Kris reached out and Beck pulled her into a bear hug. “God, it’s good to see you,” Beck said.
Kris gazed out into the crowd, her blue eyes wary. “Was that vampire bothering you?”
Beck waved her hand in the air in a gesture of dismissal, trying not to think about what Victor had done to her mother, and refusing to think that Victor might be parading about as Vane. “Nothing to worry about. Just some vampire with freaky red eyes trying to hit on me.” She glanced over her shoulder again and couldn’t find a trace of the platinum spiked hair anywhere, which was odd considering that guy had to be a full head taller than most of the people in the club.
“He didn’t happen to give you his name did he?” Kris asked.
“Yeah. Vane. How weird is that?”
Kris visibly blanched and swayed, which only reinforced her own fears more.
“What? Kris, are you okay?”
“What the hell does he want with you?” The shake in Kris’s voice alarmed her even more.
Beck shrugged and shook her head. “Got me. I just literally ran into him. Jerk wouldn’t move out of my way or take a hint to get lost. He tried to pretend he knew me.”
Kris grabbed a hold of her in a no-nonsense grip, her brows bent in a deep V over stormy blue eyes. “Listen to me, Beck. That was a seriously badass vampire you don’t want to be involved with. He’s dangerous.”
Kris’s over-the-top reaction to the vampire was giving Beck a serious case of the heebie-jeebies and small shivers of fear scurried over her skin making gooseflesh in their wake. “No worries. We didn’t exactly hit it off.”
“What did he say to you?”
“Asked if we’d met before.” Beck gave a brittle laugh trying to ease the tension stifling the air between her and her best friend. “Jeez, you would think that vampires could come up with a better pick up line.” She didn’t like feeling as if she’d just committed a major faux pas without knowing what she’d done wrong. But something was definitely wrong.
“Did you notice anything unusual?” Kris pushed.
“It wasn’t like I was looking at him so much as trying to get around him,” Beck hedged. “The only thing I thought was really weird was that his eyes shifted color from bright red to dark crimson—and he said I smelled like Stacy.” Her voice broke.
Kris grabbed her by the hand and started plowing straight through the crowd. “We need to see Dmitri, now.”
Chapter 7
“Vane was in Sangria? Why the hell didn’t anybody catch him?” Dmitri smacked his wide desk with the rounded side of his fist, putting a hole straight through the three-inch-thick mahogany top.
The nicely appointed manager’s office seemed small with the two large men already taking up more than half of it. Kris stood beside Beck, arms crossed, concern creasing downward lines around her pinched lips. Achilles stood beside Dmitri, the guys on one side of the desk and the girls on the other.
Beck glanced around nervously. Where exactly was the nearest exit? The walls were covered in something that looked vaguely like red leather and the same black lacquer and chrome motif that decorated the club extended into Dmitri’s personal space. No windows. Only one door in and one door out.
“Easy,” Achilles said mildly as he brushed the fine coating of wood dust from his dark leather jacket. Man, did Dmitri have a short fuse.
“Hey, it’s not like anything happened.” Much. “He just hit on me by trying to pretend he knew me.”
Achilles ground his teeth together making his jaw pop. He moved toward her. “I never should have left you alone.”
Annoyance bubbled up inside of her. “Nothing. Happened.”
His gaze bored into her, green and intense. “I—We ‘re worried. He’s tracking your scent.”
“What?”
He pointed at his own green eyes, which suddenly shifted to palest gray and back again, and startled her enough to make her heart skip a beat. “The change in his eye color. He’s tracking your scent. For whatever reason you set him off.”
“But I didn’t do anything!” Beck protested.
Achilles looked directly at her, suddenly seeming far older and weary. “You didn’t have to.” He turned and spread his hands wide on what was left of Dmitri’s desk. “We need to find out what he wants.”
Dmitri’s gaze shifted to his wife, Kristin, and then to Beck who stood beside her. Beck shivered. She hadn’t seen it earlier, but Dmitri was just as worried as he was angry. He narrowed his eyes at his friend. “Whatever he wants, he thinks he can use your new fledgling to obtain it.”
