by Laken Cane
For a brief second, everything was nearly perfect.
“Trinity,” Leo said, pointing at a heaping plate of food on the table. “I warmed you a plate.”
I sat down beside him, a little surprised. “Thanks, Leo.” I smiled at him, my gaze lingering on his. He was the first to look away.
I felt my face heat for no apparent reason. Afraid the others would notice the sudden awkwardness and comment, I dropped my stare to my plate and dug into my food.
Rhys slammed Shane’s hand to the table, then took a long swig of his beer. “So, tonight.”
I nodded. “We can use this. We can force the mayor to ditch his insane new regulations.”
“We can try,” Rhys agreed. “But Trinity, something was different.”
“The question is,” I said, “why?”
“And what,” Leo said. “Those weren’t exactly vampires.”
I put my fork down. “They were immune to silver. Not even Silverlight’s arc hurt them.”
“Trinity,” Leo said, “if more of these vampires come, will you let the humans die to force the mayor’s hand?”
I stared down at the table and said nothing. I didn’t really know the answer. I wanted to. I meant to. But when it came down to it…
“Because people may have to die before the humans are willing to change,” Leo continued.
Clayton nodded. “There will be casualties.” He shoved his nearly empty bowl aside. “On both sides.”
“On three sides,” Shane said. “Us, the humans, and the assholes we killed tonight.”
“I’ll talk to Amias after I eat,” I told them. “He’ll know something.”
“How could he?” Shane asked. “He hasn’t left the graveyard.”
“He’ll know,” I said, a bit grimly. “Vampires have that whole mind connection thing. If Willow-Wisp is blocking his signal and he doesn’t know, I’m going to kick his ass out of there and make him find out.”
“Hurry back.” Clayton dropped his hot stare to my lips. “I want to touch you before the world goes crazy.”
I froze with my glass halfway to my mouth, then squirmed on my chair and took a sip of water to clear the sudden dryness from my throat. “I…okay.”
Clayton was embracing everything he’d been forced to suppress during Miriam’s cruel reign. He’d become insatiable. Voracious, fierce, emotional, and so very, very passionate.
And now that his hunter status was restored, I had a feeling we were about to climb to a whole new level.
Rhys gripped the table so hard it creaked.
Shane lifted an eyebrow. “Not wanting to be nosy, Rhys, but why haven’t you bonded with Trinity?”
“It’s not the right time,” Rhys murmured. “Not yet.”
I covered his hand with mine. “You never told me what I need to do to get ready for you.”
“Get ready for him.” Shane’s eyebrow went up another notch. “You have a monster cock, dude?”
I bit my lip to keep from laughing. I’d thought the same thing.
But Rhys only sighed. “I’ll know when she’s ready, and when we finally do connect, the entire city will feel the power.”
“The power of your sex,” I whispered, remembering his words.
His smile flashed, and his eyes went dark with desire.
I shivered. My men were hot.
Every single one of them.
Especially Rhys.
But what the hell was he?
Chapter Seven
There is No Peace
Amias came when I stepped into the graveyard and called him. He was fast, extraordinarily fast, but the vampires I’d killed that night weren’t much slower.
“What do you know?” I asked him.
He lifted his fingers and ran them over my cheek and my lips, then cupped my chin and leaned in to kiss me once, gently, carefully. As though he thought he might spook me.
Granted, I was still uncomfortable with the master. Maybe I wouldn’t always be, but there was too much between us for me to totally accept him. The past would not be forgotten, and the chains that bound us together were tainted with blood.
“I know,” he answered, “that I love you.”
The sun had changed him. The world outside Willow-Wisp held no appeal. He cared about nothing but his sun.
“There were vampires in the city tonight,” I told him. “Healthy vampires. Vampires that were fast, strong…abnormal. Why?”
He studied me, half his face lost in shadows. “It begins.”
“What begins?” I rubbed away the goosebumps that arose on my arms.
“Change,” he replied, almost reluctantly. “Each time we are nearly destroyed, something new happens. Some of us come back stronger than ever. Someday, we will rule the world.”
I frowned, impatient. “What do you know about these new attacks?”
“I know nothing. I’ve been here…” He shook his head and his gaze turned inward. “Sinking into the fuzzy arms of this enchanted place.”
“Amias, you can always feel your vampires. Find out what the hell is going on.”
“My vampires did not enter the city this night.” He slid back a little deeper into the darkness, and I could no longer see his eyes. “My vampires are nearly gone, Trinity. We’ve killed them, haven’t we?”
His sorrow was extreme.
I shook away my sympathy. “You can’t hide in Willow-Wisp while strange vampires attack the city.”
“Allow me to enjoy this peace for a little while longer, my love.”
“There is no peace,” I said. “Only pretense.”
“Then let me pretend.”
I could feel him pulling away from me. The distance was in his shadowed face, his polite voice, and his hidden eyes.
There would always be distance between us, wouldn’t there? I was a hunter. I hunted and killed his kind. No matter what I was to him, there would always be that dark truth.
He sighed. “I will look into it. You’re right. There is no peace. Only blood and war and fighting. It is the way of all living things.”
