Know Thine Enemy

CHAPTER Thirteen



At first, her thundering heart made his head hurt. The pull of her blood was strong—stronger than he would have imagined—and it took every ounce of self-control not to lean over merely to inhale her scent. Ryker didn't know what had changed. Never before had he experienced trouble controlling himself around someone he'd tasted.

Then again, he'd never felt about any of his other bed partners the way he did about Izzie.

Ryker inhaled sharply and cast his sleeping passenger a glance. Everything still felt a bit surreal—from being dragged away from her with her blood on his tongue to meeting her eyes over the body of a dead security guard.

She had looked juiced, all right. On the natural high provided by a vampire's bite. How much of it was her he didn't know. He just hoped once she began asking questions—and she would—that his explanations wouldn't cost him whatever they'd started.

Izzie wasn't a normal girl, though, and she didn't try to be. The difference was what had drawn him to her the second he set eyes on her, the second he realized she didn't have a motive for doing what she did. He'd learned a few things here and there; Briggs had fed him several key details pertaining to Izzie's upbringing, but facts alone did little to paint a picture. He had no context for them.

Even still, he'd given Izzie enough strength to ensure her escape, and she'd made sure he left at her side. He hadn't expected a rescue—he hadn't expected to be anything but an afterthought. A demon hunter, a true one, would have left him to die. She hadn't. And she'd stepped over at least one human body to set him free.

Ryker had no idea how long they'd been on the road, though he knew they couldn't afford to remain in the open for long. The keys pulled off the security guard's body would be missed soon, if they weren't already, and then these parts would crawl with authority-types. Ryker was determined he'd never see the inside of that cell again, and damn sure wouldn't let any a*shole take Izzie back to her dungeon.

He cared about her too f*cking much.

Noise from the passenger seat directed his attention off the road. Izzie blinked sleepily, then sat up with a jerk as though only just remembering where she was. Her gaze shot to Ryker in question before she twisted to view the road behind them. She wouldn't see anything but dark. Ryker didn't let a minute go without glancing to the rearview mirror, and his eyesight was much better than hers.

Seemingly satisfied they weren't being followed, Izzie settled back in her seat, her hands falling to her lap. She seemed tense and he didn't blame her. It was the first time they'd been truly alone since the alleyway, yet Ryker wasn't the same man, and he knew she had changed as well.

"How long was I out?" she asked.

"Two hours, maybe."

"We've been on the road two hours?"

Ryker nodded. "Wanted to put as much distance between that shithole and us before stopping."

She was quiet for a moment. "They'll probably be looking for this car."

"I know. I intend to be off the road before we can give 'em a whiff." He looked at her in time to see her wet her lips, and something in his gut twisted. "We're a ways from St. Louis."

"How far?"

"Iowa."

"Iowa?"

Ryker nodded again. "North of Des Moines."

"I don't remember anything between the alley and the cell."

"Me either, sweets."

"And anything strong enough to knock out a vamp for more than a couple hours is f*cking dangerous." Izzie shuddered. "Do you think . . . they told me they were government guys."

He shrugged. "Had no reason to lie."

"No reason to tell the truth, either."

Fair point, but he didn't pursue it. In the end, it didn't matter who those crazy scientists were or who provided the funding. The things going on in that building were beyond any horror Ryker had experienced. He'd always known if something were to take him out it wouldn't be pretty. While he'd never guessed anything like the hell he'd just escaped, the capacity for human monstrosity never surprised him.

But to do what they'd done to Izzie for no other reason than her being convenient . . .

Ryker's jaw tightened.

A small, shaking and wholly feminine sigh touched the air. The sort of sigh that had his mind going to places it ought not go, but he couldn't help it. Couldn't help sharing her air and remembering the way she responded to his touch. How she whimpered and thrust her p-ssy against his mouth. How she tasted…how she felt…

When she spoke, though, her words were anything but sensuous, and effectively cut through the lust clouding his mind. "How did I do that?" she asked.

"What?" The question was a stall. He knew to what she referred.

"I killed Briggs."

"Good f*cking riddance."

"With a spoon. A plastic spoon. Not even the pointy-stick end." Izzie's intent gaze was on him, now. "You know, don't you? How I killed him.

He could lie to her, but she was smarter than that, and he had too much respect for her to tell her half-truths. Ryker exhaled deeply. "You did it 'cause of me. I bit you."

"You bit me." Her voice shook, and she reached for the spot his fangs had touched. The sweet little mark on her throat. "And that's how it happened?"

