Killean went to kneel in front of Simone before catching himself. He wanted nothing more than to offer her some comfort, but at his side, Joseph was speaking with one of his followers. Simone stared at him, but her white-blue eyes burned with hunger and Killean knew she didn’t have any idea who he was or what was going on anymore. She was lost in the haze of bloodlust and starvation.
I won’t let you be lost forever,he vowed.
Blood trickled from the skin she’d torn away from her wrists in her attempts to get free. Her fangs had shredded her bottom lip, and the fine blue veins in her cheeks and eyelids were visible as her skin had become nearly translucent. The once elegant angles of her high cheekbones looked about to break through her skin.
“Looks like this little bitch is getting the comeuppance you wanted her to receive,” Joseph said in his ear.
I am going to kill you, Killean promised as he reined in his temper.
“Yes,” Killean murmured.
Simone sniffed at the air as her teeth snapped. The composed, beautiful hunter he first encountered had been replaced by this animalistic, broken version, and though he hadn’t liked her doll-like perfection, heloathedthis.
“After tomorrow, she could be yours for the taking.”
After tomorrow, Killean would make sure she wasn’t here.
“Come, let’s hunt,” Joseph said.
It took everything Killean had to put one foot in front of the other away from Simone. Frustration and rage boiled within him as the blindfold and hood were placed on again before they led him outside.
Simone watched the men stride away from her. They’d taken the tantalizing scent of their blood with them, but the aroma lingered.
I want… hunnnngry… Blood. Blood. BLOOD!
Chapter Eight
Killean pacedthe small confines of his cell from one end to the other. He’d found and killed a man last night who was bragging to his friends about the number of girls he’d banged.
When one of the friends quipped, “Yeah, but how many of them were awake for it?”
The man had shrugged and replied, “Who cares as long as I am?”
Killean made sure the man was awake and feeling it as he sucked the life from him.
Yet, the blood and death of last night hadn’t eased his foul mood or calmed his bloodlust. They’d only increased with every passing hour as night approached. He’d been here for three days and he still had no idea how he was going to save Simone.
Stopping, he drew back his fist and drove it into the concrete wall. Dust rained down, the wall and his knuckles cracked. The broken bones didn’t deter him from hammering the wall until his blood streaked it and piles of dust lay at his feet.
Pulling his hand back, he watched as his flattened knuckles popped back up and shifted into place. He flexed his already mending bones as his broken skin knitted itself closed. Consuming the blood of innocents had increased the rate with which he healed. Unable to look at his hands anymore, he lowered them and gazed at the blood coating the wall. He couldn’t scent the Savage on himself like he could the others, but that blood was as tainted as he was.
Turning away from the wall, Killean stalked over to the door, flung it open, and strode into the hall. No one else was about, but he knew better than to go to the hunters again. He didn’t know if he could stop himself from trying to tear Simone free, and if he kept showing an interest in her, it would only make Joseph suspicious of him.
But he didn’t know where else to go. There was no gym where he could unleash some of his pent-up energy. There was no one he could kill, and that was what he longed for most.
Arriving at the end of the hall, Killean turned and headed for the kitchen. He had no idea what he planned to do there, but before he was halfway to his destination, a hooded figure in a black cloak striding toward him caused him to stop. The being stood well over seven feet tall and hunched over to avoid hitting its head on the ceiling. Leaner than him, the cloak swallowed much of the creature and all its face.
However, its imposing height was not what stopped Killean in his tracks. No, what glued his feet to the floor was the vast amount of power wafting from the creature; it electrified his skin and caused the hair on his arms to stand up.
He’d spent most of his life working with Ronan, the oldest vampire in existence and a fifth-generation purebred, but this thing made the power Ronan emitted feel like child’s play.
What is this thing?
He had no guesses about that as the being bared down on him. Killean didn’t recall thinking about doing it before he was stepping out of the creature’s way. The being’s head turned toward him, and its stare latched onto him like a tick on a dog.
From beneath its hood two, white-blue eyes burned out of the blackness at him. If this thing had a face, Killean couldn’t tell as those glowing orbs became all he could see. They seemed to bore into his soul, stripping him bare to reveal everything about him, including the real reason he was here.
He waited to be struck down by this beast—and that’s what this thing was, a beast who could knock his head from his shoulders with one swipe of its hand. But apparently, this powerful being didn’t possess the ability to learn all the secrets of another as, instead of killing him, it turned away.
