by Jessica Lee
“I told you I could handle it,” she spat. “I don’t need some overgrown vampire fighting my battles for me and zapping people with all kinds of mind mojo.”
“Emily…” He couldn’t believe what she was saying. All he did was protect her. What the hell was wrong with that? “I think I did a pretty damn good job of controlling myself. He’s lucky I didn’t kill him for how he spoke to you.”
She shrieked. “That’s it,” she said, sweeping her palm out before her. “That’s what I’m talking about. This is exactly why this will never work between us. I can’t live like that.”
“Like what?” He crossed the distance between them and brushed his palms down her arms, then withdrew. “I care about you. You can’t live with someone who wants to take care of you and protect you?”
She narrowed her eyes on him. “I know you thought you were saving me from him, but I didn’t ask you to. I can’t live with someone who wants to control and dominate everyone around him.” She slowly shook her head. “I would never survive.” Her eyes shimmered with tears.
A knife to his gut couldn’t hurt as much as the words that fell from her lips.
“Emily…” He reached for her face. “I would never…”
She flinched from his touch and pulled free, heading in the direction of her room. “Go, Kenric. Please, just go. I need some time to think. Without you here.”
“I’m not leaving like this. Not with you believing…”
“Go home!” She glanced over her shoulder. “Go home,” she whispered this time. “You have a job to do, and so do I. I need to get ready for work.” She turned, walked into her bedroom, and closed the door.
On them.
…
With the press of a button, her umbrella sprang open with a snap. Emily pulled her jacket tighter around her neck. The cold wind clawed to get in. Lifting her umbrella against the rain before her, she made a slippery dash to her car. No garages here.
The rain pelted the car’s roof as she tossed her purse inside and dropped into the driver’s seat. She slid the key into the ignition and groaned. Remind me why I have to go to work again? Oh yeah, because if I don’t, I’ll lose what little I do have. And I need the work to take my mind off the vampire who wants to take me home and keep me as a pet.
Pulling away from the corner, she spotted a dark figure in leather standing near a streetlight. She couldn’t see his face, but it had to be Kenric. The man was huge. She’d thought he’d long since gone home. Guess he decided to play guard dog and didn’t mind getting soaked.
Five minutes later, her cell phone buzzed. She reached inside her purse, slipped it free, and glanced at the display. Private number. Kenric.
Hell, no. She didn’t have the energy right now. Dragging her purse over, Emily dropped the cell back in and noticed the slender dark vial lying on top of her wallet. Green flipped to red at the next traffic light, and she came to a stop. She lifted the blood sample and rolled it in her palm, studying the garnet fluid sitting within the glass. Strange how the vial felt heavier in her hand than its actual weight.
Where had her head been when she had taken this?
A car horn blew, and she jumped. The light had turned green while she sat in a daze. She pressed the accelerator and made a right turn in the direction of Bean City. God, she desperately needed some caffeine.
She glanced at the tube of blood once more before returning it to her purse. Memories of their night together tugged at her mind. She didn’t want to let them in. They made her heart ache. She shook her head, warding them off, but they breached her defenses.
He’d treated her with such tenderness, as if she’d meant the world to him. Every touch and caress had both eased and exhilarated her, as though he knew exactly what she needed. And then he had given it to her.
Afterward, he had revealed some of the most private parts of his life. He’d trusted her with his very existence.
She knew what she had to do.
Destroy the vial.
No matter how pissed off he’d made her, she would not betray him. She would not be responsible for inflicting more pain than he’d already suffered.
She hit the turn signal and pulled off the road into the vacant parking lot that sat between the closed Hallmark store and her favorite all-night coffee shop. A large vanilla latte and a glazed doughnut sounded like heaven to her growling stomach.
Ten minutes later, she finally had some caffeine to go, despite the fact that the barista behind the counter had refused to remove the ear buds from his ears the entire time he took her order. Thank God, since it was already eleven thirty. Maybe she’d be lucky and only be about twenty minutes late for her shift tonight.
