Blood: Under the Skin Book 1 Read online

  Holy shit…

  “Does the force know?”

  He smiled as he answered. “Yes, they know. Some do, at least. I don’t tell everyone because who knows what other vampires would do if they found out this was possible. They’d be trying to make an army of dhampir.”

  I raised my brows, “Gee, ya think? Why tell me, though?” This question was eating away at me.

  “Because I trust you,” he said, running a thumb along me cheek and kissing my neck lightly beneath my ear. “I care about you. I want to know more about you and I know getting to know someone isn’t a one-way street. If I have any hopes you’ll open up to me, then I have to open up to you as well.”

  I couldn’t help the grin that over took my face at that response. Claudia was going to have a fit when she heard everything that happened. Oh, fuck!

  “Claudia!” I went to extract myself from Hollis’s hold, but he held onto me tighter.

  “I called her. Don’t freak out,” he said, framing my face with his palms once he was satisfied I wasn’t going to try and get up again. “She knows you’re with me and that you’re safe. I told her I’d get you home after sunset.”

  I sighed in relief, knowing she’d be sick with worry had he not done that. Though, knowing her like I did, there was a high probability it still wouldn’t save me from her wrath for almost dying.

  “Thank you. I have a feeling she’s still going to be pissed at me.” I went silent for a moment, turning my face away from him and gazing off at nothing as the memory of last night flowed back into my mind.

  It was then I remembered something important one of them had said.

  “Oh, my God…” my eyes widened with the realization.

  “What? What’s wrong?”

  I shook my head, completely irritated with myself for not saying something sooner.

  “One of the vampires who attacked me mentioned something about their boss. I don’t know for sure, but I think he meant the same one as Viper did that night at the shop.” It was a slim chance, but the attack and Hollis showing up in my life because of this unknown boss was just too coincidental.

  I looked back at Hollis and saw his face darken.

  “You think this was a premeditated attack?” He asked me in a serious tone.

  I inclined my head slowly. “Yes. I do. They weren’t just walking by and grabbing the first vampire chick they saw. They had been waiting for me and knew about me talking to you at the bar and everything that was going on between me and Sloan,” my stomach clenched at the thought of what I had said to him and now this. “They had listened to a conversation we had before grabbing me. This wasn’t just a grab-n-snack. This was planned.”

  Hollis sat there quietly for a moment, mulling over what I said with a blank expression and eyes appearing to be zoned out over my shoulder.

  “Last night I was coming to tell you that my team and I had located a warehouse Viper is suspected of using to distribute his supply from. I was going to ask you to accompany me on a stakeout of the place and help me identify Viper if he were to make an appearance. I don’t deny that this is lining up with something I heard.”

  Supply?

  “Distribute his supply? What is it exactly you’re investigating with Viper?” I asked curiously.

  Hollis stood, lifting me with him and setting me down outside the coffin. He strolled to a large chest of drawers and withdrew a shirt and some sweat pants before handing them to me.

  I began to dress, my eyes not wavering from him as he went about dressing in one of his STF uniforms. I inwardly sighed, watching him cover up his beautifully sculpted body. It really was a shame to watch his dark skin disappear beneath layers of clothes. No! Shut up, stupid! You’re in enough trouble for sleeping with him.

  I realized while internally chastising myself, I was just standing there like an idiot with my eyes glued to his glorious backside and my own sweats just chilling halfway up my legs. I shook my head, averting my eyes and finishing as I waited for him to answer my question.

  He clipped his badge to a chain and lifted it over his head to put it on before finally turning to me.

  “I may as well tell you now about what’s going on since it’s obvious you are being dragged further into this than I anticipated.” He held out his hand for me to take.

  Without hesitation, I placed mine in his and let him pull me over to the couch.

  “Viper is only a part of what this investigation is,” he began as we sat. “He’s a pawn to someone much higher up. Kind of like a right-hand man.”

