Page 9

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D amon lay on his bed wide awake as Tiffany slept peacefully with her head nestled against his chest. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever laid eyes on.

And his best friend’s little sister...God help him. What had he done?

He glanced down at the beautiful woman lying against him again. He knew what he’d done, what he’d stolen from her. She was everything he wanted in a woman. Strong, fierce, intelligent, beautiful. Any man would be lucky to have her, yet here she was in bed with him—a killer. He made his living off destroying things.

And he’d lied to her.

Granted, he fought monsters and sometimes that saved lives, but it didn’t change the fact that being successful at his job meant being ruthless, cold, bloodthirsty. When emotions entered the mix, that was when missteps crept in, and innocents got hurt.

That was when good men like Mark died.

What kind of a lowlife was he that he’d not only gone to bed with Mark’s sister, but lied to her about who he was, what she meant to him? Mark had trusted him to write to her with no idea of the consequences. No matter which way he looked at it, there was no justification for what he’d done. Even as they’d made love, he’d tried to convince himself that Mark would have wanted Tiffany to be protected, safe with him. That he would have wanted her to find a man who would love her and care for her, to stand at her side.

Maybe at one point that man could have been Damon. But after all he’d done, everything that had happened, it certainly wasn’t him now.

He stroked the soft tresses of her hair, watching the rise and fall of her chest.

He shook his head. What was she doing with someone like him?

A lump lodged in his throat as he thought of the last words in the final letter, she’d sent him. They were burned permanently into his mind and his heart.

I don’t know how you can miss a person you’ve never met, but somehow, I miss you every day.

With love,

Tiffany xoxo

He knew that after Mark’s death the Execution Underground had given her as many details as they could, to help her achieve closure, which meant she knew he could’ve saved Mark, and yet, he’d failed. There was no way she didn’t know.

She’d never answered a single one of his letters after that.

How much would she hate him now if she knew who he truly was?

Careful not to wake her, he slipped out from beneath her and rested her head on one of his pillows, making quick work of throwing on some clothes before he headed downstairs. They’d slept most of the day away, and now, with sundown not far away, the true work was about to begin.

He thought of the time he’d spent with Tiffany last night. Already he’d been neglecting his job, making love to her instead of closing in on Caius or searching for the vampire who was killing innocent women. There were so many things wrong with this situation. Images of partially devoured corpses, the awakening bloodsucker’s kidney exploding with green acid, and the way the vamp in the alley had guarded the body, flooded his mind.

But he couldn’t bring himself to regret that, everything that’d happened between them.

He punched in the security code for his tech room, and the heavily reinforced door unlocked. Shoving it open, he stepped inside, flopping into his chair as he hit the button that dialed Chris’s number.

The monitor beeped on, and second later Chris’s face emerged on the camera. “Hey, man—”

“Green acid came out of his kidney,” Damon said abruptly, unable to bring himself to deal with niceties.

Chris’ eyes widened. “What? Whose kidney?”

Wasting no time, Damon recounted the events of the previous evening, sparing no detail, except for the parts that involved Tiffany.

He wasn’t quite ready to confess his sins yet, not even to Chris.

When he finished, Chris let out a low whistle. “This is fucked up, Damon.”

Damon nodded. “It gets worse. After the vamp was dead, I brought the victim’s corpse back here to examine. Like I said, his kidney had green acid in it. Nearly burned my damn hand off, but...”

Immediately Chris stopped typing and looked at Damon.

“The dead guy turned into a vamp an hour later, Chris.”

“An hour?” Chris’s mouth fell open. “Only an hour? That’s barely a fraction of the normal transformation period. You’ve gotta be fucking me.”

Damon racked a hand over his face. “Wish I was.”

Chris shook his head. “And to add fuel to the fire, I got in five new reports for your area last night.”

Five? Damon’s eyes went wide. What kind of—

Chris raised a hand. “It’s not what you think. Not vamp news.”

Damon lifted a brow, waiting for Chris to elaborate.

