A Hunger So Wild

  “You’ve got balls of steel, Gracie,” she said through the receiver in her headpiece.

  “So says the woman who takes on opponents the size of a double-decker bus.”

  Suited up, they entered the sealed antechamber of the quarantine room, then stepped through to the inner room once given the green light to do so. Inside, a man lay on an exam table as if sleeping, his features peaceful in repose. Only the intravenous lines in his arms and the rapid lift and fall of his chest betrayed his illness.

  “What are you giving him?” Vash asked. “Is that blood?”

  “We’re transfusing him, yes. We’re also keeping him in a medical coma.” Grace looked up at Vash through her face shield, her features weary and austere. “His name is King. When he was mortal, he went by the name of William King. He was my primary assistant until this morning, when he was bitten by one of the infected vamps we caught yesterday.”

  “It takes hold that quickly?”

  “Depends. According to preliminary reports from the field, some vamps are immune. Others take weeks to show symptoms. Still more are like King and succumb within a matter of hours.”

  “And what are the symptoms, exactly?”

  “Mindless hunger, unreasoned aggression, and an unnaturally high tolerance for pain. We’re calling them wraiths.”

  “Why?”

  “They’re shadows of their former selves. Lights on, no one home. Their minds and personalities are shot, but their bodies are still cruising right along with the party. The ones I’ve managed to keep alive more than a handful of days lose pigment and melanin in their hair and skin. Even their irises turn gray. And check this.”

  Grace brushed the bangs back from King’s forehead with a gentle, slightly trembling hand. “Sorry, buddy,” she whispered, before reaching for a corded, handheld device that looked like a retail checkout scanner. Holding his wrist, she aimed at his forearm and activated a pale bluish glow. Ultraviolet light.

  Vash bent closer, examining the targeted skin. It rippled minutely, as if the muscle beneath it was having a spasm, but that was the only sign of irritation. “Holy shit. UV tolerance?”

  “Not quite.” Turning off the device, Grace set it aside. “There’s no real immunity at work—the flesh is still burning; it’s just healing at an accelerated rate. The damaged skin cells are regenerating as quickly as they’re being destroyed. Ergo, no visible or lasting damage. I ran some tests on two of the other subjects we had in here. Same deal.”

  Their gazes met.

  “Don’t get excited,” Grace muttered. “That cellular renewal is what’s causing all the other symptoms. The insatiable hunger comes from the need to fuel the massive energy expenditure required for regeneration. The aggression comes from the hunger, which has to feel like starving to death—all the damn time. And the high pain tolerance comes from the fact that they can’t focus on anything else but the need to feed. They can’t seem to think, period. Have you seen a wraith in action?”

  Vash shook head.

  “They’re like frenzied zombies. Higher brain function is subverted by pure instinct.”

  “So you’re transfusing him because he’ll die without a continuous intake of blood?”

  “I learned that the hard way. I sedated two of the captures so I could study them—you can’t get near them when they’re fully functional—and they liquefied. Their metabolisms are so accelerated that their bodies pretty much digested themselves. Pile o’ mush. Not pretty.”

  “Is it possible that Adrian cooked this up in a lab somewhere?” The Sentinel leader had been tasked with leading the elite unit of seraphim enforcers that had severed the wings from the Fallen. Using lycans as herding dogs, Adrian prevented the vampires from expanding into more widely populated areas. The result was both territorial and financial suppression.

  “Anything is possible, but I wouldn’t have made that leap.” Grace gestured at King. “I can’t see Adrian doing this. Not his style.”

  Truth be told, Vash couldn’t either. Adrian was a warrior to the core. If he wanted a fight, he’d do it face-to-face and hand-to-hand. But he had a lot to gain if the vampire nation withered away to nothing. His mission would be over and he could leave the earth—and its pain, misery, and filth—behind. Assuming he’d even want to leave now that he had Lindsay, a mate who couldn’t go with him.

  Softening her voice, Vash conveyed her sympathy. “I’m so sorry about your friend, Gracie.”

  “Help me find a cure, Vash. Help me save him and the others.”

