Burning Days (The Firsts Book 17)

by C. L. Quinn

  “They think you can’t be trusted with a glass bottle or something you can use for a weapon. This will be interesting for as long as it lasts.”

  An hour later, Ben groaned when Jack came down the stairs with three large bags hanging from his arms, the smell of hot food filling the small space.

  “Oh, thank you, thank you, bro! If you hadn’t shown up soon, I was going to have to break out of here.”

  Jack shook his head. “Don’t Ben. Uh, our father has four sharp-shooters positioned on the door.”

  “What? Fuck, Jack, I haven’t made one move that could be considered threatening. Dad’s willing to kill me?”

  “Ben, remember, a bullet isn’t going to kill you. Not for long, anyway. We’re muddling through this, just like you are. We don’t know what to expect. So far, you seem fine, normal, like yourself. We don’t know whether to trust that or be fucking grateful that you’re okay. We are all going to have to give it time to see how this conversation affects you.”

  “Okay, I get it. It feels weird, though, because only a week ago, we were brothers.”

  “Ben, we’re still brothers, nothing can change that. Blood will always be blood. But you are not the same man you were last week, and you know it.”

  Sighing, Ben reached for one of the bags. “Yeah, I do. But I feel incredible. I don’t feel anything bad, or like I want to hurt someone.”

  “Good, keep that up.”

  “Jack, you have to know that if it comes to that, if it becomes necessary, I’ll go gently into that good night. I’ll make it easy. I promise. The last thing I’ll accept is becoming a monster.”

  “That’s all I want to hear. So Dad said you wanted a motherfucking load of food, eh?”

  Ben chuckled. “Dad said motherfucking?”

  “Well, no, but that’s what I said when I ordered enough for ten guys.”

  “You’d be surprised, bro, but I actually think I can eat all of this.”

  “You’ll share. Here. I got more beer. Now, what vid do you want to watch?”

  Shocked that the night had gone so well, Jack watched as Ben yawned.

  “It’s nearly dawn. I’m losing consciousness. Vampires apparently are geared to sleep during the day. Fuck, Jack, I just called myself a vampire. I still can’t believe this. I still don’t understand what I am.”

  “We’ll figure it out.”

  “We kill vampires, bro. We freaking kill them on sight.”

  “I don’t have any answers either. Just get some sleep. I’m going to get out of here and go home for a while. I’ll be back tonight when you wake up. Need anything?”

  Blood, please. But Ben just shook his head. “I’m good.”

  Ben had said he didn’t understand what he was.

  “Join the fucking crowd,” Jack hissed into the steaming water, the first good relaxing shower he’d had since Ben was taken. Although relaxing was the last thing he could do.

  Even though he was dead on his feet, yawns breaking every few minutes, Jack didn’t think he’d sleep. What he wanted, what he really wanted, needed, right now, was to go to Ife, slide inside her, and just stay there.

  Although they weren’t seeing each other anymore. He remembered clearly telling her that he didn’t want to see her. To protect her.

  But that wasn’t an issue anymore. The vampire had exacted his revenge, he’d probably taken his brother from him, so why couldn’t Jack be with Ife?

  Still damp, the French doors open, cool air flowing into the room, the waves roaring against the shoreline, Jack dropped onto his bed, yawned, rolled over, tapping his filling cock down with his fingers, and fell into deeply-needed sleep.

  Fresh air curled around Jack, still asleep, lost in exhaustion that wasn’t ready to let go its grip. The sun dropped and still, he slept.

  Somewhere in the night he felt warmth on his face, and started to crawl up from blessed unconsciousness to feel caressing fingers slide across his chest, down, lower, along his belly, and lower yet, around the tip of his cock. He didn’t want to open his eyes in case this was a dream.

  When he did finally ease his eyes open, he knew he was dreaming, because Ife lay beside him on his own bed…and she couldn’t possibly be there.

  “I have the best dreams,” he whispered to the vision who held his cock in her hand, and when she smiled and leaned over to nip him, let her tongue move over the tip, he threw his head back into his pillow, eyes closed, groaning.

