“It happens to the best of us. Once we get a taste of the power killing gives us, we only want more.” Joseph licked his lips as he lowered his hands. “It is such a rush.”
Killean’s fangs tingled as he recalled the flow of hot, fresh blood sliding down his throat along with the life force of his victims. It disgusted him, but excitement slid over his skin as the memories of those deaths danced through his mind. Though Killean would never admit it to the prick, Joseph had guessed right about him and his bloodlust.
Upon reaching maturity, all male purebred vampires experienced three things: they stopped aging, their power increased every year they grew older, and they started to want incessantly for something more. Some sought out sex as often as possible, others pain, while others craved blood or killing. Some female purebreds also experienced it, but not on the same level as the men.
When he stopped aging, Killean’s thirst for blood and killing amped up tenfold. It had taken everything he had not to give in and slaughter everyone he encountered after maturing, but the centuries-old words of his father, also a purebred, stopped him from doing so.
When he was a boy, Killean’s brother once asked their father why he didn’t kill the humans he fed on? Killean had lifted his head from the book he was reading to hear his father’s reply.
“Because killing them would make me a monster, son,” his dad replied as he ruffled his brother’s hair. “And we don’t want to be monsters, do we?”
“No, we don’t,” his brother solemnly replied, and Killean gave a brisk nod of agreement.
His father had looked back and forth between them while he continued speaking. “No matter what becomes of you when you grow older, you must never give in and kill those weaker than yourself. You must never kill a human unless it is necessary for your survival. It would make you less of a vampire. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Papa,” they replied in unison.
His father never revealed what happened to vampires who killed humans before he died, probably because they were children when he passed, but his warning guided Killean through the turbulent years of his twenties, thirties, and forties. And then, when he was fifty-two, exactly four hundred years ago, he encountered Ronan.
Ronan had taken him in and taught him more about himself and the nefarious impulses he battled. He trained Killean to focus his bloodlust on killing Savages and given him an outlet for his dark urges. With the Defenders, Killean finally found a place to belong and friends who became family over the years.
If it hadn’t been for Ronan, Killean would have eventually caved and started killing, but Ronan saved him, and Killean would always be grateful for that. And now, not only had he let his father and Ronan down after all these years, but he’d become the one thing he’d vowed never to be.
Self-loathing swelled within him, but then he recalled Simone chained to the wall and the desolation in her white-blue eyes. There had been no other choice. He may not be able to get her out of here yet, but he’d located her, and that was much more than he would have accomplished had he remained as he was. And now that he’d found her, he would get her free.
“Hmm,” Joseph murmured as strolled out from behind the desk. His eyes reddened with every step he took toward Killean. “You know, when a turned vampire becomes a Savage, they still don’t possess the ability to scent a Savage like us purebreds can.”
Killean’s shoulders went back as Joseph neared and the increasing scent of garbage wafted to him. The rotten aroma wasn’t as strong as before Killean turned into a murderer, but it was there. This ability of the pureblooded vampire was the reason he’d chosen to kill instead of trying to fake his way through this. He hadn’t known if a purebred retained their ability to scent out a Savage or not once they became one.
He still didn’t know. Just because he could detect the aroma of refuse on Joseph and the other Savages, didn’t mean all purebreds retained the trait. He might not have killed enough yet to drowned out the stench of the monsters among them.
Then Joseph stopped before him and leaned close. Hatred slithered through Killean. He was a killer now too, but this piece of shit was the reason he stood here. If Joseph had been strong enough not to give in to his impulses, if he’d never declared war against Ronan, hunters, the human race, and everything they’d always known, Simone wouldn’t be here, and neither would he.
No matter what happened, Killean wouldn’t allow this monster to live.
Joseph stopped only a couple of inches away and sniffed him. Killean managed to keep his revulsion from showing on his face as Joseph rocked on his heels, clasped his hands behind his back, and grinned.
“Well, Killean, your aroma certainly has changed.”
So, Joseph can still scent Savages even though he is one. And Joseph had murdered far more humans than Killean, so that meant the trait never vanished.
Killean killed those humans in case Joseph retained this ability, but he felt no relief that their deaths hadn’t been unnecessary. If Joseph scented a Savage on him, that made Killean one of them.
Not one of them. I will come back from this!
He told himself this repeatedly, but he didn’t know how accurate it was anymore considering he was already impatient to feed again.
CHAPTER 4
Joseph sauntered away from him, around the desk, and opened a door on the other side of the room. “Bring my friend some clothes,” Joseph commanded the woman standing outside the door. She hurried away as Joseph turned to another woman. “Bring us some refreshments.”
“Right away,” she murmured.
Joseph closed the door, lifted a wooden chair from the shadows beside the door, and set it at the desk and across from his chair. “Sit, Killean,” Joseph said as he walked over and settled into his chair.
Killean glanced at the closed door behind him. He could feel Simone out there, suffering. But the only chance they had of making it out of this mess was for him to learn more about what was going on here and the weaknesses of this place. After his betrayal, he would return to Ronan with as much information as he could gather.
