Forever Kisses Vol. 2

By Angela Knight

Vampire agents, SEALs, captives, and bodyguards fight their way into their women’s hearts.

Hope’s Kiss: When a police detective discovers a chamber of horrors in the basement of an old house, she’s horrified to find her ex-lover, Mark Wilder, locked in one of the cells. Naked and covered in bites and blood, he’s been changed into a vampire. And he’s insane with bloodlust. Unless Hope can reawaken Mark’s humanity, he’s doomed to remain the slave of a vicious predator. What’s worse, his vampire sire intends Hope to become Mark’s first victim.

Kissing the Hunter: Navy SEAL Logan McLean is on a quest for revenge against the monsters who murdered his wife. Virginia Hart is a sexy vampire searching for her lost soulmate, only to find him in a man determined to kill her. She must convince him all vampires aren’t psychotic murderers -- if he doesn’t get her first.

A Candidate for the Kiss: on the trail of a hot story, reporter Dana Ivory stumbles across a truly explosive scoop -- a handsome secret agent who happens to be a vampire. She wants her story, but Gabriel Archer has something much sexier in mind. He’s been looking for someone like Dana for a very long time: a candidate for the kiss.

Blood and Kisses: A murderous vampire assassin is hot on the trail of Beryl St. Cloud. Her only hope lies with yet another bloodsucker, James Decker. Broke and desperate, she offers herself as payment for the mercenary’s protection. But will the price end up being her very soul?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Changeling Press
• Release date: Nov 6, 2021

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Forever Kisses Vol. 2

Angela Knight

All rights reserved.

Copyright ©2021 Angela Knight

BIN: 010033-03256

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Publisher:

Changeling Press LLC

315 N. Centre St.

Martinsburg, WV 25404

www.ChangelingPress.com

Editor: Karen Williams

Cover Artist: Angela Knight

Adult Sexual Content

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Table of Contents

Forever Kisses Vol. 2

Hope’s Kiss

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Kissing the Hunter

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

A Candidate for the Kiss

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Epilogue

Blood and Kisses

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Angela Knight

Forever Kisses Vol. 2

Angela Knight

Hope’s Kiss: When a police detective discovers a chamber of horrors in the basement of an old house, she’s horrified to find her ex-lover, Mark Wilder, locked in one of the cells. Naked and covered in bites and blood, he’s been changed into a vampire. And he’s insane with bloodlust. Unless Hope can reawaken Mark’s humanity, he’s doomed to remain the slave of a vicious predator. What’s worse, his vampire sire intends Hope to become Mark’s first victim.

Kissing the Hunter: Navy SEAL Logan McLean is on a quest for revenge against the monsters who murdered his wife. Virginia Hart is a sexy vampire searching for her lost soulmate, only to find him in a man determined to kill her. She must convince him all vampires aren’t psychotic murderers -- if he doesn’t get her first.

A Candidate for the Kiss: on the trail of a hot story, reporter Dana Ivory stumbles across a truly explosive scoop -- a handsome secret agent who happens to be a vampire. She wants her story, but Gabriel Archer has something much sexier in mind. He’s been looking for someone like Dana for a very long time: a candidate for the kiss.

Blood and Kisses: A murderous vampire assassin is hot on the trail of Beryl St. Cloud. Her only hope lies with yet another bloodsucker, James Decker. Broke and desperate, she offers herself as payment for the mercenary’s protection. But will the price end up being her very soul?

Hope’s Kiss

Angela Knight

Hope Barton, a lieutenant in the Reede County Sheriff’s Office, discovers a chamber of horrors in the basement of an old house. What’s worse, her ex-lover, Mark Wilder, is locked in one of the cells. He is naked and covered in bites and blood, and he has been changed into a vampire. Unless Hope can reawaken Mark’s human desires, he will remain the slave of a vicious predator.

