Doing It To Death: Shivers and Sins Volume 2 Read online

  I’m starving. Starving. Starving. I need to feed. I need you, Evie.

  This time you come to me, vampire. This time you come when I call.

  Her growl vibrated against my lips. My gut paused its protest long enough to register the upward tug of the corners of her lips. Somewhere deep inside, I shuddered at the scything slice of that smile.

  “Catch you on the flip side, Jesse.”

  I jolted to consciousness, covered in sweat, and aching all over. I swallowed a lump of disgust as soon as my mind conjured the first image of food. Violent, stomach churning disgust for something I needed so badly my body hurt.

  For the first time in my life, nausea wracked me at the thought of feeding. Only the taste of pancakes on my tongue when Evie broke her little spell in the diner could compare. I rolled onto my side and took a deep breath, felt ill, and took several shallow ones instead. The taste coating my tongue correlated with the stench whenever humans vomited. Below the ball of ice twisting my gut into a pretzel, stood my cock, at full attention. I lifted the sheets a bit and stared at this sign of hunger, at the iridescent line of fluid streaking from the bruised head to the sheet. Pre-come. Endless beads of pre-come, because I couldn’t come even when I jerked off.

  When I ran my tongue over my teeth I felt nothing. My fangs still inverted.

  Confusion at the contradictory signs rattled me and I shuddered again. The involuntary movement made me think of Evie, her teeth chattering as our bodies sank deeper into cold water, her shudders as I held her under the churning surface.

  I peeled back the covers. The blast of cold air against the blistering heat of my erection made me wince. I wrapped my hand around the head and squeezed, doubled over with the friction and the pain. I stumbled to my feet, stared out at the gray light of morning, and thought about how I’d have buried myself balls deep in Evie—if only she’d been here.

  I thought about the dream. How real she’d felt. Real. Alive.

  You need me alive….

  “Alive.” Before I wrapped my head around the details of my still-forming plan, I stormed down the hall to Vaughn’s room and threw open the door.

  Vaughn kneeled over an auburn-haired girl with her legs spread wide, his hand wrapped around her throat. He didn’t stop fucking her even when he noticed me staring, bound to the spot with a sickening thread of jealousy.

  “You ready to eat?” He asked breathlessly, still driving his cock into his morning meal. “She’s just getting warmed up. We can do her here or in the basement now that it’s clean—”

  “She’s alive!” I shuddered at the smell of the girl’s cunt creaming on Vaughn’s relentless thrusts.

  “Yeah, dude, obviously. I’m fucking her.”

  “Evie.”

  Vaughn stopped thrusting and released the girl’s throat.

  “What the fuck are you talking about? You killed her.”

  The girl under him gasped in a deep breath and screamed, which dissolved into sobs when Vaughn slapped her. He leaned over her face and said, “Shut up. I’m talking.” He dragged his tongue across her tears and smacked his lips.

  My stomach churned. I licked dry lips and collapsed against the doorjamb, weak as a newborn.

  “Jesse? Jesse!”

  With one bound, Vaughn’s sweaty, naked body hovered above me. He smelled of all the things I couldn’t do. I couldn’t bleed my prey when my fangs wouldn’t come out. If I fucked the girl whimpering on the bed all day and night, I still wouldn’t be able to come.

  “She’s alive, Vaughn. She’s the reason I can’t feed. Something. Something happened at the lake I….”

  “You’re talking crazy. She got under your skin, I know, but all you need is one good meal. I’ll force it down your throat if I have to, and me and the girl will take care of this.”

  He grabbed my cock, a look of pure sympathy on his face as he jerked my shaft.

  Arousal stabbed me in the gut, but instead of release, pain sank deep into my shaft and squeezed my balls in a vice. I smacked his hand away and grabbed him by the back of the neck so he wouldn’t get the girl to suck me off.

  “I gave her my venom, Vaughn.”

  The thud of Vaughn’s knees hitting the floor told me he understood.

  “You can’t turn a witch, right? That’s impossible.”

  “So is me being unable to feed or come. But the impossible happened. I turned her. Now I need you to help me find her, so I can kill the bitch before she kills me.”

