Deceived By the Others (33 page)

I slowly slumped down to my knees, my back resting against the cabinet, as the weight of what my father had said truly hit me.

The man who taught me how to ride a bike, who took me to the hospital when I broke my arm falling out of a tree when I was little, who gave me my first car, who held me when I cried after being dumped at my senior prom, who told my mother I was a big girl who could make her own decisions when I decided to be a private investigator—no longer wanted me in his life.

I wrapped my arms around myself and huddled on the floor for a long time, alone, doing what I could to hold myself together so I wouldn’t shatter from the loss. It wasn’t working very well. Waves of sick grief rolled over me, crushing everything, stealing away my breath.

It was a very long time before I could bring myself to get back on my feet and keep moving like there was something left of me to save.

Chapter 33

I’ve held up to a lot in my day. Psychotic magic-users, crazy vampires, and cheating boyfriends are no walk in the park. Being bound by blood to a vampire, losing myself to him, and then having that closeness ripped away from me in the agony of withdrawal was quite possibly one of the most physically and emotionally painful experiences I’ve ever had.

None of those things prepared me for being disowned by my father.

Once the immediate edge of shock wore off, I didn’t take the time to consider what I could do to fix it. I didn’t pause to consider the consequences of my actions. I didn’t stop to think holy-hell-what-am-I-doing?

Instead, I went straight to my room and donned every last piece of hunting equipment I owned. A few drops of Amber Kiss perfume would ensure my scent would be dulled to supernaturals, while the body armor would protect me from claws and fangs, giving me a fighting chance at surviving things no mortal should ever have to face. My guns went into the shoulder holster, soon hidden beneath my trench coat, a replacement after the last one was shredded in a fight for my life.

The belt came last. Though in the course of my breakdown it felt like it had been a long time since the sun went down, it wasn’t quite midnight yet. There were a lot of hours left to the night.

A lot of hours left to hunt.

The belt knew what I wanted.

On silent feet, I left the apartment. No one was in the hall. Whoever was on guard duty did not notice my stealthy exit.

Instead of trying to sneak past whoever was on watch at the front door, I headed to the back of the hall and took the stairs two at a time, pausing on the landing of the second floor. The sounds of heavy music, a car chase, and laughter came from the last door on the right side of the hall. The door was open, and I could hear the undertones of a few voices beneath the soundtrack of mayhem; the party was in there. Sara would be with those people, enjoying herself, safe for now in the shadow of the vampires who had seen fit to take us in. I’d have to pass by that open door to reach the window at the end of the hall, right above the roof of the foyer. There was a chance I might be seen by one of the vampires old and fast enough to stop me, even with the benefits granted by the belt.

It was a chance I’d have to take. If I stayed here, Royce and the other vampires wouldn’t let me do what needed to be done.

I ran—fast—faster than I could ever remember running before. The doors to either side of me were nothing but blurs, and all I did to protect myself was cover my eyes with my arm at the last moment, right before I leapt through the window.

Glass shattered with a sound so sharp it hurt my ears, so newly attuned to the quieter sounds of the night. Sheer momentum was carrying me much farther than expected. I was airborne.

For one heart-stopping moment, I was terrified.

Then, the utter
rapture
of the belt kicked in, reminding me that—with its help—I was now something more than human.

We flew, reveling in the wind making our hair stream, cutting through the material of the body armor as a cold caress, making the trench coat flare behind us like dark wings. As light as a bird, we landed on the roof of a car parked in front of the building, using it as a lever to leap off before it could be crushed under our weight.

There were shouts and cries from behind me, but I didn’t stop running.

The hunt for those who had wronged me was on.

Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek
of the new H&W Investigations novel,
coming soon from Zebra Books!

Days left to full moon: 24

My fingertips pressed against the cool stone of the ledge, helping me balance as I crouched on the balls of my feet. The heavy winds choked with smog and tainted with the stink of the Hudson threatened to push me off the edge of the apartment building’s roof if I wasn’t careful.

People bundled against the cold moved five stories below me, oblivious, never thinking to look up. Hours had passed since I’d fled Alec Royce’s apartment building with nothing but murder on my mind. It had taken me a while to find my current perch. I’d been waiting up here for nearly an hour after first checking inside the apartment, and my mark had not yet shown. Strain burned in my calves, but I remained as I was, held in check despite my desire to rampage through the city, destroying everything in my path until I found my targets.

‘You are so impatient,’
a voice whispered in the back of my skull, tinged with an edge of laughter.
‘Just wait. He has to come home sometime.’

I growled, the sound reverberating deep in my chest.

‘Touchy.’

“Shut up,” I snapped, running my fingers through my hair to shove the errant curls out of my eyes. “If he doesn’t come soon, I won’t have enough time to do anything. The sun will be up in less than an hour.” I’d been counting on Dillon being home so I could destroy the bastard before he hurt someone else. Or at least beat him into new and interesting shapes to make him think twice before infecting another uncontracted human.

‘Maybe he spent the night with someone. Or left for work before we arrived.’

I didn’t say anything, a pang of doubt giving me pause. The belt wrapped around my waist was the source of the voice in my head; a voice that would be banished once the sun rose. Aside from providing moral support and snarky commentary, the first rays of morning light creeping over the horizon would take with it all of my enhanced skills and senses, leaving me frail and human again. Though most of the time I hated what the belt did to me, I couldn’t afford to be without its help while facing down an angry werewolf.

‘Then wait until tomorrow night to face him. Use the day wisely; get some rest and food to build up your strength, and use those P.I. skills of yours to track him down.’