With a steaming coffee in one hand and a warm doughnut in a bag in the other, Emily shoved at the exit door. She could barely wait to get behind the wheel, break off a piece of that sticky decadence, and chase it with a gulp of sweetened caffeine depravity. Oh, yeah, this is gonna be good.
The door swung wide and a cold blast of wind hit her, sending a curl of steam up through the vented lid of her cup. Holding it steady, she made a sprint toward the end of the sidewalk, heading for her car. She’d left her umbrella on the floorboard, knowing she would have both hands full on the short jaunt back.
With one eye on her cup and the other on the car, she didn’t notice the large man coming around the corner. Her shoulder bumped into his chest, knocking her bag onto the wet sidewalk.
“Oh, no! I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you there.” Luckily, she’d only lost a few drops of her coffee, and none of it on her or the guy she’d run into.
“Here you go, ma’am.” The dark-haired man picked up her wet sack and handed it to her. He smiled, but none of it reached his gray eyes, which bore into hers with a cold stare.
“Thank you.” She clutched the dripping paper bag and took a simultaneous step back. She shivered, but not from the cold rain.
Edging around him, she took off in the direction of her car. Lord, that man gave her the creeps.
Finally, she reached her car. With her foot only halfway inside the sedan, a large hand came out of nowhere and grabbed her shoulder, spinning her back around. She stumbled back, wedged between the car and the door. Her arm banged against the window, knocking her cup out of her hand and throwing scalding espresso onto her leg.
She cried out at the same time a hand came down hard against her temple and jaw. Stars twinkled behind her lids. The lights danced before her eyes. How pretty. She would have liked to stay there, but the throbbing pain in her face brought her back to frightening reality.
A massive palm against her mouth threatened to smother her, stifling any attempt at a scream. She thrashed against him as her vision cleared. Oh, God. He’s going to kill me. She expected to see the creepy guy from the corner, but the thing pressed up against her was a hell of a lot scarier.
Solid black eyes, fangs that dripped with drool, and the smell… This had to be what Kenric and his Enclave hunted: a DEAD.
Her gaze darted over his shoulder. The dark, rain-slicked streets were empty, too late for most people to be out on a night like this.
Except for—oh, hell, he wasn’t alone.
Another one of his blood-lusting friends stood behind him. He grinned and ran his tongue over his thick and shiny lips.
The DEAD holding her leaned in, squeezing her farther into the crevice formed by the door and car. His breath heated her cheek and singed her nostrils.
Her stomach roiled. She jammed her eyelids closed.
This could not be happening.
He sniffed her neck and along her jaw. Her legs trembled and threatened to fail.
“Enclave whore,” he grumbled in her ear. Cold fingers crawled under her jacket and groped her breast. “Do you know what we do with whores like you?” With the weight of his hand across her mouth, all she could do was stare into those freakish black eyes. “Do you?” he shouted.
Emily shook her head.
“We eat them for dinner.
” He twisted her breast.
She screamed into his palm. The pain jolted her stunned brain, and she slammed her knee into his groin. The vampire cursed and doubled over, clutching his wounded genitals. She dived into her car. Dumping the contents of her purse out onto the passenger seat, Emily scrambled, looking for her keys. She couldn’t think. “Where the hell are my keys?”
Sharp nails clawed at her through the open door. He’d recovered faster than she’d expected. Shit!
She clambered toward the other side of the car. The vampire snagged her foot, and her wet fingers made a sloppy attempt at the door handle. Emily kicked at the arm and head that was yanking her out of the car. Her arm hooked the umbrella sticking up from the floor. She palmed it and placed it against her body, holding it, waiting for the bloodsucker to pull her out.
Her lower body hung from the car. She twisted and lunged forward onto her feet with the sharp point of the umbrella extended straight for the vampire’s chest. Boxed in by the car door and the protruding rod in her hand, the DEAD had nowhere to go but hell.
