The Ultimate Bite

by Crystal Green

  He fought to contain a sneak-attack grin. Kimberly was a funny one. “The crucifix you used on me is sufficient to repel.”

  “I’m carrying a little stake, too, just so you know. It fits right into my bag.”

  “Convenient.” It rankled that she felt the need to inform him that she was hauling around a deadly weapon, as if she wished to warn him off, just in case.

  Yet, could he blame her? He was vampyr. He was lethal, and there were times when he even feared that he—a master of control—might not be able to contain himself around her.

  Even now, the scent of her skin was easing into him, tempting him. The soft thud of her pulse wasn’t helping, either. His fangs threatened to come out again and he wrestled them back.

  “What else?” she asked. “Mirrors, film? Can you see yourself in them?”

  “No.”

  “Do you shapeshift like Dracula did? You know—into a bat, mist, a wolf thingamajig…”

  “No.” Though he knew those types of creatures existed. However, Fegan’s gang made it a habit to avoid closely associating with others unless they were near the family’s territory or unless Fegan himself decided to go on a solo rampage to assuage his bloody appetites.

  “I hate to be rude,” she said, using one hand to fix her high ponytail while the other kept steering, “but how can your kind be killed?”

  As he watched her dodgy driving skills, he again debated the wisdom of imparting this information. Stephen had no doubts he could overpower her if need be, yet what if she came into contact with the rogue and she didn’t know what to do?

  Sweet mercy.

  His answer rushed out. “A stake through the heart, fire, decapitation…Those are options.”

  As she lifted her other hand to fret with her hair, he grabbed the wheel to steady the car. She smiled, shrugged and abandoned her ponytail for safer driving.

  Mortals. Many of them had no idea how quickly the end could come. Yet…

  He recalled what she had shown him in her mind about her sister. Kimberly knew how fragile life was. So why test death as she did?

  “Then, you guys really aren’t immortal at all,” she said, unruffled. “You just have really long lives until someone kills you.”

  “Yes.” He got back on his side of the car, too overwhelmed by her to trust himself.

  “And how do you become—” she paused, shifted, then continued “—absolutely mortal again? Or can you?”

  She had asked this last part so softly that a human would not have heard it. He also detected something more disturbing in her words—something that dug at the area they called a heart. It was as if she were trying to unearth his without knowing what damage she was wreaking.

  For a moment, he allowed himself to give in, to experience one flash of joy because she seemed to care about his answer. “I can return to a mortal state, Kimberly, but at great cost.”

  “What?”

  He didn’t respond. It was a path he didn’t wish to travel. His family was all there was left for him, and speaking of the only way to become mortal again was near blasphemy.

  She seemed to accept that she had gone too far in the asking.

  Silence rent the space between them, making the air too loud, the passage of every second too piercingly felt. A pressure welled inside of him. An expanding throb, a tugging that made him wish to smile and weep at the same moment.

  Just when he thought he couldn’t bear any more of it, he hacked away from the emotion.

  Yet he had made the mistake of indulging and, now, his usual unfeeling state was not enough.

  Not enough.

  Numbing himself, he said, “I’m content as I am. I can barely recall my human days. And what I do remember doesn’t inspire me to return to them.”

  As the lie fell to ash on his tongue, he thought of hard work on the estate under the thumb of his human master; thought of the time his own brother had betrayed him; thought of how that had eventually sent him reeling into the orbit of Fegan, who had taken him into the gang and made him part of a family that had lasted where the mortal one had not.

  Kimberly hadn’t remarked on his last comment. Was she struggling with a vague battle, as well? Did she, perhaps, believe that him staying on his side and her staying on the human one was for the best?

  After all, even she had to know that their flirtations, as diverting as they were, held no importance.

  “That’s pretty dark, Stephen,” she finally said. “Still…You say you’re content, but are you happy?”

  He didn’t answer because he feared both of them already knew what he would say.

