Hunger (9 page)

“How do you know so much about starving vampires?” she said, a small frown creasing her brow. “Did you learn about it as a hunter?”

Tor had wanted to avoid that question, but he had known in his heart that she would want all the details, and he would be forced to face his own ugly version of the truth.

His lips quirked into another grim, dark smile. “I learned of it, but if it was taught me, then my teacher was not my bloodline. It was three years in captivity under the care of the Nocens bloodline.”

A little gasp escaped her and her shock flowed through him, intense and startling. “They starved you?”

He didn’t want to discuss it but he nodded. Telling her what happened to a vampire when they starved hadn’t changed her mind about drinking human blood, but perhaps learning of the things he had been through, the darkness he had endured, would.

“They tortured me at regular intervals too to spill my blood and quicken the process.” Tor lowered his feet to the carpet, leaned forwards and rested his elbows on his knees. He clasped his hands together and stared deep into her soulful brown eyes, willing to put himself through the pain of his memories if it meant saving her. “They were thorough in their methods… stakes… sunlight… drowning me. A thousand lacerations on my body to bleed me. Chaining me in sunlight to burn me. All of it needs blood to heal. Blood my body used quickly, leaving me starving for more.”

Eve looked away. He refused to let her avoid the horror of what he had been through. Partly to show her that she wasn’t alone and wasn’t the only one who had suffered as a vampire at the hands of another, partly to make her understand the danger of what she was doing to herself, and partly, albeit minutely, because he wanted her to understand him.

He lifted his right hand, caught the delicate curve of her jaw and brought her gaze back to his. A bolt of lightning went through him, searing every inch of his body and turning his blood to fire, as her warm brown eyes met his cold blue ones. The soft look in them tore at him, imploring him to release her, to not say any more about torture and pain.

Tor brushed his thumb across her chin, revelling in the softness of her skin and that she let him touch her so intimately.

“Why did they do such terrible things to you?” she whispered and her pain leaped into him through the point where they touched, shocking in its intensity.

He dropped his hand and looked down at his feet, needing a moment to gather himself and process what had just happened. Eve had shown concern for him. He couldn’t remember anyone ever revealing such a beautiful emotion to him before. He searched his memories but turned up nothing. No one had ever shown a flicker of care or tenderness, or looked upon him with a desire to know him in their eyes, a need to comfort him.

Tor swallowed hard and curled his fingers into fists, his skin still warm and buzzing from where it had touched hers. What was she doing to him?

He had survived everything life had thrown at him, but he wasn’t sure he would survive her. She alone had the power to destroy him.

“Tor?” His name whispered in her voice beckoned him to look up at her and he was powerless to resist. He raised his head and met her gaze again, uncertain this time, unsure whether he could bear to see the feelings in it and know they were for him. “Why?”

“They wanted information,” he said, the words hollow to his ears, distant as he stared into her eyes and absorbed every glimmer of emotion, a whole spectrum of them that called to him. They tempted him to touch her again, to lay his hand on her cheek as he had before and see if she would allow it a second time.

“What happened?” Something new flickered in her steady gaze. Understanding. Familiarity.

“You don’t have to worry. I didn’t crack in any way. I managed to escape before my bloodlust awakened, but I did kill several humans to replenish my strength, and I didn’t regret it.” Tor shut down his desires and his foolish emotions and sat back, placing some distance between him and temptation. “We should get some rest.”

He stood before she could respond, dragged the chair back to the corner, and then walked to the bed.

Eve looked over her shoulder at him. “You’re not sleeping on the floor?”

Tor raised an eyebrow at that. “Why should either of us sleep in discomfort? You sleep one side and I’ll sleep the other.”

She rose to her feet, turned to face him, and eyed the bed. If she pushed, he would probably sleep on the floor, but he really didn’t see why he should end up getting no rest at all just because she was feeling dainty all of a sudden. She had blatantly ogled him all evening, probably knew his body better than he did, and now she was going to grow a sense of propriety?

