Blood and Metal

by Nina Croft

  She was the right size. The right shape. But totally the wrong color. He raised his gaze back to her face. Except the eyes. They were deep, dark green and narrowed on him. She also looked no older than the girl he’d met all those years ago—this was doing his fucking head in.

  “Daisy?”

  “Hardly complimentary, Fergal,” Rico said, amusement clear in his voice.

  Daisy had been a good thing in his life. Something he remembered when times got hard or painful. At one point he’d considered trying to find her, but by the time he was in any shape to leave Cybercom, he was a fugitive and in hiding.

  Besides, he was a loner. Always had been.

  He shook his head and looked some more. Yes, he could see it now. The green had sort of overshadowed everything else. And those rather large and scary fangs hadn’t been there—he would have noticed.

  When they’d met before, he’d thought her pretty. She was in fact extraordinarily beautiful, even with that scowl on her face.

  “Actually,” Skylar said, “I think it’s an understandable mistake.”

  That was kind of her, but he wasn’t sure Daisy agreed. He rubbed his forehead. The pain reminded him it was time for his medication, and however sweet this reunion was, he had a job to do—find Stefan—or he was dead.

  “So,” Rico said, “can we get back to our friend? We need to contact the others. Tell them it’s off for the day, but I’d prefer it if we could give them some good news at the same time.”

  Fergal scrubbed a hand over his chin. He was sure he could withstand torture, and part of him was curious to discover if they would actually do it. But what the hell, this was probably his best bet. He nodded. “There are two political prisoners. I think your friend is one of them.”

  “Good. That didn’t hurt at all, did it?”

  “So we go in tomorrow?” Daisy asked.

  Fergal turned to look at her. She was leaning forward in her seat, eager.

  “As soon as it’s dark,” Rico said. “But maybe you should stay behind this time.”

  “No, I want to come. I can control it.”

  Control what?

  “Hmm.” Rico studied her then turned to Skylar. “Is Devlin back?”

  “Yeah,” she answered. “Arrived an hour ago and went straight to bed.”

  “Not alone, I presume.” Rico pursed his lips and gave an abrupt nod. “Okay,” he said to Daisy. “But you feed before we go. You almost lost it today. And we take Skylar and Devlin with us in case we have to fight our way out. We’re not leaving without Jon a second time.”

  “That will leave just Saffira on the ship. Can she cope?” Skylar asked.

  “Yeah. She can handle her. In fact, we should get her and Devlin out of bed and down here. They need to be in on this. They can sleep—or whatever it is they’re doing—when we have a plan.” He pressed the comm unit on his wrist. “Devlin, you’re both required on the bridge now.” His lips twitched as he listened to the answer. “Hey, if I can wait, so can you.”

  Rico got up and paced the room. Pausing, he leaned down and pulled a bottle from below one of the seats. After taking a swallow, he handed it to Fergal.

  Fergal took the bottle and lifted it to his lips with caution. He had a vague memory of accepting a drink from the vampire last time. It had nearly blown his head off. Taking a sip, the liquid burned down his throat and heated his belly. Deciding it wasn’t going to kill him, he took a gulp and almost choked.

  Everyone was watching him. Was it a test? He caught Daisy’s gaze and held it while he took another swallow. This time he felt it in his brain, like a warm buzz. He walked over and handed her the bottle. She didn’t look away as she raised it to her mouth—her lips red against the whiteness of her skin.

  An image flashed in his head of those red lips wrapped around his dick, causing a jerk in his pants. It had been a long time since he’d experienced desire. He’d worried that was a side effect of the cybernetics, or the medication, or some of the weird shit that was happening in his body right now. But it appeared everything was working. Nice. But did he really want those fangs anywhere near his dick?

