When He Was Bad (21 page)

The vampire tilted his head to the side as he studied Miranda. Then his gaze met Cain’s. “Is he linked with her?”

She felt Cain stiffen behind her.
Linked?
She didn’t know exactly what that meant, but she sure as hell didn’t like the sound of it.

“If he is,” Sullivan continued, “he’ll always be able to get to her.
Always.”

Miranda bit back the questions that sprang to her lips, knowing now wasn’t the time. But the minute she got Cain out of that place…

“Good hunting, shifter,” Sullivan murmured and cast her a last, hooded glance. Then he disappeared into the crowd and Miranda took her first deep breath since she’d approached the two blonds.

“Cain.” She turned to face him.

“We need to get out of here,
fast.”
He was already moving, dragging her with him and making a beeline for the door. “The natives are about to get damn restless.”

“What?” She was nearly running to keep up with him and her shoulders bumped into people left and right. “Cain, what’s happening—”

A vampire stepped in front of Cain. One of the blonds. His eyes were black. His teeth were sharp and glinting. “Not leaving already, are you, shifter?”

Hell.

“And certainly not with my new little friend.”

Miranda stepped to Cain’s side. Offered a tight smile. “Changed my mind. Decided I’d like to stick with the animal after all.”

His eyes became slits of black rage. “Too damn bad. I’ve decided I want a taste and—”

Cain moved in a blur. Wrapped his right hand around the vampire’s throat and lifted him off the floor. “I’m not in the mood for this shit,” he snarled and tossed the vamp across the room.

The music stopped. All eyes flew to them. There was a rough scraping as chairs were shoved back. Vampires lurched forward and—

“Let them go.” Sullivan’s voice. Ringing through the crowd.

Miranda craned her neck, straining to see him. Where was—

There.
He was sitting at a table, two women on either side of him. One, a redhead, had blood slowly dripping down her neck, and she wore an expression of pure ecstasy. He leaned toward her, licked up the drops, then his head lifted again. “For tonight, and only tonight, they have my protection.”

None of the vampires moved and Miranda realized that the Sullivan guy wasn’t just your average vamp. The guy had power, a lot of it.

Then Cain was dragging her outside—jeez, again with the dragging. Like she wouldn’t have gladly run out of that pit of hell on her own steam.

The fresh air hit her face, driving out the scents of booze and blood. Their car waited just feet away. They jumped inside. Cain revved the engine, and they raced down the street.

Paul Roberts watched the taillights disappear down the road. His Miranda had joined with the shifter. A pity.

Now she was trying to hunt
him.
That wasn’t the way the game was played.

No, not at all.

Miranda was prey. Food. Not a hunter.

He should have killed her that first night. If only that damn animal hadn’t come running to her rescue.

But the shifter wouldn’t be able to protect her forever. No, there would be a time when she was alone. Vulnerable. There always was.

And he’d strike then. Make her beg for death.

Then he’d go after the animal. It was rumored that shifter blood was more powerful than anything else on earth. Because of the two spirits the beasts carried. A man’s. An animal’s.

He’d find out if that rumor was true when he sank his teeth into the shifter’s throat and gorged on his blood.

Oh, but death could be so wonderfully sweet.

Time to start
his
hunt.

And he knew just where to begin.

Miranda and Cain didn’t drive back to Cherryville. Instead, they returned to the hotel room that Cain had booked for them. The minute the bellman closed the door and exited the room, Cain sucked in a deep breath. He knew what was coming.

“Just what the hell,” Miranda gritted, “was that vampire talking about?
What
does it mean to be linked? And whatever it is, you’d damn well better tell me that I am
not
linked to Paul.”

Oh, but the woman was beautiful. Cheeks flushed. Eyes bright. He wanted to kiss her.

Strip her.

Take her.

But first, well, first he was going to have to piss her off, and probably scare her. “I didn’t want to worry you,” he began.

“Worry me?” Her voice rose several octaves and she began to pace around the room, pausing to toss her bag onto the king-size bed. Oh, but he had plans for that bed. And for her.

“Miranda…”

She shot him a fuming glare. “I’ve got some kind of psychotic vampire killer on my tail. Trust me, I’m already worried.”

