“Stop grinning like an idiot, damn it!” I snapped at him.
Great! Just fucking great! What had I gotten myself into?
Chapter 13
Columbus was like a sacrificial goldmine. At midnight, there were people out on the streets all over the city—like picking ripe fruit from a tree. Up to nefarious or lustful deeds, no doubt, but that served his purposes just fine.
Cruising down the side streets of downtown, Logan crept through alley after alley searching for the right situation. He’d used too much of his own power last night and needed more fresh blood. Two more. Maybe even three for good measure.
Turning the corner, the large conversion van almost didn’t fit. It was a tight squeeze as Logan straightened out the wheel and slowed. His headlights flashed on pale skin, glittering sequins, and bright red hair. A woman, staggering on four-inch stiletto heels stood before another woman sitting on the curb with her cheek pressed against her knees.
Logan stopped the van. Keeping the engine running, he slid the gearshift into park and stepped from the driver’s seat. “Do you ladies need help?” With the smooth vampiric power making his voice enticing, Logan sauntered up to them, closer than any sane or sober person would normally have allowed. The redhead, unsteady on her heels and the short skirt, peered at him with unfocused eyes. He could almost see her working through the situation in her mind. He cajoled her with his voice and set her alcohol-soaked, human mind at ease. Power flowed until the tension in her body dissipated and she grinned at him as if he was something to be devoured.
“Your friend seems sick. Do you need me to get you a cab?”
“Um,” she hesitated, looking from her friend back to Logan. “Yeah, sure,” she slurred.
Logan closed the distance between them. “She doesn’t look very good.”
“She’ll be fine,” the woman said, grasping the other woman’s hand and hauling her to her feet.
The woman staggered, falling into her friend’s arms and almost taking them both to the ground with her momentum.
“Here,” Logan said, clutching the drunk girl against him. “Let me help.”
“No, that’s okay,” she protested.
Fear filled Logan’s nose and his mouth watered with the savory scent of her delicious blood pumping through her veins as he stepped closer.
“I’ve got her,” the woman said.
Logan didn’t listen and tossed the passed out friend over his shoulder.
“Hey!” she called.
Raising his hand in a quick fist, Logan struck her before her drunken eyes could identify his movements. His fist crashed with the woman’s face, sending her to the ground. She whimpered and cried as she attempted to get to her feet. Falling back on her ass as her ankle gave out, the woman opened her mouth to scream.
Logan couldn’t have her attracting every drunken idiot in the area. He tossed the unconscious woman on the ground and grabbed the other by the neck, lifting her from the cement as if she weighed nothing. Her pulse thumped beneath his thumb as her tears streamed down her face.
“Please,” she whimpered. Her hands clutched at his wrist. Her nails dug into his flesh and suddenly, he was so hungry. “Please don’t hurt me.”
“What would you give me?” he asked, his voice a mocking enticement of her fear. He loved this part, the raging terror which would make her blood rich. He loved the hunt, the expression in their eyes when they knew there was no hope. But that was still to come.
“Anything. Please,” she begged.
Logan couldn’t keep the smile from his face as he salivated. Running his nose up the long line of her neck his fangs throbbed, aching to sink into her flesh. Ah, but he needed her for something other than a meal.
One drink. One drink couldn’t hurt.
Logan sank his fangs into her flesh, letting the hot, iron-rich liquid coat his tongue as he swallowed her down. She screamed, loud and obnoxious, ruining his meal. Logan withdrew his fangs, and slammed her head against the brick wall of the building behind them.
She groaned, sagging in his grasp.
Logan licked the last of her blood from his lips and flipped her over his shoulder. Carrying her to the van, he opened the side door and tossed her inside. He strolled back, whistling a lullaby, as he plucked the second woman from the alley. He shoved the woman on top of her friend and folded her legs in, shutting the door behind them. Two would have to do for tonight.
Chapter 14
“I don’t understand,” Dean almost shouted.
