Intervamption

by Kristin Miller

  Now if he only had time to sort his shit out.

  Once the back alley was clear from khissmates’ prying eyes, Slade had used his natural ability to shift back to his original therian form and walk during daylight. People were much easier to question when they were awake and moving about. Not to mention that he couldn’t exactly socialize with his old buddies with a mouthful of fangs.

  Sunlight felt fucking fantastic, draping across his face, rejuvenating his senses. In the little time he lived in the dark, he’d forgotten how great basking in the sun’s glow felt. He wondered if Dylan remembered how soothing it was. How old was she when she went through the change? he wondered. Did she want this life—forever chained to the dark? Didn’t she miss the heavy streams of light at all?

  He’d have to remember to ask her.

  Slade met up with an old therian friend at a coffee shop, thanked the Lord for espresso and bagels smothered in cream cheese and fried egg sandwiches and chocolate-cream-filled pastries. Vampires may’ve had superman-quick recovery time, but they didn’t have delicious artery-clogging food. His stomach rumbled in delight as he gobbled up as much as he could. If he could’ve gotten away with licking the plate without turning a dozen heads, he would’ve done that too.

  Surprisingly, he hadn’t missed his old form much. If felt much like slipping back into relaxed, worn-out clothes. Sure, everyone liked returning to the old and comfortable every now and again, but who wouldn’t like to slip into a new, shiny pair of scrubs from time to time?

  He was taking a liking to being a little bulkier, a little stronger. The speed—they were fast suckers for sure. Much faster than he originally gave them credit for. In fact, he maybe liked it a little too much. From the second Ruan pounced on him, his fists flew faster than Ali, and he didn’t even have to try to be fast . . . he just was.

  Phenomenal speed and strength proved to be kick-ass tricks.

  By the time he checked the clock again it was past three o’clock. Once Dylan realized he’d jetted out on his responsibility and missed the entire session, she’d be hunting him down.

  He’d wasted enough of the day basking in the sun. It was time to lay down the law for Moses. That fucker had to stop sending scouts to follow him around if he wanted him to do his job. Slade hadn’t forgotten about the therian-rodent scurrying beneath a cardboard box in the alley outside the haven. He may’ve been able to get over it and let that one slide . . . but once he sensed therian presence in that mutt on Eve’s street he knew Moses needed a good stiff warning.

  Slade didn’t like being checked up on. Period.

  He pushed through Mirage’s double doors and stormed right to Moses’s back office. He knew he was expected and somewhat welcome. The cameras at the front of the club would’ve clued in anyone inside to his movement the second he got within striking distance of the building. If he was an unwelcome visitor, therian goon-squads would’ve breathed down his neck in a heart-flicker, escorting him to a proper place to beat his ass.

  Instead he found the club doors unlocked and Moses’s door wide open.

  Moses was sitting behind his desk, puffing on a fat cig, his feet kicked up and crossed at the heels. Like he owned the very air Slade breathed and could evaporate it all with a simple snap of his fingers.

  Krawler, a robust therian guard with black hair sweeping his belt and glowing yellow eyes, sat in the corner, his arms crossed at his chest, a pissed-off mug slapped on his face.

  “Looking good, Krawler,” Slade said. “Still ugly as hell, I see.”

  “You’re one to talk. From what I hear, your vampire form ain’t no GQ cover model.”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  He smiled a brown snaggle-toothed grin that made Slade wanna invest in Colgate.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” Moses grumbled, interrupting their foreplay.

  Slade went palms-down on the desk, his head submerged in the smoky air. “You know why I’m here. I need you to leave me the fuck alone so I can do my job.”

  “I haven’t killed you yet, have I? I think that’s leaving you alone well enough.”

  “Push the kill switch on my shadow. The woman I’m with . . .” he paused, correcting his stance. “The woman who’s acclimating me is starting to know something’s up. If a therian approaches me in vampire form, I’m taking him out. Period. Just wanted you to have a heads-up.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Damn right it is. If you think I’m gonna risk my life shifting into vampire form and then let a rogue therian try to stake me, you’re smoking something other than a Cuban.”

