by Michele Hauf
The man lunged for him, gripping Kaz’s shoulders and sinking sharp teeth into his neck. It hurt so bad, worse than all the times his dad had used him as a punching bag. Kaz kicked and yowled; he didn’t want to die. He was too young. He may not have much to live for, but—no, it wasn’t going to happen this way.
Pushing the thing off him tore the long, pointed teeth from his neck. Kaz whined at the pain, yet he didn’t take his eyes from the attacker. His blood dripped from the maniac’s mouth. With a hungry smirk, the thing again lunged.
Without second thought, Kaz swung around the chair leg, jamming the serrated end into the guy’s chest. The creep growled and swore at him, cursing him with all the bad words Kaz had learned to use to vent his anger, and then some.
And then a blast of ash formed where the guy had been speared with the end of the chair leg. Dark gray flakes formed the shape of a man, then sifted to the ground, leaving behind a pile of clothing—and no vicious attacker.
Swinging down the hand that still clutched the chair leg in a painful squeeze, Kaz stumbled backward, hitting the steel garbage can in a clatter, and slipping to land on his butt.
“What the—?”
Another man swung around the corner of the brick building, gripping the wall to stop his running pace. He wore a plaid vest over a fancy shirt and pants, and looked like one of those rich guys Kaz always saw escorting pretty girls in and out of shops on the Champs-Élysées. “You got him, kid?”
Got him? Got what? What was that thing? It...it had dissolved right before his eyes. There wasn’t even blood in the pile of ash. Human beings didn’t do that. And it had—Kaz slapped a hand over his neck—bitten him.
The man approached him carefully, hands held out in placation. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m one of the good guys.”
Kaz drew up his legs as the man squatted beside him. He was too scared to run, and he didn’t want to stab at him. One pile of ash was weird enough. Had he just murdered someone? He didn’t want to go to jail. He’d take the cold, tough streets of Paris over jail any day.
The man inspected Kaz’s neck with probing fingers that made him wince. “How old are you, boy?”
“Si-sixteen. Today’s...m-my birthday.” Kaz shivered because his windbreaker jacket was never warm enough for February. “Who are you?”
“You can call me Tor. Happy birthday, kid. Looks as if you got the grand prize. I didn’t expect to run into any action tonight. You’re lucky I was in the vicinity.”
“I’m luck— Really?” Kaz held up the bloody chair leg. “I’m the one who took him out. What...what was that thing?”
“You’re right. You took care of the longtooth all by yourself. That was some incredible work, kid. What’s your name?”
“Kaspar,” he murmured. His eyes scurried over the ash and clothing. He couldn’t process, didn’t want to listen, but the man’s next words pulled him into focus.
“Kaspar, you just slayed your first vampire. And here’s the good news. Even though you’ve been bitten, and normally a bite will transform a mortal into a bloodsucker, if you kill the one who bit you, then you’re in the clear. You won’t transform.”
A worried noise scratched at the back of Kaz’s throat. Transform?
Tor pointed over his shoulder to the pile of ash. Apparently, not transforming meant he wouldn’t turn into a vampire. Was that some kind of twisted birthday present?
“The bad news,” Tor continued, “is monsters exist.”
Ah, hell. Kaz had always liked monsters. They’d not slept under his bed when he was little because his mother had chased them away with the broom. But then she died, and his world had, as well.
Tor picked up something from the ground and studied it. He held the bloodied key before Kaz. “This fall out of your pocket?”
Kaz swiped the old brass key and nodded, shoving it deep in his jeans pocket.
“Key to your house?”
Kaz shook his head. “Don’t have a home anymore. I’m on my own and doing just fine.”
The man nodded, and stood. “Damn right, you are. You’re one tough kid.” Hands at his hips, he peered over the destruction, then began to shuffle the ash toward the garbage bin, spreading it out. He picked up the singed clothing and dropped it in the trash bin. “My job is to ensure others don’t start believing all the myth and legend that really does exist. No one will suspect those bits of ash were once a creature of the night. You going to tell anyone what you saw, Kaz?”
