by Laken Cane
“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “But nothing you can give me.”
Rune nodded. “Call me if you need me.”
“How is Lex?” Strad asked, trying to look innocent as he walked down the hall with a wiggling dog under his coat.
Rune touched her stomach. “Not good. She’s going out of her mind with worry about the twins. Plus…” She hesitated. “They hurt her. I’m not sure—”
“She’ll recover,” Strad said, his tone even. “But she needs to learn how to deal with the threat of COS.”
Rune nodded. “She needs reconditioned. Rice is going to find someone to help her.”
“And physically?”
“Doctor says she’ll heal.” Lex had been tortured by the bastards, but Rune didn’t know exactly what had been done to her. When—if—Lex wanted to talk about it, Rune would grind her teeth and listen.
She was safe in the clinic in Willowburg, with the crew taking turns watching over her. She cried for the twins, almost the entire time she was awake.
“They’re not dead, Lex,” Rune had said. “They’re not dead and we will find them.”
But Lex could not be consoled.
“Go get some sleep,” Strad said, his arm brushing hers.
“I will.”
“And when you’re ready for me, let me know.”
She knew he needed her bite. For the last three nights, since they’d rescued Lex, she’d wanted only to sleep and eat.
“I will,” she said, again. But she’d addicted the berserker, and feeding the addiction was her responsibility. “Soon. Are you okay right now?”
“Yeah.” He opened his truck door and put the puppy in a little carrier. “I’ll wait.” He leaned against the side of his truck and stared down at her. “For soon.”
She had to get through the hell to come first. He knew that, and understood. He just didn’t want her to do it alone.
“I got the box Amy left me. I have to open it tonight.”
He nodded.
“But when I…when I think of Z, when I let those thoughts out, I’m going to need you.”
“I’ll be there.”
And she knew he would be.
She watched him drive away, then went to find her car. She was not looking forward to opening the package Amy had left her. It scared the fuck out of her. Probably it was no more than a note and a keepsake, but those items were going to bring her to her knees.
She narrowed her eyes when she saw a tall, slender man leaning against her car, scribbling furiously into a notebook. It took her a few seconds to recognize him.
Sam Cruikshank, the reporter. He’d been following her, quietly and reasonably unobtrusively, for months.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
He straightened and pushed himself away from her SUV, then stuffed the notebook into the pocket of his long coat. “I came to see you.”
She gestured at her car. “I figured that out.”
“Have dinner with me.”
“Dude. I don’t think so.”
He studied her. “I have the recording.”
“Pardon?” She massaged her stomach. “What recording?”
But she knew. Fuck if she didn’t know.
Her first thought was how to find out where he’d hidden it before she killed him.
Maybe he saw it in her eyes. He glanced around at the parking lot, full of cars but empty of people. The setting sun lent a soft, rosy glow to his face and glinted off the dark blond of his hair.
Something about the way he was staring at her was vaguely familiar. He looked like someone.
Someone…
She frowned and closed her eyes, trying to think of who he reminded her of and why the hell it would make her want to throw up.
Then she snapped her eyes open and took a step back. “What was he to you?”
He shrugged. “Jeremy? Jeremy was my half-brother. And I’m pretty sure you and your crew know exactly what happened to him.”
Suddenly cold, she forced herself not to shiver. “I have no idea where he is. You saw what the world saw—one minute he was in Hawthorne sending the Dark Others after me and my crew, and the next he was just…gone.” She didn’t give a fuck if he believed her or not.
He smiled. “My brother and I weren’t close, Rune. He tortured me from the day I was born until I got old enough to fight back. Eventually we formed a truce, but we never pretended to feel any sort of brotherly love.”
“Why don’t you tell me what you want from me so we can get this shit over with?” Oh yes. She was going to have to kill him.
Fucking Jeremy.
She did shiver then.
He slid his fingers into his coat pocket, stopping suddenly when she shot her claws out. “Easy, Rune. It’s just his phone.”
She retracted her claws as he tossed her the phone.
“He showed me the video on his computer,” she said.
“The only copy of that video is on this phone. He connected the phone to his computer to…” He paused, then went on. “To watch. That’s how he showed it to you.”
“How do you know?”
“He told me. He had no reason to lie.”
She clenched the cell so hard it creaked. “What do you want?”
“My brother and I had something in common besides our father. I can give you what you want. What you need. And I can do it so much better than he ever could.”
“You…” She cleared her throat. “You want to hurt me?”
He tilted his head, his rather unremarkable face shadowed in the late evening darkness. “I want to help you.” His voice was gentle. So gentle.
“Get away from me.”
“Take all the time you need to think about it. I know you. I’ve been watching you, studying you, learning about you. I can make you better.”
The phone cracked then, cutting her palm. “Get away from me,” she screamed.
He wasn’t afraid. He nodded, the look in his eyes soft, yet commanding. And so fucking knowing. “When you need me, come find me.”
