Vampire's Thirst (The Awakening Series)

by Cynthia Garner

  Duncan glanced at the brass carriage clock at the front of his desk. It was almost four o’clock, and he figured Kimber had gone to bed a while ago. She did her best to keep the same hours as he, but about two or so in the morning she started to peter out. “Why don’t I show you to your room, and you can meet her once you’ve rested?” He paused. “You turned me down earlier, but can I fetch a bite for you?”

  Xavier stood and stretched. “Have someone come to my room once I’m settled, would you?”

  “Sure.” Duncan came from around his desk and led the way to the door. As he opened it, he saw Atticus walking toward him. “Just the person I wanted to see.” When his second-in-command reached him, Duncan introduced him to their guest and said, “Would you get someone willing to feed Xavier?”

  “Of course. If you’ll excuse me,” Atticus said with a slight bow and headed off.

  “This way.” Duncan motioned toward the opposite direction Atticus had gone. Walking past the door to his and Kimber’s suite, he nodded to the guards and continued on his way. At a suite at the end of the hallway, he pushed open the door and gestured Xavier inside.

  The other vampire entered the room and looked around. “Nice,” he said.

  “It used to be Maddalene’s. We’ve done some redecorating,” Duncan added, remembering the ostentation of the vampire queen’s décor. Now it held dark wood furniture and seating in soothing blues and greens instead of the overabundance of reds and purples the queen had favored.

  Xavier’s lips twitched. “I imagine you did.”

  “That’s right, you knew her.”

  “Hmm. Knew her and wasn’t particularly a fan.” He quirked a brow. “She had a hard-on for your necromancer, didn’t she?”

  Duncan didn’t want to go into too many details; it was none of Xavier’s business. But he didn’t want to be rude and jeopardize their fledgling partnership. “She wanted Kimber’s help with a reanimation. Kimber refused.”

  “Let me guess. She wanted to bring that bastard Eduardo back.”

  Duncan touched an index finger to his nose and then pointed to Xavier.

  The other vampire wandered farther into the room. “That would have been disastrous. His head wasn’t screwed on straight when he was human. Being turned into a vampire messed him up even more.” He looked at Duncan. “Just out of curiosity, why did Kimber refuse?”

  “She said it would take too much blood, too much power, to reanimate a corpse that had been dead over a hundred years. Also, whatever she brought back wouldn’t really be Eduardo.”

  “And Maddalene wasn’t having any of that.”

  Duncan shook his head. “No.” Deciding that was enough, he said, “Let me know if you need anything. Atticus will bring you someone for nourishment.” He opened the door. “Oh, and he will stay while you feed. Nothing personal.”

  Xavier gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Completely understood. You don’t know me, so you can’t be assured I won’t go too far. I’d do the same in your place.”

  Duncan lifted his chin in acknowledgment and left the room. He was tempted to stop in and see Kimber, but at this hour he knew she was asleep. He headed back to his office. There were still a couple of hours before daybreak; he’d get some work done.

  * * *

  Kimber awoke with a gasp and shot upright in bed, her pulse thudding in her throat. The tendrils of the dream that had interrupted her sleep slid away, except for one lingering visual. Pregnant Maggie complaining about perpetual morning sickness.

  She fought back rising nausea. Since when was just thinking about morning sickness enough to make her feel ill? She swallowed the bile rising in her throat, and swallowed again before she realized that she really was going to throw up. She bounded off the bed and rocketed into the bathroom, barely making it in time.

  As she rose to her feet and reached for the mouthwash, she started counting days. Telling herself to not be silly, she realized how long it had been since she’d had a period and felt her skin go clammy. At least two months. She hadn’t really thought about it until now, but even if she had, she would’ve assumed her lack of monthly bleeding was stress-related and not from the rare possibility of being pregnant with a vampire’s child.

  “God.” She stared at her wan reflection in the mirrored medicine cabinet above the sink. “I can’t be pregnant. Please don’t let me be pregnant.”

  She had part of the Unseen in her. How would that affect a fetus?