  4

  Vaughn huffed and snapped his thumbs rapidly against the wheel. “You sure this is her address? ‘Cause she ain’t here.”

  Two miserable fucking days on the road had led to a dead end. Vaughn slept a few hours and ate quick meals while I tried, and failed, to rest. I could barely see straight from the hunger so he had to drive, and now here we were. Empty-handed.

  We had two addresses for Evelyn Marie Pierce: her off-campus apartment and her parents’ place. I sneered down at Evie’s license. Not that I needed to check the plastic card. Vaughn had broken into the right apartment.

  Fuck… gonna have to kill her and the whole family. And then clean it up myself so my father doesn’t find out.

  Gonna be a long night.

  Exhaustion settled over my shoulders like a thick pelt. We were driving toward a hunt, for fuck’s sake. Where was the anticipation? If I hadn’t been hard as a rock for days now, I’d should’ve been hard all over again at the prospect.

  I would’ve been aching to feed before the witch wriggled her way into my brain.

  “If—” I gasped in a deep breath and lay my feverish head against the cool window. “If she’s not there, you know where we need to go next.”

  “Can’t believe that bitch is still alive. Can’t believe you let. Her. Live.”

  The trip had gotten to Vaughn in more ways than one. If Liam had been here, he’d have shared the burden, taking a shift driving and comforting Vaughn when watching me die became too much. I didn’t have the energy to comfort my brother. I only had energy to find the witch and end this curse.

  “Drive.”

  “We should tell someone.” The car still idled in the apartment complex parking lot. “Your dad or whoever. You’re sick, like full-on V-Sep sick. The only thing missing is buckets of black blood pouring out of your face. Maybe that’s what this new strain does for true born? You could be going delirious and we should get you to a clinic—”

  I slammed my fist down on the dashboard. The glove compartment shattered into plastic splinters. “Drive! Now!”

  “Parents’ house it is.” Vaughn sighed, wrenched the car into reverse, and spun the wheel. The tires of the stolen Dodge Challenger we’d gotten from Vaughn’s last meal squealed like a protest against my orders. “And what are you gonna do when you see the witch, Jesse? Collapse on her? That’s assuming she’s fucking alive and actually at her parents’ place.”

  We shot out of the parking lot, took a U-turn, and raced toward the exit.

  “She’s alive.”

  I swallowed, saliva gathering in my mouth as we hurtled half an hour in the opposite direction of her apartment.

  “There’s a news article on her disappearance and return. Found it online. But, even if there wasn’t proof, my appetite’s returning.”

  I showed him my fangs, their sad, near-impotent push beyond my gums before retracting again. Still, better than what I could muster the last few days. “She’s gotta be close.”

  I didn’t dare say the other part, the part that would have Vaughn snarling at my stupidity. I could feel Evie in me. I could feel her sensing me, needing me, her hunger a match for my own. The closer we got, the more desperate I became, because I could damn near feel her heart beating in my chest.

  I grunted and sat up as we sped toward our destination, my cock sitting heavy as a brick and swollen on my thigh.

  “We should pick something up now that you’re hungry again. Whatever we grab can take care of that before you pop a blood vessel or som
ething.” He pointed at the bulge in my jeans. I managed a weak glare. “I’m just saying, we’re near a university and it’s Saturday. Bound to be some college kids who didn’t go home for Thanksgiving.”

  “Just get there, Vaughn. The witch will take care of the rest.”

  Vaughn drove silent for a long moment, hurtling onto an exit ramp headed north on I-295.

  “So you feed, you fuck. Then what? You can’t keep her. Your dad already said as much.”

  “I have no intention of keeping her. I’m gonna finish what I started, and this time, I’ll make her death stick.”

  Vaughn grinned and hit the gas as if the thought I’d kill her hadn’t occurred to him. My own brother didn’t think I had the guts to drain the witch dry.

  If I hadn’t slipped her my venom like an idiot….

  I growled and bit down hard enough to draw blood from my bottom lip. A wet stain bloomed on the front of my jeans, endless pre-come escaping the rock-hard tip. My stomach felt like a beast had savaged my entrails, scraping through the bloody mess with jagged nails and razor teeth.

  The pain bordered on unbearable now, worse than staring down at Evie as we both struggled with her last breaths.