And before she could even imagine he’d be brave enough, right there in the parking lot, right there with her rage and her fear and her sickness, he grabbed her by the throat and dragged her to him.
As she stood frozen and off balance, her mind blank, he stared into her eyes. “I can make you better.”
Then, he let her go, left her with her fingers caressing her throat, and strode away.
She’d have to kill him.
Wouldn’t she?
To save herself, wouldn’t she have to kill him?
Because fuck her for the crazy bitch she was, but she wanted that. What he promised, what he could do, what he knew.
She wanted it.
She moaned and climbed into her car, where she sat for two black hours before she was finally able to start her car and drive home.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
That terror, that deep, awful fear, fear of what she was and what she’d always been and what she might do, helped her open Amy’s package.
Because horrible though it was, what had happened to Amy was somehow more manageable than what had happened to her in the hospital parking lot.
She couldn’t forget about it, but she could resist it.
She could.
For now.
When she slid into the dark place, she’d call Strad. He was enough.
“I can’t be that kind of help, Rune.”
Fuck.
She slit the tape wound messily around Amy’s box and finally, she looked inside.
There was a lined piece of notebook paper, a small envelope with something hard inside, and a small diary in the shape, of all things, a fang.
The stake wound on her chest was completely healed, but as she stared into the box, the wound began to throb hard enough to make her gasp.
This is going to be bad.
She read the note first.
The handwriting was printed and rather childish, and the image of Amy was sud
denly so vivid she had to close her eyes and breathe away the pain. Amy hadn’t been angry that Rune had deserted her. The note was simply a couple of sentences explaining why she was going back to Nicolas. She understood Rune and the crew would be unhappy about it, but she missed the vampires. She missed the bite.
Rune opened her computer and read the emails, as well. They were more of the same. The knot inside her stomach began to slowly loosen.
One of the emails made her cry, just a little. I’m not much, Amy had typed, but I’ll always be proud because I helped Shiv Crew. I did that. Then she’d added, I wish I could be you.
The envelope held a tiny slip of paper and…
“What is that?” Rune murmured, as she poured the item from the envelope and into her left hand. “Is that a fucking tooth?”
It was. And not just a tooth, but a fang. Not a vampire fang. A wolf’s fang, maybe. It had a small hole through the top.
The tooth was…revolting.
Her hand began to itch and she tossed the tooth on the bed, staring at it with distaste. She looked at her palm. Red blisters started to appear and as she watched they grew, broke open, and seeped a clear, thick liquid.
They spread from her palm to her wrist, then crawled up her arm.
“Oh, Amy, what have you done to me?”
She ran into the bathroom, and turned on the hot water. The blisters hurt, and hurt even more when she held them under the spray of water.
“What the fuck did you do to me?” She realized she held the tiny paper, and as the blisters climbed her arm, she read the note.
Nicolas will kill me if he finds out I stole this. He’s going to hurt you. This won’t let him. A present from your BFF, Amy.
“Shit, Amy,” Rune whispered.
The tooth was some kind of vampire repellant—not just a repellant, but seemed to be lethal to them.
Amy hadn’t known what Rune was. Hadn’t known Llodra was her father, hadn’t known Rune was part…vampire.
Fuck me. Ended by a well-meaning bite junkie and a fucking tooth.
Maybe that was why Llodra had tortured Amy. Maybe he’d suspected her of taking the deadly fang.
Most likely, Rune would never know.
The water wasn’t helping. The painful blisters continued to slide up her arm. It felt as though someone pushed burning sticks into the ends of her fingers. Like her claws and her bones were on fire. Like her blood was beginning to boil.
She yelped and held her arm out to the side, staring at it with horror. Her hand had turned black, and the blackness chased the blisters up her arm.
And oh God, the pain.
The strap of the top she wore burst into flames when the blisters grew beneath it, and she beat them out with her right hand, staring in horror as the blisters and black began to spread across her chest.
What a fucking horrible way to die.
And she was alone.
Why was she always alone?
She stumbled out of the bathroom and grabbed her cell off the dresser—she hit redial, not remembering or caring who she’d talked to last. She needed to tell them what had happened to her.
She needed not to be alone in her last few moments of life.
Because she was surely dying.
“Fuck,” she screamed, and heard a tinny voice yelling at her through the phone. She dropped the cell as the blisters spread to her chest and her top caught on fire.
She ran to the shower and it took seconds for the water to destroy the flames. But the water wouldn’t save her.
She ripped loose the remaining threads of her top and watched in helpless horror as the blisters popped up and burst across her chest. Watched as long fingers of black spread in an unwavering pool to the outside edge of her stake wound.
And then…
Everything stopped.
The blackness receded, sliding back down her arm a hell of a lot faster than it’d climbed it, and the blisters began to fade.
The stake wound.
Nicolas Llodra, by staking her, had somehow saved her.