  First things first. She had to know for sure. Pregnancy tests weren’t something vampires kept around, and she sure as hell had never thought she’d need one. But now she did, and that meant a trip to the nearest drugstore. The shelves were probably mostly empty, but how many looters had decided pregnancy tests were necessary items in an apocalypse?

  She went back into the bedroom and threw on her clothes. On her way through the living room, she picked up her trusty hatchet and slid the handle through a belt loop on her side. She opened the door and headed toward Duncan’s office, glad that the two guards outside their suite didn’t comment on the weapon hanging at her side.

  Giving a perfunctory knock on the door, she pushed it open, glad to see Duncan was alone. “Hey.”

  His brows drew into a frown, and he got up and came around the desk. “Hey, yourself.” He pulled her into a loose embrace and stared into her face. “What’re you doing up?” Gently he pushed her back a little, his frown growing. “And why are you dressed like you’re going out?”

  “Because I am going out,” she said with a smile. “I need—”

  “Duncan,” a deep voice intruded, “I hesitate to impose further upon your hospitality— Oh, I apologize. I didn’t realize you had someone with you.”

  Kimber turned to see one of the most gorgeous men she’d ever laid eyes on hesitating just inside the room. He stood a few inches over six feet, with shiny black hair that fell to the top of his broad shoulders and dark blue eyes framed by thick lashes.

  Duncan pulled Kimber to his side. “Xavier,” he said with a smile. “You wanted to meet my very good friend Kimber Treat. Here she is.”

  Kimber shot him a glance. Very good friend? What the hell?

  “Kimber, this is Xavier Vachon, leader of the Cleveland enclave.”

  She gave the model-gorgeous vampire a smile of welcome. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said, and shook the vampire’s hand.

  “The pleasure is mine,” he responded with a slight smile curling his lips.

  “I hope you and Duncan were able to make progress,” she said.

  “Yes, indeed.” His gaze lingered on her face before dropping to her waist to light upon the hatchet. He met her eyes again. “You are braving the wilds, then?”

  She nodded. “Yep. Need to run out for some…things.”

  Duncan placed one broad hand on her shoulder. “Kimber, we need to talk about this.”

  She glanced at him. “It’s not a big deal. I just need…” She shot a look at Xavier. It was bad enough that she was going to flat-out lie to Duncan, but she was going to do it in front of another vampire king, and to top it off, the lie she was using was that she needed feminine hygiene products. There was no getting around it, so she just blurted it out. “I need tampons.”

  Duncan’s nostrils flared as he drew in a breath. “You’re not having your period.”

  Damn vampire sense of smell. “Not yet. I’m due to start any time.” She held his gaze and tried to ignore the fact that they were talking about such a private thing in front of a stranger. “I can’t sit around an enclave full of vampires and not have tampons, Duncan.”

  He looked at her, and finally a sigh left him. He glanced out the window. She followed his gaze to see the sky was lightening as dawn approached. “Fine,” he said. “But take Atticus with you.”

  She leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks. I will.” Turning, she headed toward the door. “It was nice to meet you,” she told Xavier as she passed him.

  “You too,” Xavier respond
ed. As she pulled the door closed behind her, she heard him murmur, “If you have a moment, Duncan, I had another idea for the corridor.”

  Kimber ducked back into her rooms long enough to grab a backpack, then headed down to the security office on the ground floor. Atticus was there with two other vampires. “I need to hit a drugstore,” she told him as she shrugged into the backpack. “Duncan wants you to go with me.”

  Atticus glanced at his wristwatch. “Give us a few minutes to get ready,” he said.

  “I’ll wait in the lobby.” Kimber walked out to the main receiving area and dropped onto a sofa. So far, so good. She really, really hoped the nearest drugstore, a couple of blocks away on Broadway, had what she needed. She didn’t want to drag her posse of vampires all over town, especially if she found tampons at the first one. What excuse would she give to get them to go to another store?

  She heard footsteps and looked up to see Atticus coming her way, the two guards behind him. “Let’s go,” he said.

  She could tell from the look on his face that he’d double-checked her story with Duncan and wasn’t happy being assigned babysitting duties. Oh well, sometimes it sucked being the second-in-command during a zombie apocalypse.

