Blood Rogue, #1

by Linda J. Parisi

  “I’ll go with you,” Sam offered. “Chaz, you look as though you’re going to boil over or fall down. Why don’t you go cool off then meet us back up here?”

  He nodded and getting the message, turned on his heel, and left the hallway.

  “He seems quite taken with you,” Sam commented.

  “I’m quite taken with him.”

  “Not a good place for either of you.”

  “No,” Stacy sighed. As they stepped out of the elevator into her makeshift lab, Stacy turned her thoughts to the reason she was in danger.

  “I told Chaz, so I might as well tell you. I’ve run the mass spec on both Donnie and Nick. They’re starving, and they don’t even know it. If they keep it up, they’ll go rogue.”

  Sam stilled, her eyes widening. “But we’ve been feeding them.”

  “You have?” Stacy asked, a cold chill running up her spine. Then she chided herself for being melodramatic. But the more she thought about it, the clearer things became.

  “Of course,” Sam replied.

  “Wait a minute,” Stacy muttered, almost to herself. “Actually, that makes sense.”

  Sam frowned. “Why?”

  For a tense moment, Stacy went over each and every one of the printouts in her head. No, she wasn’t wrong. Which meant…Oh My God, no!

  “Sam, listen to me. We have to get to them right away. Both of them, especially Donnie. They need to be removed from the premises immediately.”

  Sam looked at her as if she’d gone rogue. “What are you talking about? They’re in a locked room guarded by several soldiers.”

  “Who will be dead soon if you don’t listen to me!”

  She watched Sam shake her head in disbelief but knew the priestess was smart enough to understand how serious she was.

  “Please, Sam. I know I’m right. You can feed them until the next millennia, there’s a cytotoxin inside their system. Kind of like the extract that kills them. Something that causes them to utilize the blood they take in too fast. They’re already rogue. It destroys their cells before the blood they take in has a chance to do its job.”

  “Poison,” Sam breathed.

  “Yes. A poison. I’m not sure what kind yet.”

  Sam reached the elevator ahead of her and repeatedly jabbed at the button for it to open. Then she stopped Chaz from stepping out of the elevator doors just as he was about to start walking towards the lab. “The two young vampires,” she shouted. “Stacy says they’re already rogue. Whatever I tasted inside their blood. We have to get them out of here. We have to get them out of here and destroy them before they wreak havoc inside the cell.”

  Stacy made it into the elevator just before the doors closed. Chaz yelled to her through the opening. “I don’t want you upstairs. Stay down here where it’s safe.”

  She shook her head. She tried to stop the doors from closing by sticking her arm in between. He didn’t give her a choice. He opened the elevator doors and pushed her back. She stumbled backward, and by the time she was able to scramble to her feet, the doors had closed again. Pissed off, Stacy slammed her hand against the metal.

  “Damn you, you pig-head vampire. I can help.”

  By the time the elevator got back down, and she made it to the first floor, she realized Chaz may have been right. She stepped out of the elevator and into a war zone. Several wounded soldiers lay on the floor. She knelt by the one in the worst shape and offered her wrist. A strange light lit his gaze, but he shook his head. “I’ll be all right.”

  Stacy rose and followed the trail of wounded out into the atrium at the front door. Donnie hadn’t quite turned yet. He kept circling as if he didn’t know what was happening to him.

  Chaz and Hunter stood behind him, blocking the way back down the hallway and inside the mansion. Donnie started towards them. Hunter’s legs braced, and Chaz steeled himself for the onslaught. At the last moment, Donnie halted. Sam opened the front door and stepped back. Donnie whirled and bolted for the door but then skidded to a stop. He turned and started going back toward Chaz and Hunter again.

  Something seemed to be preventing him from leaving. As if he didn’t have a choice.

  Well, Chaz had told her she was bait. So bait she would be.

  Very carefully, Stacy made her way along the wall as far away from Donnie as possible until she was close to the front door.

  “Donnie? Hey, Donnie. Remember me? You said you wanted to taste my blood, didn’t you? You remember that, don’t you?”

