“Which was?”
“Take his blood.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’ve never wanted or needed to take blood. By the time I was aware of you, I’d already finished feeding.”
“All you’d done was butter him up with a kiss.” Even to his own ears the accusation came out angry and accusatory, like something a jealous lover would say. Whoa, where the hell did these thoughts continue to come from? Never gonna happen. Was it?
“What, are you…dense?” She smiled. “Kissing is how I feed.”
“Excuse me?” He shook his head, sure he hadn’t heard her right.
“I literally pull the emotion out of my providers by inhaling their breath.”
“‘Providers? You mean prey.”
She sat back and crossed her legs. “I say exactly what I mean.”
He folded his arms on the table. “Okay, we won’t quibble over the right P word.”
“We’re not going to quibble at all. Now, I told you what you wanted to know. Seems you owe me, so it’s your turn.” She leaned forward again. “What are you?”
He took another slow sip of his brandy, letting the liquid settle into his bones. Could this be true? He knew at least one soulless who had not survived solely on blood. No question Thalya’s kind were attracted to humans projecting strong emotions. Some types more than others. So, why couldn’t the way they extract emotion differ. Taking a risk, he told her what she wanted to know. It’s not as if they kept his existence among hunters or soulless a secret. “For want of a better term, I’m a hybrid. One of your kind and a human.”
She sat up in her seat. “But—but that’s impossible. We can’t create life.”
“Maybe, yet here I am.”
“How could such a thing be?” she asked, the sound of amazement ringing clear in her tone.
He shrugged. “As far as I know, I’m the only one. But my father was one of you and my mother, as human as they come.” His father had stopped feeding off the blood of humans long before he’d met his mother. So, it made sense he had to find some other way to feed, but Samuel didn’t admit that to her.
“Are they both still alive?”
“No. I’m a lot older than I look. They died a very long time ago when I was a boy. My mother first and my father shortly after.”
“Died? How could he die?”
“My parents loved each other very much, and less than a week after she passed he didn’t get out of bed one morning. Like he’d willed himself to be wherever she’d gone.” Samuel didn’t understand why he told her so much. His innate senses understood and responded to something different about her from the others hunted and killed. Even knowing she didn’t have a soul, he couldn’t deny on some level she drew him to her.
Also, she had a scent. None of the others did. Not even bad breath after they’d fed. Just the scent of blood from the deceased.
He’d been a loner by necessity, yet this female presented unfamiliar territory for him. Women around him aged, he didn’t. Thalya might understand his history and not run away from him, screaming in terror. Even among the few female hunters he’d known, he never got close emotionally to any of them. Never wanted to.
“Then how do you have a nephew?” Her question brought him back to their conversation and away from his inner turmoil.
“He’s a nephew several generations removed. I had an older human half-sister. We shared the same mother, different fathers.” A sister who hated his father and the reason he’d become a hunter.
Thalya frowned. “A human sister. What happened to her?”
“After my father’s death, Aaline came and took me to live with her.” He understood Aaline’s resentment of his father, Derry. Even though Derry treated her as a daughter, she’d seen Derry kill her father and never forgiven him for it. But she’d been a mere a child at the time and traumatized.
“But there’s more to you, isn’t there?” Thalya asked. “You carry some of your father’s abilities too.”
He nodded. “Yes I do.”
“Then why did you start hunting your father’s kind?”
A good question one, he found himself answering, “That happened over time. My sister ran away a couple of years before our parents died and joined with a group of hunters. After my father’s death, she came and took me to stay with her, so I lived amongst them for a time without really being a part of the hunt. But when my, ah, special abilities began to show, it seemed right to help my sister and the other hunters use that advantage in the quest against the soulless.”
“I see. You sense us.”
He nodded. “Yes. I made sure the innocent didn’t suffer.”
It hadn’t been hard for the sister he adored to convince him the soulless needed stopping. “I’d seen for myself the death and destruction your kind cause in order to feed.” He simply refused to believe his beloved father, Derry, had been like the rest of them. According to what their mother told him, Aaline’s father was the only human Derry had ever killed and Samuel believed her.
“I’ve only known of one who hadn’t killed his victims.” Samuel always thought of his father as different, one of a kind. Maybe the woman seated before him could somehow be different too. Or maybe he just wanted her to be.
“We are not all the same,” she insisted.
“My father was different,” he told her. “For one thing, he married my mother and stopped taking blood.”
“I don’t take blood, not all of us do. But how could he tie himself to a human?” she asked, shaking her head. “He’d never age, and if he died, really died, he can’t enter heaven. His fate is worse than being condemned to hell. He ceases to exist.”
“That would be true, had he remained soulless.”
She frowned. “But—you said he was like me. Soulless.”
He nodded. “Yes, but before I was born. I’m not sure how long he’d been alive, he never said, but he remained soulless until he met my mother. He loved her and she loved him, because of her and the love they shared, he grew a soul. He began to age, and he died.”
