First Blood

by Susan Sizemore

  Life in the goddamn city, he thought. And his brother had died in its embrace.

  As Ben quelled his emotions—he’d already allowed himself grief, but now a desire for vengeance overtook it—the music escalated to a more urgent beat, pumping in time to the lights.

  In spite of himself, Ben’s gaze was pulled back to the woman’s allure.

  She would be the key. He just knew it.

  Fingers buried in her hair, she had stopped dancing, closing her eyes as if craving the slow churn of the previous song. She allowed her hands to trail down the sides of her long, pale neck, over the clasp of her halter, then her collarbone. Her sliding touch was a sensual fade, like one last long note in the song still humming through her.

  She brushed the swell of her breasts, and his belly clenched. But then he forced himself to think about Nolan and the pictures that the cops had shared.

  The sightless eyes of a man who’d died in the throes of . . .

  What? Ben had been wondering just what the hell it was that defined Nolan’s gaze in those photos. It had compelled him, haunted him.

  Fascinated him.

  Ben had seen a few corpses in his own small-town Texas job, but he’d never witnessed this, and he found himself wondering just what Nolan had discovered in death that had eluded him in life.

  What could’ve possibly given him such a look of ecstasy . . . ?

  When the images faded from his mind’s eye, the woman was gone.

  Shit.

  He thought of the .45 in his ankle holster. Ready for anything.

  Emerging out of his shaded corner, he scanned the club, past the mirrored bar by the dance floor, past the stage, past—

  He sucked in a breath when he met a pair of bright blue eyes.

  Fight-ready, he immediately went into defense mode, his heartbeat trumping the music and banging in his ears, his chest.

  But . . . he couldn’t move. God, he was captured by the blue gaze, which had somehow turned a pure, fathomless silver in the endless second it’d taken him to recover.

  A strange peace filtered through him, and he thought, This is what Nolan saw while he died.

  Suddenly, he knew that he shouldn’t be so on guard. Not around her.

  Not around Ginny.

  As he stared and stared, he felt the vague sensation of fingers riffling through his mind, quickly and efficiently exploring.

  Then, as soon as it had started, it was over.

  He was still looking into her eyes, but they were blue again. Music blasted, as if turned way up, even though Ben instinctively knew that it was the same volume as before.

  The woman in red didn’t speak over the drumming rhythms, only crooked her finger at him, inviting him to follow her.

  He probably should have thought twice about obeying, but he didn’t. Couldn’t. His body seemed to be doing all the thinking for him as he followed her to a staircase, where they climbed to a balcony dominated by old theater seats.

  And the chairs weren’t empty, either. No, all around, there were bodies—half-dressed, undressed, exposing sleek limbs and grinding hips.

  A twinge of warning told Ben to leave, to let the NYPD do their own work, but abandonment wasn’t natural to him. Besides, Ginny had taken his hand, leading him past a woman who was snorting cocaine while she straddled another female. The second one was strumming the first one between the legs, a naughty smile on her face as she checked out the new arrivals.

  Then they moved on, past a woman wearing nothing but gold paint while she laved the penis of a man who was casually drinking a martini.

  Eventually, they found a relatively quiet area of their own, and Ginny turned to Ben.

  God, she was so beautiful that looking at her almost seemed blasphemous. But he did it anyway.

  And his cock went hot and hard, as if he had no control.

  She gestured to a seat, but he refused. Nonetheless, she folded herself into a chair, crossing one long leg over the other.

  “From the way you were watching me,” she said, “I thought we might enjoy a little privacy.”

  Privacy would be great for this interview he needed to conduct with her; if it panned out, he’d let the NYPD in on the lead.

  Or maybe privacy would be Ben’s downfall.

  He steadied himself, and she must have misconstrued his hesitation.

  “There are other places we can go if that makes you more comfortable,” she said. “Haven’t you heard about the upper area—the real ‘Upstairs’? Private, secret rooms. I know the owners of Studio, so—”

  Ben tried to clear his head. What the hell was going on with him?

