BloodStar

by Montoya, Cassidy

  She tilted her head to the side and regarded him. Goddamn, she knew then what he was doing in that motel room, allowing himself to be defiled a hundred ways over.

  "You hooked up with Anya to get to Sabian."

  Sam tapped his index finger to his nose as if to say bingo.

  "And she knows this?"

  "Well, we didn’t discuss the particulars, but yeah, she knows."

  Sam pushed away from the sink, and walked back over to sit on the bed again. The condition of the mattress forced them both to the edge, and he had to settle in the nook of her pelvis area. She was laid out, and if he scooted another three inches toward her, he could have actually leaned back and used her as a backrest. Marley had an insane urge to sit up and wind her arms around his waist from behind. Good God, she was…horny for him.

  "They can sense motivation." She could only see his profile. He looked comfortable again, but bored, like he was tired of explaining this stuff to people who just didn’t matter.

  "It’s like fucking paranormal Jerry Springer," she said, easing up into a less suggestive position and rubbing her face hard with the palms of her hands. Now they sat side by side.

  Sam laughed, and the tension on his face and in his limbs melted away for just a moment. "I know. I felt the same way."

  "Why are you hunting Sabian?"

  "Because he’s a vampire."

  "Ok, so when you say vampire Hunter, you mean indiscriminately?"

  "Some are a bigger priority than others, like your boyfriend." He said it with distaste.

  Marley was starting to feel defensive. "Yeah, but you go after all of them? Like, are they just generally evil? All of them?"

  Sam didn’t respond, but what he didn’t say verbally came out loud and clear through his body language and the expression on his face. He might as well have called her a fucking moron, and now there was a back-broken camel at her feet, chewing on that final straw.

  "Hey, Mr. High and Mighty, you’ve been letting that psycho suck both our blood for God knows how long—doesn’t that make you just as bad as them?"

  "Marley, I know you’re all caught up in his whole sensitive-dangerous-mystery-guy thing, but Sabian’s a killer. He’s a killer. He. Is. A. Killer. Got it?"

  Marley’s hand had been creeping toward his thigh, to do what, she didn’t know, but she snatched it back.

  Sam saw, raised his eyes to hers slowly, and what do you know, they pulled a classic stare-into-each-other’s-eyes. Marley couldn’t breathe; something was happening between them.

  "Hey, just stop. Fairy tales and Jerry Springer, remember?"

  "I can’t."

  "Can’t what?"

  "I don’t even know, Sam. I want…" As her voice trailed off her fingers went to his tattoo.

  He trapped her hand in his before it made contact, and shook his head in a definite denial.

  "Marley, you don’t want to do that. Don’t do that."

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  It was true, all of it, and now Sam was locked up in this room with Marley.

  You don’t want to do that, Marley.

  But she did want to, and fuck him, he wanted it, too. He hated women touching his tat, but Jesus, the thought of Marley’s fingers tracing his sacred vow—even Sam Junior was behind that.

  How the hell had this happened? In the quiet space of one moment in time, everything had changed, shifted, and just how the fuck was he supposed to do what he had to do now? How was he supposed to deny himself this woman?

  Game face, that was how. No thang but a chicken wang.

  Jesus Christ, his thought process was straight out of Solis’s partner’s repertoire now? Dumb motherfucker.

  Marley would have questions. She’d need to know because she felt the shift, too. Hell, if he didn’t know better, Sam would say she’d engineered the thing.

  He would let Marley ask her questions, and he would answer what he could. There was more history than he would be telling, though, more hurt.

  And now, more guilt.

  "Sam, tell me about Franky?"

  Right on cue. "She was just another Hunter."

  "I don’t think there was anything ‘just another’ about her."

  "No, she wasn’t like the rest of us. She was…special. She could do what Sabian does, see into the past. Franky confirmed everything your leech has ever said."

  Marley shot him a hateful glance, and ever the fucking professional, Sam absorbed it like a goddamn Sham Wow. Good. She was on the same page—they would play the shift off as if neither of them wanted to wrap themselves around the other and get lost in all the kinky shit they were never going to get to do.

