The next thing she knew she was flat on her back on the bed, stark naked, with only a hazy memory of being moved at dizzying speed. Luca was shucking out of his own clothes so fast she hoped they survived. He came down on top of her, positioned her, entered her. Oh, God. She arched at the sensation of being stretched by his thickness, her body instinctively trying to find the best angle and fit, but he didn’t give her the time. He simply gripped her hips and began thrusting and that was, after all, what she needed and wanted.
What did it say about her, she wondered a while later, that with her life in turmoil and the fate of the world in jeopardy, she could put all that aside and concentrate on nothing but being skin to skin with Luca? When he touched her, there was nothing in Chloe’s world beyond the bed. In truth, there was nothing beyond Luca.
She didn’t want to think about the fate of the world, didn’t want to think about warriors and vampires and wars she had somehow gotten herself smack dab in the middle of. Sated, happy to leave her troubles behind for another moment or two, Chloe rolled on top of Luca and took his wrists in her hands to hold him down—not that she thought she could actually restrain him. He was incredibly strong, but he was content to play along, for now, a faint smile on his face as he looked up at her.
“The biting thing is very freaky, but I don’t suppose I can act like I don’t enjoy it.”
“No, you can’t,” he said drily. He’d bitten her several times, very lightly, and the sensation was still like having lightning run through her veins straight to her crotch. Where he’d bitten her once had left her screaming from the force of her orgasm, and then when he’d licked her afterward to heal what was a very minor wound, well, the outcome had been much the same.
She leaned down, placed her face close to his. Knowing he could extend his fangs at any moment, knowing he was so much stronger than her, knowing that he had an inborn need to feed on her blood … she still wasn’t afraid. It didn’t make sense. For years she’d had a hard time getting close to men, trusting, allowing herself to be even a little bit uninhibited, all because she couldn’t let herself rely on them to stay after finding out about her medical condition. Luca was practically a stranger, albeit an intimate one, and a vampire to boot—and yet she was more herself with him than she’d ever been with anyone. This wasn’t love, she understood that, but it was … something.
His body stiffened, and she felt a rush of concern, of unpleasant anxiety. “We’re bonded, Chloe. That’s all.”
It was very irritating that he could get into her head that way.
In a flash Chloe was sprawled on her back, naked and satisfied and wanting nothing more than a nap and maybe some chocolate, and Luca was standing by the side of the bed, half-dressed in no more than a heartbeat.
“Whoa!” she said, blinking at his speed. Okay, if even thinking the word “love” was enough to send him into warp speed, she wouldn’t go there.
“Playtime’s over,” he said. “We have to go.”
He was right, dammit.
Dazed, Jimmy Elliott reined in his focus and listened hard, nodding now and then to show that he was paying attention while the sheriff attempted to explain what had happened to the elder Jim Elliott. If Kate hadn’t been sitting beside him, gripping his hand so hard her knuckles were white, he probably couldn’t have held it together. His emotions were on a roller coaster of despair, anger, sadness, fury, grief. Most of all, he was confused. He had a hard time believing that any of this was real.
His mother sat at his other side, placing Jimmy in the middle of the trio. Sara Elliott had just returned home from a long trip to see her folks, and seemed more numb than angry. Like her son, she couldn’t believe any of this could be happening.
On the night Jimmy had awakened to the echo of a voice and knowing something was wrong, his father had been murdered. He had blamed himself a hundred times since he’d heard the news. If only he’d called someone, if he’d realized precisely where the danger was, maybe he could’ve done something to save his dad. Though according to the sheriff’s timeline, Jim Elliott had likely already been dead when Jimmy had been jerked awake by that call—not that Jimmy had told the sheriff, or anyone other than Kate—about his dream, or premonition, or whatever the hell it had been.
When they’d first heard that his dad had died that night, Kate had suggested that maybe it had been the spirit of his father Jimmy had heard calling his name, the spirit’s newly dead presence that had alerted Jimmy’s sixth sense that all was not right with the world. A year ago he would’ve dismissed her as a nutcase, but now … now he had to consider that maybe she was right. How else could the timing be explained? Besides, Kate wasn’t a nutcase. She was open-minded; she was as steady as a rock; she had a good head on her shoulders.
There was so much to do he couldn’t seem to keep it all in his head—funeral arrangements to be made, a will to sort out, and fire and water damage to be taken care of. How was he going to handle all that when he was still in shock? He couldn’t expect his mother to take care of things; she was in worse shape than he was.
Why had things gone to hell in a handbasket so fast? He’d thought maybe his parents were going through a rough patch, but no more than that. Now he was learning that things had been much, much worse: his dad had lost his job, and his mother had basically left her husband because he’d also apparently lost his mind. She wouldn’t tell him more precisely what had happened, and because she was so obviously in shock he didn’t press the matter. But he couldn’t help but wonder if the recent changes in Jim Elliott’s life had anything to do with his death. What had the man gotten himself involved with that could tear his life apart this way?
It wasn’t until after his mother excused herself to go to the ladies’ room—though Jimmy suspected it was nerves, more than anything else, that made it necessary for her to leave the sheriff’s office—that the sheriff truly looked at Jimmy for the first time.