Dean never shouted.
“I know you don’t. That’s the problem,” I practically shouted back. Sometimes that man infuriated me, all righteousness and wisdom. Yeah, that’s sarcasm. He didn’t understand that sometimes he didn’t know what was best for me.
“You’re mine. I won’t lose you.”
Stepping up to him, I clutched his hands in mine. “You, the Pack, Patrick, and our Colony are my family. All of us.”
“I can smell him on you.” His hands in tight fists at his sides, he said, “It kills me every night that I’m not with you. I know he’s there, touching you, tasting—” He stopped short and didn’t finish. “I wasn’t like this before, not with—”
For a moment, I felt my heart harden at what he didn’t say. “With who?” I snapped. “With Janey? Do you wish you had her back?” God, why was I so jealous of a dead woman? I couldn’t hold back the venom at the thought of Dean pining over her forever.
His olive-green eyes burned blue as his wolf roared to the surface. His fingers tightened around mine but didn’t let go. As the muscle along his jaw jumped with his clenched teeth, I had a moment where I thought maybe I should apologize. I wasn’t as fine with Janey’s memory as I’d let him believe. Jealousy was an ugly emotion but it fit right in with my rage and his thumping heartbeat. They made perfect roommates.
“No,” he growled low in his throat, frustration making his words almost dangerous. “I didn’t think it would be this hard.”
“Hard,” I snapped, an awkward hurt tightening around my chest as the thought occurred to me that he might not think I was worth it.
Taking a long deep breath, he released it with a measure of control that I hadn’t seen since, well, since before we’d had sex. “The beast in me understands, accepts the situation as it is. The man in me doesn’t.”
Meeting his gaze with my own fire, I said, “Accept it, Trevelyan. You’ll both have to accept it. Not only so we can be together, if that’s what you still want, but to save all our hides.”
“You’re so infuriating,” he huffed and left my office. I heard his office door slam and something in me broke. A single tear slid down my cheek. We’d never fought before, not like this anyway. My knees were weak and I almost fell into my desk chair.
“Asshole,” I mumbled beneath my breath and started slamming things around on the desk. Two could play the slamming-shit-around game. Tears didn’t accomplish anything. Anger was way better than this guilt I couldn’t seem to shake for one reason or another. Anger was definitely better.
A slight tingle crept up my neck and I couldn’t shake the feeling of eyes boring through me like laser beams. Someone was watching me. My pulse pounded in my ears and my fingers tingled with the desire to have a weapon in my hands.
I glanced up from the desk and shouted, “Tamika! Did you put in cameras while I was away?” My voice sounded hoarse, hiding the twinge of fear churning in my gut. I didn’t like the feeling of being watched. Especially when I couldn’t locate the source.
“No, Ms. Dahlia. Not in the offices at least. Mr. Dean had them installed in the reception area though,” she said, standing in my doorway. Her rich chocolate-brown skin shimmered in the early afternoon sunlight as if coated in bronze.
“Then what the hell?” I said, getting up from the desk an
d circling the office. I couldn’t shake the feeling of eyes on me. My hair stood on end down the back of my neck and my heart raced in my chest as the fight or flight response of my Eithina clicked in.
Someone’s watching us, hunting us, she whispered in my mind, raising my mental hackles.
I wanted to growl and chase off whatever had their eyes on me, whatever had invaded my territory.
Striding to the window, I glanced out. The city bustled below in the early afternoon, just after lunch. Cars honked and weaved in and out of traffic as the light changed at the corner. People entered and exited the surrounding buildings, and the bus stop below was crowded. I scanned across the rooftops, searching for something, anything that would give me the willies.
Standing two rooftops over, a man with his shoulders hunched forward and his head hanging heavy stared at me. It seemed as if his neck wasn’t strong enough to hold the weight of his head as it dangled forward just a little. His clothes were tattered and dirty.
He wasn’t alone.