  If nothing else, Sam Halac could put on a front, not let the outside world know anything fazed him. Having Marley look at him like that hurt, though. But so what? What was life if not a long, miserable sequence of assholes hurling pain at you?

  But she’s not an asshole. She’s different.

  But here was the thing. The Shift (which in under two minutes had become exactly how he would forever catalogue that moment in time—capital letters and everything) was a game-changer. Sam didn’t think he could have his one-sided conversations with Franky in the private world inside his head ever again. Even though Franky never answered him, he knew what she would have said. His old partner Solis hated when Sam did that, said it was a morbid mind fuck, told Sam to let the dead Hunter rest in peace.

  This time, he had no idea what Franky would have said. More than that, he honestly didn’t want to know. Was this it? RIP time?

  Sam wasn’t ready for that, couldn’t let her go. Eventually, okay. Today? Well, fuck that.

  But his commitment to Franky was in decay now, and this wasn’t something he was ready to process knee-deep in the Anya quagmire. He could pinpoint the exact moment it began, too: Marley in his arms, soft, unconscious and vulnerable while he carried her from the van to the motel room. He wanted so badly to cut and run, but he hadn't.

  Franky never asked for dominion over his heart, but she still clawed at it like a champion miser. Even if Sam didn’t embrace Franky’s visions, he couldn’t deny what he felt anymore. Al Gore didn’t corner the market on inconvenient fucking truths. Sam would lose this battle with his heart. Another day in this room, so close to this woman, so close to finally having the BloodStar, Sam knew he would fall for Marley.

  And if he fell for Marley, he would fall to Sabian.

  He had to move away from her, get off this cum and (more recently) shit stained bed. He was too close to her. Jesus Christ, what the hell was wrong with him?

  "So. What happened?" Marley asked.

  "She died." He got up and went to window. Finally. Dusk was bleeding out like a whore in a back alley, and God knew Sam had seen enough of those. Anya could return at any moment.

  He turned back around to face Marley. Did she know how much sex was wrapped up in her wild curls, how hard-and-straight his dick got at the soft-and-curvy of her body? How was he supposed to interpret the fact that he was scared shitless, pissed, and exhausted, and still Sam Junior reminded him of the fun that could be had in the shower she should have taken already?

  He needed to go from game-face directly into dickhead mode, like pronto.

  "Okay," said Marley. "I’m sorry for your loss. I can tell you felt…well, I don’t know what you felt, but obviously her death bothers you."

  "Bothers me? Of course it bothers me. Every single human life lost to your little pet vampire bothers me."

  "My little pet vampire?"

  "Yeah, your metro-sexual boyfriend, Sabian." Sam attacked…for a lot of reasons. The uninvited hard-on, the guilt over the idea of Marley as a teenager (that was especially bad because he knew what she’d done, and it perked up Junior even more). Maybe it was because always now, even if way in the background, he wanted Anya’s teeth in his flesh and his blood in her mouth.

  This was the most dangerous hunt of his life.

  Marley came back just as strong: "Hey, why don’t you ju
st back off! And quit making assumptions you know anything about me and my pets."

  Sam smirked at her. She didn’t know why he was attacking either, but he did like a woman who wouldn’t take his shit. And her train was rolling, now. She had more to say, and Sam was all ears.

  "And after all your years of following him around like a dog, hunting him, I doubt you really know Sabian at all. He’s nobody’s plaything. And what the fuck? Don’t take it out on me if you’re pissed one of your Hunter pals got taken out. Maybe she wasn’t as special as you think she was."

  Okay, that hurt. Sam was a dish-it-but-not-take-it kind of guy. The smirk fell from his face and the hydraulics failed his dick. He stared her down. What the fuck was this bitch thinking? He was her only asset, the only dog she had in this fight, even if his motives didn’t fit into her perfect little vampire-loving world.