Killean strode forward, pulled out the wooden chair, and settled onto it. Questions spun through his mind, but he’d never been much of a talker. Smelling like a Savage or not, he would draw Joseph’s attention if he started peppering him with questions about his plans and who was the real mastermind behind this. No one in the Alliance believed Joseph was working alone in this.
Killean remained mute while he folded his hands and rested them on his bare stomach. Joseph’s mouth quirked in an amused smile that vanished when a knock sounded on the door behind him.
“Come in,” Joseph called.
The door opened to reveal the second woman Joseph had spoken with. In her pale hands, she clutched a glass decanter full of blood. Placing two glasses on the desk, she poured the liquid into them. Killean’s nostrils flared when the scent of it hit him.
“We’ll go hunting in a bit,” Joseph said as he pushed one of the glasses toward Killean. “Until then, this will have to suffice.”
Killean rested his fingers on the glass to push it away; instead, he found his hand gripping it, but he didn’t recall giving his fingers the command to do so. Refusing will only make Joseph suspicious.
But that wasn’t why he was holding the glass. No, he was doing that because the blood called to him like a siren called the ships.
What am I becoming?
What you made yourself into.
It was the truth, but before killing, he’d been sure he could control himself better than this. He felt no control as he lifted the glass and sipped the room-temperature blood. It was not the live, warm vein he craved, but it helped to ease some of his burgeoning hunger.
The first woman returned with a set of clothes. When her gaze raked over him, it lingered on his crotch, and she licked her lips. Killean didn’t acknowledge her stare or try to cover himself. Like almost all the women he’d encountered over the past hundred years, she held no interest
for him.
The only woman who had ever mattered was chained to a wall in the next room.
Joseph’s serving woman, or whatever she was, placed the clothes on the desk in front of Killean; he ignored them. He wouldn’t give Joseph the satisfaction of putting them on now. Killean took another swallow of blood and steadied the trembling in his fingers when he set the glass on the desk.
“Leave us and the blood,” Joseph commanded the two women.
The woman set the decanter on the desk and followed the other one out of the room.
When the heavy metal door closed behind them, Joseph clasped his hands before him. “Does your abrupt change of loyalty have anything to do with the fact Ronan and the hunters are working together?”
Killean kept his face blank while his mind reeled from Joseph’s question. How did Joseph know they’d formed an Alliance with the hunters? But he supposed any of the hunters chained up out there would willingly spill the information if they believed it might save them.
Idiots.
Killean hadn’t planned to reveal this information to Joseph, but if the Savage already knew about the Alliance, then he would use it to his advantage.
“I have never hidden my dislike of the hunters,” he said.
“No, you haven’t,” Joseph agreed. “We rarely worked together, and even I knew you harbored a greater dislike toward them than the rest of us. Perhaps it has something to do with your scars.”
Inwardly, Killean seethed at Joseph’s attempt to analyze him; outwardly, he remained utterly composed.
“Ronan should have taken your feelings into account when agreeing to work with them,” Joseph said. “It cost him one of his most loyal and vicious fighters.”
“There is no stopping Ronan when he sets his mind to something.”
“Very true. So, tell me, where is Ronan hiding now?”
Killean had expected questions such as this and prepared for them. He hoped he was a better actor than he believed. “And how would I know? As soon as I left, Ronan would have changed locations. Maybe before he became mated he would have stayed, but he’d never risk his mate by keeping her somewhere Savages could find.”
“Then where was he, Killean?” Joseph inquired with a lethal gleam in his eyes.
Killean smiled as he leaned back in his chair. “I’m sure you can understand that, for now, I will be keeping some things to myself, Joseph. I will not divulge all my info to you as I’m sure you have plenty you will keep from me too. Unless you intend to tell me your exact plans for those hunters and all the others you’re turning into Savages as well as where we are?”
Killean practically saw Joseph’s desire to destroy him burning behind the Savage’s eyes. But instead of trying to attack, Joseph leaned back in his chair and rested the tips of his entwined fingers against his chin.
“While I still have some knowledge you want, I have a better chance you’ll keep me alive,” Killean continued.
“I plan to keep you alive anyway. Two fallen Defenders working together to bring down Ronan is far better than one, but I understand your reasoning.”
“Good. Once we establish a more mutual trust, we can discuss this again.”
Joseph smirked. “That shouldn’t take long. Do you really think Ronan moved?”
Killean wasn’t sure, but he doubted it. They’d just established a shared compound with the hunters; it would be difficult for them to pick up so many lives again and relocate them, but Ronan would do anything to keep Kadence safe.
Maybe he was wrong, and they had left, or perhaps he was only hoping Ronan had enough faith in him to delve into this world of Savages and return from it without betraying the Alliance.
He didn’t know if he deserved any faith as he gripped the glass and brought the blood back to his mouth.
• • •
Simone lifted her head when the hunter beside her shifted. She looked toward where she’d seen Killean vanishing into the room where the Savage who’d done this to her always went. She hoped they both choked on the next person they ate.
“Simone,” someone croaked; their voice was so dry it could have belonged to a mummy recently roused from the dead.
