by Marata Eros
My eyelids lift halfway, and I use my vampire vision—and how acute is that? When I was born from Narah's blood, it was as though I'd been blind before, and now I can see. Vampires see one thousand times greater spectrum of color and detail than a human.
We can see things that move too rapidly for humansʼ limited vision to track. We feel pain, but injuries of all kinds can be healed. Not all the vampire legends humans perpetuate are true.
Yes, cut off our heads. That'll make us quitters.
I smirk.
Fire will also end us—as will the sun—though that is varying degrees of demise, depending on the individual. Narah can still daywalk, albeit with some discomfort.
Stab us in the heart and the other keeps beating. The smaller of the two is hidden behind the larger, and the more powerful, despite the size.
Senses satisfied, I leap from where I stand to the balcony of the second floor.
This is where Sondra, and now Grace, live.
Two women bustle around in the kitchen and I observe the happy domestic bit, balls of my feet balanced on the rail, fingertips steadying my body.
They appear to be a similar height, and I know which is Grace by scent. Glass offers no barrier to a vampire's sense of smell. On a molecular level, glass is in motion. Eventually, this pane that separates the two women and myself will succumb to gravity.
I also scent blood and frown, lightly hopping down. Soundlessly.
But the little boy I hadn't seen from my vantage point on the rail turns his head.
Interesting. He couldn't have heard me.
Large, curious brown eyes meet mine. The hell with it.
I wave.
Hesitantly, his small hand pops up, giving a wagging enthusiastic salute back.
I smile.
His mouth drops open.
Fuck—the fangs again. Damn. I never remember.
Grace lifts her head, maybe catching his motion from the corner of her eye.
The tiny fella points to me and I step out of the shadow of the narrow crumbling balcony and an inch away from the glass.
She opens her mouth in obvious preparation for a scream.
I'm instantly struck by how lovely she is.
Before she can sound a vocal alarm, I slap my holographic badge against the glass.
Her lips pop shut.
There's no one alive that can fake the power of that badge.
Grace Cline moves toward the door, the boy dancing around her legs like a jumping bean.
The other girl moves between us, shaking her head. Her frizzy dark hair moves like one piece at the motion.
Grace lifts her chin toward what I hold against the glass. Sondra gives a sigh of disgust and backs away.
At the last moment, she pulses the lock on the ancient sliding glass door. The thing retracts along the aluminum runners, screaming resistance in a most annoying fashion.
“Hello,” Grace says neutrally. “I was told Final Enforcement might be paying me a visit.” Her short laugh is nervous. “You startled me.”
“Apologies, Miss Cline.” I cock an eyebrow. “You'll have to invite me in.”
“Great, a vampire,” Sondra says, rolling dark eyes.
Prejudice right out of the gate. Brilliant.
Grace turns toward her friend and my eyes caress her neck. Seems like instinct.
Or lust.
However, Grace Cline is no Bunny.
A small knick on her finger grabs my full attention. Fangs throbbing, I swallow my reactions.
“He can't help what he is. He's that guy that got turned by the other enforcer last year, remember?”
Grace turns back to me and I take note of her delicate features. Bluish eyes that mimic a shade of soft purple hold my gaze, dark blonde hair that frames a face with a smattering of gold freckles takes center stage across the bridge of her nose.
Not a beautiful face. But one that becomes prettier the longer you look at it.
Somehow, that kind of beauty is more devastating.
I shift my weight. “I need the words, Miss Cline.”
She seems to realize we were staring at each other and a faint pink color tints her cheeks.
“Please, enter my dwelling—”
I drown in those beautiful soft eyes. I'm never tongue tied. Until now. “Enforcer Murphy,” I choke out.
She smiles, not seeming to notice my gaff. “Please enter my dwelling, Enforcer Murphy.”
The barrier that keeps all vampires out of humansʼ homes, lifts. It's in those moments I desperately wish I was still as human as Narah.
