Hunger (7 page)

“Was there a nest of vampires?” Tor prompted and she raised her chin, the memories falling away as she looked at him.

She nodded.

“It becomes a blur then. I heard Adam shout. I ran into the building. There were twenty, maybe more, and Adam was bleeding badly from a wound on his throat. He was shouting at one of the vampires about something. I don’t remember what. I rushed in and managed to take two of them out, and that was when Adam looked at me.” She shuddered as she recalled meeting his gaze and seeing all the light fade from his dark eyes, all the kindness and everything that had made him the man she had known. Or the man she had thought him to be. “Everything went black and then I remember waking up with a splitting headache. I stumbled through the building and Adam was there, speaking to someone. I felt so relieved when I saw him, until he turned to face me. I heard him then… I heard him ask why the hell they hadn’t killed me yet.”

Tor pushed away from the wall, a dark scowl settling across his features, turning them grim, a vision of the devil he was beneath his angelic façade.

That darkness was gone a second later, leaving her sure she must have imagined it. Erased.

“They had killed you.” Tor shifted closer, a single step but it felt as if he had moved a thousand miles. His earthy masculine scent surrounded her, soothing her, and she found the strength to nod. “But you came back. If they hadn’t turned you, then how?”

“How much do you know about Lilith, and me?”

He was still for a full minute before he moved another step closer and said, “I have heard rumours that Lilith was an enhanced hunter. One of the hunters who had been given vampire genes. Were you one too?”

She nodded slowly, holding his gaze, seeing in it that he honestly hadn’t known that fact. He didn’t know that she and her sister were the source of all the enhanced hunters, the guinea pigs that had paved the way for their existence. That made her want to tell him everything, to fill in all the details for him so he knew exactly how she had come to be a vampire and knew the first of her darkest secrets.

Eve forced herself to stick with their current topic instead, even though every fibre of her wanted to change subjects and no longer tread the dark path of her memories of the time around her betrayal. “Someone hit me hard and I blacked out again. When I came around…”

She continued to hold his gaze, sure he would see the fierce pain in her heart through her eyes.

“It was hell.”

T
or hated the bastard who had betrayed and killed Eve. A new feeling for him. Normally, he could remain unaffected by others, detached from the situation no matter how grim their tale or the things he had to do to them, but something about Eve affected him.

He struggled to remain where he was across the room from her as she held on to the bed, her fingers twisted in the white sheets, anchoring herself to it as the turbulent emotions she broadcasted to him threatened to sweep her away.

“I didn’t know what had happened to me,” she whispered, her soft light voice filled with darkness and pain. “I thought maybe they hadn’t killed me. There should have been so many bite wounds on me. I felt certain they would have fed from me, but there were none. Not a single scar.”

He felt certain they had fed from her, but after killing her, when she had already been undergoing her transition into a vampire. She had healed all the scars before waking. He hadn’t failed to notice that her neck was untouched. The alluring smooth unblemished skin had captured his gaze more than once since meeting her.

“They came to me and I saw the shock on their faces. More than that, I felt it in them. I felt their confusion and then their fear. One left and Adam came back with him. None of them understood what they were witnessing. I didn’t understand.” Eve released the bed and clenched her fists. “Adam took one look at me and accused them of going against their deal and turning me too. He killed one of the weaker vampires before turning on me and hauling me onto my feet. I tried to fight him. I cut him and it hit me. The smell of blood. I craved it with every ounce of my being. I knew then what I had become.”

And it had shaken her. He could see it in her deep brown eyes as she stared at her knees, tears lining her lashes. The sight of her so fragile, on the verge of collapse yet determined to keep going, tore at him. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to race out into the night and track down the bastard who had done this to her, or do something more startling.

Like sit on the bed and hold her.

Tor shook that desire away, not willing to probe into it or find out where it had come from.

“One of the other vampires pointed out that I had pureblood coloured eyes.” She looked up at him again, causing one of the tears to spill. It cascaded down her cheek and lingered at her jaw, a glistening dewdrop that stole all of his focus.

“Why didn’t they just kill you?” He didn’t flinch when she gasped and he sensed her horror at his question. He didn’t apologise. It was a logical progression of their conversation. “Adam wanted you dead. Why not just kill you?”

“Believe me, they want to do that now. Does that make you happy?” Her words lashed at him, bitterness making them sharp.

No. Far from it. It only increased his desire to kill Adam and every vampire that had been present at her murder.

“I had not intended to upset you. I’m trying to understand why they hadn’t carried out their original plan for you.” Tor moved to the window, shifted the pale curtain aside with the back of his right hand and stared out into the waning darkness. The call of the night was fading, a new feeling replacing it, one that warned him not to venture out. It would be dawn soon and they would be safe for a few hours, and he could figure out what they needed to do next.

“They tried to turn me to their side,” she said, her gaze on his back, roaming it and setting him on fire.

She had to stop looking at him like that. It was torture, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop her by turning to face her. He found himself savouring the way her eyes lingered on him and she took her time. She had watched him in the shower too, taking in every inch of him. He couldn’t remember a woman looking at him the way Eve did, as if she wanted to memorise everything about his body, but not just so she could call up a static image of him. No, she studied him in depth, as if she wanted to be able to construct him in detail in her mind, to make him move, every part of him responding as it would in real life.

Her eyes drifted lower, settling on his backside.

Tor did turn to look at her this time.

Her gaze darted to the carpet at his feet.

What was she doing? He had tried to spell things out to her. She was a mission and no matter how she looked at him, how her gaze devoured every inch of him, he couldn’t allow that to change. He couldn’t taint her.