  That’s why she’d come, the reason Syre had sent her. Reports of the illness were cropping up all over the country, the spread so swift it was quickly becoming an epidemic. “What do you need?”

  “More subjects, more blood, more equipment, more staff.”

  “Done. Of course. Just get me a list.”

  “That’s the easy part.” Crossing her arms, Grace shot another glance at King. “I need to know where the Wraith Virus first appeared. Which part of the country, which state, which town, which house, which room in the house. Down to the minutia. Male or female. Young or old. Race and build. I need you to find the very first person who got sick. Then I need you to find number two. How did they know number one? Did they live in the same house? Share the same bed? Or was the connection more tenuous? Were they blood relations? Then, find number three and four and five. We’re talking six degrees of separation gone wild. I need enough data to establish a pattern and point of origin.”

  Suddenly feeling suffocated by the hazmat suit, Vash strode toward the door. Grace met her there and typed in the code that released the seal to the antechamber.

  “You’re talking about a hell of a lot of manpower,” Vash muttered, following Grace’s example and standing on a painted circle on the floor. Something sprayed from the exposed piping over her head, surrounding her suit in a fine mist.

  “I know.”

  There were tens of thousands of minions, but their inability to tolerate sunlight seriously hindered their usefulness. The original Fallen had no such restriction, but there were less than two hundred of them. Far too few to provide the blood to minions that would grant them temporary immunity. Certainly not enough to manage the pavement-pounding necessary to carry out the requested task in a timely manner.

  Shrugging out of her suit, Vash rolled her shoulders back and set her mind. The initial reports of the illness had surfaced at the same time as Adrian’s lost love. Nailing down a timeline would help her to decide if the Sentinel leader had culpability or not. “I’ll make it happen.”

  “I know you will.” Grace paused in the act of ruffling her choppy blond hair and her gaze moved over Vash. “You still dress in mourning.”

  Vash looked down at the black leather pants and vest she wore and managed a shrug. After sixty years, the pain was still there, throbbing to remind her of the vengeance due her for Charron’s brutal slaying. One day she’d find a lycan who could give her the information she needed to pick up the trail of Char’s killers. She could only hope that happened before the ones responsible died of old age or on a hunt. Unlike Sentinels and vamps, the lycans had mortal expiration dates.

  “Let’s get that list,” she said crisply, ready to start on the monumental task ahead of her.

  * * *

  Syre watched the video to the end, then pushed to his feet in a burst of agile movement. “What are your thoughts on this?”

  Vash tucked her legs up beneath her on the chair that faced his desk. “We’re fucked. We don’t have enough people to attack this as quickly as the virus—the Wraith Virus, she called it…As fast as it’s spreading, we don’t have the resources to tackle it.”

  He shoved a hand through his thick, dark hair and cursed. “We can’t go down like this, Vashti. Not after all we’ve been through.”

  The Fallen leader’s pain was a tangible force in the room. As he stood before the windows that overlooked Main Street in Raceport, Virginia, a town he’d built from the ground up, it appeared as
if the weight of the world was on his shoulders. It wasn’t just the problems they faced that pressed down on him. He was in deep mourning, grieving the loss of his daughter after centuries of praying for her return. And he was altered by that loss. No one else had noticed it yet, but Vash knew him too well. Something had changed in him, a switch had been flipped. He was harder, less flexible, and that was reflected in the decisions he was making.

  “I’m going to do the best I can,” she promised. “We all will. We’re fighters, Syre. No one will give up.”

  He turned to face her, his beautiful face set in fierce lines. “I received an interesting call while you were with Grace.”

  “Oh?” His tone and the glitter of his gaze set her on edge. She knew that look of his, knew it meant he was resolved to his course but expected resistance.

  “The lycans have revolted.”

  Vash’s spine stiffened painfully, as it always did when discussing the Sentinels’ dogs. “How? When?”

