Not all of them. But enough.
It hit Phoebe full force and she whimpered, cried. As her rage dissolved into fear, her body started to shift. Kel’s self-disgust escalated and he lowered her to her feet, letting go.
By the time her shift was complete, he was a good five feet away. He focused, dragged his shields back up, forcing the dangerous, deadly weapon of fear back into submission. “We’re not doing this,” he said quietly.
It didn’t matter. Every damn person in the joint had the same super-sensitive hearing that he and Phoebe did.
Phoebe stood there, her arms wrapped around her naked, trembling body. Sighing, Kel searched the floor for his shirt and then moved to grab it. The people standing near it fell back away from him. He paused, swore under his breath and then grabbed the shirt, carried it over to Phoebe. She stared at him with wide, dark eyes set in a face still pale with fear. Gently, he draped it over her shoulders and eased her arms into the sleeves, buttoning enough of the buttons so that it would stay closed.
“Go upstairs. Lay down,” he suggested, dipping his head so he could whisper the words into her ear. “You don’t love me, Phoebe. You don’t really even need me…you just want to think you do.”
She sobbed and tore away, glaring at him. “You can’t tell me what I feel, Hunter. You can make me scared, but you can’t make me not love you.”
Darting into the crowd, she lost herself among the throng.
Closing his eyes, Kel muttered, “Shit.”
The silence in the club was deafening and when he opened his eyes, he found every soul in the joint was still staring at him. He saw a range of emotions, running the gamut from derision to pity…and fear. He still saw the fear. It wasn’t as prevalent as it had been before he sucked it back inside, but some of them were still feeling the effects.
Swearing, he turned on his heel, heading for the back of the club, and the exit that opened up onto an alley. The people behind him flinched as one and that didn’t help his state of mind any. Ugly words boiled up his throat, but he kept them locked behind his teeth.
He’d made enough of an ass of himself tonight already.
“Hey, kid.”
That low, raspy voice was the last one he wanted to hear and he would have just kept right on walking if Toronto hadn’t been between him and the door. The shape-shifter was an enigmatic bastard, with pale, pale blue eyes, so pale they appeared colorless and white-blond hair that a lot of people would pay money for. It fell past his shoulders when it was loose. Tonight he had it pulled back from his face, revealing a face that probably made women sigh. A series of platinum hoops and studs pierced his left ear and they caught the light as he cocked his head and studied Kel’s face.
The sympathy in the shifter’s gaze made something inside Kel go hot with fury. Toronto had gotten this weird idea in his head that he needed to look out for Kel—even when Kel started to slide out of his downward spiral, Toronto kept sticking his pretty face in where it didn’t need to be.
“Get out of my way,” he rasped. He was edgy, jumpy. The hunger he’d slaked earlier was back, like he hadn’t fed in days, weeks. All brought on by vampiric instincts that Kel wished he didn’t possess.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Kel,” Toronto said quietly. “Not a damn thing.” He slid his colorless gaze over the people in the bar who pretended not to watch them, pretended not to notice they were still there.
Fear colored almost every single one of them. The only ones who didn’t seemed affected were a couple of the bartenders, the bouncer at the front door and a few random patrons.
Kel knew from experience the rest of the people there would carry the fading remnants of that fear for hours. Even after he was gone, they’d feel it.
“Maybe not, but I sure as hell haven’t done anything right, either.”
Toronto lifted a brow. “You sure? She attacked you. You would have been in your rights to fight back. The rules of the human world don’t apply here.”
Kel shook his head. “Just leave me the hell alone, Toronto. Okay?” Shoving past the shifter, he left the bar, escaping into the relative silence of the backstreet alley. Cool air kissed his chilled flesh and he glanced down, stared at the long furrows still marking his chest. They were mostly healed already and the blood on his skin had dried.
His feet were bare, he had blood on his chest and the woman he’d been sleeping with for the past year had attacked him.
“Shit. What a life.”
