Chapter 2

Halo didn’t need to sleep. But it would burn precious energy staying awake, and without a source to feed from and without a steady stream of direct sunlight to fuel him, he had to use his energy judiciously. He wanted to be able to attack anyone who came through the door. He tried not to pace his room, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. He kept the corner of his eye on the TV screen hoping they’d let him see Felice once more, but they were playing games with him, getting in his head. They knew he wouldn’t be able to tolerate not knowing what was happening to her. They were purposely wearing him out.

So he made himself sit and relax whenever he could. It wasn’t easy. He was a man of impulse—but also great discipline. A contradiction, to be sure. He either reacted to things impulsively, or sat in wait like an animal stalking prey with great patience and fortitude. It all depended on what was called for in the moment. Right then he was torn between his two opposing sides.

When the sound of hissing filled the room suddenly, he became instantly amped up. What’s that? What—

The smell hit him next. Gas. Some kind of gas. He realized they were trying to knock him out, so he tried holding his breath and collapsing down to the floor as if the gas had worked. Gas rose so it was likely that the air by the floor was fresher than that above him, but he didn’t want to take the chance.

He couldn’t hold his breath forever though. They knew that. They weren’t going to fall for his ploy. The hissing continued until he had no choice but to gasp for breath. Besides, he’d already taken enough of the gas in to make himself drowsy. His mind was clouding over. He tried to hang on. Tried to stay awake.

It was no use.

Halo woke slowly, his head fuzzy and heavy and muddled. He groaned, a hand going to his forehead. He blinked dry eyes and tried to focus on the room around him.

The first thing he felt was energy. Any self-respecting vampire would sense energy immediately. He turned his head and saw Felice lying in bed next to him.

He sat up like a shot and leaned over her, grasping her chin in his hand and giving her a little shake.

“Felice. Felice!”

She didn’t budge.

That was when he sensed something wrong about her energy. It was soured. Poisoned.

Drugs. Again, any self-respecting vampire could sense a drug user a mile away. But this was not long-term abuse. This was new. It collided with her previously clean energy like oil and water. But that wouldn’t last. Given drugs regularly she would become permanently poisoned.

Right now that meant she was a source of energy he couldn’t touch. Not that he would anyway. If she’d been given to him as a tasty tidbit, they’d been sorely mistaken in what he would find attractive.

Provided they knew what he was. Odds were they did. Why else knock him out like that? They had to know he could fight them with electroshock. The only way to avoid that was to gas him.

Fucking cowards.

He could tell immediately that it was heroin they had given her. He could smell it on her. They had purposely tainted her so he couldn’t use her as a way of fortifying his strength and energy.

Hopefully they knew that it would take a week or so for the poison to run its course before he could touch her like that and they wouldn’t keep dosing her. If they did, they would force addiction on her. Soon she would be craving the high if for no other reason than to keep herself from becoming sick from withdrawal. He hoped it didn’t get to that point. He hoped they were satisfied with tainting her once.

He didn’t plan on being there a week waiting for her to get clean. Besides, by then he would have begun to fall into torpor, a coma-like state where he would need another vampire to feed him as he lay helpless and starving. The thought sickened him. He’d be damned if he’d let them starve him out.

What could he do against gas though? How could he get out of there? As it was the gas was beginning to taint him on its own. If he was subjected to it too often, he would slip into addiction himself and before he knew it, he’d be a sycophant, unwilling to give up the cheap high of toxicity. It would be as bad as pumping him full of heroin. He might as well feed from Felice directly.

Maybe that was the endgame. To turn him. The thought filled Halo with dread. How had he gotten himself into this mess?

He knew how. His hedonistic lifestyle when he wasn’t hunting was how. All the drinking and the women. Now he was forced to take a hard look at himself. He had long prided himself on being such a badass. What kind of badass allowed himself to be so vulnerable? All the drinking, all the women…it had led him to this. He had been toying with toxicity all on his own, always stopping just shy of turning phant. His way of spitting into the wind. Stupid. Just plain stupid.

Regrets wouldn’t get him out of this mess, however. It wouldn’t allow him to get Felice out of this mess.

