Hope's Kiss Read online

  “I’ll die.” He didn’t even flinch. “And that’s really the best thing I can hope for. Otherwise I’m going to be that fucker’s slave for the next hundred years.”

  God, every time she turned around, this situation got worse. “Slave? What do you mean, slave?”

  “After he drained me to the point of death, I couldn’t fight his power. He bound my mind to his and forced me to drink his blood.” Mark looked away as she flinched, the stubborn line of his jaw rejecting pity. “Three days later, I woke up a vampire. He told me it’ll be a century before I’ll gain the strength to break his control.”

  Hope shook her head. “But what’s the point? Why turn you at all?”

  “He says he can pull on my power through the mental link, amplifying his abilities. Stone hasn’t been a vampire long, so he needs all the power he can get.”

  The idea of her Mark—well, he hadn’t been hers in ten years, but still—the idea of Mark as anybody’s slave. . . . Especially slave to a ‘master’ who’d left savaged, nude women dead all over Reede County, dumped in ditches like empty beer cans. God. “Can’t you fight him?”

  Another flash of weary fury lit his face. “Don’t you think I’ve tried?”

  They stared helplessly at each other for a long moment. Finally Mark asked, “Look, what time is it?”

  Hope checked her watch. “The revival should be ending in twenty minutes or so.”

  “Get the hell out of here.”

  “What if he brings back another victim? I can’t just let him murder somebody else.”

  “It’s not time for him to kill again. He told me he likes to pick a girl out and play at being the loving pastor to gain her trust. He won’t butcher her until tomorrow night. If you blow the house in the morning, she’ll be fine.”

  But you’ll die. “I’ll think about it.”

  His lips pulled off his fangs, and his good eye glittered. “You’d better do it, or a lot more people are going to die. And I’ll wish I were one of them.”

  “Mark, I don’t want to kill you.” Hope took a deep breath and told him the truth. “I really did love you.” I never stopped.

  Pain flashed across his face before his expression hardened. “Hope, if I ever meant anything to you, don’t leave me like this. I don’t want to help Stone do to another woman what he did to my sister. I’d go insane.”

  Hope wanted to argue, but she knew there wasn’t time. He was right. If Stone caught her, she was dead. And she’d seen the way he killed. With a growl of defeat and fury, she turned and clattered up the wooden steps that led into the house’s living room. She had to force herself to turn out the light at the top of the stairs. It had been off when she’d arrived, and she didn’t want to alert Stone that anyone had been here.

  But leaving Mark Wilder alone in the dark to wait for the monster was the hardest thing she’d ever done.

  * * * * *

  Mark watched Hope’s long legs climb the stairs in those tight blue jeans. She’d always had the best ass he’d ever seen. The only thing he regretted about dying was never holding her again. So much wasted time. So much love lost to empty pride.

  Yet, as much as he still loved her, he feared the Thirst would have driven him to tear out her throat.

  He’d been curled up on the floor, trying to escape the maddening scent of blood from the women Stone had butchered. It had been almost a week since the vampire had let Mark taste his blood, and his tongue was swollen and dry as a sock. He felt like a dried sponge, stiff and dying, his hands shaking like a palsied old man’s.

  Then Hope appeared like a cool dream to tease a man burning in hell. He’d had no idea who she was when he’d leaped for her throat. It had only been later that he recognized her husky voice through the blinding fog of hunger.

  It took all his strength to talk to her, to warn her about Stone, when all he wanted to do was beg her to put her wrist through the bars and let him drink. Just a sip. Please, just a sip.

  Except a sip wouldn’t have been enough. He’d have drained her. And he couldn’t stand the thought of killing Hope.

  Hope Barton, sweet virgin, his first and only passion. Ten years after that delicious summer, he still remembered loving her in the sun-dappled grass beside Rainbow Lake.

  She’d been so slim and tanned, her breasts warm silken handfuls tipped by stiff berry nipples. Her sex, gripping his cock in slick heat. Kissing her, feeling those lips so soft and hungry against his. Dark eyes staring into his, drowning him in honey bliss.

