by Donya Lynne
But the human wasn’t who she really wanted. The gentle male from AKM, Io, who had brushed her hair and made her feel things she had never felt—that was who she wanted. She had been thinking a lot about him. What did his lips feel like? How did he taste? Would he be afraid to touch her like all the others, or would he be brave enough to break the rules with her? Io. With his hypnotic gaze and his tattoo and his easy manner. Why did she suspect he wasn’t as gentle as he had seemed? Was it the glint in his eye or the way he seemed to smile out of one side of his mouth as if he had a secret? Whatever it was, Io was the one she really wanted to kiss and get to know better.
“So? You going to see him again?” Persephone said, as if reading her mind.
Miriam snapped out of her fantasy and smiled. She would love to see Io again. He was handsome and tragic in an odd sort of way that made her feel like she had more in common with him than the fact that they were both vampires. The male had demons haunting him just as she did. She could see it in his eyes. And what amazing eyes he had. Green and golden brown mixed, and intense in a way that touched her all the way to her soul. It warmed her to think about him and the short time they had shared while she had been recovering at AKM from her overdose.
And it had been obvious he had been attracted to her, too. However, reality made it clear that she and Io had about as much chance at seeing each other again as a fly had against a fly swatter. As in, zilch. No chance. Nada.
“Yeah, Seph, like that will happen,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“You never know.”
“Pah-lease. Do you want to know what would happen to Io if I saw him again? Father would ruin him. Io would lose his job, his credibility, his livelihood, everything. Maybe even his life.”
It sucked having the king as a father. He did a decent job ruling the race, but he was a lousy dad. Domineering, controlling, completely out of touch. The simple fact that he had made reference to ruling her earlier was a huge clue that he needed parenting lessons in the most severe way. His idea of parenting was keeping Miriam under lock and key and preventing any male from touching her.
And if she saw Io again, she would most definitely encourage his touching her, which was why Io would never survive if she somehow managed to find her way back to him. Father would destroy him.
Her thoughts went back to that day two weeks ago, when Io had been brushing her hair while she had been in AKM’s medical ward. Io’s boss had busted in and reprimanded him for being so casual with her. You’re not allowed to touch her, he had said. The words had echoed like the lyrics of a bad song that had engrained itself in her mind, playing over and over ever since.
No one was allowed to touch her. As if she were some paper-thin, crystal egg shell.
“Still, you like him, Miri. I can see it all over your face.” Seph’s voice was soft. “I’ve never seen you so starry-eyed over a guy.”
Okay, so Seph was right. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Io since meeting him. “He brushed my hair,” she said, blushing.
Seph’s face screwed up in a cheesy half-frown, half-grin. “What? You didn’t tell me this before.” She sounded accusatory, but in a playful way.
“I know, I know. It sounds lame, but….” She sighed wistfully. “It was the most romantic thing, Seph. He brushed my hair. He got right up on the bed and sat behind me and just…brushed my hair.” She could still feel how tenderly Io had smoothed his palm over her hair as he swept the brush through it. His body heat had been intoxicating behind her and she could have sworn at one point he had wanted to reach his arm around her waist and hold her. Damn, her nipples hardened even now at the thought.
“Oh boy, you’re completely smitten,” Seph said.
“I am not.”
“Are to.”
Miriam giggled. “Okay, maybe a little.”
She had needed this. After the fight with her father, she had needed to get out and find a way to laugh and smile. Funny how thinking about Io over the past couple weeks had been about the only thing that had been able to do that.
CHAPTER FIVE
After unlocking his shackles, it took Apostle over an hour to crawl out of the corner he had been confined to for the past several weeks and reach the bathroom in the opposite corner of the room. Who would have thought a commode would feel like a luxury item? But after weeks with only a pot to piss in, properly relieving himself like a civilized gent brought him back to the land of the living.
Bishop had always been ruthless, but he seemed even more so now. Apostle never would have imagined that Bishop would subject him to such abhorrent accommodations, or that he would have allowed those scorpions to sting him. But not only had Bishop allowed it, he had encouraged it, pulling each deadly creature out from its aquarium, one-by-one, and placing it on Apostle’s body. The fucking things seemed trained to sting only him, because they never hurt Bishop.
Maybe it would have been better if he had died in Chicago, after all, because at least he wouldn’t feel like death without the funeral right now.
Through the poison haze in his mind, Apostle recalled walking into his Chicago home two months ago to find his twin brother’s decimated body alongside those of his team. Something very powerful had crushed them from the inside out, leaving them in virtual puddles of flesh. The entire living room had looked like it had been through both a tornado and an earthquake, the floor ruptured and the furniture broken and flung in disarray.
The only answer as to what had caused so much damage was a vampire. Well, more like a mixed-blood vampire. Only a mongrel could possess power like that. Full blood vampires certainly didn’t come pre-packaged with an instant natural disaster at their disposal, but mongrels could possess powers strong enough to do that kind of damage.