He was glad they had brought her to him. Now he could keep an eye on her and try to protect her. If he figured a way out he could take her with him. Yes. This was better. A definite improvement on the situation. It was a flaw in their thinking.

Only…what was their thinking? Why put her in with him? What did they hope to gain from it? Again he thought they intended him to use her as a food source. To taint himself. Why would they think he would do that voluntarily? Even if she wasn’t drugged he didn’t think he could do that to her. She’d been through enough. She didn’t need to be used by him on top of it all.

He threw his legs over the side of the bed and for the first time noticed they had removed the sheets from the bed. Either that or he had been moved into her room. He couldn’t tell. The rooms had looked identical. He searched for the remote to the TV. He had last left it on the seat of the recliner. It was still there. So, it was his room. They’d removed the sheets and any hope of her covering up when she came to.

Pricks. Taking away her dignity like that. What was the point in it? Did they think he would be so overcome with lust he’d fall on her like some kind of animal? Were they watching them like rats in a lab to see if they mated? The thought was sickening. Did they think they knew him so well? Sure, he tended to fuck anything in a skirt, but they were willing. They came to him; they weren’t forced on him.

He stood up and waited a moment as the aftereffects of the gas made his stomach lurch. It made him aware of a smell that hadn’t been there before.

Food. There was food set out on the table. Two places had been set and an array of covered dishes were on the table.

Felice had said she hadn’t eaten in days…hadn’t she? Was this for her then? Food didn’t help him any. He derived very little, if any, energy from food. Did the two place settings mean they didn’t know what he was? If they didn’t know, why taint her?

Then he worried that they had overdosed her. A clean woman getting her first dose of heroin was highly susceptible to overdose. He leaned back over the bed and grabbed hold of her. He yanked her to her feet, giving her a good shake.

“Felice. Wake up! Come on, honey. Wakey wakey. Let’s go. That’s it,” he said after a minute of shaking her finally made her moan. “Come on. Open those eyes. I want to see what color they are.”

Her lashes fluttered up, and she looked at him groggily. He was still supporting all of her weight, but he kept jogging her body to wake her fully.

It only took a minute for her eyes to suddenly open wide. She gasped softly and pushed against him, trying to get away from him. It wasn’t any wonder. Their naked bodies were pressed together. It was an unwelcome intimacy for her. However, he couldn’t let her go just yet. She didn’t have her sea legs.

“Easy,” he said to soothe her fractious nerves. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“What…what happened?” She reached up and touched her lip and for the first time he noticed it was swollen in the corner. Prick bastards. When he got his hands on them…

“They’ve pumped you full of drugs, honey. You have to stay awake. Come on. Let’s get you some food.”

“Food?” She winced. “I don’t think I can eat. My stomach is doing flip-flops.”

“You have to. You said you hadn’t eaten in days. You have to get your blood sugar up if you want to fight this poison.”

She looked down at her arms and found the injection site. She rubbed at it with shaking fingers.

“What did they give me?”

“Heroin.”

Her eyes widened. “How do you know that?”

Damn it. He couldn’t tell her how he knew. First rule of vampire club, don’t talk about vampire club.

“I recognize the signs,” he lied. “The shakes. The nausea. You’re coming down.”

“Oh god. I’ve…I’ve never done drugs before!”

“You still haven’t. Drugs have been done to you. This wasn’t voluntary.” He cocked his head. “Not even a little pot?” he asked, trying to lighten a situation that couldn’t be lightened.

“Not even a little,” she said. “You can let go of me now.”

The request was spoken softly and shyly. She was very aware of their nudity and he knew it was killing her that she couldn’t cover up. He let go of her slowly, making certain every step of the way that she had her legs under her. Soon she stepped back away from him, but he kept ahold of her hand, not letting her escape out of reach, just in case she got suddenly weak or something.

“Come on. Let’s feed you,” he said, guiding her over to the table. As they crossed the room he was aware of her looking him over with furtive glances.

“You’re very big,” she said suddenly.

“Why thank you. I’ve been told that before.”

She immediately colored, pink flushing up her neck all the way to the roots of her hair. Interesting. Charming.

