by Anna Abner
“Vampires can’t have children,” Connor said, sneaking up on her. “Or catch STDs. And we live unnaturally long lives,” he made a derisive snort, “which can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the life. No one knows how old Olek is. He could be forty or four hundred.”
She glanced up, her gaze caught by the basket of fresh strawberries in his hands.
“I found these,” he said, gesturing to the bright red fruit. He cast her a quick look from under his lashes, and her belly quivered in heightened awareness of him.
“Thank you,” she said, accepting his gift with pleasure. Strawberries were her favorite.
He shoved his hands into his pockets and ducked his head. He sure didn’t look like a monster. No, he looked disarmingly young and hella sexy in the warm, golden light. A yummy tingling returned, the one low in her abdomen.
Damn him. Was he trying to win her over?
It was working.
“That was awfully sweet of you,” she said.
He grunted something, clasped her free hand, and led her further into the store.
Shaking the sight of pie-flavored condoms from her thoughts, she said, “Oleksander does seem like a man from another time, doesn’t he?” The little she’d gleaned about the Destroyer over the years had always given her the impression he’d stepped out of a time machine from the Middle Ages.
Connor’s final destination was the first aid aisle in the rear of the store. Oh, right. Materials for the inevitable blood bath.
Ali knelt to examine different styles of ice packs when suddenly Connor was standing too close, looming over her like a tower of masculine energy.
“I don’t want to scare you,” he breathed, “but can I look at your head wound?”
Still crouching, she became intensely conscious of his every detail from the worn fabric of his blue jeans to the scuffed leather boots not six inches from her feet.
“Uh.” Her instinct was to stand and put distance between them, but Connor didn’t wait for permission before his hands were on her scalp. Strong, but gentle fingers combed through her hair and activated every nerve along her skull. She didn’t even feel pain when his fingers danced around the cut she’d gotten the day before in his truck.
“It’s healing,” he assured with a grunt, withdrawing his hands and fading out of her eye line.
Ali stood abruptly. “Oh. Good.”
They filled a basket with gauze strips, anti-bacterial creams, and tape. Basically, enough medical supplies to care for an army of vampire hunters.
On the way out, and simply for the pleasure of it, she tossed in some chocolate bars.
As they waited in line at the register, Ali started thinking about Connor’s cash and their New Zealand investors. “How did you meet Natasha and Anton?” she asked.
“Roz got to be really good friends with them online,” Connor said. “They have money to spare, and they want to keep us out here. We never asked for help.” He shrugged. “They just send us stuff.”
“They pay for the suite? And your truck?” Ali guessed. The Ford was a one-of-a-kind, hand built arsenal on wheels.
“They modified it for fast getaways and shipped it out to us.”
“Natasha seems obsessed.” And perhaps naïve.
“A little.”
“Do you think they have ulterior motives?” Ali mused. “Why would they care so much about the horde? Why would they sponsor both a German doctor in a strip mall and two college kids on a killing spree? There must be a reason.”
“You said it yourself,” Connor answered. “They’re obsessed. As far as I can tell, they’re big fans of the supernatural and probably fantasize a bit. Unlike most fans, though, they actually have the money to get involved. So far, they’re helpful, but harmless.”
He paid for the supplies with a swipe of his Visa. They bagged everything and hauled it into the lobby. “Besides, we couldn’t do what we do without their funding,” he said, leading her west toward the bank of elevators.
Glass shattered somewhere further down the promenade, behind smooth columns and draperies of lush French fabrics, and Connor didn’t even flinch. “You’re feeling more at ease,” Ali observed.
“It’s safer in the city than it is on the road.”
“Really?” That didn’t seem right.
The lift doors opened, Connor waved her in first, and then pressed the button for the fiftieth floor.
“Too many people here,” he explained, “too many cameras, too many variables. A vampire is like any other predator. A family in a trailer park is easier to control than a crowd on the Strip.”
