Sunset Rising (Sunset Vampire Series, Book 5) (3 page)

“
What color are you
painting your toenails next”? I asked her.

“
Oh, well, there’s this
new salmon-colored polish I bought just the other day,” she
said.

“
Please spare me,” Alton
said.

Paige gave him a dirty look. “In fact, I
bought two bottles since they were on sale.”

“
Salmon, huh?” I asked.
“Hey, I bet you don’t know what the plural of salmon
is.”

Kat chuckled while Ethan reached up to hide
his grin with one hand.

Paige gave me an evil look and leaned across
the table toward me. “I’m fixin’ to bite you.”

“
So, dessert anyone?” Kat
asked.

After our meal, while on our walk out to our
vehicle, Alton tossed the car’s keys to Paige. “As only you know
our destination, you’re the chauffeur. Please remember it’s a
rental.”

She scowled and muttered something
indistinguishable under her breath in response.

“
I should point out, we’ll
need to make a couple of stops for some specialty items,” Ethan
said.

Following stops at both a twenty-four hour
pharmacy and a Wal-Mart, we drove east out of New Haven city limits
on the Governor John Davis Lodge Turnpike.

“
Everyone turn your phones
off. We won’t want to risk our phones being used to track us any
further,” she said while powering down her smartphone.

As I powered mine off, I realized that such
a thought hadn’t even occurred to me. There seemed to be an awful
lot of angles to consider when heading out to dig up bodies in
remote locations.

Eventually, we passed a sign for Guilford
and made our way south; it was territory far outside my scope of
familiarity.

After traversing a series of gravel and dirt
roads, we finally stopped near a rather remote, seemingly desolate
area that hosted sporadic copses of trees.

In truth, the location had an eerie sort of
feel about it.

I exited the vehicle with everyone else and
visually scanned my surroundings. A cold wind sent a chill through
me and I quickly zipped up my coat.

“
It’s only a short
distance on foot from here,” Paige said.

“
I’ll help carry some
stuff,” I said.

“
Get back in the car,
young man,” Alton said.

“
But—”

“
I don’t want to risk any
of your stray DNA getting left behind. Unlike yours, ours would
simply burn up during daytime,” he said, pulling on a pair of
leather gloves.

I started to protest again.

“
And, mark my words, if I
hear even one more attempt at argument over this, I’ll put you over
my knee,” he said.

For some reason, that really irritated
me.

“
Hate to disappoint you,
but I’m just not into that,” I said.

Paige laughed aloud. “That’s not what I
heard.”

I glared at her, but she stuck her tongue
out at me.

“
Paige, please retrieve
the shovels from the trunk,” Kat said.

Ethan appeared amused as he opened the
driver’s side door and reached into the vehicle.

The trunk popped open.

“
Caleb, I realize the past
couple of days have been troubling and stressful for you. However,
you’ve responded in a commendable and highly respectable manner,
and I’m very proud of you,” Alton said. “That being said, you will
obey me. You’re staying here.”

The king has spoken.

“
Fine,” I said, shrugging
and folding my arms before me. “Whatever.”

“
Hey, that’s my catch
phrase,” Paige said while leaning the shovels against her
shoulder.

Kat offered me a sympathetic look as she
held open the rear door and gestured with her hand toward the
interior of the vehicle. I started to enter, but she gently caught
my arm to halt me.

“
Just so you know, I agree
with Alton. His concern makes sense, my love,” she said, lightly
tapping me on the tip of my nose with her fingertip. “And I’m also
very proud of you.”

I offered her an appreciative look. “Thanks.
That’s something, I suppose.”

As I scooted onto the back seat, Alton
appeared in the door and handed me a small automatic pistol.

I looked at the pistol and then at him with
a wide-eyed expression. “Seriously? Where the hell did you get
that?”

“
It’s one of Roman’s. The
safety’s in the trigger, so just point and shoot,” he said. “I’m
relatively confident that we weren’t followed, but until we know
who we’re dealing with, I’d rather not take any
chances.”

I merely nodded, not sure what to say to
that.

“
We’ll be back here
immediately if something happens,” Kat said. “Shoot first. Let us
worry about the rest.”

She frowned at me as she closed the door. I
heard the locks engage and the car alarm’s chirp as it
activated.

I could easily tell from her expression that
she wasn’t pleased at all.

For one, Kat’s never been in favor of me
having a firearm. Granted, they didn’t intimidate me, though I
wasn’t especially experienced with them. The fact that I was
holding one at that moment only made me feel less at ease over my
current situation.

There were a lot of unknowns at the
moment.

Foremost, who’s out there targeting me?

Chapter 2

Katrina

As I pulled on my pair of leather gloves, I
took one last glance at Caleb sitting in the car. I was so very
proud of how he’d conducted himself, and so grateful that his
training had helped to save him.

But he was hardly adept at hand to hand
combat.

Back at the house, while Caleb still slept,
Alton and I’d had a brief discussion regarding how to proceed with
his training from this point. At the very least, I felt confident
that my mate was well on his way to being formidable for most any
opponent.

Except actual vampires.

While I didn’t like the idea of leaving him
alone in the vehicle, Alton had made an excellent point about the
potential for DNA contamination. Besides, given all that Caleb had
recently experienced, I felt better not exposing him to corpses;
particularly ones he’d helped to create.

As the group of us proceeded across the
field, the moonlight cast the ideal illumination over our
surroundings. These were conditions only a vampire could fully
appreciate.

I breathed in the fresh scent of the ocean
from the nearby bay, and I reveled in the soothing sounds of the
wind and the telltale clunking of dry tree branches against one
other.

