Wicked Sunset (Sunset Vampire Series, Book 4)

by Primo, Jaz

  Stupidly, I held onto my plastic bag of items, but successfully kept my balance with a pivot and spin of my body.

  Each of them grabbed one of my arms and half-hauled me up to the doorway of an old building that we were in front of. That’s when I managed to drop my grocery bag.

  One of the guys kicked the rickety door open as I struggled to free myself. Then they threw me inside.

  I rolled just as I’d been taught and recovered into a crouching position. It was so dark inside I could barely make out where they were both standing.

  “Whose vampires you runnin’ with?” one of them asked.

  “What?” I demanded.

  “You heard him, asshole, which clan you with?” the other man asked.

  I just stared at them.

  Clan?

  “Let’s beat it outta’ him,” the first one said.

  Don’t wait for them!

  I lunged forward at the one that was closer, but the other fellow moved quickly to my left and slammed his fist into my ribs.

  Spinning away from his punching side, I used my body’s momentum and caught him in the solar plexus with my fist.

  It felt like I hit a solid side of beef.

  He swung at my head, and I managed to duck and pivot out of the swing, but the other guy was already trying to foot sweep me.

  Damn, they’re fast!

  I barely managed to avoid falling and used my left hand to right my balance while reaching back to retrieve the combat knife hidden beneath my jacket.

  The blade came free as I spun around with it in my hand. My arm made a neat arc and the blade imbedded firmly into the dark-haired fellow’s chest.

  The look of shock on his face must’ve matched my own, and everything seemed to freeze in time for a split second.

  He gasped, as if out of breath, and staggered backward with his hands around the blade’s hilt until he impacted the sheetrock wall behind him.

  The other man rushed forward and began pummeling me about the head and gut almost simultaneously. I only managed to fend off a few of his blows as a series of pains erupted wherever they impacted me.

  I saw stars on two different occasions before feeling myself falling backward.

  My body impacted the floor with great force along with a huge wave of pain that coursed through my body, nearly taking the breath from my lungs.

  Before I could roll up off the floor, my assailant was upon me, punching me over and over again.

  His strength was ferocious.

  I managed to bring my right knee up between me and his body, and kicked him away from me.

  Reaching down to the cuff of my jeans on my right leg, I fumbled to grasp the hilt of my other combat knife.

  I heard an angry roar and the guy was atop me again, raining a hail of punches down upon me.

  My left hand reached into my jacket and grabbed at something—anything—I could use against him.

  I felt one my small flashlights, which I activated and jammed toward his face.

  To my surprise, he yelled out and held his right hand up before his face as his left fist shot out at me, catching me in the forehead.

  My brain felt numb as I desperately sliced my knife upward in an arc at him.

  I heard a gurgling sound coming from him as he teetered away from me.

  I managed to make out his pale hands grabbing at his throat as he staggered to get up and then fell back onto the floor.

  Everything had happened so fast that I was still reeling from shock and couldn’t think straight.

  I fought to understand what had just happened.

  Flashlight? Why the flashlight?

  The man’s reaction didn’t make sense.

  I felt as if I was fighting to keep from blacking out as pain permeated my body. My head throbbed horribly even as my heartbeat was hammering in my ears.

  I struggled in vain to get up but finally lay back onto the floor, listening to the sound of thunder somewhere nearby as I fumbled around for my cell phone.

  …must’ve fallen out of my pocket during the fight.

  Then I realized neither of the men was moving anymore; both had fallen strangely silent.

  I thought I heard the distant sound of my cell phone, but it seemed so surreal I thought I might be hallucinating.

  Then the sound of wind and rain outside, coupled with my ragged breathing, were the only noises around me.

  Time felt suspended as I lay on the floor in a painful, winded state trying to recover enough to move again.

  “Caleb!” yelled Paige’s frantic voice seemingly from out of nowhere.

  “What?” I asked, suddenly foggy-brained.

  Then I felt her hands patting me over, which only exacerbated the pain my body was in.

  “Are you injured?” she asked in a frantic voice.

  “Ouch, stop, stop, yes,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “I got the hell beat outta’ me.”

  “What the freak happened?” she asked. “Who are these guys?”

  “Vam-somethings,” was all I managed to say in my addled state of mind.

  “Vampires?” she asked. “You’re not making sense, these guys smell like…no way.”

  “How did you find—?” I asked.

  “Tracked your cell phone,” she said. “Found it outside.”

  I felt a swish of air by me and heard the sound of rapid scuffling across the room and back.

  “They’re both dead, Caleb,” she said. “Wait, I’ve seen those knives—aw crap, did you kill them?”

  “No choice,” I mumbled.

  “Okay, okay, we gotta’ get you outta’ here and then clean the scene,” she said.

  I coughed and then groaned as a sharp pain traveled through my ribs.

  “Paige? Caleb?” asked Roman’s raspy-sounding voice.

  A beam from a flashlight swept the room and I vaguely made out the two bloody bodies in the room that had been my attackers.

