Dark Kiss

“Right. Best friend. But you’re still talking to me. You haven’t given me the cold shoulder like her other friends have.”

Good point. I hadn’t. I couldn’t help it, I liked Colin. Him coming after me just now to make sure I wasn’t going to spontaneously combust proved that feeling was mutual.

“I know Carly doesn’t approve,” I said with a shrug, “but I make my own decisions when it comes to people I choose to talk to.”

“Good. So, yeah, I’m not sure if this might cause some friction between you two, but I just have to ask …”

“What?”

He raised his gaze to mine. “Do you want to go out some time?”

I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. “Go out?”

“You and me, maybe the movies on the weekend. Or we could go to Crave.”

Oh, boy.

I suddenly had the very clear image of me telling Carly about this and her not speaking to me for a few decades, even though it totally wasn’t my fault. Or maybe it was. I was still talking to Colin after everyone else associated with Carly had collectively decided to give him the death glare whenever he was nearby.

He’d drawn closer to me until there was barely a foot separating us. Too close. Anyone who saw us might get the wrong idea.

I twisted a piece of hair that had fallen out of my ponytail tightly around my index finger and inhaled deeply. “Oh, Colin. I, uh, really like you. Seriously, but—”

I stopped talking.

His scent—I didn’t believe it was just soap, like he’d said last night at the movie theater. He smelled … edible. He was too close to me right now. I could barely think straight.

“But what?”

I shivered, now focused entirely on his mouth. “Oh, my God. I’m so hungry right now.”

He grinned. “How is it possible that you can make that sentence sound so sexy?”

“Sexy?”

“Yeah.” He leaned closer to me.

No, he wasn’t leaning closer. I was pulling him closer, sliding my hands over his shoulders and around his nape to tangle into his hair.

Just as his lips were an inch from mine, I came to my senses. I braced my hands against his chest and pushed him away from me.

He looked at me with confusion. “Uh, what was that?”

“I don’t know. Sorry … I need to go.” I swallowed hard and walked away from him. Quickly. I didn’t stop until I passed through the doors of the school and felt the cool morning air on my face. I gulped it in and tried to push against the hunger that had almost made me kiss Colin. The need was nearly impossible to resist.

But I’d resisted.

Something caught my eye. A blond guy stood at the bottom of the stairs by the path that led to the parking lot. He was watching me.

I gasped. It was the kid from the alley last night.

The one Bishop had killed.

He casually turned and started to walk away. Without thinking twice, I ran after him.

“Wait!” I tripped over my own ankle and almost fell before staggering to a stop on the narrow path that wound through school grounds. The blond guy had sat down on a bench and was watching my approach. His dirty and bloody clothes from last night were gone, replaced by clean blue jeans and a long-sleeved black T-shirt.

“Hi there,” he greeted me casually. “Samantha, right?”

“You—” It was difficult to form coherent words. “It’s you, isn’t it?”

“Depends who you mean by you.”

“You’re alive.”

“Am I?” He looked down at himself, holding his arms out in front of him for inspection, then his gaze swept the length of me. “Hey, so are you. What a coincidence.”

A cloud of confusion swirled around me, making me dizzy. “But I—I saw you get stabbed in the chest last night.”

He got to his feet and closed the distance between us in only a couple of steps. I staggered back from him and looked around, realizing that we were all alone.

He cocked his head. “Did you really see me get stabbed?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Are you completely sure about that?”

I glared at him. He was mocking me and I had no idea why. “Completely.”

He rubbed his chest. “Funny, because I feel just fine.”

“I’m not crazy.”

He walked a slow circle around me and it felt like he was studying every inch of me. Like, every inch.

“Name’s Kraven.” His lips curled into a smile that didn’t look friendly. “I’d say I’m pleased to meet you, but that would be a lie. I mean, things like you are the reason for this little mess, aren’t they?”

