by Kate Martin
Blood.
It smelled as strong as ammonia to me; abrasive, harsh, overpowering—and sweet. There was little more than a few scarce drops dripping and rolling along his skin. My mouth went dry, my fangs stretched to their full length almost instantly, cutting the inside of my lip and forcing a gasp from my throat. Instinctively, I opened my mouth to relieve the pain.
Time—as frozen as it was for me—halted, and I knew by the look on his face that he had seen. He knew what I was. Knew the truth. And unlike with Sara, I didn’t have so much as a single instance of friendship to hope upon to salvage the situation. He would tell. He would scream and alert everyone within hearing distance. I could see the breath that would give him the air needed to expose me steadily filling his lungs. The familiar chill of doom settled on my neck—though whose doom it predicted, I did not know.
The hunger I had suppressed for far too long reared its truly ugly head; drove its power into my muscles, preparing to spring.
Two choices. Let myself be exposed, or give into the hunger—if I could even hold it back.
Travis opened his mouth to scream.
Hunger won.
I sprang.
Chapter Twelve: Hide and Seek
Empty air smacked me in the face. I stumbled from the unexpected lack of something to pounce upon and spun around, pulling my sense of balance back to me.
“I know we only met once, but killing an innocent kid in a public place doesn’t seem like your style to me.”
Solo.
He had his arm slung around Travis’s shoulders. Travis, who just looked at Solo with this eerie blank expression, mouth agape.
I threw myself around the nearest corner, separating myself from my intended prey and pressed my back up against the cold stone wall. Digging my fingers into the stone until it gave way and I had something to hold onto, I closed my eyes and started counting. My fangs stayed put.
Solo came around and settle against the wall at my side. He exuded a calm I wished I possessed. Too bad my only talent was predicting doom and gloom. Siphoning emotions would have been more useful at the moment. Could anyone even do that? If they could, I was jealous.
“What did you do to him?” I wasn’t sure asking about Travis was the best idea, but it was the only one I had. I could change the subject later.
“Charmed him. He’s gonna hang out for a few minutes, then head on home by way of the ice cream shop. I like giving people a little treat after I mess with their minds.”
“Charmed him?” Movie scenes interrupted my mind’s desperate state. Images of vampires changing the thoughts and memories of unsuspecting humans. One more thing everyone had failed to mention to me. But despite my little distraction, I didn’t dare let go of the wall. The faint scent of blood still sat crystal clear to me on the air, and I wanted it. I needed to get away, but doing so without moving towards the warm body around the corner seemed impossible. “What are you doing here? I thought you were leaving.”
“I did, and I was, but things seem pretty interesting around here, and I don’t have anywhere else I need to be.”
“What about what Rhys said? About Cade?”
“Eh. I’m not afraid of them. As long as I keep my nose out of trouble, they can’t touch me.”
Funny. It hadn’t looked that way the other night.
“So what’s up, Kass? Why the long fangs?”
“I can’t help it.” The dumb things still refused to retract. The entirety of both my hands scraped hard against the stone.
“When was the last time you drank?”
“Yesterday.”
“Not the best answer, but you still shouldn’t be having a problem then. You’re young, but given who you hang with, you must have better control than that.”
Jeeze, he knew a lot. “I think it’s something else.”
“Ah. I see now. I was right before. Killing isn’t your thing.”
“Understatement.”
“Bet hunting isn’t your thing either then.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I’m willing to bet you have a feeder. You’ve never hunted a day in your new life. I might even go as far as to wager you don’t bite the human.”
He sounded far too amused for my liking.
I cracked an eye open and peeked at him, hoping I looked impressively annoyed. “Don’t presume to think you’ve got me all figured out.”
He flashed his pearly whites, complete with half extended fangs. “Even if I do?”
“Shut up.”
“Didn’t any of them warn you about the hunting instinct?”
Yes. Millie had mentioned it the first week, and the subject had come up recently . . . much to my chagrin. “Of course.”
“So then you have a plan for taking care of it.”
“I’m really starting to not like you.”
“I knew you liked me before.”
“Will killing you cover this hunting impulse?”
Laughing, he gently, cautiously, took hold of my wrist. “Come on, I’ll show you a trick.” He coaxed my fingers away from the wall.
For some unknown reason, I let him. “They’ll be looking for me.”
“They’ll find you.” He pried my second hand from the death grip I’d had. “Just stick with me, and run fast. Let’s get away from that sweet smelling blood.”
I didn’t have a chance to agree or disagree. He wasn’t hard to keep up with, though whether that was because he just wasn’t very fast or because he kept a matchable pace, I had no idea.
We were out of the city limits in short minutes. The smell of trees and wild animals overran my senses. The scent reminded me of Rhys and cleared my thoughts, but only slightly. The memory of the blood still prodded my tired mind, and the knowledge that the unconscious boy lay behind me in the depths of the town pulled at me like a magnetic force. When Solo finally released me, I grabbed hold of the nearest tree, afraid I would be drawn back instantly.
“Wow. Is it really that bad?”
“I don’t want to kill anyone.”
