Voracious - (Claire Point Vampire 5)

by V. K. Forrest

“You should kiss him.”

  “Come on, let’s go.” Dallas scooped the waffles up off her daughter’s plate, bit into one, and dropped the other into a Ziploc bag. Kenzie would have to eat it on the way to school.

  Kenzie got out of her chair, running her hand over the bulldozer on the front of her T-shirt. No pink ruffles or Hello Kitty clothing for her. She liked motor vehicles and robots, particularly Transformer-type robots. She had a whole toy basket full of them.

  Dallas mussed her daughter’s hair as she walked by her. “You’re weird, kid, you know that.”

  For once, Kenzie didn’t push her away. “You’re weird,” she said, following her mother into the living room to get her book bag. “And you have a beard.”

  Dallas burst out laughing. She didn’t know what had come over Kenzie. She’d been like this since yesterday, when Aedan had taken them bike riding, then for ice cream. Kenzie hadn’t wanted him to go home. This morning, when she was brushing her teeth, the little girl had asked if Aedan could babysit her after school instead of one of the twins. She said she liked to talk to him, which was interesting because Kenzie hadn’t said a word to him all day. Dallas had suggested she talk to Ashley and Amanda that they would love to talk with her, but Kenzie insisted, only Aedan. She said he talked right.

  Dallas had no idea what Kenzie meant. Everything in Dallas’s past warned her to stay away from this guy, that he’d mean nothing but heartache. But how could she tell him to take a hike? What if he had some kind of key to unlocking lines of communication with Kenzie?

  Aedan parked his car on the Avenue just after dark. His intention was to cruise the streets on foot for a while and just take in the ambiance. He wasn’t foolish enough to think Jay would walk up to him and introduce himself, but the more familiar Aedan became with the area, the better chance he had of finding Jay.

  Later, he’d stop by Brew.

  All day his thoughts had flip-flopped between images of Maria Tolliver lying in that hospital bed, and Dallas laughing, the sunlight shining through her blond hair just so.

  He was going to ask her out on another date. She had already warned him that she didn’t go out. She had told him that her free time was spent with Kenzie. He could deal with that. A date didn’t have to be dinner and dancing. Maybe he’d suggest they get Chinese takeout and rent a movie.

  Aedan passed a surf shop that was already closed for the evening, like the majority of the stores; mostly just bars and restaurants stayed open after nine. The feel of the ocean breeze on his face, he turned right, onto a narrow, pedestrians-only street that featured tiny shops on both sides for a full block. As he disappeared off the main avenue, he morphed into the same young woman he’d portrayed as the nurse in the middle of the night. She was one of his go-to personas.

  None of the boutique shops were open yet; it was too early in the season. There were signs in the windows and on the doors advertising everything from henna tattoos to Beanie Babies. The darkness didn’t bother him, of course. But the narrow street, enclosed by the shop fronts, made him feel claustrophobic. Uninhabited all winter, the street smelled musty, abandoned.

  “Hey, sweet thing. Wanna party?”

  A man in his late twenties stepped out of a doorway, blocking Aedan’s passage. He was tall and thin with dilated pupils. Aedan couldn’t tell what he was high on, but he was high all right.

  “Leave me alone.”

  He grabbed Aedan’s slender wrist. “Got any money? If you got money, I know a place we can party.”

  Aedan didn’t resist. “You really don’t want to do this,” he said softly, in the young woman’s voice.

  “I think I do,” the guy said. As he spoke, he yanked hard on Aedan’s wrist, pulling Aedan’s slighter body against his. As he leaned down, breathing bad breath on Aedan’s face, the flash of light that always preceded a morph went through Aedan’s head.

  Aedan had no fangs in morphed states, unless he was a saber-toothed tiger or a rattlesnake. He seriously considered the tiger for a moment, but since the old ladies in the sept were already upset about the gorilla in the park in Paris, he went with good old reliable.

  Big, badass vampire.

  Chapter 10

  Aedan lost it.

  There was no other way to describe it. All he could think of as he spun around, morphing into his own God-created-first body, was that this could be it. This could be Jay, and if it was, he was going to kill the bastard here and now in this dark, cold alley.

