Craved

Damon:

"Get out of the water, Renee." Clive waved the gun at her. "Looks like I'll have to kill you all."

Damon swam closer to her, keeping himself between her and Clive as they glided to the edge of the pool. Once he helped her out, Damon climbed over the edge. After all this time, he'd found love again. Someone who shared his passions both in and out of bed, who made him feel alive and couldn't wait to greet the sun every morning. He wasn't going to let her go without a fight.

"Take her," Clive barked to a nearby guard who took Adeline from Clive, locking his arm around her throat despite her cursing and kicking.

"Stay where you are, Damon." Clive refocused on Renee. "You, my sweet petal, come to me and I might spare your lover."

When she took a step, Damon moved in front of her. "She's not going anywhere near you."

"Then I'll kill everyone here until she does, until she willingly gives me the crystal." Clive grinned, but it made his face appear ghoulish.

"If I do, you'll use it to create more wars. Many more people will die if I give in. I won't be the cause of so much bloodshed. You can do what you like with me, but you'll never get the crystal from me without force," Renee snarled. "No. Take me instead." Damon's heart thumped against his chest. He couldn't, wouldn't lose her. "I'll do anything; just spare her."

"Enough! I will take the woman and the crystal." Clive gestured to Cynthia who pushed Renee's mom to the side. He strode forward, cracking his neck. Damon punched him in the face, but his cousin didn't stagger. Didn't even flinch. "My turn." He hit him in the gut and must have used all his reserve force into the blow because Damon couldn't catch his breath as he recoiled a few steps.

"Never knew how to share your toys, even as a kid." Clive kicked him in the leg, sending Damon sprawling.

Before his cousin reached for him again, Damon rolled and thrust with both feet, sending Clive landing on his ass. Damon staggered to stand. He wouldn't give up no matter how strong Clive's corrupt energy. He would never surrender Renee or his principles. "That all you got?"

"Damon, you're wrong to challenge me," Clive said. "I'm faster than you and superior. You'll die today."

He zipped around Damon, fastening his arm around Damon's neck. Blackness curled around his vision. He smacked his elbow into Clive's side, but the hold on his neck didn't loosen. Spots danced before his eyes.

"Give me the crystal." Clive dumped Damon into a heap, and he groaned as the monster went to Renee.

No, he would kill the bastard before he allowed him to touch her again. Through his double vision, Damon crept forward.

"To think, cousin, you had this jewel all this time and yet never took it." Clive clicked his tongue. "Imagine the power you could have with it. Instantly, a room full of women would become your personal harem. Stir up intolerance and wars in the men from various countries and bask in their violence and blood."

For the first time in years, Damon didn't want a crystal, he wanted Renee. She was all that mattered. When Clive reached Renee, he yanked her by the back of her neck to him. She winced.

"Stop!" Damon held out both hands. "You have no claim on her."

"You do?" Clive sneered. "I think I remember you giving up on commitment and love."

"She's mine." He rose, the truth eager to burst out of him, and he couldn't pretend anymore. If he was going to die, he wanted her to know how he felt without pretense or remorse. "I claim her, I love her." "I love you too," Renee whispered.

The smoky quartz sparked into a clear, quartz crystal. She grimaced, and her hand flinched to the crystal. The necklace fell to the ground with a clank.

Clive shoved her out of his way as he bent to grab the necklace. "It's mine!"

Damon caught Renee before she hit the cement. At least she was safe, but the vision of the hundreds of dead bones uncovered in the excavation flooded his mind. Everyone had died around the crystal. "It's mine!" Clive screamed again. Suddenly, his hands shook. His face twisted with a mixture of disbelief and horror.

With a scream, Cynthia released Renee's mother and rushed to his side. While he and his posse were distracted, Damon nudged Renee away from him. "Go quickly, my love. Get you and your mom out of here." As soon as Renee and her mom disappeared behind a wooden shed on the side of the pool, Damon tackled the guard holding Adeline. He clipped the guy's chin with his elbow, Adeline ducking under his arm. "Stop it!" Cynthia rose from beside Clive, picked up her gun, and pointed it at them. "Help Clive!" Desperation shone in her eyes, and the gun was unsteady in her hand.

