Unholy Night (4 page)

Chapter 4

Neil had planned to duck out quietly, preferably with Marissa on his arm, but that wasn’t to be the case.

The Templar, Sir Adrian, was following him, gesturing for him to come out the front door so they could talk.

He didn’t want to talk to him. Really he didn’t. But he knew he didn’t have a choice. Marissa was now in the middle of his world, and damn it, he’d hoped that he could leave her out, at least for a while.

Eventually, she’d have to know everything, but this wasn’t how he wanted to do things.

A woman who looked like she’d been run over came to Marissa immediately, and Marissa relayed the story of what Kirk had done to her. The woman, Deanna, looked ready to kill the vampire, though he doubted she knew the man’s true nature.

“Thank God you were there.” Deanna leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, then turned her gaze to Marissa. “Are you okay?”

“I will be. He was so strong…”

“It can seem that way,” Kristy said.

Sir Adrian shifted his stance, glaring at Neil and Dale.

Kristy said, “Marissa, the men need to talk to him. Are you going to be okay with me and Deanna for a minute?”

“What did the other guy do with Kirk?” Marissa asked.

Neil wrapped an arm around her. “I’ll find out,” he said, kissing her forehead.

Adrian stepped up to him again. “This will not take long.”

“I’ll take you home when we get done,” Neil told Marissa, squeezing her arm. He met the Templar’s grim gaze.
This can’t be good
, he thought.

“We’ll watch her,” said Kristy, wrapping an arm around Marissa.

He leaned forward, pressing a kiss on Marissa’s head, and running a hand down her cheek. His finger burned where he’d touched her, and he stared into her eyes for some sign that the gesture meant as much to her as it did to him.

Marissa reached up and stroked his hand, and as he pulled away she kept a grip on his fingers. He caressed her palm, and Marissa smiled at him as he squeezed.

“Be just a minute,” he said, and reluctantly let go of her hand.

Kristy and Dale exchanged the kinds of glances that married people did, the ones that spoke volumes, if only to each other.

Dale, Neil, and Adrian headed to a darker corner of the house where the porch light didn’t reach. The other Templar, Liam, the one who’d hauled the vampire off, was waiting for them, a cigar of some kind in his hand, the glowing embers the only tipoff he was standing there.

Neil couldn’t help noticing, though, that Sir Liam didn’t actually smoke the cigar, merely held it in his fingers and twirled it, blowing on it to keep it burning.

“About time,” Liam muttered, looking over his clothes. “Nice costume,” he said, a bit of a snort in his voice.

Neil glanced down at himself—he’d forgotten he was dressed as a vampire—and smirked at the irony of it.

The Knights of Templar had been policing all mythical activity for almost a thousand years, making sure all creatures of the night, fantasy and legend behaved themselves. The Knights protected humans from the mythicals, and on occasion protected the mythicals from humans. For werewolves, vampires, yeti, unicorns, gods, demi-gods, and any other figure of myth that circled the globe, this meant order. It also meant that vampires couldn’t go drain people for no reason, that werewolves couldn’t just change form and attack a chicken coop, or that the Loch Ness monster couldn’t gallivant onto the shores and start eating people.

Laws were created for the mythicals, and unlike man’s judicial system, punishment from the Templar Knights resulted in a quick and sometimes painful death.

So it was within the best interests of all mythicals to follow the Balance Mandate, the code the Knights of Templar lived by.

And most of the mythicals did.

Neil reached down and scratched the inside of his wrist, a habit he’d acquired when he’d been tagged. His finger felt the tiny chip inside his wrist that connected him to a massive global tracking system so that he, like any other registered mythical, could be found at any given time. The positioning devices were one of the concessions mythicals had agreed to via the Balance Mandate.

Unfortunately, not all mythicals followed the laws.

Which brought out the Templars.

Adrian ignored his partner’s comment. “Since when do you have parties and invite vampires?”

He grimaced. His kind didn’t fraternize with vampires very often. Most of the time, vampires stayed away from werewolves—one of the truths human mythology actually got right. However, the two breeds of mythicals were not at war.

The Templars didn’t allow it.