Achilles growled.
Dmitri looked her up and down and Beck felt the overwhelming urge to squirm as if she were a specimen under a microscope. “There’s got to be some connection between the two of them.”
Achilles stepped closer, heat radiating off of him to wrap around her. “You mean one that has nothing to do with your traitorous blood brother playing yet another game with you?”
Dmitri growled back. “It’s not like I invited him here. He knows this is clan territory.”
“And since when has a reiver given a damn about who owns what? They take what they like, when they like and kill whoever gets in their way. Well, blood brother or not, if he comes near Rebecca again, I’ll behead him. I swear it.” The veins along Achilles’s neck were throbbing. Beck somehow doubted it was a heartbeat, so much as anger pulsing in waves through his black vampire ichor.
Dmitri sat back in his leather chair. “Be my guest.”
“Why did he have red eyes?” Beck twisted a bit of her hair around her index finger, something she unconsciously did when she was analyzing, searching for a solution. She glanced down, and realized she was doing it. She felt her cheeks heat and tucked her hand behind her back.
Achilles’s pupils dilated slightly. He tore his gaze away from her and focused it on Dmitri. “You want to explain it to her?”
Dmitri stepped around his desk, pacing the length of his office as he spoke. “Vampires have lineages like any other beings. We have makers who function like our mother or father, those who transformed us into vampires. We have tutores, mentors, who guide us through the process of learning to become a vampire when our maker cannot. That’s the role Achilles is fulfilling for you.
“Every lineage inherits the eye color of their line. In a nest they might all have the same eye color as they change to become more hivelike in their mentality, to the point where the strongest can control the will of them all. Vane is such a vampire. Nesting vampires don’t follow the rules of our clan that make it safe for us to live with humans in a symbiotic manner. They live to feed rather than feed to live. That’s part of why he’s so dangerous.”
“So red eyes equals scary bad vampire. Got it,” said Beck.
Kris cleared her throat placing her hand on her husband’s arm. “Not always. Some of those with red eyes are the oldest lines. Others have had ancient makers. It just happens that Vane, and his maker Larissa, are two vampires with no compunction when it comes to taking human or vampire life. But not every vampire follows the ways of his or her maker.” A silent understanding passed between Kristin and Dmitri as he reached to cover her hand with his.
“Vane and Larissa also happen to have very real, very close ties to some of the members of our clan,” added Achilles as he looked directly at Dmitri. “But what I don’t get is why Rebecca? We don’t even know whose ichor she used in the vaccine.”
“Perhaps that’s the first place to look,” Kris suggested. “My friend Bradley was created by Vane. He ought to have some clue who was running that whole ichor-trading scheme that went down a few months ago.”
Beck interrupted. “He said I smelled like Stacy. Now I don’t know if he was just doing it to creep me out, or because he knows something about my mom. But for a second, just a second, his eyes turned dark brown.”
“A memory before he went rogue,” Dmitri muttered. “Might be another connection.”
Achilles rubbed his left hand over t
he tight right fist. “Perhaps I need to pay him a little visit.” He glanced at Beck. She’d never seen him this on edge. Whoever or whatever this Vane vampire was, he seemed to really hit all the wrong buttons for Achilles and Dmitri.
He shot Beck a hard look. “Stay with Kris until I can come back for you.”
It was an order, not a request, and caused the hair on the back of her neck to bristle. “I can take care of myself.”
His gaze flicked to Kris, blatantly ignoring her comment. “Watch her. If she gets hungry, call me.” Kris nodded, which bugged Beck. Since when had her best friend turned into her babysitter?
Dmitri and Achilles walked out the office door, closing it behind them without so much as a see-ya-later.
Beck waited a moment or two, just to make sure the guys were gone, then leveled her gaze at her friend. “You’re overreacting, Kris. I’m an adult and, shockingly, fairly intelligent. I know this vampire is bad news. I can feel it. I’m not going to do anything stupid. I really don’t need a babysitter.”
Kris reached over and gave her a shoulder nudge. “Are you saying you don’t want to hang with me?”
