First Blood

by Susan Sizemore

  “My maker seduced me and my sister into this life,” she said. “The first time we met, we went to his hotel and stayed up all night taking turns with him. He was so handsome, charismatic, commanding.”

  Ginny glanced at Ben, thinking of how Sorin didn’t hold a candle to this human.

  “We kept seeing him, week after week,” she added, “and he would make us jealous of each other, telling us in private how he loved each of us better. And every time, he caused just a bit more distance between me and Geneva. I didn’t realize what was going on until well after it’d been happening. He was puppeteering us for his amusement. Then he decided to show us what he truly was—a vampire—and he initiated us separately, driving even more of a wedge between me and my sister by insinuating that he’d given more blood—more power—during the exchange to one of us. But afterward, he would always say he treasured us equally.”

  She paused. “All his games confused Geneva, so I got her away from him. She was always more sensitive in life, and that carried over to this existence, just as human qualities do with our vampire line. Sorin fed off of that. So, for me, bites didn’t even start out as a close experience. It was sexual and stimulating, yes, but never . . . loving. Never.”

  Ben seemed to let that all sink in, then asked, “And after you left this community of yours? A bite was still a means to an end?”

  “No one but Geneva has ever mattered much to me.”

  Until now, she thought.

  Ginny caught a whiff of him again, and she was back to wanting him, needing him. His scent had gotten stronger because of that fantasy they’d shared; he’d been turned on.

  She wanted to touch herself, to ease the stiffness, the erotic anguish.

  His pulse beat in her ears, and she felt the rhythm of her own blood melding with his.

  Ben seemed to catch himself, his hand going to a defensive arc by his side. “About this community you came from . . . ?”

  At the return of Ben the cop, alarm rattled her. Secrecy about the Underground itself was profoundly built in to her, even if she’d left Sorin and the rest of them out of a need to protect her and Geneva.

  “I don’t have anything else to tell you,” Ginny said. “You’ve got what you need from me.”

  Frustration seemed to push him forward, until he was in the darkness with her, inches away. Close enough so that the aroma of him filled her like nothing else she’d ever found.

  Musk, flesh. Man.

  “Tell me,” he said. “What did Nolan see when he died? Did a bite do that to him?”

  Dizzy . . . so dizzy with him standing right here . . .

  Maybe it was to shut him up, maybe it was because she couldn’t fight her urges anymore. But in a heartbeat, she was against him, her mouth on his, testing.

  At first, he stiffened, but then he groaned, parting his lips, and deepened the kiss.

  Soft, exploratory, knee-weakening.

  Ginny grasped at his shirt before her knees could give way. Such a human reaction, she thought before her mind turned off altogether.

  They sipped at each other, sweet and seeking, and all of Ginny’s shields crumbled like walls crashing to dust around her feet. She’d never felt so open, vulnerable . . . almost free.

  A blurb of static seemed to rip through her, but she thought it was because of the way Ben had pulled back, then taken her face in his palms to look into her eyes.

  Was he trying to conjure another shared fantasy?

  Before Ginny could decide, she sensed another presence nearby.

  And she knew who it was without a doubt.

  She stepped away from Ben to face a woman in a red dress who’d just entered the courtyard, her faux-human form tensed out of both frustration and a hunger that had become almost unbearable to tolerate.

  “Hello, Geneva,” Ginny whispered to her twin.

  NINE

  “DAYBREAK IS ALMOST TWO HOURS AWAY,” GENEVA said, arms crossed in front of her chest as she glared.

  “I was just about to leave,” Ginny said.

  Behind her, she could sense Ben going wary again, no doubt recalling how her twin had slammed him against a wall.

  “Oh, you were leaving, is that it, Ginny?” Geneva said. “All I see is the reason you were shutting me out all night.”

  Her tone was bruised, and Ginny almost apologized. They’d always stuck together, from Monaco to Belize to Miami to New York. Always.

  “Ben, here, won’t be pursuing his investigation now that I told him all the details,” Ginny said.