My stomach churned and I wrapped my arms around myself, trying not to shiver. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I continued to deny it, even to myself. There wasn’t anything else I could do. The moment I accepted that something was seriously wrong here—and with me in particular—was the moment I believed this insanity was real. And I wasn’t quite ready for the asylum.

“Sure you don’t. You’re just a normal girl, right? And that relentless hunger you’ve suddenly developed—what do you think that is? Just a regular case of the munchies?”

I shook my head, trying to block out how much he seemed to know about me. “Bishop stabbed you. I saw it with my own eyes. So why aren’t you dead?”

Kraven’s mischievous grin widened and his amber-colored eyes began to glow bright red. “Because it takes more than that to kill a demon.”

chapter 5

I couldn’t move. Fear crawled through my gut like a fistful of cockroaches. “A demon?”

“Impressed?”

I wanted this to be a movie on TV so I could press the off button and make it all go away. The cold feeling grew deeper, sinking so far inside me I didn’t think I’d ever feel warm again. I was sure all the color had drained from my already pale face.

Other than his eyes, there was nothing that made him seem anything other than human. He had a small freckle at the left corner of his mouth. His hair was the kind of blond color people got if they were normally light brown but spent the entire summer working outside in the sun. He looked so normal. Like a boy I might see at the mall, or the movies, or … eating garbage in an alleyway.

Unlike Bishop, there was no madness in his expression. Kraven was totally sane.

Which meant that I had to be the crazy one.

“Wh-what do you want from me?” I stammered.

“I want to do my job. The sooner the better.”

“What’s your job?”

“Why would I tell you my secrets?” Kraven brushed the front of his shirt, straightening out a wrinkle in the fabric, before his gaze, which had changed back to its normal amber color, returned to my face.

A cold line of perspiration slid down my spine and I took a deep breath before speaking. “I swear, I’m not what you think I am.”

“A hungry little gray with an appetite for human souls?” Kraven touched my hair and I swatted his hand away. Then he grabbed my wrists and pulled me closer to him.

Sabrina, a girl from my afternoon geography class, passed us and I craned my neck to track her. She was notorious for cheating off whomever was seated next to her, including me several times, and she had the As to prove it.

I’d never been so happy to see anyone before in my entire life.

“Sabrina, help me!” I shouted. “Please!”

She didn’t even glance in my direction.

“Why can’t she see me?” I struggled to pull away from him, but Kraven held me firmly in place.

He watched the girl disappear down the path. “Because I don’t want her to. I cloaked us so we could have a little chat all privatelike.” He looked at my mouth for a moment as if mesmerized by it. “Let’s get down to business, sweetness. How many have you kissed since you’ve been turned?”

“None!”

He raised an eyebrow and brought his mouth closer to mine. I could feel his hot breath on me as he spoke. “But you want to, don’t you? It’s a hunger you can’t resist, a raw desire, an … aching need. Tell me the truth. You want to, don’t you?”

“No.” I clenched my jaw, glaring at him for making it sound so dirty, but inside I felt sick and weakened. I’d ached to kiss Colin just now, and it had taken everything I had to pull myself away from him. I’d tried to ignore my cravings, feed them with food each time they’d appeared, but nothing had helped.

Kraven knew that. He shouldn’t have known anything about me, but he knew what I was feeling inside right now. And he saw the answer on my face even though I hadn’t said it out loud.

His smile faded. “Even if I believed you, it’s only a matter of time before you can’t control it any longer.”

He grabbed me by the throat so tight that I couldn’t breathe. I scratched and beat at his arms as hard as I could, but it didn’t do any good. He raised me off the ground so I was on my tiptoes.

No one could see that he was strangling me right in the middle of school grounds. I strained to get a breath, to scream, but I couldn’t. My fingernails dug into Kraven’s iron grip.

“Let go of her,” someone snarled.

Bishop had appeared a dozen feet away by the bench. My eyes widened, and the fear I’d felt the last time we’d been face-to-face came back in full force along with an almost giddy elation.

