by Becky Allen
After washing her face, she reapplied her makeup, grabbed her purse and her keys, and left the house. It was still early and there was a movie in town she had been wanting to see. Tonight seemed like the perfect time.
The movie had been a mistake, Kaitlyn thought as she walked toward the ice-cream parlor located down the block and across the street from the theater. She had forgotten the film was one of those chick flicks with lots of long, lingering looks and a sad ending. She had cried all the way through.
Hopefully, a banana split with extra whipped cream and a cherry would cheer her up. Her mother always said there were few miseries in life that a hefty helping of chocolate couldn’t make better.
Kaitlyn had just taken her first bite of hot fudge when the last person she wanted to see dropped into the seat across from hers.
“Hey, Kaitlyn, how’s it going?” Eddie asked cheerfully.
She forced a smile. “Just fine, thank you.”
“I thought you had a date tonight,” he said, his voice carefully casual.
“Something came up at the last minute and he had to cancel.” It wasn’t exactly a lie.
Eddie glanced at his watch. “Well, it’s early yet. Maybe we could go out. I hear there’s a nice dance floor at Ravenscroft’s Casino.”
“No!” The idea of running into Zack was unthinkable. “I mean, I don’t feel like dancing tonight.”
He looked thoughtful. “Do you like bowling? There’s a new place down the street. Lois Lanes. Get it?”
She forced another smile.
“So, what do you say?”
“I don’t think so.” She took a bite of ice cream but it seemed to have lost its appeal and she pushed the dish away.
“I guess it’s not my night,” Eddie remarked.
And it never will be, Kaitlyn thought, pushing away from the table. “Sorry, Eddie, I’m just really tired.” Rising, she plucked her handbag from the table. “Maybe some other time.” Talk about a lie, she thought.
“The least I can do is walk you home.”
“Thank you, but I have my car.”
“I didn’t see it parked outside.”
“I left it in the parking lot behind the theater.” She started toward the door, a huff of annoyance rising in her throat when Eddie followed her outside and fell into step beside her.
The silence stretched between them, but Kaitlyn didn’t care. She was too upset about how things had ended with Zack to worry about what Eddie Harrington thought. She had nothing to say to him and had no interest in his company. If she didn’t encourage him, maybe he would finally get a clue and leave her alone.
Apparently, he was clueless. “So, you went to the movies? How was it?”
“Very sad.”
“The new sci-fi flick starts on Friday. I hear it’s a good one.”
“Well, I hope you like it,” she said, hoping he would take the hint this time. Grateful to have reached her car, she unlocked it and opened the door. “Good night.”
“Yeah, good night.”
Kaitlyn slid behind the wheel and put the key in the ignition. When she glanced in the rearview mirror, she saw him standing under one of the lampposts, watching her. The surly look in his eyes sent a shiver of unease down her spine. Putting the car in gear, she drove out of the parking lot.
Zack stood in the shadows across from the parking lot, his eyes narrowed as he focused on the man who had been with Kaitlyn. Even from a distance, he recognized the man’s scent. It was the same as the one he had detected outside Kaitlyn’s house earlier that night. Was this guy friend or foe? Judging from the hostile expression in the man’s eyes, Zack didn’t think he was Kaitlyn’s friend, yet she hadn’t appeared to be afraid of him. She hadn’t appeared to be fond of his company, either.
Zack had just decided to confront the man when he disappeared from sight.
Zack grunted softly. Either the stranger was some kind of sorcerer, or he was a vampire. He was betting on the latter. And since the man didn’t smell human, and he didn’t smell like one of the Undead, Zack figured the man was a blood-born vampire, like Kaitlyn.
Frowning, Zack willed himself to Kaitlyn’s yard and took cover in the shadows near the front porch. She might not want anything to do with him, but he was sticking close by until he determined what was going on between her and the stranger.
