by Kasi Blake
“For me or for dating in general?”
Before he could respond he caught sight of a vampire tailing a young lady as she parted from the crowd near the casinos. It always amazed him how some people didn’t have any survival instinct. Unaware she was being followed, the woman headed down a dimly lit street. She went in the direction of the buses. It was the cheapest way to get around Reno if you didn’t have your own car. Several buses picked up tourists at a nearby station. They each traveled their route, turned around, and returned to the place where they started only to do it again. Trick had a feeling the woman wasn’t going to make it to the bus without his help.
Scarlet thumped him in the arm with a rolled up fist, and he realized she’d still been talking. “Are you listening to me?” she asked.
“Vampire,” he said as he jumped out of the car.
The vampire snatched the woman from the sidewalk, hand over her mouth, and disappeared into a darkened alley.
Trick ran at normal speed for fear he might be seen by another hunter. Scarlet’s hurried footsteps pounded the concrete sidewalk behind him. He reached for the stake hidden in the inner lining of his jacket.
“Remember,” Scarlet said. “You can’t kill him until you feed.”
His fingertips released the stake and left it hidden. If he was holding it, he’d use it. Better safe than sorry. An idea formed in the back of his mind as they rounded the corner. No time to explain, he grabbed Scarlet by the throat and dragged her with him.
“Hey,” she protested.
The vampire in the alley glanced up. His soft, pudgy features made him seem weak, harmless. That probably helped him get close to his intended victims. As Laura would say, he had a face only a mother could love. He had his arms wrapped around his prey, and he was about to bite her.
Eyes wide, the twenty-something girl looked terrified. She was wearing some sort of uniform. Maybe that was why she hadn’t noticed the vampire tailing her, because she’d been in a rush to get home. With mousy brown hair and an unremarkable face, she wasn’t the kind of girl Trick would normally notice. She was probably smart and talented and funny. Most guys wouldn’t find that out for themselves because they wouldn’t give her a chance. How often had Laura reminded him and Matt that they should never pick a girlfriend based on shallow stuff like appearance?
“Buzz off,” the vampire said. “Can’t you see this alley is taken?”
“Don’t see your name on it,” Trick said.
“I was here first,” the vampire said. “Get lost, kid.”
“You take a hike.” Trick pressed his face against the side of Scarlet’s neck and felt her pulse racing. “I can’t wait another second to taste this one.”
The vampire shoved his victim, and she slammed into the brick wall. The impact knocked her out, which was a good thing. Trick didn’t want her to see what he was about to do.
“What is your problem, sucker?” the vampire asked as he advanced in their direction.
Trick gave Scarlet a gentle push to the side.
The vampire walked past her without a second glance.
Trick laughed. “Actually, you are the one with the problem. See, I told this hunter here I would help her bag a few vamps if she left me alone.”
Dumbfounded, the vampire said, “Huh?”
Scarlet knew what to do. She ripped her stake free from the sheath beneath her pant leg and yelled, “Die, freak!”
The vampire whipped around to confront her.
Trick tackled him to the ground and tore open the guy’s wrist with his fangs. Blood sprayed until his mouth covered the wound. Without the vampire realizing it he was helping Trick reenact a scene he’d played out with Cowboy last month. Only this vampire’s blood didn’t taste as good without the added benefit of faerie blood.
“What is wrong with you?” The vampire struggled against Trick’s powerful grip. “Let me go!”
“Scarlet,” Trick said. “He’s all yours.”
She dropped to her knees before the vampire could react and drove the stake into his chest. The tip pierced his heart, and he turned to dust. Game over. Her bright eyes lifted and focused on Trick’s face. “Well? Did it work?”
“I don’t know.”
He probably wouldn’t know for a while. If he got around Dani and didn’t crave her blood, he was in the clear. Problem: Dani wasn’t talking to him. Maybe he should seek out another girl and test himself.