“You won’t. Trust me.”
“I don’t even know you.”
“Something I intend to remedy.” He stood with his hands on his hips like some sort of lame superhero. I groaned. “So here’s the game. Memorize my scent, and my voice.”
Already done. Who could forget that bold, confident way he spoke, or the stunning mix of a lightning storm and clean laundry? I didn’t tell him that. “Okay, fine. Now what?”
“Find me.” He winked, and then he was gone.
Panic surfaced. I gripped the tree all the harder, the wood creaking deep inside against the pressure. The image of blood against naturally tanned skin superimposed itself over every tree, bush, and twig laid out before me.
He had set me up. That bastard had dragged me out here and left me to suffer the ramifications of my uncontrollable urges to hunt and kill. If I survived the quest for blood, I would hunt and kill him. I didn’t foresee anyone having a problem with it.
“Quit thinking about other things.” Solo’s voice wove its way through the trees, startling me well enough to make me jump away from the trunk I had made my anchor. “I told you to focus on me. You don’t listen very well.”
It happened without effort. All other thoughts ceased, and suddenly the only thing that mattered was his voice. Locked onto that, his scent soon followed. My anger flared at his jibe, but it only served to heighten my awareness of him. I turned right, facing the direction I knew his voice had come from. His scent swirled and shifted. I followed. He was to my left now.
“That’s it.” He sounded playful. “Come get me, Kassandra of Troy.”
My instincts sparked at that. I wanted to find him, hunt him, more than I had before. Certain I wouldn’t turn back to town, I stalked towards the sound of his voice, wrapping myself in the trail of his scent. I ran, pushed myself until my muscles burned and I couldn’t possibly go any faster. Solo moved just as quickly. I skidded around trees, hopped and push
ed off their trunks. One shuddered, and a long root popped up from the ground. I didn’t give it a second thought.
The wind shifted, and for a moment I lost his scent. Too easy to grab a low branch and swing myself up. Perched in a high tree, I closed my eyes and blocked out all the little sounds of the forest. Scents only. I had begun to curse him again when the scent returned. The urge to call out, to jeer and tease him as he had me, was strong, but on the off chance that he wasn’t as aware of my distinctive traits as I was his, I didn’t risk it.
Hardly a sound reflected my movements through the branches and leaves I remembered my lessons in stealth.
“Where are you, Kassandra?” he taunted me. “Can’t even keep track of one lone undead creature among all the beating hearts?”
I changed direction slightly. His voice and his scent didn’t come from the exact same direction. If he could throw his voice . . . well, that just wasn’t fair. But it could have been his scent that mislead me. The breeze was being fickle about its path. I opted for somewhere in between.
Waiting, judging, I let myself listen for the chatter of squirrels and the humming of insects. Nothing came from my immediate vicinity. Interesting. I listened closer, farther. The animals went about their business outside of what I figured to be a ten foot radius of me. Straight ahead, the sounds were strong; the same went for to my left and directly behind me. To my right, the sounds were weaker.
Another dead zone just beyond.
I had him.
I released the branch I held above my head and pushed off, jumping for the next tree over. While still airborne, I smelled it.
Blood. Again.
All conscious thought halted to a dead stop.
My next moment of awareness, my lips were locked around something cold and smooth, my fangs fully extended and imbedded in a quickly emptying pool of lukewarm blood. The life-giving fluid coated my lips, my hands, my tongue and my throat.
Satiated, I wrenched my mouth from the bloody object and held it away so I could see what it was.
A bag, one used to collect blood donations, or for giving an IV. It was almost empty, but I could see where I had torn through it with my fangs in my impatience. The blood had leaked out, staining my hands and dripping onto my jeans. Great. Another pair ruined. Unless by some miracle I got home in time to rinse them out.
“Feel better now?”
His voice startled me yet again. He seemed to always be doing that. Now, he sat quietly next to me on the ground, leaning back against the next tree over. His clothes were dirty, grass-stained and smeared with dirt. A few spots of blood speckled his white shirt, but I suspected they were another remnant of my over-exuberance.
I had to actually think about it before I could answer. Experimentally, I tried to retract my fangs. Success. “Yeah,” I said. “I feel a lot better, actually.” As I said it I almost wished I hadn’t. Surely he would gloat about being right.
I braced myself for the onslaught of cocky ‘I told you so’s, but they never came.
“Good. Glad to help.”
I waited another moment, giving him his chance to poke fun at my expense. When he still said nothing, I looked at the bag of blood in my hands instead. “Where did you get this?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “I have a stash. I ran off to get it in the middle of making you chase me all over creation.”
The time I had lost his scent, I suspected. “Well, thanks.”
“No problem. Gotta say, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone so pent up. I was actually reminded of a rabid animal. Considered just having you put down.”
I knew he would get there eventually. “Ha ha. So this will really work? Playing a game of vampire tag with a bag of blood at the end?”
“Well, I don’t know how good it will be over the course of centuries, but it certainly seems to have at least taken the edge off for you.”
Cade and I would be having a talk about this. “Thanks, again,” I said, not sure what else could be said.