  “God, I need you, Ife. More than at any moment of my life, I need my perfect beach woman.”

  “I’m here, Jack, for as long as you need me. Any time you need me.”

  “Until I wake, then, dream lover.”

  He opened his eyes again when he felt the bed give. Wakefulness came to him as he lifted up, rubbing his eyes.

  Ife stood beside the bed, sliding off a flowered dress.

  “Ife?”

  She looked up at him when he said her name. “Ah, you’re finally awake. You were sleeping so well when I arrived, I hated to wake you, but you looked so delicious lying there naked, I had to taste you. Sorry. Good evening, Jack.”

  Confused, he pushed off the opposite side of the bed, his eyes focused on what he now realized was real, not a dream, Ife was here, in his home, in his bedroom. Why? How?

  Supporting the heavy cock in his hand, Jack stared at Ife, his eyes moving over her from the wild, breeze-tossed hair he loved, to that luscious body made to make love to, to where the cock in his hand was begging to be.

  But…

  “How did you get here? I mean, how did you find this house? There are no records to connect it to me.”

  “I have my ways,” she commented playfully, but he’d had enough of things that didn’t make sense.

  “Uh, don’t think I’m not thrilled to see you, but I don’t know how you’re here. I don’t like mysteries, Ife.”

  Suspicious, partly because of what had happened to Ben, but mostly because of San’s supposition, Jack kept the large bed between them.

  “Quesh,” Ife said suddenly. “I stopped at the diner and he told me where to find you. He’s worried about you too, Jack. I didn’t get to ask him why, there were so many people there tonight, and I wanted to see you, so I came straight here. You never responded to my texts or calls.”

  “I told you.” Jack finally moved around the bed to intercept her, eager to touch her, now that it made sense how she’d found him. He surged forward onto his bed, pulling her with him, the skin to skin contact erotic and desperately needed.

  Quesh should never have told her anything, but right now, all he cared about was that Ife was on his bed and he had the mother of all erections.

  “I need to fuck you.”

  “Oh, you will. Jack, you said you told me. Told me what?”

  Ife shoved him onto his back, tugging on his penis, her fingernails scraping the skin, and Jack tried to remember what she’d just said. Oh, yeah.

  “I told you I couldn’t come to you. That you were at risk. That we were over.”

  “We’re not over, Jack, unless you really don’t want to see me again. Do you want me to go away?”

  He looked up into Ife’s crystal clear blue eyes, and saw eternity in the depths. He saw his eternity, where he wanted to spend his life.

  “No. I never want to wake up without you smiling at me, without that hair wrapped around me. Never. But that’s not my life, it never will be. So, yes, I want to be with you, and even if it can’t be forever, yes, I want to make love to you right now.”

  “Make love to me. That’s better, Jack. I’m going to taste you, I might bite you, and then I’m going to feel you come inside me. In that order. You okay with that plan?”

  While she waited for his answer, Ife was already nipping along his thigh.

  “I’m okay with that plan. I love a woman who plans.”

  “Shhh. I’m busy.”

  He tasted like heaven on her tongue. The nipping wasn’t enough, Ife wanted to bite, to feed, to really taste him.
She couldn’t do this without Jack’s blood on her tongue, so she lifted her head and saw he lay back, eyes closed, and knew she had only two choices.

  One was to stop. The other was to use compulsion after she fed to wipe the memory. After all, she was going to have to use compulsion at some point tonight in order to discover what had happened that sent him off the deep end. So why couldn’t she feed? She would satisfy them both.

  It was poor justification, but she felt driven, almost insatiably, to taste Jack’s blood again. Never in her century of life had there been anyone she craved to the point of uncontrollable desire. Was there meaning in this? Did fate have a hand?

  Her libido shot beyond her ability to refuse herself, so she made her decision. If it meant that he was a possible mate, then so be it.

  Destiny, write your story, she thought.

