Chapter 1
Etienne stared down at the house across the street and watched shadows writhe and dance on the closed curtains. The music and drunken laughter that swelled every time the front door opened didn’t surprise him. But those curtains did.
Hard to imagine a bunch of frat boys out shopping for them. Choosing the right decorative curtain rods. Finding fabric of a pleasing look and texture. Damned if it didn’t look like it was floral. He would’ve thought bent, dusty blinds would be more their style.
A faint breeze ruffled his hair.
If he concentrated, he could read the thoughts of everyone partying within. Not much there really. Just sex and a determination to get blitzed. And one poor guy who thought he had flunked his biology final. A quick scan of his memories confirmed that he had.
Etienne sighed. Things had been slow of late. Dare he say boring?
For a while there, vampires had roamed in such large packs that he and his sister, Lisette, had had to hunt together just to ensure they would survive the battles. But now . . .
The frat house door burst open as a woman stumbled out.
Booming bass swelled and pulsed through the night as a tall, broad-shouldered figure stepped into the doorway behind her and held the door open. “Come on. Are you sure I can’t talk you into staying?” the man—twenty-one or twenty-two years of age—asked.
The woman staggered to the edge of the porch and tripped down the steps. Low, sultry, feminine laughter wafted up to Etienne.
Nice. If the woman weren’t sloppy drunk he might find her appealing.
“You know me,” she slurred. “Places to see and people to go.”
Her friend laughed.
Odd. It was late May. Nighttime temperatures in North Carolina had been mild, in the sixties perhaps. Yet the woman wore a long, black coat not unlike the one he sported himself.
His own concealed a small arsenal of weapons: katanas, daggers, throwing stars, and autoinjectors Dr. Lipton had prepared that bore the only sedative that worked on vampires and immortals.
Hers was pretty formfitting. And fit a lovely form. She was slender, perhaps five foot five, with long, black hair that concealed her face as she fought to keep her balance.
The college boy grinned. “Hey, maybe I should walk you home.”
Again she laughed. “Who says I’m going home?”
She wasn’t a Goth. The style of the coat was wrong and her hair was naturally black. Or perhaps a dark brown. While he could see as clearly as a cat in dim or even no light, he sometimes had difficulty discerning color in those conditions.
The woman finally succeeded in planting both boots firmly on the pavement and straightened. Combing a hand through her hair, she drew the tangled locks back and gazed up at the moon.
Etienne’s breath caught. She was beautiful, with porcelain skin, her features pert perfection.
And she seemed to be looking right at him.
She even froze for a moment.
Impossible. There were no lights up here and he stood in the shadow of a chimney where the moon’s beams wouldn’t touch him.
“Hey, Krysta!” someone called.
She looked to her left.
Three more college boys, who clearly had already been celebrating the end of the spring semester, approached the frat house, trampling grass strewn with the occasional empty beer can.
“You aren’t leaving, are you?” a jovial blond asked.
She smiled. “Yep.”
“But we’re just getting here!”
She shrugged, swayed a bit, then pointed at them. “Your loss, knuckleheads.”
All laughed.
“Couldn’t you just stay for one game of beer pong?” the blond asked hopefully. “Or maybe to shoot some pool? I need to win my twenty bucks back.”
“Already spent it,” she called merrily. “See ya!” She waved, nearly losing her balance again. Stumbling to one side, she threw her arms out as though she were on the deck of a rocking ship, listing one way then the other. When she didn’t fall, she grinned big and threw her hands up in the air like an Olympic gymnast finishing a routine.
The men all clapped, whistled, and cheered.
Laughing in delight, she staggered down the sidewalk, turned, and headed up the street.
“You think we should walk her home?” the blond asked softly.
The brunet beside him leered after Krysta. “I’ll walk her home. I’ll walk her alllllll the way home.”
The blond shoved him. “Cut the shit. She isn’t like that.”
Etienne decided he liked the blond.
The brunet scowled. “Whatever.” Loping up the steps, he entered the house.
The blond frowned after Krysta, then—urged on by his other buddy—joined the party.
Etienne watched Krysta pause under a streetlight, part her coat, and reach into an inner pocket.
Beneath, she wore tight, black pants that showed every shapely curve of her long legs and a black T-shirt that hugged small, firm br**sts.
Etienne had always been a sucker for women with athletic builds.