Chris let out a long sigh and swore. “I hate to tell you this, but Rochester is swamped with supernatural predators. There are reported wolf shifter sightings, possibly a full-on pack, there are demons lodged so deep the people they’ve possessed are pretty much done for, there are several small witch covens, loads of non-wolf shifters—oh, and that’s not even including all the poltergeists and ghosts reported in the old, abandoned asylum.”

They both sat in silence for a moment, uncertain what to say.

Words couldn’t express what deep shit Damon was in.

Welcome to Rochester, alright.

Chris cleared his throat. “Look, we both know you can’t handle all this on your own.”

Damon clenched his teeth, dropping a fist onto the desk. He wasn’t ready to lead another division, not given the way he’d failed Mark, but the laundry list of supernatural shit Chris had just dished out was far more than any one hunter could handle. The Execution Underground trained all their members to deal with a variety of supernatural creatures, but then Headquarters assigned each hunter a species and conditioned them into elite specialists.

Sure, Damon had excelled across the board and was one of the few who’d been granted their choice of specialization, but none of that would do him any good in hunting other beasts full- time. There were too many. Per his choice, slaying vampires was his true purpose.

He clenched his fists, fighting down his own reservations. He’d do what needed to be done. He always did. “Send me a list of prospective hunters for every type of monster we have in the city. I’ll look through them, pick a team and put in a request to Headquarters.”

So much for flying solo. He’d thought coming to Rochester would let him work alone, since there was no established division in the area, and until now, the plethora of paranormal activity here hadn’t been on the EU’s radar. Though from the sounds of it, not even NYC was drowning in as many supernatural predators as Rochester was. At least down there, they had a division, support, which meant he’d landed in the exact situation he’d been trying to avoid.

Being the lead hunter on a team once more.

“You got it,” Chris said, interrupting him from his thoughts. “But let’s focus on one thing at a time. I ran those samples, but I was only able to determine one thing. Something caused a mutation in the vampire’s saliva, which probably means the vampires themselves have morphed into something new. The weird part is that the mutation has a lot of similarities to a human virus.”

If Damon had been a more lighthearted man, he might have laughed. “So, the vampires are sick?”

“Sort of. I think somehow, they’re passing around some sort of viral infection, and that’s causing the strange behaviors you described. But based on the change in their DNA, I think it’s only being passed on to newly turned vamps. Maybe it happens when a new vamp is made, and that’s why the old ones can’t get it. I have no idea what the original source could be, though. Does any of this fit what you’re thinking?”

Damon ran his hand over his hair. “Not sure. If the bloodsuckers have a virus, the weird behaviors make sense. But what about the dead guy turning so quickly? It only took an hour for him to turn, and regular vampire gestation is at least a month, sometimes longer, when buried in the ground. He shouldn’t have changed that quickly.”

Chris started typing again. “The virus could be causing a genetic mutation in their makeup and speeding up the transformation process.”

Damon rested his head in his hands. “So, we have sick baby vamps running around who are mutating into zombie-like monsters. But that doesn’t explain why a newborn vampire would leave blood. Once a baby vamp bites, it doesn’t detach until the person’s drained, and this guy wasn’t.”

Chris gave a single nod, prompting Damon to finish his thought.

“But a stronger vamp could.”

Chris stared at him. “You’re thinking an older vamp is killing these people and then feeding the leftovers to the new zombie vamps?”

If an older vampire was controlling younger ones within the Rochester city limits, there was a clear culprit. Damon and Chris exchanged knowing looks. They didn’t need to say it aloud to know they were on the same page.

Damon may have managed to protect Tiffany, but Caius had still been busy.

Tiffany yawned and stretched, her eyes flickering open. She blinked away the sleep from her vision and rolled over. Sitting up in bed, she glanced around the bedroom. No Damon. She flopped back into the pillows and let out a long sigh.

Holy smokes, the things they’d done...

A sweet ache pulsed through her core, the soreness just enough to remind her of every detail. She’d never thought she would have been capable of letting go like that, opening herself up to another person so completely. A small smile crept over her lips. She’d never been one for the sappy stuff, but the thought of the previous evening gave her butterflies.

