Chapter One
Brax swallowed his alcohol, hoping it would warm him up. “Might as well move to effing Alaska,” he hissed through clenched teeth as he shivered. He preferred New Orleans, had gotten by just fine for the last... one hundred and twenty years?
But then...
You sleep with one Voodoo Queen and then eat her favorite errand boy, and suddenly you’re cursed. Can’t kill. Can’t bite to feed. Can’t even hurt a human without the pain rebounding instantly at tenfold...
Marietta had clearly intended to starve him out and send him mad, putting him through enough suffering that he’d decide a sunny walk was in order, or maybe a quick jab with a wooden stake would let him leave this miserable planet.
It wasn’t much fun anymore, that was for sure.
But Marietta was almost as old as he was, and much more steeped in her archaic ways. She didn’t think about things like blood banks. She didn’t know vamps could feed on animals—if they wanted to turn into weaklings.
No, he was going to get himself uncursed somehow, someday; he just hadn’t figured out how. The best way to stay alive in the meantime was to get the hell away from Marietta, who might up the ante if she figured out he wasn’t heading to hissecond death fast enough for her liking, and head to someplace where he could survive out of danger.
A place like miserable little Pine Ridge, where the monsters were irritatingly kind, good, and accepting of him, as long as he pretended to be reformed. A place where he could hunt deer and boar, and even the occasional bear—or simply ask the local butcher to put in a standing order.
There were other vampires in town to mimic and learn from. Husbands. Fathers. Civil-fucking-servants who volunteered for everything from gingerbread competition judging to organizing the local neighborhood watch. The only things missing were the neon vest and an ingratiating smile.
Brax shivered and considered his options. It was Christmas Eve. The temperature must have plummeted into the negatives. He didn’t think the butcher would be open at this hour, and any game was well hidden.
He stopped pacing and stared at the ceiling, suddenly aware of something new.
Icicles.
Inside.
Inside, not near any windows.
A sudden gust of freakishly cold wind blew through his sealed apartment, and he threw up his hands.
“It must be below freezing in here!” He grabbed his coat, a long dark leather trench affair that made him look mysterious and dangerous. Tourist-y girls in New Orleans had loved the look—dark eyeliner, pale skin, long brown-black hair, and large amounts of leather.
He’d slept with most of his meals.
“Don’t think about that, Abraxus,” Brax scolded himself as he shivered. That was another type of warm, another type of feeding he missed.
As if on cue, he heard a startled cry from his next-door neighbor, and his mind did forbidden things.
It pictured Penny, the neighbor in question, blonde and wiry, sun-kissed skin, a scowl, and a stake. She’d made it very clear that she knew what he was, and unlike most other humans in town, who were either oblivious or friendly to the paranormal kind, she radiated hostility. She always wore a huge silver cross, Gothic style, and had crosses placed at the upper corners of her door. She wore short leather skirts, and every time she saw him, she made sure to flash her legs—to let him see the stake-dagger combo tucked into the top of her black knit stockings.
Every “Do Not Touch” sign a human could give, she gave.
But in spite of that (or maybe because of that?), she had become his current obsession. It was unhealthy, really.
Marietta was right. He liked to put himself in situations where he didn’t just press his luck; he flattened it.
With Penny, he used a steamroller.
Whenever Penny washed her clothes at the communal washer at the end of the hall, he would appear, a mostly empty basket in his arm, and try to make small talk. She’d answer in barely civil tones, and that was for the sake of the neighbors in the hall.
He’d tried to touch her elbow once and found himself with a stake beside his jugular.
Hunting her might warm him up. Might be fun, too. He couldn’t hurt her, but he could chase her—or he could if his feet weren’t slowly turning to blocks of ice.
Above him, he heard a loud thud and a sharp cry of “Oh, no!”
“Wonderful,” he muttered sarcastically. “Stupid, wannabe witch.”
