by Trina M. Lee
Death Wish
Alexa O’Brien Huntress Book Five
By Trina M. Lee
Chapter One
Feeding the bloodlust was the only way to control it. It was a sad but true reality. The euphoric high led to an inevitable crash and burn. I could either accept that or fight it until I lost all control.
When the bloodlust got bad enough, I made my way to a seedy part of town and browsed through the selection of pimps, johns and gangsters. The harsh truth was there were far more of them than one might assume.
I lingered in the darkened doorway of an abandoned building, watching my chosen victim. He was a known thug with a reputation for collecting debts owed to one of his drug-dealer pals. I could only imagine how many knees he’d shattered in his time. He seemed like fair game to me.
I was about to make my move when I felt it. My senses blazed. I became keenly aware that I too was being hunted. Now that was interesting. No sooner had I reached out metaphysically to locate my stalker than I was knocked to the ground. My head hit the pavement and pain shot through my skull. Stealthy. They didn’t usually get so close before I felt them.
“I didn’t think it would be so easy.” My attacker snarled down into my face. His breath was rancid. He stunk of death and old, rank blood. “If fucking had a smell, you would be it.”
So gross. I lashed out with blast of raw energy. It launched him through the air and slammed him against a parked car. I was on my feet in a leap, ready for more.
“If that’s a line, pal, I ain’t biting.” My hands grew warm as power pulsed through me, waiting for release.
He was faster than I expected. His speed was impressive, allowing him to dodge the psi ball I’d tossed before he barreled into me like a bull on a rampage. I braced for it but didn’t have time to avoid impact.
My back hit the wall of the abandoned building hard enough to knock the wind from me. He fought to get his hands around my throat. The vampire then banged my head against the hard, brick structure. A growl spilled between my lips, and I bared four vicious wolf fangs.
“So you’ve got a little bit of fight in you. Well, let’s see it, hot stuff.” He tightened his grip on my throat, choking off my air supply.
He was still mocking me when I slapped him with another surge of power. It threw him on his ass, giving me time to follow up with a kick to his face. I leaned over him, holding a psi ball ready.
“Want to tell me what that was all about?” I hit him with the roiling gold and blue ball. The resulting shriek was music to my ears.
“Someone wants you dead, bitch.”
The vampire couldn’t have found a better way to break my focus. Finding his moment, he took advantage of my confusion. He brought both hands together and smashed them like a giant fist into my face. I tasted blood and saw stars. I hit the ground hard as he threw me down.
“So what else is new?” I muttered, picking myself up.
Someone sent this jackass after me? Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. I didn’t go looking for trouble, but it always seemed to find me. I couldn’t let this guy make it back to whoever sent him. Not in one piece anyway. I needed answers.
We squared off, each successfully blocking the other’s attacks. He didn’t seem to have much in the way of metaphysical ability, but he threw a hell of a punch. I didn’t have the staying power a vampire had; I would tire before he would. I struggled to focus my concentration. It was difficult with a flurry of fists he threw in my face.
I misjudged his next move, and he gained the upper hand. All of a sudden, I was flat on my back looking up at the starless city sky. Fangs grazed my throat, spurring me into action. Gathering my power close, I directed it with enough force to make his head snap back. He crashed through the pane of a nearby bus stop shelter. The sound of shattering glass drew little attention. Nobody in this neighborhood cared about an altercation unless it involved them.
My would-be killer’s attitude changed abruptly. As he got unsteadily to his feet, we both noticed the giant shard of glass jutting from his stomach. That had to hurt.
A scream tore from him as he jerked it free. Blood poured from the wound. It was unlikely to be fatal. He was undead, so it would take more than that to kill him. Still, it seemed to be enough to get him rethinking this entire situation.
I advanced on him, and he began to back away slowly.
Hell no. He was not running away from me.
He turned to bolt as I threw myself at him. We went down hard with him taking the worst of the impact. I was done playing. His lack of offense made it easy to center my focus. I grasped his energy, feeling his stone cold heart as if I held it in my hand. And then, I squeezed.
The shriek that burst from him hurt my ears, but it brought a smile to my lips. I shoved enough power into him to make it burn. With a hand on his throat, I forced him to meet my eyes.
“Who wants me dead?” I demanded, fangs bared. To show him I was serious, I pushed another burning wave of power into him.
He struggled to speak through the blood that filled his mouth. There was a wild glint in his dark eyes. Maniacal.
“Who doesn’t?” The bastard laughed despite the fact that I was slowly crushing him to dust from the inside out.
“Last chance to start talking,” I hissed. “What did they offer you to take me out? Give me a name, and I let you walk.”
“Liar.”
Knowing his time was up, he brazenly spat blood in my face. It wasn’t worth trying to get anything further out of him. With an angry shout, I envisioned his black heart in my mind, and I crushed it. Power went out from me into him, joining us for just a second before his body burst into dust and ash.
After brushing myself off the best I could, I risked a glance in the side mirror of a nearby car: a bloody lip and nose, bruised cheek and black eye. Not bad. It would heal by morning if not sooner.