  “Oh, shit,” I said, suddenly realizing I’d actually killed them.

  Wait, Paige already said that…

  “Roman, help me,” Paige said. “We’ve got to get Caleb home and then take care of this…”

  I tried to push myself up from the floor as intense pain coursed through my chest and abdomen. Lightning flashed through the open doorway, and I looked down at the blood-covered combat knife I was still holding.

  That’s the last thing I remember before seeing stars and then the world went black around me.

  Chapter 32

  Caleb

  The next thing I remember, I woke in my bed with Paige sitting beside me. She caressed my face with her cool, soft fingertips and smiled down at me.

  “Feeling better?” she asked.

  As soon as I shifted where I lay, my body was filled with pain, and it was only slightly more bearable than not; certainly not as bad as I’d felt that night.

  “What time—what day is it?” I asked, feeling confused and slightly disoriented.

  “Saturday,” she said. “You’ve been mostly unconscious since we brought you home last night.”

  She told me that she and Roman managed to dispose of the bodies, using her car to transport them outside of town once they got me safely home.

  “You were pretty out of it, but we had to take care of things while we could,” she said.

  She also said they set fire to the abandoned building to mask forensic evidence.

  She examined me at length and we both felt comfortable that nothing was broken, although my torso and head had already formed some ugly bruises.

  I mostly slept for the remainder of the day.

  When I awoke that evening, I felt as if I was in a semi-lucid state. At first my vision was slightly blurry, but then it focused and I recognized Kat sitting by my bedside.

  I felt a wave of relief at seeing her. However, I still felt numb inside and half-asleep.

  “Hello, my love,” she said.

  “What time?” I asked.

  “It’s Saturday still;
almost eleven at night,” she said. “Alton and I arrived as soon as we could. Ethan’s here already, too. He’s downstairs with Paige, but he wants to examine you further.”

  I took in a deep, pain-laden breath and let it out.

  “S-sure,” I said.

  “How do you feel?” she asked softly, running her fingertips lightly across my face, just as Paige had done.

  It tickled, but felt oh-so-very-soothing.

  “Numb,” I replied.

  It was the word of the day for me; yet, so very appropriate. My mind felt clouded and hazy.

  “Mild shock,” she said.

  “I kill---”

  “I know. Paige told me about the two men,” she interrupted me.

  I killed two men last night.

  Wait, there was something else.

  “Not men,” I said.

  “Shh, rest now,” she said, caressing the skin on my right arm with her fingertips.

  A pleasant wave of tingling superseded the pain I was feeling.

  “I’ve corrupted you, haven’t I?” she asked. “I’ve gone too far this time, equipping you to contend with circumstances that you never should’ve been confronted with.”

  “No, you haven’t,” I said. “If you hadn’t…well, I’d probably be dead right now.”

  I heard her sharp intake of breath.

  “You know, most people go their entire lives without killing anybody,” she said. “You deserved that sort of life. A life where you never had to worry about vampires, good or evil, or people stalking or preying upon you just because of who you love or are affiliated with.

  “You deserve a life of peace and harmony with someone whose only contention might be that you forgot to pick up eggs on the way home from some mundane job,” she said in a sad tone of voice.

  “That doesn’t matter anymore,” I said, trying to keep the bitterness out of my voice.

  I don’t even know if what she described was even a possible reality anymore.

  Was it really ever for me?

  My childhood had started out pretty screwed up. Would I have had any real possibility of making it to adulthood had a lovely, yet suicidal, vampire not intervened on my behalf?

  “What does matter, then?” she asked, searching my eyes as if seeking some hidden secret of the ages.

  For me, no matter what I’d experienced since childhood, or since being reunited with Kat, there was only one reality that mattered.

  “I love you,” I said. “That’s all that really matters to me.”

  She took my face in her hands and gently pressed her lips to mine, kissing me with tenderness and affection.

  “Oh, my dear, sweet Caleb,” she whispered. “I love you now and forever.”

  Ethan and Alton peered over her shoulder at me. Ethan wore a concerned look, but Alton’s expression was different.

  He smiled down at me; he looked proud.

  That’s when something fully solidified in my mind.

  I had killed before; explosives thrown at a vehicle, only to have two living beings blown to bits, remnants of their carcasses aflame on the asphalt.

  But what had just happened was so different.

  “It felt so…personal,” I whispered.

  Kat frowned at me. “What?”

  Alton squatted next to me and placed his warm hand on my forehead. “I know,” he said soothingly.

  “But it was more than that,” I said.

  “Yes?” he asked.

  “It happened so fast. And much of it was automatic; like my body was replaying a memory,” I said. “But it was awkward…erratic. Then it seemed so easy when it finally happened.”

  The tightness that immediately formed in my throat and chest spoke volumes of my shock over that simple realization.

  “What you experienced, that’s how it often happens, my boy,” Alton reassured me.

  “It shouldn’t feel that easy,” I whispered.

