RYKER

 

Ryker left Aliza’s side. He crawled out of bed right before dawn, marched to the neighbor’s apartment while keeping his hearing focused on Aliza, and grabbed a snack. He didn’t waste time tricking the man into an unhypnotized invitation into his home. Instead, he fed right in the hallway.

After ensuring nobody was around, he simply asked Aliza’s neighbor to help him for a minute. As soon as the man stepped over his apartment’s threshold, Ryker wasted no time. With the help of a little hypnosis, he quickly slit the man’s wrists with his fangs and drank a quarter-pint. He left, ordering the man to forget everything and blame the cuts on his wrist from a kitchen accident while chopping lettuce. Hopefully he liked lettuce. Before he left, he hypnotized the man to bring him a clean shirt. He needed to get out of his torn, bloody one.

Grabbing a meal like this wasn’t what he liked to do, but Aliza was too tempting. He wanted to devour her. Drink her to the last drop. All night, while he wrapped his arms around her body, their kiss replayed in his mind: the softness, the hunger it stirred inside him, the taste of her blood. It had been both sweet and savory and would satisfy him for a long time. Just when he would push the thoughts away, some little noise she’d make while sleeping made him think again of their kiss...then her blood.

He’d promised himself he’d never fight that battle again. Never be tempted to take blood from someone he shouldn’t. Never get another human wrapped up in his world.

But that creature, vampire or not, had been after her first, and if it returned, Ryker needed to be on his best game. He didn’t have a choice but to leave Aliza and feed.

He only had a night or maybe two left to hunt down that woman and end it before the Blood Board sent Frank to intervene.

There was no doubt that Frank would find Ryker and probably find Aliza, too. Ryker had surely spent enough time around her. If there was a chance Aliza was becoming a vampire, Frank would surely take the easy route and end her with no questions asked. If she was still human, he’d probably also get a filling meal from what blood she had left.

Ryker needed to find that woman in the green dress before Frank came. His mouth grew dry thinking of what he’d have to do if he didn’t find that woman. He’d need to end Aliza like he’d done with Leila. He had taken an oath. His chest constricted, causing him to pause in Aliza’s living room and rest against a wall.

It was as if the oak stake was back in his hand. He felt the weight of it, and his palm tingled from the force it had taken to shove it into Leila’s heart. The stinging of his hands when he had lopped off her head while she whispered, I love you.

He hadn’t had a choice. She had broken the rules that he swore to uphold. Besides, she had toyed with him and manipulated him. She didn’t really love him.

No matter. It had taken him fifty years to get over what he had done, but honestly, he really never forgave himself for ending her. If only he would have intervened earlier. Admitted when she fell down that slippery slope, perhaps he could have changed her—guided her.

When he managed to push away the memories that haunted him, he used Aliza’s bathroom to wash his rapidly healing wound and put on the borrowed shirt. Once he was presentable, he found Aliza in her bedroom. The cotton sheets twisted around her. Her dark hair wet with sweat, yet at this moment, she slept contently.

He felt daylight approaching and needed to sleep, yet he needed to watch her as well. It was times like this that having a guardian angel would be helpful.

In his moments of inner debate, Aliza rolled over, her eyes fluttering open.

“How are you feeling?” he whispered.

“Like I was hit by a ton of bricks,” she coughed. “I’m so hot.”

Ryker sat on the edge of her bed and placed a hand on her forehead. “You’re burning up. It’s expected in the change.” There was no reason to keep it from her.

“The change?” Her eyelids were heavy.

“You’re body’s changing. What you need is rest right now while I figure this out.”

She sluggishly shook her head. “My body’s changing? I don’t understand.”

“Shh. It’s okay. We’ll worry about that when you’re feeling a little better.”

Aliza took his hand from her forehead and placed it on her cheeks, then her neck. “Your skin is so cool, it feels so good.” She flung the sheets from her body with her free hand and returned Ryker’s palm to her cheek and closed her eyes. Ryker’s thumb stroked her cheekbone as he admired her, then pulled away. He may have to kill her or the Blood Board would—surely in a less humane manor. He couldn’t get close.

He had already gotten too close.

“I’ll get you a wet towel for your forehead, and I’ll clean you up some.” When she nodded, he backed out of the room.

What was he going to do? He couldn’t hunt down the rogue while playing nurse to a changing human.

Dawn approached and there was nothing he could do right now. He’d quickly clean Aliza up, get her body temperature down some, then she was on her own while he slept in the spare room.

At least he’d be close…not that he could help during the daylight.

 

ALIZA

 

The beams of light shining between Aliza’s bedroom curtains stung her eyes. She buried her head under the blanket as the sunlight danced across her bed. She licked her dry lips, but her tongue didn’t do much to help. How had she gotten so thirsty?

Your body is changing.

Ryker’s words echoed through her mind, but she pushed them away. Her thirst was all-consuming.

She slowly sat up, waiting for the rush of dizziness she was growing accustomed to, but it didn’t come. She shuffled her way to the refrigerator for an unsatisfying glass of water.

After downing her third cup, she checked the doorknob on her spare bedroom—locked.

She smiled. It was comforting to know Ryker was still there.

He gave her something else to think about, otherwise, her crazy imagination got the best of her. She’d been thinking of her mother way too much.

She was losing it—had to be.

Her father had told her that her mother was crazy. Went insane at twenty-eight, and now, Aliza approached that age. Was it in her genes, too?

Had she imagined being attacked at her old family home? Her ex-fiancé had accused her of inflicting the wounds herself. He said the police found no signs of a break-in, but Aliza was certain she had locked the door behind her.

Then there were the details of the attack, which she didn’t wish to remember. The woman’s face. The strange language that echoed in her head. A language she had heard before, so many years earlier, but now, started to understand.

She turned away from the locked bedroom door and opened the refrigerator. Water wasn’t helping her scratchy throat. Milk? She downed a cup and almost threw it up as it caused her stomach to churn. She needed something else. Something…rich. Thick. But she couldn’t identify what she craved.

She jumped into the shower, cleaned herself up, drinking some warm water from the showerhead. She turned up the temperature and stood under the water with her mouth open for way too long. The hot water hitting her throat almost soothed it.

She dressed and decided to head to the coffee shop on the corner. She needed something hot and a chai latte might be perfect.

On her way out the door, she dug through her kitchen drawers for a pair of sunglasses.

Crazy how the light burned her eyes today.