  He’d wanted to marry her more than anything in his life. Unfortunately, her mother hated his guts. Apparently Mark reminded her of the man who got her pregnant and promptly walked out on her. Hope’s father.

  In the end, Hope had gone off to college in New York, where she’d obtained the criminal justice degree her mother had wanted for her. Four years later, she returned to Reede County to become a cop, but by then Mark had enlisted in the Marines. He’d only wanted to forget her, forget the way she’d sacrificed their love for her mother’s happiness.

  What an idiot boy he’d been.

  War had changed that. He’d learned far too much about life and death, balanced on a trip wire over hell buried in the sand. He now understood the sacrifice Hope’s mother had made, working two jobs to send her daughter to school, and why Hope had been unable to run off with him and spit on her mother’s dreams.

  Family was too precious for that. Family embedded themselves in your heart, and if something ripped them away, you were left with a bleeding wound that never really healed. Like the one Stone inflicted on Mark’s parents when he’d murdered Joy. All that bright intelligence and loving spirit, butchered so he could feed and fuck.

  Monster. Goddamn monster.

  God, Mark wanted revenge. Craved it even more than he craved the blood his vampire body needed.

  As he’d built those bombs last week, he’d thought of Joy’s corpse. Remembered the shattered look on his mother’s face when Stone used his powers to make her believe her daughter was a slut. The rage and shame that filled his father’s eyes, replacing the love for his lost little girl.

  It hadn’t been enough for Stone to murder Joy. He’d had to blacken her memory for the people who loved her most. It wasn’t even to protect himself. He simply loved tormenting his victims’ survivors almost as much as he loved butchering women.

  Stone was a sadist, and he deserved to burn in hell. Mark didn’t mind dying if he could take the vampire with him.

  The only thing that bothered him about enlisting Hope in his scheme was the risk to her. She was absolutely right about the risk she was running. If she was caught, she’d spend the rest of her life in prison. But if she didn’t blow the house, Stone would go right on killing, dragging Mark in his murderous wake. The vampire might even make good on his threat to turn her too.

  The only chance they had was if Hope was willing to press the detonator. Even if it meant watching Mark die and risking her own destruction.

  He paced until weary exhaustion dropped him to the floor. Starving, hopeless, he sank into a dark sleep.

  * * * * *

  “She was here, wasn’t she?” The voice purred in the darkness, jolting Mark awake. “I smell her. Honeysuckle and blood. So sweet.”

  Somehow Mark managed not to leap up and back away. He wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction. Instead, he forced himself to rise and face his tormenter like the Marine he was.

  Stone smirked at him, distilled evil in a Brooks Brother’s suit. He looked like a televangelist, complete with an artistic touch of gray at the temples of his sloe-black hair. The illusion was shattered when he started pacing along the width of the cell, sniffing the air like a hungry dog. “Oh, you do want her, don’t you? I can smell the lust even through your Thirst.”

  Mark curled a lip. “Go to hell.”

  Stone merely gave him a wolf’s white smile. “I wonder if you’d have the willpower to fuck her before you ripped out her throat. Would you like to find out?�
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  He froze. “If you touch her, I’ll kill you.”

  “So menacing. I’m quite terrified.” Stone laughed and leaned a shoulder against the bars, watching him with taunting eyes.

  Mark could smell the vampire’s blood, seductive and rich, offering life to his starved body. He didn’t even try to control his lunge.

  “Stop.”

  Stone’s will smashed into his mind, locking his muscles and paralyzing him in mid-leap. His face smacked painfully against the bars, and he staggered back as he recoiled from the raw evil of Stone’s mental touch. Summoning his will, Mark pictured a solid steel wall slamming down between him and the invading consciousness. Get out of my mind!

  This time it was Stone who staggered. The vampire caught himself and eyed him with savage interest. You are strong, aren’t you? Just not quite strong enough. Give you a century, though, and I’m sure you’ll be a handful.

  Mark knew Stone had every intention of killing him long before then. If I don’t get you first, motherfucker.

