I am no one. I stopped being someone when I was a child.
But for those few seconds, while he stood on the beach with Simone in his arms, he’d been someone again. For the first time since he was seven years old and his world fell apart, he’d felt as if he finally belonged somewhere, and that was with her.
No matter he despised her hunter blood, no matter he would never claim her as his mate, he couldn’t abandon her to Joseph.
Instead of stopping, Killean bit deeper and Arlo sagged against him. Arlo’s heart thudded, stopped, thudded again, and then gave one more limp beat before ceasing.
A moment of panic descended over Killean as he irrevocably stepped away from his old life and into this far more turbulent and uncertain one. Who and what would he become now?
He would return from this, but he didn’t kid himself into believing he could ever be the man he’d been before committing this act. This death of a human would forever change him, but what it would transform him into remained to be seen.
The panic vanished when power unlike anything he ever experienced rushed over Killean and the last of Arlo’s life filled him.
Gasping, Killean pulled back to stare into Arlo’s sightless blue eyes. Guilt tore at his insides as he released the man and let the body slump to the ground.
But despite the self-hatred and uncertainty battering his brain, he gathered Arlo’s body, disposed of it, and went in search of the next name on his list.
One victim would not be enough to make him a Savage.
CHAPTER 2
Chained to the wall, the cold concrete floor leached the heat from Simone’s body. She had no idea where she was, and she’d given up caring. The parts of her that weren’t freezing hurt so bad it felt like someone was taking a knife and slicing it across her vertebrae before leisurely flaying the skin from her bones.
In the beginning, she’d welcomed the times when these monsters would come, undo their chains from the wall, and take them to the bathroom. Now she dreaded those breaks as it felt like her legs would shatter whenever she walked. She couldn’t recall the last time she showered, and her stench filled her nostrils. She’d always been meticulous about her appearance and upkeep, but if it meant she didn’t have to move, Simone didn’t care if she ever showered again.
The chains of some of the other hunters imprisoned with her rattled as they shifted position, but she didn’t move. Moving only brought more misery. Instead, she remained huddled while her scorched skin felt like it would crack and fall off her body. Except her skin wasn’t burnt, it just felt that way. Her flesh was the same as always, or almost the same.
Before these Savages captured her, her skin had been that of a hunter, and now it belonged to a monster. A ravenous monster.
Her cramped stomach spasmed at the thought of feeding the beast, but what it required to fill it was no longer the food that sustained her for her entire life. Now only blood would suffice to ease this awful gnawing in her belly.
Without thinking, Simone went to bite her lip and whimpered when the fangs that descended days ago sliced her bottom lip for the hundredth time. She wasn’t sure if it really was a hundred times or not, but her mouth was so raw it sure felt that way. The taste of her blood made her stomach cramp tighter and did nothing to ease her endless hunger.
A hunter nearby started crying, and another barked at them to shut up. Those were hunters talking to each other that way. Hunters!
She’d never heard her kind speak to each other in such crass ways. Hunter society was one of politeness, respect, and propriety. Hunters did not exhibit such crude language and disrespect. Hunters did not tell each other to shut up.
But these hunters were turning on each other like a pack of rabid dogs. Her hunter family was spiraling into this pit of desolation with her, and it was breaking them. She wanted to cry for those who had perished in the raid that landed her here, and for the fellow hunters trapped in this nightmare with her, but she didn’t have enough fluid in her body to produce tears.
Simone’s thoughts drifted to her mother. She knew her mother wasn’t here, but was she somewhere safe, or did she die during the raid the Savages launched against the hunter stronghold?
They were questions she might never know the answers to as there was nothing she could do while chained in this place. Nothing she could do until she was free, but she had no idea how to get free.
In the beginning, some of the hunters tried to escape when they were unchained to use the bathroom, but their struggles never amounted to anything more than being bloodied by the gleeful Savages who beat them. Now no one had the strength to resist anything done to them.
Simone had tried to run once, but the ease with which they subdued her, as well as the hands grasping at her breasts while her captors unnecessarily groped her, humiliated her into submission. She hadn’t resisted again.
And besides, Simone had no idea where to go if she did get free, she’d simply needed to try. She would have hated herself if she didn’t, because she knew what these Savages planned for her and everyone else here. They were going to starve her and her fellow hunters until they were so mindless they didn’t care who they killed to get blood.
In the beginning, she was determined not to become one of them. Then that sick monster, Joseph, had some of his fellow bastards hold her down while he drank from her. The excruciating agony of the experience nearly drove her insane. Not only had he drained her until she teetered on the brink of death, but he’d forced his putrid blood down her throat afterward.
She recalled only anguish when he finished and the transition took over. All her bones had felt like they were breaking before fusing back together. Her muscles twisted and bent into something else. Yet somehow her body retained her Simone shape, but she wasn’t the same Simone.
Everything she’d always known was gone, and now there was only cold, anger, terror, and hunger. The rare times she slept, she dreamed about the blood they’d given her when she first woke from the brutal change her body endured. It was the only substance given to her since she awoke, but she recalled the sweetness of it on her tongue and the strength of it filling her.
