Hunger Read online

  “Are you with me?” he asked her, his voice sounding rough to even his own ears.

  “What…? Did I fall asleep?”

  “Yes. I knocked out the gas system. If they are going to gas us they have to figure out how to do it manually. And if the system was connected to any of their other systems, then that means I may have knocked out the cameras as well. But we won’t know that for a while, if ever. We just have to hope. If they do come in here you can bet it will be in large numbers, so you have to do me a huge favor. If that door opens, you have to go to this corner of the room. Just climb on the bed and huddle in the far corner. Don’t leave it until I call you to me. No matter what happens. Even if it looks like I’m outnumbered and going down. Even if you think they have the best of me and are killing me. I figure if I die, they won’t have a use for you anymore. They might just let you go.”

  “But—”

  “It’s not the ideal outcome, but we have to face that it might be an outcome. But don’t worry, it’ll take a lot to take me out. I promise you that.”

  “What if they fix the gas?”

  “It’ll take days for them to rewire the circuits, if it can be done at all. By then the choice will have been made. Feed from you or fall into torpor. No. The gas is the least of our problems now.”

  “Can’t they release it manually?”

  “I think I fried and melted enough components to keep them from doing that. It was hard to tell but I got some decent feedback from the connection. Strong feedback means a lot of systems were affected. I’m hoping the cameras were included in that.”

  He glanced up at the upper corner of the room where the camera was sealed behind a hard casing. He had noticed a red light on each of the cameras earlier, indicating they were on and working. Those red lights were no longer on. It was a good sign. He shared the detail with Felice and watched excitement wash over her. She gripped at his shoulders and wriggled excitedly against him.

  “Does that mean they can’t see us any longer? Oh thank god!”

  “Easy. I’m not sure what it means. I’m hoping…but let’s not get our hopes up too high.”

  “It must mean they can no longer see us! It has to!”

  “Like I said. We can hope.”

  “Well, I’m going to assume we finally have some privacy. As long as those little red lights are out, I’m thinking we have the room to ourselves.”

  “It’s a good bet,” he agreed. However, he would have been happier if he’d seen sparks fly from the feedback loop he’d created. It was clear that Roth had not planned for his ability to fry electronics. Halo didn’t advertise the ability, just like he didn’t advertise his weaknesses. It had been a fatal flaw in Roth’s plans. The sycophant wasn’t as clever as he thought he was. He had thought of a lot, had planned a lot out, but he hadn’t planned for everything. No matter how good a plan was, you were invariably going to overlook one or two details that could throw a wrench into the whole works. Roth had done just that.

  Feeling satisfied with his monkey wrench–throwing ability, Halo turned his attention to other things. More immediate things. And those things were packed into a sweet, curvy figure that was pressing chest to chest against him. In her excitement Felice had hugged him close, her ankle coming to cross over his, her calf hugging his. Her hands were on his chest, her fingers tickling through the hairs she found there. She combed and tugged and pulled at them in excited absentmindedness.

  “How long does it take before I’m no longer considered poisonous to you?” she asked, her bottomless blue eyes gazing into his.

  “About a week from the last time you used. Less if you were clean beforehand, more if you’re an all-out junkie.”

  “I was clean beforehand. I wasn’t exactly a health nut but I buy organic when I can afford it. But there’s so little organic food available and so much tempting prepackaged food. I have a weakness for chips and salsa and I have yet to find any organic chips.”

  “I’m sure they are out there somewhere. And you don’t have to eat pristinely organic to be considered a clean source. If you did, it would make you the best kind of source. A healthy and delicious treat. However, a vampire can still feed from someone who has the occasional bowl of Tostitos chips.”

  He grinned down at her and she laughed. “Oh, I’m so relieved!” she said.

  That sobered him. “You say that as if you are planning to be fed from.”

  “Oh…well, I…I suppose I am. At least once. Just to see what it’s like. But by you. Only by you. And only if you promise to let me remember it. Otherwise what’s the point?”

  “The point is to feed me,” he said dryly. “It’s not supposed to be about how it makes you feel.”

  “Isn’t it though? Why would it feel so good if it wasn’t meant to be enjoyed by both sides of the equation?”

  It was hard to argue with her basic logic. It all sounded so intelligent and reasonable from her perspective. However, he knew the committee would never allow her to retain her memories of him. She simply had nothing to offer them to make it worth their while to leave her memory intact. The only exception might be if some vampire was willing to marry her. In those rare instances when a vampire wanted to come clean with a loved one, there was a process that allowed them to do so without threat. First the loved one was watched and inspected for mental and physical fortitude. Did they think the person in question would be able to handle the disclosure without completely flying off the rails?

  If the person was found to be sane enough and stable enough, the revelation was made. Then the person was watched very closely from that moment until the committee was satisfied he or she would accept the existence of vampires and the fact that they must remain a secret society. All email and correspondences were monitored, as were the person’s calls. The rules and vampire law were explained and the person in question was watched like a hawk to make certain they accepted and followed the rules—and to head off any attempts at exposing the vampires.

