Hunger Read online

  ***

  He was headed for trouble. The big guys who stalked behind them were not going down easy. The very idea that his backup was only a thread of self-control away from draining his heart didn’t do a lot to boost his morale. Things had gotten very dark, very fast.

  It wasn’t supposed to be this way. When he first began killing monsters he’d been driven by righteous fury. His eyes had been opened and his world changed one fateful night when he’d seen his partner fed upon by a suspected PCP abuser. Yeah, the guy was whacked out of his skull, but not by a chemical substance. He’d been Winters’ first vampire. He still didn’t know what had enabled him to cross that shocked line of disbelief that others never managed to cross.

  Maybe it was seeing the fangs in the thing’s mouth drip with his partner’s blood.

  Now, here he was with one of those monsters in hand. Her delicate fingers felt feminine in his palm. And so very, very cold.

  In the seconds it took them to cross the crowded dance floor, he wondered what Big Jim’s reaction would have been to the tiny woman at his back. He could hear the belly laugh his two-hundred-plus-some-odd-pounds partner would have let fly if he’d been presented with the idea of Holly as backup.

  Then again, her appearance didn’t count. He had to remember that. The way her blond hair shimmered, the way her blue eyes betrayed vulnerable emotion he was too intimidated to name, the way her figure had rounded when she wasn’t starved…none of that mattered. Not in an alley at midnight.

  What mattered was her strength. He’d felt it the two times he’d held her. He’d seen it in her movements against her Maker. She was a vampire. One with an unheard of amount of self-control. As he pushed open the dilapidated exit door and stepped into the night, he thought of strength and blood and control.

  He knew she was strong. He didn’t know if she was strong enough.

  ***

  Holly shouldn’t have worried. When it was all said and done, animal instinct turned out to be more valuable than a black belt. Of course, at first, she wouldn’t let the animal free.

  They both went for Winters. Probably because they expected her to do the same. He was ready for the attack, but they outweighed him by a couple of hundred pounds. Still, Winters was powerful and practiced and he might have been able to get his wooden knife into position if several other vampires hadn’t materialized from the shadows.

  Winters had one vamp on the ground under his weight and another vampire had a chokehold around his neck when two females and another male prepared to join the fray.

  That’s when something inside of Holly rose up to take control.

  With a one-arm fling, she pulled one bodybuilder off Winters. The vampire’s arm snapped with a wet pop before he flew through the air as if some Hollywood stunt coordinator had hooked him to wires.

  Once he was unencumbered by a huge meaty arm, Winters was able to plunge his knife into the other bodybuilder’s massive chest. Would she ever get used to that? Smoke billowed and blackened blood bubbled out of disintegrating lips. The dying vamp’s harsh, bellowing shrieks punctuated her next movements.

  The two females went down with crushed skulls. The last male tried to run, but didn’t get far when she grabbed and twisted and snapped his neck. Holly stumbled away. She tried not to retch as Winters came behind her to perform absolutions with a bloody stake.

  She had been afraid blood lust would claim her after the fight. Instead, nausea and self-loathing and disgust slammed into her with the force of a quarterback on steroids. She didn’t even try to fight the sobs that wracked her body. She gave into a flood of salty tears hoping to be cleansed, knowing she would never feel clean again.

  She sank to her knees, blinded to the refuse around her, or maybe she felt she deserved to be part of it. Her soul thrown out with the trash to mingle with forgotten beer cans and condom wrappers.

  At first she didn’t notice she wasn’t alone. Not until he went from kneeling beside her to taking her in his arms. Heat and acceptance, warmth and understanding, blood and remorse…her senses and emotions were bombarded with sensation.

  ***

  It was like she’d been walking in the snow. Winters chafed her hands between his and when she raised tear-drenched eyes to look at him he avoided the hunger there and fed it at the same time by dipping his head to touch his lips to hers.

  Like wintergreen that grows beside a spring-thawed mountain stream, she tasted crisp and minty and sweet. He imagined that stream flowing beneath slowly melting snow as she pressed closer and he was suddenly the living embodiment of the sun. She needed his body’s heat to thaw, to melt, to live again.