She doesn't need permission. An effective biological omission she benefits from.
We've discussed the weird barrier that protects humans from my kind, and have decided it's a failsafe engineered by mother nature.
I'd say mother nature is a bitch, but vamps have so much on their side, perhaps the Achilles's heel is only fair. Nature's justice.
We listen to the slider close with agonizing slowness. We certainly can't converse over the top of the shrieking whine.
Her friend studies me with unfriendly eyes. Can't say I blame her, the local law hasn't protected our client. They gave her to me—washing their hands of the untidy transition.
Her landlord kept all her things. My gaze scans the five stacked boxes just inside the door.
She's just moved in.
“You're bleeding,” I say.
Grace looks at her hand. “Oh—yeah.”
Heat roars through my body. “I can help.”
Her eyes find mine. “Help?”
I nod slowly. I would like to do much more than heal that small wound. Burying my fangs and prick would be just the very least of what I wish for.
“Heal you.” I lick my lips, feeling the press of my fangs.
“Vamps have healing compounds in their saliva,” Sondra says dryly.
“He won't hurt me, he's Final Enforcement,” Grace says, but her eyes are unsure.
God knows, I won't hurt her. What I want isn't about hurting.
My smile is tight and as neutral as I can make it.
Grace's return smile is hesitant. She lifts her hand and I bridge the gap between us easily, in a blur of movement that has her friend gasping.
I wrap her wrist and pull her against my body.
Grace's pupils dilate like spilled ink within her unusually-colored iris.
Nothing compares with taking the blood from a willing female.
Putting her finger between my lips, I suck it inside my mouth in one graceful press between my fangs. Swirling my tongue around the wound. I taste her blood.
I taste Grace Cline. It's a horribly intimate moment and I watch as her lips part and a soft moan escapes with her breath.
“Oh,” she says again, and her free hand falls in the middle of my chest.
Yes. Thrall doesn't work on hybrids. I have only my wits about me and whatever this attraction is between us.
I release her finger with a pop and she slowly lowers her hand. Grace's heartbeat pushes against the hollow in her throat, keeping my gaze captive. My prick's so hard it aches, and I keep my body angled away so she can't know.
“So you're the guy that's going to save Grace?” Disdain coats the friend's voice. Sondra, I remember from my research.
Her words shatter the moment and I turn to Sondra, shifting my weight, and shake my head. “No. I am the enforcer who will hand her off to her transition male.”
Grace backs up, worry tightening her beautiful eyes and curling the finger I just healed into the tight ball of her hand and placing it against her chest.
I frown. “You have been told you're transitioning?” I split my attention between the two women for clarification, scowling at the thought of giving Grace to a Turner—or any other male. A growl that's too high a frequency for them to hear peels out of me.
No one hears it but me. And that's enough. I'm losing it. Not hanging on to a professional bone in my body.
“Yeah,” Grace says, blushin
g. “I don't feel well.” She blushes.
“Normal,” I give in clipped reply and shrug. No hybrid female feels right when getting close to their transition time.
My nostrils flare, inhaling her blood scent on my tongue. Rolling around the succulent aftertaste. Brilliant. AB negative. Divine blood type.
My fangs punch through my gums, and I feel my eyes dilate, my hard-won restraint slipping at the near-aphrodisiac sweet smell of her blood. Remembering the succulent bouquet of flavor.
“Are you going to be okay?” Sondra asks with sarcasm.
I clear my throat, throwing my eyelids wide from their hooded state.
“It's—unclear all that you will be. But I can, ah... tell that you will need a Turner.”
Can I ever. Jesus, Murph, get a grip. I've become a blundering schoolboy.
Standing straighter, I try to smile and a fang pierces my lip. A conspicuous drop of blood begins to run down my jaw.
I attempt to wipe it but Grace's brows form a knot between those gorgeous eyes.
“You're bleeding.”
