by Laura Kaye
She crossed the intersection and the small shelter for the bus stop came into view in the distance. At least she could sleep in tomorrow morning and let her body recuperate a bit from all the excitement of the day.
Her scalp prickled and her body broke out in goose bumps. She burrowed into her coat, but the sensations worsened.
Kaira peered over her shoulder.
Two men crossed the intersection behind her.
Just two guys out at the festival. Don’t freak out. She picked up the pace as much as her heels and her joints would allow.
And, still, her internal alarm system rang. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t convince herself it was all just a coincidence. Instinct roared that they were following her, pursuing her.
She stared over her shoulder another moment, her hand already fishing in her purse for her cell phone. She pulled it out and looked ahead—
A hooded man stood five feet in front of her.
Oh, my God. How…?
She froze and screamed. Because it was one of the two men who had just been behind her, following her. Without looking back, she knew it was true.
When her flight or fight instinct kicked in this time, she listened. She bolted to the left. He was on her almost instantly, his touch like ice even through her coat. Kaira screamed, and he slapped a hand roughly over her mouth, busting her bottom lip against a tooth. She twisted and writhed and pulled at his arm around her neck.
No use. His hold was like iron.
His smell was sickly sour. The stench burned her nose and had her fighting back her gag reflex.
The second man joined them and made a grab for her wrists.
Kaira thrashed and pummeled and kicked with every bit of the desperation she felt.
If she stopped fighting…
No, she couldn’t even let her mind entertain all the horrible things they were likely to do to her. Every bit of her adrenaline-pumped energy had to remain focused on fighting, on surviving.
In the shadow of a van parked at the curb, they forced her to the ground. Her head glanced off the pavement. One of them wrenched her coat open, sending buttons flying, as the other tore the scarf from around her neck. Hands pawed over her breasts. Knees pinned her arms down, and one of them continued to muffle her screams. A blast of cold seemed to concentrate on her throat a moment before something sharp sliced into it.
Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, my God, no.
A sickening pull centered around whatever pierced her throat. Had he…had he bitten her? The suction burned and grated, like crushed glass flowed through her veins.
Growling cut the night air from somewhere nearby. Hissing, her attackers reared back. With bleary, unfocused eyes, she tried to track what was happening. Then something—or someone—swooped over her.
Suddenly, the men were gone.
Harsh words and feral growls rang out. Some sort of chaos was happening close to where she lay. Shots ricocheted off concrete.
Run, run, run!
Time slowed to a crawl even as she forced herself to move.
Pushing up onto her elbows, Kaira fought a wave of light-headedness that sent the world tilting and warping. She used the van’s bumper to pull herself up. Her foot pressed against the cold asphalt, making her aware she’d lost a shoe somewhere along the way. The bodice of her gown flapped open.
Like the air was made of molasses, she staggered to her feet and kicked the other heel free. Vertigo washed over her, sending her body careening against the back of the van. Ignoring the fight obviously going on behind her, she concentrated on forcing oxygen into her lungs.
A man appeared in front of her.
She sucked in a scrape of frigid air that left her throat raw. Shaking her head, she raised her hands and pressed tight against the van. Tears of fright and rage blurred her vision. She blinked them away and her mind reeled.
The man from the gallery. Jakob.
She’d recognize those flashing, ice-blue eyes anywhere. Except…bleeding cuts and scratches marred his face and throat. His clothing hung in tatters.
Had he sustained these injuries protecting her?
Pale eyes with an odd reflective quality dragged down her face and settled on her neck.
An anguished noise bubbled up from his throat a moment before he opened his mouth and flashed what could only be called fangs.
He had fangs. Fangs!
She blinked, hoping against hope to see a different reality before her.
Even as she rejected what she was seeing, her mind resurrected the memory of the piercing sensation of moments before, and the trail of warmth covering her neck told her she was bleeding. The other one had bitten, sucked and drank from her.
In one more blink of her eyes, his body pinned hers and his mouth fell against the wound on her throat. She gasped and flinched as those long canines penetrated her flesh. While there was a moment of piercing pain, the first pull of suction obliterated it.
Each hungry draw of her blood into his mouth blanketed her body in languorous heat.
It wasn’t the only difference from the attacker’s bite. This one—this…vampire?—was warm. His chest against hers, his lips and tongue on her neck, his hands holding hers against the metal. Her temperature rose everywhere his hard, lean frame pressed against hers. And, oh, my God, he smelled delicious. A tempting blend of everything dark and decadent, like hot, spiced chocolate. Saliva moistened her mouth.
An unwelcome thrill rushed through her trembling body. Her heart hammered, her blood pounded, her breaths came in ragged pants. Originating where he suckled, heat skittered down her spine and settled low in her belly.
What was happening to her?
Soon, each long, wet suck seemed to tug at her nipples, at the suddenly aching bundle of nerves between her legs. She moaned and tilted her hips against his steely muscles.
Her instincts were veering in a new direction without her permission. Fright speared through her. “No,” she rasped. “No.” She didn’t want this…whatever it was.
Did she?
An odd sensation, like pins and needles, tingled over the palm of her left hand. She involuntarily squeezed his hand, and his fingers wrapped around hers.
