I'll Be Slaying You(47)

Kind. He wasn’t usually kind, but this human had helped him.

In return for luring, she’d wanted immortality.

Too bad.

Turning, he glanced at the Taken in the doorway. “When?” He’d known this day would come. But just because the little hunter had finally turned didn’t mean she was a threat. Sure he’d hoped to have her head so she wouldn’t become, but failure didn’t mean the end for him.

There was no end for him.

“About four nights ago.” A pause. “We had her, but Chase stopped the team. He took her away.”

Fucking Chase.

The asshole had been a thorn in his side for too many years. “The bastard needs to burn.”

A grim nod.

“So does she.” He shoved the body out of his way as he stalked to the window. “Take the bitch out with him.” Because the demon seer he’d used so long ago, another bitch who’d tried to screw him, had told him a great deal about Sandra Dee.

A new Born breathes on this earth.

A new Born? He hadn’t believed her, not at first. The youngest Born was over two thousand years old.

But the demon had been certain. She’d seemed to know so much about Sandra Dee.

Her strength lies close to her heart.

So when he’d attacked, his first move had been to cut her heart out. He’d killed her family. Let her walk in their blood.

And later, when he couldn’t kill her, he’d set plans in motion to separate her from the friends she’d come to know so well.

The killing of the human in Baton Rouge had been the first step. He’d planned to force Dee into solitude. To make the others turn on her. Alone, Dee would be weak. The demon had said so.

He’d made the seer tell him about Dee’s weaknesses. Torture was so easy for him. He’d learned at the foot of a master so many centuries before. He knew exactly how to make prey break.

The demon had broken for him. Two days, and she’d broken. But the whore had made one last prediction, right before he used his fangs to slice her throat wide open. “She’ll kill you when she rises. Drain you. Make you see the fires of hell.”

Fear.

As the demon had bled out, fear had trickled through him because the woman had been so certain.

Death wasn’t an option for him. He knew what waited after this world. No, death wasn’t an option.

He rolled his neck and shoved away the past. “Burn her,” he said again. Fire was always the easiest way to kill his kind. “Make sure Chase dies with her.” Simon Chase. A stupid mistake made by one of his blood.

Some just weren’t meant for the darkness.

A soft muffle reached him. Glancing back, he saw the new girl who’d been brought to him. Young, maybe eighteen. With bright red cheeks. A smile curved his lips. He could hear the fast drum of her heart.

Some weren’t meant for the darkness.

And some were.

“You know where they are?” he asked, eyes on the girl. She stared back at him. No fear in her light gaze. Excitement. She knew what was coming.

“We followed her the instant she left Night Watch.”

“Good.” He licked his lips, already tasting his pleasure. “Then have her dead by dawn.”



Simon raised a hand to his throat, and touched the blood that dripped down his neck. His pants were open, his cock out, and rising by the moment.

Dee stared back at him, her eyes slowly changing from black to that deep chocolate he loved.

Her mouth hung open. The tips of her fangs peeked at him.

A vampire. A Born. The witch he’d sought had been right about her.

He should probably lower his head. Do some dumbass bow or head incline like all the vamps did whenever a Born was close. A sign of subservience. Of submission.

Because Borns could rip apart the Taken if they wanted.

But he’d just let her take his throat and his body. And he’d taken her.

Simon wasn’t exactly feeling real submissive right then.

So he held her stare and knew that she felt the new link between them. A link she’d forged. Not him.

Already, the call that had haunted his mind for weeks had begun to soften. It will work. He’d been right to think she was the key. Dee would be able to change the game, to give him back his life.

Well, what was left of it, anyway.

She stumbled to her feet. Grabbed her jeans. Jerked them up. No panties. He’d remember that. Her curls disappeared beneath the denim. Pity.

Setting his shoulders, he began to rise.

But fell right back on his ass.

“Simon?”

Weak, in front of her. Because of her. “Give me a minute.”

Her footsteps creaked across the wood. “I took too much.” Not a question.

But he managed a nod anyway.

She edged closer to him. “I-I—didn’t mean to hurt you.”