No one in the Sheriff’s Office wants to believe the murderer is a vampire. That doesn’t surprise Hope, but the authorities’ abnormal denial has a more terrifying cause, a predator with irresistible psychic abilities. Hope finds herself alone against her colleagues, a sadistic vampire, and her dangerous ex-lover’s conflicting vampiric and human needs.

She must overcome Mark’s darkest desires, and her own. If they don’t destroy the predator, he will go on killing, and he will drag Mark in his murderous wake.

Chapter One

He was naked, covered in blood, and lying on the floor of a steel cage.

She’d still know Mark Wilder anywhere.

Detective Hope Barton scanned the room from the bottom step, eyes flicking from the cage to the bloody wooden table beside it, to the shackles that hung from blood splattered cement walls.

The big, dimly lit basement reeked of murder: body fluids, rotting gore, and helpless suffering. Her stomach heaved, but Hope had been a violent crimes detective for two years, and she’d stood over her share of slaughter. Swallowing hard, she forced her dinner back where it belonged and did her job.

Mark. Hope strode toward the cage, ignoring the sticky puddles drying on the cement underfoot. She was too busy scanning the room for the key to his cell. There was no sign of one, damn it. What the hell happened to you? When he didn’t move, she raised her voice in a cop’s bark. Mark!

He stirred and lifted his head from the cage’s dirty floor. One dazed green eye met hers under a shock of matted blond hair. Blood and filth streaked his face, his lips were cut and bruised, and his left eye was swollen shut.

Somebody had beaten the crap out of him. And judging from his bloody knuckles, he’d fought back hard. Which was no surprise. Mark never took anything lying down.

Her gut twisted. How was she going to get him out of here? She grabbed the thick iron bars in both hands. Mark… Mark, it’s Hope.

For a suspended instant, he stared at her without any recognition at all.

Arrrraaah! With a tortured animal howl, he leaped at her in an impossible eight-foot bound. Pure reflex had her jolting back, barely dodging his hand as it shot through the bars.

How did he do that? Nobody could jump like that!

Mark’s lips peeled off snapping teeth, his powerful body straining to reach her with fingers curled into claws. His bare, bloody feet thudded on the bars as he kicked them savagely, trying to bend the steel. His one good eye glittered in frenzy.

He has fangs. She froze, staring at his sharply pointed canine teeth. Sweet God, Mark has fangs!

He sure as hell hadn’t had them in high school. She’d put her tongue in his mouth often enough to know.

As he bellowed and clawed, Hope damn near drew down on him. She managed to drag her hand away from the grip of her shoulder-holstered 9mm Glock, but it took an effort. I’m not going to shoot Mark Wilder. God, she ached to call for backup, but she no longer trusted anyone in the department.

Mark finally stopped howling. Clinging to the bars, he stared at her, his good eye feral and desperate, like a wolf with one leg in a bear trap.

Mark, damn it, it’s me! She all but screamed it, her voice raw with frustration and fear.

Recognition flickered in his gaze. Hope? His voice sounded broken, raspy, as if he’d been screaming. Screaming for a very long time.

Pity raked at her heart, along with a certain tense relief. At least he’d recognized her. Yeah, it’s me. She gave him a twisted smile. "Guess you were right. There is a vampire in Reede County."

Told you. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth as if fighting some powerful urge. I warned you… what he was.

Yeah, but she’d thought he’d lost his mind. The story he’d told her last week had certainly sounded insane.

* * *

They’d been working their way through a pizza in his den as Blade: Trinity roared away on the big flat-screen television, Wesley Snipes killing vampires with a fanged snarl and flashing arcs of his sword.

It was a DVD choice Hope later realized was deliberate.

She’d folded a slice of the pizza and was about to take a healthy bite when Mark said, I know who killed Joy.

Hope dropped the slice back on her plate. He’d said he had something to tell her when he’d invited her over, but she’d had no idea he’d meant anything like this. He looked tense, as if he dreaded telling her whatever he had in mind, his green eyes narrow and wary. I’m listening.

Patrick Stone came to my folks’ house the night after Joy died.