“I meant in size! I mean…build. Build. You’re buff and all that.” She couldn’t look at him any longer as she stumbled to backtrack and remove innuendo from her words.

“As I said, thanks. I’ve been told that before. I know how buff I am. I work hard at it…but most of it does come natural.”

“Lucky you. I’m all fat and jiggly. As you can see.”

“I don’t see fat. Although I confess to seeing the jiggly bits,” he said teasingly. “But I don’t consider you fat in the least.”

“You don’t?” She was honestly surprised. Goddamn humans, he thought bitterly. They had a way of making women feel like shit just because they were rounder than the twiggy supermodels they idolized. Yes, she was leaning more toward the chubby side than not, but that didn’t make her any less attractive. At least not to him. In fact, he thought she was just right. She had great soft places to hold on to during sex. Yeah…that would be nice.

Halo caught himself in the thought just in time to keep from getting a woody. He definitely couldn’t hide something like that from her, and she was already being raped of her privacy and modesty. She didn’t need him ogling her and compounding the problem.

“Honey, in any other situation I’d be chasing you down,” he told her honestly.

She looked like she didn’t believe him. But he didn’t have the luxury of proving himself. He would have to let it lie.

“That’s very kind of you to say,” she said softly. She paused a step, her hand going to her head as she swayed on her feet. It was clear she was still feeling the effects of her high. She licked her lips as though they were dry and he immediately wanted her to get some fluids into her. The sooner she did, the sooner she would start to feel better.

“Kindness has nothing to do with it. It’s the truth. I’m not saying I’m the most honest man on the planet, but I have no reason to lie about that or make something up just to be nice. I’m not a nice man. I don’t do nice.”

She smiled shyly, her lips curving up and her whole face changing right before his eyes. He’d never seen a smile like that before, one that so utterly changed a pretty face into a stunning one. Her smile went straight to her eyes, the mysterious dark blue of them seeming to lighten. Dark blue eyes and pristine black hair. The real deal. Not out of a bottle.

She had wrapped her arms around herself to cover as much of her nakedness as she could. Now that she was up close and smiling he could better read her age. She had to be in her late twenties—early thirties at most. She was shorter than he’d thought; he guesstimated she was about five and a half feet tall. But she had long legs that made her seem deceptively taller.

It made her a good ten inches shorter than he was, but it was still a comfortable height difference. Just a little bend in the knees and she’d fit against him just right…all those soft curves hitting him in all the right places.

Again, he barely caught the thought in time. Frustrated with himself for his perverted assessment of a vulnerable woman, he rigidly pulled out her chair for her then took his own seat.

“For a man who doesn’t do nice, you sure are acting like it.”

“Don’t get used to it,” he said gruffly. “I’m a real prick when you get to know me.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” she said stubbornly. Her wide-eyed optimism and conviction that he was nicer than he was were just plain stupid in his opinion.

“Be prepared for disappointment. Now eat something. I think it’s still warm. Have something to drink.” He gestured to the pitcher of sweet tea that had been left on the table.

She immediately grabbed the pitcher and poured herself an ice-cold glass. She drank it down two-thirds of the way before he could even blink. She then turned her attention to the dish nearest her. As she lifted away the cloches one by one, she revealed a pair of steaks, a mound of mashed potatoes, a pile of beans, and two slices of Italian cheesecake.

“Well, isn’t that special. A romantic steak dinner,” she said bitterly.

“C’mon. Eat. Who cares what their intentions are? You have to stay strong.”

“What about you?”

He didn’t need to eat. He needed to feed. The more he went through, the worse it got. But he couldn’t tell her that. Especially not on camera. He still didn’t know for sure if they knew what he was. He could only surmise that they did. Otherwise why dirty her up like that? It was the only thing that made sense so far.

“Sure. I could eat,” he said, reaching to serve them both.

“This feels so surreal,” she said. “Eating naked in front of a stranger.”

“Hey, I appreciate a good view with my dinner,” he said without thinking.

She blushed and self-consciously crossed her arms over her chest. “I guess I can’t fault you for looking.”

He wanted to smile at that, but their situation was pissing him off too much. He cut into his steak, aware that it was barely warm. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, however, and he ate to encourage her to eat.

