Page 5 of Hidden Nature

three

We made it to Miami with no issues, and thankfully, it was a big city which meant there were places open twenty-four hours a day. The biggest problem was I didn’t know if the codes I still had for safe houses would work or not. If Miranda had done everything she was supposed to, she would have wiped them all from the system, but I was willing to try. There was one safe house here that was on the wrong side of town and in a dilapidated apartment building. It wouldn’t be hard to break into. I remember overhearing they were going to relocate it to a different building since this one was becoming too unstable.

If the house was still intact, it would give us a place to rest a little until I could contact my mates. Once the sun was up, I could go to the bank and get money from my account, freeing us to do whatever we needed. Using my skills, I stole an ‘I love Miami’ T-shirt for Rathal since wandering around without a shirt on would draw more attention than I wanted. Even with the shirt on, my newest mate drew attention with his long white-blond hair and fair skin and the muscles rippled under his skin. If it was distracting to me, I could only imagine what other people must think when they saw him.

The stench of vampires filled the air as we approached the apartment building.Could this be what they meant about it becoming unstable? Vampire covens were unpredictable. If they were hiding out in an area like this, it meant they were blood junkies. They drank from the vein, getting high when they killed their living blood donors. It became addictive, which was why it’s illegal to do since it led to too many massacres in the past, especially if it was a newly created vampire without a strong mentor. People always thought shifters were the dangerous ones with their animal nature, but vampires no longer had souls to guide them.

“I think you’re in the wrong place, little wolf,” a voice whispered out of the darkness, followed by a hollow chuckle.

“Don’t chase them off. It’s been ages since we had that kind of meal,” another voice slithered across my skin from somewhere above me.

Rathal stepped up behind me, reminding me he was there watching my back. It was thoughtful of him but not needed. I’d been caught off guard with how strong the scent was to my werewolf senses. Now that I’d adjusted, I knew just where the four vampires were as they slinked closer in the cover of the night.

“There’s going to be no meal for you from either of us,” I announced. “If you try, it will be your life that ends, not mine or my mate’s.”

“Mate,” a voice hissed, stretching out the word as if it was strange for them to hear. “He doesn’t smell like a wolf. No, he smells like power.”

“What a glorious moment we have found ourselves in tonight. The power he’s putting off will give us the high these putrid humans can’t.” This final voice was far closer, but I was tracking him out of the corner of my eye as he flitted nearer with his supernatural speed.

Vampires might be faster than a werewolf, but my money was on the fact they didn’t know how to deal with prey who knew how to fight back. Taking slow, steady breaths, I let myself fall into my cool, calculating assassin nature as I let my feet slide apart to keep me balanced.

“Nin mel,” Rathal started, but in the next moment, two vampires attacked.

Using all my force, I shoved Rathal back, knocking him to the ground so one of the vampires flew over him and the other hit me right in the gut. I used the vampire’s momentum to my advantage, and as we flew back, I twisted so I was looking down at the vampire’s blood-red eyes and bared teeth. Sweeping a hand behind me, I grabbed my knife made of pure silver, and when we crashed into the ground, the vampire loosened its hold on me. Shifting back, I plunged the knife into the vampire’s heart, making it scream in pain as the blade sliced through its heart, the silver burning its way through the flesh. The lovely thing about vampires was when you killed them, they shriveled up into a husk of dry skin, turning into a small pile of sand.

“No!” one of the vampires screeched.

I had enough time to roll out of the way, but it still managed to catch my ankle. Unfortunately, my water shoes didn’t provide me with a solid enough base to get the impact I wanted as I slammed my other heel into his face. The pain shot up through my foot as I’m pretty sure I broke my heel. I thrashed, twisting like an alligator while the vampire was disorientated. Once free, I surged to my feet, hissing at the pain, but I shut it out, there were two more vampires to deal with, and I had to protect Rathal. Not waiting for the vampire to recover, I dove at it, using all my strength to slam him to the ground. In my anger at the situation, I felt my newly awakened power rise in me, and my hands started to glow. Unsure of what it would do, I shoved it into his chest, causing the vampire to writhe and scream.

Then before my eyes, something appeared to change. His blood-red eyes seemed to fade and a warm brown color replaced them. The deathly pallor of his skin started to pink up as if he’d freshly fed, and the sunken tissue from going without blood for so long seemed to fill out, making him almost appear… human. An odd sensation thumped under my hand as if his heart was beating once again.

But that couldn’t be.

He was dead.

“What have you done to me?” the vampire rasped, snapping at me in an effort to remove me. His teeth were normal. The longer incisors were gone, leaving him harmless.

Finally, my power trickled to a stop, and I was able to scramble off of him. Taking the vampire in from head to toe, I realized that I’dhealed him from being a vampire and returned him to human form.

“How is that possible?” I gasped, looking around wildly for Rathal to explain this phenomenon.

When I spotted him, the bodies of the other two vampires were at his feet headless. This would have been a more impressive feat to me if I hadn’t just used magic on a vampire, turning him back into a living, breathing human.

“Rath…” I rasped, drawing his attention. He stalked over to me and looked at the man still cowering on the ground. “I made him human.”

Rathal looked from me to the man a moment before he took the knife from my hand and slit the man’s throat. Bright red blood spilled from him as he slumped, twitching as the life I’d just given to him slipped away.

“No one can know, nin mel,” Rathal explained. “That kind of power is one that will send every supernatural being after you until your dying day.”

Lifting my gaze to him, I blinked a few times, trying to process what he was saying. “Why?”

“Finley, with that kind of healing power, you could strip any supernatural of its power if they were once human, rendering them helpless. That kind of threat in the wrong hands would be chaos,” he explained, cupping my cheek with one of his large hands, stroking my skin with his thumb. “We need to get moving before someone comes to investigate the noise.”

“Trust me, no one will come looking for trouble in this part of the neighborhood,” I commented, unable to process what he’d just said about what I might be able to do. “But I agree, we need to get moving. Now that we’ve cleared the building of vampires, we should be able to see if the apartment is still functional.”

Rathal watched me with a worried gaze as I walked away from the dead human that was once very much a vampire. Heading up to the second floor of the building, I led the way to the end of the row of rooms until we reached the last one. The number thirteen hung askew on the door and the normal handle was replaced with a keyless entry number pad. I punched in the six-digit code and held my breath, hoping it would work. The keypad flashed, then clicked open, allowing me to push the handle down and enter the apartment. The room was dusty and hadn’t been used in quite some time, but it was, for the most part, safe, and we would have a place to crash until morning. Looking at the watch on my wrist, I grimaced that we only had three hours before the sun would be up, but the banks wouldn’t open until eight.

When I went to flip on the light switch, nothing happened, making me think they had cut the power to the place. The keypad must have a battery backup for it to be still working. Heading to the sink in the small galley kitchen, I lifted the handle, and it thankfully produced water. It must be this way for the whole building, even if it was only vampires living here. The building had codes to live up to, if whoever owned the complex was still alive. With the power out, I didn’t dare open the refrigerator, afraid of what I might find in there. Instead, I looked through the cabinets and found some canned soup and instant ramen noodle cups left in the back of one. The stove was electric, so heating any of this was out, but it wasn’t the first time I’d eaten cold soup out of a can on the job.