"Yeah. That's how it happened."

"Don't vampires drain blood?"

He offered a flat grin. "Last I checked."

"But that's not what you did."

"I took a little. Not a lot." Ryker breathed again heavily. "You know how vamps are made?"

"Well . . . I'd assume you suck my blood and I suck your blood. That's the popular—"

"And wrong."

"Wrong?"

Ryker nodded. "It takes three bites from a vampire to turn. Like a virus or whatever."

"Three?"

"Yeah. Has to be the same vamp, too. Whatever reason, if three different vamps sink their fangs into you, nothing happens." He shrugged. "Figure it has something to do with mutating cells or DNA or whatever scientists call it these days. Didn't know that 'til recently, of course."

Izzie pursed her lips. "So, you bit me."

"Yeah."

"But I won't turn."

"Not unless you want me to bite you two more times." The thought was damn near too exciting to endure, but he managed to stifle his natural reaction. Izzie would never consent to this life, and he'd never force it upon her—no matter how it was. To have her for eternity . . . .

It wouldn't happen, and he was better off not fantasizing about a life he'd never have.

"Wish I could say sorry," Ryker said. "But I'm not. Biting you was what got you out. You're coming down off the high now, so things might not . . . those a*sholes back there deserved whatever you did to them."

She blinked and looked at him. "What?"

"They're not worth crying over."

"Wait—you think I feel bad for what happened?" Izzie barked a short laugh. "I don't discriminate, Ryker. I learned not to a long time ago."

"But these were—"

"What? Human?" She laughed again. "That's Zack's thing. Humans are better because . . . what? We were here first? We don't commit evil? We don't kill each other every day? I don't think Jeffrey Dahmer ate people because he was a demon, do you?"

It was an argument Ryker had presented many times, in conversations with humans and demons alike. Those who justified their war on vampires by declaring the innate rightness of humankind versus the innate wrongness of all other kinds. He wasn't accustomed to hearing his point being made with human lips.

"Zack's wife was butchered by a vampire woman," Izzie said, her tone softer now. "A woman who became fixated on Zack because he reminded her of her lover, who was killed a century or so before. It left her all f*cked in the head, you know? At least, that's what I think. She met Zack at a bar where he went to watch games with friends from work, and when he explained he was a married man with one kid and another on the way, she got it in her head that if she took out the obstacles they could be together. So she murdered Amber and the child, and Zack found out about vampires the hard way. But that's not something I can say a human woman has never done, because we all know differently, don't we? If that had happened to me, I'd be a different person. If what happened to me had happened to Zack, who knows?"

"Been saying that since we first met. You don't have a reason. Not like the others."

"Not like the others," Izzie agreed. "But that doesn't mean I don't have a reason. Zack was my reason, or as close as I came to one."

Ryker's jaw clenched, hating the surge of jealousy that blistered his skin at the mention of what Izzie had shared with another. F*ck, he'd never felt such resentment over a woman's former lover before—never experienced the need to abandon everything to claim what he felt was his.

Why he felt so possessive was another matter—one he hoped to figure sooner rather than later.

Izzie drew in a breath. "They told you about Harrison, didn't they?"

"Harrison?"

"They told me about Prentiss, or Michael, or whatever. How he's your cousin and you f*cked him over, so he f*cked us over."

"I didn't f*ck anyone over," Ryker snapped, harder than he intended. He hated the way his mind immediately jumped to Caroline Prentiss's abandoned gravesite, and the way his belly knotted with guilt.

"I'm not judging."

"There's nothing to judge."

Izzie's hands came up. "Should I just stop talking?"

Ryker's hands tightened around the steering wheel, then he relaxed, feeling foolish. "No. No, of course not."

"You seemed testy."

"Lot on my mind."

"Yeah, tell me about it."

He grinned at her and she smiled back. For a fleeting second, things almost felt normal, and in that second he decided to tell her. After all, she deserved to know why Michael had sold her to the highest bidder. "Michael and I went to West Point together. We both graduated with honors right before the war, and being a bloody Yank, I lined up behind the North and Michael, being a Southern boy, went the other way."

"So that's what this bad blood's about?"

Ryker laughed dryly. "No. That was everyone's story, and I knew plenty of Johnnies who made amends, hard as it was." He sighed. "I was in the Army of the Tennessee, which took me close to my family in Natchez during the Siege of Vicksburg. When I contracted scarlet fever, I appealed to Grant, who was actually stationed in Natchez—making things convenient—and I was allowed to stay with Michael's family while I got better."

