Desire at Dawn

by Fiona Zedde

  Then she loped off into the woods in the same direction as Silvija. Kylie turned in time to see Ivy peel off the thin black dress and sandals, drop them on the front steps of the cabin, then race into the woods.

  “What does she plan to do?” Olivia asked. “Fuck them to death?”

  Kylie shrugged. “I don’t know what she does. All I know is she comes back happy and nearly bloated with blood.”

  “In that case, how come you’re not running around naked?”

  “I don’t like to get dirty,” Kylie said.

  Olivia hummed under her breath. “Yes, you do like it clean, don’t you?”

  It was impossible for Kylie to miss her sharp smile in the moonlight, the naughty glint in her eyes that conjured the memory of what they had done together barely two hours ago. Kylie shoved her hands in her pockets, disconcerted by the memory and the ease with which Olivia brought her back into that moment, back into the bathroom with the feel of the wet tile at her back and Olivia’s heating mouth on her pussy. Kylie cleared her throat and shifted.

  “Ready?”

  “Almost,” Olivia said with a grin. She bent, ripped a hole in her dress, then tore most of the hem away, turning the maxi dress into a mini. She dropped the extra fabric on the step of the house next to Ivy’s dress. “Now I’m ready.”

  Kylie swallowed. “Okay. Let’s go.”

  They walked into the heart of the woods together, Kylie aware of the shortened length of her dress and the fact that she wore nothing under it. The breeze brought Olivia’s scent of spice and sex and sadness to her nose like the finest intoxicant, the most potent aphrodisiac she’d ever experienced.

  “Do you ever catch anyone?” Olivia’s words were a soft whisper in the dark.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you enjoy it?”

  Kylie thought of the primal stretch of her limbs as she ran her prey to ground, her senses awakened, her teeth elongating in her mouth in anticipation of the kill, adrenaline pounding through her body. Chase. Kill. Conquer. Feed.

  “Yes,” she said. “I enjoy it very much.”

  Something in her voice must have said more than even she intended. Olivia looked at her. “Is it better than sex?” It felt like the question was a distraction from Olivia’s fear of what was to come next. The hunt. The kill. But that didn’t stop the words from affecting Kylie. She stumbled over her own feet.

  Is the hunt better than sex? Could she even compare the two acts? Kylie shook her head, unable to answer.

  Olivia laughed softly. “I must not be doing it right.”

  Kylie ducked her head and walked ahead of Olivia into the woods. As soon as the clearing faded from sight and the darkness of the trees and overhanging branches closed in on them, Kylie felt a little differently. Moved differently. Even Olivia seemed changed in her eyes, this woman whom she lusted after with a fierce passion but also didn’t quite trust.

  Kylie growled in denial.

  “What? Do you see one of them?” Olivia’s voice was low, a whisper negating her earlier bravado.

  She was nervous about killing; Kylie could see that now. But she wondered at it. Wondered why. Hadn’t her family bred her for violence and death? Hadn’t she seen countless vampires lose their lives at the hands of her brother, her mother, the rest of her family? What was this then to the amount of violence it took to actually kill a vampire? It was more than a few shots fired. Much more effort than twisting a knife once or twice. It was certainly more work than snapping a man’s neck.

  “No,” Kylie said. “I don’t see anything.”

  They crept through the woods together, Kylie’s senses heightening with each step. The scent of the woods was all around her; she could smell the loamy fertility of the dirt that moved beneath her feet, and the sap, sticky and bitter, dripping from the trees overhead. She smelled the breeze and the perfume it carried, of night-blooming flowers, and the mossy taint of the river nearby.

  From not too far away, she could smell something sour, an unwashed man trying to hide high in a tree among the leaves. His breathing was under control, but he was frightened.

  Kylie grabbed Olivia’s hand and drew her deeper into the woods, toward the man, cautioning her with a harsh squeeze against saying anything. Olivia was quick. Maybe she had hunted before as well. Kylie slid her a considering look, wondering what else Olivia was not telling her about her past human life.

  The smell of the woods was like blood. Rich. Life giving. Wet and dangerous. And her prey was hiding in the very center of that. Fool. She could smell him. The man was hidden nearby, and the thought of him so close and the things she would do with him, made her shiver. She lifted her nose and pulled in more of his scent.