“No problem, again.”
I decided to be sincerely grateful. “No, really, thanks. If you hadn’t shown up when you did I think I would have really killed that kid, and then I would hate myself forever.”
“You’ll probably kill eventually.”
“No thanks. I’ll just find myself a supply of these,” I said, turning the empty bag over in my hands. “I’ll kill these all day long if I have to.”
He laughed. “I don’t think it will come to that.”
I tossed the mostly empty bag to him. “I guess now I owe you one.”
My mistake was so crystal clear as soon as all the words had left my mouth and could no longer be taken back.
Solo raised one eyebrow, the corner of his mouth quirking up to match. “Owe me, huh?”
I went on the defensive. “A bag of blood. I owe you a bag of blood, not ‘owe you.’”
“Oh, I have plenty of blood. I think you can pay me back some other way. Say with like . . . a date.”
“No.”
“Hey, don’t forget, I saved you from yourself today.”
“You are such a huge jerk.”
“Jerks don’t help people out like I do.”
“How about I keep my family from killing you? Would that make us square?”
“If I was worried about your family, I wouldn’t still be here.”
Ugh. If he wasn’t scared of a few thousand year old vampires, what was he scared of?
“So,” he said, still sitting there like James Dean in his tee-shirt and jeans, all cool attitude and swagger, “why the lack of a hunting plan?”
“It just—it hasn’t really been a problem until very recently,” I said, trying to rub away some of the blood on my hands. “And, well, there have been more important things to deal with lately.” Scrubbing at the crimson on my fingers made me remember the hiss of the gold chains, and the lines—the scars—I had seen on Cade’s arms. I let my hands fall to my sides.
“Yeah, well,” Solo said, “I suggest a plan of action, pronto.”
“You are a plethora of knowledge when it comes to the obvious.”
“Unless you want to keep playing with me, that is.” He grinned. “We could play hide and seek, oh let’s say . . . once a week?”
“Not a chance.”
“You had better come up with something good then, otherwise I’ll just have to keep saving your ass like I did today.”
“I am more and more liking the idea of hunting you.”
“Gotta admit, I like that idea too.”
I whacked his arm. “Not like that.”
“Sure. Keep telling yourself that, doll.”
“Don’t call me doll.”
“Sure thing, babe.”
“Where’s your dog?” I changed the subject rather than fight through every single nickname he could come up with. He’d been around longer than me, he had more decades to pull from. Though I knew I needed to get home, I didn’t quite feel steady enough to stand up and get there yet.
“He’s back at the old barn we’ve been staying in. I wasn’t about to let him near a blood-starved vampire like yourself.”
“I didn’t know vampires kept pets.”
“Buddy’s not really a pet. He’s more of a companion.”
“What does that mean?”
“I take care of him, he keeps me company.”
“Oh.”
“I’ve had lots of dogs over the years.”
“That’s nice of you.” I scratched at some of the blood on my jeans. It had seeped beneath the strap for my dagger’s sheath. The dagger I always kept with me, but had yet to use since that night. If Solo wondered about it, he didn’t ask.
“I always thought so. Your clothes will be fine.”
“Not likely. I thought I would get to keep clothes longer now that I’m immortal, but I seem to destroy them not a week after I buy them instead.” Planting my hands firmly on the ground, I started to get up.
“Here, let me help.” Solo ju
mped from his seat beside me and offered his hands. I stared at them for half a moment, deciding if I wanted his help or not. Then I saw it. A series of lines peeking out from under the leather band that wrapped around his wrist. I grabbed his left hand and pulled it forward so I could see better. Solo ended up back on his knees. “What’s this?” The fastening on the leather gave way easily.
A tattoo, all black with shades of grey, spanned from nearly one end of his wrist to the other. Looking closely, it appeared to be a snake, or maybe it was a dragon, biting its own tail. Its back was lined with spikes and scales, with two huge wings sweeping out and up Solo’s arm. Inside the dragon’s circle, a series of lines had been crossed and woven together, like a web, or a Celtic knot. It reached as far as the wings, then tapered off, the last few pieces looking lonely and unfinished.
I ran a finger over it, and a chill traveled up my arm.
Solo left his hand in mine. “A momento,” he said. “From my human years.”
“Oh.” It sounded stupid, but I couldn’t think of anything more to say. I didn’t want to admit it to him, but the image seemed almost familiar. I chalked it up to internet searches born of boredom and procrastination.
“I really need to get back,” I said, releasing him.
Solo stood when I did, but didn’t offer me assistance again. I pulled another leaf from my hair and held out my hand to him. “Thank you for helping me.”
“No problem. Always willing to rescue the beautiful maiden.” He shook my hand, then in a flash, lifted it to his lips and kissed it.
I pulled away. “Don’t get any ideas.”
“You can’t control my thoughts, Kass.”
“No, but I can send very old, very powerful vampires after you.”
“Like I said, not afraid of them.”
“Why? Because you managed to kill your sire? Nothing scares you now?”
He leaned back against the tree, hands shoved in his pockets. “They told you, huh?”