you love her, she’ll be one of the safest humans on the planet.”
Ruby looked back to Aury, her mouth curved into a half-grin. “Sex with a vampire’s like flying on a private jet that reads your every need midair and offers things you don’t know you want until they’re luxuriously wrapped around you.
“With a human, it’s like getting stuck on a budget airline: middle seat, no legroom, the connecting flight’s cancelled after you’ve sprinted across the fucking airport, and your luggage gets lost. Sometimes, you’d have been better off driving and skipping the damned plane.”
She brushed a stray hair from her face. “Vampires are fucking psychic, and they know what you need before you do. Sex with one is precision, power, and motherfucking poetry.
“Humans? It’s like watching a stumbling toddler try to sword fight with a damned pool noodle.”