Chapter 12
Zack rose to his feet and stretched his back and shoulders. It wasn’t really necessary. He never grew tired. His muscles didn’t get sore, didn’t cramp if he stayed in one position for hours on end. But moving, stretching, itching, and blinking came naturally, instinctively, to humans. After being turned, he’d had to practice doing those things until they were second nature again, because not doing so was sure to invite unwanted attention. Unlike vampires, mortals couldn’t sit unmoving or unblinking for hours at a time.
He had spent the last three nights hunkered down in the shadows outside Kaitlyn’s house. He wasn’t sure the stranger he had seen her with was a threat, but Zack had decided it was better to err on the side of caution, at least until he determined what the man was up to, or he left town. Zack grunted softly. It wasn’t like he had anything else to do. Well, other than run the casino, but Kaitlyn was infinitely more important than a few slot machines.
Now, with dawn approaching, it was time to leave, time to seek his lair before the sun found him.
He was about to transport himself to the casino when the stranger materialized on the front porch.
Zack glanced at the sky. Only minutes until sunrise.
When the other vampire reached for the doorknob, Zack flew to the porch, his hand grasping the other vampire by the arm, wrenching him around and away from the door. “What are you doing here?”
The other vampire stared at him, his eyes wide with surprise, not fear. “I’m here to see Kaitlyn,” he replied smoothly.
“Before the sun’s even up?” Zack asked, still gripping the other man’s arm.
“We’re lovers,” the man said with a leer.
“You’re lying. Who the hell are you?”
“My name is Eddie Harrington, not that it’s any of your business.” He straightened to his full height. “Now let me go. I don’t want to hurt you.”
Zack snorted. At six foot two, he stood a good four inches taller than Harrington and outweighed him by thirty pounds.
“I mean it,” Harrington said.
Zack sensed the change in Harrington as Harrington summoned his preternatural power. Harrington’s muscles tensed, his eyes went hard and cold. Power radiated from him, sizzling through the damp air, but Zack knew instinctively that his own power was older, stronger.
Confident of his vampiric strength, Harrington suddenly twisted out of Zack’s grasp, then pushed him down the stairs. He flung himself after Zack, expecting Zack to be facedown on the ground, only Zack wasn’t there.
Too late, Harrington realized he had badly underestimated his foe.
He landed facedown on the ground where Zack should have been, only to let out a harsh cry when Zack twisted his right arm behind his back, his knee grinding into his spine.
“Who the hell are you?” Harrington growled.
“Zack Ravenscroft. Remember that name, because if I ever see you sniffing around Kaitlyn’s house again, I’ll rip your heart out. Got it?”
Harrington grunted something unintelligible.
Zack applied more pressure to the other man’s spine. “Got it?”
“Yes, dammit! Now get off of me.”
As soon as Zack released him, Harrington was gone. Zack frowned thoughtfully. Harrington seemed awfully weak for a vampire, but then, maybe the vampires who were born that way weren’t as strong as those who were made. Or maybe Harrington was just young. Kaitlyn had said their kind got stronger as they got older. Perhaps Harrington would, too. If he lived that long.
Zack was dusting himself off when he saw a wallet lying in the dirt. Must be Harrington’s, he thought. Picking it up, he thumbed thro
ugh it, then frowned when he saw the man’s driver’s license. The photo was Harrington’s, but the name read Daryn Korzha. Zack grunted thoughtfully. Did Kaitlyn know who Harrington really was? And if not, what game was Harrington, or Korzha, playing?
Well, there was one way to find out. Materializing inside Kaitlyn’s house, he dropped Harrington’s wallet on the coffee table where she would be sure to find it in the morning.
A thought took Zack to his lair in the bowels of the casino. It wasn’t much, just a square room with stone walls, no windows and no doors. And no lights. But artificial light was unnecessary. With his preternatural vision, he could see everything clearly, although there was little to see save the expensive polished ebony coffin in the center of the flagstone floor, and a small iron box that held a few mementos from his past—a copy of Romeo and Juliet, a few old English coins, a wooden toy horse one of the nuns had given him.
