Alexandra Ivy: Predatory

“By you.”

“What?”

Pike slurped the last bit of the purple ICEE he made us stop for through his straw. “First one looked like suicide, second one looked like a murder caused by you.” He grinned, his teeth tinged purple.

“Thanks for pointing that out, Colombo.” I frowned. “And we have nothing in the way of leads, do we?”

“Other than you trying to kill off the competition, no.”

I spun, my finger a quarter-inch from his nose. “What did I say? Look at me.” I jumped back, gave him a good chance to take in my self-styled ensemble. “I would have won that competition fair and square. Someone is out to get me.”

Suddenly Pike was face to face with me and I could feel his hot breath breaking over my cheeks. “Then why hasn’t he gotten you yet?”

Anger bubbled in my veins. “Because I’m a—”

“A what?” His eyes flashed.

I broke his gaze. “I don’t need to tell you anything.” I tried to turn away but his hand was around my arm, clamping down. His warmth shot through my whole body and I remembered things. . . .

Another ink-black night where everything hung still and quiet in the oppressing heat. A rustle in the bushes and I was on the window sill, tucking my petticoats between my legs . . . I felt the air cut open when I dropped, my boots hitting the soft earth below my window. And he was there. He was just a shadow then but he was there—I didn’t need to see him to feel him over every inch of my body, to feel the air sizzle with his vibrant electricity. His fingertips brushed my arm and they were ice cold but sent fire-hot prickles and every synapse firing—and then he closed the distance between us and his lips were on mine. Wanting, tasting. And I was young and I was thirsty and I had never felt this way before . . . then his lips left mine and trailed slowly, with feather-light kisses over my jaw and down my neck. I felt my pulse throb and his tongue circled it. My heart pounded and my head was filled. There was fire roaring through me and it was at my neck. I heard the pierce before I felt it. My virgin skin popped and his teeth sunk in. And when I closed my eyes, everything was dripping in the most vibrant shade of red. . . .

“Pike.” I was breathing hard and trying to push the word past my teeth. Pike had me now, tonight, in this city, and I could feel his fingers pressing at the small of my back as I crushed against him, his hand cupping my chin, my cheek. The city cracked and came alive and I was distinctly aware of every horn honking, every New Yorker talking, yelling, laughing. Waves crashed. The world crashed when Pike’s lips covered mine. I tried to pull back but his fingers dug into me and my entire body was exploding with things I hadn’t felt since that last night, since that last moment when my own blood shot through my veins.

I could feel.

My entire body was on high alert and I felt the hot softness of Pike’s wet lips. I felt his tongue nudge my mouth open and I could taste him.

And somewhere, there was blood.

Too close.

My eyes were on the vein throbbing on Pike’s neck.

“No,” I said, pulling back, pushing against his chest.

“Don’t go.” Pike pulled me back to him and I felt the word on my earlobe as his mouth opened and he nibbled.

My body throbbed. My need deepened. I pushed away—tore myself away—from Pike and stumbled backward and then started to run.

“I know what you are.” Pike’s words tumbled out and hit every wall of the dismal little alley.

I stopped, turned. “What are you talking about?”

He took a slow step forward, his eyes still hard, pinning me. “I know what you are, Nina.”

I licked my lips and all the energy, the heat that had surged through my body, was gone. I was hollow again, and cold. “I don’t know what you think you know about me.”

Pike licked his lips, bee-stung and red from our kiss. “You’re a vampire.”

I turned my back and left Pike standing alone in the alleyway.

I walked the rest of the way home and Pike didn’t follow. I kept my thoughts focused on the murders so I wouldn’t hear his voice reverberate through my head. A vampire. I knew it, I flaunted it—in the Underworld, natch —but hearing the word come out of his mouth . . .

I sunk my key into the lock and shoved into the apartment vestibule. The overhead light was buzzing and swinging lightly, illuminating the squarish, brown-paper-wrapped package on top of my mail slot. The sender had used a whole spool of tape and twine and addressed the thing simply to “LaShay.” I shoved it under my arm and carried it to my apartment.

“Hey, where’ve you been?” Vlad wrinkled his nose. “You smell like morgue.”

I flopped down on the couch.

“What’s with you?”

“Pike knows.”

Vlad finished his blood bag with a mighty suck and pushed himself up to a sitting position. “Pike knows who the murderer is? That’s good because all this death and dying is really ruining my vacation.”

“No.” I blinked, staring straight ahead. “Pike knows about me.”

I didn’t need to fill him in; the knowing flashed across Vlad’s eyes. “He knows you’re a vampire? Does he know I am?”

I swung my head. “I doubt it.”

“So we have a murderer on the loose, a guy who knows you’re a card-carrying member of the undead. . . . How did he find out? And, he’s not going to go all Van Helsing on us, is he? Because we’d need special approval from the UDA to take him out and you know who handles that paperwork, right? Kale. She’d never approve me. Hell, she’d call Pike and leave a trail of breadcrumbs or Hostess CupCakes right to me.”

I swallowed. “I don’t know how he knows. He just—he just said it. ‘I know what you are.’”

Vlad crushed his blood bag and tossed it onto the coffee table. “Ominous.”

“Vlad, what am I supposed to do about this? A breather knows about me.”

Vlad shrugged, finding the remote control and aiming at the TV. “I don’t know. Kill him, I guess.”

Something washed over me and it took me a good minute to realize that it was pain. I didn’t want to kill Pike. I didn’t want to be what I was.

“I—I need some air.”

Something was welling inside me, pressing against my chest and making my eyes sting by the time I crested the steps down to the apartment vestibule.

And then everything changed.

Two of the ancient windows were cracked open; I could see there was a gentle breeze outside but the air in the vestibule itself was staid and heavy but crackled with a weird, electric energy. I sniffed. The metallic scent was sharp and distinctive and my whole body went on high alert—my fangs sharpening and elongating, saliva rushing toward my tongue.

There was blood in the air.

It stank of injury and heat with just the slightest tinge of something fresh. I took a step. The energy-filled trail stopped dead on the bottom floor landing and so did I, spinning slowly in the darkness, and finally cussing at myself for being a scared little girl. And then I heard the whimper.

It was soft, barely a breath, but there was something in the single syllable that was anguished. I stiffened.

“Hello?”

There was a breath of pregnant silence and then two ragged, heavy breaths. “Help?”

I turned toward the voice. “Where are you? Who are you?”

“Please.” The word tore at my gut and I felt my human side taking over—someone in pain, in anguish—someone reaching out. Because she doesn’t know that I’m a monster.

I swept the thought out of my mind as quickly as it came and closed my eyes, concentrating on the breathing. Ragged breath in, ragged breath out. I took a step. Ragged breath—and suddenly the vestibule was heavy with the sweet metallic stench of blood. A drip of saliva rolled down my throat.