"Michael wasn't there?"

"No. He was losing Gettysburg right about then. My aunt, his mother, was tending to the home front. Playing the gracious occupied hostess, 'cause Grant's men had swarmed the place. And Caroline." His chest tightened. "Michael's sister. She took care of me, Caroline did. And she got sick as a result, even as I got better."

Izzie frowned. "Uh oh."

Ryker laughed again, though any hint of humor had abandoned him. "Yeah. One night after the fever had gone, I was out in town. There was a place called Under-the-Hill. Still there, from what I've heard, but it's all sanitized and for families and the like, but in the day it was f*cking scary. It was a strip of bars and brothels and men who would f*ck you up on a dime. I got in a tussle and some jackass stuck his knife in my gut, and I would've been a dead man were I not found by the right sort of creature."

"A vampire."

"Right. Gave me a choice. I could die or I could be reborn. I chose Option B." He paused. "And I learned to always give an option before making a vampire—the hard way, of course. 'Cause while I got a new lease on life, Caroline lost hers. She was gonna die. And I knew this miracle cure."

"You turned her."

"Yeah. Didn't ask her how that'd make her feel. I figured since I found it, it was only fitting to pass it on."

He fell silent for a long moment. It had been a long while since he allowed himself to think of Caroline for more than a second, and he suddenly found himself craving the pilgrimage to her gravesite. He'd done wrong by her, certainly, but it was an odd sort of wrong—the sort with gray areas and enough wiggle room to know he'd try to save her the same way over again if he could just go about it differently. Caroline had been a lost cause when he turned her, and he'd loved her enough to not let her die without a fight. She'd always been his favorite cousin.

"She woke up with the blood lust," Ryker said. "I didn't get a chance to explain that to her before she turned. I was afraid any time wasted on words would have her dead before I could save her. And before I could get a word in, she . . . ."

He felt a hand on his arm. Izzie's warmth lit him up from the inside out. He wanted to crawl inside her and never let go.

Instead, he found the strength to finish his story. "She killed her mother in a fit of hunger, then lost her senses and walked into the sunlight. Guess you know what happened next."

"Poof?"

He nodded. It was a rather tame way to describe burning from the inside out, but he didn't care to get into too much detail of what Caroline had suffered. "Michael heard what happened when he got home. He didn't know about me at first. I was supposed to be dead. But he found out, started drinking, and came after me one night." Ryker's jaw tightened. "I was in Natchez. Used to make it a regular trip. Visit Caroline's headstone, even though I knew there was nothing underneath, and Michael told me he figured what I was. Words were exchanged. He came at me and wound up unconscious. I didn't hear anything from or about him until that night in the alley."

"He blamed you for Caroline."

"And his mother."

"Even though you were just trying to help?"

Ryker cast her a mordant grin. "Funny thing about misunderstandings is you always guess what the other person was thinking without ever figuring it for yourself. He probably knows, or knew at some point, that I didn't mean for it to happen like it did. Doesn't mean he forgives me, or understands why I thought turning his sister into a thing of Hell would make things better."

The thought seemed incomplete but he didn't know how to finish it, and it felt disingenuous to try. It had been a long while since he'd given much consideration to the path he'd taken, and while he maintained he wouldn't alter the choices he made, he could concede there had been a better way to go about them. Michael deserved an explanation and he'd never received one. Had Ryker manned up and told him what had happened and why, he and Izzie might not be here—on the road to nowhere, running as far as possible from the horror behind they'd left behind.

"You're not a thing of Hell," Izzie said at last.

"What?"

"You're not. Hell doesn't work that way. Trust me, I know." She stretched and craned her neck, checked the road behind them, then settled back into her seat. "I had to learn this young, but it stuck. What you are isn't who you are. You're not those jackasses back there and you're not some of the evil bastards I've put in the ground, and I can't buy that Hitler being a Christian gets him into Heaven while Gandhi goes downstairs, you know? You did what you did because you had to. It was either let her die or give her a chance, and while you might have made mistakes along the way, you didn't do it to be a dick."

Ryker swallowed. For whatever reason, he hadn't expected that. He hadn't expected a lot of things. Since leaving Michael in the cemetery over a century before, he'd kept his experiences to himself. He'd never been one to talk about where he came from or what made him the way he was, and he certainly had never spoken candidly about Caroline or what had happened to her. Perhaps he was more ashamed of his actions than he thought. Knowing what he'd done was right and feeling it were two different things, and while the former had always been easy for him, he couldn't say the same about the latter.