  Then she added more in their twin awareness.

  I covered our tracks, Gen, so I’ll be able to feed with you soon. I can tell you haven’t eaten tonight, even though I asked you to find an easy truffle at Studio.

  Her sister’s arms loosened a little. I was waiting for you. You know I don’t like to eat alone.

  The reminder sapped Ginny. It felt so at odds with the way Ben had just filled her up.

  Even so, she knew she needed to pay attention to her twin now, because Ginny had always been responsible for Geneva. What her sister did affected her in equal measure.

  Ben broke into their consciousness as he laid a hand on the weapon in his back pocket—the crucifix.

  Quickly, Ginny used her awareness again. I lied to him about what really went down. It hasn’t been easy, so don’t blow this, Gen. Just keep your trap shut.

  Luckily, her sister complied, flicking a careless glance at Ben in response. Then she addressed Ginny. “He thinks he can fight us.”

  Definitely time to leave.

  In the end, it didn’t matter what Ginny saw in Ben Tyree, what she’d felt as a result of connecting in such an inexplicable way. She would go on with her existence and he would continue his.

  Gathering all her willpower, she faced him, and what she found on his face as he stared at her twin made Ginny cringe.

  A look of utter disgust or . . .

  She couldn’t define it. She didn’t want to, because it was everything she’d come to witness about her own decay.

  Did Ben look at Ginny like this when she wasn’t aware of it? Did he think of her as just a vampire, like the one who had killed Nolan?

  She hadn’t felt that when they’d kissed. No, she’d only experienced joy, easiness, something pure.

  Ginny hastened to leave before he could turn that same repulsed glare on her.

  But her twin had other ideas.

  He knows too much, Geneva thought, still returning Ben’s stare. He would be able to withstand it as long as she didn’t use her sway.

  And who’s going to believe him if he talks? Ginny asked. The cops around here have dealt with vampire activity, but they don’t buy it. And I warned Amelie to move the group to another location.

  She stopped short of saying that maybe she and Geneva should move on, too, but she didn’t want to hear more pleading about going back to L.A.

  I have a bad feeling about this, Geneva thought, even as Ginny tugged on her sister’s arm to guide her away. I’m going to do a mind wipe.

  “No, Gen,” she said out loud, so horrified that she’d blurted it out. She didn’t want anything about him erased.

  But her sister was already tensing, preparing to spring at Ben.

  His honed cop instincts must’ve kicked in, because he’d already gone into motion, extracting the crucifix from his back pocket.

  Undiluted pain struck both Ginny and Geneva, linking them in terror.

  Decay . . . loneliness . . . so empty . . .

  The thoughts pulled them in to a black hole and, in an effort to resist, they pooled their energy.

  It drained them, but they couldn’t stand to see such beauty in the crucifix, such a reminder of what they would never embrace again.

  “What an idiot I was,” Ben said, his footsteps headed for the courtyard exit. “I thought you really hadn’t set a trap for me, but I seem to have walked into it now, right, Ginny?”

  Holding up their hands to protect their gazes, she and
Geneva battled until their bodies went limp. It took so much energy to fight the holy item, yet the more time they had to harden themselves to the sight, the more they recovered.

  Second by second, their fangs elongated, their eyes going an ethereal silver.

  “I’m not dumb enough to think I can take the both of you,” Ben continued. “Not unless I had a stake to put through your hearts.”

  Was there a betrayed edge to his voice?

  The squeal of tires from a side street distracted all of them and, before the twins could react, they sensed Ben leaving the courtyard. Their hearing picked up the sound of a key jamming into the lock of the lobby door as he barged inside.

  At the absence of the crucifix, utter relief swept over the sisters, and they collected themselves, transforming to their more human forms.

  But Ginny’s relief turned to a sick sadness.

  He was gone.

  The fact haunted her as darkness crept that much closer to sunrise, when the twins would be able to withstand the day, but their powers would be weak.

