by Mary Hughes
Race must’ve seen my skepticism because he smiled. “Hattie and I are the same age. I got good genes.” He sat the instant I was down. “And my wife keeps me young.” He bestowed Hattie with a besotted smile.
I waited for the emotions to hit me—the anger, the terror, the shame that had nearly overwhelmed me meeting Hattie. There was only confusion, probably because I still couldn’t connect him with father.
“My wife” did seep through. I shifted startled eyes to Hattie. “I thought you didn’t marry my father.”
And now the emotions did come, anger heating my blood. The whole reason she’d given me up was because she would’ve been a single mother. Had she lied?
She sighed, ruefully. “It’s a long story. You should try your muffin. It’s a variation on the cafe’s Seven Deadly Chocolates scone.”
“Fudge cake with chocolate chips, topped with chocolate shavings and jimmies.” Liese pointed with her fork. “Inside there’s chocolate cream and fudge filling.”
Well, as long as I was here, I would fuel up. I peeled off fluted paper. “Sounds like a sugar coma waiting to happen.”
She laughed, though I hadn’t meant it as a joke.
As I forked up the first mouthful, painful as the sugar stung saliva into my mouth, Hattie took it as her cue to start talking.
“Race and I were together in high school. He was different then.” She gave a dark laugh. “He was a bad boy.”
“She was only sixteen,” Liese said, as if that excused her.
I suppressed an eye roll. Even at sixteen I knew better than to fall for a bad boy.
Like a certain bad-boy vampire king?
I instantly squashed the thought. I was not my biological mother.
“I thought I loved him.” Hattie’s focus was beyond me, mired in the past. “I didn’t even know what love was. When I told him we’d made a baby, he…he left me.” Her voice thickened with pain.
She’d done exactly the same thing to me. Our moment in the hall seemed false now. I wanted to yell out my pain, the cost I’d paid for her decision.
Her hand tightened around her fork, and she blinked rapidly. A tear threaded down her cheek, glimmering, wet.
Seeing that tear, I got a sympathetic lump in my throat.
I’d been abandoned, but she’d been abandoned, too.
Race’s turn to rub her arm. “I was an idiot.”
She startled, her gaze focusing on him. Then she laughed. “We both were.”
“But…” My gaze went back and forth between them. “Why is he here? He left you.”
They exchanged a quick glance. Hattie slid her free hand over his. “Can you imagine what it is to mate for life, Kat? To find a person worth fighting for? Race couldn’t give me that when you were born. A few years ago, we met again. He was different. Ready for a lifetime commitment. He proposed, and I accepted.”
“You accepted? Hattie, he walked out on you.” My torn heart wouldn’t let me forgive so easily. “He walked out on us.”
“He didn’t want to. He had even less of a choice than I did. Something happened to him then, something life-altering. I can’t tell you what, but he showed me proof, and I believe him. I hope you will believe one day, too.”
“Life-altering? Like he had to go find himself?” I spat. My dark web friends sometimes complained about their love lives. People came up with all kinds of excuses to run out on commitment; very few considered the pain of those left behind.
They exchanged another glance. Finally, he said to her, “Do what you think is right.”
She sighed. “Kat, Race left me…left us…because he died.”
“Come on.” I gestured at him, incredulous. “He’s obviously sitting here, alive—”
“Vampires mate for life, Kat. They’re the ultimate in faithful. Race loves me.” She said more but I didn’t hear it.
My entire body exploded with ice so cold it burned. Acupuncture me with an iron maiden.
My father was a vampire. A monster.
And what the hell does that make me?
Even as horror suffused me, instinct slapped my hand behind my shoulder, to skewer the fucker with Joyce.
I’d left her at home. I didn’t have swords or garlic spray or even a ninja star.
Fury threw me to my feet so fast the chair went tumbling behind me.
Hattie’s face paled. I was too upset to care.
“How could you?” My gaze locked on her, this woman who’d betrayed me, not once, but twice. “He’s a monster, and you married him? What have you done? God. What have you done to me?” Was I a half-breed? Would I turn? Was I, even now, slowly decaying into a ravening bloodsucker?
“You’re entirely human,” Liese said quickly. “Even if Race had been a vampire when he and Mom…when they…” Her cheeks pinked. “He wasn’t, but even then, you’d still be completely human.”
My mother sat there, pale, trembling slightly, not moving in any other way.
Race scowled at me and slung an arm around her, almost as if he was protecting her from me.
What the hell? He was the bad guy here. While I was furious with her, I wanted to shield her, too. Or tear her from his grip. Or destroy him, though how to do it without my swords or a window to open to cleansing sunshine—damn it, was this why we were meeting in this fully enclosed room?
I tried to use my words as weapons instead. “Whatever he’s told you, it isn’t true. Vampires are evil. They kill people.” My heart pumped faster in desperation to make her see. Maybe she was in thrall to him. Like drug addiction, but with vampires. Maybe I needed to do an intervention. “He might kill you at any time. Might kill your daughter. Your grandchildren. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
She looked me straight in the eye. “They don’t all kill,” she said with a little harrumph. “Race doesn’t anymore.”
