Red Rooster (Sons of Rome Book 2)

by Lauren Gilley

  “It gets easier,” Nikita said calmly beside him. “It’s normal after a while, and you can control yourself.”

  “I can control myself,” Lanny said, without much heat because he was breathing too hard.

  “Alright. What are you thinking about right now? What do you want to do?”

  A simple question in theory. But he wanted so much.

  He wanted to go across the street and pick a fight with the douchebag in the ugly hat over there because aggression was like a living thing inside him, and that guy needed a good ass-beating, it looked like. He wanted to turn and deck Nikita just for being an asshole.

  Wanted to find Trina and tell her that he was whole now, healed, that he wasn’t going to die, and then lay her out on the bed and shred her clothes with his teeth.

  And deeper, more primal than those things, throbbing relentlessly inside him like a fresh bruise, was a hunger that had nothing to do with a full belly.

  When he didn’t respond, Nikita said, almost kindly, “We’ll get some blood. Don’t worry.”

  Lanny didn’t pay much attention to where they walked, simply juggling his own impulses and allowing Nikita to lead, so he was surprised when they turned down into a narrow alley which turned the corner into another. The smell hit him like a physical shove: blood. And lots of it.

  Before, he might have said that blood had a faint tang to it, especially at those crime scenes where it had clotted and dried and begun to stink like death. But now it hung on the air like his mother’s marinara sauce. Copper and salt and meat and life, rich and fresh. It smelled cold – and he marveled that he could tell such a thing.

  “Here,” Nikita said, catching him by the arm and pulling him to a halt in front of a door with peeling yellow paint and a rusty metal sign over the door that read Chop-Chop. The sign, Lanny noted, was shaped like a pig.

  Nikita pressed the bell, and knocked three times, and a moment later the door opened to reveal a gigantic man in a flannel shirt and a white apron, sporting a massive ginger beard.

  “Oh, hey,” the guy said, grinning, wiping his hands down his apron and leaving greasy streaks behind. His sleeves were rolled up to reveal intricate sequences of tattoos on both arms; Lanny spotted rings and spacers in his ears. Not a lumberjack, then, but a hipster.

  His hackles immediately lowered.

  “Hello, David,” Nikita said in a voice that was probably supposed to be pleasant. “We’d like to buy two quarts, please.”

  Lanny stared at him.

  The man, David, nodded, grin widening, like Nikita’s request made perfect sense. “Aw yeah, man, perfect timing, the truck just came by this morning. Hold on and I’ll grab it. You need a bag?”

  “Please.”

  “Be right back.”

  The door shut and he disappeared.

  “What the fuck?” Lanny asked.

  Nikita pointed at the sign over the door. “This is one of those old-fashioned butcher shops. Farm-to-table like the kids like these days, you know? Lots of specialty cuts.”

  “Yeah,” Lanny drawled. “And we’re gonna get some nice steaks or something?”

  Nikita shot him a look like he was stupid – he was getting damn sick of that look. “David makes his own blood sausage.”

  Oh.

  Oh.

  “So he sells you blood?”

  “When I need it. Fresh from the farm.” Nikita made a face that was almost a smile.

  “But I thought you and Sasha…” Lanny motioned to his own throat.

  Nikita’s expression closed off completely and he faced forward again. “I spare Sasha as much as I can.”

  “Hmm. You guys are real close, huh?”

  No response, save the quick glint of Nikita’s gaze; he didn’t turn his head.

  Just to be a shit, Lanny said, “Is it a best friend kinda situation, or is it more like–”

  “Finish the sentence and I will introduce your face to the pavement,” he said, tonelessly.

  Lanny snorted. “Uh-huh. Real tough guy you are.”

  The door opened again, sparing Lanny another monotone Russian rebuttal, and David filled the threshold, still smiling, straining plastic shopping bag in his hands.

  “Is that all?” he asked. “Can I interest you guys in this fantastic bit of skirt steak?”

  “Just the blood, please,” Nikita said, pulling bills out of his wallet.

