It was cold. Might be spring, but it felt like snow was in the air. The cold, while it didn’t bother him much, was enough to clear the rage from his thoughts even if it didn’t totally dispel the clouds.
He smelled blood and it wasn’t his own. Lowering his gaze, he stared at the K-bar in his hand, stared at the drying blood on it. Drying—not dry. The blood came from Josiah. He’d been fighting with the other Hunter, focused on nothing but getting away, getting to Angel.
The sight of that tacky blood made him aware of a hundred clues that made little sense.
There was blood on him.
He was wearing a jacket that wasn’t his, a pair of boots that weren’t his. The K-bar in his hand wasn’t his and neither was the gun he pulled from his waistband.
Vaguely, he remembered grabbing the gun and knife from a narrow table in the main hallway as he headed for the front door. The shoes had been in the foyer and that was where he’d grabbed the jacket too.
Under the jacket, his upper body was naked.
He hadn’t thought about grabbing a shirt, lacing up the boots, nothing. Angel was pretty much it as far as his thought process went.
But now, with the pain churning in his head, he was excruciatingly aware of some things. Like the fact that he’d used the knife in his hand on a fellow Hunter. Like the fact that he hadn’t been able to stop the feral from hurting Phoebe—how in the hell could he protect Angel?
“Shit.” Bile churned in the back of his throat and he swallowed it down. He slid the K-bar into the sheath at his waist, then pushed the Beretta into his waistband at the small of his back, making sure the jacket covered it. Not that it mattered. Any damn person saw him, they were going to call the cops. Even if the bruises from the scuffle back at the enclave healed before somebody saw him, cops would be called. Blood streaking his chest and face and Kel had no doubt he looked every bit as wild as he felt.
Covering his face with his hands, he took a deep breath and made himself think. It hurt—his fricking brain ached, the way muscles did after a hard, brutal workout. The answer was there, lost in his aching, clouded mind and once he started to focus, he found it with relative ease.
But it didn’t make much sense. That seemed to be par for the course tonight, though.
He had dematerialized.
That was the only answer that made sense. He’d been thinking about Angel, nothing but her and getting to her, protecting her. Even the men struggling to immobilize him hadn’t mattered beyond the fact that they were in his way.
But where had he dematerialized to—that was the next question. Probably somewhere between Memphis and Greenburg and that could any number of sites in the 400-some odd miles separating the two towns. Kel decided it was most likely a halfway point. He had no clue how he’d managed that little vamp trick and even if he could figure it out, it wouldn’t help him much right now.
It was the reason for the fog in his brain, he knew it. The reason for the ache. And it probably wasn’t a stunt he’d be able to pull off again anytime soon.
Didn’t matter. He was that much closer to Angel—and he was away from the enclave and Rafe. None of them knew where in the hell to find him—right? They knew where he was going, but tracking him, hopefully, would take a little more work.
Crouching on the ground, he tied the boots and then glanced towards the highway. Walking alongside it would be an invitation for trouble, but he needed to figure out where he was and that was the best way to do it.
Mind made up, he headed towards the strip of trees, moving at a quick jog. The tree line edged right up to the road and once he got close to see through them, he started moving along a parallel path, keeping his eyes out for some sign of where he was.
It might have been a mile or two before he got one. The I-20 East. A little outside Birmingham if he remembered right. Okay…so about 200 miles from Greenburg. No way he could travel that far in one night—so he needed a ride.
His internal clock assured him there were hours left before sunrise but he needed to get someplace where he’d be safe from the sun and it needed to be a hell of a lot closer to Angel. He wouldn’t have much time to act before the feral made his move.
Getting the ride was actually the easiest part. The brightly lit oasis cast light into the sky from a long ways off. The scent of exhaust and the rumble of truck engines clued Kel into what it was even before he saw it through the trees. The truck stop was busy, even if it was edging close to midnight. Keeping outside the lights, he circled around until he found a lone man standing outside his truck as he stowed groceries.
Vampire compulsion was something Kel hated.
Forcing his will on somebody else was just wrong. But he didn’t bat a lash as he slid out of the darkness and approached the man. The trucker glanced up, startled. Kel made himself smile as he focused.
“I need a ride to Georgia.”
The man blinked. Looking confused, he glanced from the truck to Kel and said, “I’m heading towards Atlanta.”
“Maybe you could offer me a ride.”
His lids lowered and as their gazes were cut off, Kel felt the man’s own mental blocks trying to reassert themselves. Kel pushed harder. A little too hard, the poor guy flinched and swore as he reached up and touched his temple. Easing back, Kel repeated, “Maybe you could offer me a ride.”
“Why don’t you climb on up in the cab?”
The feral’s name was Martin.
He’d been a vampire since 1804, the most important year in the history of the world as far as Martin was concerned. It was the day he’d truly begun to live.
Before that, he’d been a private instructor for the daughter of a disgustingly rich earl in England. Hours upon hours trying to educate women who were more concerned with bonnets, dresses and soirees than learning. A useless existence and Martin had been quite happy to be done with it.
In all the years since he’d been Changed, he never once regretted it.