  "I know more about you than you think, including all there is to know about all the pets you’ve kept. And don’t think, not for one minute, that you know a goddamn thing about him, either, because you don’t. No one does, get it?"

  They were both breathing hard and an air of wrath charged the room. Both dropped their eyes long before Marley spoke.

  "I had no right to say something like that. I am sorry, Sam." She got up and started walking toward him. She even sounded sincere.

  "Sit down," he growled.

  She stopped, and shook her head. "Sam, really, I’m sorry."

  He physically shook it off, shook it all off, and cursed himself. He had to get his Hunter mask back on. "Just…stay over there, okay?"

  She sat back down, and after a moment asked, "When did it happen?"

  Sam moved from the window to a wall marginally farther from the bed where Marley sat. He leaned his weight up against the wall, and tilted his head back until it rested on the hard surface. He closed his eyes, and thought. What he should have done was withhold, wage a passive-aggressive battle, say nothing and punish her with silence. He was surprised when his mouth started going instead.

  "She died six years ago. It was right about the time you decided to disappear. I remember losing track of you for a while after…Franky. Yeah, I just couldn’t concentrate on tracking you."

  "Wait, you were tracking me?"

  "You and a few BloodStar, yeah."

  "A few BloodStar? There’s more than one?"

  "Yes, Marley." His tone was creeping toward condescension, and he tried to rein it in, but the fucking questions. "BloodStar plural."

  "So you and Franky?"

  "Yeah, Franky and me. She could see stuff, like the BloodStar can, and she knew about you."

  "They can all do that?"

  "Do what?"

  "See into the past."

  "No, only Sabian."

  "But you said BloodStar plural."

  "Listen, there’s only one BloodStar that matters—your boy."

  His comment provoked her, and she squinted a venomous look at him. "Sam," but he interrupted her.

  "Fuck, Marley, give it a rest. What, he’s not your boy?" Rancor spilled out of his mouth before he could check himself. "You didn’t spend the twenty-four hours before she took you fucking and sucking him and planning your dream life together? Wake up," he said, raising his voice and making her jump.

  She obviously had no idea what to say, but the look on her face was something else now, something closer to shame. Well good.

  Sam softened. He didn’t want to yell at her, and he wasn’t comfortable when the defining words that flashed through his mind when she said something naïve were dippy bitch. Would he have let someone else say that about her?

  No, not an avenue for exploration right now, he thought. Instead, Sam continued with his story, saving the introspection for another time when he wasn’t the valet in a makeshift vampire lair.

  "She knew about a soul Sabian was mated to, you know, so we watched him and eventually found our way to you." He kept talking as he walked back over to the sink for more water, this time bringing it back to Marley. "At the time, he was still playing Cloak and Dagger. He didn’t want you to know about him or find him, and he definitely didn’t want us to get to him, so we decided to keep tabs on you. Franky figured he’d show his mug sooner or later, which, of course, he did. It was just a little too late for Franky to enjoy the credit she deserved."

  Marley took a drink, and shivered. "Cold on the way down," she said when he looked at her sideways, her voice almost weak.

  He smiled at her. Dickhead-mode was hard to maintain with this one.

  "What did happen? To Franky?"

  "She and I were partnered up on the BloodStar case. You really don’t know anything about them?"

  Shaking her head, Marley said, "I only know you and Anya use it like a name, and apparently he’s the only one that matters." Sam nodded at her, approving. "See," she said, "I pay attention."

  Sam tilted his head to the side, and regarded her with a soft smile. Maybe not dippy bitch all the time. Sometimes she was just damn cute.

  Fuck, stop it Sam.

  "So who are the others? If they’re so important they get a title, they must matter a little bit."

  "Yeah, they do, or they did. I don’t really understand all I know, and that’s the way the ancient vamps want it, I think. Bottom line, in the here and now, Sabian is the BloodStar."

  Sam couldn’t miss the look of pride that flashed across her face, but it was there and gone in a second.

