by Cynthia Eden
Jude lowered his hand. “He said he didn’t do anything.”
“Look at me!” She screamed as the voices droned in her head and the smells blasted her nose. “I’m not human anymore! That bastard changed me.” I’ve become what I hate most.
“Dee.” Pak, calm, trying to talk her down. No talking down from this.
The blood—so close. She wanted more.
No, no, she was going to be sick again—
Blood.
Her gaze rose to Jude’s throat. To the pulse that throbbed beneath the skin. Fresh blood would be better. So much better.
His brow furrowed. “Why you looking at me like I’m your meal, hunter? Stay in control, you got me? Stay in—”
She shoved her hand against her mouth. The hunger was so intense she nearly doubled over. A vampire. Just like those bastards who’d slaughtered her family. No. Never this. Never. “Stay away from me,” she growled, and didn’t look at him. Couldn’t, because he tempted her too much.
“You have to drink more,” Pak said, voice smooth as silk. Calm, steady Pak. Acting as if nothing were wrong. As if her world hadn’t just gone to hell thanks to a sexy, lying vampire who’d set her up from the beginning. “The first hunger can be too strong for some. I can’t allow you to attack anyone, Dee. You have to drink.”
She threw out her hand. Another mug was pushed against her fingers. She lifted the cup, guzzled the blood. Keep. It. Down.
I’m drinking blood. Nausea rolled inside her, the human remnants fighting what she’d become.
Empty. She pushed the mug back at Pak. It was refilled almost instantly.
She swallowed the dark liquid. Keep. It. Down.
Again.
Again.
Dee drank and closed her eyes. Her cheeks were wet, but she didn’t care. She’d never cried in front of the other hunters. Never cried, period. But this was different. This was hell.
Her teeth ached. Her stomach knotted. She still drank. Drank until the vicious need pounding through her body eased, until she could breathe without wanting to sink her teeth into Jude’s throat.
Until the monster inside had quieted.
“No more.” Pak took the cup from her. Dee swiped the back of her hand over her cheeks. Stupid tears—what good would crying do her? She glanced at her hands, frowning. Wait, was that blood? She’d cried tears of blood?
Dee’s chin came up. “Where’s Zane?” She wasn’t stupid. She hunted vampires for a living. She’d known that a day like this could come, probably would come, sooner or later. She’d hedged her bets to make sure that she wouldn’t turn into one of those killers who preyed on innocents. So many vampires just lost control and killed…killed.
Because the bloodlust could flare so strongly.
Zane was her safety net.
“He’s with the cleanup team on Bymore.”
She’d been on Bymore, right before the attack. “Ian?”
“Bastard’s dead, and so is some cop, a female who’d been working vice.”
The bitch who’d stabbed her. And she’d been one of Tony’s girls?
“The place is a fucking mess, blood everywhere, dead vamps torn apart—”
“What?” With the hunger slaked, she could think better. “Did Night Watch get there to—”
“Not our kills.” Pak crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at her. “We found the bodies like that and thought maybe you’d managed to take some of the bastards out.”
She shook her head. “No, no, the cop stabbed me. I was down for the count.” Should have been, anyway.
You won’t touch her. Dee could still hear the rage in Simon’s voice. “He brought me here?” Dumped her. He’d changed her, then dumped her.
She swallowed, aware that the knowledge hurt. The jerk still had the power to hurt her.
Dumped me like garbage. Why?
Because he knew she’d be coming after his ass.
“Chase wanted you taken care of. He knew you’d be safe here.”
But the hunters weren’t safe. She was too unstable. Too—
“You know the first forty-eight hours are the hardest.” Pak, still with those crossed-arms and quiet voice. “We’re going to have to keep you under lockdown until we can make sure you’re not—”
Insane. Driven crazy by bloodlust and power. A freaking killer who would slaughter everyone and everything in her path.
“I know you gave Zane kill orders,” Pak said and Jude sucked in a sharp breath.