That's because you're lovely, and I want to fuck and feed off you. Never mind me. I grit my teeth, willing my fangs back to nubs. Forget blue balls—it's blue fang.
“He's got blood ʼcause he's a vampire,” the little boy behind Grace says in wonder.
Not precisely.
Grace steps forward, and I perform a sort of bumbling pinwheel backward like a clod, banging into the table behind me and knocking over a lamp. Which I catch mid-fall.
Too fast for the ladies to see.
Grace gives a small screaming shout and her smell washes over me.
My cock chooses that opportunity to go full tilt again.
Fuck me twice.
“Whoa!” the boy yells into the awkward chasm I just created, “cool.”
I right the lamp and straighten. “Sorry about that.” I lick the blood from my lip and Grace's eyes follow the movement.
My cock throbs and I move behind the sofa, hoping I can hide my massive erection.
Grace frowns. “You're—are you okay?”
Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Stay where you are.
“Yes,” I say with a curt word.
Grace recoils from my tone and I instantly regret my manner—but it's worlds better than explaining myself. Subtly, I adjust my traitorous junk.
She seems to gulp down her concern over my arsehole well-being and asks softly, “You're supposed to—give me to a vampire Turner.”
I wordlessly nod, feeling my dick deflate. Just the thought of her going to another male makes me feel ill.
Sondra frowns. “You seem kinda flustered, dude.”
I give her a narrow gaze. She's a might sharp for her britches.
She flings her hands up. “You enforcer guys—you're supposed to be all that.”
I'm beginning to dislike Sondra, excepting the fact she shelters my client.
“We are,” I say, and realize I'm growling. Dialing it back won't work.
Fucking unreal.
Grace Cline isn't a normal hybrid client in need of escorting and safekeeping under the umbrella of Final Enforcement. I don't know exactly what she is, but I know I can't just let her go.
Her blood calls to mine.
Like Narah—but without the relation tether.
I won't address what the vibe is. But I do have to tip my hat at Aeslin, the anal prick.
I am the first known human turned by a human hybrid vampire. There are certain unknowns.
Apparently like this one.
Licking another drop of blood from my lip, I say formally, “Grace Cline, I am here to escort you to the Final Enforcement safehouse, until the proper transitioner or Turner can be located, vetted and assigned to your transition.”
Makes my chest tight saying the official spiel.
“Wait a second,” Grace looks around in a semi-panic. “I know you're legit, Mr.-ah-Enforcer Murphy.” Her voice is pleading with me for reason and I'm keeping a lid on attacking her by a thread.
I don't want to escort her anywhere. I want to keep her in bed for three days. Taste her blood, move inside her body.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
“But,” her palms come up in a warding off gesture, “I have Toby. I can't just leave and go to some unknown...”
“Safehouse,” I manage to say.
Grace retreats another step.
I need to employ more compassion. But all I can see is her racing pulse, the deep gorgeous violet seas of her gaze.
Her call is like a siren to my blood. My veins heat, pressing to the surface of my skin.
Seeking Grace.
I grip the corner of the couch, my eyes narrowing down on her mouth.
Her lips.
“You listening Enforcer Vampire?” Sondra says from beside me.
My head swivels to her.
“God, you're a spooky fucker,” she says, taking Grace's hand.
“Yes,” I agree, because it's true.
The little boy is unafraid, pulling on my free hand.
Fearless, I have time to think before he blows me away with his question.
“If we go with you, will you keep Grace and me safe from Fred?”
I will keep you safe from all, kin of my blood, I think with ancient words I didn't know I had inside me. My body aches with the words, like an oath.
“Yes,” I say and reach out with my thrall. It sloughs off the boy without effect.
My thrall experiment excludes certain things. Like the boy being fully human.
“Wait!” Sondra says.
I ignore her, and lightly touch Toby's chin. Lifting his small face, I search the boy's eyes. The small one stares unflinchingly back. Upon releasing him, I look to Grace.
