Voracious

Book 0: Clare Point Vampire Novel

by V.K. Forrest

Genres: Paranormal Romance; Vampires; Romantic Suspense

Synopsis

When a vampire P.I. hides out in a small coastal town, irresistible desires collide with dangers from the past in this steamy paranormal romance. After months spent eliminating some of the world's most ruthless criminals, vampire Aedan Brigid is on sabbatical in the quiet coastal town of Clare Point, Delaware. But instead of relief, he feels on edge. That’s due in part to Dallas York, the gorgeous blonde bar owner whose casual touch sparks an inexplicably intense connection between them. But there's another reason too. Centuries ago, Aedan lost his beloved to a depraved monster known only as Jay. Now Jay is back, and more vicious than ever. Aedan is already breaking clan rules by getting involved with Dallas—even if her mysterious gift sets her apart from other humans. But soon, he'll have to make the ultimate decision: will he turn away from the only life he's ever known in order to protect a love he thought he'd never feel again?

Release date: February 8, 2013

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 349

Sample

Rehoboth Beach, Delaware

Aedan rested his forearms on the scarred bar top, barely hearing the chatter of the other patrons or the beat of the blaring music. He reached for his Guinness and took a sip, savoring the slightly burnt flavor of the dry stout he’d been drinking for the last two hundred years. It was late. Time he headed home. But not before he finished his beer.

It was always like this for him. When he was gone—working for the sept, living among strangers—he yearned to be home in Clare Point amidst his own. But when he finally did have the opportunity to return, he felt as out of place here as he did on foreign soil. At least at first. It always took a week or two and quite a few solitary nights on a barstool, nursing a beer, before he could assimilate again. Out in the world, he was a killer. He survived by keeping to himself, continually moving, remaining a stranger to those around him. In Clare Point, with relatives and friends, it took some time to allow himself to feel that closeness he shared with them. The closeness he always yearned for when away, the closeness he feared when he returned home.

It hadn’t always been that way. He’d once been a trusting soul . . . with his heart, at least.

Aedan took another sip of his ale. Someone bumped into him from behind. He turned around and glared, and the bearded offender in the Dogfish Head T-shirt threw up his hands.

“Sorry, man. My bad.” The guy stumbled backward a step, obviously intimidated by Aedan’s size. Or maybe it was Aedan’s scowl.

Aedan eyed the drunk again, then returned his attention to his Guinness, memories tugging at his consciousness.

He had once sought out strangers. Particularly the pretty females.

The sound of the barroom patrons, the taste of his ale, the smell of the old bar top brought back flashes of memories like black-and-white images projected on a screen in his head. His memories were of another bar, life cycles ago. It was the nineteenth century, the south of France, in the little cliff-dwelling town of Beaumes-de-Venise near Orange. Madeleine had been her name. It was her father’s pub; he let rooms above stairs, served food and drink below. Aedan had been there on assignment for the sept when he met the barkeep’s daughter.

Aedan made a fist and then loosened each finger in controlled motions as he fought the bone-crushing ache he experienced every time he thought about her. Which was exactly why he tried his damnedest not to think about her at all. Even after hundreds of years, the memory of Madeleine hurt more than any physical wound—being stabbed, shot, garroted—he had ever suffered. He had loved her. It had been the kind of true love a man experienced only once in a lifetime.

And Aedan’s lifetime was turning out to be pretty damned long.

Fifteen hundred years, give or take a few, he had lived on this earth. Once he had been human like Madeleine, before he had become vampire. As a human, he’d fought against St. Patrick in Ireland in the fifth century. He had defended his family and his pagan faith. And he had paid the ultimate price when God had cursed him and the rest of the Kahills. God had transformed them into vampires, forcing them to live lifetime after lifetime, immortal, their souls without hope of redemption.

Not much hope, anyway.

That, in a roundabout way, was how he had ended up at Madeleine’s father’s pub in Beaumes-de-Venise. How he came to be here now. He, and all the cursed Kahills, were trying to make amends for the sins they had committed against God. They now tried to protect His humans from the dregs of the earth, its most heinous criminals. Aedan’s primary job was investigating serial killers. Occasionally, he assassinated one, but only after the order was passed down by the High Council. Who would die was not up to him. He was neither the judge nor the jury, only the executioner.

