Chapter Sixteen
I didn’t normally drink, especially in the middle of the afternoon, but as I nervously eyed the giant wooden crate in our climate-controlled room just off the main warehouse, my heart thumped against my ribcage.
Be strong, Mas!
I slid my black rubber apron over my head to protect my jeans and favorite Big Barney T-shirt, and tied it up in the back. I can’t believe I gotta cook up some brains. Though, maybe this explained how a vampire could use moonshine to control a person.
Once, I’d seen Stark take over a man’s entire body after giving him his blood.
In this particular case, the man had been the one who’d killed Deedee and tried to kill me.
Stark thought it would be “super thoughtful” to give the creep a little of the vampire viva-juice.
Welp, the man had viva’d all right. But more like a programmable zombie.
When Stark showed up at my doorstep, claiming that shell of a person was a gift to do with as I pleased, I’d angrily spouted that I’d wanted the murderer to die.
That was exactly what he did. Dropped dead right there.
I’d even seen his soul just drift into outer space.
I didn’t know how any of this vampire science worked, but I understood one thing: vampires weren’t people.
Their kind came with abilities that defied our understanding of nature, and their blood had power.
It stood to reason that a vampire’s brain had power, too.
So maybe moonshine wasn’t a drug as much as it was an antenna, connecting human thoughts to the brains of vampires? Who knew?
“Well, here goes.” I poured a generous serving of whiskey, threw it back, and then set my empty glass next to a bag of rye on the shelf behind me.
To my side were a prep table, a cutting board, a knife, and a measuring cup.
Next to those was a stainless steel vat on wheels, ready to be filled with my scrumdiddlyumptious ingredients for the still in the other room.
“You can do this,” I said aloud. I’d watched my uncle make whiskey hundreds of times. It was practically in my Kicklighter blood. “Just pretend the ingredients are giant walnuts for a new fall flavor.”
I grabbed my crowbar and wedged the flat end under the top. The wooden crate creaked and groaned under the pressure until the nails finally gave way. I set the heavy lid to one side, leaning it against the outside of the crate.
“Ew. Ew. Ew…” I whined in anticipation of the gruesome display inside. Would the brains be in jars? Baggies? Maybe Tupperware?
With a pruned-up face, I leaned over to take a peek. Inside was a ball of shaggy brown fur maybe the size of a honeydew melon. I could see a little bit of cloth, too. Blue plaid.
“What the…?”
Wait. That’s not fur—I jumped back. “Jesus!” Charlie hadn’t told me the brains would come inside heads. “No! No, no, no. I am not shucking melons!”
“Like what you see?” Stark stepped from the shadows. He wore faded jeans, dusty cowboy boots, and a clean white tee. His face was all cleaned up now, and he’d even shaved.
Startled, I stumbled back but quickly found my footing. “What are you doing here?”
“Can’t a man visit his woman at work in the middle of the day?” Stark casually strolled toward me.
My pounding heart went into sixth gear, urging me to make a run for it. Totally pointless. I’d have to make it to the heavy metal door, pull it open, and sprint to the nearest emergency exit. Stark would catch me in half a second.
“As you pointed out, it’s the middle of the day, and you’re allergic to the sun.” Which meant he’d been here waiting for me. “What do you want?”
He jerked his head at the crate. “I could not resist seeing your face,” he flashed a sadistic smile with a little fang, “when you realized the consequences of your actions. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. Poor Charlie never stood a chance. Not even with his band of well-armed companions.”
In horror, I stepped away, realizing that Charlie never made it to the airport last night. It was why Stark looked like Mad Max when he’d turned up at my place last night. He’d gotten into a scuffle with Charlie’s men before nabbing him.
My eyes moved to the crate and tuft of hair. Charlie? “Do you have any clue what you’ve just done?” Who was going to stop the vampires now?
Stark’s grin melted away. “Did you believe I would allow another male to speak of fucking my woman? Did you think there would be no consequences for kissing you?”
“I’m not your woman.” I scrubbed my face with my hands. This was a nightmare.
“Yes. You are. And even though I know you were putting on a performance last night, my men witnessed your spectacle.”
His men. His little shadow lurkers. “Who cares? He didn’t deserve to die!” My eyes began to tear.
“I would disagree. As would every male in every coven across the world. It is a matter of pride, and if you had taken a moment to consider what it means to be a vampire—”
“I am not a vampire. I’d rather die in a vat of boiling water.” My eyes darted to the vat by my side. “Figure of speech.” I grimaced awkwardly.
Stark charged at me, grabbing me by the shoulders and putting his face in mine.
“You might not have been turned yet, but you are part of our world now, Masie Kicklighter. And whether you like it or not, there are consequences for breaking our rules. For you. And for any man who lays a finger on you.”
This was crazier than a tiger rodeo. “Again, I’m not yours, and it’s exactly because of this! You care more about your vampire rules or how you look in front of everyone than you ever cared about me.”
“This conversation is over.”
I agreed. “And so is my involvement with you. Do you want to break the news to the vampire world, or should I?”