  Still, all of this was very rare. Vampires seldom—if ever—dated and fell in love with and then married their food sources. Most vampires found the thought revolting or rather obscene. Halo was not one of them. He liked human women. Loved them in fact. They were varied and delightful, tasty and delicious, grateful and gorgeous. Especially women like Felice. So passionate and vital and independent. Knowing their own minds and their own sexual maturity. Not that vampire women were very different, but there could be something stagnant about a vampire female. They had lived so long that they either became very jaded or they no longer found true excitement in their sexuality.

  “It’s not up to me whether you will remember it or not. But I promise you this: I won’t be the one who takes the memories away. Okay? Will that satisfy you? And anyway, it’s a moot point. I won’t be feeding from you for as long as you are poisoned.”

  “Stop saying that. I don’t like it. I’m not poison.”

  “To me you are. It’s a bald fact. I’m sorry if you don’t like to hear it.”

  “I may be toxic, but I’m not poison. I won’t kill you.”

  “May as well,” he said grimly. “I’d rather die than walk in those tainted shoes.”

  “That isn’t practical,” she said.

  “Do you believe that given enough time you would become addicted to heroin?”

  “Yes. But not after only one time.”

  “How do you know that won’t be the case for me? You know nothing about vampires and sycophants other than what I tell you.”

  “I just have faith. I believe you will be able to fight it. You are too strong to give in so easily.”

  “Perhaps. But I’d rather not take the chance.”

  “I understand that. But that means getting out of here before you run out of energy. I don’t see that happening. They are going to wait you out.”

  “They have to come in here sometime—if only to feed you. That will be my opportunity.”

  “And they know it. They’ll come in force.”r />
  “Which is why I want you as far away from the action as possible. Farthest corner of the room. Got it?”

  “I can help,” she argued, twisting her hands together anxiously.

  “No. You can’t. Vampire strength is well beyond human strength. And there are dozens of ways you can be incapacitated. The only way they can incapacitate me is to kill me or drain all of my energy.”

  “They can do that?” she gasped, horrified.

  “I can do that to myself. If I fight them off with pulses until my energy drains. That’s why I’m going to prefer hand to hand.”

  “But they will have far more energy than you will. Can’t they just overwhelm you?”

  “It’s like I said…every time they use a pulse against me I can take a little of that energy into myself and direct it back at them. Not a lot, mind you. Not enough to make it an endless battle. But enough to keep myself from draining completely if they continue to use pulse against me. But getting beat back by pulse is a real possibility. They could beat me back enough to get in and out of the room. It will all depend on how many there are and how strong they are.”

  “This is hopeless,” she said anxiously. “They are bound to have dozens of vampires to your one.”

  “Not necessarily. They could get cocky. Come in here with too few reinforcements. Have faith. This can work,” he said, the entire time speaking softly, keeping his voice at a whisper just in case they had missed any bugs. He bent his head to her ear, his breath stirring her dark hair. He saw her shiver again and he pulled her into his warmth. This time she didn’t resist his efforts. This time she cuddled up to him and let him press his chest to hers. He put a hand to the back of her head and held her close, marveling at just how small her head was in comparison to the size of his hand. She was so fragile. So human. He had to protect her. At all costs. He had to succeed at his escape attempt. There was no other choice. There were no guarantees that their captors would let her go once he was out of the picture. He couldn’t know that for sure without knowing why she had been chosen in the first place.

  Halo had to figure that out in order to keep her from ending up in the same predicament…or a similar one. He doubted she would be used for the exact same thing.

  Then again, maybe she would. Maybe they were kidnapping women constantly, like a human-trafficking ring of sorts, pumping them full of drugs and using them to poison lawful vampires.

  Once the thought occurred to him, he couldn’t think of anything else. What if that was really what was happening here? What if this wasn’t limited to him? What if this was a new and sadistic level of crime for the sycophants? Forced recruiting.

  That was so dangerous. It meant no one was safe. It meant anyone who was lawful could be and would be turned until there were no lawful vampires left.

  Granted that would take a lot of time, but the number of sycophants was increasing. Soon they would outnumber the lawful e-vamps. It was a possibility Simone, their queen, had seen on the horizon. It was part of the impetus that had recently spurred her and other parts of the nation to stop squabbling among themselves and sign a treaty that joined their forces in the hopes that it would allow them to fight back the growing sycophant threat.

  But the possibility of forced recruiting…it was a new and dangerous element they had not anticipated. The more Halo thought about it, the more he realized this was a pretty elaborate setup to waste on one single vampire in particular. This cage had taken a great deal of planning. It had no doubt been perfected through trial and error. It was far too flawless to be otherwise. The only weakness they hadn’t counted on was his ability to fry their electrical circuitry through that air duct. Mainly because it was an ability very few vampires had. Most could use pulse, but few could direct that pulse to such a fine degree that they could send electrical feedback through a wired setup. Come to think of it, he could have stripped the wires to the lamp in the room and fried the immediate electrical wiring…but that would only go so far before the breakers would trip and there had been no guarantees those two systems were in any way connected.

