The Ultimate Bite

by Crystal Green

  Working with her was making more and more sense.

  Stephen nodded, and she didn’t even wait for him to reach the door before sprinting away. All he wanted to do was chase her down, make sure she didn’t get herself hurt, but he stopped himself.

  The attachment would have to be snipped off before it became stronger than he could handle.

  7

  “IT’S JUST all a blur,” Darlene mumbled from her hospital bed as Kim gently clutched her friend’s hand.

  Darlene’s normally olive-toned skin was pale, rivaling the bed sheets. Her dark curly hair was springing out of its bun, a reflection of the chaos she’d survived. Luckily, some drunken tourists had found her at the edge of the construction site, where the rogue vampire had evidently left her to be discovered.

  Why had he or she done that? Kim didn’t know. But the vamp’s change in M.O. was strange enough to have inspired her and Stephen to toss around theories on the way over.

  Now Kim maintained her grip on Darlene’s hand, questions about the rogue all but forgotten. With IV tubes decorating her friend’s arm, Kim wasn’t focusing properly. Instead, she held on even tighter, just as she would’ve done to her sister, Lori, if she’d had the chance.

  The hospital room’s antiseptic stench made Kim push back a wave of nausea. “It’s understandable that things are cloudy, Dar. You don’t have to remember it all right now. Just rest. There’ll be plenty of time later.”

  She heard the rest of the League—Troy, Jeremy and Powder—shuffling their feet behind her. Who could blame them for being impatient about finding out what’d happened to one of their own?

  Then she glanced at the stranger among them—Stephen.

  She’d told her friends that her vampire was a “date” who had refused to desert her in a time of need, and Stephen had adjusted his appearance to support the charade. He’d undone his dark blond hair so that it brushed his shoulders, plus shed his long coat to reveal a natty white shirt and trousers. He was doing a good job of passing as her human companion, but that wasn’t surprising. In any given situation, Stephen had to fit in.

  And he really did seem so normal, standing in the corner, silently taking in every one of Darlene’s soft words.

  But Kim knew he was far from it, even if he was a master of simple disguise. When he’d stopped short of the hospital’s threshold earlier, she realized that he probably needed to be invited in, so she’d done the honors.

  Still, he really did look so human.

  A dark hunger rushed through her. It was the only thing making her feel right now, the only thing keeping her from losing composure as she compared Darlene to Lori, who hadn’t been lucky enough to survive something far more normal. If you could call a car crashing into the front window of a diner “normal.”

  Tears rushed Kim, and she clasped her other hand over Darlene’s. Thank God Dar was still here. Thank God.

  Her friend smiled weakly in reassurance, seeming to recognize what Kim was undergoing.

  “Hey, girl,” she said.

  Kim leaned forward.

  “I’m gonna be fine.” Darlene closed her brown eyes, then slowly opened them, clearly still feeling the effects of her medication.

  Kim held on tighter, hoping there’d be no trauma for her friend, only a good sleep.

  “Maybe we should leave her alone,” Jeremy whispered.

  He was right, but Kim had a hard time dragging herself away. She kissed Darlene on the forehead, taking a moment to brush some hair away from her friend’s cheek, then let Powder assume his place by the bed to keep watch.

  He held a crucifix in one hand and dropped a gym bag on the floor near his scrawny ankle. Kim could discern the outline of a wooden stake pressing against the nylon. Weapons.

  Then Stephen wandered over to the now-resting Darlene, and Kim wondered what the hell he was doing. But when he touched her friend’s bite, then her temple, she knew.

  She caught the rest of the League while they walked out the door and cast curious glances at Stephen.

  “He’s never seen a bite before,” she said, shrugging and hoping that would do for an excuse.

  When Stephen was done trying to heal Darlene and read her thoughts, Kim took one last look at her friend, who was smiling in her sleep now, probably because of the vamp’s touch. The bunch of them left, passing a few cops lingering outside the door in the aftermath of their questioning. They were stymied by this latest case of severe blood loss, and part of Kim wished that they would just open their eyes and accept the obvious truth. The other part of her wanted them to stay ignorant, and she knew it was only because Stephen would benefit from that.

