A Taste for Blood (8 page)

“Kassy,” I hissed. “Stay. Here.”

I could sense her stepping away, but at the same time, I knew she didn’t want to. Drawing in a breath, I waited. I hoped what I was seeing was a mistake—Tyler, hunched over something I couldn’t see… Blood on his chin, his hands, his arms…

But as soon as he looked at me, as soon as those dark orbs met mine, I knew.

Tyler was the rogue.

He killed her.
That was her blood on his chin. Her life on his lips.

I sprinted across the room and slammed him into the wall behind his desk, glancing down at the unidentified corpse by his chair.

He killed her. He’s killed before, and he’ll do it again.

I reached for his neck and ducked as he went to do the same to me. Sensing Kassy somewhere behind me, I was grateful when she didn’t move.

Good girl. Stay there, Kassy. Please, stay there
.

Tyler threw a punch against my gut, causing me to stumble backwards. His eyes widened as I pinned him to the wall, but he didn’t seem surprised, his vision fixed on something behind me.

“Look at me, damn it!” I growled, tightening my grip on him. “You have no right to look at her. No right! No right…” My vision blurred, and I blinked away the tears. “You killed her.”

Tyler’s gaze jumped from me to Kassy. “What the hell are you talking about? I haven’t killed any—”

“Don’t lie to me! I can smell them all over you.” I gestured to the one still writhing on the floor behind us. “What the hell do you call that?”

Tyler’s expression was blank. It was almost as if he really had no idea what I was talking about. But he
had
killed.
In our territory.
Regardless of who he’d killed, there were laws for what he’d done.

And that’s exactly where my thoughts drifted before I was brought back to life by something buzzing in my back pocket. I loosened my grip on Tyler.

“What’s that?” Kassy asked, approaching us once she was sure we wouldn’t bite each other’s throats.

“My…my phone.”
Zee’s phone.
I hadn’t even noticed she’d dumped it in my pocket until now.
It isn’t possible.
“Take it out and read it to me.”

Kassy fished in my back pocket. “Since when do you have a cell?”

“I don’t.”
It’s Zee’s,
I wanted to say. It was a phone she dropped into my pocket anytime she wanted to meet after one of our drinks together.

It’s pre-recorded
.
It has to be. It isn’t her.

Kassy held the cell in front of me before turning on the backlight so we could see. It had Zee’s number, her name and a time to meet.

“That. Isn’t. Possible.” I let Tyler drop to the ground but cornered him so he couldn’t move.

“Should…?” Kassy licked her lips. “Do you want me to call her back?”

God, yes.
“No.” I couldn’t face the possibility of her being dead and someone else answering that phone in her place. Thankful when Kassy stepped away with the phone, I focused on Tyler and ignored the fatigue in my arm. “Why’d you do it, Tyler, huh? What forsaken reason would you have to get turned and do something so…so stupid?”

Tyler nodded in Kassy’s direction. “I saw the way she looked at you—the way she’s always looked at you.”

“And what? Those looks were intended for you?”

He shook his head. “No, but you didn’t deserve them. It was the vampire she liked. I just thought if I…”

“Are you listening to yourself?” I let the drunk in me take over and laughed. Clearly I’d gone mad. “I’m a vampire because I had no choice.”

“But I did. Corvis saw how much—”

“Corvis? I should’ve known.”

All this time he’d been after Kassy. No wonder the deaths hadn’t started until right after I’d turned her.
He knew.
He must’ve known I was going to turn her. It was the only thing that made sense—the only reason he’d come to me after Tyler’s first kill.
He knew.
This entire time, he’d been playing us.

He’s still playing us.
Hell, even him saying Zee was dead could’ve very well been a lie just to get me down here.

Straightening my posture, I stepped away from Tyler. “We’re done here.”

Tyler rubbed at his neck. “That’s it? All that show and…nothing?”

I glared at him. “Do you want me to kill you? Get out of here. I’ll deal with you later.”