  Aedan grasped his attacker’s shoulders and let out a threatening animal-like growl. The guy stumbled back, producing a knife.

  Somewhere in the back of his head, Aedan knew it wasn’t the right kind of knife, that this wasn’t Jay. Jay used something very sharp, refined—sometimes a filleting knife, other times, a scalpel. This was a rough, crude blade. The blade of a punk.

  Aedan felt the knife’s bite on his upper arm, a superficial cut that angered him more than it hurt. He threw the guy backward, against a shop door. The glass spidered behind the knife-wielding creep’s head, cracking but not breaking.

  Aedan’s attacker cried out in pain. And probably fear. Even in his drugged-out state, he had to be wondering how the hell a five-foot-five brunette female had turned into a six-foot-five vampire.

  Aedan held the guy back, bared his fangs, and sunk them into the soft, exposed flesh of the guy’s neck. The guy howled with pain, slashing wildly at Aedan with the knife. Aedan hit his attacker’s wrist so hard that his hand flew open, and the knife hit the pavement and slid away.

  Just as the other guy came out of the next doorway.

  This was definitely not Jay. Jay worked alone. That thought went through Aedan’s head as the guy behind him swung something. Aedan turned just in time to keep from getting hit in the back of the head with a baseball bat, but not in time to keep from getting clipped on the corner of his eye. His skin split and burst open, bloody.

  Pissing him off even further.

  Aedan grabbed the first attacker by his collar and swung him around, throwing his body full force into attacker number two. They had to be a team. Maybe rolling over guys, trying to get lucky with the ladies.

  They’d not gotten lucky this time.

  The two men fell to the ground, one on top of the other. Bat guy took one more weak swing. Aedan caught the bat in his hand and sailed it over his shoulder, shattering a glass window behind him.

  A burglar alarm blared. Lights flashed.

  “Jesus! Jesus!” the second attacker swore, struggling to get to his feet. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  The first guy must have hit his head on the paved walkway. Though he was still conscious, he didn’t respond. He tried to get up, but, pinned by his partner, he lay down, surrendering.

  Aedan eyed the second guy. There was no need to take blood, but Aedan was furious. And the blood of the first guy had whetted his appetite. There was nothing like human blood....

  It was wrong. Totally unnecessary.

  Aedan stood the second guy up against a brick wall. He sank his fangs into his throat. The blood was sweet and hot and—

  He only allowed himself a small amount. Or so he thought. But time played out differently in the moments that the human side of his being became lost. The guy’s head suddenly lolled. He’d passed out from lack of blood. It took all the restraint Aedan could muster to pull back. The guy had just lost consciousness. He’d come back around.

  As Aedan got to his feet, he wiped the blood from his lips. His eye was smarting, as was one cheek. He wasn’t even sure what had happened to the side of his face.

  A police siren whined, and he saw a flash of blue lights. Still breathing hard, he walked away, pulling his cell phone out of his jacket. His heart rate slowly came down until he felt like himself again. He dialed Mark.

  “Hey,” Aedan said when his cousin picked up. “Just wanted to let you know I ran into two hoodlums off Rehoboth Avenue. One had a knife.”

  “Jeez, please tell me it’s Jay,” Mark s
aid.

  “Unfortunately not.” Aedan walked fast. Reaching the end of the alley of shops, he turned in the direction of Baltimore Avenue. “Just two punks looking for trouble. The first one was strung out. Probably the second one, too. We broke a store window setting off an alarm.”

  “So Rehoboth police are on their way.”

  He could probably hear the sirens in the background. “Yeah.”

  “You take any blood?” Mark asked.

  Already, Aedan was feeling guilty. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand again. “A little.”

  “Aedan. You’re not supposed to do that.”

  “They took me by surprise,” Aedan confessed. “They’ll be fine. They won’t remember a thing.” Fortunately, bloodletting usually did that.

  “Just one night I’d like to come home, put my feet up, and have a peaceful evening,” Mark muttered. “All right. I’ll take care of it. You okay?” he asked, almost as an afterthought.

  “Took a baseball bat to the eye.” Aedan touched his brow gingerly. The blood was already clotting, making a crusty mess. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Call me in the morning.” Mark hung up.

