Hunger

  Hunger

  Felicity Heaton

  Hunger

  Betrayed by one of her own and turned into a vampire, hunter Eve is consumed by her hunger for vengeance and has spent five years surviving hell, driven to take the life of the man she once loved. But just as she is about to close in on the hunter-turned-vampire, an event is set in motion that threatens to see him slip beyond her grasp forever—the leader of her bloodline has sent an escort to bring her to the family’s mansion. To a nest of the very creatures she once hunted and loathes.

  A vampire assassin hardened by centuries of service, Tor is a man of discipline and loyalty, never straying from his mission or the rules set out for him, and has purged all his weaknesses, including his emotions.

  But the moment he meets the broken, fiery female he is to escort to Oslo, something dangerous awakens in him, something possessive and powerful, and when he is pulled into a deadly game of cat and mouse with the man who betrayed her, Tor discovers he will do anything to protect the woman slowly claiming his heart and give her the vengeance she desires—even break all the rules.

  Can Eve embrace her new vampire nature in order to have her revenge and find a reason to live again in Tor? Can Tor and Eve stop the man who betrayed her and the deaths of thousands of innocents? Or will he succeed in creating a new army of hybrid vampires who will rise up against the purebloods?

  CHAPTER 1

  “You can’t make me do this, and you know it.”

  The black-haired man leaning against the table opposite Eve in the dimly lit empty nightclub folded his arms in response to her outburst, his dark eyes glittering with ice, a look she was coming to know as a sign he wouldn’t budge on his decision.

  Eve growled at him and cut the sound off in her throat when her fangs began to drop, turning her stomach, reminding her what she had become.

  “I’m not going.” She mimicked him by folding her arms across her chest, squashing her breasts together beneath her plain charcoal t-shirt. “That’s final.”

  “Eve,” he whispered softly and unfurled his body, pushing to his feet in a graceful effortless move. His broad shoulders shifted in a silent sigh beneath his black shirt and he reached for her, his expression softening and the ice in his impassive eyes melting. “It is for the best.”

  It wasn’t, and he knew it. He knew how she felt about what she had become, and her so-called family. She wanted no part of it, not even for her sister’s sake. Lilith had become the ruler of the Vehemens bloodline and the same vampire blood ran in Eve’s veins because of the man towering before her.

  “It isn’t.” Eve rubbed her forehead, trying to ease the ache in her skull, the constant buzzing that was only growing louder. Soon, it would become something else, something darker and more sinister. A hunger for blood. She tamped it down, using everything she had taught herself over the years since her inadvertent turning, suppressing her sick desire to feed.

  “Eve?” He was closer now and she didn’t tense as his hand came down on her left shoulder, holding her gently and offering a modicum of comfort. “Are you unwell?”

  She shook her head and pulled herself back together. She had quickly discovered after her rescue by the man before her that he would do all in his power to make her take blood if he thought she required it. Not by force. Not as the betrayer had done. No. This man employed a more devastating tactic.

  Eve raised her head, looked up into the endless depths of his dark eyes and gave it one last shot, because he wasn’t the only one who could employ guilt as a weapon. “Father, please.”

  He hissed and released her as if she had burned him with those words, and turned his back on her, shoving his fingers through the long lengths of his black hair as he paced away. She sensed his agitation and kept still, unwilling to risk inciting his wrath when she was weakened by hunger, even when she knew he would never lay a hand on her. Her vampire instincts were strong though, overwhelming at times, commanding her to obey them even when she despised the things they made her want to do.

  Like attack humans and steal their blood.

  Whenever those instincts pressed her, she pushed back, using all of her willpower to deny them. She had never allowed anyone to make decisions for her, believed that no one and nothing should have control over her life, and that extended to her wretched instincts. She was stronger than the monster inside her, the demon she had become. She would never embrace it. She had a final mission, and once it was done, so was she.

  “Eve,” he said, his voice pained and low, and turned to her, his handsome face twisted in lines of desperation. The ragged burn scars down one cheek and side of his neck pulled taut as he growled, flashing long white daggers at her, and his eyes flared crimson. “Do not think this does not hurt me too. I do not want you to go… but you must understand… Lilith needs you, and you need Lilith. I have tried… by the Devil I have tried to make you see sense but you refuse!”

  Eve recoiled as he barked the words at her, his anger pouring from him in violent waves that rocked her. She had pushed too far again and, although she had inherited his temper, in a battle of wills he would win.

  Pain surfaced in his eyes as he hissed an oath and looked beyond her to the main entrance of the nightclub.

  “It is for the best.”

  Eve had the terrible feeling he was giving up on her, and the small fragment of her that wanted to survive and somehow embrace this dark new life, to continue to live with her real family, ached in response.

  She took a step towards him and his gaze swung to her, the fathomless agony and sorrow in it bringing her up short and turning the ache into a throbbing pain.

  “I’m not ready.” The lie came easily, slipping freely from her tongue. How many times had she lied to Oneiric already?

  She had no intention of embracing her new life as a vampire. It was too hard for her. She had been born and raised a hunter, one of the best at Section Seven where she had lived with her sister. For most of their lives, they’d had no idea that their unknown mother had given them their father’s DNA through genetic manipulation.

