Angel of Darkness (The Fallen #1)(62)

Mike and his men were his plan. They were his bait and his distraction. Because Nicole and her angel would be so focused on them, well ... the vamp wouldn’t even realize the true danger until it was too late.

“We’ve got to act fast,” he said. “We’re gonna need to attack before the sun sets.” No sense in going up against a stronger vamp. Not while there was still daylight left.

“You know where she is?”

Shifters had good noses for a reason. They were the best at tracking. Once he’d caught her scent at Temptation, he’d followed her all the way back home.

He’d always had the strongest nose in the pack. Blood, fire, and sex—it wasn’t easy to miss that combination. Tracking Nicole had been f*cking child’s play.

“I know.” He smiled. “Now let’s go and drag that bitch into the sunlight.”





Nicole woke, her heart racing, her body shaking as the nightmare still played in her mind.

The alley. The blood. The monster.

She sucked in a deep breath.

She’d been the monster.

“Nicole?”

Her head turned. Keenan lay beside her in bed, his chest naked, and the sheet loose around his hips. She swallowed. “Ah, it’s nothing ...” It was still daylight. She could see the sun trickling through the blinds, could feel the weakness in her body. He’d chosen to sleep in the day? With her?

The lump in her chest had nothing to do with her nightmare.

“Something scared you,” he said.

Me. I scare myself. I have for a while now.

His fingers brushed down her arm and she shivered. “It—it’s really nothing—”

“Liar.” The word sounded like a caress. “Tell me about it.”

The drumming of her heartbeat wasn’t slowing down. She pulled the covers up and held them with tight hands. Right then, she needed some kind of shield, and it was the cover or nothing. “Before I was attacked, I-I didn’t even know I could kill.”

“Everyone can kill. People just have to be pushed hard enough,” he said flatly. There was a lot of dark knowledge tinting his voice. But then, he’d probably seen everything humans had to offer. Good. Bad. All that waited in between.

Death.

Right. He’d know all about killing.

“You said you saw me ... before.” Before she’d gotten the stylish new fangs, the bad manicure, and the pretty much unquenchable thirst for blood.

“Yes.”

“She never would have ripped a man’s throat open. Not once.” Her voice dropped. “Twice. I killed two humans.” And one vampire.

“You were under compulsion, you didn’t—”

“I-I ... liked the blood.” This was the darkest part of her confession. Her gaze dropped to the hands that balled the sheets. “I liked the rush of blood, the power. I wanted to stop. I knew it was wrong. I knew I was killing them and that voice was in my head, pushing me ... but I liked the blood.”

And that was her shame.

“You’re a vampire.”

Uh, yes, she knew that.

“Nicole ...” He sighed out her name. “You’re supposed to like it.”

“Because vamps like the blood so much, that’s why they kill.” Why she’d had to fight her urges. “The schoolteacher I was ... the woman who always got in by ten on a work night, she wouldn’t have—”

His fingers curled over hers. “Why do you keep talking as if she’s someone else?”

Her gaze lifted to his. Why couldn’t he see? “She was someone else. She was someone good.” She’d tried to be, anyway. Volunteering her time in afterschool programs. Donating canned goods for the homeless. Recycling for goodness’ sake. That woman had been good.

Not a killer.

Not a monster who lusted for blood. Who fought. Killed. Who licked her lips as she stood over a dead man and thought— More.

No wonder the dreams wouldn’t stop. “That woman died in an alley,” she told him, holding his stare. Even if she hadn’t died then, she wouldn’t have made it through the year.

His hand skimmed down her arm. Slowly, his warm fingers rose to her chest and pressed over her heart. “If she’s dead, then why do I feel her heart beating?”

“I’m not the same person anymore. The things I did—” Not just the killing. But with Connor ...

Her eyes squeezed shut. “I’m not the same.”

The warmth of his hand seeped into her skin. “You couldn’t be the same and keep surviving.”

She cracked open her eyes.

“The bloodlust is always strongest at first.” He rose, pushing up to sit beside her now. “I’ve seen it drive some crazy. They’d lose control and turn on anyone who came near.”

Nicole remembered that first, desperate hunger. The bite that she’d given the cop who’d come to her aid. “Yes.” She’d felt crazy then.

“You didn’t kill the cop you attacked.”

She shook her head. “It was a near thing. I ... couldn’t stop.” She never wanted to feel like that again. So hungry—the hunger an ache that burned her whole body.

“You did stop.”

Her lashes lifted fully. “Barely.” She wouldn’t let him think she was something that she wasn’t. “I didn’t have the control. If I did, I wouldn’t have ever bitten him. I wouldn’t have listened to that voice in my head—I wouldn’t have killed.”