Undone (Vampire Awakenings, Book 5)

by Brenda K. Davies

  Her family was strong, but he would happily destroy any vamp who tried to hurt her, and he had more experience at it than the Byrnes did. Hurrying back to the truck, he pulled open the door and jumped inside.

  “I’m glad those vampires are dead,” she whispered.

  “So am I,” he told her as he shifted into drive.

  “Will you come back here?”

  “No. If they managed to find out I was living here, others will too. It’s time to sell and move on. It isn’t the first time, won’t be the last.”

  Tears burned her eyes for him and for the poor humans who had only been doing their jobs when their lives had been torn away from them. “Where are you going to put the bodies?” she asked.

  “There’s a quarry nearby I’ve used before.”

  Abby refrained from asking how many times he’d used that location. She probably wouldn’t like the answer, and it really didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. They didn’t speak as he drove to the quarry, tied some rocks to the bodies, and tossed them over the side into the water below. She cringed at the sound their bodies made when they splashed into the water before soundlessly sinking to the bottom.

  CHAPTER 8

  Abby barely noticed the streets and buildings they passed as he drove through the city and toward the highway. She took a steadying breath as her thoughts turned to her sister. What was Vicky doing? What had she gotten herself mixed up in?

  Before this, the brazen and wild things Vicky had done had always been more free-spirited and fun. Like when she had streaked across the football field on prom night or stolen five pigs from a local farm and put them in the principal’s office. She’d always enjoyed a good party but had always disdained the use of drugs before. Her sister could be wild and sometimes reckless, but none of this was like her. Abby rubbed at her temples as she tried to ease the headache forming there.

  “Are you okay?” Brian inquired.

  “Yeah,” she murmured and sat up in her seat. She’d vowed she wouldn’t ask him anymore about himself, but she’d happily take any distraction from thoughts of Vicky right now. “Why are you able to locate people and vampires?”

  “Why are some humans able to see the future, commune with the dead, or bend things with their minds? They are simply born differently, and just as my strength and power has grown over my years as a vampire, so has my ability to locate others.”

  “Interesting.”

  “That it is,” he replied and glanced over at the rigid set of her shoulders.

  Her chin was thrust forward, her eyes now fastened on the scenery. She was steadfastly avoiding looking at him, which irritated him far more than he would have believed possible. His hands tightened on the wheel. Was it because of what had occurred in the garage? Was she afraid of him now or repulsed by him?

  What does it matter? It shouldn’t, but it did. He missed her attention even though he wanted her to keep her distance.

  “I used to be able to find things my mother misplaced when I was only three,” he said, trying to draw her attention, but she still wouldn’t look at him. “Vivian” —her fingers twitched at the name. Interesting— “was always losing things and coming to me to find them. I can’t locate things from long distances, but I can still uncover them if they’re within a few miles of me by following the traces of the person they belong to. The vampires who attacked my family and me that night were the only ones I couldn’t find right away.”

  “Why not?”

  “They fled the country shortly after turning me. I didn’t realize that at the time, and my ability hadn’t developed enough for me to be able to locate them. It took over a hundred years for that to happen, and the minute it did, I went after them.”

  His voice came out a gravelly rumble, and his knuckles were white on the steering wheel. “And then you helped Stefan find the vampire who turned him?”

  “That took more time. I’d known what my attackers looked like; they were a part of me. Stefan described the woman who had turned him, but it wasn’t enough, and he’s not much of an artist. I do a lot better when I have a clear image of someone in my head.”

  “And then what happens?”

  He smiled at her and leaned back in his seat. “Not so fast, young Byrne,” he replied. “Some things are for me to know.”

  “You’ve told me almost all of it, why keep this from me?” she asked in frustration. She was foolishly still eager to learn every detail she could about him.

  “Perhaps some things are too unknown to explain.”

  “I see,” she said, although she didn’t.

  She lapsed into silence once more; her emerald gaze fixated on the roadway as the tires spun over the asphalt. He turned on the radio, but he found not even Creedence Clearwater Revival could soothe his irritation over the distance he sensed in her. She didn’t speak again for another hour.

  “How old were you when you were turned?” she inquired.

  “Thirty.”

  “How old are you now?”

  “Two hundred and fifteen in vamp and human years. I was born in eighteen o’one.”

  Abby managed to keep her jaw from dropping. He wasn’t as old as Stefan, but he’d definitely been around the block a few times. What things has he done in two hundred and fifteen years? How many women has he been with?

  Never mind. She really didn’t want the answer to that question. She took in his handsome countenance with his broad cheekbones and the chiseled jaw he’d removed the stubble from this morning. Lines crinkled the corners of his eyes. She doubted they were laugh lines, but more lines earned from when he’d still been human, dealing with human tribulations and standing over a forge while he learned to become a blacksmith. She had a feeling that when he’d been human, he still hadn’t laughed much. She was dying to know what his laughter would sound like.

  “In all that time, what is the craziest thing you’ve done?” she asked.

  “I think you’re too young for the answer to that question.”

