Vampire's Thirst (The Awakening Series) (4 page)

H
er shopping trip proved to be successful. With several pregnancy test kits and a couple of bottles of prenatal vitamins—just in case—tucked into boxes of tampons she had in her backpack, Kimber and her companions were nearly back to the compound when she saw over a dozen zombies between them and the front gate. She sidled closer to Atticus. “Should we try heading around back?” she whispered, looking over his shoulder toward the path that led around the outside of the compound.

She caught one of the guards shaking his head before he said in a low voice, “There are more there. I can hear them.”

Atticus’s eyes narrowed. “Then here is where we fight our way through.” He pulled the long sword from the scabbard secured between his shoulder blades. “Once the sound of battle reaches the guards along the fence, reinforcements will be sent out.”

“You hope.” Kimber pulled her hatchet free from her belt loop and got ready to whack some zombies. She’d really rather be whacking some moles, but this was the new reality.

The new reality was messy. And it sucked.

“I know they’ll come and help.” He shot her a glance. “Or more than just zombie heads will roll.”

She appreciated his humor, especially since the first few shufflers caught sight of them and were headed their way. “Here we go,” she said, and rushed forward. The three vampires, each holding swords nearly as long as she was tall, formed a line at her side.

The next several minutes passed in a blur of slashing, stabbing, and hacking. Kimber felt her aggression rising with each zombie she killed. The dark fragment of the Unseen within her eddied and flowed, lapping at her consciousness like an inexorable tide of malevolence. Sweat trickled between her breasts as much from her physical exertion as from the mental battle she waged to keep the evil energy from overpowering her.

She yanked her hatchet from the skull of the zombie she’d just put down. The force of her pull knocked her off balance, and she stumbled. She threw out her left arm to catch herself and felt Atticus’s fingers curl around her hand.

Power surged through her, the Unseen that animated the vampire finding a connection with that inside Kimber. Her fingers clenched around his and her skin grew clammy with cold, then radiated heat. Unlike before, when she’d touched a zombie in order to draw upon the Unseen, there was no pain. Just a tremendous swell of energy. She hadn’t meant to draw energy from Atticus, but now that she had, she was going to use it.

Gritting her teeth against the rising internal heat, yet strangely exultant from the darkness she sensed, she threw the malignant power out at the zombies. Little flashes of light danced across her field of vision as her blood pressure skyrocketed. So. Much. Power. It was alluring, the desire to hold on to that dark force. Why waste it on a bunch of zombies? She could use it herself.

But she needed more.

Aberrant pleasure rose within her, her spirit rejoicing in the nebulous energy coursing into her. Another flash of heat, and common sense returned. The last thing she wanted was to end up with even more of the Unseen in her. No, now that she’d started this, she had to finish it.

Her heart stuttered, then beat wildly in her rib cage. Through muffled hearing, she heard Atticus call her name, felt his attempt to dislodge her grip. She tried to unfurl her fingers but couldn’t get them to cooperate. The zombies began to fall around them like marionettes with cut strings, lying as if boneless and certainly no longer animated in any way.

She let out a ragged sigh. Falling to her knees, she settled her rear on the backs of her calves. Only after the last zombie crashed to the ground was she finally able to release her hold on Atticus’s hand. Now that her connection was lost, she was starting to feel the effect on her muscles as they started trembling. She turned her head toward him, realized he was on his knees, too. She groaned as the small movement made her head feel like it would explode. “Are you all right?” she asked in a raw voice.

“What the hell did you do to me?” His deep voice was raspier than normal and shaking with fatigue. She also didn’t miss the fury there, either.

“I didn’t mean to, Atticus,” she tried to assure him. “It just happened.”

His silvered gaze snared hers, and she couldn’t look away. A muscle flexed in his jaw. “That doesn’t make me feel any better about this,” he said.