  Moses stalked around his desk. Slade stood upright, watching him move out of the corner of his black eyes. Krawler stayed put, still smiling like he was absorbing the flaming testosterone in the room with grim satisfaction.

  Each step a deliberate game, Moses reached Slade’s side and wrapped an arm over his shoulder. Slade’s first instinct shocked him; for a flicker of a second he wished he had fangs so he could take a swift bite out of Moses’s neck, show him what he really thought about this trust bullshit.

  “Slade,” Moses said, his voice level. “I want to show you something. Something that should make you proud to be a therian.”

  He parked his cig in a crystal dish, and escorted Slade to the far side of the office where a map of Crimson Bay hung from two big-ass nails.

  “See this?” Moses swept a hand over the whole region. “It’ll soon be ours.”

  “It’s ours now.”

  “No. I mean, it will all be ours. Vampires won’t be able to stake claim to any piece of property in all Crimson Bay. No pun intended, of course.”

  Slade’s eyes tracked across the map to where the familiar haven was marked with a red pushpin. Then he noted at least a dozen other pins in random regions of the map, some blue, some red. “What’re the colored pins for?” he asked, feeling like he knew the answer.

  “Ah, that’s what I wanted to show you. See all those red pins dominating the map? Those are safe houses we’ve managed to penetrate one way or another.” He flicked the haven Slade was supposed to call home. “Some of these are ones where we have inside Intel, though none are in as deep as you are. Others are ones of little consequence, ones that are too weak to fight the impending war. They’ll be taken out with a single strike.”

  “What about the blue?”

  “Those are ones we have yet to learn anything about. Every day one of those blue pins gets replaced by a red one. Every day. We’re getting close, Slade. We need you to keep your cool as we come close to the end.”

  “I was keeping cool until you sent two therians to follow me around.”

  “You couldn’t possibly assume I’d send my best Assassin into the trenches without monitoring his safety. . . .”

  “You mean, monitor my progress.”

  “Yeah, same thing.” Moses finally released his buddy-buddy grip. He leaned over the desk, picked up a small sheet of paper and balled it into Slade’s chest. “This is for you.”

  “If it’s a membership to the Therian of the Month club, I’m not interested.”

  “Fuck you, Slade. Read it.”

  He did and his pulse raced. “How’d you get your hands on this? If you’ve known where the entrance to the catacombs has been all along, why’d you need me?”

  “We just got intel from Krawler here. Don’t know how reliable it is, but run with it and find those scrolls. It’s all we’ve got to go on anyway.”

  “That and my killer instincts.”

  Moses sighed, picked up his cigar and took another hearty puff. “You’ll never change, will you?”

  “Well, seems you’ll never learn that I don’t take orders well.”

  “Yeah, no shit. The little trigger slip on your last assignment told me that much about you.”

  Slade rounded the corner of Moses’s desk and kicked the wheels of his chair. Moses spun around as Krawler rose from his post, his arms crossed over his chest like a stone barri
cade.

  “That’s ancient history,” Slade growled. “Besides, that was a completely different scenario with—”

  Moses stood nose-to-nose with Slade. “Yeah, it was a dark and stormy night and all that shit,” Moses seethed. “And you couldn’t see past your nose to make the mark. You were better than that, Slade . . . at least I thought you were. You turned out to be such a disappointment.”

  “It didn’t have anything to do with that fucking storm and you know it. I told you what I saw on that Primus.”

  “You’re trained to be ready for anything!” Moses boomed.

  “A therian mark on a blood-sucker? I don’t think so. Besides, I hesitated a second, Moses—a fraction of a single second. Not that I have to explain myself to a Sheik like you anyway. You’ve never seen battle a day in your life. I wouldn’t expect you to know what goes on in the mind of a trained killer.”

  Moses huffed. “Or a trained failure, in your case. I just can’t believe you’re still spreading that hybrid therian-leech bullshit. You better be careful which circles you travel in. Some old-school therians will kill you just for thinking such blasphemy. Maybe you should get your head checked while you’re here.”

