by Kaia Bennett
“You didn’t forget a fucking thing.”
He didn’t bother to defend himself. Instead, Cai rubbed a hand over his belly and licked his red lips clean. “Hmm. You’re right. I don’t forget much. All your favorites are dropping like flies. If you’re feeling sentimental, I suppose we could keep Vaughn around—”
“We aren’t doing anything.” I swiped my hand across my mouth and turned away from him. What should’ve been a persistent throb as my nose healed faded to a muted sting. “You’re squatting in my house, but you’re not welcome here. Not in my home and not in my business.”
“Your father begs to differ, kid. I’m hungry and it’s been a long journey.” I turned in time to see the back of Cai’s white shirt disappearing up the steps. “Don’t suppose you’ll be joining me for dinner?”
“What do you think, motherfucker?” I spun and flung out my arms. I glowered at his eyes, two shining points refracting in the darkness of the stairwell. “Do I look like I’m in the mood for company? Especially yours?”
“That’s right, you’re probably full of witch blood.” He grinned, playing obtuse. I wondered how much trouble I’d get into if I killed him next. Dad had been pissed about the witch, but I took care of that. Maybe I could risk his displeasure again? “Let’s do breakfast tomorrow before I leave, Jesse. We’ll figure out when your free run is coming to an end and when you have to meet with your father about an exciting new venture of his. It involves one of your favorite things, you know? Witches.”
I gritted my teeth and slammed the door on his smug grin, loud enough to shake the walls. He’d decided to stay the night. I couldn’t kick him out, and despite the twist of foreboding and curiosity in my gut, I couldn’t bring myself to ask what Cai meant. Freedom would be gone soon, just like Evie. By the end of the year, I’d be my father’s heir in full. I’d have work to do.
With witches? What could he possibly want with me when it comes to witches? He just had me kill one to avoid getting close.
Just thinking about Evie made me want to go outside and find her. Even if I was desperate and dumb enough to do so, Cai would be here until the morning. He’d be watching me like a hawk.
I felt strangely mortal and helpless, which in my two-hundred plus years, had to be a first. I clenched and unclenched my fists and rested my forehead against the cool metal door.
Helpless. I could almost feel my father digging his fingers into my shoulders, directing me, turning me like a puppet toward his fucking visions for me and his territory. Shit I didn’t give a damn about. Everything I cared about had died at this point. Except….
“Vaughn.”
There was something I could control, something I could change—or not—as I saw fit.
Right now, I wanted nothing more than to kill him. I wanted to tear down the whole world around us and scream until my ears bled, but I stood, unmoving, except for a tremor under my skin I couldn’t shake. I wanted to blame my shivers on the cold, but I didn’t get cold enough to shiver. I’d had too much blood, too much perfect witch blood recently to even entertain a chill.
I want to go back in the lake and fish her out.
If I killed Cai, I could indulge my whim. I could figure out a place to hide her until I decided I was done with the witch. I didn’t have to let this stand.
I clenched my teeth against the urge. My muscles tensed for a fight. My heart ratcheted up a beat. Grab a knife from the wall. Open the door. Sprint up the steps. I could take Cai. I could rip his fucking spine out, and then, rush out into the cold I couldn’t feel. I could sink under the water. I could lap the lake until I found her.
It’s not too late. I could heal her with my blood if not with my venom. It’s not too late. It’s not too late.
I rubbed my forehead against the door, back and forth. The white metal warmed against my overheated forehead and my crazy plan cooled in my mind.
Helpless. If I killed Cai, my father would know why. He’d hunt for her. He’d find her. If I let Cai live, Evie would die. By the time Cai left, she’d be too far gone to revive with my blood. Healing her would be a long shot even now.
I scraped my teeth against my bottom lip. I tasted her, and instantly found my mind transported to the lake, stuck on a loop she wouldn’t let me escape from.
In that last moment, nothing else mattered, but her scent. A rush of venom had flooded my mouth, stinging between my lips and flowing into her. I’d thought to be quick and gentle, but that last bite had been unexpected cruelty. Nothing crueler than hope when the truth had been made clear. I couldn’t keep her.