  He wanted to warm her as he deepened the kiss. His hot tongue dipped into the coolness of her mouth to heat as it stroked and tasted and savored the shivery difference it found there.

  She whimpered low in her throat and even the danger presented by her slightly pointed canines didn’t stop him from pulling her closer. Didn’t stop him from fully enjoying as she forgot her tears and leaned into the kiss. Her hands threaded into his hair to mold against his scalp. Her petite body pushed him back to press itself chest-to-chest, pelvis to stomach, thigh to thigh. He didn’t lose warmth as he gave it to her. In fact, he burned even hotter.

  He wanted to warm her in sensual ways, in companionable ways and, yes, as lust began to cloud his reasoning, even in nourishing ways. As their tongues entwined, as he felt the sun-hot warmth of his mouth transfer itself to hers, he knew he was losing his mind. He wanted her to draw blood from him. He wanted the sharp little fangs she tried so desperately to hide to pierce the skin of his neck.

  Winters broke the kiss. In panic, he rolled her off him and rose unsteadily to his feet. She allowed him to break away even though she could have easily held him in place to feed. She allowed herself to be tumbled against a pile of trash bags. Her face was tilted down. Her hair hid whatever emotion he might have read upon her face.

  It didn’t hide the tremble of her limbs or the deep rise and fall of her chest as she sucked in great drafts of air.

  He had done the unthinkable. Her control was tenuous at best and he had almost…offered what she tried so desperately to resist.

  He watched as she tried to regain control. For long seconds, he wondered if she would succeed. He wondered if he would have to stake one last vampire in this alley tonight. He wondered how he could still feel desire throbbing in his veins. He never should have given her his blood. Never. Some dark, unthinkable tie existed between them now. No way was his desire for her natural. Never mind that he’d been drawn to her before she’d been given the first drop. Better to accept there was bad mojo at play and stay the hell away from her no matter what. His heart went into a slammed, bruised dance when he took a step toward her in spite of his best intentions.

  Her chin rose slowly as he clenched his fists against unnatural impulses. In her eyes, he read a world of resolve, enough for both of them, it would seem. He trembled, but her tiny body was now entirely still. Her eyes not only resolute, but calm. Tortured, perhaps, but calm.

  “Do. Not. Do. That. Again.” Each word came out slow, soft, punctuated with steady breaths.

  “What? Don’t touch you? Or kiss you?” He meant to sound flippant. He didn’t succeed. He sounded…messed up. Like a marathon runner who hadn’t taken in enough fluids and who was now stumbling to his knees three inches from the finish line.

  She rose to her feet and turned away from him. The darkness around them swallowed her up as she moved away. Eerily, her disembodied voice floated back to where he stood.

  “Tempt me,” she clarified. “Don’t tempt me again.”

  Chapter Six

  She didn’t know. She wasn’t sure. Had she ever been kissed before? At this point she was willing to admit she hadn’t. Every peck she could remember had been mere play, sheer fun, a you-and-I-both-have-lips-so-why-not escapade. She had never, never, experienced anything like the melding, devouring, bone-deep then even-deeper-to-the-marrow quake she’d s
hared with Winters.

  Share and Winters should not be allowed in the same thought. It was definitely not good for her sanity. It led to thinking of how intimately they were already linked by what he had shared and it also reminded her of the intimacy they would never share. Hot fumbling and laughter in the dark, for instance. Feelings, for instance. He had torn himself away. The major drawback of vampire vision, well, besides the being a vampire part of it, was that it had allowed her to see the horror in his eyes even in the dark alley.

  Never mind that she brushed, flossed and Scoped like she still needed to worry about tooth decay. Fangs were fangs and no amount of minty freshness was going to disguise those babies when it came to deep, hot French kissing.

  And why was she caring about this when her world had ended, her mom was in Dillon’s clutches and Winters was carrying a wooden blade with her name on it?