  “Okay. I’m pretty sure I understand that. What exactly does he do?”

  Hollis rubbed the back of his neck. “As far as we can tell so far, he just collects what needs to be distributed then uses a bunch of lackeys to do the distributing. Basically, a middle man between the big boss and the lower leveled guys. He uses this warehouse we found like a base of operations. Vampires are coming in and out all through the night with large black duffel bags that start out looking pretty full when they leave, but are balled up and empty when they come back.”

  I nodded, following along. “And what exactly is it that he’s distributing? What’s his supply?” I asked my earlier question.

  He sighed. “I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it, but it’s a new drug that’s just recently sprung up. Word is it’s called BloodLust.”

  I scrunched my eyebrows, not recognizing the name.

  “No. I actually haven’t heard of it. What does it do?”

  Hollis gave me a serious look, one conveying that whatever he was going to tell me wasn’t good. You’d think with a name like BloodLust it’d be something fun and I don’t know – lusty.

  “It’s a slightly metallic, injectable substance that basically looks like blood mixed with liquid gold,” he explained, sounding more and more disgusted as he talked about it. “We have no idea what exactly is in it since most of the samples we’ve gotten are too little for the scientists who work with the STF to do anything with. The few good analysis’s they did get were confusing. They couldn’t rightly place what the compounds were in the drug. We know for a fact that at least a portion of it is blood, but it’s not human. If a small dose is injected into a human, it acts as a powerful sedative and gives the vampire feeding from them an extreme high that’s comparable to humans on ecstasy. The vampire is faster, more energetic and has a much higher sexual appetite, hence the lust part of the name.”

  I was gaping at him as he finished, completely blown away that vampires had come up with something like this. But something he said made me ask, “What does it do to humans in high doses or a vampire when they inject it directly into themselves instead?”

  A darkness passed over Hollis’ face.

  “If the dose is high enough, it’ll kill the human. It tests like a regular drug overdose unfortunately, so nothing can be learned from it through the dead bodies it’s left. If vampires inject it directly, well…” he paused, taking a deep breath in and letting it out.

  I placed my hand on his and squeezed.

  “What happens?” I prodded quietly, almost scared to know the answer.

  “We’ve only encountered it once and unfortunately had to dispose of the two vampires before we could get past finding out what it was called and that the substance is what caused them to … to just lose it. Their humanity was gone. They turned into the monsters vamps get portrayed as in the movies; uncontrollable, emotionless, hungry. Always fucking hungry. The red in the eyes spreads past the iris. Their teeth become longer and rotted. Their flesh begins to decompose. But they’re stronger and far more chaotic. There’s no strategy in their attack. They simply want to kill.”

  My stomach dropped. Something like this could destroy the tense peace we’ve had with the humans. If more vampires were given this drug and were released on the streets, the humans would simply start extinguishing all of us, whether we were hazed out or not. It would be the end.

  As my eyes drifted from Hollis’s face to the bla
ck curtains masking the city outside, something in my gut told me this was the end goal for whoever was controlling the production and distribution of this BloodLust. If helping the STF take down Viper brought them one step closer to finding the psycho running the show, then I would do all I could to help. I squeezed Hollis’s hand a little harder.

  “We have to find Viper. We need to get him to tell us who his boss is. We can’t let this get out of control, Hollis.” My voice almost shook at the possibility of the STF failing to capture or kill him or her in time.

  When I looked back at him, he had a smile lighting up his face.

  “What?” I asked him.

  He shook his head and grinned wider.

  “Nothing. I’m just grateful for you, Lucy,” he replied, pushing a stray dread behind my ear. “But, I need to get you back before Claudia gets more worried or your werewolf friend tries to stake me.”

  My smile from his small affection immediately plummeted. Between the haze, the hot sex and the serious discussion, I had yet again completely forgotten the fact that Sloan was most certainly going to try to kill Hollis the moment we stepped foot into my loft. No amount of showering would hide what we’d been doing from Sloan’s excellent sense of smell. He would be angry and hurt all at once.