  Sometimes it sucked being the possibly pregnant lover of a vampire during a zombie apocalypse, too.

  Chapter Four

  Her shopping trip proved to be successful. With several pregnancy test kits and a couple of bottles of prenatal vitamins—just in case—tucked into boxes of tampons she had in her backpack, Kimber and her companions were nearly back to the compound when she saw over a dozen zombies between them and the front gate. She sidled closer to Atticus. “Should we try heading around back?” she whispered, looking over his shoulder toward the path that led around the outside of the compound.

  She caught one of the guards shaking his head before he said in a low voice, “There are more there. I can hear them.”

  Atticus’s eyes narrowed. “Then here is where we fight our way through.” He pulled the long sword from the scabbard secured between his shoulder blades. “Once the sound of battle reaches the guards along the fence, reinforcements will be sent out.”

  “You hope.” Kimber pulled her hatchet free from her belt loop and got ready to whack some zombies. She’d really rather be whacking some moles, but this was the new reality.

  The new reality was messy. And it sucked.

  “I know they’ll come and help.” He shot her a glance. “Or more than just zombie heads will roll.”

  She appreciated his humor, especially since the first few shufflers caught sight of them and were headed their way. “Here we go,” she said, and rushed forward. The three vampires, each holding swords nearly as long as she was tall, formed a line at her side.

  The next several minutes passed in a blur of slashing, stabbing, and hacking. Kimber felt her aggression rising with each zombie she killed. The dark fragment of the Unseen within her eddied and flowed, lapping at her consciousness like an inexorable tide of malevolence. Sweat trickled between her breasts as much from her physical exertion as from the mental battle she waged to keep the evil energy from overpowering her.

  She yanked her hatchet from the skull of the zombie she’d just put down. The force of her pull knocked her off balance, and she stumbled. She threw out her left arm to catch herself and felt Atticus’s fingers curl around her hand.

  Power surged through her, the Unseen that animated the vampire finding a connection with that inside Kimber. Her fingers clenched around his and her skin grew clammy with cold, then radiated heat. Unlike before, when she’d touched a zombie in order to draw upon the Unseen, there was no pain. Just a tremendous swell of energy. She hadn’t meant to draw energy from Atticus, but now that she had, she was going to use it.

  Gritting her teeth against the rising internal heat, yet strangely exultant from the darkness she sensed, she threw the malignant power out at the zombies. Little flashes of light danced across her field of vision as her blood pressure skyrocketed. So. Much. Power. It was alluring, the desire to hold on to that dark force. Why waste it on a bunch of zombies? She could use it herself.

  But she needed more.

  Aberrant pleasure rose within her, her spirit rejoicing in the nebulous energy coursing into her. Another flash of heat, and common sense returned. The last thing she wanted was to end up with even more of the Unseen in her. No, now that she’d started this, she had to finish it.

  Her heart stuttered, then beat wildly in her rib cage. Through muffled hearing, she heard Atticus call her name, felt his attempt to dislodge her grip. She tried to unfurl her fingers but couldn’t get them to cooperate. The zombies began to fall around them like marionettes with cut strings, lying as if boneless and certainly no longer animated in any way.

  She let out a ragged sigh. Falling to her knees, she settled her rear on the backs of her calves. Only after the last zombie crashed to the ground was she finally able to release her hold on Atticus’s hand. Now that her connection was lost, she was starting to feel the effect on her muscles as they started trembling. She turned her head toward him, realized he was on his knees, too. She groaned as the small movement made her head feel like it would explode. “Are you all right?” she asked in a raw voice.

  “What the hell did you do to me?” His deep voice was raspier than normal and shaking with fatigue. She also didn’t miss the fury there, either.

  “I didn’t mean to, Atticus,” she tried to assure him. “It just happened.”

  His silvered gaze snared hers, and she couldn’t look away. A muscle flexed in his jaw. “That doesn’t make me feel any better about this,” he said.