  Her dad would have said that sometimes when you had fish to fry you wasted time gathering firewood when a hot plate would do. It was his version of a shoe ad…just do it. Don’t get sidetracked by unnecessary distractions. There was always the danger that you would waste all your time stacking wood for a bonfire and never get around to lighting it. Don’t dilly-dally, waver or otherwise allow yourself put off what had to be done.

  Holly had to find Dillon. She needed the help of an experienced vampire killer. After that, she had to believe there might be some chance for her to find a life again. First, though, there would be death, destruction…mayhem even. And kissing was unnecessary kindling.

  She was currently determined not to gather firewood in the trunk of Winters’ rusty, musty old car. He was currently going about eighty miles an hour, if she was any judge, even though the sun must have set. She’d been awake and jostled like crazy for at least twenty minutes.

  Holly began to imagine a pop-the-trunk scenario. Unfortunately, she was afraid there would be a little gray-haired lady in a Buick behind them who might die of a heart attack if she was startled in that way. Fortunately, to Holly’s relief—and the relief of gray-haired ladies everywhere—the car began to slow and pull off the road with a gravel-sliding crunch.

  When the trunk lifted and night air rushed in, there were no Buicks in sight. She blinked her eyes at the sudden dazzle of neon lights and watched as Winters walked toward a little diner with a flashing sign. His figure stood out in black relief, a mysterious shadow. He hadn’t waited for her to sit up. He hadn’t offered so much as a “good evening”.

  Apparently, they had gone from hardly talking to no talking at all since the alley incident.

  “Don’t mind me. Have a hamburger. Have two…and some fries,” Holly grumbled. There was no graceful way to climb out of the trunk of a car. She blushed even though there was no one to see her tumble out.

  Some masochistic tendency had her following him into the grease-heavy air, but when she noted his seat at the counter and the pretty waitress taking his order, Holly side-tracked to the restroom. She wasn’t in the mood to watch Winters be wowed by a pony tail and pink cheeks.

  One plus, germs were no longer a concern. She didn’t bother to turn the sink off with her elbows. She even touched the handle to whirl out some paper towel. She felt a little bit like a superhero until she realized she’d washed and dried several times in a row. Lions and tigers and germs couldn’t hurt her, but neuroses, oh my.

  Holly left through the back exit. It wasn’t the french-fry haze that sent her packing. It was the warm, human atmosphere. Folks were chowing down, laughing, sipping sodas or nursing bitter, cheap coffees and it hurt. She wanted to plop down in a booth with her friends and gripe about the absence of healthy choices on the menu when she was secretly going to enjoy settling for a piece of pecan pie.

  And, yeah, it also hurt that Winters was eating today’s special platter-of-whatever served by a woman with warm lips and a heart he didn’t intend to turn to ash. She was envious of the woman who was free go all pink in the cheeks when a tall, dark stranger came in from the highway and picked her station for dinner.

  Holly never imagined how hard it would be to survive night after night without a single smile.

  She walked to the edge of the woods behind the diner. They were near the Blue Ridge Parkway in Floyd, Virginia. The Parkway was a scenic route that wound its way through Virginia and North Carolina. It was known for quiet overlooks above sleepy small towns and gorgeous mountain views. A calm, relaxing forty-five miles per hour speed limit and happy motorists escaping the rat race… There was contrast for you. Holly was not calm, relaxed or happy. And you couldn’t appreciate scenic views in the dark, even with vampire eyes. The glow from the diner’s neon sign did little to light up the night. “Good,” her heart whispered. “You belong here, alone in the dark.”

  A hum of crickets braving the unusually mild winter night hushed. Their sudden silence shamed her. Nature recognized when a predator was on the prowl. Reaching out with her senses, she knew there was a doe huddled in a thicket twenty yards away. She knew an owl prepared to take flight. His talons made the branch beneath his feet creak. She could hear the heartbeat of a mouse. The tiny creature crouched beneath a rotten log. Was it hiding from her or the owl?

  Cool moisture trailed down her cheeks and a kiss of wind made it colder still.