The crunch of cartilage vibrated through the handle as it made its way past his ribs to his heart. She cringed. A loud, rasping puff of air released from the vampire’s mouth before he crumbled like a rag doll.
A hysterical giggle bubbled up and out of her throat. Her focus riveted on the curved handle sticking out of the dead male’s chest. Good thing she always favored the large umbrellas that looked more like lightning rods than the miniature purse models.
A new set of hard hands dug into her upper arms and jerked her off her feet. She shrieked.
The other DEAD.
In shock, she’d blanked about the second vampire. Why hadn’t she run instead of standing there, freaked out over a dead one?
The DEAD slammed her onto the wet pavement. Air punched from her lungs in a painful rush. The blow to the back of her head brought the pretty white lights back to dancing behind her eyelids.
Before she had time to recover her sight, the weight of his body covered hers. He tore at the turtleneck underneath her uniform. The loud popping of the stitches counted down the seconds left on her life.
Fangs stabbed into her throat. The pain forced the air into reverse, leaving a vacuum inside her chest. She tried to scream, but panic sealed her airway.
She beat at his back, pounded at his shoulders. Gradually, her attempts to battle him turned into clumsy, weak slaps.
The twinkling lights were back again. But this time, her eyes were wide open.
The bright lights didn’t stay long. Their sparkle grew dim, like batteries losing strength.
Hypovolemia. Rapid blood loss.
She was dying.
Kenric, I’m so sorry. Please, don’t blame yourself. It’s not your fault.
Across the street, the glow from the backlight of a cell phone illuminated the night. The man punched the numbers on his keypad and waited for an answer. A click on the other end of the line connected him, and a voice answered with one word.
“Report.”
“Tell our mistress, it’s done.” Markus didn’t wait for a reply. The DEADs were still at work on her body, but at this point, she didn’t have a chance in hell of surviving. He closed the phone and slipped it back into his leather jacket.
Turning his back on the macabre scene across the street, he sauntered to where he’d parked his motorcycle a block away. Straddled on his red ride, he reached for his helmet. Marguerite would be…
A stabbing pain sliced through his right eye. He ground the heel of his hand against the source of his agony, as if to hold the contents of his head inside.
What the fuck was going on? The headaches had to be associated with his fall at the warehouse. They’d plagued him ever since, and they were a bitch.
Markus scanned the area around him. What the hell was he doing out here? Fuck! He remembered leaving the Enclave for a ride, needing to relax a bit. But then… Nothing. His mind was blank. Markus grabbed his phone from his pocket and glanced at the time display. Three hours? What the fuck had he been doing for the last three hours?
The pain inside his head receded to a tolerable dull throb, replaced by a gnawing hunger in his gut. And something else. A stomach-churning emotion he wasn’t overly familiar with but recognized its unsettling symptom: fear. The idea that he wasn’t completely in control did not sit well.
But he wasn’t about to reveal any of this to Kenric or Arran until he knew exactly what he was dealing with. If Kenric thought he wasn’t fit for duty, he’d pull him off the streets. Markus couldn’t risk that. He needed the hunt. Needed a reason to get up every night, and the battles that followed to keep him feeling…something at all.
His gut clenched once more, reminding him it had been too long since he’d last fed. Markus punched in his partner’s number on his cell. He could use the distraction.
“Hey, man.” Markus raised his voice over the sound of eighties rock in the background. Sounded like Def Leppard. Something about “love me like a bomb” began before Arran turned the volume down. “You free for some drinks, and maybe a sip on the side?”
“Yeah, I could use some chill time. Where do you want to meet?”
“How about Tail Spin? Nothing like some sweet ass to go with the bite.”
“I see you’re suffering no lasting aftereffects from that fall on your other head.”
Markus laughed. “Bastard. No, that brain’s working just fine. Meet me in twenty.”
With his phone back in his pocket, Markus slid his helmet in place and cranked his ride. His back tire skidded on the wet street as he burned out.
He rolled to a stop at the traffic light and glanced at the street sign. Twenty-first and Ocean. What had brought him out to this section of town? He shrugged and flipped his turn signal. These headaches had him doing some fucked-up shit.