  Donnie paused and licked his lips. He snarled at her. With those lips pulled back in a feral snarl and the skin stretched taut against his cheekbones, Donnie reminded her of the last rogue she’d confronted. Mick. There’d be no reasoning with him.

  Stacy lifted her gaze to Chaz. Fear etched deep inside his features, but Chaz wasn’t looking at her. His total focus was on Donnie and the moment when Donnie would lose that last thread of control.

  Good. “Come on, Donnie. That’s it. Come and get me.”

  “Stacy! Don’t!” Chaz cried.

  Donnie turned in a circle. He started to drool, leaving a pink foam on the tile floor. Funny that she could even think it at a time like this, but Stacy wanted nothing more than to analyze that foam and compare it to the foam she’d gathered from the parking lot, knowing it might be the key to what was going on.

  Of course, that split second of misdirected thought nearly got her killed. Donnie whirled and sprang straight at her. As he did, Stacy hit the afterburners and jumped through the doorway.

  Donnie caught her with ease.

  He picked Stacy up, lifting her like a piece of meat he was ready to feast on. His incisors sank into her flesh, and Stacy screamed in pain. Oh, God, it hurt. It hurt.

  A roar filled her ears, the sound of fear and anguish and anger all rolled into one. Then the searing pain was gone, a dull, hot throb left in its wake. The wind whooshed out of her as she hit the ground and she couldn’t breathe. Stunned, she would never be sure if what she saw was real or delusion, but she watched Chaz match Donnie, monster for monster. She watched Chaz lift the vampire up and throw him down with enough force to shatter rock. Then he pinned Donnie to the ground by driving a metal stake through his heart, so hard and so deep, Donnie couldn’t move. Just as her eyes closed, she swore she watched him slice off Donnie’s head.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chaz

  Chaz looked up to see horror fill Stacy’s gaze. Then, thankfully, she passed out. He doused the rogue in oil and set fire to him, and Donnie faded into ashes. They brought Nick outside in chains. He hadn’t reached the stage of blood fever Donnie had, but they all knew he would.

  “You’d better tell us now,” Chaz growled at Nick, knowing what awaited him when Stacy woke up.

  If she woke up, a little voice inside his head added, making Chaz even angrier and more vulnerable.

  Hunter joined them on the lawn. Several soldiers surrounded the young vampire who seemed totally unfazed by his predicament. He simply swayed and smiled, sometimes gently laughing to himself.

  “Tell us who did this to you,” Chaz commanded.

  “Nirvana.”

  What? “Why have you been poisoned?” Chaz asked. “Who’s been poisoning you?” He looked up at Hunter and Sam, his anger fading. He wanted nothing more than to go to Stacy, but her light breaths told him she was alive, and he’d have to accept that for now.

  Hunter stepped forward and backhanded the young vampire. “Tell us why you’ve been sent here. Was it to destroy my cell?”

  The vampire’s lower lip split with the force of Hunter’s blow. His tongue snaked out reaching for every drop of the blood. But he didn’t appear to be the least bit bothered that he was dying. How was that possible, Chaz wondered in awe and fear?

  “Nirvana.”

  No, true Nirvana was lying in Stacy’s arms. “I don’t think you’ll get anything out of him.”

  “I may,” Sam told him. “He hasn’t quite gone rogue yet, but he will. Before he does,
I’d like to try getting inside his head.”

  “Not one of your better ideas, Sam.”

  She nodded. “Go take care of Stacy, Charles. We’ll handle this.”

  Chaz flicked his gaze to Sam then back to Hunter. “Vampire to vampire,” Chaz said.

  Hunter actually winced, hunching his shoulders, his gaze filled with regret. The vampire leader reached out and squeezed his shoulder. “Not because we want to, Charles, but because we have to. There’s still some humanity left inside you. I wouldn’t want to be the cause of its destruction. I don’t think Sam would either. You were meant to live in both worlds, something we’ve been jealous of for a long time. Compassion is a word far removed from my vocabulary. I think Stacy has taught us all how great a mistake that was.”

