As he sensed her already drawing near to her orgasm, he gripped her hips and pulled more urgently onto him, moving in turn, driving up into her body. She changed her rhythm in a way that he knew meant she was close, grinding her hips on his, her eyes wild as she all but screamed his name.
He felt her shuddering around him but didn’t still as he normally would to allow her to catch her breath, but pulled her face into her neck and carried on thrusting up into her, fucking her. He felt her teeth graze his neck and nodded.
‘Now,’ he commanded, his hands clutching her ass, kneading it as he plunged her body.
Ruby bit. The sudden, sharp sting followed by a warm rush through his body spurred on his own climax and he moaned loudly himself as both sensations rushed through his body at once, a combination of pleasure and pain that gave him the strongest orgasm he could ever remember experiencing.
As the waves of his climax died away, Ruby stopped feeding and lapped lightly at his neck. Vamp saliva was a natural antiseptic. She sat up, looking both exhilarated but nervous, no doubt worrying about his reaction after last night. Nick gave her a tender smile, all his earlier emotions drained out of him. His cock and his neck ached and his legs felt weak, but he felt a rush of warmth for his lover that had him pulling her again into his arms, this time stroking her hair and nuzzling her ear.
‘That was amazing.’
‘Told you,’ she said, her voice muffled against his chest. Nick laughed, but then looked at her with a serious expression as she sat up, stretched her naked body and leaned over him for her clothes. He carried on looking at her as she got up and dressed.
‘Are you OK?’ Ruby pulled up the zip on her jeans, looking guarded, as if he might now reject her and what she was again. Nick sighed. He had been an idiot.
‘Promise me something?’
‘Of course, what is it?’
‘I might be able to get used to it, OK, the feeding thing? That was hot. But I do not ever want you to go near another man again; it’s not just “food” to me, Ruby.’ Especially not now I know how good it can feel.
Ruby looked relieved, sitting down next to him and placing a hand on his cheek.
‘I love you, Nick. I’m sorry.’
‘Ditto, sugar.’ He took hold of her hand and kissed the palm before standing up, pulling her with him.
‘Let’s go.’
‘Go where?’
‘We’ve got a murderer to catch.’
A shadow crossed her face as everything Lina had told them came flooding back. ‘She said I could be the target. Maybe … I could be the bait?’
Nick nearly growled at her logical but utterly unusable suggestion. There was no way he was letting her put herself in danger. Looking at the stubborn set to her mouth however as she began to think about her own idea, he knew she wasn’t about to listen to him. Last time he had refused to let her help, she had gone off on her own and nearly gotten herself killed.
‘It might not come to that.’
It was time for another visit to Crimson Shade.
Chapter Four
Ruby was still flushed from their lovemaking as she walked into the club on Nick’s arm – although “lovemaking” was perhaps not the right term. Hot, hard fucking had been more like it, coupled with a hit of Nick’s blood that was more potent to her than any drug. When he leaned down and murmured in her ear, it took her a moment to realise what he meant.
‘Is he here?’
‘Who?’
One look at the tight smile on his face told her all she needed to know and she sighed inwardly.
‘I thought we were done with this?’
‘I’m just asking.’
Ruby looked around the room and indeed saw Adam. He was sitting in the corner with a purple-haired girl, watching Ruby over the edge of his glass. He smiled as he caught her eye, but Ruby’s eyes slid over him. Dismissing him.
‘No. I told you, he was nothing.’
Satisfied, Nick placed a hand on the small of her back and steered her towards Jake’s office. She felt Adam’s eyes on her all the way there. No doubt he was hurt she had snubbed him, but it was, she told herself, for his own good. Nick Carter was not the sort of man a gentle guy like Adam would want to cross.
As they reached the office, the door opened before they could knock on it, Jake emerging out of the door talking quickly into his phone. His face paled under its already chalky make-up as he saw Ruby and Nick.
‘They’re here now,’ he said into the phone, before passing it to Nick.
