Dayhunter

ONE

We needed to feed.

Tristan’s hunger seared my senses, burning through me in a hot, angry wave, until I was pressed against the rough brick wall that lined the alley. My nails dug into the palms of my hands, leaving bloody crescent moons as I hung onto the last tendrils of control over myself and the young nightwalker. Slowly, the consuming desire for blood subsided as the vampire struggled against the red haze. The wave pulled back, dragging across my bare flesh like a bouquet of stinging nettles.

Leaning back, I closed my eyes and drew in a steadying breath in an attempt to get a better grip on myself, but instantly regretted it. The narrow alley was filled with stale, fetid air, laced with rotting meat, mold, and what I could only guess was the smell of a decaying rat or two. Gagging, I lost my hold on Tristan’s mind and the next wave of hunger swamped us both, knocking me to my knees.

Across the dingy expanse, Tristan’s blue eyes glowed with a light that had nothing to do with heaven or the glory of God. His long fingers were like claws and his nails were dug into the wall behind him as if in one final, desperate attempt to keep himself from attacking the first creature to cross his path. There was little left to him that was human beyond the slender frame that held him. His beautiful features were drawn and lean; a fierce collection of bone and muscle possessed with the need for blood.

Mira.

Tristan’s mind reached out and touched my own, but it wasn’t his usual soft voice. It was deep, rough, and darkly seductive; matching the rumble that echoed against the ragged remains of my soul. The same monster lived inside of me, craving blood, longing for the feel of my fangs slipping into flesh. It was the monster that demanded I drink so deep I felt the soul of my prey brush against the back of my throat.

The voice in my brain faded, replaced by the cacophony of man. Sweet London, teaming with humans and the thunderous pound of their hearts. The night was so young and fresh, like a fragile girl on her way to her first ball. Tristan and I had escaped to a dark, seedy corner of the old city that overflowed with life calling out in a steady drum beat.

We both needed to feed, desperately. The battle had gone badly, leaving Tristan and me wounded and drained of the very substance that had sustained our existence well beyond what should have been our natural end. We needed blood and we knew I was the only thing keeping him from killing his prey when he finally sank his teeth in. He wouldn’t mean to; we didn’t need to kill. But there was no moral fiber guiding his decisions any longer. There was only the red wave of blood lust and the need to survive.

At the other end of the block a man with graying brown hair shuffled out of the night and paused at the corner. Cupping his hands before his face, he lit a cigarette and looked around, his heavily lined visage apparent in the lamplight. He gazed up and down the street, the hand holding the cigarette trembling, the little bud of fire twitching in the darkness.

A low growl rose from Tristan’s throat as his eyes locked on this prey. I launched myself across the tiny alley and crushed him against the wall. The young vampire snarled at me, fangs bared and blue eyes reduced to narrow slits. He no longer saw me or cared that I could rip him apart without straining myself. I was older and stronger, but he needed blood and nothing was going to stand in his way.

“Wait,” I ordered between clenched teeth, my fingers biting into his muscular arms. His clothes were ripped and splattered with blood from our struggle with the naturi earlier in the evening. My thoughts stumbled as the smell of Tristan’s blood and that of the naturi mingled in my nose, conjuring up images I didn’t want to recall just yet. The battle had been a success only in the sense that we both survived and had the energy to hunt, a failure in that my beloved bodyguard Michael lay cold and dead back at the Themis Compound.

With a grunt, I turned my attention to the man standing on the distant street corner. I had to exert only a little effort to touch his drug-addled brain and draw him over with the misconception that a potential customer had beckoned him, interested in viewing his wares. When the man was standing within the shadows of the narrow alley, I released Tristan and slipped silently back to the opposite wall.

“Don’t kill him,” I whispered as the nightwalker lunged.

Tristan’s prey heard my words and managed a half step backward, his fear spiking so I could feel it cut through the dark alley and the haze of blood lust, but it was too late. I stepped back, pressing against the brick wall as the nightwalker wrapped his arms around the man like a pair of steel bands. I couldn’t tear my eyes away and found myself sliding to my knees as Tristan fell to his.

Slipping into the nightwalker’s mind, a wave of sensations washed over me, pulling me under. Tristan drank deeply, sucking the intoxicatingly warm blood into his cold body. I could hear his throat muscles convulsively working, sending the thick liquid down into his stomach. To make the feast that much sweeter, he left the man conscious. The drug dealer’s heart was pounding in his chest, a single piston hammering away but getting him nowhere. His fear filled the narrow alley, overwhelming the scent of rotting garbage and damp mold, dragging a soft moan across my parted lips. Kneeling on the ground with my hands clenched into fists, I listened to the man’s heartbeat start to slow. He had passed out.

“Release him,” I said in a hoarse voice. Tristan hesitated but did as I commanded. Laying the man against the wall, he turned to look at me, balanced on the balls of his feet. His blue eyes glittered and danced, rare gems in the darkness.