“C’mon. You can’t cut your meat and hide your breasts at the same time,” he said practically. “I promise I’ll try not to look.”

“You can’t keep your eyes closed every minute we’re stuck here together. I just have to get over it.”

He agreed with that, but he didn’t want to say anything wrong. He was very aware that she came from a totally different place than he did. Her speech patterns and her manners spoke of a well-educated woman with a lot of class. He was well-educated and knew a shitload of languages and had seen a lot of things in his one hundred and seventy-two years on the planet, but he had about as much class as a teacher on a snow day. Then again, he had cultivated his classless persona. He didn’t know how to be anything else anymore. He had tried the straight and narrow in his younger years, but he had more fun when he didn’t give a shit about the world.

“So, what do you do?” she asked him politely as she began to cut into her steak. Once she began she grew increasingly enthusiastic. She was hungry. Very. How long had it been since they had fed her?

“How long since you ate last?” he asked her.

“Two days,” she said through a mouthful of potatoes. Then suddenly she stopped chewing. “What if it’s poisoned?” she asked.

“It’s not,” he said without thinking. He could tell it wasn’t. Vampire sensibilities were very sensitive to all kinds of poisons anywhere. The food wasn’t organic, but it wasn’t poisoned.

“How do you know that?” she asked after a swallow.

Damn it, that had been stupid. “Because it doesn’t make sense,” he said. “Why go through all this trouble just to poison us?”

“They are poisoning me,” she said softly, looking down at her plate.

“True,” he agreed bluntly. “But they aren’t trying to kill you; otherwise they would have overdosed you.”

“I don’t understand. Why give me heroin or whatever drug they used?”

Again he answered with confidence and without thinking. “It was heroin. And I don’t know what they are thinking. I guess we’ll find out eventually.”

Half of that was a lie. He did suspect why they were poisoning her. It was because of him. They were trying to starve him out or turn him or something. She was just a hapless victim, a random stranger taken off the street.

Or so it appeared. He couldn’t be sure she was random. Why not use an actual heroin addict? That would have been easier. Easier than ruining a woman’s life and destroying her pure body. There had to be more to it than just randomness.

“How are you so sure it’s heroin?” she asked him. “It could have been any number of things. You are so certain, as if you know something about this whole situation…”

She stood up suddenly, crossed her arms protectively over her chest, and backed away from him. “How do I know you’re not one of them? How do I know this isn’t a trick? You say things with such confidence. Only someone on their side would know things like that.”

“Felice, sit back down and finish eating,” he said quietly, trying not to sound menacing as he controlled his temper. “I am not one of them. As I said before, I have seen heroin before on people.”

“There are other drugs that mimic heroin,” she said, still backing away from him.

“True. I could be wrong.” But he wasn’t. “Listen, I’m a confident ass. I figure if I say something with confidence then I’ve figured out the mystery—or part of the mystery—of the world around me in general. I don’t like to be out of control and that’s what this whole situation has done to me—taken away my control of my world. When I give up control I want it to be of my choosing. Not theirs.” He beckoned to her and she shook her head fiercely. His temper spiked.

“Look, I’m not gonna sit here and try to convince you I’m on your side. I’m too fucking tired. If you want someone to hold your hand and coddle you and tell you everything is going to be all right, then you’ve got the wrong man. I’m an asshole and I’m pretty proud of it. Even if I was on the other side you still have to eat if you want to fight the effects of the heroin or whatever drug it was,” he said with a beleaguered sigh when her eyes narrowed.

He then turned his attention back to his meal and continued to eat. He did so in silence, letting the food coax her closer rather than trying to do it himself. It worked. She slowly returned to the table. She cut up all of her meat first thing so she could then cross an arm over her chest and eat one-handed. He noticed she ate with her right hand. It was one of those things he always did. Note which hand someone used. Usually so he knew how to fight them. But he wasn’t looking to fight with her. She was no threat as far as he could tell.

It did occur to him that she could be a trap. A ploy. That she was in on the whole thing and they were using her as a way of manipulating him. Maybe she volunteered for this. Anything was possible.

