Hunger

“You can’t make me do this, and you know it.”

The black-haired man leaning against the table opposite Eve in the dimly lit empty nightclub folded his arms in response to her outburst, his dark eyes glittering with ice, a look she was coming to know as a sign he wouldn’t budge on his decision.

Eve growled at him and cut the sound off in her throat when her fangs began to drop, turning her stomach, reminding her what she had become.

“I’m not going.” She mimicked him by folding her arms across her chest, squashing her breasts together beneath her plain charcoal t-shirt. “That’s final.”

“Eve,” he whispered softly and unfurled his body, pushing to his feet in a graceful effortless move. His broad shoulders shifted in a silent sigh beneath his black shirt and he reached for her, his expression softening and the ice in his impassive eyes melting. “It is for the best.”

It wasn’t, and he knew it. He knew how she felt about what she had become, and her so-called family. She wanted no part of it, not even for her sister’s sake. Lilith had become the ruler of the Vehemens bloodline and the same vampire blood ran in Eve’s veins because of the man towering before her.

“It isn’t.” Eve rubbed her forehead, trying to ease the ache in her skull, the constant buzzing that was only growing louder. Soon, it would become something else, something darker and more sinister. A hunger for blood. She tamped it down, using everything she had taught herself over the years since her inadvertent turning, suppressing her sick desire to feed.

“Eve?” He was closer now and she didn’t tense as his hand came down on her left shoulder, holding her gently and offering a modicum of comfort. “Are you unwell?”

She shook her head and pulled herself back together. She had quickly discovered after her rescue by the man before her that he would do all in his power to make her take blood if he thought she required it. Not by force. Not as the betrayer had done. No. This man employed a more devastating tactic.

Eve raised her head, looked up into the endless depths of his dark eyes and gave it one last shot, because he wasn’t the only one who could employ guilt as a weapon. “Father, please.”

He hissed and released her as if she had burned him with those words, and turned his back on her, shoving his fingers through the long lengths of his black hair as he paced away. She sensed his agitation and kept still, unwilling to risk inciting his wrath when she was weakened by hunger, even when she knew he would never lay a hand on her. Her vampire instincts were strong though, overwhelming at times, commanding her to obey them even when she despised the things they made her want to do.

Like attack humans and steal their blood.

Whenever those instincts pressed her, she pushed back, using all of her willpower to deny them. She had never allowed anyone to make decisions for her, believed that no one and nothing should have control over her life, and that extended to her wretched instincts. She was stronger than the monster inside her, the demon she had become. She would never embrace it. She had a final mission, and once it was done, so was she.

“Eve,” he said, his voice pained and low, and turned to her, his handsome face twisted in lines of desperation. The ragged burn scars down one cheek and side of his neck pulled taut as he growled, flashing long white daggers at her, and his eyes flared crimson. “Do not think this does not hurt me too. I do not want you to go… but you must understand… Lilith needs you, and you need Lilith. I have tried… by the Devil I have tried to make you see sense but you refuse!”

Eve recoiled as he barked the words at her, his anger pouring from him in violent waves that rocked her. She had pushed too far again and, although she had inherited his temper, in a battle of wills he would win.

Pain surfaced in his eyes as he hissed an oath and looked beyond her to the main entrance of the nightclub.

“It is for the best.”

Eve had the terrible feeling he was giving up on her, and the small fragment of her that wanted to survive and somehow embrace this dark new life, to continue to live with her real family, ached in response.

She took a step towards him and his gaze swung to her, the fathomless agony and sorrow in it bringing her up short and turning the ache into a throbbing pain.

“I’m not ready.” The lie came easily, slipping freely from her tongue. How many times had she lied to Oneiric already?

She had no intention of embracing her new life as a vampire. It was too hard for her. She had been born and raised a hunter, one of the best at Section Seven where she had lived with her sister. For most of their lives, they’d had no idea that their unknown mother had given them their father’s DNA through genetic manipulation.

Eve had uncovered the information one night but had failed to grasp the magnitude of what it meant for her and Lilith, and had kept it to herself.

Oneiric had explained that Lilith had found out about it while she had still been human, working for Section Seven, and had met her mate, Lincoln, who was another Vehemens vampire.

