Blood and Kisses(19)

He would have his revenge.

The image of her lifeless body that had haunted him since they’d met, returned. He’d thought her a victim of the rogue, but perhaps he was the culprit. Maybe he was responsible for the barren husk he saw in his mind’s eye, drained of its poisonous blood. Like an infection, madness consumed him. He surrendered to it. He would get free and when he did, he would hunt her down and tear her limb from limb.

A noise pierced the fevered haze of lunacy. He could hear a car pulling up the driveway. He recognized the unique purr of his Jaguar. She had returned. Excellent.

He cloaked the demon. Hiding him just out of reach.

Thalia. He made his mental voice soft, weak. The demon stifled a gleeful laugh.

Gideon? Are you all right? She was worried about him. He would give her something to worry about. He was Gideon Damek, after all. Warlord. Warrior. Vampire. Not some tame lapdog leaping to do her bidding.

Come quickly. I must feed. He smiled into the dark room, as he lured her with the truth.

He followed her progress through the house. The front door closed behind her. The stairs protested her slight weight as she raced up them. Her heart was beating fast, her pulse running a rapid course through her healthy young veins. She had been exerting herself.

Good. Very good. She would be weak. Easy pickings.



Thalia hesitated outside Gideon’s door, her hand on the button that would release the steel bars. A strange presentiment hovered over her. Something wasn’t right. From what he had told her of the bloodlust, he should be almost crazy with hunger by now. He sounded so calm, so rational.

Too rational.

She shuddered. His groans and shouts had been frightening, but this cold manipulative creature was terrifying.

She invoked the reserve of power she had stored for this occasion, surrounding herself with a shield of protection. She prayed it would be enough and opened the door.

Gideon smiled at her weakly from the bed without showing his teeth. In the light from the hall, his face gleamed with sweat. His hands were fisted in the bedclothes.

Fisted against the pain? Or concealing claws he was too far-gone to retract?





Chapter 12



Thalia hesitated at the threshold.

The fragile veil of control Gideon wore snapped. “Come and release me,” Gideon demanded, his voice half human, half lion’s roar, eyes glowing red with hunger and rage, fangs sharp and white in the dim light.

Thalia took a deep breath. As he’d warned her, the hunger had become a kind of madness. The man she had known had become a monster. He strained against the chains, growling. He’d rubbed his wrists and ankles raw, and precious blood spilled onto the bedclothes in wine-dark rivers.

He would try to drain her if he could, no matter that it would mean both their deaths. But if she left him here...

If she left him here, he would starve. He was near starving now.

Thalia summoned every scrap of strength she possessed and was about to funnel it into her protection spell when she realized the absolute futility of it all. If she released him now, she could prevent him from killing her, but she would forfeit the life of the first unfortunate he met, along with his soul, as he succumbed to the addictive lure of the Claiming. He would become just as dangerous as the villain who had murdered Lily.

Thalia closed her eyes and prayed. Somehow, she would have to reach some remnant of the man beneath the monster on the bed in front of her. But was it already too late?

She diverted the energy she had gathered and began to slowly feed it to Gideon, desperately hoping to give him the strength to bind the hunger and free the man.



The room was drenched in blood. Crimson spatters decorated the dirty cream walls like some vile faux painting technique. Flies buzzed, knocking against the filthy windows as if trying to get out.

Detective Cole covered her mouth with her hand, choking back the bile that threatened to erupt. It was perhaps the most gruesome thing she had ever seen, but the smell was worse. Poole had already left, unable to stand the stench for another moment. She wondered if he were outside, puking on those Italian shoes he favored. And they said women were the weaker sex. She swallowed, regaining her equilibrium through sheer willpower. She couldn’t afford to vomit. The men she worked with would never let her live it down.

The crime scene investigators had already done their work, but she stepped gingerly into the room for a better look, placing her feet with care.

The body had been removed. Unlike the others, this was the first they’d found inside. And despite the blood spatter, it had already been determined through blood typing that the victim had been killed elsewhere and brought to this location, a derelict house in a neighborhood that had long since finished the treacherous slide into decay. Was the murderer changing his pattern? She should be so lucky. A pattern killer whose pattern changed often got sloppy.

Like the others, the vic had been drained of blood. So the sixty-four thousand dollar question was, whose blood spattered the dingy walls? A sample would be sent out for DNA comparison, but she held little hope it would yield results. The average person rarely showed up on a DNA database, and without DNA to compare to the sample...

Cole started as her cell phone broke the eerie silence. “Cole here.” She nodded as she recognized her boss’ voice. “Sergeant Bryant,” she said in greeting.

“We’ve identified the latest victim. Her name is Dorrie Thompson. She worked at the Bell, Book, and Candle.”

Cole snorted. “Big surprise.”

“There’s more. We just found another body of a young girl in the High Falls District. Looks like your perp has struck twice.”

“We’ll be there.” Cole shook her head and closed her phone against her thigh. Was the smell getting worse? Probably. No doubt the result of the last evening sun heating the house through the boarded-up windows. A sudden sound spun her toward the door. The creak and pop of the elderly floorboards set every nerve on end. Someone climbing the stairs, or the normal cries of a settling house?

“Poole?”



“I’ve called you here because we all have a stake in this,” Heath said to the crowd in his living room. He ran a hand over his bare scalp. Witches and mages packed the cozy space. Those that didn’t fit on the furniture, or the rows of metal folding chairs he had set up, lined the walls.

“Is that a pun?” a gray-haired witch named Karla Gibson asked. Her creased face folded into an ironic smile.

He ignored the remark and the vampire jokes that followed on its heels, his face a mask of displeasure. Slowly the occupants of the room seemed to pick up on his anger and the laughter faded. Outside the window, the red evening sun went behind a cloud and the room felt suddenly dark and cold. A young witch in the front row rubbed her arms as if to warm them. A June bug pitched its tiny body against the light fixture in the ceiling, intermittently clicking on impact and droning as it fell back and made another attempt to penetrate the glass.

A young mage wearing a rock concert T-shirt spoke into the unnatural hush. “I don’t see what all the fuss is about. It’s not like the vampire is a danger to us.”

“Of course, he’s a danger to us.” Karla shifted in her chair. “Don’t you see that if the pettys knew that vampires were real and a threat, they might realize that witches are real, as well?”

The young man rolled his eyes. “This isn’t the sixteen hundreds.”

“Sixteen hundreds, two thousands. People don’t change.”

“She’s right.” Heath shook his head, and took a few steps closer to the blue-jeaned mage, hazel eyes intense under his heavy brows. “It’s human nature to destroy what’s different. We’ve survived out in the open because the pettys no longer believe in magic.”

He scanned the diverse crowd. Seeing the comprehension on the faces before him, he switched gears, strolling back to the center of the room where everyone could see him.

“We’ve always had a Champion. And no one can argue that the Champions we’ve had in the past have been witches and mages of remarkable power and insight.” A wave of nods circled the room, but perhaps quashed by the stern expression on his face, no one said a word. “We have grave doubts about the present Champion, however, and that, as you know, is one of the reasons for this meeting.”

“And just what do you propose to do about it? Champions are born, not elected.” Karla again.

Heath colored. “We would have had to alter tradition eventually. This Champion shows no sign of producing an heir.”

“She’s still young,” Karla countered. “And although she’s never shown signs of great power, she’s proven herself capable in the past.”

Footsteps pounded up the front steps and across the porch. The screen door was ripped open, its hinges screaming. It was John Trenton, his black hair in disarray, his open face distressed. He bent over, clearly out of breath from running. He wiped his exertion-stained face with his sleeve. “Kimmy Simpson is dead.”