Though many, from both breeds, had certainly tried over the centuries. Legend spoke of an epic battle between one of the oldest vampires and a pack of wolves that even now influenced some mythical prejudices.

Dale cursed. “Believe me, if I had realized, he wouldn’t have been invited.”

“So he has not always been a vampire?” Liam looked bored, his attention was focused on his cigar.

“He wasn’t the last time I saw him three months ago,” Dale said.

“He is young, eight weeks out of the ground,” Liam didn’t bother to look up from his cigar, using a slang term, since most vampires really weren’t buried when turned.

“Anything else?”

Liam did turn his head this time, his dark eyes meeting Adrian’s. “We should ash him now.”

Though Dale was head of their pack, he tended to repress his violent tendencies, preferring more diplomatic solutions to outright violence. “Is that necessary? I mean, I’ve known Kirk a long time. Hell, he dated Marissa for a while. He may not be the nicest guy, but he’s not…”

“He broke the laws,” Neil countered. Were he not such a trusted friend of Dale’s, his very contradiction could bring forth a challenge against Dale’s leadership—something that even a pacifist like Dale wouldn’t take lightly. And he had never been quite as forgiving as Dale.

Especially considering that Kirk had attacked Marissa; Neil’s protective instincts flamed at the thought of letting Kirk walk away from what he’d done.

“What he
was
is irrelevant. What he’s been doing, is.” Liam said.

Neil stared at Sir Liam. “You don’t mean the killings, do you?”

“Most of those cases have happened in the last few months. By unregistered mythicals,” Adrian said.

“Naturally,” Dale grimaced.

By law, all mythicals who even considered turning a human into a mythical had to get permission from the Templars. It was a complicated process, but it served a purpose —not many law-abiding mythicals would dare turn a human. Many humans couldn’t mentally adjust to their new mythical status, and wound up going crazy—the last known case was a woman in the south who’d been turned a little over a century ago. She went insane, killing over twenty human males before being caught and killed by the Templars.

That was the last known case of a mythical turning a human before the Knights began meticulously monitoring the turning process.

Liam raised his brow at Dale, a challenge in his eyes. Liam was probably one of the scariest Templars—the man knew things just by looking at a mythical.

Keeping any kind of secret from Liam was not a good idea.

“My brothers are meticulous about safety and precautions,” Dale snapped.

“Not completely.” Liam’s gaze rested on Neil.

“What are you talking about?” Neil snapped.

Adrian produced a piece of paper from his pocket. “Where were you on October first?”

“Locked up, like I always am.”

The Templars exchanged glances. Liam didn’t say anything, just shifted his position so he was facing Neil fully.

Adrian held up a piece of paper. “We have you outside your shelter, here.” The map was covered with a red track, showing the travels of a registered werewolf, in animal form.

“That’s not possible,” Neil shook his head. Could he actually be getting out at night? They took all the necessary precautions! The compound was secure—no one could get in or out once lockdown started.

Yet in the back of his mind, he remembered the dreams.

They’d finally started to ebb a bit, but they were still there. The attack on a woman. By a vampire.

“So someone cut open your wrist, stole your tracking bar, ran around with it, and stuck it back in your wrist all while you were in animal form?” Liam replied.

Dale snagged the map, studying the location. “And there was an attack here.”

Adrian nodded, a curt jerk of his jaw.

“So what are you going to do, ash me too? I didn’t attack anyone!” Yet the dream still stained his brain.

What if?

What if what they said was correct?

Stars, what else could he have done while in that form, unable to control his impulses? It couldn’t be true—there’d been cases of maulings and attacks all over the city for months. Surely they had to be wrong.

The two Templars exchanged a look before narrowing their eyes on him. “The vampire already confessed to that attack. The woman who’d been attacked kept talking about a dog defending her.”

“Almighty Zeus,” Dale muttered, running his hand over his face.

“Zeus will be the least of your problems if you don’t get your pens fixed,” Adrian said. He met Neil’s gaze. “Liam needs to do his thing.”

Neil nodded. He didn’t want to—not for anything in the world, but all of them had to know what happened. How he’d gotten out, and what had happened to the woman.