Now that I’d escaped the delirious spell she’d cast on me, I knew I couldn’t turn her. She’d never been anything but prey I’d kept past her expiration date. I chuckled at that. If I’d done what I was supposed to do when one of my kind finds a lost witch, if I’d only fucked and killed her, or turned her into some checkpoint for sale, she might still be alive. She’d probably be in some other vampire’s bed right now, wishing I’d killed her. Some ironic shit to ponder.
“I need to break something. Kill something. Tear something apart. Badly.”
I took a deep breath, deciding I’d do just that. I didn’t want to fuck up the door by punching a hole in in the metal. I still had use for this house and this room for what came next.
“You dumb fuck.” I turned my attention to Vaughn.
Vaughn couldn’t be blamed for my father’s hold over me, or for Cai waiting in the wings to watch me kill Evie.
But Vaughn could be blamed for disobeying my orders. He could be blamed for trying to kill Evie when I’d made up my mind to keep her a little while longer.
I’d make him suffer, and then, I guessed he’d have to die. Killing Vaughn would be simple. A crunch and a pop. I’d existed just fine before Liam and Vaughn, my free run would end by the new year, anyway.
Another part of me vibrated with a dull ache, a surprising clench in my chest, despite my numbness. Sadness, I guessed, the kind that stung just behind my eyes when I’d realized Liam had been infected. I wanted to hurt Vaughn, but did I really want to kill another young vampire? I’d been forced to kill so many over the years, so many diseased, weeping messes, dying in slow agony because of that human-made virus.
I recalled the first time I met the blond terror, that first stupid, bloody grin over a kill he could take his time with. The first race through the woods to catch prey after he’d left New York City for the first time in his life. “I almost beat your old ass!” he’d roared, laughter echoing in the night along with that first girl’s screams. He hadn’t known what freedom meant till I showed him. He’d been fighting for scraps not long after his maker abandoned him.
Memories don’t often stick like this for my kind. Sometimes I think it’s a blessing alongside the curse of the bloodlust. How would we live as long as we do if we dwelled on every little thing? No. We live day to day. We fuck, we kill, we laugh. The thirst is an ever-present hand clenching our gut, twisting and whispering “feed!”. But over time, the memories and the people that do count stick with us, saturated with Technicolor in a black and white world. Even Vaughn’s pale ass. For better or worse, he wouldn’t ever fade for me. Especially if I killed him now. That pissed me off even more. Sentimentality. Weakness. Same shit, different word.
“How’d we get here, huh?”
A little over a week ago, Vaughn and I would’ve killed the witch together, taking turns cutting her up. Now, the bitch was dead and she still sat like a wedge between us.
I kicked off my boots and walked to his mostly-dead body, my wet jeans and feet squeaking against the plastic floor until I stood over Vaughn. I sat cross-legged beside him, sweeping my hair away when the length threatened to sprawl and cling to him. I begrudgingly peeled Vaughn’s head out of the sticky mass of his blood and into my lap, then tried to bite into my wrist.
The soft scrape of blunt teeth over my wrist made me pull back with a scowl.
Not even a scratch? What the fuck?
I fr
owned and ran my tongue over my teeth, scraping my fangs against my tongue. Sharp, but still retracted. I’d never had to think about extending them before now. I had to force the points out of my gums.
Something’s wrong. I haven’t been right since I came out of the water.
I bit into my wrist and dribbled the liquid past Vaughn’s unmoving lips. His blue eyes stared up at me, beyond me. Only a trained eye would be able to see the minute tick of life, an ember of consciousness glowing in the deep recesses of his pupils. Soon he’d be able to hear, then see. Long before he could move, he’d be awake.
I watched him slowly absorb my blood, uncoiling minute by minute from his coma. When he finally woke enough to understand me, he looked shocked and then relieved. Amazing what a stare can tell you. I knew him and he knew me. When I smiled, all of that relief melted under pure terror. He didn’t even have the strength to blink fully. But I knew terror on his face well.