She stood and stripped the top sheet from the bed. Wrapping it around herself, she padded down the stairs. She went into the laundry room and pulled her clothes from the dryer, checking them over. Still mildly stained with blood. No surprise there, but it would have to do. She dropped the sheet and dressed, before throwing the sheet in the hamper and heading into the living room in search of Damon. Who wasn’t there, or in the kitchen.

Where was he?

A moment later, she heard a heavy door closing, only for him to emerge from the downstairs hallway, a scowl twisting his face.

She lifted a brow. “Who spit in your coffee?”

Without a word, Damon flopped down onto the sofa, before he buried his head in his hands.

Tiffany raised another brow. “Okay then. No ‘good morning, Shortcake, hope you slept well after that crazy time we had last night.’” She dropped her hands to her sides with a slight humph. Was she an idiot to expect a little sweetness? Given how tender he’d been with her...

“Is this city really overrun with supernaturals?” he asked, lifting his head from his hands.

She blinked several times. “What?”

He let out a long breath. “I said, is this city overrun with supernatural predators? More than just vampires.”

She shrugged. “Yeah, pretty much. What else would you expect in a city this big with no division? Mark never taught me anything about hunting anything other than vamps, though, so I stay clear of the others.” She walked to the couch and sat down beside him.

He glanced toward her. “How do you know they’re here, then?”

She grinned. “Newsflash, Romeo, once you know of their existence, it doesn’t take a trained hunter to spot one. You know how it is. It might be a flash of a wolf eye here, or glimpse of fang there, or just a strange feeling when you encounter someone. I’ve learned never to ignore my instincts.” A moment of silence passed between them as she waited for him to speak. When he didn’t, she finally cleared her throat. “What’s it matter to you?”

“Everything,” he muttered, racking a hand over his face. She tried not to notice the way the scruff of his five o’clock shadow somehow made him even more handsome. “I need to assemble a division of hunters.”

Her eyes grew wide. “So, you mean there’s going to be a whole load of you guys here in Rochester now?”

He nodded. “Five others. Six total.” He got up off the couch and walked across the room, his demeanor as unamused as his tone.

She knew he had a lot on his mind, but after last night she...well...she wasn’t really sure what she’d expected, but it’d been more than this, anyway. Damon’s skills between the sheets made the guys in the romance novels she read look like bumbling idiots, but out of bed, cold and distant was his default setting. At least, when they weren’t flirting at least.

“What’s so bad about that? About bringing in other hunters?” she asked.

He ignored her question. “We’ve got worse things to worry about. The bloodsuckers have some sort of virus they’re passing between them. That’s what’s making them act like zombies and causing their victims to turn so quickly.”

Tiffany whistled low and long. “That is…not good. How are they passing it around?”

Damon shook his head. “No idea. But it seems the vamps contract the disease at transition. Chances are it started from one vamp who turned someone and continued from there. I don’t know how or why, much less how to stop it, but I need to find out.”

“If it keeps spreading, won’t the entire vampire population be overrun with these freak zombie leeches?”

Again, Damon didn’t respond, clearly lost in his own thoughts. His gaze was fixed and distant as he stared out the window, his eyes combing over the shadows of the city.

Suddenly his attention snapped back toward her. “If we find the source of the virus and destroy it, then we can go after all the spawn. I think the current existing vamps can’t contract it, since they’re already turned. One of the old bloodsuckers must be behind this—creating an army of monsters to destroy, maybe to gain more power, or to make hunting humans easier as well—and I think I know who it is.”

Tiffany knew exactly what he was thinking. “If you expect to go into Caius’s coven with guns blazing, you’re out of your mind.” She stood up and walked toward him. “I have a better suggestion.” Lingering directly in front of him, she wrapped her arms around his neck, standing on her tiptoes as she pulled his head toward her for a kiss.

Surprisingly, despite his mood, he let her.

Their tongues swirled together, and immediately heat rushed through her. But still, she pulled back a moment later.