  Eve had uncovered the information one night but had failed to grasp the magnitude of what it meant for her and Lilith, and had kept it to herself.

  Oneiric had explained that Lilith had found out about it while she had still been human, working for Section Seven, and had met her mate, Lincoln, who was another Vehemens vampire.

  Eve had found out the full consequences of their mother’s tampering the even harder way. She had been betrayed and killed, and had risen from the dead as a pureblood vampire.

  She wrapped her arms about herself and squeezed hard as a chill came over her, freezing her to her soul.

  “Eve.” Oneiric crossed the room and pulled her into his arms. It was impossible to resist leaning into his hard chest and resting her cheek against the cool wall of muscle beneath the soft black cotton shirt. Waking as a vampire had been confusing and painful enough, but discovering that Adam had betrayed her had hurt like hell, and the torture that had come afterwards, the years of pain and fury…

  She shuddered and Oneiric rubbed her back.

  “Do not think about it, little one.” He often called her by the pet term, even though she railed at him about it most nights, telling him that she was a grown woman and not a child.

  She hated that he treated her as if she were a child, something fragile and weak, unable to fend for itself.

  But at the same time, she loved it when he doted on her, when they spent the night talking about his life and hers before she was turned, and he told her things about her mother. Then, she accepted the pet term, savouring having one parent in her life and being able to know her other one through him. During those quiet times, she felt close to him and at ease with herself, finally knew what it was li
ke to have parents, and she knew it affected Oneiric in a similar way.

  Vampires couldn’t procreate, and Oneiric had admitted to being shocked when he had discovered that he had fathered twin daughters, and that he was still coming to terms with it.

  He was gunning for father of the century in her opinion. Not only had he helped her sister save Lincoln, her mate, but he had saved Eve too. He had moved Heaven and Earth to find her and bring her home with him, and it touched her more than she could express in words.

  That protective, fatherly streak in him was the reason he wasn’t going to give up and let her have her way. He wanted her to go home, to their bloodline’s home, to a mansion filled with vampires.

  Eve pulled down a deep breath as her throat tightened in response to the thought of being surrounded by hundreds of vampires and exhaled it slowly. “Don’t make me do this. Let me stay here a little longer.”

  Oneiric drew back and cupped her cheeks in his palms, tilting her head up so her eyes met his. “Will you feed then?”

  She shook her head. “You know I can’t.”

  “Then you know I can’t either. I cannot allow you to go on like this, slowly killing yourself. Lilith will be able to make you see sense.”

  Sense to Oneiric was hunting humans and feeding from them. It was listening to the call of the night and embracing all that it meant to be a vampire.

  Sense to her was hunting her betrayer, Adam, and repaying him in kind.

  If Oneiric sent her to Oslo, to the Vehemens stronghold where Lilith reigned with Lincoln, her chance at revenge would slip through her grasp.

  She couldn’t stop now. She was close. She knew it.

  If she told Oneiric of her desire to hunt and kill the bastard who had betrayed her, it would only make him send her to Oslo sooner. He would want to protect her and would place her safety above satisfying the hunger that drove her.

  She could flee him, but that would only cause him and Lilith pain, and he would come after her.

  She could spin another lie and say she would make her own way to Oslo, but someone was already on their way to collect her and take her there. They had received word from Lincoln about it five hours ago, at sunset, and had been arguing ever since.

  Fleeing was beginning to look like her only option.

  A bolt of awareness shot down her spine and she stiffened. Oneiric tensed too and lifted his head. Crimson fire flickered around the edges of his dark irises.

  “We have company.” The note of warning in his deep voice said it wasn’t her escort.

  Eve grabbed the two large hunting knives on the round black table close to her and reached out with her senses, scouring the area around the club. People were coming. Close to a dozen of them.

  The double doors of the main entrance burst open, the heavy steel panels crashing into the walls on either side, allowing a rush of cold damp air to bring tangled unfamiliar scents to her. Behind her, another bang sounded as the back door of the club shot open. Male voices poured into the darkness.

  Four ahead of her and seven behind.

  She took a deep breath to steady herself and flexed her fingers around the grips of the short blades to stop them from trembling. It wasn’t fear making her hands shake. It was hunger. It gnawed at her insides and clouded her mind, dampening her senses and stealing her strength. She almost started to wish she had taken the animal blood Oneiric had offered her on waking tonight, but she had been so angry about being shipped off to Oslo that she had refused.

  “I will handle the back,” Oneiric said and then he was gone and she was alone in the dimly lit room, only a dozen tables and chairs between her and the four advancing men.

  Eve cursed her weakness and shifted her booted feet, adopting a stance that was second nature to her, preparing for the fight ahead.

  The vampires emerged from the darkness, golden eyes flickering with hunger as they landed on her and lingered.

  The same breed of bastard that had killed her.

  A growl curled up her throat and she launched herself forwards, leaped up onto a table and pushed off from the top. She clutched both blades and brought them down as she descended, aiming straight for the man leading the charge. He reacted in an instant, strafing to his left, avoiding her attack. Eve landed in a crouch and immediately twisted towards him, lashing out with the knife in her right hand as she hurled the one in her left at the next man. That one embedded itself deep in his shoulder before he could evade it and he hissed in agony.