  The sisters walked out of the courtyard, regaining their equilibrium. Ginny glanced up at a third-story window and caught a lamp bringing the thin curtains to light.

  Geneva ’s voice came softly, yet ruthlessly. “You still want him.”

  There was no point in hiding it anymore. “Yes.”

  But at her twin’s puzzled gaze, Ginny couldn’t help softening the blow. “It was a passing thing, Gen.”

  She held out her arms to her sister, and Geneva came into her embrace, resting her head on Ginny’s shoulder.

  “We left the Underground to be together,” her twin said. “We said we’d never let anyone come between us again.”

  “I know.”

  The old vow sank within her, as if burrowing. Her sister turned her head so that her mouth rested against Ginny’s neck.

  “You know that he really is trouble,” she said. “Don’t you?”

  Yes, he was, but not in the way Geneva was talking about.

  Ben Tyree had sent Ginny reeling and, thanks to him, she could clearly see now how far she and her sister had strayed from all their human parents’ careful, moral lessons. How far Geneva was still falling.

  Ginny cupped her sister’s head, bringing her closer out of pure desperation to cling to what she’d once loved about her twin, just as Ben clung to Nolan.

  “You told me you’d take care of him,” Geneva said. “You should do it before dawn if you care about us, Ginny. He can’t leave New York with such a clear memory of us.”

  Ginny wanted to remind her sister that she’d been the one to bring him into the whole vampire/pleasure house knowledge ring in the first place. For someone who was so careless, her twin was sure adamant about covering their tracks now.

  But Ginny suspected why that was: Geneva wanted Ben gone in every way.

  Deep down, she knew her sister was right, but only if Ginny wanted to continue existence as she knew it.

  As if there was any choice. She was a vampire. She couldn’t ever go back to the way she’d been as a human—not even with the false emotion she’d acquired tonight.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Ginny said, kissing her sister on the forehead and then letting go.

  And she would. She’d spent the night playing a game with herself, and she’d lost.

  After telling her twin to go back to Studio, where she needed to finally find that quick, easy meal and then go home, Ginny went to the hotel lobby’s entrance, where she waited, her body heavy with the inevitable.

  Not long after, a businessman with a prostitute in tow passed her on his way inside. Quite effortlessly, Ginny convinced him that a threesome was much better than two, and she was on her way, invited into this dwelling and intent on finding Ben’s room.

  TEN

  BEN STARED OUT HIS HOTEL WINDOW AT THE empty, streetlamp-flushed sidewalks below, hoping he would see her one last time.

  He hated himself for it, too.

  But she was gone, and his body, so burnt by the adrenaline that had been coursing through it for the last few hours, finally gave out.

  He walked to his bed, taking out his revolver and crucifix, then sitting, shucking off his work boots, socks, and ankle holster. Hunched over, he rested his head in his hands while his fingers dug into his hair.

  None of it seemed real: Nolan, the pleasure house . . .

  Ginny.

  A vampire—one who had turned fearful when he’d shoved that crucifix at her. She and Geneva had barred their faces with their hands, but he’d seen a flash of their fangs in a slant of light.

  Why the hell had he trusted her in the first place? Where had his judgment gone?

  Worst of all, why couldn’t he shake off this craving for her?

  Damn it, his lips were even still buzzed with the taste of her: mysterious, intoxicating Ginny.

  She’d gotten into his blood, a simmering that made his pulse work double-time. With her, he wasn’t the shadow brother anymore. He wasn’t the quieter Tyree kid who faded into the background, forgotten too early.

  He’d even had what Nolan possessed for such a short time, and it was the indefinable, yet purely conclusive, answer to everything.

  So what did that make Ben? Some kind of freak?

  Is that what Nolan had ultimately become, too?

  Less bothered by this question than he should’ve been, Ben heard a knock on his door.

  At this time of night?

  He grasped his .45 and the crucifix, then moved to the entryway, glancing out the peephole.

  Outside, a bellboy stood in the wan hallway light, holding a manila envelope.