Kaz tucked his head against his elbow and closed his eyes. He shook his head. He wasn’t even sure what he’d seen. What he’d done. He’d killed a vampire?
“You have a talent with the stake,” Tor said. “Homeless, eh?”
Kaz nodded minutely but didn’t look up at him.
“Well, you’ll need the wound cleaned up so it doesn’t get infected. And...to be totally up front with you, I don’t have a home for you or a means to help you.”
“Don’t need your help.”
“Course not. But there is a man I know who would be interested in talking to you. His name is Rook, and he heads an organization of knights who protect humans from creatures like the one that attacked you.”
“Knights?”
Kaz looked up into Tor’s eyes, blinked and saw...the truth. Along with the truth, he also saw a deep and concerned kindness he’d not recognized for years. So without thinking it through, he grabbed Tor’s offered hand and stood up, wobbly, yet not out for the count by any means.
“You can trust me,” Tor said, “though I know you won’t. You’re a smart kid and know how to protect yourself and that’s how it should be. But do you want to learn how to use that thing the right way?”
Kaz looked at the bloody chair leg he still gripped. The man was offering him something he hadn’t known in a long time—trust. And he wanted it with every breath he inhaled.
“Come on,” Tor beckoned.
And Kaz took his first steps toward chivalry, something he wouldn’t comprehend until many years later.
Chapter 1
The vamps were fast, and he—well, he wasn’t much faster, but he was skilled. A human matched against a vampire must wield some mean martial-arts skills or he had better be a track star. Kaspar Rothstein possessed the former, but right now he was contemplating the run.
Yep, best to go for the run.
The sickening heat of a vampire’s breath skimmed the back of his neck as he raced down an alleyway in the eighteenth arrondissement near Paris’s shadowed Montmartre Cemetery. His goal: to lure the four vamps far away from humans and curious eyes. Rushing into an open cobbled courtyard behind closed businesses far from any tourists, Kaz stopped abruptly, planting his steel-toed boots.
With a confident grin teasing his mouth, he swung around, catching one of the vamps in the chest with a titanium stake. The vamp ashed before him, forming the shape of a person out of fried vampire flesh, bone and clothing.
“Happy birthday to me,” he muttered his victory claim. Wasn’t his birthday, but who needed cake to celebrate?
The three remaining vamps grinned at him. Kaz had expected the idiot longtooths to actually share a brain among them and run for their lives. But if they wanted to stick around for the party games...
“Come on,” Kaz encouraged. He tucked away the stake and put up his fists. He hadn’t gotten in a workout this morning. Time for some fun.
The first vampire charged him. Kaz managed to grab him by the scruff of the neck, and swung the gangly tormentor toward another of his rag-tag pack. Their skulls cracked, both swore, and they collapsed on the cobblestones.
The leader swung around with a punch that Kaz stopped with his open palm. “Nice to meet you. I’m Kaz. Vampire hunter. I’ll be ashing you this evening.”
“Wiseass,” the vampire cracked.
Kaz gripped the miscreant’s fist, twisted, and with a swing from the waist, rocketed up a high sidekick to his jaw. The heavy boots delivered damage by breaking jawbone. The attacker dropped, growling and spitting blood. The other two charged him with fists. Kaz immediately dropped the one on the left with a wince-inducing gut punch.
A female scream alerted him. A woman clung to the limestone wall not thirty feet from their little soiree.
“Get out of here!” he yelled at her, and caught a punch across the jaw. He tasted his own blood, and shook his head to chase away the bluebirds spinning about his skull. That one could have led to his death had it been a knockout.
Enough play. Best to stake them before they beat him to a pulp. But—hell, not in front of an innocent.
Frozen in fear, the woman watched their antics with wide eyes. Chills scurried up Kaz’s spine. He delivered another kick and landed a vamp at the hip, sending it stumbling backward. He had to keep the vampires busy and away from her until she grasped her senses and ran. Only then could he ash these idiots.
