Once Bitten

Page 17

  Author: Kalayna Price

  I took a deep breath, fighting to keep Bobby's anger from infecting mine—my outrage alone was enough. Of course, Nathanial had never met our kind before, so he couldn't possibly realize the depth of his insult. Rogues were insane. Always. Rogue was what we called a shifter who lost his or her mind and did things like . . . oh, attack, torture and kill people. It happened most often with tagged shifters, those shifters who had been born fully human or fully animal, but gained the ability to shapeshift after an encounter with a shifter in mid-form. Tagged shifters’ minds tended to break if they couldn't reconcile what had happened to them, turning them rogue. In fact, it happened so often among the tagged that there were strict rules about when, how, and under what circumstance someone could be tagged.

  Among natural-born and pureblood shifters, rogues were rare, but they did occur on occasion. There was no rehabilitation for a rogue, so accusing a shifter of turning rogue was serious. Serious enough that most shifter children ended up black and blue if they used the name even lightly against other children in their clan. Nathanial might be unintentionally right, though, in calling me a rogue now—for feeding off human blood, the elders of Firth might deem me insane.

  Forcing my fists to unclench, I stared at the half-moon impressions my nails had made on my palms. As I watched, the pale indentions slowly filled with thin streams of red. The urge to lick the blood off my palms made me shove my hands under the table.

  Pushing all my frustrated anger to my eyes, I met Nathanial's gaze evenly. “We are dealing with a rogue. Whether he is natural or tagged, his mind must be broken or he wouldn't commit these deranged crimes. We will assume Lorna's attack and the attack on the crowd at the earlier party are related. "

  Nathanial's arched brow indicated he was inclined to argue, but Gil's fork clattered against her plate as she pulled another scroll out of nowhere. She unrolled it and scanned it furiously, nodding to herself. “You might be on to something,” she said, glancing at me. “The body of an earlier victim was found in a closet at a rave. "

  "How many victims have there been?"

  Gil's eyes went distant as she made a mental tally. “Eleven. The first two victims were found in Demur, but since then, the rogue's activities have been concentrated in Haven. "

  My jaw dropped. Eleven? How had the hunters not caught the rogue yet? Or the mages who watched this world like hawks? Or even the vampire vigilante beside me? Gil had said the attacks started three months ago. Eleven victims in three months was huge. The human authorities must have been losing their minds. How had I not heard of this before? Of course, I had only arrived in the city of Haven two nights ago, and as a pretend pet I didn't spend a lot of time watching the news.

  "Bobby, are any of the hunters stationed in Haven as members of the humans’ police force?” I asked.

  He frowned, nodding.

  "Good. See if there is anything they can tell you that might not be available to the public. "

  He nodded again.

  Gil cleared her throat. “I told you already, the police wouldn't have found anything betraying supernaturals. "

  I frowned at her. “Yes, but the hunters are spread through the social structure of the city so they can clean up after rogues and strays. They might have found something useful before the mages went through and tampered with evidence. Or something specific to shifters the mages wouldn't know to destroy. "

  Nathanial held up a finger. “Obviously, all supernaturals have their own clean-up crews. A lack of communication among us might be hindering the investigation. ” He turned to face me. “We need to find out when the next rave is. How did you learn about the rave last night?"

  "Some kooky girl at a bookstore gave me a flyer, but the party was hardly a secret. You could hear the music from blocks away. She might know about another one, but I'm not sure how to find her or the bookstore again. "

  "The one you were hiding out at last night?” Bobby asked, and I nodded. “I remember. ” He gave not an address, but a better description of the area than I could have.

  "Let's meet there an hour after dark then?” Nathanial suggested.

  I wanted to protest starting out so late—I was still operating on non-vampire time—but suddenly my head felt far too heavy to care. Exhaustion had been crawling over me, but now it hit fast, like all my energy went on vacation at once.

  The table and I got to know each other rather well as I slumped over it, face first. At the same time, I knocked my now-cold cup of hot chocolate into Bobby's lap. He let out an exclamation, and the waitress waddled over.

  "Everything all right here?"

  Concentrating hard, I pulled my head up and blinked dumbly at her.

  "Everything is fine. She is a little drunk,” Nathanial said.

  I tried to throw a hard look at him, but ended up falling into his shoulder. He wrapped an arm around me and dragged me out of the booth. He threw cash on the table and told the waitress to keep the change before helping me stumble outside.

  "Is she really okay?” Bobby asked once we were out of the restaurant.

  "It is almost dawn,” Nathanial said as way of explanation.