  No. Going directly for the main panel without showing his hand previously had been his best bet and it had worked in his favor. There had been risk. The pulse could have ignited the gas, causing an explosion…which Halo would have welcomed actually. An explosion might have created an exit. He would, however, have to be satisfied with what he had gotten out of it.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, taking in the scent of her and letting it wash over him calmly. He could smell the perfume of her shampoo, a light coconut scent. Something tropical. But beneath that was the ever-present scent of taint. Heroin embedded itself into the hair follicles. It sweated out of her whenever she perspired. Not that she smelled vile—she actually smelled quite delicious. But his vampire senses picked up the undertones of poison. It couldn’t be helped.

  He wasn’t about to tell her that, however. She would become self-conscious, more than she already was. He would just focus on the lighter, more sensual scents of her body and not search too deeply. Of course, that came with its own dangers. It was arousing. Tantalizing. She still smelled of the arousal she had last felt when he had attacked her on the table. It was pleasurable and stimulating. So much so that he had to control his thoughts in order to keep his body from reacting to all of her lush nearness.

  It was a losing battle.

  Chapter 11

  Felice became aware of his erection by the sensation of pure heat that part of his body exuded. Then she felt the weight of it prodding at her stomach.

  She sighed.

  “Can’t you think of anything else?” she asked with a roll of her eyes.

  He chuckled, knowing immediately what she was talking about. “I can’t help it. You’re so naked and warm and attractive. It’s like asking a compass not to point north.”

  “You’re incorrigible,” she accused him.

  “Every last inch of me,” he agreed. “Some inches more than others.”

  “Halo!”

  “What?” he asked, his grin unrepentant.

  “Oh…never mind. You’re a lost cause.”

  “I am where you’re concerned,” he said, bending his head to nuzzle her neck where it joined her shoulder beneath her hair. “God, you’re warm. And sweet. How am I supposed to resist the irresistible?”

  She felt his open mouth close over her pulse, his tongue licking, his teeth nipping, his lips brushing. It made a blossom of heat swirl outward from that point and all the way through her body. Her hands curled into fists where they were resting on his chest. Of its own accord her leg, which was draped over his, slid up so her thigh was caressing his. It was a wanton reaction but one she couldn’t seem to stop. Her head tilted to give him better access to her neck and he took advantage with a pleased growl. His arms tightened around her, nearly crushing the breath out of her. His hand, which had been cupping the back of her head, slid down out of her hair and caressed the entire length of her spine. When he reached the inward curve of the small of her back, he opened his palm wide and pressed into her, drawing her lower body as close as he held her upper. His hunger to hold her close made her dizzy with arousal. Made her feel incredibly desired and treasured. She supposed that was how he made all of his women feel. Those faceless many who were so eager to do as he wanted.

  “I’m not like your other women,” she whispered into his ear.

  “I know that,” he said, surprising her. Did he? Did he really know that? And did he truly comprehend what that difference meant?

  “I can’t be used and discarded.”

  He stilled. “Is that what you think? That I use them?”

  “Don’t you?”

  He pulled his head back so he could look into her eyes. His dark blue eyes bored into hers. His coloring, she realized, was so much like her own. They could probably make beautiful babies together.

  Whoa. Nope. Not a jump her mind should be making right then, she warned herself. Half-human half-vampire babies? Definit
ely not on the menu.

  “If I use them then they are using me,” he said, his frown intensifying. “We are both using each other for a night of sexual gratification. Sometimes I feed from them, making the experience all that much more intense for the woman. I give her a gift of pleasure. She gives the same to me. While I am with her I give her my devoted attention, unlike the other men in her life. Then, when it’s over, we amicably part ways.”

  “Ha! I find that hard to believe. You give a woman that much and you think it’s easy for her to just get up, walk away, and not look back? A woman would have to be crazy to turn off her craving for what you give her on a dime like that. It has to be difficult for them…to be treated so well and then dropped so succinctly.”

  “Hey, they know from the start I’m only a temporary fix. I’m like a drug they can get high off of, but when the drug runs out it runs out. It’s over and so is the high. That’s just the nature of any drug.”

  “And as we have noted many times these past hours, drugs can be so easily addicting. It’s a wonder these women don’t try to hound you into giving them more of that high.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe some of them do. Or would if I made it possible. However, I don’t give out my number, I don’t bring them home, and I don’t go back to the same bar for months afterward. Sometimes we cross paths again no matter how careful I try to be, but I make it clear it was what it was and now it’s over.”

  “It’s so cold. I could never do that.”

  “Sure you could. I can see you crave some decent male attention. You probably haven’t been with anyone since Michael. I can feel how starved you are for affection and sexual gratification. It’s part of why you find yourself attracted to me even in these circumstances.”