“No,” she moaned again. “Please.”
A whimper, like the sound of an animal in pain, sounded against her throat. His muscles erupted in tremors. With a grunt, his lips released her skin. Curses and yelling echoed off the buildings around them as his tongue dragged over the spot where she’d been bitten, spreading a relieving balm. The flesh there suddenly felt less raw.
He flew back from her. No, dragged. He’d been pulled away.
A man stood behind him, arm tight around his neck. Roughly, he hauled him across the open parking space and forced him facedown against the hood of the next car, arms pinned at an almost bone-breaking angle behind his back.
Yet he didn’t resist. He didn’t fight back.
As she watched the bizarre events unfold, twin reactions coursed through her—relief at the rescue, and worry for the…vampire that had seconds before drank from her throat.
Protectiveness, even.
Why she should feel the least sympathy for him, she couldn’t begin to explain, but she also couldn’t deny the feeling. Nor the fact that her body was more aroused than she could last remember.
Kaira slid down the door of the van until her butt hit the bumper. Shaking so hard she thought for sure there must be an earthquake, she braced her bare feet against the pavement to keep from outright falling. With one hand, she struggled to force the lapels of her coat together. A whirlwind of confusion filled her mind.
God, everything hurt—her head, her throat, her arms, her very skin. The list went on.
Movement in her peripheral vision. A man stepped down off the sidewalk with his hands raised—it was the younger guy she’d seen in the gallery earlier, the one who had yanked Jakob from the room.
“I just want to help you,” he said.
Problem was, Kaira was experienc
ing something of a mind-to-body disconnect at the moment, and she couldn’t manage to formulate a response. She just stared at him, her eyes watching and assessing his every movement.
“I know what you’re thinking.” He took two slow steps until he stood directly in front of her, blocking her view of the scene on the hood of the car.
“Not…possible. Since I…don’t even know.”
He slipped out of the beat-up black leather coat he wore, leaving himself in only a hooded sweatshirt. “Yes, you do. You’ve been bitten twice. You know what you’ve seen, even if you’re trying to convince yourself it’s not true.” Keeping his bright blue eyes on hers, he held the coat out to her. “Slip your arms in. It will keep you warmer. You’re probably in shock.”
The tips of two longer teeth occasionally appeared as he spoke. He was right, she did know what she’d seen.
Vampires.
Five of them, no less. It was like she’d stepped out of the gallery and into an alternate universe. She glanced at the coat and shook her head.
The leather sagged in his hand. “Change your mind, you just say.” He glanced over his shoulder. “How’s it goin’ over there?”
Low voices fired back and forth for a moment, as if the pair by the car was arguing. Finally, one of them replied, “Fine, but he’s insisting I not let him up.”
“Do what he says.”
“Is Jakob okay?” she whispered, half hating herself for caring. Half dying to know.
The blond in front of her turned back and frowned. “Jakob?”
She nodded, gesturing to the other men, er, vampires.
“I’m Jakob.”
Dizziness washed over her. She clearly had no idea what the hell was going on. “I asked his name…before…at the gallery. He said Jakob.”
Jakob—the real Jakob, apparently—tilted his head. “I think he was calling me, not answering you.” He thumbed over his shoulder. “My brother’s name is Henrik.”
Brother?
Her feet totally numb from the icy ground, Kaira felt her knees turning to mush. The earlier fever returned with a vengeance, whipping through her like a flash fire. Way she felt, she couldn’t process all these details.
There was only one thing she wanted—needed—to know. “Are you going to kill me?”
“No.”
He said it so plainly, so matter-of-factly, that something inside told her to believe it.
The smallest sense of security returned to her and right behind it came a tsunami of post-adrenaline letdown. “Help,” she said a split second before her legs gave out.
Somehow Jakob was there. He caught her against his chest. “It’s okay. I have you.”
Good as he smelled, he didn’t incite the cravings she’d felt a few moments before. The comparison was as unwelcome as it was unbidden.
Growling erupted, fierce and sudden. Kaira looked up in time to see Henrik take the man who had been holding him and flip him over the hood of the car.
He spun and stalked toward them, glaring at Jakob, who tucked her under his arm and tugged her back a full step. Her heart rate kicked up again, but the fright that came over her was less for herself than for the vampire holding her upright.
Jakob held out a hand. The other vampire scrambled up off the sidewalk and approached from the side.
Kaira peered around Jakob’s chest and gasped. “His eyes,” she said to herself. Bright, piercing blue, like a cloudless sky on the most beautiful, spring day. Totally captivating.
“Henrik,” Jakob rasped. “Your eyes have changed.”
Confusion played over Henrik’s aggressive expression.
“Jesus, brother, your face—the cuts have all healed.” His voice was awash in wonder.
“I’ll be damned,” the third vampire said.
Henrik paused and ran his hand over his cheek, his lips, his neck. His azure eyes went wide.
Kaira glanced between the three of them, unsure what explained their sudden change in demeanor. All the aggression and tension flowed out of them.
“How?” Henrik said. “It takes me days to heal…”
His words hung on the night air for a long moment, and then three pairs of preternatural eyes turned toward her.
