The man was angry; Sebastian was angrier.
He lifted his head, eyes flaming yellow in the dark. Confused horror flashed across the man’s face. He stumbled backward and hurried away, not daring to glance back.
Sebastian let out a sigh and reigned in his temper. He needed to feed. He was a day past his normal meal time and weakness crept through his body, accompanied by a dull ache in every muscle. He’d never taken drugs, but imagined what he felt would be similar to the withdrawals a crack addict experienced. He needed to feed, but saw in his mind how Serenity looked at him and how, by feeding, he was being the monster she perceived.
Every time Sebastian thought of the things Serenity said, he felt as if someone stabbed him in the chest.
This was all wrong.
He should never have let things go so far. She was a human. He’d exposed her vulnerability and put her in danger. He couldn’t blame her for freaking out; he’d shown her a part of life she’d only known in myths and movies.
Had he ever felt so alone in his whole existence?
Yes, once, in the dark days, after he’d first been turned and taken away from his wife and young daughter. In those days he experienced a similar kind of pain, the agony of being taken away from people he loved.
Sebastian groaned and put his head in his hands. Serenity’s words kept turning over and over in his mind,
‘I hate you, you’re a monster!’
He cringed, wanting to curl up into a ball and squeeze himself together until he became nothing, but no longer existing wasn’t easy for his kind.
If he’d stuck to his original plan and left town when he intended, Serenity would be free from him now.
Although she’d probably be locked up for murder.
He should stand up and walk out of town but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. With Madeline in the city, Serenity was no longer safe. To walk away would certainly guarantee Serenity’s death.
Sebastian was angry at himself for not having the strength to leave sooner. Now, if he left, Madeline would kill Serenity just to spite him.
Only by doing what Madeline wanted and forcing himself to go back to her, would he keep Serenity safe.
The thought created a black callus around his heart.
Returning to Madeline would be a double blow. He’d lose the woman who meant something to him and be forcing himself to live with the creature who stole his life.
The only other option was to fight and, of course, fighting contained risks for Serenity.
The darker side of him wanted to fight. He wanted to destroy Madeline, but it wasn’t so easy. One vampire could not kill another.
However, there were other ways to make them stop.
Someone passed in front of Sebastian, making him glance up. A small, wiry man in his late thirties caught the vampire’s attention. Acne scars pitted and marked his thin face, his narrow shoulders stooped. As he walked, he spoke into a headset linked, Sebastian assumed, to a cell phone in his pocket.
Sebastian couldn’t read minds but he knew when someone was no good. People had an aura he could sense and, should were it visible, this man’s aura would have been a thick black smog surrounding him.
Silently, Sebastian rose to his feet. To kill was wrong, no matter who the victim, and he tried to only take the ones who didn’t deserve to be alive. He didn’t want to choose who lived and died, but had no choice. Though he would never make peace with it, he had come to accept his role.
The man slipped down an alley, between the shops, disappearing from view for a few moments. Sebastian followed, rounding the corner. A couple of external security lights on the adjacent buildings offered scant amounts of light.
Sebastian pulled up short. They were not alone in the alley; someone else had tracked down his next meal.
Madeline stood in the middle of the alley with the man slumped in her arms. She had broken his neck, but he was still alive and his panic-stricken eyes searched Sebastian’s.
“Hello, Sebastian,” she said.
He glared at her. “What do you want?”
She held up the dying man, “I’ve got you a present.”
Sebastian looked at the man, his eyes glowing. Hunger ran in a fierce current through his whole body. His jaw worked, his fists clenched and unclenched. Every part of him screamed out for blood.
He didn’t want anything she offered. Madeline tainted everything she came into contact with.
“I don’t want anything from you.”
She shrugged and let the man drop to the ground. He lay there, still conscious, but unable to move, watching the horror play out above him.
“I thought you’d want to know that the police have been sniffing around your little girlfriend,” she said. “Apparently they had a report of her husband raping a woman last night.” She paused. “Strange, considering he’s dead.”
Sebastian stared at her. “What the hell have you done?”
“Just giving you a little warning.” She stepped over the man, closing the distance between them. “It’s going to be best for her if you hurry up and make your decision. Remember, I know things. I know how we hide the bodies, because I’m the one who taught you. You wouldn’t want the police to get wind of things—especially if something of hers,” she produced Serenity’s ‘S’ necklace, dangling the thin silver chain from her gloved fingertips, “ended up covered in his blood beside the body.”
Sebastian wanted to wrap his hands around her throat and squeeze the life from her, and it wasn’t just the piece of silver keeping him away. “Don’t you fucking dare!” he snarled. “I could kill you for this.”
Madeline laughed. “You know you can’t hurt me, Sebastian.”
He roared, spinning away from her.
“But humor me,” she said from behind him. “What do you find so attractive about your little human? She’s pathetic.”
Sebastian’s eyes narrowed and he spun back around. Madeline possessed a genuine disdain for all humans. She found it impossible to take anything positive from their emotions.