  “Do you smell that?” She kept her voice low.

  “Yes.” Olivia smiled with all of her teeth.

  “Do you want him?” Kylie asked.

  “Yes.” Her voice was silken and deep, barely audible.

  Kylie nodded once and slipped through the woods with ease, the human man in the tree the immediate object of her desire. His smell didn’t get any better as she grew closer, only a confirmation of his unwashed, fear stink.

  This one could control his breathing, the impulse to run, but he could not control the cold sweat that broke out on his body in waves. Or the way his hand tightened and released around the gun.

  She shrugged off her jacket and dropped it on the forest floor, understanding not for the first time, Ivy’s impulse to be naked in the woods while she tracked her prey. Clothes seemed like such a bother at times, snagging on branches or knives when the skin was easy to care for, the steel passing cleanly through it, the prey closer, feeling their fear as they dropped down beneath teeth and fangs. Kylie growled, pleasure and hunger for the hunt rising in her like smoke.

  She moved faster, eyes scanning her surroundings, ears plucking at the sounds nearby. Yes, she could hear nearly all of the prey. A couple were truly afraid, speaking in frantic whispers as they pointed guns out into the dark, hands trembling and hearts pounding. But most were steady, waiting patiently in the dark for the chance to strike.

  Branches plucked at her T-shirt, her jeans, at her face. But she moved steadily past these minor obstacles, focused on the one above. Kylie stopped.

  She saw him. Nearly twenty feet up in camouflage pants and jacket. Hints of thin, pale hair. The rifle held in steady hands as he sat with his back solidly against the trunk of the massive tree, eyes tracking the forest, a professional who had killed before. He was slender but smelled like he enjoyed a healthy diet of sex and good food.

  She felt Olivia behind her, stealthy and quiet in her short skirt. It was her scent that Kylie caught then. She remembered how well it mixed with the salty taste of her pussy, with Kylie’s own scent as they trembled and slid together in bed.

  Focus! She bit down on the inside of her lip to force herself to pay attention to what was happening now. Fuck later. Hunt now. But Olivia was distractingly close. She eased back, intent more on getting away from Olivia than taking down her prey.

  In the tree, the man shifted, his night vision lenses tracking to where she stood. She froze and was pleased when Olivia did the same. The man muttered something and firmed his grip on the rifle. She heard the sound of his teeth grinding together and smelled the sweat rolling down the back of his neck. They stayed still for a beat of forty, sixty seconds. Then he looked away. Kylie ran toward him.

  As she loped across the forest floor, making the barest whisper of sound, a piercing scream broke the silence, then a laugh. Another human brought down under teeth and claws.

  The man above Kylie almost pissed himself. His finger spasmed against the trigger, squeezing off a burst of bullets. Kylie lifted her head, sniffing. There were at least five dead humans now, their blood thick and delicious in the air. She reached the tree where the man hid and climbed swiftly up, her fingers digging into the thick, cool bark of the tree.

  She avoided the large branches and the obvious handholds, using the cove
ring of leaves to her advantage. The smell of moss and the sap from the bark under her fingernails drifted to her nose. Damp leaves brushed her face.

  Her prey was so busy looking around the rest of the forest that he paid no attention to the tree where he sat. Olivia stayed hidden.

  Kylie quickly clambered up the tree trunk, shot up through the leaves in front of the man. He wasted no time on surprise, only quickly swung the rifle toward Kylie, his pale eyes wide but determined to keep his life. But she was too close and the rifle was too long. She grabbed the rifle and flung it away.

  “Is that all you got?”

  An instant later, she felt him move. Then a knife slid into her belly. She gasped at the sudden and familiar pain. “Nice one,” she grunted.

  Kylie broke his hand. He howled and tried to shove himself back. But she yanked him up by the collar of his camouflage shirt, the yellow patch on the breast pocket catching the moonlight. He gasped and fought her hold, but she gripped him tighter, teeth bared in pain.

  “That wasn’t very nice now, was it?” She threw him out of the tree. “Catch!” she called down to Olivia.

