Kathy Love - Fangs For The Memories

He stared at the rings in his palm for a moment. Was she married? Had she been married? What would it be like to have someone that sweet, that lovely, in his life every day?

He ground his teeth. Stop! There was no point. No point wondering. But he shoved the necklace in his jacket pocket anyway.

He returned his attention to the lifeless man. He grasped him and lifted him fully off the ground. He shook him like a rag doll, and the man groaned to life.

Joey was disoriented for only a moment. Then he saw Rhys. His eyes bulged, and he opened his mouth to speak, or more likely scream.

Rhys shifted himself around and slammed the man hard against the concrete wall. The man moaned.

"How does it feel to get a taste of your own medicine, my friend?"

"Wh — what are you?"

Rhys smiled, knowing the wide curl of his lips would fully reveal his two long, very sharp canines. "I'm the one who is going to speed up your arrival in hell."

Rhys yanked Joey to him and sank his teeth deep into the ex-convict's neck. Blood coursed through Rhys, but he didn't taste it, didn't savor it. He thought about Jane's sweet scent and those innocent green eyes. He thought about the tenderness of her touch. And he thought about his desire for her.

The coward struggled for only a few seconds, then fell limp.

Rhys didn't kill the mortals he fed from. Even though he used only the dishonest and depraved as his food source, he didn't believe he, a beast himself, had the right to act as their judge and jury.

Tonight, he planned to let that belief slip his mind.

But at the last moment, when the man's heart would cease to beat, he pulled away. As full of rage as he was at this man, who dared to injure someone as true and kind as Jane, he couldn't kill him.

He dropped the coward to the ground and stepped back from him. Rhys wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, disgusted with the man, disgusted with himself.

"My, my, my. Isn't this a scene?"

The smooth, cultured voice startled Rhys. He spun around. Only a vampire could sneak up on another vampire.

"Hello, Rhys."

Rhys didn't speak for a moment. He couldn't. Shock mingled with the warmth of the blood in his veins.

"Christian?" He knew he was looking at his brother, but he couldn't believe it. He hadn't seen his middle brother in- over a hundred years.

"Yes."

Rhys started to cross to him, to pull him into a fierce hug, but his brother's words stopped him.

"You still can't kill, can you? At least not a pathetic mortal."

Rhys frowned, letting his arms fall loosely to his sides. "What?"

Christian strolled to the once more unconscious man. He peered down at him with a slight grimace tugging at his lips, then turned back to Rhys.

"I just came to tell you, and I'm sure you will be pleased, Lilah is well and truly dead."

Rhys wasn't pleased. He hated Lilah, but he knew how her death would affect Christian. Christian had loved the vampiress with his whole existence. If vampires could truly love.

"Christian, I'm sorry."

His brother laughed humorlessly. "Are you? Are you really?"

"I know how you felt about her."

"Mmm." Christian nodded, moving to slowly pace around Rhys. "And you knew how I felt about her when you went to her bed, too. You knew how I felt about her when you allowed her to bring you over. I would imagine you even knew how I felt about her when you drained her, over and over, until she was nothing but a mad little vampiress — made insane by being brought to the point of death too many times."

It was on the tip of Rhys's tongue to point out it was hardly his fault that Lilah had a proclivity for a vampire's version of auto-eroticism. The observation would only serve to hurt Christian and make his brother further believe that Rhys had truly wanted Lilah. He'd wanted Lilah only once. After that, he knew her for what she was-a greedy, selfish, violent vampire.

He'd tried to make Christian realize that what he'd done, he'd done as retribution for the way she'd hurt his family, for cursing them. Lilah had needed to pay.

Christian had never believed him-about any of it. But Rhys felt the need to tell him again. To do otherwise would be like relenting that Christian was right.

"Christian, I never meant to hurt you. I meant to punish Lilah — for you, and Sebastian and especially for Elizabeth. For destroying our family."

"Yes, so you've told me."

"It's the truth."

"No, the truth is Elizabeth had consumption. She was too weak to cross over."

Rhys couldn't believe Christian still accepted Lilah's lie. Lilah had killed their baby sister out of spite, out of petty anger for not getting what she wanted-Rhys.

"You can keep believing what you want, Chris. But I am the one telling you the truth. I always have."

Christian finished circling around Rhys and stopped directly in front of him. "Well, I suppose it doesn't matter now. Lilah's gone."

Rhys nodded, hoping maybe now that she was gone, they could mend their badly severed relationship.

Christian started back down the alley toward the street.

Rhys took a few steps after him. "Do you think we will ever be able to end this?"

His brother turned, and cocked his head as if he was considering the question. "Yes, I think we can end it tonight." And with that Christian flew toward him, so quickly his movement was almost invisible.

Rhys didn't even have time to brace himself for the hit, before he found himself slammed against the side of the building. Bits of concrete rained to the ground around them.

Rhys dug at the hands at his throat, but Christian held him there with little difficulty.

Rhys knew that under regular circumstances he and Christian were about the same strength-created by the same vampire at nearly the same time. But tonight, Christian had anger on his side, blind fury that could make him extraordinarily strong for a brief time.

Rhys clawed at his brother's hands.

Christian stared at him, his eyes black, the entire irises and nearly all of the whites gone. Nothing but an empty blackness.

"I should have done this a hundred and eighty-five years ago." Christian's voice sounded deeper, harsher, like the growl of an animal.

As Rhys still struggled, his brother went for his throat, ripping into the flesh, taking half his throat in the first bite.

Despite the savageness of the attack, Rhys felt no pain. He continued to struggle-until Christian bit him again on the other side of his neck, and Rhys felt the blood and energy being sucked from him.

Christian didn't intend to simply teach him a lesson, to show his strength or humiliate Rhys.

No, Rhys thought as he began to fade into oblivion, his once much-loved brother intended to kill him.

Jane shifted from one foot to the other and chewed at the corner of her nail. She'd carefully searched the sidewalk and even the gutters, but she hadn't found the rings.

Now she was back at the bar, and her nerve was waning. She hadn't even worked up the nerve to get close to the bar's front entrance, much less the alleyway.

She tugged at her nail a moment longer, then dropped her hand to her side and straightened her shoulders. She had to look. She'd never forgive herself if she lost her parents' rings because she was scared. She'd come this far. But just to make herself feel better, she slipped her hand in her coat pocket and pulled out the cylinder of hair spray. With the small can held out in front of her, she approached the bar, scanning the ground as she went.

When she reached the entrance of the bar, she heard a sound. She froze and clutched the hair spray tighter.

There it was again. The sound of someone gagging-no, gasping.

Her heart clattered against her breastbone, and she held her breath. The sound came from the alleyway.