  On the street, Aedan hurried along the sidewalk, head down. He could hear more sirens behind him. He ducked into Brew, and, keeping his head down, walked to his stool.

  Dallas was at the cash register, her back to him, ringing up a customer’s tab. Tat saw Aedan and nodded as he shook up a mixed drink in a cocktail shaker. Then he did a double take.

  “Bleedin’,” he remarked, indicating Aedan’s eye.

  “Yeah.”

  “Might need some stitches,” he observed as he poured the drink into a martini glass and added a cocktail onion.

  “Nah.”

  Tat carried the drink to a woman in her forties sitting alone at the other end of the bar.

  Aedan glanced at Dallas. If she knew he was there, she hadn’t indicated so.

  As always, when in the bar, she was wearing worn jeans and a tight black T-shirt that he knew would feature the bar’s logo on the front. The jeans fit her derrière just right, with the strings of her small waitress’s apron hanging down the back. Tonight he thought about pulling the string of the apron, removing it. But he wouldn’t stop there. Her hair was piled on top of her head, and he knew that when she turned around, she would be wearing no makeup. Just like Madeleine.

  Except for the honey-flavored lip balm Dallas was partial to.

  Even at this distance, he could smell the sweet berry scent of her drugstore shampoo. He could imagine how soft her hair would feel.

  He shouldn’t be here. It was wrong. A betrayal of Madeleine. Of the love they had shared. He didn’t deserve to be happy, not after what he had done. What he had allowed to happen. Aedan had himself almost convinced. Then she turned around, saw him, and smiled.

  And all was lost.

  Then she saw the blood, and her smile fell. But she didn’t panic like some women might. Which he liked. But she didn’t fawn over him, either. Which he might have liked.

  “What happened to you?” she asked, walking from the cash register to the bar. She glanced in Tat’s direction. “Can you take this to table seven?” she asked, sliding a credit card and receipt across the polished wood.

  “Can do.” Tat eyed Aedan but said nothing.

  “Get into a fight?” Dallas asked Aedan, leaning on the bar to get a better look.

  “’Fraid so.”

  “Hope the other guy looks worse.”

  He grinned. “They do.”

  “They?” She squinted, looking closer at his eye. “You were just walking down the street, minding your own business, and—”

  “Wham,” he finished for her, giving her his best “isn’t that the damnedest thing” look.

  “Seriously?” she asked. “You weren’t in some other bar drinking someone else’s Guinness?”

  “I drink no one’s Guinness but yours,” he said, lowering his pitch, knowing how alluring a human could find a vampire’s voice.

  “You call the police?” She gently touched his temple.

  “I’m okay,” he said, hanging his head. He suddenly found himself thinking about the girl he’d seen in the ER last night. She’d been flown to Christiana and had undergone surgery. Mark hadn’t had much more information. So that girl was lying in her hospital bed, her face cut up so badly that her parents probably wouldn’t recognize her, and here he was, flirting in a bar. “I should go,” he mumbled.

  “Like hell.” Dallas turned to Tat who was headed back, credit card receipt in his hand.

  “I’m going to get Mike Tyson here cleaned up. I know it’s early.” She rested her hand on Aedan’s, looking at her employee. “But do you mind closing?”

  Tat glanced at Aedan, then back at her. “Not a problem,” he said, sounding like maybe it was a problem. He was making it pretty clear he didn’t care for Dallas’s new admirer, and she was making it pretty clear she didn’t care what he thought.

  “Give me a holler if you need . . . anything,” Tat said.

  Dallas looked at Aedan and tilted her head in the direction of the swinging door that led from behind the bar to the kitchen. Aedan hopped off the barstool quicker than any fifteen-hundred-year-old man ought to be able to. He stepped behind the bar and followed her into the kitchen. It looked like any other small restaurant kitchen: a griddle top, a deep fryer, a salamander, some sinks, and an industrial dishwasher. There were two guys who looked like brothers working, one loading a dish tray to go into the washer, another dumping freshly fried onion rings into a plastic serving basket.

  “Carlos and Miguel,” Dallas introduced as they walked around a prep table, headed for a narrow hallway off the kitchen. “They see you following me upstairs. I holler; they come with baseball bats.”

