Harlequin Nocturne January 2014 Bundle: The Vampire HunterMoon Rising

by Michele Hauf

  The man looked up. His eyes shone in the dark, like an animal caught in a spotlight.

  But this was no animal.

  This was a vampire.

  Marc flew forward, his feet carrying him faster than his mind could process the facts of what was happening, where he was and what his best move would be.

  The other vampire opened his mouth and hissed. Blood stained his lips and chin...CeCe’s blood.

  Marc hissed too. He hands rose at his sides. He could feel his fingers bending, feel the need to battle the vampire hand to hand, fang to fang, to establish his dominance, his rights to the female this interloper thought to take from him. Take...forever.

  She lay limp, her legs and arms in awkward, boneless positions. Her body was twisted...caught in her shift. Blood streaked across her neck and her chest moved with dangerously shallow breaths.

  Shallow, but there.

  Not dead. Not gone. Not yet.

  He stalked forward.

  “Brother,” the other vampire murmured. “I heard you were near.” He ran his tongue over his lips.

  Marc’s hands closed, tight. He stalked closer.

  “Not brother. Not friend.” He kicked the vampire in the chest, sending the fiend sliding backward into the diner’s wall.

  The vampire stood and wiped his mouth. His eyes were slits. His fangs glinted...silver.

  He’d worn caps. Come here hunting a werewolf.

  “Did you kill the wolf?” Marc asked, as much to know the truth as to disarm the other vampire. “Have you been behind all of this?”

  Had Marc been wrong? Had his arrogance, assurance that a wolf was behind Russell’s death, cost CeCe her life? Cost Marc her life?

  “Which one? This one?” The vampire licked his lips and tilted his head side to side. “Not yet. Those weren’t my orders. But this job is so sweet, orders may need to be damned.” He smiled.

  White-hot rage blazed a hole through Marc’s control. He heard each of the vampire’s words, but could only focus on the last.

  Sweet. And wild. And deserving of life.

  Silent but swift, he raced forward. Hands out, he pinned the other vampire to the wall. Marc squeezed the bastard vampire’s neck as if planning to remove his head from his body with bare hands.

  The vampire gurgled and cursed. Spittle mixed with CeCe’s blood dribbled from his lips. Marc squeezed harder, pulled back and slammed his head into the wall.

  “A werewolf. You would fight me like this for a werewolf?” The vampire’s eyes were filled with disbelief, his words little more than a croak.

  Marc didn’t owe the bastard an answer. He didn’t owe him anything...except death for what he had done.

  He lunged forward, planning to rip the vampire’s throat out with his fangs.

  But the vampire bent his knees and collapsed, taking Marc down with him. On the ground they rolled, both grappling for control, both trying to attach their fangs into the other’s neck.

  To the side there was movement. CeCe struggling, shaking, but moving to a sit.

  Marc shoved his opponent’s face onto the pavement and held it there. “Leave. Run,” he yelled. He had no intention of losing this battle, but if he did...

  The werewolf stood. Her legs wobbled and her hand moved to her throat. Slowly, as Marc watched, her body morphed, back to human. She stared at Marc and her attacker as if she couldn’t see them, couldn’t process what was happening.

  “CeCe,” Marc yelled again. He was losing his grip.

  The vampire in his grasp growled. “Her name? You know her name? How far have you strayed, Fringe? What side of the battle have you chosen?” He jerked to the side and slipped from Marc’s hold. His fangs caught on Marc’s shirt, ripping the material.

  Marc gritted his teeth and grabbed the vampire again. Then he bowed his head and, praying CeCe listened, he found the other vampire’s neck with his fangs.

  He bit deep. Blood, thick and old, seeped into his mouth. He wanted to spit it out, wanted no part of the abomination that was this vampire inside him, but he couldn’t. He had to hold on, had to bite more, continue until the vampire was too weak to fight, too weak to stand. Then Marc could take him out, remove his head or heart, ensure he never walked the night again.