Tor sat on the side of the bed nearest the window, swung his legs up onto it and laid back with his hands behind his head. He ignored the sting of the wounds on his back, crossed his legs at the ankle and stared at her, waiting for her to make her decision. If she wanted to take the floor, he would probably protest about that too. He had his reasons for wanting her close.

She huffed, walked around the bed, and pulled the sheets back on her side. The second she was settled under the covers, she wriggled, butting up against him and then shuffled to the edge of the bed, leaving a vast gap between them.

“You take up too much room,” she muttered into her pillow.

Tor couldn’t quite see how she had drawn that conclusion. There was an ocean of space between their bodies and he had no problem with her occupying it rather than trying to sleep balanced on the very edge of the bed.

“You can come closer. I’m not going to try anything,” he said and her emotions shifted, the flicker too brief for him to decipher and understand.

He looked at her and she rolled away from him. Was she disappointed that he wasn’t going to try anything?

Fool. He needed to stop thinking about her in that way. He needed to stop deluding himself. Nothing could happen. Nothing would happen. Where had all the barriers he had put back into place gone?

Tor stared at her back, idly tracing the curve of her shoulder, the gentle slope towards her narrow waist, and the flare of her hips. She had stripped down the last barrier when she had shown him compassion. She kept tearing them down. Every time she did, he put up a flimsier barrier, one that was even easier to destroy.

She huffed and wriggled again, punching her pillow this time, as if it was to blame for her discomfort and inability to sleep.

He frowned, grabbed her arm and dragged her closer.

She rolled to face him and slapped his hand away. “I don’t see why you can’t sleep on the floor.”

Tor wasn’t paying attention to anything she said. The moment she had rolled towards him, she had captured all of his focus, shutting down every other sense besides touch.

Her front pressed against his side, only the covers and her robe separating them. He could feel her breasts on his ribs and her thighs against his, and her soft breath as it skated across his bare chest.

What the hell was wrong with him?

What had given him the idea that he could share a bed with her and not feel affected by it?

It had been a stupid suggestion. He knew it now as his body burned, every inch of him boiling with need. It had been a terrible mistake to pull her against him. The feel of her curves plastered against his hard body maddened him, filling his head with scenarios he knew she would never consider or consent to. She would turn on him if he lowered his hand and grazed his fingers down her arm, or brushed them across her cheek. She would defend herself if she knew his thoughts.

She would kick him out of bed if she knew how she fired him up.

How he burned for her.

Tor stifled a groan and shuffled to his right, until there was a modest gap between them again, one that would preserve his sanity and stop him from acting on his needs.

She burrowed into the covers and he listened to her breathing, monitoring it for the sign that she had fallen asleep. It would take her years to overcome her instinct to breathe. Her body didn’t need the oxygen anymore. Most vampires forgot the need by the end of their first century and definitely by their second. He had forgotten it shortly after his turning. Like everything else, the instinct had been trained out of him. All vampires, regardless of age, forgot the need when sleeping.

Her breathing stopped and he risked a glance at her.

The region of his heart heated again, the strange warmth flowing outwards from the centre of his chest as he looked at her. She was beautiful in sleep, soft and delicate. Her dark hair cascaded over her neck, with some long wisps caressing her cheek. Her lips parted, revealing a sliver of straight white teeth. Her left hand clutched the pillow, her right tucked beneath it.

Tor rolled to face her.

Discomfort wasn’t the only reason he had refused to sleep on the floor. He still wasn’t convinced that she wasn’t a danger to herself. This close to her, he would be able to feel if she woke and left the bed. He could monitor her without her knowing it, ensuring she didn’t get any stupid ideas about walking into the sun.

Based on what she had told him tonight, he didn’t think that she would do such a thing, at least not until she had her revenge, but he still couldn’t risk it.

Tor lifted his right hand and carefully picked the strands of hair from her face, placing them with the ones cascading down her throat. His gaze flickered to it, seeing it beyond her hair, imagining the smooth unmarked column. His fangs itched. Saliva pooled in his mouth.