I turned to Kassy and took the phone from her hands, studying the number on the screen as if I hadn’t seen it a hundred times before. I thought of calling Zee, of dialling the number just to see if she would pick up. It was then that the idea of getting played by Tyler entered my mind. He knew about Corvis. He knew how the coven worked. It wouldn’t have taken much for him to come up with this plan all on his own.

But those thoughts were put to rest when a gust of wind blew in from the streets and with it, Corvis’ scent. I stood against the far wall with Kassy standing to my side.

Corvis smiled as he walked through the doorway. “And to think, my money was on the possibility of you killing him. Such a shame to let all that anger go to waste.”

Who says it’s going to go to waste?

I held back, knowing he’d move well before I reached him. “You son of a bitch. Do you have any idea what you almost did?”

“You mean what
you
almost did?”

“Damn you, Corvis, this isn’t one of your games. You can’t go back from something like this. And to think, I was actually afraid when you told me there was an imbalance because I turned Kassy, but what about you?”

He’d never banish himself from the coven. He’ll likely come up with some political excuse to cover his ass, but what about ours
?
Every crime falls on the coven’s leader.

He knew our laws as well as those held by each of the three covens.
Keep the covens equal.
None of the covens was allowed to have a higher population than the rest. Turning new bloods when there wasn’t a place to fill was akin to a threat of war.

I’d known turning Kassy would cause some grief, but I’d done it to keep her from Corvis. But him? He’d turned Tyler out of spite! The other covens would probably have understood my wanting to protect the woman I’d come to love, but not Corvis. I couldn’t believe this had all been some ploy to teach me a lesson or cause waves between us. Sooner or later the other coven leaders would learn about what we’d done.

In fact, I didn’t doubt they knew about it already. But regardless of how much our increase in numbers might anger the other leaders, no matter how wrong this might have been, it all fell onto Corvis’ shoulders. He was the one who would have to face the other leaders. He was the one who would have to explain his motivation, as well as my own, to the other covens. I only hoped they saw the reasoning behind my turning Kassy.

“Now you know how it feels to have your heart crushed by family,” Corvis said, glancing in Kassy’s direction.

I stepped in front of her. “This has nothing to do with her.”

“It has
everything
to do with her. If you would’ve just compelled her like I’d asked, none of this would’ve happened. You were supposed to turn Zee and leave your slut for the rest of us.”

Kassy’s breath caught, and I reached back to squeeze her hand.

Don’t stoop to his level, Alex.

“What’re you talking about? I wasn’t the one who turned Tyler. I wasn’t the one who fucked with another’s mind.”

“All these years you’ve been fawning after Zee. Why pick
her?
” Corvis gestured to Kassy, his tone one of disgust.

I counted on my fingers with every point I made. “Because Kassy belongs to me. She’s an individual and doesn’t belong to the coven. Turning Zee would’ve meant stealing from the coven. That’s why I turned Kassy, to keep her away from you.”

And with that, I looked back at her, caressing her cheek, relieved when she didn’t pull away. “Please know this was never my intention. I would’ve waited until your last breath on Earth to turn you, but I had my orders. If I hadn’t done what I did—”

Kassy pressed a finger to my lips. “It’s fine, we can talk about it later.” She glared at Corvis. “But don’t you think we have more pressing matters to tend to?”

“At least she’s loyal,” Corvis spat.

I shook my head. “And you think that’s because I’m her Dom? Because I turned her? Neither of those things guarantees loyalty. Kassy listens because she wants to, not because I’ve compelled her to do so. Honesty and trust… You should really try them sometime.”

“Careful, Alex. Don’t forget it was I who created you.”

“That card won’t work on me anymore. I’m not taking the fall for this one. You and I both know the fault of the coven always falls on its leader—you.”

Kassy and I headed for the doors behind him.

“And where do you think you’re going?”

“I’m going to do what I should’ve done a long time ago.” I lowered my voice and pulled Kassy alongside me. “Ignore him.”

“What now?” she asked, staring at Corvis. “Shouldn’t you report this?”