Out the corner of his eye, Kaz alternated his attention between fight and female. Was she scared—or interested? She leaned forward from her position against the wall, her bright eyes following the action. A vampire charged him; he landed a kick to a particularly vulnerable part of its anatomy, bringing it down.
Licking her lips, the woman seemed to marvel over the show.
“Go!” Kaz shouted at her, but too late he realized the command had alerted one of the vampires to their audience.
He swung a fist at an attacking vamp and took him out cleanly. The other vampire raced toward the woman and pinned her to the wall by her wrists. She didn’t scream. That was good and bad. A scream would call attention to this altercation and alert other innocents.
But why didn’t she scream?
Must be scared voiceless.
Wishing he could stake the attacker from behind, Kaz left the stake clipped at his hip. He ran toward the vamp, grabbed him by the head and shoulder and peeled him away from the woman.
“Wow,” he thought he heard her say, as he landed on his back on the cobbles, bringing the vamp down with him.
Twisting to straddle the vamp, Kaz punched him repeatedly until the longtooth’s lights went out, his hand sprawling across the toe of the woman’s lace-up boot.
Springing up to stand in the center of the fallen vamps, Kaz looked over his mayhem. Fists still coiled at his sides, brows drawn and serious, he was ready for another four, or even a whole gang.
But the vampires were only out, not dead. They wouldn’t stay down long. He had to get rid of the girl.
Lifting her chin, the woman looked up at Kaz with wide and wondering eyes. He had rescued her from a bite, surely. But the less she knew, the better. And if he could contain this slaying then he wouldn’t have to call in Tor to do spin.
“Impressive.” She stepped over the sprawled vampire and slowly approached him. Strangely, she clapped, giving him due reward. “Like a knight who fights for his mistress’s favor.”
Kaz arched a brow. He was a knight. But he couldn’t tell her that. Why hadn’t she screamed and run? That was the normal MO for unknowing humans who stumbled onto a slaying.
Something wrong with this chick?
As he looked her over, he took a long stroll over her black hair, streaked on one side with white. Her heart-shaped face was shadowed by the night. A soft gray blouse rippled with her movements, hugging a narrow figure. Black, high-waisted slacks emphasized long legs that ended in heeled boots. Sexy, in a business kind of way. If her lips hadn’t been thick and plush and so pink, Kaz would have marked her off as just another accountant or pencil pusher.
But that mouth. All pink and partly open and—he swallowed—kissable. That mouth distracted him.
“Generally,” she said, unaware of his distraction, “when the knight defeats the bad guys, his mistress grants him a favor, such as a ribbon or piece of her clothing for him to proudly display.”
He rubbed his jaw and chuckled softly. “I’m not much for ribbons.” But the moment jumped on him like a blood-hungry vampire and he went with the next move. “Guess that means I’ll have to take something more fitting.”
Kaz wrapped his hand about her neck and curved his fingers against her silken hair as he bent to kiss her distracting mouth there, in the mysterious shadows of a city he would never feel comfortable calling home. About them, the vampires showed no sign of coming to, yet he remained aware.
Two magnets, he thought, as their lips crushed, compelled to one another. Soft and wanting. The burn of her mouth against his flamed his tongue with the sweetest fire. The connection gushed through his veins and swirled in and out of his being. Made him feel alive, more so than even battling vamps did.
As well, this kiss claimed a certain void within him that suddenly breathed in, wanting to capture it all. To experience it all.
Really? Why had he suddenly started thinking like some kind of romance hero? It was just a kiss. He’d kissed lots of women. He’d admired many a pretty mouth, had shared breath with— Hell.
He’d never kissed a woman who felt quite so...right.
She wobbled on her tiptoes, and Kaz gripped her shoulder to steady her. And when he pulled from the kiss to dart a look back and forth between her blue eyes, he suddenly knew. He had never sensed such immediate connection before. Destined? No, he wasn’t tumbling completely over the edge. But there were no coincidences in this world. People didn’t just stumble into another person’s life randomly. He’d believed that since the night Tor had found him behind Madame du Monde’s.
