by Jenn Windrow
I removed the protective tip with my teeth, spat it to the floor, and slammed the needle into my thigh. The liquid flowed under my flesh, and entered my blood stream like a steaming hot bullet. Minutes passed and nothing else happened.
Then I heard Eddie, far off in the distance, muffled and murky. You’ll need my strength.
Then silence.
The thumping in my chest dissipated, and the urge to tear out some vampire throats disappeared.
For the first time in two years I felt like a normal non-hijacked-by-the-king vampire.
I pulled out my stake and followed Nathan, who had waited, through the crowd of gyrating bodies. Everything seemed to be going well until someone bumped into me and my control nose-dived out the window.
Flesh upon flesh shot an electric current through my body. My hand shot out and drove my stake through an old leather bomber jacket and straight into someone’s chest.
Damn. Things were about to get ugly.
“What the fuck?” A very pissed off biker-looking dude wrapped his hand around mine and pulled the stake out, leaving a gaping bloody hole in his chest.
The hand holding mine began to morph. The hair elongated, the claws extended and dug into my flesh. I fought against the half-man and half-wolf that now stood in front of me, but he held on tight. I looked up and his toothy grin said it all. He was going to eat me alive.
He yanked me to the floor, holding on tight. The bones in his body popping and rearranging themselves, hair sprouted over every exposed bit of skin, and his nose turned into a muzzle. His transformation complete, the werewolf put his two front paws on my shoulders and pushed me lower. Drool dripped onto my face when he licked his lips, and a growl ruffled the fur at his throat.
“Hey, fido,” Nathan yelled, but the werewolf just flicked his ears in the direction of Nathan’s voice. He wasn’t about to let his meal out of his sight.
Eddie had been right. I needed him.
Right when I was about to make my move that would send the werewolf flying across the room, a flash of pale blonde marine crew cut flew through the crowd in hot pursuit of a tall, lanky vampire.
“There’s Reaper,” Nathan yelled.
Reaper ran across the crowded dance floor and through a beaded curtain that led to another tunnel.
“Nathan, follow him,” I yelled.
I didn’t have time to tumble around with a lump of fur when I had a partner to save.
Wiggling my stake out of his claws, one hand grabbed the wolf by his scruff and the other slammed the pointy tip into one of the paws that straddled my shoulders. The sharp wood stuck into the floor, holding his paw down with it.
The wolf howled. A howl loud enough to alert any buddy nearby that he was in trouble. I shoved his massive fury body off me and kicked him while he was down. Picking myself up off the ground, I left the mutt lying on the floor.
There was no time to look back and see if he had dislodged the stake. I followed Nathan around the dance floor, past the bar, and into the back room where Reaper had disappeared.
The light was dim, just a few sconces with drippy candles, that hung on the walls. Small alcoves, carved out of the walls of the tunnel were filled with vampires and their hopefully willing donors. Moans, groans, and cries of ecstasy flowed out into the hall. I checked each and everyone for Reaper.
A burly looking blood sucker, straight out of The Godfather, stood in the middle of the hall, arms crossed over his chest, blocking my forward motion. I moved to the left, to try and pass him, but he stepped into my path.
“Private feeding, no one’s allowed.”
Nathan managed to sneak past the guard so easily, I wondered if some of his borrowed energy was fading. “Reaper’s down here,” he yelled.
This time the growl that left my throat had nothing to do with the beast, it was all me. “Move or die.”
He put his hand on my shoulder and tried to turn me around. I reached up and grabbed his wrist and bent it back. The bones snapped. The vampire screamed. And while he nursed his broken arm, I grabbed the backup stake hidden in the inner pocket of my duster, slammed into his heart, and walked through his ash.
Who needed the beast?
A third of the way down, in one of the larger alcoves, Reaper stood, pinned against the wall, his arms trying to push off the vampire who was ready to tear his throat out.
Not on my watch.
I needed to distract the vampire enough to get Reaper out of here. I pointed to me, to the vampire, to Reaper and to the exit, hoping that Nathan would get the hint and lead Reaper out of the club when I got the vampire off of him. Nathan nodded his head, in what I hoped was agreement.
I raised one side of my upper lip, hoping it made me look menacing, and tapped the vampire on the shoulder. He turned, but seemed very unimpressed by what stood behind him, then he turned back to Reaper.
Screw being subtle. I wrenched him away from Reaper and punched him in the face.
Instead of running, Reaper got between the vampire and I, trying to wrestle him to the ground. Now, I’ll admit Reaper is a big man, but nothing against the unnatural strength of a vampire. The vampire tossed Reaper to the side, took one look at me, and then ran out of the tunnel.
Reaper stood up and took off after him. I took off after both of them. The vampire went up the stairs. Reaper followed. The vampire went out the front door. Reaper followed. I made it outside just in time to see the vampire leap to the roof of a building and take off into the night.
Reaper fell to his knees, head in his hand, an anguished scream parted his lips as it was torn from his throat.
I rushed to his side, and laid my hand on his shoulder. The warmth of his body leached into my cold skin. When he didn’t pull away from my touch, I lowered myself to the ground next to him. “Reaper?”