She hated herself for it, but she’d greedily consumed every drop of that blood and been thirsty for more.
Things had been horrific so far, but they were only going to get worse. Once they set her free, Simone didn’t doubt that no matter how much she tried to resist, she would jump on the first human she came across and sink her fangs into their throat.
Even as she hated herself for the weakness, her heart raced with excitement at the thought of blood. If she could reach the vampire chained next to her, she would sink her fangs into his throat too, fellow hunter or not, it no longer mattered. The beat of the hearts surrounding her had become another form of endless torment as she listened to the blood pulsing through her neighbor’s body.
But they were chained in such a way that she couldn’t reach him, and they couldn’t get at each other. She had a feeling they’d be tearing one another apart otherwise. She quivered at the horrific image while she licked her upper lip over the blood such carnage would produce.
A small commotion amongst the others barely penetrated the blanket of depression and starvation enshrouding her. Footsteps thudded against the concrete floor, and it wasn’t until those closest to her scuttled further into the shadows, that she tried to lift her head. It felt like a fifty-pound weight was tied to her skull, but somehow, she got it upright.
When her vision blurred, she blinked at the approaching group of men coming down the long tunnel until she could finally see again. Her eyes drifted to the tall man in the center of the group. There was something oddly familiar about him…
She frowned as she tried to recall where she’d seen him before, but starvation made it difficult to process her memories. Then the man slowed as he approached her, and she realized he was naked.
She hadn’t believed it possible, given everything she’d been through since being taken by these monsters, but Simone blushe
d and diverted her eyes from him. However, in those few seconds, the image of his lithe, chiseled body was burned into her mind. It was the first time she’d ever seen a nude man.
“Hunters,” Killean sneered. Though he showed open disdain to the Savages holding him captive, fury churned in his gut as he gazed at his chained mate.
The word and the familiarity of the voice caused Simone to forget about her embarrassment and lift her head again. Curiosity tugged at her as she was struck by the whim to see more of him, but Simone kept her gaze off the naked man’s body and focused instead on his ruby-colored eyes.
Then like Moses parting the Red Sea, the fog clouding her memory pulled back. Killean!
The scent of ocean air drifted over her as she found herself standing back on the beach with this man before he kissed her. Simone almost felt alive again as she recalled the delicious heat of his lips on hers and the thrill of her first kiss.
She’d never experienced anything like the intensity of his kiss. It had been amazing until it ended. Then he’d looked at her like she was some disgusting form of slime before ordering her back to the hotel. She’d been so humiliated and angry, and she’d never wanted to see him again.
But seeing him here brought a surge of hope rushing up from the bleakness encompassing her life. This man was one of Ronan’s Defenders! Had he come here to free them? She’d given up hope of being discovered so many hours ago, but had someone finally found them? Were they going to be set free?
Her hope vanished when she took a good look at the vampire with the scar. That scar sliced straight down from his deep brown hairline, through his right eyebrow and eyelid, to the center of his cheek where it stopped. How he hadn’t lost his eye when he endured the injury, she didn’t know, but he hadn’t.
The last time she’d seen him, his eyes were the color of gold; now they were the red color she associated with monsters. Then he’d been one of Ronan’s men, an ally to the hunters, but now he stood in the center of her enemies, and he didn’t wear chains.
She didn’t understand what was happening or why he was here, but instinctively she knew he wasn’t the same vampire she’d encountered on the beach. She sniffed at the air; however, trying to differentiate his resin scent from the garbage stench of the rest of these monsters was impossible.
Killean held Simone’s white-blue eyes before turning away. Unlike a vampire, whose eyes became red with emotion, hunger, or loss of control, a turned hunter possessed that striking, white-blue color.
If he didn’t stop looking at her, he would go to her, tear the chains from her thin wrists, and rip her away from the others. He wanted to demolish this place with his bare hands, shred the Savages closest to him, and rain down Hell on all those who’d harmed her, but he was vastly outnumbered, and they would stop him before he could free her.
And if he tried to free her, he would give his real purpose for being here away. He’d sacrificed himself and his relationship with the Defenders to make it here; he wouldn’t let it be for nothing. No matter how much it killed him to do so, he had to restrain himself from going after her.
The image of her wrists chained to the concrete wall next to her head, and her white-blue eyes, haunted him as the Savages started walking again. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to continue with them.
The last time he’d seen Simone, she was prim and proper in her ankle-length dress with her hair in a bun. The sun’s rays playing across her hair brought out the strands of copper, mahogany, and vivid red in it. Her demure dress and placid demeanor did nothing to hide her beauty, but judging by the ardor of her kiss, they did conceal a passionate woman yearning to break free of the confines placed on her by her hunter heritage.
He’d barely recognized the woman trapped here. Dirt and blood caked the black, floor-length dress she wore. Streaks of brown and red marred her delicate features, and her previously glorious and bound hair tumbled around her shoulders and down her back in lank, greasy locks that appeared to be a dank brown rather than the glorious auburn they were.