Everything happened for a reason.
She fluttered her lashes and looked aside. “Nice.”
Nice? It had been more than nice. That kiss had been...transcendent. Yet maybe she was too shy to wax as poetically as his brain was right now. No, not shy, but flustered. Her cheeks had pinkened and her lashes fluttered as she tapped her mouth. Kaz liked that he’d disturbed her with a kiss.
“Once more?” he asked on an aching tone.
This time when she tilted up her face to meet him, he hooked his thumb along her jaw, his fingers spreading over her cheek. His calloused fingertips touched a raised line of skin. Felt like a scar. She didn’t flinch. Perhaps it was merely makeup or his rough fingers.
She moaned into the kiss and wrapped both hands about his waist beneath the long leather coat he wore. A greedy touch that he felt honored to receive. She wasn’t like any other woman who had selfishly clung and groped at him while seeking to satisfy her desires. Kaz pulled her tight against his body. This woman fit there as no other woman had fit before. She felt right. Felt different.
Felt dangerous.
Right, man. Don’t forget: vampires surround you. Get rid of her now if you want her to live long enough for another kiss.
Kaz broke the kiss. She nodded and smiled sweetly. Stepping back, she deftly navigated through the fallen men over to the backpack she’d dropped by the wall. She picked it up and hooked it over a shoulder. Kaz watched her, his lips parted, his eyes following her every move.
“I...” she began. A sweet smile struggled with uncertainty. She raked her fingers through her loose sweep of hair. “Suddenly, I don’t know how to walk away from you.” Her brows pulled together as she wondered about that confession.
The statement reached in and clutched Kaz’s gut. It was so intimate. She didn’t want to walk away? He could get behind that sentiment. He’d like to wrap her in his arms and take her home with him and leave the world behind. Unfortunately, the real world had begun to groan near his feet.
“Just put one foot in front of the other,” he said, regretting the dire need to send her off.
The woman chuckled and touched her lips, as if testing to see if his warmth was still there. “What’s your name?” sh
e asked.
“Kaspar Rothstein.” He walked around the circle of vampires starting to come to. “Kaz to friends and those I tend to kiss. And you?”
“Zoë. Uh, Zoë to friends and those who tend to kiss me.”
At that moment, he fell, right into her stunning blue eyes and lush pink smile. Once again, his life had changed.
“Where do you live, Zoë? In case I feel the calling to beat up a second pack of idiots in order to claim another kiss from you.”
She smiled at the suggestion.
Kaz really did know about this one. Mine.
“Down the street.” She pointed in the direction she was headed. “Cerulean door. Can’t miss it. But don’t follow me. You’ve already been granted spoils this night for your heroic act.”
“As my lady wishes.” He bowed grandly, sweeping out an arm as if a knight genuflecting before his mistress.
Yeah, so he had his goofy moments.
The broad grin curling her lips matched his own as Zoë turned and strolled away, casting a look back over her shoulder.
She walked with a sensuous sway to her hips that he could imagine shifting side to side between his roaming hands as he danced with her. Kaz learned a lot about a person when dancing with them. It was safe, too, when surrounded by others on the dance floor and not all alone. Alone was fine, but only after he got to know the girl. Which, unfortunately, happened rarely due to his job. Ash in his hair and bloody stakes littering his apartment tended to turn them off.
A few groans alerted Kaz. He tugged out a stake with his right hand, and reached for another with his left—missing. He patted his hip where the stake was holstered—
No stake? He swung his gaze about, sweeping the tarmac, even as the first vampire rose to his feet. Had it fallen out when he’d been fighting? Had one of the vamps grabbed if off him?
The only one who had been close enough...
“Is that so?”
He chuckled and swung toward the vampire, a direct hit dusting the air with a fog of dark vamp ash. Before the other two could even rise, Kaz jumped over each one, planted the stake over their heart and finished them in succession. Four kills.