My body ached, but all I could think about was what the vampire had just said. There was a price on my head. I replayed those words, searching them for a lie and finding none.
Sudden paranoia had me listening extra hard to the sounds of the city. I’d had the wrong people take a dangerous interest in me in the past, but this was a first. A hit. On me? The idea was incredulous. Wasn’t it?
A deadly chill stole over me. Someone out there had a price tag with my name on it.
Chapter Two
It was past dawn by the time I got home. I felt Arys’s cold vampire energy long before I reached my front door.
He was a vision of naked splendor, lying in my bed with his head propped on a mountain of pillows. Arys dropped the book he held when I entered the room.
“What happened to you?” His midnight blue eyes were intent upon me, taking in my cuts, bruises and bloodied attire. Small, silver rings shone in his ears, nose and lower lip. With his sexy mess of black hair, he looked both bad ass and beautiful.
“Where do I begin?” I sat on the edge of the bed and started peeling off my clothes. “I tangled with a vampire who informed me there’s a price on my head. Is that news to you? Because it sure as hell is to me.”
“Tell me you killed him.” Arys’s watchful gaze was heavy upon me as I struggled out of my clothing.
“Hell yes I did.” I kicked the jeans across the floor, wincing as pain shot through my ribs. Damn vampires. I crawled into bed beside Arys, collapsing gratefully into the soft mound of blankets. I should have dragged myself through the shower, but I was too exhausted.
“Too bad you couldn’t beat a little more information out of him first.” Arys pulled me close and pressed his lips to my forehead. “Anyone who fucks with you is going to be wearing their insides on the outside when I’m done with them.�
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His soft kisses were a gentle caress down the side of my face until his mouth claimed mine. The touch of his tongue was hot against my bottom lip. A rush of power burst through me as our energy joined with a jolt of electricity.
“You have to be careful.” Arys spoke between kisses, his hand lost in my long blonde locks. “It’s got to have something to do with what Maxwell knew about us. Others are figuring it out.”
I realized the book he’d been reading was his own journal, the one he’d given me for my birthday. I hadn’t read very much since receiving it a few weeks ago despite Arys’s nagging at me to do so. It was hard to take in too much at once. Since Maxwell had revealed that Arys had known about me long before I’d been born, things had changed. Arys was more neurotic than I’d ever seen him.
He feared what he’d been told, that his darkness would destroy us. I didn’t want to believe it, though somewhere deep inside I knew it to be true. Two different witches had warned us at very different times about the dangers of our connection. Yet, I knew there was more to it; something was missing…
I snuggled in against him, reveling in the way his body felt alongside mine. “You’re the calm and cool one. I’m the nutcase. Don’t go changing that on me.”
He chuckled, a low sound that made me smile. “You’re right. I’ll let you be the crazy one since you do it so well.”
I pinched him playfully, satisfied when he made a pained noise. He lightly bit my earlobe, moving to graze my neck with his sharp fangs. I closed my eyes, content to be in his arms. Wrapping me tighter in his embrace, Arys’s energy was warm and comforting.
When it became clear that sleep planned to evade me, I sat up and grabbed the old leather journal from where Arys had abandoned it on the bed. He’d closed it so I couldn’t tell what page he’d been reading. I’d only made it through a handful of pages myself.
I propped myself up against the pillows and rested the book on my lap. Arys remained close, his face buried in a pillow and an arm across my waist.
“You’re never going to finish that, are you?” His voice was muffled, and his eyes were closed, but I knew he was alert. He wasn’t as relaxed as he appeared.
“I will. I’m just not sure when. It feels weird, reading your personal thoughts and feelings from so long ago. It’s hard to wrap my mind around it all.”
I flipped the journal open to the first page. I’d read it so many times already, but I often came back to it. The words were faded but legible.
October 14, 1849
I saw her again in my dreams, the wolf. I wish I knew her name. All I know is that when I see her, she is mine. She haunts me. The image of her lingers long after I wake. I have yet to see her true form. In these dreams, she is always wolf, but I know that’s not her true face. She is human, too, but whom she is, to me, remains a mystery. I’ve known the love of many women. Yet something about this wolf makes me feel like no other woman has. Alive. And somehow, complete. I don’t know who she is, but I know I must find her.
To know that Arys had seen me in his dreams more than a century ago was mind blowing. I still couldn’t quite comprehend how that could happen.
The only witch I knew who had known about things of this nature was dead. However, Lena believed that Arys and I were meant to be together, two beings cut from the same magic cloth, destined to unite.
I could almost hear her voice: Sometimes this is the natural order of things; as hard as it might be to believe, it’s meant to happen. A bond like this lasts to the death.
She had given us a warning though, one I’d never forget. A bond like this could drive one absolutely mad. Lena had made me promise to be careful. I’d never guessed then how deep it went.
I knew why I kept coming back to that very first journal entry. It was because Arys had seen me as a wolf before I’d ever been born. It was confirmation that everything with Raoul, the attack and my change to wolf, had been meant to happen. That was hard to swallow. During my childhood years, playing with my sister as a clueless, happy child, all of this had been there, waiting to happen. The loss of my innocence, my misplaced love for the man who killed my family, it was my destiny. And, I hated that.