“Anymore…?” I threw my hands up in dismay. Did she hear herself? “Just because he hasn’t lately, doesn’t mean he won’t. That’s what they do, Hattie. They’re bloodsuckers. They suck human blood.”
“Because they need it for their veins,” she countered immediately. “They don’t eat it. The good ones only drink enough to live—taking small, voluntary donations. Not so different from people needing blood transfusions.”
“It’s entirely different. There are no ‘good’ ones, Hattie. He might curb his appetite for a while, but his basic nature is depraved.”
“You’re wrong, dear. Race is a good man. I could have chosen to ignore that. Continued to hate him and myself. I chose love. I’m sorry that hurts you, Kat—”
“It doesn’t hurt me, it’s insane.” Although Ryker had seemed genuinely worried about the king. Not as if he was enthralled. As if the king was really his friend.
Did that mean there was more to my mother and father?
No. No way. Getting to know Ryker was obviously a mistake. Eroding long-held beliefs—no truths. I pointed at Race. “The noble face he wears is a mask for the monster behind it.”
At the expressions around the table, ranging from disbelief to dismay to closed-off denial, I made a noise of disgust.
“I have to go.”
Hattie exchanged an anguished look with Race. She said, “Will we see you again?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
Burning with equal parts horror and anger, I left.
Chapter Twelve
I stalked out of the coffee shop, blind to the patrons and deaf to their chatter. It was only after I stormed out and the chill drizzle soaked into my skin, cooling my anger and horror, that I remembered the dagger in my ankle sheath.
Idiot. I could have solved that little family problem after all.
Here I thought meeting my birth mother would be the most traumatic thing happening to me in this little town. Learning my father was a vampire? Gave trauma a whole
new spin.
Emotions churned inside me as I stalked through the spitting icy rain-mist. Fury. Bewilderment. Underneath, fear.
What if I was wrong? All the vampires I’d righteously destroyed. What if they weren’t all completely evil?
“What if I’m right?” I muttered, hoping saying it out loud would remind me of the truth. “My birth family is nuts. There’s always a sane one, and that’s me.”
Probably.
Damn it, why was I questioning this now? I was so close to finding my ultimate quarry, fulfilling my life’s mission. Doubts would weaken my resolve, weaken me. I desperately needed a sanity booster shot.
I needed my sister, my real sister.
As I turned north on Fifth, I snatched out my phone and called her. “You won’t believe what just happened.”
“Worse than dreaming you slept with a vampire?” The laughing lilt to her voice meant life was pretty good.
“Way worse. Hattie married a bloodsucker.”
A stunned silence. “She’s in thrall to a vampire?”
“No! Married, as in marching down the aisle, matching earrings, and lovey-dovey looks. And not because he mesmerized her or sexed her into it. Because she thinks he’s different. Can you believe that?”
“I’m confused. She thinks he’s not a bloodsucker?”
“Oh, she knows he sucks blood. She says he has to, like he’s getting transfusions by mouth or something. Like a monster isn’t a monster because he doesn’t always kill.”
“Wow. That’s seriously screwed up.” A pause. “Kat, I’m sorry I pushed you to do this. Why don’t you stay with me in Chicago for a few days? Then you can find somewhere else to hunt.”
“I will—soon. I’ve got a lead on Elias.” Ahead of me, Roller-Blayd Hall loomed.
“Elias?”
“The king of the vampires. That PI I met is also searching for him. Says he’s the king’s friend. I swear, if Ryker lied to me, I’m going to tase his ass and guillotine his balls.”
Her laugh was punctuated by a masculine cry of anguish. She swore.
“Rey? What was that?”
“I’m at the shelter.” Her voice had turned tight, worried. “I have to go. Ring me later, okay?” She ended the call before I could answer.
Unsettled already, that abrupt ending disturbed me. I told myself I was being ridiculous and tried to shrug it off. I had work to do.
I only stared at my silent phone, trying to settle myself. Trying to make sense of it all.
My biological mother had welcomed a bloodsucker as her husband.
And when I first met Liese, my biological sister, she’d asked, “How do you tell the bad-guy vamps from the good-guy vamps?” They’d all shared that strange, secret look at my flip answer.
My family really believed some vampires weren’t bad.
What if they’re right?
I needed to talk with an urgency that stabbed me as deep as Joyce’s blade. Rey was busy, though. I tried my dark web friends, but no one was on chat. Which left…
Oh, hell. I had to talk to someone. I pulled up Ryker’s number and hit call.
“Kat, how delightful to hear from you.” His voice was as luxurious over the small speaker as it was in person. “What can I do for y—?”
“Vampires are all monsters, right?”
There was a short silence. “What brought that on?”
“My birth mother… She married a sucker.” I meant to snarl it, yet somehow it came out with a plaintive, almost little-girl plea.
“Ouch,” he said. “That kind of betrayal has to hurt.”
Relief cascaded through me, hearing him say that. I was surprised by how much I’d needed those exact words.
Then I rolled my eyes at myself. A minion, the only sane person in this town. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“Well.” He drew out the word, considering. “There’s a monster inside them all, yes. I don’t think that’s your real question, though. I think you’re worried that, because your father harbors a beast, you do, too.”
