Night Hungers

Night Hungers

Aarons Kiss Series Book 10

By

Kathi S. Barton

World Castle Publishing

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

World Castle Publishing

Pensacola, Florida

Copyright © Kathi S. Barton 2012

ISBN: 9781938961434

First Edition World Castle Publishing November 1, 2012

http://www.worldcastlepublishing.com

Licensing Notes

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews.

Cover: Karen Fuller

Photos: Shutterstock

Editor: Brieanna Robertson

~CHAPTER 1~

“Zane? Come out from under there a minute. I got a customer that has a question for you. I don’t think the idiot has a clue what he’s talking about.”

Allison Zander rolled the creeper out from the car she was working on and glared up at her boss Danny March. He was the nicest man she knew. And most of the time she wanted to smack him because he was very overprotective of her and very chauvinistic as well. But she needed the job and he needed her help. The man was a complete novice on the newer engines and Zane wasn’t.

“What’s he saying? If it’s that moron from the police garage again I swear I’ll quit if you make me talk to him. I can’t understand a word he’s saying when he gets all romantic. Never seen a man who drools as much as that one.”

“Nah. It’s that guy from the city garage. He says that you pulled his crankshaft too tight and he wants a refund. I can’t even find his record that we even worked on his car.

He said you were going to do it on the side.”

Zane rolled back under the car she was working on before Danny could see her blush. That was another thing about him. He just didn’t get innuendos or double-entendres.

“Danny, he thinks that I should give him a blow job because I turned him down the other night when he cornered me at the grocery store. He’s telling you that he has a hard-on and that I’m a prick tease.”

Zane could feel his anger, but she had to hand it to him, he didn’t move to the man.

Not yet at any rate. She watched as he bounced on his feet, toes to heel, toes to heel.

“And the refund? What is that supposed to mean? That he’s giving you another chance to loosen his crankshaft? Mother flower pots, Zane, how do you know this stuff?”

“He told me. Danny, whatever you’re thinking of doing, don’t. He isn’t worth it. Just give me a—fuck! Danny, come back here.”

Zane rolled from under the car and snatched up the first tool she could lay her hands on. It just happened to be an eighteen inch monkey wrench. She came to the front of the shop just in time to see the man, Carl...somebody backing away from Danny. Danny had a crescent wrench only marginally smaller than hers. She came up behind her boss, stepped just to the right of him, and faced Carl.

“Danny, sir, please don’t kill him like you did the other man. You know that somebody is gonna miss them one of these days and I don’t know what I’d do without your protection.”

Danny “the killer” turned, looked at her, and raised his brow. She knew she sounded helpless and hoped that he’d play along. She winked back at him and smiled. Then she simpered a little and wiped at a nonexistent tear.

“You know how I hate it when men hit on you. Just let me do this one in and I promise the next...the next five I’ll let go with a warning. I’ll even let you decide if he goes fast or slow.”

“Now see here. I don’t want any trouble. She came on to me. I was with my family when she...why, she propositioned me. Right there in the Shop a Lot parking lot. I nearly had to call the police when—”

“Don’t hang yourself, buddy. Get the heck out of here and don’t even stop by here for gas. I have a good memory for butt wipes and you’ve hit the top of my nasty list. And leave Zane alone.”

When the guy got back in his car and peeled out of the lot Zane and Danny burst out laughing. They were still laughing when Zane rolled under the car again and started working on the muffler. Danny started closing down the shop.

“Why don’t you come over for dinner tonight? Russell is making his famous beef stroganoff and homemade noodles. I think I might even have a bottle of the red wine you like so much. I think I got the right one this time.”

Zane knew it wasn’t going to be the right wine. For one thing, it wasn’t sold in stores and for another, it wasn’t wine but blood. She had been drinking blood when he found her having a sip. It’s not as though she needed blood all the time, she wasn’t a vamp or anything. But it did help her heal and keep her strong. Her powers were strong and she had a great deal of them, but they did take a lot of her energy and she could get hurt when down like that.

Zane was sure that Danny knew she wasn’t human, but he’d never asked her. It was as if it were an unspoken trust between them. She knew that most of his customers weren’t human either, most of them being weres with a few vampires and fairies thrown into the mix. Danny was a great guy, honest and without a single prejudiced bone in his body.

“Sure. But no veggies. I hate those suckers and I won’t have you trying to dress them up as something like a salad or anything. The first sign of green, leafy, or sprouty on my plate and I’m so out of there. Deal?”

“Sure, Miss Carnivore. But will it be all right if Russell and I have a salad or a green bean?
We
like our vegetables. It balances out our menu. I’ll see you at six. Don’t be late.”

Zane finished clamping the muffler onto the chassie and then gathered up her tools.