As if reading his mind, Scarlet cut the side of her neck with the stake’s sharp tip. She leaned across the vampire dust between them and embraced him so that his face was against her throat. Part of him wanted to chew her out for doing something so stupid. If he was still dealing with blood lust, he’d kill her.
The smell of her blood was sweetly tempting.
Unable to resist, he sent his tongue in for a taste. He licked her neck, and she gasped. The soft sound nearly drove him crazy with need. His hands delved into her messy mop of hair. He held her immobile for a moment. His mouth slid from her neck across her cheek to her lips. Last time she had initiated the kiss. This time it was him.
Her hands gripped his shoulders.
In a replay of their previous kiss, her emotions became his. That answered his question about their first time. It had been real. Kissing Scarlet was intense, a hammer to his senses.
His hands slid beneath her jacket to grip her waist and pull her tighter against him. A feminine groan told him he was doing something right. It took a second for him to realize the groan hadn’t come from her. The injured girl was waking up and needed help. That was a mood killer.
He and Scarlet ran to the injured girl.
♫
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Manic Monday
Abandoned.
That one word defined Trick’s life in a way that made him sick to his stomach. Knowing he had initiated the fights and set those bridges on fire didn’t make him feel better. What’s done was done. Friends and family had turned on him. Didn’t matter why. A little voice in the back of his mind reminded him that people would always leave him. From his father to the vampires claiming to be his friends, they’d all walk out on him someday. The only person he could depend on was himself—and Scarlet.
She was in his corner again despite the mean things he’d said to her. Deep down he knew it wouldn’t last. Sooner or later she would leave him too. Everyone did.
Cowboy was on his mind. If the hotheaded vampire did something stupid, it could affect them all. Trick realized he should have gone looking for him straight away. Too late now.
Instead, he went to school. Friday night meant a basketball game in the gym. He stood just inside the propped open doors and watched Dani cheer with the other girls on her squad. Warm air from inside wafted out to where he stood, inviting him to move closer.
Dani’s dark ponytail bounced as she jumped around and waved the red pom poms. Full of energy, she did a couple cartwheels before joining the others to form a human pyramid. The smile on her face seemed genuine. She looked happy, but he knew better. He could see through the cracks.
Did she miss him as much as he missed her?
Watching her cheer reminded him of all the times he’d sat in the bleachers during games to support her. While others cheered for the players, he had cheered for her. Afterward, they had always found a dark, quiet place to make out. More than anything he missed kissing her.
Trick walked around the building’s exterior to the main entrance. The doors hadn’t been chained yet. He took his usual route to Jersey’s classroom, hoping to talk to the werewolf about Oberon. Specifically, Trick wanted to know how Jersey had gotten the cure to Oberon’s curse. If there was even a chance Oberon knew they had the cure, they would need to act fast. More than anything Trick needed to know how to destroy the faerie king. How could he kill a creature that was supposed to be truly immortal?
He rounded the corner and stopped in his tracks.
Jersey stood near the door of his classroom, but he wasn’t alo
ne. It took a second for Trick’s brain to catch up with his vision. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. What did those two have to talk about?
Trick jumped back, pressed himself against the wall, and peeked around the corner. He listened intently using his supernatural hearing. Unfortunately, the two men were done with their conversation. Had they been arguing? Had the hunter issued a warning to the werewolf? Or had they decided to team up against a shared enemy?
Bash walked away.
Jersey stared after him.
Enough was enough. Trick refused to ask the werewolf for the truth. Questioning a notorious liar was useless. He hurried in Jersey’s direction with a plan in mind. Since he couldn’t ask for the truth, he would find it himself.
Jersey turned to go inside his classroom, but he caught sight of Trick. A smirk lifted one side of his mouth. “Good evening,” he said. “Are you here for the game... or did you want to take me up on my offer? A book report in exchange for information.”
Trick shrugged with an answering grin. “I want to know how you know Bash.”