I sucked a hot breath for a retort… He was right. What does that make me? “He wasn’t a vamp when he fathered me. Liese says I’m entirely human.”
“And yet you worry.”
Right again, damn him. It was annoying enough when my sister did it. I nearly thanked him curtly and hung up.
Instead, I asked tentatively, “So am I?”
“Kat, I’ve met monsters. Believe me when I say you definitely aren’t.”
I stopped walking. The relief whooshing through me was shocking in its strength.
But it was nothing on the warmth I felt toward Ryker.
Managing a wobbly, “Thanks,” I hung up and headed for my flat to change.
…
Ryker ended the call, standing in the bedroom of his bolt-hole apartment, and began to pace.
Kat must have been seven kinds of desperate to call him. He ached with sorrow for her suffering and hoped he’d said the right thing. That his words had helped her somewhat.
But he wanted to do more. She needed him to come to her and cheer her up—he could tell from her voice. That would cheer him up, too…
He stopped abruptly. Good Inanna. He had tender feelings for Kat.
Slowly, he sank into a chair. When had that happened? Not simple attraction.
When had he learned to care about a vivacious, beautiful vampire hunter who would happily slay all of his kind?
The moment she showed a bit of vulnerability, apparently.
He tried to reassure himself. It wasn’t feelings, it was simply physical. Normal, natural, nothing to be afraid of. She was, after all, the first new thing on the menu in several long centuries.
Hell, even if he had feelings for her, it wasn’t the end of the world. He could even marry her. Elias did it all the time, monogamous creature that he was. He could marry her and stay with her the rest of her life.
Or rather, stay with her until she left him, like everyone else.
At the thought of Kat leaving him, his heart rate picked up to a panicked tempo.
“It’s really no big deal,” he muttered. People left him, so what? It wasn’t as if she was his mythical mate, the one person who would finally quiet the ache in his soul…
He pictured Kat beside him through the unending turn of centuries. It was surprisingly easy …and right.
Good Inanna preserve me. I think Kat is the one?
Maybe he’d sniffed too much of that vampire hallucinogen at Roller-Blayd Hall, and it was only now taking effect.
She couldn’t be his mate. He’d been over this before. Vampire mates had one strict requirement: be immune to compulsion. As an ancient, Ryker could compel anyone, any time.
Even fiery little vampire hunters.
Relief cascaded through him. Glad he’d had this little talk with himself. Glad he’d figured out it was just attraction, and even if it was more, it wasn’t the ultimate threat. Glad he’d decided that maybe he could have a relationship with Kat.
Glad he could go cheer her up with a clear conscience.
Besides, he owed her a look at that security camera footage. Yes, she’d already seen it, but with Keydew, not him as himself. He’d show her the video and they’d be square. And maybe she’d even share her revelation from yesterday.
He did a quick phone search, located something called Randy’s Candies, and left.
…
An hour later, more comfortably attired in my fully stocked vest and carrying both swords, I stepped outside into the watery October sunlight, the drizzle having temporarily cleared. I’d left my hooded fleece on underneath. It was cold.
After regaining my sanity, I was uncomfortable with how I’d left Hattie, but what did I do about it? Kill the bloodsucker she’d married? Organize an intervention? I called
Rey again. She burst out immediately about the poor man she’d rescued from the streets, pale and listless and starting to spout crazy things about shadows. I listened, tried to murmur the right things, and hung up as I stepped off the stoop, my goal the bungalow on the Roller-Blayd Hall lot.
“Psst. Kat.”
That chocolate-smooth voice identified him. The giant PI himself was barely discernible in the darkest shadows on the east side of the house.
Pleasure rushed through me along with gratitude for his kind words on the phone—plus a bit of guilt, remembering the dream.
As I trotted toward him, I was again struck with how gorgeous he was, how big. All signs of a vampire.
Impossible. He was out in the daytime.
Sunlight burned vamps. Literally. I’d seen bloodsuckers exposed to the sun go up like a bonfire. Yup, Ryker was definitely human.
The pleasure blooming inside me was okay.
A smile tipped his lips as I approached. “This is for you.” He passed me a suspiciously candy-shaped box.
I held it like I’d hold a bomb. “What’s this for?”
One black brow rose. “Calories? What do you think it’s for?”
“I don’t know, but it better not be because I was feeling bad.” Awkward enough that he’d seen me cry. Using my ultra-short fingernails, I pried up the lid.
“It’s definitely not that.”
“Or date candy. It’d better not be…ooh. Creme filled.” I plucked a chocolate from its paper nest and popped it in my mouth. I let complete bliss overtake me for a moment, eyes closed, chewing in pleasure.
“It’s an apology. For not staying to help with that security camera footage last night.”
My eyes popped open, narrowed on him. “You disappeared without a word.”
“I’m sorry.” He took a step closer, his own expression pained. Cupping my face in one hand, he gazed deep into my eyes. “I’m here to make it up to you. I have access now.”
I liked the warmth of his fingers on my cheek, strong yet gentle… Hack me with a hatchet. Candy and comfort? What was his agenda here? I stepped back. “Are you trying to trick me?”