Chapter Eighteen
Kenric battled for control. The storm brewing inside him demanded to be unleashed. Every cell in his body clamored to go back, grab her, and haul her ass home with him. She wouldn’t even answer her damn cell. He’d never met a more frustrating woman in his life.
Shower jets sprayed steaming-hot water onto his back while he lathered his chest with mechanical swipes of his palm. The bar of soap, fisted in his hand, surrendered under the pressure of his grip. Deep grooves caved the soap in on one side, creating four perfect replicas of his fingers.
This fucking sucked.
He had to stay put. The defiant, independent streak in Emily would rip his balls off if he showed up right now. He sighed. One step at a time. At least she would be working tonight. Marguerite wouldn’t touch her with so many people around. Tomorrow night would be a different story. One that ended with her in his home and in his arms.
He swiped what was left of the soap off the floor and jammed it back onto the dish before shutting off the water. Reaching for the shower door, he staggered back under an unseen force that slammed into his chest and knocked him into the tiled wall.
The weight against his ribs held his air hostage. He grasped for the rail mounted on the wall beside him. He held on, sliding his hand down the slick, cool metal until his knees bumped the wet stone floor.
Dark edges crept over the corners of his vision before the pressure on his chest relented enough for a ragged breath. In its place, a wave of misery flooded his heart. He hoisted himself up and stumbled out into the fogged bathroom.
He grabbed the marble sink for balance, his knuckles blanching under the death grip. Emily.
Something was horribly wrong.
Yanking his blue jeans from the counter, he jerked them on along with a black sweater over his head. They stuck to his wet skin, but he didn’t give a fuck. Each moment wasted sent a stabbing pain through his soul. Only one thing could make him want to claw his heart out. His brain couldn’t go there.
It wouldn’t go there.
He put his boots on, strapped his silver-plated dagger in place, holstered a nine millimeter pistol at his side, an
d phased, reaching for Emily’s essence. With the distance that separated them, he could only target her general direction.
A dark street.
Vacant.
After the second attempt, her presence itched inside his veins. The next phase would bring him to her.
The image of a narrow parking lot came into focus. His world shifted under his feet. Emily lay on a glistening carpet of blood on the wet street with a DEAD at her throat.
The chain he had so carefully coiled and maintained around the monster inside him snapped.
His head flew back as an agonized war cry rent the night.
With claws and fangs extended, he leaped into the air. He landed with a solid thump near the vampire’s crouched form. The DEAD’s head drew back, and it hissed. Kenric’s hands were at the sides of the vampire’s face before the animal could flinch. With a single jerk, the DEAD’s neck cracked.
He dug into the flesh of the vampire with his claws. A guttural cry, more animal than human, tore from Kenric’s throat, and he launched the filth into the brick wall. The body dropped onto a Dumpster lid with a dull plop and rolled onto the pavement in a heap.
Kenric pulled his dagger and made his way over to the twisted corpse. A swift kick into the shoulder of the bastard flipped him onto his back. He palmed the hilt of his blade. The wet, silver-plating glinted in the streetlight a split second before he drove it into the DEAD’s chest. A split-second later, he yanked the blade back out and spun on his heels, the rotting carcass forgotten.
Swirling, red-stained puddles of rain circled his boots as he sheathed his blade and crouched beside Emily’s body. Uncertain of where to touch, where to begin, he hovered over her with shaking hands. So pale. His chest heaved, sucking for air. From exertion—agony—or both? His head and heart were so fucked, he didn’t know. Kenric fell to his knees and reached for her cheek. The chilled surface of her skin had his stomach heaving. He swallowed back the bile.
“Dammit. Fuck.” The words groaned from his soul. It wasn’t enough. Nothing he said helped him take the pain away. He collapsed onto his rear, cradling her head within his lap. Grasping the tail of his shirt, he ripped a long section and pressed it to the gaping tear at her neck.