  Stone straightened, glaring at him. “You’re insolent.” He sniffed again, his expression turning fastidious. “And filthy. We’ll have to clean you up before your lady friend’s next visit. Maybe I’ll even feed you.” He sighed in exaggerated ennui. “I suppose she’ll show up in the morning with a stake and a hammer, ready to play Buffy. I’ll have to arrange an appropriate reception. Perhaps I’ll call 911 and get someone over.” The vampire turned and sauntered up the stairs.

  Stone returned twenty minutes later with a power sprayer. He spent the next half hour pounding Mark with a stinging stream of icy water, paying particular attention to his cock and balls. And laughing at the lethal rage in his captive’s snarl.

  * * * * *

  Hope drove into the morning sun, avoiding potholes with all the care of a woman with eight bombs in the trunk. The Homeland Security explosives course she’d taken told her Mark had used enough TATP to launch her Honda into orbit.

  She’d spent most of last night working out today’s plan. After hitting a discount store for a few supplies, Hope had headed over to Mark’s house. She found the neat brick split level flanked by rose bushes and azaleas, all in brilliant summer bloom under the moon. Raising the garage door just enough to slip beneath it, she closed it again, leaving the garage in pitch-blackness. Hope flicked on her flashlight, sending a cone of white light dancing over the garage.

  The blue tarp lay draped across a worktable at the rear of the room, just as he’d said. Pulling it aside, Hope found the pipe bombs lined up neatly across the table, along with a set of notes written in Mark’s sweeping hand. She’d searched fruitlessly for the detonator before realizing it was disguised as the gold Cross pen lying by the notebook. Good thing she hadn’t tried to write with it.

  Her trunk packed with bombs and gear, Hope had gone home to get some rest. Unfortunately, every time she’d drifted off, she’d seen Mark leaping for her throat. Stone had turned the man she loved into a monster.

  He was going to die for that.

  Hope brought the Honda to a careful stop in front of the vampire’s house. After pulling on a fresh pair of blue evidence gloves from a pack in the glove compartment, she got out and popped the trunk.

  Two backpacks lay in the bottom, each with four bombs inside, secured with Velcro straps and buffered with packing peanuts. She picked the bags up and started toward the house.

  Her lethal burden was surprisingly light.

  Chapter Three

  The rising sun painted the house’s white siding gold and made the dew sparkle on the grass. As if nothing evil had ever happened there, despite the stench of rotting blood that lay over the house like a greasy fog.

  Hope’s heart hammered as sweat wormed its way down her spine and dampened her armpits. She had confidence in Mark, but TATP was tricky stuff. It’d be a damned shame to blow herself up by tripping on a stick and falling on her ass.

  Ruthlessly controlling her nerves, Hope walked around the house, stopping every few yards to remove a bomb from the bag and slide it under one of the pink azalea bushes, or tuck it among the neat beds of daffodils and snapdragons. The process seemed to take forever, but she didn’t dare rush it.

  When she finally finished, Hope carried the empty backpacks back to the car. She planned to dump them in the river that lay a couple of miles away.

  But first she was going to make use of the circular saw she’d bought last night. According to her Internet research, its diamond blade should cut right through the bars of Mark’s cell. Then she’d dress him in the ski mask, gloves, jeans and long-sleeved shirt she’d brought to cover him head to foot against the sun. Once they were back in the car and far enough away, she’d blow the house with the detonator/pen.

  Of course, the whole plan rested on just how deeply vampires slept. Guess I’m about to find out.

  Hope had just tossed the empty bags in the trunk when she heard the crunch of tires on gravel. Her heart shot into her throat as if catapulted, but she forced herself to close the trunk calmly before she turned around.

  A Sheriff’s department cruiser rolled up the curving driveway toward her. Fuck.

  She watched the deputy get out of the black and white Ford Escort. Hope recognized him, since he’d been the first uniform on the scene of some of her cases.

  Ed Hillman was a six-four redhead with a beefy face, merry eyes and a taste for fart jokes. He was third shift, which meant he was just getting off work. What’s he doing here? Her stomach knotted, but she forced herself to give him a smile and saunter over.

