First Blood

by Susan Sizemore

  Annie stopped, turned to glare. His brows rose, and he returned her stare evenly, then opened his right palm in a gesture that said the ball was in her court, the decision hers. The cane dangled from his left hand, the tip wrapped in fluorescent green paper. Even with her speed, she had barely seen the movement the demon had made when he’d thrown it; it had been so fast, and his aim perfect. An inch to the left, and he’d have hit Jack.

  How could a vampire defeat something like that, or defend those she loved against it? A lump of despair thickened her throat, and she looked away.

  “Annie,” Jack said, softly now. “Please.”

  She swallowed hard, nodded. His steps were light as he crossed the room. Cautious, but not for the right reasons—he probably didn’t want to frighten her.

  “I’ll show you,” she said with the last of the air in her lungs. “Just don’t touch me.”

  Her blocks were up, her psychic shields tight, but she couldn’t mistake the hurt that flashed across his expression— and she regretted causing it, regretted that it was necessary to protect herself.

  She rolled the hem of her shirt up and, when he stumbled back a step, was glad she hadn’t let him put his hands on her. A gentle touch would have been sweet, if painful; withdrawal was excruciating and bitter.

  His mouth opened, but no sound came out. She looked down at the livid, puckered crater in her abdomen. The wound had closed and was no longer bleeding, but her tank and pants were sticky with it.

  Jack pressed his fingers to his jaw, then his chest, as if he was convincing himself that he was there, that this was real. His shock smoothed into a flat, searching speculation. “I’ve either had too much to drink, or I shouldn’t have traded my comic books for Ludlum and McBain when I was fifteen. What was it—gamma radiation? A radioactive spider?”

  She inhaled; a wave of need swept through her. “No.”

  “But it was something.”

  Her fangs began to ache, and she said through clenched teeth, “Yes, but I can’t . . . I can’t—”

  Oh, damn it. He smelled like lemon, whiskey, and healthy, red-blooded male—and he looked better than any man had a right to look. Like sunshine and home . . . like pulse-pounding, passion-drenched nights.

  His gaze rose to her face, the speculation deepening, heating. Deliberately, he stepped closer.

  Annie turned, lunged for the bathroom. She forced herself to stop with her hand on the knob. Bloodlust gripped her throat, her tongue, and the words were guttural. “I need clothes.”

  His voice low, he took another step. “I’ll bring some—”

  Closer. “Leave them outside the door,” she ground out, and slammed through it.

  ANNIE rinsed her top until the water ran clear, then moved on to her pants. The bloodlust slowly receded; hunger remained, though not as sharp or demanding.

  But she still needed to feed. And she should probably tell Jack what she was, and that she’d broken into his house intending to suck his blood.

  Knowing Jack, he’d offer it to her.

  Knowing Jack. Above the sink, her reflection taunted her. The medicine cabinet was a utilitarian metal rectangle with rusting hinges; the vanity’s bright pink tile looked like a stomach-churning Pepto-Bismol accident.

  Outdated, ugly. Nothing like the comfortable, homey loft apartment he’d owned in Old City. What the hell was he doing in a place like this? It didn’t fit the Jack she’d known.

  Annie met her eyes in the mirror, then looked away. There it was again: the Jack she’d known.

  She’d been feeding off memories for so long . . . too long. And the thought of real intimacy, of feeding from him now was an irresistible lure.

  But he was as much a stranger as she was to him—and any connection she felt could easily end up being just another phantom.

  Over her head, the stairs creaked as Jack came down from his bedroom. He rapped on the door a moment later.

  “I’ve put a shirt, jeans, and shorts on the hall table.” He’d raised his voice, likely thinking she couldn’t hear him through the door and over the running water. “I ripped my last bra while I was pretending to be J. Edgar Hoover, but if you need the support I can lend a hand. Or two.”

  All right, so some things hadn’t changed. Annie grinned, turned off the faucet, and tried not to imagine his palms cupping her breasts, his fingers teasing their peaks to aching hardness.

  It didn’t work. She shifted her weight to distract herself from the fluttering low in her belly, the tightening of her nipples.

