I think we’re safe now, he said in tones of unmistakable relief. Those damn Slayers. Now instead of putting some poor half-dead person out of their misery in that wreckage, we’ll have to find fresh prey.
Renee reverted back to her normal form and sat heavily on the ground. Releasing the mental strain of scanning for Ronin and holding the shield was a relief. “You kill?” she asked, surprised.
Kalen likewise dropped the form of the dog. He merely shrugged at her question. “Would a slow death crushed beneath a building be any better, do you think?” he asked nonchalantly. “At least this way their death isn’t in vain. They aid us, and in return, we let them leave this world painlessly.”
She bit her lip. It sounded reasonable when he said it, but deep inside she still heard Eli’s voice. Killing is not a requirement of being a vampire, it is a choice. She looked away from Kalen’s open, handsome face and studied the trees instead. “I’ve never killed.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “How do you have such strength, then?” he asked.
Renee shook her head, confused. “I never knew I was particularly strong.” She certainly didn’t feel like it.
Kalen laughed out loud. She looked up at him, startled, and that sent him into a fresh gale of laughter. “She doesn’t think she’s strong!” he announced to the park in general. “What think you all of that?”
Renee abruptly became aware of the others in the park with them. She hadn’t been scanning or she would have felt them instantly, and she could imagine the sharp reprimand Eli would have given her for such carelessness. She scrambled to her feet as several more vampires emerged from the darkness between the trees, three men and two tall and lovely women. She brushed the grass from her jeans nervously. She’d never seen so many vampires in one place, and they were all staring at her.
And she realized she was surrounded.
One of the men stepped forward. Tall and heavily muscled, his black hair was cut short and lay close to his round head. On his massive neck and shoulders, his head looked ridiculously small but Renee had no doubt that anyone commenting such a thing would likely die a very unpleasant death.
“What is your Clan, stranger?” he asked, his voice very deep and rough, as though he’d been a chain-smoker for the last hundred years.
“I have no Clan,” Renee repeated. When he nodded and smiled in welcome, she bit her lip. It seemed like she’d stumbled upon the code which allowed her entrance into their society completely by accident.
Or by instinct. She couldn’t stop the rush of adrenaline accompanying the thought. She’d been sired by an Outcast. Weren’t these her people? Was it so strange that she should know the words which gave her a place in their world?
“Greetings, Clanless one,” the muscular man said with a courtly, old-world bow. “I am Niko. You have already met Kalen, yes?” She nodded and he gestured at each of the vampires standing in a loose circle around her in turn. “Myra. Horace. Dabir and Lisette.” He smiled again and spread his hands. “My little family.”
She nodded to each in turn. “I am Renee.”
Kalen moved to her side. She found his movement somewhat possessive and stiffened before remembering how he’d aided her. Had he not warned her to Ronin’s approach, she wasn’t sure she would have felt him in time.
“I bring her here,” Kalen said to Niko. “I have first right.”
Niko inclined his head. “Agreed.”
Renee had no idea what first right meant but Kalen went on before she could ask. “She says she has never killed, Niko.”
Niko raised an eyebrow at her and she felt his disbelief. “How do you maintain your strength?” he asked curiously.
Renee’s nervousness grew. She sensed that her admission hadn’t made her any points with either man, but backing down now would be dangerous. “Not by killing,” she repeated firmly. “And I don’t understand why you both say I’m strong. I’m just a fledgling.”
This time there was no laughter. A ripple went through the circle around her. The hairs on Renee’s arms stood on end and she scanned the area for Ronin or any of the other Slayers. She felt no one nearby but the sharp sense of danger was impossible to ignore. She unconsciously brought up her shields, closing her mind as Eli had taught her to do time and again, guarding herself against psychic attack.
Niko took a step forward, frowning at her. “Where is your sire?” he challenged sharply. “No fledgling could do these things you do without being taught.”
Renee bit her lip. “I don’t know where he is,” she admitted softly. “He was an Ou—he was Clanless too,” she hastily corrected herself. “I don’t remember much of the attack when he Changed me.”