‘It’s Lina,’ Nick told her, listening intently. His face betrayed nothing, but Ruby knew the cold look that came into his eyes, as well as the protective stance when he handed the phone back and moved closer to her.
‘Another one already?’ Ruby felt sick, her euphoria forgotten.
‘Not quite. Can we come in?’ he motioned to the door, and Jake quickly ushered them inside.
‘What’s going on?’ Ruby demanded. Nick and Jake looked at each other.
‘Bane turned up here an hour ago,’ Jake began. ‘Said one of the trackers had caught the scent of the new vamp around here. I told him I hadn’t seen anyone new, and he went to see if he could pick the trail up.’
‘I sensed a vamp outside last night … that must be the scent.’
Nick shook his head.
‘It was fresh. Bane traced the vamp … to your apartment, Ruby. The vamp attacked him and ran. Lina’s with Bane now.’
Ruby gasped. ‘Is he OK?’ The werewolves were a hardy lot with an incredible tolerance to pain, which was why they were used as enforcers by the Alliance. That only applied when they were in wolf form, however, and a vamp with preternatural speed or invisibility might well catch a were off guard.
‘He was in wolf form, so he’s fine. A few bites, but by the sound of things, Bane took a pretty good chunk out of the vamp too. So he’ll be easy to track; the rest of the Pack is hunting him as we speak. Never mind Bane; the point is, Ruby, that Lina was right; whoever he is, he’s after you.’
Ruby turned away, her face blank. She didn’t want to show her fear or concern in front of Jake, who primarily knew her as the aloof ‘Contessa’, and understanding this Nick made no move to comfort her, though she knew he would be torn right now between wanting to protect her and wanting to rip the throat out of this vamp.
‘I want to go to my place. See what I can sense.’ She remembered the sense of familiarity that had crept across her skin when she had felt the vampire’s presence outside the club. If it was indeed someone she knew, then they should have left enough of an imprint from being in her home that she would recognise it.
Her home . The very thought made Ruby nauseous. Like any vampire, she was territorial, but more than that, her home was her own little sanctuary. Not that she had spent an awful lot of time there in the last six months since getting together with Nick. The one place she didn’t have to struggle with her identity as a woman or a vampire; the one place where she could just be Ruby. Now it – she – felt violated.
‘If he comes back?’
‘Then we take him down,’ she said grimly. Looking at her face, Nick nodded. He was itching to get his hands on this guy.
‘OK. We’ll go back to mine, get what we need, and go to your place. Although I doubt he’ll go back there. He’ll be lucky to last the next hour in one piece with the weres on his ass.’
Ruby shook her head. There was something niggling at her, but she couldn’t put her finger on exactly what that was. She just knew that right now she needed to go home.
They left Jake, went back to the car and back to Nick’s apartment in silence. As she followed Nick in to get his kit – flame-thrower, machete, and gun with wooden bullets – she felt a sudden fear of losing him. Walking over to him as he strapped his body armour on, she wound her arms around his neck and kissed him, surprised to realise there were tears on her cheeks. He pulled back, face creased in concern.
‘Ruby … are you OK?’
‘I
don’t want to lose you,’ her voice choked on a sob. She had no idea where this sudden welling up had come from. She had fed twice in 24 hours; she should be at her least emotional. Nick was obviously thinking the same; looking up at her with mounting worry.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he said firmly, kissing her back hard. Then he turned and grabbed a smaller protective vest, holding it out to her with a hopeful look on his face.
‘Ruby, please. We don’t know what we’re dealing with. This guy could be super-fast, super strong … you might not get the chance to lock on to him with your mental abilities.’
Ruby folded her arms. They had been through this before.
‘I’m a vampire, Nick. A natural predator. If I go against another vamp all trussed up in protective gear I’ll look weak, and then some newbie looking for territory will be encroaching on my patch. The answer, once again, is no.’
