The Dresdan Coven Trilogy

by Amber Ella Monroe

  “I’d ask anyone that question.”

  “Are you insinuating that I am just anyone?”

  Elaina’s eyes flickered over him again. Head to toe and back again. Almost human. Only more. Her gaze shot back to his and she tightened her fist around the butt of the gun.

  “No, I’m not,” she said, aiming for his chest.

  He shook his head. “A bullet in the chest won’t kill me.”

  “The bullet won’t…” She narrowed her gaze, challenging him.

  “If you shoot me with that thing, you want to make sure it kills me.” He grinned. “Do you have a clear shot?” He pushed off the wall.

  “Take another step, bastard, and I’ll blow your brains out.”

  He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Sounds like you mean it.”

  “I do.”

  “Your colleague betrayed you. You need to be saving those bullets for him.”

  Fury rose in her chest. Yes, she would kill that rat bastard.

  “You’re hesitating because you don’t want to kill me,” he said, lowering his voice a little.

  She swallowed.

  “I know why you don’t…”

  She pressed her lips together but didn’t respond.

  “You’ve been told lies about me and my kind and you know it. We’re not the murderers you were taught to believe.”

  “Liar!”

  “Who are you going to trust?”

  “Not you!”

  “No, not me. But whom? A vampire-killing, mafia organization that sends you out here after me to certain death…or your instincts?”

  “Lies,” she whispered.

  “They sent you here to die. You’re a pawn. How much of my blood are they trying to steal? How much more do they want? Do they even know what they are doing?” He pondered, his tone of voice growing in irritation by the second. “What are the lives of four trackers worth to gain a pint of Dresdan blood when they have hundreds more sheep ready to take commands without question and are recruiting by the dozens?”

  Her temperature rose and her lips parted in shock.

  “Oh? You didn’t know. There are lots of things you don’t know…Elaina.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “Lots of memories reside in the blood. It only takes a drop.” His eyes changed from deep red to black, and his gaze fell to her thigh where blood seeped against her leather and drained down her leg.

  The injury wouldn’t kill her, but if she didn’t get treatment for it soon, there was a chance it could become infected.

  “Tell me, sunshine, are you afraid of dying?” he asked.

  “No,” she stated without hesitation.

  “Then what would you die for? An organization that doesn’t give a rat’s ass about your life, or a cause that benefits more than just a few greedy shareholders?”

  The warehouse was silent as she pondered his questions, but it was too late, he’d already raised the doubts within her.

  “Ah, you have reservations about all of this.”

  The Dresdan extended his hand toward her. She jumped back right before she realized there were keys in his palm.

  “What is that?”

  “My offer. I’ll give you three days to think about it, and then I want you to answer me.”

  She shook her head. “Who do you think I am? Your child?”

  “I don’t know who you are. You seem to be confused about who and what you represent.” He shrugged. “The choice is yours. Freedom and a set of wheels to get you out of the ghetto where your organization sent you to be slaughtered.”

  Elaina frowned. “I can walk.”

  “Si?” He tossed her a skeptical look.

  She held out her hand, and he dropped the keys in her palm.

  “What’s your n—?”

  Before she could get the last word out, he was gone, leaving her standing in the middle of the abandoned, old, dilapidated building.

  This warehouse could have been her resting place. She could have died. But by luck, she was still here.

  Once outside, it didn’t take long for Elaina to find the car the vampire had offered her. She sped off into the night, but she wasn’t headed to her condo. She was probably believed to be dead, and until her mind was made up, she’d pretend to be for the time being.

  Chapter 10

  Four nights had passed when Elaina finally decided to ditch the hotel she’d been lying low at to call a District head. The vampire hadn’t shown his face as promised, but Elaina had already made up her mind by then.

  She’d signed a contract with District 5. There was no getting out of it.

  The phone rang twice before someone picked up. “This is DH-3.”

  “This is D-33, checking in.”

  “We have you on the records as deceased,” he said, his tone uncaring. “You and D-0008.”

  “I was severely injured and abandoned by my unit with no phone access. I only just recovered enough to report in. I couldn’t move for days,” she said, half telling the truth.

  “Do you need me to send medical assistance?”

  “No. I’ve managed thus far.” Her mom had been a paramedic before she quit to take care of Elaina when she was first born, so Elaina knew how to reduce the symptoms of almost any ailment and dress many wounds.

  “There were plans to replace the two of you,” DH-3 said. “The assignment has been shifted to another unit until further notice, but these are serious allegations against your fellow unit members. It’s against protocol to leave a dying colleague behind, especially after being attacked by vampires.”

  “They were only doing their jobs,” she said, carefully. “I was…held against my will by a vampire. I fought him off. Killed him.”

  “Good work on killing a mere rogue, but D-209 reported that our main target has yet to be located.”

  So D-209 had lied. About everything. It meant he didn’t want the District heads aware that he’d had the main vampire suspect contained in a building but had instead pushed her and ran like a cowering bitch.

  Elaina contained her anger. “He hasn’t been captured,” she confirmed.