  “We’ll make sure that bitch and her entire family beg for death.” Vaughn’s bitter laughter faded in and out. “Let’s see her promise to take away their pain like she did with me.”

  My fury at his words couldn’t be pinned down. He hadn’t said anything I hadn’t thought about doing to her. I’d make her suffer, I’d make every part of her mine one last time before I ripped her life out by the roots. I’d fuck and bleed her to death, and maybe I’d make her watch Vaughn kill her family, just to show her what Hell really looked like.

  But the thoughts of revenge for making me weak mixed with memories of her eyes, the taste of her blood, and come. Memories not my own of her family laughing around a table infiltrated. The taste of pancakes, the taste of her blood, the scent of her hair and the press of her curves against mine when she slept, her lips on mine and the swirl of her tongue against my tongue ensnared me again.

  Delirium swirled in my head like smoke. Emotions bled onto the floor of my consciousness, all swept together in a sloppy mess with my own hands. I wanted to kill her. I wanted to fuck her. I wanted to keep her.

  I wanted to beat Vaughn bloody for threatening her and her family, and the next moment I wanted to hold him close and weep for everything we’d lost these past few days.

  I’d been thoroughly fucking rolled by an empathic bitch.

  Gonna pass out….

  I sank into a deep blackness, free of thoughts or plans, free of pain. I missed the freedom as soon as I snapped awake.

  We’d reached her parents’ suburban ranch style house. The blue and brick exterior muted her sweet scent, but not enough. Her panic slithered through me.

  He’s come for me! He’s here!

  I hissed at the tightness in my balls and grinned despite the agony. I swiped my tongue over my lips, over my fangs. Sharp and ready to puncture flesh, like the stone-hard length I squeezed through my jeans.

  Vaughn put a hand on my chest, before I could rush out of the car we’d parked across the street. I stared at him, crazed and murderous.

  “Wolf.” Vaughn inhaled deep. “In the house.”

  Vaughn inhaled once more, inviting me to do the same with a beckoning hand, and I followed suit, despite the way every nerve ending ached. The tangle of wood and earth mixed with the strange merger of human and animal tickled my nostrils. Wolves smell pretty good, like a shadow of the sweetness we taste in witch blood. But, they’re dangerous. We hire the lone ones, the packless, as mercenaries for a reason.

  I vibrated in my seat with feral frustration. Of all the fucking times for a werewolf to make an appearance.

  “Go tell him Jesse Oldman wants to talk, then. We don’t have time for this shit.”

  “Yeah? And what if he doesn’t wanna? I only smell one wolf. I could take him. Maybe.”

  I swallowed and shuddered. If I’d had anything in my stomach to vomit, I might have.

  “And, if a wolf knows about her, what does that mean for you and your dad? Thought that lying bitch said she didn’t know anything about witches.”

  An acute, ghostly suction pulled my dick tauter than before. The tongue dipping into the slick tip felt so real I shut my eyes and pumped my hips. My stomach growled. Evie’s body stood mere feet away calling to mine, silencing the invisible beast shredding me from the inside out.

  “Go, Vaughn! Fuck!”

  Every second we sat here, doing nothing, was another second I’d be denied what belonged to me. I needed her blood. I imagined for a moment that she needed mine, needed me so badly she’d gone crazy with hunger, too. Whatever Vaughn saw on my face made him frown before he rushed from the car.

  Vaughn became a blond flash. I almost laughed when he stopped right at the front door and called to whoever waited within instead of breaching the house. Such a polite vampire. I saw the flash of movement at the front window, a peek through the blinds.

  Vaughn’s hands went up. He retreated a step, a living, breathing white flag for the wolf within. The door opened, just enough to reveal a dirty blond man in suit pants, a white dress shirt and a dark tie, glowing in the light of the foyer. He held a gun poised at the ready, Vaughn locked in his sights. Vaughn didn’t flinch.

  I saw my brother tilt his head to the side, imagined the smile splitting his lips as the wolf looked from him to the truck. He made a ‘wait here’ gesture to Vaughn, then slammed the door.