  “Alrighty. Well, be sure to let me know if you need more; I can place a larger order next time.”

  “Thank you, David.”

  “Thanks a bunch!” He tucked the money into his pocket and shut the door on them with a resounding thump.

  “Who the hell says ‘alrighty’?” Lanny muttered.

  Nikita knotted the handles of the bag together and set off back the way they’d come. “The man who’s going to help keep your cravings under control.”

  God, this guy was dull as shit. “Does he know that you’re a - you know,” Lanny said, floundering lamely for the word. He actually hated the word vampire. It made him feel like a teenage girl.

  “His girlfriend’s a vampire,” Nikita said, “so yes, he knows.”

  “His girlfriend?” Lanny felt his brows shoot up. “Are you serious?”

  “She’s one of the responsible ones. And David provides her, and those who want it, with blood. It keeps everyone safe that way.”

  “Damn,” Lanny said, feeling a little dazed. Then another thought struck. “Hey, if there are others like you, why don’t you hang out with them? Aren’t you lonely?”

  Nikita shot him a quick, hard sideways look. “I don’t need company.”

  “’Cept for Sasha, huh?”

  Nikita’s mouth set into a hard, grim line. “We’ll take this back to your apartment. Being hungry is making you extra stupid.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Lanny said, frowning.

  But he was. He was starving. And the refrigerated pig’s blood in the bag Nikita carried called to him in a way that alcohol never had.

  “You’re right,” Nikita said as they emerged on the sidewalk again. “You’re not. You’re thirsty.”

  ~*~

  Jamie was beginning to think that leaving the apartment had been a bad idea.

  At first, the novelty of seeing and hearing and, God, tasting everything around him had been the stuff of his wildest imaginings. It was better than Disneyland, being healthy and feeling good as he walked down the street, head held up, lungs working correctly, gaze drinking in everything about a city that was usually just white noise and blurry lights.

  But then he’d stepped into his favorite indie coffeeshop and things had begun to go downhill from there.

  The exposed brick walls and dark-stained hardwood floors that he’d always found so charming did nothing to muffle the din of voices, clacking laptop keys, and hissing machinery. He heard all of it as a wall of sound, and then the individual notes as well in a layered sensation unlike anything he’d ever experienced. He started to clap his hands over his ears, and then realized that would make him look weird at best, insane at worst. So he crammed his hands in his jeans pockets and tried not to grind his teeth.

  And then there were the smells. Coffee, of course, sharper and more potent than was normal, but then the competing perfumes of all sorts of humans. And some salty undertone that made him salivate.

  Blood, something ancient and unknowable whispered in the back of his mind. That smell is blood.

  As the line inched forward, his nerves wound tighter and tighter, a thread pulling tight. It wouldn’t take much to snap it.

  His stomach growled, loud enough for the guy in front of him to hear it and turn around with a frowning glance. Jamie clapped his hand over his belly and gave an apologetic smile. He wished now that he’d choked down one of Lanny’s protein shakes, because he was starving suddenly, lightheaded and frantic. He’d order two sandwiches, he decided, even though he’d never eaten more than half of one at a time. Whatever he couldn’t finish he would carry back with hi
m – and he would go back, that he knew. Being out in public was too much. He definitely should have called Lanny or Trina this morning. Or Sasha – could have used the blond werewolf’s soothing demeanor right about now.

  That’s how hungry he was: he could think the word werewolf without batting an eye.

  He finally reached the counter and, voice trembling, ordered two bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwiches and a tall cappuccino. When he stepped to the side to wait, he had to hold himself up against the counter, hands, and then arms shaking. He didn’t know if it was hunger, nerves, some new vampire ailment, or a combination of all three. God knew. He was so far out of his depth.

  When the barista passed over his travel cup and greasy bag of sandwiches, he thanked her frantically, spun around, and ran right into the person waiting behind him.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” he started, juggling his things. And then he saw who it was.

  His roommate, Jessica.