Although it had been a late night, Angel found herself wide awake before it was even three a.m. She came awake on a harsh breath, a tearing pain across her chest, tears stinging her eyes…and the faintest sense of self-disgust rolling through her.
Groaning, she rolled to the side of the bed and covered her face with her hands. She had a nasty, cloying taste in the back of her mouth—the bitter tang of guilt.
Over what, she had no clue.
She felt like she’d…done something.
Hurt somebody.
Damn it, it felt sometimes like she was living some alternate life she was totally unaware of. A life that some part of her subconscious remembered…a life her subconscious wanted to punish her for.
Scrambling out of the bed, she stumbled over to the window and shoved it up. The cool, scented air of a spring night came drifting through. She could hear the call of birds and insects and beyond that, it was quiet.
After she’d finally graduated from college, a year late thanks to her walk on the less-than-sane side of life, she’d bought this tract of land and the farmhouse just because it was secluded, and because it was relatively close to town and she could get to Jake’s place in under twenty minutes.
That last reason didn’t matter so much anymore.
Jake was dead.
Quietly, one evening, just a month earlier, he’d passed away from a massive heart attack. One of his former parishioners had been visiting—had gotten up to use the restroom and when she came out, Jake was gone. Suddenly. Too suddenly.
Angel’s last solid connection to the world was gone.
Now, without anything to get her out of bed in the morning, she spent far too much time sleeping, not enough time trying to live.
All she wanted was to stay here in her isolated, run-down house and forget. Lose herself in the silence and forget.
But she couldn’t lose herself in the silence right now.
There was an echo of music pulsating through the air. The sound of a deep, angry voice. Then another voice, just as deep, but lacking the anger.
No words, though. She couldn’t make out any words.
“Since when do dreams make any sense?” she mumbled, dragging a hand through her hair. It felt startlingly short. Three days ago, she’d been in town for a meeting the lawyers had insisted on, and after that little fiasco, she’d ended up wandering the streets until she came to a halt in front of the barber where Jake had used to get his hair cut.
Where Kel had come for his irregular appointments. Out of the blue, she’d decided she wanted her hair cut. The man hadn’t been too thrilled—he’d looked at her like she was asking for something in Greek. Finally, he had rubbed his jaw and replied, “This ain’t the beauty parlor, Miz Angel. If you want a new hairstyle, maybe you should go see…”
It had taken her five minutes to get him to stop worrying and just cut. Her hair, once down to her waist, was short, short enough to barely brush her shoulders. It felt weird and when she looked at herself in the mirror, she didn’t quite recognize herself.
But she barely recognized herself anyway any more. What did a physical change matter?
Pushing the shortened strands out of her face, she leaned forward. With her brow resting against the window pane, she sighed. Cool air drifted in through the opened lower half of the window, dancing along flesh left bare by the tank top and panties she wore in lieu of pajamas.
She shivered but didn’t close the window. She needed the cool, early-spring air to clear the fog in her brain, a fog
brought on by far too many nights like this.
You look exhausted, Angel. Maybe you should see about getting something to help you sleep.
Jake had been telling her that for years. But until recently, she hadn’t bothered. She hadn’t cared enough if she slept or not. The past year, things had leveled out a little. Those violent, gory dreams that faded even before she woke enough to fully remember them weren’t as vivid as they had once been.
The edgy mood that so often plagued her, the anger at nothing, it had gotten better, as well.
But as those got better, the depression riding her got worse. Jake’s sudden, unexpected death made everything worse and she’d finally given in and gone to the doctor. She’d left with two prescriptions and a gentle reminder to consider getting help.
Help. Like that would do any good.
She missed Kel more now than ever. How that was possible she didn’t know. But every morning, it seemed a bit harder to get up and every night took a little longer to fall asleep. It was like her body’s need for sleep was decreasing regularly.
Sometimes she wondered if she’d sleep at all in another five or ten years.