  “Oh, but it should,” he said. “It must, or none of us would be able to do it effectively. Your life depends upon it.”

  “My enemy too, though,” I said.

  “Yes, only you must be better than them,” he said.

  Yes, Alton had to be correct about that. To think anything less would seem foolish otherwise.

  “Let me have a look at him,” Ethan said.

  Kat and Alton stepped back for Ethan to have access to me.

  Fortunately, he said I should recover fine, and that he didn’t think there was any neurological damage to be concerned about based upon his examination. He said I was likely in a state of mild shock, which should pass.

  Additionally, as was done in Slovenia, he injected small amounts of Kat’s blood beneath my skin to boost the healing of injuries. Then Kat topically applied her saliva to my cuts and bruises.

  The numbing effects felt wonderful, in fact.

  Later, she and I were once again alone; she lie facing me in bed, running her fingers through my hair.

  “Who were those guys?” I asked.

  “Alton’s examining their cell phones. Rest assured, my love, we’ll find out who those men were, as well as who they worked for,” she said.

  “Good,” I said.

  “And someone’s got hell to pay,” she said.

  I had no doubt of it, in fact.

  “One more thing,” I said.

  “Yes?” she asked.

  “Please don’t be angry with Roman,” I said. “None of this was his fault.”

  “He shouldn’t have let you go alone,” she said in a displeased tone of voice.

  I felt her body tense against mine.

  “He was sick, and I was only going up the street a short distance,” I said. “And Paige needed time to herself, as well. Who could’ve imagined any of it?”

  She remained silent.

  I reached out to place my hand to her cheek. “Please.”

  “Very well,” she said. “As you wish, my love.”

  Despite the pain of moving, I shifted my body to be able to kiss her on the lips.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “In the future, you must learn to be more careful and honor the protections I put in place for you, my love, because I simply can’t risk losing you,” she said. “Promise me.”

  “I promise,” I said.

  I couldn’t imagine not having her in my life either. I only hoped she was being as careful in London as I was supposed to be.

  Then a warm feeling flowed through me, momentarily cutting through the fugue in my mind, simply knowing that she loved me so.

  That’s when I knew that my brain needed to wake up from its half-slumber. I needed to formulate cogent thoughts again.

  “What now?” I asked.

  In response, she moved to the other side of the bed and spooned alongside me, literally curling her body around me in a protective fashion. Her arm encircled my waist and she placed a warm palm against my bare chest.

  She was coiled like a viper ready to strike, and yet, I felt as if I was nestled in the midst of the strongest fortress.

  “Rest now, my love,” she said. “Sleep and recuperate. And later, when you wake, we’ll speak about such things.”

  Moments later, she lifted her arm and caressed my forehead and the side of my face with her fingernails as we lay together in silence. The warmth of her body permeated into me, and I gradually began to feel comfortable again.

  I felt safe once more.

  The soothing sensations of her ministrations lulled me into a kind of blissful disconnect from the world around me.

  Time seemed to cease.

  And eventually, I peacefully drifted off to sleep.

  About the Author

  Jaz Primo is a history aficionado, “pun-master”, and all-around fan of vampires. He authors paranormal romance, urban fantasy, and young adult literature, and has enjoyed a fulfilling background and career in higher education, including teaching U.S. History classes during evenings. Jaz lives in the Great American Midwest with his wife an
d a long-lived cat.

  You can find Jaz Primo online at the following locations:

  Website: http://jazprimo.com

  Facebook: Jaz Primo

  Twitter: @jazprimo

  * * *

  Winner of the Paranormal Romance Guild’s Reviewer’s Choice Award for Best Young Adult Novel of 2012 !

  Gwen Reaper

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  Boy meets beautiful and mysterious, yet reclusive, girl who harbors a potentially-lethal secret.

  "A thing of beauty is a joy forever: its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness." John Keats, English romantic poet.

  I never thought that my first exposure to real beauty would be tinged with the threat of oblivion…

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  When high school junior Scott Blackstone is forced to move from his childhood home in Springfield, Illinois to small-town Custer, South Dakota, he expects nothing less than to languish in complete disappointment. Instead, he discovers a beautiful and mysterious seventeen-year-old girl named Gwen, who captivates him from his initial, adrenaline-laced sight of her on the shores of Stockade Lake. Scott’s pursuit of the elusive Gwen sweeps him into the midst of a potentially lethal family heritage that was birthed in hope, only to be passed into a legacy of guilt and death.

  Scott engages in a journey of discovery, tinged with both angst and danger. Like many dire legends throughout history, he is unprepared for the untimely revelation that both love and despair are often two sides of the same coin.

  Now available in trade paperback and all major eBook formats!

  Go to http://jazprimo.com/books for purchasing links!

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  The Logan Bringer Urban Fantasy Series, Book 1

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  Spinning "a wonderful first book in his Logan Bringer series" (Paranormal Romance Guild), Jaz Primo has created a new urban fantasy hero in this story packed with explosive action, danger, and intrigue.