Rival (11 page)

My bare feet hit the parquet floor, and
I'm pretty sure I don't make a sound, but he senses me and turns
around.

The intensity on his face stalls me. We
stand there, just a few feet between us, under my mom's white
twinkling lights.

"Hey," he says.

"Hey."

"Your mom okay?"

"Surprisingly, yes. Are you? Not in too
much pain?"

"Not yet, but I may need to bunk in one
of your guest rooms once my adrenaline crashes. I've got some
unfinished business to deal with first."

He approaches slowly, and I see he's
got something in his hand. He holds it out to me. A red
rose.

"It's cheesy, but... Erick told me I
had to bring a flower for your last dance."

I lift it to my nose and sniff the
sweet scent. A rose. It’s so…girly, and yet, I love it. I touch the
soft petals to my cheek, enjoying their velvety feel.

He holds out his arms, and I fall into
them, linking my hands behind his neck, holding on to my
rose.

He leads me in a very slow dance. Our
feet barely move. After everything that happened tonight, it's a
little surreal to be dancing on the dance floor we were on an hour
earlier, fighting for our lives. I remember the vamps attacking
him, and feel a fresh wave of anxiety. I hold him tighter,
reassuring myself that he is here, healthy, and safe. Here, because
despite the fact that I asked him not to, he came. He brought a
flower. He planned to dance with me.

"I love the flower," I whisper, afraid
to break the magic of the moment. "So, you came to dance with me
tonight?"

"Erick said the last dance was supposed
to be with the guy who holds your heart."

There's a fine tremor to his voice as
he speaks, so I reassure him with a kiss.

He keeps it sweet and then brushes a
kiss on my forehead.

Chin at my temple, he says, "Plus, you
threw the fight this afternoon so I would come."

I jerk backward. He doesn't let me out
of his arms, but I'm far enough back to look at his
face.

"I did not!"

"I saw it in your face, that last
thirty seconds of the match. You let me win." His accusation echoes
mine from last night.

"No, I didn't." I push against his
shoulders, ready to argue my side, but he pulls me close and kisses
me.

I fight back, pinching his side,
nipping his bottom lip, but he slides his tongue against my upper
lip, and the sensation against that hyper-sensitive place is like
nothing I've ever felt before.

I stop fighting and give in to the
kiss.

"It's okay if you did," he says moments
later as we break apart for breath. We're both winded.

I struggle to remember what we were
talking about.

"But I was going to crash your party
anyway," he continues.

"Why?" My stomach tightens at the
intensity in his gaze.

"You know why," he says quietly. "I
can't stay away from you. If you decide to go to Boston, I'm going
with you."

He takes a deep breath. "I'm in love
with you. I think I have been since the first time you threw me
down on the mats."

I bite my lip to squelch the happy
squeal that wants to escape. Instead I say, "I love you, too." The
words rush out of me, like helium leaving a balloon. "I love you,"
I repeat, and they're much easier to say when I’m watching emotion
fill his eyes.

He kisses me sweetly again, his hand
cupping my face. Then he pulls away, reaching into his
pocket.

"Let me give this to you before I get
too carried away. Birthday present," he explains.

My heart thrums once, hard. I check for
thorns, then slide the stem of his rose behind my ear. I'll dry and
press it later in my room, so I can keep it forever, but for right
now I don't want to lose it.

He hands me a flat, square box,
unwrapped. It looks like it could be jewelry, but he wouldn't,
would he...?

I slide the lid off, and the soft
lights from above glint on a perfect, silver...

Throwing star.

I run my finger over the flat
surface—the blades around the edges look as if they could slice me
open—before looking up at him.

"I love it." I

"I know."

His cocky statement makes me laugh, but
it’s also a reminder of what he's been saying all along.

He knows me.

And now he knows everything about me.
I'm a Chaser. A warrior.

And he doesn't want to change
me.

He wants to fight beside me.

Brett draws me close. I look over his
shoulder, past the lights, and up to the stars.

If my father is up there, watching, he
must be happy that I've found Brett, found love, found a partner to
fight with.

But the battle still looms.

What will we find in Boston?

Dear Reader:

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reading
Rival
. If
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Turn the page for a sneak
peek at
Shadow Allegiance,
available December 15…

1 - Rachel

Shane is so gonna kill me.

Literally.

My hotheaded brother is a Chaser. We
are—I was—fifth generation humans given highly specialized
training. Tactical, combat, and weapons. Trained from birth to kill
vampires.

And now I'm… I can't even think
it.

I wake just after sundown, curled in a
ball between a dumpster and the back of a building. From comatose
to completely alert in one nanosecond.

I remember everything.

The flight from Boston to
Heathrow.

Searching for the vampire
that had attempted to take my little sister hostage six weeks ago.
The others in our little band might be content to sit back and
wait—they call it
preparing
—but I'm not. I
wasn't.

I ended up in an industrial part of the
city.

I remember the ambush.

The turning.

My
turning.

I'm now a…vampire. My own mortal
enemy.

