Series Firsts Box Set

by Laken Cane

  He stepped closer. “Yes?”

  “Can you ask one of the kids to bring a pizza? I’m starving.”

  He looked at the others and spread his hands, then pointed at me. “She’s…” But he shook his head, his search for the right word unsuccessful.

  “How did you get back to the park?” Rhys asked.

  I took a deep breath, then flinched as the horror of all vampires, Amias Sato, flashed through my mind. “Shit,” I said. “I’d forgotten.”

  “You forgot how you got to the park?” Angus asked. “You couldn’t have driven. When I found you, you were in the backseat, nearly dead.”

  I looked down at my hands. I shuddered as the reality of that night began to sink in. Delayed shock catching up with me, maybe. Whatever it was, I was suddenly in a bad place and they all knew it.

  Angus sniffed the air, then clenched his fists. His words, when he spoke, came through gritted teeth. “You’re afraid. Suddenly, you’re afraid. What is it, Trinity?”

  “It’s cold in here.” My voice quavered and I wrapped my arms around myself. “Turn up the heat, Angus.”

  They simply waited.

  “Amias was there,” I murmured, finally.

  Everyone in the room stiffened.

  “He sat watching as the other vampire…” My shivering became more violent, and my teeth clacked together when I tried again. “He watched as the other vampire tried to kill me. He watched me stake the guy.”

  “Sweetie.” Miriam squeezed my clasped hands.

  “He said he was proud of me,” I said and tried for a scornful laugh. It sounded like more of a watery sob. “Bastard.”

  “Then he brought you to us,” Angus said.

  “He said he made me,” I told them, hoping one of them would scoff at the very idea. Hoping they’d tell me that was bullshit, that part of Amias Sato didn’t live inside me.

  They nodded.

  “He made you a killer,” Rhys said.

  I didn’t disagree. I remembered that darkness inside me. The desire. “But I’m not his. I’m not a turned human.”

  “He changed you,” Miriam said. “But he doesn’t own you.” She glanced at Clayton, and even as his face hardened, she smiled.

  It was not a nice smile.

  “He watches you,” Rhys said. “He stalks you. Doesn’t he?”

  I nodded.

  “How do you know that?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “Because I see him.”

  “Master vampires have ways of hiding when they don’t want to be seen,” Rhys said, smoothly.

  “Obviously something changed inside me after the attack. Made me immune to their tricks. That doesn’t mean I’m made.”

  “No, but…”

  “What are you trying to say?” I asked, suddenly angry. “Just say it.”

  Angus punched at his phone screen with a hard finger. “He’s trying to say that you’re different. That you’re not quite human. Humans can’t give vampires the true death. Humans don’t see masters who don’t want to be seen. Humans can’t fight vampires and live to tell about it. That’s what Sato meant when he said he made you. He made you what you are now.”

  “Vampire killer,” I murmured.

  “She’s still human,” Miriam told them. “Just different.”

  “Altered,” Rhys agreed.

  “We knew she was,” Angus said. “Which is why we took her in.”

  “I’m right here,” I said, irritated.

  Angus heaved a heavy sigh, and the bed dipped as he lowered his massive body to sit beside me. His big hand swallowed my fingers when he enfolded them in his tight grip. “To us, you’re a friend. To the world, you’re a human.”

  “To Amias Sato,” Rhys said, “you’re an obsession. A thrall. A possession.”

  Miriam went to stand beside her golem. “And to the vampires,” she said, “you’re one of the very few people in the world who can give them the true death. They can’t even do that to each other.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked, as my insides quivered.

  They exchanged long, meaningful glances once again, leaving me—the puny human—out of their mysterious supernatural loop.

  But when their silence was finally broken, it was the golem who spoke.

  “It means you’re a hunter,” he said. “And they’re going to come after you. They’re going to come after you hard and fast, and they’re going to try to kill you before you kill them.”