The demon finally tore his gaze away from me. “Or what?”

“Or I’ll kill you. Again.”

Kraven slowly set me back down on the ground, releasing my throat. I wheezed and gasped for breath. “You know, you’re a serious pain in the—”

Bishop launched himself at the demon, tackling him to the ground and slamming a fist into Kraven’s jaw. Before the next hit landed Kraven grabbed him and twisted his arm away. I recovered enough to leap back as they continued to fight. More students strolled past without glancing at them or at me.

“Some angel you are.” Kraven laughed as they finally pushed apart. “Can’t even take a lowly demon like me in a fight?”

“I can take you,” Bishop growled. “I can end you.”

“Thought we were supposed to be working together like good friends and business partners.”

“Still up for debate as far as I’m concerned. They shouldn’t have sent you.”

“Too bad. They did. Deal with it.”

I’d been a half second from running in the opposite direction, but froze in place at what I’d just heard.

“You’re a—an angel?” My voice sounded pitchy.

Bishop’s gaze shot to me and he took a step toward me. “Samantha …”

I held up a shaky hand. “Don’t come any closer or I’m going to scream.”

He stayed put, his jaw tight and his fierce gaze focused on me.

On my bedroom wall I had a framed poster of an angel by a fantasy illustrator I really liked—it showed a peaceful, beautiful being of light. If anything, I would have guessed Bishop was a demon, like Kraven, from every horrible thing he’d done so far. Seeing him again had knocked every bit of confidence right out of me.

But those blue eyes of his—they were every bit as beautiful as they’d been last night and able to capture me with just a glance in my direction. It was impossible to even attempt to breathe normally at this point. “If you’re an angel, why are you working with a demon?”

His lips thinned. “It’s a long story.”

“Yeah, a really long story.” Kraven was studying me again. “Why’s she so different?”

“I don’t know.” Bishop kept his attention on me. “There’s something special about her. When she helped me with her touch—”

“Exactly what was she touching that was so memorable for you?”

“Watch your mouth.”

A smile tugged at Kraven’s lips and he leered at me in a way that made me feel naked. I fought the urge to cross my arms over my chest. “You’re a mystery, gray girl.”

“Her name is Samantha,” Bishop growled.

Kraven rolled his eyes. “If this is going to work, you really have to loosen up. Like, seriously.”

My mind reeled and my stomach twisted from all of this—from what I was feeling to what I’d just been told flat out. I couldn’t deny that I hungered for something I couldn’t name, and my cravings had been getting worse every hour since Stephen had kissed me on Friday night. When Colin had gotten too close, I’d wanted to kiss him so much that I’d practically attacked him in the hallway. But I hadn’t. I could control it. I had so far, and I’d continue to do so.

Kraven’s smile returned and he moved closer to me again. I froze as he placed a hand on my shoulder. “You know, you’re kind of cute. Maybe I won’t kill you if you make it worth my while.”

“Get your hand off me,” I snapped as my fear turned to anger. I grabbed his hand.

Electricity crackled down my arm. Kraven gasped in pain and staggered backward. I stared at him with surprise.

“What was that?” he managed to ask.

Good question. What the hell just happened?

Bishop glared at him. “Just stay away from her.”

He frowned. “She zapped me.”

“That’s impossible.”

“I didn’t just imagine it. She did.” His grin slowly returned, and he eyed me with that hatefully amused expression. “Curiouser and curiouser.”

For a second I was reminded of when I’d first touched Bishop and the vision had slammed into me—zapping Kraven had felt that powerful and that uncontrollable. My skin still tingled from the shock I’d given him, as if I was slowly recovering from sticking my fingers in a light socket.

“Ignore him,” Bishop said, throwing a look of pure disdain toward the demon. “Samantha, I had to find you again. After what you were able to do last night, I … we need your help.”

“You need my help? You have got to be kidding me. I want nothing to do with you.”