  “What is it?” Ben asked.

  The young man fixed big, brown, bloodshot eyes on the hole. “I’m sorry to bother you now, sir.”

  His speech was a little slurred, and Ben figured he’d taken a few tokes on the graveyard shift. Kids.

  “I’ve got an urgent delivery,” the bellboy added. “The woman who dropped it off said it was some kind of information that you’d want about a Nolan?”

  Ben’s veins contracted. Ginny? Was there something she hadn’t told him about his brother?

  But why would she do this after what had happened outside with her fangs and his crucifix?

  The kid held out the envelope. “Will you allow the whole package inside the room, sir?”

  Maybe Ben should’ve noticed the odd way the kid had phrased it. But he was so driven by the urge to get that envelope in his hands that he said, “Yes.”

  He took care to hide the .45 in his right hand behind the door. Then, with the crucifix still in his grip, he cracked the door open, leaving the chain still hooked.

  As the kid slipped the thick envelope through, the door flew open, busting the chain, and sending Ben against the wall. He dropped the crucifix but managed to recover enough to aim his .45 at the streak of motion that had entered his room.

  Where Ginny had already taken a spot next to the shabby beige curtains.

  The door smacked closed, and Ben’s blood raced.

  Nonchalantly, she nodded toward the envelope he had dropped.

  “It’s filled with newspaper,” she said, “so don’t bother going through it.”

  His mind flailed to catch up. She was part of the package and he’d invited all of it in. Damn her.

  “You messed with that kid’s mind,” Ben said, still aiming, although he didn’t know why. God, she’d told him that his gun wouldn’t make a difference, but did he believe her? And what about the crucifix? Could he get to it before she made a move on him? “I’ll bet you persuaded him to bring you up here and fool me into getting you inside my room.”

  Ginny ran her fingers over the curtain, as if finding the humble hotel room lacking. “He was off duty, popping a pill in a service hallway, halfway to blottoville, so he was easy to persuade. I guarantee I’ll just be a weird dream to him.”

  Ben quelled a tremor that dragged through him. “You’re here to finish what your sist
er wanted to start.”

  She stopped her curtain inspection, glancing at him. “I’m here to smooth your mind out. That’s all, Ben.”

  He left the door, inching closer to the crucifix, which had slid into the bathroom. What were his chances of beating her with the draw of that holy item?

  “Smooth me out?” he asked.

  Ginny cocked her head at him, and he thought her gaze held some regret. But he was sure vampires didn’t have the capacity for it.

  Or maybe they did . . .

  “Geneva talked too much earlier tonight,” she said, tracking him. “And even if you have your answers, people like you never stop when they think there’s more. I realize now that we can’t have that.”

  “Why didn’t you think about that before?”

  “Because I . . .” She frowned.

  His pulse skipped. Shouldn’t she have attacked him by now? Why hadn’t she?

  Hope invaded him. It seemed as if, maybe, just maybe, her heart wasn’t in this head-clearing task.

  “You what?” he asked.

  There was an emerging shimmer in her eyes. A hint of silver fantasy in the deep-blue depths. He lowered his weapon, unable to resist because it was all he truly wanted.

  “I can’t let you go,” she said.

  He wasn’t sure if she meant that she couldn’t allow him out of this room with the information he had about vampires or if she really couldn’t let him go.

  His sight went fuzzy as her eyes silvered even more.

  She left the curtains and came toward him, one hand reaching out, even as her voice shook.

  “I promise it’ll be painless, Ben.” She was talking about what she had to do to his mind. “I can even make you forget about Nolan altogether if you want.”

  Ben’s rage spiked through the silver haze. “I don’t want.”

  She halted, dropping her hand to her side. “Why would you wish to remember?”

  “Because . . .” Ben blinked, but the hypnotic force of her stayed strong. “. . . even with all this pain, I would never let go of him. I’d like to hope that what’s good about him is good in me, too.”

  “Yes,” she said, softly. “I know what you mean.”