  That reaction wasn’t bloodlust, and it wasn’t just memory— though memory helped it along. Jack possessed a magician’s touch, sensitive and skilled.

  “Thank you, Director Hoover,” she finally said.

  “Is that a yes?”

  “No.”

  He gave an exaggerated sigh of disappointment, then asked, “Cosmic rays?”

  His voice was light, but when she reached out with her mind, his psychic scent was as sharp as her sword. His nonchalance acting as a cover for his burning curiosity—and a deep-seated anger.

  Her smile faded, concealing her fangs. A twist of her hands squeezed a flood of pink water from her pants. “No,” she said softly.

  THERE was no getting around it, so Annie didn’t wait for him to ask. As soon as she stepped into the kitchen, she lifted the hem of the borrowed Eagles jersey to her ribs.

  “So,” she said, and the forced, cheery note in her voice made her want to cringe, “no need to call my mother.”

  Jack’s gaze rose from the smooth skin at her waist to her face, and Annie closed her eyes against his expression. Half-rebuke, half-concern—and all seeing too much.

  With a sigh, she sat at the small dining table. Jack turned back to the counter and the bubbling percolator. Coffee, Annie mused, was very likely the only thing that he made in this kitchen. His cupboards probably held a few boxes of cereal and a carton of Tastykakes. His refrigerator might contain take-out leftovers, and the bacteria count in his milk would put a petri dish at the CDC to shame.

  Jack poured, set a steaming mug in front of her, and snagged the nearest chair. He’d put his shirt back on, but he must have been in a hurry: He’d buttoned it crookedly. “It’s sweet, just as you like it,” he said, and took a sip of his own. “But light would involve chunks. The milk’s bad.”

  Something tightened in Annie’s chest. She steadied her breathing.

  “It’s fine,” she managed, wrapping her fingers around the cup. He was close. If he happened to touch her, she wanted her hands to be warm.

  God, she wanted to be touched.

  She met his eyes, hesitated. Where to begin?

  Jack did, with a list of names. “Tanya Schiele,” he said. Annie blinked, made a sound of disbelief; Jack held her gaze and continued, “And her husband, Daryl. Noah Schmidt and Natalie Ackerson. Lucy Chan, Daniel Fleming, and—” His mouth firmed and he squinted slightly, clearly searching for the name of the third member in the partnership.

  “Leon Alvarez,” she finished, her voice hoarse.

  His nod was slow, but his heartbeat had sped up, his psychic scent a mixture of surprise and acceptance. He’d half-expected her to know them, she realized, but it had still shocked him when she did.

  “Twenty-seven that I’ve been able to—” Something in her expression must have told him. Jack paused, then said carefully, “How many more?”

  “Almost one hundred and thirty in all.” A sizeable community, though nothing like those in the larger cities, or spread across Europe.

  Though it didn’t show, the same anger she’d felt from him earlier burned through his psychic scent again, made her head throb. Annie blocked as much as she could.

  “All killed by that thing.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Probably more than one,” she said softly.

  “But you escaped them?”

  “I was in New York, on a job.” Hired out as an enforcer, tracking down and slaying a rogue vampire. She wasn’t ready t
o throw that at Jack yet. What was coming up would be enough. “And there were rumors flying around, about mass disappearances in D.C. and Berlin and Rome, and something in Seattle that didn’t go down. So I stayed in New York an extra two days, keeping my ear to the ground, because in Philly we don’t hear much. The community here is—was— isolated.”

  Annie shook her head when he opened his mouth. She’d have to explain that later. “The extra days saved my life. These things, they’re called nephilim, and they’re a type of demon. And they’ve been going into cities, and killing everyone . . . like me.”

  Her gaze never left his face as she watched him take that in. His expression didn’t change, but he’d been resting his forearms on the table, mirroring her posture; now he sat back in his chair, tugging at his ear as he thought it over.

  “Demons,” he finally said.

  “Yes.”

  “Killing people.”

  “Yes.”

  Eyes narrowing, he leaned forward again. “Like you.”