“I’m gonna beat the ever-living fuck out of you, as soon as you can take it.”
His pupils shuddered. I cooed at him like a baby. “Yes I am. I’m gonna break every bone in your body, Vaughn. Bones you didn’t know you had.”
I gave him a vicious grin and a little more of my blood.
“I’m gonna make you bleed for me. And when I’m done, you can tell me why I shouldn’t finish what Evie started.”
When I licked my teeth clean of my own blood, my fangs had already retracted.
Something’s wrong.
I couldn’t seem to get past the numbness to figure out what ‘wrong’ meant, but I knew I felt like Vaughn—like the walking, breathing dead.
2
The doorbell rang upstairs, not long after Vaughn woke. Cai’s food must’ve arrived, reminding me not to waste too much of my blood on my brother.
In truth, a bucket of the stuff wouldn’t heal him as fast as prey would. We’re not designed to feed on our own kind. It’d be like dying of starvation and expecting a tongue kiss to ease the hunger pangs. I’d started the ball rolling, but he needed something to slake the bloodlust. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone.
“Shit.” I sighed and stared up at the ceiling. Of course my cell would be useless now, soaked through. I got up, walked over to where Vaughn must have kicked his jeans free and rifled through his pockets. I found his phone, and a token of affection—of weakness—I didn’t expect. Evie’s necklace. The feather I’d placed around her neck when I called her mine shimmered in the white light of the room.
I stared at my brother’s kill trophy, and for a second I remembered how I felt when I placed the golden chain around her throat. I’d let my fingers linger over the creamy expanse of skin covering her narcotic blood, waiting for my blood to heal her.
I clenched the jagged edge of the charm in my palm. I don’t care. She’s dead and it’s a cheap necklace. I wanted to drop the useless gold trinket, but I swallowed and shoved the chain into my pocket instead.
I dialed a number I knew by heart on Vaughn’s phone and got the housekeeper.
“Hello, Jesse. What can I do for you?”
Always the same greeting in the same chipper voice, no matter who picked up the phone. I’d counted maybe six different voices over the years since phones were invented. I figured they were vampires or packless wolves who took turns manning the desk, replaced only when they died. They ran this safe house, put food in the fridge for the witch, kept things clean and had prey ready for delivery when I hit Austin during my travels.
All were strangers, not like in the good old days, when we had live-in maids and manservants, and people couldn’t track me down with these electronic leashes called cell phones. A free run isn’t so free when you can get a text any minute from your dad. Plus, feeding on the help used to be a fun way to piss off the old man, before witch fiascos apparently became my thing.
“I need….” I gave my brother a quick assessment. Vaughn would need at least two helpings of super healthy human to heal his wounds and another to make him more than a bloodthirsty zombie. “Let’s start with three meals. Two medium, one small.”
I didn’t have an appetite, which caused me silent alarm. No stirring in my cock, no tingle in my fangs, nor pangs in my stomach.
I had witch blood not too long ago. I swallowed, tried and failed, to forget the taste of her. I hadn’t fucked anyone—anything—since the witch fed me the blood in her womb. I should want to feed, if only to clear my head and let off steam.
Still, I skipped a meal for myself.
“Very good, sir. We’ll leave maid service on standby for you.”
I eyed Vaughn’s throat. He still looked like a Pez dispenser, but his eyes were very much alive now. His gaze slithered in my direction, wary even in his weakened state. I gave him my best grin. Despite my retracted fangs, the corners of his eyes creased and Vaughn rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. If he could’ve, I bet he’d have gulped.
“I need a new phone, too.” I hung up and went upstairs to wait. Fifteen minutes later, the doorbell rang.
I opened the door to find two wolves in human form crowding my prey. Two big guys about my size, one black with long wavy hair on top and shorn on the sides, and one ambiguously tan. Arab maybe, or Latino. The little guy looked like he could’ve been Vaughn’s younger brother except for his brown eyes. The black man and the little guy were dressed for the club or the bar, but their nice clothes were disheveled, marked by fear, sweat, and dim cologne. The ambiguous one looked like a pro. He smiled at me with a hint of confusion, and I realized with frustration I’d tried and failed to hear his thoughts.