Connor held open the door to their hotel room, and she swept past him. “Yeah, I see what you mean.” The suite had an empty feel to it, and after a quick check, she confirmed Roz was off running her own errands.
The door clicked shut, and the walls closed in. She was alone with him. Good and truly alone. She remembered, vividly, curling up beside him last night. Feeling his warmth and his strength. And liking it.
Ali glanced up, catching him staring. He didn’t smile, didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. It was written all over his face. He was remembering last night too. She nibbled at her lower lip nervously, waiting, wondering what he might do next. He’d tried to kiss her once. Would he try again?
Oh, please do.
The door swung open and banged against the wall. “Hello, kiddies,” Roz called out, her arms full of paper sacks. “Hope I’m not interrupting. Again.”
Ali began to suspect the witch was doing it on purpose.
#
Connor had been to the supernatural collections room at the UNLV library before. Roz had dragged him there not long after they’d arrived in the area, but thankfully hadn’t asked him to come back. Until today.
Someone on the library staff must love vampire stories because they’d transformed their local history section into the most extensive collection of firsthand accounts of vampire interactions in the world. It held more artifacts than the Ukraine, the region vampirism had originated in.
The on-duty librarian left them alone in the dusty research room, and Connor sank into a leather chair in the corner. Exhaustion dogged him. Perhaps it stemmed from only sleeping half the night beside Ali’s hot, sweet little body.
Roz got to work right away, digging into drawers stuffed with everything from loose papers to hand-written journals, but Connor couldn’t get excited about any of it. He’d finished the last jar of blood before leaving the hotel, and it mellowed him right down to his toes. All those hours yesterday of jumping out of his skin, and it had everything to do with hunger. It all came back to the blood. It roared through his veins, coursing under his skin. His hands stilled. His headache faded.
He needed it. At least a little every day. Maybe, eventually, after gaining more control, he could go longer without it. Right then, he wasn’t so lucky. Whether he wanted to be a vampire, or not, he was one.
“What are we looking for, exactly?” Ali glanced from the boxes on the long table to the single computer against the wall. She was absolutely stunning in her new clothes—a pair of khaki shorts and a sleeveless red blouse. He could barely take his eyes off her, she was so beautiful.
“So.” Roz’s voice punctuated the silence, tearing his attention from Ali. “I wish I had the time and resources to scan and cross-reference everything. I could search it all by name, city, or date. It would be so awesome.”
Roz’s face flushed as she wiggled the mouse on the desktop computer in the corner. She’d always gotten a rush from research, which worked out well. Connor couldn’t care less what color clothing attracted vampires or what time of day they were more likely to attack a home. He just wanted to know how to stop them.
“I’ll hop online first,” Roz said, situating herself behind a desk. “You guys try to sort the boxes. We’ll look for anything in the year you were born, Ali, and the ones before and after it, just to be thorough.”
“Great.” Ali dropped into a chair, ru
ffling the air around her and sending him a fresh whiff of peachy goodness.
Connor had never been a great student. He had a B- average at college, and he’d been on the slow track to graduating with a four-year degree in engineering, of all things. It had sounded cool at the time. He couldn’t imagine living that kind of life anymore—desk job, tiny apartment, and softball on Saturdays. But he’d figured out along the way that knowledge really was power. So, while he burned off a bit of his endless supply of energy, he read voraciously.
He picked up an essay covering the early history of vampires, infecteds even older than Oleksander, like Juro Grando from Croatia, Petar Blagojevich from Serbia, and the infamous Romanian Countess Elizabeth Bathory. But their experiences didn’t relate to Connor’s current situation, so he set the pages aside.
Twenty-five-year-old witness accounts from the Ukraine went into detail about weapons, strengths, weaknesses, and tactics with the hope that their army could use the information to attack. Which was interesting in a military history sort of vein, but he wanted to know about Volk, the only other second generation in the world, the only other living vampire infected by Oleksander, so Connor flipped through an unpublished manuscript titled Maksim Volk: The Beautiful Devil.