He didn’t argue, but she could see the muscle in his jaw twitching impatiently as they headed back out to the car. Just as she thought they had bridged the divide between them, she had to go and remind him once again that she wasn’t human.
As soon as they pulled up outside her apartment, she felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up and once again felt a surge of emotion that brought tears to her eyes. She let herself in, Nick close behind her, gun drawn.
Ruby stepped into her lounge, all her vamp senses on hyper alert. Like a tiger patrolling its borders and finding them crossed, she could sense another vampire had been here, and very recently. It made her fangs drop, lengthening into her mouth, more prominent than she needed for feeding. These were for attack.
She looked around, goose bumps along her skin. Again, there was that sense of sadness, an acute loss that gripped her gut. Only now, as she sniffed the air and caught the scent of someone once familiar yet now all but forgotten, did she understand it wasn’t her loss she was feeling, but that of someone once close to her.
It had to be a mistake. He was dead.
She turned to Nick just as her alarm signals flared and a blur of movement came into the room and threw Nick into the far wall. Ruby screamed with rage and jumped forward, her teeth bared, only to halt abruptly in her tracks as the new vampire fully materialised in front of her, blurred features settling into a face she knew immediately.
‘Patrick?’
Her once-beloved husband smiled at her, retracting his fangs. In spite of the ivory glow to his skin and over-bright eyes, he still looked as he had two centuries ago. Still looked at her as though he adored her.
‘But how …?’
‘He came back for you. You had gone, but I was still there.’
‘You were still alive?’ Ruby reached out a hand to touch his face and his smile widened, his eyes shining with love for her, just as she remembered. She had left him, she realised, left him on the floor bleeding, thinking he was gone.
‘Ruby.’ Nick’s voice came to her from where he sat in the corner, catching his breath and, no doubt, poised to attack. She snapped out of her reverie, remembering they were there to hunt a killer vamp. So why was Patrick here? She felt fuzzy, as though her mind was struggling to piece everything together but something was failing to compute. She looked at her long-lost husband in dawning horror.
‘I knew you would come to me,’ he said, and in a flash Ruby understood.
‘You killed those girls?’
‘I wanted to send you a message.’
She arched an eyebrow coolly even as her insides fizzed with terror. In the corner of her eye, she saw Nick’s hand move, going no doubt for his gun.
‘You couldn’t just pick up the phone? We have those now. Handy things.’
He chuckled, showing his fangs, and Ruby understood that this wasn’t her Patrick. Not any more. This was a killer. Even so she stood still, kept her fangs retracted, her heart hammering. This couldn’t be true.
‘Why not come before. Why now?’
Patrick looked contrite.
‘I didn’t know. He – our Sire – never told me he had turned you. It was only when I heard the news of his death and came to investigate that I understood just who the redheaded vampire of New York was. My Ruby. My love. He kept you from me,’ he added, his handsome features twisted in rage.
‘You were companions?’ she whispered, feeling sick as she understood the true horror of what had happened to Patrick. The vamp who had turned them – their Sire – had kept Patrick with him, as some vamp sires did with their fledglings, teaching them to hunt – and kill. From out of the tender loving care of the sick bastard Ruby and Nick had killed had emerged this new Patrick. A killer. Vampires who murdered often became little more than monsters.
Even so, Ruby couldn’t move to attack him, couldn’t engage her mental powers to hold him. This vampire had been her husband; the young man who had saved her, given her a home and a family. Her heart felt as if it was breaking in her chest.
‘Yes. But now I’m back. For you.’
Nick, now on his feet with his gun drawn, spoke then, jolting Ruby out of her shock.
‘Sorry, pal. She’s with me.’
Patrick looked at Nick and sneered.
‘You? A human servant? You are food.’
That was enough for Ruby. She unleashed her powers, gripping Patrick with an unseen hand around his throat that squeezed like a vice. His eyes bulged.