  She wasn’t wearing her usual makeup, her eyes red and puffy from crying, ringed in dark circles of exhaustion. Her usually sleek hair tried to slip loose from her sloppy ponytail and she wore the stretched-out sweatshirt she usually saved for laundry day or movies on the couch. She was grieving him; or was at least shaken to have had death get so close to her.

  They stared blankly at one another a long moment, and then she really saw him.

  She dropped her sunglasses and they hit the floor with a clatter. Her mouth opened, and a tiny, strangled sound moved from the depths of her throat.

  Oh no.

  “J-j-jaime?” she stuttered. “Oh my God, but you’re–”

  He bolted.

  Someone stood just inside the door of the shop, and Jamie elbowed him out of the way, heard alarmed shouts and a crash of a table. He kept going, didn’t look back.

  The exhaust-soaked air of the sidewalk felt fresh by comparison to the shop, but the panic switch had been flipped and he kept going, breaking into a jog and legging it back toward Lanny’s apartment.

  Trying to explain that he was live and well would have been difficult. But the impossible thing? The way he’d looked at her, caught her scent, and wanted to press his face into her throat. Wanted to sink his fangs and drink.

  More than he’d ever wanted food, or drink, or sleep, or sex, he’d wanted to bite his roommate and draw her blood into his mouth, down his throat. Had imagined its heat and velvet texture.

  He couldn’t handle that urge. He couldn’t.

  So he ran. Bumping into people, drawing outraged shouts, elbowing and squeezing and cutting across traffic to the blare of horns and squeal of brakes.

  He didn’t stop until he reached the lobby of Lanny’s building, and then he collapsed against the mailboxes, breathing raggedly through his mouth.

  He still held his coffee, though some of it had slopped out through the drinking hole in the lid and scalded his hand; the skin gleamed pink and angry, though the pain was already receding. He’d crushed the sandwiches in his other fist, the bag crumpled up and starting to tear beneath his fingertips.

  He sank down slow, until his butt hit the tile, and sat with his heart racing and his mind struggling to process something that felt like instinct, though it was a completely foreign sensation. Tears blurred his vision, and he pressed his forehead to his knee, blinking furiously.

  “I’m not a monster,” he whispered. “I’m not, I’m not, I’m not…”

  ~*~

  “I have no idea what I’m going to do,” Trina admitted. “I can’t tell my captain what’s really happening, but I have to actually pretend to be following body-snatching leads. Shit.”

  Sasha made a sympathetic noise in the passenger seat and took another bite of his hamburger.

  “I’m half-tempted to track down Alexei and arrest his ass. He is the culprit, after all.”

  “Oh no,” Sasha said, swallowing. “Don’t do that.”

  She glanced across the interior of the unmarked car toward him, brows lifted in question as she took a bite of her own burger. They were parked in front of Burger King, partly because they’d both been hungry, but mostly because she was at a big fat dead end in her investigation. She’d never had this problem before: she knew exactly who’d committed the crime, but couldn’t do anything about it.

  “The police wouldn’t believe you,” Sasha explained, “and if they did, you couldn’t keep Alexei in a cell anyway. You have to have silver to keep a vampire locked up.”

  She slumped down deeper in her seat. “How helpful.”

  “And Alexei,” Sasha said, frowning out through the windshield. “Nik is very angry. If Alexei is smart, he’ll be hiding.”

  “Yeah, well–”

  Sasha sat bolt upright suddenly, burger falling out of his hands and landing on the floorboards.

  “What?”

  He growled, a low, deep, threatening sound.

  “Sasha–” Trina started.

  And Alexei Romanov stepped in front of the cruiser and waved at them through the windshield.

  ~*~

  Lanny detected it the moment they stepped into his building’s lobby: a presence. Not just the hum of awareness that signaled someone standing behind you, not any sort of ambient noise. He could smell someone – pick up his individual scent, know it was a him, one with a faint whiff of blood about his person – and knew that whoever it was had passed through recently and only once; knew that whoever it was was still in the building.

  “Did you forget about Jamie?” Nikita asked, and then it all slotted into place.