“She is stronger than you give her credit for.”
“Strong? I’ve crushed people stronger than her.”
“She understands pain.”
Madeline snorted.
“And she knows how to love.”
“I can love!” she said, an irritating whine affecting her voice.
“If that were true, you wouldn’t be here right now.” Sebastian shook his head and stared at her in pity. “When you love someone, you’ll do whatever it takes to make sure they’re safe, even if doing so causes you pain.”
“You’ve never felt real pain!” she spat.
The pity turned to contempt. “Why would you want to be with someone who hates you?”
“I don’t care how you feel about me. It’s irrelevant. We’re the same, Sebastian, can’t you understand? We’re family; I created you. If you were my son or my lover, we couldn’t be closer.”
“You’re crazy. Even families who hate each other have some love beneath the surface. I feel nothing for you. Nothing!”
“Give it time,” she said. “After all, the one thing we have is time.”
He pressed his lips together. Madeline left him with no choice. He wouldn’t let her cause Serenity any harm.
“I need to see her,” he said. “I need to make sure she is all right and then,” he hesitated before forcing himself to say the words. “You and I can leave the city together.”
Madeline smiled triumphantly, baring her white teeth.
“I knew you’d come to your senses,” she said.
She turned and walked away from him like a regular woman, her slim hips swaying from side to side, her long red hair brushing down her back. The short black dress she wore clung to her curves and her high heeled boots clipped on the ground.
The minute she was out of his sight, he dropped to the man lying on the ground. Barely conscious, but still alive enough to give Sebastian what he needed for another month.
With palpable pleasure and relief akin to orgasm, he sank his teeth into the man’s throat, piercing the artery. Warm blood gushed into his mouth, his lips sealing around the puncture. The iron taste rushed over his tongue and down his throat, revitalizing him. Its warmth spread throughout his body, racing through his arteries, veins and capillaries. The blood was his sustenance, what he needed to survive, and gave him strength and power.
Sebastian sat up on his haunches, the dead man at his feet, relishing in the power pulsating through him.
He couldn’t stay that way for long.
Streams of people walked past the entrance of the alley, but none turned to look down. On a subconscious level, humans picked up on the scent of blood in the air, a primeval part of them knowing not to look; this part of life was supposed to stay in the dark.
He didn’t normally kill out in the open, but he’d been unable to control his need with the broken man at his feet. The darkness offered some cover but he was taking too much of a risk. Someone with little or no perceptive abilities could stumble upon him and he didn’t want to kill again.
Sebastian forced himself to focus. Madeline was out there somewhere. She could easily go to Serenity and kill her. He didn’t think she would; after all, Serenity was her bargaining tool. With her dead, Madeline knew Sebastian wouldn’t spend another minute with her. But that wouldn’t stop Madeline from causing trouble. Madeline’s threats to plant evidence linking Serenity to the murder of her husband scared him. Serenity wouldn’t survive in prison.
He’d get Serenity’s necklace back if it killed him.
Sebastian would go to Serenity one last time—not to speak to her—just to catch one last glimpse and say his own private goodbye.
Serenity seeing him again would only terrify her. He didn’t want to put her through any more fear, nor experience her dread and loathing all over again.
He bent down and scooped up the body. Void of life, it was heavier than normal, but the weight meant nothing to the vampire. He couldn’t leave the corpse lying around. The ones vampires fed from, unless properly treated, had the potential to turn into something diabolical. The movie world of Los Angeles knew the result as a zombie. In truth, the creatures didn’t understand if they were alive or dead. They didn’t munch on human flesh or attack people, merely wandered through the human world with no idea who or what they were. If the medical profession got hold of one, they would struggle to find a heartbeat or brain function. To become a vampire, life had to be given back to the un-dead, blood needed to be fed and then they would turn.
So the bodies required dealing with; leaving them exposed would create chaos and expose his kind. In a growing city, locating the perfect thing to contain them was easy. Hundreds of years ago, things hadn’t been so simple, hence the prevalence of superstition and belief and rumors of vampires. Now he struggled to cross the city without finding a suitable dumping ground.
Wet concrete.
By the time the victims came around, the concrete had hardened around them. Deprived of any sustenance and oxygen, the bodies quickly passed into a normal afterlife. Even true vampires were susceptible. Though they had the potential to live for centuries with no air or blood, their existence would be agony. Even with a vampire’s strength, they couldn’t fight their way through tons of hardened concrete.
With the body in his arms, Sebastian leaped to the top of the building beside him. With silent speed, he moved across the rooftops, heading toward a new construction site located above Del Ray Marina.
At this time of night, the site was deserted. New foundations for an apartment block, laid that afternoon, stretched out in front of him. The top of the concrete had begun to set, but beneath the crust, the material was still loose. With all his strength, he plunged the body deep into the wet concrete.
This was one body that wouldn’t be coming back. Just like Serenity’s husband.
Sebastian shook off what he’d done. He hated this part of himself. Hated it! He wished he could exist without having to take life.