His gaze shadowed. “You’re different from the other grays—I don’t know why or how. But you are. How you found Kraven last night … there are others. I need you to help me find them before they’re lost forever.”

My ponytail had come loose from the elastic and I redid it firmly. I liked Bishop’s voice; it was smooth and deep and it made me shiver. I hated that I liked anything about him, after everything I’d learned. “I want both of you to leave me alone.”

“I know you’re confused, but this is important.”

Emotion lodged in my throat, making it hard to talk without sounding choked. “You’re the one who’s confused, because I don’t care what’s important to you. I hate you, whatever you are. And I want you to stay away from me.”

His gaze began to grow cloudy, like when I’d first met him. He pressed his fingers against his temples. “I don’t know what else to say right now.”

My heart twisted. Damn it. I had an urge to touch him, to make it better since I knew I could, to erase that pain from his handsome face. But I held myself back. “Say goodbye. You were more than ready to say it to me last night.”

“Hey, Samantha!” Carly shouted. “What are you doing out here?”

My head whipped toward her. The shield making us invisible must have disappeared. I turned to look at Bishop and Kraven again, but they were gone.

Just like last night, they’d vanished into thin air.

“Hellooo? Earth to Samantha!”

I composed myself and hitched my shoulder strap higher, and then walked toward her, willing myself to stop trembling. “What are you doing tonight?”

“Me? Nothing. Why?”

I bit my bottom lip. “I want to go back to Crave.”

Carly crossed her arms. “Why?”

“I want to see Stephen again.”

She gave me a guarded look. “Are you sure about that?”

“I am.”

“I just thought … after the other night …” She frowned. “You’re not interested in him anymore, are you?”

I gritted my teeth. “Oh, I’m interested, all right.”

I was interested in getting to the bottom of what had happened to me and how I could fix it as soon as possible. And Stephen Keyes damn well better have some answers.

chapter 6

I’d burned all day with the need to get back to Crave and confront Stephen, but now that I was here I’d started to doubt myself. I guess I’d focused on my plan—weak though it was—as a way to keep from thinking too much about what had happened with Bishop and Kraven.

I wasn’t convinced that I was some sort of soul-devouring monster now. No way. I was still me, nothing had changed that. But something was wrong. Really wrong. And I had to fix it.

“Are you even sure the jerk is here?” Carly scanned the floor looking for him.

“He told me he’s here every night lately, even weekdays. He’s taking a break from school right now, that’s why he’s back in town.”

“Doesn’t he live near you?”

“Two doors down.”

“We could have gone there to check.”

“I already checked. His parents don’t even know he’s in the city.” I’d called his house after school. I’d had a feeling he wouldn’t be there, but his mother’s reply that “he’s at school” was enough to convince me that if I couldn’t find him at Crave, I might not be able to find him at all. Besides, I didn’t want to chance being alone with him. I wanted to confront him in a public place.

“Okay, so where is he?” Carly asked. “Let’s do this.”

She thought my feelings were hurt and I wanted to lash out, and as my best friend, she was ready to back me up.

Just like with my mother, I hadn’t breathed a word to her about what was really going on. I wasn’t sure what was stopping me, exactly. Carly, of all people, would probably believe there were angels and demons roaming the city.

But still I didn’t speak up. She liked to protect me from people who might pick on me. Well, I’d like to protect her from people who might do worse than throw out a few insults. Cruel names might hurt feelings, but sharp golden daggers could kill.

I did wish very hard that I could stop thinking about Bishop. He was constantly on my mind now. If he hadn’t shown up today, I had little doubt that Kraven would have killed me.

It was an incredibly sobering thought. I owed my gratitude to Bishop for saving my life, and yet he’d threatened it himself just the night before.

“I need to talk to Stephen on my own,” I said. “You should stay here and wait for me.”

She eyed me. “Oh, I get it. So I’m just your chauffeur, huh? I don’t get a chance to tell him off, too?”