"The tent revival preacher? You think he killed your sister?" She wished she could reject the idea, but she couldn’t. Sexual predators often assumed religious covers that gave them access to victims, and they moved around a lot to keep from getting caught.

Yeah. We thought Stone was going to offer to pray with us or something, like my folks’ pastor had. Mark braced his elbows on his knees. A muscle in his jaw flexed as he bit off the next words. Instead, the fucker told us all to forget about her, that she was nothing but a little slut.

"Oh, my God. He said that to your parents? So how hard did you kick his ass? And how many punches did your daddy get in?" She grinned, imagining Ted Wilder’s reaction to anybody saying something like that about his little girl. Preacher or no, Ted would have taken the guy apart.

None. Dad believed the bastard. They both did. Mark’s big hands flexed between his knees.

"What? That makes no sense. What did you do?"

Invited Stone outside and tried to knock his teeth down his throat. He blocked every punch, tossed me on my ass… Mark stopped and took a deep breath. And then he told me he was a vampire. Showed me his fangs and told me exactly what he did to Joy. In sickening detail.

He actually had false teeth made to look like fangs? That would explain the puncture marks in the victims’ bite wounds.

No, Hope. He really is a vampire. He said that’s how he made my parents believe him -- he’s got psychic abilities no human can resist.

A chill raced over her skin, and Hope had to work to keep her face expressionless. On the screen, Wesley showed his fangs in a flash of white against his dark skin. "Let me get this straight. You believe your sister was murdered by a vampire?"

He didn’t look away. I know how crazy it sounds, but yeah, that’s exactly what I believe.

* * *

At the time, she’d assumed it had to be Post Traumatic Stress. Mark had served multiple deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq as a Marine demolition specialist. A decade of that would give anybody PTSD.

Except now she realized he hadn’t been crazy. Every word of his wild story had been true.

Talk to me, Hope, Mark begged in a ragged voice, leaning against the bars as if all his furious energy had abandoned him. Help me hang on, or I’m going to lose it again.

She studied him, frowning. His face was white and bloodless, his lips pale. What do you want me to say?

Anything. Just talk to me. He closed his good eye and pressed his forehead against the bars. How did you find me?

Your parents came by the Sheriff’s Office yesterday. The Wilders had known Hope for years, so they asked for her whenever they needed a cop. They told me they hadn’t seen you in a week. At first they’d thought you’d just forgotten to call, but when your father kept checking your house and you never came home, they got worried.

He grimaced. I’ll bet they’re going out of their minds after what happened to Joy.

Pretty much. Which is when I decided to question Stone after last night’s revival, something I damn well should have done when you said he killed Joy.

Hell, I wouldn’t have believed me either.

Hope turned and began to pace, trying to work off her outraged energy. "You know, Stone actually ordered me to forget those women, as if he expected me to obey him."

He did. And you would have, if you’d been an ordinary human.

She decided not to ask what the hell he meant by that. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. So I started asking questions. One of the women from the church hosting the revival told me she’d loaned Stone her mother’s house. The mother’s been dead a year or so, and this lady hasn’t been able to sell the place.

And she never will when word gets out about this. He gestured at the blood-smeared cement.

No doubt. Then this morning, Sheriff Williams called me into his office. Said to quit wasting my time with animal kills and get back to work on my caseload. But animals don’t leave finger-shaped bruises, and those were human bites, no matter what the coroner said. Hope turned to face Mark, her hands curling into fists. Thing is, I’d discussed the cases with the sheriff just the day before, and he’d agreed they were homicides. It was just like you said -- Stone had done something to his mind.

Bastard’s got a lot of power. Mark straightened abruptly, as if someone had goosed him with a Taser. His good eye widened in panic. What time is it? Is Stone here? You’ve got to get the hell out, Hope, or he’ll --

Relax, tonight’s service just started. Which is why I decided to drop by and check out the house, even though I didn’t have a warrant. She curled a lip at the blood splatter that painted the cinderblock walls. I smelled the stench of this dungeon of his all the way out on the porch. Instant probable cause. I kicked in the door and followed the reek.

