RYKER

 

After rushing to Aliza’s apartment early that morning, Ryker had been disappointed she was already gone. After pacing the sidewalk, feeling the pull of the approaching day, he had retreated to his SUV. With nothing he could do until nightfall, he had crawled in the back of the vehicle, beside his duffle bag of vampire hunting tools, and covered himself with a blanket, falling asleep as soon as the sun rose above the horizon.

As the sun retreated for the day, Ryker’s mind cleared well before he regained control of his body. His chest constricted and his stomach churned, knowing something was wrong. The passing minutes, while his outer body remained paralyzed, felt like days. An overwhelming urge to help Aliza pulled at him, despite whatever she had done to that man at the coffee shop.

Now, as that sun disappeared, Ryker’s eyes sprung open. He leaped out of the vehicle and rushed to Aliza’s apartment. All concern about the man he’d found behind the coffee shop was gone. All he could focus on was Aliza’s well-being.

How was he going to get inside? She’d pulled back his invitation…

But the static charge in the air told him she wasn’t exactly human anymore.

He shouldered her front door open and waited for his head to throb. When nothing came, he stepped over the threshold.

She had changed. There was no denying it.

Flying over her sofa, he flung open Aliza’s bedroom door to her sleeping form. Dark red streaks crusted her cheeks. Her sheets smeared with blood. His heart gave off a beat as he rushed to examine her.

She was nearly lifeless, dead to the world. He turned her head, brushing the black hair from her neck, ensuring her old wounds had not reopened. In fact, they had healed completely. He turned her wrist, ensuring the same. It wasn’t until he had a whiff of the blood did he realize it wasn’t her metallic sweetness and he remembered Brutus’s dead body, shoved in the bushes. Had she done that yesterday? Was it why she had been in the shower when he woke up? And now? Whose blood was this?

“Aliza.” He shook her by the shoulder, but she didn’t move. Her cheeks were flushed, like a vampire who’d just fed. Ryker looked outside at the setting sun. It was too early for a new vampire to wake.

He paced. What was he going to do?

She had killed a man, or maybe more.

And it was his duty to end it. To prevent another death. To stop unauthorized vampire children. He had taken an oath when he joined the Blood Board.

He pulled his phone from his pocket and began searching Dubuque news for what he dreaded.

One killing from a new vampire was expected.

But two, right in a row?

His thumb hovered over the headline:

 

Police Chief mauled. Serial killer strikes again.

 

Ryker’s stomach churned as he shoved the phone into his pocket.

How’d she get away long enough to do this? She had been different from the first day he met her, resisted his hypnosis, smelled of metal, and now, daylight walking?

It wasn’t completely unheard of in the conversion, but it wasn’t common either.

There was more to Aliza, he was certain.

He needed to hurry before he found any more surprises.

His eyes scanned the room for something wooden. He brought his fist down on the edge of her dresser, splintering off a long stake. He’d push it through her heart, pinning her to her bed and keeping her under his control until he could figure out what to do.

Do it. A woman’s voice whispered in his head.

It was Leila, the vampire he had loved so many years ago.

Do it, the voice repeated. Do it, you coward.

Leila had taunted him. Had egged him on until he pierced her heart with the stake before removing her head. Doomed the last woman he loved to death.

His hands tingled, holding the makeshift stake from Aliza’s dresser.

He could do it. She was nothing more than a newborn vampire. He’d killed a hundred, or more, of these over the past three hundred years. Most were out of control, and their deaths had saved many human lives.

He could do it.

He didn’t love her, like he had Leila.

He didn’t want to ever love her.

Didn’t want to ever love anyone again.

With shaky hands, he ran his fingers over the breastplate beneath Aliza’s t-shirt, identifying the space between her ribs. Closing his eyes, he took an unnecessary deep breath and gave the stake a quick shove, pushing it through her chest and into her heart.

He wasn’t a coward.

And with her taken care of, he could find the other one, take care of her, and get back home. Back to his life of solitude.

Aliza gasped for air, and her eyes slowly opened, boring straight into his soul. Pleading for him to help her. Wondering why he did what he did.

That shouldn’t happen. Once the stake goes in, vampires are paralyzed.

He backed up, retreating from her room and shutting the door. He unsheathed the knife at his waist. He had picked one up as soon as the plane touched down in Dubuque. This whole time, he knew what his mission was. He knew what he was here to do, but just never expected to get to know the vampire first.

His knuckles turned white against the knife hilt as he crouched to the floor. His hand shook, reliving vibrant memories of Leila. Aliza’s apartment faded into the background and he was fully in his past.

You need to uphold the rules.

He tried to think of Aliza’s smile. Of the way she sucked on her bottom lip. Of the love she had for her father. But he only saw Leila’s cold body beneath him, pinned to the ground with a stake in her heart. Of her frozen, thin-lipped smile that haunted him. Of the way she finally said she never loved him. Of him never knowing if this had been the truth.

Another woman couldn’t die at his hand, couldn’t die because she knew him. His head shook side to side, and the knife pinged as it dropped to the floor, bringing him back to Aliza’s apartment.

