Cover
Shadowing the Beast
Stefan d’Argent has spent lifetimes hunting Louis Reynard, a renegade vampire who’s bent on a sick trail of revenge for all those who resemble the woman who broke his heart. When Reynard slips through his grasp in a savage battle, Stefan tracks him to his next victim, the lovely and incredibly alluring Julie Quill.
Julie has led a quiet life with only one flaw, that she bears a striking resemblance to Alina, queen of the vampires and the woman who rejected Reynard. When Stefan d’Argent enters her life in an effort to save her, he awakens in her a sensual need she never knew she had, and one that she knows only he can fulfill.
As Julie and Stefan lose themselves in the burning desire that flares between them, Reynard grows closer and threatens to destroy everything they both hold dear. And in the epic struggle that ensues, they will discover that the height of their passion is matched only by the intensity of the fight they’ll put up to save their lives and the eternal love they’ve discovered in each other’s arms.
Title Page
Copyright
Shadowing the Beast
Ann Jacobs
Copyright © 2015 by Ann Jacobs.
This is a fully revised and expanded edition of a story first told in Eternity of Darkness by Shana Nichols, copyright © 2004 by Ann Jacobs.
Cover design and illustration by Dar Albert, Wicked Smart Designs
Published by Beyond the Page at Smashwords
Beyond the Page Books
are published by
Beyond the Page Publishing
www.beyondthepagepub.com
ISBN: 978-1-940846-71-2
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
On the Trail of Darkness
The Oil Barons Series
About the Author
Chapter One
“Where are you, you murdering bastard?”
Stefan curled his lips back in frustration, deliberately exposing his fangs. He wanted to take to the air and use his ability to race through time and space to confront his adversary, but he forced himself to wait. He stood, motionless in the shadows of a narrow alley within shouting distance of Atlanta’s downtown business district. Straining his telepathic skills, he listened for a sound that should have had no relationship with death.
There it was. The soft, breathy moan of a woman in ecstasy.
Finally. He had a fix on location now. Fourth floor of a decaying apartment hotel, a quarter mile from where he stood.
Stefan made two steps and took off in flight with a whoosh of air and dangerous intent that would have made a passerby spin about nervously to see what had so briefly put his survival instincts on alert.
Like a silent cat, he set down on the rickety landing of a rusty fire escape, but the moans had morphed into muffled wails and heartbreaking pleas. He had no time for subterfuge. An eerie silence replaced the sounds of struggling inside.
Fuck.
Stefan took a step back then rammed his booted foot through the windowpane and lunged inside. Shards of shattered glass crunched underfoot.
There he was. Louis Reynard, the vicious murderer Stefan had been sent to track down after others of his clan had failed. The killer vampire stood over the still frame of yet another victim. Blood dripped from his prominent fangs and his hulking body still trembled with the sensual pleasure of having just fed. His eyes glowed when he stared at Stefan. The roar of fury that came out of Reynard’s twisted mouth was enough to take Stefan aback.
He harbored no illusion that his own powers exceeded those of his much older adversary. But when he looked down at Louis’s twentieth victim, unflinching wrath bubbled in his soul. He’d wipe the scourge of Louis Reynard off the earth or be destroyed himself.
Stefan lunged. Reynard sidestepped. Then suddenly he swung out, but Stefan ducked under the powerful punch. His opponent might have him outmatched in strength and experience, but Stefan had the advantage of speed and agility. They performed a macabre dance, advance and retreat. Thrust and parry. Dodging what would have been a knockout punch, Stefan butted his head into his opponent’s midsection.
Louis staggered back but the blow wasn’t enough to take him down. Pressing his advantage, Stefan brought up a knee and rammed it into Reynard’s crotch.
“Fuck you, d’Argent pup. Now you die.” Reynard lunged again.
Stefan stepped aside just in time to avoid a vicious swing. When Reynard stumbled, Stefan hooked a leg around his ankle and sent him sprawling, following him down and pinning him beneath his own body.
Reynard bucked, nearly dislodging Stefan. Stefan shifted and laid a forearm over the bastard’s throat and pushed hard. Then he knelt and bore down with most of his weight on Reynard’s belly. A weaker opponent would have passed out. Not Reynard. He fought like a madman, full of bloodlust, bucking and sputtering and clawing at Stefan’s neck and face.
Alina had been right. Stefan shouldn’t have tried to take Reynard down alone. His strength was fading fast. He had to finish this now, before the killer regained the advantage. Shifting his weight, he freed one hand and reached in his pocket for the stake.
He let go of Reynard’s neck, reared back to get the leverage he needed. As Stefan lifted the sharpened piece of rowan wood to slam through Reynard’s black heart, Reynard jerked up with a burst of superhuman strength and sank his fangs into Stefan’s cheek. Stefan snarled, yanked his head back. Reynard grinned around a mouthful of Stefan’s flesh.