“No, but—”
“Look, big brain or not, this isn’t something to mess with. These boundary disputes between vampires can get pretty messy. He approached you. If Achilles and Dmitri think they need to worry, then there’s a reason.”
She wasn’t used to being hovered over. Watched, yes, but in more of an advisory capacity. Beck always saw herself as taking care of others rather than vice versa. And she preferred it that way.
“We’ll just go to my place and hang out,” Kristin offered.
“Would you mind if we went back to my house? I think I’ve dipped my toes deep enough into the vampire pool for one night.”
“Sure.”
Beck could hear the phone ringing as they neared her front door. Four rings and it would go to voice mail. A niggling sensation in the pit of her stomach told her it was Margo calling. She shoved the key in the lock and turned it. Three rings to go.
Kristin watched her struggling with the lock. “You want me to answer that? I can phase in and get it for you.”
“No. I got it.” The door always stuck a little, she pushed her shoulder into it and it popped free, then reached out to flip on a light. Two rings. Beck dashed across the living room, leaving Kris to shut the door behind them, as she spun into the kitchen snagging the phone and glancing at the caller ID. The lab. Margo. She picked up on the last ring.
“I was hoping you’d call. What’s the scoop?”
Margo’s voice sounded edgy, worried. “I’m glad I caught you. I’ve already called three times but I didn’t want to leave a voice mail on this. I’ve tried both another cassette method and a PCR substitution but neither are showing results. The vampiriophage is still actively multiplying.”
Beck’s stomach tightened into an uncomfortable knot. Damn. She’d been really hoping that it was just the method that wasn’t perfect, but somehow, considering the reaction she’d seen in Achilles and Dmitri when they’d discussed Vane, she knew that each ichor wasn’t created equally. Somehow every vampire’s ichor differed, or at least it did in family lines. “Maybe it’s the sample we’re using.”
“What do you mean?” Margo’s tone held an edge of skepticism. Beck could hear her clicking and reclicking the end of the pen in her hand. “The vampire ichor?”
“Yeah. I just found out tonight that there’s a natural carrier of the antiviral who’s alive, well, undead at least. Her name is Evaline St. Croix. I’m going to try and get a sample of her ichor as soon as I can.”
“But aren’t they all the same?”
Just a few days ago she’d held much the same opinion of vampires. Now Beck wasn’t so sure.
“Apparently not. Regardless, it might be the break we’ve been looking for to get the vaccine off the ground. I’ll call when I have something.”
She hung up and felt the heated glare of Kris boring into her back. “You’re still working on that damn vaccine?”
Beck twisted, putting her back to the wall. An open chilled bottle of Chardonnay sat on Beck’s counter that she knew hadn’t been in her refrigerator. Kris looked at her over a glass of wine, her face smooth and unreadable despite the tone of her words. Obviously her friend had settled into being a vampire.
“Want some?”
A bad taste rose up in Beck’s mouth. “No, thanks.” She shifted her gaze to the bottle and away from Kris’s face, finding it difficult to navigate the uncomfortable chasm that had seemed to open like a rift in the earth between her and Kris for the first time in their friendship.
“Not everyone is hunky-dory with being a vampire, Kris. There are a lot of people who never intended to be a vampire, and I thought you were one of them. And there are lots more who are afraid to get a blood transfusion for fear of becoming one. I’m trying to help them regardless of my own deteriorating condition.”
Kris sighed. The glass clinked lightly on the counter as she set it down. Beck glanced up. Kris’s face was softer, but pain lurked behind her brilliant blue eyes. She reached forward, placing a consoling hand on Beck’s shoulder. “Look, I know you mean well. It’s just that this whole vampire society is a lot more complicated that them vs. us. Vampires have a place in this world. We just didn’t know it before. And you aren’t deteriorating, you’re transforming.”
“It would’ve been nice if someone had bothered to ask me if I wanted this,” Beck said bitterly as she grabbed up Kris’s half-finished glass of wine and took a sip. “And what about the people who didn’t want it to happen? What about my mom?”