  “Shit, yeah.” Lanny stood in front of the mailboxes, nose full of scent, and matched the name and the face to what he was detecting. Jamie Anderson. Little guy. Artist. Newly a vampire.

  “Damn,” he muttered, rubbing at his nose with the back of his hand, trying to block some of the relentless odor of another vampire – a male, a rival his brain said. “This is really fucking weird.”

  “Hmm,” Nikita hummed, and led the way up the stairs. Over his shoulder, he said, “Try to control yourself. You’re a lot bigger than he is.”

  Lanny refused to make any promises. By the time he fitted his key in the lock, the back of his neck felt tight, his upper lip twitching against his fangs.

  But then he got the door open, and there was Jamie curled up on the sofa in a miserable little ball, hugging his knees to his chest, and the fight bled right back out of Lanny. Not a rival at all; just a kid.

  Jamie’s head snapped around when they entered, and for one moment he seemed to relax, sagging back into the couch cushions. He opened his mouth to speak – and then froze, eyes widening. He took a deep breath in through his nose, sniffing. Stared at Lanny. “Oh my God, you’re one too, now.” He snapped his mouth shut, gulping audibly. “And I don’t even know how I know that, but I do. I can smell it.” With a groan, he pressed his face into his knees.

  “Alright, alright,” Nikita said. He shut the door and went to set the bag of blood on the counter. “Come here both of you. Yes, Lanny is a vampire now,” he said to Jamie. And to Lanny: “Where’s your microwave?”

  Five minutes later, Lanny sat beside Jamie on a barstool at his kitchen island drinking a mug of animal blood. And liking it. The Catholic in him wondered how many Hail Marys and Our Fathers he’d have to say to get over this. The vampire in him wished the contents of his cup were a little stronger.

  Jamie seemed to be having a similar inner war if his expression was anything to go by.

  “Is everybody gonna turn into one?” he asked, licking blood off his upper lip. “Is this like the plague or something? Shit – is this I Am Legend? Fuck, I knew it.”

  “No, it isn’t a plague,” Nikita said sternly. He stood on the opposite side of the island, hands braced on the counter, looking like the world’s grumpiest guidance counselor. “This is all because of one vampire.” He looked grim. “We’ve got to put a stop to it. I do. It’s my fault.”

  “Pretty sure you weren’t there when he was making out with people’s necks,�
�� Lanny said.

  “No, but I had the chance to kill him, and didn’t take it.”

  Jamie choked on his next sip.

  Lanny said, “Damn. You’re gonna kill him?”

  “Do you want him out there loose turning other people?”

  “No, but, I mean…didn’t you used to be the president of his dad’s fan club or something?”

  Nikita snorted. “Or something.”

  ~*~

  Sasha kept up a steady, rolling growl, words full of gravel. “Lock your door. Stay in the car.” He popped his own door and slid out of the cruiser with the graceful, threatening movements of a predator. She’d seen it last night and marveled at it still: the way he went from looking like a slender nineteen-year-old to something poised and dangerous. Even without shifting, Sasha turned into the sort of thing you didn’t want to run into in an alley.

  He approached Alexei with his head down – shielding his throat – lips skinned back off his teeth, snarling now. The sound sent a shiver down Trina’s spine.

  Alexei held up both hands, palms out; his expression remained mild. “I didn’t come to fight, Sasha. I wanted to check on Lanny.”

  Sasha’s head dropped even lower, shoulders bunching up. He looked ready to spring. “How do you think he is after you turned him? Why would you do that? You know better!”

  In her mirror, Trina spotted a handful of customers that had come to a standstill in the parking lot, watching what looked like a major beatdown about to unfold. And Sasha was growling. Shit.

  She opened her door, climbed out, and said, “Boys, let’s not make a big scene in broad daylight, okay?”

  They both turned to her.

  Sasha’s growl cut off and he looked dismayed. “You got out of the car.”

  “And both of you should get in it, right now, before this ends up on YouTube.” When they stared at her, she clapped her hands together once, sharply. “Right now.”

  Which was how she ended up with Russian royalty in the backseat of her unmarked cruiser.