Her body might not need the sleep, but Angel sure as hell did. Her brain might not want to shut down to rest, but she needed it.
So she’d given in and talked to her doctor, gotten some sleeping pills.
Supposedly, the pills were less likely to cause dependence. Definitely a good thing, because the last damn thing Angel needed in her fucked-up head was an addiction to sleeping pills. But so far, she hadn’t taken one.
The bottle was sitting on her dresser, along with samples of the antidepressant she knew she wouldn’t take. Dr. C. Jane Miller had listened politely while Angel explained she didn’t need medicine for depression—then she’d handed Angel a pamphlet and a bag of sample medications, along with the prescription for the sleeping pills.
Angel had no desire to take the antidepressant. Not because she didn’t think she was depressed. She was. She knew it. But the cause of her depression was a loss she’d never recover from—taking something that increased this chemical or decreased that one, wasn’t going to do a damn thing to help her get over Kel.
But she was going to take the sleeping pills. It was Saturday morning, she had no sweet old man waiting for her to come and keep the loneliness at bay, no sexy young man who’d be waiting for her when she woke up.
Nothing. And nobody.
Maybe, just maybe, she could pop a pill, collapse on her bed and get some sleep.
Preferably a deep, dreamless sleep.
Chapter Five
Kel awoke feeling it.
Two days after things with Phoebe went straight to hell, Kel woke to feel something pulling at him. Strong, demanding and determined to be obeyed.
He dressed hurriedly. Most of the Hunters had adopted a uniform of sorts, sturdy cargo pants done in basic black, close-fitting black shirt—long sleeved to keep as much skin concealed as possible, and sturdy, thick-soled boots. The shoulder holster went on over his shirt and then he put a jacket over that to conceal his weapon.
Tucking extra ammo clips into one of the pockets on his pants, he grabbed his gun, checked it and then slid the modified Beretta into the holster.
A couple of knives, one in his boot and another sheathed at his waist. After snagging a pair of reinforced cuffs, he was ready.
Slipping out of the room, he left the basement and headed to the main floor. A quick glance around told him that none of the other Hunters had felt it.
But he did. That low-level burn deep in his gut, one that would get stronger and stronger until he obeyed. Until he listened. Until he Hunted.
He was tired. His daytime slumber had been restless. Although he couldn’t fight the urge to sleep yet, he didn’t always sleep well. Normally, it wasn’t so bad. Dreams of Angel, which really sucked, but at the same time, they’d soothed him. Made him feel a little closer.
But this time? Instead of falling into that deep, mostly restful sleep, he’d kept feeling something pull at him. Like he wasn’t supposed to be asleep.
That totally fucking pissed him off. If it was the only time he could be close to her, watching her without her knowing, drifting through her subconscious mind while he slept, then damn it, he wanted those dreams.
Odd—he’d spent twelve years waiting for something to reduce the in-living-color intensity of those dreams and the one day something did intrude? He woke resentful, tired and pissed.
Usually once the sun was nearing the western horizon, his body forced him into wakefulness, tearing him from the dreams long before he was ready. The vampire instincts took control, though, and sleeping once the sun had set was all but impossible. His body wouldn’t let him.
Tonight, different story. If he could shut down a deep, basic instinct and just stay in the bed, he knew would have slept. His body needed it, craved it.
But that low-level burn was there. That primal urge that no Hunter could ignore, pulling—like something had wrapped an unseen rope around his gut and was jerking on him.
Ignoring it wouldn’t do much but bring him pain and stretch his control.
So he didn’t ignore it.
He slid out of the house without speaking to anybody, although he knew both Rafe and Toronto watched him leave. He took the bike. Usually that was one thing that would ease the restlessness in him. Tonight, the powerful rumble of the bike didn’t do a damn thing to help.
The restlessness wasn’t just restlessness—it had grown into a full-out frenzy and if he didn’t find it…
No.
Not it.
Her.