"Thank you," he said awkwardly.

"Just a fact. Don't need to thank me." Izzie crossed her arms. "Harrison was a priest before he knocked up my mother."

He looked at her curiously.

She shrugged. "Figure since we're doing this survivor's gut-spilling thing, I might as well share my war story, right?"

"If you like." Ryker turned back to the road, his mind dragging him to the moment after Izzie blew the guard's brains out, when he'd tasted her lips for the first time.

Had that been part of the high as well? Would she ignore it? Had they left everything behind, including the moments of intimacy they'd stolen while being forced to perform? He didn't know and it seemed foolish to ask. Yet for everything they'd been through, he knew he wasn't ready to call it even and walk away.

He didn't know if walking away was even in the cards where Izzie was concerned.

"He was a priest," she said again. "And he got my mother pregnant, and then refused to talk to her, so she went vocal about it and he had to resign his post. She did giving birth to me…Kathleen did. And since Harrison was such a good Christian, he took me in when she died." Izzie paused thoughtfully. "I won't go into all the shit that happened, 'cause that's one trip down memory lane I don't need. Suffice to say it involved scrubbing my skin bloody in holy water, being locked in a closet whenever he felt I had sinned, and generally being blamed for his disgrace. I was a girl, and all girls were whores sent from Satan to tempt the righteous, and since he'd fallen once, he blamed me for being what my mother was. And then when I was around ten, things started getting bad."

Ryker hadn't noticed the steady build of rage until it bubbled at her last words, inciting an inappropriate burst of laughter off his lips. "Started getting bad?" he barked. "That f*cker better have met a violent death."

"You already know the ending."

"Doesn't matter. What he did to you—"

"I know."

He met her eyes in time to see her smile, and she burned him alive with her warmth. Izzie held his gaze until instinct directed his attention back to the road.

Then she continued, "He had a massive nervous breakdown, I guess. He started seeing demons everywhere, and I mean everywhere. On the street, in the news. He was convinced the president was one of Satan's operatives for a long time."

"Might've been right at that," Ryker noted.

She laughed. "I was too young to really care. All of this went on for a couple years, and he eventually started thinking I was a demon, too. Sent from the devil as a means of mocking him for not being one of Christ's perfect followers. Then he received a vision from God or something—I dunno, some bullshit delusion. God told him he needed to kill the demon in order to regain the Kingdom. Which meant—"

"He needed to kill you."

"Bingo."

"He told you this?"

"Yes. Point blank, like he was outing me or something. Telling me he knew what I was up to and I wasn't going to get away with it. Harrison was eighteen kinds of crazy by then, so I didn't really pay attention." Izzie paused and shivered. "Nothing happened for a while after that. I guess he was either waiting for me to be off my guard or trying to get up the courage. Then one night he snuck into my room with a dagger." She paused, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw her hand flex. "My dagger," she said. "I might not be here if I had been asleep, but it was hard sleeping in Harrison's house. I heard him, I fought him, I killed him . . . and then I ran."

Ryker recalled the scar on her stomach. "He get you, too?"

"Yeah. And you saw the beauty mark it left, but you should see the other guy." She offered a humorless laugh, then grew quiet, as though revisiting an old ghost. A beat passed before she continued. "I don't even know how I got the knife away from him, you know? I hear stories of mommas who lift trucks to save their children and don't know where the strength came from, and I wonder if it was my survivor instinct or if he was sick with something beyond whatever had driven him psychotic. But I got the knife away from him somehow and I stuck that motherf*cker into his chest and watched him die. Then I ran. I ran to the cathedral where we went to Mass—the few times we went, I should say—and the priest there gave me money and food. I don't know if he knew what had happened, but I was covered in blood so he must have…but then, everyone knew Harrison was insane. Maybe they had all figured it was just a matter of time before he snapped. At any rate, he cleaned me up and gave me enough cash to get me the f*ck outta Dodge, and I was gone."

Izzie fell quiet again, and Ryker concentrated on the road. In that moment, he felt like a prick for the times, few and far between as they were, that he'd felt sorry for himself. He'd had a choice in every hand he'd been dealt, and Izzie had never known freedom. Not really.

"What happened next?" he asked.