  She swallowed and handed the bottle back. Their fingers touched and a jolt of electricity shot through him. Her eyes narrowed as she sat back in her seat and wiped her hand down the side of her pants. Fergal looked away to find Rico watching him, cool speculation in his eyes. The vampire opened his mouth, no doubt to make some wiseass comment, but at that moment the doors slid open and a couple appeared. The man was tall, with streaky black and gold hair loose on his shoulders. He had the violet eyes of the Collective and a scar that ran down his right cheek from his eye to his lip, lifting his mouth in a perpetual sneer. Devlin Starke. Fergal recognized him from the files. The head of the Rebel Coalition and once the most wanted man on the Collective’s most-wanted-dead list; it looked like now he had become one of them. He’d disappeared over twenty years ago. Where the hell had he been?

  Fergal turned his attention to the woman. At last, someone he didn’t know. Medium height, with long, dark red hair, but the same violet eyes. She had an air of…difference about her, even more than usual with the Collective.

  “So what’s happening? You didn’t find him? And who’s this?” Starke’s gaze locked with Fergal’s and his eyes narrowed as he took in the prison guard’s uniform.

  “This is an old…friend, Fergal Cain, who interrupted us but is now about to redeem himself by giving us the lowdown on the security system. Jon’s in there, and we’re going back tomorrow night. You and Skylar will be coming this time. We’re getting him out if we have to pull the place down and kill everyone in it.”

  Fergal presumed he was serious.

  “Oh, and are you okay for Daisy?” Rico asked Starke. “I don’t want her hungry going in.”

  Starke tossed a look at Daisy, who squirmed a little, but he nodded abruptly. “Of course.”

  “Good.” Rico turned back to Fergal. “And this is Devlin and Saffira,” he completed the introductions.

  “Devlin Starke.” Fergal stepped forward and held out his hand.

  Starke’s eyes narrowed on it for a moment, then he took it briefly. “Yeah. So?”

  “Everyone presumed you were dead.”

  “Well, obviously everyone was wrong.”

  “And weren’t you committed to taking down the Collective?” He waved a hand in the general direction of Starke’s violet eyes. “After you took down the Church, of course.”

  Starke turned to Rico. “Is he always this nosy?”

  “He’s a reporter. He can’t help himself.”

  Fergal hadn’t actually been a reporter for years, but he’d keep quiet about that. If they believed he was undercover trying to get a story, they were unlikely to probe his real reasons for being at the prison.

  “Well, try,” Starke suggested.

  Chapter Four

  Daisy slouched low in her seat and watched the interactions. She’d seen Devlin’s look when Rico had asked him about feeding her. They were all so good to her, but she hated using her friends as food. Rico had promised to teach her to hunt once they were back on Trakis Two, but only if she managed to get some control and wouldn’t kill her prey. He didn’t think she was ready to do that.

  Too right.

  Whatever Rico said about what she had become—she was no killer.

  Fergal was shaking hands with Saffira now, while Devlin looked on. As Fergal murmured something, Saffira laughed. Devlin took a step toward them, his lips tight.

  “Okay, the introductions are over.”

  The comm unit on the screen beside her was flashing. “Rico?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Tannis is on the line.”

  Tannis and Callum were hiding out down on Trakis Five waiting for the go-ahead to pull Alex out. “Tell me you’ve got him,” Tannis said.

  “We don’t.”

  “Jesus, Rico. Was he not there? Our intel is crappy these days. Shit, I miss Janey.”

  Daisy
missed her as well. But Janey had been murdered by that bastard Temperance Hatcher six months ago. Along with Devlin’s brother, The Blood Hunter’s engineer.

  “No, he’s there. The intel is good. We just hit a slight problem.”

  “We need to get the hell off this freaking planet. It’s giving me the creeps. It’s crawling with Church people.”

  “Hold tight until tomorrow and we’ll have him out of there.”

  Tannis was silent for a moment, but Daisy could hear her rapid breathing. “Okay. But call as soon as you’re done.”

  “You think you can pull Alex out.”

  “Yeah, she’s not a prisoner. She can come and go as she pleases, but that’s going to change if they get word Jon is free.”

  “We’ll comm you the second we have him.”

  “We’ll be standing by.” Tannis ended the comm.

  “Who’s Alex?” Fergal asked.

  Rico shrugged. “You might as well know—you won’t be talking to anyone else before tomorrow. Alex, aka Lady Alexia, the high priestess of the fucking Church of Everlasting Life.”