  “I’m not here for any other reason than to talk,” he managed.

  “Really?” It wasn’t so much a question as an amused statement.

  “Really. I’ve got some business to take care of and you’re on my checklist, Ginny.”

  A lift of her brow was validation that he’d found the right woman.

  As she cocked her head, inspecting him with cool negligence, he strengthened himself with thoughts of his older brother: Nolan laughing at a family barbecue, then gone the next morning on a business trip to New York. The phone call his wife had received yesterday, announcing Nolan’s death in a condemned building in the Bronx.

  Ire all but pummeled Ben as it batted away the grief. Got to find out what happened.

  Then, a crazier thought.

  Got to know what Nolan saw before he died with that fulfilled look in his eyes . . .

  “You know my name,” Ginny said. She grinned. Sultry, languorous.

  Ben stepped forward, knowing the interview had begun. Over the balcony’s stench of sex and sweat, he caught the lovely scent of the magnolia in her hair.

  Or maybe that was the smell of her skin . . . ?

  His cock strained against his fly, blood thrusting through his veins and tearing him apart as he struggled for composure.

  “Two nights ago,” he said tightly, “people saw you outside this club with my brother, Nolan. Seven hours later, he was found dead. I thought you could offer some insight about what happened between then and there.”

  Something seemed to roll over her, like the moon losing its light, and Ben knew that he hadn’t wasted his time tracking her down. This Ginny knew what he was talking about.

  But before he could start in again, a voice sounded from behind him.

  “You going to tell him, Ginny?” a second woman asked, and she sounded exactly like her. Like Ginny.

  When Ben turned around to see who she was, he realized that it was Ginny.

  Or at least her double.

  TWO

  GINNY STRAIGHTENED IN HER THEATER SEAT AS HER twin sister, Geneva, claimed Ben Tyree’s attention.

  Having been inside his mind, reading it like files left willynilly over a desk, she knew his name. Truly, she knew everything superficial about him, including the fact that he had what might be romantically called a “cowboy code”—a vision of the universe in black-and-white. A quaint sense of justice that Ginny hadn’t seen since the early ’50s, back when she’d been a human and swept up in post-war patriotism.

  Back in the days when everything had been much simpler . . .

  She switched her gaze to the man, a moral compass who fascinated her. When she’d first seen him in the darkness near the dance floor, watching her with such longing, she’d gotten interested. Then, after she’d infiltrated his head, it’d gone to another level . . . one she didn’t quite understand since she’d never encountered the feeling before.

  Serenity . . .

  But, being the creature she was, she didn’t know what to do with this abstract niggling. So she’d reverted to habit, bringing him to the balcony, intent on getting her fill of his hard, hot body with mere sex. Foreplay. Afterward, she could get her blood from someone less dangerous—someone who wasn’t involved with Nolan Tyree.

  Someone who’d be an easier meal for the night.

  And in spite of Geneva showing up, Ginny was stil
l going to have him. She could feel her lateral incisors elongating, evidence of her arousal.

  Still, she held back, savoring the foreplay as he turned away from her sister to face Ginny again, confusion marking his features.

  She took her time in scanning him. Under his white T- shirt, his shoulders were broad, his chest wide, his arms muscled. His dark green eyes were splintered with white shards that she could easily discern with her heightened vision. A past-the-hour-of-five shadow manifested itself as stubble on his face, hiding a cleft in his chin. He wore his brown hair short-clipped, just like his patience with the lack of leads in his brother’s case.

  By peering into his mind, she had seen he was a searcher. A perfect victim looking for more than the crumbs life had already offered him. As saddened as he was by his brother’s death, Ben Tyree was enchanted by what Nolan had found when he’d passed on.

  And, deep inside, he yearned for it, too.

  Now, Ginny noted how Ben composed himself in the aftermath of seeing Geneva, her twin, his body going wary. Searchers could be dangerous to vampires. Searchers tended to dig deeper into matters than was good for them.

