Blood Entangled

by Amber Belldene

  Kos scanned the room. “Where’s the driver?”

  Not a peep from the Hunter, but something thudded inside the truck.

  Andre opened its rolling door. “He is in here. Alive.”

  “Who are you guys? Cops?” Cowering further into the shipping container, the driver rubbed his bloodshot eyes.

  “No. Not cops.” Andre untied him. “But you are safe.”

  Kos tossed the man a mobile phone. “Step outside and call home. They’re searching for you.”

  Prowling like a jungle cat, Andre circled the boy. “Where are the others, Hunter?”

  Sullen, the kid crossed his arms. “They all went home.”

  Kos leaned in, examining the kid. “You planned this alone?”

  The boy’s eyes flicked toward his laptop. Krist. Some teenage hacker had thrown a wrench in Kos’s plans.

  “Did you get into my email?”

  A sly smile appeared on the kid’s face. “Trying to whore out your hot blond cook?”

  Kos tackled the kid. Pinning him, he wrapped his hands around his throat, but Andre pulled him off before he did any serious damage.

  “You will not get any information from him like that. Back off and let me do it right.”

  That scared the kid. Kos could hear the Hunter’s heart race faster, even over the sounds of his own pulse hammering.

  If Hunters got hold of Lena, they’d rape her, torture her, and kill her—and not necessarily in that order. Their cruelty to humans in household service was sickening, and he couldn’t let it happen to her. He threw the laptop to the ground and crushed it under his shoe.

  “Hmmm.” Andre scratched his head. “I do not know much about these things, but that seems hasty. Might there have been information on there?”

  “Fuck.” Kos spat.

  “We’ll just have to get it out of him another way.” Andre kicked the kid’s leg just below the hipbone, not hard, or it would have cracked. Andre did crack his knuckles, and formed two meaty fists. “Talk.”

  Even Kos thought his father was scary at that moment—this kid would shit his pants. “I’ll ask you again. Where are the other Hunters?”

  The boy sat up, aiming his chin at the distant ceiling. “Like I said, they went home after Ethan Bennett called off the Hunt. We were pissed we wouldn’t earn our daggers. But he promised to call us all back together once he was fin—”

  The boy slammed his mouth shut, and actually covered it with both hands.

  Kos rolled his eyes—they were dealing with a real professional. “Finished with what?”

  “I don’t know,” the baby-Hunter sniped. Insolent brat. He didn’t seem to understand he was being questioned by his mortal enemies, not his parents.

  Andre uncurled and flexed his hands, cracking his knuckles a second time.

  “I’m serious. I don’t know. He said he was trying to figure out why you could still fly, after being exiled so long.”

  Kos wasn’t trained in interrogation, but even he could tell the kid was holding back.

  Andre toed the kid’s calf muscle. “I will break your leg if you do not tell me everything.”

  “Break it. You’re going to kill me anyway.”

  “Kill you?” Surprised laughter burst from Andre. “I will not—you are just a boy. Unlike your kind, I do not kill women and children.”

  “I’m not a—” Again, he clamped his mouth shut.

  Kos shook his head. The kid wasn’t one for thinking before he spoke, but at least he had enough sense not to argue himself out of the protected status.

  The Hunter’s eyebrows shot up, and he uncovered his mouth. “You can’t feed from me! I won’t let you.”

  Now Kos laughed. “Boy, neither of us would bother. You’re not our type.”

  Andre pointed into the kid’s face. “However, I am not opposed to hurting you. So tell me, what is Ethan Bennett trying to finish?”

  “I don’t know.” Indignation thinly veiled the boy’s fear.

  Kos took a more gentle tone. “Tell us what he said, then.”

  “He said—” the kid puffed up his chest and lowered his voice “‘—I have uncovered clues about the origin of our tribe.’”

  “Pompous prick, is he?” Andre asked with a grin, as if enjoying the news that Zoey’s ex-lover was an asshole.

  “Pretty much.” The kid looked at the floor.

  “That’s all? Clues about the origin of the Hunters?” Kos dropped to a knee, looking the boy in the eye.