The circle closed a little tighter around her. “Why would he Change you only to abandon you?” one of the women asked—Renee thought it was Lisette.
She didn’t edge back though she wanted to. All her senses were screaming danger. Any hesitation, any retreat, and they would fall on her like a pack of wolves. Niko’s lust for her blood sang through the air, his desire to steal her power, but she gave no indication she’d detected his thoughts. “He was fleeing a Slayer. He turned me to distract the Slayer, to give himself a chance to escape.”
Dabir scowled at her. “And this Slayer allowed you to live?”
Kalen stepped forward, placing his body between Renee and Dabir. Dabir bared his fangs but didn’t come any closer.
Renee didn’t like the interplay going on here. For a “family”, she felt a deep current of distrust between them. All of them. But she didn’t know what to do besides tell her story.
“He let me live,” she said, trying to concentrate on words instead of picturing Eli’s face. Remembering how he’d cared for her during the Change, had coaxed her to drink the blood she’d needed to heal afterward. How he’d knelt at her feet to help her with her shoes when she’d been too weak to do it herself. “He taught me some things,” she continued doggedly, clearing her throat when her words came out husky. “I ran away from him tonight.” She said this last defiantly, staring Dabir straight in the eye, not caring if it was practically a challenge.
To her surprise, Dabir looked away first. Kalen stepped closer to her side but looked at Niko. “What say you, Niko?” he asked.
Niko’s face was impassive. “I feel the Clanless one’s blood in her, but I also feel another. She has lived with a Slayer, and yet she claims to have no Clan.” He rubbed the back of his thick neck absently before meeting her gaze. “I think she will hunt with us tonight, Kalen. Then we will see.”
Kalen grinned, relaxing, but Renee’s anxiety tightened. “I don’t kill,” she repeated. She sensed where this was going and refused to let them pressure her. “I will hunt, and I will feed, but I don’t kill.”
Niko surprised her by smiling at her. “Did your Slayer friend tell you anything of the origins of their League?” he asked.
She blinked at him. It seemed such a strange question, completely out of place in the current conversation. Still, she had no doubt who was the boss here. “I asked him once.”
Niko nodded. “And what did he tell you?”
She caught her fingers trying to twist nervously at the hem of her shirt and stuffed them into her pockets to hide the tell-tale action. “He didn’t answer me,” she admitted.
Niko nodded again. “Exactly as I thought. Their League, that organization of which they are so proud, of which they speak in such high and glowing terms, was created merely to exterminate us. They aren’t protectors. They’re murderers.” He saw the shock in her eyes and smiled gently at her. It looked odd on his chiseled face. “They are jealous of us, Renee.”
She frowned. It was hard to imagine Eli being jealous of anything. “Why?”
Niko took her elbow and guided her solicitously to a nearby park bench. When she sat, he stood beside her and gazed into the night sky as though contemplating its secrets. “Did you know vampires are descended from the gods, Renee?” he asked. When she shook her head, he nodded. “It�
��s true. A young god, impatient with the stupidity and ineptitude of the human race, decided to create his own race. A race of the strong, destined to rule the weak humans.
“His first child was an Atlantean wise man named Emrys,” Niko continued. “Emrys was the perfect embodiment of strength and power, the pinnacle of human potential. As a vampire he became almost a god himself. He roamed the land, choosing the best of the humans to share the dark gift, creating a perfect race.”
Niko frowned and his voice darkened. “Then the other gods intervened on the behalf of their precious humans.” Contempt dripped from his tone as he spat the word. “They created the first of the Slayers and charged them with the heinous task of destroying their own kind. They are the ultimate hypocrites. They hunt us down, leave us for the sun or cut off our heads or rip out our hearts, and yet we are the evil ones. We are the lawless ones. We are the Outcasts!”
Renee couldn’t look away from Niko. She understood why he was the leader. There was something innately commanding about him, something that made her believe him even as she struggled to see Eli in such a light. “Why?” she asked. “Why do they hunt you?”
