A Vampire's Hunger

by Carla Susan Smith

  She looks different . . . weak . . . if I didn’t know better, I’d say she was sick...

  I did know better, but even I had to agree with my inner bitch. Katja definitely looked more than a little worse for wear. Her pallor reminded me of another vampire I’d seen recently, though she wasn’t quite as bad off. “When was the last time you fed?” I asked.

  “Why? Are you offering, Little One?”

  “Not if you were the last vampire on the planet,” I huffed.

  Ryiel put his hand on my shoulder, and—it was bitchy of me, I know—but I smiled seeing the quick flash of distress on her face.

  “I am mistaken in coming here,” Katja muttered, pushing off the wall and turning away from my door. She managed a few feet, wobbling unsteadily on her high heels, before pitching over. Ryiel was beside me and caught her in his arms before she hit the ground. It was an Oscar-worthy performance.

  He turned, concern written all over his face. “Rowan?”

  I stared back at him, unable to believe what I was reading in his face. “Oh, come on—you can’t be serious? You want me to invite her inside?” Appalled didn’t even begin to cover what I was feeling. “You do remember she tried to kill me, right? I mean you actually saw that, right?”

  “But now she’s the one who’s dying.”

  Oh, puh-leeze!

  This was nothing more than vampire theatrics. I was about to ask why I should care, but he saved me from sounding vindictive by pointing out it might not be in my best interest to turn her away.

  “She could help you,” he said. “She’s female and a vampire, and you need the help of both with the Bridal Night Chain.”

  “She’s more likely to strangle me with it.”

  “I doubt she’s got the strength,” Ryiel observed.

  Do you think it’s possible she actually got fucked over by Vampire Smurf?

  “Can’t think of anyone nicer for it to happen to,” I muttered under my breath. Ryiel pretended not to hear me, but the arch of his brow told a different story. “Um, doesn’t she have to be able to be awake to be invited in? How else will she know?”

  “As long as the incapacitation isn’t an overt act of subterfuge—”

  “Why don’t you just say faking it?”

  “I just did,” he snapped irritably. Seemed like I wasn’t the only one affected by Katja’s sudden reappearance.

  “And you’re sure she’ll help me? Any doubts and I’ll make you leave her on the goddamn mat.”

  “She’ll help you,” Ryiel said confidently, coming toward the door.

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Because she came here to ask forgiveness.” I was impressed. I never thought Katja would be sorry for what she did to me, much less feel the need to actually apologize. “She came looking for me, Rowan,” he reminded. “Not you.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “And how does apologizing to you translate into helping me?”

  I wasn’t trying to be difficult, though the expression on Ryiel’s face said he thought otherwise. I absolutely did not trust the bitch and wanted to have all my ducks in a row before letting her inside my apartment. It was bad enough I had a demon that could come and go as he pleased. A psychotic vampire bitch was really pushing it.

  “Because I won’t forgive her unless she does.”

  I can live with that. Can you live with that?

  Yeah, I could. Besides, I really didn’t have a choice. I stood on the other side of the open doorway and issued my invitation through gritted teeth, telling myself that if—no, when—I got through this ordeal, Gabriel was definitely moving me to a new apartment.

  Ryiel laid Katja down on the couch, and to prove I wasn’t a paid-up member in the Bitch-of-the-Year club, I brought him a basin of warm water, a washcloth, and a towel. Kneeling by her side, he carefully wiped the unconscious vampire’s face. She looked smaller somehow, kind of shrunken in on herself, and the comment about not having the strength to strangle me didn’t seem quite so outlandish.

  Bet she’d give it a good try, though . . .

  “She looks fucking awful,” I muttered.

  “You’re not so hot yourself.” Ah, not quite as unconscious as we thought.