  Vaughn shot me a wink over his shoulder, like he’d just crossed the street to ask a girl to dance, instead of telling a wolf to step aside so we could kill a witch. But, my brother’s face twisted into alarm. He snapped his attention to the front door.

  “Fuck.”

  I opened the door and got out, the chill air snapping against my damp T-shirt and sweat-slicked skin. So weak I could feel the cold licking me like an icy tongue. I shivered and blinked bleary eyes, trying to return my vision to clarity as I stumbled across the street. Anger built into blinding, red rage.

  I’ll blow the fucker down if I need to. Make it easier on yourself, witch. Come out and play, baby.

  “Jesse, the wolf’s a cop.” Vaughn rolled up his shirt sleeves. “Says he’s on the payroll.”

  “Then what’s the fucking problem?”

  If the wolf was on the payroll, he pulled double duty for the vampire community by working in law enforcement. Packless usually lived double lives, kept our secrets, and helped clean up our messes. Unless he’d gotten his marching orders from my father, there shouldn’t be a reason for his interference. If he did work for my dad, the witch should be dead already.

  “I think she knew you were coming. I think they’re trying to make a run for it, but I told him if he sent her out to us, we’d leave the other snacks behind. If she doesn’t, we kill them all.”

  Evie’s scream shattered the quiet street. Something crashed against the wall. Hysterical voices rose to join hers. A man barked orders while a woman tried to soothe them all in the midst of weeping. The sobs of a young human, a boy or teenager, were cut short by the wolf roaring for them to be silent.

  “I think she knows I’m alive now, too.” Vaughn grinned ominously.

  Glass crashed, I wanted to rush in head first, sensing a trapped animal ready to flee. My trapped animal.

  “Easy, chief. Easy.”

  I swung a weak backhand across Vaughn’s face for calling me ‘chief’ just as I heard a car turning onto our street.

  Headlights shone into my eyes and then beyond, illuminating the dark, quiet road before parking a few houses down. I wondered if the driver saw the hunger, the light refracting in my gaze. So close I could taste her and Vaughn wanted me to wait.

  “I’m all out of patience, Vaughn.”

  I shivered violently and when I looked at the brick alongside the door, I’d buckled the pitted surface with the shape of my fingert
ips. Brick dust crumbled in my hand when I pulled my fingers away, clinging to blood from the splintered nails.

  Vaughn’s eyes bled black with hunger. “Alright, let’s fuck some shit up.”

  “Evie!” I roared her name and laughed. “You called and I answered, baby!”

  Vaughn kicked the door open. I saw a haze of movement, a short woman screaming while a man rushed to protect her by pushing her behind him. The parents. I spied packed bags. Suddenly, the car that passed and parked moments before became not just another suburban ride.

  Getaway car. I turned to the werewolf and sneered.

  “You were gonna help her escape, weren’t you, wolf?” I knew Evie hid behind the bulk of her father, who had a gun trained on Vaughn, but my gaze stayed on the cop who had his gun pointed at my head.

  “I know who you are and why you’re here.” The blond wolf trained his gaze on Vaughn, who fanned out to the left.

  Could Vaughn reach the family while dodging the bullet and a defensive strike from the vigilant wolf? I hated my brother had to do the math. If I’d been at full strength he wouldn’t need to worry if I could take the wolf on my own. I closed the door and leaned against the solid surface, the only thing keeping my shivering form steady.

  The armed man took a step away to make sure Vaughn stayed in his line of sight when he made a subtle slide forward.

  “I told your friend Vaughn here that I’m Detective Joshua Stark, Guthridge PD.”

  “And packless, yeah? What’s a lone wolf doing getting in the way of Oldman business, detective?”

  “Saving your life, probably. You came for the girl, but you don’t want to kill her.”

  “The fuck I don’t!”

  I spoke to him but my stare left his face to lock on the object of my obsession. If the cop wanted to shoot me, he’d have done so by now.

  Evie stared with dark eyes I remembered. Slick, full lips. When I licked my own, she quivered, and her nipples hardened. I felt the phantom pebbling echoing on my own chest, the cling of fabric torturing me like that useless bra tortured her. She cowered behind her father’s arm, her brother doing his best to emulate daddy’s protectiveness by stepping from behind his sister.