  Thing was, Ginny thought, a man like Ben Tyree could be taken care of with a snap of her fingers. If she wished, none of the creatures in Studio tonight would let him out the doors, because even though her kind ran free in the club, they couldn’t afford to have talk of vampires filtering into the city.

  Here, in Studio, they fit effortlessly among the beautiful and the odd, among every guest who tried to top the hedonism with more and more excess. There were regular humans who even flocked here to act like vampires in the higher rooms or the basement, where the VIPs gathered.

  Besides, come morning, no one ever recalled the details of with whom they’d been or why their necks were tender with the bites some vampires, like her, could heal and conceal.

  Ginny finally stood from her chair. She’d sensed her twin’s growing hunger for a taste of Ben Tyree, and Geneva was bound to be growing less cautious by the moment.

  With the speed of a fractured second, Ginny mind-spoke to her twin. It was their special mode of communication. Long ago, when they were young, they would talk in a twin language based on high school Latin classes, and they’d always had a strange consciousness of what the other was feeling or doing. Those talents had only improved as vampires, taking the form of their own intensified awareness. Otherwise, Awareness for their breed was limited to communication between an individual and their maker.

  Their creator happened to be named Sorin, a vampire who still dwelled Underground in Los Angeles.

  Ginny squashed his name to the back of her head, burying it.

  This is Ben, she thought to her sister. He’s the brother of Nolan, from the other night.

  Her twin blinked, then smiled. I remember Nolan.

  At the name, Ginny felt her sister’s cravings escalate.

  A tweak of what a human might call trepidation invaded her. Isolation. A facsimile of emotion.

  Ginny tried to identify where it’d come from. How strange.

  I sure would like a bite, Geneva tacitly added. So strong, so gorgeous—

  No.

  Geneva paused, and Ginny knew what was running through her sister’s mind, even though Geneva was attempting to conceal it. She was feeling possessive, as she often did.

  Then Ginny mentally assuaged her twin, not wanting her to be angry.

  We have an entire club to choose from, she said. You know this prey is dangerous to us. Just let me get rid of him.

  So you can have him to yourself?

  Ginny ignored that, shutting off their awareness and concentrating on Ben again.

  It was so much better than battling with Geneva. They’d been at odds with each other too much lately.

  Their silent exchange had only taken less than a second and, as Geneva walked past Ben to stand next to Ginny, it was obvious he was still absorbing the new situation.

  “Twins,” he muttered so low that she barely picked it up with her sharp hearing. “Well, I’ll be.”

  He folded his arms over his expansive chest, looking at Geneva, but saving a longer, more interested gaze for Ginny.

  Her veins beat with him, expanding with brutal force. How? After all, she never felt this way unless she was drinking the hot blood of prey, sucking it inside of her.

  Her sex even primed itself: a throbbing between her legs, the stiffness of her clit.

  “You’re in the wrong place for cop work,” Geneva said, slipping an arm around Ginny’s waist and resting her head on her sister’s shoulder. “You’ve stepped into a different world here.”

  Ginny held her twin close, her body calming.

  Ben’s jaw clenched. “Justice applies everywhere.”

  Such a temptation, Ginny thought. Such a man.

  Should she risk revealing herself by going into his mind again? She was drawn to what was inside of him—the virtue, the protective male. Generally, she wouldn’t have even chanced a mind-reading outside the chaos of Studio—reading could be unwise in the open when they were Above. And, unlike the privacy of twin awareness, it made a vampire like her or Geneva susceptible to detection outside.

  Sorin had raised them to be careful, saying that there were other powerful creatures Above who would bring an end to their kind if they had the opportunity. Although she was a little less cautious these days, she’d never really shaken the lessons, even if she and her sister had deserted the Underground years ago out of personal need.

  “Justice?” Ginny asked, taking up where Ben had left off. “You say that word as if it exists.”

  “It does,” he said. “It will. And I think the both of you need to enlighten me about what happened to Nolan before I lose what little patience I have.”

  Her sister sighed. She was thinking about how naïve humans were.

