Sunset to Sunrise (Alexa O'Brien, Huntress #7.5)(6)

“Since leaving the FPA lockup, have you gotten any better?” he asked. “I was concerned you’d be a problem, what with your fragile grip on sanity.”

The many ways I wanted to address that snide comment would only instigate trouble. He wasn’t worth it.

“I’m as good as I’ve ever been,” I said, turning my back on the ever-watchful demon. Descending the front steps, I strode toward my black Camaro without a look back. “No worries. I’ll take care of things.”

I peeled out of his driveway with a squeal of tires. I loved that sound. My ’73 Chevy did pretty well at kicking up a nice piece of his lawn as well. Knowing Shya, he’d find a malevolent way of mentioning that at our next meeting.

It wasn’t as if I didn’t know what people were saying and thinking about me. Shya, Alexa, Jez. They all thought I was batshit crazy. They likely were not wrong. However, there was more to it than that. Being crazy wasn’t my crime, but rather, that I accepted and even enjoyed it.

The most loud and annoying rock station on the radio accompanied me on the ride home. Alexa had asked me once why I didn’t upgrade my wheels, get something new with all of the tech inputs, heated seats and whatnot. My classic ride had been a rebuild project back in the late 80s. I had restored every inch of her myself. I didn’t need bells and whistles. I had a badass motherf*cker of a car that purred like a kitten and roared like a lion. Nothing would part me from that car short of true death.

The sky had begun to fade in preparation for the morning sun. Instead of seeking shelter at The Wicked Kiss, I headed south, for home.

There was nothing special about my house. Two floors, a backyard I’d never stepped foot in and neighbors that left me alone. All in all, it was adequate. But it wasn’t home. Nothing felt like home anymore. Not for a very long time.

I paused in the entryway, trying to recall the last time I’d been here for something other than a change of clothes. It had been a while. Some might say I spent too much time at the club bleeding victims and f*cking away the night. Some might be totally correct in that assessment.

A layer of dust had settled atop the counters. I’d have to make a call to the cleaning service so it actually looked as if someone lived here.

I shed my jacket, tossing it over the back of a chair. After a quick visit to my bedroom, the rest of my clothing landed in a heap on the floor beside the laundry basket. Wearing only my favorite pair of grey sweatpants, I turned on the television and flopped down in the center of my bed.

I knew I should sleep at some point. Vampires didn’t need a lot of slumber though going without made it harder for us to stay alert and at full strength. Of course, sleep came much easier when it wasn’t filled with dreams that quickly became nightmares.

“Give me a f*cking break,” I muttered as I channel surfed past an infomercial for some magic weight loss solution. Humans were far too eager to latch onto the first person or product claiming to give them all they ever wanted. Who was I to judge? I’d been one of them once.

It was hard to remember my time as human. It was so short compared to my time as vampire, almost nonexistent. Just twenty-nine mortal years I’d lived before my fate was sealed.

I liked to pretend I would change things if I could. But if changing it meant never knowing Alexa, then perhaps I would choose to suffer as I do. I could accept that she was not to be mine, I just couldn’t accept that I loved her in spite of that.

Alexa. I couldn’t think about that damn woman without immediately going back to that night in the rain. The night we’d made love. Fuck. My dick grew hard despite the many times it had been satisfied earlier that night. That’s what she did to me. I would always want her.

I scowled at the TV, angrily hitting buttons on the remote. Loathing boiled up inside me, spilling over until I threw the remote in a fit of poorly executed rage. Why couldn’t I escape her?

The remote bounced off the TV and hit a lamp, causing it to smack the floor with the sound of shattering glass. With the phony commercial chatter a constant noise in the background, I lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

Being enslaved to Alexa was growing more difficult to accept with the passing of each night. She had purposefully drawn me into her thrall, forcing her blood upon me. Blood that she knew I had a weakness for. The night she stopped Shya from killing me in the graveyard was the night she shackled me for all eternity. Did she still not realize what she’d done?

Eva. The name floated through my thoughts, rising up from a deep, dark place where my greatest secrets and fears were kept. With it came the image of a woman with long red hair and a body that would make even the strongest man weep. She was a goddess. I had awakened to find myself within the walls of her elaborate mansion. Sent by order of the king to spy on her, I’d quickly realized the woman spoken of so suspiciously by so many was no woman at all.

Eva never gave me a choice. She turned me the very night she discovered me and my fellow men. I was the only one. She killed the rest in an act of torture and mayhem that I later learned had taken days.

It was my eyes that saved me. She told me it would be a shame to destroy someone so beautiful. Being a werewolf did nothing to stop her. She had no sympathy for my beast when she ended my life and gave me a new, much darker one.

That had been a very long time ago, back in the 1500s, a rich time when both David and the Mona Lisa were brought to life. The New World had still been new to many then. I didn’t see it myself until many years later.