by Sophie Stern
“Does the boyfriend come around a lot?”
“Yes,” the woman said. “He stopped for a little while, but then about two weeks ago I caught him lurking around outside. Strange, if you ask me. I let him in a few times when he forgot his key.”
“That was nice of you,” I said.
“I try to be neighborly. If I didn’t know they were dating, I wouldn’t have let him in. It’s not a good idea to trust strangers, you know.”
“Yes, ma’am, I completely agree.”
“It was strange when I saw him yesterday, though. As far as I know, he came home and just stayed in the apartment.”
“Why was it strange?”
“He just had a lot of luggage,” she said with a shrug. “And an old steamer trunk he could barely carry on his own.”
Lex and I looked at each other.
It was time to go.
11.
Kimberly
WHEN I WOKE UP, EVERYTHING hurt. My entire body hurt. I didn’t understand why at first. Wasn’t I a vampire now? My body hadn’t hurt since I’d been changed into a creature of the night. Now, everything hurt, and I didn’t know why. I groaned, shifting my body. I was hungry. My stomach hurt. I needed blood – any blood – and I reached for Liam. We’d gotten into the habit of drinking from each other in the morning before getting a “real” breakfast.
Only, he wasn’t there.
Also, I couldn’t move my arms.
“What the fuck?”
“Ah, you’re awake,” a familiar voice said.
Hank.
I looked over and saw him, and that’s when everything came rushing back in one fast, horrible memory.
“You tied me to a bed,” I said, struggling. “Why did you tie me to a bed?”
“Because I’m going to auction you off to the highest bidder,” he said.
“You can’t do that.”
“Oh, you’re so wrong. I can do whatever I want.”
“Why would somebody want me?”
“You’re a vampire now, Kimberly. Not only are you a vampire, but you were one the most trusted and believed-in hunter,” he sneered as he spoke.
Had he disliked my job?
He’d never told me.
Then again, Hank had never told me much of anything. When we’d been a couple, I’d been busy, and he’d been distracted. We had both been wrapped up in our own little worlds, but suddenly, it was easy to see just how different he was from Liam.
Liam might have been the vampire, but Hank was the real beast. He was the monster who had stolen me away. He’d captured me in my own home, hunting me like a deer. He’d taken me and he was going to sell me.
Why?
“Just tell me what they’re going to do to me,” I whispered.
“They’re going to kill you,” he said simply. “The winner gets to stake you or cut out your heart: whichever they prefer.”
Staking would be more preferable, I imagined.
“My heart?”
“You’d be surprised at how potent a vampire’s heart truly is,” he said. “Everyone thinks that the heart of a vampire is dead, but the truth is that it’s delicious.”
A delicious vampire heart.
Wow.
Okay, so apparently there were a lot of things I’d missed in vampire training. Liam had given me the condensed version of the weird vampire drug obsession thing, but this was a lot to deal with.
And I wanted him.
I wanted Liam.
I wanted to believe that he was going to rush in and save me. I wanted him to figure out where I was, and to come and kill Hank because Hank sucked.
“You suck, Hank,” I said out loud.
“I feel the exact same way.”
“You cheated on me,” I said, irritated. I struggled, pulling at my restraints.
“They aren’t going to break,” he said. “I had a vampire design them myself.”
“You fucked a vampire?”
“I did.” He seemed proud of that. “I had her design a set of restraints we could use while the two of us were playing.”
“And then you killed her,” I said, finishing his story.
“Of course, I killed her,” he said. “You think I want to fuck a nasty vampire and keep them around to tell their friends? No. That story had to die when the night ended. She’s gone now.”
“Did you eat her heart?”
“I sold it,” he smiled. “It paid for the entire date and then a little extra. I have to cover my expenses, you know.”
“I’m sure,” I said.
Inside my head, though, I was continuing to panic. I hadn’t told anyone where I’d gone. I hadn’t explained to Liam that I just wanted time to clear my head. I hadn’t really been running away. I just wanted some time to myself so I could think about where our relationship was going and what it meant for us.
I wanted him to know that I still loved him, and that I had accepted my fate as a vampire. More than that, I’d accepted my place by his side. He was a good vampire, and as much as I had thought, for years, that he was evil and horrible, I knew that wasn’t true. He might have captured me, and he might have turned me, but he’d been very gentle with me, and very kind, and he’d treated me in ways that Hank never had.
“Time for you to get ready,” Hank said, drawing me back to the present.
“What are you talking about?”
He whistled, and suddenly, two women appeared. They came into the room, cut off my clothing with knives, and started giving me some weird sort of sponge bath.
“Why didn’t you just undress me while I was passed out?” I asked, irritated that he’d had my clothing cut off.
“Where’s the fun in that?” He asked. “The fun is in seeing you become uncomfortable. I like to see my women squirm, Kimberly. You remember that.”
I didn’t.
I didn’t remember a lot of things about Hank because apparently, I’d never really known the guy. In all of the time we’d been together, I never had a bad vibe about him. He hadn’t seemed sexy or wild. That was why I’d been so caught off-guard by the cheating. He’d just seemed...innocuous.