  To Marc’s side, there was a growl.

  CeCe.

  She hadn’t left.

  * * *

  The world was blurry. CeCe teetered to one side and then the other. Her shoulder knocked into the Dumpster and she tripped over something stretched across the ground in front of her.

  Holding on to the Dumpster’s side, she stared down. A leg...legs...four of them.

  “CeCe.”

  At her name, she shifted her gaze. Up the legs, bodies...faces. Two, both familiar, both bearing fangs.

  Marc...and...she growled.

  “Run.”

  Marc telling her to leave. Talking to her the way Karl did, as though he was in charge. Telling her to leave him, alone, with the monster that had tried to kill her, was trying to kill Marc.

  It wasn’t going to happen.

  She placed her hand against her throat. Her wounds, now that the vampire’s silver-capped teeth were gone, had begun to close. Her body hadn’t had time to regenerate the blood she had lost, but that would come. She was fine, was going to be fine.

  There was no reason to run, but weak or not, there was every reason to fight.

  The vampire who had attacked her bit into Marc’s shoulder. Dark, almost-black blood leaked out of Marc’s body, slow but sure, staining his expensive white shirt.

  The sight infuriated CeCe. She pushed away from the Dumpster and growled again. Shift or attack? Her body said to change, her wolf said to change, but CeCe knew she would do so at a cost, the cost of logic. Once wolf, the animal would take over, might not discern one vampire from the other, might attack both.

  She couldn’t risk it.

  Instead, she spun and searched the alley, wished yet again she’d carried the stake, silver or not, with her.

  The space was insanely clean, but inside the Dumpster, she found a wooden box, the kind peaches or other produce often came in. She tore it into strips with her hands.

  Armed with her makeshift stake, she approached the vampires.

  * * *

  Marc could feel and smell CeCe near him. Could hear her breaths and feel her heartbeat. Her presence and his need to protect her were breaking his concentration, damaging his fight.

  He had to block her out, concentrate on destroying this vampire as he had destroyed so many others. Although usually he went into a fight armed.

  He snarled and pulled back, attacked the vampire’s neck again.

  “Roll. Damn it, roll!” CeCe stood beside them...too close. He could touch her boot. The other vampire could too.

  He wanted to yell at her again, tell her to leave again, but he couldn’t, not without lifting his mouth from her attacker’s throat.

  “Wolf. Don’t leave. I won’t be long.” Even with his throat torn, the other vampire taunted her, taunted Marc.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t.” She moved closer.

  Marc closed his eyes and flipped around, freed his hands from where they had been pinned beneath the other male.

  Victory was near, but he had no time to gloat. He grabbed the other vampire by the head and jerked down.

  With a snap, the vampire’s neck broke and his jaw slackened. His hold on Marc’s shoulder disappeared.

  Marc shoved him aside and stood.

  His chest barely moving, he stared down at the fallen vampire. Not dead. Left alone in the dark, he would eventually heal. Except he wouldn’t, because Marc wouldn’t allow it.

  He turned, ready to comfort CeCe and tell her to leave.

  But
the werewolf was on top of her attacker, her legs straddling his incapacitated body and a wooden stake in her hands.

  She slashed downward, so quick and strong the stake she held punctured the vampire’s chest with barely a pause.

  Marc stood frozen. For a moment the world seemed to twirl.

  The vampire was dead, and the werewolf who had killed him was safe.

  It should have been the wrong outcome. It should have sent Marc into a fit, bent on revenge, bent on killing the werewolf who had killed one of his kind, but his world had twisted.

  His gaze moved to CeCe.

  Her hand still on the stake, she stared up at him. Her eyes were hollow and confused. Filled with the same uncertainty that Marc knew filled his.

  Their world had just changed, maybe forever.

  Slowly, she released her grip on the piece of wood she had shoved into the vampire’s chest and let out a breath.