  I put my face in my hands and groaned loudly.

  “What? What’s wrong?” Hollis asked me, pulling my hands from my face.

  “Do you have like any chainmail by chance?” I asked him seriously.

  He chuckled at my question. “I left my chainmail in my suit of armor, but I have a Kevlar vest. Why?”

  I stood and grabbed my bag that I had noticed earlier sat by the door, put it over my shoulder and faced him as I grabbed the doorknob.

  “Cause there’s going to be a pissed off werewolf that’s most definitely going to try to stake you when he smells you all over me and vice versa, so you’re going to need it.”

  With a big smile on his face, Hollis went over to the little closet next to his coffin, grabbed the same thick vest I’d seen him wearing the night we met, and strapped it on. He walked over to me, grabbed his keys off the hook by the door and gave me a quick peck on the lips that would have me blushing if I could.

  “I’d like to see him try.”

  I didn’t bother suppressing the giggle that escaped me as he opened his door and swaggered all the way to the car like the idea of a fight was exciting him.

  I sent a silent prayer to whoever was listening that it wouldn’t be a blood bath.

  Chapter Nine

  Sloan

  She was attacked.

  The most important person in the entire fucking world to me was attacked by a bunch of worthless vampire assholes, and I wasn’t there. If I had just stayed instead of running away like a little bitch when she broke things off with us, then I would have been there to protect her.

  “If you don’t stop pacing, you’re going to wear a hole in my rug and then I’d have to kill you.”

  Claudia was currently sitting on one of the barstools in their kitchen, sipping on a glass of blood wine like absolutely nothing was wrong. I was still pissed at her for allowing that damn agent to take Lucy to his house instead of her own home, where she belonged.

  When Claudia called me not long after sunrise, I was a little shocked to hear from her. Neither of them ever called me during daylight hours, so I knew something was wrong. The moment she said what happened to Lucy, I stormed over and almost broke down the door to get inside. It was then she informed me Luce wasn’t even there.

  I pretty much spent the whole day either pacing, angrily flipping through television channels or trying to track down where the fuck this agent lived so I could tear him to pieces for hogging Lucy from the people who actually knew her and loved her.

  “Seriously. I will kill you and bury you in my fucking backyard like a bone if you don’t stop. Lucy will be here any minute and Hollis assured me she is perfectly fine.”

  I stopped my pacing immediately and growled at her.

  “When the hell did you get on a first name basis with that asshole?”

  She let out a laugh devoid of humor and set her glass down. “Contrary to what you might believe, Sloan, Hollis is actually a nice guy. I know this is some serious alpha bullshit you got going on and you’re getting all territorial, but he took her to his home because he had limited time before the sun came up. His home was light-tight and everything, so why would I refuse him taking her there if it was what was best for her.”

  I snorted at her reasoning. “You really think he didn’t have time to bring her here? You don’t know where he lives. It could have easily been further away from where he found her than it was to here. He could have had completely selfish reasons for taking her there.”

  Claudia groaned and threw her hands in the air. “Oh, my God! I swear, there is nothing that can match your paranoia and jealousy. I don’t really care if his reasons were selfish or not. I’ve seen him with her. He cares about her, whether you wanna see it or not. I knew in his voice that he would protect her with his life. I know this sucks for you, sweetie, I get it. But in the end, you’re not the only one who cares about her. He killed for her, just as you would have. Killing those vampires may have been the right thing to do, but he didn’t need to. Vampire on vampire violence isn’t a crime in our world, unfortunately. It’s fucking life. But he killed them anyways and took care of her. Get over yourself and maybe start thinking about what’s best for her, and you may just have a real shot with her again. She won’t admit it, and probably has herself convinced she doesn’t love you like that, but that girl does love you. She broke it off for you, because your overall happiness in life means more to her than her own personal feelings. Learn from her.”

