She didn’t stop. He gripped the metal tighter, almost piercing his palm as he struggled against losing his balance. A flash of white light filled the dark, musty room as he spilled in her mouth, pitching forward, nearly knocking them both against the track.
His date pulled back, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand with a sly grin.
The grin froze.
Her eyes widened.
Even in the darkness, Kieran could see the geyser of crimson spurts flowing from her throat.
Behind her, the eyes. Though he’d never seen them, he knew without a doubt he’d felt them. First outside, then again in here.
He was too stunned to move. A woman stood behind his dying date, rising up. Unfurling was more accurate, her own golden hair flowing like a cape as she towered over them both, casting a shadow that filled the empty room as it grew. She watched him, only for a moment, before dropping into a low crouch and lapping at the blood in the sickening slurps of a desperate animal.
“Darcy,” he whispered, before he passed out.
Yes, that was his date’s name.
Was.
2
Elisabeth
Merde.
Merde, merde, merde, merde, merde!
Elisabeth de Blanchefort ground her fist into the cool flesh of her bare thigh. Bright red spots floated before her eyes. Warning signs. There’d been warning signs before she stole the life from the college girl, too, but that was more like instinct. This... this was a stop sign crossing a highway where everyone was going over eighty. This was a signal that she approached the point where if she didn’t turn back, she’d lose the chance forever.
The redhead in her trunk banged around, punching at the metal, the backs of the seats. For once she’d had some foresight, removing the dangling yellow trunk release. Had she not, all of St. Charles Avenue would have seen him signaling for help. In this modern day of everyone having a camera, no doubt the whole thing would be captured for posterity on every corner of the internet, shared and discussed for years as she languished the rest of her eternity away in Angola Prison.
Le tues, Lilibet! Her grandfather, Victor’s, voice. Finish this! We do not leave messes!
Well, the rest of the de Blancheforts did not. Elisabeth...
A hundred and fifty years into her strange life as a dhampir, a vampire, and she still lacked the finesse to be any good at it. You think you’d learn by now, her grandfather would say. Don’t wait until you are weak. The bloodlust makes you careless. Reckless.
This was true. Sometimes she ached for the thick, viscous crimson gold so much the longing was almost sexual. But to take the blood was to take life, and Elisabeth had never hardened herself to watching the light wane away in one’s eyes—a death caused by her own hand, her own need. With that dying light, their futures dwindled into the oblivion of the children they would never have, the kisses they’d never steal. She robbed them of not only their joys, but also their sorrows, and neither were hers to take. And she could not have their blood without killing them. There were rules. There were none more important than that one.
Another was never hunt in the Garden District. Armstrong Park wasn’t the Garden District, or even the French Quarter. But a carnival drew all sorts, from all parts of town. For all she knew, the girl was a judge’s daughter from Prytania, or some old money debutante, like a LaViolette, or a Deschanel. Hindsight conjured images of her oversized Louis Vuitton bag and stilettoed Jimmy Choos. A girl who wore such things was the type someone would miss.
And both she’d left swimming in the girl’s own blood, behind that misshapen teddy bear that glared its glassy-eyed judgment upon her as she backed away. Merde!
Muffled screams sounded from the trunk as she approached a stoplight. Merde! Merde, merde, merde, merde, merde.
She had to get out of the city.
And fast.
3
Kieran
It wasn’t even that the feral woman had killed Darcy.
That alone was horrific, and Kieran suspected the shock of it all had kept him from processing his feelings on the matter. He’d hardly known her, but she was his age. A whole life ahead of her, snuffed out in an instant. It was a life he knew nothing about, but he’d thought maybe he might have the opportunity to learn. Only after she was dead did he even remember her name. He suspected she knew he’d forgotten it, too—died knowing that—and the sickening dread in his belly grew knottier and darker.
He’d failed at being a good man. Failed to identify a threat that had taken someone’s life.
Maybe the universe would straighten itself out when the psychopath killed him, too.
But why hadn’t she? Why didn’t she just snap his neck and leave him with Darcy back in the funhouse of horror?
Focus, Landry.
No, it wasn’t that she’d killed Darcy, it was what she’d done after that had his head spinning like Regan from The Exorcist. He’d been too pinned in place by fear to do more than stare as she hungrily lapped the blood that had been traveling through Darcy’s body just moments earlier. It was not a show, or some strange fetish he wanted to know nothing about. His unique senses picked up powerful waves of salacious hunger. She’d been waiting a long time to drink. She’d killed Darcy for this.
Listen to yourself, you sound like Kelley!
Kelley had never stopped believing. He pretended he had, but Kieran and Dillon possessed that triplet intuition and knew damn well Kelley was still chasing vampires long after they’d stopped doing it as a trio.
Liga Vanatorilor de Vampiri had been Kieran’s idea initially. He’d read Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire and was struck with how real they seemed, even in the mystique of their immortality. How human, flaws and all, beauty and all. Even in their depravity, they were relatable. More, that because of these things, they could live in a society with men, blending in,