“I know. I’m sorry.” Still shaken by light tremors, her arms and legs ached. She struggled to her feet without any help from the three vampires. She noticed they were all reluctant to touch her now. She didn’t blame them. Even before the Outbreak, she’d wondered if her necromancy would enable her to control what animated vampires, since they were technically dead, just like the corpses she used to raise from the dead as part of her job. Now she knew, though she wasn’t sure how much of this ability was due to her necromancy and how much of it was because of the Unseen within her.

Either way, she didn’t like it at all.

“Listen, fellas, I don’t like this any more than you do.” She swayed and had to really focus to keep her feet beneath her. “But can we grouse about it back inside. Please?”

The two guards helped Atticus stand. He waved her on before him, and that was when she noticed they had indeed been joined by several other vampires to help fend off the zombies. They silently entered the gates of the compound.

As she walked across the lobby, she thought about the number of stairs she was going to have to climb and almost decided to stretch out on one of the sofas near the unused bank of elevators. But that would mean explaining to Duncan why she hadn’t come upstairs and she had to think about that a bit.

So she kept putting one foot in front of the other and tried not to dwell on how tired she was or how much her body ached or how her head might just feel better if it weren’t attached to her neck. Poor Atticus didn’t look any better than she felt. When they reached their floor, she almost cried. Just a few more steps…well, okay, still a lot more, but in a few minutes she could collapse on the bed and die a little.

In front of her suite, she put out a hand to halt Atticus when he would have kept walking. He jerked away from her. She bit her lower lip and fought back the hurt. She couldn’t blame him for his reaction. If she’d held on longer and had continued to sap his energy, she most likely would have killed him. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. In a stronger voice, she said, “I promise I’ll tell Duncan what happened. So please let me, all right?”

“What are you saying, Kimber? You’re assuming I’m going to run and tattle on you?” His face, paler than normal, was as impassive as she’d ever seen it.

“Noooo,” she drawled out slowly. She had assumed that, actually, but with the mood he was in she wasn’t going to own up to it. “But I realize what a big deal this is. I’m just asking that you let him find out from me.”

“Fine.” He glanced at his watch. She noticed a slight tremble in his hand. He looked at her, his silver eyes hard and unforgiving. “This time of morning he’s probably down with the new donor recruits. I’ll at least let him know we’ve made it safely home.” He glared at her before walking away without another word.

She sighed and, ignoring the questioning looks from the two guards at her door, went inside her suite and headed straight to the master bathroom. She had blood on her and it had to come off. As much as she wanted to pee on a stick to see if she got one line or two, she had to get cleaned up first. And she needed to do all of it before Duncan came upstairs to go to bed.

Kimber took the fastest shower on record and then followed the instructions for the test. She set the stick next to the sink and walked into the bedroom. The little brochure indicated it could take up to two minutes for the results. How could such a short amount of time feel like so long?

She knew if she sat down, let alone got comfortable on the bed, she’d pass out, so she paced. And paced.

And paced. Stopped to look out the window at nothing and paced some more. Finally it was time. She walked back into the bathroom and looked at the stick.

Her heart jumped into her throat. Oh, God. Two blue lines. Maybe it was wrong. She sat on the toilet and dribbled enough to wet another test strip, with the same result. Half an hour later after a few glasses of water, a third result was the same.

Two. Blue. Lines.

She was pregnant. In the middle of a zombie apocalypse with a portion of the Unseen squatting in her body like an unwanted homesteader. What was she going to do?

The fatigue from taking on the Unseen finally became too much to fight, and she flopped onto the bed. Her thoughts nattered in circles until blessed oblivion fell over her.

Two days later, Kimber finally felt rested enough to actively think about the wreck of her life instead of merely worrying about it. She’d managed to give a plausible explanation to Duncan as to why she’d gone back to bed the day she’d gone out for feminine hygiene products. It helped that he was so focused on cleaning up the mess that Maddalene had left behind. He was dedicated to healing the enclave from her autocratic and cruel leadership and getting humans at least a little comfortable with the idea of being live donors for his vampires. He had so much on his mind right now that he’d accepted her explanation without question. That made her feel a little guilty, that she’d been able to deceive him so easily, not just once, but twice.