Eve had found out the full consequences of their mother’s tampering the even harder way. She had been betrayed and killed, and had risen from the dead as a pureblood vampire.

She wrapped her arms about herself and squeezed hard as a chill came over her, freezing her to her soul.

“Eve.” Oneiric crossed the room and pulled her into his arms. It was impossible to resist leaning into his hard chest and resting her cheek against the cool wall of muscle beneath the soft black cotton shirt. Waking as a vampire had been confusing and painful enough, but discovering that Adam had betrayed her had hurt like hell, and the torture that had come afterwards, the years of pain and fury…

She shuddered and Oneiric rubbed her back.

“Do not think about it, little one.” He often called her by the pet term, even though she railed at him about it most nights, telling him that she was a grown woman and not a child.

She hated that he treated her as if she were a child, something fragile and weak, unable to fend for itself.

But at the same time, she loved it when he doted on her, when they spent the night talking about his life and hers before she was turned, and he told her things about her mother. Then, she accepted the pet term, savouring having one parent in her life and being able to know her other one through him. During those quiet times, she felt close to him and at ease with herself, finally knew what it was like to have parents, and she knew it affected Oneiric in a similar way.

Vampires couldn’t procreate, and Oneiric had admitted to being shocked when he had discovered that he had fathered twin daughters, and that he was still coming to terms with it.

He was gunning for father of the century in her opinion. Not only had he helped her sister save Lincoln, her mate, but he had saved Eve too. He had moved Heaven and Earth to find her and bring her home with him, and it touched her more than she could express in words.

That protective, fatherly streak in him was the reason he wasn’t going to give up and let her have her way. He wanted her to go home, to their bloodline’s home, to a mansion filled with vampires.

Eve pulled down a deep breath as her throat tightened in response to the thought of being surrounded by hundreds of vampires and exhaled it slowly. “Don’t make me do this. Let me stay here a little longer.”

Oneiric drew back and cupped her cheeks in his palms, tilting her head up so her eyes met his. “Will you feed then?”

She shook her head. “You know I can’t.”

“Then you know I can’t either. I cannot allow you to go on like this, slowly killing yourself. Lilith will be able to make you see sense.”

Sense to Oneiric was hunting humans and feeding from them. It was listening to the call of the night and embracing all that it meant to be a vampire.

Sense to her was hunting her betrayer, Adam, and repaying him in kind.

If Oneiric sent her to Oslo, to the Vehemens stronghold where Lilith reigned with Lincoln, her chance at revenge would slip through her grasp.

She couldn’t stop now. She was close. She knew it.

If she told Oneiric of her desire to hunt and kill the bastard who had betrayed her, it would only make him send her to Oslo sooner. He would want to protect her and would place her safety above satisfying the hunger that drove her.

She could flee him, but that would only cause him and Lilith pain, and he would come after her.

She could spin another lie and say she would make her own way to Oslo, but someone was already on their way to collect her and take her there. They had received word from Lincoln about it five hours ago, at sunset, and had been arguing ever since.

Fleeing was beginning to look like her only option.

A bolt of awareness shot down her spine and she stiffened. Oneiric tensed too and lifted his head. Crimson fire flickered around the edges of his dark irises.

“We have company.” The note of warning in his deep voice said it wasn’t her escort.

Eve grabbed the two large hunting knives on the round black table close to her and reached out with her senses, scouring the area around the club. People were coming. Close to a dozen of them.

The double doors of the main entrance burst open, the heavy steel panels crashing into the walls on either side, allowing a rush of cold damp air to bring tangled unfamiliar scents to her. Behind her, another bang sounded as the back door of the club shot open. Male voices poured into the darkness.

Four ahead of her and seven behind.

She took a deep breath to steady herself and flexed her fingers around the grips of the short blades to stop them from trembling. It wasn’t fear making her hands shake. It was hunger. It gnawed at her insides and clouded her mind, dampening her senses and stealing her strength. She almost started to wish she had taken the animal blood Oneiric had offered her on waking tonight, but she had been so angry about being shipped off to Oslo that she had refused.

