Perhaps even more so.
Vampires she knew how to handle.
This warrior tied her in knots, had her pulled in too many directions, and she didn’t like it.
She boarded a train and managed to find a seat thanks to the late hour, lost herself in thought as she waited for her stop deep on the outskirts of Barcelona, far beyond the tourist attractions that crowded the centre.
Not meeting him wasn’t an option.
He knew the city and he wouldn’t be deterred from hunting the vampires. Neither would she. Their paths would cross before the week was out and another confrontation would happen. Angering a man with unknown powers was probably a bad thing. It was better to go along with her original plan, presuming he showed tomorrow night, and learn as much about him as possible before they embarked on their hunt.
Although, she doubted he would enjoy a light round of interrogation.
She left the train and walked home, enjoying the quietness of the streets and how the air was finally cooling, the vicious grip of summer easing on the city for a few scant hours before dawn came and had everyone boiling in their skin again.
She loved her city, but hell, she hated it in summer. It was oppressively humid, the sun sending stifling air rolling in from the sea that bordered Barcelona and the nearby mountains trapping it over the city.
It was little wonder a lot of stores and businesses closed up for the hottest months, and many families headed to cooler destinations.
Sometimes, she and Guillem did that, picking another city in Spain as their base of operations for August, when the heat really hit. Vampires lived everywhere. There wasn’t a city in the country where she couldn’t find at least a few to hunt and eradicate.
She pushed the door to her apartment building open and headed up the stairs, keeping her footsteps light so she didn’t disturb the neighbours. When she reached her apartment door on the third floor, she pressed her ear against it and listened. It was quiet on the other side, no sign that Guillem was awake.
He had been sleeping more and more recently, and it worried her.
She slid her key into the lock and eased the door open, trying to make as little noise as possible so she didn’t wake him if he was asleep. He needed his rest. If she woke him, he would spend hours questioning her, and he might even argue with her. She didn’t want that. She had argued enough for one night.
She silently closed the door behind her, removed her boots and socks, and padded barefoot across the living room, heading to her left past the kitchen towards her room. Guillem’s room was beside hers, their beds stood against the same wall, but not their bathrooms. Hopefully, she wouldn’t wake him as she washed the grime of battle off her.
She needed a long, hot soak.
Her bedroom door creaked softly as she opened it and she flinched. Waited, holding her breath. No sign of her brother came from the other room. She breathed a sigh of relief and stepped into her room, went straight to the bathroom on her left, and stripped off her jacket.
Long grooves darted across her chest near her left collarbone, and she frowned as she inspected them. They were already healing. She didn’t remember any of the vampires landing a blow on her, but then in the heat of battle she rarely noticed her injuries. The sting of them didn’t register at the time and everything happened so fast when fighting vampires. All of her focus was on surviving. It was only in the quiet aftermath that she grew aware of any bruises and cuts, and how close she had danced to death.
Her legs turned to noodles beneath her and she gripped the sink on the vanity unit, clutching it for support as she breathed through the crushing wave of panic. She was alive. She was fine. She cursed herself, how things always went like this even though she did her best to grow stronger, to overcome the debilitating onslaught of feelings that happened whenever she was home safe after a hunt.
Nothing she did stopped it from happening.
She stripped off the rest of her clothes, closed her bathroom door and stepped into the shower cubicle.
Caterina hissed in a breath as she switched on the water and a frigid blast of spray hit her. She shrank back, waiting for it to warm, holding herself as she willed it to hurry. She needed the soothing heat of the shower to wash away her burgeoning fear. It was ridiculous to feel it now, when she was safely locked in her apartment and the vampires were dead, but it always surged through her, a delayed reaction to the battle that she couldn’t hold back.
The water heated and she stepped beneath the jet, tipped her head back and closed her eyes as she let it hit her face. A sigh escaped her as the hot water ran over her face and down her shoulders, stinging the cuts on her chest and the one she had made on her arm. The fear swelling inside her reached a crescendo and she let it come, let it wash over her just as the water did and let the water carry it away.
Time slowed as her entire world narrowed down to just breathing. In. Out. She was safe. The vampires were dead. The hunt would continue and for once she wouldn’t be alone out there, walking the dark streets, fighting to keep them safe and to save her brother.
The warrior would be with her.
A soft knock at the door shattered the image of him building in her mind.
“Caterina?” Guillem’s gentle voice rolled over her like the water to carry away her fear. He sounded stronger today. Had he been able to get some rest? Or were his spirits on the rise again? She hoped it was both. She hated seeing him so worn down and tired all the time. He rapped his knuckles against the door again. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she hollered over the noise of the shower. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
Because she needed to see him, needed to see he was doing better tonight, and wanted to tell him about the warrior.
About the hope she had.