‘Are you mad? Ruby; I’m your husband. And he … he is a human.’ Patrick said ‘human’ the way some might say ‘cockroach’.
She spoke through gritted teeth, nodding to Nick.
‘Do it.’
Patrick’s eyes went even wider as he struggled against Ruby’s powers, but she held fast.
‘Ruby,’ he pleaded, ‘I love you. I’ve never forgotten you.’ Those words, so similar to the message he had left on the chest of that poor dead girl, were all she needed to overcome her hesitation.
‘Now!’ she shouted to Nick, throwing herself to one side as Nick shot Patrick straight through the heart. He looked down at the hole at his chest as if in wonder then back up at Ruby as he crumpled to the floor, reaching out a hand to her.
‘Please …’ then Nick hit him with the flamethrower. Ruby turned away, gagging at the smell of burning flesh and the sound of his screams, mercifully short. She sank to her knees, pushing Nick away when he came over to her and retching onto the floor. She heard voices, was aware of three werewolves bursting into her lounge, heard Nick demanding where they had been, how they had managed to lose Patrick. She heard sobbing; deep, throat wrenching sobs, and just before she passed out she realised they were coming from her.
Later she lay in Nick’s arms, in his bed, as he stroked her hair and back, nuzzling her neck. She felt safe and loved in his arms, as if the warmth and size of him could shield her from the memories of Patrick’s death.
‘I just can’t help thinking I should have known. Should have looked for him.’
‘How could you?’ Nick shushed her, ‘This isn’t your fault, Ruby. That monster we killed today – that wasn’t the Patrick you knew.’
Ruby leaned up one elbow, her hair falling over her shoulders.
‘Promise me something.’
‘Anything, sugar.’
Ruby swallowed as she gave voice to her greatest fear, to the dread that had followed her since the day she was turned.
‘If I ever become like that – a monster – that you will kill me.’ When Nick went to protest that it could never happen she put a finger to his lips. ‘Just promise,’ her eyes burned into his, ‘promise it will be you.’
Nick kissed her fingers.
‘I promise.’
She lay back down and Nick leaned over her, slowly lowering his lips to hers.
‘No one knows the future, Ruby,’ he whispered, running a hand over her hip, his touch bringing her senses back to life, ‘no one. But we’ve got right now.’
She wound her arms round his neck as he moved his body over hers, arching her back up into him.
; ‘Right now sounds pretty good,’ she murmured, and kissed him again. Right now was perfect.
Epilogue
Adam looked up at the beautiful red-haired vampire with adoration as she lifted a fingertip to his mouth, having nicked it with her own fang so a bead of her blood lay there. Adam sucked at it, closing his eyes at the exhilarating rush that went through his entire body. This was better than any drug, and it was rare too, for a vampire to share their own precious blood with a human donor. But this vampire was kind; she cared for him. Not like that cold bitch, the Contessa, who had fed from him a few times and then discarded him like a used rag; even ignoring him when he had last seen her at the club as if he didn’t even exist.
No, this one, for all her startling resemblance to the Contessa, was nothing like her. Adam swallowed down the last drop of the exquisite blood and looked up at her as if waiting for his next orders.
And the vampire smiled down at him, a new plan forming behind her beatific gaze. Adam could be a useful tool in her next move. Patrick had been a fool, still in love with that bitch Ruby even after all these years, a love that had made him slow, and too weak to fight her. A love that should have crystallised to hate. The same hate she now felt for the sister who had abandoned her.
She would see Ruby dead; but first she would see her suffer.
‘This Nick Carter,’ she asked the adoring human servant in front of her, ‘how well do you know him?’
Adam looked puzzled.
‘I don’t really. Why?’
The vampire allowed herself a cruel smile as she thought about her options. The best way to get her revenge on her bitch of a sister was undoubtedly through Nick, and the way she saw it that gave her two abilities she could draw on.
She could – and eventually would – kill him.
But first, she would make him hers.
The Paranormal Investigations Agency series
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