B006P1R39O EBOK Page 10

  His words nicked at her heart, and her hurt showed clearly on her face. “What’s wrong with me?”

  “Believe me when I tell you that it’s not you … it’s me.”

  “That sounds like some kind of line,” she frowned.

  Luciano chuckled softly. “For being so innocent, you do seem to grasp the nature of the opposite sex very well.”

  “You’re avoiding the question,” she pouted.

  “Yes … maybe I am, but it’s time to get you home.”

  Kathrina shook her head. “I don’t want to go yet. Can’t I stay here with you for a while?”

  No matter what her feelings for Luciano were - and she wasn’t really sure at the moment - Kathrina had to admit that she felt much safer when she was with him. Even she found this ironic, considering he’d wanted to feed on her.

  Luciano shook his head. “Being with you is too tempting.”

  “But someone’s after me. I think someone wants to kill me,” she tried to explain, remembering the mysterious words of the boy vampire.”

  He touched her lips with his, giving her a feather light kiss. “I know, but you are safest in your father’s care.”

  Kathrina opened her mouth to voice another protest, but was silenced when he laid his hand on her forehead. The world faded to black.

  Chapter Ten

  From the garden, Luciano stared up at Kathrina’s window. He watched as her bedroom went dark. After she was unconscious, he’d brought her back to her father’s house and placed her on the swing that sat on the porch. He then watched from a distance until her sisters found her. It was best that her family not know whom she’d been with. They already detested him for who he was. It would only get worse if they believed that he still posed any danger to Kathrina.

  The girl was getting to be a handful. She was willful and stubborn to a fault, and she had her heart set on bedding him. Luciano wasn’t sure how much longer he could resist her. She was just too tempting.

  What he’d told her about his sexual partners was true. He would willingly enjoy the delights that they offered, and then he’d feed on them until their life essence faded away. He rarely gave one of them a second thought. His anger toward Ophelia had been so great that he’d punished all females for her betrayal, stealing their lives and delivering their souls to darkness.

  That was until Kathrina. From the moment he saw her - tasted her lips, he’d been able to think of almost nothing else.

  He could still hear the seer’s words as she lay dying in his arms. He’d drained her of blood until she was nearly gone. She’d begged him for immortality, but he’d been unrelenting. Never had he gone so far as to turn his prey. That was a sentence too cruel to pass on anyone, even a feeder.

  You will hunger for a woman that carries the light within her soul. It is her blood that will set you free, but only if you can kill her. My debt to Azazel now becomes yours.

  Then she’d died. It was not until it was too late that he’d realized what she’d meant and who Azazel was.

  The only woman that could purify his tainted blood was also the only woman that he could not bring himself to kill. If he delivered her soul to Azazel the virus would be reversed, but how could he kill the only woman that had been able to touch his heart?

  The witch had reached out from the grave to extract her revenge. He would live in infinite darkness, unless he could kill Kathrina. He could not just feed from her - he must take her last drop of blood and release her soul.

  The reason that her blood would kill a turned vampire was because it attacked anything that was impure. A turned vampire was a virus - the walking talking incarnation of the virus itself. But it wasn’t just the fact that she was a wolf - vampire hybrid. It was true that when the virus was transmitted to a wolf or vampire through a bite from a hybrid, it caused a violent reaction that killed the victim, but Kathrina’s bite would be even more deadly. Her blood was special - so unique that he may never find another like her.

  When Ophelia created the virus - she did not just produced some biological weapon to destroy the offspring of humans and vampires, she’d created a living evil that actually fed off of the vampire’s hunger for blood. She’d created monsters. Only if he were to consume the purest blood in existence could he destroy that monster within him. It was the purity of light in her blood that made Kathrina so special. He could never tell her the origins of her blood. If she knew, and another vampire ever read her thoughts, she would be as good as dead. Just like her mother.