  “Maybe you should watch your mouth before I bury you along with my past.”

  Krawler stalked around the office and placed a firm hand on Slade’s shoulder. Slade didn’t budge, just eyed the hand Krawler was about to lose.

  “Sorry, big boy, but my dance card’s filled tonight. If that’s your lovin’ hand, you might wanna get it off my shoulder before your five-fingered life partner loses its mojo.”

  Krawler stared from his towering height before puffing out a laugh through his closed mouth. Then he made the smartest decision in his life by removing his hand.

  Moses let the silence stretch and tighten until it about popped. When he spoke his voice was thick as gristle. “Get me my scrolls, Slade. That’s all you need to do for now. When it’s time to make your mark, don’t freeze up.”

  Slade eyed Krawler carefully. That twitchy fucker was still looking for any reason to go hands-on. Slade was so ready. “I’m not the same therian I was back then,” he said, turning on his heels. “I won’t fail.”

  “Let’s hope not. We have more riding on this than you could possibly comprehend.”

  “Good seeing you, Krawler,” Slade said as he pushed past his thick frame.

  Krawler simply nodded like the mindless, brainwashed soldier he was. Moses moved into the same position he was in when Slade entered the office: feet up, ankles crossed, the thick cigar shoved into his pie-hole.

  As Slade left Mirage, he turned west, deciding last minute to ditch a cab and walk to the haven instead. With his feet moving, his thoughts cleared. His mind replayed the past over and over again. For the last hundred years he’d wondered if what he saw was real—a Primus with a therian marking. It didn’t take Moses throwing his single failure in his face for him to flashback to that night. And it wasn’t just any family marking, Slade recalled, stroking the smoke black lines on his own chest—

  Damn it, he couldn’t dwell on the past anymore. He had to put it behind him and focus on the task at hand. There was no going back . . . and even if he could, he wouldn’t get any of the answers he searched for.

  He reread the note Moses chucked at him. Krawler couldn’t identify his ass from a hole in the ground. How on earth did he find the catacombs? The more important question was, though, did the entrance really exist or was it some fucking goose chase meant to put his neck on the line?

  Sadly, it was a chance Slade had to take. It was the only one he had.

  Which meant if Krawler was right, the entrance to the catacombs was hidden somewhere in the royal chamber off the east wing. All he had to do was break into the royal chamber, nose around, and then squeeze out undetected. Not too bad for a day’s work.

  He couldn’t wait to tell Dylan he’d found the entrance to the catacombs. He couldn’t wait to see her eyes light up when he told her that he may’ve found a way for her to avoid going through the Valcdana with Erock. Maybe then they could. . . .

  Could what? Have body-rocking sex without worrying about the dutiful words that were always spilling from her mouth? Yapping about Court would definitely ruin the spice of the moment, wouldn’t it?

  No. An odd ache in his chest warned him that a one-night stand with Dylan wouldn’t be enough. He didn’t want her body for a night. He really didn’t mind any of the words that flowed from her perfect mouth. Not really.

  He wanted her. All of her. Her curlicued, pencil-chewing, responsible-minded, milky-skinned self.

  Yeah, jackass, like that would work. What was he thinking? A therian-vampire mating? No way. Talk about blasphemy. . . .

  He didn’t want that, anyway, he reminded himself for the umpteenth time.

  He was a loner. Enjoyed living and working alone. No one tagging along. No one nagging his brains out. Life was better that way . . . simple.

  He continued westward, toward the setting sun, toward the haven. He crouched behind a dumpster rolled in front of the last line of flats before the industrial district. He focused on his vampire form.

  Nothing happened.

  He focused harder and breathed in and breathed out. His mind finally cleared. He relaxed the familiar pulse throbbing hard in his jugular. Skull-trimmed black hair, red eyes, muscular build, strong cheekbones and jaw. . . .

  Again, nothing. No tremors. No cold heart in his chest. No awkward fangs.

