BloodStar Read online

  "I can usually find people that are important to me," he said. He smiled at her, only with his eyes this time, and Marley understood then that she knew him from somewhere. It wasn’t a comfortable, nostalgic where have I seen him before kind of feeling. It was more along the lines of when was the last time I ran from this guy?

  She must have lost her default expression of boredom and chosen something that looked a lot like confusion. And this jerk-off was getting a kick out of it.

  "This is funny to you?"

  "It’s easy to forget you truly know nothing about me, Marley Music."

  Her middle name. He knew her middle name. She took a couple steps back.

  "But apparently you know everything about me. How did you know my name? How did you really find me?" Now the little voice in her head, stifled by attraction just moments before, hit a fever pitch. Marley had learned to agree with her little voices when they got all hot and bothered. This was getting scary.

  "Let’s walk. We need to talk, but being with you when you’re afraid…isn’t easy for me."

  Shit, she’d switched masks again. The last thing she wanted to do was give a freak a thrill.

  His smile was almost imperceptible, more a look in his eyes than an expression on his face, but it was there. He was laughing at her again. Marley didn’t know whether to be afraid, excited, or pissed.

  He took her by the elbow on a soft touch, his grip a tranquil insistence. Definitely not the domineering steering of those good old high school deans she kept thinking about with job descriptions that demanded they seek and destroy any and all teenage mischief. Maybe this guy reminded her of those offices because he almost seemed like he wanted to cultivate trouble.

  "If we walk, I think you’ll be better able to hear what I have to say. I’d never willingly hurt you, Marley. My intentions are pure."

  "Yeah, well, they say the road to hell is paved with pure intentions," she muttered under her breath while she gave him the old sidelong-glance-size-up. Still, as he began to walk, she allowed herself to be led along.

  "Believe me beautiful one, I’ve been down that road and back, and intention has nothing to do with it."

  His eyes were relentless, and damn if her little voices didn’t go all squishy in the knees, bunch of Benedicts.

  "Have you spent time wondering about me?" His modest tone didn’t match the narcissism his question implied.

  "Wouldn’t you like to know?" Normally, she would have given him her most flirtatious smile with a comment like that, but this wasn’t some bar where she kept seeing the same guy weekend after weekend. This was the great outdoors, crickets and birds weren’t chirping anymore, and she felt a threat she couldn’t exactly attribute to him, but couldn’t rule out, either. All she had to spare was her smallest voice.

  He laughed again, ignoring her obvious concern. They came to a big boulder close to the trail, and he motioned for her to take a seat while he stood. She tried to match his never-ending stare, but gave in, pretending the ground was riddled with fascinating discoveries.

  "Assume for just a moment that I’m not crazy, and you’re not in danger. What would you say if I told you I know everything there is to know about you?"

  "I should go." She stood up, but just to go through the motions. Shameful as it was, she wasn’t going anywhere until she had his leave. She just hoped she wasn’t wearing her kiss-me-you-fool mask.

  He took a step toward her, and then another one. His tentative eyes never let her go. Marley's heart skipped and her breath jerked in and out. Oh God, he was only inches from her now.

  His pupils swallowed his irises whole. He was going to do it. His even breathing deepened as he closed in, leaning down a little so their eyes were level as she lost herself in their abyss. Alarms screamed to run, move, make a joke—anything to dilute the potency.

  His palm moved to the back of her neck while his thumb stretched to the front and traced satin lines against her throat. His head dipped, and Marley almost fainted as he inhaled a shaky breath, his lips just grazing her collarbone. She honestly wondered if she was going to just say the hell with it, and take this man home with her right then and there.

  "Why don’t we start with your name," she whispered. It taxed her to the point of delirium having him so close, breathing against her throat, taking in her scent.

  He kept his face buried in her neck, and moved his hand to the small of her back. He guided her toward his body, all the while inhaling, exhaling…sampling. "Sabian. I am Sabian," he rasped.

  He sucked in once more, and stepped back from her as though he’d just remembered she was radioactive or something. He searched her eyes. Was his name supposed to mean something to her? God, he almost looked…mournful.