To his horror, Renee left her mother and wrestled Cynthia for the gun.

"No!" he shouted.

Adeline kicked the incubus guard with the heel of her boot, slamming into his gut. He staggered, and she knocked his legs out from under him. Before he got to his feet, she locked her arm around his throat until his struggles ceased. Clive yelled, shaking his hand as he tried to dislodge the crystal from his grip.

Goddess, it was happening. Everyone here was gonna die. "Go! Leave!"

As Clive's body charred black with smoke, he thrashed back and forth against the cement.

Damon dashed forward. Renee! The two women struggled with the gun between them.

A figure behind them caught his attention. Renee's mother. She held a shovel in her hands like a baseball bat. When the shovel smacked the back of Cynthia's legs, she let out a howl as she crumbled to the ground; the gun flew from her hand, but not before he heard the gunshot.

Damon tackled Renee and shielded her, cradling her head in his hands from the impact of hitting the cement. The bullet struck his back. For a moment, everything went dark. He couldn't focus on anything but the searing pain lancing into his back.

"Damon!" Renee knelt beside him, sobbing. "No, no, no." She hiccupped.

Blood pooled beneath him, soaking his shirt. His breath hitched as his gift swirled around the bullet. Best if it went out the same way it came in-less chance of more damage. Though Renee's face made him yearn to kiss her tears away instead of healing himself. Concentrate.

He tunneled his gift toward the wound to force the bullet. At first, it wouldn't budge. He broke out in a sweat. Focus. If he didn't hurry, he could bleed out before his wound could repair itself. Squeezing his eyes shut, he focused on the metal, the foreign item lodged inside him. With all his might, he shoved his aura at the bullet. When it tore back through the opening it made, he let out a shaky breath. The open wound would heal soon enough.

One of the benefits of being an incubus; he was difficult to kill with man-made weapons. He didn't know how many times in the past he'd been run through with a sword from a jealous lover. Or how many duels he'd participated in. Sometimes it was easier just to let the human win and pretend he was dead or severely wounded.

"I'm okay." He stood, cringing at the soreness, and drew her to him.

"B-but the gun."

"I'm not human, remember?"

"Don't ever do anything like that again." Tears glistened in her dark eyes as she slapped his arm. "I-I thought I lost you."

"I can't promise that." He clasped her chin making her look up at him. "If you are in danger, I will do whatever is necessary to protect you."

Clive was now a smoldering pile of ash. Sobs came from Cynthia as she crawled toward it. "What have you done?"

They were lucky the crystal only destroyed Clive. Maybe because he tried to harness all the crystal's capacity it disintegrated him instead of blowing everyone up?

"Excuse me a moment." Damon kissed Renee's cheek. "I must put a barrier around her memories until the elders arrive to remove them completely." Now that he knew her recollections could snap back despite having a memory washed, he needed more incubi and experts to remedy the problem.

A weeping Cynthia dug through the ashes. His heart squeezed for her loss and longing. Yet, what she was feeling wasn't natural. He'd left a hole in her, and she had sought out another incubus to fill it.

He placed his hands on either side of her head, and she stilled as he released his gift into her. Heat burned his hands as part of his aura, part of himself, flowed into her mind. All of the images of himself came into view first, and he disintegrated the ones where he and Cynthia slept together, and anytime his ability seduced her.

For safety, he also purged the image of Renee's necklace and the urn. Cynthia would remember him and Renee as archeologists and nothing more. Cynthia's memories swamped him, but he quickly corralled the necessary ones behind a fog, like a dream someone knows they had, but can't remember. If left long enough, and she focused hard enough, they'd resurface like before. However, this way, the elders would be able to remove the fog and everything inside. They would be able to break off any links, bind and burn those that might yank her wiped recollections back like before.

Then Damon fused other memories together so she wouldn't have blank spaces her unique mind would try to fill. When she sagged, he gently laid her down. She would be unconscious for a while before she recovered. A police siren keened in the distance.