  “Yeah. And everybody was jazzed.” The kid raised his hands palm-up in the air, his head bouncing with emotion. “I was pissed I wasn’t going to earn my dagger ’cause he called off the Hunt, and they were all like oooooh, aaaaah.”

  Kos exchanged glances with Andre and they chuckled. Funny kid. “I guess you didn’t drink the Kool-Aid.”

  “What Kool-Aid?”

  “Never mind.” Kos peered into the truck, scanning to make certain the cases were upright and intact. “What are we going to do with him?”

  “We will take him prisoner, keep him in the storage closet.”

  “Ah, yes. You always said we might need a holding cell.” Kos pulled down the door of the tractor-trailer, closing it with a loud clang.

  Sprawled on the ground, the kid’s ankles bounced, revealing his fear.

  “Are you going to carry him back?” Kos asked.

  “Davo, no. He stinks. You do it.”

  “Sure thing, Andre. You drive the big-rig, then.”

  Andre clenched his teeth, his jaw muscles twitching. “Fine, we will all ride in the truck.”

  Half an hour later, Kos backed the truck into the loading dock in the workroom. Pinching the kid’s ear, Andre dragged him off the truck, and the household gathered to see the prisoner.

  “What are you going to do with him?” Zoey stepped forward to examine the Hunter, a wistful look taking over her face.

  “He knows nothing.” Andre took his place beside her. “He is useless as a captive. Simply put, we keep him so we do not have to kill him.”

  Lena drew closer to the Hunter. “He’s just a kid. How bad can he be?”

  “You must be that hot cook.” The boy thrust his pelvis at Lena.

  Rage curled Kos’s fists and he lunged, but Andre’s hand was on his collar fast, holding him back. Lena’s head pivoted toward Kos and her tawny eyebrows pulled together.

  From behind the onlookers, Lucas spoke up. “He can be bad, Lena, very bad. He’s been brainwashed to hate you all for his entire life. He may seem harmless, but he cannot be trusted.”

  “Traitor,” the kid shouted back at Lucas. “I’ll kill you with my bare hands.”

  Lucas rolled his eyes and walked away.

  The boy shouted after him. “They’re coming for you! They’ll never stop coming.”

  A chill crept over Kos, and his gut sank halfway to the floor. The Hunter’s words weren’t just for Lucas, but all of them, and they were all too true. Worse—the hateful humans knew about Lena. He needed to get her that job, get her to safety, and soon.

  Chapter 10

  ON ETHAN’S COMPUTER, virtual yellow pins marked Hunter communities on a map of California. The tribe was concentrated around Sacramento, Mendocino, Bakersfield, and Watsonville. He’d updated the elders of each community that his research was proceeding rapidly. Within two weeks, he’d promised, they could resume their assault on Marasović.

  An email from Derek Nichols reported he’d been hired by Marasović’s wine distributor, which would give the Hunters data about who exactly purchased wine from the Kaštel Estate. Data that might one day prove useful.

  Ethan fingered the toy soldier in his pocket. Only a full translation of The Book of the Day, or Zoey on her knees before him, could make the day more perfect.

  “Be bold in your new endeavor,” Gwen said.

  “What?” Ethan looked up from his desk.

  She sat at a table nearby, the codex open in front of her alongside a notebook full of illegible scrawl. He
r fingers gripped a tiny slip of paper—a fortune from the cookie she had eaten after their dinner.

  “On the advice of this cookie, I am going to ask you to tell me the truth.”

  He straightened his spine. “Everything I’ve told you is true.”

  “That’s irrelevant, since there’s clearly a great deal you’ve withheld.” She smoothed the slip of Chinese proverb onto the desktop with her thumb.

  “That goes without saying. For example, I haven’t told you what I ate for breakfast on Monday before we met.”

  Ever so slowly, she looked up, meeting his gaze with a piercing stare. “Don’t be an asshole, Ethan.”

  So she had discovered his name. He tried not to show his surprise. Finding it wouldn’t have been difficult, but she had to go snooping for it. “What would you like to know?”

  “Are you some kind of vampire slayer?”

  Laughter rose up in him, and he opted to let it out. The images and cryptic messages of The Book of the Day clearly depicted vampires, but he never expected her to take them for reality.