He could feel that much now. Hear a woman’s scream as though he was right next to her. He kept going and going, following that internal summons all the way through town, heading for the Mississippi state line. There were no formal lines to Rafe’s territory—Rafe and his Hunters followed urges into other states plenty and Kel was evidence of that. The calling a Hunter heard wasn’t anything clear and defined and Kel wouldn’t know where it was going to lead him until he was there.
In this case, it led him into Mississippi and along Highway 78 towards Tupelo. He left the bike in the parking lot of a crowded bar and continued on foot, following that summons. It led him to an industrial area that had definitely seen better days.
It was clearer now, that summons, coming from a big, sprawling warehouse that looked abandoned. But that was deceptive.
Kel felt something moving in there. Something living and hungry…
His skin crawled.
Foreboding choked him.
The scent of blood and pain colored the air around him in vivid, dark shades. The scent of blood didn’t call to him at all, the stink of fear and pain drowning out what might have once been appealing.
Under the sour, bitter stench of violence, there was something disturbingly, distressingly familiar. It tickled his memory until Kel had no choice but to work past the abhorrence and make himself focus, make himself drag in a deep breath of the fear-tainted blood.
He went cold and for just the briefest of moments, he couldn’t move. Denial wrapped itself around him, followed by some futile hope he wouldn’t even allow himself to cling to. Hope was such a bitter, ugly disappointment.
Instinct took over, instinct that hadn’t existed until twelve years ago. It wasn’t just the instincts of a vampire—the fear coming from that place was enough to have the typical civilian vamp backing away damn quick. Definitely not vamp instinct—it was the instinct of a Hunter and while he’d do damn near anything not to have it, ignoring it hadn’t ever been an option.
It pushed him into action. Without consciously realizing it, he slid into the shadows and cloaked himself within them. He pulled the darkness around him and used its cover as he made his way inside the warehouse.
He heard a broken, tortured moan.
It was a pitiful, faint sound and as it faded into the air, there was a laugh—icy and amused, so damn evil it made Kel’
s skin crawl. The part of his brain that wasn’t controlled by instinct was screaming to get the hell away. That kind of evil wasn’t anything he wanted to look at, anything he wanted to face, anything he wanted to fight.
A fucking failure, that was Kel. Hunter instincts, Hunter drive, and he still didn’t want this fight. But he didn’t turn around. He didn’t leave.
There was no way he could, even when he heard her heartbeat falter, heard the rattle of her breath. It was the sound of death edging closer and Kel could even feel the chill of it looming near.
A man’s voice broke into the silence, underlined by a dry edge of humor. “I told you that it was pointless to fight, darling girl. And yet…still you fight. Why is that? Unless it’s to amuse me.”
Kel’s lips peeled back from his teeth as he heard a familiar sound, a wet thwack as a fist struck flesh. The only sound she made was a distant, almost non-existent moan.
He emerged from the shadows just as the feral bent down and fisted a hand in her hair.
“Let her go,” he said in a flat voice. As he spoke, he also released his control on the shadows, an illusory talent some vampires had. It was all a trick of the mind, but it came in handy—muffled his presence, could cause an aversive effect where people avoided something without even realizing why.
And apparently, it worked on this one, because when his brown eyes cut towards Kel’s, there was surprise in his gaze. His eyes widened and the faint, bored smile on his lips widened. Dropping his victim to the ground, he stepped over her…like she was so much garbage.
Something about the feral’s features, the way he moved, was disturbingly familiar but Kel didn’t know where he had seen this guy before. Hunters didn’t let ferals live—if this was one Kel had fought and not killed, then Rafe would have sent another Hunter to do the job.
But he’d seen him before—
No time to worry about the past though, because the present was bearing down on him, hard and fast. Kel wasn’t about to go hand-to-hand with a vampire that probably had a good century on him. Shit, if he’d known he was going to be dealing with a feral this strong, he would have enlisted help.
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