She turned off the water and climbed out of the shower. Walking to her bed, she stared with a healthy dose of respect and a shitload of fear at the tiny, innocuous looking fang.
“What the fuck is that?”
It was a vampire killer, that’s what it was.
Someone began beating at her door and without waiting for her to answer, started kicking it in.
“Hang on,” she yelled, and strode toward the door before it was completely destroyed. She yanked it open, then stared in confusion.
“Owen?”
He pushed past her, a gun in one hand and shiv in the other. “You’re okay? What the fuck is going on?”
“Oh hell. I called you, didn’t I?”
He lowered the gun and slid the silver back into its sheath. “You were screaming.” He swallowed, and visibly tried to regain his usual control. “What happened?”
“It’s a long story. But I’m okay now.”
His stare probed her face, her eyes, and finally, when he believed she was truly okay, he dropped his stare to her breasts.
She glanced down, realizing she was without her shirt but too amazed by the healthy pink glow of her skin to care. The scar where she’d been staked had faded, but she didn’t think it’d ever go completely away.
Owen wasn’t interested in the scar.
She pointed to the fang. “Amy sent me a gift. When I touched it…” She shook her head. “It attacked me. It was like holding the sun. I started blistering. My clothes lit on fire. I was dying.”
He put his gun away. “There are no marks.”
“No. As if it never happened.” She looked up at him. “Get that thing off the bed for me. There’s an envelope there to put it in.”
He picked it up, holding it between his fingers, studying it. “A wolf’s fang.”
“That’s what I thought.”
He slid the tooth into the envelope and tossed it onto the dresser. She felt better with it hidden once more from her sight.
Owen walked closer, until he stood only a few inches from her. “You called me.”
She wanted to tell him she’d only redialed, but as she opened her mouth, he slid his palm over her breast.
She forgot what she’d been about to say. She stood there beneath his caress, unable to simply turn and walk away.
She swallowed, then reached up to grab his wrist.
He stopped moving his fingers, waiting.
Strad had messed her up when she’d caught him in bed with Tina, and though he had no real claims on her, she didn’t want to do the same to him. Didn’t want to.
“Fuck,” she said. She rammed her palms into Owen’s chest, sending him flying backward and onto the bed.
She couldn’t bite him. Could not addict him the way she’d addicted Strad and Lex. But she could do other things.
She could.
He rose up on his elbows, smiling slightly. “Do you want to know what he said?”
“Who?” She snatched a shirt from a half-opened suitcase, turning her back on him as she pulled it on.
“Strad Matheson. Do you want to know what he told me?”
Yeah. She wanted to know. “No.”
She heard a noise behind her and whirled around, reflexively dropping her fangs.
The berserker stood in the doorway.
He didn't move, didn’t even twitch, and she wondered how he could possibly contain so much rage. How he could keep that swirling, black mass inside without exploding.
He glanced at her, but then his stare, full of death, went to Owen.
She shuddered, watching him. Strad Matheson used to scare you. He still should.
The berserker had put a claim on her.
She'd addicted him, and she'd fucked him.
And now, he'd put a claim on her.
She looked from the berserker to the cowboy. The room was completely silent as the two men stared at each other.
Owen slid off the bed, his
fingers resting near his shivs.
Her need was strong. Lust beat at her brain, tightened her belly, made her want to throw off her clothes and demand they both satisfy her.
Lust and fear and promise.
She closed her eyes and concentrated on breathing. In and out, slowly, deeply…
And finally she regained control. “I can’t take another loss,” she said, and looked at the berserker. Don’t kill him, Strad.
She knew he read what was in her eyes, because he stared at her for a moment longer, then gave a terse nod.
“Go away,” she whispered, and turned her back on both of them.
They didn’t argue.
She heard the door close with a gentle click, and when she turned around, they were gone.
But she knew without a single doubt that before the night was over, one of them was coming back.
She just wasn’t sure which one it’d be.
She looked at the envelope holding the fang and scooped her cell out of the floor. Ellis answered on the second ring.
“Ellie,” she said, “I have a present for you.”
About Laken Cane
The coffee addicted urban fantasy/paranormal and horror writer Laken Cane lives in Southern Ohio with her genius son, two Yorkies named Daphnis and Lexi, and one Golden named Chloe who rules them all.
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Visit her website at www.lakencane.com
Books in the Rune Alexander series—
Book 1: Shiv Crew
Book 2: Blood and Bite
Book 3: Strange Trouble
Book 4: Obsidian Wings
Book 5: New Regime
Book 6: Wormwood Echoes
Book 7: The Witch’s Daughter
Book 8: Killing Land
Book 9: Kill Switch
Book 10: Chasing Darkness
Book 11: In progress (Final book)
From the author—
Authors need reviews like vampires need blood! If you’ve enjoyed this book, would you consider reviewing it on Amazon.com?
Table of Contents
Shiv Crew
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six