Chapter 5
Healed. His face had healed.
Henrik cut his gaze to his knuckles, but he already knew what he would find. Now that he paid attention, the swollen throb from moments before was gone. His eyes confirmed the truth of it.
The woman had healed his wounds from the fight with the Soul Eater.
If mere moments of consuming the sweet blood circulating through Kaira’s veins could restore his ability to heal, what would a good and proper feeding do?
Henrik stared at her for a long moment. Wonder and indecision and dangerous, dangerous hope held him rooted in place despite the magnetic draw of her blood.
And then all the little details of her penetrated the noise between his ears.
Busted lip. Bloodied throat. Ruined clothing.
He wasn’t sure which of the two of them looked worse.
Her. After all, his wounds were healed.
“Go get the truck,” he said to Lars. The warrior nodded and disappeared.
Fierce longing speared through Henrik. Not just to drink more, though that was there with a greedy vengeance. But also to heal her in return. His right hand prickled and he rubbed it roughly against his thigh.
And still he glared at Jakob, at how much of his brother’s body touched hers. Possessive rage rose up and demanded attention. Only the certainty that the other male’s presence ensured she’d survive riding with Henrik on the thirty-minute trip off the island and back to their mountain citadel kept him from acting on the territorial instinct.
The king cleared his throat. “Kaira, we need to get you off the streets. There are more of them out tonight. We will take care of you.”
“Them?” she said in a weak voice.
“Like the ones who attacked you.”
Her brow furrowed. “You attacked me.”
The truth of the words sucker punched him. Why would she see any difference between him and the Soul Eaters? The comparison was no more than he sometimes wondered about himself. Still cut him to the bone, though.
What the hell had he been thinking, believing he was fit to come out among humans tonight?
He gave a nod. “Fair enough.”
“My brother is—”
“Not going to stand here and debate.” The glare he shot Jakob was full of warning. He didn’t need him to plead his case. “I’ve put you in enough danger this evening.”
“Just let me go, then,” she said.
Her plaintive tone touched softer parts of him, parts that wanted to do nothing more than please her, parts he didn’t know he had. But his body refused to let her go. Not when a few thick swallows of her blood had done more for him than any other woman’s blood had in years.
So, what’s the endgame here, Henrik? Chain her up and use her whenever you want to keep you alive?
Jakob’s voice yanked him from his inner turmoil. “You’ve seen too much.”
“What?” She struggled against Jakob and pushed out from under his arm. “No. I’ve seen nothing.” As Henrik watched, she walked backward into the street, clutching her arms around herself tight and shaking her head. “I won’t say anything. Who would believe me?”
The farther away she moved, the stronger the magnetic pull to follow her tugged at something deep in his chest. He gave in to the urge with slow, methodical steps. Her pale skin, dilated eyes and multiple injuries all spoke of the degree of trauma she’d experienced tonight.
How could he inflict more?
A truck rounded the corner, headlights swinging over the ground behind her. The backlighting threw a golden halo around her. She whirled toward the sound of the approaching engine and moaned.
Suddenly, all the frightened tension left her body. And then she was free-falling straight backward.
Henrik launched
himself toward her and caught her in his arms before her soft body made contact with the cold, hard ground.
Jakob appeared right next to him, stance clearly ready to intervene.
“I’ve got her, brother,” the king said, voice full of gravel.
“Are you sure—”
“I’ve fucking got her.” He rose, cradling her in his arms. Heat roared off her. “Jesus, she’s burning up.” He shot to the Range Rover’s backseat. Lars already had the door open. Henrik climbed inside and slid to the middle, Kaira still in his lap, her feverish heat soaking into his chest.
Jakob stood in the open door watching, his expression full of hesitation.
“Let’s go.” His brother inhaled as if to speak, and damn if Henrik didn’t know what he was going to say. “Goddamnit, I’m fine. Let’s go.”
Jakob closed the rear door and climbed into the passenger seat.
Amazing thing was, Henrik did in fact have it under control—or what passed for control for him. The bloodlust was there, causing his fangs to throb so hard he had to keep applying the counter-pressure of his tongue against the sharp points to offer some relief. And the hunger was there, squeezing his gut and burning his throat. And the monster still paced at the gates of his mind. And all three threatened to pull him under the surface and suffocate him in the evil of the demon growing stronger within him.
So what stopped him?
She stirred against his chest, and he drew his gaze to her face. Young. Pretty, with her soft blond hair and high cheekbones and inviting pink lips. Beautiful, actually.
He stroked his hand over her forehead. Dry heat blazed off her skin. What was wrong with her? Had she been feverish when he’d drunk from her? Her succulent taste. The quenching of his eternal thirst. The way her soft body cushioned all his hard angles. These things came readily to mind. But not whether she’d had a temperature.
He frowned and concentrated. The memory of her appearance in the gallery paraded through his mind’s eye. The gown had skimmed over her feminine curves, framing enticingly appealing cleavage and the slim column of her throat. As intriguing, her gray eyes had held the wisdom and weariness of someone who’d handled her share of life’s downs and then some, despite her age.