  Just hearing the rasp of her voice made my own throat hurt, so I went to the kitchen and got a large glass of water. When I returned, she was sitting up, her arms around Ryiel’s neck as he knelt before her. He was murmuring to her in a low voice in a different language—probably her native tongue, if I had to guess. His large hand was rubbing soothing circles over her back. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was crying into his neck. I think Ryiel must have told her I was standing there because she suddenly jerked up and turned her head away from me. The movement of her hands said she was fussing with her face.

  “Here, drink this,” I said, holding the glass out to her when she turned back around.

  Katja’s too-bright eyes looked startled, surprised that I was actually addressing her. She stared suspiciously at the glass in my hand. “Yeah, you’re right,” I told her, “I spit in it.” The purity of the contents proved me a liar. Taking the glass from me, she muttered something that sounded an awful lot like how fucking childish before drinking down half the glass.

  “Whoa,” Ryiel said, taking the glass from her hand. “You’ll just bring it back up if you drink too quickly.” He blotted the corner of her mouth where she hadn’t been able to swallow quite fast enough.

  “Are you really dying?” I asked.

  She gave me a humorless grin. “You must feel like you won the lottery knowing that.”

  “Not with the kind of day I’ve had,” I snapped back.

  Truth be told, I didn’t really know how I felt about it. The nightmare of Katja’s human childhood seemed to have polluted every aspect of her life as a vampire. Unable to let go of her past, she had allowed it to warp and contaminate every choice she ever made. I didn’t feel sad for her—she was five hundred years old, for God’s sake!—but how she had lived her life was a conscious determination on her part. Was I happy she was dying? No. It’s not like we were ever going to be friends, but I did think to have been used by Kartel was a fucking waste.

  “What happened with Kartel? Is he going to show up on my doorstep looking for you?”

  “He wouldn’t be able to find me even if he wanted to. I’m dying because I’m no longer bonded to him.” She paused. “I’m not bonded to anyone.”

  Okay, but that didn’t explain—

  “Why haven’t you fed?”

  “Can’t. Is side effect of Kartel’s cocktail. Blood won’t stay in my body long enough.” I saw her reach for Ryiel’s hand and squeeze it hard enough to make her already pale knuckles turn skeletal. “You should be happy, Little One. I’m going to starve to death.”

  “Oh shit.” It’s true I had wanted her to suffer the same horrible agony she had put Oscar through when she starved him, but now that it was a reality, I felt . . . well, I actually felt kind of shitty. “Can’t you have some sort of transfusion or something?”

  Katja gave a sharp laugh to stop herself from calling me an idiot. “I am vampire. They don’t work with us.”

  “Oh . . . so what happened? With Kartel, I mean.”

  Briefly, Katja gave us the rundown on the blue-haired vampire’s visit to the monastery. I’ll give her credit—she didn’t throw any apologetic glances Ryiel’s way. If she wanted his forgiveness, I assume it had already been asked for in their private tête-à-tête. She owned up to everything she had done.

  “So what went wrong?”

  “Why do you think anything went wrong?” Her eyes sparked with a flash of the old fire.

  “Because you’re here looking like hammered shit. Something didn’t go according to plan. What made Kartel break his bond with you?”

  God, I hope the bastard suffered like Ryiel had.

  “Nothing,” she said, slowly draining the glass of water. “The drug’s effect is temporary.”

  “How long does it l
ast?”

  “Two days, maybe a little longer.” She tried to snap her fingers, but the pad of her thumb couldn’t quite make a strong enough connection with her finger to produce any sound. “That’s how long it lasted with me. I don’t know about the others.”

  “Others? There were others?”

  “You think I was the first Kartel tried it on?”

  No, actually that might have been me, and if it wasn’t that exact drug, it was definitely some variant.

  Looking at Ryiel, Katja said, “You should contact the other Originals. See if there are unexplained disappearances . . . vampires who vanish mysteriously.”

  “Wouldn’t they feel it?” I asked. “Like Ryiel did?”

