Eternal Hunger

35

Dillon lay on a bed in one of the Romans’ spare rooms, getting sewn up by the vampire doc, while six feet away, the man she’d saved watched with a sneer on his full lips. Gray Donohue was also ass-to-the-bed, his face littered with a few bruises and one cut above his left eye that he’d gotten when Dillon had punched Trainer in the head and he’d fallen back, hitting Gray and knocking him into a food service cart. While his sister’s eyes were always a very animated, passionate dark blue, this guy’s gaze was metal gray and cold as the death he longed for.

Dillon knew his expression had nothing to do with Tom Trainer’s attack. The damaged human male before her hated life, living, existing in a world he felt no connection to, didn’t have a place in. Having lived inside herself for two hundred years, Dillon understood the penchant for apathy-laced rage. Not that she was ever going to share her “feelings” with anyone. She didn’t do feelings, and wasn’t looking for sympathy.

“This may sting a bit,” the doctor said, applying some kind of solution to Dillon’s wound.

“Shit!” Dillon jumped at the blistering sensation, hissed at her. “You think?”

Leza shrugged and attempted to look repentant. “The wound’s incredibly deep. Nearly took out your liver.” She smiled. “Let’s give this an hour, shall we? Then I’ll heal it the rest of the way.”

“Sure,” Dillon muttered, feeling as though someone had planted bowling balls made of acid inside her organs. “Thanks a million.”

As Leza walked out of the room, Dillon caught Gray staring at her, his metallic gaze accusing. You saved my life for what exactly?

“What the fuck are you staring at, human?” she barked, her gaze dropping to his hands, the heinous burns that ruined his flesh. Fine. He had a scarred exterior, a shitty life. Yeah, well, internal scars were just as debilitating, just as much of a mind fuck. You didn’t see her going around with a perpetually pissed-off puss 24-7.

The door burst open then and Sara rushed in. Her eyes were wild with fear, her expression so anxious Dillon almost wanted to call her over for a hug of support. Almost.

When Sara spotted her brother on the bed, she ran over to him and ran her hands over his skin, his face. “Are you okay? Look at me! God, are you okay?”

“He’s fine,” Dillon said when the guy refused to make eye contact with her. “Just a few bruises.”

“What happened?” Sara asked without turning around.

“Your ex-patient wanted to take out the competition.”

“Oh God.”

Gray turned his head then and feigned sleep.

“Let him rest, Doc,” Dillon urged, knowing Sara was barking up a tree that just wanted its branches cut off.

It took Sara a good five minutes before she moved, before she allowed her gaze to lift from her brother’s face. But when she did, she came over to Dillon and shook her head, let out a heavy breath. Her grateful blue eyes took in every inch of Dillon’s face. “Looks like I owe you a debt now.”

The ripe bruise encircling Sara’s neck wasn’t lost on Dillon, but she kept her eyes off of it and her mood light and easy. “Finally. Someone owes me for once.”

Sara reached for her hand, sincerity glowing in her eyes. “Anything you want, D.”

Dillon lifted her brows. “Anything?” She’d meant to come off playful, but it was there—she knew it was there in her eyes as she looked up at the human woman she’d been protecting. Attraction. And Sara knew it too.

A smile split Sara’s features and she leaned down and kissed Dillon squarely on the mouth. Just once, soft, a peck. When she stood up again, she had the nerve to look impish. “How’s that?”

“Not exactly what I expected.”

Sara went from impish to insulted in under a second. “What? I didn’t bring the heat?”

Dillon laughed. She couldn’t help it—the girl was too damn likable. “You and me, Doc—friends. Good friends.”

“Fine,” Sara muttered. “Have it your way, but don’t say I didn’t try.”

Laughing, though it hurt like hell, Dillon envisioned the expression on Alexander’s face when she told him all about the momentary, innocent girl-on-girl action she’d had with his woman.

Yes, she mused, watching Sara return to her brother’s side. Busting Alex’s chops—good times.

On the roof of Walter Wynn Hospital, Alexander and Nicholas hovered over Tom Trainer’s dead body, good times as unattainable an idea as removing the Eternal Order from power. Time ticked loudly away, reminding Alexander that he had to retrieve Trainer’s memories before it was too late, before his brain shut down completely and Ethan’s hiding place remained a mystery.

Baring his fangs, he dropped his head and struck. He went deep, and directly into the temple. As a premorph he’d barely been able to break the skin without a brutal strike, now it was like a knife through butter.

A tunnel stretched out for miles in his mind, on both sides, still shots of memory played, one frame after the other. Alexander saw Tom as a child, playing on his lawn, Tom hiding in a closet, a rabbit in his lap, his hands encircling the poor creature’s neck.

“Easy, Alex,” Nicholas warned gently. “Don’t get emotionally involved in what you see. Concentrate.”

Circling around the memory, Alexander pressed forward, navigating around memories he did not need or want until he got to the recent past. When he saw Sara, he backed up, then slowed . . .

Yes. There we are.

Dare, sex, the town house, the battle with Alexander and his brothers, and the move to the new location. He centered in and sucked, Trainer’s blood memories flowing into him. It was quick and when he pulled out, the release of suction echoed in the freezing air as his mind quickly processed what he’d taken in.

Nicholas eyed him. “Taste good?”

“If you like sewer with a side of infection,” Alexander said, standing up, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his coat.

“Did you get a location?”

Alexander shook his head. “Just visuals.”

“Could you make it out? Was it the city?”

Alexander walked to the edge of the roof, frustration stabbing at his gut. He couldn’t tell what the location was or where it was, yet it felt familiar to him somehow.

Nicholas jogged after him. “The ‘eyes’ have thirty minutes to collect. Maybe they’ll drop another piece of the puzzle.”

Maybe. Alexander stared out at his city, his mind working at hyperspeed. “Dare has a boss.”

“What? Who?”

Alexander shrugged. “Don’t know. Trainer didn’t know either.”

Nicholas lifted his brows. “Well, if that’s true, it explains the extraordinary power of a mere Impure. But how would the power transfer? Through blood?”

“We will ask, Duro.” He pulled Nicholas into his side, ready to flash. “Right before we kill him.”