  Her mother’s blood had not been deadly to the turned vampire, but Kathrina’s would. The problem was that most vampires wouldn’t know that she was a hybrid. Once they found out what she really was, the part about her wolf-vampire blood would be irrelevant. They would kill her hoping to end their own curse and they would be destroyed in the process.

  Luciano took one last look at her dark bedroom window, and then turned to walk away - the battle within him still raging. He wanted her near him, but he just didn’t trust himself. If he lost control, the result could be disastrous, no matter which part of him that won out. If he killed her, he would lose a part of himself that would plunge him into darkness much blacker than his existence as an immortal. If he gave in and let himself sample the pleasures of the flesh, he would never be able to let her go.

  * * *

  Kathrina stood in front of the bathroom mirror, shocked by the sight of the sallow - pale girl that stared back at her. When waking, she’d felt a little off, but she was not prepared for the image that greeted her when she looked in the mirror. She looked ill, and she felt ill.

  Closing her eyes, she tried to recall the night before. The last thing she remembered was looking into Luciano’s eyes. The next thing she knew she was waking up in her own bed.

  Had it all been some kind of strange dream?

  She dismissed the possibility. Somehow he’d rendered her unconscious. Again he’d rejected her, but at least this time he hadn’t brushed her off completely. Maybe she was making some progress.

  Kathrina could no longer pretend that he didn’t matter - that he was simply an enemy that she had to destroy. As bizarre as it was, she had to admit that she wanted him, and the more he resisted her - the stronger her desire became.

  His hands and lips were magical, giving her pleasure that she had never even dreamed of. Now she could understand why women found vampires so captivating. Once they had you under their spell, you would be completely lost.

  Kathrina turned on the antique faucet and filled her hands with water to splash on her face. The cold water helped but she still felt groggy and weak. Turning the faucet to hot, she scrubbed her face with soap and water, blotting her skin dry with the hand towel that hung next to the sink.

  There was something about the image in the mirror that caught her attention and she leaned over the sink to get a better look. Kathrina wrinkled her forehead in confusion; she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The skin around her lips had a blue - discolored appearance. The dark circles beneath her eyes she could blame on lack of sleep, but not the discolored skin.

  Kathrina swallowed hard. She looked like she could be one of the undead, even a zombie. The thought made her shudder. Opening the mirror she took out some liquid makeup, dabbing some under her eyes and around her mouth.

  Stepping back from the mirror she examined her reflection. As long as she didn’t get too close to anyone, she would look almost normal. The last thing she needed right now was for Sarah and Nicole to freak out and insist that she see a doctor. There was just too much that needed to be done for her to be sitting around hospitals all the time.

  Kathrina was jerked from her thoughts by a sharp knock at her bedroom door.

  “Who is it?” she called from the adjoining bathroom.

  “It’s Nicole! Can I come in?”

  “Sure,” Kathrina said as she was slipping into her robe. She had no idea if there were any other weird marks on her body so she thought it best to hide as much of her skin as
possible.

  “How are you feeling this morning?” Nicole asked.

  “Better,” Kathrina told her sister.

  “Do you mind if I ask where you were last night and why you were passed out on the front porch?”

  Kathrina struggled to find an answer. She couldn’t admit to what she had really been doing, and she actually didn’t know what happened after her interlude with Luciano.

  “I was just feeling sick last night. I must have fallen asleep before I could get in the house.” Kathrina hated being untruthful with her sister, but she didn’t want her to know about Luciano.

  “Hmm.” Nicole looked doubtful but she didn’t pursue the subject. “We have agreed to meet with the slayers today. Maybe they can help us.”

  Kathrina felt uneasy all of the sudden. There was something about the slayers, or at least Jordan, that wasn’t right. She didn’t know if she wanted their help with anything.

  “Why do we need their help?” she asked Nicole.

  “They have a lot more experience fighting vampires than we do … and remember there are only a few of us.”

  “But still … I think they are going to be more trouble than help. What about Summer and the wolves?”

