by Mary Hughes
I fell silent, remembering. That was a weird night. Those people backed her up with such fevered sincerity, Max not only returned her head and let her live, he spent more and more time with her.
Trying to understand her.
“He fell in love with her. He asked her to marry him, if you can believe it.” Like Hattie. I laughed, without humor. “He was a veteran hunter, experienced. He should have been smarter than to fall for a bloodsucker’s lies.”
“What happened?” Ryker asked gently.
“The night of the wedding…” The chill spread to my chest. I breathed through it. “The newlyweds had gone to bed in her basement room. I was cleaning up from the party when the screaming started. Hers. I ran downstairs. Max…he lay there, naked and bloody on the bed. Her mouth was smeared with his blood. She was pounding on his chest, more blood burbling out of the dark holes on his neck.” I swallowed bile, even in memory. “Her cheeks were wet with the stuff, like she’d scrubbed her face in it. Max’s blood.” I hiccupped a breath. “She’d killed him.”
“I’m so sorry, Kat.” A gentle finger tilted my face up. Sympathy was etched in every line of his.
Another hitch of breath as his thumb brushed my cheek and came away wet.
Fuck. I was crying. What was it with this damned town? I hadn’t blubbered this much since my parents died.
“I must ask…is it possible your friend was on a blood thinner like warfarin? Or perhaps he was a hemophiliac?”
“Why?” The word was torn from my throat. “What possible reason could you have for asking that?”
“When vampires make love…they often bite. It’s orgasmic for their partner.”
“That doesn’t explain the blood smeared all over her face! She’d killed him, drunk his blood, and all she was doing was pumping what was left from him—”
“Kat, vampire tears are red. Perhaps she was weeping.”
Tears? Cold hit me like lightning. Had I misjudged Juliette? Had it all been a tragic accident, and she’d been as heartsick as me?
It shook me badly. Could I have been wrong all these years? Could my mentor’s vampire lover have not slain him?
“No. Max was a lion of a man, as hardy and healthy as they came. He did not have hemophilia and he wasn’t on blood thinners. What would he be on blood thinners for, anyway?”
“He was older, yes? He might have had a heart condition or history of stroke, or even a recent knee or hip replacement—”
“No. None of those.” Maybe, maybe not, but Max had always been bigger than life to me. Impossible he had any human weakness.
Patiently, Ryker said, “Kat, I’m sorry for the loss of your friend. It’s only that I have experience of vampires. If Juliette bit him and couldn’t stop the bleeding, and then his heart stopped, she would’ve attempted CPR. She must have been very frightened, too young to understand—”
“Stop making excuses!” I came to my feet, my lungs pumping, anger and agony echoing from that night.
“I’m sorry.” He held up his palms. “I only hoped that, if you understood, you might not hate them all so much…might not hate me so much.” His eyes clenched, as if he was containing some strong emotion. “For my friendship with Elias, that is.” He drew a deep breath through his nose, let it out, and seemed more normal. “Let’s just see if we can get any information from the video, all right?”
Though the anger boiling in my chest didn’t want to let go, he seemed genuinely repentant. I managed, “Why is Elias not as big as I remember, really? I’ve seen v-guys drained of blood. They don’t change in size, or much of anything, except they don’t move. Pump some blood in them and they’re as good as new.”
“Regular blood, that’s true. Not heart’s blood. That’s what I meant when I said he lost his most valuable blood.”
“Heart’s blood?” That term wasn’t on the dark web. I wasn’t quite sure what it meant. “The blood of his heart?”
“Not exactly. Under normal circumstances, a vampire’s power is evenly dispersed throughout his body. But under some conditions, the power can concentrate in the blood. Thus, heart’s blood.”
“What conditions?”
“Voluntary. Or forced.” He scowled.
“Forced? I don’t like the sound of that.”
“You shouldn’t. It’s like draining a carcass in a slaughterhouse, only the vampire is drained while his heart is still beating. The power rushes into the blood, trying to heal him as the draining goes on and on and on…until there’s nothing left.”