  I wanted to be mad at her for laying into me like that, but I just didn’t have it in me when she was completely right. That didn’t mean I’d give up on making Lucy see that I would love her no matter how hard she pushed me away and continue to fight for her, but I hadn’t been putting her first. All I’d cared about up until I heard she was attacked, was my own selfish feelings.

  My shoulders sagged as I fell onto the couch, feeling completely defeated as the fight in me left my body.

  Claudia walked over and patted my shoulder. “There, there,” she said in a tone that clearly lacked any sympathy.

  I laughed, “That’s the best you got? Man, you really do suck at the whole sympathy thing, don’t you?”

  She shrugged her shoulders and sipped her wine. “I left all my sympathy in my old coffin. Didn’t have room for it in this new one.”

  “It’s a king size, though.”

  “I don’t see your point.”

  I shook my head at her, “Whatever you say, Claude.”

  Finally, I heard Lucy’s voice coming from the short hallway that lead from the elevator to the door. I jumped up immediately and wrenched the front door open.

  I felt two things simultaneously; the first of which, was absolute relief and unbelievable amounts of love for this beautiful creature who I could now see for myself was unharmed. The second was a mixture of rage and betrayal because she was wearing his clothes, and I could smell the scent of sex radiating from her and the agent. Nothing could stop the immediate shift that took place.

  One second I was man, the next I was all beast, ready for his pound of flesh from the man who dared take what was perceived in my wolf’s mind as ours. My clothes fell to the floor in shreds as my body instantly morphed.

  I watched as my world went from color to shades of grey.

  The pain from a shift was usually unbearable and hard to breathe through, but in this moment, I felt nothing.

  “Fuck! Sloan!” I heard Lucy, but she may as well have been whispering. No sound could penetrate the chaotic rhythm of my heart in my chest as my blood boiled and rushed through my canine body. My attention was set on the agent who was slowly pulling out a dagger from his boot.

  I snarled at the offensive weapon, pissed that he
didn’t feel man enough to face me without silver, but obviously had felt man enough to bed the woman I loved. Without thought of the consequences, I leapt at him.

  Claudia and Lucy continued screaming for me to calm down as I swiped at the agent.

  He parried my attacks effortlessly, his damn smile never leaving his face. My wolf and I didn’t like that one bit. We wanted to tear into him, to hear him scream in pain and to taste his blood on our tongue. We wouldn’t stop until we had that blood.

  I jumped at him again, my claws elongating and mouth dripping with saliva at the thought of his flesh between my teeth. The agent pivoted and lodged his shoulder beneath me to throw me off, but my claws caught the skin of his shoulder as I was flung against the opposite wall. He groaned in pain and I let out a slight whimper when my shoulder hit. I slid down and landed on my feet, attacking again, but this time, he caught me in my leg with the dagger.

  “Sloan Anthony Jenkins! I swear to fucking God, if you do not shift back RIGHT NOW, I will drain your ass dry!” Lucy shouted angrily. Just as I was about to spring for another attack, I felt something come down hard on my snout.

  I stopped and looked up in surprise, only to see Lucy standing there with a smile on her face and what had hit me clenched in her fist.

  A rolled-up newspaper.

  Claudia was in hysterics, holding her stomach and gripping the edge of the couch for support as she laughed. I gave Lucy the equivalent of a glare in my wolf form, growling at her for such a cheap trick. My anger had fled the moment she had brought the paper down on me, and was replaced with shock, allowing my own mind to temper the wolf’s.

  With a huff at her and Claudia, I turned and padded my way into her loft and started stroking myself along everything; her couch, her chairs, her coffin, her clothes. If she wanted to treat me like a dog, I was going to mark her as my territory like a dog.

  “Cut it out, Sloan! You’re being a child!” Lucy shouted at me, trying in vain to keep me from touching everything by grabbing at me. She hated the smell of my wolf form, which was why I was never allowed to shift in their home. Payback was a bitch.