  As Kim sorted out the contradictions, she and her friends gravitated to the lobby, which blinked under a dead-of-night fluorescent glow.

  Near the reception desk, a few doctors wandered over the white tiles, checking charts, shooting glances at the League every so often. Kim turned away from them to face Troy and Jeremy, who ignored the waiting seats and remained standing.

  Stephen lingered on the edges of their group, a presence that obviously rankled the boys, especially Troy.

  Their leader was keeping an eye on “Kim’s date.” Hell, he was doing a pretty great job of checking out the fake tattoo she’d scrawled on her neck to hide last night’s bite, too. Nosy guy. Thank God she’d been too eager to work on her column to scrub the design off earlier. Troy would’ve called her on the bite for certain.

  “I told you,” Kim said, ignoring her coworker’s scrutiny. “You can talk in front of Stephen. He reads the Web site and listens to our broadcasts all the time.”

  Troy still didn’t look convinced, but why should she expect him to be? Earlier, he’d been the only one to protest Stephen being in Darlene’s hospital room.

  However, Kim had won that little standoff when Darlene had woken up and started talking. Then, everyone had forgotten everything but their friend, though Stephen was definitely still on Troy’s watch list.

  Their leader jammed a hand through his blond hair and positioned himself to halfway face Stephen, who was leaning against a pole, his expression neutral under the other guy’s bristling attention.

  She cleared her throat, drawing the group leader’s gaze. “So did you see anything tonight, Troy? Weren’t you Darlene’s wingman during patrol?”

  “Yeah, I was.”

  Troy looked disgusted with himself, and Jeremy awkwardly patted him on the back, red creeping over the sensitive senior’s cheeks as he adjusted his black-framed glasses.

  “But,” Troy added, “she had to go to the bathroom at some point. I watched her walk through the door and never saw anyone suspicious follow her inside. Except…”

  “What?” both she and Jeremy asked.

  Troy’s forehead furrowed. “Except, I thought I felt something. Maybe. A breeze rushed past before the door closed, and then a few minutes later, but…man, what if that was the vamp going after her and taking her away?”

  Jeremy shifted, his eyes widening under the glasses. He didn’t look very comfortable.

  Kim glanced at Stephen, who was reacting like any other League site reader would’ve reacted—an interested party who didn’t want to interrupt. He gave nothing else away.

  “I have a theory,” Kim said, recalling how Stephen had a thing for taking off in flight. “This vampire can move faster than our eyes can detect. Maybe he swept Dar right out of that bathroom while only slowing down a hair on the way out because of her added weight.”

  From the slight cock of Stephen’s brow—an approving gesture—she knew she was close, if not absolutely right. This was no time for tingles, but she got them anyway. How could she help it around him?

  Troy crossed his arms over his wide chest. “All I know is that I kept looking at my watch and she kept not coming out. Darlene isn’t the type to primp for too long, so I asked another woman to look for her inside.”

  Kim was sure that her handsome coworker hadn’t experienced too much trouble in persuading a
gal to help him out.

  She snagged Stephen’s considering glance as it grazed over her, then Troy. She frowned, sending the signal that nothing was going on between the two of them.

  Dummy. Didn’t he know it was all about him? If he didn’t realize that, she still had some major work to do.

  She thought of how hard she’d fought to have him bite her earlier and how he’d refrained from doing so. Her chest contracted as she tried to tell herself that she could still win him over. Had to, because getting bitten had come to mean so much more than just being an object of his desire.

  She brushed aside the distraction. Darlene was lying on a hospital bed. There had to be answers—maybe even more than Stephen’s bite might give her.

  “And that other woman who went inside the bathroom,” Kim said to Troy, more determined than ever. “She didn’t find anything?”