Yet she seemed genuine enough. He was pretty good at picking out a liar and she just didn’t fit the bill. She’d have to be a damn good actress to fool him. Besides, what would they hope to achieve?

What was their endgame anyway? He couldn’t figure it out. Then it occurred to him that there was a slim possibility this wasn’t about him at all. Maybe it was about her?

“Tell me why you think you’ve been chosen for this…whatever this is,” he said to her between bites. He came off calm and matter-of-fact. Two things he didn’t really feel. What he was really feeling was irritated and frustrated. This whole situation sucked and he wasn’t the type to use his brainpower for anything other than the hunt. Any other time he just switched off and enjoyed himself. These people were interrupting his hedonistic lifestyle and it was pissing him off.

Also, he was on the hunt for a guy named Roth, who had up until very recently been among the vampire queen’s personal circle of advisors. A few weeks ago Roth had descended into sycophanthropy. Roth, it appeared from Halo’s reconnaissance, had fully shifted to the other side. He had betrayed them all for the promise of a quick fix and who knew what else. Now, instead of working for Queen Simone, he was working with Draz, the sycophant mastermind who managed almost all of the sycophants on the entire Eastern Seaboard.

Why anyone would give up a cushy job and healthy lifestyle at the side of a queen in order to work for a lowlife with a tendency to kill those around him was beyond his understanding. Sure, Halo was a hedonist, and sure, that lifestyle flirted with the other side, but he would never willingly cross that line. How anyone could stand feeling soiled and tainted and sick with addiction was something he would never understand.

If he wasn’t careful, however, he was going to get a front-row seat to How to Cross into Addiction.

“My ex. He’s been stalking me for the better part of a year. He can’t seem to get it through his head that it’s over between us. He’s convinced all I need is a little coaxing and his brand of ‘love’ and we’ll be all right again.” She air-quoted “love.” “He’s sick. Demented. The cops have a file on him a mile long. He’s even been arrested twice, and I have an order of protection out on him. They warned me that once he realized he was never going to get what he wanted he might turn on me. Might do something drastic. They told me I should be very careful. Apparently I wasn’t careful enough.”

“Does he have the wherewithal to do all of this? I mean, this is pretty complex, and it takes money to set something up like this.”

“Oh, he has money. That’s how he keeps getting off when they arrest him. High-priced lawyers can get you out of anything, it seems. I wish I’d never met him. I can’t believe I used to love him. What an idiot I was.” She looked incredibly sad as she poked at her steak. She dropped her fork. “I’m not hungry anymore,” she said.

“It doesn’t really make sense that a man who is obsessed with you would leave you naked with another man. This is more likely something to do with me than with you,” he told her, hoping to comfort her in some way.

“Why you? What’s so special about you?”

“I’m…I’m a bounty hunter. I’ve made a lot of enemies in my line of work. There are a lot of people out there that’d be real happy to hold me prisoner and try to torture me a little. Or a lot. Depends on who it is.”

“You’d have to be a real pain in the ass to inspire something like this,” she said with a small smile.

“I am definitely a pain in the ass,” he said. “I’m beyond a pain in the ass. I’m very good at what I do. I have something of a perfect track record. No one gets away from me. Which makes me think this might be the work of my latest target. If he found out I’m the one after him, he might’ve taken steps to counteract that.”

“But then why me? Why am I here?”

“I hate to say it but you could be random.”

“That makes no sense. What can they hope to gain by locking you up with a total stranger?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they’re trying to appeal to the good guy in me. Maybe they want to use you to get me to behave.” He didn’t go into details as to how all of that made sense and he could tell she wasn’t convinced.

“Are you that good of a guy that you’d protect me at all costs?”

“I…” No he wasn’t, he thought. And anyone who knew him knew that. He was a selfish bastard. He cared very little for the human women around him—unless he was trying to get in their pants. “I’m no saint,” was all he said to her. Then he stood up and began to pace.

He wished he could make sense of all of this. If he had a clear idea of what his captors wanted, then maybe he could plan a course of action. But he was definitely hog-tied by being in there with an innocent victim. The more he thought about it, the more he thought they were going to use her to modify his behavior.