Liam stepped closer and Templar let out a breath as he grabbed Neil’s arm.

Everything went dark.

As if an inner light had been ignited, his memory opened. His thoughts, his, but not, consumed him. Animalistic, powerful, he surged forward. Slamming against the window in the pen, one, two, three, then the window opened, the cold air of night hit, and the animal was loose.

Running, powerful legs working at speeds he couldn’t quite comprehend, pushing him forward, almost flying across the ground.

Then the smell hit him. That horrid smell of blood and decay littered the air.

Leaping forward, what was left of the man inside him registered the vampire attacking a woman. The animal and the vampire fought, primal and horrific, snarling and beating on each other.

Another thought registered, animalistic in nature, but true nonetheless: the vampire wasn’t strong in the traditional sense. A newly-turned. Easy prey.

Then the vampire, showing his cowardice, had flown off into the night.

The animal faced the woman, sitting on the ground. She stared at him, stroked his nose.

Neil shuddered as Liam released him. “Marissa,” he whispered as his knees faltered. Dale caught him, holding him upright, Liam’s mindreading trick making him weak.

Yet the smells.

He could still smell them in his mind.

The hunt, the blood.

The floral.

His face paled. Everything came back to him in a flash.

Liam raised his brow. “You knew the woman?”

He shook his head. At least in the moment, he hadn’t known her. “I thought it was a dream, something not real, nightmares plaguing me.” he said, and froze. The woman’s image stained his brain, and for a second, he saw her clearly in his mind’s eye.

Marissa!

It was Marissa. He’d saved her. The smell… why hadn’t he put it together? She was the woman he’d saved. He remembered everything. Her petting his snout, the way her body smelled of rich floral and death. He knew it.

It had to have been Marissa. If she was the one he’d saved, she was the one he’d been looking for. She was the one who wasn’t afraid.

The fated one.

Neil started walking away.

“Hey,” Adrian called after him. “We’re not done.”

“I have something I have to figure out,” Neil said, not bothering to turn back to the Knights.

*

Neil burst into the house and grabbed Marissa’s arm. “Let’s go.”

She jumped at his sudden appearance. She’d been watching the door ever since Neil had gone outside. No matter that Kirk had disappeared with the big SWAT guys, she still fidgeted. She wanted to be near Neil. He made her feel safer than she’d felt in years.

Even Deanna and Kristy’s reassuring presences were not enough.

She should have known, though. She’d practically felt him come back inside. She’d written it off as wishful thinking, but suddenly, there he was, right in front of her just seconds after she’d thought she felt him coming.

“Uh,” she said, but she didn’t get more out as Neil wrapped his arms around her and inhaled her in a kiss. The searing of his lips to hers felt like she’d combust in his arms.

Neil forced her lips open, and his tongue stabbed into her mouth, desperate, needy, and ravenous.

She moaned as her own tongue met his in a frantic dance of exploration. Her tongue found his long canine, and she hesitated in his arms. Neil’s arms wrapped around her, pulling her into him, and her body screamed for release.

Neil broke the kiss, growling as he did. “Come,” he said.

She licked her lips. “I almost did.”

Neil cocked his eyebrow up. “You have not discovered what it truly means to come.” His voice was thick as he started to pull her toward the door.

Deanna grinned at her and Neil. “Go get a room you two. And wear a condom.”

She smiled back at her friend. “Hopefully several.”

Neil’s firm grip as he tugged her out the door sent waves of arousal through her body as they were met by the night sky.

“I hope you parked close,” she said as he escorted her down the walkway, almost running toward a small black sedan that sat at the foot of the driveway.

“Always,” he said, and opened her door for her, but before he let her get inside he placed another kiss on her lips, this one a bit softer, but nonetheless sending the same waves of intense pleasure through her.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dale still talking with the two SWAT guys. Even though Kirk wasn’t anywhere in sight, tension made her hesitate before getting in Neil’s car.

“What is it?”

“Kirk,” she whispered.

Neil gestured to the SUV parked in the street. It rocked as if someone was getting it on in the back.