He’d come this far; he didn’t have to stay long, and he had the excuse of exhaustion and having to find a hotel on his side for an early escape. However, he hadn’t seen the twins in almost four and a half years, and they had a lot to catch up on. He talked to them a few times a year, text messaged them, and occasionally video chatted, but they were all brief conversations, and he missed them.
There was also the chance he might run into Aida if she visited them while they worked. He tried to tell himself he hoped she wasn’t there, but it was a lie. Even if she did have someone else, he’d give anything to see her one last time.
Julian was about to cross the street to go to Addy’s when he became aware of a new presence. He hadn’t been paying much attention to his surroundings, as he was mostly trying to ignore everyone around him, but the hair on his nape rose, and the skin on his arms tingled.
A shift in the air alerted him that he wasn’t alone. He didn’t have to glance over his shoulder to know someone was following him. He caught the scent of garbage. It could be coming from the nearby trash can, but judging by the way his instincts went into a hyper-alert mode, he guessed it was a Savage.
Unwilling to lead his follower to Kyle and Cassidy, Julian ducked into an alley and removed his hands from his pockets as he walked. The brick of the buildings pressed against him, and the dank smell of wet asphalt from a recent rain permeated the air.
He strained to hear over the noise of the traffic and people on the street behind him. Beneath the crunch of tires, the beep of a horn, and the chatter of people, he heard the fall of footsteps behind him.
He had no idea why anyone would follow him, but he knew they were looking for a fight. Gripping the straps of his backpack, he smiled. He didn’t know who was back there, but he’d make them regret following him into this alley.
He was halfway down the narrow alley. Ahead of him, more people and cars passed by, but no one paid any attention to what was happening only a hundred feet away from them. The sounds of the footsteps came faster as his pursuer gave up on trying to be discreet and rushed toward him.
Julian didn’t react until they were only ten feet away from him, and then he shrugged out of his backpack and spun to face the vamp as the scent of garbage intensified. When his eyes fell on the burly man rushing toward him, a sense of rightness descended over him.
This is what he wanted—fighting, blood, death. He craved this almost as much as holding Aida in his arms again.
The vamp grinned at him as it raced forward, and Julian smiled in return. The last thing he expected was to kill someone tonight, but he gladly welcomed this release after his day spent crammed in with humans.
The vamp had a good three inches and fifty pounds on him, but that meant nothing to him. Julian was fast, and he could fight. No one survived growing up with his siblings without knowing how to maim someone.
When the vamp lunged at him, Julian darted to the side and spun before his shoulder crashed into the brick wall. He drove his fist into the vamp’s temple and knocked its head to the side. The vamp almost went down, but it managed to keep its footing as its fingers clawed at Julian’s leather jacket.
When its hand caught in one of his pockets, the vamp jerked him to the side. The uppercut Julian threw snapped the vamp’s head back. Blood burst from its mouth as its fangs sliced its bottom lip.
Julian’s eyes pinpointed on that blood as his killer instincts raced to the forefront. Kill, destroy. Kill, kill, kill.
He couldn’t think beyond seeing this thing dead. Before the vamp could recover, Julian punched it again as the part of him that he kept restrained burst free, and he allowed it to have the freedom it had sought for years.
He’d only let himself go like this once before, in Greece, and he loved every second of it. Like then, this was one of the only times he felt alive since he walked away from Aida. He should end it and kill this thing, but he punched the vamp again and again while he reveled in the freedom of letting himself go.
The vamp threw its hands up to protect its head, but Julian’s next two punches shattered its hands and made them useless. When it first came at him, the vamp was sure its size, weight, and brutality would win this battle, but now it realized it had made a deadly mistake.
Julian grasped the bloody and grasping creature by its neck and yanked it away from him. “You made a big fucking mistake,” he hissed in its ear before smashing its face against the brick wall.
When the creature started to howl, Julian battered its face off the wall again. It went silent as the second blow left it dazed, and its head lulled on its shoulders. Julian’s pulse thundered through him as excitement filled his veins. This is why he was born. This was what was missing in his life, and he wanted to experience it over and over again.
Saliva dripped from his fangs; he almost used them to tear the creature’s throat out, but he couldn’t stand the idea of its putrid blood in his mouth. The vamp’s head fell forward before jerking back to reveal its bloody, demolished face. Coming back to its senses, its feet scrabbled for purchase on the wet asphalt.
A shout at the end of the alley drew Julian’s attention. A couple of girls laughed as they danced past the alley. They were completely oblivious to the monsters only one hundred feet away from them.
Once he finished with this thing, Julian could follow them and take them down before they realized he was there. He couldn’t drink this thing’s blood, but he could feast on theirs.
Julian shook the impulse away as revulsion rose to replace his bloodlust. What was he thinking? Killing vampires was one thing, but killing humans was something else completely, and if he didn’t get control of himself, he would be no better than this thing.