  I tried to wrench away from him to stand on my own, but the world dropped out from under me.

  Chapter 7

  The street was gone.

  I stared up at the velvety darkness. Okay, I was pretty sure the darkness wasn't velvety, it was probably velvet curtains. I reached out a hand. Yep, curtains. The bed was surrounded by them. Black satin sheets spilled off me as I sat up. The street wasn't the only thing missing; my clothes were gone again.

  Now where was I?

  Probably Nathanial's house. Stupid vampire. I kicked the rest of the sheets off, and the large fur throw at the end of the bed lifted its head.

  The largest dog I'd ever seen yawned, flashing a mouthful of sharp white teeth. A hiss escaped my throat, and I flung myself backward, away from the massive dog and right off the side of the bed. My scream died a quick death as I landed on my back, all the air knocked from my lungs. With the sheets twisted around my legs and the heavy curtains tangled around my arms, a quick retreat was impossible. Oh crap. As I struggled, something above me made a ripping sound. Double crap. The thick material fought me. There had to be an opening in the curtain somewhere.

  The dog watched, his dark eyes apathetic. He stood, stretching, and lumbered halfway off the bed, his back feet still on the mattress and his front feet on the floor. His massive muzzle was only inches from my face, his nose twitching, mouth open, and tongue out. His panting breath felt damp against my checks.

  Turning, I grabbed two handfuls of the curtain and yanked hard. The material tore with a nasty this-is-going-to-be-expensive sound. A series of smaller pops rat-a-tatted as a jagged section of curtain toppled down. Covered in sections of the ripped curtain, I scuttled backward through the opening I'd made.

  I crossed several feet of carpeted floor in the blink of an eye, stopping only when my shoulders pressed against a dresser. The dog didn't move, just cocked his head to the side, still only half off the bed. I breathed for the first time in what felt like ages. The dog was well over two hundred pounds, his shaggy black hair covering a bear-sized body. I tried to match a breed to him, but I was sure I'd never seen any breed of dog like him before. I wasn't a dog lover, nothing personal against dogs, but I'd been chased up one-too-many trees to trust any dog.

  We stared at each other, his black eyes dull in the complete darkness. He hopped the rest of the way off the bed, and the solid oak dresser behind me creaked. The dog cocked his head at the sound but then plodded around the side of the bed and disappeared. Thank the stars. I tilted my head back and pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes.

  "What I wouldn't give to wake up in the same place I fell asleep,” I told the darkness.

  "You wanted me to leave you on the street?” Nathanial's voice came from the other si
de of the room. I twisted around. He sat in a chair by the door with a book in his lap and his glasses twirling between his fingers. He smiled at me, amusement clear in his eyes. “Did you have to destroy the canopy?"

  I didn't even glance at the material tangled around me. “Do you actually need those glasses?"

  "I think they make me look older, do you not agree?” He slipped them on, pushing them high on his nose. When I only raised an eyebrow, he closed the book in his lap. “We have a lot to do. I only bought you one pair of clothes yesterday, an oversight on my part, so I am afraid you will have to wear the same outfit again. "

  "You had no right to bring me here, and you sure as hell had no right to undress me. "

  "You were unavailable for consultation. Besides, I washed your clothes. They were soggy. Try not to sit in the snow as much tonight. ” He held out a neat pile of clothing.

  I looked at it without moving. “I want to take a bath. "

  "You do not sweat or shed skin cells, and your body repairs itself during the day. There is no reason to take a bath. I did not think cats liked water. Have you ever had a bath before?"

  "No, but I don't hate water. Cats are good swimmers, you know. ” My glare dared him to disagree. Honestly I'd never taken a bath strictly for the purpose of getting clean. Shifting cleansed the body, but it had been over forty-eight hours since I shifted. Dirty didn't actually describe how I felt. It was more a sense of wrongness that clung to me. I wasn't sure a bath would help, but it had to be better than nothing. I jutted out my chin. “I would like a bath. "

  Nathanial dropped the clothes in a pile and knelt beside me. In a movement almost too fast to see, he caught my chin in his hand and tilted it up further. I squirmed, but his grip was impossible to break as he examined my face.

  "You do not need a bath, you need to feed. "

  "I would like to take a bath,” I repeated.

  He released my chin with a sigh. “How about a shower?"

  * * * *

  Shiny black tile covered the bathroom from wall to wall. An enormous black tub sprawled across the room, sparing only enough space for a walkway between it, the door, and a freestanding shower tucked in the front corner. There wasn't even a toilet. As I tried to imagine how many people would fit in the tub, Nathanial turned on the shower.