  Unable to hold that steady gaze, Annie looked down at her hands. Freckles still dusted her skin. After a few more years without sun, they’d fade completely.

  “Jack—” God, she was floundering. She didn’t know whether to start with the past or the present. Overwhelmed, she spread her palms; they were pink from the heat of the cup. “There’s so much.”

  Jack studied her face. After a long moment, he nodded. “Start with Cricket. That’s her legal name?”

  He’d given her a reprieve, then—and the thought of Cricket steadied her. There were priorities, and dealing with her unsettled emotions was not the highest one.

  “Yes. Her mother was a The Young and the Restless fan.” Annie smiled slightly at his blank look. “Never mind. Her mother died about a year after I did, and guardianship passed to Cricket’s sister, Christine, and her husband, Stephen.”

  Judging by the way Jack’s voice softened, he didn’t miss the hitch in her breath. “But now they’re dead, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “And they were also . . . like you?” His eyes were warm, filled with quiet humor.

  Gratitude swelled beneath her grief, lightened it. Oh, thank God for Jack. Only he could make a game out of her reluctance to reveal what she was—taking the pressure off of her, as if she’d challenged him to discover the truth.

  “Like me,” she confirmed, then pushed away from the table. She couldn’t sit. “I took those two days in New York, like I said. When I returned ten days ago, I could see that Cricket had been in my apartment, but I didn’t think much of it. Not until I went to Christine and Stephen’s later that night.” She paced to the window above the sink, stared out over the little enclosed backyard.

  “Did you find their bodies?”

  Something in Jack’s voice made her look over her shoulder, lift her psychic blocks. He didn’t expect her to say yes . . . and he was right. “No. Stephen’s sword was on the living room floor, a chair had been overturned, there was a little blood. Nothing else was disturbed. And when I went looking for Cricket, thinking she’d run to one of our friends’ homes to hide, I found the same had happened to them. To everyone. And she hasn’t tried to call me, so she must assume that I’m dead, too.”

  “But you think she’d been hiding at your place.”

  Annie nodded. “Something scared her off, though. Someone came in or—”

  She stopped. God, this was stupid. Just stupid. She had a trained investigator in front of her, and they were sitting here discussing it in his kitchen.

  “I could use another pair of eyes,” she admitted. “I’m out of ideas. Maybe you’ll see something I didn’t.”

  Immediately, Jack rose to his feet. “I thought you’d never ask.” His wide grin as he approached had her belly fluttering again, and she lifted her gaze from his mouth to his eyes. “And I’ll also be trying to solve another mystery.”

  She pressed her lips together, torn between anxiety and amusement. “About people like me.”

  “That, too. But there’s something else missing that I’d like to find.” He flicked the tip of her chin with his forefinger. The laughter faded from his eyes, his voice. “Tell me, Annie: Where has your smile gone?”

  FOUR

  IF I SMILED, YOU’D SEE MY FANGS.

  Annie had silenced herself before the automatic response escaped. As she waited for Jack to change his clothes, another reply rose in its place, just as honest as the first: There wasn’t exactly much to smile about.

  But she knew that hadn’t been what he’d meant. And the truth was, she hadn’t let herself show any strong emotions in years. There had been too much at risk, so she’d closed herself off.

  Closed herself off, and lost almost everything to a threat she’d never seen coming.

  Almost everything, but not quite. And so she could still smile a little.

  Annie gathered her coat, the bag holding her wet clothes, and sword when she heard Jack returning downstairs.

  He held her gaze as he crossed the room with that long, easygoing stride. Wearing jeans now, a black T-shirt, and a lightweight jacket—probably carrying a weapon beneath it.

  The shadow of his beard was still a surprise, but Annie thought it fit him. For all of his family’s money, for all of his grooming to look the part of a spit-shined federal agent, he hadn’t appeared refined, but rough and masculine. Whether in jeans or one of his impeccably tailored suits, he’d always looked as if he’d be at home in a fisherman’s village or striding across a moor.

  And if she licked his jaw on her way down to his neck, it’d be as abrasive as a cat’s tongue. She shivered and glanced away.

  “You drive,” Jack said, pitching his keys at her.

