by Cynthia Eden
Footsteps approached her little room. She knew those steps belonged to the guards. No doubt they were bringing in her first research inmate. She’d been given the list of interview subjects right after she’d gone to her temporary quarters, and unless she was very wrong about one of the names on that list—
“Hello, again, love.”
He’s here.
Shane stood in the doorway. He was smiling, flashing his fangs.
Shane Morgan. She’d read through his file. Actually, she’d read it four times. Maybe five. Shane Morgan was a vampire who’d been found guilty of killing four men in a Chicago bar. According to the notes she’d reviewed, he’d never shown any remorse for his crime.
And the prosecutor had strongly suspected that Shane had killed many, many other times before he’d been caught that dark and deadly Chicago night.
“I was hoping to see you again,” he said as his stare seemed to stroke right over her. There was definitely a sensual edge to those words.
Olivia’s hands flattened on the table. Sunlight streamed into the room, onto Shane, but he didn’t appear at all affected. “I’m here to ask you some questions.”
The guards pushed him into the room. Shoved him into the chair across from her, and locked manacles around his wrists. The manacles were attached to the heavy stone in the floor.
“Love, you can ask me any damn thing you want.”
Case stiffened and shot away from the wall. “Watch it, vampire.”
“Ah…Warden Killian, isn’t it? What a fucking unpleasure it is to meet you.”
Case’s expression darkened. “Vamp, you need to—”
“Warden, I need you to leave the room while I talk with the subject,” Olivia said quickly. The last thing she wanted right then was a confrontation between those two. No more blood on the floor! Now she was realizing why the place had been bleached.
She didn’t want a brawl right in front of her. And if Shane felt threatened, hell, he definitely wouldn’t open up to her. She had to get him to talk. Olivia cleared her throat and told Case, “I’ve found that I can get individuals to talk more freely when—”
“You want me to leave you alone with a vampire?” Case stared at her as if Olivia were totally insane.
I’m not. “The sun’s up. He’s chained. He’s no threat.”
Shane laughed softly.
“And the cameras are on.” She didn’t like them, but there they were, watching and recording their every move. “If anything happens, I’m sure a guard could be in here in less than a minute.” Because she knew there were guards watching those video feeds.
Case’s hands had fisted. “You could be dead in less than a minute’s time. Before the guards had a chance to get in this room.”
That was not an ending she was particularly planning for right then. “I’ve been alone with killers before. I assure you, I can handle this.”
A muscle flexed in Case’s jaw, but after a moment, he gave a rough nod. “Have it your way.” But he didn’t head for the door. Instead, he stalked toward Shane and stopped when he was less than a foot away from the vampire. He glared at the vamp. “Move to hurt her in any way, and I’ll throw your ass in solitary.”
“Is that supposed to scare me?” Shane asked, voice curious.
Case moved closer to Shane. “You haven’t seen my solitary confinement…yet.” The threat hung in the air.
Olivia realized that she was barely breathing.
Then Case pulled back. He nodded once more to her and headed for the door. The guards filed out after him. When the door swung shut, the clang seemed to echo around her.
“Take a breath now,” Shane advised her.
Her breath rushed out.
Shane’s lips tightened. “You shouldn’t be in this damn place.”
She sat down in her chair. The wooden chair legs wobbled beneath her, much like her own legs had a tendency to do. “I’m only here temporarily,” Olivia told him quietly, “but unless I’m wrong, I think you’re here for the next hundred years.” Give or take a decade.
He leaned toward her. The chains stretched a bit with his movement. “We’ll see about that.”
She looked into his eyes. They were strangely beautiful eyes, compelling and deep. Flecks of gold were hidden in those green depths. He was handsome, dangerously so, and she wondered if he’d used his good looks to lure in prey over the years.
“I do wish I could read your thoughts,” he murmured as he gave a slow shake of his head.
“I’m here to find out why you kill,” Olivia blurted, then her lips clamped shut in horror. She’d meant to be more tactful. Meant to lead up to that part, but, well, her nerves must have taken over and those words had tumbled out.
“Are you now?” His fingers drummed on the edge of the table. “Then let me save you some time. I kill because I’m a vampire. That’s sort of our thing.”
Lie. “Not all vampires kill their prey. Not all vampires even drink from live sources. Some drink from blood bags and never even touch live prey at all.” How did some survive so easily that way? While others seemed to love the violence and fury of murdering a human?
His green gaze held hers. “Lions don’t let their prey just wander away after they take a little bite.”
No, lions didn’t. Their powerful teeth tore into their prey. They devoured.
“Half of the thrill is in the hunt…the other half is in the victory of the kill.” Shane pushed back his shoulders. Seemed to focus totally and completely on her.
Just as she was focused entirely on him. Olivia wouldn’t make notes on their meeting. Not yet. She’d wait until he’d left her, then she’d gather her thoughts about the vampire. “You were hunted once.” She had to point that out. “That’s how you became a vampire.” She wanted to see if he could have empathy for his victims. Because, once, he’d been a victim, too.
But his expression didn’t change.
“Do you remember being afraid?” Olivia asked him.