  “I’m not a child.”

  No, she most certainly wasn’t a child anymore. He couldn’t keep his gaze from the form-fitting black sweater snugged over her breasts. Blood flooded into his cock, hardening it in his jeans.

  The heated look that came into his eyes when they latched onto her breasts stole her breath. “Eyes on the road,” she murmured when the truck drifted into the other lane.

  He glanced away from her, his hands clenching on the wheel once more. He couldn’t get away from the pressure of his erection against the front of his jeans. The sweet scent of her hair and the aroma of her blood called to him in a way it never had with any other before her.

  He’d fed on many vampires over the years, taking their power, absorbing more and more until he’d teetered on the edge of becoming like one of the monsters he was determined to hunt and destroy. Never had he longed to sink his fangs into someone as badly as he wanted to sink them into her and experience the connection it would bring.

  Her blood would be sweet, like her, potent and delectable. A purebred’s blood, he’d never tasted it before, and his fangs throbbed with the urge to do so now.

  Shifting uncomfortably, he adjusted his jeans as he focused on the road again. They may both be immortal, but the last thing he felt like doing was crashing into something at eighty miles an hour or being launched from the vehicle because he was paying more attention to her than the road. He’d gone through a windshield once before in the sixties. Sliding down the road on his stomach had been an experience he’d never forget. It had taken two days for his skin to heal and to get out all of the glass.

  “I’ve done many crazy things over the years,” he finally said. “Almost two hundred years as an immortal tends to get a little boring. I’m always looking for something new and different to try.”

  “Is that why you agreed to help me?”

  No, your voice, it ensnared me. I couldn’t say no. “Perhaps,” he lied, knowing he could never acknowledge his growing desire for her. H
er mouth pursed, and she turned away from him once more. Unwilling to have her stop speaking to him again, he decided to give her some of the less violent details of his life.

  “I climbed to the top of the Sphinx, and had dinner with Lucky Luciano. I’ve been to the running of the bulls, camped in the wilds of Alaska, kissed Marilyn Monroe, and ran around with Billy the Kid for a month. By the way, Pat Garrett didn’t shoot him.”

  Abby couldn’t stop the delighted laugh that escaped her. “Really?”

  “Truly,” he replied with a wink. “Or at least, that’s what I believe. I simply can’t see the man I knew killing his friend.”

  Abby turned toward him, eager to learn more. “Did you know Wyatt Earp?”

  “I had a brief encounter with him.”

  “What happened?”

  “He tried to arrest me for stealing a horse. I, of course, escaped.”

  “Oh, of course,” she said with a laugh. “What else?”

  “I went to Woodstock. I’ve been to every country there is on the planet, many of them multiple times. I’ve met kings and queens and tsars.”

  “Sounds amazing,” she said.

  “Some of it was,” he admitted. “And a lot of it was brutal.” She drew her legs up and hugged them against her chest. “A lot of it was death, vengeance, and feasting on the blood of those we slaughtered in order to gain power.”

  Abby’s fingers fiddled with her jeans as she watched the merriment fade from his face and the harsh, distant side of him once again emerged. “We all do what we must to survive.”

  His eyes flashed red as he glanced at her. “And what about you, Abigail, what have you done to survive?”

  “I must drink blood, too.”

  “Have you ever killed? Have you ever fed from a human?”

  “I’ve never killed, but I have fed from a man before.”

  He almost tore the wheel from the truck at the idea of her sinking her fangs into another’s neck. He knew well how intimate the exchange could be, how arousing. He took a deep breath, fighting against the shudder wracking him. Had the mortal been inside of her while she’d been feeding from him? Had that man heard her cries of ecstasy as she rode him?

  He barely suppressed the impulse to pull to the side of the road, draw her head back, and sink his fangs into her neck while he caressed one of the breasts that had haunted his dreams last night.

  Easy, he counseled himself. He hadn’t felt this out of control and savage since he’d found the two who had murdered his family. That had been a bloodbath the likes of which he’d never unleashed before or since. However, if the boy she’d fed from had been standing in front of him right now, it would have been another bloodbath.

  “And you enjoyed it?” he grated through his teeth.

  “It wasn’t great, wasn’t horrible; it was just different. I was used to blood bags at the time, but my curiosity about what it would be like to drink straight from the vein finally got the best of me.”

  “I see.”

  Her eyes were unreadable as they studied him. “Do you think I was wrong to do it? Did you expect I was like Issy and Ethan and shunned all things human? You have met Ian and Aiden before, right? They dove headfirst into the human world, and I must admit, it fascinates me too.”

  “Hence college and the social work degree?”

  She smiled and leaned closer to him. Her citrus smell assaulted his senses. The beat of her heart fascinated him as his own heart raced faster to beat in rhythm with hers. Perhaps her family would never have to know that he and Abby had any kind of an encounter, and they could both go their separate ways after? Yeah, and pigs flew to the moon every night at ten.