  “Just a locked and empty stall.” Troy shook his head. “She and her friends peeked into all of them, even waited for other women to come out of the occupied ones…Darlene didn’t have any blood on her when she was found, so she didn’t even leave a trail. There was nothing. And, when the cops got there, they didn’t find a damned clue, either.”

  At the word damned, Stephen stirred, brow furrowed in apparent unease. It was all Kim could do to keep herself from going to him, touching him, making him as relaxed as he’d been earlier when they’d had their encounter outside of Mystique.

  Jeremy piped up, “So the cops didn’t find a thing until they got the call about Darlene propped up against a cement block near the sidewalk.”

  “This rogue vampire wanted her to be found,” Kim said, stating the obvious, just so they could fit the pieces together. “He really isn’t doing this for pure pleasure.”

  “I kind of wonder,” Jeremy continued in his bass voice, “why this vampire didn’t leave Dar in the club like he did with most of the other drained victims.”

  “And why he attacked a woman in a nearby alley the time before that,” Troy said.

  Kim’s eyes met Stephen’s, and she knew exactly what he was thinking. Not because of some weird hypnosis, but because…Why? Did they have some deep connection or something? Hardly. She didn’t know him at all—not beyond the sexual, anyway.

  The thought felt hollow, leaving an echo in its wake. It rattled her for some reason—something she, once again, couldn’t put her finger on.

  She pulled her gaze away from the vampire’s, more out of self-preservation than anything, then said what had to be on both of their minds. “The rogue is changing his game. It’s almost like everything he’s been doing until this point hasn’t been getting him what he wants.” She sighed. “If we only knew what that was.”

  When Stephen spoke up, the boys started, as if forgetting he was there. But Kim hadn’t forgotten. Not for a second.

  “Perhaps he wishes to get caught.”

  Troy just stared at Stephen.

  Jeremy looked as taken aback by the stranger’s British accent as much as by the statement itself. His mouth formed into an O as Kim shot Stephen a please-fade-in to the-background glare. Any revealed vampiness would only complicate things tonight, and she didn’t have the time or inclination to deal with the fallout.

  But, upon closer look, Stephen seemed so casual, so at home, that she was almost fooled, too. How would they ever guess what he was?

  For a moment, her blood raced, and she couldn’t help but wonder, what had he been like as a human? How old was he, anyway?

  How had he become a vampire?

  She wished she knew, wished she’d known what he was like before—

  Wait. Why was she getting deep here? What did pillow talk have to do with getting the rush that only his bite provided?

  As she focused back on Jeremy and Troy, she wondered briefly why she didn’t just tell them that she had their Holy Grail right here—that this was a vampire, for heaven’s sake. Shouldn’t she be chomping at the bit to do that?

  So why the hell didn’t she?

  “Listen,” Troy finally said, his gaze lingering on Stephen as he addressed his cohorts. “Jeremy needs to get home before his mom puts out an all-points bulletin, and I’m sure, Kim, that you want to continue your date.”

  Jeremy lifted his eyebrows at the protective tenor of that last word. Kim dismissed it altogether.

  “I’ll spell Powder at Darlene’s bedside later,” their leader added, “after I’ve worked the phones to see if I can get any more info about what happened.”

  Troy had a few contacts on the cop front and, though Jeremy’s parents were liberal with the curfew, he still answered to them.

  But her? Who did she have to talk to now?

  She definitely had one idea.

  Before that vague sense of alienation could get to her, Kim darted a glance to the exit, indicating to Stephen that they’d be continuing this “date” at a certain spot, no doubt, cordoned off by yellow crime-scene tape. Troy would have a mooing cow if he knew what she was planning, so she didn’t tell him.

  “I’ll check in with you all later.” She patted both Jeremy and Troy on their arms while breezing past them toward Stephen, who had a strange smile on his face as he stared at something in Jeremy’s direction.

  When she looked back at the high schooler, she realized that Stephen had been checking out Jeremy’s winged superhero T-shirt.

  Once again, she understood just what the vampire was thinking, and she couldn’t help appreciating the irony, too.