  Slumping ever so slightly, Kimberly steered the car off the 15 and onto a side road. Across the freeway, the white lights of the Marrakech Casino blazed in invitation against a black sky.

  The building was also visible from the construction site, where a couple of police vehicles were parked. Kimberly drove to another side street and then pulled over.

  They sat in the car for a moment. He wondered if she was searching for a way to close their conversation, but he sensed that perhaps she didn’t know how to do it.

  “Let’s avoid any official entanglements,” he said, instead, opening the passenger-side door.

  She hesitated, then nodded, clearly giving up the last of the oddly intimate discussion. “It might be smart to stay on the opposite end of where those cops are. That’d still be close enough to where Darlene was dropped for you to sense your clues, right?”

  “Perhaps.” Previously, he hadn’t been able to read anything from the Mystique nightclub because of all the energy, all the bodies distracting him. Even the alley where last night’s woman had been attacked held too many influences, since it was near the Strip’s foot traffic. But here? There were only a few remaining authorities guarding the scene.

  And Kimberly.

  Could he get his mind off of her long enough to focus?

  As she slipped her oversized bag across her chest, turned on a tiny flashlight and walked ahead of him, he began to doubt his fortitude. He kept watching the grace of her hips, the way her faded jeans cupped her rear end, the slim curves of her waist. All the while, night played over her skin, and he imagined running his mouth over it, biting into it.

  Just as he started to be taken over by his hunger, Kimberly halted, then dashed over to the skeleton of a building that was in its first stages of birth. She hid behind what looked to be a steel pillar and pointed a finger north, where two officials were talking to each other by the only cement block near the sidewalk.

  When she widened her pale eyes at him, Stephen understood. It might have been where Darlene was propped up to be discovered.

  Good tracking, he thought. Perhaps Kimberly was a very talented hunter and he should be keeping watch over her for more reasons than her own safety. There was his own to consider, as well.

  He concentrated on the cement block, reaching out with his mind to the rogue who had been here merely hours ago. A twinge needled through him, and he jerked.

  Familiar. A feeling he could not pinpoint. A flicker of…

  Without warning, a breeze hushed down from above them on the construction beams. Before either Stephen or Kimberly could look up, a voice, a whisper attacked.

  “Stephen…”

  It traveled on the wind like a jagged threat.

  Whoever it was knew his name.

  Stephen’s vision locked onto a shadow that loomed above them like a bird of prey, coat spread wide.

  Kimberly! he thought, darting forward to shield her body with his own.

  But she had already speared something into the rafters, toward the intruder. Just as Stephen reached her, he heard the creature yelp. Then, with a sucking sound, it extracted something from itself and dropped it.

  A wooden stake quivered, impaled in the ground.

  Then, quicker than the glint of a blade, the creature zoomed downward.

  No!

  It spread its coat, descending in a moment that seemed so much long
er than that. Thinking only of protecting Kimberly, Stephen zoomed up toward it, intending to intercept.

  With a screech, the rogue dodged, flaring past Stephen toward…

  Kimberly!

  Stephen whipped about, desperately trying to beat the rogue before it got to her first.

  But it already had.

  Everything happened in a blink. Kimberly lashed out, kicking with a well-aimed crunch that made the creature stumble before recovering.

  It was not enough, for the rogue effortlessly grabbed her by the neck, exposing it to his mouth as Kimberly froze.

  “Stop or I tear into her!” the shadow said to Stephen.

  Out of pure terror for what the rogue might do next, Stephen halted his attack in midair, hovering. The rogue wore what looked to be sunglasses, plus a hooded jacket under his coat, and he’d pulled it over his head to hide all features. His scent was masked by cologne and he was mentally shielded, keeping Stephen from reading anything about him.

  “I needed you to come alone after most of those cops went on their way,” the rogue whispered, as if attempting to disguise his voice. “This one wasn’t meant to be here.”

  “Let her free,” Stephen said. He should be going after the rogue, subduing him so he could transport the criminal back to Fegan for the creator’s satisfaction. He should be asking why the rogue knew his name. But he couldn’t do it with Kimberly in this position.