  “It’s quitting time, D-33. Report first thing in the morning for further instructions. You and what’s left of your unit. Understood?” DH-3 ordered.

  When Elaina hung up with him, she triple checked to make sure that all of her doors and windows were locked and her curtains were pulled taught. Her unit members didn’t even know she was alive. When she saw D-209 again, she wasn’t sure that she would be able to contain her anger enough to keep from lashing out. She wanted to kill him. If he betrayed her once, he’d betray her again.

  Chapter 11

  Elaina woke up to tapping noises on the sliding glass doors of her balcony. She grumbled, seriously hoping that whatever bird or night owl had landed on her terrace would go away. She’d tossed and turned the previous nights after lying on a hard mattress waiting for her leg to heal. Now she was finally back in her own bed, and if she wanted to confront D-209 tomorrow and convince a District head to put her in another unit, she’d need all the rest she could get.

  But the tapping didn’t stop.

  She picked up a fluffy pillow and pulled it over her head. Then she heard the Dresdan’s call.

  “Elaina.”

  What the fuck?

  She jolted up in bed and her attention immediately flew to the balcony doors. The curtains were pulled closed and she couldn’t see a thing. Half unbelieving and half mortified, she tiptoed over to the door and peeled back the vertical blinds.

  Sure enough, a dark figure stood on her balcony, silky, black hair flowing in the breeze. When she gasped, he turned around and grinned at her.

  Elaina backed away about two feet, shaking her head. The blinds fell back in place, and the image of the Dresdan disappeared.

  “No, no. I’m not seeing this,” she told herself. She peeled the blinds back again and he was still there. “Fuck.”

  Had he come to kill her? Finish what he started? F
our nights had already passed. He hadn’t kept his end of the bargain.

  The vampire held up his hands, palms facing her, and then he made a peace sign.

  Elaina turned around and looked toward the foyer of her condo. What was wrong with her? Why was she paranoid? No one would burst in here unannounced. She had no friends. Didn’t get any visitors. It was well past midnight, and the whole building was probably asleep except for a handful of night staff.

  She unlocked the balcony door, slid it open, and a gush of fresh air flooded inside. Her heart picked up tempo when she realized there was nothing between her and the Dresdan.

  “My name is Vicq,” the Dresdan said.

  “Vicq,” she repeated. “Just Vicq?”

  “When I was made, I gave up my last name.”

  It was difficult to remember that he was a vampire. He was so calm and civilized. D5 had taught all recruits and trackers that vampires were vicious, wild creatures. Vicq was not vicious or wild.

  “Are you going to invite me inside?”

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Are you going to kill me?”

  He took a moment to answer her as his Adam’s apple bobbed slowly on his throat. “No.”

  “Come in, but remember…I don’t play nice.”

  “Duly noted,” he said and crossed the threshold. His gaze roamed over her area and he moved around, observing her things.

  She slid the door closed again, applied the locks, and pulled the curtains shut.

  “How did you find me?”

  “Your blood,” he answered.

  “Is it that simple?”

  “No. But when a Dresdan becomes addicted to a human after just one little taste, he’ll trace the source anywhere…even to Hell.”

  Elaina chuckled. “You can’t be addicted to me.”

  He closed in then, and she stumbled back until she landed butt first on the bed. Her heart beat frantically as he knelt slightly, taking her leg and cradling it in his hand.

  He slid his fingers under her long nightgown and brushed the fabric away to reveal her thigh. The wound where the bullet had grazed her was still fresh.

  Elaina should have pulled away, but she didn’t. He bent low and pressed his lips to her thigh. Her loins tightened and her center pulsed. His tongue was hot against her wound as he stroked the healing skin. He let her leg fall and then rose again.

  “What the…” She looked down at her leg, only to discover that she was now completely healed. The skin was like new. Not even a nurse would realize that a bullet had grazed her there. “How did you do that?”

  “My saliva carries healing properties. You should know that. Your organization keeps records of these things. Yet, only a select few of you are made aware. I wonder why that is…” He winked at her.

  “You healed me.” She rubbed at her leg. “This is insane and unreal.”

  “Have you made up your mind?”

  “I have,” she said.

  “And?”

  “I’m here for the long haul. I kill rogue vampires for a living. I have no problem with that.” She shrugged.

  “You don’t have to stand by a faulty mission to kill rogues for a living.”

  “You think our mission is faulty only because I kill creatures like you,” she said, standing and walking in a circle around him. His trench coat prevented a complete inspection, but considering this was her second time being so close to a vampire, her view would have to do for now.

  “I don’t think. I know. Your organization kills unjustly. I have evidence.”

  “Why are you here, Vicq? If it’s to ridicule my employer, you should leave,” she said, motioning toward the door.

  “Why did you let me in? If it’s because you don’t completely trust your employer to tell you the real truth, why don’t you just admit it?”

  She swallowed. “Why do they want your blood so badly?”

  “I was made by a Master vampire. He was nearly one thousand years old, almost impossible to kill until someone he trusted betrayed him.”