The eyes that met mine were filled with anguish. “He killed my wife.”
Chapter Seventeen
He killed my wife.
Those four words echoed off the concrete walls and assaulted me over and over again. Those four words told me more about Reaper than anything he’d said in the past two years. Those four words made me look at the man who knelt on the ground with his head buried in his hands in a whole different light.
As long as I’ve known him, I’ve never seen a hint of emotion, unless you counted pissed off. He was stoic, straight-faced, serious. But not at this moment. At this moment he was broken.
He fell farther to the ground, as if his legs couldn’t support the weight his past piled on his shoulders. I reached down and wrapped my hand around his thick bicep intending to help him up. Reaper’s hand closed over mine and he squeezed. At first I thought it was out of kindness, but his fingers squeezed harder, then he pried my fingers off his shoulder and shoved my hand away.
“Don’t touch me.” His words filled with hatred. His eyes radiated with it too.
Hatred for me. Hatred for vampires. Hatred for anything that didn’t fit his idea of normal.
It didn’t intimidate me. I had hatred in spades.
I put both hands up in the air and backed up one step.
I’m not sure who Reaper saw at the moment, but it wasn’t his partner of the past two years. Right now I was the cause of all his misery, loneliness, and despair.
I was the enemy.
Speaking of enemies, we also had an angry pack of werewolves on our tail, so staying out in the open wasn’t the wisest idea. I needed to get Reaper to follow me farther into the shelter of the abandoned buildings that surrounded us.
The steps I took were slow and deliberate, coaxing him to follow me, come and get me, anything to get him out of the way of the real danger that was surely stalking us.
We entered the shadows and Reaper closed the distance between us. He grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled me close. The other hand wrapped around my hair and wrenched my head back, exposing my neck. Vulnerable.
A growl escaped my throat, a warning Reaper wouldn’t heed.
“There
’s who I was looking for. The part of you that can’t pretend to be human.” He pushed me away and I stumbled.
“Alexis?” Nathan called from the sideline.
I held up one finger to stop him before he came over. If Reaper wanted to play, heaven help him. All I could promise is I’d do whatever it took to make sure he came out of the fight alive.
A roll of my shoulders, a crack of my knuckles, a toss of my long braid over my shoulder, and I was ready. I winked at my opponent.
A war cry was the only warning of his imminent attack. Reaper rushed forward. Full speed. I stood my ground and waited. Anticipated. Looked forward to it. We met head on and collided in a flurry of fists, flesh, and frustration.
He kicked at my stomach, I blocked it with my hand, not paying attention to the fist aimed at my face.
Damn, it was like being hit by a cement brick.
The impact knocked me back. I ran at him with my own kicks, my own fist flying, and I didn’t hold back. I caught him in the chest, the hip, the leg, the side. I punched, he punched. I bled, he bled. The anger was pouring off him, out of him, and I was the perfect punching bag. The face of his enemy who was here and now, plus, I could take a beating. And I let him. I let him get the upper hand. I let him use me. I let him take advantage. Why?
Because that’s what friends do. And even if Reaper didn’t, I considered him a friend.
I let Reaper have his pound of flesh.
We kept at it until he went down…hard. Once he was on the ground, nursing his left knee I climbed up on his chest and pushed his arms over his head, locking them in place.
“Are you done?”
He bucked his pelvis trying to knock me to the ground. “Off. Now.”
“Not until you calm down.”
“Fuck you, vampire.” The word vampire hurled as an insult.
“But not the one you want?”
“Because you let him get away.” And there it was. The reason he attacked. I hadn’t moved fast enough to keep the source of his anger from escaping. I’d failed him.
But if Reaper wanted to play the blame game I was up for it. “It’s not my fault you’re weak.”
His head snapped up and his mouth dropped open. He stared at me, his eyes telling me how much he wanted to get back up and shut my mouth…permanently.
He wiggled his hands out of my grasp and his fist connected with my jaw. He leaned to the side and got off me. His hands covered his face to hide the tears I spied before he could hide them.
There he sat, on his knees, head in his hands. No words could express the pain that radiated from him. He was falling apart, reliving the worst thing to happen in his life, he was going to lose it, and soon if I didn’t step in and help.
I said the one thing I knew would sink into his thick scull. “I’m not the enemy and you’d see that if you stopped hiding behind your prejudice.”
Nathan came over and helped me up. While Reaper composed himself, I brushed the dirt off my clothes, and tried to fix my hair. Walking to an open area of grass and trees, I sat down on the leaf-covered ground and waited. Wondering if Reaper could come back from whatever twisted memory had him in its clutches.
After several minutes he walked to where I was and sat on the ground across from me. His hands shook when he folded them in his lap. Nathan came up behind us, and I kept my hand on his ankle to keep him visible. Reaper looked between us, his eyes wide, sad, dead.
“Feel better?” I asked.
“No,” his voice was haunted, lost in a memory of the past.
“Want to talk about it”.” He shook his head. I wasn’t giving up. “Tell me about your wife?”
His eyes flared, his fist clenched, his mouth moved into a snarl. Good. Pissed off Reaper I could deal with. Pissed off Reaper was familiar.