  “We’ll keep him away from the house, and when he starts changing, we’ll call you,” Sam said. “Until then, please take care of Stacy. She saved us all tonight.”

  Chaz nodded, his heart threatening to fall right through his stomach and onto the ground as he looked at the blood seep out of the holes in her neck. He walked to her, kneeling at her side. Even though she was in no danger of becoming a vampire, Chaz decided not to take a chance. He took out a vial of extract, placed a drop on his thumb, and put one on the first hole.

  Chaz felt his insides constrict. God, the pain. His fault. He’d asked for her help and almost gotten her killed. What the hell was wrong with him? Was his race more important than her life?

  Man. Vampire. Man. Vampire. How the hell could he possibly reconcile both now?

  Taking a deep breath, Chaz repeated the action over the second hole. “I love you,” he whispered, letting the air out slowly. The rogue blood sizzled, filling his nostrils with a stench. He hated the smell even more than her gaze of disbelief when he helped Hunter take Donnie down.

  He’d lost something terribly precious tonight. He’d lost Stacy’s innocent belief in him, her belief that the man overshadowed the vampire. For a sweet, short moment in time, he’d tried to make himself believe that was true, but the sad fact was he couldn’t.

  Vampire. Man. Vampire. Man.

  Stacy was human. She lived in a world of fairy tales and dreams. For a split-second of his existence, he’d let himself believe in the fairy tale. He prayed that would last him for the rest of whatever life he was given. Because as sure as he was that he loved her, once this horrible mess was over, he’d never see her again.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Stacy

  Stacy came to in familiar surroundings. She was in her shore home, in her own bedroom. Her clock read 3:54 AM. Memories came rushing back at her, and she shut her eyes to keep them at bay. In spite of her efforts, her last vision of Chaz and the sickening thud of a stake driven deep into the ground still haunted her thoughts.

  The door opened, and Chaz walked in. His face blanched, and his gaze darkened as he read the awareness in her gaze. Then he stiffened, his countenance turning bleak.

  “You’re awake.”

  She struggled to sit up against the pillows. The action bought her time, but not enough to reconcile the emotions swirling inside her. “Yes.”

  He held himself from her as would a stranger, and Stacy absorbed the blow, tucking it inside where it wouldn’t hurt so much. He sat down, but she could already tell he wasn’t really there. Not as he had been.

  “I tried to warn you,” he told her softly. “I am what I am.”

  “I know. I decided not to listen.”

  “There’s only one way to truly kill a vampire. You watched me do that tonight.” He sighed, resignation and sadness flowing out of him.

  Part of Stacy could almost understand and accept. “I did.” It was the brutality of his actions that she couldn’t quite grasp. And reconcile with the man she knew.

  Man?

  “Sam and Hunter have decided it would be best for you to stay here and not go back to the mansion right now.”

  That hurt. “So all I am is bait again?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “What do you want me to do?” she asked, trying to keep the pain out of her voice.

  “The same.”

  “Very well. If you’re sure, that’s what you want me to do.”

  He steeled his features. “It is.”

  Stacy’s insides shredded. “You tried to make me understand we’re from different worlds. You are who you are, Chaz. I would never blame you for that.”

  He barked out a bitter laugh. “I blame me for that.”

  “You shouldn’t.”

  He shrugged. “Can’t help myself.”

  Stacy wanted to crawl inside herself and never come out. “So I’m to stay here and become a feast fit for a rogue? Is that it?” She’d never felt so cold, so alone before.

  “No! We need time. Hunter needs to cool his people down. If you go back there now, you won’t last two minutes. They’re angry, and they’re frightened. A lot of vampires got slaughtered on their own doorstep. That’s never happened before.”

  “And I’m the inconsequential human, is that it?”

  “No. Never,” he protested. “Not to me, you’re not.”

  Stacy laughed. “Poor Charles.” She used his full name on purpose. “Caught in the middle as always, eh?” She shook her head, simply sad now. “Everything vampires do they do for themselves. That’s what you’ve been trying to tell me all along, isn’t it?”