  “Within the last week. I assume Adrian’s distraction over my daughter was seen as a prime opportunity to break free.” His arms crossed, his powerful biceps flexing with the movement. Adrian had first been attracted to Lindsay Gibson because she was the latest incarnation of Shadoe, Syre’s daughter and Adrian’s longtime love. In the end, it was Lindsay who’d won both Adrian’s heart and the right to her own body, leaving Syre mired in grief over the loss of his child and Adrian knocked a bit off his game. “The lycans will need us if they want to stay free, and it appears we need them just as badly.”

  She pushed to her feet. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I know what I’m asking of you.”

  “Do you? This is akin to me asking you to work with Adrian, knowing he’s the reason your daughter is gone. Or me telling you to partner with the demon who killed your wife.”

  His chest expanded on a slow, deep inhale. “If the fate of every vampire in the world was dependent on my doing so, I’d do it.”

  “Fuck you and your guilt.” The words slipped out before she could hold them back. Whatever else Syre was to her, he was first and foremost her commanding officer. “I’m sorry, Commander.”

  He dismissed her concern with an impatient flick of his wrist. “You’ll pay me back by finding whoever the lycan Alpha is and offering an alliance.”

  “There are no lycan Alphas. The Sentinels have made sure of that.”

  “There has to be one or the revolt would never have happened.”

  She began to pace, her heeled boots rapping out a quick staccato on the hardwood floor. “Send Raze or Salem,” she suggested, offering up her two best captains. “Or both of them.”

  “It has to be you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you hate lycans and your reluctance will hide our desperation.” He rounded the desk, then half sat on the front edge, his long legs crossing at the ankles. “We can’t give them an advantage. They have to believe they need us more than we need them. And you’re my second. Sending you delivers a powerful message as to how seriously I would take the proposed alliance.”

  The thought of working with lycans stirred a rage inside her that fogged her vision. What if she inadvertently worked alongside one of the lycans who’d ripped Charron to ribbons? What if she saved one of their lives, thinking they were an ally? It was so perverted it made her stomach roil. “Give me some time to try to handle this on our own. If I don’t make sufficient progress within a couple weeks, we can revisit.”

  “Adrian could exterminate the lycans by then. The timing has to be now, while they’re still on uneven footing. Think about how quickly we could search with thousands of lycans at our disposal.”

  She continued to traverse the length of the room at a pace that would make mortals dizzy to follow. “Tell me your request has nothing to do with your hatred for Adrian.”

  Syre’s mouth curved on one side. “You know I can’t. I want to kick Adrian while he’s down. Of course I do. But that wouldn’t be enough to ask you to do this, knowing what it’s going to cost you. You mean far more to me than that.”

  Coming to an abrupt halt, Vash approached him. “I’ll do this because you’re ordering me to, but I won’t set aside the retribution I’m owed. I’ll use this opportunity to find those responsible for Charron’s death. When I act on that information, I won’t be held liable for the consequences. If that’s not acceptable to you, I’ll present your offer of an alliance, then I’ll go my own way.”

  “You will not.” Syre’s low tone held a wealth of warning. “I’ll support you, Vashti. You know that. But at this moment, the exigency of the vampire nation must come first.”

  “Fair enough.”

  He nodded. “The revolt began at the Navajo Lake outpost. Start in Utah. They can’t have gone far.”

  CHAPTER 2

  “We need to find out whether or not there are other Alphas.” Elijah glanced at the lycan who walked beside him, wondering at how easily Stephan had stepped into the role of his Beta.

  Instinct weighed heavily on everything they did as a fledgling pack, a truth that unsettled Elijah more than it soothed. He would prefer that their destinies be shaped by their own hands and not by the demon blood that flowed through their veins.

  But as he traversed the long stone hallway, the number of verdant gazes staring back at him was irrefutable proof of how dominant a lycan’s baser nature was. Every one of them had the luminous green irises of a mixed-bloodline creature. They lined the walls by the hundreds, staring as he passed them, forming a gauntlet through the red rock caves in southern Utah that he’d selected as his headquarters. They thought he was a damn messiah, the one lycan who could lead them into a new age of independence. They didn’t realize that their expectations and hopes for freedom imprisoned him.