"I . . . umm, I jumped from place to place. When the cash ran out, I started staying at shelters and stealing from grocery stores and the like. As I got older, I picked pockets." She laughed shortly. "That's actually how I met Zack. I picked his pocket and he put me into a wall, and he could've killed me but he didn't. He saw something in me I didn't know to see, and he took me in. He taught me everything I know about monsters . . . but that's why, you see. Why I don't have a reason the way he does. Harrison was human and he nearly killed me. I learned not to discriminate just because someone doesn't have a heartbeat."

Ryker nodded. "Makes it lucky for me, I figure."

"Yeah? Maybe." Izzie sighed. "So . . . umm . . . the whole demon thing doesn't bother me. But you biting me . . . ."

He tensed.

"It was—I don't know if I want to become something else."

"A vampire?"

"I'm not particularly good at this being human thing, but being a vampire isn't something I've aspired to, you know?"

"I wasn't thinking that when I tasted you."

She shrugged. "I know, I just feel like I needed to get that out there."

"No need. I promise I won't bite you again." Ryker favored her with a smile he didn't feel. "Unless you ask nicely, that is."

Izzie didn't laugh. "And there's that."

"What?"

"What happened back there. Between us. I don't know if I can make sense of it now."

"Izzie—"

"Everything was strained and weird and sometimes wonderful but terrifying. I don't expect you to—"

"If you never want me touch you again, you have my word."

He waited, hoping she'd correct him. Say she just needed time to think or something—say she loved his hands on her skin and his mouth on her cunt, and everything they'd shared wasn't, as they said, for show. She told him she hadn't faked everything, and while he knew that was true, he also knew she wasn't fully herself when she said it.

He wouldn't hold her to a promise made under the influence of something uncontrollable.

Yet when Izzie made no attempt to reassure him, something in his chest jerked and fell. He understood certain things now, even if he hadn't determined the cause. He knew he wanted her as fiercely as he'd ever wanted a woman, and he knew the thought of her bowing out of his life left him feeling hollow. Strange how one person could turn everything on its head. But then, he'd never known anyone like Izzie.

And he wanted her in his life. Today, tomorrow, the next day and countless days after.

"Start looking for a place to pull over," he said. "It's time to get off the road."



* * * * *



They found it by virtue of a lucky turn onto a side street. A few miles south of the highway sat a small cabin, likely the vacation spot for a married couple when they had a weekend without the kids. The place was relatively clean, and far enough from the road a passing motorist couldn't see it through the thicket of trees. It was cozy and quaint, and the right distance from the hell-on-earth behind them to make Izzie believe she could get some decent sleep after a long shower. She didn't realize, until catching a glimpse of her reflection, that she still had dried blood on her face. Ryker hadn't mentioned it; perhaps he thought she didn't need the reminder.

The cabin came equipped with two bedrooms—a bathroom sandwiched between them—a small kitchenette, and a living room complete with a huge sofa and a big screen television. The walls were decorated with hunting trophies and while the fridge was relatively bare, there were a few provisions that would make life easier over the next however-long they decided to stay. Really, all Izzie needed was a can opener and SpaghettiOs, and thankfully, the owners had stockpiled on canned goods. She'd feel bad were she not famished and on the run from sadistic nut jobs.

"I need a shower," Izzie said. She'd located a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, and while the bed called her name, she desperately needed to scrub Briggs, the guard, and the whole damn facility off her skin.

"All right," Ryker said softly. "It's getting light out, so I likely won't be up when you get out."

"That's okay. I have vamp hours as it is." She laughed as though she'd said something funny, but it was a bookmark for the confused feelings she had for her traveling companion. Their discussion in the car had her mind churning too fast for her fatigued body to keep up. Everything had happened so quickly before. It would be easy to fall into his arms and ask that he make her forget, but she needed space from the ordeal.

She needed to relearn herself before she decided what she wanted.

Ryker smiled and stepped forward, and his closeness did a number on her. He ran his hand through her hair and brushed a tender kiss across her brow. Butterflies danced in her stomach.

"Good night, Izzie."

Her legs trembled and her heart clenched. In that moment she wanted badly to throw herself against his chest and finish the kiss they'd shared. Finish exploring him the way she wanted—but the distance she needed was no less real. She wasn't a slut and she wasn't a victim.

And the wealth of what she felt for Ryker was tangled into a mess she didn't know how to interpret.

Thus, Izzie refrained. Instead, she nodded and smiled softly. "Good night."