He’d seemed sweet and a little boring, and at the time, he had been exactly what I wanted: sweet and a little dull.
He’d been safe, I realized, and that had been a problem. I’d been so busy with my own stuff that I hadn’t even realized what was happening before my eyes. All of the nights he’d said he had to work late I had later attributed to cheating. Now I knew there was more to it than that. Now I knew he was doing things like catching vampires and carving out their hearts.
It was a messed-up thing.
And now I was going to die, and I wasn’t going to be able to say goodbye to Liam.
He’d woken up by now. Did he realize I was gone? Did he think I’d run away because I hated being with him? Somehow, that thought hurt more than anything else. I didn’t want him to think that I didn’t like him. I didn’t want Liam to live for the rest of eternity believing that the person he’d taken as a mate had somehow given up on him or their love.
He couldn’t think that.
Somehow, I closed my eyes as the buyers were brought in. I had imagined there being like a big sort of stage, but one of the girls working whispered to me how the process worked. The buyers would go from room to room, bidding on the vampire they wanted. That was easier for them, and then, once they’d won the auction, they could be left alone in the room so they could consume us on-site.
It was a messed-up sort of situation, and I hated it.
“Blindfold her,” Hank said.
“No,” I whispered.
“It’s for your own good,” he told me, and I didn’t think that was true.
“I’m not scared to look these assholes in the eye.”
“That might be true, but we’ve found that prices are higher when the buyers don’t have to see the sad, self-defeating look that goes into a vampire’s eyes before it’s destroyed,” he said. Then, again. “Blindfold he
r.”
The blindfold was soft and velvety. I didn’t care that I was naked. I didn’t care that there were going to be people looking at me. All I cared about was the fact that I hadn’t gotten a proper chance to say goodbye, and that sucked. It was a horrible feeling.
Liam was going to live the rest of his life thinking that I didn’t love him back.
“Please,” I whispered.
I would beg if it meant I got to see him. I would beg for anything and everything. I would trade anything I had if it just meant that I didn’t have to die today.
I didn’t want to die just yet.
“Pathetic,” Hank said. “No wonder I cheated on you. Gag her.”
The gag was placed in my mouth next. I didn’t bother fighting it. The girls working for Hank weren’t my enemies. They were probably victims like I was, and if I fought them, I knew that they were just going to get in trouble, so I stilled my body as the gag was placed.
Being a vampire had heightened my senses, but so had being blindfolded. The door to the room was at the foot of the bed. That was the door they would enter through, I knew. I heard it creak open, and there were footsteps: lots of them. The two girls who had helped Hank stood on either side of my bed, and I could hear their hearts racing as the room filled up with buyers.
I didn’t know whether they were men or women, but judging by their scents, I knew they were all wildly evil. For most of the buyers, this wouldn’t be their first time. I wished I could read their mind the way Liam could read minds. Not many vampires could do that, but he could, and I felt like a talent like that could come in useful at a time like this.
“As you can see,” Hank said. “This is a fresh vampire, and a bit of a well-known one, too.”
“Is that the huntress?” Someone asked.
“Yes, it must be,” another voice said.
“Gentlemen,” Hank said smoothly. “And gentlelady, my apologies,” he must have nodded to a woman in the midst. “We all know the incredible hunter Kimberly. She’s put down more vampires than any of us could imagine seeing in our lifetimes, yet one of them managed to capture her. Funny how life works sometimes, isn’t it? Let’s start the bidding, shall we?”
And so, it began.
The tears were falling before I knew was happening. I willed myself to stay strong and silent, but it was hard. All I wanted to do was be back in the Grove. When had that happened? When had I turned so soft? I wanted to go back to the Grove and back to the mansion and crawl into bed and never come out.
The bidding started, and I was bid on by several people. They were all men: deep, baritone voices. I wondered if they were going to hurt me before they killed me. It wasn’t like I could escape. Then, a different voice placed a bid. This one was softer and more gentle, but it was also fierce and passionate.
And it was a woman.
Not only was the bidder a woman, but it was a woman that I knew: one I’d spent time with.
I was gagged, which was the only thing that kept me from screaming out her name.
Helena.
Helena was here.
If she was here, that meant Liam must be close behind.
I heard the door to the room close all of a sudden, and it was locked.
“Excuse me,” Hank said with a nervous laugh. “But that door stays open during the bidding. If you don’t mind opening it, that would be quite nice. Once the winner has paid, they’ll be able to lock the door and be alone with their purchase.”
“No,” Liam said, loud and clear. “I don’t think that’s going to be happening.”
I would have given anything to see the fight that broke out. He had come for me. Liam had come. He’d saved me. He’d made his way to wherever the hell we were, and he had rescued me. I didn’t know how he’d done it, but somehow, he’d managed to find not only me, but Hank. He’d managed to save me in time.
The room was filled with screams. There were other vampires besides Liam and Helena, I realized. I thought I heard Lex shouting. Was that Raven screaming? Someone else called, barking orders. I thought maybe it was Michael, but I wasn’t totally sure.