“Are you sure of this?” She narrowed her eyes and stared at him, as though trying to probe his mind for the truth.
“Oh, yes.” He stared intently back at her, letting her know he did speak the truth. “All you had to do was look into his eyes, and you’d see it. They were green like mine.”
“Oh, Grace!” She raked her hand through her hair. “Then the myth is true. And you have a soul. I can feel it.”
“Yes. What myth?”
“Over the years I’ve heard myths, stories that some of us were able to acquire souls. Though, no one I knew had ever done so or known anyone who had. The stories on how always differed but none of them mentioned love, an emotion most of us are unfamiliar with and not one I feed on. I know some of my kind who do and usually they travel in pairs.”
“The soulless ones I’ve run into seem to favor fear, hatred and violence,” he said. “They encourage it, then feast on the aftermath and they’ve always taken blood. Even my father, before he met my mother, took blood, but he didn’t kill. He might have been drawn to those who were already full of rage or fear. He never caused or encouraged the emotions in others. It’s how he met my mother.”
Samuel’s mind leapt to the stories he’d been told of how Aaline’s father had beaten their mother so badly, she’d almost died. Aaline had watched his father kill hers, too traumatized to understand his father did it to save their mother’s life. Soulless, his father might have been at the time, but even he stopped an injustice. Thoughts of his father brought up another. Would killing Thalya also be an injustice?
Samuel stared at her, unable to answer the question. Hell, he had no idea why he’d told her so much about himself. Too much. Yet, the same thing compelling him to stay his hand instead of slaying her in the park pushed at him now.
“I am no blood drinker,” Thalya stated after they’d been silent for a while. “Never have been, never will be.” She reached for his brandy. “Although I do
try to drink a good brandy on occasion. I know the great effort humans put into its making, but my emotion of choice has always been depression, despair. And no, I do not cause it. I’m drawn to those emotions. These are the humans I can help.”
He watched her place her lips to his glass, tilt back her head and down a good bit of his drink.
Chapter Three
Thalya had no idea why she’d told him so much, much less confided anything of her life. He seemed unlike anyone else she’d ever come across. For one thing, he controlled his emotions well but he had them. She envied him those emotions. Humans took their over abundance of emotions for granted while she hungered to feel only one.
While her kind fed, for a time they felt and had a semblance of a soul. Yet, she refused to take someone else’s happiness or be the cause of misery. So many suffered from depression already and it fed her hunger just fine.
He raised one perfectly arched eyebrow at her statement. “Why should I believe you?”
“Because you can sense the truth of my words.”
“Maybe.” He frowned. “So, you truly mean your victims, ah—providers, no harm?”
For the most part. “I cause no deliberate harm. For one thing, I am around humans only for brief moments, that’s how long it takes to sate my hunger.” It’d been about fifty years since she’d allowed herself to spend this much time in direct contact with a human, one who could also serve as a provider.
“Ah, but accidents still happen.” He picked up his glass and finished the brandy.
“Not the kind you mean. I’ve never taken a life. That is not what I need to feed.”
The last time she’d maintained emotion for any length of time, she’d lived with her provider. An artist who embraced misery and his level of depression acted as a high for her. It didn’t take him long after she’d drained him for him to sink back into another bout of depression. It was simply his nature and it brought out his best art, but after a few months, she got bored. Even for her it became too much. Kind of like having chocolate every day. It still had taken her six months to move on.
“The last time I spent any significant amount of time with a human, when I left, he was very much alive.” Still depressed but alive. She did get a lovely piece of artwork out of their time together though.
Giving Samuel another once over, she wondered what she might get out of him. Well over six feet and built for speed, she could sense the solidness of his physique beneath the layers of civilized clothing. He had a strong face with a pointed chin. His lips and nose were perfectly symmetrical to the angles of his face, and those green eyes seemed to pierce through her, revealing all her secrets. If she were a cat, she’d purr. Hmm…certainly it would take more than six months before she got bored with him. But how could that be? She sensed no depression in him. Frankly, she sensed very little emotion at all, only an attraction.
“You’re shielding very well.”
Samuel nodded, acknowledging her compliment.
Oh, he felt emotion all right. However, it seemed to be buried to the extent she couldn’t read him completely, which made him different. That, more than anything, told her of his not quite human side. Still, attraction pulled her to him. Who wouldn’t be attracted to this male specimen? After all, she was merely without a soul, not blind or dead. “Have you ever run across a female of my kind?”
He titled his head to the side and studied her. “A few. Why?”
“Did you kill them?”
“What do you think?” He paused before continuing, “Look, I caught them killing humans. It was the only way to stop them at the time.”
She nodded, understanding those kind of soulless had to be stopped. “So, you’ve actually never spoken to one of us before now?”
“No, not really.” He shrugged.
“So, why now?” Thalya sat still and waited to hear his reply.