“I’ve never been afraid.”
“Sure you were. Everyone is afraid of something.” She found herself leaning toward him. Mirroring his movements was part of her strategy. Trust building. Her subjects always talked more when they felt secure with her.
“Is that so?” His chains creaked again. “Then why don’t you tell me what you fear…Olivia.”
How had he known her first name?
“I heard the guards talking about you,” he murmured. “When a sexy young doctor walks into hell, people take notice.”
It wasn’t hell. It was Purgatory. And her muscles were too tight. “This interview isn’t about me. If you’re not going to participate in the session, I can call the warden back in here. There are plenty of other vampires I can have brought in. I don’t have to talk with you.” Pate had picked him, not her. She could find someone who unsettled her a bit less.
“Ah…so there’s an answer. You fear me.” He nodded, as if he’d just had a theory confirmed. “I thought as much.” He gave what looked like a rather sad shake of his head. “You probably shouldn’t have gotten yourself locked in a room with a man you fear. Not such a smart move, love.”
“Stop calling me love.” This was professional. An interview. Nothing more.
Nothing less.
“Love, I truly fear nothing because I have already lived through every hell imaginable.”
She believed him. The truth was in his eyes and his voice.
“Tit for tat, is that how this will be?” Shane asked. “You reveal to me…and I reveal to you?”
The last thing she intended to do was reveal her own secrets. “That’s not how it works. I’m not the prisoner here.”
“Aren’t you?”
She stared down at his files. “You killed four men in Chicago. Why?”
“Why not?”
Her right hand fisted. “There are other vampires…” She was already going to be interviewing three more. “I don’t have time to waste with you.”
Silence.
She knew he was waiting for her to look up at him. So she didn’t. She kept staring at those files as if they truly fascinated her. As if—
“You shouldn’t mourn those men. They weren’t some innocent humans. They were killers, too.”
Her gaze lifted.
He’d leaned toward her even more, stretching out those chains that bound him. “Is that what you want to hear, love? That they were evil, and I only kill evil humans? Will that make the crime better for you?” His words were low, deep, wrapping around her.
Olivia shook her head. “No. I want to hear the truth.”
He smiled then. “No, you don’t. No one ever does.”
She was getting nowhere with him. Normally, she could take months to build up trust so that her subjects would talk to her. Pate hadn’t given her months. Her clock was ticking down every moment.
“What is it like when you kill?”
The chains squeaked. “You’re more blood thirsty than I realized.”
You have no idea.
Olivia had to keep pushing him. “Do you ever think about your victims or is the attack just about…you?”
The color of his eyes darkened. Vampire. “It’s always about me, love, always.”
***
Case turned away from the video screens. Dr. Maddox hadn’t recognized him, and that was damn good. He’d pushed her deliberately, to see if she might remember him, but she hadn’t. He’d only been in her presence once, briefly, years ago. Obviously, he hadn’t made a big impression on the woman.
But then, Dr. Maddox had always been more interested in the paranormals than the humans around her.
That was why she was there. Her interest in monsters was the reason that they were both there. He started to pace. The interview was still going on, but the vamp wasn’t telling Dr. Maddox anything new. As far as Case was concerned, there was only one reason why the paranormals attacked. They killed because that was the nature of their beasts. You didn’t need a fistful of degrees to figure that shit out.
He whirled back toward the screen. Dr. Maddox and the vampire were leaning toward one another. The vampire looked as if he just couldn’t wait to take a bite out of the lady. Shane was still bound though, still chained securely and—
Case saw the end of the chain begin to rip away from the floor.
Fuck!
***
When she heard the groan and pop of that chain, Olivia surged to her feet.
But it was too late. He’d ripped the first chain from the floor. The second followed an instant later.
Her breath heaved out as she waited for the vamp to go right for her throat.
Only he didn’t move.
“I told you…” Anger hardened his voice. “You’d be dead in less than a minute.” His eyes burned with fury. “So the next time you get a prisoner in here, make damn sure you have a guard with you.”
The door flew open behind him. Case rushed in, with two guards right on his heels.
Shane leapt to his feet and whirled toward them.
“No, don’t!” Olivia cried out, but the guards had already fired their weapons. The bullets slammed into Shane’s chest and he stumbled back against the table.
She grabbed for him, clutching his shoulder. His head turned and his eyes met hers.
“Why did you do that?” Olivia whispered. He’d known the others were watching. Had he wanted to get punished?
“Solitary!” Case shouted. “Throw his ass in the sun for twenty-four hours, and let’s see how he likes it!”
Shane’s eyes began to sag closed. She realized he’d been hit with tranq darts. “Remember…always…guard…”
He was trying to protect her? The cold-blooded killer wanted her to have a guard at her beck and call? What. The. Hell?
Case’s hands wrapped around Olivia’s shoulders and he pulled her away from Shane.
Then the vamp was dragged out of the room. His chains trailed behind him.
***
Sunlight. Burning from every wall. Burning down from the ceiling. From the floor.