Stark’s fingers squeezed painfully around my arms, and I instinctively knew he was about to zap me with his eyes.
I clenched my eyelids shut. “Nope. Nope. I’m not letting you do that thing with the swirly colors again.”
“Open them,” he snarled.
“Nuh-uh.” I turned my head.
“Do it, or I’ll finish Charlie’s transformation,” he warned.
My eyes snapped open. “You didn’t.”
“Did,” he said smugly.
Oh. No… Stark had drained Charlie and given him his blood. Halfway to vampire. The final step was feeding.
I glanced up at the shiny silver insulated ceiling, praying for help, wisdom, superpowers—anything to stop this madness. “How could you? Charlie was a good man. He would never want to be like you.”
“Hello. That was the purpose of doing this. Are you so pure that you do not see my vengeance play? You are not very fun.” Stark tsked again.
What a jerk! “Yeah. I got that, Captain Coffin. But this is vile, even for you.”
“I could command him to obey you, Princess Smart Tits. That way, you may decide his fate like you did with Deedee’s killer.”
He knew how much that whole event haunted me. “You’re a monster.”
“You’re a saucy monkey.”
“Tick,” I threw back.
“Whiny snot otter.”
What the hell was that? “Okay, old man,” I replied.
Stark’s gaze locked on my lips as we stood in silence for a long moment. I suddenly realized he was breathing a little heavy. His gaze slowly moved down my neck, fixating on my breasts.
“Oh my god. Are you really thinking this is about to lead to some…stupid, explosive make-out moment?”
His eyes whipped to mine. “Vampires do not ‘make out.’ I was thinking about fucking you.”
“You’re disgusting.” I smacked his hands off my arms.
“And you are…weak. Also, your right eye is darker than the left, which makes you imperfect.”
What is wrong with him? It dawned on me that he was fighting like a child.
Probably because he’d never actually engaged in a verbal argument with anyone in his life.
He’d practically been raised by a vampire and then became one.
A powerful one. From what I’d gathered, vampires didn’t do much discussing.
They generally just killed the vampire they disagreed with or kept their mouths shut.
It was why Stark always looked like he was having a fang pulled anytime he attempted to open up to me.
Well, whatever his trip, I was out of patience. He’d wrecked our chances of saving humans, and he’d destroyed a good man’s life. All because of his jealousy.
“You were right,” I said. “Millions are going to die because of us.” It was something he’d said back at the island.
“Silence, Masie. I grow tired of your whining. Now, we are going to discuss—”
I slapped Stark’s cheek. “Stop it. Stop this evil, rude garbage right now. You don’t speak to me like that. And stop hurting the people I care about. This is not the man I fell in love with.”
Stark pressed his hand to his cheek; his demeanor instantly shifted—rounded shoulders, softened lips, light green eyes. “So you do love me.”
“That is not what I said,” I hissed.
“Well, do you?”
“No,” I lied. “Not anymore.”
Stark looked at the crate, and I could see his wheels turning.
Probably his guilt kicking in.
Then, without warning, he reached inside the crate and lifted Charlie’s body by the head, giving the neck a twist. A loud crack ensued.
“There. All fixed,” he said. “Now Charlie will not turn. Happy?” Stark dropped the lifeless body back into the crate like a ragdoll.
Meanwhile, I just stood there, my mind trying to comprehend exactly who this person—vampire—was. So cruel. So vicious. What had I ever seen in him?
I felt the love inside me silently fizzling. There wasn’t one thing about him that I recognized.
“I never liked Charlie anyway,” he added. “Always driveling on and on about humans and vampires living in peace. Would’ve made a bad vampire.”
“How did you become so evil? No concern for life, for me, for anything.”
Stark sighed with exasperation. “Perhaps you are the evil one. You placed Charlie in this position to begin with.”
No matter what I said, I couldn’t get through to him.
“Yep. We’re all going to die,” I muttered to myself.
“All because I fell in love with a five-hundred-year-old man with a T-rex brain. We lost our one chance.” If I hadn’t met Stark and gotten involved with him, I wouldn’t have gone to prison, and Stark wouldn’t have outed vampires.
In a roundabout way, this was all my fault.
“I assure you, my brain is full-size, along with my other organs.” He stared for a long moment, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. “What are you talking about, ‘we all lost our chance’?”
“Nothing.”
“You are lying.” He hunched down a little, attempting to get a better look at my eyes. I looked away. “What are you hiding, Masie?”
I continued staring in the other direction.
“Answer me.” He pointed a finger in my face. “Answer me, or I will—”
“Go ahead. Do that thing with your eyes. I know you want to. Just remember when you’re doing it, it’s because you’re too weak a man to earn my trust and keep it. You are just another dirty, disgusting vampire to me.”
Like a raging fire combusting, Stark took me by the arms again and lifted me in the air, his eyes a hypnotic swirl of blues and greens. Before I could react, he shot off one word, “Sleep.”
“Dammit, Stark!” I spouted right before following his command.