  She slammed her notebook closed. “Here’s what I think. Your tribe believes you have a sacred duty to exterminate vampires. This has been your mythology for at least three thousand years. There was a mysterious historical incident that brought about this mandate, perhaps taking place in the tribe’s native Turkey. You want to know what it was.” Twice she tapped her manicured nails on the desktop, her lips pursed. “How am I doing?”

  His instincts told him to deny everything, but her knowledge was invaluable to him. He may as well tell her the truth since it would make her even more useful—he’d already planned to kill her, anyway.

  Gwen blew a strand of hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear before she crossed her arms. “Am I hot or cold?”

  “You’ve guessed correctly, and with astonishing accuracy. Although whether you actually believe it remains to be seen.”

  “Not a guess, a theory, and a well-founded one.” She looked him up and down. “You kill vampires?” Something like admiration glinted in her eye.

  “Yes.”

  “That explains your…physique.”

  Not really, considering all the pudgy Hunters he knew. He swam daily and trained in martial arts to maintain his fitness. Interesting that she had noticed.

  “So you just accept all this as real? Vampires exist and these artifacts are the evidence of a tribe of vampire slayers?”

  She shrugged. “I study the history of the British Isles. I’d be very closed-minded if I assumed all the traditional beliefs and practices of my ancestors were bogus.” She slid her notebook into her briefcase.

  “May I see your full translation now?”

  “Nice try. As I told you yesterday, it’s not written down. Based on what I’m learning from your artifacts, I’m revisiting several tricky sentences.”

  Clamping his teeth shut, he bit back his impatience.

  “I think it’s time we call it a night,” she added.

  “Fine. Sleep well.”

  “I said we.”

  Spinning his chair to face her, he let his gaze linger as she approached. He did like the sway of her hips, and taking her to bed would help him figure out what made her tick.

  That was how he had learned the depth of Zoey’s cold detachment—she fucked like she was on fire, trying to thaw out her frozen heart. He had matched her frenzy while maintaining an emotional distance that kept her desperate for warmth. It was why she couldn’t quit him until Marasović got his fangs into her.

  Ethan did not want Zoey thawed. When he went back for her, he would kill the vampires and all Marasović’s household in front of her. Her husband’s suicide had wounded her deeply, but Ethan needed to make sure the wound never healed. Only when Zoey was completely dead on the inside would she know she belonged to him.

  In the meantime, there was Gwen. She held the keys to unlocking the mysteries inside Kaštel Estate. Why were the vampires still able to fly? What would happen if his pathetic brother did, in fact, let Pedro feed from him? The answers were coded in the artifacts surrounding them, and Gwen was the cypher.

  She gingerly placed herself on his lap, straddling him with those mesmerizing hips and brushing her little round breasts against him.

  “Thank you for telling me more of the truth,” she whispered.

  It wasn’t really gratitude, but a declaration that she knew he was still holding back information.

  And that was something Gwen had on Zoey—she saw the shadow surrounding him, the one he so easily hid from everyone else. Perched on his lap, her pupils were big and her pretty mouth tense. She was afraid of him. But rather than scare her off, the fear lured her.

  He rolled his shoulders with a rush of power. For the first time in his life, he tasted being seen and wanted in all his dark glory. It was intoxicating, tugging at his dick in an intense surge of arousal. She wanted that side of him? He would gladly give it to her, so hard and so many times she wouldn’t be able to walk tomorrow. Without a word, he cupped her ass and picked her up, carrying her to his bedroom with her legs wrapped around his waist.

  In his pocket, his phone buzzed with an incoming email. It could wait until morning.

  A few loose ends required Kos’s attention, and then Lena would be all his. He called Bel to tell him about the prisoner. Bel had no advice, but he confirmed Lucas’s warning that the kid wasn’t harmless, no matter how naïve he appeared.

  Then Kos left a message with his buddy at California Containers, asking to borrow their truck for a day or two to deliver the wine to the distributor, once it was bottled. Small favor, but it saved him the hassle of arranging another delivery that could get hijacked.