“I will handle the back,” Oneiric said and then he was gone and she was alone in the dimly lit room, only a dozen tables and chairs between her and the four advancing men.

Eve cursed her weakness and shifted her booted feet, adopting a stance that was second nature to her, preparing for the fight ahead.

The vampires emerged from the darkness, golden eyes flickering with hunger as they landed on her and lingered.

The same breed of bastard that had killed her.

A growl curled up her throat and she launched herself forwards, leaped up onto a table and pushed off from the top. She clutched both blades and brought them down as she descended, aiming straight for the man leading the charge. He reacted in an instant, strafing to his left, avoiding her attack. Eve landed in a crouch and immediately twisted towards him, lashing out with the knife in her right hand as she hurled the one in her left at the next man. That one embedded itself deep in his shoulder before he could evade it and he hissed in agony.

She shot to her feet and slashed across the first man’s biceps, cutting deep enough to feel her blade scrape bone, and ducked as he swung at her with his claws, growling low in his throat. Eve kicked forwards, rolled and came up behind the vampire with her other blade embedded in his shoulder. He snarled as he pulled the knife free of his flesh.

She didn’t give him a chance to use her own weapon against her. She swept her hand out, catching him across his throat with her knife, and he howled in pain and dropped the weapon in favour of slapping his hand over the wound on his neck and staunching the river of blood flowing down it.

Eve exhaled hard and blocked the wild swing another of the men threw at her. The first male’s fist slammed into her back at the same time and propelled her forwards, into another of her attackers. He grabbed her by the arm she held the blade in and hurled her into the black bar. Her head connected hard with the brass rail around the edge of the curved bar and pain ricocheted through her skull.

One of the men chuckled as she tried to get her bearings and fought to stop her head from spinning. Her senses reached out to monitor the men and her head cleared. She took her time pretending to gather herself and pinpointed each of her opponents. The one she had cut across the neck was still down, muttering black things to himself, detailing all the ways she was going to pay.

Nothing he came up with was any worse than what she had already endured at the hands of vampires.

The other three men were waiting. How very chivalrous. She pushed against the bar and grimaced as her head ached, the deep throbbing pain the result of more than her collision. Her hunger was growing, roused by the heavy scent of blood in the air. It pressed her to feed, every dark instinct she possessed demanding she take blood from the men behind her.

Eve shook her head and struggled against that dark desire.

She turned to face the three men waiting for her. The dark-haired one who had made her intimately acquainted with the bar stooped and picked up her knife. She palmed the one she held and calculated her chances of survival.

Slim at best.

With her head pounding and dampening her senses, hunger riding her mercilessly and weakening her, she wasn’t up for a fight against one strong vampire, let alone three. If the fourth chose to join the fight, she was definitely dead.

Eve inched to her right, towards the open space where she had been speaking with Oneiric before the intrusion. The sounds of his fight carried through the darkness and her dull senses said that he had already dealt with three of his foes. She had yet to dispatch one.

It marked the vast difference between them. They were of the same pure bloodline and she should be strong enough to fight these weaklings, but she wasn’t. She was weaker than these men before her, and it was her own fault. She could have easily dispatched them if she had been feeding. If she had been strong.

Her stomach turned at the thought of taking human blood and she kept edging away from the men, buying herself space and time. A fourth vampire disappeared from her senses. Oneiric was down to three. If she could keep her four occupied while not giving them a chance to kill her, Oneiric could make it back to her. She hated having to rely on him to fight her battles, and knew he would use it to illustrate his point about her need to feed, but she had no choice. She couldn’t die here. She wasn’t ready to go to Hell yet.

The three vampires tracked her and the fourth stumbled to his feet. He pulled his hand away from the deep slash across his throat. It had stopped bleeding.

Eve turned with them, her back to the dance floor now.

She readied her knife and called on her senses, allowing them to stretch out and encompass the men. Silver lines shimmered over their bodies, forming ghost versions of each of them. Those ghosts moved, her senses predicting the paths they would take, giving her a shot at taking at least one of them down. Three of them had multiple paths, a blur of motion that made it dangerous to act on.

The path of the fourth, the one with the neck wound, was as clear as night and he was about to make a grave mistake.