  Then, an ululating howl sounded in the distance. Long, rising and falling in a lonesome wax and wane, the note echoed her despair. It was only a coyote. In recent years, more and more of her hiking friends had spotted them in this area and she remembered a pamphlet or two sent out by local animal rights groups about the bounty certain counties had placed on them.

  Another answered. And another. Some crazy part of her wanted to call back. She wondered why she didn’t drop down on all fours and lope into the forest because, really, how much sanity could be left? In the end, she didn’t. She didn’t belong with those warm, furry creatures any more than she belonged with the people in the diner.

  “You should have warned me if you were going to go all Dracula out here.” Winters had come up behind her bringing the scent of hamburger and, of all things, pecan pie.

  “Dracula?” She struggled to come back to the land of human conversation. Right now, the coyote howl was easier to understand than Winters’ words.

  “Yeah, you know, something about ‘children of the night’.”

  “You joke.” Holly felt brittle, as if one more cruelty would be too much for her body to bear before it broke into a million shattered pieces.

  “I’m not laughing.”

  His words soothed. Surprisingly enough, she thought he meant to soothe. Big of him to pity the beast.

  She rolled her shoulders and lifted her chin. She allowed herself to move to his side a shade faster than was humanly possible. And she enjoyed the look on his face. At that moment, he wasn’t even slightly amused or sympathetic.

  Tonight she wouldn’t accept either.

  “You smell like brown sugar.” Oh, it was perfect. She had managed to sound like a B-movie actress purring sexy vampire-ese.

  He lifted his eyebrows and his breathing quickened. The hurt she felt faded. Teasing him turned out to be the perfect distraction. Okay, so yeah, it was kindling. She just couldn’t remember right now why frying fish had seemed so important in the trunk of his car.

  He didn’t step away when she moved even closer. In fact, she sensed him sway nearer even with her eyes closed as she inhaled the scent of roasted pecans and sweet, sweet sugar. Her nose actually brushed the skin behind his left ear because of his movement.

  Shampoo, brown sugar and black coffee. Maybe a touch of french-fry and a hint of spicy aftershave. Altogether…yummy.

  Holly swallowed and held her breath as teasing turned to something else entirely. She remembered why firewood was bad. If she allowed herself to go in this direction with Winters, she risked losing her tenuous hold on humanity. She risked her mother’s life. The reminders came in a tiny cricket-for-a-conscious voice and Holly struggled to make herself listen.
r />   “This is not going to happen,” Winters said. His deep, gravelly voice wasn’t as deep and gravelly as usual. In fact, he sounded like he’d just run a mile…uphill. Its breathless quality sent a thrill through her. A shiver that had the predator in her thinking, “Are you sure?” It wasn’t fair that the predator was so much more persuasive than the cricket.

  He swayed again in spite of his words and her lips brushed his jaw. So, so close. So, so good.

  “He was close and he was hers for the taking.” It was the predator again, but it sent a thrill through her as power pulsed beneath her skin in response. “Forget everything,” it said. “Now’s your chance to play with fire.”

  As always, his body heat tantalized. It promised warmth and more. It would be so nice to press close to that heat to see if she could make it flare hotter still. She felt an answering hot flow of sensual energy rise from inside of her. Somewhere deep in her shivering body a banked ember glowed. Winters was the hot whisper of air that brought the ember to life. It sparked and spread outward until her fingertips tingled with the desire to touch the man at her side.

  Winters didn’t step away.

  He didn’t draw his blade to hold her off. He continued to lean over her and her lips on his jaw grew warmer as if she could taste a hidden heat building inside of him.

  Holly reached up to smooth her tingling fingers over his arms. He trembled and she tasted salt as his body responded to the heat. She flicked her tongue out and he drew in a sudden breath as his whole body tensed in response.

  He wanted her. She could sense it. If she moved her lips to claim a kiss, would his control snap? If she moved her hands from his arms and slid them under his shirt to stroke his back and sides and tease into the waistband of his low-slung jeans, would he succumb to temptation with her?