Aedan took another sip of ale, tasting a hint of bitterness on his tongue.

He had been young and foolish and full of hope when he met Madeleine. The ale she had served him that first night he met her had not been as well brewed as this Guinness. It had been homemade, brewed in her father’s cellar, but it had tasted as sweet as honey on Aedan’s lips because it had come from her hands.

Sweet Mary, Mother of God, he had loved her. Aedan tipped his glass and finished it. He had loved her, all right.... Then he had killed her.

“Another?” A female voice dragged him back to the present.

Aedan shook his head, not bothering to look up. After Madeleine, he’d lost interest in women. Not that he was celibate. He could always find one willing to join him in bed. But he’d lost interest in the magic of the feminine voice. Of the smoky look they gave you. The feel of their touch.

“Good, because I’ve served enough beer for one night. I’ll get your check.” Her voice faded as she moved away from him, dragging a bar mop past his empty glass.

Aedan didn’t know what made him look up. Fate? He wondered later. He wasn’t entirely sure, even at fifteen centuries old, if fate even existed. But something made him look up at that moment. Or someone . . .

Her resemblance to Madeleine was uncanny. She was pretty. Not gorgeous, but pretty. Tall and slender. Willowy was how his Aunt Peigi would have described her. Blue jeans slung low on her hips, and a tight black T-shirt revealed the tiniest sliver of abdomen when she moved. The shirt read BREW and featured a witch’s bubbling cauldron. Her natural blond hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail, piled up on her head the way women did when getting in the shower. Her hair was long. He could tell by how many times it looped out of the elastic band. It was an amazing color, yellow blond, like sunshine. Her eyes were dark brown. She wore no makeup. She had a sprinkling of freckles across her nose that made Aedan want to touch them with his fingertips.

Or kiss them.

He was so shocked by that thought as it bounced around in his head that he rocked back on his barstool. He stared at the barmaid, intrigued. And a little scared.

She apparently didn’t feel the vibe; she had already walked away.

It was all Dallas could do not to look back over her shoulder at the hunky ginger as she dropped the bar rag and went to the register to ring up his tab. The bar was busy tonight, busy for a Thursday in April. Busy was good. Tall, seriously big, good-looking ginger on her barstool, with blue eyes that could pierce a girl’s heart. Bad.

He was here alone. She’d been watching him for a while. Trying not to, of course, which made it harder not to do. He’d come in alone two hours ago. He didn’t speak to any other patrons, not even the pretty singles cruising for men. He didn’t glance up at the basketball game on the TV behind the bar. He just sat there, nursing one Guinness after another, his handsome face all dark and stormy and totally intriguing. She wondered, at first, if his girlfriend had just broken up with him and that was the reason for the morose face. But she decided, after a while, that that wasn’t it; something more tragic than that simmered in those piercing blue eyes.

Dallas almost groaned aloud as she hit the total on the cash register and it spit out a little piece of paper. She checked it to be sure it was right . . . and to stall. She didn’t want to speak to him, whoever he was, her tall, handsome . . . and tragic ginger.

Men were off-limits these days, especially the handsome ones. Definitely the tragic ones. She’d already had her share of tragedy and then some.

Dallas needed to just give him his tab and walk away. Make sure he walked away. Her bartender, Tat, waited behind her for the register. She couldn’t stand there all night, and she couldn’t afford to hand out free beers to every good-looking sob story that came into the bar. She’d sunk every dollar she had into this place when she’d bought it. It was all she and Kenzie had left; Dallas had to make it work.

She made a beeline for the redhead. She’d always had a weakness for guys with auburn hair. His was dark and thick, the same shade as his beard stubble. Hot.

Dallas didn’t know what was wrong with her. It had been a long time since a pretty face had caught her attention. She slapped his tab down in front of him, purposely not making eye contact. “Have a good night. Be safe.”

She almost got away cleanly, but he must have reached for the little slip of paper before she pulled her hand away. His fingertip brushed hers. They barely made contact, but it was enough....

What she felt . . . what she saw, when they touched, nearly knocked her on her ass.