  He ventured farther into her one-bedroom condo, walked over to her closet, pressed the collar of a shirt to his nose, and inhaled deeply.

  “What did you do to become a District target?” She figured if he were supplying answers, she’d continue inquiring.

  “I find anything and anyone linked to them—especially where the funding comes from—and I destroy it. I’ve burned banks to the ground and rummaged through vaults belonging to D5. And once I find a way to infiltrate their headquarters, I’ll destroy that too.”

  “Why do you do it?”

  “They’ve killed and captured dozens of us. Probably more than that. We’re beaten, studied, mutilated, and treated like savages. We’re not all rogues. Your organization just doesn’t understand the fundamentals of our society. We were executing rogues who carried out acts of violence just fine before this organization came into existence and labeled all of us murderers.”

  “But if you were handling your rogue population, they wouldn’t be a problem right now.”

  “Truth. But is it not true that your organization is more concerned with creating some kind of hybrid human mutant than they are about helping your government control the rogue population?” he countered.

  “There are many missions,” she said. “Each division carries out a different mission. Mine is to keep deadly rogue vampires from preying on humans.”

  “What about the mission that involves studying humans against their will? Picking up humans off the street and deliberately trying to infect them with bad blood in an effort to proceed with the organization’s experimentation. What about the mission that involves killing young motherless children to harvest their organs?”

  Elaina cringed as a memory of the infected young girl in the labs came back to her. She had never found out how the girl became infected.

  “And you have evidence of all of this?”

  “I have my sources within your network,” he said and then dismissed the issue. “By the way, I killed your partner.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Just before landing here outside your room, I found out where he slept. They’ll find him one day, floating in the lake miles away from here. There’s no use going to look for him. He’ll enjoy it there for now. He seems to like water from what I took from his memory. It’s where his wife was found just last year.”

  “Do you mean Danny?”

  “Danny, yeah, that was his name. His blood was tainted. He committed a lot of felony crimes in his days before joining that vampire slaughtering agency. He seemed worried about the case revolving around the disappearance of his new wife. Something about an insurance policy and a hitman. The images were fuzzy. He did a good job using his training to try and hide them but like I said, I’m no dirty rogue. He thought you were dead, you know? He was actually glad he had killed you. After drinking him, I was going to let him live, but then he had such nasty, non-remorseful thoughts about what he’d done to you that I couldn’t help but to drain him lifeless.”

  Bile rose in Elaina’s throat. “You had no right.”

  “You were going to seek revenge, weren’t you, Elaina?” Vicq grinned.

  “I was. The day would have come, and I would have acted then. I didn’t need your help.”

  “You don’t belong with these low-life convicts. Are you ready to answer my question?” he asked. “Will you die for this dirty, ratty organization of yours, or do you want your freedom again?”

  “Again?”

  “I visited you on the fourth night as you made the call and voiced your decision. You could’ve walked free, Elaina, but instead, you walked back into a trap. They’re using you, and they’ll use you until there’s nothing else left of you but a bag of blood on a shelf or a vat of ashes.”

  A nerve literally popped in Elaina’s throat. “Get out!” She pointed to the door.

  “Very well,” Vicq said. “Should we give it another three days?”

&nbs
p; Elaina stormed over to the balcony doors, threw it open, and pointed into the night. “Don’t come back. I could be severely reprimanded for inviting a vampire here.”

  “Ah, but you didn’t invite me. I came to you. It is not every day that a vampire can venture near sunlight, but you are sunshine to me. The only sunshine I will ever come to.”

  Vicq turned and folded away into the night. Elaina’s leg tingled where he had kissed it. That night, Elaina realized that she would be forever connected to this Dresdan.

  Chapter 12

  Elaina came to understand that being without a work unit was no fun. No one wanted to work together where there was no uniformity. For over a week, she’d been organizing deliveries between District headquarters and a government storage facility where they kept an overflow of weapons.

  Following the disbanding of her crew, she’d been moved to a clerical post until she was reassigned to a unit or another one was created.

  Elaina walked down the row of boxes, double-checking the serial numbers against the data on her clipboard. She grumbled as she moved. This was not her idea of actual work; it was just busy work. The only thing that had come from the change was that she was the lead on the project—one step closer to her goals.

  “D-33?” One of the guys peeked his head into the storage unit. “We’re all set. Should I send the next truckload back to headquarters?”

  “Yes, do that. Also, select someone to stay behind and help lock up. It’s time to close up shop and head out. It’s getting late, and I want to get an early start tomorrow morning.”

  He nodded. “Sure thing.”

  If everyone at District 5 were as nice and sensible as that young man, she’d probably find that being in the same room or space with them for several hours a day wasn’t so bad after all.

  Elaina grabbed her duffle bag and checked it to make sure that her keys were inside. She wasn’t in the mood to go through all of the security checks for gaining entry when someone lost their set of keys. Security was so tight that most things were on lockdown or required three levels of approvals these days. Plus, most of the staff had already clocked out that evening. Now, every time she left this place, she made sure that her keys were with her.