Page 2 of Caretaker

Amias had been hunting with us, shocking as that might sound. He helped disable the infecteds, as the sick vampires were called, so Shane and I could give them the true death. He didn’t want those vampires coming back any more than the humans did.

Shane rested his shotgun on his shoulder. “What do you want, Sato? We have vampires to kill.” His hard stare suggested he’d liked to have killed the one who stood in front of us, but until we understood exactly how Amias and I were linked, we wouldn’t be killing him.

My calmness caught me off guard. Oh, if I concentrated, I could feel the rage sloshing around inside me like dirty, frenzied water, but it no longer rose up to grab me by the throat. It no longer made me lose my mind.

I blew out a soft breath, and the vampire master’s smile widened.

“You delight me,” he said.

I just stared at him, cold, unflinching, deliberately controlled.

“Let’s go,” Shane told me and turned away.

“Wait.” Amias reached out to wrap his fingers around my wrist.

I jerked away from his touch and stumbled back into Shane, who snaked his free arm around my waist and pointed his shotgun at Amias.

Amias turned up his lip but didn’t even glance at my hunting partner. “I dislike your suspicion. I told you I will not hurt you.”

“You’re a liar.” I relaxed against the sweet darkness of Shane’s body for only a few seconds before I stepped away. “You’ve hurt me plenty.”

I guess he believed wiping out my family and leaving me to bleed out on the street wasn’t hurtful. Still, it wasn’t fear that he might hurt me that made me recoil. I jerked away because I wanted his touch.

And that was just wrong.

“What do you want, Amias?”

He sighed at my anger. “I’m growing weak from hunger, Trinity. I must feed.”

“I don’t see how this is my problem.” I noted his pallor, his dullness, and his thin, unkempt body. I frowned. “Why aren’t you feeding?” I asked, finally, reluctantly. “You’re immune to the infection.”

“Things have changed,” he told me, his gaze dropping to the pulse in my throat. “Blood from an unclean human is like water to a vampire.”

“Wait,” I said, trying to understand what he was telling me. “You’re saying you’re immune to the infection but the blood of human carriers can’t nourish you?”

“Yes,” he said, quietly, then repeated, “Things have changed.”

I shook my head. “I won’t feed you.”

His black stare never left my face. “You fed me once. I need your precious blood again, my love.”

I shivered, hit abruptly by the image of him between my legs, his fangs piercing my flesh, his hands holding open my thighs.

He lifted his nose to the air, pulling in the scent of my desire. I couldn’t hide that from him, as much as I might want to.

It didn’t help that I hadn’t had sex since Angus had been carted away to prison, or that I was surrounded by some very passionate people. Accidental, casual touches from Shane, the hot, forbidden caress of Clayton’s stare, the sexy tilt of Rhys’s full lips, Miriam’s dark promise, and the fierce need of the vampire master…

They made my body wake up screaming with lust.

I wasn’t even sure why I continued to deprive myself—at least not with Shane. Clayton was off limits, the subject hadn’t exactly come up with Rhys, and Amias…no. I was full of self-disgust about what I’d done with Amias.

My family was in the ground because of him. How could I have hot dreams about the man who’d taken their lives? How could I do that?

But I did.

Shane was a dick most of the time, but he was a hunter, and we were drawn to each other. And dear lord, was he hot.

If he’d pushed the issue, I doubted sincerely that I would resist him. Thing was…he hadn’t pushed. He didn’t seem quite as affected by my body as I was by his.