According to his bio, Maks was born in the Ukraine. His dad was a politician and his mother was descended from old Russian royalty. He’d grown up wealthy and well liked. He’d received an excellent education, which was to lead to an important position in the government. His life was sidetracked when, at seventeen, he’d been infected by the Destroyer himself and whisked away. After that, he existed only in the Boss Man’s shadow.
But none of that answered Connor’s questions. How did his mind work? Did he need blood every day? Were his emotions still unpredictable after all this time? Did he like hurting people?
Ali drummed her fingers on the table. “What are you reading now?”
“Ukrainian birth records.” Roz’s right leg bounced under the desk.
“How do you access those?”
“It’s easy if you know where to look.”
“What she means,” Connor said, “is magic works on passwords and firewalls, too.”
Magic worked on lots of things, him included, so long as Roz remained in a calm and centered state of mind. Which wasn’t often. Her protection spells worked most of the time because she had lots of practice with them. She’d speak her spells in repetition. He’d feel a buzzing in his ears, a slight tickle on the inside of his skull, and he’d have good luck that day. Otherwise, her bigger spells were hit and miss.
Roz leaned over the keyboard, pointing at the screen. “I found your parents, and I found you, Alina Rusenko, no middle name, but no Anya was born in Nadvirna that year. Not officially, anyway.”
Ali scanned and then set down an outdated list of known infecteds. “So, what now?”
Rounding the table, Roz said, “I’ll go through the eyewitness stuff for a while. How far have you gotten?”
“I sorted them,” she waved her hand over the piles of paper. “Kind of.”
Grumbling, Roz swept all the pages into one pile and sat down on the other side of the table with them. “I’ll take over.”
Ali slouched in her chair, tilting her head on the backrest. “I don’t even know what we’re looking for.”
“Me either,” Connor admitted. “But the Destroyer called you by name. And so did the Oracle.”
She flinched as if he’d pinched her.
“What?” Roz spun from the computer, her eyebrows practically touching her hairline. “Say that again.”
Wasn’t this common knowledge? He’d told them, hadn’t he? Connor thumped himself on the side of the head. The hours between the fight in the street and waking up a vampire were all a jumble of emotion and pain. It was hard to remember what he’d said and what he’d kept inside. Both girls waited, staring daggers at him.
Connor coughed quietly into his hand, stalling. “Before he gutted me, the Destroyer said, ‘Are you the one keeping Anya from me?’” He caught the quiver in Ali’s bottom lip. Crap. “The Oracle.” How to explain Caitlyn’s drama? “She knew you, called you Anya, and then told me to stay away from you.”
Alina sat very still, her expression closed. He wished he knew what she was thinking. Because he might be able to reassure her. Just because stuff seemed messed up, there was always another move to make. So what if Olek knew her? Lots of people had read the Anya from Nadvirna prophecy. And who cared what the Oracle thought? She was a silly little girl with poor fashion sense.
Finally, Ali shifted in her seat, her gaze finding his. Her lower lip quivered, and he braced himself.
“Will you?” she asked.
Easy one. Connor nearly laughed aloud. Stay away from Ali? “I haven’t been able to yet.”
She covered her face with both hands, but she didn’t cry. “I wish I’d never come to this godforsaken country.”
“It’s not America’s fault you’re a danger magnet,” Roz said, but her heart wasn’t in the insult. She looked just as shocked as Ali.
Alina asked him, “Does he want to kill me?”
“We don’t know yet.” He gestured to the mess of papers spread across the table, though she still had her face hidden. “So far, he seems to want to take you alive.”
“How can you tell?”
“You’re not dead.”
Unamused, she groaned, and he gave up trying to make her smile. “What will he do to me if he captures me?”
Connor was wondering the same thing. Because Olek didn’t keep political prisoners, never had, and he didn’t exactly follow the Geneva Convention guidelines when he encountered civilians. If he got a hold of Ali, he’d hurt her. For a moment, Connor’s vision blurred as raw fury swept through him. Never gonna happen. He’d die first.