Yeah, but there was being worried, then there was knowing-that-a-vampire-could-peek-into-your-mind-at-any-time worried. “When a vampire drinks from a human, it gives him a-a certain amount of control.”

She stopped pacing and spun to face him. “What kind of control?” Almost instantly, her eyes widened. “You said that only the ancient vamps could use Thrall, and Paul isn’t—”

“He can’t use Thrall on you.” His voice was firm. No, the vamp couldn’t use that method with her. “But once he took your blood, he did form a connection of sorts with you.”

Her lashes lowered a moment. Lifted. “I don’t like where this is going, Cain.”

He wasn’t thrilled, either. “If the blood link is strong enough, he’ll be able to glimpse into your mind. See memories.” And if the guy had enough power and he deepened the link, he might even be able to control her.

The hard sound of her painful swallow grated on his ears. “Are you telling me that bastard is in my head?”

“I’m saying he could be.”

Miranda sat down on the bed, hard. Her bag fell to the floor. “How do I get him out?”

He was working on that.
They
were working on that. But there was really only one way to sever a blood link. “We kill him.”

“Easier said than done,” she muttered.

His hands clenched. He’d been holding back the truth about the blood link because he’d thought Miranda had already been through enough.

He truly hadn’t wanted to freak the woman out any more than absolutely necessary.

“And just who the hell was that Sullivan guy?”

Ah, Liam Sullivan. “He was an agent with the Irish government. Came here years ago on a case, wound up staying as a liaison.”

“So how’d he end up fanged?”

“Wrong place. Wrong time.” Simple words to describe the carnage that had taken out Sullivan’s team and left him alive—sort of, anyway.

“I thought he was one of those ancients you’d talked about. Why’d the other vampires listen to him if he’s still…I don’t know, young to them?”

Because most of the vamps in the bar were considered the fresh Taken. Taken—an apt term for the vamps who’d once been human but had lost their mortal lives with an exchange of blood. Yeah, those assholes in the bar hadn’t been blood vampires—the fierce creatures born onto the earth already having full immortal strength. Instead, the feeding room had been full of amateurs, vamps who’d been changed in the past few years.

Those guys had kept silent because they were still new to the game, and because Sullivan had a reputation for being one tough bastard. “He’s made a bit of a name for himself in the vampire world.” Sullivan, and the female, Maya, a vampiress who lived on the West Coast. Both were former humans who’d once held jobs protecting humans.

Now they both walked in the darkness and killing, well, they’d become very, very good at meting out death sentences to their enemies.

It was always a shame to him when protectors became Taken. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking that Sullivan is harmless, Miranda.”

She snorted. “Yeah, like that’s what I was thinking.”

“If you cross him, he’ll come after you with fangs and claws—”

“Just like you would,” she finished softly.

Her words had him faltering. “I would never hurt you.”

Her stare was direct. “But what about those who cross you, Cain? Do you show mercy to them?”

In his thirteen years in the Bureau, he’d found that few individuals truly deserved his mercy. Not that he had much, anyway. “Some folks—they don’t particularly deserve mercy from me.”

“So you’ve killed, haven’t you?” Her husky voice asked the question that he’d been dreading for days.

Every muscle in his body seemed to harden. “I’m not some perfect human choirboy, baby—”

“No, you’re a shifter. A very strong, very dangerous shifter, and you’ve spent a large part of your life working in law enforcement.” She licked her lips. “Did you have to use deadly force, in the line of duty?”

He gave a jerky nod but didn’t speak. Because it hadn’t just been in the line of duty.

“There’s more, isn’t there?”

Why did she have to push? He’d wanted to keep that dark part of his life separate from her.

Shit. He’d tried so fucking hard. Leaving the Bureau. The monsters—men and beasts. Buying the house in the middle of damn nowhere so that the jaguar could run free in the night and even swim in the water like the cat loved to do.

Then the vampire had come hunting in
his
territory.

And he’d realized that leaving the city hadn’t really changed things for him.

Things would never change for him.