  Then…he was just gone. Again. Not even a shadow.

  What. The. Fuck.

  Chapter Five

  The battle between alarm and exhilaration raged inside Marley. So his name was Sabian. What was his last name, Copperfield? Might as well be—he’d flaunted his skills as an escape artist twice now, this time with no earthly explanation for his disappearance. When he’d fled the coffee shop, Marley was able to tell herself that he could have disappeared across the street or maybe gotten into a car that took off before she could track him, but this was something else. She had a clear view in all directions, and there was not another soul on that trail.

  Definitely maxed out the freaky-factor.

  The good sense she should have had when he'd first shown up behind her was late to the party, just like a fashionista mother-in-law. True to the comparison, though, it came through in the end with a big tray of devilled-egg-holy-crap.

  Marley decided she wouldn't stroll back to the trailhead—she would run.

  In perfect Colorado fashion, the weather changed on a dime. The sky was darkening and the air turned chilly. It (he?) got her right down to the bones.

  Her breathing echoed in her ears as she quickened her pace around a corner on the trail. If she knew anything from all her experiences in life so far, it was to trust her gut, and right then her gut told her she was being watched. Actually, her gut was being more specific than that—he was watching. She was positive, the feeling coming from somewhere in that place where instinct met consciousness.

  Inspired and still exhilarated (good sense abandoned once again), she stopped still, and looked around three-hundred-sixty degrees. Birds and other wildlife were still hushed. Marley braced herself for the break in the silence, raised her voice, and said, "I can tell you’re still here. Meet me tonight—seven o’clock. I assume you know where I live." The invitation hung in the air while she looked around in all directions again. There was zero indication of anyone within a mile radius but herself. She felt like a total dumbass, but even worse, goosebumps took over her flesh. That feeling of being watched was unhinging.

  Forty-five minutes and a hell of a bike ride later, she was home. Marley unlocked her apartment door, threw her keys on her junky little thriftstore entryway table, and headed to her bedroom to change.

  She walked past empty liquor bottles (Jesus, when had she finished the Gin?), and waded through an assortment of old classifieds she’d lifted from The Basement. Her walls were bare, covered in a paint that was probably labeled Totalitarian White on the can. There wasn’t a lot of furniture in her apartment yet: the junky entryway table, a beat up old couch with split seams along both cushions, a rickety (and mostly empty) entertainment center against the wall. Her bedroom was just as Spartan. A bed, a nightstand, and a dresser with a mirror. Not exactly the Taj Mahal.

  She kicked off her shoes, threw her baseball cap over her shoulder while letting her curls down, and took off her sweatshirt. The tank-top was next, coming off easy enough, but the two sports-bras were another story. Her onyx pendant wasn’t the only thing her grandmother had given her; an ample bosom paired with graceful litheness were usually pluses, but when it came to sweaty sports-bras, the nice-rack factor was kind of a pain in the ass. One didn’t strap the twins down
well enough, so she doubled up. When her workouts were especially strenuous (like, say a bat-out-of-hell bike ride back home from stalker-trail-USA), the damn sweaty things stuck and always got caught in her hair.

  Finally free of her bondage, Marley turned to head to the bathroom, and almost choked on her own tongue.

  There, leaning against the wall by the window was Sabian, the epitome of casual.

  Sam Halac held the binoculars to his eyes and watched the coffee shop. His position up higher than the actual establishment (who opens a place of business in a basement, for God sake?), allowed him a nice vantage, and he could see Jenna and that kid with the camera busy with the mundane chores of the working class. He supposed he was working class too, but his vocation couldn’t be compared. Apples and Oranges. Who the fuck came up with the word barista, anyway? When he’d first met Jenna and she named her craft with such pride, he’d had a genuine laugh.

  "Sounds like an Italian STD."

  "Ew," she said.

  "Okay then, just a snobby way of saying waitress," he teased.

  "I’m not a waitress, Mr. Sophisticated," she said. "I don’t take orders, and I don’t serve people at their tables. I don’t wait on anyone."