For the first time since I had met him, Tristan seemed truly alive. At the nightclub with Thorne, he had been on the run, hiding from Sadira, his personality muted by the constant fear of discovery. But now, something within him finally pulsed with new life. It was my promise to help him gain his freedom from our maker. A promise he knew I would do my best to keep.

The scrape and shuffle of footsteps intruded into our dark, blood-splattered corner of the world. Both of us froze, waiting to see who approached. From the moment Tristan sank his fangs into his meal, I had been cloaking our presence; a natural reflex at this point in my existence rather than a conscious thought. The veil protected us from the sight of any and all nonmagic users. In other words, normal, everyday humans.

At the steady cadence of footsteps, the young nightwalker had thrown up his own protective veil, which was instantly interwoven with my own. He felt stronger now and his thoughts were sharp and clear. I could sense the nervousness that worried the frayed edges of his mind, but he remained as still as stone, and I was confident that he would follow my lead.

A man with short brown hair started past the alley. His walk was brisk and confident. He turned his head toward the alley and his eyes quickly swept the narrow expanse. Tristan and I remained unmoving, waiting. For a moment I felt as if I was somehow both predator and prey. Yet the man’s gait never faltered and his gaze returned to the street before him. He didn’t see us.

But the witch and werewolf did. Following two steps behind the man with the square jaw was a witch in worn jeans and a lycanthrope in khakis. Her easy walk skidded to a rough halt and her shoulder-length brown hair swung forward to crowd her narrow face. The lycan stopped beside her and frowned, causing heavy lines to furrow his hard face.

“Shit!” The explosive whisper escaped her as she stared at us.

Tristan and I remained frozen, waiting for the intruders to make the first move. Tristan’s dinner was still unconscious and mostly hidden behind the young nightwalker. However, we were both covered in blood and our clothes were torn from our fight earlier in the evening. Not one of our most attractive moments. Of course, when it came to the other races, we had all developed a kind of “to each his own” attitude. So we waited. If the witch and lycan resumed walking, we would all pretend we didn’t see each other.

We weren’t that lucky. The human spun on his heel at the witch’s exclamation, grabbing a gun from the small of his back. It had been hidden beneath his loose-fitting, button-up shirt with a garish dragon print. His eyes and gun swept the alley again, but he still did not see us.

The witch reached over and laid her right hand on his broad shoulder. She whispered, “Specto,” and I felt a small ripple of power move through the air. The spell could have been performed by nearly any novice with a basic knowledge of Latin, but it was enough. The man blinked once and instantly paled as his grip tightened on the gun. Now he saw us.

“Keep walking,” I said in a low voice. I couldn’t risk a fight. The need to feed was nearly overwhelming, and if I was forced to fight, there was a very good chance that someone would end up dead. The monster inside me roared and hammered against the inside of my chest like a frantic heartbeat, demanding blood.

Tristan turned his head to look at me, waiting for my direction. Unfortunately, our new friend was trigger-happy. Jerking the gun over to point at the young nightwalker, he squeezed the trigger. With the soft click of the firing pin, Tristan and I were already in motion. The young vampire fell to the ground, but the bullet slashed across his upper right arm.

Darting across the alley, I grabbed the man’s hand as he swung around to point the gun at me. Stupid humans. Even if he shot me in the heart, he wouldn’t have succeeded in killing me. Guns couldn’t kill a nightwalker. Shotguns could be troublesome, but then the shooter had to get lucky as well. With fangs bared, I slammed his hand into the nearby brick wall, crushing bones. The man screamed as the gun fell from his limp fingers and clattered to the ground. Still holding his hand, I tossed him like a bag of trash over my shoulder into the alley. He hit the wall and crumpled to the ground unconscious.

“Watch him,” I growled to Tristan as I turned my attention to the witch and the lycan.

There was no chance to slow down and talk it out. And in truth, I was no longer in the mood for polite conversation. With an ugly snarl, the werewolf launched himself at me, his eyes glowing copper red. He slammed me into the brick wall, pinning my arms between our bodies, but his arms were free. His right first slammed into my left side, cracking at least two ribs. The shock wave of pain that rippled through me cut through the haze of blood lust and fatigue. His left fist followed, hammering my right side, bruising organs still tender from my earlier fight with the naturi.

Grunting under the pain, I jerked my head forward. The top of my forehead connected with his nose, breaking it. He fell back a step and I lifted my knee, slamming it into his groin. The lycanthrope howled in pain, stumbling away. His hands moved from his broken nose to his groin, holding himself as if it would ease the pain. The scent of his blood instantly hit the air.