  "They used to feud, and the BloodStar—plural—headed the ranks of the various broods and covens, but most of them were killed four or five hundred years ago. We have some stuff that indicates there’s one coming with the power and influence to unite them all and bring back coven rule, but none of it makes much sense. We can’t tell if he was already Kindred at the time the documents were made, or if he still had yet to be turned."

  Sam took the empty plastic cup he’d given her minutes before, and tossed it across the room at the sink. It fell short and landed on the floor. "Sabian came to our attention as one of the potentials—the first potential BloodStar in centuries, so his name started to climb the Hunt List fast. Franky was the authority on the BloodStar at the time, and we had some intel on your guy that said he was a Viewer."

  "A Viewer?"

  "A vampire that can look into past lives. We gave him that name—there has never been another with his abilities, at least no documented cases."

  "Sam, did Sabian kill Franky?"

  Sam nodded, the expression on his face noncommittal.

  "Did he…feed on her?" She sounded like she didn’t want to hear the answer.

  Sam knew what she wanted to hear. She would want to know that Sabian could never bite someone who didn’t deserve it, that he chose his victims carefully, ridding the world of the dregs of humanity one meal at a time. What would she think about the pregnant woman in Barcelona? Or the pastor in Maine? That one was a little hard to pin on Sabian since it was a life or death situation for the vamp, but whatever. Sam would have loved to tell Marley about the twenty-somethings camping in Glacier National Park three years ago.

  But Sam wouldn’t tell her. None of it mattered, and it would only make things harder.

  "No," he said. "He didn’t feed on her. And really, he didn’t kill her, not by his own hand. Not exactly." And it was the truth, as much as he didn’t want to give her what she wanted to hear.

  Relief, pure and simple, settled into her eyes. "So, what happened?"

  "We were following you—it was after you left the Dietrich's. Franky wanted to kick things into gear, force Sabian out of the shadows."

  "How?"

  "She figured if we actually made contact with you, Sabian would lose some of his composure and out himself. He’s a Goddamn ogre when it comes to you." Sam reached out, and brushed Marley’s hair from her forehead, and then realized what he was doing and snatched his hand back.

  He walked over to the table where the snacks were splayed out. He swept them into the bag, and tossed it over to t
he bed where Marley still sat. "Franky was right. He was watching us watching you, and he understood with that intuition thing they have what we were going to do and he about lost his shit. I’ve never seen him come at a Hunter on the offensive." He ran his fingers through his hair and sat down in one of the two chairs. "Other vamps, yeah, but not Sabian. He’s kind of…an anomaly. No problem ripping your heart out if you instigate it, but he never starts it." Unless he's thirsty and you're not a threat.

  Marley tore into the bag, and selected a package of Nutter Butters. With her mouth full, she asked, "Intuition thing? What do you mean?"

  "You know that thing they do when they know what you’re going to do even before you do?" Sam was fidgeting with a cardboard placard advertising protocol for outbound calls from the hotel. "It came out of nowhere, right when we were getting into our car to meet with you. Do you remember your conquest from your Vegas days? I think his name was Julian?"

  Oh yeah, Marley remembered. Other than Tiny, most of her skeletons were closeted in Vegas, although Julian didn’t exactly qualify as her conquest. It turned out to be quite the opposite.

  Julian worked graveyard in a little casino on the old strip near the Four Queens Hotel as a security guard, and was intrigued by the young redhead at the far end of the slot machines. He was eight years her senior and fancied himself intelligent, which he decidedly was not. It only took her until the end of the weekend and an exchange of bodily fluids to secure shelter in the new town.

  Julian had high expectations of her—she was to be at this location at this time, wearing these clothes and this jewelry, and should have had these chores finished prior to meeting him. It irked her, made her feel like a kept woman or hired help, but Julian had money to spend and she had years of fuckery to make up for. It helped that he lived rent-free in a place his parents owned, so most of his paycheck could be spent on Marley.

  Resentment soon followed, though. Who was this guy to tell her what time she should be going to bed at night, and with whom she could keep company? He couldn’t even pass the fucking basic skills test that was the first gatekeeper to promotion in the security business!