Her visions often came to her choppy and fast like old movie reel images, streaked with time and age. They came one right after another: people, places. And emotion. That was the worst part.

Dallas gasped, pulling her hand away as if she’d burned it on the French fryer.

“You okay?” Tat called. Her bartender was a big guy with a shaved head and two full sleeves of tattoos; he looked like an ex-inmate even though he was the nicest guy you would ever want to meet. He glanced at Dallas as he walked away from the register. He was looking at her strangely.

So was the guy on the barstool.

“Closing in five minutes,” she announced loudly. She made her way to the far end of the bar, as far from the ginger as she could get, and began to pick up dirty glasses. She was shaking.

The music was still playing over the loudspeakers. She’d invested in XM radio for the nights she didn’t pay a DJ or a live band. “Can someone hit the radio?” she called. She dumped five dirty glasses into a dishpan and picked it up, heading for the kitchen. More like running for the kitchen. “Someone?” She hollered to no one in particular, probably sounding bitchier than she needed to.

Aedan watched the blonde push through the door into the back, carrying a dishpan full of dirty glasses. The door swung shut behind her.

What the hell had just happened there between them? His hand had barely touched her, but a jolt of what felt like electricity had arced between them, scaring the bejesus out of him. Which was hard to do. Vampires didn’t spook easily.

He didn’t know what had happened or how. The only thing he was certain of was that they had made some kind of metaphysical contact.

His first impulse was to follow her. She’d obviously felt it, too, the way she’d taken off. And something made him think she understood far better than he did what it was.

He looked at the kitchen door. Did he dare?

Aedan’s phone vibrated in his pocket, which was totally unexpected. Everyone knew he was on sabbatical for the next three months. He rarely got calls that weren’t work-related, and never this late. Aunt Peigi was long in bed.

Curious, he slid off the barstool and fished his phone out of the pocket of his jeans. He checked the caller ID. It was his cousin Mark . . . a state police detective. Aedan suddenly got a bad feeling. “Hello?” he said into the phone.

“Aedan?”

“Yeah?” He glanced around the bar. People were filing out. Someone had turned off the music and turned down the lights.

“It’s Mark. Mark Karr.”

He could hear the tension in his cousin’s voice. Mark was one of them, a vampire moonlighting as a cop. Or maybe the other way around. Mark was a good cop. The best. “What’s up?”

“I know you’re on vacation. . . .” He hesitated. “Sorry to bother you, but—”

Aedan heard the sound of an intercom in the background. A Doctor Wilkes was being paged. Mark was at a hospital. “What can I do for you, Mark?”

“I’m over at SCH. In Lewes. You need to come here. Right now.”

Aedan frowned. “Is everything okay? Aunt Peigi?” Of course, that didn’t make much sense. Kahills didn’t do hospitals. They had a doctor of their own, and their bodies almost always healed without any intervention. It was hard to kill a Kahill. The whole immortal thing. And when they did die, they rose three days later, in the body of a teenager, ready to begin another cycle of their cursed lives. Aunt Peigi couldn’t be sick or injured, dying in a hospital.

“A case,” Mark said cryptically. “Like I said, I know you’re on vacation and you’re technically off duty, but you’re going to want to see this.”

Aedan glanced at the door that led to the bar’s kitchen. The blonde hadn’t come back out. Which was just as well. “I’m on my way,” he said, dropping a twenty and a five on the bar. “Give me twenty minutes?”

“Come in through Emergency. They haven’t moved her yet. I’ll be looking for you.”

Aedan hung up, slipped his phone back into his pocket, and walked out onto the street. It was chilly. He shivered as he headed for his car. Maybe it was just the cold. Or maybe he already knew what waited for him.

Dallas stood in the kitchen, peeking through the crack between the swinging doors, watching the ginger go. For a second there, the way he’d been looking at her, she’d been worried he was going to follow her into the kitchen. She held the hand that had touched his to her chest, feeling her pounding heart.

What the hell had just happened? How was it even possible—what she had seen in his head during that brief second she had made contact with him. She’d had a lot of crazy experiences in her life, but this went way beyond crazy.