That fucking Micah obviously had powerful friends. Two-faced, Indian-giving asshole. Micah had come begging Apostle to kill him—a task Apostle had gladly accepted. To kill a vampire as old and strong as Micah would have been a marvelous notch in his belt, and he had wanted the notoriety of taking down the legend himself. Micah was well-known in the dreck community, and he was highly feared for his lethal skills with a knife and his fearless manner of fighting first, asking questions later. No one wanted to cross Micah, and Apostle had been thisclose to removing him as a roadblock that stood in the way of dreck progress.
Which bit Apostle’s ass no end that his moment of triumph had been thwarted by that human wench, Samantha. The bitch had shown up and shot him in the shoulder before he could finish the job on Micah in that goddamn parking garage. Apostle knew he should have killed her when he had the chance, but she had startled him and his team, and they didn’t want to risk exposing themselves further than they already had. Still, not a day went by that he didn’t regret not taking her down that night.
Oh, but he had gotten the last laugh. It had taken him some time, but he had tasted revenge when he had tracked her to Micah’s apartment to come face-to-face with the bitch again. This time, she had been helpless—no gun and no Micah to protect her—and Apostle had bitten her, giving her a lethal dose of his venom. No doubt, the catastrophe at his Chicago home had been retaliation for her death since Micah had allegedly taken her as a mate.
Touché. Except that they had missed the real target—him—and killed Deacon, instead.
The irony of enduring Bishop’s punishment after surviving the attempt on his life had made Apostle delirious with laughter more than once. Micah and his powerful mongrel friend had wished him harm, and in the end they had gotten it, hadn’t they? But Apostle wasn’t dead, which was the only in-your-face he had against Micah. Still, all the agony he had endured at Bishop’s hand over allowing his twin to be killed in his place had been worth it, because at least he had taken something away from Micah and had left him just as empty. Apostle knew how shit worked for mated male vampires, and Micah was as good as dead without Sam.
Which made his desire to go back to Chicago about nil. His job there was done, as far as he was concerned. No
use tempting fate. But now Bishop had told him he wanted Apostle to return there. Why?
Probably because he was absolutely livid over Deacon’s death and wanted a slice of his own payback against the Chicago bloodsuckers. A fact Apostle knew all-too-well, because he had lived through Bishop’s immediate fury over Deacon’s death. His itching, swollen flesh made him feel like he was on fire and near death himself. What was with the scorpions? When had Bishop become so enamored of those vile creatures? Apostle swatted his arms like he was having a seizure just from the thought of those tiny stingers piercing him and pumping his body full of poison.
Were the scorpions simply used for torture or were they a part of some larger experiment?
Apostle knew that in addition to producing the mother lode of cobalt for distribution around the globe, Bishop conducted genetic experiments in his underground laboratory here in Arizona, but Apostle had never been involved in that side of the family business. He had been in charge of distribution, based in Chicago, which was an ideal location for shipping within the United States. So when it came to the Dr. Frankenstein shit Bishop had going on, Apostle was relatively clueless.
His twin, Deacon, had been in charge of the lab and the production facility, but when Apostle had to travel outside of Chicago for any length of time, Deacon usually filled in for him to keep up appearances in the Windy City. That was why Deacon had been in Chicago two months ago. He had been there to pose as Apostle while Apostle traveled to New York to deal with mafia entanglements and a rising turf war over cobalt distribution. He had only been gone a day.
In Chicago, Apostle had posed as a police officer. What better role to play to get cozy with the criminal element responsible for pushing product? And being a police officer had lots of helpful perks, such as doing pretty much what he wanted, when he wanted, and to whom.
Yes, the persona known as Officer John Apostle, Apostle’s human visage, had been on the take. Big time. None of the humans he had worked with knew he had been anything other than another human named John. They had never seen him in his dreck form: Blue skin, blue blood, blue-black hair, gaunt features, fangs…real horror movie kind of stuff.
As such, he and the other members of his team, drecks who had also posed as cops, had received a hero’s funeral. He hadn’t seen the TV broadcast of the funeral personally, because he had been chained to the floor, but Bishop had told him about it between litanies of profanities. Bishop’s anger over Deacon’s death had since cooled, but those first few days back had been brutal, both physically and mentally, as well as audibly.
Which brought his thoughts full circle. Because it hadn’t been Apostle the police force of Chicago had mourned. It had been his brother. Deacon had only needed to stand in for Apostle for one shift, but it had proven to be one shift too many.
The door opened and the overhead light flipped on, causing Apostle to cringe and blink rapidly against the sudden pain. You knew you were fucked up when just light hurt you.
“You’re still not cleaned up?” Bishop sauntered in, one of those goddamn brown cigarettes between his fingers.
In the weeks Apostle had been here, he had grown to hate the smell of those shit-assed stink sticks.
Bishop approached him. “We have work to do, Apostle, if we’re to get you up to speed so you can take Deacon’s place.” Under his breath, he added, “Not that you’ll ever be as good as he was.” He turned toward the armoire in the corner of the room.
“I can’t take his place.” Apostle frowned and scratched the swollen bumps on his arms.
Bishop rummaged through the garments in the armoire one-handed, seemingly reluctant to part with his cigarette, and pulled out a shirt and pants. He tossed them haphazardly toward Apostle then walked around behind his desk.