For all the good it does either of us. Mark wrapped his bruised hands around the bars and stared at her with desperate intensity. At least he seemed to be tracking now. Hope, you can’t touch Stone. Even if you managed to arrest him, all he has to do is use his powers on the sheriff and he’s out the door. Given his strength, I doubt you could bring him in at all. And I don’t want him to get his claws into you too.

She moved back over to the cage, staying just out of reach in case he tried to grab her again. How did you end up like this?

I was dumb enough to challenge him that night at my folks’ house. A bitter grimace twisted Mark’s mouth, and the knuckles of his fists went white from his grip on the bars. He told me later that’s how he knew I’m Kith. He almost grabbed me that night, but he decided to wait, think it over. Then like a moron, I showed up here and got myself caught.

Wait. Hope frowned. What the hell’s a Kith?

That’s what vamps call people with the psychic strength to survive becoming a vampire. Mark leaned his forehead against the bars and closed his eyes. The hollows beneath his striking cheekbones looked deeper, as if he was growing gaunter before her eyes. The same strength makes us immune to a vampire’s orders, so that’s how they recognize us. Which is how I became a monster. His good eye opened, meeting her gaze in a blaze of urgent green. And that’s why you need to stay the hell away from him.

And let him go on killing? She snorted. Not very damned likely.

"Hope, Stone thinks you’re Kith too because you refused to back off the case. He’s thinking of turning you. And you don’t want to become that bastard’s toy."

Fuck.

Yeah.

Hope reached for the cell phone clipped to her belt. No matter what, Mark needed medical attention. He was in shock, suffering from blood loss and God knew what else.

He straightened in alarm. What are you doing?

Calling dispatch for an ambulance. She started thumbing buttons. You need treatment. The Rescue Squad carries equipment that can cut into a car. They can slice open those bars.

I’d kill them, Hope. I’d kill them all. And you too. His gaze haunted and urgent, Mark stared desperately into her eyes. Even his tongue looked dry as he licked his lips. Stone hasn’t given me enough blood. I’m starving. I wouldn’t be able to control myself.

Hope froze with the phone halfway to her mouth as she stared at him. And finally started to think through the implications. Even if the team managed to subdue Mark -- maybe by drugging him -- what then? He was a fucking vampire. Half an hour after he went to the hospital, he’d be on CNN. Somebody would shoot cell phone video of his fangs and a few choice shots of this chamber of horrors. And he’d be screwed.

Meanwhile Stone would return from his tent revival, where he was probably choosing a sixth blonde from among the worshippers. Another woman to rape and murder.

That bastard needs to die. It wasn’t the first time in Hope’s law enforcement career she’d had that thought, but it was the first time she intended to carry it out.

She clipped the phone back on her belt with a hand that shook. It had been too damn long since she’d slept or had anything to eat beyond stale cop coffee and candy bars. Being the lead investigator on five serial murder cases would do that to you. Especially when the killer’s a fucking vampire. "All right. What do you think I should do?"

His good eye lit with hope, and he stepped closer to the bars. Go to my house. Look in the garage, under the blue tarp. There are eight pipe bombs and a detonator I built to look like a ball point pen --

"Wait -- bombs? Pipe bombs? She stared at him, incredulous. Do I look like a suicide bomber to you?"

I’m not talking about blowing yourself up. I sure as hell don’t want you dead. Just Stone. Mark’s bruised hands wrapped around the bars, and he stared at her with desperate intensity, as if willing her to listen. I’ve already built everything you need. All you have to do is position the devices, get the hell away, and press the detonator.

What if somebody sees me, Mark? They’d think I was some kind of psycho, killing a preacher for giggles. They’d never believe he was a vampire. I’d go to jail for the rest of my life.

I know, I thought of all that too. Thing is, it’s the only way to be sure of killing him.