Gradually turning her head, she met the gaze of Dallas as he stared at her from inhuman, white-blue eyes. She’d forgotten he was the one chained beside her. Those eyes should freak her out more than they did, but she couldn’t bring herself to care about the strange color on the man she’d briefly considered her leader. When she left Nathan behind, it was to follow Dallas to a stronghold he established in New Hampshire.
She never should have left Nathan and the others, but her battered pride compelled her to go. Pride, a sin she’d believed herself above experiencing, and something she never realized she possessed until Nathan chose a vampire over her. She’d never been in love with Nathan, but she’d spent most of her life with the expectation she would marry the leader of all the hunters. All those in their stronghold had believed the same thing.
But the blow her life took that day was nothing compared to the devastating mess she found herself embroiled in now. Even if she had been prideful when she was raised better than to give in to such a shameful emotion, and when she should have been happy Nathan found love instead of wallowing in the imagined life she lost, she didn’t deserve this.
No one deserved this.
And now Killean, the only man she’d ever kissed and who made her feel a hint of passion about anything in life, was one of the monsters keeping her here. Tears clogged her throat, and if she wasn’t as dehydrated as a raisin, she might have cried for the first time since finding herself here.
Hopelessness and self-pity swamped her. She hated herself for the emotions, but she couldn’t shake them. She saw no way out of this debacle, and she dreaded becoming one of the foul-smelling creatures keeping her here.
Even if she could come up with an escape plan, she’d never been a fighter. She’d taken some of the self-defense classes Nathan imposed on the women in the stronghold after Kadence ran away, but she’d hated every second of them.
She was born and bred to become a wife, not a fighter or killer. Cooking and sewing were where she excelled. She’d been the epitome of the perfect student and destined to be the mother of the son who would one day rise to take his father’s place as the hunter leader.
Then Nathan fell in love with another, and all her dreams crumbled. She left the stronghold so she wouldn’t have to be reminded of that every time she saw Nathan and Vicky together. She left so she wouldn’t have to take another class on how to punch, kick, and stab something.
She left because, if she wasn’t going to become the wife of the leader, she planned to resume her old life as much as possible. She’d never liked change, and the changes Nathan was implementing on the hunters were too much for her.
But they were far less than the changes shoved onto her in this hellish place. And soon, if she didn’t do something, she would become one of these monsters and what remained of the woman she was would be destroyed forever.
“Simone,” Dallas croaked again.
“What?” she asked and was appalled to discover her voice sounded as bad as his.
“That vampire they brought in was one of Ronan’s men, wasn’t he?”
Simone tried swallowing to wet her arid throat; it was pointless. “Yes.”
For a second, hope shone in Dallas’s eyes. “Do you think they sent him in search of us?”
Oh, how she wished that were true, but though she was many things, some of which she hadn’t realized until recently, she wasn’t delusional. She’d seen Killean’s eyes, and though he was nude, he wasn’t chained. Recalling his cruel dismissal of her after they kissed on the beach, she knew if anyone was going to join these monsters, it was him.
“No,” she rasped. “He’s here for an entirely different reason.”
Noise on her left drew her attention to Killean and Joseph when they emerged from the room. Killean had clothes draped over his arm, but he rem
ained as bare as the day he was born. Again, she felt a hideous blush creeping up her cheeks and ducked her head. What was it about him that always unsettled her so much?
Killean stared at Simone’s bent head as her shoulders hunched forward. Her profile revealed the delicate slope of her slender nose, high cheekbones, and the curve of her full, pink lips. In his lifetime, he’d encountered numerous beautiful women, but none had affected him as she did.
He felt no desire for her, not while she was like this, but protective urges he’d never known he possessed rolled through him. He wanted to go to her, draw her into his arms, and shelter her from this atrocity, but he was caught in this hideous pit of helplessness until he could figure out a way to get her free.
“They’re future puppets and nothing more,” Joseph said. “Come, let’s hunt.”
Killean forced his attention away from Simone to follow Joseph past the hunters; all fifty of the ones taken from the New Hampshire stronghold were here. Some of Joseph’s flunkies trailed them down the long, concrete corridor. No other rooms or tunnels branched off this one, and every ten feet a recessed light cast a dim, yellow circle onto the concrete. A hundred feet from the end of the corridor, the line of hunters stopped, but empty chains continued to dangle from the walls in wait for future victims.
When they reached the end, Joseph stopped outside the large steel door there. “You should probably dress for this,” Joseph said. “I don’t care if you run around naked for the rest of your life, but you’ll only draw the attention of the humans we hunt, and not in a good way.”
Killean couldn’t argue with that, and since he was ready for more than blood in a glass, he lifted the brandy-colored shirt he’d been handed and tugged it on. It was constricting across his chest and shoulders, and the sleeves ended an inch above his wrist, but the jeans fit well, as did the socks and boots.
“I’m sure you’ll understand that you’ll be blindfolded and put in a trunk again,” Joseph said when he finished dressing. “And that once we get where we’re going, you will be watched. You are not to ask anyone any questions about where we are or try to escape. I’m sure you understand that these rules will be enforced, and you will be monitored until a more mutual trust is established.”
Bound by Darkness (The Alliance, Book 3) Page 3