“I’ll kill Caius,” she whispered.

“Over my rotting corpse.” Damon wrapped his arms around her waist and raised a single brow at her. “Did you really think kissing me would get me to agree to that?”

She shrugged. “It was worth a shot.”

Damon chuckled. “Tiffany, look—”

“Let me finish,” she said, cutting him off. “Whether you like it or not, I know a lot more about the dynamics of this city’s vampire scene than you do. All the local vamps have their heads so far up Caius’s ass they might as well take up permanent residence. They’ll do anything he asks of them, and they’ll kill to protect him.”

Damon lifted a brow. “Vampires have no loyalty. Why do you think they’re so devoted to him?”

She crossed the room again to sit on the sofa once more. “Caius is a good leader. I’ll give him that. He’s charming when he wants to be, charismatic, and good at manipulating others, even other vamps. He’s only been here only three months since he fled here from New York City, after he killed my brother. Since Club Fantasy was already his, this was a natural place to relocate to, I guess. He’d been an absent owner before that.”

“In only three months, he’s taken a disbanded group of rogue-like vamps and changed them into an organized coven. He must have been some sort of Roman version of Charles Manson in his day. He’s a manipulative psychopath. He was only second in command when my brother raided his coven down in the City. But with the head honcho dead, Caius is the big fish now, and he takes his position very seriously.” She shot Damon a pointed look. “With so many vampires here in Rochester, in order to kill Caius you’d have to get him alone, and in order to do that you’d need to gain his trust.” She pointed to herself. “I’ve already done that.”

He met her stare. “What are you proposing?”

“I’ll get back inside Caius’s inner circle, make up some excuse for running off last night, and then I’ll let you in to help me fight once I have him alone.”

Damon shook his head. “Absolutely not.”

She placed her hands on her hips. “Do you have a better idea?”

He grunted in exasperation, fixing her with a hard stare. “Why do you want to tempt death?”

She scoffed. “Would you quit with that? Maybe I just want to avenge my brother, all right? How do you know I can’t—”

He interrupted her as he walked to her side. “Even if you were completely capable of handling an ancient vampire on your own—” he narrowed his eyes “— which you’re not, I still wouldn’t want you anywhere near Caius. If you were hurt, if I was unable to protect you…” His voice trailed off as he placed a hand on her cheek. “Don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes. You trying to fight a vampire as ancient as Caius is foolish. We both know why you’re willing to risk your life. I can see your pain over your brother, Shortcake, and I can’t imagine how painful it was losing your parents to vampires at such a young age, but there are few things worth throwing your life away over, and your family wouldn’t have wanted you to throw it away over them.”

Tiffany’s heart stopped, and her eyes suddenly searching his face.

How did he...?

She swatted his hand away from her, slowly stepping away. “How did you know that?” she rasped. “How did you know my parents were killed by vampires, too? Did Mark tell you?”

Damon didn’t respond.

Instead, he swore, raking a hand through his hair.

But he didn’t have to say anything more for her to see the truth.

No. No. It couldn’t be.

Damon Brock. Damon Brock.

The words fell out of her mouth before she could stop herself. “Has anyone ever called you B?” She shook her head.

No. She didn’t want to know. She couldn’t know. It would ruin everything.

Damon flinched as if she’d struck him.

Before she knew what she was doing, she rushed forward and shoved his chest as hard as she could. He didn’t even stagger. “Has anyone ever called you B?” she yelled.

Tears poured down her face. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t. No.

She pummeled his chest, but he didn’t move, didn’t defend himself.

“Did he call you that?” she shrieked, the tears coming faster now.

The muscles in Damon’s throat strained as if he could barely choke out the words. “He called me B because my last name is Brock. That’s why I signed the letters that way.”

Tiffany could hardly bring herself to breathe.

All sound, all movement, all feeling...stopped. Her hands shook at her sides, her heart thumping against her chest, as the sound of her own blood throbbed in her ears.

Numb.

Every inch of her body went numb.

She’d never knew it was the letter for his last name.