She had what her mother had called the gift. Dallas called it the curse. ESP, mental telepathy, mind reading . . . It didn’t matter what label you attached to it, it was an intrusion on her life and on the lives of the people she touched. Literally. Since she had been a small child, Dallas had had the ability to see people’s pasts, feel the emotions they had felt, just by touching them.

It was a curse, all right. One that had followed her through school, into college, and now into adulthood. Over time, she had learned to turn it down, like the volume on a radio, but there was no mute button. And no matter what she did, she couldn’t turn it off. Which meant she couldn’t have normal relationships. At least not with anyone but her daughter, whose past she already knew. Whose past she had actively participated in. It was just too hard, seeing all the things other people saw. Feeling what they had felt. Knowing what they carried around inside.

So what was up with the ginger? How . . . why had she picked up on so many people when she had touched him? It wasn’t just pieces of the guy’s life, but of lots of people’s lives. Lots. Which wasn’t possible unless . . . unless maybe he had the same curse she did, and he was carrying all the people he had ever touched around in his head. Was that even possible?

Tat appeared in the crack of the kitchen door. He was a nice-looking guy, even with all the tattoos and the two-gauge, stainless steel ear tunnels. He had kind brown eyes. “Hey, you okay?” he asked through the door. “ ’Cause you’re acting weird.”

As the front door closed behind the ginger, Dallas pushed through the swinging door. “I always act weird. We’ve already established that.” She walked past him, grabbed a wet rag from under the counter, and began to wipe down the sticky bar. Bar patrons could make a pretty big mess in one evening, what with all the beer and bullshit they spilled.

He turned to watch her, nibbling on his lip ring. “Yeah, but you’re acting weird, even for you.”

“Can you herd the rest of them out?” Lifting her chin, she indicated a couple of guys standing around one of the two pool tables in a small room off the main barroom. Everyone else was either gone or headed that way.

“Sure,” Tat said, but he still stood there. “That guy. The redhead. Was he bothering you?”

Dallas was dragging a wet bar mop over the polished wood and glanced up. “Nah, but if he was, I could handle it,” she said lightly. “I hired you to tend bar; you don’t have to be my knight in shining armor.”

She wondered if the redhead was a tourist. It was early in the season for tourists, but he’d never been there before tonight. Not since January, when she had taken over the bar. She was positive. Otherwise, she’d have remembered him.

“I know.” Tat hesitated. “But I would. I’d be your knight in shining armor. If you’d let me.”

She smiled, feeling a little sad. That had to be one of the nicest things anyone had ever said to her. Tat had made it pretty clear the week he’d started working for her that he was interested in her, if she was interested in him. Her first thought had been just to get rid of him rather than have to deal with the complications of his unrequited love, but he was too good an employee to lose. Instead, she had told him the truth, flat out, that she wasn’t interested. She’d given him the line about her dead husband, about it being too soon, and he’d said he understood. But sometimes she caught him watching her with a wistful look.

Tat didn’t know about her curse. No one here in Rehoboth Beach knew. And she planned to keep it that way. It was all part of her plan for starting a new life, escaping the ghosts of her past and the witch hunt in New England.

Dallas turned back to mopping the bar, keeping her tone light. “Take care of the stragglers, Sir Lancelot.”

“You bet your sweet tushy, Guinevere.” Tat grinned and walked away.

As Dallas scooped up several dirty pilsner glasses, she glanced at the front door again. She’d half expected the ginger to walk back through the door. He didn’t.

Which was just the way it had to be.

Aedan parked his car, thrust his hands into his jean pockets, and, with trepidation, made his way to the entrance marked EMERGENCY in glowing red letters.

Mark had said there was something there he needed to see. What could he possibly have been referring to? Right now, Aedan was stationed in Paris. He and his team were tracking the movements of two men, a serial killer and a pedophile, at the same time, gathering evidence to be presented to the High Council. But he was a continent away from Pierre LeCruex and Dominique Rue. This couldn’t possibly have anything to do with those cases.