“What the hell?” Jude’s claws sprang out.
“But you’re not dying yet,” Pak told her.
“I’m already dead!”
He jerked his head toward Jude. “Lock her up. And, do whatever you have to do, but keep that demon away from her.” A pause. “For now.”
Because if she went bad, if she couldn’t keep her control, Zane would come for her.
He’d given her his word, after all, and one thing about that demon, he always kept his word.
Unlike Simon…I’ll find you. Sooner or later, she’d find her lover and make him pay.
“You don’t smell like a vamp,” Jude said four nights later when he led her out the back door of Night Watch. His nostrils flared a bit and he leaned in close. “Damn, woman, you just smell, hell, like you.”
Dee glanced his way, then turned to stare at the long, dark street. Since the moment she’d awoken, Pak had kept her under close scrutiny. He’d watched her. Fed her. Helped her to focus the chaos in her mind that came from the enhanced senses and the fears.
Just like before, Pak had taught her.
Not how to hunt this time.
How to live as a vampire.
“Pak told me that a vamp’s scent changes,” Dee said, not sure she understood why she wasn’t reeking like a corpse. “Those bastards that hunt and rip apart humans, they stink of death and decay.”
“Because they have no soul left,” Pak’s soft voice, coming from behind them. Dee didn’t glance back. She’d known he was there. It was too easy to catch even his soft footfalls now.
“My grandfather once said that when the Taken lose their humanity, they become no more than the walking dead.”
His grandfather had been a Choctaw shaman, so Dee figured the guy had known a thing or two about the walking dead.
“You still have your soul, Dee. Your mortal life is gone, but you’re still the same inside.”
Yeah, right. She just had a few flashy additions on the outside. New teeth. New nails. New eyes.
Taken. Why had Simon changed her? “Why not just leave me to die?” she asked the night, her hands clenched into fists.
No answer. Dee hadn’t really expected one.
“You’ll hunt now.” Pak sounded certain.
She would, because there was still a job to do.
“For some reason, the Born Master left the city.”
A great stroke of luck for them. Because she sure hadn’t been up to hunting the last few days.
“We can’t risk him coming back,” Jude said, voice grim.
She uncurled her hands and glanced down at her new claws. “He won’t be back.”
“You can’t take him down alone!” Jude snapped. “You’ll—”
“Die?” She finished and gave him a tight smile. “Been there, done that.” Her eyes darted around the street. No sign of Zane. He hadn’t come to Night Watch, not once during her little “stay.” She would have known. Would have caught his scent just as she’d caught all the others.
But he’d come for her, sooner or later.
Just like Tony would be coming. Her time had expired for him, and the little matter of her being undead wasn’t going to stop him from taking her down.
She stepped into the night.
“Never the innocents, hunter. Remember that. Never them,” Pak ordered.
Dee gave a nod. The prey she’d be hunting first, well, he wasn’t innocent.
She doubted if he ever had been.
Sure, she’d track the Born Ma
ster. Find him, do her damned best to kill him. But first—
First, she had some personal payback coming.
Her nostrils widened as she scented the night. “Come out, come out, Simon Chase.” I’ll find you, wherever you are.
The hunt was on.
Following the scent of blood was ridiculously easy. Fighting the urge to let her fangs out, to take a bite, not so easy.
But the need for blood had been slaked under Pak’s watchful eye. Control, yeah, she had that now. He’d gotten her through that first mad rush of blood hunger. The rush that drove some vampires crazy and pushed others beyond that thin good/evil line.
She’d survived. She wouldn’t need to feed for weeks now, and when she did feed, the thirst wouldn’t be as overwhelming.
The first time—it was always a bitch in vampire land.
So she had her control. For what it was worth. Once she got her hands on her lying lover, Dee wasn’t real sure how long it would be before that old wall of control started to crack.