  All the same, she dug her hand into her shoulder bag, keeping the holy water vial and crucifix near.

  Just in case she needed it with her new partner, after all.

  KIMBERLY DIDN’T have to invite Stephen into her car this time and, after getting inside, they both sat wordlessly for a long moment—until he deemed the time ripe for making his thoughts known.

  “You’re planning to inspect the construction site?”

  “You bet.”

  Kimberly started the car, which carried the trace of a cherry-laced air freshener that bludgeoned his senses until he blocked it out. The Chevy purred, adding even more vibration to the top layer of his flesh.

  As if it needed more sensation when he was around her.

  When he settled in, facing forward, he caught sight of the wide, roomy car hood through the windshield with its missing wiper. Ghosts of the previous night, when he had bitten her for the second time, brushed through him. The images were as misty as memory, yet strong enough to stir him as he recalled her splayed beneath him, her pale skin exposed, kissed by moonlight and the scratch of his fangs.

  He held back a shudder, his lateral incisors elongating before he willed them to recede. All the same, desire compressed his body until it quivered with the strain of being held back.

  She continued speaking while guiding the vehicle out of the parking lot. “Even if there’re cops still hanging around, I figure maybe you can do your vampire thing, like maybe getting some readings or what have you. Speaking of which, did you see anything in Darlene’s mind?”

  “No. She was too medicated, her thoughts a swamp.”

  “Crap.”

  Stephen cocked an eyebrow. “Tell me—you need to be at the scene because…”

  “You really have to ask?” Kimberly’s knuckles were white as she gripped the wheel. “My friend was attacked. Isn’t that better than any reason?”

  It seemed that her focus had gone from tracking vampires for a sexual thrill to a far more dangerous motivation. A possible vendetta that could get her killed.

  Again, he knew that keeping a willful woman such as Kimberly away from what she wanted to do was impossible. So he recommitted himself to watching over her, lest she get herself hurt.

  Stephen rested an arm on the back of the seat. How he had gotten himself into protecting a human during this mission, he had no idea. He had too many other matters to attend to.

  His hand dangled near her bare shoulder, and it was all he could do to stop himself from caressing her s
kin. It was so firm, so young. He already knew its taste, and the mere thought of enjoying more set his juices to flowing.

  As Kim took a corner and entered the freeway, her body shifted so her shoulder whisked against his fingers. A thousand volts seemed to zoom through Stephen, bringing his flesh to a rolling pucker.

  When he heard her sharp intake of breath, he knew she felt it, as well.

  He removed his arm from the seat and positioned himself nearer the door. Megaresorts and bright lights blurred as they sped past, but the rate of travel seemed very slow to a vampire who was used to moving so quickly.

  “Stephen?” she asked.

  He was not certain he could answer without sounding like a schoolboy whose voice was changing. In response, he made something like a grunt.

  “I’m just wondering, and I promise, I won’t put anything you tell me on the Web…” She glanced quickly at him. “You can do things like get readings from this construction site, right?”

  “If I’m fortunate, I’ll be able to discern another’s presence. Our senses are heightened when we turn. We experience more keenly—smell, hearing, vision and the like.”

  “Is that why sunlight kills vampires? Because you’re more susceptible to UV rays than we are?”

  He would have to tread cautiously here, revealing what could possibly aid her in self-defense, but not much more. Exposing the secrets his kind held dear wasn’t prudent.

  Stephen hesitated, surprised that he was swayed enough to tell her anything about his lifestyle. But when he considered what it might be like to find her harmed by the rogue, a blade of awful emotion dragged through the center of him.

  Impossible, he told himself. He didn’t feel a thing for her.

  “Sensitivity to sunlight is a vampire’s poison,” he said, not deigning to add that the same went for the subject in general—sensitivity in emotion, in feeling.

  “And all the other legends and rumors?” she asked. “Does garlic repel you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. I guess I’d better start carrying some. I hate to have it stink up my purse, though, you know?”