On an adjacent rooftop stood another man in the same condition. Two rooftops over from that there was a woman. A building back, another woman stood, dirty and in shambles. Six of them in total, stood in broad daylight, staring at me, watching me.
I picked up my cell and dialed Derek.
“What’s up, Kid? Are we going to the baseball game tonight or what?” he asked.
“Yeah but you’ve got six open graves somewhere.” I whispered so Tamika wouldn’t hear me. She was a good receptionist and she was human with no understanding of the preternatural world Dean and I lived in. Her life was hard enough, she didn’t need to know.
“What? From where?” he asked, almost stammering in excitement.
“Dunno, but I’m watching six corpses in downtown Columbus stare at me from a coupla rooftops.”
“I’ll send out some uniforms to see what I can turn up.” he said out of breath, as if he were running. I could hear the thumps of his hard-soled shoes over the line. “Can you take care of the six without me?”
“Yeah,” I almost growled. “Call me later about the game,” I said and hung up. No way some stupid zombies were going to interfere with my guy time with Derek and a Clipper’s game.
“What’s that about cameras?” Dean’s husky voice clipped from the doorway. I could still hear the edge of anger in his tone but he came anyway and that’s what mattered.
“Nothing,” I said, still staring off at the six zombies watching.
Stepping up beside me, he said, “What’s the matter?”
I didn’t know if he could smell my anger or he noticed the hard line of my shoulders but his power was raging hot as it wrapped around my body. His entire bulky frame froze into a solid brick of tension as his eyes landed on the corpses across the street. The muscles at his jaw twitched with aggression as he clenched his jaw. The tanned skin around his eyes crinkled as his gaze narrowed on the six bodies and his olive-green eyes flooded the Caribbean blue of his wolf. And just like that, whatever argument we had been having didn’t matter anymore.
His power filled the room to almost suffocating strength, the air was hard to breathe and my lungs fought for every breath through his energy. He had been powerful before our trip to Faerie but the heat radiating off of him now would burn my skin to blistering if I wasn’t his Eithina.
“When’s the ceremony?” he growled, squaring his shoulders at the windows and the threat beyond.
“Tonight,” I whispered.
He grunted in response.
“We have the Manit tomorrow night,” I said, reassuring him but not daring to touch him. His protective instincts were in overdrive and I didn’t want to make it harder for him to maintain control. At least, any harder than it already was.
“The night after that is the museum gala,” he said, the soft growl vibrating his Adam’s apple. Glancing out the window, I realized they were backing away as Dean flared his power out into the summer heat.
“Hey, where are they going? It’s broad daylight,” I almost shouted.
“Dunno,” he said.
“We’ll never get to them all before they disappear,” I whined.
“What’s the matter, Baby? You squeamish?” he asked, grinning at me. It was more of a sneer but I saw the twinkle of amusement in his gaze and the challenge. He was teasing me, ready to play. I guess the argument was over.
“Blasphemy!” I balked, grabbing the holster with my Smith and Wesson from the desk drawer and the Bowie knife beside it.
“You take the ones on the left and I’ll take the ones on the right,” I said. “We can meet in the middle.”
“Race?” he snarled at me, excitement bubbling under the surface as his eyes raked over me with delight.
Things low in my body tightened at the familiar scent of him but now wasn’t the time for that.
My safety wasn’t even a thought in his mind, not like after the first attack. Dean’s wolf was too close to the surface and I knew he wouldn’t be able to hold human form in this hunt. His wolf trusted that his mate could take care of herself, otherwise, his mate was weak. A Gaoh didn’t have a weak mate.
“Sure,” I said. “First one back here wins.” Strapping the holster to the small of my back with a smirk, I started the countdown. “Reeeaaaady . . . set, go,” I bit out as I bolted from the room, ahead of Dean, laughing the entire way.