  Aedan touched his eyebrow gingerly. “Been there, done that already tonight.”

  She cut her eyes at him but didn’t say anything. It wasn’t until they reached a staircase in the hall that she turned around to face him. “I’m not kidding,” she warned. “You mess with me, you’ll be sorry.” She was standing on the bottom step.

  He walked up to her. With her on the step and him still on the floor, they were almost the same height. “I like you, Dallas. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you . . . or risk another encounter with a baseball bat.” He spoke slowly, softly. She was watching his lips.

  It would have been so easy to kiss her.

  She acted as if she was going to say something, then turned and took the steps two at a time. He knew he scared her. Which wasn’t such a bad thing, because she scared the crap out of him.

  She used a key in a door at the top of the stairs. “Amanda?” she called as she walked in.

  “In the living room,” a young woman hollered back.

  Aedan could hear the sound of a TV in the background. The apartment was small, but nice, with hardwood floors and thick, craftsman-like trim around the doors and windows. It looked like Dallas had just moved in. There were boxes in the hallway. More in the doorway of the kitchen. She led him down the hallway to the room where Amanda was watching TV.

  “Amanda, Aedan. Aedan, Amanda,” Dallas introduced awkwardly from the doorway of the living room.

  The woman, who Aedan assumed was one of Kenzie’s babysitters, rose from the couch.... which was actually a piece of porch furniture with tribal print, brown indoor/outdoor cushions on it. There was a matching glider chair.

  “Nice to meet you.” She glanced at the TV, then back at Dallas.

  She was watching a rerun of an HBO show that Aedan was familiar with. He wasn’t big on TV, but he knew this show because it featured vampires. The show was a constant source of amusement among his friends and family.

  “Everything okay?” the slender woman in her early twenties asked.

  “Yup. Everything’s good.”

  Amanda checked out Aedan’s eye.

  “He got into a fight,” Dallas explained. “Boys.”

  Amanda
chuckled.

  “So, I thought you might want to go home early. I’m going to help him clean up his face and then we might . . . kick back,” Dallas said, as if she needed to explain herself to her babysitter.

  “Sure. Cool.” The young woman grabbed a textbook off the tile top coffee table, which also appeared to have come from Lowes. She tucked the book into a backpack on the floor and heaved the bag onto her shoulder. “Ashley’s coming tomorrow.”

  “Good. Great.” Dallas followed Amanda down the hall.

  “Nice to meet you,” Amanda called back to Aedan.

  “Nice to meet you. Be safe going home.”

  “Have Tat or one of the guys in the kitchen walk you to your car,” Aedan heard Dallas say.

  The door closed, but Dallas didn’t come right back. He heard her go into the kitchen and open and close cabinets. She got ice from the icemaker. He sat down on one end of the couch, which was surprisingly comfortable. Shifting his weight, he touched his eyebrow. It was really beginning to swell. Damn, but it hurt.

  Aedan closed his eyes. He felt weird, sitting here in Dallas’s apartment. It smelled like her: fresh, clean . . . mysterious.

  He shouldn’t be here. But he couldn’t make himself get up off the couch. He couldn’t leave.

  He thought about Kenzie, asleep in her bedroom. He liked the little girl. She was unusual. Not that her autism made her unusual, though he’d never met anyone with autism before. What made her even more unusual was that he didn’t meet many humans with her kind of telepathic power. But it was worrisome, too. What she had said about him being out there. Aedan had tried to question Kenzie later that day about what she had said, verbally as well as telepathically. She had ignored him, leaving him with more questions than answers.

  “Please tell me you’re not the kind of guy who gets into bar fights,” Dallas said, walking into the living room carrying a Ziploc bag of ice, some paper towels, and a tube of ointment.

  “I’m not the kind of guy who gets into bar fights,” he repeated.

  Dropping the things onto the coffee table, she sat down beside him and grabbed a paper towel. It was wet. She turned to him, paper towel poised. “I’m serious. My husband had a brother who used to get into fights all the time. I hated it. I can’t tell you how many times we bailed him out of jail or picked him up at the ER.”