She loved them and the way they fit into her hand, what she could do with them, and how they were put together. Every night before she left she wiped them down and put them in the drawer that was lined in foam and had cut-outs for each one. She was as meticulous with her tools as she was with everything else she owned—cautious, precise, and deliberate. At twenty after five, ten minutes after Danny locked up, Zane was moving to the back of the shop and shifting as she went.

~~~

“So...you gonna ask her tonight? She’s been coming here enough and she has to know that we’ve guessed some of it. And I don’t know about you, but I’m really curious as to what she is.”

Danny was helping Russell fix the salad he had told Zane they were having. Russell was right and they had had this discussion before. Every time Zane came over to their house they would ponder what she was. It didn’t really matter to either of them, but they were wondering more and more.

Like today. Danny had hoped she’d just tell him what she was drinking and not let him go on about finding the right brand. He knew that wine hadn’t been what she’d been drinking that day. He knew enough vamps to know blood when he smelled it. But she didn’t only drink it. She ate real food too. Plus, she worked during the day for them. Then there was the fact that he’d never seen her wear a coat. Danny knew a lot of werewolves and they ran hot-blooded too. That really didn’t mean anything, but it still was something to think about.

“Yeah, I’m thinking about it. But we have to ease into it slowly. I don’t want to freak her out if she’s nothing more than she seems on the outside. I really like her and I don’t want her to run off because we insulted her.”

When the doorbell rang five minutes later, at six on the dot, Danny went to let their guest in. As usual, she was dressed in black from head to toe. He smiled when she handed him a bunch of wildflowers, Russell’s favorite.

She was a very beautiful woman. She was as tall as he was at six foot. Zane seldom wore her hair down, but the one time he’d seen it, he knew that it was straight and thick.

As black as the night, it looked almost blue under certain light and hung well past her hips. Her eyes were dark; he’d never been able to figure out if they were dark brown or just black. Their color seemed to change with her mood. The deeper her emotion, the darker they appeared. Her pale skin was flawless, and across her nose was a sprinkle of maybe a dozen or so freckles. Her lips were full and as pouty as he’d ever seen and made a man, even a gay man like him, think of deep kisses under the moon and sex. Danny knew that she was large busted. She wore a t-shirt—black again—in the shop and it fit her very well. He’d never seen her in anything but black leather pants and they left no doubt that Zane was a well formed, well turned woman.

“Everything smells good. I found those outside of where I’m staying. Thought Russell might like them,” she said as she moved toward the kitchen.

“He will. I think he would like to learn the names of them so that he can start his own garden in the back. I don’t suppose you know the names of these, do you?”

That was another thing about Zane that made them curious about her. She knew a little something about everything. Danny had always liked that she never made him feel stupid when he talked to her either.

“Sure. I can write them out for you guys. Hello, Russell. Dinner smells good. If you put any of the green crap on my plate, I’m going to be really pissy.”

Zane kissed Russell on the cheek and settled down on one of the bar stools. Danny set the flowers on the counter and pulled a vase out from under the sink. He would just drop them in the thing and then set them on the table knowing that Russell would bring them back into the kitchen and rearrange them. It was a game they played.

In no time they were sitting at the dining room table and eating. When Russell passed Zane the salad bowl she simply set it on the floor and shoved it under the chair with her foot. Danny retrieved the bowl and set it closer to him. The next move on both their parts was to start throwing bits of it at each other and he didn’t want to have to clean lettuce out of the curtains again.

“Danny was telling me that he had to save you from having to adjust some man’s crankshaft tonight. I wish I could have seen you acting all girly. I bet that was a sight to see.” Russell kicked him under the table. He was hinting, and not so surreptitiously, that he was opening the door for him.

Danny rolled his eyes and pulled his feet further under his chair. “Zane, Russell and I really enjoy your company. And we like you, so if we get too personal or go too far, let us know. But we wanted to ask you something.”

“I’m not having your baby,” Zane said with a grin. “I like you guys too, but I draw the line at carrying around a ton of weight out of friendship. Anything else, well, we can discuss that too.”

“What Danny is trying to say is we’d like to know what you are. You’re a woman, we get that, but what species are you? And like he said, we’re not trying to hurt you about this.”

Zane stared at Russell then looked at Danny. He would have preferred that they worked up to this a little slower, but Russell had never been known for his patience.

Danny was ready to tell her to forget it when she answered.

“I’m not really sure they named what I am. I’m a test tube anomaly that was created by mixing the DNA from several species. And I’m not easily offended.”

“You drink blood. I mean, the wine, it was blood. Do you have fangs? Can you bite people?” Danny felt stupid for blurting it out like that as soon as the words spilled from his lips.

“Yes. I drink blood on occasion. When I’m hurt or drained of energy, I need to drink it. And yes, I have fangs to drink from someone if I need to. I don’t often, but there have been times when it was necessary. I don’t need it like a vampire does, but I do need it. I feed about twice a week, more if I’m injured.”

Zane leaned down to pick up Russell’s cat and Danny thought of something else.

He’d wanted to ask about her tattoos for a long time and since she was willing to answer, he thought he’d find out. He just hoped the answer wasn’t as scary as he thought it might be.