Any thought of restraint evaporated. I was on him before he could draw a breath. My fangs sank into his throat, tearing the flesh. The blood rushed into me and sweet relief swept through my entire body. It was thick and warm and carried with it the lycan’s strength. He fought me, pushing, punching, kicking, and clawing desperately, but I could not be removed. With each swallow, he grew weaker and I grew stronger, slowly draining his life away.

“Mira!” Tristan shouted, finally causing me to lift my head. I let the lycanthrope fall unconscious at my feet. Tristan rushed forward to stand between me and the witch in an attempt to protect me, but she must have assumed he was coming after her.

“No!” she screamed, her small, narrow face a ghostly white. She hadn’t moved during my brief scuffle with her companion. I doubt she even breathed. Her wide brown eyes skipped from me to Tristan.

Raising her right hand, she began murmuring an incantation under her breath. I had taken a single step toward her, trying to get in front of Tristan, when her right hand was engulfed in a ball of yellow and orange flames. I paused, a tiny smile toying with my lips. She was smart. Normally, the sight of fire in the hands of a witch would send any nightwalker running for shelter. However, I wasn’t just any nightwalker, I was the Fire Starter. Controlling fire had been both my gift and curse since I was a human child. Poor witch.

With a grunt, she hurled the fireball, aiming for Tristan. Reaching out with my right hand, the fire curved toward me and settled in the palm of my open hand. Smiling broadly, I closed my fingers and extinguished the flame, plunging the narrow alley back into darkness.

The witch frowned, confusion clearly written across her pale face. Refusing to admit defeat, she lifted both hands and repeated the spell. This time I could feel the pull of energy in the air. She was putting everything she had into this one. I stepped in front of Tristan as she threw a pair of large fireballs at me.

My eyelids drifted nearly closed and time slowed. The smell of the rotting garbage and the sounds of the people within the city ceased to exist. There was only the fire as it roared at me. With my palm out, I waved my left hand before my body. The flames once again followed my pale hand. They gathered around it for a moment, then slithered up my arm and down my chest like a well-fed python. I could not be burned.

Yet something was off. While my focus was on the fire, I could hear the monster inside me screaming, but it wasn’t the roar of hunger I had listened to for more than six centuries. It was a shriek of anger and pain. Suddenly confused and fearful, I redirected the flames to wash down my legs like water. However, the second the fire touched the ground, my senses exploded. The earth was consumed in a blinding white light, scorching my brain. Beneath my feet I could feel an enormous well of power flowing like a river, and the fire was returning to it.

And then nothing. The fire was gone and cold silence crowded around me. The new connection had snapped off before I could even begin to guess at what I’d tapped into. The white light faded. Even the growling hunger inside of me had gone still, possibly with the same wary confusion.

The telltale scrape of a shoe across concrete drew my attention back to the witch. Her arms were tightly wrapped around her middle and she was slowly shaking her head. “Oh, God,” she moaned in a hoarse voice. “The Fire Starter. Here.”

Before I could take another step toward her, the woman reached into the front pocket of her jeans as she took a step backward and disappeared.

“Damn it,” I whispered, fighting back the chill that swept up my spine. She knew who I was. It was one thing for a nightwalker to recognize me on sight. Fear was useful when it came to controlling those who would try to control you. But I didn’t like it when the other races discovered my presence. There was no telling who was pissed at me at any given time.

Now the questions became: Where did she go, and was she reporting my presence to someone stronger and meaner? Judging from her age, spell choice, and amount of power used, she wasn’t a particularly experienced witch. Furthermore, transportation spells like that were extremely advanced. When she’d reached into her pocket, she must have touched a locator charm, probably created by someone much more powerful.

Frowning, I bit back a curse. This was all idle speculation. I knew a fair amount regarding magic because I had suffered through enough run-ins with witches and warlocks to learn a few things. I needed to talk to Ryan and get his thoughts. Unfortunately, the white-haired warlock was his own bundle of trouble, and I was in no hurry to deal with him again just yet. I would have to manage with the witch’s unconscious companions for now.

Turning to approach Tristan, my knees buckled and then I found myself kneeling on the ground. I blinked once to clear the growing fog from around my thoughts. Using fire had sapped the last of my strength, and my body was demanding that I feed again and rest. What strength I had gained from feeding off the werewolf was gone.

The young vampire appeared at my side, a firm hand resting beneath my elbow. I gazed up at him, a worried expression twisting his handsome face. “Has she done something to you?” he inquired. For the first time since meeting him, I heard a soft accent in his speech. French maybe, but different. A remnant of his human life. Slowly, he guided me back to sit on the ground, my back pressed to the brick wall.

“No,” I replied with a weary smile. “Just tired. I need to rest a minute.” I jerked my head toward the human who had pulled the gun. “Is he still alive?”

“For now,” Tristan grumbled, the hand on my elbow tightening as his eyes drifted over to the body of our gunman.

Laying my left hand beneath his chin, I forced him to look at me. “And he’ll stay that way. I need you to discover the identity of our attackers without killing him.”