Niko turned his compelling gaze back on her. “Why? They are jealous of our strength, of course,” he said, his voice gentle, his smile warm. “The blood of the god flows in our veins, pure and strong. We take what we need from the humans without this ridiculous sentimentality they cannot escape. They were programmed by the other gods to kill their own kind. They have no freedom. We have it all, Renee. We are gods on earth. They are merely the assassins, pawns in a power-struggle thousands of years old.”
Renee shivered at the picture he painted. She imagined her life as an Outcast, as a living goddess, humans doing her bidding without question. She imagined Slayers haunting her every step, seeking to kill her at every turn. She imagined the freedom Niko described and wondered where he found it. She had seen Kalen run at the mere approach of Ronin. Surely living in fear wasn’t freedom.
But Eli had told her nothing. She had no other story to compare to Niko’s. If his words weren’t true, why had Eli avoided her questions?
Niko clapped his hands suddenly, making her jump. “The night is young!” he said, his voice full of good cheer. It made her skin crawl. “Time to find a bite to eat, little Renee. Time to find out if you are a god or a pawn.”
Chapter Nine
Renee followed the Clan from the park, shifting with them when they took the form of a pack of stray dogs. She pushed aside her weariness at the rapid changing of forms—mist, human form, dog, human, and now dog again. She’d never demanded so much of her untried powers before. The need for blood sharpened and became a craving impossible to deny.
But she would not kill. About that she was adamant. She had survived this long without it, and they all thought her incredibly strong. She didn’t need to take a life to feed and she wouldn’t do it simply to make them accept her. She would rather be alone than be a killer.
Niko’s bulldog paused at the entrance to the park and the others melted into the bushes nearby. Renee did the same, the sleek little body of the greyhound she’d chosen hardly rustling the leaves of the shrub she slunk beneath. Kalen found a hiding place near her and she barely caught a glimpse of the tip of the German Shepherd’s tail disappearing into the foliage. She didn’t know what they were waiting for.
A moment later, she felt it again. The overwhelming sense of wrongness, of approaching danger she’d felt before the quake. Dread washed over her. She heard her own frightened whine and locked her jaws shut. No one had to tell her that showing fear in the company of half a dozen Outcasts wasn’t a good idea.
The park suddenly rolled, the trees shaking. Car alarms blared to life all around them. The aftershock wasn’t nearly as strong as today’s quake had been but it was still enough to be terrifying. Renee crouched close to the trembling shrub and stayed silent when she wanted to howl in fear.
People suddenly burst into the park, fleeing the shaking apartment buildings surrounding it. She kept her eye on Niko, understanding his plan. Why go to find prey when prey would come to them?
But Niko didn’t move yet. He stood stock-still beside the stone entryway despite the heaving ground, the dog’s thick legs spread wide and his muscles bunching as he struggled to keep his balance. None of the others moved. Renee pressed harder to the shaking earth and watched with the others for his signal.
The instant the ground steadied, Niko leapt into motion. Renee’s haunches quivered in anticipation of her own leap but something held her back.
This was something she did not want to join blindly.
The others had no such restraint. The dogs converged in a snarling pack. People screamed and ran from this unexpected new threat. Niko’s Clan herded them like sheep, cutting their chosen victims off from the exits and driving them deeper into the dark recesses of the park.
Renee followed with her stomach churning. This was like no hunt she had ever seen. None of the vampires seemed to be making even the slightest effort to use their powers to make their victims willing, or even to calm them. She watched as a Doberman mix sprang onto one man’s back, brutally savaging his arms and legs before dragging him into the bushes by his neck.
The bulldog darted between a woman’s legs and tripped her. Before she even had a chance to raise her hands his jaws snapped closed on her throat. Renee watched the life drain from her eyes until only cold terror remained on her still, pale face. The others were just as cruel, delivering vicious bites simply to cause pain and fear before going for their prey’s throats. A child stood in the middle of the chaos, screaming in terror, and Renee reacted without thinking.