What about a stake through the heart? It’d be a hell of a lot less complicated.

And a lot more risky. Mark released the bars and started to pace in long, urgent strides. What if he woke up before you finished? Hell, we don’t know whether a stake would even work. It could be a myth, like the one about crosses. Holy objects obviously don’t bother him, or he couldn’t be hanging out in churches, waving a Bible.

Hope grimaced. Good point.

But I’m damned sure those bombs would do the job. That’s why I took the risk of telling you what he was. I knew you wouldn’t believe me, but I wanted you to know why I’d blown the house. Unfortunately, I made the dumbass mistake of casing the house at night, and Stone caught me. He stopped pacing to rest his forehead against the steel and closed his good eye. His normally healthy tan had leached away, leaving him pale beneath the bruises that spotted his broad shoulders. Next thing I knew, I was in this cage, slowly starving to death. You and those bombs are the only hope we have of stopping him now.

Well, at least it was a plan. A crazy plan, but a plan. Hope scrubbed her hands over her face. They were trembling hard now. So what do I do?

* * *

Stone sleeps during the day because he can’t take exposure to sunlight, Mark said.

So the books did get one thing right. Hope leaned a shoulder against the bars. God, she was tired.

Mark straightened and took a step back, as if he didn’t trust himself that close to her. Yeah, but Stone says sunlight doesn’t turn us to dust. It just gives us a really bad burn, something like what you’d get from radiation exposure.

So much for opening the curtains and watching him poof, Hope muttered.

We don’t get that lucky. He gave her a faint smile she found encouraging. If you come back in the morning, you should be able to put the bombs in position. They’re radio-controlled. Just space them on the ground against the sides of the house, hit the button on the detonator, and boom. I built them with enough punch to blow the house into a crater. But you’ll need to be at least a thousand feet away before you trigger the blast.

Hope stared at him with sudden sick suspicion. What happens to you?

I’ll die. He didn’t even flinch. And that’s really the best thing I can hope for. Otherwise, I’m going to be that fucker’s slave for the next hundred years.

God, every time she turned around, this situation got worse. Slave? What do you mean, slave?

After he drained me to the point of death, I couldn’t fight his power. He bound my mind to his and forced me to drink his blood. Mark looked away as she flinched, the stubborn line of his jaw rejecting pity. Three days later, I woke up a vampire. He told me it’ll be a century before I’ll gain the strength to break his control.

Hope shook her head. But what’s the point? Why turn you at all?

He says he can pull on my power through the mental link, amplifying his abilities. Stone hasn’t been a vampire long, so he needs all the power he can get.

The idea of her Mark -- well, he hadn’t been hers in ten years, but still -- the idea of Mark as anybody’s slave… Especially slave to a master who’d left savaged, nude women dead all over Reede County, dumped in ditches like empty beer cans -- it was sickening. God. Can’t you fight him?

Another flash of weary fury lit his face. Don’t you think I’ve tried?

They stared helplessly at each other for a long moment. Finally, Mark asked, Look, what time is it?

Hope checked her watch. The revival should be ending in twenty minutes or so.

Get the hell out of here.

What if he brings back another victim? I can’t just let him murder anybody else.

It’s not time for him to kill again. He told me he likes to pick a girl out and play at being the loving pastor to gain her trust. He won’t kidnap her until tomorrow night. If you blow the house in the morning, she’ll be fine.

But you’ll die. I’ll think about it.

His lips pulled off his fangs, and his good eye glittered. "You’d better do it, or a lot more people are going to die. And I’ll wish I were one of them."

Mark, I don’t want to kill you. Hope took a deep breath and told him the truth. I really did love you. I never stopped.

Pain flashed across his face before his expression hardened. Hope, if I ever meant anything to you, don’t leave me like this. I don’t want to help Stone do to another woman what he did to my sister. I’d go insane.