  “I’ve made it a top priority,” Stephan assured. “But half the lycans we send out don’t return.”

  “Perhaps they’re returning to the Sentinel fold. As far as quality of life goes, we had it better working for the angels.”

  “Is any price too high to pay for liberty?” Stephan asked. “We all know the Sentinels don’t stand a chance if we take the offensive. There are less than two hundred of them in existence. Our numbers are in the thousands.”

  The gentle prodding for Elijah to be proactive instead of reactive wasn’t lost on him. He could feel it in the air around him, the crackling energy of lycans ready and willing to hunt. “Not yet,” he said. “It’s not time.”

  An arm shot out and grabbed him. “What the fuck are you waiting for?”

  Elijah paused and turned, facing the brawny male whose eyes glowed in the shadows of the cave. The lycan was bristling and half shifted, his arms and neck covered in a grayish pelt.

  The beast in Elijah growled a warning, but he held it in check, a control that made him Alpha.

  “Are you challenging me, Nicodemus?” he asked with dangerous softness. He’d been waiting for this, had known it was coming. It would be only the first of many challenges until he established his dominance through physical prowess in addition to a lycan’s instinctive need to follow a leader.

  The lycan’s nostrils flared, his chest heaving as he fought against his beast. Lacking Elijah’s control, Nic would lose.

  Prying the man’s grip from his arm, Elijah said, “You know where to find me.”

  Then he turned his back to the challenge and walked away, deliberately baiting Nic’s beast. The sooner they got this over with the better.

  Nic had asked him what he was waiting for. He was waiting for cohesion, trust, loyalty—the cementing framework that would hold all the packs together. Greater numbers or not, there was no way they’d win against a tightly commanded elite military unit like the Sentinels if they didn’t work together.

  A female approached him at a near run, agitation radiating from her tense frame. “Alpha,” she greeted him, quickly introducing herself as Sarah. “You have a visitor. A vampire.”

  His brows rose. “A vampire? A
s in one?”

  “Yes. She asked for the Alpha.”

  Elijah’s curiosity was more than piqued. The lycans had been created by the Sentinels for the sole purpose of hunting and containing the vampires. The fact that the lycans had revolted from Sentinel control didn’t mean they’d forgotten their ingrained hatred of bloodsuckers. For a vamp to walk into a den alone was suicidal.

  “Show her to the great room,” he said.

  Sarah turned and ran back the way she’d come, with Elijah and Stephan following at a more sedate pace.

  Stephan shook his head. “What the fuck?”

  “The vamp’s desperate, for some reason.”

  “Why is that our problem?”

  Shrugging, Elijah said, “Could be our gain.”

  “Do we really want to become a safe house for bloodsucking losers?”

  “Let me get this straight: we rebel and we’re better off, but a vampire bolts and they’re a loser?”

  Stephan scowled. “You know as well as I do that the pack won’t take in vamps.”

  “Times have changed. In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re pretty damned desperate, too.”

  Elijah was stepping over the threshold into the great room when he heard the growl behind him. Lunging forward, he shifted into his lupine form before his paws hit the rock floor. He whirled around at the same moment he was charged by Nicodemus, taking a full-on ramming in the side that knocked the wind from him. Rolling over, he regained his feet, righting himself in time to catch his challenger by the throat mid-leap. With a toss of his head, Elijah threw the other lycan across the room. Then he howled his fury, the sound reverberating through the massive room.

  Nic skidded sideways on his paws, then found traction and attacked again. Elijah rushed forward to intercept him.

  They collided with brutal force, their jaws snapping for purchase. Nic caught him by the foreleg and bit hard. Elijah went for the flank, his teeth digging in deep, his beast growling at the heady taste of hot, rich blood.

  Kicking off his attacker, Elijah turned, ripping a chunk of flesh away. Nic yelped and came back around, limping. Elijah crouched, prepared to leap, when the lush scent of ripe cherries slid across his senses in teasing tendrils. The fragrance swept through him, burning through his blood and sending aggression pumping through his veins.