  Marc placed a palm over his own heart, wondered how seeing her with the stake, knowing how easily she had killed the other vampire, couldn’t bother him, couldn’t worry him.

  He didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. He held out his hand. “Let’s go,” he said.

  He’d get her away from here and come back. He’d have to destroy the body to make sure the Fringe had no way of learning exactly what had happened here.

  If they did, CeCe would be as good as dead. Attacked or not, defending Marc or herself...none of that would matter.

  A werewolf had killed a vampire. That was all they would see.

  War. This would mean war.

  And unlike the accusations the werewolves planned to make against Marc, any accusations against CeCe would be true. Her hand had delivered the final blow.

  * * *

  Marc’s hand, so pale in the sparsely lit alley, reached out for CeCe.

  A vampire’s hand.

  The vampire. She’d been trying to think of him that way, but now straddling the monster that had tried to kill her and staring at the man who had fought to save her, she knew she could never think of Marc that way again.

  Yes, he was a vampire. She wouldn’t, couldn’t, deny that, but she also couldn’t hate him for it. He was more than his fate.

  He was Marc.

  She slipped her fingers into his and let him tug her to her feet.

  They both hesitated for a moment, both, she guessed, filled with similar thoughts and doubts. Then tired of thinking, tired of planning, she took a step forward and laid her head against his chest.

  The slow steady beat of his heart was still there.

  His hands rose and briefly ran down her back. His fingers traced her spine so lightly she almost thought his touch was only in her imagination. Then his arms closed around her and she was pressed against him, encircled by his embrace.

  With a sigh, she wrapped her arms around him, closed her eyes, and just breathed.

  * * *

  Standing in the alley, holding CeCe felt right, too right. Marc knew they couldn’t stay like this. Knew he had to pull away, separate himself from both the attraction and the connection he felt when near the female werewolf.

  But not just yet.

  He rested his forehead on the top of her head and let her warmth and scent surround him.

  “The pack is coming. Or part of it,” she murmured.

  “I assumed,” he replied.

  She stepped back. “You did?”

  He tilted his head. “Of course. You’re a werewolf, an important one. Your loyalty is to the pack. Nothing can change that.”

  Her gaze drifted to the dead vampire at their feet.

  “I killed him.” She looked up. “I’d do it again.”

  “Of course.” And, he knew, if a choice came down to him or the pack, she’d choose the pack. If the tables had been turned, if a werewolf, a member of her pack, had been attacking him, he would have been lying on the ground now, a stake in his chest.

  It was the way of wolves. Their own over all others. He had to remember that. He couldn’t let it go.

  “You go and meet them. I’ll stay here...clean up.”

  She hesitated. “Are you sure?”

  “Go.” His patience was changing to anger. Anger that despite knowing what she was, what her choice would always be, he still wanted her to go, still wanted to make sure no vampire learned what she had done.

  Still wanted to protect her.

  Unable to handle the onslaught of realizations any longer, he shoved her toward the end of the alley. “Go.”

  Her nose lifting, she walked away...searching for a scent. Searching for her pack—where she belonged and he didn’t.

  Chapter 13

  CeCe pulled her cell phone from her pocket and checked the time. Only an hour had passed. How, she didn’t know. Too much had happened; too much had changed since she had met Marc at the diner for only an hour of time to have passed.

  But the slow movement of time was her friend, assured her that the pack wouldn’t be waiting for her when she returned to her motel.

  She had time to clean the blood from her throat and destroy her clothing before they arrived. And come up with some story, a story that would turn their attention away from Marc. She owed him that.

  Her steps slowed. Under a streetlight she came to a stop.

  Stupid. She didn’t have to turn their attention away from Marc. She simply had to give them something else to concentrate on, something she already had—the dead vampire.

  It was obvious her attacker had been hunting werewolves. Why else would he have been wearing silver caps on his fangs?