“They should get a choice.”
“Exactly.” Beck tipped back the glass and polished off the wine in one long swallow. “That’s why I’m still working on the vaccine.”
“So what are you going to do?”
Beck worried her bottom lip between her teeth as she rubbed the glass between her hands. The implication of what she was trying to accomplish with the vaccine and the precarious balance of life, death and the unrealized aspects of being a vampire hit her full in the gut for the first time. “When?”
“Once you figure this whole vaccine thing out. Are you going back to being human?”
“Absolutely. Aren’t you?”
Kris shook her head slowly, her mouth breaking into a warm smile that touched Beck to the heart. “I’m happy for the first time in my life. I’ve found someone I want to be with for as long as it lasts. And if that means we’re both undead, then so be it.”
Beck’s chest squeezed. What would it be like to matter enough to someone that they’d choose death over life for you? Is that how her mother had felt about Victor? She doubted it. That was more about some messed up need to have someone stronger to cling to than mattering. “Don’t you miss being normal?”
“What’s ‘normal’ these days?” Kris shrugged. “You miss aspects of anything when change happens. But that doesn’t mean you don’t grow to accept and enjoy something new.”
“Maybe, but I … I—” A sharp pinching sensation clamped down inside Beck’s gut and she doubled up around the pain, the glass falling from her hand before she could stop it.
Kris was by her side in an instant, arm around her. “What’s wrong?”
Beck’s midsection audibly gurgled. “Either I’m about to run to the bathroom, or the Bloody Mary is wearing off. Possibly both.” Her gut twisted inside out and Beck groaned.
“Let’s get you to the couch.” Kris phased away the broken glass and then half lifted, half hobbled with her to the floral print sofa. The trip across the room was all it had taken to get Beck in a full-out sweat.
“I’d better call Achilles.”
Beck grabbed her arm. “No. Don’t. Let him do whatever big important vampire thing he’s doing. I don’t like him being around when I’m sick.”
“Honey, nobody does,” she said as she grabbed the mauve chenille throw from the arm of the couch and tucked it around B
eck. “But right now there’s only one person you need to get you through this, and it’s your mentor.”
Kris closed her eyes, her chest expanding with a deep inhale. The air in the room seemed to vibrate slightly in a way that prickled the hairs along Beck’s skin.
In the space of two heartbeats, a cloud of dark smoke appeared out of nowhere, swirling and knitting into a human shape. Before those familiar green eyes and killer smile appeared, Beck knew it was Achilles, just by the sheer size of him, that and the big bad black Doc Martens on his feet.
“Is it feeding time?” His lips tipped up at the edges in a concerned smile and despite the increasing pain that rumbled and pulled inside her, Beck’s heart flipped.
“Just a touch of tummy trouble.” His quirked eyebrow told her more clearly than words that he knew she was telling a whopper. She put some backbone in her voice. “I’ll be fine. Really.”
He lifted his brow higher. “Am I really that bad of a mentor, fledgling? I thought I’d already covered the basics. Blood equals survival. No blood. No survival. Time to eat.”
Beck groaned, not from pain alone. “Please, not another cocktail. I barely gagged down that Bloody Mary you made me.”
Kris patted Beck on the shoulder. “Listen to your mentor and it’ll go much easier.” She turned her gaze to Achilles as she got up from the couch. “I’m going to leave you to care for your fledgling. Let me know how she does.” With that Kris vaporized into nothingness on the spot.
Beck stood up, the blanket falling to her feet. For a second she stopped breathing, then it came back in sawing, painful breaths, as if she’d been sprinting. “How’d she do that?”
“Transporting. We’ll cover it later. Right now, first things first.” His mouth settled into a serious line. “First blood will bring out your fangs, but your body still hasn’t fully transitioned.” He cocked his head to the side as if listening intently. The dark centers of his eyes grew larger. “You still have a heartbeat. Whatever was in that vaccine was enough to start the process but not enough to finish it. You’re stuck in your transition until you get some additional ichor in your system.”
The Vampire Who Loved Me Page 7