In all the years since he’d been Changed, he had never once came up against the Hunters, although the woman who had Changed him had made him very aware of their presence. Martin, being an intelligent man, was careful to avoid any one place that had a large non-mortal population. It was only wise. Too many vampires or shape-shifters in one place was going to have the attention of the self-important Council and their fool Hunters. By avoiding such places, he wouldn’t attract much notice.
He was also careful in selecting his victims, taking those who society was unlikely to miss—the indigent population was a particular treat. So many young runaways—and Martin did like youth. It had been that affliction that had caused his few brushes with the Hunters but he had managed to elude them with little difficulty and it had lulled him into complacency.
Which was the root of his current situation.
He was careful never to feed from any of the non-mortals, civilian or Hunter. It was merely common sense. The non-mortal population had its share of loners, its share of those who were unlikely to be missed—but it wasn’t as prevalent. If too many of them disappeared, somebody would take notice.
But the pretty little brunette had been too sweet to walk away from. Fury, grief, jealousy, pain, the emotions had colored the very air around her and that misery had drawn him like a moth to flame.
She’d been outside a bar, leaning against her car and crying. Like so many of the desperately lonely, she’d been all too willing to accept an offered shoulder and hadn’t once tried to look beyond that. By the time something inside her had whispered an alarm, it had been too late.
Martin selected his playgrounds with care. That near miss with the young blonde a few years back had taught him a valuable lesson and he believed in taking lessons to heart. His hunger had gotten the better of him. He’d been watching that girl for weeks. He might never have learned of her if it hadn’t been for the mother. A whorish bitch, but a very fuckable one, had come on to him and taken him home and that was where he’d seen the girl.
He spent close t
o a week watching the pretty young woman, waiting for the best time to move on, the best time to toy with her before he took what he wanted. Several times, he’d almost lost interest, but in the end, that power simmering inside her had been too hard to resist.
Banked power, but it had called to Martin like a siren’s song. That power had caused him to make one of the most foolish mistakes of his life—he’d wanted her, he’d gone after her, and he had ended up alerting a Hunter to his presence.
Martin considered himself a practical man. Knowing that the girl would likely have Hunters checking on her from time to time after his thwarted attack, he’d made the wise decision to cut his losses.
But he’d made a tactical error in judgment. The boy… Shite, he hadn’t thought of that little fool in years. He’d recovered from the wounds the boy inflicted on him within a few days. Even his injured eye had fully healed and Martin had been concerned about that. As his injuries faded, Martin forgot about the boy. The Change from mortal to vampire was brutal and easily half died. A boy, weakened from the beating Martin had given him, wasn’t likely to survive. And he’d been left in a place where the early morning sun would quickly find his body. Even if the Change did start, the sun would kill him.
Martin hadn’t counted on somebody helping him.
That was the only logical explanation. It hadn’t been the Hunter trailing after Martin, that much he knew. That bastard had spent most of the night on Martin’s arse, so there must have been another.
The boy had survived—and not only had he survived, he’d become one of the fucking Hunters.
Martin’s lapse in judgment had landed him hot water twice, the pretty blonde mortal in Georgia, and the sleek little werewolf in Mississippi. Now there was a Hunter who knew his face and that just wasn’t to be tolerated.
The plan itself took only a bit of time to develop. He had to kill the Hunter whelp. That boy had gone too far, and considering that he’d become a Hunter, he was a risk to Martin. The whelp had seen Martin’s face. Tracking him down would be a bit harder, because there were no active Hunters in Tupelo, Martin had made sure of that.
He had come from elsewhere, but Martin wasn’t sure where. However, that bit of information wasn’t needed.
He knew how to get the boy’s attention.
Through the girl.
Chapter Six
Sleeping pills weren’t going to help. By the time the sun set, Angel knew that much. There was no way she’d sleep tonight, even though after last night, she desperately needed some rest.
She might as well be hyped up on speed, her entire body flooded with tension. The past twenty-four hours had been an emotional roller coaster, swinging from a sense of purpose devoted towards some unknown goal, to anger, to rage, to grief.
It had hit a plateau around sunrise and she’d catnapped for while, the grief dulling to a muted roar. After a short nap, she’d spent the day at Jake’s house, cleaning it, getting it ready for some prospective buyers. Getting through the day had taken every last bit of will she possessed and if she hadn’t been so desperately ready to be done with the chore of selling Jake’s house, she wouldn’t have bothered.
Come dinnertime, she’d finally finished. All day long, she’d been desperate to escape. Once she had the chance, she realized she couldn’t go home.
It would be worse there. It was going to be bad, no matter what. But trapped inside the house, certain she was losing her mind, it would be worse.
So instead of going home, she did the one thing she thought might help. She went to Kel—or rather to his grave, hoping she could find some measure of peace there.
For whatever reason, as the sun set and night came on, the emotional roller coaster started and the grief that had choked her all day bloomed into guilt and self-disgust before morphing into fury. A blind fury that had no target.
The empty coffin buried below the dirt seemed an odd place to seek comfort. But Angel had spent many, many evenings sitting at the graveside and talking to a man who had been dead for years.