Out came an iPod touch. She conquered her inebriation long enough to tuck earbuds into her ears, but the battery must have run down because she swore and tucked everything back into her pocket.
Etienne rose.
That pause had cost her.
Dark figures slithered from the shadows on either side of the frat house and followed her as she resumed her trek uphill.
Etienne leapt nimbly to the next roof, careful not to make any sound that would alert the vampires to his presence.
He counted four and monitored their progress as they slunk from shadow to shadow, dogging the woman’s wobbly footsteps.
Krysta began to sing, utterly oblivious to the creatures who stalked her.
Unfamiliar with the song, Etienne assumed it was one of the latest pop hits. His lips twitched as he leapt to the next roof. She was having a hell of a time remembering the lyrics. Or the right notes. Krysta couldn’t carry a tune. And he was pretty sure it wasn’t the alcohol.
She came to a corner and halted. A look of confusion flitted across her pretty features as she squinted up at the street sign.
Etienne froze, careful to ensure no light touched him.
Had her gaze flitted from the sign up to him?
No. She was looking all around like she either didn’t know where she was or couldn’t remember where she intended to go.
The vampires slunk farther into the shadows mere moments before she glanced in their direction.
“Hmm,” she mumbled. “I think . . .” She spun in a circle. “Right.”
She crossed the deserted street, passed Bastien’s building, and . . . entered a dark alley. Really? Had she no sense of self-preservation?
Etienne drew his katanas as the vampires flowed into the alley behind her like a black tide. Their thoughts—a writhing mass of madness, violence, and anticipation—struck him like poisoned arrows.
Being telepathic could really suck sometimes.
He frowned, only then realizing he hadn’t heard any of Krysta’s thoughts. As he watched her stumble toward the end of the alley, not yet noticing that her path would soon be blocked by a tall chain-link fence, he focused on her tipsy head and . . . heard nothing.
Very unusual. He could count on one hand the number of humans he had encountered in his two centuries of existence who could block, intentionally or not, his entrance into their minds.
She halted.
The vamps spread out across the alley, facing her. Light from the street distended and distorted the shadows at their feet, making it seem almost as though they reached for her ankles.
Etienne stepped to the edge of the roof, preparing to drop down and save Krysta’s attractive, but flighty ass, then . . .
She ceased swaying. Her shoulders straightened.
Spinning around, she offered the menacing foursome a cool, measuring stare.
Etienne frowned.
The vampires boasted no weapons. Yet. But their eyes glowed and their lips parted to expose long, glinting fangs. She should be screaming her head off. Instead . . .
“Finally,” she pronounced with a healthy dose of exasperation. “It took you guys long enough. I mean, did you really have to make me walk up that damned hill?”
What. The. Hell?
Krysta shifted, balancing her weight lightly on the balls of her feet as the vampires exchanged puzzled looks. There were four of them. Four would be a challenge. Okay, more than a challenge. Way more. She had had her ass handed to her more than once in the past couple of years when trying to combat such numbers on her own. But, until they actually closed in, she was often unable to tell just how many had taken the bait and followed her.
Sneakers shuffled on dirty asphalt.
These seemed to be typical examples of the vampires’ ilk. Young. Twenties or thereabouts. Could blend in easily on a college campus if you disregarded the brilliantly glowing eyes and fangs. Hopefully they hadn’t been vampires for very long. The older they were, the more insane they were. At least that was how she thought it worked. And the deeper they descended into madness, the harder they were to defeat. Krysta didn’t have their speed. Or strength. Or size and weight. But she did have two things they didn’t.
The first was skill. She had spent years training in tae kwon do, karate, and jiujitsu, and had trained with weapons long enough to kick ass. Most vampires had spent a majority of the time, prior to their transformation, sitting on their asses and either texting, yakking on the phone, surfing the Internet, or playing video games. That didn’t lend them much skill with knives and swords, so she didn’t really understand why they carried them. They were vampires. They could disarm a human easily and, if they didn’t, could survive a bullet wound, so what was the deal with that? As far as Krysta knew, she was the only vampire hunter in existence. She seriously doubted her reputation preceded her.
The orange glow around the vampires moved and shifted as the not-very-bright predators tried to figure out why she wasn’t fleeing in terror.
And that was her second advantage. She could see auras. Until she had begun to hunt vampires, she had never thought much of the ability. It warned her of people’s moods, so she could turn and walk the other way if someone was pissed about something and she didn’t want to hear it. Big whoop.