“Stop torturing yourself.” Arys made a half-hearted attempt at swiping the book from my hands. “I gave it to you so you could find answers. Not so you’d drive yourself crazy.”
“Cut it out. This journal is fragile. Don’t wreck it.” I turned the page, giving him a teasing glare. “I am finding answers. I’m just not happy with some of them.”
I skimmed through the next page. It was a detailed account of a gruesome night out. Arys and Harley had been busy boys back in those days. The first time I’d read about how they had seduced a young woman and driven her into a sexual frenzy, I’d been disturbed. I didn’t want to read it again. Still, I couldn’t help but linger over a few especially creepy parts.
Harley brought her to the brink of climax, enjoying her pleas for more. She oozed sexual energy, and we devoured it. I bit her wrist, letting the blood flow over my tongue. It stirred my every hunger to life. I longed to be inside her, taking all of her. Body and blood. But, Harley had had enough play. Now, he wanted her to scream.
I shuddered and turned the page before I could read anymore. My own memories of Harley were not fond ones. However, they were nothing compared to the depravity that lay within these pages. Arys and I shared one another’s memories, thus everything he had written about his sire brought those horrific memories from my subconscious to the surface where I was forced to relive them as if I’d been there.
I distinctly preferred to keep those memories safely entombed beyond the reach of my conscious mind, so maybe Arys was right, maybe I never would finish reading his journal.
“Did you get some kind of perverse pleasure out of recording your debauchery with Harley? It makes me want to scream.”
“Yes. I suppose I did. I also get some perverse pleasure from your reaction to it.”
There was no humor in his eyes. It was my own fault. I’d been dumb enough to ask about his past, and he’d answered. I easily forgot how dangerous Arys was. He was part of me in so many ways, and yet sometimes, I felt like I didn’t know him at all.
“Fantastic,” I muttered. Shrugging off the feeling of unease creeping over me, I kept flipping pages.
Bypassing previously read tales of blood play and wicked games, I paused where I’d left off. It had been several days since I’d read the journal. I was starting to think it would leave me with more questions than answers. Only one way to find out.
November 17, 1849
I had the strangest dream that I was a wolf. I awoke confused and startled. As a vampire, I know that can never be. It’s she, inside my mind again. I’m sure of it. I need to know whom she is before it drives me insane. I don’t dare speak a word about her to Harley. Not yet. I need to find her.
I need answers. Alice has been called a charlatan, a fraud, but I’ve seen enough to be sure that she knows things. Answers from Alice won’t come easy or cheap.
I glanced down to find Arys watching me intently, likely waiting for my expression to change as I read. I stroked a hand through his soft, ebony hair.
“Why don’t you tell me these things yourself, Arys? Then you can censor the parts I really don’t want or need to know.”
“You need to know all of it, my wolf. Just read it.”
I was skeptical. “I really need to know about all the fun you and Harley had driving women into a sexual frenzy while you killed them? I doubt that.”
Arys snickered, and it sent a shiver down my spine. “You don’t want to read it because it gets to you. You start to remember, and you like it.”
“Screw that.” My response came too fast, and my pulse quickened. I hated it when he was right.
“Keep reading. The worst of it never made it into that journal anyway.”
“That’s reassuring.”
It wasn’t. I did not want to read more about Arys’s murderous
activity, but I did want to know more about Alice and what, if anything, she knew about us.
January 4, 1850
Alice is either a liar and a thief or a woman who knows too much. She read my palm, an act that seemed very contrived and only for show. Then she started talking, and I almost wished I’d never gone to see her at all. She confirmed what I already knew, that the wolf is mine, somehow. Twin flame. That is the term she used. The wolf is my twin flame. I had never heard of this before. I asked if she meant we were soul mates. The shriveled old hag laughed as if I were a fool.
Twin flames and soul mates are often confused though never the same. According to Alice, soul mates are two different people meant to be together, but twin flames are part of one another, created as one and split into two. Two separate beings, two separate souls, and yet we are one. Alice claims that twin flames rarely ever exist in the same lifetime. They aren’t meant to. Yet if they do somehow unite, it is for a reason. A spiritual purpose. Of course, I asked why. Alice was unwilling to part with more information without parting me from more money. I concluded that she had little else to share. Perhaps I will go back. Perhaps I never will.
If Alice speaks the truth then I will likely never know my wolf. I don’t even know her name. And, for some inexplicable reason, that pains me.
I read the entry a second time and then a third. Twin flames. I had never heard the term before. I flipped ahead to the next entry, but it was about an argument with Harley, something that meant nothing to me right then. My mind was stuck on the twin flame revelation. Too impatient to keep reading in the hopes of finding more information, I jumped out of bed and ran upstairs to fetch my laptop. This question required the internet.
Arys raised his head, an inquisitive expression on his face as I jostled him about while getting settled with the computer on my lap. “What’s up, love?”