“Toby is special, Miss Cline.”
“Grace,” she answers with a little breathiness to her voice.
I incline my head, nerves raw from the encounter, her blood—my want. “Let's get out of here before we receive unwanted guests.”
“What are you talking about?” Sondra asks, hands on hips.
“I'm sure, if Sioux Fall's finest said a bounty officer would be coming round from Final Enforcement, they must have told you something about who broke in to your flat?”
“Love your accent,” Sondra reluctantly remarks.
Already succumbing to the vamp proximity. I ignore her, she is not my charge. Even more importantly, she doesn't make my blood tremble with yearning.
Taking a big inhale, I let it out slow. “Mutables have been identified as perps. They're tenacious wankers.”
The little boy giggles and I absently pat his head.
“They'll be cropping up like pesky weeds and I've been tasked with getting you to the safehouse.”
“I need to bring Toby.”
I look at the boy. “Toby?”
He nods. I stick my hand out, remembering my manners. “Murphy.”
“Just Murphy?” Sondra asks. “Like Madonna?”
“Not really.” I don't find I'm especially flattered by the comparison. “My first name's not relevant. Most enforcers go by our last names. Keeps confusion to a dull roar.”
Toby shakes my hand.
“Toby's not part of the bargain, Miss—Grace.”
However special, Casper might see my gonads bagged for assuming more than case #1213.
The boy's face falls.
“But,” I swing out a palm, making an instant decision, “I think I can bend the rules a bit.” I send him a wink and his face brightens, though he gives a sucking yawn. Tike's knackered.
“What about me?” Sondra asks with a chin hike, tapping her foot.
Right. I'm sailing down a slippery slope, arse first. “Is there any chance you'll remain here?”
“Not on your life, vamp-boy.”
“Sondra,” Grace admonishes.
“Nope. Not missing this. Making sure my girl gets where she's supposed to go without a Mutable rapist making off with her.”
“Mutables,” I correct, thinking she couldn't possibly offer defense, but not daft enough to utter it. “And, though I'm an amicable chap in most circumstances, if the right one presents, I will be vicious.”
Sondra meets my eyes. “You're a level ten?”
I nod.
“That's a dangerous proficient.”
I grin, fangs flashing like the weapons they are. “Yes. And now that I'm vampire, I have certain—factors—which benefit me, but not the perpetrator.”
Grace cups her elbows, back to biting that luscious full bottom lip. I don't intend to frighten her. But I will kill whoever tries to inflict harm on her.
My eyes briefly touch on Toby. I'll loop him too.
“Let's go then,” Sondra finally says.
“I need to pack—” Grace begins.
“—no time.”
Her lilac eyes meet mine and I instantly want to erase the worry I see.
When I reach out my hand toward her, she steps into my space and her scent flat-lines my brain. It's as though her nearness takes out all the superficial niceties I was born with as a human—leaving only the primal.
Protect. Feed.
Fuck.
Claim.
That last instinctive directive is like a zap of electricity between us.
I've never wanted more than a quick fang and fuck since the day I became vampire, and not much before.
Yet, I can't deny the rightness of Grace. Even as my vague human intellect tries to reassert dominance, the primal side of my vampire nature shuts it down.
A connection, lock to key, clicks into place and before I can analyze, she's in the crook of my body. And I know one thing for certain.
I'm never letting her go.
Chapter 9
Grace
I let the vampire take my hand and lead me down two flights of stairs.
Sondra speaks quietly to Toby from behind me.
I glance up at Enforcer Murphy's hard face. Jaw like granite, eyes like dark marbles of obsidian embers in his face. He seems at a loss as to what to do with me. And I instinctively trust him.
Final Enforcement has become the sole entity to protect transitioning females until the one who can transition them is alerted.
That's if the hybrid is lucky enough to be discovered first by FE.
News reports are full of women, like myself, who were discovered first by Mutables. Final Enforcement can't take any chances.
