chapter Four
Cassie didn’t think there was room inside her for more fear. She was wrong. Zareb had an overwhelming presence. His movements were too fast, too smooth, too predatory. He’d pulled his long black hair back and fastened it with a leather thong that had a silver medallion on it. His sharp cheekbones and exotic darkness drew attention to his eyes. He had terrifying eyes. They were slightly tilted and glowed yellow. Glowed. Yellow. No white showed, and he had vertical slits for pupils. Cat eyes.
The yellow glow should have been the scariest part of him. It wasn’t. There was something else. . . .
He captured her with his eerie stare, and suddenly she couldn’t understand why she had ever thought his eyes were strange. His gaze drew her, filled her with a yearning that was almost pain. It reached down, down to a place never touched before.
She couldn’t blink, couldn’t look away, couldn’t control the erratic beating of her heart, and couldn’t seem to breathe. Cassie gasped for air even as she sank into the alien beauty of those eyes. And if her heartbeat felt as though it was stalling, threatening to stop altogether, she couldn’t muster the energy to worry about it while the yearning grew and grew.
Cassie jerked as Ethan commanded, “Stop it.” She didn’t think he was talking to her.
Startled, she closed her eyes. She concentrated on breathing and felt her heartbeat kick back into a normal rhythm. What had just happened? You couldn’t breathe, your heart was stopping. She’d almost died.
When she opened her eyes, Zareb had turned his attention to Ethan.
“And here I thought you’d brought her as a gift to atone for abandoning your loving father.”
Ethan simply stared at him from the shadows.
Zareb smiled. “I suppose the loving father reference was a bit overdone. But you do owe me some recompense for my anger, and yes, there were a few moments—very few, I’ll admit—of heartfelt sorrow.”
Ethan made a dismissive sound. “I brought you a pet that will suit your ‘loving’ personality.”
The cat poked her head from beneath the couch and hissed her general discontent with everyone in the room.
Zareb’s smile widened. “So you have.”
Cassie’s whole body thrummed with her need to run to the door, rip it open, and race screaming into the night. Her instinct had it right, but her mind insisted she listen to reason.
Even if she could escape, even if she could go home, even if she could be safe there . . . Okay, so none of those “even ifs” were viable options. And it wasn’t just about her anymore. If she tried to run to family, to friends, she’d put them in danger too. The police? They’d question her and then release her. Back to square one.
Besides, wherever she went, her nightmares would follow. She still saw Felicity’s body and those other people when she closed her eyes. If Cassie didn’t do something to help stop the ones who had murdered her friend, she might never sleep again.
At this moment, Ethan offered her a lifeline, even if it was frayed and liable to dump her into the deep without warning.
She blinked hard. No tears. Not yet. She would do the sobbing and wailing thing in private, if they ever allowed her to be alone again. If she lived long enough. Until then, Cassie would stuff the huge empty place inside her with answers to her questions. She took a deep breath and met Zareb’s gaze. “What did you just do to me?”
“Women.” Zareb’s sigh was filled with drama and sly amusement. “They can never just accept things. They always want explanations.”
Thank heaven he didn’t try to meet her gaze.
“I was merely playing. I rarely allow myself recreation time. You wouldn’t have died.” He cast a quick glance her way. “I’m very careful not to kill unless it’s unavoidable. I’ve killed often over the centuries, and the Second One is too close, too powerful now.”
What did that even mean? Since he didn’t offer to explain, she launched another question. “Did you make Ethan vampire because he was dying and that was the only way you could save him?”
He looked surprised in the same way he would if the cat had spoken to him. “No. I was bored that night, and I hadn’t made any children in a long time.” He shrugged powerful shoulders. “It was simply a need to procreate. So I made Ethan vampire.” His full lips twitched in the tiniest of smiles. “He was angry with me for a very long time. In fact, this is the first time he’s visited me of his own free will. I’m ecstatic.”
Well, Cassie could get rid of any heart-of-gold hopes she had regarding him.
Zareb looked at Ethan. “I assume there’s some pressing reason for your presence here.”
“We have a situation.”
Ethan still stood in the shadows. Cassie frowned. She couldn’t see his features clearly, but she would swear there was something different about him, something changing. She pushed the thought away. Too much had happened today, and her mind was probably a little unreliable right now.
Zareb glanced at the cat hiding under his couch and at Cassie. “Yes, we do.” He motioned toward the couch. “Since you’ve already interrupted my busy night, you may as well sit down.”
Cassie walked to the couch and sat on the edge. The cat seemed to think that underneath it was a better place to be. The cat was probably right. Ethan didn’t leave the shadows.