  "What are you talking about? You took my order, told me to sit down, and then if I’m not mistaken, you delivered a cup of coffee right to me. How are you not a waitress again?"

  "First and foremost, is the coffee delicious?"

  "It is," he admitted.

  "Then you agree I’m an artist?"

  "Uh, if pouring coffee is an art, I guess so."

  "I’m not a coffee wench, either. I don’t just pour." Her tone turned "The art isn’t in the pouring, but in the brew. And if you had half a brain, you’d stop arguing with me and realize I only asked you to sit and wait because I think you’re cute."

  When she said that, Sam saw a new plan unfold before him. So far his best bet had been hanging around the coffee shop, hoping to bump into McRae, a method that hadn’t proven very productive. He knew Marley was friends with the girl, and Miss Barista had come on to him. He knew he could use that, even though he had a decade on this kid.

  Jenna had been a major asset in the hunt. His darker side thought she might have some nice assets in bed, but so far he hadn’t exploited the girl to that extent. Sam wasn’t above mixing business with pleasure, but things were different with this case; he didn’t want to explore Jenna’s assets. Well, he wanted to—Jenna was young, intelligent, and something about this eighties Madonna thing she had going was hot.

  His problem wasn’t in his head, and goddamn sure wasn’t his anatomy. Sam Junior popped up for a hi-how-are-ya every time Jenna came anywhere near. Just the other night she sat on his lap, and suddenly Junior had lots to add to the conversation. Jenna wasted no time, thinking it an invitation, and it took Sam two hours of fucking female drama to talk his way out of the situation.

  "Why don’t you want me?" she wanted to know. Jesus, who knows what excuses he gave her. All he knew was he couldn’t do it. Things were just…different. But were they different because of Franky, or because of the things Franky had told him? Was it Marley McRae?

  Best to let that question simmer. No sense getting riled up when he was stuck in the El Camino doing surveillance the next couple hours. That car was his baby, a pristine 1970 powder blue El Camino he restored from the ground up. Normally he wasn’t a GM kind of guy, but no man can resist the charm of the El.

  Sam knew precisely what was different about this case, though, and regardless of the next few hours of confinement, his noodle went ahead and named it: the BloodStar's precious fucking girlfriend, that's what was different. And as a rule, Sam wasn’t a red-head kind of guy, preferring his women long and blond, but damn, those copper curls that cascaded down his mark's back halfway to her waist? Well, kind of like the El, how could he resist?

  Fuck him. Shit was getting extra complicated.

  He was still peering through his binoculars, waiting for McRae to show when his phone rang. He reached down with his right hand and unclipped his cell from his waist.

  "Halac," he barked at whoever was calling. Sam was never one for lengthy greetings. If someone knew this number, they knew exactly who they calling. They would know he didn’t bullshit, shoot the shit, or take any shit.

  A voice spoke back to him, thick with sensual intent that tempted his mind toward all kinds of wet-and-slippery. It was always that way with Kindred. In person, he could tell vampires from humans with just a glance. Sam Halac was a well-trained Hunter, and Hunters knew Kindred on sight. The phone was a different story, but most Hunters could identify a bloodsucker’s voice by the way it made their dicks swell or their ovaries ache.

  "Have you considered my proposal?" the voice crooned.

  "I thought about it, but I don’t deal with the devil."

  Sam put his binoculars down. After an hour with them pasted to his face, it was going to take his eyes a bit to adjust to normal vision. It was time to give up the stakeout for today. McRae usually didn’t show up in the early afternoon. She was either a late morning coffee girl, or an early evening beer drinker, at least at The Basement. On the party scene, she settled for nothing less than eighty-proof (part of why she always got so fucked up), but that was the extent of her selectivity. She didn’t give a shit if the bottle was plastic or glass, wasn’t concerned about a price-tag, and didn't seem to know there even was a difference between top and bottom shelf. She also neglected to factor in the sharks that circled the booze-tank, waiting for her to get just sloshy enough to have at those big, juicy…

  Fuck. He seriously needed to quit undressing his mark, but his gray-matter drill sergeant kept snapping orders to give up the ghost and have at the peaches-and-cream under those ratty thermals she always wore.