  Ife licked along Jack’s thighs, one, then the other, then journeyed to his cock, tasting, nipping, and fed him into her mouth to use vampire skills to bring him to orgasm. Just as he started to come, she lowered herself to his side and bit into the femoral artery to draw blood, her fingers pumping his cock as he shot forth, the blood draw pushing his orgasm to a level Jack had never known. She could feel the extreme ecstatic groan well from deep within him as she sucked, pulled blood that she now knew belonged with her, and felt her own sex respond to Jack’s orgasm. Her groan matched his as she mirrored Jack’s orgasmic release, her own body twisting as if he was at her core too.

  Ife continued to suck blood until she realized she’d taken too much, forced herself to stop, repaired the tears from her fangs, and rolled onto her back, her hand still on Jack’s thigh.

  He was addictive and that wasn’t something she was accustomed to. Turning onto her side, she noticed the look of euphoria on his face, but in his weakened state because of her higher than wise blood draw, he almost seemed inebriated.

  Moaning, he opened his eyes and slid a hand into the white hair that covered his chest.

  “You can’t possibly understand how much I needed that...needed you. Ife, I’m glad you’re here. Thank you for coming.”

  Her smile was gentle. “Thank you for coming too.”

  Jack laughed, rolling into her. “I couldn’t have stopped that thunderstorm. I don’t know what you do to me, and I don’t need to, I just want you to never stop.”

  Ife couldn’t believe how she answered him. “That’s good, because I never want to stop.”

  The admission shocked her all the more because she realized after she said it how true it was.

  “You’ve crawled into my soul, Jack Remington.”

  “That’s me. Like a snake.” He was silent then, his sparkling eyes in the low light moving over Ife’s face, studying her, before he leaned closer and kissed her.

  “If I crawled into your soul, I think you blasted into mine. What are we going to do with this?”

  She hadn’t purged the memory of the blood draw, but the hyper-sexual stimulation hadn’t worn off enough yet for him to question it. Once it did, he would begin to remember that strange act and, being a vampire hunter, he would put it together in seconds.

  “Jack, look at me, handsome.”

  Lazily, still tired, he lifted his eyes and she had him.

  “You will remember every second of our sexual pleasure, but forget that I drew blood from your thigh.”

  His only reaction was to pull her closer and tug a sheet up over them. “Let’s never leave.”

  Ife slid an arm around his waist, burrowing in. “Sounds good to me.”

  At the gates in front of Hunter HQ

  “You understand that there isn’t any choice.”

  Elias stared at his old friend. Barnaby had flown in from Seattle after Elias called him to tell him what had happened to Ben. He couldn’t respond. Shoving himself from his car, he walked away, his mind reeling, pain in his chest like he’d never felt.

  Barnaby followed his lifelong friend. “Elias, there isn’t any wiggle room. You have to do this for Ben as well as for the good of the community. He’s dangerous.”

  “He doesn’t seem to be. Bar, he seems to be fine. Goddammit, he’s just Ben. He’s my boy, straight up, normal except for the physical changes.”

  “They’re clever, we already know that. The perfect alpha hunter. They look like us, they can pretend they think like us, but in the end, they have to feed. They have to kill. Fuck, buddy, you know this. I am not telling you anything you don’t already know!”

  His handgun at his side, Elias fingered the smooth metal, trying to figure out some way to change all of this. To have protected his son before that creature made him one of the undead. His sigh was long. “I can’t do it, Bar.”

  “Of course you can’t. No one would ask you to. It’s just one bullet, my friend, painless, and then Ben is at rest. He wouldn’t want this, either. I’ll take care of this for you.”

  Elias couldn’t answer. At this moment, he wasn’t capable of giving the order that would end Ben’s life; would send him to the oven. When he’d first arrived at HQ tonight, Ben had smiled at him and asked if he could have three dozen scrambled eggs and about two pounds of bacon. He seemed okay!

  “I’m telling you, he seems normal.”

  “I bet he does. Take the night. Spend some time with him, be careful. But come morning, when he’s sleeping, call me and my boys. You two leave, and we’ll take care of everything. El, you’d do it for me.”