  Chapter Five

  I gaped at him, more surprised by his loquacity than his grim predictions. For the first time, it was as though Clayton was more than Miriam’s slave. He was one of them. One of the tiny, strange group of supernaturals who lived under the radar in Bay Town.

  I was the outlier, not Clayton.

  His predictions took a moment to sink in.

  I started to shove Angus away so I could stand, as having them all hovering around me was making me nervous, but the trembling weakness of my body wouldn’t allow it.

  “We’ll protect you,” Angus growled. “Don’t worry.”

  I looked at Rhys, who shrugged, then grinned. “Anyone who can take out the bloodsuckers is worth protecting. I’m in.”

  “We rarely see vampires,” I told them. “I can’t see them converging upon Red Valley to hunt me down.”

  “You’re the hunter,” Miriam said, crossing her arms. “Never forget that. You’re the killer. They will come, but you won’t sit around waiting for them to stalk you like you’re prey. You’ll go after them.”

  “Wait a damn minute,” Angus said, finally getting off the bed—much to my relief. “She’s not going to go hunting vampires. It doesn’t matter that she’s different. She’s still just a human girl.”

  “And you’re a just a half-wit,” Miriam said, calmly. “But we don’t try to keep you at home.”

  “We’re her shields,” he said, ignoring her insult. “If she goes out there, they’ll kill her.”

  “We’re her shields,” she agreed. “And when she goes out there, we won’t let them kill her.”

  “Amias didn’t try to kill me,” I interrupted. “And he’s a vampire.”

  “Amias is all kinds of fucked-up about what he did to you and the rest of your humans six years ago,” Rhys said. “You lived. He feels you’re…his. He’ll protect you.”

  I shuddered. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  “Doesn’t matter how it makes you feel. It’s the truth,” he said.

  Someone knocked on the bedroom door. “Dad?”

  “About time.” Angus strode to the door, yanked it open, snatched a pizza box, then slammed the door shut. He stomped back to me and dropped the box into my lap. “Eat,” he ordered.

  “You need to stop bossing me around,” I told him, around a mouthful of gooey cheese. “Oh. Yum. God.”

  No one said anything until I’d stuffed three slices of hot pizza down my throat.

  “How do you feel?” Miriam asked when I stopped to breathe.

  “Better,” I admitted. I moved my arm, then groaned when the movement caused my muscles to scream. “Sore.”

  “You should be sore,” Angus said. “You should be a hell of a lot more than sore.”

  I sighed. “So you’re telling me that I’m healing from such devastating wounds because of the attack six years ago. Because of that bite.”

  “That wasn’t a bite,” Miriam said. “That was a sustained, brutal attack that tore you apart. But you put yourself back together and you lived. And thanks to Amias Sato, you gained the ability to kill the most dangerous creatures on earth. The vampires.”

  “And that makes you both dangerous and vulnerable,” Angus said, angry again.

  As though it were my fault.

  “I need to take a shower,” I said, tired of them all. “I need to wash the…the vampire off me.”

  No one moved.

  “Go.” I flapped my hands at them. “I need some alone time.” My clothes were crunchy with dried blood and God
only knew what else. My head ached from being slammed against a brick wall. My nails were broken and dirty. The wound above my collarbone throbbed and burned.

  I was a dirty, bruised mess.

  Rhys reached into his jacket pocket, then shook some pills into his palm. “These will help with the pain. They’ll also knock you out, so…” He shrugged, then placed the pills on the nightstand. “You need more, let me know.”

  “She doesn’t need your drugs,” Miriam said. She ran her hand over my arm and took my cold fingers in hers. “Come. I’ll bathe you. Clayton. Carry her to the bathroom.”

  Angus’s eyes gleamed. “I will be happy to supervise.”

  “Lech,” Miriam said, but she gave him a tiny smile.

  “I can bathe myself,” I said, unamused. “And I can walk to the bathroom.” To prove it, I swung my legs over the bed, then glared at Clayton when he took a step toward me. “Try to pick me up and I will break your nose.”

  Clayton and I were the only ones who didn’t laugh.