  “You’re not suppose’ to be here, Detective Barton,” the deputy said in that cornpone drawl of his. His shoulders strained the sleeves of his dark blue uniform shirt, and his silver badge glinted bright as his big hands rode his weapon’s belt.

  “I had a report that. . . . ”

  Before she could get the rest of the sentence out of her mouth, Hillman coolly drew his Taser and shot her.

  The blazing pain dropped her as every muscle in her body went into an agonizing spasm. She couldn’t hold back her breathless screams of agony.

  Fuck. Oh, fuck. She’d been Tased before in training, and she knew it would be a couple of minutes before the cramps eased enough that she’d be able to move.

  Helpless, writhing, Hope watched as Hillman strode over, plucked the Taser leads from her chest—the hooks stung as they tore from her skin—and flipped her onto her belly in the grass. He planted a knee in the middle of her spine, crushing her into the ground as he grabbed her wrists, one by one, and handcuffed her with professional efficiency. Her muscles still in spasms, she couldn’t even curse.

  Hope expected the deputy to help her up and shove her into the back of his cruiser. Instead, he rose, bent over, and tossed her across his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

  Then he started toward the house.

  Shit. Oh, shit. I’m dead.

  “Hillman,” Hope gasped as he climbed the wooden steps. His shoulder dug painfully into her belly, but she could barely feel it in the Taser’s electrical aftermath on her nervous system. “What. . . the hell. . . are you doing?”

  “Following orders.”

  “Whose orders? The sheriff—.”

  “Shut up.” He walked through the front door. Its jamb was still broken from her kick.

  In retrospect, that hadn’t exactly been the smartest thing she’d ever done. And letting myself get taken out by a brick-witted deputy isn’t a stellar moment either.

  Hope was well and truly screwed now. And so was Mark.

  At least Hillman hadn’t searched her. Stupid of him, given that she was wearing her gun and cell phone. Not to mention the detonator in her shirt pocket. The vampire’s control was evidently preventing him from thinking clearly.

  He carried her down the hall and into the living room. Hope got an upside-down view of a floral upholstered couch with doilies draped over the arms. The first time she’d searched the place, she’d been surprised by how damned normal ev
erything looked. It could have been her grandmother’s house, if not for the lingering stench of murder.

  Hillman opened the basement door and started down the steps. Her body had begun to recover, but she hung carefully limp. Wait for it, Hope. Wait for it.

  “He’s killed five women, Ed.” Maybe she could get him to snap out of it. “Take a deep breath. Don’t you smell the. . . . ”

  His palm hit her ass in a hard, stinging blow that was definitely not procedure. “Shut the fuck up, Barton.”

  “Stone’s going to kill me. You’ll be an accessory. Murdering a cop—you’ll get the death penalty. Strapped to a gurney while they give you the hot shot. . . . ”

  “If you don’t shut up, I’m going to shut you up.” And judging by the snarl, he meant it.

  Gritting her teeth in frustration, she forced herself to hang limp as she watched the bloody cement pass beneath her eyes. When he dumped her on the floor, he wasn’t gentle about it. Her ass hit the concrete hard enough to bruise, but she suppressed her yelp and lay still as he took down a set of keys from a hook on the wall.

  Where the hell were they the last time I was here? Hope thought with a flash of hysterical humor. It would have saved me a hundred bucks for that saw.

  She watched Hillman unlock the cell. Mark lay against the rear wall, evidently out cold.

  When the deputy crouched over her to reach for the gun on her belt, Hope slammed a booted foot into his jaw. He fell on his back with a startled grunt.

  She rolled to her feet, but Hillman came up swinging, his beefy face flushed with rage. His massive fist hit her jaw with a crack. Her head snapped back and pain flared in an explosion of white-hot stars. She fell hard on her handcuffed wrists.

  “That’s it, bitch,” he growled. And drew his gun.

  “Hillman, no!”

  Grabbing the Glock by the barrel, he slammed the butt into the side of her head.