  “Yes,” she said. “Humans know they face death every day, yet they bravely go out into the world. They smile, laugh, and love all while knowing it could be over in the next instant. We’re immortal and yet they’re a far more resilient species. I mean, how is it possible to live so much while knowing death is the only end they will have?”

  Brian stared at the roadway as he recalled his days as a mortal. He could clearly remember the first time he’d seen Vivian standing in the crowd, her auburn hair shimmering in the sun as she inspected some cloth. Her hair had been what drew him to her first; it had been a burst of color in a drab crowd.

  “That’s why they live so much. They know death is their only escape,” he replied.

  “Did you live more as a human than a vampire?”

  “Yes. Once I became a vampire, my existence became focused only on death, revenge, and increasing my power.”

  “I like to think I’m focused on the good things, but sometimes…”

  “What?” he inquired when her voice trailed away.

  “Sometimes I wonder if humans are luckier, if immortality isn’t more of a curse that weighs heavily upon the souls who face an eternity alone.”

  “And you think you face immortality alone?”

  “You’ve met my family, right? And they keep growing. No, I’m not alone, but many immortals are. There are times I’m lonely, even with all of my family and Vicky by my side. My older sibling’s lives are far different than mine now. Aiden is involved in something few of us know anything about.”

  “He’ll be fine.”

  “I know he will, but you know more about what he’s doing than any of his family members. It’s a strange thing to realize when we’ve all been so close over the years.”

  “I suppose it is.”

  She leaned her head against the seat as she watched him. “Your wife, how did you meet her?” Call her a glutton for punishment, but she had to know more about him.

  A muscle in his jaw twitched. “It was at a street fair.”

  “What did she look like?”

  “She had auburn hair and freckles all over her face. Her eyes were brown. I found her beautiful, though many probably wouldn’t have.”

  “Love at first sight?”

  He glanced at her; there was something behind her words, a wistfulness or sadness perhaps. “No. I was curious about her. She intrigued me with her coloring and gentle demeanor. Love came later.”

  Jealousy speared Abby so fiercely that she sucked in a breath as her fingers dug into her legs. Why on earth had she started on this line of conversation? She’d already lost his heart to an intriguing ghost, why was she punishing herself like this?

  “Vivian was vibrant, but refined like the women of those days were. I courted her for a year before we were married,” he continued.

  “How old were you?”

  “I was twenty-three. She was nineteen.”

  “So young.”

  “In those days, I was almost an old man by then,” he replied with a smile.

  “I suppose you were.” She turned to stare at the roadway again, absently noting the ‘Welcome to New York’ sign they passed on the highway.

  “Beatrice was born two years later,” he murmured, drawing her attention back to him. She held her breath, scared to make a sound or else he might stop talking. “And Trudy came two years after her. Beatrice’s hair was blonde, like mine, but Trudy inherited her mother’s auburn tresses. They were both so beautiful.”

  “They sound like it,” she whispered. Unable to resist, she rested her hand comfortingly on his bicep. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  He shook his head as if tearing himself from a reverie. “It was years ago.”

  “That doesn’t mean the hurt stops.”

  Brian glanced at her, noting the strain on her face and the sorrow in her eyes. He hated that look from her. “I don’t want your pity.”

  She recoiled from the sneering tone of his voice and tore her hand away from his arm. “I don’t pity you.”

  “I’ve come to terms with their loss over the years.” He was acutely aware of the lack of heat from her touch as he watched the buildings around them beginning to crop up more and more. “Life is cruel.”

  “It’s also amazing.”

  “And that is where we disagree, young Byrne.”<
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  Abby’s teeth clamped together when he called her that again. She recognized it as a way for him to distance himself from her by looking at her as if she were still a child. Turning, she plopped her feet on the floor, having had enough of this conversation with him. He could pretend he’d accepted the loss of his family, but they both knew the truth.

  CHAPTER 9

  Abby had just finished drying her hair when she heard the knock on the door. Placing the dryer down, she hurried through the large, elaborate hotel room he’d rented for her. She’d tried to pay for her room, but he’d taken her credit card away from her and handed it back. The censuring look he’d shot her when she’d started to protest had silenced her.

  She threw the locks on the door and pulled it open.

  “Did you check to see who was standing out here first?” Brian demanded.

  “I knew it was you,” she replied as she turned away.

  “And how did you know that?”

  “I just did.”

  He insisted on keeping his secrets, so she wasn’t about to tell him that she’d become attuned to his scent and the beat of his heart. Let him try to puzzle out how she knew it was him standing on the other side of her door.

  She felt the heat of his gaze as it slid over her, but she didn’t turn around. She’d packed only sensible clothes for this trip—sweaters, jeans, and T-shirts to sleep in. However, when he’d told her they’d be going to a club tonight to speak with some vamps he knew in the city, she’d gone down to one of the stores along the street and found something more suitable for club wear. Something entirely un-childlike.

  “You packed that?” he inquired, his voice hoarser than normal.

  “I purchased it,” she replied as she brushed her hair out and set the brush on the bureau.

  “When?”

  “While you were in the shower. I can walk around in public you know.”