“But vampires are not exactly living.” My frustration was making me mean.
A flash of anger lit his voice. “I died and came back as something different. It is untrue to say I am not living.”
“I know,” I admitted. “I’m sorry. I’m just…” Scared. Frustrated. Confused.
One minute he was hiding in the shadows and the next, he was pulling me into his arms. “Feed me, and I will go discover the truth. Let me taste you, Trinity.”
“I fed you two weeks ago.” But I was tempted. There was pleasure in the feeding—for both of us.
“I crave you every second of every day,” he murmured, his lips touching my skin. “Two weeks is an eternity, and I am hungry.”
He would not give up his secrets. Not yet. Maybe he really didn’t know what was going on, hiding in Willow-Wisp as he’d done. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t find out. “All right,” I said. “And before morning comes, I want to know what the hell happened in the city tonight.”
His eyes widened slightly and he hesitated, but only out of surprise, I was sure. Finally, he nodded.
I tilted my head, offering him my neck. “Drink.”
“Trinity,” he said, tenderly. He put his lips close to my ear, then pulled my earlobe into his warm mouth at the exact second he pressed his fingers against my upper thigh, where he’d fed from me in the woods.
My body stiffened and I arched my back, crying out as desire, overwhelming and extreme, exploded inside me. He lowered me to the ground while I was still lost in the throes of that lust filled memory, and when I sort of returned to myself, my lower body was bare and the master had his mouth between my legs.
He ate me fast and hard, and it was loud, messy, and incredible, and I orgasmed before I even realized I was about to.
My breath whooshed from my lungs and while the vibrations of my climax were still strong, Amias pierced my upper thigh with razor-sharp fangs and began t
o drink.
As he sucked, he thrust his fingers into me, not gently, but almost savagely, and I came again, and again, and again.
I realized dimly that I’d forgotten. I’d forgotten the hugeness of being loved, bitten, and taken by the vampire master. I was simply…devoured by it. By him.
After the blood filled him up—everywhere—he pulled his mouth from the tiny wounds in my thigh. They continued to throb with my heartbeat and my sex as he slid up my body and drove his engorged cock inside me.
I could do nothing—only take it. Only feel it. Even as somewhere deep inside my brain a tiny spark of resistance burned, I exulted in the master’s touch.
Unlike before, he didn’t flee when he’d finished. He cradled me on the mysterious ground of the graveyard and lay with his arms around me, waiting for me to come down from the dark heights to which he’d flung me.
Finally, I pulled away. I climbed almost drunkenly to my feet, searching for clothes I didn’t remember him removing. I pulled them on, not looking at him as he stood silently watching me.
“Every time I’m with you, it’s like an attack,” I told him, when I’d finished dressing and had gathered my thoughts. I folded my arms across my chest, holding myself, my stare on the ground. “It doesn’t feel right. Not after. It doesn’t feel good.”
He said nothing for the longest time, then finally he walked to me. He didn’t touch me, and when I looked up I saw something close to sorrow in his moonlit face. “I seem to have become more beast than man. When hunger grips me, I don’t think about anything other than how to make you…” He stopped and rubbed his face, and his voice was rough when he continued. “How to make you lie still for it. This is what I’ve become.”
Before the sun, he might not have cared so much. He stood there full of regret at his ugliness. He wanted to be something more than a soulless vampire. He wanted to be something more for me.
“You are everything,” he said, as though reading my thoughts. “And I have mistreated you from the beginning.” He stepped back, a hand to his chest. “Things will be different from this moment on. I swear it. I will…” He narrowed his eyes, searching for the word. “I will court you. And what you share with me will be freely given.” He gave me a strange little half bow. “I apologize for abusing you, Trinity.”
I peered at him. “The sun has changed you.”
“Yes. You are my sun. And you have changed me.”
I took the hand he offered me. “The next time will be different.” I smiled and squeezed his fingers, then released his hand. “You will lie still for it, and I’ll show you how much better it’ll be for both of us when you let me touch you.”
And I leaned forward to kiss him.
He didn’t move as I slid my lips across his, didn’t lift his hands to touch me, didn’t lean into me. But I felt his body tense. He shuddered as I explored his mouth, but he didn’t try to take control.
He gave an almost silent moan when I slipped my hand under his shirt and caressed his smooth skin. When I ran my thumb across his nipple, he shivered, and his body tightened a little more.
How long had it been since someone had touched him with desire? A lifetime, surely. He knew only how to force lust and hunger and rage upon a woman.
He had no idea how to make love.
But he was willing to learn.
That was the moment I softened toward the master. That was the moment I began to accept him. The moment I began to want him.
I withdrew, just enough so my lips brushed his when I spoke. “You’re mine, vampire.”
He gripped my upper arms then and cried out, as though my words were silver blades I’d thrust into his heart. Bloody tears brimmed in his eyes, and in the next second, he was gone and I was alone in Willow-Wisp.
I stood for a few minutes, unmoving, unsure what that moment meant for either of us. I was sure only that I’d fallen in love with a vampire. With that vampire.
The vampire I also hated.