I nodded, turning away from the street and huddling into my trench coat against the cold. Now that I’d had a few hours for my ire to cool, I found that I was suffering from a wintry, calculating hatred instead of the heated, unthinking rage which had driven me here to begin with. Despite that the wait was really weighing on my nerves, it had given me plenty of time to think about what I was going to do once Dillon showed his face, and what I would do about the other Sunstrikers who had driven me to hunt them like the cowardly dogs they were.

In the space of a few days, my entire life had turned upside down. Not that it had been particularly normal to begin with, but my now very ex-boyfriend Chaz had been cheating on me. He’d also been running some kind of werewolf mafia ring right under my nose. Though I had no solid proof, I was sure his pack had something to do with the murder of Jim Pradiz. Not that I’d liked the sleazy reporter, but it was terrifying to know that the werewolves were willing to stoop so low to silence him.

To top things off, one of the Sunstrikers had scratched and quite possibly infected me with the lycanthropy virus. It would be weeks before I’d know for sure if I was going to join the ranks of the terminally furry come the next full moon. Clearly, thanks to the murder of Jim Pradiz—which the Sunstrikers were somehow connected to, I just knew it—I would never be one of that pack whether or not they accepted me. It was entirely possible that they were out to kill me, too.

Thanks to Chaz’s pack, I was on the run from a bunch of murderous werewolves, the police, and half the media in the state. The last straw had been my father telling me point-blank that I wasn’t his little girl anymore. Being disowned from my family for my involvement with the Others had been a gut blow I wasn’t prepared for. Recalling the raspy, accusing tones of my dad as he forbade me from ever coming home to him and Mom again made my eyes burn, but I’d cried my last tear over his pronouncement hours ago. I had work to do to make sure that the people involved with bringing this load of misery down on me and my family paid for everything they’d done. My resolve only firmed as I paused at the edge of the roof above the rusting metal framework of the fire escape that would lead me back down to the filthy alleyways and web-work of New York City streets below.

Considering it was Chaz and the rest of his pack’s fault that everything—my life, my livelihood, my family, and possibly my humanity—had been taken from me, I was not in a forgiving mood.

‘That’s an understatement.’

The droll “tone” of the belt had me grinning, though it was more a feral baring of my teeth than an expression of agreement. Stone chipped under my fingers as they tightened on the cornice molding on the edge of the roof. I absently flicked blood from my fingertips before dropping lightly down to the fire escape. It clanged dully at the impact, the sound rattling through the framework. I barely gave it time to finish shuddering before I leapt over the side, my already-healed fingers catching on the rail as I propelled myself down to the level below. Ladders and startled faces in windows passed in a blur, my body moving with the grace and surety of an Olympic gymnast and my stomach edging up into my lungs as I gained speed. Soon, much too soon, I was airborne.

Before I knew it, I was in a feral crouch on the alley floor, hair in my eyes and trench coat billowing around me like one of those clichéd action movie heroes and the last echoes of my landing ricocheting off the alley walls. An inhuman feat I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish a few weeks ago without breaking my legs, even with the belt’s help. Something about giving in and letting the belt take over had done something to change how we worked together; it augmented my strength, speed, agility, and stamina to a far greater degree than the first time I had worn it. Not to mention made me heal minor injuries nearly as quickly as a vampire. I wondered if that’s what it felt like to be an Other.

Adrenaline burned in my veins, but I didn’t give in to the belt’s siren song or half-hearted pleads for violence. Instead, I shoved my hands in my pockets and edged out of the shadows, past the dumpsters, and into the trickle of pedestrian traffic in the city street.

Clenching my fingers around the vial of Amber Kiss perfume and the box of ammo I’d shoved in my pockets didn’t hurt, though flakes of dried blood and shed scar tissue from cuts received and healed on my way down from the rooftop rubbed off in the process. I didn’t want to think about what I had become, or what I would be once I saw my quest for revenge to its end.

‘If not for the vampire, you wouldn’t be in this mess,’
the belt whispered.
‘You should plan to remove him, too.’

“Aside from the fact that he’d kill me if I tried it, Royce didn’t do this to me,” I muttered under my breath. “Don’t push me.”

A woman walking next to me glanced over, arching a silver-studded brow before ignoring me. That was the most attention I’d received from any of the sea of pedestrians all night. Not that I was complaining.

‘He may not have infected you, but he’s the one who brought you back into Chaz’s sights, and he’s also the one who keeps involving you in supernatural business. You wouldn’t have been bitten by vampires
—’

“Enough!”

I nearly shouted the word, and this time I did merit a few stares from early morning strollers, late night revelers sloshing their way home, and a handful of people in power suits on their way to the office. Ducking my head and popping up the collar of my trench coat, I sped up the pace, growling under my breath. I would’ve snarled something nasty back at the belt, especially since it was laughing at me again, but I was attracting too much attention as it was.

In fact, only yards away from me, a black-and-white was cruising past. I couldn’t help but watch over my shoulder as it went by before realizing how conspicuous that must look. I drew out of the press of the foot traffic to pretend to consider buying a magazine at a nearby news stand. My stomach did a turn at the headline on one of the local rags: “New York’s Hottest Vampire Sponsoring Charity Concert!” There was a picture of him on the cover of the latest issue of some financial news magazine, too. I twisted away, scowling. No matter how far I ran, it seemed Alec Royce would follow me everywhere.

Oh, great. When I looked back, the cops had pulled into the alley I had just come from, flicking on their search light as they parked.

That was my cue to hightail it. I needed to be less conspicuous with my actions if I was going to carry out my plans without landing up dead or in jail before the month was out. Abandoning my feeble ruse, I turned and took to a brisk walk in the opposite direction from Dillon’s apartment building.