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Distraught at her rejection, Sebastian fled back into the night.
Revealing himself to Serenity had been the most terrifying experience of his existence. He’d stood, waiting in the shadows, trying to build up the courage to speak to her. When she came out of the house, he forced himself to call out her name.
Sebastian only wanted to help, to make sure she stayed safe, but she no longer wanted him around. The strength and independence shown by her rebuke made him proud of her in some perverse way. The fragile, frightened woman he’d met four years ago no longer existed.
He hadn’t expected her to be pleased to see him, but for her to look at him in such as way—as though he were no better than Jackson—cut him to the bone. His sudden reappearance was always going to be hard on her, especially considering the news he brought, but he’d hoped she would at least want to see him again.
No, he was lying to himself; deep down he hoped she would fling herself into his arms, tell him how she missed him and beg him to never leave again.
Sebastian hadn’t prepared himself for the total rejection, for the pain and resentment trembling in her eyes. Clearly, she still blamed him for leaving.
Now the need for blood surged over him, as strong as an addiction. Like any other addict, during times of extreme emotion, he sought the one thing that would numb the pain.
Sebastian ran through the night, away from the woman he loved. He needed a victim, someone whose blood would fill the chasm inside his chest.
Things hadn’t worked out for Serenity the way he’d hoped. Despite his pain at believing her to be with another man, if she’d been living the happy life she deserved perhaps she would have understood his leaving was best for her in the long run. But that had not happened. Serenity lived alone in a crappy apartment. She didn’t have the life Sebastian wanted for her and she held him responsible.
Had he done the right thing, leaving her all those years ago? Or had they both been living in pain all this time, pining for the person who would stop the loneliness?
The faintest flutter of hope beat deep inside his heart. He’d done what he thought was right at the time. Had she simply proved him wrong?
Whatever he thought, two things existed that he couldn’t escape; firstly, Serenity hated him, and the second was Jackson.
Jackson’s presence somewhere in the city terrified Sebastian. If Serenity wouldn’t trust him to help, he would do things his own way. He couldn’t just accept her demands to be left alone and allow Jackson to slaughter her.
He had to find Jackson before Jackson could find Serenity.
Sebastian hardly knew where to start. Los Angeles was a big city and Jackson could be anywhere, searching for Serenity. Jackson obviously hadn’t learned where she lived yet or he would have been there already.
Sebastian needed to pick up on some kind of scent or trail. The only other option was to stake out Serenity’s apartment and wait for Jackson to come to her, but that felt like hanging Serenity out like bait.
The forest held the most promise. Jackson must have been buried somewhere while his resurrection took place.
The monster may be forced to return.
The rumor of vampires sleeping with a handful of dirt from the place they were created did, like most other myths, stem from the truth. A very young vampire had to go back to the ground where they completed their transformation until strong enough to survive above ground.
From what Sebastian discerned, Jackson wasn’t a vampire, but the way he’d been created must have initially begun the same way. If the creature needed to go back to the forest, perhaps it was his weakness. Maybe Sebastian could pin him down and kill him, without letting him get anywhere near Serenity.
Sebastian hated leaving Serenity alone and defenseless. But then he gave himself a mental shake. Perhaps he didn’t give her enough credit, underestimating her once again. After all, she’d dealt with Jackson the first time and tricked Madeline.
He needed to feed. If he found Jackson, he needed to be strong and several weeks had passed since he last fed.
Not yet midnight, Sebastian headed out of the city. Los Angeles Forest called to him, but he needed to feed before reaching his destination.
The vampire was a predator, every part built to hunt down and kill prey; from his strength, to his speed, to his ability to heal quickly.
And his prey was human.
Though he only ever killed men and tried to only hunt those who wouldn’t be missed, for him to never cause pain verged on impossible. Even the worst of men normally had people who loved them and would miss them.
In many ways, he was no better than Jackson.
Since Serenity, Sebastian had killed for pleasure. It had been the one thing he’d been able to lose himself in, if only for a moment or two. It had been the only way he’d been able to forget her. He hadn’t been proud of his actions, but whatever humanity he tried to retain, at heart he was always a vampire.
He walked through the streets, keeping every sense alert for a suitable victim. He would know the right person when he came across them.
Within minutes, he approached a park. A homeless man sat on one of the benches, a brown paper bag containing a bottle clutched between his hands.
At once, Sebastian’s nerves went on high alert.
He wanted the kill to be fast. Though the victim needed to be alive during the feeding, Sebastian had no wish for the man to die in terror.
In an instant, he stood in front of the man. “Excuse me, Sir,” he said, “Do you have the time?”
The man—a skinny, worn-down guy in his fifties—lifted his head and Sebastian struck.
His jaw realigned, the muscles and bones distorting. The top of his jaw protruded forward, extending the fangs normally hidden further back in his mouth. His now yellow glowing eyes narrowed, his mouth opened wide—like a baby latching onto a nipple—and his teeth sank into the man’s jugular.
