Chapter 32
This was what goddesses must feel like. Even hours after Lazaro and Nemesh had disappeared, I hadn’t given a single thought to going back inside the house. It would just be a cage for all the primal power that was rippling through my body.
This was dangerous. This was why people shouldn’t make deals with devils. That voice was too quiet and far too easy to ignore.
As I whirled my boundless energy across acres of open ranchland, it was hard to care about caution. And anyway, it was just borrowed power with a time limit, if that devil could be trusted. There wasn’t any downside to enjoying it for the few hours I had left.
Lazaro Reyes was coming. I could sense him with this gift if I concentrated on it.
He was on the side of the green mountain to the southeast, and other powerful vampires had been with him, concentrated in one point until they’d dispersed.
I could feel others tugging at the edges of my awareness from the center of Cibola, and if I closed my eyes and really thought about it, there was a strong pull from the north, probably in Santa Fe.
I pushed all the others out of my mind and focused on the familiar tether between Lazaro and me.
I was so gleefully impatient that I ran like a whirlwind to meet him.
There was plenty of open desert between Cibola and Hope Ranch.
It would be a fine setting for us to play.
I planted my boots on the asphalt of Desert Springs Road, just beyond the turnoff to the dirt drive that wound its way to the ranch.
Headlights lit up the gray road, and I kept my knees bent and springy in case Lazaro was so fed up with this never-ending fight between the two of us that he’d try to end it with his car.
The vehicle slowed and turned onto the dirt before he cut the ignition and got out.
“Back so soon?” I taunted. “How’d it feel, then? Killing your girlfriend.”
He flew at me fist first, and I dodged his punches, marveling at how slow he’d become. His nostrils flared when he couldn’t lay a hand on me, and he picked up speed and power. His cheeks and neck were streaked with dark lines of dried blood, like he’d been scratched by an animal.
“I’m guessing it wasn’t all you dreamed of?”
I wasn’t ready to reveal the extent of my new power, so I let him land a few hits and mostly ducked his silent volley.
I twirled around him, and the two of us waltzed along the paved road, never able to keep still in a fight.
Thoughts drained away from my head. I was unaware of the passage of time.
There was nothing but my body playing out the steps of this dance.
I couldn’t hold back an embarrassing yelp when Lazaro’s fist nearly met my face before I angled away at the last second, and he laughed.
It must have surprised him, because he leaped away to regroup.
He was such an elegant fighter, and I could truly appreciate just how fluid his movements were with my higher senses.
I actually wanted to compliment him, and I laughed at the ridiculous notion.
This was too much fun, and I didn’t want it to end.
Why hadn’t that devil given me the power to stop the sun?
Lazaro came at me again, and I was all giggles as I ducked and dodged and got a few cheeky hits in. Was this even a fight any longer?
A huge smile cracked across Lazaro’s face, revealing the elegantly straight fangs that were a rare sight for me.
It was a strange reminder that he was a vampire.
I’d almost forgotten. I was feeling so superhuman myself, so strong and vital that a disturbing thought knocked me out of the easy fun.
The only thing better to do with this new body than fighting Lazaro would be—
In shock, I released a full-throttle punch to his chest, and bone crunched under my fist before he went soaring backwards several yards, rolling sideways for several rotations before the momentum stopped.
I only understood my mistake once the wonder of overpowering Lazaro passed.
The fun was over. He sat up and clutched his chest, throwing me a suspicious glare.
“Hunter…” He was slow to stand. “What did you do?”
“Kicked your ass, it looks like.” I pulled a stake out from a holster around my waist. I had the power to end this at any moment, but I’d barely gotten to enjoy this feeling. There was still an hour or two before the sun came up. I could draw it out.
I braced myself as Lazaro stumbled closer, but he made no move to attack. Instead, his hands grasped my cheeks and made me look him in the eyes, which was worse than just punching me in the nose.
“What did you do?” he demanded, his voice spreading over the open land around us. “Where did you get this strength?”
I gasped and ripped myself from his touch, and I jabbed my stake out to keep him away. He pushed it aside and wrapped a hand around my wrist, then another around my elbow.