“Of course you can take your twin’s place. And you will.” Bishop sat down, glaring pointedly at him.
He flipped through a file of what appeared to be photographs, hesitated, then picked one up and flicked it toward him.
“This will be your new human form.”
Apostle’s lip curled at the thought of doing what Bishop told him, but right now he was in no shape to argue. He picked up the picture. The man looked normal enough. Black hair, blue eyes, strong physique. Apostle imagined this guy had no trouble getting chicks.
“What does he do?” Apostle looked up at Bishop.
“Did,” Bishop said, standing up. “What did he do.” He slipped his cigarette between his lips, took a long draw, and blew out the smoke as he came around the desk and sat down on the front edge. He pointed with the cigarette. “Nothing. He was one of our earlier subjects. A beta tester for some experiment we ran several years ago. Here’s what he looked like when we were finished.” Bishop reached around, picked up another picture, and tossed it at Apostle.
The picture spun and danced in the air before landing in front of him on the floor. When he picked it up, the resemblance between the two images was nonexistent. The man’s skin was mottled with what looked like bruises. He was naked and his hair had fallen out, and his emaciated body hung from the ceiling like a starved side of beef. His wrists were bound above his head with chains and cuffs.
Apostle really didn’t care about the human, but he was curious what they’d done to him to make him look like this.
“What did you do to him?”
Bishop gave a flippant shrug as he inhaled on his cigarette. After exhaling a plume of grey fog, he said, “We were trying to alter humans into half-drecks to use them as foot soldiers or slaves.”
“Soldiers?” This was news to Apostle.
Showed how out of touch he’d been with his brother’s operation.
Bishop nodded. “Yes. Soldiers.” A wicked smile curved his blue mouth.
No further elaboration was given other than they had been trying to build soldiers. Did that mean that the dreck council was secretly trying to amass an army for an uprising against the vampires?
“Are you still trying to turn humans?”
Bishop shook his head, his smile widening. “No. We’ve found a better source than humans for our soldiers.” Those azure eyes of Bishop’s twinkled.
Apostle bristled. This could get interesting. “What?”
Bishop took one final draw on his cigarette then crushed it out in an ash tray behind him on the desk before turning back around, a satisfied smile on his face. “Mixed-bloods, dear brother. Mongrels. In time, we will use their own kind against the vampires. And we will destroy them for good.”
CHAPTER SIX
Io was staring out the window of the Suburban when his phone beeped. He looked at the screen. It was a message from AKM Dispatch.
“What is it?” Sev said.
Like Io, Sev was probably hoping it was a call. It was damn slow tonight and the two simply couldn’t rock the warm and fuzzies between them.
Io frowned at the message. “Nine-one-one from Dispatch for me to call someone, but I don’t recognize the number.”
Sev exchanged curious glances with him, then Io punched in the number and waited. Who the heck would call him personally besides his immediate family or someone at AKM, especially while he was working?
“Hello?” A female’s panicked voice answered, but she didn’t sound familiar.
“This is Io from AKM. You wanted me to call you?”
“Thank God. I need your help. Miriam’s in bad shape. I’m not sure, but she might have overdosed again. Her father can’t see her like this. Oh my God. Please—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Slow down. Who is this?” He didn’t know who the female was, but he did recognize Miriam’s name. That had been enough to lock up his balls and knife his gut. And if Miriam had overdosed again, shit could go critical in a heartbeat if it hadn’t already.
“My name’s Persephone. I’m Miriam’s friend.”
“Persephone, where are you?” Io sat forward in his seat, fear gripping his gut for the beautiful raven-haired female who had rocked his world two weeks ago. He motioned toward Se
v.
“Um, I don’t know…um….” Persephone sounded like she was looking around.
“South Side? North Side?” Io said, trying to prompt her.
“South Side. We’re on the South Side. Oh God, she’s unconscious. Um…”
Fuck! Io needed to get there. He needed to save her. As a former addict, he knew what needed to be done, but he needed to get to her first. Come on, Persephone, where are you?
“Are you at an intersection? Are there any landmarks, Persephone? How long has Miriam been unconscious?” Io raked his hand through his thick, brown hair.
Sev suddenly stopped the Suburban and got out. Io wondered what he was doing as he stood and sniffed the air.
Persephone started to cry. “She passed out about five minutes ago. I told her to stop. I told her she was taking too much.”
She was panicking. “Persephone, calm down. Calm down. Stay with me. I want to help, but I need you to stay calm.”
Sev jumped back in and threw the Suburban in gear and gunned it.
“I’m trying, I’m trying. Oh God. She’s going to die.” Persephone was in hysterics, obviously cranked on the blue buzz, too. “There’s an old warehouse, um, I think, I don’t know. I can’t see any street signs. Wait. Someone’s coming.”
Io looked up as Sev barreled around a corner. About a block down a silver Jaguar was parked on the side of the road and a blonde with long hair was pacing at the side.
“I see you. We’re almost there.” Io looked over at Sev as he disconnected. “How did you know…?”
“I marked them that night I gave them a warning. This is the same neighborhood they were in before, so I hopped out back there to see if I could catch their scent. Didn’t know they’d be so close, though. Talk about right place, right time.”