  What the fuck was going on? He couldn’t change . . . this was certainly a first.

  He shook out his arms, cracked his knuckles, and stretched his neck down to one shoulder, then the other. And then he focused again . . . harder . . . deeper.

  Red eyes, thick frame . . . Dylan’s stunning silhouette curving in all the right places, her soft lips pressing against his. . . .

  Chills spread through Slade’s body. Sweat beaded on his temple. His heart pounded wildly in his chest. This feeling wasn’t normal for shifting, but it was familiar nonetheless. It had to be lust. Had to be. Plain and simple.

  Goddamn it. He couldn’t get that girl out of his head. If he couldn’t focus on shifting, the only thing that’d come second-nature to him since adolescence, how could he be expected to complete a complex mission like the one cooling on his platter?

  He was in whole heaps of trouble.

  Tremors resembling epileptic seizures suddenly rocked his body. Beyond his control, Slade went rigid, flew back against the pavement, his head cracking against the curb with blunt force. Searing pain shot through his internal organs, his throat, his mouth, as he twitched and pulsed, shook and screamed.

  Agonizingly long minutes later, when the pain finally subsided and he reined in control over his body once again, he tapped his right fang with his tongue.

  Damn, he was hungry. Ravenous may’ve been more fitting.

  Strangely, though, he wasn’t hungry for food. A big juicy steak didn’t seem at all appealing. His body felt hollow and weak to the point he wasn’t sure if he could walk. It wasn’t a lingering effect of the shift. . . .

  No, this time was definitely different.

  He sensed something sweet on the air wafting from the next street over. He rose to his knees, sniffed at the wind, picking up hints of cabbage and carrots, raw chicken and . . . was that an éclair? Slade peered through the blue-gray haze of sunset at the figure of an old man carrying a sack of groceries into a nearby flat.

  Something resembling adrenaline surged through his veins.

  It wasn’t the food he was burning for.

  This time he was hungry for blood.

  Since talking to Eve, Dylan had spent every minute at ReVamp; minus the brief feeding and run-in with Ruan that she really didn’t want to think about.. The day disappeared before her very eyes. Burrowing into her work seemed like the only thing that kept her mind off of Slade. And sometimes that didn’t even work.

  She reorganized the clinic’s files, u
pdated the database, and linked it to others in the area, updating theirs as well. She joined her many separate systems together into one smooth-running machine, so as not to make the David mistake again.

  Now if someone came into the clinic for any reason, feeding or otherwise, all of their files would pop up on the screen at once, alerting her to their history and behavioral patterns.

  Sadly, even though the daylight hours had allowed her to get more organized inside the clinic, chaos was building outside the clinic’s doors. Something was happening to their world. Mundanes were starting to notice things weren’t all they seemed.

  Early morning mundane news reported murders clearly committed by vampires plaguing the streets. Stories of bodies found drained beyond recognition in back alleys weren’t unheard of on CrimsonTV channels, but they weren’t normally this frequent. Vampire safe houses were being raided by therian goons right and left. The crackdown had already begun.

  Once . . . just once . . . she heard a high-pitched newswoman say, “the markings appeared to be two bites on the neck, reminiscent of the fabled vampire.” If that spark took to the wind and blew into a group of hyped mundanes, there’d be no telling what would happen to their society next.

  The khiss’s numbers had dwindled lower than they’d been in decades as more vampires acted out, ultimately facing removal for their unrighteous actions.

  Dylan was surprised when morning came and Slade didn’t show with the other newborns. Maybe they’d changed his schedule or he was running late? Was someone bringing him later? Shouldn’t he be here? She tried to mind her business as they filed to the back offices.

  In the dark hours of the morning at Eve’s, Slade’s eyes had been fierce, determined, dead-set as he sat across from Eve hanging on every breath that came out of her mouth. Now, with a full day of work behind her and another packed night ahead, Dylan could still see Slade’s red irises burning bright in her mind. Even through all the stress, he consumed her thoughts.