Just as the vamp regained its footing, Julian hammered its chest, knocking the breath out of it and causing its legs to give out. It hung limply in his grasp as air rattled past his lips. Julian had broken its ribs and collapsed at least one, if not both, of its lungs with his last blow.
Though he could have kept this up for hours, it had to end before someone saw them. Reaching into the inner pocket of his jacket, he pulled out a stake and sank it into the bastard’s heart.
He tore the stake free and shoved the vamp away from him. It hit the ground with a thump that, instead of disgusting him as it should, only made his fangs throb more as he resisted the continuation of his killing spree.
He had to find somewhere to stash the body until the sun came up and took care of the remains. Though people and cars continued to go by both ends of the alley, they remained alone. He couldn’t carry this thing out of here, which meant he was stuck with it until morning.
Bending, Julian slid his arms beneath the thing’s armpits and dragged it against the brick wall. He retrieved his backpack and placed it on the ground. Perching on top of it, he studied the blood staining his hands as he tried to figure out if he was a man or a monster.
CHAPTER 2
Cassidy set her brush down before leaning closer to the mirror across from her. In the glass, her deep blue eyes met Julian’s. For a second, she simply stared. The last time they spoke through video was a year ago, and he hadn’t had a beard. Then, her beautiful face lit with a smile, and she leapt from her chair.
He’d planned to surprise her, and he succeeded. The waitress who’d directed him back here hadn’t wanted to tell him where his sister was, but once he smiled at her and explained his surprise, she directed him to the employee room.
“Julian!” Cassidy cried as she rushed across the room and threw herself into his arms. “What are you doing here? No, I don’t care. You’re here!”
Guilt tugged at Julian’s heart while he hugged her back. At one time, he was incredibly close to the twins. He’d been close with his whole family, but as the years slipped by, the distance between them grew.
These last six months were the worst. Once he hit maturity and his killer instinct kicked into hyperdrive, he hadn’t felt as capable of hiding what he was becoming from his family, so he avoi
ded talking with them.
“Where have you been?” Cassidy asked as she leaned away from him. She tugged at his beard. “And what’s with this?”
He rubbed his beard as he replied. “Something to keep me warmer on chilly nights.”
“So, it was cold where you were?”
He released her and stepped back to shove his hands in his pockets as he leaned against the doorway of the cramped back room. Lockers for the employees took up most of the left-hand wall. On the right wall was the small table with a mirror Cassidy had vacated. A couple of hairbrushes, some deodorant, and a couple of hairbands were on the table, and he suspected it was where the employees came to fix themselves during their shift instead of using the bathroom.
Towels hung from a couple of hooks in the wall over the table, along with some aprons and one coat from someone who hadn’t bothered with their locker. In the corner near the back metal door was a stack of empty beer cases. The single bulb hanging in the center of the room didn’t do much to illuminate it.
“It was cold. It was warm. It was sunny and cloudy. It was everything it could be as I went almost everywhere,” Julian told her.
Cassidy settled on the corner of the small dressing room table. “I haven’t talked to you since Christmas. You never answer my calls.”
Maybe it would’ve been easier if he’d gone home and dealt with everyone at once. He hadn’t considered one-on-one would allow for more direct questions. “You know I’m not a big fan of the phone, and it wasn’t always possible to use a phone at some of the places I was.”
“Hmm,” she huffed as she crossed her arms over her chest.
Now that some of her happiness about seeing him was wearing off, her anger over his disappearance was showing. “Does Mom know you’re here?” she asked.
“No. I planned to surprise all of you.”
“It worked.”
“Where’s Kyle?”
“He’ll be in soon; his shift starts at seven. When did you get into Boston?”
“I flew in from London last night.”
“And you’re just coming to see us now?”
Julian sighed as he ran a hand through his hair. He’d expected some annoyance over his abrupt four-year hiatus, but Cassidy was not going to make it easy. “I was on my way last night when I had a bit of a problem.”
He told her about his encounter with the Savage in the alley.
“That’s horrible,” she breathed when he finished. “Why didn’t you call one of us to come and help you in case someone discovered you? You didn’t have to stay there alone with that thing.”
He’d considered calling them but ruled it out. They couldn’t see what he’d done to the vamp before killing it, and he wasn’t in control of himself enough to deal with them. It had taken a couple of hours before he felt capable of pulling a towel from his pack to clean himself up.
When the sun rose enough to turn the body to ashes, he lifted his bag and found the closest hotel room, where he crashed for the day. He’d come here after waking and showering.
“I didn’t want either of you to have to deal with it,” he told her.
“Julian—”
“So, what’s new at the homestead?” he asked to distract her.
Cassidy gave him a look that said she knew what he was doing, but she answered him anyway. “The munchkins are all getting big.”
“I bet they are.”
“Aiden and Maggie are expecting a baby in the fall.”
He grinned at her as he tried to imagine Aiden as a dad. He’d be amazing at it. “That’s fantastic news.”
“If you called more often, you would have heard it a month ago, like the rest of us.”
“Ouch,” he said as he rubbed at his heart.