  "Samuel," the voice purred. "You’ve always been my favorite Hunter because of your witty repartee, but can we move past the dramatics and name calling?"

  "Who’s name calling?"

  "Are you in or not?" she asked.

  "A temporary alliance, that’s your offer?"

  "You know it’s the only way you’ll get close enough to him. We both want the same thing," she cajoled.

  He laughed. "Uh, no. I want you both dead, but you’ll never let it get that far." Sometimes the bloodsuckers were funny, but prejudiced as hell. They thought all humans were fuck-heads.

  "It’s a chance you’ll have to take. They say you’re the best, but how good are you really?"

  Sam also knew they loved to prey on human insecurities. As if he could give a rat’s ass if he was number one or bottom of the barrel. He was a Hunter, and she was right. They did say he was the best, and for the Vanguard, that was saying a lot. But this parasite didn’t realize he didn’t give a fuck about rankings. His job was to flush out leeches and dispose of them. Usually it was the inconsequential mosquitoes of the Kindred race most easily taken down, but Sam was big game hunting this time. This crazy bitch and the one they both sought, the reason for the alliance, were much more valuable prey.

  He wanted the BloodStar.

  Sam had no choice. She was right. Using Jenna to get to McRae was a dead end. If he wanted to get close, he’d have to take chances. It was your basic risk-to-reward relationship.

  He let out a dramatic sigh of resignation, and said, "I guess we’ll find out."

  "So yes then?" The voice on the other end of the line had gone giddy as a kid on a pony.

  Sam rubbed his eyes with the thumb and forefinger of his free hand. He was tired, and his eyes ached from the binoculars. In fact, he was tired all the time. This city that launched the Rocky Mountains was taking it out of him physically, and the stress of the hunt was killing him psychologically. The dry climate parched his skin and any exertion at altitude left him sucking wind. The physical part was getting better every day, but not fast enough. Jesus, just walking up stairs left him in oxygen deficit.

  And he thought of Franky all the time. The attention he devoted to his dead
partner had never been divided before, never had to share space, but now images of McRae were starting to creep in. And the images…Jesus, if Sam Jr. was excited about Jenna, the McRae shit had his little buddy twisted in knots—stiff, throbbing knots.

  The guilt was almost too much. He didn’t notice the invasion at first, didn't realize how much headspace McRae commanded. It was subtle, a small disparity like the difference between a quarter cup and a third of a cup, but in the last few days, Marley filled the latter, leaving Franky the slightly smaller space. This weighed heavier than anything else.

  "What the hell," he finally committed.

  "Fantastic."

  The voice dripped with eagerness and something else he’d learned to recognize over the years of hunting with the Vanguard—this vampire was thirsty. It was only a matter of time now that he’d committed before she had at his vein. Fuck, he couldn’t afford addiction.

  She was still purring in his ear. "You can start by bringing me your toy girlfriend."

  Sam laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. "I don’t think so. We may be in cahoots, but I'm not your errand boy. Leave Jenna out of this." As soon as he said it, though, Sam had a sickening feeling Jenna was already up shit creek. He wasn’t particularly attached to the girl (even though Junior was quite fond of her ass-ets), but Jenna was sweet, the kind of girl who made the world a better place. He was trying to vanquish evil, not extinguish goodness.

  "Okay," she said. "But you might just be surprised how far you’ll go in the end to get your kill. Keep an open mind, Samuel."

  Chapter Six

  "I know what you’re thinking," said Sabian as he lounged against Marley's wall.

  God, he was just so casual about it. Marley turned her back, grabbed her tank and threw it back on. There was no way she could respond to this with the girls just hanging out on full display. Where did she put her bat? It saved her more times than she could count (regrettably from people she knew and had invited into her home more often than not). Under the bed? The closet? Shit. Even if she knew the exact location, what would she do with it? Her hands were shaking an 8.0 on the Richter scale. She’d probably just bludgeon herself.