The pneumatic doors in front of him hissed and opened, and he stepped into the bright light of a waiting room. There were rows of chairs lined up in front of an admissions desk. A middle-aged woman in yellow Snoopy scrubs was registering a patient. More chairs and several vending machines ran along the back wall. A young Hispanic woman sat in the front row cradling an infant wrapped in a tattered blanket. Behind her, a guy sat reading a newspaper, his left hand wrapped in a bloody towel. Aedan spotted Mark standing near a vending machine, drinking from a Styrofoam cup. A toothpick protruded from his mouth. Mark had started chewing on cinnamon toothpicks a couple of years ago when he quit smoking. Aedan sometimes wondered if the toothpick habit was worse.

Mark looked up, sensing that one of his own kind had entered the room. It was some kind of vampire radar; it worked with zombies and werewolves, too, but not always as well. Mark nodded a silent greeting.

Aedan nodded in return. He could smell the cinnamon of Mark’s toothpick. Must have been a fresh one.

Get you a cup of coffee? Mark sent telepathically. When in close proximity, most Kahills could speak to each other without speaking aloud.

Nah. Not much of a coffee drinker. Had a couple of beers.

Not too many to be driving, I hope.

Aedan frowned. What have you got for me?

Mark caught the attention of the woman in the scrubs at the front desk. He pointed to the set of double doors marked STAFF ONLY. She nodded. A buzzer sounded, and the doors swung open toward Mark. Mark tossed his cup into a trash can as he walked through the doorway. Aedan followed.

“She came in about forty-five minutes ago. I just happened to be headed home and heard the call on my radio. We’re waiting on the orthopedic surgeon on call to get in here. Called in a plastic surgeon, too. They need to decide which of her injuries is most pressing before they take her into the OR.”

Mark spoke quietly, his voice steady as he fiddled with the toothpick in his mouth. He sounded like a man with a hundred years of cop experience, which he had. They walked down a wide hallway that was buzzing with activity. Doctors, nurses, and techs swarmed like bees, ordering labs, transporting patients in wheel chairs, and calming people who were in the ER on what was likely one of the worst days of their lives. Aedan sensed the woman Mark wanted him to see was experiencing the worst day of her life at this very moment.

“She’s sedated,” he said. “So we can’t talk to her right now. Might be days before we can. I just needed you to see her.” He stopped at a curtained cubicle near the nurse’s station and glanced at Aedan.

Aedan nodded, wishing he were somewhere else, anywhere but here. His sense of dread escalated to the point that his chest felt tight and he was struggling to take even breaths.

“Teesha?” Mark called softly into the opening of the curtains. He tucked his toothpick into his pocket. “It’s Detective Karr.” He waited a second and then drew back the curtain and walked in, holding it back for Aedan.

Aedan didn’t know what he had expected. He guessed he had expected an injured woman, but one look at Teesha’s face and his knees weakened. He dropped all six-foot-five inches and 240 pounds of himself onto the hard plastic chair beside the bed. His fingers found the crucifix beneath his shirt. “It can’t be.”

Mark drew back the sheet from the young black woman’s chest to reveal a bloody wound on her breast. “Nonetheless, I think it is.”

Aedan stared at the young woman who had, no doubt, been beautiful only an hour or so ago. She wasn’t any longer. She would never be beautiful again, no matter how talented her plastic surgeon. Aedan didn’t recognize her face, but he recognized her attacker. His gaze fell to her bare breast again.

Raped? Aedan mouthed the word.

Mark made a sound of affirmation. “She was found in a parking lot off Rehoboth Avenue not far from Dogfish Head. I haven’t been to the scene yet, but the local cops think it happened in an alley. She crawled out into the parking lot before she passed out, probably from blood loss. Name’s Teesha Jones. Twenty-three. She managed to find her handbag after he attacked her and left her for dead, and drag it with her. That’s how we were able to identify her so quickly. Can you believe she had enough wherewithal to do that?” He shook his head. “Survival instinct. You know how it is. Some humans have it. Some don’t. She works at a gift shop on the main drag. Found her nametag in her bag. We’re guessing she went out for drinks after work. Probably Dogfish Head; it’s popular with young people. Her car was in the lot. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow to ask around.”

“I was just there,” Aedan said, his voice sounding strange in his ears.

“Dogfish Head?” It was a local microbrewery a. . .