“Th-that…” I swallowed hard. “That sounds gruesome.”
“Yes.” He stared at the screen. His expression was blank, unreadable. Yet, somehow, I understood that agony beat beneath his firm jaw and steady eyes.
I put my arms awkwardly around him, barely encompassing his chest. Beneath my arms, his muscles were stiff. Humans weren’t my thing, but I tried, giving him a jerky hug. “Sorry.”
He startled, coming back from whatever hell he’d been in, gaze switching to me. “Thank you. That helps.” He relaxed and pressed the briefest of kisses to my cheek.
Warmth ate through my cold. When I released him, it wasn’t quite so awkward.
“In Elias’s case, I’m not sure which possibility is scarier.” He hit the playback. The group hauled the king offscreen.
“You still think he let himself be taken?”
“Here, yes. I could see him resist every once in a while, to test his control.”
“Okay. Then he’s still missing because he doesn’t have the answers he’s looking for yet. Or…” I dribbled off. He wouldn’t like this.
He said it for me, his expression bleak. “Or something off-camera proved too powerful to resist.”
“Or someone.” Someone worse than the king. I was getting some super-nasty vibes. “Let’s get out of here.”
We emerged into the thickening dusk, even colder and drearier than before. Between the drizzle and dropping temps, the front stairs were coated in ice.
I gripped the handrail and inched my way down, slipping and sliding awkwardly.
Ryker glided rapidly to the bottom as if he was skiing a smooth slope. I really hated him for all that masculine grace—even as I admired it.
I was about halfway down when a squad of black-uniformed vampires boiled up in the west.
A dozen strong, they flew at us like a scudding cloud.
Cursing, I released the rail to draw my talwar. Before I could, I slipped on the ice, barely catching myself on the handrail.
I stood there, defenseless, as the gang altered their trajectory to head straight for me.
Damn. This is gonna hurt.
As the vampires hit the stairs, Ryker’s tree-trunk of an arm wrapped around my waist.
He’d shot up the steps and torn me from the railing so fast my legs simply popped into the air, trailing like snapping pennants. My free arm automatically went around him.
His thin sweater was no more than a cloth film over muscles hard as marble. His body was burning hot. Probably why he never seemed to need a jacket. As I bounced against his scorching flesh, my nipples stiffened painfully.
Running for our lives, and I was getting turned on. Rey would have had a field day with that and her DSM book of mental disorders.
At the top of the stairs, he set me on my feet. I scrabbled away from him and all that disturbing male muscle—and nearly got mowed down by the oncoming rush of rogues.
“Damn it, Kat.” He snatched me away from them at the last minute, pulling me firmly with one powerful arm into his blazing body as he swatted at the swarm like pesky flies—swatting with a familiar straight blade. He’d borrowed Joyce this time. The man was a magician.
I had a sudden, impossible urge to rub myself against his long, muscular frame like a purring cat.
Focus. Attacking bloodsuckers. Twistin
g out of Ryker’s grip, I drew Shredder and slashed him along the first vamp within reach.
I cut the vampire’s arm, normally no more than an annoyance to a sucker. I’d treated the blade with Alexis’s serum, though. The blue-badge cried out and staggered back, his skin going green in the first step toward turning into vampire mulch.
Ryker started chopping the charging suckers with Joyce. Four were down and two were lumpy when the rest stopped turning green. Joyce was out of serum. Clamping my sword in his teeth, Ryker grabbed the next two attackers by the wrist, swung them around, and sent them flying down the stairs.
They hit bottom and bounced to their feet. A little fall wasn’t going to dent their enthusiasm much, but it did give me time to pant, “You’d better not have put teeth marks in my sword.”
He grinned at me around Joyce, his sexiest smile yet, the bastard. Joyce blushed. Not really, but I would have paid good money to trade places with her.