  “Out,” I told them.

  Angus strode toward the door. “I have to go to work. Don’t leave this house, Trin. The little ones will keep you company and I’ll inform the nannies to call me if you so much as look at the front door. I’ll expect you in bed asleep when I return.”

  Miriam sighed and let go of my hand. “Come, Clayton. I would like a long, hot bath myself.”

  And finally, they left me alone.

  Too impatient to wait for the tub to fill, I settled for a shower. As the hot water cascaded over me, my thoughts went to the one person in the world I truly hated. The one person I truly feared.

  Amias Sato.

  Apparently, I’d been in that backseat all night and part of the next day. Angus had gone to work and saw my car. According to the small clock on the bathroom wall, it was now seven p.m. and though a good chunk of time had passed, I realized a normal person would have been in the hospital getting a blood transfusion.

  I was not a normal person. No one was disputing that. And if I hadn’t gone after that vampire, I still wouldn’t know what I was.

  But neither would the vampires.

  Not yet. But eventually, if I really started hunting them, word would spread. Then the vampires would come.

  At least that was what I believed.

  Reality was that they were vampires. What I believed might happen didn’t really matter. There were too many variables.

  Amias, for one.

  He hadn’t helped me when the vampire had nearly killed me, but afterward, he’d taken me to the supernaturals.

  He hadn’t left me for animals, humans, or other vampires to find. He hadn’t left me to die. He’d put me in the car, he’d driven me to Bay Town, and I’d healed because I had something of Sato inside me.

  I still didn’t know why he’d attacked us that grim Thanksgiving night.

  And I would never stop trying to kill him.

  I began soaping my body, slowly, as my muscles groaned when I moved. If I was going to become a hunter, I’d have to join a gym. I was a little too weak and scrawny to make killing vampires my life’s work.

  At the thought, my stomach muscles clenched, my heart rate picked up, and shivers chased each other up my spine. I grabbed the knob to turn to hot water down because suddenly I was hot. Too hot.

  Excited.

  The thought of killing vampires was turning me on.

  I leaned against the wall and let the cooling water beat against my back, ignoring the throbbing between my thighs and forcing my thoughts elsewhere until the feeling passed.

  “Well that’s new,” I muttered.

  I squirted shampoo onto my hair and scrubbed my scalp a little too hard. By the time I’d rinsed and stepped out of the shower, my thoughts were once again under control.

  I found bandages in a cabinet and examined my bite wound before slapping a fresh bandage on. The wound was tender and raw, but the pain was less and it was healing nicely. No pus or angry red streaks. I figured I was good.

  I wrapped a thick towel around me and left the bathroom in search of some clean clothes I might borrow. I needed to go home and prepare for the night ahead. For the life ahead.

  There were vampires to hunt, and apparently, I was just the woman for the job.

  Lucky me.

  Chapter Six

  I’d become a part of the supernatural world on Thanksgiving six years earlier, the very second Amias, injured and hungry, had touched me. Had hurt me.

  After I’d healed, I’d immersed myself in Bay Town’s supernatural community—a community I’d barely been aware of until Miriam Crow had invited me in.

  She’d taken me to Angus, and he’d given me a job.

  I’d had no one else. My sister had pretty much raised me during our mother’s struggle with the cancer that had eventually taken her, and my father had left when I was two. I didn’t remember him and had no idea where he was, or if he were still alive. And I couldn’t have cared less.

  For a long time, I’d closed myself off from everyone. Everyone except the Bay Town supernaturals.

  They’d accepted me without reservation—mostly—and it hadn’t occurred to me to question their acceptance. I was truly one of them, even if they hadn’t known what I was when they’d welcomed me into their world.

  But I was human, and I was part of the human world as well. I worked in the supernatural world but lived in the human world. And that hadn’t really complicated my life.

  Until now.

  I arrived at my apartment in the center of the city of Red Valley, wondering, as I rode the elevator up to the fourth floor, whether I really wanted to continue living in the city.