Frowning, Tristan rose and returned to the man’s side. He stood over the man, his fists on his hips. I couldn’t tell whether the nightwalker was stalling out of distaste for the task or if he had begun rummaging through the man’s mind. Some nightwalkers had to physically touch their prey to enter his or her mind, especially if the person was unconscious.

“David Perry,” Tristan suddenly said, a faintly far-off quality to his voice. His mind was half with me, half with the human. “Thirty-six. Ex-marine. From Birmingham, Alabama. He’s—” His words were broken off with a harsh hiss and his eyes glowed pale blue when he looked over at me. “He’s a member of the Daylight Coalition.”

“Tristan!” I barked, lurching to my feet as the nightwalker started to reach for the unconscious man. He halted, but still growled in the back of his throat, and I couldn’t blame him. I would have been happy to rip the human’s throat out at that second too.

The Daylight Coalition was a group of humans within the United States who knew of the existence of nightwalkers and sought our total extermination. Humanity believed them to be a cult of insane fanatics and didn’t take them seriously. Of course, that didn’t erase the fact that members of the Coalition had staked a number of nightwalkers during the daylight hours. Regardless of whether you resided in the United States, all nightwalkers knew of the Coalition. We all feared they were the future we faced if we came “out of the coffin,” so to speak.

But for now my concern was not the little zealot at my feet, but the witch and lycan he traveled with. All our information said that the Daylight Coalition was exclusively human, wisely avoided by the other races. In fact it was against our law to work with the Coalition. One turncoat could result in all out war. This was not a good development when we already had a war brewing with the naturi.

“Focus,” I snapped, standing beside Tristan. “Who was the woman?”

Tristan stared down at the man, radiating a lethal mix of anger and fear. “Caroline…Caroline Buckberry, but he wondered if it was her real name…” The anger started to ebb as his focus tightened on the man’s thoughts, causing his eyes to drift closed. “He didn’t know her. He was sent by the Houston branch to fetch the woman and the man. Harold Finchley. That’s all.” Tristan opened his eyes again and looked up at me. “He was told to go to London and bring them back to Houston. I don’t think he even knew what they were.”

“He didn’t have to know,” I murmured. “Perry is just a foot soldier. He follows the orders he’s given.”

“Do you think they were to be plants by the witches and lycans?” Tristan inquired. I didn’t miss the hopeful note in his voice.

“No,” I replied with a slight shake of my head. “The witches and warlocks have no business with the Coalition. Either one of them could have said something to explain their association with the human. But instead they attacked because they know the law.”

“But—”

“Forget what you saw,” I said, cutting off his next comment. “We have bigger problems.”

“The naturi.” His hands curled into fists and the muscles in his jaw tightened.

Yes, the naturi were coming and they would destroy us all, human and nightwalker, if given half a chance. In comparison, the Daylight Coalition was nothing; a fly on a rhino’s ass.

Standing, I propped my right shoulder against the alley wall and let my eyes drift shut for a moment. I hardly recognized my world anymore. A few nights ago I had been standing in my own domain back in my beloved Savannah, the warm summer air filled with the scent of honeysuckle and lilacs. It had been five hundred years since that night on Machu Picchu. The naturi were a distant memory, a dark nightmare from my past that could no longer touch me. The Daylight Coalition was just a fringe group with no contact with the others. But now both were threatening. My world was crumbling at an alarming rate and it all started with the hunter, Danaus. But there was no need to kill the messenger…yet.

Thoughts of him brought a faint smile to my lips as I pushed off the wall and opened my eyes. Tristan was watching me intently, waiting. He needed me alive to fulfill my promise to him. There was still time.

Briefly, I looked around the alley until I located the gun the human had used. There was no hesitation. There was no gray area in this law. Standing close, I fired a single bullet into the head of the lycanthrope. He had betrayed not only his own kind, but all the other races. He endangered our secret. And now he paid the cost with his life.

But his death didn’t dissolve the cold knot in my stomach. The Daylight Coalition’s main target had always been nightwalkers, but we were all confident they would attack any nonhumans eventually. Had Harold Finchley been a wolf acting alone, or was he part of a larger movement against nightwalkers?

“Wipe the memories of both men,” I said, motioning toward the drug dealer Tristan had fed from only minutes ago. Walking over to the Coalition member, I wiped the gun off on his shirt and dropped it by his body. “Then return to my hotel room.” Danaus would already be waiting there for us. From the hotel, we would head to the airport and grab my jet to Venice. If we were to have any hope of stopping the naturi and the coming war, we would need to first go to Venice and meet with the nightwalker Coven. They would know the best way to deal with the growing threat. They were the only ones who could summon an army.

“Where are you going?” Tristan asked.

A broad smile lifted my lips, revealing a pair of long white fangs. “To hunt.”