“Tell me!” The worry in his eyes, which I could see with perfect clarity beneath the billions of stars illuminating us, frightened me more than his rage. With my free hand, I punched his cheek, and he snapped his head back and snarled at me. “How did you get stronger, Fallon?”
He never used my first name. Coy as I was trying to be, Lazaro somehow already knew the answer, and my bravado slipped. “His name was Nemesh—”
Lazaro seized my shoulders and hunched down to my level. “You goddamned fool, Hunter! What did you give Nemesh? Your soul?”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” I scoffed and rammed my knee into his stomach to get his hands off me. He folded in on himself, but his head flew up so he could glare at me. “I’m not stupid. I didn’t give him anything. It’s temporary.”
“There’s always a price, damn it. Just when I think you can’t aggravate me any more, you go and tangle with Nemesh. He’s a devil!”
“He made that clear. What’s this about? You want me dead, don’t you? What do you care? Or did your ego shatter the moment I became stronger than you?”
Lazaro was breathing deeply, like his lungs were bellows for the fire he just couldn’t rouse. He narrowed his eyes on me. I kept my stance loose but ready to defend.
“What’s with the concern? What the hell is this, Lazaro?
” This was my chance to end this. I’d lose these powers, and I’d never be this marvelously strong again.
I’d never be able to fight Lazaro as anything close to an equal.
More than that, we couldn’t keep doing this.
I couldn’t spend the rest of my life always anticipating another attack kicked up by Lazaro’s homicidal whims. I had to end this.
I crossed the distance between us with a few quick, light steps over pavement. He twisted, anticipating the deadly aim of my weapon, and our bodies collided.
He’d grabbed hold of my wrist before I could plunge the stake into his heart.
I could overpower him and follow through with the kill anyway.
However, he’d used his height to his advantage, and he’d been able to angle himself so that his fangs were at my throat.
We froze in that position, my arm shaking in his grasp, his breath tickling my neck. A stalemate.
At the slightest brush of his cool lips against my flushed skin, I growled and tackled him to the road below, and my free hand wrapped around his neck to keep him pinned down.
He was fast enough that his own arm had shot up to hold my throat in the crook of his thumb.
Another draw. I tightened my grip on his neck, and he did the same.
“This will hurt you more than me, Hunter. I don’t need to breathe.
” He gave my throat an extra squeeze for effect, but he loosened his hold so that only his fingertips dipped into my flesh.
The bastard still wasn’t trying to kill me.
My anger was getting the best of me, and I hoisted my stake too high, telegraphing my move like an amateur.
Then the world spun around, and it was my back against the rough, gravelly road.
Our hands were still locked on each other’s throats.
I hated the way Lazaro looked down on me even more than I hated how his body was straddling me, not taking any of the care I had in keeping contact to a minimum.
He was appraising me, roaming across my features and down my body with cautious curiosity.
I gagged at his lack of animosity and punched his ribs hard enough to knock him off to the side.
My breathing was too fast for the floundering fight we were barely even having.
I watched his every move as we both got back on our feet.
“Why can’t you just do it?” I demanded. It wasn’t that I was suicidal and wanted him to kill me, but this blurred confusion was frustrating. I was a Hunter. He was a vampire. A Reyes. There was only one way this could end.
Finally, after clenching his fists so hard he might have broken bones, after more unnecessary breaths to stoke the fire, he growled and lunged at me.
I had the speed to bring my stake up between us so that he’d impale himself, but the anticipation of his death made me flinch and turn my head away with my eyes closed.
Fangs pricked my wantonly exposed neck, and a humiliating groan filled the breathless pre-dawn hush.
Lazaro’s desperate panting at my neck turned to laughter.
“Come on, Hunter. You gotta do better than that.” His words caressed my skin, and then his lips sealed around the nicks he’d made, drinking me in. His tongue soothed the shallow twin wounds.
It was enough to snap me out of my dazed state. I pushed him off, digging the point of my stake where it was already threatening him. Lazaro licked his lips and watched with dark amusement.
“What the hell was that?” My fingers went to my neck, but the bite had already healed.
“You’re asking me?” he smirked.
“Stop it!”