  Ben stepped closer to them, having no clue what he was dealing with. A pang of sympathy—or whatever was invading her—pressed against Ginny’s chest. He’d lost a brother, after all, and she’d felt the pain inside of him.

  Maybe that’s what was happening with these “emotions”— she was experiencing the residual effects of being inside a mourning human.

  Thing was, the sensation was a thousand times stronger than she could’ve ever imagined.

  “Let’s get started,” Ben said, voice lower, grittier.

  Her twin spoke up. “Do you really want to know everything? Sincerely?”

  Ginny started to mentally chastise her sister for toying with him. There were easier meals out there tonight.

  But Geneva had already blocked her out, and the rudely halted twin awareness made Ginny feel as if she’d slammed into a wall.

  Then, too far into her own game, Geneva zoomed over to Ben, vampire-quick, coming face-to-face with him.

  He reared back, eyes wide.

  But Geneva was already talking. “Do you know about the pleasure house? It used to be in the Bronx, but it’s been moved because of what happened to Nolan. It’s close by now—West Fortieth. Have you looked into that, Lone Ranger?”

  From that point on, everything happened in a flash.

  Preservation won out over secrecy, and Ginny darted over to Geneva, latching on to her sister’s identical haltered dress, then hauling her away from Ben Tyree.

  Why would you tell him? she thought to Geneva , whose awareness was open again. What’s going on with you?

  Her twin bared her teeth, her eyes going silver as she flashed a hint of fang.

  In that one lightning instant, Ginny saw hatred, jealousy. Possession.

  And she knew what was happening with Geneva.

  Ginny tightened her grip on the dress, ready to assume her own full vampire form if it meant stopping an attack that would only introduce bigger problems.

  Sex? Okay. Bloodletting?

  Not tonight. Not with him.

  Pausing, her twin shrugged, then switched back to the blue-eyed, quasi-human demeanor they normally wore.
/>
  Just remember, her sister thought, you’re mine and I’m yours. Always.

  Letting go, Ginny backed away.

  Her twin was wrong. They belonged to Sorin. And he had taken them separately to emphasize that.

  There were some things she had never shared with Geneva, and this was one of them. Ginny only knew of her first bite with their maker: painful and quick, like a disappointing virgin sexual encounter where the male lost control and spilled everything . . .

  Meanwhile, Ben was so human-slow that he was only now reaching for something near his boot.

  “Don’t,” Ginny said, suspecting what he might have there. “Guns or knives aren’t any use.”

  He was panting, his face a mask of shock. “What do you mean, God damn it?”

  The profanity jerked at Ginny, and she felt dirty. Unclean.

  But Geneva was laughing, thoroughly amused with him.

  Twin awareness zinged through Ginny, telling her that Geneva’s hunger had flared to an even higher level.

  But before Ginny could react, her twin zipped over to Ben again, catching his gaze and stunning him with her silvered eye contact.

  Playing her games.

  After she’d frozen him in her hypnotic thrall, Geneva snuggled up to his neck. She was further proving a point to Ginny, and this man was the example.

  Eyes hazy, Ben Tyree didn’t move a muscle.

  “There’s a private room upstairs just waiting for us,” Geneva whispered to him in a voice that they used to soothe a willing victim—always willing—right before a bite.

  Temptation clouded his gaze while Geneva opened her mouth to show her fangs to her sister.

  To show Ginny how far she would go to keep her twin in check.

  THREE

  HER EYES, BEN THOUGHT. ALL THE ANSWERS ARE IN the silver . . .

  During this mind-scrambling haze, while he felt the twin nestling against his neck, he knew he should just shove her away. These females weren’t human, not with the eyes and the quickness and the . . . fangs.

  But he didn’t do any such thing. He knew what was in the silver now. Paradise. And he wanted to stay.

  The second woman—or . . . God . . . were they vampires? —coasted her fingers over his chest. Like a drugged man who needed a visual anchor before he lost himself, he somehow wrested out of her gaze and locked on to Ginny, who was standing a few feet away in their corner of the balcony.