  “The somewhat reluctant high priestess,” Skylar added.

  Fergal’s eyes narrowed. “Didn’t she vanish for a few years? There’s a lot of that going on.”

  “She did, but they got her back. The man we’re breaking out tomorrow is her husband—”

  “Husband? Isn’t she supposed to be the virgin bride of blah, blah, blah?”

  “It’s a long story. But essentially, Jon has been kept as a hostage for her good behavior. As long as they have him, she’s going to behave in a priestess-like manner. And after ten years, I’m guessing she’s ready to explode. So we have to get him out of there. Then Tannis will pull Alex from Trakis Five.”

  Jon and Alex had chosen to stay behind when The Blood Hunter had made the potentially disastrous trip through the black hole at Trakis One. Alex had been pregnant and hadn’t wanted to risk the baby—babies, as it turned out; she’d had twins. That had been twenty-two years ago. At least for Alex and Jon. For the rest of them on The Blood Hunter, it had only been six months, due to that slight miscalculation on Saffira’s part when bringing them through the wormhole.

  Saffira was a time-mancer and could manipulate time and space. But she was new to her abilities and didn’t always get it quite right. When she’d called up a wormhole to bring them home, she’d managed to lose a few years, but she had saved them all from certain death, so no one had complained too loudly.

  “Okay,” Rico said. “Explain the security systems. How hard is this going to be?”

  “It should be easy. While they’ll be on alert after today, I doubt it will be high alert. They don’t expect trouble. I don’t think there’s been a breakout in the fifteen years the prison has been there. The Church has everyone so cowed no one will risk it.”

  “Except us. So…details.”

  Why the fuck not tell them? He certainly owed the Church no loyalty. “Twenty guards each shift, most of them not particularly efficient or loyal—unlikely to risk their lives trying to stop a prisoner escaping.”

  “What about the rest?”

  “The tech stuff is old. No biometrics, just codes changed on a weekly basis. That isn’t normally due for a couple of days, but they’ll change them after today. I can get into the system and pull out the new ones—”

  “You can do that?”

  “Yeah, providing you get me to the main control room.”

  “Should be easy enough.”

  Daisy let the conversation flow over her as she studied him. He looked even better awake than he had unconscious on the floor, and things tightened low down in her belly.

  The last time they’d been together, he’d taken her fast and hard, with her bent over the pilot’s chair. Followed by him sitting on the chair with Daisy straddling his lap, riding him, while he played with her breasts. Her nipples peaked at the memory. But that was a long time ago and the last sex she’d had. As Rico kept pointing out—she needed to get laid.

  Fergal glanced toward her, and she looked away, not wanting to be caught ogling. For a second, when he’d first realized who she was, he’d looked at her as though he liked what he saw.

  “Okay,” Rico said. “That’s it for now.”

  Fergal stretched, arms above his head, then rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t suppose there’s any food?”

  “I’ll take you,” Rico said.

  Daisy jumped to her feet, meaning to go with them, but Rico shook his head. “You stay here and do what you have to do with Devlin. I’ll look after your boyfriend and bring him safely back to you.”

  She watched as they disappeared out the door, leaving her with Saffira and Devlin. Saffira took herself off to one of the consoles and started reviewing star charts—she did that a lot. She was searching for something she’d seen in one of her visions, though she hadn’t shared the details.

  It was probably best. It was partly Saffira’s fault that Daisy was now a vampire. The result of another of her not-totally-successful adventures in time travel. If she hadn’t taken them back in time and back to Earth, Daisy would never have had her throat ripped out by a newly turned Rico back in 1499. The whole time travel thing still did her head in.

  She shifted restlessly as the hunger flared to life inside her, choking the air from her lungs. Her gums ached with the need to feed, and her vision tinged with crimson.

  She paced the room, trying to ease the restlessness, but it was futile, and eventually she sank back down onto her seat, taking slow, careful breaths. Right now, she had to eat on a daily basis. Rico had told her the first years were the hardest. Later she would get control and not need to feed so frequently. Rico hardly had to at all, but he was over fifteen hundred years old. He really only fed from Skylar now, and mainly for recreational purposes. What would it be like to feed from someone like that—someone who wanted you to bite them, pleasure them?

