Chapter 3
She woke to the sound of her own screaming.
The noise tore from Kate’s throat without conscious thought, a raw, animalistic sound that seemed to echo off the walls before being swallowed by the darkness around her. She tried to stop, tried to clamp her mouth shut, but the screams continued as if they had a life of their own.
Everything was wrong, everything was too much.
The rain hitting the pavement sounded like gunshots. The distant hum of traffic roared like jet engines.
Somewhere nearby, a couple was arguing in French, their voices so clear she could hear the saliva in their mouths, the air moving through their lungs, the blood rushing through their veins.
Blood.
The thought sent a spike of hunger through her so intense it doubled her over. Kate was on all fours, her hands pressed against wet concrete, her hair slick against her head from the rain.
Her body shook with a need she didn’t understand. Her mouth felt wrong; it was too sharp, too sensitive. When she ran her tongue over her teeth, she felt the unmistakable protrusion of fangs.
“No,” she whispered, but even her own voice was too loud, reverberating inside her skull like she was trapped in a bell tower during a thunderstorm.
Kate forced herself to look around, despite the light feeling like shards sticking through her eyes. The alley was narrow and dark, filled with shadows that would have terrified her as a human.
Now, she could see everything with perfect clarity: the texture of the historic brick walls, the individual droplets of rain falling from a fire escape three stories above, the scurrying movement of rats rustling in the garbage bins.
She was alone.
Aleksander had dumped her here like rubbish and disappeared, leaving her to wake up to this nightmare without explanation, no guidance, not even the basic courtesy of staying to watch her suffer.
The hunger hit her again with more force this time, and Kate found herself moving before she’d made a conscious decision. Her body seemed to know what it needed.
She stumbled out of the alley and onto a side street, her enhanced hearing picking up a heartbeat nearby.
An old man sat huddled in a doorway, wrapped in layers of tattered clothing that couldn’t quite hide the smell of unwashed skin and desperation. He looked up as Kate approached, his rheumy eyes widening at whatever he saw in her face.
“S’il vous pla?t,” he whispered, holding up a trembling hand. “Je n’ai rien.”
Kate couldn’t understand the words, but she understood the fear. She should have felt sympathy, should have helped him, or simply walked away.
Instead, she found herself kneeling beside him, her hand reaching for his throat with a gentleness that belied her true, violent intentions.
The man’s pulse fluttered against her palm like a bird trapped in a cage. Kate could smell his coppery blood, hear it rushing through his arteries.
She could practically taste the life flowing just beneath his paper-thin skin. Her fangs extended fully as she leaned forward—
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
The voice laced with a British accent came from behind her, calm and authoritative. Kate spun around, a snarl escaping her lips before she could stop it.
A young man stood at the mouth of the alley, about twenty-five in appearance, with tanned skin and the kind of ageless beauty that marked him as something other. His close-cropped hair framed sharp, striking features as he strolled with careful confidence towards her.
“Who are you?” Kate demanded, her voice rough and strange.
“Someone who’s been looking for you,” he replied, pulling out a phone. “And someone who’s going to save you from making a very big mistake.”
Kate looked back at the homeless man, who had pressed himself against the doorway as if he could disappear into the brick. The hunger was still there, clawing at her insides, but the interruption had broken whatever spell had been driving her forward.
“I wasn’t going to—” she began, then stopped. She had been going to. She’d been seconds away from tearing open an innocent man’s throat.
“Yes, you were,” the vampire said gently. “It’s not your fault. The hunger is overwhelming for new vampires, especially ones who’ve been abandoned without proper guidance and support.”
His expression darkened. “Which is exactly what your maker intended.”
He pressed a button on his phone and held it to his ear.
“Sophia? I found her. Yes, she’s alive. Newly turned, disoriented, but unharmed.”
A pause.
“No, she hasn’t fed yet, but it was close. I’ll bring her in.”
Surprise filled Kate. “Sophia? You know Sophia?”
“I work for her,” he said, ending his call. “My name is Luc. And you, I believe, are Kate Morgan.”
“How do you—”
“Because every vampire in Paris has been looking for you since your boyfriend started tearing the city apart three hours ago.” Luc approached slowly with his hands visible and non-threatening.
“Devon Karlov is not someone you want to have as an enemy, and right now he’s convinced that whoever took you is going to pay in blood. ”
Kate felt tears she didn’t know she could still shed, burning in her eyes. “Devon. Is he—”
“Alive, furious, and probably halfway to committing genocide if we don’t get you back to him soon.”
Luc stopped just out of arm’s reach. “But first, we need to get you somewhere safe. Somewhere you can learn to control the hunger before you do something you’ll regret forever.”
Kate looked back at the homeless man, who was still cowering in the doorway. The sight of his terror cut through her like a blade. She had been about to kill him. Not for any noble reason, not in self-defence, but simply because she was hungry and he was convenient.
“What’s happening to me?” she whispered.
“You’re becoming what you were never meant to be,” Luc said, his voice gentle but honest.
“Your maker turned you out of spite, not love. He gave you the curse without the guidance, the hunger without the control. It’s the cruelest thing one vampire can do to another.”
“Aleksander,” Kate said, the name tasting like poison in her mouth.
“Yes. And don’t worry, when we find him, he’ll answer for what he’s done to you.” Luc extended his hand. “But right now, you need help. You need to learn to be what you are without losing who you were.”
Kate stared at his outstretched hand. Everything in her wanted to refuse, to run, pretend this was all some horrible nightmare she could wake up from. But the hunger was still there, clawing at her insides, and she could hear the homeless man’s heartbeat like a dinner bell.
She took Luc’s hand.
“Good,” he said, his grip steady and reassuring. “Now, Sophia has a safe house not far from here. We’ll get you cleaned up, fed properly, and then we’ll call Devon.”
“Fed?” Kate’s voice cracked on the word.
“Medical blood,” Luc assured her, his blue eyes softening.
“Clean, safe, and ethically sourced. You don’t have to be a monster, Kate. The hunger doesn’t have to define you.”
As they walked away from the alley, Kate spotted her reflection in a shop window and stopped. Her reflection was pale and ethereal, beautiful in the way all vampires were.
But her eyes, her eyes were the bright, unnatural blue of a predator, and they seemed to glow with their own inner light.
She looked like a creature from a horror movie, like everything she’d once feared. Yet somewhere beneath the fangs, the hunger and the ethereal beauty, she was still Kate Morgan.
Aleksander had stolen her humanity, but he hadn’t destroyed it, not yet. And if she had anything to say about it, he never would.
The rain continued to fall as they disappeared into the Paris night, washing away the last traces of the woman Kate had been and baptizing the creature she was becoming. Behind them, the homeless man slowly emerged from his doorway, crossing himself and muttering prayers.
He had looked into the eyes of a monster and lived to tell about it. He would never know how close he’d come to becoming her first victim.