“I…I can’t.” His words skipped like a rock over water.
“Can’t or won’t?”
“I haven’t talked about her in three years.”
“Why not?”
He stood, walked a few feet away and leaned against the rough bark of a tree. He wrapped his arms around his stomach. “I can’t,” he repeated.
“Listen, Reaper, I know I’m the last person you want to talk to, but I’m who you’ve got at the moment. I can’t help you unless you tell me what’s going on.”
Silence. Nothing but silence. Reaper stood lost in thought, lost in the past, lost in his pain. Just so very, very lost.
Do I keep pushing him or let him talk to me on his own? How do I get him to understand that no matter what I was, I was still human in my heart?
“What was her name?”
At first I didn’t think he would answer me, but then in the quietest voice he said, “Loralie.”
“That’s a beautiful name.”
He came back to where I sat and lowered onto the ground, his palms running over the green blades of grass.
“How old were you when you got married?”
“I was twenty-eight, she was twenty-six.” He paused and scrubbed his hand over his face. “We got married when I got back from basic training.”
“Army?”
“Marines.”
“That explains a lot.” That comment earned me a sneer.
“Kids?”
“She was six months pregnant when she died.”
“How did it happen?”
His face fell into his hands, his head shook slowly. Then he started telling me his story. A story I thought I would never hear. A story I would never forget. “I was a detective for the VAU, Coleman was my partner. We had just brought in a huge mover in the vampire Underground. Things were going so well. I was up for a big promotion because of the bust; the love of my life was pregnant with our first child. Life was good.” He stopped talking and stared into the night. I wanted to prompt him to keep going, but held my tongue.
“It was a Friday night and we were coming out of a movie. It was busy, people all around, I never expected the vampire.” He choked on the word. “He came out of nowhere. Grabbed her. Held her. Told me he had a message from Antonio. Said, you kill one of mine, I kill one of yours. It all happened so fast. He sank his fangs into her neck and drank. He tossed her to the ground, but not before he tore out her throat. I had to make a choice, run after the vampire or take care of my wife. I ran to Loralie and held her head in my lap. Someone called 911, and I held her and watched her fade away until they came.”
I let the silence stretch until it was see-through-thin. “They couldn’t save her?”
“They tried, they really did. They rushed her to the closest hospital and performed an emergency C-section.” Reaper broke down, he sobbed, quiet body shaking sobs. I placed my hand on his back, hoping to offer him some comfort. Surprised when he didn’t move away from my touch.
“Loralie died during the surgery. They told me the baby only had moments to live, lack of oxygen had done its damage. They handed her to me, and I held my daughter for the ten minutes that she lived.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Looked into her eyes, touched her fingers, her toes, smelled her, loved her. Then she died in my arms.” His voice trailed off on the last word.
The man next to me was usually so calm, so composed, so serious, but right now he was open and raw.
I let him sob. I let him have the time he needed. We sat on the grass together in silence. That was the best support I could offer him.
“How did Caleb find you?”
“I was a mess. Drunk, contemplating suicide.” He hung his head low. “I’d gotten put on suspension from the VAU for attacking a fellow officer. I’d lost everything. My job, my family, my sanity. I was standing at a cross road, and both directions looked pretty grim. Caleb came to me. Gave me a choice, an option to make the world a better place. To save other women and children and families.”
“Did you know you would be working with a vampire?”
“Yes.”
“What did he tell you about me?”
“That you were different than
the others. That like me, you wanted revenge against one of the monsters. That you were more human than vampire.” He looked back at the ground. “I tried to get past what you were, believe Caleb, but once I saw you, it didn’t matter. I couldn’t see past the pale skin, the fangs, the monster that lived inside of you. No matter what you felt on the inside you were still a vampire on the outside.”
“Why didn’t you quit?”
“You were my only chance at revenge, my best weapon to take out the vampire population. Better than the VAU. Better than going out on my own, risking my own life.”
“So you used the tools Caleb gave you? Me.”
“I used you.” He paused. “And I don’t regret it. What if tonight was my last chance at revenge and I blew it?”
Being used seemed to be a major theme in my life. First by my sire. By Caleb. James Coleman and the VAU. Reaper. The list just keeps getting longer and longer. It should bother me. If I searched deep down in my soul it probably did, but on the surface, where I lived most days, I understood.
I didn’t have the adequate skills to bandage Reaper’s raw and bleeding heart. But I did have one thing to offer him. Something only someone with my particular skill set could provide. Something I didn’t offer lightly.
Revenge. Hatred. Pain. Those were the things Reaper and I had in common. It made me understand him. Want to help him.
“I’ll help you find the vampire who killed your wife and child.” It was a promise and I took my promises very seriously. One day I would offer up the monster who had hurt the man sitting in front of me. The man I considered more than a partner. Whose tragic life drove him to do what he could to keep others from the pain and hurt that he carried with him every day. A man who I had more in common with than I originally thought.
Just another thing added to my ever-growing to-do list. Find and kill Terrance. Locate Julian’s missing twin. Help Reaper with revenge against a murderous bloodsucker. Save humanity.
Damn, I’m a busy girl.
Chapter Eighteen