"Go." Renee's mother looked at Damon and then gestured at the incubus knocked out by Adeline. "I'll tell the police this one broke into my house."

"I'll take her to the hospital." He tucked Cynthia into his arms and rose. "She needs medical attention and best if she wakes up there, thinking she was in a car accident, than anywhere near here."

"I'll get the necklace." Adeline bent to grab the necklace. "What the hell?"

The crystal jerked from her hand to her wrist and dug into her skin, its silver chain wrapping around like a bracelet.

"It's alive?" His studies never mentioned that happening.

Adeline paled and yanked at the quartz, but it didn't release. "Is this how it infused with you?" she asked Renee, her face full of concern.

Renee frowned. "No. Initially, I had no trouble taking it off, but then I wore it nonstop for a few days before I realized it wouldn't come off."

"We must leave." Damon grabbed her arm. "Hurry. Before the cops arrive."

Sofia might know someone who could extract the crystal from Adeline so he could use it before it was too late. Would it destroy him as it did Clive or worse, kill everyone around him like it did in the priestess' throne room? "Let me get my keys. My car is at my apartment." Renee dashed inside, then minutes later met everyone back by the pool with her purse. "I'm ready."

"I'll take her to the hospital." Adeline tucked Cynthia into her arms.

The sirens were closer now. As she juggled Cynthia, Adeline ran to the street while Damon and Renee rushed behind her. They all squeezed into the cab Adeline had instructed to wait for them.

"You two are soaked!" The cabbie shook his head. "Get out of my car before it smells like mildew. I'll take the other two dry passengers."

"We need to leave now," Damon said. "Go!"

When the man didn't move, Adeline pressed her fingers to the grate separating her from the taxi driver. "Please take us to the nearest hospital. We have an emergency."

With a nod, he started the car and they peeled away from the curb.

"Are you okay?" Damon asked, taking Renee's hand in his. His chest tightened as he thought of his life without her. Without a crystal to protect her from him, it was only a matter of time before he inadvertently killed her. "I'm fine." Renee's breath eased out. "A little cold and shaky."

He wrapped her in his arms. Defeat laced through him. He'd fought for a crystal and now it had claimed Adeline. How was he going to use it for himself in two days? More importantly, how was he going to let Renee go? "What's the matter?" She poked him in the side.

"Sorry, nothing."

"Tell me." She pulled his free hand into her lap, tracing the lines on his palm. When he didn't say anything, she glanced up. "It's because of the crystal, isn't it? You're worried about turning into a monster." "Do you remember the throne room we uncovered before the government halted our dig?"

She nodded.

"Well, I'm pretty sure the crystal did that. The succubus who had the crystal, the one depicted on your urn, didn't know how to use it, and it destroyed her and killed everyone around her."

Her eyes shifted to Adeline. "Then we need to help her get it off. Would Sofia be able to? I know she's not human-the crystal showed me that-but what is she?"

He chuckled. "She's part brownie, succubus, and witch, and a very powerful one. She's been around longer than even the oldest Incubus remember."

"How long do you live?" Renee's frown pinched her brow.

"Thousands of years." Adeline shifted, her gaze taking in both of them.

"You both are how old?" Renee asked, looking from Adeline to him.

"I'm four thousand and forty-three or is it forty-five?" Adeline shrugged. "I lose count sometimes. Damon is much older."

"We normally count the millenniums. Too much trouble to remember in human years all the time."

"But soon he'll turn feral."

"What?" Renee's eyes widened. "You're going to become like Clive?"

"Not if I learn how to harness the crystal in time."

Adeline frowned. "In less than four days?"

"So," Renee huffed, "all of your kind are ticking bombs set to mentally explode when you turn five thousand years old?"

At their nod, she sighed. "Okay. Are there any of you older who hasn't gone crazy?"

Damon cocked his head at his cousin. "Dax, right?" At her nod, he continued, "Over nine thousand years old, but he found a crystal. And he guards his piece... never allowed anyone to even look at it. Can't see him loaning the crystal to me or anyone."

A mix of hopefulness and worry crossed Renee's face.