Zareb stood beside the couch staring at Ethan. “You killed tonight.”
“How did you know?” The question just popped out of Cassie. And when Zareb turned his yellow gaze on her, she felt her courage shrivel and crawl down her throat. He was just that scary.
“The Second One is rising.”
Zareb evidently thought his explanation was sufficient because he turned back to Ethan. “You have about two hours. The woman must eat and you must feed. I was about to make a dinner run when you arrived, and since the woman doesn’t seem to be on the menu, I’ll pick up something for you on the way back.” His eyes narrowed, yellow cat eyes filled with darkness. “Do I need to bring the others with me?”
“Yes.”
Cassie’s heartbeat picked up its pace. Ethan’s voice . . . It was different—deeper, smoother, more threatening. And for one mad moment she wanted to ask Zareb to take her with him. Then she thought about his eyes. Maybe not. He moved toward the door.
“Wait.” Cassie couldn’t do much for the dead, but this one thing she could do. “The police. They need to know about the dead people in those houses.” She didn’t know why that was so important to her. The dead sure didn’t care. But she cared.
Zareb raised one brow. “Dead people?” He looked at Ethan.
“The dead are in the houses next to mine. I didn’t kill them. Explanations when you come back.”
Zareb nodded. “I’ll make an anonymous call.”
“You know where I live?” Ethan sounded surprised, and not too happy.
“Of course.” Zareb sounded amused. “I made you. You can never hide from me.” And then he was gone.
Silence settled over the room, the shadows seemed to thicken, and Cassie’s fear expanded exponentially. She took a deep breath. “You may as well come out where I can see you. Not knowing what’s going on is scaring me more than if you’ve morphed into something gross.”
Ethan’s cold laughter scraped along her nerves, frightening enough for her to rethink her come-out-of-the-shadows request. Some things were better not seen.
Too late. He moved so quickly that she didn’t even have time to gasp, to run into the bathroom and hope the door had a lock. He was simply there beside her on the couch.
Cassie stared at him and swallowed hard. Don’t scream. Prey screamed. Prey ran. Prey died.
He leaned close and smiled. “It will get worse before it gets better.”
She couldn’t look away, a bird caught by a raptor’s stare. He looked bigger, harder. He’d split Len’s shirt, exposing a broad expanse of muscled chest and abs. Cassie was tempted to continue staring at his chest, because the rest of him was . . .
“Look at me.”
The voice in her head was warm and rough and an absolute compulsion. Slowly, reluctantly, she lifted her gaze to his face.
Cassie now knew the true meaning of terrifying beauty. His hair had become a silken fall so black that it shone with blue highlights. And his face . . . What was happening to his face? His eyes seemed larger, and they now had the same tilt as Zareb’s eyes. They were green with no white showing and vertical slits for pupils. Cat eyes.
She pushed words past lips that felt frozen. “Will they be yellow like Zareb’s?”
He nodded. “Blue and yellow make green. In two hours they’ll be pure yellow.”
His voice was darkness, leading to places she feared but would explore if he beckoned. No. She wouldn’t explore anywhere with him. His eyes probably had the same power that Zareb’s had. Even as she pummeled herself for her momentary weakness, she reached out to run her fingers lightly along his jaw and watched it clench.
“Is this the Second One you’ve been talking about?” If so, he was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. Words couldn’t describe him, so she didn’t try. Cassie only knew his beauty hurt, a deep hungry hurt that made her yearn. . . .
Cassie yanked her hand away from his face. She knew her eyes were wide. “You’re doing the same thing that Zareb was doing.”
He didn’t look away. “Not yet. Even Zareb wasn’t showing you the full power of the Second One.”
“Explain.” She was tired of not knowing, not understanding. Cassie had been lost since the moment she’d walked into Eternal Rest Funeral Home.
Ethan finally moved. He stood and then paced over to the fireplace. “The ones who wrote the vampire legends were wrong.” He stood with his back to the flames. “It was never about bloodlust. We can feed whenever we want. We’re no more ruled by our hunger than you are.” He turned his back to the fire and stared at her. “It was always about the kill.”
“Zareb said he knew you’d killed because the Second One was rising. Who or what is the Second One?” Fascinated, she watched his face changing in small increments even as they talked—lower lip growing fuller, lashes lengthening, each change making him more breathtaking. Then she looked away. Beauty that hurt to look at couldn’t be good.
“The First One is our humanity. Even as vampire it’s dominant unless we kill. The act of killing wakens the Second One.”