Hope wanted to argue, but she knew there wasn’t time. He was right. If Stone caught her, she was dead. And she’d seen the way he killed. With a growl of defeat and fury, she turned and clattered up the wooden steps that led into the house’s living room. She had to force herself to turn out the light at the top of the stairs. It had been off when she’d arrived, and she didn’t want to alert Stone that anyone had been here.

But leaving Mark Wilder alone in the dark to wait for the monster was the hardest thing she’d ever done.

* * *

Mark watched Hope’s long legs climb the stairs in those tight blue jeans. She’d always had the best ass he’d ever seen. The only thing he regretted about dying was never holding her again. So much wasted time. So much love lost to empty pride.

Yet as much as he still loved her, he feared the Thirst would have driven him to tear out her throat if he’d had the chance.

He’d been curled up on the floor, trying to escape the maddening scent of blood from the women Stone had butchered. It had been almost a week since the vampire had let Mark taste his blood, and his tongue was swollen and dry as a sock. He felt like a dried sponge, stiff and dying, his hands shaking like an old man’s.

Then Hope had appeared like a cool dream to tease a man burning in hell. He’d had no idea who she was when he’d leaped for her throat. It had only been later that he recognized her husky voice through the blinding fog of hunger.

It took all his strength to talk to her, to warn her about Stone, when all he wanted to do was beg her to put her wrist through the bars and let him drink. Just a sip. Please, just a sip.

Except a sip wouldn’t have been enough. He’d have drained her. And he couldn’t stand the thought of killing Hope.

Hope Barton, sweet virgin, his first and only passion. Ten years after that delicious summer, he still remembered loving her in the sun-dappled grass beside Rainbow Lake.

She’d been so slim and tanned, her breasts warm, silken handfuls tipped by stiff berry nipples. Her sex had gripped his cock in slick heat. Kissing her, feeling her lips so soft and hungry against his. Dark eyes staring into his, drowning him in honey bliss.

He’d wanted to marry her more than anything in his life. Unfortunately, her mother hated his guts. Apparently, Mark reminded the woman of Hope’s biological father, who’d gotten her pregnant and walked out on her.

In the end, Hope had gone off to college in New York, where she’d obtained the criminal justice degree her mother had wanted for her. Four years later, she returned to Reede County to become a cop, but by then Mark had enlisted in the Marines. He’d only wanted to forget her, forget the way she’d sacrificed their love for her mother’s happiness.

What an idiot he’d been.

War had changed that. He’d learned far too much about life and death, balanced on a trip wire over hell buried in the sand. He now understood the sacrifice Hope’s mother had made, working two jobs to send her daughter to school, and why Hope had been unable to run off with him and spit on her mother’s dreams.

Family was too precious for that. Family embedded themselves in your heart, and if something ripped them away, you were left with a bleeding wound that never really healed.

Like the one Stone had inflicted on Mark’s parents when he’d murdered Joy. All that bright intelligence and loving spirit, butchered so the bastard could feed and fuck.

Monster. Goddamn monster.

God, Mark wanted revenge. Craved it even more than he craved the blood his vampire body needed.

As he’d built those bombs last week, he’d thought of Joy’s corpse. Remembered the shattered look on his mother’s face when Stone used his powers to make her believe her daughter was a slut. The rage and shame that filled his father’s eyes, replacing the love for his lost little girl.

It hadn’t been enough for Stone to murder Joy. He’d had to blacken her memory for the people who loved her most. It wasn’t even to protect himself. He simply loved tormenting his victims’ survivors almost as much as he loved butchering women.

Stone was a sadist, and he deserved to burn in hell.

Mark wouldn’t mind dying if he could take the vampire with him.

The only thing that bothered him about enlisting Hope in his scheme was the danger to her. She was right about the risk she was running. If she were caught, she’d spend the rest of her life in prison. But if she didn’t blow the house, Stone would go right on killing, dragging Mark in his murderous wake. The vampire might even make good on his threat to turn her too.