Paige had selected an ideal location for
disposing of the bodies. I doubted anyone would come across them
for years, if ever.

Though, in truth,
if ever
rarely occurred.
Given the rate that land continued to be developed in recent years,
the most we could hope for was a few decades.

Despite the considerable burial depth,
between Paige and Ethan it took only minutes to dig far enough to
reach the bodies.

Paige had done well. She was so reliable
regarding matters such as this.

Careless or short-sighted vampires didn’t
last long.

But then, wasn’t that true of all killers?
Only the most thorough and intelligent ones successfully eluded
detection over the long term.

Paige easily leapt out of the impromptu
grave, holding both shovels.

“
Someone please hand me
that pharmacy bag,” Ethan said.

I handed the small bag of items to him and
peered into the grave to watch.

As Ethan removed the plastic sheeting that
covered the bodies, my breath caught in my throat, and not merely
from the acrid scents of early decomposition.

Both of the men’s faces appeared somewhat
pale, much like a vampire’s, though not quite as stark as was
typical for my kind.

“
They don’t look normal at
all for humans,” I said.

“
Yes, there’s a strange
pallor to their skin. Very odd,” Ethan said. “But I’ll know more
once we run our tests.”

“
Caleb wasn’t exaggerating
after all,” I said.

“
Mm. So it would seem,”
Alton said.

As I stared at the bodies, my anger
mounted.

I wished I could revive them just so that I
could kill them all over again. After they dealt with me, they’d
think Caleb had done them a favor.

Ethan used a bottle of water to rinse one of
the men’s forearms and withdrew a syringe from the sack.

“
Two from each, please, as
we discussed,” Alton said.

I looked at him curiously.

He shrugged. “One for the lab, one for
future reference, if needed.”

I nodded.
Good idea.

Evidence sometimes had a way of disappearing
when it made its way into the wrong hands.

Minutes later, Ethan hopped out of the grave
and landed across from me, sack in hand.

In turn, Alton jumped into the grave.

“
Now what?” I
asked.

“
Their fingerprints will
aid in our identification process,” he said.

He withdrew a small device from his pocket
and proceeded to press each of the men’s fingertips against the
screen.

“
I’ll go online to check
them against the database after we’ve returned to the house,” he
said.

Once he had finished, he replaced the
plastic sheet over the bodies.

With a single leap, Alton once more stood
beside me.

Paige handed me a shovel and we proceeded to
fill in the grave. It didn’t take us long.

As we approached our vehicle, I noticed
Caleb tentatively looking out through the opposite sides of the car
windows, which were already fogged up.

That made me smile.

“
Just look at that,” Paige
said. “Caleb couldn’t see a car if it drove up beside him. Remind
me not to take Mr. Heavy Breather on a stakeout.”

In fact, Caleb jumped slightly as Paige used
the remote to unlock the doors. I quickly opened the rear driver’s
side door to see a surprised expression on his face.

“
Back already?” he asked.
“That was fast.”

“
We’re vampires,” Paige
said as she placed the shovels in the trunk. “We’re
fast.”

I slid onto the seat next to Caleb and
stretched my arm across his shoulders. Alton opened the door
opposite me and sat on the other side of him.

I held out my free hand before Caleb, my
palm up and open.

“
What?” he
asked.

I arched one eyebrow at him.

His features fell. “Oh, all right.”

He placed the pistol in my hand, which I
quickly pocketed for safekeeping.

“
You’re not ready to carry
one of those yet,” I said.

“
Then I need to start
training very soon, don’t I?” he asked.

Oh, clever man.

“
Perhaps,” I said. “We’ll
see.”

“
There’s some other
training I’d like for you to begin first, Caleb,” Alton
said.

“
Really?” he asked. “What
sort of training?”

“
Oh, you’ll find out
beginning tomorrow,” Alton said.

My mate flashed me a suspicious look.

“
But I have class,” he
said.

“
Don’t worry,” Alton said.
“You can easily append this to your other training. Just set aside
a little more time for it. It’s important.”

When Caleb flashed me a curious look, I
merely nodded in knowing fashion.

“
You’ll see,” I
said.

* * *

Upon returning to the house, we unloaded the
vehicle and gathered in the living room.

“
I’m going upstairs to
take a shower,” Caleb said.

“
I’ll join you soon,” I
said.

I turned to Alton, who was staring down at
his laptop which he had set up on the coffee table. He looked quite
pleased with himself.

“
Care to share in your
good mood?” I asked.

“
Success. We have positive
results from the fingerprint scans on both of those men,” he
said.

Good. Because once we identify who sent
them, they’re going to forget all about Caleb.

They’ll have my complete attention.

I’ll make them regret their birth, and will
welcome their return into oblivion.

Paige plopped onto the couch and picked up
the television remote.

“
Good, while you two sort
that out, I’m going to catch the new season of
Cosplay Island
,” she said. “It’s an
all-stars special and Steampunk Tranny Tim is
returning.”

Alton gave her a long look. “Steam-who?”

“
Trust me. Don’t ask,” I
said, absently waving my hand in the air. “It’s just a reality
program.”

“
Hey, it’s not just a
reality program,” she protested. “It’s
the
best
reality program…as in,
ever
.”

I shook my head. The only reality I cared
about was the one that certain parties were preparing to exit.

Chapter 3

Caleb

I woke abruptly to the sound of my alarm
going off. I reached over to shut it off and lay there half asleep
for a moment.

I hated Mondays.

The gray illumination peeking through the
slats of the blinds suggested a cloudy and likely very cold day. I
was half tempted to roll over and go back to sleep.