“Neat little cell, isn’t it?” Case asked him as he shoved Shane into solitary. “Scientists can invent the most amazing things. I mean, it’s not real sunlight, but your kind gets weak from ultraviolent radiation, too, right? I mean, this is like one big ass tanning bed.” He laughed. “So I’m sure you can see just how much fun this place will be for you.”
The light blazed all around him. For an instant, Shane remembered another time. Another place.
He’d been tied to the ground. Wooden stakes had been driven into his hands. His chest. But the fools missed my heart. He’d been pinned there, helpless, as the sun rose.
The sunlight hadn’t killed him then.
It wouldn’t now. If the real sun can’t kill me, this fake shit won’t take me out, either.
But being tossed into solitary on his first day in Purgatory…that would help him. Playing by the rules in that place wouldn’t get him the contacts he needed. He had to prove himself as an alpha vampire, he had to be willing to take the pain that would come…and Shane had to be ready to destroy anyone who got in his way.
He tilted back his head and let the light sweep over him.
He knew the drill. After all, he’d done his research on this place. On the new warden. The guy liked to play with the prisoners. After he thought Shane had been weakened enough, the warden would toss Shane into the yard so the other vamps could have a go at him.
That’s when they’ll see I’m not their prey.
A new alpha vamp was in town, and he’d learn all the secrets that Purgatory possessed.
***
“I kill because I like it.” The werewolf in front of her pushed a hand through his midnight black hair. “I enjoy watching the light drain from my prey’s eyes. In that last moment, the victim knows that I have all of the power. Life or death, it’s all on me.”
Revulsion twisted Olivia’s stomach, but she kept her gaze on the prisoner before her. In the last twenty-four hours, she’d heard stories to give her enough nightmares to last for the rest of her life.
As if she didn’t already have enough of those.
She’d talked to two other vampires. Begun the process of getting them to open up with her. But the thing about vampires…they didn’t just have a few years of bad deeds behind them. The powerful vamps—the vamps in Purgatory—had centuries of horror to share. And they had…almost gleefully.
But the werewolves were different. Or at least, the other two that she’d interviewed had been. They talked about their attacks and their beasts as if they were separate entities, as if they had no control over what happened when they were in wolf form. Regret had tinged their voices.
But not this one.
David Vincent slouched in his chair. He’d spread out his legs and arms to take up as much space as he possibly could. The silver collar gleamed around his neck, a silver the exact shade of his glittering eyes. He was a man in his prime, probably around his mid-thirties, with the powerful build sported by most of his kind.
“You don’t feel that your…beast…made you kill?” Olivia asked him carefully. The sun was shining through the big, open window. Bright and hot. She could just hear the murmur of voices outside of her window. The vampires were in the courtyard below.
“The beast and I are the damn same. I do what I want.”
Alpha.
She nodded slowly. She’d suspected he might be an alpha werewolf as soon as she started reading his files. His attacks had been particularly brutal, and, since coming to the prison, he’d made a point of attacking other werewolves.
Those who challenged his power?
“You have no regrets about what you did?” The others had expressed remorse. There had been loathing in their eyes. Not a hate directed at her. At themselves.
“It’s survival of the fuckin’ fittest. I’m the fittest.” He leaned forward. “I always survive.”
No matter what he had to do.
“You were in
fected with a werewolf bite five years ago.” Those details had been in his file. Most humans didn’t survive a werewolf bite. But certain individuals had DNA that let them…transform. A genetic coding was there for some individuals so that when they were bitten, they didn’t die. They became beasts.
Werewolves.
Before his bite, David Vincent had been a boxer—a man who’d enjoyed the battles that came his way. A bump lined his nose, silent testimony to his old bouts, and faint scars crossed his knuckles. “What happened to the werewolf that bit you?” Olivia asked, curious about that.
“I baked him a fucking thank you cake,” David growled at her as his lips twisted in a savage smile. “What the hell do you think happened to him?”
Well, fine. If he wanted to stop the little dance, then so would she. “I think you killed him as soon as the change was complete for you. You hunted him down, and you made him pay for what he’d done to you.”
That twisted smile slipped a bit from his lips.
“Darkness grew in you after that kill. Because you liked it. You liked the way it felt to take a life. So you hunted and you killed again and again. You kept killing, kept feeling that thrill, until you were locked up…” She glanced around at the stone room. “Here.”
His chair scraped as he pushed back. Her hand slipped beneath the table. She had the remote for his collar right there, and her fingers slid over it. If he made one move toward her, she was supposed to send a surge of silver at him. Through him. But she suspected the guard standing less than five feet away would beat her to that punch.
He had a remote for David’s silver collar, too.
“If you know so much about me,” David snapped, “then why bother with your lame ass questions?”
“Because I know your crimes. I want to know you.” Her breath heaved out. “Did you try to fight the cravings? When the urge to kill came, did you try to stop? Did you spare anyone?” Was there ever any hope? Or, once the darkness came, was it too late?
David glanced away from her. His gaze locked on the window. Her body tensed. Avoidance. “David?”
“You can try to fight the dark, but when instincts take over, control doesn’t last real long.”
“So you did try to stop.” Now excitement quickened her blood. “You can still stop. You can fight what you’ve become. You can—”