“Supernaturals, they tend to live in the big cities.” His voice sounded hollow even to his own ears as he walked toward the windows and pushed aside the curtains. “Easier to blend that way.”

“Were you tired of blending?”

His fingers tightened around the silky fabric. “I was tired of the dying.” The demons. The shifters. Witches. Fighting. Dying. Right alongside the humans. “Jaguars—we aren’t exactly the easiest breed to get along with. We like our space. We’re territorial.” Serious understatement. Hell. How many times had he gotten into pissing matches with cougars and coyotes? Matches that had too often turned violent.

Because that, too, was his nature.

“I can pretend to be like humans. To be just a man.” He turned to face her, because he wanted to look into her eyes and make certain she understood this. “But I’m not, and if you go around thinking I’m a man who can turn into a beast, well, you’ll be wrong. At heart, what I am is a beast…who just happens to be able to turn into a man.”

A beast who’d made his first kill when he was eighteen. When the bastard with a gun had broken into his home and threatened his mother because he knew what she was. When the gun had pointed at his mother, and the asshole’s finger had tightened around that trigger, he’d attacked.

And he’d never regretted his actions.

Cautiously, Cain walked toward Miranda, watching for any signs of fear or disgust. She’d given him her beautiful body, let him taste heaven, and he was very much afraid she was going to turn from him.

“I’ve killed in the line of duty, yeah. But I’ve also killed as a civilian. I’ve tracked beings you don’t even want to know about. I took them out, because I was the only one who could.” Again, no regrets.

What point was there in regretting? There was no way to change the past.

He stopped inches away from her. Wished that he could read the emotions behind her solemn stare. “Maybe I should have told you this from the beginning.” After her attack. When she’d realized the world didn’t work quite the way she’d thought. “But I’m a greedy bastard, Miranda, and I wanted you and—” Hell. He wouldn’t say the rest. Wouldn’t say that he’d been afraid she’d turn from him in disgust. It had happened before. Right after he’d graduated from college.

He’d told his human girlfriend the truth about his existence. The relationship had been getting serious, and he’d thought she deserved to know just who her lover really was.

Even now, he could still see the disgust on her face.

No regrets.
The mantra slid through his mind once more. That was the way he lived his life.

He drew in a hard breath, caught her heady scent, and repeated, “I wanted you.”

“And I want you.”

Want, not
wanted.
His heart raced as hope raised its stubborn head.

Her hands reached for him. “I told you before, Cain, I’m not afraid of you. Not of what you are, and not of the creature you become.”

Okay. Sandy had been running from him by this point.

Miranda didn’t look like she was planning to go anywhere.

But looks could be deceiving. Hell, he knew that better than just about anyone.

His fingers caught hers. Tightened. “We’re one and the same, baby. You’ve got to understand that—”

“I do.”

He’d just told her that he was a cold-blooded killer. Why did she still look at him like—like—

Like he was a good man.

Oh, damn.

At that moment, he knew he’d just lost a battle he hadn’t even realized he’d been fighting.

Miranda.

No fear.

Want.

Need.

His.

Cain swallowed back the lump that rose in his throat. “I need to be with you.” Truer words he’d never spoken. And he didn’t mean just for the night.

Forever.

Her lips curved in a smile. “Then what are you waiting for, lover? We’ve got a bed, a room, and all night long.”

He felt it then. A strange warmth in his chest. Something he hadn’t really felt in so long that it took him by surprise.

Happiness.

His lips lifted as he stared down at her. “That’s just the answer I was hoping for.” Then he took her mouth with his and tasted the honeysuckle on his tongue.

Cain pushed her back onto the bed, his cock already swollen with hunger.

When he’d walked into that feeding room and he’d seen the vamps sizing Miranda up like she was some kind of dream meal, a flash of possessive rage had burned through him. Then when those two blond jerks had cornered her, it had been all he could do not to unleash his anger.

Possession. Jealousy. From the man and the jaguar.

His fingers tightened around her hips as he thrust his cock against her. They should take it slow now. They had the bed. Soft mattresses. Sweet-smelling sheets. Yes, now should be the time when he took her like a gentleman. Kissing every inch of her body, murmuring those sweet words that women liked to hear.