Blood Kiss Read online

  I wasn’t sure if he was talking about the cleansing ritual I was performing on my wounded neck or other, murkier matters I would rather not discuss.

  “It won’t happen again,” I said briskly. “But not because you won’t drink any more of my blood.”

  “I won’t—” he began, but I cut him off.

  “We have to be practical about this, Michael. You need blood to survive, so while we’re trying to get to the bottom of all this, I’ll keep you supplied.” I tried to smile but when I looked in the mirror, the expression on my face was far from happy. “Just think of it as my way of going Dutch once my money runs out,” I said.

  “God, that’s…” He broke off, shaking his head. “I’m not going to bite you again.” He nodded at the holy water. “I know how much that stuff burns—like having your whole body doused with gasoline and torched.”

  I nodded. “Good analogy. But you don’t have to bite me. Next time I’ll slit a vein and let some drain into a cup.”

  “Jesus.” He ran a hand through his hair. “You make it sound so…so clinical.”

  “As opposed to what?” I demanded. “We’re together like this for a reason, Michael—to find out what the hell is going on with the…with my old boss and to take our lives back. This isn’t a date and I’m not your girlfriend. This is survival. Got it?”

  “Yeah, you’ve made yourself pretty damn clear.” His green eyes were filled with pain—pain I had put there but I told myself I didn’t care. I’d been in the pain business since I was sixteen; it was a little late to stop now.

  “Good,” I said. “I’m going to bed.”

  “I’ll sleep on the floor if you want,” he said. “I mean so you don’t feel…”

  “What? Threatened? Afraid?” I capped the bottle of rubbing alcohol and pointed it at him like a gun. “Let me tell you something, Michael—I’ve been killing vampires for years. So you don’t have to worry that I’m some helpless little girl that’s afraid you’ll molest her in the middle of the night. If you put a hand on me when I don’t want you to, I won’t scream rape—I’ll cut it off.”

  He winced. “Translation: We can share the bed because you’re not scared of me.”

  I nodded. “Bingo.”

  “I guess that’s a good thing,” Michael said, meeting my eyes in the mirror. “Because I have to tell you, Kate, you scare the shit out of me.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Despite my cutting little speech about not being afraid of him, it was surprisingly hard to get to sleep in a dark room knowing there was a vampire lying right beside me. Sleeping in the car had been different—there had been sunlight which I automatically associated with safety. But there was no sunlight now. And every time I happened to glance over the vast expanse of the king sized bed I could see Michael’s eyes glowing softly in the dark. Apparently he couldn’t sleep either.

  I felt kind of bad about the way our last conversation had turned out but I didn’t see that it could have gone any other way. Somebody had to lay the facts on the table and since he obviously wasn’t going to do it, it might as well be me. This wasn’t a couples get-away or a scenic retreat we were on here—we were running for our lives.

  I turned over so I couldn’t see the faint green glow but then I had him at my back. Never turn your back on a vamp was Uncle Harry’s number one rule. I wondered again what he would think of what I was doing. Surely he would understand that I was just trying to survive. In the space of twenty-four hours my entire life as I knew it had been thrown into disarray. I just hoped that the safe house he’d left me would offer me help and guidance. I closed my eyes and remembered my beloved uncle’s words the one and only time he’d taken me there.

  “If you’re ever in trouble up to your neck and you don’t have anywhere else to go or anyone else to turn to, you come here, Kitten,” he’d said. He was the only one who ever called me that—the only one who could get away with it. “Look for the family Bible on the top shelf of the bookcase. You’ll find help there, and I don’t just mean the spiritual variety.”

  I had never bothered to look in the Bible—a thick dusty book with stiff black leather covers—although I assumed it contained the name of someone who could help me in time of need. I had never needed to look because I thought my uncle would live forever. That I would never lose him—the one constant in my life, the one man who would never leave me.

  I turned over again so I was facing Michael and shut my eyes firmly against the glow of his eyes. The Glock was under my pillow and it was time to stop being so damn morbid and get to sleep. We had a long day ahead of us tomorrow. I just hoped the dusty Bible would hold the key to unlocking the predicament I found myself in.

  I did the Yoga breathing thing until I fell asleep. But then I had the dream.

  We are in an unused coven—one of the older ones full of long hallways and flickering shadows. This is a routine sweep. We’re just here to make sure everything’s clear. There have been rumors of leeches from the Taglione family living here, trying to break off on their own. Can’t have that.

  “You take the left fork and I’ll take the right, Kitten,” Uncle Harry says and I nod my head.

  Uncle Harry always knows best. He’s been teaching me since I was twelve—lessons in weapons use and vampire physiology and the best ways to kill them. He took me on my first hunt at age sixteen—the age when a slayer comes into his or her own. The age when she leaves her birth family behind and accepts her destiny. In the four years since then, I have never once seen him falter. Never once has he fallen for any of their tricks. And he has taught me everything he knows.

  So I turn for the left fork, unafraid of what I might find. Unafraid too, for Uncle Harry. He knows what he’s doing and so do I.

  “Kitten…”

  His voice pulls me back from the long corridor of shadows I am about to descend. I turn back to him.

  “Yes?”

  “Love you,” he says, and gives me a quick kiss on the forehead above my left eyebrow, just like always.

  “You too,” I say, smiling up into his wintry blue eyes, so like my own. How can I know that the next time I see those eyes they will be wide with pain and horror? How can I know this is the last cherished kiss, the last sweet goodbye?

  I don’t know, at least not in my dream. So I leave him, careless of the future even as my subconscious screams at me— Go Back! Grab his hand! Pull him out of the coven, into the light! Leave now before it’s too late!

  My dreaming self does not hear, cannot heed the warning. I continue down the hallway, my crossbow ready to perforate any stray leeches that might be hiding, hoping to start a coven of their own. Vampires are like cockroaches—you have to stomp out every last one or they come back. They always come back.

  I finish my sweep and head back to the main hall, looking for Uncle Harry. He’s been teaching me how to cook and tonight I wanted to show off my new skills. I’ll make him Spaghetti Bolognaise in the old Italian style, just the way he taught me.

  Uncle Harry always says, “Why spend your time with an old guy like me, Kitten? Go out and have some fun. Find a nice boy your own age and paint the town red.” But I spend too much of my time painting with red and besides, where else can I find a man who understands me, who understands what my blood compels me to do? Uncle Harry is safe—he will never hurt me. Never leave me or send me away. That’s worth a thousand times more than a night out with some guy my own age who could never comprehend who I am and what I do.

  I hear the sucking noises before I come into the room—the gurgling and choking too. I want to call his name but that is against the rules. “Never let them know you’re there until you’re pouring hot silver down their throats,” Uncle Harry always says. So I hold my tongue but the truth is I couldn’t shout if I wanted to. The truth is I know I’m already too late even before I round the corner and burst into the room.

  I unload three glass tipped arrows into the vamps that are on him but that isn’t what makes them run. It is that