“You make it sound as though the Second One is a separate entity.” Trying to keep from staring at him became harder with every passing moment.
“It is. The Second One is an elemental consciousness passed on in the blood my maker used to create me. It lies dormant until it senses a kill. It doesn’t care about conscience or human emotions. Its primal drive is to destroy.”
“After what I saw today, I don’t think you need any help in the killing department.” Fear coated Cassie’s thoughts, making it tough for her to concentrate. He’s turning into this thing. I’m alone with him, alone with him, alone with—She shook her head to clear it.
“What I did today is my particular vampire talent, not attached to the Second One. I have control of when and how I use it.”
“Meaning you don’t have control of the Second One.” She stared down at her hands. Blood. Her hands were covered with dried blood. So were the rest of her clothes, even her shoes. How had she not noticed before this? His voice dragged her back.
“I can’t stop the change. It’s not that it makes me lose control, it’s . . .” For the first time he seemed lost for words.
“Yes?” No matter what he said, it wouldn’t matter, because Cassie had reached her limit for shocking disclosures. Her mind was beginning to shut down, refusing to react emotionally, trying to protect itself. A little too late.
“Scientists are finding out more things about the brain every day.”
She blinked. What the hell did that have to do with anything?
“Some believe that beauty stimulates primal brain circuits. It’s not a response anyone can control any more than they can control their reaction to cocaine.” He shrugged. “And if the beauty is extreme, it acts as an overdose and—”
“People die.” She remembered the feeling of her heart slowing, faltering, almost stopping. “I can’t believe it.” But she did.
“The beauty of the Second One’s face attracts its victims, its eyes hold them captive while it kills.” He turned to face the fireplace, his back straight, tension radiating from him. “In two hours you won’t be able to look at me. If you try, the Second One will kill you. I’ll be Medusa in reverse.”
She swallowed her fear as she stood. “Then I won’t look at you.” Even though I want to so badly it hurts. “I . . . I have to take a shower, change clothes.” She raked her fingers through her tangled hair. She couldn’t think. Clothes. She didn’t have any, and she couldn’t see herself returning to Felicity’s condo anytime soon.
“The bathroom is down the hall to the right. There’s a lock on the door.”
Left unsaid was that a lock probably wouldn’t stop a determined vampire. But Cassie was too desperate to shed her bloody clothes, to scrub the blood from her body to care. “Clothes?”
“The closet across from the bathroom. Zareb . . . entertains a lot. You should find something to fit you.”
Cassie nodded even though he still faced the fireplace. She grabbed her purse and scurried down the hallway. From the closet she grabbed a top, pants, and a pair of shoes that looked as though they’d fit, then locked herself in the bathroom.
A little of her tension eased away as the hot water sluiced over her body. Cassie scrubbed until her skin felt raw, until not a speck of blood remained. And she thought about Ethan.
What she’d felt when she looked at him, the yearning, wasn’t the same as what she’d felt for Zareb. Yes, she understood that in both cases she was reacting to the Second One in them, but still, it had felt different with Ethan—more personal, more . . . something.
Once out of the shower, she used the dryer lying on the counter for her hair and then pulled her makeup bag from her purse. The makeup, the hair, they were important. They gave her confidence, and confidence along with a few weapons would be all she’d have tonight. And Ethan. A vampire. Funny, just when she’d thought she had life figured out, it had given her a swift kick in the behind.
Cassie was still thinking about her reaction to Ethan as she dressed in her borrowed clothes and then returned to the living room. Head down, lost in thought, she had almost reached the couch before the complete silence hit her—no greeting from Ethan, no hisses from the cat, not even the crackling of the fire. She looked up.
Vampires, lots of them, stood in the shadows at the edges of the room. Motionless, silent, they watched her from gleaming eyes, hungry eyes. Except for one. He wore sunglasses and had a hoodie that hid most of his face. Which was scarier, what she could or couldn’t see? Her breath caught in her throat.
Zareb broke the silence. “Ethan told me what happened to both of you.” He pointed to a bag he’d set on the coffee table. “I stopped at McDonald’s. Ethan already ate.” He didn’t offer to explain.
A vampire stopping at McDonald’s. That should make her laugh, but all Cassie could do was shudder at the thought of all those silent killers listening as the water ran—imagining, hungering.
“My children and I will be paying a visit to Eternal Rest as soon as Ethan’s change is complete.” The predator lived in Zareb’s voice, his gaze. “You’ll stay here with the cat.”
Cassie opened her mouth and said what was probably the most stupid thing she’d ever uttered.
“No.”