Stripping down to his briefs, Zack stretched out on the cool satin that had been his resting place for over six hundred years. He could have slept in a bed—and occasionally he did—but the coffin was familiar, a stark reminder of who and what he was.
Daryn Korzha paced the floor of his lavish hotel room, his outrage growing with every stride as he relived his encounter with Ravenscroft outside Kaitlyn’s house. The man wasn’t one of Sherrad’s sons, or a member of any of the foreign Fortresses—Daryn was sure of that. And yet, he hadn’t been able to read Ravenscroft’s mind, so the stranger couldn’t have been human. Besides, no mere mortal could have crept up on him unawares, or bested his preternatural strength.
Daryn muttered an oath. So, if Ravenscroft wasn’t one of the Romanian vampires and he wasn’t human, what the hell was he?
That question echoed in his mind as he pulled out his cell phone and called home.
Nadiya Korzha stood looking out the front window of her house, her thoughts turned inward. The house was large and well-appointed, decorated with furniture and bric-a-brac collected through the centuries. The basement was filled with things she had tired of, and with the gifts her husband had given her years ago.
She had never liked being a fourth wife. Not that he had treated her any differently from his second wife, or third, or any of the others. Except his first wife, Liliana. She had been accorded privileges and respect denied to the others. Being the first wife, and the favorite, Liliana had also been granted the right to remain at the Fortress as long as she wished, to the exclusion of all the others. A thought that still rankled in Nadiya’s heart.
Staring out the window, she paid little heed to the beauty of her surroundings or to the laughter of one of her grandchildren coming from the back of the house. Her enthusiasm for life had died the night her son, Florin, was killed. She would not rest until he had been avenged, until his killer endured the same remorse that had become her constant companion, until he had shed as many bitter tears as had she. In her mind’s eye, she relived her son’s final moments, each one as clear as if it was happening all over again. She felt the coolness of the night, the taste of the breeze, heard the rapid beating of her son’s heart as he fought for his life.
And then, as though she were seeing it all for the first time, she felt the anticipation of those watching as Drake thrust his sword through her son’s heart, heard the collective sigh from the crowd as Florin’s body toppled lifelessly to the ground. Knowing what was coming next, she had turned away, but she had known, by the sharp swish of the blade, the exact moment when Drake severed her son’s head from his body. And now her son was dead, while Rodin’s favorite son flourished at Wolfram Castle.
She refused to acknowledge her role in her son’s death. Those at the Fortress had mistakenly assumed Florin was interested in avenging himself on one of Rodin’s sons for a supposed misunderstanding over a woman. In reality, Florin had wanted to avenge himself on Rodin for giving the woman to Olaf, and for banishing him from the Fortress that he had long coveted. She could have prevented her son’s death by forbidding him to return to the Fortress as Gerret’s second. But she had been confident in his ability to accomplish his goal, eager to see her son rule the Fortress that she, too, had coveted. Eager to see Liliana ousted.
Nadiya clenched her fists. She wasn’t foolish enough to send her remaining sons against Drake or Liliana. But Drake’s daughter was fair game and, being half human, would be much more easily destroyed. But first the fair Kaitlyn must be made to suffer.
The ringing of her cell phone interrupted thoughts of vengeance. She smiled when she heard Daryn’s voice. She listened for several moments, her eyes narrowing.
“I have never heard of Zack Ravenscroft. I do not know who he is,” she said brusquely. “I do not care who he is. Get rid of him if you have to, but bring the girl to me, by force, if necessary.”
She listened to his excuses for another minute, then threw the phone against the wall. If Daryn couldn’t overpower the Sherrad heir, then she would find someone who could.
Chapter 13
Kaitlyn slept late, reluctant to face a new day, reluctant to admit that she missed Zack as much as she did. Which was ridiculous. She had only known him a short time, and yet he had brought a new excitement to her life, a sense of adventure, a sudden, almost irresistible urge to throw caution to the wind and follow her heart instead of her head. Would it truly be so bad to ignore her mother’s teachings, to destroy her father’s expectations, and take one of the Others as a lover? Just one indiscretion. And no one need ever know . . . but she would know.