She stood up as well, but moved to the recliners, took a seat, and curled up, drawing her knees to her chin and effectively finding a way to hide her nakedness from anyone watching. It was ridiculous. He’d already seen all of her and so had anyone else watching. But whatever made her feel better, he supposed.

“What if it’s neither you nor me? What if this is just some random psycho?” she asked.

He doubted that. Some random psycho would have no reason to poison her before putting her in with him. No. This was all about him.

“That’s not very likely now, is it?” he said irritably. “That’s kind of a stupid thing to say.”

“This whole situation is stupid!” she snapped. “I don’t belong here!”

“And I do?” he returned harshly.

She bit her lip and he could see tears welling in her eyes.

“Damn it, don’t start crying now. It’s not going to help,” he said with exasperation.

“Well, excuse me for having emotions! Excuse me for feeling fear and frustration! Not everyone can be a robotic asshole like you!”

Well, he’d been called an asshole before but the robotic part was new. He supposed it was accurate though. He didn’t have all that much in the way of emotions. He did kind of go through his life on autopilot. Hunt. Eat. Play. Those were his three criteria for having a good life. As long as he could do those three things he was a happy man. All the rest kind of faded away and had no place in his existence.

“Yeah well, I’d rather be a robotic asshole than an emotional mess. So sue me.”

“I’m not an emotional mess!”

“I didn’t say you were! I meant in general. Geez, don’t be so damn touchy.”

“You’re a jerk. I can’t believe I’m stuck in here naked with a jerk.”

He crossed over to her quickly and she flinched. That kind of kicked him in the gut. He didn’t want her to be afraid of him. He wasn’t the one she needed to watch out for.

Still, he reached out and grabbed her chin and lowered his face until they were only a nose distance apart.

“You haven’t even begun to see the kind of asshole that I am,” he warned her. “Don’t push me, sister.”

“You don’t scare me,” she lied with pretty convincing bravado. He knew he scared her. The whole situation scared her. He would know that even if she hadn’t already confessed as much.

“That’s because you don’t fully appreciate the man you’re dealing with.” He scoffed and let go of her, returning to his pacing.

“I think I have a pretty good idea,” she tossed back. “Will you please sit still? You’re making me dizzy. And I’m already dizzy enough,” she added, dropping her head back and closing her eyes. She swayed in her seat, clearly indulging in her high. He didn’t hold it against her. There was a reason why heroin was such a potently addictive drug…and she was experiencing it firsthand.

“I’m too wound up to sit still. I have to think of a way to get us out of this mess.”

“It would take some superhuman powers to get us out of this mess. Which you don’t have!”

Actually he did, but he couldn’t tell her that. And now, if they did come in there while he was conscious, could he fight them and risk exposing himself as an energy vampire? He would have to. Then he would have to use hypno on her to make her forget what she had seen. Hell, he might do that anyway. She didn’t need to remember all of this. He could at least do her that kindness. Unless, of course, forgetting would put her in danger. Then he couldn’t do it. However, he could still alter some of her memories. Make her think things had unfolded in a different way from how they actually did. Provided she was an easy hypno. Some humans had such strong wills that hypno only worked to a certain degree.

“You’d be surprised what I can do,” he said before thinking better of it.

“Great. Now he thinks he’s Superman,” she muttered.

“Just do me a favor…when the shit hits the fan around here, you duck and hide and wait for it all to be over with.”

She scoffed. “You really do believe you’re going to strong-arm your way out of here.”

“Do you have any better ideas?” he snapped.

“No! But I’m not going to sit here and delude myself either.”

“Look, just worry about yourself. Let me worry about me.”

“Gladly,” she said with a sniff. She burrowed her face against her knees and sniffed again. It didn’t take long for him to figure out she was crying. Uncomfortable, he slowed his pacing and kept glancing at her, wondering to himself what he should do.

Just let her cry, a part of him said. Let her get it out of her system. However, another part of him floated out the idea of somehow comforting her. But what could he do? His bag of tricks with women extended to how to talk them into sleeping with him, which didn’t usually take much because his target audience was desperate, sad, and lonely women looking for comfort however they could get it. This would take infinitely more finesse than that.

In the end Halo went with his first instinct and just let her cry.