  How had this happened?

  Stephen could see Kimberly, visibly shaking. Now she was face-to-face with a vampire who was not so choosy about his bites, and Stephen was angry with her for being so stubborn, so reckless. Why had he allowed her to accompany him? Why?

  The rogue was shaking his head, as if disappointed by this outcome. “I finally catch you and what happens? A human ruins it. A…human.”

  The last word was steeped in something besides hatred, an emotion Stephen would not have expected from a criminal who preyed upon mortals. No, there was…sorrow?

  “Let her loose, and we’ll have our own meeting,” Stephen said calmly, the opposite of what he was actually feeling.

  In the background, his hearing picked up exclamations of surprise and the policemen radioing for backup.

  Time, he was losing time.

  The rogue spoke again in that broken voice. “I was depending on talking to you, Stephen, reasoning with you since I know what slows your own walk nowadays. It’s all lackluster, isn’t it? The passage of nights, the routine of surviving, the easiness and similarities of places and things. It’s all…lifeless.”

  Stephen flinched, though he tried to hide it. How did this rogue know?

  The other vampire tightened his hold on a still Kimberly. She was being so brave, so smart by not testing this mad creature.

  “What will it take to get to Fegan?” the rogue asked. “What else shall I do, Stephen? Perhaps if I attacked someone close enough to his enforcer it would produce faster results.”

  “No!”

  Stephen flew forward to stop the rogue, but it was too late.

  Kimberly cried out, not in passion, but in pain. The rogue had struck like a viper, sinking his teeth into her. Then, just as if he had made his point and was done for the night, he shot away, cutting the air in a clean escape.

  Stephen screeched to a hovering stop, then fell to the ground near a slumped Kimberly. He should have given chase to the rogue—it was his mission.

  But he couldn’t.

  He touched his fingers to Kimberly’s neck, beginning the healing process. Then, holding her tightly, he sped away from the site before the lawmen came upon them.

  He had traded the rogue for her safety; yet, in this wounded moment, it seemed like the best bargain in existence.

  8

  KIM CAME TO gradually, feeling the pressure of fingertips on her neck and a soreness that tore at the tender skin there.

  As her eyes adjusted to the near darkness, she realized she was in an abandoned building, plaster and wood littering the floor as the night peered through a hole in a wall. The mild smell of must added to the sense of isolation. She prepared herself for the scuttle of little feet over the floor, but there was no sound other than her own uneven pulse.

  As she moved her head to look at whoever was touching her, she found a shape blocking most of what vague light there was. Her breathing quickened.

  The fingers trailed away from her throat, leaving burning patches from the lack of contact.

  Stephen.

  “I have done as much as possible,” he said gruffly, “but your injury will take more time to fully heal.”

  Suddenly, it all came back to her—the shadow above them on the construction beams, the bite the creature had given her after taking her captive.

  But, this time, it wasn’t the kind of bite she’d been longing for.

  What she’d always thought to be an intimate, incredible experience had hurt, ripped. The brutal entry had made her shrink into herself in shock and agony.

  She reached up to feel her wound—two punctures, crusted and sensitive. Wincing, she brushed her thumb to the other side of her neck, where Stephen’s bite lingered.

  “The rogue didn’t drain me,” she whispered, vocal cords strained. “It was the rogue, right?”

  “It had to have been.” Stephen rose away from her, removing himself to stand by the broken wall. “He left before any draining could occur. However, I’m certain he only planned to prevent me from giving chase, or perhaps to teach me a lesson about pursuing him further. You weren’t meant to be one of his normal victims.”

  Propped on her elbows, Kim couldn’t tear her eyes away from Stephen. Her heartbeat fluttered in his presence, part fear, part yearning. The sight of him nailed her, leaving a raw trail of warmth until her entire body throbbed like one connected, exposed wound.

  Why was he still here and not out getting the rogue?