That single sentence dissolved the werewolf’s amusement. Trick placed a hand on Jersey’s shoulder and mentally prepared himself for what was coming. A blast of electricity shot through Trick from his fingers to his toes. Within a split second, he was watching a memory. The surprising aspect was that he found himself outside the werewolf, a third party spectator instead of watching from behind Jersey’s eyes as he had with Dani, Matt, and Scarlet.
The second surprise was their location. He had expected to catch the show from a few minutes ago outside Jersey’s classroom, but they were somewhere else. Trick stood off to the side while Jersey crossed the glowing blue floor to a small group of people gathered near a wall of windows. As far as Trick could tell they were on the top floor of an office building.
Bash had his back to them. Hunched over a writhing body, Bash spoke to the intruder without looking to see who was interrupting his torture session. “Isn’t it enough I let you live?” Bash asked. “You require more of me?”
“Maybe I have something to offer you,” Jersey said.
Maniacal laughter, a mixture of frustration, arrogance, and growing insanity echoed in the large room. Bash said, “I doubt you can offer me anything that I want, but hold that thought for a moment.”
Bash hunched over the prone person again.
The man on the floor screamed.
The small group seemed glued to the flour. Dressed in business attire, they bore witness to what Bash was doing. Clearly, none of them liked it, but no one dared say a word. Some tried not to look, while others scowled in disapproval at the display of inhumanity.
Bash shouted, “Tell me where he is!”
When an answer didn’t come, Bash struck the man with an invisible hammer. Blood splattered the wall, floor, and Bash’s clothing. The person on the floor stopped moving. Bash glanced over his shoulder at Jersey. His dark eyes danced in a crazy way that Trick hadn’t seen before, and his grin twisted with malicious intent.
“Now for the fun part,” Bash said with a laugh tacked onto the end. “Watch this.”
Bash’s hands glowed, and the man on the floor started moving again. The victim’s breaths were harsh and heavy and caught between cries of pain. There was something familiar about the sounds.
Trick inched closer. He went around Bash and took a good look at the poor guy on the floor. Another shock hit him hard. He started to drop to his knees to try to help. Then he remembered he was stuck in a memory. He couldn’t do anything to change what had been done in the past. All he could do was watch and learn.
Ian Carver got himself under control. Between gritted teeth, he vowed, “I will never tell you the location of my son.”
“Where is he?” Bash demanded.
When Ian refused to talk, Bash reached down with one hand. He didn’t even touch Trick’s father. The hand simply hovered over Ian, but his flesh ripped open in several places as if invisible blades were slicing into his skin. He screamed in agony.
Blood splattered the onlookers again.
Trick’s father died.
Bash’s hands glowed, and he revived Ian.
“I thought Ian Carver died a long time ago,” Jersey said.
“I can revive anyone,” Bash said. “You should know.”
Battered, bruised, and bloody, Ian glared up at his tormentor. “When did you take over Sebastian’s body? Did you and I work together? Were you pretending to be him while hunting with me? Were you in my house?”
Bash leaned close, still grinning like a maniac. “How do you think I know about Patrick? I met him. You introduced us. The only reason I didn’t kill that brat on the spot is because he wasn’t your firstborn. The power was supposed to go to Jack. Who knew he’d turn vampire on us?”
Trick remembered hearing the story from Cowboy. Oberon’s son had chosen to live in the Mortal Realm. In order to do that he had needed a human body. He’d chosen Trick’s family tree for some reason. Lucky them. Then he’d burned through one body per generation, always the firstborn. But Jack was a vampire when the time came for Oberon’s son to inhabit his body. He was considered dead already. That meant Billy was the eldest. Oberon’s son had taken over Billy, thus killing him. Jack and his friends had eventually killed the nasty faerie, releasing the power into the world.
Trick had been born with some faerie power already in his veins, no need for possession.
The Shadow Faerie they recently fought had wanted Trick to accept more power. Oberon wanted it back in the Faerie Realm, but he couldn’t collect it unless it lived inside of a person. Once that person died, Oberon could take the power back to his realm.