  Yes, Elias would. Twenty years ago, he had done so for another hunter who had been changed. This wasn’t different, it was just heartbreakingly personal.

  Barnaby’s hand landed on Elias’s shoulder. “It has to be done.”

  Nodding, his finger still sliding along the butt of his gun, Elias knew it did.

  Jack was going to be the problem.

  Ife led Jack to the sand that lined the back of his house. She was pleased with the Tiki torches and used her magic to light them as they passed each. It didn’t matter that Jack noticed, she’d already used compulsion to soften his reaction to her nature. He’d noticed the blood on his thigh when they rose from bed, so she’d stopped him, caught his eyes, and did what she had to do.

  “Jack,” she’d said, “You will notice things that confuse you tonight, just relax and let nothing concern you. When I ask you questions, you will answer as completely and as honestly as you can.”

  At the end of the night, she would have to purge his memory anyway.

  This was going to be a question and answer session. It made her sick to do this, but she and Cairine needed details, and Jack was the only source.

  She saw his eyes widen as the torches seemingly lit spontaneously, aware he likely didn’t even connect the event to her.

  At the beach, she lit several torches he’d previously placed around a circle of benches.

  “This is nice, Jack. Please, have a seat, we’ve much to discuss.”

  The compulsion had kept him from speaking, although at no point had she told him not to. Once he was down, he faced her.

  “Jack, you know I care about you, so this is necessary. A few nights ago, you revealed to me that you and your brother were vampire hunters. I need to know more about what you do and how you find and choose your targets. I need to understand how widespread your hunting groups are and what we face. Please give me a thorough rundown. How long have you been hunting? Why do you hunt? Who is involved? Where we can find your associates. Any details.”

  Jack did as asked. He explained his long family history.

  “My great-great grandparents were hunters. It’s like that with several of the hunters that I’ve met over the years. About a hundred years ago, it became apparent that vampires exist. Creatures with animal-like fangs that can and do drink human blood. They kill their victims, often have sex with them, usually brutally, before they rip their throats out. Someone had to step up, protect people, and when it became apparent that the authorities couldn’t or wouldn’t do it, hunters were born. My brother and I were raised in the bus
iness, and we never expected to do anything else with our family legacy. Hunting teams exist in about twenty of the states, but we travel where we are needed. Vampires can be difficult to flush out, they have crazy skills you would not believe. The worst is the ability to force humans to do exactly what they want them to do. It’s horrific.”

  “Jack, you hunters believe that anyone who is vampire is a monster? That they are all killers?”

  “Absolutely. It’s been shown over and over through the past century. We don’t know exactly how it happens, but a human being is changed from human to vampire, and when that happens, well, they’re not only no longer human, they’re nasty monsters who kill to feed. Someone has to protect the unaware innocents.”

  “It has never occurred to you to find out if you are right about this?”

  “Ife, it’s always been accepted that they are monsters. To our knowledge, they are.”

  “Your knowledge, sir, is wrong. But forget about this part of the conversation, we will revisit it at a later time. Where do your associates meet?”

  “Our headquarters. My father runs our part of the effort.”

  “I’ll take the address. We will need to pursue this, my dear Jack.”

  His manner changed as he looked toward the rushing waves. Quiet now, he suddenly spoke. “It doesn’t matter anymore. None of it does.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Jack, you must confide in me. Not just because I’ve compelled you to, but because, whatever is wrong, I can help you.”

  Tears welled and stayed pooled in Jack’s eyes, which surprised Ife. He was closed off emotionally, and with compulsion overriding most of his emotion responses, they should be pretty neutral.

  One tear slipped over the edge of the lower lid to slide down his cheek and it broke her heart. Her voice soft, Ife touched the tear. “Jack, what happened?”

  Sorrow almost overwhelming now, he finally answered.

  “It’s Ben. I’ve lost him.”

  “What? What do you mean? Begin at what happened that has made you so upset. With why you told me you were dangerous for me to be with you.”