  Olivia caught him before he hit the ground, plucking the heavy human neatly out of the air as he fell face-first, and flipping him over then slamming him into the ground on his back. Kylie expected a small noise of triumph, a grin, anything to show she was pleased how her new reflexes were coming along. But instead, Olivia leapt back with a sharp cry that sounded almost like a name.

  Kylie jumped down from the tree, landing a few feet from Olivia. The man at her feet huffed in pain as he tried to scramble away. The heels of his boots kicked up the dirt and dead leaves. Olivia stared at her with a horrified expression.

  “What did you do!”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Kylie stared at Olivia, not understanding what she was talking about. “I didn’t do anything to him, yet.” She stepped toward the man. “I was actually just getting started.” She curled her hands into claws, allowing the slow rise of her beast.

  Olivia shoved her back. “Don’t touch him!” Her scream rose through the forest, frightening a pair of owls on a branch nearby. They flew off in a frantic flutter of wings. “Alec?” Her hand trembled as she reached down for the human, but she didn’t touch him. She looked up at Kylie, her eyes wide pools of misery and anger. “This is my cousin,” she wailed. “My fucking cousin!”

  Kylie was confused. “What the fuck is going on?”

  “Were you in on this?” Olivia flew at her, shoving her back across the forest floor. Her palms thumped hard into Kylie’s chest. “Did you know about this? Did you?”

  She just kept shoving at Kylie until Kylie’s back was against a tree, the thick trunk slamming into her back again and again as Olivia slammed her hands into Kylie’s chest, her face a mask of blood tears and rage. “Why did you do this? I thought you were going to leave them alone!” She wasn’t crying, but everything about her screamed sadness and pain. Betrayal.

  “Who?” Not knowing what was going on, Kylie didn’t try to fight her off.

  “How could you do this?” Olivia screamed.

  “Now you have some idea of what our little Kylie felt then?” Silvija was suddenly there. Or at least her voice was, but Kylie couldn’t see her.

  Olivia stopped shoving Kylie and whirled, trying to face Silvija. “It wasn’t like that.” Her teeth snapped out, loud in the clearing. The man at her feet stared up at her in horror, going even paler. He cowered away from her, but she didn’t notice.

  “I’m not interested in your version of how things went down.” Silvija’s voice seemed to shift around them, moving so much that Kylie couldn’t get an exact idea of where she was. “The GPS and recorder on her cell phone told us everything we needed to know.” A hint of humor in the sepulchral voice. “Maybe a little too much.”

  Kylie’s face prickled with embarrassment as she realized the significance of what Silvija said. The clan had tracked her to the Bertram compound. They had retrieved the information from the phone. They had heard and seen…everything.

  She froze, understanding then what Silvija had done. The Bertrams in the underground compound. She had somehow captured them all and had them out in the forest fighting for their lives. Kylie stared at Olivia, the destroyed look of her. At their feet, the man in combat fatigues stared up at her with his ashen but defiant face.

  “Silvija—” Kylie began.

  “Kill him.” Silvija appeared out of a splash of moonlight, tall and powerful in her black turtleneck, slacks, and boots. Her thick hair was braided in a coronet at the top of her head. She looked truly like a queen. Their leader. Her eyes flashed dark fire when she looked at Olivia, at Kylie. “I won’t say it again.” Her voice was tempered steel.

  Belle stepped from the darkness, the queen’s bride. “We are a family here, despite anything else you may have been led to believe.” Twigs snapped and dried leaves whispered under her heavy footsteps. “We always take care of our own. And I will always take care of my daughter.” She looked at Silvija, then at Kylie.

  Despite the sharp pain in her back and chest, Kylie flung herself away from the tree, whatever damage Olivia had done already healing. She stared at the man cowering in the dirt with his broken hand, his automatic rifle tossed uselessly a few feet away. She crouched over him and gripped his mouth shut, ready to drain him dry.

  A spray of bullets peppered the ground inches from Kylie’s feet. “Leave him alone!” Olivia growled, raising the rifle higher.