The murdering bastard bit me. Nausea welled up in Stefan’s throat at the sight of blood trickling from the corners of Reynard’s mouth. His own blood. A stinging pain shot through his left cheek. His stomach heaved at the taste of salty, metallic blood that bore the fetid traces of saliva from the killer vampire’s fangs. The tainted fluid gathered at the corner of Stefan’s mouth, burning its way down his chin as if it were caustic lye, not the fluid that sustained his kind.
Reynard bucked, tossing Stefan off him now as though he weighed no more than a child. While Stefan clutched his cheek, trying to stanch the flow of blood, his prey rolled away, sprang to his feet and leapt onto the windowsill. “You sanctimonious little prig,” he spat. “You’ve failed. Like all your inept kinsmen who’ve tried before you
.”
Stefan lunged, his stake in hand, and felt the satisfying contact with Reynard’s flesh. His belly, though, not his heart. Reynard jerked the stake from his belly. He laughed, the sound one of consummate evil. Then he disappeared into the predawn darkness without another sound.
For a moment Stefan stood there, dazed, his cheek rent open and throbbing with agonizing pain. His nostrils tingled at the strong smell of blood. Human blood as well as his own. Warm. Fresh. Copious amounts of blood. It brought back memories of centuries ago, when he’d last fed on a mortal and not from a crystal tumbler in an upscale vampire bar. Lifeblood steeped in the smells of death.
Those memories flooded Stefan’s soul with shame. But he had no time now to wallow in guilt. He had to drag himself up, check the woman, see if she still lived. And summon help if she did.
As soon as he looked down at her, he knew Louis had finished the grisly task before he’d barged in. Crystal-like blue eyes stared up at him, unseeing. Shining blonde hair fanned out from a pale face, its ends matted with the congealing blood that pooled around her head from the twin fang marks in her throat.
Next to her lay the murderer’s calling card, a white rosebud, obscene in its very purity and innocence. Louis had laid this one across his victim’s slack, still fingers. Placed it carefully, as if in tribute, as if in thanks for her gift of sustenance. It was the trademark of a crazed murderer, an inhuman monster, as sure as the cut throat and the familiar marks Stefan felt certain he’d find.
He knelt, looking closely. There they were, two neat puncture wounds, practically invisible in the carnage of the coup de grâce. Marks the local coroner would most likely attribute to anything but the true cause of this woman’s death.
This woman was beyond help. The one Louis had probably already targeted as his next victim was not.
Stefan left her and found his way to her medicine cabinet, where he was able to fashion a bandage for his cheek. After making certain not to leave evidence behind that might point to him, he left the way he’d come. He stood a moment on the landing, clearing his mind. Focusing on the killer, he tried to zero in on his location. For once, he succeeded. Good. He’d failed to destroy Reynard, but apparently he’d injured him badly. Badly enough, at least, that Reynard had temporarily dropped the shield that made it so difficult for Stefan to track him telepathically.
Stefan hurled himself into the air and followed the killer’s tracks. To his surprise, he found himself landing at the main entrance to Hartsfield International Airport.
A constant stream of travelers passed by him as he strained to locate his prey. He thought he’d caught sight of him and shoved his way toward a ticket counter, muttering words of apology when he collided with a burly man, and again when a woman stopped just short of his outstretched arms. There he was!
Reynard was buying a ticket on a Delta flight. Stefan waited until he finished his purchase and then approached the ticket agent with a smile. Using his powers of persuasion, he was able to learn from her that the plane was bound for Chicago. Nonstop, the Delta ticket agent assured him when he asked. At least there was only one place Reynard could be going on this flight. Stefan could make it to Chicago in less time than it would take the commercial jet. Vampires hardly needed airplanes—unless they were hurt or sick and had lost some of their powers.
“Final boarding call for Delta Flight 258 with service to Chicago’s O’Hare Airport.”
Stefan made a quick mental calculation. The flight Reynard was taking would arrive in Chicago in about two hours, give or take. Locking in telepathically on his enemy, Stefan observed him winding his way down the jetway, taking his place in the last available first-class seat. Looking for all the world like a mortal businessman but for cuts and bruises that were quickly fading, Louis strapped himself in, closed the shade and rested his head on one of the small white pillows supplied to him by a smiling attendant.
Hurrying outside the bustling terminal, Stefan launched himself into the sky, willing himself to move through time and space toward the killer’s destination.
• • •
In Chicago after a trip that had taken longer than he’d expected, Stefan detoured into a restroom to clean off the grime from factory smokestacks and rid his body of the stench of fertilizer that had wafted its way skyward from newly planted fields. He would have liked to soar above the clouds, but heavy air traffic made that hazardous, so he’d contented himself with flying low. Too low to avoid the pollution from heavily populated land.