The first stop on her little hunt was his place. Not that she expected Simon to still be hanging around town. No, once he’d dumped her ass, he’d probably hit the road as fast as he could.
Why change me? Why? That question had haunted her every moment. Was this some kind of sick punishment? Another way of torturing her? Damn vampire. He’d probably thought turning her into what she hated most was hilarious.
His house stood at the end of the road, lined off by garish yellow police tape. She could see the color of the tape so clearly in the darkness. Could see everything so clearly. The bullet holes in the siding. The broken shards of glass. The front door that swayed drunkenly on its hinges.
Dee hunched down and slid under the police tape. No sign of any uniforms. No sign of anyone. Maybe she’d find something inside to lead her to the vampire bastard.
Getting inside was easy—the front door was pretty much gone. The TV lay smashed on the floor. Stuffing from the couch cushions covered the room.
And to think, she’d actually been happy here, for a brief, stupid moment of time, she’d been happy.
The floor creaked. A groan, more vibration than sound, and she caught the faintest hitch. Breathing. Coming from the bedroom.
Claws out, she sprang forward.
And slammed into her lover’s chest.
Dead lover’s chest.
Dee took him down, hard and fast. Simon’s head rapped against the hardwood. Her hips straddled him and she pinned his arms to the floor. Oh, yeah, vampire strength, baby. Payback was going to be hell.
“Dee.” Why was he saying her name like that? All husky and hungry. Like he hadn’t royally screwed her.
“Asshole.” Her fangs were growing, sharpening, and she wanted to sink them into his throat.
Bite.
The whisper she’d first heard here, with him. She should have known back then what was happening. Vampires were highly psychic. He’d been the one broadcasting that need, not her. Him.
“You should have let me die,” she growled and her fingers tightened around him.
His eyes flashed to black as fury hardened his face. Finally she was seeing the real man. Not the fake veneer. “I did.”
“What?”
He lunged up, breaking her hold and rolling them in a tumble of limbs. In the next second, Dee was on the floor, he had her caged, and his teeth glinted down at her. “Haven’t taken straight from a source yet, have you, babe? That was a mistake. You won’t be strong enough to—”
Dee tried to head-butt him, but Simon pulled back, shaking his head. “Still thinking like a human. You can’t do that, Dee.”
“I told you no!” She knew her fangs were out. Didn’t care. Her words were starting to lisp, just a bit. Still not used to those damn teeth. “I knew what you wanted, at the end.” That part was seared in her mind. “I told you no!”
The memory of his voice rumbled in her mind. “You won’t die. I won’t let you!” Then his bared fangs had come toward her throat. Must have been her imagination, or maybe just the insanity brought on by dying, but she’d sure thought the man sounded scared then. Afraid, for her.
His jaw clenched. “I didn’t—”
“You played me all along. Lied to me! Tricked me! You were the one who set all this shit up, weren’t you?” Her hands jerked against his, but, he was stronger and he wasn’t letting up.
“Thinking like a human,” he muttered again. “Dee, calm down.”
She was so sick of people telling her to calm down, relax, or go easy. She was a vampire for fuck’s sake! She didn’t have a cold or a broken hand—she was a vampire! Dee rammed her knee up and caught him right in the groin. His hold loosened, a moment was all she needed, and she hurled him back.
He flew five feet and thudded into the wall.
Sometimes thinking like a human wasn’t bad.
She bent low and jerked her stake from her ankle holster.
He bounded back to his feet and shook his head. “You didn’t come here to kill me.”
Straightening, she tested the weight of the stake. “I want to know where the Born Master is.” If she had to get physical with him to find out the location, so be it.
A rough laugh burst from his lips.
Her fingers tightened around the stake. “Don’t push me.” Her control had begun to waver the minute she’d seen him.
But the man stepped forward and a hard smile curled his lips. “I made you scream for me. I took you and you came and you screamed for me.”
She’d screamed his name. A growl built in her throat. “The Born Master.”