“In the morning, and that’s only if the other covens haven’t heard about it by then. Corvis turning Tyler and knowingly allowing him to feed within the three territories is inexcusable. He will be dealt with, if not for turning a new vampire when we had no need of one, then for allowing that vampire to feed on those outside the blood den.”

“But you turned me when you didn’t need a new vampire.”

I nodded. “And I only turned you now because Corvis forced my hand. I couldn’t allow him or anyone else to compel you. Zee has a good life and enjoys what she does, but that wasn’t a choice I wanted you to have to make. Was I wrong?”

Kassy glanced over her shoulder in the direction of where we’d left Corvis. “I don’t think so. Getting bitten by one vampire is more than enough for me.” She averted her gaze before looking back at me. “So, if you aren’t going to report to the other coven leaders, what are you going to do?”

I smiled as I thought back to Zee’s phone in my pocket. I now had no doubt she’d be expecting us.
Now that we know for sure that Corvis lied about the whole damn thing
.

“Feel like giving Zee a visit? I mean, she did invite us, after all.” I held up the phone as proof. “Besides, we have room left on our tab for the evening.”

“Will she still be in the den?”

I guided her into the street and we slowly made our way back towards the hotel. “Nope, but that isn’t to say we can’t visit her.”

“You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

“Absolutely.”

She licked her lips, and at first I thought she was going to say no just to spite me. When she finally spoke, her voice was almost desperate. “When can we leave?”

I selected Zee’s number on the cell and held it to my ear. “Right…now.”

Also avaiable from Total-E-Bound Publishing:

Rippled

Erin Lark

Excerpt

Chapter One

The first time I saw Krista should’ve been my last. She didn’t belong in a cage like the rest of us. Like some kind of animal. She was too smart. Too beautiful. And when she finally shifted…the fur all along her body wasn’t right. It didn’t fit her. It didn’t suit her at all.

I still remember when the bus rolled into our sad excuse of a community. I wanted to turn her around and send her home. I didn’t. Instead, I stood there, gawking at her—just like everyone else. At her smooth skin. Her perfect body with all its hills and valleys. And that hair! Dark brown with a touch of honey when she walked under the sunlight. So. Fucking. Beautiful.

He’s not going to turn her,
I thought. There was no way Malcom had brought her here to inject her with the virus. There had to be some other reason. Something he hadn’t explained. But those hopes were shot down when he asked me to join him in the lab where new bloods were injected and forced to shift for their very first time.

As we stood behind a wall of glass, I watched a collection of nurses guide Krista into the chair. They strapped her in. Restrained her. Connected her to machines along with copious amounts of sedative. My eyes went wide as I looked from Krista’s questioning expression to Malcom, who stood beside me.

“You can’t be serious,” I said, gesturing at the image in front of us. “You don’t honestly mean to turn her, do you?”

It had to be a prank. He’d done them all the time when we had been in college. Hell, he’d only got me to take the virus because he’d drugged my drink one night. There was no way he’d turn something—someone—so stunning into one of us. Into someone like me.

I licked my lips and watched his face for any outward signs of the impending prank. His stormy grey eyes were focused on a panel of data in front of us, his hands inside his pockets. He rolled his shoulders back. I bit at the inside of my cheek. If this was a prank, he was hiding it extremely well.
He’s had practice,
I assured myself.
Don’t let him get to you.
He’d never let me hear the end of it if I did.

Someone in the other room coughed and looked our way. I checked the monitor that was connected to Krista, but her heart rate and blood pressure were close to normal.

It has to be a prank.

I was sure of it now. If Malcom had brought her into the camp with the intention of turning her, she would’ve reacted like everyone else. Nervous. Scared, even. But she didn’t even flinch when a nurse rubbed her arm with alcohol. Her heart didn’t skip a beat.

“All right.” I laughed nervously. “You got me.” I took a breath and smiled in Malcom’s direction. “You really had me going there for a minute.”

Malcom furrowed his brow. “You think this is a joke?”

I matched his gaze. “Isn’t it?”
He’s just trying to throw you off.
There was no way in hell he’d consider—