“Curious, I guess.”
She nodded again. If her kind dreamt, then the man who sat across from her would be a walking, talking, erotic dream come to life. In the looks department, he could give her kindred a hard run for their money. He must be his father’s son. Big and tall were merely words until applied to Samuel. He stood about six-foot, three-inches of solidly packed sleek muscle, built more like a panther than a lion.
“Hmm, yes. Of course,” Thalya responded, but her mind lay elsewhere. She could even wear her four-inch stilettos with him and still not be eye-to-eye. She focused on his lips. They were damp from the brandy. If she kissed him and stole his emotion, it would not be depression she’d taste. She moved her gaze to his hair.
He wore it the way she preferred, pulled back into a queue only highlighting his perfectly symmetrical features. “Not many men can wear hair as long as yours today and get away with it.” She’d noticed earlier when he’d turned to speak to the waitress, it hung to the center of his back. It didn’t hang straight but waved and curled a little at the end. Yet, there was nothing feminine about that look on him. Dark gold highlights laced through the deep brown color of his hair, making it all the more dramatic against the paleness of his skin. Humans paid a fortune for such a look at the hair salon. His did not come from any bottle.
“But then again, I come from an era where it was the norm.” He shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a creature of long learned habits.” His straight and sharp nose flared as he spoke, like he took in her scent. His raised chin warned her this male did as he damn well pleased. He took control.
Hell, if he gave her an order right now, there may not be much she wouldn’t do for him. How had she lost control? “Have you even had your emotions drawn from you?” she asked. If she touched him, what emotion would she feel? He did something no human could do without giving her control; he looked her right in the eyes. More than enough reason to stay away from him. His depths drew her in.
Her kind had dark, dead eyes, reflecting only pitch-black emptiness in the space where a soul should have been. His eyes were anything but dark, dead or empty. They were green, the color of living things and very much vibrant. His soul lay within. If she fed from him, it would only be because he allowed it.
Samuel blinked, breaking the spell between them and she sighed, unable to remember the last time she’d felt such a reaction to a man, soulless or otherwise.
Yes, she did—never.
“Never mind,” she said. “I know your answer.”
Judging from the way he scrutinized her and the fact he hadn’t immediately attacked her, she suspected he felt attraction for her too. He couldn’t quite block his need. She glanced up at him from lowered lashes. Yes. Desire. She opened her mouth and could taste his need in the air between them. Now, only one question remained. What, if anything, should they do about it?
As if reading her mind he growled, “Don’t even think about it.”
She inclined her head at him out of respect. Again, she had her answer. A hunter, through and through, it meant something to him. Besides, how could she trust him?
Her last thought settled things for her. As intriguing as she found him, this had the potential for danger. For both of them. “As much as I’ve found our time together interesting, unfortunately it’s going to have to be brief.”
“Brief? I don’t think so,” he spoke slowly and huskily.
His tone had her imagination soaring as it hadn’t before. But she couldn’t—well, wouldn’t—change her mind. However, one little taste of him wouldn’t hurt. Putting thought to action, she leaned forward and grabbed the base of his neck, drawing him toward her. She encountered no resistance, although she felt the strength in him.
If he wanted to, he could have stopped her. Or at least tried to. He didn’t. Instead, he leaned forward, so their lips met and locked over the center of the small table.
For the first time in her very long existence, something fluttered in the empty place inside her. Her eyes drifted shut and behind her closed eyelids, she caught a glimpse of brightness, what she thought heaven might be like. All this from
his kiss. But as in all things, this too could not last.
Drawing on the power of her will alone, she pulled away from him and ran. Running full out, using all of her non-human strength, she left him and headed back to her condo. If her actions made her appear cowardly, too bad, as she felt no emotion other than what she stole. So, she did not care.
When she got home, she stood on her balcony high above the tree line of Central Park and watched a red dawn break across the city. Only then, did she go inside and seek her rest.
Asleep, between her dark blue silk sheets, she did the unthinkable. She dreamed.
What the hell! Samuel leaned back and stared at the empty stool. He glanced around the small bar but without much effort. Too late. She’d gone.
“Damn,” he said a little too loudly, ignoring the looks cast his way from the people at the nearest table. He placed some money under his empty glass and left. Pausing on the sidewalk in front of the bar, he opened his senses. He searched in both directions, but could detect nothing. “I should have just killed her when I had the chance.”
Even to his own ears, it didn’t sound like he meant it. Especially not after their kiss. Something exploded inside him. He would find her again, but whether to ring her beautiful neck or to kiss her again, he couldn’t be sure.
Shit! Yeah, he did. He’d do more than kiss her, a hell of a lot more.
He retraced his steps back the way they’d come and found his car. After getting in, he started to call Karl again until he saw the time. He didn’t want Karl’s wife answering the phone, asking questions. Instead, he called Eric to check in.
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