She had always assumed it was his first initial.

“B’s an amazing fighter, Tiff. I wish you could meet him.”

Her brother’s voice played in her head, unbidden, the memory making her chest ache.

“I wouldn’t trust anyone else to watch my back.” Mark nudged her shoulder. “Good-lookin’ guy, too. Maybe you’ll find a hunter like him someday, then I won’t have to take care of you anymore.” He grinned.

“Pssh, like you take care of me now?” Tiffany rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. If he’s anything like you I’d kick him to the curb.”

Mark met her eyes. “Seriously, Tiff. He’s a good man.”

A good man.

A good man, who when push came to shove, had left her brother to die alone.

B had been…No, Damon had been his best friend. His fighting partner. The man her brother had looked up to when they no longer had a father, even though they were nearly the same age. Mark had said B had been like a brother to him. His best friend.

Something inside Tiffany snapped. No. No.

No. No. No. No.

She had not slept with the man responsible for her brother’s death, given him her virginity.

“How could you abandon him?” she breathed. She choked on her own tears, barely able to speak. “Why didn’t you save him?”

She stumbled backward, only for Damon to grab hold of her wrists, holding her up so she didn’t hall to the floor. Her whole body shook as collapsed into him, letting him hold her.

“Tiffany,” he pleaded.

“No!” She wrenched away from him suddenly, refusing to let him care for her. “Don’t you dare act like you cared about him! He trusted you and you let him down, and now he’s dead because of it.”

Damon’s hands clenched into fists, the pain and anguish in his face so palpable she felt it in her bones. But she couldn’t stop. Couldn’t mask her hurt, her fury.

“He looked up to you. He loved you, and you let him die in Caius’s arms!”

“You think I don’t blame myself for his death every day?” His ice-blue eyes blazed. He strode to her, grabbing her shoulders, before he kissed her, hard.

She fell into it, into the intoxicating force of him. She couldn’t stop herself.

By the time he finally pulled away, her tears had slowed, her lips, swollen from where he’d devoured her.

“You think I wouldn’t give anything , everything, even my own life, to bring him back?” he whispered against her. “Nothing I could ever possibly do would be enough to pay for how I failed him, Tiffany. I don’t deserve forgiveness, but you have to know that I will bear the pain and regret of how I failed him,” he paused and brushed her cheek, wiping her tears away, “of how I hurt you, for the rest of eternity.”

She sucked in a hard breath. “Why?”

His eyes widened as if he couldn’t comprehend what she was saying.

“Tell me why you left him there to die, why you didn’t save him.”

As if unable to face her a moment longer, he turned away from her.

“Tell me why the valiant, brave, courageous B left his partner for dead. Tell me why the man I thought I knew turned out to be a coward.”

Damon hung his head, his back still turned toward her. “Because I am not, and never was, any of those things.”

“Don’t lie to me. Tell me why, damn it!”

He shook his head. “You don’t want to know the details, Tiffany. You—”

She rounded him, jabbing a finger into his chest. “Don’t tell me what I do and don’t want, B!”

The nickname she’d known him by, finally spoken aloud, fell between them, his eyes softening.

“Please tell me.”

He cursed under his breath. “Because I let my feelings for the job cloud my judgment. I let my hatred for those bloodsuckers fuel me so much that I went by the book, did what I was told like a good little soldier, instead of saving my friend. Is that what you wanted to hear?” He shook his head. “I’m so sorry, Tiffany.”

“How? Tell me how.”

He ran his fingers through the short stubble of his hair, his jaw clenching as she forced him to remember the moment, remember what he’d done.

Damon’s voice was roughed, pained as he spoke. “We’d been planning a raid on the coven for months. They’d killed so many, that band. We’d planned everything out, but it all backfired when one of the new hunters-in-training stepped out too early. Stupid, untrained fucker. The vamps rushed us before we were ready. Mark fought Caius hand to hand. But then Caius managed to stab him with his own stake. Bastard left him bleeding out on the floor and ran. I was in pursuit of Caius’s elder, the head of the coven, and I…I was right on his heels.”