  “Not necessarily,” he answered. “Part of the reason I was affected so badly was due to proximity. Katja was practically standing right next to me when the bond broke. Although we have a connection to every vampire we turn, geography and time will weaken the link.”

  “So if you turned a vampire and never saw him again, you might not know something bad had happened unless you specifically tried to contact him?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Not even if he died?”

  “Vampires can and do die, Rowan. Nothing lives forever. And not every vampire who dies is killed by an Original.” He shrugged his wide shoulders. “Would you be surprised to know there are vampires who commit suicide? Longevity can be a terrible burden.”

  Especially if you’re facing it alone. I thought of Aleksei and his wish to have Gabriel take his life when his beloved Anasztaizia died. “So Kartel’s drug was able to terminate the bond between you and Ryiel, but it only kept you bonded to him for a couple of days?” I picked up her empty glass and went into the kitchen, replenishing it from the filter on the kitchen faucet. “Did it give him enough time?” I asked, returning with a full glass for her.

  “For what?”

  “To do whatever it was he needed. Didn’t he ask you to do something for him?”

  “No. He took me clothes shopping,” Katja said, making a gesture to her outfit. For some reason, I assumed what she was wearing were clothes she’d had in the monastery. Ryiel made a strange scoffing noise, muttering something in a different language. “He’s never heard of Pro Bass Outfitters, that’s why,” Katja said disdainfully.

  “It’s Stavros’s favorite store.” Ryiel smirked.

  “And you wonder why I went to his bed with a knife?”

  “Children!” I clapped my hands together, making both vampires look at me. “Let’s get back on track, shall we?” I turned to Katja. “So you have no idea if the drug you were given lasted long enough for Kartel to accomplish his goal?”

  She shook her head. “No, but I don’t think it did, because he flew into a terrible rage when he felt me slipping away from him.”

  “And that’s when he left you in Madrid to fend for yourself ?” Ryiel murmured more to himself than either of us. “With no money? No resources? No one to reach out to?”

  I was going to ask how she had gotten from Europe to the U.S. but decided I really didn’t want to know. “And you have no idea where Vampire Smurf is?”

  “Why do you keep calling him that?”

  “It’s a reference to his hair and a cartoon from her childhood,” Ryiel told her, making my mouth drop open. I had no idea he knew. He shrugged nonchalantly. “Tomas told Stavros, Stavros told me.”

  Katja dismissed the explanation. “No, I have no idea where Kartel went after he left me.”

  She grabbed for the towel as a fit of coughing suddenly overtook her. The effort to clear the irritant in her throat and airway was exhausting, and I saw blood on the towel when she was finally done. It seemed to me she was growing weaker by the minute. I looked at Ryiel, but his expression was shuttered and told me nothing. If he cared for her—and on some level I knew he did—he was keeping it to himself. Or perhaps this was his way of showing his affection. There was too much about the silver-eyed vampire that was a mystery. One thing I was sure of, however; if Katja was going to help me, it had to be now. She wasn’t going to do me any good if she collapsed trying to tie me up.

  “Did Ryiel tell you what I need you to do?” Her glance, coupled with the sudden tightening of his jaw, told me he had not. I waited until the prolonged silence forced him to look at me. “Did you forgive her?” At least he had the decency to look somewhat abashed as he nodded. “Of course you did,” I murmured softly.

  “What do you want from me, Little One?”

  “To help me put on a Bridal Night Chain,” I said as calmly as I could.

  “Me?”

  A part of me was expecting a flat-out no because, well, it was me asking. Another part thought she might fall into hysterical laughter that I would think she’d even consider helping me. What I hadn’t expected was the grave consideration with which she pondered my request before asking to see the Chain. I fetched the jewelry box and opened the lid. She didn’t try to touch the necklace as any other woman would have; instead, she deliberately put her hands behind her. She looked at me, then at Ryiel, then back at me.

  “Gabriel didn’t give you that,” she stated in a flat voice.

  “No, of course not,” I told her. “Why would you think this was from him?”