  “Right now we are lucky that they are not coming after us too. The Sungmanitu are not happy about what happened to Summer.”

  “But still ….” Kathrina shook her head. “I don’t know if I trust them.”

  “We should at least listen to what they have to say. If it doesn’t make sense … we’ll walk out.”

  Sighing, Kathrina shrugged. “Okay … if you think so.”

  “We’ll be leaving soon if you want to go with us,” Nicole told her.

  “I’ll get dressed and meet you downstairs.”

  * * *

  Crammed into the backseat of Nicole’s small - black sports car, Kathrina felt like a sardine. She was nominated to ride in back because she was small, and of course she was also younger. Like most baby sisters, it wasn’t uncommon for Kathrina to get the short end of the stick. Though her sisters doted on her, they were still big sisters. Being the youngest did have its disadvantages.

  Nicole drove slowly, careful to avoid the large craters that still marred the roads in the Lower 9th Ward. Even beneath the stark mid-morning sun, the atmosphere of the neighborhood seemed eerily dark - a literal wasteland.

  Few residents had returned since the Katrina disaster. Everywhere you looked there were weed-covered lots and derelict houses, many in shambles. A lot of the roads were still impassible. Nicole maneuvered the car around piles of debris. Several times she was forced to turn around and take another route.

  Nicole slowed the car almost to a stop when she came upon a large hole in the road. On the side of the street were piles of garbage that were several feet high. Staring out the window, Kathrina shuddered when she saw two large rats scurry out from beneath a heap of trash.

  “I can’t believe you agreed to meet them here,” Kathrina commented.

  Nicole’s dark eyes stared at her from the rearview mirror. “What’s gotten into you lately? Since your stay in the hospital you’ve had such a sour attitude.”

  Kathrina shrugged and looked away. “Just tired I guess.”

  The truth was that she wasn’t sure why she had been feeling so much unease. She knew that she was confused about her feelings for Luciano, but it was much more than that. There was a sense that something wasn’t right, though she couldn’t pinpoint the source of that feeling.

  Lost in thought, Kathrina barely noticed when Nicole pulled to the side of the road.

  “You coming?” Sarah asked from the front seat.

  Kathrina blinked as if coming out of a trance. When she looked out of the car window at the large house with the boarded up windows and peeling paint, her apprehension grew.

  Why did they have to meet the slayers in such an isolated location? Again she felt uneasy.

  Instead of opening the car door, she looked at Sarah. “Don’t you feel it?

  “Feel what?” Sarah stared at her in bewilderment.

  Kathrina felt her heart sink. Out of the three of them, Sarah should be feeling it the strongest. She was a witch, and she had a strong connection to the spirit world. Sarah should be sensing something.

  Why wasn’t she?

  Kathrina could tell that her sisters were puzzled by her behavior, but she was convinced that she wasn’t imagining it.

  Kathrina concluded that her sisters must be feeling what she was feeling, but they were ignoring it. The promise of a cure for the men that they loved was blocking out their sixth sense. It looked like she’d be on her own this time.

  Though she was half tempted to tell them to go ahead and she’d wait in the car, she knew she couldn’t do that. If it were some kind of a trap, her sisters would need all the help they could get.

  Taking a deep breath, she opened the car door and stepped out. Her sisters started walking toward the house, but Kathrina hesitated. She wanted to get a feel for what they were getting into.

  Hanging out with vampires, she’d spent so much time in the dark that the bright sun hurt her already light sensitive eyes.

  Why had they chosen the middle of the day to meet with them?

  Of course if she thought about it, meeting during the day would make sense for a slayer. No danger of vampires lurking in the shadows. But still, it also left them vulnerable if it were a trap. There would be no one around to help them.

  Nicole was half way up the walkway when she turned to look at Kathrina. “Are you coming?”

  Kathrina nodded and hurried to catch up with them. “Why here?” she asked again.