The sheriff had gained some new wrinkles since Jimmy had last seen him. He’d also lost some weight and cut his once-full gray hair close to the scalp, which only made those wrinkles more pronounced. Jimmy stared at the deepest wrinkle, a crooked one set right between close-set mud-brown eyes. The sheriff had always had a disconcerting resemblance to a possum. Now he looked like a gray-haired, wrinkled possum.
“I didn’t want to say this in front of your mother,” he said in a lowered voice. “But there was something very odd about your dad’s murder.”
As though there were ordinary murders happening every day in this small town. “How’s that?” Jimmy asked, as calmly as he could manage.
The sheriff glanced toward the doorway. “I don’t want to upset Sara, but the truth is, your dad didn’t have hardly a speck of blood in his body when he was found. There wasn’t any at the scene, either. Not a drop. I swear, I think he was killed somewhere else and drained, then dumped back at home, but that doesn’t make any sense.” He wrinkled his nose, squinted hard. “None of this makes any sense at all. If a neighbor hadn’t spotted the smoke and called the volunteer fire department, the house might’ve been destroyed and we would’ve never known, but as it was the fire didn’t do a lot of damage before it was extinguished, and your dad’s remains were intact. I just don’t know how to explain his condition.”
Kate’s grip on Jimmy’s hand grew tighter, and she leaned forward expectantly. “Sheriff, were there wounds on the body?”
The older man looked at Kate as if he’d forgotten for a moment that she was present. Jimmy knew that in a larger town, in the city, the family would be told nothing, or next to nothing, about the details of an unsolved murder. But his dad and the sheriff had been fishing buddies for years; the sheriff had even coached Jimmy’s Little League team for a couple of years. The residents of this small Texas town were a family, and they didn’t keep secrets if they didn’t see a real need for them.
Kate wasn’t family, though, and she wasn’t from there. On the other hand, from the way she and Jimmy had locked their h
ands together, it should be plain that she was as good as family, that it was just a matter of time.
“Nothing to speak of,” the sheriff said when he finally decided to answer. “Just a couple of small puncture wounds on his throat. I assume that’s where whatever godawful device the killer used to take Jim’s blood was attached. Or maybe it was some kind of animal bite, though I can’t think of an animal that would take all the blood and not—” He stopped, as if the mental image he was conjuring up was too much for his mind to handle. “The coroner hasn’t had any luck identifying the wound. I don’t know what the hell caused it.” He raised his hand to caution them. “This information is just between us, now. I don’t need a panic on my hands, and I sure as hell don’t want to try to explain any of this to a bunch of goddamned reporters.”
Jimmy nodded. The pressure on his hand grew tighter, as Kate gave it another squeeze. His mother came back into the room then and the sheriff leaned back in his chair; he’d said all he was going to say.
Functioning on automatic, Jimmy filled the next couple of hours driving his mother around, making funeral arrangements, picking out flowers for the casket blanket, then going to the next-door neighbor’s house—the neighbors had generously opened their home to Sara—where they accepted the condolences, and offerings of food, of their friends and neighbors. Later on, a deputy escorted them to their damaged home, and they were allowed to go in very briefly, to collect some things. Investigators had been over the place thoroughly, but they hadn’t found anything to explain what had happened that night, so the investigation was ongoing. It might be days before they’d be allowed in to clean up and pack up.
They’d stay with their neighbors, the Lessers, for a few days, at least until after the funeral. The Lessers had been friends with the Elliotts for years, and with their kids grown and gone they had the room for guests. Jimmy knew he and Kate couldn’t stay long, because they were both taking summer classes. As soon as his father was buried and his mother was settled, they’d have to go back to Austin.
The feeling of being separate from everything that was happening around him never entirely faded as the day passed, but Jimmy did what had to be done; his mother was incapable, at the moment. He tried not to think about the way his father had died, tried not to dwell on the strange facts. Kate helped just by being there, by being herself. She introduced herself to those who stopped by, cleaned the Lessers’ kitchen, put food away, hugged him whenever she got the chance.
Now and then she looked at him with a meaning in her eyes he couldn’t decipher, and he knew she wanted to talk about what had happened. They hadn’t had a moment alone all day.
He thought his dad would have liked Kate; he thought Kate would have liked his dad. Now they’d never meet, and it was his own fault. He’d been uncertain how his dad would react to a woman so different from everyone else, and that had kept him from taking her home for a weekend. If he hadn’t been a coward, his father would’ve known Kate before he’d died.
It was early in the evening when he, with Kate’s help, talked his dazed and exhausted mother into going to bed. When that was done, and the last of the callers had left, Kate took Jimmy’s hand and with a hint of urgency led him out onto the front porch. It was just past sunset, the beauty in the western sky in sharp contrast to a perfectly shitty day.
Kate faced him. She had a death grip on his hand. He knew her well enough that he could tell she was working up her nerve to say something, knew when she made up her mind. She squeezed the hand she held and looked into his eyes and bit her lower lip for a moment, and then she whispered the single word that shook his world:
“Vampire.”
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
Three down, one to go.