He disappeared from behind the other three vampires, a shadow of movement through the tables. Eve waited for the critical moment and then thrust her right hand in a sharp diagonal arc at her side, burying her knife to the hilt under his chin. He gagged and cold wet gushed over her hand and trailed down her arm.

Eve pulled the blade free and swept it across his throat, throwing all of her strength into the blow. The knife cut deep, severing his spine, and he dropped hard.

The remaining three weakling vampires snarled and launched themselves as one at her. Eve did her best to block each blow they threw, her forearms taking the brunt of their wrath, and tried to get some attacks of her own in. They were relentless, driving her backwards, crowding her and making it impossible for her to escape.

She bit her tongue to silence her cries as claws cut and fists slammed, each blow weakening her a little more.

She couldn’t die yet. She needed peace. She needed to make the bastard pay.

It couldn’t end here. Now.

A cry escaped her as sharp talons sliced through her right biceps and she dropped her only weapon.

A deep male voice rolled over her like a storm, his foreign tongue dark and sinister.

The three vampires crowding her eased back and turned as one to face the newcomer. Eve withdrew, clutching her arm. Blood spilled from between her fingers and the ever-present hunger grew worse, bringing out her fangs as it demanded she taste the sweet, coppery liquid.

A fifth male melted out of the shadows at the entrance of the club, a six-foot-five wall of lethal muscle and deadly grace, his face obscured by the hood of his oversized black sweatshirt. Calm laced with malice rolled off him and she felt his gaze flicker to her.

A hot shiver went through her in response to the intense feeling, the incredible awareness that shot an arrow straight through her heart and made the rest of the room fall away in an instant, drawing every shred of her focus to him.

He calmly set his black duffle down on the bar and strode forwards with purpose, his black army boots loud on the wooden floor. She felt his eyes leave her. The room crashed back into existence and air rushed into her lungs again.

The low lights flickered over the lower half of his face, giving tantalising glimpses of firm, sensual lips and a defined jaw. The corner of those lips quirked, a split-second shift that she would have missed had she not been staring so intently at them.

Panic began as a low thrumming in her belly, a turbulent swirling that made her take another step back for each one he advanced, placing more distance between them. The malice and darkness he emanated grew stronger and her instincts warned her away, screamed that she stood no chance against this newcomer.

He was stronger than the other four combined.

Stronger than Oneiric.

Her panic exploded into outright fear as the man reached behind his back, whipped out a black pistol and fired off a round, nailing the vampire she had tagged as the leader between his eyes. His head snapped backwards, blood spraying from the gaping wound in the back of his skull, and he fell into a table, crushing it under him.

The other two rushed the man.

They didn’t stand a chance.

He took the first out with lethal efficiency, kicking him hard in the balls and then catching him with a diagonal uppercut as he doubled over, snapping his neck.

Eve stood frozen to the spot, unsure what to make of the deadly new combatant, and unsure whether he was friend or foe.

She hoped to God he wasn’t foe.

She wasn’t even sure he was a vampire. Her scrambled senses said that he was but he didn’t fight like any vampire she had ever met. None of them had used guns for a start, and none of them fought dirty as this man did.

The remaining male bravely faced off against him, brandishing both of her fallen knives.

It didn’t help him.

The huge male cupped his hands and stepped forwards, nothing more than a blur as he closed the distance between him and the remaining vampire. He slapped his hands over the vampire’s ears, the crack as they connected startling her into moving, placing even more distance between them. The vampire unleashed an agonised snarl and thrust with one of the blades. The man sidestepped, caught his arm and twisted it hard, bringing his other hand down in a devastating blow that shattered the bone.

The vampire’s agonised snarl became a scream.

The man calmly grabbed him by his throat, pressed his free hand against his face, and shoved forwards, snapping his head backwards and breaking his neck.

Eve took another step backwards, towards the door to the back rooms. Maybe she should have made a break for the exit while the man had been occupied with neatly defeating three vampires in under three minutes.

He advanced on her, the sense of malice coming from him not abating. If anything, it was getting stronger.

When he reached the gunshot victim, he casually crouched over him and ruthlessly snapped his neck, twisting hard enough that the crack was audible and sickening, making her own spine ache in response and her stomach turn. He rose to his feet, his backdrop a vision of darkness as the vampires began to turn to ashes, and approached her, silent but not wary.