  “Fire those bullets into one of us and you won’t live long to regret it.” Silvija appeared at Olivia’s side, silent as misery. She made no move to take away the rifle although she could have easily done so. “For now, you are one of us. For better or worse, Kylie has chosen you. But you fire that gun and you are as dead to me as your great-grandfather.” Silvija’s voice deepened. “And I’ll bury you just as deep.” Then her eyes dipped away from Olivia, and she looked down at Kylie.

  Kylie sank her fangs in the man’s throat. One instant, he was still and listening for the executioner’s decision, and the next, he was bucking under the razors of Kylie’s teeth, gushing his iron-rich blood into her mouth. While Silvija was talking, he had grown increasingly comfortable, his breathing more stable, his eyes relaxing their terrified stare. He was afraid of Silvija but convinced Olivia would do something to save him. He probably didn’t think that anymore.

  He bucked under her, his screaming muffled under the brutal grip she had on his face. Olivia hiccupped with fear and swung the rifle back to Kylie. Kylie, who in the midst of feeding on the man’s terror-sweet blood, was very aware of Olivia’s finger lifting to stroke the trigger of the rifle.

  A gun barked once in the clearing. Not Olivia’s. Olivia screamed and jerked as if struck by a bolt of electricity. She dropped to the ground at the same time that an ATV roared through the woods. Two humans were on the vehicle, one driving and the other gripping tightly to a handgun, firing again at Olivia who was already down and screaming as if her entire body were going up in flames.

  Belle and Silvija leapt into motion, chasing after the bike and running in a zigzag pattern to avoid the spray of bullets that were apparently more than ordinary. Olivia’s screams proved that much.

  What the fuck had the Bertrams cooked up in their labs?

  Kylie ran over to Olivia who was trying to tear at her skin where the bullet had entered. Her skin had already healed, but whatever was in the bullet was still inside her, making her scream.

  “Make it stop,” she howled. “Make it stop!”

  Kylie flicked the switchblade from her pocket and cut into her shoulder. Under the red and bloody flesh ran a river of liquid fire. It skimmed through the meat of Olivia’s body, burning as it went.

  The leaves overhead shook with the force of her screams. Night animals howled in response to her terrified cries. Using the switchblade like a spoon, Kylie stuck it into her already healing flesh, scooping up the liquid flame. It didn’t burn
the metal, only slid, sinuous and strangely beautiful, along its length, then dropped from the silver blade cleanly as Kylie splashed it in the dirt away from Olivia. She repeated the action until all the yellow was gone from Olivia’s flesh.

  Olivia lay limply on the ground, panting, the pain falling from her eyes. She blinked up at Kylie with relief.

  “What—what happened?” she asked.

  “You tried to kill me,” Kylie said tenderly.

  Olivia sat up. “No. I—” She looked around the woods, the empty area where they were, the dead man a few feet away. She turned from him, eyes glazing again with tears. “My family,” she moaned softly.

  “Your family just tried to kill you,” Kylie said. “Is that a thing with you people, the way you prove your love?”

  Olivia pressed her hands to her face. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know whose side to be on.”

  Kylie stood, brushing off her jeans. “Let me make it easier for you.” She looked down at Olivia. “No matter how hard your love is, I’d advise you to pick the family that’s not trying to put you into the ground permanently.”

  “And which one is that?” Olivia’s gaze was steady.

  Kylie turned to look into the woods where Silvija and her mother had disappeared. She began to follow them, when a cold voice stopped her.

  “I’ve never liked the company you kept, Olivia dear.”

  Kylie spun to face the woman of her nightmares. Olivia’s mother.

  Bertram wore full camouflage, the jacket, pants, and boots fitting like armor. A machete was strapped to her thigh in a sheath, and she gripped a pistol in both hands.

  Before Kylie could form the thought to leap at the woman and tear her to pieces, a shot blasted past her ear. Then a solid thump in the center of her chest. And another. Pain. More pain than she had ever felt in her life. Burning. Her insides were melting away as the agony ripped away all her reason.

  She felt herself falling and could do nothing to stop the ground from rushing up to her face. She felt writhing agony. All the while, she was aware of more screams in the forest, humans being torn apart. She smelled at least two humans in a nearby shelter of trees with their weapons pointed at her and Olivia.