When the first wave ebbed, another squad rushed in. They all had the same black fatigues and blue badges I’d seen before.
Side by side, Ryker and I stabbed, slashed, and spitted bloodsuckers, moving like a well-oiled dance team. Shredder’s curved blade got stuck midway when I stabbed him in one of the slimmer goon’s chest—until Ryker shoved him toward me. Despite being human, the PI’s giant size made him a force for even vampires to reckon with. I braced myself and held on with both hands while Ryker impaled the monster.
While I was busy twisting Shredder to destroy the rogue’s heart, Ryker snatched Sam, Dean, and Spyke from my vest. I scolded him, “You should ask.”
He clamped my knives between his knuckles like a bristling cutlery drawer and clawed off the rogue’s head. Handy.
Handy. Ha. I’d made a joke. Bio Sis Liese would’ve been so proud.
“Would you loan them to me if I asked?” he said.
“I’d loan you anything. Well, except an Ultra-Bardiche, if I had one.”
A big sucker standing at the base of the stairs motioned, gesturing like a coach. He must’ve been the squad’s leader, an idea reinforced by the gold bar on his blue badge and his more ornate faceplate, like red sea kelp.
He waved one of the remaining bloodsuckers at me.
I barely managed to sweep my forearm up to block a handful of claws. Vamp hand met human arm with an impact that jarred through my bones.
Shredder fell from my nerveless hand and clattered to the concrete. I was weaponless.
Grinning, the vamp reached out to take me.
…
Ryker sucked air as Kat’s talwar clattered to the pavement. He smashed his knife-bristling fist into his current rogue’s face then prepared to spring to her aid.
Left-handed, she grabbed a small can from her vest and brandished it. The vampire gave a start. Then when his gaze lighted on what she held, he only laughed.
Until she flipped aside the cover and pushed a button. The overconfident sucker stood there laughing—as a stream of liquid hit him right between the eyes.
His laughter cut. His lids snapped up in stunned surprise, faceplate dissolving. A breathless second…and then he screamed and began to claw at his face.
Ryker chuckled. Kat could take care of herself. The woman was a marvel. Returning to his face-punched rogue, he decapitated him with a single swing of Kat’s fine straight sword.
Besides taking out at least two of the bloodsuckers on her own, she’d worked with him to down many of the rest in the synergy of perfect teamwork. As she staked her garlic-sprayed attacker with a ferocious double-handed thrust, he marveled at his sense of camaraderie. He’d fought countless rogues, but tonight he was having the time of his life, and it was because of her.
The last attacker fell. The gold-bar leader dissolved from the bottom of the stairs into the encroaching night.
Ryker could’ve chased him. Yet he stayed with Kat, overcome with pride in her and exhilarated in a way he’d not been since his youth. “That was amazing. You’re amazing.” He transferred the blades to one big hand, seized her shoulder with the other, and pressed his lips to hers.
He’d meant it as a quick, exuberant display of his joy in her. Tasting her, though, her soft surprise, the heat of battle in her breath, he lingered. Drawing his lips over hers, he savored the sensation of her plush mouth.
And her lips…softened. Sweetened. She began to kiss him back.
Fire tore through him. Her exquisite response… Some females were sweet, some were spicy, and some were steamy hot. Kat was all three.
And he wanted more. He touched his tongue to her lips to tease them open. His hand slid up her arm, on the way to cupping her face.
A fingernail-size disk was on her sleeve. He peeled it off, staring stupidly at it for a moment.
In that moment, she pulled away. Picking up and sheathing her talwar, she held out her other hand. “You have to start asking before you borrow my weapons. I might’ve needed them.”
He returned her straight sword first. He’d cleared it of serum before putting it in his mouth, having seen what the stuff had done to lesser vampires. Though for himself, well, his ancient power healed anything.
So, he wasn’t terribly careful handing back her dagger and butterfly knives, and an inadvertent fumble twisted one of the blades.
A nick stung him.