  In the process of shutting down his computer, the bold-faced type of a new email message drew his attention.

  Subject: Exquisitely Beautiful? I’ll take her.

  From: Mason Kearney, Jr.

  A spasm of tension gripped his body, and he shuddered. Krist. He had to read it. How could he go upstairs and make love to her, pretending the message wasn’t there?

  Kos, old buddy, I’m in desperate need of a cook, or at least one hot dish. Sounds like you’ve got what I need. On your recommendation, I’ll take her, sight unseen. Shall I pick her up, or will you deliver? Call me.

  He could practically hear his old friend as he read. Mason was all right, a stand up guy. A native of San Francisco, from an old and wealthy family. Lena would find him good looking, too.

  He used to go out on the town with Mason in the nineteen fifties and sixties. Back then, Mason had a thing for stewardesses, so they’d frequented a hotel bar where the Pan Am girls stayed. They’d loved him—sometimes he would hit it off with the entire crew from a 707. Once, he’d left the bar in a train of women wearing matching gray suits and pillbox hats. Inside the elevator two of the women tipped their hats to Kos. At that same moment, Mason whispered so that only vampire ears could hear, “I’m bringing them in for a landing.”

  Kos had different tastes. He was on the lookout for that Midwestern housewife attending a conference with her husband. There was usually at least one in the hotel bar. She was always seated in a corner drinking a cocktail and pretending to read a novel while her husband was off doing manly things. Kos knew something Mason didn’t—stewardesses partied in every port, but housewives were still waiting for the party.

  He enjoyed relieving the missuses of their inhibitions. They peeled them off easily, just like their nylons. He was pretty certain one newly liberated housewife could blow your mind better than a dozen party girls. And he always hoped they left those inhibitions behind in San Francisco so that things were more exciting in their marriage beds. Kos never shared his housewife secret with Mason. His buddy wouldn’t have believed him anyway.

  He laughed, remembering their good times. Lena might like Mason—he was charming and fun. But Kos hadn’t considered the unsettling possibility she would serve someone he knew. A nameless, faceless employer hadn’t troubled him
, but Mister fuck-fifteen-flight-attendants in one night? Lena was special, and she deserved to be treated that way.

  On the other hand, Mason was a known quantity. Better she work for someone Kos knew and trusted than a stranger. Lena was a grown-up. She knew what it meant to work in a household, knew she wouldn’t be somebody’s one and only. But she deserved so much more, and he wanted to spare her added hurt. The idea of Mason’s hands and fangs on her made him cringe.

  As if there was even a choice. No strangers had replied to the advertisement and the longer she was at Kaštel, the more danger she was in—it had to be Mason.

  There. It was decided. And it left him feeling empty.

  The movie was one of Lena’s favorites, a teen romance from the eighties rerun on cable. John Cusack was so young and cute, chasing after a girl way out of his league. Lena could relate. She tried to watch it—kept waiting for that amazing scene when he held his boom box overhead and played that one song—but she couldn’t focus. Her mind only wanted to replay every stroke of Kos’s tongue between her legs, or the rapture on his face when he’d come in her mouth.

  She lay on his bed, fingering her neck and imagining his bite. After years, she would share sex and blood. And then, maybe she would know for certain her destiny—blood service or a normal human life?

  The loose brass doorknob jiggled, and the door creaked open. Kos didn’t open it wide, just slipped in sideways. His stiff, upright posture gave him away. Something had changed. But what? She squinted to find a clue on his face in the dark, his high cheekbones illuminated only by the flickering blue light of the television.

  His eyes flicked to the television. “Say Anything?”

  What? Oh, the movie. “Yeah. You know it?” That would be a surprise, since he had distinctly classical taste in music and literature.

  He leaned against the wall next to the door, exposing his muscular white neck as he rested his head. Rubbing his eyes, he replied, “I’m a Peter Gabriel fan. He’s a genius and he wrote the song—”

  “Kos, what happened?”

  He opened his eyes, and they were solid gray. The handsome planes of his face flattened, dimples invisible. Oh well, at least she’d known what it was like to be wanted for a while. She drew up her knees, suddenly nauseous.