  “I know. I’m sorry.” Still shaken by light tremors, her arms and legs ached. She struggled to her feet without any help from the three vampires. She noticed they were all reluctant to touch her now. She didn’t blame them. Even before the Outbreak, she’d wondered if her necromancy would enable her to control what animated vampires, since they were technically dead, just like the corpses she used to raise from the dead as part of her job. Now she knew, though she wasn’t sure how much of this ability was due to her necromancy and how much of it was because of the Unseen within her.

  Either way, she didn’t like it at all.

  “Listen, fellas, I don’t like this any more than you do.” She swayed and had to really focus to keep her feet beneath her. “But can we grouse about it back inside. Please?”

  The two guards helped Atticus stand. He waved her on before him, and that was when she noticed they had indeed been joined by several other vampires to help fend off the zombies. They silently entered the gates of the compound.

  As she walked across the lobby, she thought about the number of stairs she was going to have to climb and almost decided to stretch out on one of the sofas near the unused bank of elevators. But that would mean explaining to Duncan why she hadn’t come upstairs and she had to think about that a bit.

  So she kept putting one foot in front of the other and tried not to dwell on how tired she was or how much her body ached or how her head might just feel better if it weren’t attached to her neck. Poor Atticus didn’t look any better than she felt. When they reached their floor, she almost cried. Just a few more steps…well, okay, still a lot more, but in a few minutes she could collapse on the bed and die a little.

  In front of her suite, she put out a hand to halt Atticus when he would have kept walking. He jerked away from her. She bit her lower lip and fought back the hurt. She couldn’t blame him for his reaction. If she’d held on longer and had continued to sap his energy, she most likely would have killed him. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. In a stronger voice, she said, “I promise I’ll tell Duncan what happened. So please let me, all right?”

  “What are you saying, Kimber? You’re assuming I’m going to run and tattle on you?” His face, paler than normal, was as impassive as she’d ever seen it.

  “Noooo,” she drawled out slowly. She had assumed that, actually, but with the m
ood he was in she wasn’t going to own up to it. “But I realize what a big deal this is. I’m just asking that you let him find out from me.”

  “Fine.” He glanced at his watch. She noticed a slight tremble in his hand. He looked at her, his silver eyes hard and unforgiving. “This time of morning he’s probably down with the new donor recruits. I’ll at least let him know we’ve made it safely home.” He glared at her before walking away without another word.

  She sighed and, ignoring the questioning looks from the two guards at her door, went inside her suite and headed straight to the master bathroom. She had blood on her and it had to come off. As much as she wanted to pee on a stick to see if she got one line or two, she had to get cleaned up first. And she needed to do all of it before Duncan came upstairs to go to bed.

  Kimber took the fastest shower on record and then followed the instructions for the test. She set the stick next to the sink and walked into the bedroom. The little brochure indicated it could take up to two minutes for the results. How could such a short amount of time feel like so long?

  She knew if she sat down, let alone got comfortable on the bed, she’d pass out, so she paced. And paced.

  And paced. Stopped to look out the window at nothing and paced some more. Finally it was time. She walked back into the bathroom and looked at the stick.

  Her heart jumped into her throat. Oh, God. Two blue lines. Maybe it was wrong. She sat on the toilet and dribbled enough to wet another test strip, with the same result. Half an hour later after a few glasses of water, a third result was the same.

  Two. Blue. Lines.

  She was pregnant. In the middle of a zombie apocalypse with a portion of the Unseen squatting in her body like an unwanted homesteader. What was she going to do?

  The fatigue from taking on the Unseen finally became too much to fight, and she flopped onto the bed. Her thoughts nattered in circles until blessed oblivion fell over her.

  * * *

  Two days later, Kimber finally felt rested enough to actively think about the wreck of her life instead of merely worrying about it. She’d managed to give a plausible explanation to Duncan as to why she’d gone back to bed the day she’d gone out for feminine hygiene products. It helped that he was so focused on cleaning up the mess that Maddalene had left behind. He was dedicated to healing the enclave from her autocratic and cruel leadership and getting humans at least a little comfortable with the idea of being live donors for his vampires. He had so much on his mind right now that he’d accepted her explanation without question. That made her feel a little guilty, that she’d been able to deceive him so easily, not just once, but twice.