Trick realized he was seeing a memory from right before the vampires came looking for him. Oberon had been living in their world in the guise of a hunter, a friend to the Carver family. The memory also had to be after Ian Carver died. The sicko faerie resurrected his father to torture him.
And he wanted Trick’s location.
His father refused to give up the information.
Bash killed him a few more times.
Trick turned to stare out the windows. He couldn’t stand to watch, especially when there wasn’t anything he could do. He looked through the glass. They appeared to be on a small island in the middle of a stormy sea. Waves crashed against the rocks below. Midnight blue was the ocean, and the sky was inky black.
“I know your son was adopted,” Bash said. “You gave him away to protect him from my son, didn’t you? Bet you never even considered me a threat. You should have.”
Ian chuckled, a forced sound. “You? What are you going to do? I think you’re a washed-up, sorry excuse for a king. The faeries under your rule came here to escape, didn’t they? They chose to live trapped in this place instead of under your thumb. Your own son ran away to our realm because he couldn’t stand the sight of you.”
“Shut up,” Bash said with a low, menacing growl.
“At least I gave up my sons for their own good,” Ian said. “I loved them, and they loved me. You can’t say that about your worthless offspring.”
Bash shouted, “Shut up!”
He threw his arms into the air, a referee signaling a touchdown, and the small group of faeries standing around Ian exploded. Blood splattered everything. Ian died with them. He died with a satisfied smile on his face that filled Trick with pride.
Bash/Oberon opted not to bring Ian back to life again. New people entered the room, and he ordered them to get rid of the bodies. Then he turned to Jersey.
Jersey was paler than usual. His Adam’s apple bobbed. He coughed into his hand before he said, “I will give you your heart’s desire if you grant me mine.”
“And what is it you want from me?” Bash shouted. “What more do you require?”
Jersey lifted his head high, and a crazy gleam entered his eyes. “I want to be my true self again. Make me a werewolf, restore my powers, and I will be your servant. I will deliver the boy to you.”
Bash’s muscular arm shot into the air again. Clutched in his fist was a golden item Trick couldn’t quite make out from his angle. An inhuman growl rumbled up Bash’s throat. “Done!”
A swirl of color and light flew from the faerie king’s other hand and hit Jersey square in the chest. The magic was soaked up by his body. He arched his back and accepted it as his due. Jersey had gotten his power back because he’d made a deal to find hand over Trick to the faerie king. That stupid werewolf needed to be put down. No question.
“You made a vow,” Bash told Jersey. “And I have sealed it. If you double-cross me, you will die on the spot. You are mine to command.”
Jersey hid his surprise quickly with a smile. “For as long as I live I will serve you.” Beneath his breath he added, “Or for as long as you live.”
Trick jerked himself back to the present and saw the look of horror on Jersey’s face. The werewolf knew what he’d seen. Perhaps it had flashed through his mind as well. Before Jersey could react, Trick started running. He forgot about the basketball game, and he forgot about watching Dani cheer.
Shocked by what he’d seen, Trick also forgot he could teleport until he reached the doors. Oberon had been with him the whole time, pretending to be an ally. The faerie king was a master manipulator. Oberon and Jersey needed to die and soon.
He teleported to the mansion. The image of his father repeatedly dying refused to budge. It haunted him long into the night. A couple hours before sunrise, he vowed to make Oberon pay.
♫
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Hazy Shade of Winter
A sleepless night led to a difficult morning. Trick couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact Bash was Oberon. Once again he’d trusted the wrong person. He went back over every single thing he had said to the faerie king. The damage seemed manageable, especially if he could use his newfound knowledge against the guy.
Trick teleported to the Foster’s backyard. He peeked around the corner to make sure Dani’s car was gone. Then he knocked on the terrace door. He peered through the glass. Inside, the house seemed darker than usual, not a single light on. Maybe Baxter wasn’t home. Hoping he was wrong, he knocked again.