Tonight, though, even that bit of comfort was denied her. She stood by the grave, staring at the headstone with her hands shoved into her pockets and had to fight the urge to scream.
Scream at what?
At fate? At God? She’d done both of those in the past but neither fate nor God seemed to be her target. Angel couldn’t even put her finger on it. She was a mess of worry, fear and anger and trying to make sense of that tangle was impossible.
She was slipping, she realized.
Once more slipping into a deep, dark place where nothing made sense and nothing seemed real.
The relative tedium of the past year was gone. Once more Angel felt like she was fighting something from the outside, something that didn’t belong in her head but was there nonetheless.
It wasn’t as bad as it had been after Kel had first died. She could think, still focus, still maintain a fairly normal facade that kept people from intruding with well-meaning worry.
“But for how much longer?” she muttered. Pulling a hand from her pocket, she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and then cupped her hand over the back of her neck, rotating her head in an attempt to ease the tension knotted there.
Slowly, she tugged the prescription bottle from her pocket that she had grabbed before she left the house. It was the antidepressant the doctor had prescribed for her. Would medicine for depression help her recognize reality? Help her figure out what she felt instead of focusing on all the alien emotions that threatened to swamp her?
Disgusted, she tucked the bottle back into her pocket and then crouched by Kel’s grave. With a shaky sigh, she smoothed a hand down the carpet of grass. “I’m a mess, Kel, you know that? I’ve been like this ever since you left, but it’s getting bad again. I don’t even know who I am right now.”
Sighing, she settled on the grass, drawing her knees to her chest and looping her arms around them. Resting her chin there, she whispered, “I miss you. That’s one thing I do know. But it seems like the only thing. I ought to be able to make a bit more sense of my life than that.”
A cool wind whispered through the cemetery. The thick fleece sweatshirt she wore might as well have been made from paper because she felt frozen to the bone. But she was used to being cold.
“Twelve years, baby.” Closing her eyes, she tried to think about what life might have been like if that night hadn’t happened.
They’d be married. That was one thing she didn’t doubt at all. Would they have had kids? Stayed in Georgia or gone somewhere else? Would Kel’s mom be alive? Jake?
Bitterness swamped her and she had to blink back the tears suddenly burning her eyes. “This isn’t fair.” Angel wasn’t much for railing against the unfairness of life, but this was tearing her apart, killing her inside, bleeding her bit by bit.
She’d been slowly hemorrhaging for the past twelve years.
“I’m so tired of it.” Exhausted, knowing she’d never sleep, she lay back on the grass, ignoring the chill of the ground as she rolled onto her side and rested her hand on the grave. She tucked her other arm under her head to use as a pillow. Closing her eyes, she mumbled, “I’m so tired, Kel.”
How fricking classic—a vampire sleeping the day away in a cemetery.
If he’d had much choice, he would have tried to find someplace else, but choices were limited. The trucker had left him just outside Greenburg a little before dawn and with the clock ticking, Kel went for the first secure place that he came across.
Instinct drove him to get closer to Angel, but he hadn’t known where to look. As dawn crept closer, he had to focus on finding someplace dark and solitary. The private mausoleums in the old Greenburg Cemetery definitely fit that description.
He’d banked on being able to get into one of the older ones that didn’t get visits often and he’d been right. The one he’d selected had none of the stained glass windows and a recessed doorway.
Inside, with the door closed, it had been as dark a
s a tomb, just the thinnest sliver of pre-dawn light visible under the door itself.
As sweet, safe darkness wrapped around him, it took everything he had just to stumble away from the door and get one of the freestanding vaults inside the crypt between him and the door as an extra precaution.
Kel didn’t even remember getting horizontal. As enraged and scared and worried as he was, he’d thought sleep would elude him but it didn’t, hitting him hard and fast.
Normally Kel only needed four or five hours of sleep, but by the time he came awake a little before dusk, he’d been out for probably twelve hours.
The setting sun had kept him prisoner within the small crypt for a while longer. He shrugged out of his jacket long enough to pull on a T-shirt that he’d “borrowed” from the trucker earlier. Killed a bit of time pacing endlessly up and down the stone floor.
Finally the sun set. His body recognized the moment it was safe. He slipped out of the musty, confining crypt with the sure and certain knowledge that he was glad his body wasn’t going to end up in some quiet, private resting place for all eternity. When he did die, he’d be burned and that suited him just fine.
Outside in the cool night air, he lifted his head and breathed in, letting the air wash over and through him, sweeping away the stink of decay.
The sound of a truck moving over the road had him retreating and swearing. It wasn’t that late yet, probably only around seven, and he sure as hell didn’t need anybody seeing him here. Greenburg was a small town and Kel knew for a fact his face hadn’t changed a bit since he’d lived here.
He slipped into the tree line, his mind focused on finding Angel. But something, he couldn’t even explain what, stopped him. Physically stopped him. He couldn’t take another step away and everything inside him urged him to turn around. Unable to deny it, he turned and his eyes sought out the truck creeping along one of the cemetery paths.
It was a beat-up old Ford and even with his eyesight, he couldn’t quite see through the windows. But he knew.
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