Confidence and danger flowed from him, as if those two words were created for him alone.

An assassin.

A man bred for the purpose of killing.

She had met men like him in her years as a hunter, but not on his level.

Eve backed off another step and hit the wall beside the door to the back rooms.

The man continued his advance, each step closer he came only making her more aware of how immense he was as she had to tilt her head back to keep her unsteady gaze on what she could see of his face.

Oneiric appeared beside her and the man halted his approach.

“I dealt with all the ones out the back. Are you alright?” Oneiric said in a low voice, his crimson gaze never leaving the newcomer.

Eve kept her eyes locked on him too and nodded. “Sustained a few injuries but they’re healing. I took one down, and… well… he handled the rest. Any idea what they wanted?”

She waited, curious and a little afraid, as the male shifted his focus to Oneiric.

“I imagine it was the usual grudge against our kind. My ones had a few choice things to say about us.” Oneiric moved closer to her, a protective gesture by the vampire who called himself her father, one that she appreciated.

“It must get tiring. You think they would get bored of killing themselves.” She glanced at him, catching his brief smile.

They had spent hours discussing how foolish the weakling vampires were, those with muddied blood that made them far less powerful than vampires of the seven pure bloodlines. They often attacked pureblood vampires. Oneiric had called it suicide. She had to agree. As a hunter, she had seen weaklings picking fights with purebloods and it always ended the same. A gruesome death for the weakling.

She pressed her palms against the wall behind her, clinging to it for support as her tired body threatened to give out under the stress of the fight and the presence of the assassin.

Whenever his focus leaped to her, she felt the full extent of his power and it pressed down on her. Oneiric had warned such a thing would happen around stronger members of the seven pure bloodlines and she hadn’t believed him until now.

This vampire was more powerful than any she had met. What did he want with her father? Had he just been passing and had sensed the fight, and had come to help them? Or did he have business at the club? He would make one hell of a bouncer.

Her father eyed the ashes of the vampires and then the man before them.

“I thought Lilith would be the one to come for Eve,” Oneiric said and Eve swallowed hard.

This man couldn’t possibly be her escort.

She wasn’t going anywhere with him.

The towering male said nothing in response. He simply stuck his gun down the back of his black jeans and then casually pushed his hood back.

Eve’s breath left her in a rush.

Piercing glacial blue eyes held fast on Oneiric, the pale white-blond eyebrows above them drawing down, causing them to narrow and intensify. The man was handsome, not at all as she had expected, but radiated danger too, a sense of deadliness that his appearance could easily belie.

She had never thought she would face a vampire and think they were beautiful. Her body heated, her blood turning to liquid fire at the sight of him, a startling reaction that she couldn’t control.

He glanced at her and then his cold eyes shifted back to Oneiric.

Eve could only stare at the contradiction before her. No doubt he made the perfect assassin. His looks distracted her from the darker side she could feel in him—the vast coldness—and the dangerous side she had witnessed—the lethal, efficient killer. His pale eyes glittered with intelligence as they held Oneiric’s, filled with a calculating edge that made her feel he was five steps ahead of them, already predicting the outcome of every move he made or thing he said.

Here was the kind of man that nothing slipped past. Not even the smallest detail. He was dangerous because of that, and confident too. He knew himself and his skills, and that he could take down both Oneiric and her without breaking a metaphorical sweat. That scared her a little, but didn’t stop her from feeling drawn to him. If anything, it only pulled her deeper under his spell.

The man he was inside lent a rough edge to his beauty that made him masculine. Probably the closest definition to male she had ever met. A feral, deadly devil wrapped in the guise of an angel. She had never seen anything like him, and knew she never would again.

His blue eyes flickered back to her, his eyebrows twitching into a brief frown as if her scrutiny unsettled him, and then went back to Oneiric.

“Is Lilith coming?” Eve cursed the way her question came out squeaky, in a manner that should be reserved for schoolgirls with crushes, not a skilled huntress like herself. She cleared her throat and pushed away from the wall, refusing to use it for support and giving this man any reason to think she was weak, a woman in need of protection.