  She’d caught them before she realized what he’d done. That hadn’t been a slow toss, and her hands had been full. The speed with which she’d looped the scabbard cord over her shoulder and transferred the bag of clothes to her left hand must have seemed instantaneous.

  She narrowed her eyes. “Sneaky, G-Man.”

  He was still chuckling as they reached his SUV. Annie wedged her sword between the front seats for easy access, tossed her jacket into the backseat with an audible thunk. Ignoring Jack’s raised eyebrows, she pulled onto the street. In the rearview mirror, his garage door lowered, concealing another stack of boxes.

  “Are you moving out?”

  “No.” With a slight grimace, Jack cranked down the heavy metal pounding from the speakers. His thinking music, he’d once called it, and he used it whenever he was stuck on a case. Emptying his head, and letting intuition make the leaps that logic couldn’t. “I haven’t unpacked.”

  “Just moved in, then,” Annie murmured, but she was trying to make a leap, too. The music suggested that he’d been preoccupied with something even before she’d shown up—and he was aware people were missing, even if he didn’t know the people were vampires. Had the FBI become involved somehow?

  “A little over five years ago, shortly after my fiancée gave me back my ring,” he said.

  Annie’s lungs seized up, and her gaze flew to his face. “What?”

  “Didn’t wait long, did I?” His tone was rueful, but his psychic scent had a layer of frustration over it. And regret. “The road, Annie.”

  “Yeah.” She looked ahead, righted her steering before she broadsided a parked Buick, and forced a carefree note into her voice. “Not a long time, but, you know, whatever. It’s not a big deal. When it happens, it happens. Lightning strikes, you get stars in your eyes. Not something you can help.”

  “Jesus, Annie.” She heard the scrub of his hand over his face, but didn’t let herself look. “That’s not how it was. I—”

  “I don’t need to hear it.” Didn’t want to.

  “Too fucking bad, because I intend to say it.”

  Shocked, Annie snatched a glance at him. Had his temper shortened, or had she just never provoked it before?

  Before she could decide, Jack continued, “There was a spark. And I was
n’t going to wait until she was in an accident, until I was at another funeral. Jenn moved in a week after we began dating. Got a ring within two weeks. We thought about buying a house, and I suggested we look out here in Mayfair, for a place we could fix up together, start a family. Then we ran into your mother, and Jenn figured it out about the same time that I did. Jenn didn’t look a thing like you, but she was a nurse, had a big heart, a huge smile. I gave her the loft in Old City, then bought the house we’d been looking at. I never unpacked because I thought I’d move on.” His fist had been clenched on his thigh; as he spoke, it slowly relaxed. “There’s been a spark here and there, Annie, and God knows I didn’t wait for it to burn out—but lightning’s only struck me once.”

  Her heart was in her throat, her fingers tight on the wheel. “Jack—”

  “Don’t.” He shook his head. “Don’t say anything yet. Wait until you’ve had a chance to sit on it.” A wry smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “And I’m not half-drunk.”

  “All right.” God. Shame and apology had lurked beneath his speech. For unwittingly using another woman as a replacement, or because he’d been with someone else? “Just don’t be sorry, okay? Not on my behalf, anyway.”

  What would he think when he figured out what she was? What she’d done?

  She felt him study her face before he said, “So long as you aren’t sorry, too.”

  A glance confirmed that he’d been watching her, his expression grave. “I’ll try,” she said, then sighed and returned her attention to the road.

  To her surprise, despite everything left unsaid, the silence that fell between them was comfortable. But it had always been so with them, hadn’t it?

  And the silences had never been empty. Like now, there were his hands to think about, his lips to consider, his clean, masculine scent to draw in deep. And in that last, incredible month, their silences had been filled with breathless kisses, the slide of fingers over skin, the heat of his mouth.

  Damn it, damn it. The bloodlust flared, and Annie stopped breathing. Not that it helped—Jack’s presence couldn’t be denied by refusing to smell or look at him. And she couldn’t ignore the sharp interest in his psychic scent, the flavors of it; curiosity and male awareness formed a potent, shield-penetrating combination.