  “I don’t know. I think this is kind of their main base,” Nicole told her.

  Nicole stepped in front of her sisters and knocked on the door. Kathrina didn’t miss the protective gesture. Now she knew for sure that her sister was feeling it too, but she was ignoring it.

  When the door opened they came face to face with a young man that appeared to be in his mid twenties. He had greasy brown hair and pale gray eyes. He wouldn’t have been that much different than most guys his age, except for his pale skin and the way he was shaking. He reminded Kathrina of a tweaker she once knew while going to school in New Mexico.

  “We’re here to see Jordan,” Nicole spoke for them.

  “Oh yeah, we’ve been waiting for you,” he told them, blinking rapidly. When he smiled, Kathrina saw that his teeth were rotted near his gums.

  Now she knew something was off with these slayers. If this guy were any example of the rest of the group, they probably wouldn’t stand a chance against any vampire.

  As soon as Kathrina stepped inside, she was blasted with a putrid odor and immediately felt as if she needed to wash. The interior of the house was as bad as the outside, if not worse. Many of the walls were covered with mold, and the carpet beneath their feet was shredded to mere threads. The house was sparingly furnished with only a few wooden chairs and a folding table. Kathrina decided that they must not have done any cleaning or restoration after the flooding.

  “Tell me you don’t all stay here,” Nicole said, wrinkling her nose.

  Just then Jordan made his appearance. Kathrina didn’t see where he’d come from, but she guessed that he’d probably entered from one of the rooms that led off from the living room where they’d been taken.

  “No,” he laughed. “This is just a place where we meet. It’s off the beaten track … safer that way,” Jordan explained.

  Jordan’s icy blue eyes rested on Kathrina. “You don’t look so well Kathrina. Maybe you are staying up too late.” Though he frowned, there was a glimmer of amusement in his eyes.

  Both Nicole and Sarah looked at her in confusion. Kathrina was grateful when Nicole turned back to Jordan, apparently deciding it was best to put her questions off until later.

  “We’ve come because you said you could help us,” Nicole told him.

  “That’s true … I did say that,” he smiled.
<
br />   “Well … how can you help?” Sarah asked, impatiently.

  “My people can take you to Omar … and we can help you kill the one that will set the vampires free.”

  Kathrina jumped into the conversation. “If you are talking about Luciano, I don’t believe you. Killing him will not change anything for the vampires.”

  “Let him talk.” Sarah glared at her.

  The unease that Kathrina felt earlier was back, only magnified a hundred times over. This wasn’t like Sarah at all. What had gotten into her sisters?

  Jordan shook his head. “Kathrina … you are so innocent. Don’t you realize that is exactly what he wants you to think?”

  The shadow of doubt crawled into her head. She knew that sooner or later it would find its way to her heart if she couldn’t get to the truth soon. What if Jordan was right? Luciano was probably the most powerful amongst all vampires. There was no doubt in her mind that if he wanted to, he could weave a spell over her so strong that she would be completely under his influence.

  He could trick her into trusting him and then when she least expected it, he could kill her.

  Kathrina pushed the thought aside, unsure of where it had come from. Somehow it hadn’t felt like her thought at all.

  “I don’t believe it. He could have killed me already,” she told them.

  Sarah opened her mouth to say something, but Jordan held up a hand to stop her.

  “We will confront that problem later, right now we can do something about Omar. You don’t have any objection to that do you?” he directed the question to Kathrina.

  She didn’t miss the sarcasm in his voice, but chose to ignore it. Kathrina hesitated. She’d known for a long time that part of her destiny was to bring an end to Omar’s tyranny, but because Jordan was pushing it so hard, she wasn’t sure if she trusted it anymore.

  She didn’t trust Jordan.

  Again she pushed her doubts aside. “No, I have no problem with that.” The truth was that she was anxious to get it done and fulfill her destiny. Then she could be free to live her life the way she chose.