Now, just before sunrise, she sat in the living room of her and Duncan’s suite. Pushing aside the fact she was pregnant for the moment, which was hard to do, she distracted herself by analyzing what she felt when she’d stripped power from Atticus.

All that malignant energy felt good.
She
felt good. Even as her body struggled to process that kind of power, almost buckling under the pressure, her mind, her spirit, had rejoiced in her ability to wield the darkness. That more than anything else scared her. Did she
want
to be evil? Was that what this was about? Was she being taken over by the dark side?

Even now, as she thought about who she was, who she wanted to be, she was excited by the idea of being able to hurt a vampire. Vampires were apex predators and Atticus was one of the most powerful she’d ever met, but if she had held on to Atticus longer, she could have really injured him, probably even fatally. There was a part of her, larger than she liked, that puffed up with pride at the thought. To take down a predator bigger and meaner meant
she
was the greatest.

She was sure it was the boost of power she’d gotten from him that had allowed her to push the Unseen out of the zombies. That extra power had given them true death. Granted, there had been only about fifteen or so, but still, it was something. It was a start. Her mind raced. If taking energy from Atticus allowed her to put down a couple handfuls of zombies, how many more could she have done with her hands on two vampires? And then two more? Just how many vampires could be sacrificed to stop the apocalypse? What would be too much?

Could there be too much?

What if Duncan were one of the ones she used?

Her breath hitched in her throat. No, no, no! She would never use Duncan that way. She’d have no reason to keep on going. She couldn’t kill the father of her baby, even if it meant the threat of zombies was gone forever.

Could she?

She put one hand low on her abdomen where her little sprite nestled in safety and love. She’d only had a couple of days to get used to the idea, but she already loved the tiny fetus growing inside her and was determined to be the best mother she could. How would she be able to tell the little tyke that she’d killed its father?

There had to be another way.

She suddenly remembered the other two necromancers and realized there
was
another way. She wasn’t sure how safe it would be for Maggie, as far along as she was in her pregnancy, and Kimber didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize the safety of her own baby, but she also needed to get the Unseen out of her. If it was making her so crazy-aggressive, it couldn’t be good for the baby. There was no other choice. Perhaps between her and Jason they could tap into the Unseen and pull it out of the zombies—and her—before sending it back where it belonged.

She’d go down and talk to Jason the first chance she got. She glanced at the grandfather clock standing in the corner near the fireplace. It was almost 9:00 a.m. She should go talk to them now. On some level she realized she couldn’t keep avoiding Duncan—they did live together after all—but she could manage to be out of the suite when he came in to rest.

Kimber pushed to her feet and had taken only a few steps toward the door when it swung open. Duncan walked in and stopped when he saw her. Well, so much for avoiding him.

He moved forward and pulled her into his arms. He held her close, his face buried in her hair. “I’ve missed you the last couple of days,” he finally said as he straightened to look down at her. “You’re always gone when I come to bed.” His lean hands came up to cup her face. Thumbs stroking across her cheeks, he said, “You look tired. And thinner. Are you all right? Should we find a doctor?” His brows drew down and he said, “With all the humans living here now, we should probably find a doctor anyway.”

He looked so overwhelmed, which worried her. It was a look she’d never seen before and she didn’t like it. “I’m fine,” she said, nowhere near ready to tell him her news. It would only add more shadows to his face. Time for a distraction, for both of them. Regardless that she had things to tell him, they both needed this. Going up on tiptoe, she pressed a light kiss to his lips.

He took over, his hands tilting her head to give him the angle he wanted, and his tongue stroked over her bottom lip. When she opened her mouth, he surged inside, tasting her, teasing her. Carnal fire began to burn low in her gut, tightening her womb, making her sex wet and slick with arousal.

It was always like this with him. One touch, one kiss was all it took to rev her motor and make her burn for him.

Keeping his mouth on hers, Duncan swept her up into his arms and carried her to the bedroom. Once he’d set her on her feet, he made quick work of getting her clothes off, and even quicker work of his.