“I’m not sure.”
“Come on!” She smacked her hands on the chair’s armrests. “You have to know something.”
“It has to do with the prophecy,” he said. She rolled her eyes at him, but he continued. “He called you Anya not Alina. He might see you as a bargaining chip of some kind.”
“Or?”
“Or,” Connor said, wishing he could spin this some other way. “He might think that if he kills you then the prophecy about his final battle is nullified.”
“But you said whatever Ilvane writes happens. If I’m Anya, then I stand with him. Not against him, with him.” She leaned forward, every ounce of her willing him to say anything but the truth. He wished he could lie to her.
“Look. He came after you himself. We’ve been hunting him for three months with zero success. Until you showed up. You’re important to him. But it’s not going to get as far as who stands where. I’m going to kill him before he even lays eyes on you.”
“I found something,” Roz exclaimed, holding up a homemade diary bound with string and glue. Connor dragged his attention off Ali. “This lady kept a record of all the weird stuff that went on in her village. Nadvirna.”
Chapter Sixteen
Connor leaned forward in his leather chair, gripping the armrests so tight they creaked. “Nadvirna?” he repeated, glaring at Roz. “Are you sure?”
She leaned a hip on a shelf stuffed with local atlases. “I’m sure.”
“Yeah. And?” Ali said.
“There’s a bunch of stuff. She wrote in ‘94 that shapeshifters were stealing from her garden at night.” Roz flipped several pages. “And in ‘97 a two-headed pup was born. After that, no women got pregnant. One of the men killed the dog. Seven boys were born the following year.”
“I’m not in the mood for fables,” Ali grouched, wilting in her seat.
Connor rounded the long library table and placed his hands on Ali’s narrow shoulders. She flinched, but he smiled down at her in a reassuring way. Blinking rapidly, she relented, and he pressed the pads of his thumbs into her spine. He could feel every fragile rib, every crushable vertebra.
Clasped at her waist, her fi
ngers looked too small for fighting, her arms too thin to protect herself. He had to be more careful with her. One round to his brain, and he’d be light’s out long enough for anyone to swoop in and take her away.
Roz scowled in their direction, but got over it, and kept reading from the handmade journal. “The lady wrote that a dark-eyed demon stole Katya and her newborn child from their village. She left a grieving husband behind.”
“You’re not serious,” Ali said, but the venom had leeched from her voice in the same way the muscles under his hands released their tension.
Roz snapped pictures of the diary’s pages with her cell phone. “What was your mother’s name?”
“Katherine Kirstak Rusenko. And she was too busy dying during childbirth in Odessa to run away with a vampire.”
Connor paused in his massage and bent forward, gazing at her upside down. “As long as both Ilvane and Oleksander think you’re Anya, you won’t be safe. Is there anyone, anywhere, who knows about your family?”
Ali shook her head sadly. “There’s no one left. My parents are both gone. I don’t know any other relatives. My father was in charge of names and addresses.”
Roz released a torturous sigh of resignation. “Fine. We’ll keep looking.”
While Roz alternately clicked through sites and examined diary pages, Ali dozed in her chair, and Connor paced along a wall of bound, local biographies. He wasn’t hungry, but he was restless. He may never sit still again. Another side effect. He crossed the room, back and forth, back and forth, pausing only to grab a new sheaf of papers about Oleksander from the desk.
The vampire lord had more than one hole in his past. The public became aware of him when he and his three brothers infected their holy warriors twenty-five years earlier. Stories of their vicious attacks on innocent victims spread across the Ukraine, catching the interest of the international press. The nickname Four Sons went viral, and the infection became a global sensation. The fame must have gone to Olek’s head because he’d published a rambling, only somewhat coherent manifesto declaring him the Destroyer of Mankind.
The Four Sons attacked Prague with fifty minions, including Maksim Volk, but they were beaten back and shipped to the secret military installation where Connor had found them.