  She shot to her feet and slashed across the first man’s biceps, cutting deep enough to feel her blade scrape bone, and ducked as he swung at her with his claws, growling low in his throat. Eve kicked forwards, rolled and came up behind the vampire with her other blade embedded in his shoulder. He snarled as he pulled the knife free of his flesh.

  She didn’t give him a chance to use her own weapon against her. She swept her hand out, catching him across his throat with her knife, and he howled in pain and dropped the weapon in favour of slapping his hand over the wound on his neck and staunching the river of blood flowing down it.

  Eve exhaled hard and blocked the wild swing another of the men threw at her. The first male’s fist slammed into her back at the same time and propelled her forwards, into another of her attackers. He grabbed her by the arm she held the blade in and hurled her into the black bar. Her head connected hard with the brass rail around the edge of the curved bar and pain ricocheted through her skull.

  One of the men chuckled as she tried to get her bearings and fought to stop her head from spinning. Her senses reached out to monitor the men and her head cleared. She took her time pretending to gather herself and pinpointed each of her opponents. The one she had cut across the neck was still down, muttering black things to himself, detailing all the ways she was going to pay.

  Nothing he came up with was any worse than what she had already endured at the hands of vampires.

  The other three men were waiting. How very chivalrous. She pushed against the bar and grimaced as her head ached, the deep throbbing pain the result of more than her collision. Her hunger was growing, roused by the heavy scent of blood in the air. It pressed her to feed, every dark instinct she possessed demanding she take blood from the men behind her.

  Eve shook her head and struggled against that dark desire.

  She turned to face the three men waiting for her. The dark-haired one who had made her intimately acquainted with the bar stooped and picked up her knife. She palmed the one she held and calculated her chances of survival.

  Slim at best.

  With her head pounding and dampening her senses, hunger riding her mercilessly and weakening her, she wasn’t up for a fight against one strong vampire, let alone three. If the fourth chose to join the fight, she was definitely dead.

  Eve inched to her right, towards the open space where she had been speaking with Oneiric before the intrusion. The sounds of his fight carried through the darkness and her dull senses said that he had already dealt with three of his foes. She had yet to dispatch one.

  It marked the vast difference between them. They were of the same pure bloodline and she should be strong enough to fight these weaklings, but she wasn’t. She was weaker than these men before her, and it was her own fault. She could have easily dispatched them if she had been feeding. If she had been strong.

  Her stomach turned at the thought of taking human blood and she kept edging away from the men, buying herself space and time. A fourth vampire disappeared from her senses. Oneiric was down to three. If she could keep her four occupied while not giving them a chance to kill her, Oneiric could make it back to her. She hated having to rely on him to fight her battles, and knew he would use it to illustrate his point about her need to feed, but she had no choice. She couldn’t die here. She wasn’t ready to go to Hell yet.

  The three vampires tracked her and the fourth stumbled to his feet. He pulled his hand away from the deep slash across his throat. It had stopped bleeding.

  Eve t
urned with them, her back to the dance floor now.

  She readied her knife and called on her senses, allowing them to stretch out and encompass the men. Silver lines shimmered over their bodies, forming ghost versions of each of them. Those ghosts moved, her senses predicting the paths they would take, giving her a shot at taking at least one of them down. Three of them had multiple paths, a blur of motion that made it dangerous to act on.

  The path of the fourth, the one with the neck wound, was as clear as night and he was about to make a grave mistake.

  He disappeared from behind the other three vampires, a shadow of movement through the tables. Eve waited for the critical moment and then thrust her right hand in a sharp diagonal arc at her side, burying her knife to the hilt under his chin. He gagged and cold wet gushed over her hand and trailed down her arm.

  Eve pulled the blade free and swept it across his throat, throwing all of her strength into the blow. The knife cut deep, severing his spine, and he dropped hard.

  The remaining three weakling vampires snarled and launched themselves as one at her. Eve did her best to block each blow they threw, her forearms taking the brunt of their wrath, and tried to get some attacks of her own in. They were relentless, driving her backwards, crowding her and making it impossible for her to escape.

  She bit her tongue to silence her cries as claws cut and fists slammed, each blow weakening her a little more.

  She couldn’t die yet. She needed peace. She needed to make the bastard pay.

  It couldn’t end here. Now.

  A cry escaped her as sharp talons sliced through her right biceps and she dropped her only weapon.

  A deep male voice rolled over her like a storm, his foreign tongue dark and sinister.

  The three vampires crowding her eased back and turned as one to face the newcomer. Eve withdrew, clutching her arm. Blood spilled from between her fingers and the ever-present hunger grew worse, bringing out her fangs as it demanded she taste the sweet, coppery liquid.

  A fifth male melted out of the shadows at the entrance of the club, a six-foot-five wall of lethal muscle and deadly grace, his face obscured by the hood of his oversized black sweatshirt. Calm laced with malice rolled off him and she felt his gaze flicker to her.