The smile wiped away. “I got you out of that alley. Those vampires wanted to rip you apart. I got you out. I kept you safe.”
She lunged at him and closed the distance instantly. She shoved the stake right above his heart, not breaking the skin, not yet. But it would be all too easy to go in for the kill. “You should have let me die.” And let me stay dead.
His hands came up, moving in a fast blur, not to push her away, but to wrap around her wrist, and to hold that stake close. “I did.”
He’d said the same thing before, but this time, a shiver worked over her. “Someone else made me?”
His hold didn’t waver. “Don’t get it, do you? I thought Pak would have told you before he sent you out to hunt.”
The stake pressed into his flesh. “Told me what?”
His gaze tracked over her face. “It’s you. You. You were Born in that alley. You died—” He sucked in a sharp breath. “Right in my arms, but then you came back.”
And Simon almost died then because the roaring in her ears blasted her mind apart and the stake was suddenly so light in her hands—
He shoved her back. She should have fallen to the floor. She barely stumbled. “That’s bullshit.”
“No, it’s the truth.” That black gaze bored into her. “In certain circles, the truth about you has been known for a long, long time.”
“Certain vampire circles?” Her stomach rolled.
A slow nod.
“You’re lying,” she spat the words. Had to be. There was no way she was Born.
“What do you hear?” he asked and he didn’t advance toward her. A rivulet of blood ran down his chest. The scent was so ripe and rich, better than the strawberries she’d always loved and Dee wanted to slither closer, to taste. “What do you hear?”
“Your heartbeat.” The myths were wrong. The hearts of vamps still beat. They still breathed. Still fucked. Still did everything that humans did. Because vampires only died for a moment of time, then they came back—they just came back different.
Wrong.
“What else?” he pressed.
“Cars.” Far away. Zooming on the road. “Insects.” Couldn’t focus on them or their buzz would drive her crazy. She’d learned that lesson in the first hour of her new life. Death. Whatever.
“And what do you feel?”
Hunger. Lust.
Looking at him, Dee knew she shou
ld hate him, but the need simmered below the surface. He’d lied to her, betrayed her, but the vamp inside looked out from her eyes and lusted.
Blood.
Sex.
Prey.
“You don’t feel the call, do you?”
Her eyes narrowed.
“You don’t feel the pressure.” He sounded certain. “You don’t hear it, right? The nagging voice in your head, telling you to come, to listen, to heed?”
No, there was nothing in her mind like that. Just the lust and the need.
And the strong urge to rip the guy apart.
“The Taken are linked to the Born, you know that.”
Vampire 101. Every hunter learned that lesson early.
“You don’t have a link. If you did,” his hand clenched, “you’d be about to go as fucking crazy as I am because the Born we’re after is calling his vamps to him, calling ’em in a frenzy because the bastard is scared as hell.”
The Born we’re after? She could see the tension in Simon’s body. The faint sweat on his brow. She’d thought that was fear, fear of her. “You’re telling me that you’re linked to the Born who was in Baton Rouge?”
The barest of nods.
Her breath exploded, and for a moment, she saw red. Literally saw him in a wall of blood. Betrayed. Dee attacked. Not with the stake this time, but with claws and teeth.
She slammed into him and they staggered to the floor. She wrenched his hands down and her mouth went for his throat.
Her fangs scraped across his flesh.
It took a moment for her to realize that he wasn’t fighting her. His body was held too still, taut, like a wire, and he was just…waiting.
“Do it,” a rasp and he bared his throat. “This is why I hunted you, why I fought for you.”
Nothing was making sense to her.
“I killed for you, and I would have died. Died.”
The blood flowed so close, right beneath her teeth. Her tongue slipped out, tasted that flesh.
Should have stayed with Pak longer. Not ready for this.
But she’d never be ready for this.
“Bite me.”
The bite gave a vampire power. Why would he want to be weak?
That blood…so close…. She shuddered against him, fighting the beast she’d never known until now.