Unconsciously enlarging her greyhound form as she went, Renee sprinted at top speed across the clearing to the child. She leapt in front of the little one as the German Shepherd lunged for it, hardly feeling Kalen’s claws tearing the flesh over her ribs as she snapped her jaws closed on the child’s jacket. Whirling in place, she raced away from the scene of death and destruction, dragging the child with her and following her nose and instincts to the largest concentration of humans she could find.
She had just caught a glimpse of a large group, thirty or more people grouped together, around the dry fountain in the middle of the park, when a huge weight hit her from behind. Renee stumbled and lost her grip on the child’s jacket as they tumbled together. Without even looking to see what or who had hit her, Renee drew her lips back in a fierce snarl and growled at the child, barking wildly, sending the screaming youngster fleeing toward the gathered humans.
Only then did Renee turn to face the one who had attacked her. Niko stood panting and glaring at her from the bulldog’s dull and blood-hungry eyes. Three others were lined up at his back—Kalen as the Shepherd, Lisette in Rottweiler form, and a huge Doberman that could only be Dabir.
Not hungry, young one? Niko’s mocking voice echoed in her mind. You threw away a delicacy. Children are sweet.
Renee’s legs twitched with the effort of not turning to flee. Even enlarged far past the normal limits of the breed, she knew her greyhound had no chance against these. A fierce growl rumbled deep in her throat, resisting every effort to quiet it. You don’t hunt to feed, she accused furiously. You butcher for sport!
Niko’s amusement was like a dagger in her brain and Renee remembered, too late again, that she had forgotten to hold her psychic shields in place. Only now Eli was not here to fight for her, to make sure she came to no harm. She felt the lack of his protection acutely.
And why should we not make sport of them? Niko demanded contemptuously. Look at them cowering there in the trees! They are cattle, Renee. It is a mercy to kill something so weak!
The bulldog barked once and the others closed in around her, driving her further from the clearing and fountain and into the shadows. Renee didn’t resist—not yet. She knew a fight was coming, but now was not her time. She would fight her way free or die trying, but not yet. Not now, when she was clearly outmatched. She
would have to wait for her moment.
Another bark from Niko was answered by a pair of low snarls. Renee’s nostrils flared at the scent of blood and fear fouling the air, but none of the others noticed it. Their attention was directed at the trees behind her.
She looked too. Horace and Myra emerged from the darkness, two feral-looking curs, each leading a human by the hand. Renee saw blood dripping from their jaws onto the grass, but neither human struggled. Their blank eyes shone in the moonlight as they walked toward her like automatons.
Perhaps your Slayer delivered your prey to you like this, Niko mused in her head. His mocking voice cut through the scream of pain he shot through her mind. Unknowing, unafraid. Do you prefer it this way?
Renee stared at them, a young man and woman barely in their twenties by the look of them, offered to her like a sacrifice. Despite the pain, despite her fear, she well understood the choice they offered her now. Niko was waiting for her next move. If she didn’t take what he offered, they would kill her. She knew it as well as if he’d spoken the words aloud. The choice was clear.
Her life, or theirs.
No. Renee took an unconscious step back. She would not do this.
That single step was all it took. With a howl of rage, Niko leapt for her and only the greyhound’s exquisitely honed reflexes allowed Renee to dodge his sudden attack. The pack surrounded her. Even the two curs left the couple brought to feed her and joined the circle, snapping at her and barking furiously.
No, this couple hadn’t been brought to feed her. They were brought to test her. And she’d failed.
Renee scrambled to her feet and turned cautiously, keeping her eyes on Niko with every move, all too aware of the others waiting for his signal to tear her to shreds. Speed, the only advantage her greyhound had over the others, was useless here. The others were bunched together too tightly around her. There was no gap in the circle she could slip through. She would have to fight her way out of this or die trying, because this time no one was coming to save her. Niko’s thick legs bunched, clearly readying to spring.
Amelia Elias - [Guardian's League 02] - Outcast Page 16