  Will I ever find out?

  Unlikely.

  From across the room, Devlin caught her eye. He looked at her for a moment then came on over. “You okay?”

  She nodded quickly.

  “You want to do this now?”

  She nodded again, wishing she could say no, but she knew from experience that the hunger would only get worse, and the darkness would build and build until it obliterated all else. “Do you really hate this?” she asked.

  A startled expression crossed Devlin’s face. He took the seat beside her, sat back, and considered her question. She was glad he hadn’t said an automatic no. Because she wouldn’t have believed him.

  “It makes me a little…uncomfortable.”

  “I hurt you?”

  “No.” He shifted in his chair. “If you must know, it turns me on.”

  A frown tugged her brows together, while heat flushed her cheeks. “Oh.” She couldn’t think of anything more intelligent to say.

  “And it doesn’t feel right. You’re a friend. And I feel guilty and…” He grinned. “If it makes you feel any better, Saffira tells me it does the same to her.”

  No, it didn’t make her feel better. She chewed on her lip. “It’s a vamp thing, I suppose.”

  “Yeah. I fed Rico once—when he was changing you and he needed blood. I got a fucking hard-on and it totally creeped me out. At least with you it’s understandable and a little more acceptable.”

  She forced a smile. “Thank you. I think.” She took a deep breath. “So where…?”

  The neck was best. For some reason it healed quicker than the wrist, but it was maybe a little too intimate. Rico had told her there was also a vein at the groin, but that would definitely be too intimate. Devlin usually went for wrist, but he didn’t hold out his arm as she’d expected.

  “We might be fighting tomorrow. I’ll need both my arms. You’d better go for the neck.”

  She kept her expression blank, not letting her excitement show until she had risen to her feet and moved behind him. She closed her eyes, ran a calming ma
ntra though her mind, and got a grip on her hunger. She was getting better at this.

  A wave of need washed over her as she lowered her head. The blood pulsated in the vein in his throat, so close to the surface, the tantalizing scent drawing her in. He was afraid. Probably not something Devlin experienced very often, but he held himself very still.

  She swept his hair away, breathed in deeply, and ran her tongue over the pulse point. Devlin shifted as though he couldn’t stay still, and she rested her hands on his shoulders as she sank her fangs through the flesh of his throat. The first spurt of warm blood filled her mouth, and she battled down her bloodlust.

  Keep it together.

  Just for a few seconds, and she would be okay. She swallowed convulsively, the blood flooding her system with warmth and power. Devlin’s pulse slowed to a heavy throbbing beat. He relaxed back in the chair, the tension draining from him.

  For long minutes, she fed, her body growing warm and full, but still she wanted more. Craved the last drop.

  Stop!

  She could do this. She had to. While she couldn’t kill him, taking too much could seriously incapacitate him. Still, the urge to keep going, to take everything from him, filled her.

  No!

  I can do this. I am not a killer.

  Daisy tightened her hold and forced her jaws open, raised her head, and licked a last drop of blood from the wound on his neck.

  Yay!

  She’d done it.

  She looked up and straight into Fergal’s silver eyes. He stood in the doorway, his gaze fixed on her and Devlin. She could read nothing into his expression. Her attention shifted to Rico at his back. He pushed his way past and threw her a grin. “Good girl.”

  “Thanks, Devlin.”

  He nodded, blinked a couple of times as if coming awake. “You’re getting better at controlling it.”

  “Yeah, Rico might even let me out in public one day soon.”

  “Maybe when we get back to Trakis Two. Right now, I have important things to do.”

  She was guessing important things involving Skylar.

  “Me too,” Devlin said, getting to his feet and heading over to Saffira. He kissed her lingeringly, and Daisy felt something close to jealousy rise up inside her. She hated that. She didn’t begrudge her friends their happiness, but it seemed like everyone had someone. Except for her. Sometimes she longed for someone to hold her. But if she ever got that close, the hunger rose.