He put his hand over his mouth as if to hold in the words, then dropped it to his side again. “With all the other vampires battling for their lives against other hunters and Caius gone, I knew none of the bloodsuckers would be hungry enough to go after Mark. His wound didn’t look deep, and I was so caught up in the fight, in the adrenaline and anger of the chase, that I…left him. Followed protocol to kill the head bloodsucker instead of saving my partner. All I could see, all I could hear, all I could think about, was all those people I needed to avenge. So much so that I neglected one of the only people that ever fucking mattered to me.”

He let out a long shaky breath. “By the time I finished off the elder and went back for Mark, he was already gone. I tried to save him, to retrieve his body, but the vamps had lined the building with explosives. Somehow, they knew we were coming. The building went down with Mark’s body inside. I barely managed to get out alive.”

A fresh round of tears streamed down Tiffany’s face.

“I was the leader of that raid, and instead of saving my wounded partner, I was too obsessed with making the kill and following orders.” Damon’s hands curled into fists. “I will never allow my anger, my emotions to get the better of me during a fight again, Tiffany. Ever. And I swore to myself that I wouldn’t get close to anyone again, wouldn’t make any personal attachments, so that I couldn’t fail someone, but I…failed at that, too.” He met her gaze.

“Well,” she said bitterly, “aren’t you the good, obedient soldier, protecting me.” She walked toward the door. She needed out. Needed some fresh air to breathe. Needed to place some distance between them. She placed her hand on his front door handle and turned. “I hope you enjoyed the kill.”

Without another word, she left the apartment, closing the door behind her quietly.

Pain stabbed through Damon’s heart as if someone had shoved a knife into his chest and twisted. If words or looks could kill, the pain and betrayal in Tiffany’s face would have been enough to destroy him. Never had he wished harder that he could have taken Mark’s place. That he’d died, and Mark had been allowed to live. Damon’s father had died late in life at a ripe old age, his mother not even two months later, as if the grief of her husband’s death, of his absence, had been too much to bear. Both had been gone for years, and he’d never had any siblings.

No one who would have missed him if it’d been him in Mark’s place, yet Tiffany would grieve her brother’s death for the rest of her life.

And he’d practically stolen her virginity. Slept with her under false pretenses.

Shit. He was a worthless prick.

And she still didn’t know the worst of it...that Mark hadn’t truly died. That he’d soon have to die again.

This time by Damon’s own hand.

He stood alone in his apartment, unable to do anything but shake his head in disappointment at his own fucked up existence before he looked up toward the heavens. Hell, it’d been a long time since he’d said any kind of prayer. He wasn’t even sure whether he believed anymore, and that was on a good night. “Whoever You are, if You’re listening, just...just help me make it up to her, all right?” he said into the silence of the apartment.

Then, without even stopping to put on his jacket, he rushed from the apartment, running after Tiffany.

The cold air of the falling January night nipped at his skin, but it didn’t even register in his mind. He needed to find her. He owed it to Mark, to himself to keep her safe. Nothing would happen, could happen to her while he lived and breathed. Not on his watch.

It didn’t matter that she hated him. He loved her.

The thought stopped him in his tracks.

He loved her. He fucking loved her.

The thought caught him off guard, the catharsis of finally admitting it to himself causing him to laugh. Of course, he hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her.

He’d been doomed from the start.

Because he loved her, before, now, always.

They could work their way through all the rest. It’s what he should have trusted in from the start.

Wiping the stupid smile from his face, he jogged for several blocks, eyes constantly scanning the streets for her. He had to tell her. Not now, but eventually. Assuming she had a car parked near Club Fantasy, heading toward the club was his best bet. Twenty minutes later, when he still hadn’t caught up to her, he sprinted full speed back to the lofts, grabbed his car keys and jacket, and revved up the Monte Carlo. She must have taken a cab back to Club Fantasy, which only meant one thing: She was in a hurry...

Damon’s stomach dropped at the thought.

...because she was going after Caius, and she wanted to get to him before morning.