The man batted at him weakly, his defenses no more than butterfly kisses to Sebastian.
Sebastian drank, thick warm blood flooding down his throat.
He caught glimpses of the brain waves of the person he fed from. A glimpse of a child, now grown, but not seen for many, many years, but the man’s last thought was of a bottle.
The man’s struggles grew weaker and eventually stopped altogether.
Fresh blood coursed through Sebastian’s veins, flooding his body with warmth. The man’s pulse still beat inside Sebastian’s head; thu-thump, thu-thump, thu-thump. The sensation of a beating heart would not last but he enjoyed the rhythm while it did.
The guilt Sebastian thought he should feel did not come. Maybe he’d made his own peace with his identity, or perhaps, with all his emotions tied up in Serenity, there was simply no room for anything else.
Emotions warred within him. He fed on humans, murdered countless men to survive. Yet he was in love with one of them.
Perhaps that he used to be human explained the reason for his connection with Serenity. Others of his kind would ridicule him, but he didn’t care what they thought. It wouldn’t be the first time a vampire brought over a human for companionship. After all, that was exactly what happened to him.
The memory of what Madeline did bit down on his heart like shock paddles. He didn’t want his thoughts to follow this route. The other vampire had taken him unwillingly. If he ever turned Serenity, it would be because she wanted to become like him.
He struggled to comprehend how he and Serenity were even compatible. He had lived for over two hundred years, seen and experienced things she would never have even given thought to. He’d experienced numerous wars, watched while plagues stole thousands of lives. He’d born witness to the world growing from single story homes to huge skyscrapers. The speed of the growth of technology over the past few decades left his brain whirling.
He shouldn’t even think of them being together, yet the last few years without her had been the worst of his existence. The idea of spending hundreds more was unbearable.
Had her life not panned out the way he’d hoped because of his involvement, or had she already experienced too much pain to allow her to live a normal, happy life?
Could he change her? Did he dare to even think it?
Sebastian couldn’t help the frisson of hope sparking through him. He’d been lonely throughout his vampire existence. The possibility of that loneliness ending overwhelmed him.
Could he change her? Would she even let him?
Four years ago Serenity begged him to turn her. She’d told him she wanted to be with him, no matter the consequences. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to make her a vampire because he wanted her to have a normal life, but what if her life wasn’t happy? What if, because of him and everything else she’d been through, she would never have that life? Surely then it would be better for them to be together. Serenity had killed before—both human and vampire—so he knew she contained what was necessary to be one of his kind.
Sebastian carried the body of the man with him. The weight was no greater challenge than carrying a bag of laundry. He wasn’t going to just leave the body in the street. The dead needed to be dealt with properly—buried. Sometimes they came back and the result wasn’t pretty—a zombie-like creatures that didn’t last long.
The strength from the live blood coursed through his veins like PCP: brute vigor and vitality. His skin flushed with warmth, his muscles loosened and flexed. To have fresh blood after weeks of a drought beat any other feeling imaginable.
He would need all of his strength, though he doubted Jackson’s ability to defeat him—Jackson was newly turned. What Jackson was made him nervous. When, years ago, Sebastian brought Jackson’s body to the forest, Jackson had been dead. Could there have been some small spark of life still left in Jackson when Sebastian buried his body?
Madeline had been much older than him. Had she detected the faintest beat of Jackson’s heart or even the firing of brain cells? It was the only explanation, unless she had brought Jackson back from the dead? Had Madeline known some kind of evil making her able to raise the dead?
Although technically the vampire was dead—the physical body needed to die—it did so with vampire blood coursing through its veins. He’d never heard of someone who’d already died being turned.
So if Jackson wasn’t a vampire, what was he? A devil? A demon? A fiend?
What sort of black magic had Madeline used to bring him back?
Sebastian headed back into the forest, drinking in the night. Picking his way easily through the undergrowth, he made his way back to the place he’d found the body of the girl who looked so like Serenity. Previously, the sight and scent of the murdered girl blocked out all other senses but now, with his body full of fresh blood, he realigned his mind, searching for something else.
Without the girl’s blood saturating the ground, Sebastian picked up on a smell jarring his whole body. Acrid and dank; the stench of decomposition and decay.
Jackson’s trail.
Sebastian took off at a run, bounding through the bush, following the scent of death.
He reached the patch of ground he took to be Jackson’s place of metamorphism—a hole several feet deep, clods of earth scattered either side. The scent was stronger here, but not strong enough. Wherever Jackson was, he’d not been back to ground—not here at least—in a good day or two.
“God damn it,” Sebastian swore, kicking at one of the clods, sending it smacking against a tree trunk. The clod shattered into fine earth at the impact.
The monster must be in the city somewhere, hot on Serenity’s trail.