After fixing a cup of coffee, she carried it into the living room. And frowned when she saw a man’s wallet lying on the coffee table next to a pile of magazines. She stared at it a moment, trying to figure out whose it was and how it had gotten there.
Setting her cup on the table, she picked up the billfold. She paused before opening it, then shrugged. There was no other way to find out who it belonged to.
She stared at the face on the driver’s license, and then read the name. Daryn Korzha. She blinked, and read it again. Korzha. Her father had mentioned Daryn Korzha and his mother not long ago. Was it merely coincidence that this man had the same name, or was this Korzha related to her? And if so, why had he lied to her?
She thought about it for several minutes, but there was only one way to find out. She would confront Eddie or Daryn or whoever he was the next time she saw him, even though she hoped he would leave town and never return.
With that problem solved, Kaitlyn found herself thinking about Zack again. Had she really done the right thing in telling him good-bye? She might forget him, in time. And maybe she wouldn’t.
Her mother was mortal, but she had married a vampire. Would it be so wrong for Kaitlyn the half vampire to marry Zack the Other? After all, being vampires, they had more in common than her mother and father.
Confused and lonely, Kaitlyn called home, hoping her mother could give her the answer she sought.
She had no sooner said, “Hi, Mom,” than her mother asked what was wrong.
“Am I that transparent?” Kaitlyn asked.
“Are you kidding? You sound like you just lost your best friend.”
“Maybe I did,” Kaitlyn said, and quickly told her mother what had happened. “I miss him so much, Mom. I don’t know what I should do.”
“You did the right thing.” Elena sighed, wondering how she could advise her daughter to stop seeing Zack Ravenscroft. So what if he wasn’t one of them? She had fallen in love with someone who was not human, married him, and given him a daughter, and never regretted it for a moment.
Would Drake see it that way? As Master of the Carpathian Fortress, he was responsible for making sure the laws of the coven were upheld. But then, hadn’t he changed the laws of his people in order to marry her?
“Mom?”
“Sorry, sweetie, did you ask me something?”
“I asked if you thought Dad would . . . oh, never mind. I know he wouldn’t. He thinks of the Others as our enemy. I’ve never heard him say anything p
ositive about any of them. I just don’t understand it. They drink blood. We drink blood. They kill humans . . .” Remembering who she was talking to, Kaitlyn murmured, “Sorry, Mom.”
“It’s all right, dear. I know what you mean. And I know some of your father’s people have killed humans to survive. But that’s rare.” Elena sighed again. She had lived with Drake and his people for over twenty years, and even though they accepted her and treated her with respect, there were times when she felt like an outsider. She didn’t want Kaitlyn to ever feel like that.
“Well, it doesn’t matter, anyway,” Kaitlyn said, her voice melancholy. “I told Zack I couldn’t see him anymore, and I haven’t seen him since.” She paused. “Mom, have you ever heard of Daryn Korzha?”
Elena’s heart skipped a beat. “Did you say Korzha?”
“Yes, do you know him?”
“No. No, I don’t.”
“But you’ve heard of him?”
“I’m not sure. There are a lot of Korzhas in the world,” Elena said, her mind racing. “Where did you meet him?”
“He bumped into me at the grocery store in town. He told me his name was Eddie Harrington and that he was a businessman, but his driver’s license says his name is Daryn Korzha.”
“How did you see his driver’s license?”
“Someone left it where I’d find it.” As Kaitlyn said the words, she knew it must have been Zack and that he had been in her house without her knowledge. The thought gave her pause. “Eddie, or whoever he is, told me he was on his way to L.A., but he’s still here. I saw him the other day, when I was driving home from the drugstore.”
“Listen, Kaitlyn, promise me you’ll stay away from this man until we know who he really is, all right? I need to talk to your father about this.”