The first one, I tackled from behind in the alley behind Grant Medical Center. In the middle of the afternoon, the place was remarkably desolate. I drew the knife from my thigh and shoved it through the zombie’s neck clear down to the concrete. Instantly, the body stopped struggling and slumped lifeless on the street. I got to my feet and tossed the zombie’s head in the nearest Dumpster and then heaved the rest of his body in as well. Sliding the blade back into the sheath, I brushed my jeans off. I was covered in grave dirt, crap from the street, and sweat. Gross.
My stomach churned as the acrid stench of death filled my nostrils. I tilted my gaze up to find a zombie lumbering from the opposite end of the alley. Behind me, the shrill scrape of metal grinding against pavement sent shivers up my spine and I turned. Another zombie shoved the Dumpster aside and stepped out into the alley.
“Shit.”
I turned back, keeping them both in sight and my back to the wall of Grant Hospital. As a unit, they moved toward me. One slow step at a time. Their glowing green gazes never left me.
The zombie on my left was closer than I realized and lunged for me. I ducked just in time and spun underneath his arm. What I wouldn’t give to have Gladi with me right about now. I drew my bowie knife and almost laughed at the ridiculousness of my situation. I was behind the city’s main trauma center, which meant it was crawling with cops. My only weapons were an eight-inch blade and a gun I couldn’t use. Fanfuckingtastic! This day just couldn’t get any better.
I turned into the other zombie, slamming into the hard, dead chest of a man that was twice my size. He hesitated for a moment with the shift in momentum and then reached for me.
Elbowing him in the gut, I shoved off and propelled myself out of reach. I couldn’t keep this up. Back and forth. Tit for tat. They’d kill me just by wearing me down.
I kicked the smaller one in the head. He was only about my height so my heel crushed cheekbone and he staggered back. Quick as lightning, I struck out and sliced the blade through tissue across the zombie’s neck. It was deep but not deep enough. He came at me again.
I hopped back, putting as much space as I could between those two dead fuckers and myself. My heart thundered in my ears and my muscles burned with adrenaline as they came at me again. Sweat dripped down my neck and soaked my hair. My grip on the knife slipped as my hands sweated from the heat of a summer afternoon. This was my damned city and I wasn’t going to let them beat me. I hopped from foot to fo
ot, ready for the fight. If I could get rid of the little one, then it would make dealing with the big fucker easier.
I slammed the lid down so I could stand on a flat, albeit slanty, surface and climbed up on the second dumpster. The smaller guy was quicker but now that his head kept dipping down with the deep gash across his throat, he didn’t walk a straight line. I stepped back as the big guy reached for me.
As he drew back to grab at me again, I took a step and jumped. Hurtling myself over the giant, I landed on the smaller zombie and forced him to the ground. Before his head could bounce off the concrete, I shoved the blade down through the gash in his throat and severed his spinal cord.
I crawled off the limp body and turned to face the zombie twice my size behind me. Something alien and all too familiar tingled up my spine as the strength of magic reached out to say hello.
Darkness, like whatever power gave this zombie life resided only in shadows, washed over me and chilled me with fear clear to my marrow. I knew the icy power lacing the darkness.
Vampire.
My heart pounded until I thought I would pass out. I heaved in one breath after another as I stared down the vampire behind the dead man’s glowing green eyes. Recognition burned behind his gaze as a smirk turned up the corner of the dead man’s mouth. All at once, the zombie came at me again.
It crashed into me, shoving me against the wall of the hospital in a collision of hard bricks, cold flesh, and brute strength. The breath was forced from my body in a burning rush of air and I clutched at the hand shoving my chin up and away from my neck. My throat stretched until I thought it would pop off. I kicked up, shoving my knee up into his groin but that had no effect. The damned zombie didn’t even grunt. I jabbed the knife again and again into his middle, hoping like hell it would do something to slow him down. It didn’t. He had me pinned to the wall with his tree trunk of an arm and I couldn’t raise my arms any hirer than my elbow.
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