Crowned by Fire (18 page)

In a daze, he let himself be led back to the motel and wondered what he was going to do. She had no idea how delicious she smelled.
Like sweet, raw meat, lightly salted.

David shuddered violently. He had just learned how to gain control of his blood lust—now, with the reappearance of his childhood friend, all of the control he'd had to fight for, inch by inch, was about to snap.

She was frowning to herself.

“
'One week before his blood was spilled,'” she muttered, “'and one week hence his heart has stilled.”

The reference to blood gave him pause. “What?”

Before he could think to stop her, she pressed two of her fingers to the underside of his throat. He wrapped his hand around her wrist, and she looked at him, startled.

“
You don't have a heartbeat.”

David closed his eyes briefly, steeling himself. Gently, very gently, he lowered her wrist to her side. “Please.” Now that he was a vampire his voice was a little deeper, though he wasn't sure why. “I only have so much control.”

He saw her eyes widen in fear, the pupils contracting. She pulled her other arm from his and David was sorry, but it was for the best—or so he told himself. Having her near was too much temptation, more than he could bear.

Catherine opened the door to one of the motel rooms. She didn't quite turn her back on him and that made him sorry, too, because it meant that, subconsciously at least, she no longer trusted him.
And why would she? We're no longer equals—I am her hunter, and she…is my prey.

“
So much has changed,” she was saying. “There's so much I need to tell you, so much I want to
ask
you—”

David froze. The moment he stepped into the room, he was hit by the smells of blood, sweat, sex, and magic. He nearly fled—but then he remembered that he didn't need to breathe. He still did, mostly from habit and because it still felt uncomfortable not to, but he no longer
needed
to, and in fact, it was easier to sneak up on prey if he didn't.

Stop thinking like that.

David stopped breathing and was able to enter the motel room. Catherine stood a respectful distance away, watching him warily. She could sense his predatory nature and was responding to it perfectly, doing her best not to trigger his instincts.
If only she knew how deeply they go—

A bitter laugh escaped him at the irony of it.

The bathroom door opened and a man stepped out, cutting David off mid-chuckle. “Who is this?”

He was maybe an inch taller than David himself, with bright red hair, and fair skin—the kind that burned in the sunlight that David would no longer be able to see. Ever.

He was wearing a pair of jeans and nothing else, and David's utter lack of interest in his bared throat and open wounds led him to suspect that the red-haired man was a witch. He stared at the scratches on the witch's chest.
Wait
.

David's eyes sidled back over to Catherine and this time he registered her clumsily buttoned blouse, her tangled hair, her tightly clenched hands that were a perfect fit for the lacerations on the other man's torso. With the crumpled sheet, the scattered clothing, the scent of sex—suddenly, the scene took on an entirely new and horrific context.

Oh, Catherine, no. How could you?

“
David.” Catherine took a step toward him and he stiffened in alarm, but she didn't move any closer and he realized that she was speaking for the witch's benefit. “David wasn't dead. He was turned into a vampire.”

He told her I was dead?

The witch looked at him with an expression of such dislike that David was tempted to spring. If he had been human or shifter, he might have. Instead, he leaned back against the motel door, shutting it with his body weight.

“
What a surprise,” the witch said, folding his arms.

David inclined his head. “I'm so sure.”

“What happened? How did you—?” She waved an ineffective  hand at him. Apparently she didn't want to say what he was aloud. “I thought…you were killed.”

David pushed off from the door. Both Others tensed, and he suspected that if he so much as veered in Catherine's direction that the witch was going to curse him. Smiling thinly, he sat down on the edge of the mattress.

“That was the plan, initially. I was heading home from the school and was blindsided by a group of Slayers. The one with the funny name—Emilio Bordello—he organized the attack. But he didn't kill me.”

“
Why?” That from the witch.

David shrugged. “I appeared to be somebody's payment. Blood money. I was delivered to a vampire, who proceeded to drain me of blood until I was about a hairsbreadth from death. The vampire decided that I might be more interesting like this. Or else he didn't want a corpse on his hands.”

“Can you still Change?”

He felt a hollow ache where his heart once beat. There was a term for that, he'd learned it in Bio. Phantom limb syndrome. Sometimes, after body parts were severed or removed, their ghostly impressions remained in the nerves.

“No,” he said sadly.

Catherine shook her head. “If you weren't dead, why didn't you come back? Your parents—they were so worried.
I
was so worried. Even knowing you were…that you were a vampire would be better than thinking you were
dead
.”

“
Oh yes,” David said flatly, “I'm sure my parents would have been thrilled to see me like this. A fledgling vampire, with no self-control, mere feet away from their young son.”

“
Samuel,” Catherine whispered. “But you love him—”

“
I was kept in a cage pending my transformation, like an animal. For the longest time, it was as though I had lost my mind. I could barely remember my own name, let alone who I had been, or who my family and friends were. All I could think about was hunger—hunger and satisfaction.”