  He had to be the vampire behind both Russell’s and Porter’s deaths—assuming the humans were wrong and Porter’s death hadn’t been natural causes.

  Marc had been worried that accusations a vampire had killed a werewolf would reignite the war, but with the vampire behind the trouble dead, there would be no reason for war.

  Relief washing over her, she turned to hurry back to Marc, to stop him from doing whatever he’d planned with the body.

  She needed that body. They needed that body.

  The dead vampire was the answer to all of their problems.

  “CeCe! Stop!” The voice froze her where she stood. Karl, but it couldn’t be. Karl had to still be at least an hour away.

  The alpha stepped out of the shadows. “I found her,” he called.

  Three more wolves appeared. All male and all known to her, all members of her pack.

  Her pack that lived two hundred miles away.

  “How...? I didn’t expect you, not yet.” Her hand flew to her throat, to the blood that still stained her skin.

  The alpha slanted his head and inhaled. “I smell blood. Hers.” He gestured to the others. Within seconds his three companions surrounded her, their backs to her, scanning for any and all threats.

  His body tense, Karl prowled closer. “What happened?” The always-intimidating alpha looked even more so tonight. Dark jeans, dark T-shirt and dark demeanor. Dark and deadly. Not in a mood, she guessed, to listen to reason.

  She fought the urge to glance toward the alley. “How’d you get here so fast?” she spoke louder than necessary, hoping to alert Marc that the werewolves had arrived.

  Go. Leave the body, she thought. If only Marc could hear her.

  “You’re hurt.” Karl strode past the first werewolf, grabbed CeCe by the wrist, and jerked her hand away from her throat. “Blood. Dry, but blood.”

  It sounded like an accusation, made her wolf want to fall on the ground and beg for forgiveness. Instead CeCe lifted her chin. “I’m fine.”

  “The vampire. Where is he?”

  “I...” Without thinking she reached for her throat. Karl’s hold on her wrist kept her hand suspended, a foot from
her face. There was blood on her fingers too, dark, thick...vampire blood.

  Karl saw it, inhaled, then spat. His grip on her wrist tightened and he pulled her closer. She was forced up onto her toes. “Where is he?”

  She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Her mind was whirling, searching for some answer that would satisfy him, make him go away until she could talk to Marc, get their stories to match.

  The alpha dropped her wrist and stared at her for a moment, his expression stormy. Then he spun and walked to a point just outside the circle that the other males had formed. Lines of tension ran down his back, clearly visible through the material of his tight-fitting T.

  “I killed him,” she stuttered.

  “Killed him?” Karl’s already dark expression grew darker.

  “I thought you wanted him dead. I thought that’s why you were coming here.” She glanced at the males surrounding her. “Raced here.” She rubbed her hands on her pants, wished she could kneel and rub them on the ground, get the vampire’s blood off her, completely. “It’s over. You didn’t have to come at all.”

  Karl growled and turned back. “Didn’t have to come?”

  She flinched at his tone.

  “Thinking isn’t your job. We came here to get Russell, to get evidence that a vampire killed him, but if you’ve killed the vampire, what does that leave us? Nothing.”

  She wasn’t following his logic, wasn’t seeing where any of this was a problem. She had just told Karl that she had killed Russell’s killer. What else did he need?

  She voiced the question.

  He made a grunting noise. “Evidence.”

  Of course, she should have realized that. She had broken one of the laws of peace. What proof now was there that doing so was justified? Was it justified? According to the black-and-white laws, maybe not.

  “When did you kill this vampire? Where is his body? Is there something on it we can tie to Russell?”

  The questions came quick and hard.

  She latched on to the last one, the one that gave her hope. “Silver caps. He wore silver caps on his fangs. It’s how I got...this.” She tilted her neck, fully exposing the dried blood. “His body is there.” Praying Marc was done and had disappeared out the opposite end of the alley, leaving the vampire and his silver caps behind, she pointed to where she had left her attacker’s body.