He had to find a way to stop her from looking at him with hunger in her beautiful dark eyes because it was growing harder for him to keep his distance from her. He had been prepared for how difficult she would be to handle at times, but he hadn’t been prepared for how difficult he would be to handle when around her. His normal control kept slipping, long-dead feelings finding life again in response to the smallest things she did. A smile. A look. It was all it took to push him to the edge. In the shower, when her eyes had traced every line of his body like a lover’s caress, he had almost lost it.

He had almost forgotten his position and hers, and how they couldn’t be further apart. They didn’t belong together. She didn’t need him, and he certainly didn’t need her.

Eventually, she would reach the mansion in Oslo and would become one of the elite of their bloodline. He would go back to the shadows.

Nothing good could come of them acting on foolish desire and nothing good could come of allowing her to weaken him like this.

Tor hardened himself to her, constructing new barriers, determined not to let her penetrate them. He could handle one small female.

“Adam was against the idea to try to turn me to their side,” she whispered before he could tell her to continue and he was thankful for it. He needed the respite from her perusal of him and time to get his rebellious emotions back under control and continue to build his barriers, locking away the softer emotions she had roused and leaving only darkness behind. “He said I would never want to help them and he was right. They tried everything…”

Her eyes met his across the room.

“They tortured me.”

Something snapped inside him and he growled. His fangs punched long from his gums, deadly daggers that wanted to feel Adam’s flesh beneath them, wanted to tear him to pieces.

“I need a moment.” Eve rushed past him into the bathroom and slammed the door.

Tor reined in his fury and walked to the closed white door. He pressed his hand against it and listened. At the first sob that broke free of her, he moved away, giving her some privacy and not wanting to intrude.

Rage boiled in his blood, burning in his heart. If they had tortured her, they would have forced her to feed in order to keep her alive. They were as much responsible for her feelings about blood and feeding as her hunter background. They had driven her to view it as something evil, something thrust upon her, another form of torture.

He looked back at the door.

Eve had endured more than he could have imagined, and she wasn’t close to telling him all of her story. He wasn’t sure she could right now, or that he had the heart to press her when she emerged from the bathroom. He would give her a moment away from the memories that clearly pained her. In time, she would find her balance again and would tell him more.

She was strong. He had never met a woman like her. She didn’t need his protection, or at least she wouldn’t if she fed, yet he couldn’t ignore the deep-seated need he felt within him. A need to protect her and guide her on her path to becoming comfortable with and accepting her new life as a vampire. He wanted to be the one to help her through her pain. He wanted to erase it for her.

He picked up his duffle bag and reminded himself that she had a sister to do that for her. A family. He wasn’t qualified for the position anyway. What did he know about healing pain? All he knew was how to dispense justice, how to deal violence and death. All he could help her with was that burning need for vengeance.

Tor set the black duffle down on the bed and unzipped it. He tugged a fresh pair of black jeans out, pulled his towel off, and put them on. The shower switched on in the bathroom and he tried his best not to imagine Eve stripping off the white robe and stepping under the water, steam swirling around her slender body.

He rifled through the contents of the bag, doing inventory, making sure he had everything they might possibly need. Most of it was weapons, but he had a few clothes and there was a long leather wallet with some cash in different currencies and his passport in it. Everything he owned was in this bag and he hoped it was everything they needed too.

The door behind him opened and Eve shuffled across the carpet, stopping right beside him, only a hair’s breadth away, so he could feel her signature tangling with his, twining together, and her sweet scent invaded his senses. She brushed her fingers through her long wet hair, squeezing out droplets that soaked into her white robe. He kept his focus on the bag and neatly laying out all of its contents on the pristine white sheets, giving her some time to pull herself back together.

She trailed a lone finger over a flash grenade. “I’ve never seen a vampire use weapons like you do.”

She picked up his black semi-auto and turned it over in her hands. Tor took it from her and placed it back in its position on the bed, uncomfortable with the thought of her handling weapons meant to kill. He reminded himself again that she was a hunter. She most likely knew how to use firearms.

It didn’t erase the need to protect her from the darker side of his life and the world.

He shrugged when she looked at him. “Guns just slow vampires down, but that means it makes killing them quicker.”

“I thought vampires had a weird thing against weapons… like it’s dishonourable?”

Tor almost smiled. “I don’t see it as dishonourable. Survival is everything to me.”

She tensed, as if he had poked a sore spot.

Tor pretended he hadn’t noticed. “I’ve done my share of killing and fighting with knives, swords and bare hands. I would rather do things more easily.”

She touched the gun again, her fingers lingering on it this time. He risked a glance at her, finding her with her dark eyes downcast, a distant look in them.

“What do we do now?” she whispered and trailed her fingers off the gun, turning to face him at the same time.

“We lay low and devise a plan. We need to keep out of sight for a few days, until we’re sure that everyone thinks that we died in that explosion and now we’re nothing but ashes.”

Eve tensed. “But Lilith will think I’m dead… again. I can’t do that to her.”

It wasn’t quite the response he had expected from her given the things she had told him earlier.

“A few hours ago you didn’t want to see your sister again, and now you do?” Tor frowned down into her eyes and she held his gaze, hers dark with determination that wasn’t going to sway him. His word was final. “You need to make up your mind what you want. Do you want revenge or do you want to go home? If you want revenge, you’re going to have to do things my way. This whole thing is outside of my mission parameters. I’m bending the rules for you.”

She fell silent and nodded, the softening edge to her rich brown eyes telling him that she understood that this wasn’t how he worked, that he never stepped out of line or went against his orders.

It grated on him, rubbing every instinct he had the wrong way and filling his head with niggling thoughts that he should forget this whole fiasco and just take her home right now.

The only thing saving his sanity was the fact that he couldn’t take her to the main Vehemens mansion in Oslo while she had people after her, people with enough determination and resources to blow up a plane at a public airstrip.