He’d find a different way. If he could save her, would he be forgiven for killing Leila? Or for the deaths of Mary Sue and Emma? Women just as wonderful as Aliza who met their demise because of him.

Leaving the knife on the floor, he rose and pushed Aliza’s door open. Her bed was empty except for crinkled, blood-soaked sheets with a wooden stake in the center. His hands dropped beside him. How was that possible?

“Aliza?” he croaked.

Nothing.

Another first for him. Another surprise. Aliza had pulled the stake out of her own heart and was nowhere to be found.

 

ALIZA

 

What was happening to her?

Aliza crouched on top of the rubble that used to be her home. She lifted a hand to see growing talons instead of nails. She was changing. Talons were impossible. She had to be turning insane, like her mother.

That was why she saw her mother’s face wherever she went. In her old family home that night she was attacked. At the bowling alley. On her way to the coffee shop.

Her mother had been there, guiding her. Whispering in her ear.

Don’t think about it.

Ryker had seen the evilness inside her. She had been covered in blood.

If she died now, would she be with her father? Or would her mother get her, trap her, and not let her go?

Despite the gently falling snow, sweat pooled on her palms and trickled down her back.

She had run into Brad on her way to buy a latte, she knew that for certain. She didn’t know why, but she lured him into an alley, saying she wanted to talk. A flat-out lie.

Her mother’s image had been there. Her talon fingernails resembling her own. Her mother had traced a nail down Brad’s neck.

There had been so much blood, it made her thirsty. Had made her hungry.

Aliza hadn’t wanted to watch and never wanted to remember.

But at the police chief’s home, her mother’s image hadn’t been there.

There was nobody to blame but herself. Anger and rage she’d never experienced before took over. Feelings she never wanted to have again.

In front of her, a familiar silver SUV pulled up to the curb. Faster than she could comprehend, the door opened and Ryker got out, rushing to the rubble pile a handful of feet ahead of her.

“Aliza,” the smooth baritone words of her only friend.

He’s not your friend. He tried to kill you.

But he knew something…something Aliza felt could help her. And there was something different about him, too.

He moved with unnatural speed.

And his eyes had glowed, had that been real?

And his body was exceptionally cool.

And the strength when he shoved the stake into her chest… She glanced down, rubbing her taloned fingers across her breastplate. The wound was gone. All that remained was a small hole in her shirt and some dried blood.

“Aliza. Listen to me…” He slowly stepped forward, his trench coat blowing in the wind.

She cocked her head, not speaking for fear of what would come out of her mouth. Languages she didn’t recognize, but, now, completely understood, played in her mind.

He was standing on the rubble ten feet from her. She hopped back a step or two with speed and strength that could not be possible from an average person.

He stopped, pushing his wind-blown hair from his face, only for it to be whipped back across his eyes. “I’ll tell you everything I know, but I have questions too. Remember you promised me that if I went bowling, you’d answer any questions I had.”

Bowling.

Ryker held out a golden plaque. “Remember this?” He looked down and read the engraving. “Aliza and Andrew Adams, League Champions. Perfect game.”

She took another step back.

He continued, “Andrew’s your father, right?”

Through her shaky voice, she pushed out her pain. “You…you tried to kill me.”

Ryker looked down. “I made a mistake. There’s so much you don’t know. Aliza, we all make mistakes. Even for someone as old as me. Someone that should know better.”

Aliza glanced at the dark blood under her fingernails...or talons…and her lip quivered. Tears flowed from her eyes and ugly sobs erupted from her lips. Would he believe her craziness or do what her father did to her mother, pushing her out of his life forever?

She collapsed onto the ground, hugging her knees.

“Shh,” he hushed, closing the distance between them. He wrapped an arm around her back. “Let’s clean you up and put an end to this all. We have a vampire to catch.”

Vampire?

“I need to know who attacked you, Aliza. Where did it happen?”

She pressed her head against his chest, not wanting to remember. Not wanting another bad memory to overcome the good. She wanted to remember her mom as the woman who baked cookies with her and sewed her a dress. Not the creature that cut Brad’s throat. That cut her own wrists…and…

“Here,” she croaked. “I was attacked here, before the house was demolished.” She shook her head in disbelief. “I’ve been seeing my mother, but she’s not the same. It can’t be her. I’m losing it, like she did right before she left us.”

Ryker tilted his chin and rubbed his hand up and down Aliza’s spine. “Your mother? Did she have dark hair like you, but slightly wavy?”

Aliza nodded, bringing an image of the woman to her mind. “She tried to kill me. I fought back. She’s coming for me. Wants me. You said my attacker wasn’t human…” If I could sleep, maybe this would all be over. It’s nothing more than a nightmare.

Ryker nodded and tucked her head beneath his chin. His arms gently circled her body. “Shh. She wasn’t. I’ll explain it all. She won’t get you. I promise.”

But did it matter? Maybe she deserved to die for what happened.

With those words, he scooped her up in his arms and loaded her into his SUV. As they drove away, Aliza couldn’t help but wonder. Who in the vehicle was more dangerous?

A man who put a stake through her chest?

Or herself, a woman who killed a man who disagreed with her?