  “It knew your name,” she said.

  The vampire’s back was to her as he watched the night readying itself for the coming of dawn. It was still maybe a couple of hours away, but he looked about ready to fly off into the darkness, regardless.

  “Stephen?” Gathering strength, Kim sat all the way up. “How did the rogue know?”

  His shoulders lost their arrogant line, as if he’d blown out a held breath. “I don’t know, Kimberly. Perhaps the rogue heard the local vampire community speak my name in regards to hunting him down. Perhaps…” He trailed off.

  Her skin flushed. “I’m sorry you couldn’t chase the rogue because you had to tend to me.” She’d never considered herself a liability, not when she’d done everything a single girl living alone should be doing—judo and self-defense classes, always trying to be aware of what was around her while walking. But look what’d happened—she’d messed up their chance to vindicate Darlene, who was lying in a hospital. “It’s my fault we didn’t get that vamp.”

  Something like a low laugh sounded, but she wasn’t sure.

  “You heaved a stake at him,” Stephen said. “And it hit him somewhere.”

  “Thanks to my softball days.” Kim shrugged. “My dad used to brag about my pitching arm.”

  And Lori had been the grand-slam hitter way back when. Their father had compensated for a lack of any sons by making sure his girls were well versed in sports; Mom had taught them that you could still be feminine at the same time. Kim had looked to her big sister for how to keep it all together.

  Kim swallowed a lump that was growing in her throat. “Luckily, I can still hit a target.”

  “Nevertheless, I would prefer to face the rogue alone in the future. He might be twice as dangerous now; an animal backed into a corner.”

  Still smarting from thoughts of Lori, Kim was stuck on the part where Stephen kept calling the rogue a he.

  “How can you be sure it was male?”

  Stephen glanced halfway over his shoulder, but didn’t look directly at her in his thoughtful pose. “I can’t be certain. Do you have reason to believe the rog
ue is female?”

  “I’m just an equal opportunity hunter.” Truly, she had no reasons, but why limit themselves to one gender? “Hey, I don’t know how old you are, but in this day and age, women can be as destructive as men.”

  A strange smile—more of a scowl—captured Stephen’s expression before he glanced away. “Then, nothing has changed in this world.”

  The way he said it made her want to fire off a hundred questions: Had a woman hurt him personally? And just how had he been born into this life? Where? When?

  But his soft voice interrupted, taking on an edge as he folded his hands behind his back and kept staring out the wall’s hole.

  “Did you get what you wished for tonight, Kimberly?” he asked. “Did you enjoy this bite?”

  His words were like a quick slap, stinging way more than the force that’d been used to strike her.

  He was comparing the bite she’d been trying to wheedle out of him to this rogue’s attack. Anger swelled, pushing outward.

  He continued. “Was tonight’s bite romantic?”

  “Stop it.” Her voice came out as a wounded hiss.

  “I’m curious, that is all. You wished for another bite and you received it.”

  “You know it wasn’t the same.” Why was he doing this?

  She wished she could articulate just what she got out of his bites, but if she, herself, didn’t understand what the attraction was, how could she explain? All she knew was that Stephen got to her in ways no man could. In ways this violent bite couldn’t begin to, either.

  He finally turned completely from the wall, his body pure shadow, looming like the silent threat of midnight. His green eyes gave off a sparked glow, banked but menacing. Kim’s pulse beat in her neck, her eardrums.

  “A vampire bites because he’s a predator, Kimberly.” A hint of white fang lit the darkness. “We aren’t the stuff of daydreams.”

  “Then, tell me why I’ve never gotten such satisfaction when I’m with a human.”

  Stephen merely stared, obviously at a loss for words.

  “Don’t tell me I’m romanticizing your bite,” she said, struggling to stand, her legs unstable, like ice left in the sun too long. Her entire body felt as if it were melting, then coming to a fast boil. “I’m not imagining what I feel with you. It’s more than just physical. It’s…”