For almost a year, Sebastian had tried to live on animal blood, scavenging the numerous stray dogs and cats haunting Southern Spain, but it wasn’t possible.
After only a few months, he found himself changing. Though physically he had remained the same—inhumanly fast and strong—he found his mind altered. Where before, his thoughts had been clear and coherent, they lost focus. He lost periods of time and his aggression took control until he reacted purely on instinct. All rationality and reasoning evaded him.
To keep even a fraction of his humanity, he needed human blood. If he became an animal, he would lose all concepts of right and wrong, and he feared his capacity to kill would be untamed. Then the loss of human life would be uncountable. He would kill ruthlessly—women, children, all the innocents.
Though unproven, Sebastian believed this change formed the basis of the werewolf myth. Vampires, trying to survive on the blood of animals—stray cats and dogs—ended up becoming like one of them; killing only for sport and aggression. What those vampires had wanted to achieve, by not taking human life, actually made them monsters.
Maybe he was a monster, regardless. But he also hurt and only one thing could ease the pain; seeing the woman he loved.
Chapter Sixteen
Serenity sat on her front doorstep with a bag at her feet and her head in her hands. Her house lay in darkness behind her. Unsure of when she’d be back, if ever, she had turned off all the lights and turned off the power.
She had been desperate to get out of the house, yet found herself unable to make it past her own front step. The sadness Serenity held inside weighed her down, so much so she couldn’t persuade her feet to move. Too weary to fight the lethargy, she sat down where she was, relieved to be out of the house, but too scared and sad to venture out into the world.
Finding the energy to raise her head, she discovered Sebastian standing before her.
“Going someplace?” he said. With tight features, he glanced down at the bag.
Serenity gasped. Despite her prayers, she hadn’t expected to see him.
He took a step forward and she reared back.
“Please don’t be frightened of me,” he begged. “I would never, ever hurt you.”
The sound of his voice was enough to ensure another break down and she put her head back in her hands, painful sobs wracking her body.
He sat on the step beside her and gingerly touched her back. This time she didn’t flinch at his touch, but continued to cry. On the road in front of them, a car passed by, the headlights momentarily illuminating them.
Gently, he rubbed her back and remained silent until she managed to restrain her tears.
When she calmed, she looked up at him.
“I can’t be frightened of you,” she said, her eyes searching his. “I don’t know how.” She sniffed and wiped at her face. “I know what you are, and... God, I can’t even bring myself to think about what you are. All I can see is you, the man I met, the man who’s always there when I need him.”
“I’m still that man,” he said, pulling her into his arms. “I’m just something more.”
She resisted him for a moment, but then she relaxed and pressed her weight against the comforting bulk of his chest. Everything about him was so familiar; the breadth of his shoulders, the strength of his arms, his scent. He felt like home.
“I know I should run right now,” she said into his neck, “but I can’t imagine going on another day knowing you won’t be part of my life.”
“The woman at my house,” he began. “Her name is Madeline and she wants me to join her. She wants me to spend the rest of eternity with her.”
Her hold on him tightened. “You can’t!” The thought of Sebastian with that woman hurt deep inside.
“If I don’t leave with Madeline, she will come back and kill you.”
“Let her. If I can’t be with you, I have nothing else to live for.”
He pulled away, shock registering in his beaut
iful green eyes. “You don’t mean that?”
She held his gaze. “Don’t I? What do I have, Sebastian? No family, no friends, no job. My life is empty.”
“Now that Jackson is dead, you can have those things.”
“I have no life. Anyway, if Madeline doesn’t kill me, she’ll make sure I’m locked up for Jackson’s murder.”
“Not if I leave with her.”
Jealousy burned inside of her. “Is that what you want?”
“No! Never! You have no idea what she’s done to my life.”
“Then kill her,” Serenity said fiercely.
The shock never left his face. “I can’t. No vampire can kill another. It’s impossible. Believe me, if I could kill her, I would have done it a long time ago”
Serenity couldn’t hold back her curiosity. “What did she do to you?”
“She’s done this before—blackmailed me so I would stay with her,” he said. “She stole me from my family and told me if I ever tried to contact them again, she would slaughter them all.”
He looked away, his eyes haunted. “Did I ever tell you I had a family, a long time ago?” His face was cast in shadows, lost in the pain of memories. “I had a wife, Antoinette, and a daughter, Isabelle. My daughter was only four years old when I was taken. Madeline made me what I am. She’s a creature who believes she is entitled to whatever she wants”
Serenity absorbed his words. It occurred to her on a deeply selfish level that she should be thankful to Madeline; if she hadn’t done what she had Serenity would never have met Sebastian.
“Did you ever...” she sought for the words. “Were you ever tempted to take your family with you?”
He didn’t look at her. “I want to tell you the thought never crossed my mind, but I would be lying. I was desperate for them, I missed them so much. All I wanted was to be with them, but the thought horrified me. I mean, my daughter was four years old! Could you imagine what it would do to her? A child vampire! I loved them so much; I would never have done it to them.
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