It was only a matter of minutes before the screams of the humans stopped. They had panicked, at first, but even a dozen humans were no match for a group of vampires hell-bent on revenge. I was silent, totally still.
“Are you hurt?” Liam asked me. He was close to me, but I couldn’t touch him or see him or speak to him. I shook my head. I wasn’t hurt. Not physically, anyway. I was still hurt and scared because of what had happened, but physically, they hadn’t done anything to me.
“Remove the gag,” I heard Lex give an order to someone, and then the gag was being removed.
“I’m okay,” I whispered. My throat hurt. Had I been screaming? Apparently, I’d been screaming. I hadn’t even noticed it.
Liam’s lips were on me then, kissing me, promising me silently that everything was going to be okay. I was still tied up, but I kissed him back eagerly, hurriedly. I needed as much of him as I could get. I wasn’t about to waste the moment.
Soon, someone untied me, and the blindfold came off, and I opened my eyes.
Liam was in front of me, and his face was covered in blood.
“You might want to close your eyes,” he murmured.
“I’m not scared.”
I looked around the room. Lex, Michael, Raven, and Helena were all there. There were some other vampires I didn’t recognize. The two girls who had blindfolded me were alive, as well, but everyone else was dead. They were all in piles on the floor: bloody, mangled. One vampire was crouching over a body and drinking, but nobody else seemed interested in touching the corpses.
Hank was by the door.
“You didn’t save him for last,” I commented, jerking my head toward my ex-boyfriend.
“Nope,” Liam said. “I got that fucker first. How dare he touch you?” He whispered. “You’re mine.”
“How did you find me?” I whispered.
“We went to your apartment,” he explained. “We met with your neighbor.”
“Betty? Did you read her mind?”
“Didn’t have to,” he said. “She told us everything we needed to know.”
“And this place? How did you find this?”
“So many questions for someone who just got rescued,” Liam whispered, cupping my face. I could feel the blood on his hand from his recent kills, but I didn’t care. I kissed him again, eagerly pressing my mouth to his.
“Lex had some intel,” Helena said. “He’s been watching this group.”
“We were planning to come tonight anyway,” Lex shrugged. “It was nice that you were here, though. Made our job easier.”
“Besides,” Liam said. “When we got to the building, I honed in on Hank and his thoughts, and that made finding the exact room they were keeping you in very easy.”
“So, Helena slipped in first,” I whispered.
“And gave us the signal,” Liam added. “As to when we could come in and kill everyone.”
“You saved me,” I said. “Thank you.”
“So polite,” Helena commented. “You’re doing a good job with her.”
I noticed the sound of sniffling just then, and I looked over. Raven was standing beside Helena, and there were tears pouring down her cheeks.
“I was so scared,” she said. She rushed over to me, then, somehow managing to squeeze between me and Liam, and she hugged me, holding me closely. “I thought I’d lost you.”
“You can’t get rid of me that easily,” I chuckled, pulling her close. I pressed my lips to her head and held her for a long time. Finally, she pulled away and went back to Helena, and I looked around the room again. “So, what happens now?” I asked.
“We’re taking you home,” Liam said.
“What about clean-up?”
“No clean-up,” he said. “Lex will notify the cops once we’re safely away that there’s a terrorist group here hunting and selling people and body parts.”
“They
won’t care that it’s only vampires that are being harvested?”
“We’re leaving the vampire part out of it,” Liam said. “Michael’s going to set it all up and make it look legit.”
“It’s amazing what you can do with a bit of time,” Michael said. “We’ll make it obvious that Hank was the one behind the sales, but we’ve got a couple of bodies we’ll place here and there to make it look like they were selling human girls. That will make the police care.”
“What about that one?” I gestured to the body in the corner that had been chewed up by a random vampire.
“Greg, take your food to go,” Michael sighed, shaking his head. “Sorry,” he said to Liam. “He’s new.”
Liam ignored them and turned back to me. He pulled me into my arms, lifted me up, and kissed me again.
“Come on, little vampire,” he said. “It’s time to get you home.”
12.
Liam
BRINGING KIMBERLY HOME to the mansion felt right, and I had a deep sense of satisfaction as I carried her up to our bedroom. We went into the bathroom, climbed into the shower together, and sat down. We let the water wash over us. It swept away the sweat and the tears and the blood from the day. I held her in my arms there for a long time. Finally, when we both felt clean, we left the bathroom and went back into the bedroom.
When we climbed into bed together, I reached for her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, tensing. “I shouldn’t have run away.”
I looked at her, confused.
“Running away?” I said. “I thought you were getting some space.”
“I was,” she said. “But I was worried you’d think I was leaving you.”
“Kim, you’re allowed to have space. We all need time to ourselves once in awhile.”
“It just helps me clear my head,” she told me. “Getting out, stretching my legs, and just being away from everything and everyone is how I manage my emotions.”
“I was worried about you,” I told her. “But only because you didn’t come back.”
She nodded, and snuggled up close to me.