“Lincoln sent me to retrieve you.” His deep voice held a thick accent similar to Oneiric’s. Her bloodline hailed from Oslo in Norway, and this man had either been there for many years or came from that frigid and isolated land too.

“I want to know about my sister. Why couldn’t she come?” Why had her mate sent a six-foot-five wall of muscle to take her to Oslo? That one she was keeping to herself. The next one she was putting out there. “And I don’t like being talked about as if I’m some package that needs to be picked up.”

Neither male jumped on that one. Wise bastards.

Oneiric moved another step closer. “What is your name, stranger?”

The formidable ice-blond vampire switched his focus back to her father. “Tor.”

“I know that name. Lincoln thinks to send a hunter to escort my daughter to Oslo?” Oneiric said.

The air thickened as Oneiric stared at Tor and folded his arms across his chest, a deep frown furrowing his brow.

Tor’s emotions didn’t shift on her senses and neither did his body. He remained perfectly still and composed, as calm and cold as before, unmoved by the sneer in Oneiric’s tone or the warning his body language was tossing at Tor like a big flashing neon sign.

“Lincoln gave me this mission and I intend to complete it to his satisfaction. The female will be safe in my care,” the big assassin said in a flat tone, one that lacked feeling but brooked no argument from her father.

Eve stared at Tor, unconvinced that he knew the meaning of care and safe. He didn’t look as if he had any softer emotions or could comprehend why Oneiric was uncertain about entrusting her to him, or why she needed an escort at all.

There was something she could comprehend though.

The way Tor handled himself, and had handled those weakling vampires with ease, said that he was her ticket to getting the taste of revenge she hungered after so badly.

All she had to do was convince her escort to become her bodyguard and change a few details about his mission.

That would be no small feat. Men of his ilk placed great importance on their duty and carrying out orders to the letter. She had met enough of them in her time to know that Tor would resist altering the parameters of his mission and it was going to take a miracle to get him to even listen to her request.

His assessing blue gaze held a flicker of keen intelligence as it raked over Oneiric, the club, and finally her. He took everything else in quickly but his eyes lingered on her, studying, as if he was putting her to memory or seeking out all of her weaknesses. She trembled under the intensity of his gaze and the awareness of him that burst to life inside her, as strong as it had been during the fight, making the room and Oneiric fall away.

Tor blinked and was looking at Oneiric again.

“I ordered the jet to refuel and be ready for departure at oh-two-hundred hours. Any delay will see us landing during daylight.”

Jet? Her first hurdle presented itself. Tor would want to depart on time and clearly wanted to hand her over to Lilith and Lincoln by dawn. She couldn’t allow that. She had to delay him somehow, giving herself time to work on him and convince him to listen to her and at least consider changing his mission.

Oneiric continued to stare at him, his arms folded across his chest, an air of malevolence flowing around him. He didn’t trust Tor. Eve was fine with that. She was willing to trust him enough for both of them.

“Very well,” she said.

Oneiric looked at her, the black slashes of his eyebrows drawing together above his dark incredulous eyes. She knew why he wanted to give her the third degree. She had argued with him for five hours straight about not wanting to go to Oslo and now she was positively leaping at the chance.

Eve took a step towards Tor before Oneiric could say anything, capturing the larger man’s attention. His ice-blue gaze swung down to her, intense and focused, sending another hot shiver coursing through her blood.

The coldness in his eyes convinced her that whatever she felt when their eyes met, she was the only one experiencing it. She shut down all of her feelings and held his gaze, staring into the glacier and clinging to hope that she could do the impossible.

She could convince a cold-hearted assassin who valued his mission above everything to change his ways and give her the vengeance she needed.

All in the time it took to ferry her from the club to the jet.

She didn’t need a miracle. She needed divine intervention.

Eve fell deeper into his eyes, losing herself in them. In their depths, she found a spark of hope.

Flames flickered amidst the sharp glacier, banked but growing, intensifying into heat and hunger that melted some of the ice in Tor’s steady gaze before he shifted it away from her and began discussing the mission with Oneiric.

Maybe she had a chance of making a miracle happen after all.

Eve smiled.

Vengeance would be hers.