He looked at her sharply. “Remember how humans used to smell to us? Imagine that, multiplied a hundredfold. Now imagine that you're starving, and half-mad. That's what it's like, being in the same room with you, with any shape-shifter,
and I actually know who you are—
”

David hadn't realized he was standing until he saw a bright flash in the corner of his eyes. The witch had activated some sort of spell. “Stay away from her.”

He had backed Catherine against the wall.

“
It was terrible,” he said, turning his back on her. As a predator, he could afford that simple luxury. “The things I was forced to do. The things he forced me to do. He found them funny, Catherine. He kept me in a state of near starvation for weeks because it
amused
him to see me tear living creatures apart.”

“
You seem to have adapted well enough,” said the witch with a sneer. His hands were still glowing, which made him suspect that the witch was looking for a fight.

“
It was that, or die,” said David. “And it is surprisingly hard to convince the body that all hope is lost. When it comes down to brass tacks, we will do almost anything to stay alive. Anything.”

“
Oh, David—”

“
It's strange that I'd run in to you here, of all places.” He could see the throb of her pulse in her throat, but as long as he didn't breathe he couldn't smell her, couldn't taste her. “What brought you to the City of Angels?”

“
The Slayers found me, too. We—” she glanced at the witch “—fought them, and ended up escaping  Barton with one of their spell books. But they tracked us south, and we ended up taking refuge in a mall.”

“
And met up with a vampire. Who almost killed you.” David didn't miss the look the witch shot him.

He let his face become a blank mask. “I see.”

“The spell book is in the hands of the Council, and out of the Slayers' for good,” Catherine said, speaking faster, “but now it looks like we're about to have another war.”

This was news to David. He leaned forward. “Why?”

“Because of my father, Royce Riordan,” said the witch. “He has always had a penchant for hypocrisy, but this time he ventured too far. He decided that your friend needed to be assassinated.” His eyes didn't leave David's when he spoke, as if he were expecting some kind of response.

“
Are you expecting me to bow to you?” David asked idly, smoothing his hand over the mattress. “I won't. You aren't my king. I bow before no one but my Master.”

The look on the witch's face was priceless. What a shame that it didn't last long. “You don't exactly seem surprised.”

“By what?” David asked, “the idea of war? There have been wars since humans first evolved enough to understand the meaning of hostility. Shape-shifters and witches have never coexisted, and these last few decades have been so thick with hatred and resentment that you could cut through it with a knife and spread it on toast.”

His eyes grew veiled as he glanced towards Catherine. “If you meant by who you are, no. Even if I hadn't seen the uniform crumpled on the floor, there are few witches who would be so amenable to the company of a savage.”

Catherine shook her head. “It isn't like that.”

The witch opened his mouth to say something, but David smoothly cut him off. “You don't have to explain your decisions to me. Your life is your own.”

But if he's hurting you, I will rend him limb from limb.

“
Thank you.” She edged closer. “May I…hug you?”

David wanted to say no. But he was tired of the witch looking at him like that, with that smug look of self-satisfaction, and he desperately wanted to hold her again. Because whatever remained of his living heart still had impressions of his love for Catherine.

“If you want,” he said wearily, spreading his arms.

And then she was pressed against him, with her arms wrapped around his chest. Her throat taunted him, mere inches away from his mouth, so he turned his head away, and ran his hands up and down her sides, stroking her back, drinking up everything he could take away from the embrace without actually drawing blood from her.

He didn't look at the witch; he didn't need to. He could sense Riordan's dislike just fine without confirming it, and he did not want Catherine to catch him at it, either. She was very proud and stubborn, and might accuse him of trying to make the witch jealous.

She might have slept with the witch—and gods knew why, since this one obviously had no respect for shape-shifters, one only needed to see it in the lack of warmth in his eyes, or his chilly reception of her—but it was
him
she was embracing.

Very lightly, he kissed her on the cheek. “I'm so glad you're still breathing.”

Something wet touched his face. It took him a moment to realize she was crying.

Catherine never cried. That was enough to make him suck in his breath—a habitual gesture left over from his not-so-distant life—and that was a mistake, because suddenly her scent was all around him, overpowering, tapping into his drives for hunger and sex. Two things he had never wanted confused were now cross-wired all the time.

He pushed her away, as gently as he could in his haste, and saw her stare at his fangs. He gave her a rueful smile. “I'm a fledgling. I still don't have much control.”

“
Who
is
your Master?” the prince asked him, as if he already knew the answer. He had probably guessed. Fourth Rule breakers were rare; and few vampires were strong enough to sire new followers.

“
My Master is Alec St. Clair.”

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Crowned by Fire
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