She was as far from the ice princess hunter image she’d portrayed on the beach as she could get. Simone was no longer a pretty dolly, and though he’d always believed he would relish the sight of a humbled hunter, he loathed the broken air surrounding her.
He had to get her out of this place, but first, he had to stay alive, and to do so, he must keep walking away from her. These Savages were taking him to Joseph, and if anyone could see through the new role he was trying to portray, it would be his fellow fallen defender.
Trying to portray? You’ve killed seven men in the past two nights.
The reminder of that death didn’t bother him as much as it had in the beginning. He’d killed those who deserved it. Four were child molesters set free because of overcrowded jails or technicalities, two were convicted rapists on the streets for the same reasons, and the other was Arlo.
He’d fed on one of the rapists hours ago, and when he finished, he felt ready to try his hand at tracking down these Savages and handing himself over to be brought to Joseph. At first, he’d been afraid they might try to kill him, and he’d have to destroy them and find different Savages, but after a phone call, they agreed to do it.
Killean suspected they’d called Joseph and their leader demanded they bring Killean to him. If it were a setup, Joseph would get the chance to destroy one of Ronan’s men, and if it wasn’t, Killean could be a significant asset to whatever Joseph planned.
When the call ended, the Savages bound, gagged, blindfolded, stripped, and searched him before shoving him into the trunk of a car. He had no idea where they were, as they’d driven around for hours. These bastards had either taken the most confusing route they could before bringing him here, or they’d left Massachusetts far behind.
Wherever they were, he was alone here, and if he couldn’t convince Joseph he was one of them, he would die soon.
CHAPTER 3
Killean glanced at the concrete walls surrounding him as the Savages slipped out the door behind him. The room they’d led him into was circular, and the gray walls were bare. Like the hallway where Simone was chained, recessed lights set into the concrete ceiling cast a dim glow across the desk in the center of the room and the man sitting behind it.
Everything he’d seen of this place had a bunker feel to it. Judging by the scent of damp earth he detected beyond the walls, they were underground. However, instead of the stale air of the old sewer tunnels where a nest of Savages had been discovered, the air here was fresher and, he suspected, filtered. The temperature in the place was also comfortable and must be as regulated as the air.
They may be below ground, but this was most certainly no sewer tunnel or any other tunnel running beneath the city. But then they could be far from Boston.
“Killean,” Joseph purred.
Rising from the black leather chair he’d been perched on, Joseph stood behind the massive, walnut desk in the middle of the room. Joseph planted his hands on the desk and leaned forward as his gaze ran over Killean’s naked frame. Killean suspected part of the reason they’d stripped him was to intimidate him.
It hadn’t work. He’d endured far worse humiliation and degradation in his lifetime; this was nothing in comparison.
Holding out his arms, Killean turned in a slow circle before facing Joseph again. “Do you like what you see?” he asked.
Joseph’s smile revealed the tips of his glistening fangs. With his golden-brown hair brushed back from his face, the narrowness of Joseph’s features was more noticeable. At six foot two, Joseph was an inch shorter than Killean but stockier in build and about ten pounds heavier than Killean’s two-hundred-ten-pound frame.
“Ah, Killean, I never would have guessed you had a sense of humor,” Joseph murmured.
That was because he didn’t have one.
“So why have you come to us?” Joseph inquired when Killean didn’t respond.
“You know why.”
“Do I?”
Kill
ean hadn’t spent much time with Joseph when they were Defenders. Joseph had spent most of his time in the training facility with the recruits, most of whom were turned vampires rather than purebred ones.
At the time, turned vampires were allowed to train with the Defenders to fight Savages, but only purebred ones made it into their inner circle. That changed when Joseph started creating Savage vampires and the Alliance formed. After he turned Savage, Joseph had recruited some of his old trainees to join his new cause.
“I am moving on from Ronan,” Killean stated.
Joseph surveyed Killean again. “You are one of Ronan’s most loyal supporters.”
“I was,” Killean corrected. And I will be again. “But not anymore.”
Joseph’s gaze dipped to the scar on Killean’s chest. Killean didn’t look down at the faint white circle almost directly over his heart; he’d seen the thing too many times over the centuries.
“And why is that?” Joseph inquired.
Killean glanced away in what he hoped appeared to be shame. Acting had never been a skill of his. He’d never seen a reason to pretend about anything; he had no choice now. “I slipped up and killed.”
“You killed a human?” Joseph inquired.
Killean met Joseph’s eyes again. “Yes.”
“Ronan would forgive one slip up.”
“It was more than one.”
“Ah,” Joseph murmured as he lifted his hands from the desk and formed his fingers into a teepee beneath his chin. He studied Killean with an air of amusement. “Did you slip up, Killean, or did you give in to your desires? We may not know each other well, but I’ve never seen you with a woman, so they are not what you wanted most after maturing. Perhaps you seek pain, but I believe bloodlust and killing are what you battled over the years.”
Joseph’s attempt at trying to have some insight into him made his blood boil, but he’d thrown himself into this game, and Simone’s life depended on him playing it well. “I slipped up, and then I gave in.”
Bound by Darkness (The Alliance, Book 3) Page 2