Three hearts raced with panic and aggression, but their emotions were closed to me. No voices in my head to heighten the feeding this time. Only the rush of blood in the veins and the dumb muscles in their chests thumping. Only an empath could render prime prey like this boring.
I gave the guards a nod and they pushed my meals inside the foyer before shutting the door behind them. The door locked.
The black man said, “Look man, I don’t know what kinda twisted shit you got going on here, but they were supposed to take me home. I never got my phone call—”
I grabbed Vaughn’s talkative first meal by the collar of his jacket, and when he struggled, I snapped the back of my hand across his face. He sprawled onto the floor of the wide foyer and thumped against the wall. Blood spilled from his mouth. The little one scrambled for the front door.
“Holy shit! Holy fuck!” The other big guy retreated when I gave him a lopsided grin. He rubbed a nervous hand over his goatee. “My agency didn’t say anything about me getting roughed up like that. Keep your money and open the door.”
Sometimes the meals come willingly, like the escort that didn’t realize this would be his last stop. Sometimes they get detained by ‘cops’ who never book them and never take them home. I got a mixed bag tonight.
Somewhere upstairs, I heard a girl squeal in terror or ecstasy. Or both, maybe. Cai laughed. The steady rhythm of flesh pounding flesh reached my ears, if not my groin. The blood, the smell of fear, the sound of fucking. The once-heady cocktail of feeding swirled around my senses like perfume, but I couldn’t inhale.
I’d lost the fire in my blood, but I shook this off, determined to strike a fucking match.
I grabbed meal number one by his wavy hair and dragged him to a standing position.
“Be good boys and wait here.” I snarled my command to the other two, but they were busy screaming for help. When I left them with The Big One in tow, to pull open the basement door, they scrambled to find other exits.
I pushed Vaughn’s meal down the stairs. He stumbled down the first half, then righted himself and ran the rest of the way.
“So predictable.” I took the steps one at a time, dragging out my prey’s torment. “You’re all like roaches scuttling for a dark crevice when the lights come on. It’s a waste of time.”
When he reached the door at the bottom and realized the only way out was up, he whirled and broke his
wrist landing a right hook on my chin. I subdued him easily while he screamed in agony, spun him around, and peeled off his jacket. His T-shirt tore like paper, revealing the wide expanse of his back. Endless hours in the gym and preening in front of the mirror, just to end up a near-dead vampire’s snack.
I wanted to laugh, but taunting him summoned a strange emotion, something that usually followed a good hunt. Exhaustion. Only then did I realize he’d been yelling, pushing against my easy hold on the nape of his neck.
“Fucking get off me!”
He roared the command, but his voice cracked. That delicious panic would’ve gotten me hard as a rock yesterday. Prey acknowledging that first true flush of dread felt almost as good as a tongue swiping the sweet spot just under the head of my dick. No way out and faced with inhuman strength. A few days ago, I would’ve played with him, maybe fucked him before I fed him to Vaughn, or fucked him in front of my brother just to torture them both. A few days ago, I’d have ordered enough prey for Vaughn and myself in the first place.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
I tapped in the code with my free hand, pushed open the door, and walked The Big One inside. He screamed. I rolled my eyes and kicked the door closed behind me as he swung his fists. The blows pounded my chest like a cheerleader’s pompoms.
“What the fuck! Let me out! Let! Me! Out!”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. ‘No, stop’. ‘Please, don’t’.” I huffed out a breath. Not even a mild stirring of excitement. I ran my tongue over my fangs and felt only the retracted enamel.
“Let’s get this shit over with.”
I dragged him, kicking and wriggling, to Vaughn’s prone body. Only Vaughn’s eyes could move, but the hunger there, the sheer force of his bloodlust, startled me into recognition.
I should be starving, but I’m not. A corpse has more hunger than I do.
Even if Vaughn hadn’t been carved up like confetti, he’d have been foaming at the mouth. I should’ve been, too, but I hadn’t been hungry the way I used to be since….