The only chance they had was if Hope were willing to press the detonator. Even if it meant watching Mark die -- and risking her own destruction.

He paced until weary exhaustion dropped him to the floor. Starving, hopeless, he sank into a dark sleep.

* * *

She was here, wasn’t she? The voice purred in the darkness, jolting Mark awake. I smell her. Honeysuckle and blood. So sweet.

Somehow Mark managed not to leap up and back away. He wouldn’t give the fucker the satisfaction. Instead, he forced himself to rise and face his tormenter like the Marine he was.

Stone smirked at him, distilled evil in a Brooks Brothers’ suit. He looked like a televangelist, complete with an artistic touch of gray at the temples of his sloe-black hair. The illusion was shattered when he started pacing along the width of the cell, sniffing the air like a hungry dog. Oh, you do want her, don’t you? I can smell the lust even through your Thirst.

Mark curled a lip. Go to hell.

Stone merely gave him a wolf’s white smile. I wonder if you’d have the willpower to fuck her before you ripped out her throat. Would you like to find out?

If you touch her, I’ll kill you.

So menacing. I’m quite terrified. Stone laughed and leaned a shoulder against the bars, watching him with taunting eyes.

Mark could smell the vampire’s blood, seductive and rich, offering life to his starved body. He didn’t even try to control his lunge.

Stop.

Stone’s will smashed into his mind, locking his muscles and paralyzing him in mid-leap. His face smacked painfully against the bars, and he staggered back as he recoiled from the raw evil of Stone’s mental touch. Summoning his will, Mark pictured a solid steel wall slamming down between him and the invading consciousness. Get out of my mind!

This time it was Stone who staggered. The vampire caught himself and eyed him with savage interest. You are strong, aren’t you? Just not quite strong enough. Give you a century, though, and I’m sure you’ll be a handful.

Mark knew Stone had every intention of killing him long before then. If I don’t get you first, motherfucker.

Stone straightened, glaring at him. You’re insolent. He sniffed again, his expression turning fastidious. And filthy. We’ll have to clean you up before your lady friend’s next visit. Maybe I’ll even feed you. He sighed in exaggerated ennui. I suppose she’ll show up in the morning with a stake and a hammer, ready to play Buffy. I’ll have to arrange an appropriate reception. Perhaps I’ll call 911 and get someone over. The vampire turned and sauntered up the stairs.

Stone returned twenty minutes later with a power sprayer. He spent the next thirty minutes pounding Mark with a stinging stream of icy water, paying particular attention to his cock and balls. Laughing at the lethal rage in his captive’s fanged snarl.

* * *

Hope drove into the morning sun, avoiding potholes with all the care of a woman with eight bombs in the trunk. The Homeland Security explosives course she’d taken told her Mark had used enough TATP to launch her Honda into orbit.

She’d spent most of last night working out today’s plan. After hitting Wal-Mart for a few supplies, Hope had headed over to Mark’s house. She’d found the neat brick split level flanked by rose bushes and azaleas, all in brilliant summer bloom under the moon.

Raising the garage door just enough to slip beneath it, she closed it again, leaving the garage in pitch blackness. Hope flicked on her flashlight, sending a cone of white light dancing over the garage.

The blue tarp lay draped across a work table at the rear of the room, just as he’d said. Pulling it aside, Hope found the pipe bombs lined up neatly across the table, along with a set of notes written in Mark’s sweeping hand. She’d searched fruitlessly for the detonator before realizing it was disguised as the gold Cross pen lying by the notebook. Good thing she hadn’t tried to write with it.

Her trunk packed with bombs and gear, Hope had gone home to get some rest. Unfortunately, every time she’d drifted off, she’d seen Mark leaping for her throat. Stone had turned the man she loved into a monster.

He was going to die for that.

Hope brought the Honda to a careful stop in front of the vampire’s house. After pulling on a fresh pair of blue evidence gloves from a pack in the glove compartment, she got out and popped the trunk.

Two backpacks lay in the bottom, each