He remembered Cassidy as a young, easygoing girl with the voice of an angel and soul of a devil. She’d smile sweetly at them all while knowing she’d placed dog shit in their sneakers, or frogs in their bed, or taken all their clothes and thrown them in the ocean.
Once, she unplugged the cables to his computers and equipment and rearranged them all. It had taken her hours, but it took him days, a lot of cursing, and a whole lot of revenge planning to get it all sorted out again.
By then, she’d already discovered his revenge of a dead fish in her closet and moved it into his room; she added three more fish. He was so caught up in trying to get his equipment sorted out that he didn’t return to his room for three days. By then, it stunk so bad he couldn’t sleep in it for a month.
She’d become the reigning queen of the prank wars after their older siblings retired, and they all bowed to her expertise at making their lives miserable.
That young girl was gone, and in her place was a beautiful, twenty-year-old woman who wielded guilt with expertise. She was also mad at him for hurting her, and as much as he’d prefer not to deal with it, he had to face the music. He was the one who left.
“Why did you leave?” she asked. “Why haven’t you been back?”
Yes, one-on-one was definitely the wrong choice, but a roomful of Byrnes wasn’t going to be any easier. Running a hand through his hair, he reminded himself that he had to see his family. He couldn’t run away again. If he didn’t say goodbye to them now, he might not have another chance.
He didn’t know how to explain his leaving, and he certainly couldn’t explain his return, so he shrugged and shoved his hands back into his pockets. “I wanted to see the world.”
“And you did.”
“Most of it. I’ve even been to Antarctica.”
Her eyes widened, and some of her irritation eased as excitement replaced it. “Did you see penguins?”
The question and hopefulness in her gaze were that of the girl he left behind. That girl had watched a movie about a dancing penguin five thousand times like it was the first time every time. The girl who was so adventurous she’d do anything her brothers dared her to do. The one who would sing the most beautiful songs while Doug played the piano.
Thinking of Doug caused his chest to constrict, and for a minute, he couldn’t breathe. Losing one of his adopted uncles to the same island that nearly claimed Aida’s life was still a knife to his chest. The hole that knife created would never fully heal.
Unwilling to focus on the past, he shifted his attention back to Cassidy. “I saw penguins. I held one of their babies.”
“That’s awesome!” she exclaimed. “Now, I’m jealous.”
“How are things going in the city?” he asked.
“I like it here, and I get to sing to a lot more people than I ever could in Maine. I won’t ever be a chart-topper or on Broadway, but I love the audience and the people. Everything is so much more exciting here.”
The exhilaration in her voice made him realize their mom’s hope of having the twins return home in a couple of years was probably not going to happen. Cassidy had flown the nest, and this baby bird showed no signs of returning any time soon.
“I’m not so sure you won’t be in the top forty.”
Her wistful gaze went to the door behind him. “We both know why that could never happen.”
Yes, they did. They could blend in with humans and avoid drawing attention to themselves in the human world, but a vampire becoming a star would be an entirely different ball game. The media alone would be a nightmare to navigate.
If she were human, Cassidy would already be on Broadway or touring the world; instead, she sang in a bar.
“Besides,” she said as she rose from the table, “there’s a lot of talent out there.”
“None as talented as you, I’m sure.”
“I’m staying mad at you for a little while, so you can quit kissing my ass.”
He laughed as he leaned against the doorframe and pulled his hands from his pockets.
CHAPTER 3
“How’s Kyle?” he asked.
“He’s Kyle,” she said with a smile. “But he likes it here too.”
Julian was sure he did; the city provided a lot of opport
unities to meet new women, and before Julian left, Kyle was making his way through the girls in their school. Some of those girls were a few years older than him.
“Have you two had any problems here?” he asked.
“You mean like what you encountered last night?”
“Yes.”
“No.” She tilted her head to the side and stared out the door as if she were listening before looking to him again. “The occasional vamp wanders in, but no Savages.”
“Hmm,” Julian said as he rubbed at his beard.
“It seems you were the lucky one,” she said with a smile. “You know about Willow, right?”
“She joined the Alliance.”
He’d considered doing the same thing himself. Destroying Savages would be a great thing to focus his killer instinct on, but in the end, he decided against it. Without his mate, he would still spiral away into madness or death, and killing regularly might accelerate that in him.
He wasn’t like the other purebreds who fought against losing control of themselves; he already found his mate and gave her up. There was no staving off Savagery by focusing on something else; for him, it was only a matter of time before his life ended either in death or as a Savage.
“I thought Mom was going to lose it, but she took it better than I expected,” Cassidy said. “She did try to pack protective pads into Willow’s suitcase.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I am.” Cassidy’s blue eyes twinkled with amusement as she leaned forward. “But I stuffed a handful of worms into one of her bras. She called me, screaming.”
“Willow always hated worms.”
“She still does.”
“Why did you do it?”
“So she doesn’t forget me.”
Julian laughed. “Who could ever forget you?”
Forsaken (Vampire Awakenings, Book 10) Page 3