She shut the water off, stepped out of the shower and grabbed her dove-grey robe from the back of the door. She hastily donned it and tied the belt around her waist, cinching it tightly before she opened the door.
Guillem wasn’t there.
Caterina snagged a towel and rubbed her hair with it as she walked through her bedroom to the main living area.
Guillem lounged on the couch, his black jeans and faded grey T-shirt baggy on his ravaged frame now when once they had fitted him perfectly. Her throat closed, eyes stinging as she looked at him, as he turned his head towards her and smiled at her over the back of the brown leather couch.
That smile didn’t reach his hazel eyes.
They had been bright once, like hers. Now they were dull, constantly laced with fatigue and pain.
Fatigue and pain that she wanted to take away.
Would take away.
She took the seat beside him on his right as he flicked channels, twisted to face him and brushed her fingers through his dark hair, sweeping the overlong strands of it from his face. She would have to trim it for him soon. If she left him to his own devices, it would be down to his backside by now. He needed to take better care of himself.
“I met someone tonight… and I think he can help.” She paused with her fingers against the side of his head as he finally looked at her again, taking his eyes off the screen of the television to her right.
“He?” Guillem’s face darkened and the tightness in her throat increased as she saw a shadow of her brother, of the way things had been before he had been turned.
He never had liked her talking about men.
His need to protect her ran as deep in his blood as her need to protect him.
“He knows vampires. I took out a nest of them with his help.” She left out a few details, like the fact the warrior had saved her. Guillem didn’t need to know how close she had come to losing her life tonight. She had made the mistake of telling him everything in the early days and it had always upset him, and led to arguments.
He didn’t want her to go hunting vampires for his sake.
She didn’t care. She had to do it. For him.
“I’m going to meet him again tomor
row night to hunt some that got away. I’ll question him while we look for them. I really think he can help, Guillem.” She brushed another rogue strand of dark hair from his face. It had been as light as hers once, kissed by the sun. Now it was verging on black.
The result of his sickness?
She had never heard of it changing the colour of a vampire’s hair, but then she hadn’t exactly stopped to question any of the ones she had slain to find out all the details about their transformations. It was possible their hair changed colour, darkening to suit a creature of the night. Maybe the rest of them dyed their hair.
Maybe Guillem’s was because he had never fed.
The same reason he was weakening, slowly fading as the years went on without her finding a cure for him. How much longer did he have before her inability to save him ended up killing him?
She shook that question away, because if she thought about it, the hope she was trying to hold on to would fade just as he was and she would slip back into depression. It was a daily struggle to keep that dark beast from her door. She wouldn’t surrender to it again.
Guillem needed her out on the streets, searching for his sire so she could kill it, not holed up in her room, trapped in her bed by a crippling disease.
“I don’t like the idea of you meeting with this man again. Who is he?” Guillem’s eyes narrowed, the dullness finally leaving them as a flicker of fire lit them. It had been so long since she had seen anything other than resignation in his eyes that she wanted to cry. She squashed that urge and took hold of his hand, running her fingers over the bony back to soothe him. It didn’t smooth the sharp edge from his voice as he frowned at her. “Is he a vampire?”
“No. Never. I’d never work with one, and you know that. He was hunting them. He’s… something else. I don’t know. I’ll find out tomorrow.” She squeezed his hand and smiled. “And I’ll be careful. You know me. I never do anything rash.”
She did rash things all the time. Like cutting herself to lure vampires into a false sense of security. She just didn’t tell her brother about them.
It was better he didn’t know.
She hated arguing with him.
Although she could see one building in his eyes as he stared at her in stony silence.
“I’ll be careful. I’m not going to leave the Plaça Reial until I know more about him. If I get a bad feeling, I’ll leave. All right?” She hoped it was enough to ease Guillem’s worry, because it was all she could offer him, and she had doubts that she would actually go through with leaving the warrior and the hunt behind even if she did get a bad feeling about him.
She needed his help, because she needed to kill those vampires, and she had the feeling he was the fastest way to find where they were hiding now.
“I could go with you. You shouldn’t go alone.” Guillem’s tone brooked no argument.
It didn’t stop her.
“We’re meeting at dusk. It’s too dangerous for you.”
“It’s too dangerous for you,” he countered, his features darkening in a way that warned they were going to argue if she let things continue.
“I’ll be careful. I won’t move a step from the square without being sure of him and that I can trust him, and if I feel anything is wrong, I’ll head to the nearest police officers. There’s always some hanging out there to keep an eye on the tourists.” She brushed her hand over his, drawing his focus down to it, and the hard lines of his face softened at last.
He sighed and then reluctantly nodded.
She squeezed his hand again, gently so she didn’t hurt him. “I know you worry about me, but I worry about you. He knows vampires, Guillem.”
“He knows how to kill them,” her brother countered, the bite still in his voice.