He withdrew his hand and shoved it under the pillow, trapping it there as he fought with himself, struggling to tamp down the hunger to taste her blood, to sink his fangs into her throat and mark her.

He smiled ruefully at his conflicting desires.

He wanted to protect her, from herself and from the vampires after her.

But he wasn’t sure he could protect her from himself.

He wasn’t sure how much longer he could deny his burning need for her.

E
ve sat crouched on the Amsterdam rooftop beside Tor for the third night running, her gaze scanning the people moving along both sides of the canal below her. A light drizzle coated everything in a fine layer of moisture, including her. She huddled into her black jacket, wishing for warmer clothing. Tor didn’t seem to care about the chilly temperatures or the damp. When she had dared to complain, he had pointed out that as a vampire, she didn’t feel cold in the same way she had as a human. It was just her mind playing tricks on her.

She didn’t believe that. She was cold.

She turned her back on the street three storeys below, leaned against the decorative wall that ran across the top of the building, and rubbed her arms, needing a break. So far, there had been no sign of Adam or any vampire she recognised. There had been a few weaklings weaving among the constant flow of human traffic, but when Tor had gone down to track them, he had quickly come back saying that they were local. Apparently, Tor spoke Dutch. He also spoke Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish, Danish and a slew of other languages.

She had been learning about him little by little over the last few days, including more details about his time as a captive of the Nocens in Budapest.

And that he didn’t speak Hungarian.

When he had first told her about the ordeal he had been through, the horrific torture another vampire had inflicted upon him, she hadn’t been worried about his state of mind for her sake. She had been worried for his. No man deserved to go through so much pain and torment. The edge to his eyes at times and his behaviour told her that being held and starved weren’t the only horrible things to have happened to him.

Eve looked at him, studying his profile as he crouched beside her, keeping vigil with his cold blue eyes scanning the streets below them and his hood up to conceal his pale hair, putting his face in shadow, hiding him from the eyes of those below him.

His oversized sweatshirt concealed the weapons he wore strapped to his body too. Not just his gun, but a belt with flash grenades and other items, weapons used to distance himself from his targets and make his kills easy ones.

She had seen his scars, ragged marks that must have been made by holy wood or had been so gruesome that he hadn’t been able to heal the wound properly. He had been put through Hell and it had moulded him into the man before her—the silent, methodical, cold-blooded killer. It made everything she had been through pale in comparison. She had endured weeks of torture and neglect, and the constant threat of death and pain, of exiting this world before she was truly ready.

He had endured years.

She wanted to know how to be that strong.

Eve turned back to the street and began scanning the crowds again as they idly walked up and down the street over the canal from her. The trees obscured them at times but her senses continued to track whoever she had set her sights on. The majority of the traffic were male and they loitered in front of the tall windows where the women gyrated behind the glass, no doubt salivating over them and considering spending some time in their company. She shook her head.

“Perverts,” she muttered to herself but Tor glanced at her, his left eyebrow quirking. She looked across at him, unapologetic for her outburst and all the ones that had come before it over the past three nights.

She hated all the men below her, all the ones who disappeared into buildings or were led away by women. How many of them had women of their own waiting for them somewhere? She hated them for betraying those innocent women.

She hated Adam.

Her focus sharpened and picked out the very male she had cursed in her mind. She was sure it was him, would know his gait and his spiky dark hair, and preferred clothing of blue jeans and a beaten up leather anywhere, but she needed to be sure before she alerted Tor.

The man slithered through the crowd far off to her right, beyond the old church that towered ominously in the darkness, a beacon of good and hope in the midst of so much depravity. Even around the haphazard mash of shapes that made up the church, with its rows of dark stone side-chapels with huge arched stained glass windows and steep triangular roofs that lined the side of the church and formed a semi-circle around the back, there were more thin houses. These ones butted right up against the church, almost a part of the building, their large red windows displaying scantily clad women to the passing men.