“If you become close with one vampire, you’ll begin to care about all of them…”
I shivered as Clayton’s words came back to haunt me. I didn’t want to allow my feelings for Amias to change who I was. What I was.
But it had already happened.
A huge, dark shape detached from the shadows, and Leo spoke. “It’s only me, Trinity.”
I wanted to ask how long he’d been there, but I was afraid of his answer. “Why are you out here?”
His face was open, his eyes clear. “To watch your back.”
He’d likely been there the whole time—and I didn’t want to think about that. “It’s Willow-Wisp. I won’t need protection here.”
“If the vampire master harms you again, I will kill him.” He didn’t look at me when he said it, and the soft tone of his voice didn’t change.
My heart began to flutter, weak and fast, and I tried—and failed—to swallow the sudden dryness in my mouth. “Leo.”
He looked at me, impassive, then stared into the distance. “I enjoy Willow-Wisp. There is a peace here, isn’t there?”
“Sometimes,” I whispered, wincing at the soreness between my thighs. “But there’s violence here, as well.”
“This place belongs to the supernaturals. To us.”
“Yes.” Then I held up a hand. “Did you hear that?”
“What?” he murmured.
I peered into the darkness. “Sounded like cracking bones.”
He said nothing for a few seconds. “That’s a little bit sad.”
I frowned, confused. “What is?”
“I heard a stick snapping,” he said softly. “And you heard cracking bones.”
We stared at each other for a long, thick moment, and when I couldn’t think of a reply, I walked from the graveyard, leaving him there alone.
I wasn’t the strange one. He was.
The giant had lived in the Byrdcage.
How could he not hear cracking bones?
Chapter Eight
A Turn for the Worse
Clayton was waiting for me when I re-entered the house. He said nothing, just stood and opened his arms.
I sighed and walked into them, relaxing as I slid my hands around his waist. He’d wanted some sexy time with me before I’d walked into the graveyard, but I didn’t have to tell him it wouldn’t be happening.
He knew.
“I’m going to take a quick shower.” I leaned back in his embrace. “I have an uneasy feeling about tonight.”
He nodded. “It will be a long night.”
I kissed him and tasted something different on his lips. He was no longer the golem. He was the hunter.
“I can see it,” I said. “I can feel it, taste it…you’re different now.”
He smiled. “I’m who I was before she changed me.”
I shivered at the mention of Miriam. “I hope she stays in hell.”
He brushed his lips across mine. “And I hope,” he said, “that when she returns, we will be ready for her.”
“Dammit, Clayton,” I whispered. “No.”
His stare softened. “Go clean up, Trinity.”
My throat dry, I hurried away.
Fifteen minutes later, as I was getting dressed, the captain called.
“Some of the people those vampires killed,” he said, his voice strained. “They turned. The vampires are turning the humans they bite.”
“That’s not possible. Being turned is a process that most humans can’t live through. No human can turn in a couple of hours.”
But even as I said it, I knew I was wrong. There was something going on. Something different. I’d been feeling it all night.
Crawford heard the belief in my voice. “They’re like babies right now, these newly turned…corpses.” His voice was cold. “Go to the hospital and give them the true death. Afterward, I want you to hunt down every last one of the bloodsucking motherfuckers and cut their hearts out. Is that something you can do, Sinclair?”
“Why are you mad at me?�
�� I bellowed.
“Because you’re in bed with the fucking vampires, aren’t you, Trinity? One, in particular? Your nonhumans are destroying us.”
“Captain…”
“Kill the turned humans, Trinity. Just…go kill them.” He hung up.
“What does this mean?” I muttered, walking into the living room. Jin stood in the middle of the room, as though waiting for me. “I need Clayton and Shane,” I told him. “Have you seen them?”
“They’re in the kitchen, where they always are. I will fetch them.”
When they joined me a couple of minutes later, I was still standing in the exact same spot, my mind whirling.
“More vampires?” Clayton asked, and there was a familiar eagerness in his voice. It was the same eagerness Shane and I felt when it was time to hunt. Time to kill.
“Sort of,” I murmured. “The humans attacked earlier tonight have turned. We have to go put them down.”
“That’s—”
“Impossible, I know.” I walked to my car, a hunter on either side of me. “Only it’s not.”
I climbed in and sat in the driver’s seat, but made no move to start the engine. Shane stood at my open door, watching me.
“Why are they doing that?” I asked. “How are they doing that?”
“Because they’re different,” Clayton said, getting into the front passenger seat. “We all feel it. Maybe the infection changed them somehow.”
“It’s a mindfuck.” Shane slid his fingers to the back of my neck and squeezed gently. “But we’ll figure it out.”
Nothing was the same. The vampires were healthy, they were eating humans once again, and the humans were turning in hours.
Finally, I started the car.
Shane peered past me at Clayton. “Watch her back.”
Clayton nodded. “Always.”
“You’re staying here?” I didn’t want to leave Shane alone. My fear for him hadn’t lessened. My worry hadn’t gone away. And I wanted him by my side.
“I want to take a drive through the city, make sure everything is quiet. Let me know when you’ve left the hospital.”
“Okay,” I said, but I was no less reluctant.