“I’m sure he knows more than that. I don’t know what he is, but he’s part of the same world as the vampires… as you.” She hated herself for saying that, wanted to take it back straight away as Guillem looked away from her, his gaze straying to the window to the left of the TV.
He didn’t need her reminding him of what he was, not when he was so weak, liable to head out into the night and do something rash. She wasn’t the only one who had inherited their father’s recklessness.
“Just let me meet with him. I’m confident he can help.” Not a lie.
The more she thought about the mysterious warrior, the more confident of that she became.
He hunted vampires, sure, but that meant he knew the breed. He was part of their world, granting him access to information that was beyond her reach. If anyone could help her save Guillem, it was him. She just had to tap into that knowledge without revealing that her brother had been turned.
Because the warrior hunted vampires.
And the darkness that had been in his eyes at times left her feeling that he made no exceptions.
She looked at Guillem, filled with hope again as she thought about tomorrow, about the knowledge she might gain and how close it might bring her to saving him.
None of that hope was reflected back at her in Guillem’s eyes.
They grew cold, hollow almost as he stared at her, and she could see him withdrawing, closing himself off from her again.
She tightened her grip on his hand, desperate to keep him with her even as she knew it was impossible. Whenever he changed like this, all she could do was cling to the hope he refused to have, for his sake. One of them had to hold on to it.
One of them had to remain strong.
Or both of them would give up.
It was hard with the weight of the last nine years on her shoulders, constantly threatening to break her, testing her strength at every step, but she wouldn’t break.
She wouldn’t.
Because she couldn’t lose her only family.
For a moment, Guillem looked as if he wanted to say something, but then he slipped his hand from hers and stood.
Her heart wrenched into her throat as he looked over her head at the door and the distance between them yawned like a chasm, cold and forbidding, threatening to rip all hope from her.
“Guillem,” she whispered, silently pleading him to stay with her.
He looked down at her and offered her a soft smile as he ruffled her hair. “I won’t be gone long. I won’t bite anyone, Caterina.”
That smile gained a sorrowful edge as he rounded the couch and she twisted on the seat to track him.
He opened the door and murmured, “My fangs never seem to work anyway.”
Hope began to deflate as the door closed behind him and she sank against the back of the sofa, the brown leather creaking under the pressure as she settled her chin on the top of it.
She clung to it, refusing to give up as Guillem had. Things were looking up, even if he couldn’t see it, was so tired and jaded by the last nine years that it was impossible for him to find even a sliver of hope in what she had told him.
The warrior could help them.
She hoped.
She stared at the closed door, aching inside as cold swept through her together with a feeling that had her blood turning to icy sludge in her veins.
If he couldn’t, she was going to lose her brother forever.
And she would follow him into the endless night.
Chapter 5
Marek shoved his dark brown linen trousers down and stepped out of them, picked them up and neatly folded them. He set them on the bed beside his combat gear and paused to stroke them, feeling the heat of the sun on their fibres. It had gone down almost twenty minutes ago, and the sunset had been glorious from the covered patio of his villa high on the hills above Seville. Golden light had kissed the entire valley, making the dusty ochre soil glow and bringing out the green in the olive trees. Birds had sung. Insects had joined them.
Peace had invaded every fibre of his being, despite how aware he was of what the sunset meant.
Dusk was coming.
He had spent the entire day thinking about the woman. He should have asked her for her name before
stepping, a term he and his brothers used for teleporting since it only took a single step to move a great distance.
Getting her name was the first thing he intended to do tonight when he met her at the square in Barcelona.
The second thing he intended to do was dig into why she hunted vampires. The more he knew about her before they started their hunt, the better. He preferred to arm himself with as much knowledge as possible, whether it was about his enemy or a new ally.
He already knew she was reckless, and that she had been fighting vampires for some time given the skill she had displayed during the battle last night. She had a fiery personality, and she didn’t like strangers, or perhaps men in general, trying to control any aspect of her life. She was headstrong, determined, and he had to admit, he found it more than a little alluring.
A slow smile curled his lips as he tugged his black fatigues on, barely aware of what he was doing as his mind replayed how they had come to verbal blows. She had intrigued him before they had started their intoxicating dance, exchanging barbs and subtly testing each other, seeking out how dedicated the other was to their cause.
He had concluded today that she was a force to be reckoned with, despite the fact she clearly didn’t belong in his world.
He had also concluded that she had felt that same spark as he had when they had touched, when he had been looking into her eyes in that dark archway. Heat had flushed her cheeks, and the scent of desire had laced the air, teasing his senses and strengthening the need he felt for her as it provoked the side of him that had lain dormant for so long.
The dark need to possess her hadn’t faded during their time apart.
Although that might have something to do with the fact that when he had managed to catch some sleep on the patio in the sunshine, she had been the star in a very wicked dream.
Marek: Guardians of Hades Series Book 4 Page 4