  He nodded, and she hated that he did.

  “And you? What are you?”

  “A vampire,” he whispered.

  God, that hurt.

  He hesitated before sitting down on the edge of her bed. He reached out for her hand, and Stacy prayed he would take it. Perhaps his touch would banish the knot of misery inside her. His hand stopped just before reaching hers.

  “Stacy, listen to me.” He gave her a harsh half-smile. “We were a fantasy. Our time together was a fairy tale—a dream. One we can both cherish, but it was doomed from the start. I am what I am. I can’t change that. More importantly, neither can you.”

  Stacy reached out to touch him, but his gaze told her not to. Crossing the barrier he’d created would be the ultimate betrayal now. “I won’t accept that what’s between us is simply a dream, or a fairy tale, or some kind of fantasy.”

  “You have to. You have to face facts. I’ll protect you the best way I know how. I’ll give my life for you.”

  God, that hurt even more than having her neck gouged by a fiend. “Once a Paladin always a Paladin. Is that it?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s all I am to you then?”

  “Because that’s how it has to be,” he exploded, jumping up off the bed and raking his hand through his hair. He took a deep breath, began to pace, and stilled, trying to regain his composure. “You still don’t want to understand! We’re simply too unpredictable. Throughout all the millennia, we still haven’t been able to figure out how to control ourselves, even me. There will always be the fear inside me. When will I lose control? When will I want your blood more than I want you?”

  “Never.”

  He shook his head and refused to listen, his gaze a mixture of fear and self-loathing. “You don’t think so? Right now, Stacy. Right here, right now. I can hear your heart pumping, the rush of blood inside your veins calling to me.”

  “Chaz, stop.”

  “No, it has to be said. When will the need overcome my will? While I’m deep inside your body?”

  “I said, stop!”

  He curled his shoulders, and his body caved in on itself. But one hand moved as if he needed to flay himself as if he needed to lash at himself until he exorcised his demons. “What about an innocent turn of your neck? Or how about when the deep pounding rhythm of your heart reaches that place, I try so hard to keep hidden from you?”

  “Chaz, don’t. Don’t do this to yourself. Most of all, don’t do this to us.”

  He whirled to face her. “Us? Is there really an ‘us’?” he asked. “Can there ever be an
‘us’? You seem to love denying reality, and I don’t know how to get through to you.”

  He took a deep breath, and the words came out as he let go. Each one meant to be a wedge, a stake, driving deep. “I…am…a…vampire. I will always be a vampire. There will always be one thing that I’ll want more than you.”

  “Blood.”

  “Yes!” he raged. “The animal, caged and held at bay, waiting to escape, wanting to ravage, and knowing nothing more than the desire for freedom. When I’m with you, I’ll never be able to let my guard down. Not for a millisecond. Because if I do, I may not be able to stop.”

  “I don’t believe that. I won’t believe that. I’ve been in your arms. I’ve shared your joy and tenderness. You’re more human than most humans I know.”

  He closed his eyes as if each word were the most precious gift she could give and yet, the sharpest knife. When he opened them again, she felt his agony as a physical force before his jaw clamped shut, and the muscle in his cheek twitched like a living being.

  They stared at each other for a long time.

  “I have to go.”

  “No, you don’t. You simply refuse to believe.”

  “Believe what? In fairy tales? There is no happy ending.”

  “Because you don’t want one.”

  His teeth clicked as she watched him bite down even harder. The muscles in his cheeks looked like they would explode. Until finally, he blew out a deep breath and rose. “I’m so very sorry I got you mixed up in all of this, Stacy. Now I have a job to finish. What I should have done originally. Go on the offensive. I need to go catch a rogue and kill it.”

  Stunned, Stacy had no idea how to answer. “So that’s it? You’re giving up?”

  He shook his head no. Stacy didn’t believe him.

  “But you don’t have to worry. There’s a soldier from Hunter’s cell. His name is Aidan. The one you tried to help tonight.”

  “I remember.”