Damn. Why did humans have to hang mirrors all over every public restroom? Stefan averted his gaze, looked instead at the dingy floor tile as he made his way to the bank of lavatories and wet his hands. When he put a hand to his cheek, he found blood was still seeping from the bandage. Though cold water washed away the caustic saliva that still ate at his flesh, he imagined he’d suffer for days from the aftereffects of vampire venom. Now he believed the rumors—Reynard’s venom contained not only poison but also strong anticoagulation properties.
Poison and the prevention of healing, a strong combination of weapons indeed. Weapons that almost made Stefan believe the legends about Reynard’s clansmen having been invincible in fights with other vampires, even older and stronger ones. Venom—Stefan dabbed another drop of blood from the throbbing wound—a fit weapon for a clan renowned throughout vampire history for its evildoing.
Reynard wouldn’t be invincible this time. The d’Argent hunters would end his long, miserable existence.
Not wanting to miss his prey, he left the restroom. Reynard’s plane would be arriving soon. Quickly locating the Delta concourse, Stefan stationed himself against a wall near the security exit arriving passengers would pass through once they’d deplaned. For a while, he pretended to read a day-old copy of the Chicago Tribune that some traveler had left on the windowsill.
How much easier it would have been if mortal lawmen had managed to connect the killings and put the combined resources of the FBI, Interpol and other international law-enforcement agencies on Reynard’s trail sooner. But Reynard had provided the only early evidence of his involvement to Stefan’s cousin Alina, who’d been laughingly rebuffed when she’d offered help from the hunters of her clan. Even when the law-enforcement community had finally accepted that the killings were all the work of one crazed vampire, they hadn’t been able to catch up with him. And they still weren’t willing to accept help from vampires.
Stefan stifled an oath. Why couldn’t people accept that they sometimes needed vampires’ help? They’d passed along too many legends, tales of vampire evil, from generation to generation. Those stories had proliferated the sort of fear Stefan had observed during most of his life. Fear that had made mortals destroy his father more than four hundred years ago.
Though the FBI and Interpol were finally seeking a serial killer, they’d never catch Reynard without the help of other vampires to destroy him. Most mortals, however fierce, tended to cringe at the idea of stakings and beheadings—the only effective methods for ridding Earth of a vampire as powerful as the one Stefan now stalked.
Were it not for Alina’s order to be prudent, Stefan would stake Reynard right here and now, without a second thought, paying horrified onlookers no mind.
Impatient, Stefan paced the length of the space in front of the security station. Dawn was breaking now, and he’d love to be crawling into bed, not standing in an airport fighting the crowds. His usual means of travel beat airplanes and airports all to hell.
From a glance at the board that listed arrivals, he determined that the flight had landed. Passengers from that flight and numerous others flocked toward the security exit, and Stefan straightened, immediately alert. He scanned the sea of faces coming toward him in undulating waves.
There he was, strolling down the walkway, rolling a suitcase that apparently belonged to the elderly woman smiling up at him as though he were her savior. Reynard looked innocuous, even kind. Apparently he’d cleaned up on the plane, changed into fresh clothes
free of his victim’s blood. The bruises Stefan had inflicted had already faded, although he imagined Reynard was still hurting from the stake Stefan had sunk into his belly.
If only Stefan could take Reynard by surprise . . . No, he couldn’t. Not only would he be disobeying Alina’s strict order not to confront Reynard alone except in the direst of emergencies, but he’d be laying himself open to get arrested, thereby leaving Reynard unguarded to perpetrate his next act of evil.
Why couldn’t Reynard look like the monster he was? If he had, Stefan could have enlisted the aid of some guards from the airport security force. All he could do was follow, observe, keep Reynard under careful surveillance until he led Stefan to his next intended victim.
The hell he would. If his reinforcements arrived and an opportunity arose, Stefan would try again to destroy Reynard, but only if they could do so in secrecy. He didn’t relish having to make difficult explanations to mortal cops.
Stefan raised the newspaper to shield his face from view and began to follow his prey, careful to stay a few yards back. His fingers itched to tighten about the other vampire’s muscular neck now, overwhelm him, spill his lifeblood as surely as he had slaughtered those twenty women. Stefan’s cheek throbbed, the wound a painful reminder of his failure to stop Louis in Atlanta. Fishing a handkerchief from his pocket, he dabbed away fresh blood that had again begun trickling from the deep laceration.
His stomach roiled as though he’d given in to temptation and sampled some delectable tidbit of human nourishment. When he watched Reynard assist his fellow passenger with two bulky bags, he wanted to heave. How could one so evil look so benign?
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