Before leaving D.C. Sorin had memorized the information Jonas provided on the New York targets, and as usual he’d done a bit of research on his own. It was ironic that the Internet, which often made life so much more difficult for his kind, was such a tremendous help when it came to tracking down the humans. Last night he’d caught the conduits going and coming as usual, sticking to their regular routines, unaware that their lives were as good as over. All three had shown varying signs of distress, mental and physical, so Sorin could see that their warriors had been strong enough, close enough, to make their presence known, and the conduits had been fighting against them—and losing.
And this was supposed to be a gift? According to the Warrior lore, the conduits were chosen, honored, special. Sorin figured he was doing them all a favor by ending their misery, though they likely didn’t see dying as a gift. Their problem, not his.
One conduit remained on his list, and when that job was done he’d return to D.C. It was past dawn, but he didn’t want to stop now. He was on a roll. He’d dressed for protection: sunglasses, a hat, long sleeves, gloves. He wasn’t at his strongest during the day, but he was still stronger than most, and definitely stronger than any human.
The final kill of the trip was a student who attended school during the day, though Jonas hadn’t specified which school. Most schools were out for summer vacation, so Sorin assumed this conduit was a college student taking summer classes, or maybe an older man who’d decided to go back to school late in life. A high school student? Not a very good one, if he was in summer school. Not that it mattered; Phillip Stargel’s dreary days of academia would soon be over.
Jonas hadn’t been able to find much information about Stargel on the Internet, but he had come up with an address, which was really all Sorin needed, though he preferred having at least a picture. He wanted to know with some certainty that he’d eliminated the right target. If he’d had time, he’d have preferred doing reconnaissance first, but their warriors had been too close to coming through. He was lucky that the other New York targets had been easily identified and taken out. He’d had to spend several hours tracking two of them, but one had been a cakewalk. If you posted on a public Facebook page that you were going to a particular bar with a friend, you really shouldn’t be surprised when someone you didn’t want to see shows up there.
Phillip Stargel was apparently a more private person than the others; he didn’t have a Facebook page, or any other kind of Internet page. There weren’t any pictures of him, no personal data, nothing but an address—and the address was the most crucial piece of information, the one piece that would bring death to his door.
Stargel’s house wasn’t in the New York City metropolitan area, but was located farther upstate, beyond the commuter train lines, and it was a bitch to get there. Sorin preferred either rural or big-city settings; in rural areas there was no one to see what happened, and in urban settings no one gave a shit. Small towns were the worst, because the busybodies paid attention to everything.
Phillip Stargel lived in fucking Small Town America, in a neat, lower-middle-class neighborhood. The house was yellow clapboard, with lace curtains in the windows at the front of the house, plain vinyl blinds over the windows in back. Not a lot of money to go around, but the place was kept up, as were most of the houses around. It was ordinary, unassuming, and, for now, protected. He couldn’t go in and get Stargel, he’d have to wait for him to come out.
Sorin placed himself in the shade of a neighbor’s garage, and watched the front door of the Stargel house. The neighborhood was awakening. If he put forth a little effort he could hear it all; the heartbeats of the humans inside the nearby houses, the sputter of a coffeemaker, a gentle snore, a baby’s cry. Life.
He pushed aside all the sounds and concentrated on the Stargel house. A newspaper waited at the end of the walk, and there would eventually be mail to collect. There would be classes to attend, maybe; college schedules were erratic. It didn’t matter. An unsuspecting target likely wouldn’t stay in that house all day and all night. Sorin just wished Stargel would come out so he could finish the job and get back to D.C.
Standing there, with no immediate course of action available to him, Sorin had time to think—too much time, maybe, becau
se he began thinking about a complication he couldn’t ignore for much longer: Regina. Queen, Council member, power-hungry leader of the revolution, whatever you called her, she’d revealed some cracks in her armor of late. Sorin was all for vampires coming out of the shadows and taking control, all for openly embracing who he’d been for the past seven hundred years and not having to hide his strength and superiority. In that respect, he and Regina were in complete agreement.
But in her mind, everyone was expendable: the other Council members, humans, those vampires who didn’t follow her commands. Anyone who got in the way of her plans was at risk. The way she treated Jonas was a perfect example. Without Jonas, they’d be nowhere; dozens of warriors would’ve arrived by now if not for Jonas. But because he’d refused Regina’s initial offer, he was kept prisoner and brutalized into doing what she wanted.
That ruthlessness was what made her indispensable, at this point. She was the fire, the drive, behind the uprising. The same quality made her a danger to everyone around her.
How soon before he became expendable? Sorin walked a fine line, and he knew it. He had to be indispensable to the cause without jeopardizing Regina’s position and power; necessary yet non-threatening. How long before that line blurred for her? Whenever she was crossed, she retaliated first and assessed later. He couldn’t trust that being indispensable would always be enough.
The workday was beginning. Soon people were leaving their houses, getting into their cars. Whenever someone glanced his way, Sorin nudged their minds a little, just enough to make them forget they’d ever seen him. Luca’s gift would be nice for times like this, he thought sourly. He had to keep doing the same thing over and over, and it got boring.
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