Glancing at his hand revealed a paper-cut-size wound puncturing one finger. He shrugged it off. It was so small. It would heal.
His flesh chilled around the wound instead.
He wasn’t worried, exactly. He was an ancient. The stuff destroyed younglings of his kind, sure. But he’d heal this.
A heartbeat later, his skin began to ache.
It’ll stop.
It didn’t.
“What the pointy fuck is that?” She stabbed her index finger at the disk in his other hand.
“I don’t know.” Trying to ignore the cold pain in his hand, he frowned at the thing. A GPS tracker unless he was mistaken, the kind used to locate keys and wallets and phones. Why would rogues want to track Kat?
Although these weren’t the usual rogues. Kat had called them fangs for hire, like private military but with vampires. Why would a group of mercenary vampires want to track her?
“I thought we were past keeping info from each other.” With a disgusted glare, she carefully started working her way down the icy stairs.
He only stood there. His cut was beginning to throb.
Had the tracker originally been meant for him? That would make more sense. Perhaps they’d placed it on Kat as a last resort.
“Come on.” Halfway down the stairs, she twisted to give him an exasperated glance. “A cop can come out at any moment.”
“Right.” He stayed where he was. The ache was worse, beginning to burn as the liquid entered his bloodstream. Blossoming, unfolding like petals of pain. Each beat of his heart expanded the misery deeper into his body.
Until he was a mass of agony.
Sweet Inanna, what is this? Before, he’d been intrigued by the serum; this wasn’t intriguing, it was alarming. He’d been injured in his long existence, but he’d always, always healed. His breath rasped faster, his heart pounded harder. Part of him wanted to turn and flee. It took him a moment to identify the sensation, long-since forgotten.
Panic.
He breathed through it. The serum was now in his blood. Fleeing wouldn’t help squat.
Calling on old, still-practiced techniques, he slowed his heart to march along at a steady sixty and his lungs to cycle breaths every ten beats.
When he was sure his hand wouldn’t tremble, he casually licked healing saliva onto his finger, to close his wound.
The skin didn’t immediately seal.
His pulse kicked higher at that, fear beginning to roil. The cold and nausea spread. Last time he’d been in this much pain was when he
’d been caught out in the Akkadian midday sun. Burning from the inside out, moments from going up in flames.
The final death.
Fear rose in his throat. He swallowed hard. All these centuries, he thought he’d die when his mate rejected him. Instead, he’d die accidentally at the hands of a beautiful huntress with sunshine in her smile.
Razors of pain sliced him, scoured him. The serum, pulsing through his veins, had begun to cut him apart. Literally—his body started disintegrating.
Not like misting. That he could control.
This was involuntary. This was chunks of himself being eaten away by acid. This was terrifying.
The cut began widening.
Dear Inanna. Thousands of years and as many enemies—and in the end, it was Kat’s serum that defeated him.
No. It doesn’t end this way. It can’t. Clamping his eyelids shut, he concentrated on holding his body together. One breath. Two. He willed his healing to work faster and harder than the red poison tearing him apart.
He was not dying. Not now, not when he’d just found Kat.
At that last, startling thought, the burning began to ebb.
His panic ebbed with it. He slit his eyes open. The cut had begun to close, the skin to knit, slowly. So slowly. Dalkhu take it, that serum was strong. Anything stronger would’ve destroyed him.
Dizzy, he clutched the handrail. For thousands of years, he’d been nigh on invulnerable. Yet in less than a week, this woman, this warrior, had made him open and exposed—and not just physically.
“Are you coming or not?” She stood at the bottom of the stairs, gazing into the distance, haloed in the glow of a streetlight. Or maybe she was simply an angel to him.
The halo blinked out for a moment, eclipsed by a malevolent shadow.
The gold-bar vampire. Behind her.
Taloned hands sweeping toward her.
No time to run down the stairs. He might have made it as mist but reforming would take precious instants.
He used the only option left.