And my brother will never forgive me.
He's spent the last eighteen years, his entire life, working to
erase vamps from the face of the earth.

And Chloe, my sister...
She's a Supernatural, though we aren't quite sure
how
that happened. Both
our parents, deceased now, were human.

As a vampire, I'm a danger to her.
Vampires are über-attracted to supernatural blood. I don't even
know if I'll be able to resist attacking her, assuming I ever see
her again. Have I lost my sister forever? I don’t know how I’ll be
able to stand being without her—annoyingly—upbeat attitude and our
girls-only secrets.

My senses are on high
alert. My skin is so sensitive, the air around me seems to vibrate.
My throat burns… the
thirst
. Bloodlust.

I have bloodlust now.

I want to cry. But I haven't given in
to that impulse in years, not since I was a little girl, and I
won't now.

I won't drink, either.

I don't know how long it will take me
to die from starvation, but maybe I've got a few days to find the
vampire, Stephen, before I starve or have to stake
myself.

Chasers don't typically have a long
lifespan. We're constantly seeking danger as we fight. But dying at
sixteen…? I'm not ready.

Touching my face gives me
no answers. It still feels like it always has. I've seen many
vamps, and the angular, sharper look of their features. And thanks
to my brother, I've been up close and personal with a vamp—his
girlfriend, Maggie—and I know there's some way to change from
appearing human to becoming all vampire. I've seen her go from a
monster with black irises and fangs to a human girl with bright
green eyes in a fraction of a second. Of course, Maggie is an
anomaly—a vampire who doesn't hunt humans and
seems
to have a conscience. At this
point, I can't be sure that I'm still a good guy.

Question: how do you turn
the vampire on and off? These are my first moments as the monster,
and the newness frightens me. I know I'll be better off keeping the
vampire part of me
off
for as long as I can. If I can.

I need to get out of here.

I need to get weaponed-up and find some
way of tracking down the vampire that attempted to kidnap my
sister.

But I'm alone in a city I don't
know.

With bloodlust singing through every
vein.

I hate what I've become. I hate
myself.

But that's nothing new.

2 - Alex

12 hours earlier

A call from the General is never a good
thing.

Especially when your life's mission is
staying under the radar, like mine is. I've been meaning to get
away, maybe take a holiday. But apparently, I haven't moved fast
enough.

When the General asks, you don't say
no. Not if you value your life.

So I join him close to dawn, a few
blocks over from the apartments we jokingly call barracks, which
sit adjacent to his headquarters. This building is unoccupied and
we're on a rooftop, about five storeys up.

After his bodyguard escorts me up the
stairs, the goon disappears. I wish I could.

I scan the rooftop out of habit as I
slowly approach. He stands at the edge of the roof, hands clasped
together loosely behind his back, looking out over the nearby
buildings, all abandoned that I know of.

I don’t think I’ve made any noise, but
he greets me like he’s been expecting me. Creepy.

"Alex."

I wait, shifting my center slightly to
my back foot. Just in case.

The scent of blood wafts up to me from
several blocks away.

This industrial neighbourhood has been
abandoned for years, especially after news got around of some
gruesome murders that had taken place. It is as broken down and
empty as I am.

Why would a human have wondered into
the area?

And could it still be alive?

There's something off about the scent.
Something almost supernatural, like that of a witch, but not
quite.

And I've not met a
not-quite
witch before.
The scent is sweeter than normal human blood and I tense as my
instincts fire, ready to go hunt it, take it.

"We've been together a long time,
haven't we?" The General's question is rhetorical. We both know the
answer—about a century.

I keep quiet, half my mind
wandering.

Where have I smelled that blood
before?

"Perhaps that isn't the right
terminology." He turns to face me, and my shoulders tighten. When
you're facing a monster like him, you can't let your guard down,
not even for a second.

"We've walked in the same direction,
but you've never fully committed to me, have you?"

I do not like where this is
going.

"Is that why you allowed your cousin to
escape with the young witch weeks ago?"

Pish.

It's been six weeks since the Maggie
fiasco. In all that time, the General hasn't confronted me about it
once, not even through one of his minions.

My cousin Maggie—younger by two human
years and six vampire months—migrated across the pond over a
century ago. She's a bit of an anomaly: a vamp that doesn't drink
from the source. She uses bagged blood and doesn't kill.

She's a strange bird.

"I didn't 'allow her to escape,'" I
say. "I barely got out of there alive. They killed—"

"All except Stephen. I'm
aware."

He watches me for a long time with
hooded eyes. Empty eyes.

Why bring up the fight now?

I've done my best to keep from
remembering my cousin's obvious disappointment and rage about the
side I’ve chosen. Don't know how she can blame me for choosing the
stronger side.

For one moment, my memories hang up on
the thought of one of Maggie's sidekicks. The only real fighter
I've met in a long time. And a girl.

The General abruptly turns away again.
He points to something on the ground, which I can’t see from where
I’m standing. Warily, I join him.