  She glanced at Ryiel, and something passed between them. Some warning, I think. “If you think I will help, then first I need to know where this came from . . . and what you are planning.”

  “Is that absolutely necessary?” I was of the opinion that the fewer people who knew, the better.

  “If you want my help . . .” She shrugged and spread her hands. “Let me save you the trouble of lying to me, Little One.” Cautiously she touched the box with a forefinger, almost as if she thought it might be alive, waiting to uncoil itself and strike anyone foolish enough to come close. “This has come from the Dark Realm, which means you are playing with fire. I need to know what will happen when everything goes wrong.”

  “Why do you think that’s going to happen?”

  “You and the Dark Realm are not a good mix,” she said, giving me a weary smile. “Now, will you tell me, or should I leave?”

  It took surprisingly less time than it had taken her to tell us about Kartel. But then I wasn’t doing a bang-up impersonation of a consumptive on her deathbed. She stared at me for a long time after I was done, and when she finally spoke, it was to Ryiel.

  “You approve of this plan?”

  “Can you think of another?”

  Please say yes, please say yes—and please let it not involve me being naked with a large opal placed in my vagina.

  Using Ryiel’s arm for support, Katja slowly got to her feet, not bothering with her shoes.

  “Come,” she said, holding out a hand to me.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “If you’re hoping to keep your head attached to your neck for longer than five minutes, then you have to look like you want to sleep with him.” She gave me a disdainful look. “We need to do something with your hair and—do you have makeup?”

  “What do you need me to do?” Ryiel asked, sounding relieved to have the matter taken out of his hands. At least temporarily.

  “Find another bottle of liquor,” Katja told him, gesturing to the bourbon on the table. “That’s not going to be enough.”

  Chapter 26

  “Do you have any idea what you are doing?”

  “Kinda, sorta.”

  Katja snorted. “So in other words, no.” She stared at me as I sat on the closed lid of the toilet. “What do you think is going to happen when the demon finds out you’re lying?”

  “What makes you think he’ll find out?”

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re not that good a liar, and he’s a demon—they always find out.”

  I shrugged. “Well, in that case, I guess he’s gonna be pissed.”

  Her laugh was a watered-down version of what I’d heard before. “You have no idea,” she told me. Moving to the c
ounter, Katja began sorting through the makeup I’d provided. She discarded all of it save for a kohl pencil, eyeliner, and a small pot of dark-green glittery eyeshadow I’d bought for Halloween. “No false lashes?” she asked.

  “Um, no. I don’t wear them.”

  “You should. They would make a big difference.” Blowing out a breath, she pulled some mascara from the discard pile. “Well, I suppose this will have to do,” she muttered irritably.

  “Look, I don’t need any lectures,” I snapped. We’d only been in the bathroom a few minutes and she was already pissing me off. One more word or eyeball roll and I would march out and tell Ryiel his choice of helper sucked.

  A sharp line appeared between Katja’s brows as she frowned. “You’re scared.” From the tone of her voice, it was clear this had never occurred to her.

  I shook my head. “I went beyond scared some time ago. I’m now fucking terrified. Does that make you feel better?”

  Picking up my hairbrush, she shrugged. “You’re scared and I’m dying. We make a perfect couple.”

  She gestured for me to turn around, and even though I was loath to do it, I complied. At least I could watch her reflection in the glass wall of the shower unit. Katja was quick and efficient, brushing my hair free of tangles. I was surprised, however, when she separated it into three parts and made a loose braid. From her disparaging remark about needing to do something with my hair, I had expected it to be more imaginative.

  “How is me looking like a Viking princess going to get a demon all hot and bothered?” I murmured, as Katja tied a length of ribbon below the nape of my neck but above the start of the braid.

  “This isn’t for him,” she said, fastening more ribbon to the end of my hair. “This is for Gabriel . . . to remember you by.”

  “I . . . what . . . ?”