  I wanted to hunt and kill vampires. Could I live amongst the humans while hunting? Come home covered in blood, likely most of it mine, wounded, and reeking of death? Would I pull the humans into the supernatural community? Bay Town wouldn’t like that.

  It was bad enough with me just working there. People didn’t forget the lone survivor of a horrific slaughter. Every year, they dragged it out of the shadows and made it into something a little more fantastical, if that were possible.

  At any rate, the Red Valley Thanksgiving Day Massacre was becoming somewhat legendary, and though I was not exactly hounded by the media, each year when November rolled around, I was recognized, questioned, and occasionally asked for my autograph.

  Infuriating but true.

  And I drew more unwanted attention to the supernaturals with whom I associated.

  Bay Town, full of supernaturals, was comforting in its quaint sweetness. The city, full of humans, was forbidding with its shadows and secrets and pain. One would think it would have been the opposite.

  It wasn’t.

  I’d found my belongings in the nightstand drawer and had shoved the stakes, belt, and blades into a bag, then slipped down the stairs and out the front door without anyone but a two-year-old named Annabelle seeing me. Soon enough, someone would discover I’d fled the house and call to tattle to Angus, but I didn’t care. He could roar and rage all he wanted, and I could ignore him like I always did.

  I hurried down the hallway to my apartment, trying to look more like I belonged there and less like a battered thug, but from the couple of narrow-eyed glances I received, I wasn’t sure I succeeded.

  My neighbor across the hall opened her door the exact second I shoved my key into my lock.

  “Trinity,” she called. “I’m glad to see you. I was beginning to worry.”

  “No need, Mrs. Watson. I’m fine.” I turned to face her when I felt her at my back and sighed when her eyes widened.

  “My goodness, honey. What on earth?” Her faded blue eyes darted, and her head tilted like a little bird as she studied me. The mass of wrinkles on her face deepened. “Your face is bruised!”

  “I was jumped last night while delivering a pizza,” I lied. “But I’m not hurt.”

  “Not hurt!” She pursed her lips and reached up to touch my face, withdrawing immediately
when I recoiled. “You’re bruised and…” She shook her head but her tightly coifed hair never moved. “Haggard. At your age. Can I do anything for you? Would you like some soup? Can I call someone to come sit with you?” Before I could so much as open my mouth she continued. “Shall I sit with you? I’ll get my—”

  “No,” I interrupted, gently. “I’m going to run a bath and then go to bed. I’m fine, I promise.”

  “You saw a doctor, of course,” she said.

  “Of course,” I agreed. “All I need is some rest.”

  She tsk tsk’d. “Well, if you’re sure.”

  “Absolutely. Goodnight, Mrs. Watson.”

  I slipped inside and closed my door. The woman was sweet as she could be, but dear lord was she nosy.

  She could tell me who visited the residents in any room on our floor—even if she couldn’t see their doors—and she knew the very instant a stranger stepped off the elevator. She called the manager’s office with sightings of ruffians and imagined murderers at least once a week, and was always ready with an old broom with which she might sweep out the garbage she felt didn’t belong there.

  She was funny at times, but her paranoia, intrusiveness, and suspicion had gotten old fast.

  She saw everything.

  But she hadn’t seen the vampire who waited silently in the shadows of my living room.

  “I have something for you,” Amias murmured. “Listen to me, Trinity.”

  “I can’t,” I told him. And I couldn’t. I was helpless against the bloodlust and rage that sprang to life inside me every time I saw him.

  I dropped the bag and knelt to retrieve one of the stakes that rolled free, then snarling with something close to madness, I sprang at him.

  Pain dug into my brain and roared through my body.

  I didn’t care.

  He was there, and I had to kill him, no matter what that did to me.

  And for the first time, I realized that not even my home was off limits to him. Vampires couldn’t go into a human’s house without an invitation. Something stopped them—gave them, from what we humans understood, unbearable pain if they tried—but nothing stopped Amias. He was in my home.