“Believe me, I don’t think that. Although, I won’t say that you having a car isn’t a nice perk.” I couldn’t help but grin at her mock outrage. “This is just something I need to handle myself. Less embarrassing that way.”

She considered this. “So what if he’s all schmoozy? All, ‘I really want to kiss your delectable lips again’? You’re just going to ignore it?”

“That isn’t going to happen.” Even if Stephen was one hundred percent innocent, his reaction to me after the kiss spoke volumes. I mean, he’d called me kid. No, I had more important things to deal with than falling for some self-involved college guy right now, no matter how cute I’d always found him.

It was funny how completely this had doused my crush on him. Like a bucket of water thrown on a lit match.

Also, my immediate and overpowering attraction to Bishop—and the fact that I couldn’t get him off my mind—had shown me that my little crush on Stephen had been just that. Little.

“You were really into him. What, are you interested in somebody else now?” she asked.

There was a catch in her voice that made me direct my attention away from scanning the dark club to her again. “What?”

She cleared her throat. “Jordan saw you talking to Colin in the hall this morning. She said you were standing really close.”

I winced. Damn Jordan. My personal nemesis and a total gossip. “It was nothing.”

Her eyebrows went up and she finally raised her gaze from the ground to meet mine. I saw relief there. “Really?”

It wasn’t nothing, but getting into details about him asking me out and then me wanting to kiss him probably wouldn’t earn me any brownie points as a loyal best friend.

“I know Colin’s totally off-limits,” I confirmed instead. “I promise, there’s no way I’d be interested in him like that. But why are you worried that I’ve been talking to him?”

“I’m done with him. But …” She rubbed her temples. “My brain is going to explode just thinking about this.”

“Let’s hope not.”

“I don’t want to be with him anymore, but I don’t want him to be with anyone else. Does that make some kind of bizarre, psycho ex-girlfriend kind of sense?”

“Sure it does.”

She laughed before sobering. “No, it doesn’t. I know that. He’s just the first guy who … you know, the first one to really like me.”

My heart felt heavy for her. I had to be really careful how I acted around Colin from now on. I didn’t want to give him—or Carly—the wrong impression. “Sorry this sucks so much for you. And you need to open your eyes when it comes to other guys. Paul is crazy about you, but you’ve never even looked in his direction. If you want to start dating again, you should give him a chance.”

She frowned. “Paul? Paul McKee?”

“The one and only.” He was a friend who always ate lunch with us. A pal, really. But I’d have to be blind not to see the very nonpal way he gazed across the table at Carly on a daily basis. Of course, she never noticed, because she was usually gazing somewhere else.

I scanned the nightclub. It wasn’t nearly as busy as it had been on Friday. On school nights it became a restaurant that only looked like a club—like a school cafeteria, but better decorated, with cooler lighting and a sound track. The dance floor was deserted and the place shut down at eleven o’clock instead of 1:00 a.m. A quick inhale brought forth the scent of chicken wings, fries and onion rings. Not healthy, but definitely delicious.

Something else smelled fantastic in here, but I couldn’t put my finger on what.

Souls, a little voice inside me said. You can smell the souls of all the people near you.

The thought nauseated me. Hopefully nobody would get as close to me as Colin had earlier today. That seemed to be what set me off.

“There’s lover boy now,” Carly said, snapping me out of my daze. “You’re right, he is here every night.”

Sure enough, looking every bit as gorgeous as ever in black pants and a white shirt unbuttoned at the collar, Stephen walked along the side of the empty dance floor toward the spiral staircase leading to the upstairs lounge.

“Okay, I can do this,” I said aloud, trying to summon some inner strength.

“Are you going to talk to him?” Carly asked. “Or just punch him in the nose?”

An excellent question.

He’d done something to me—he’d even warned me about it first. He’d given me this hunger I couldn’t get rid of, this craving that now haunted me every moment I was awake and the chill that stayed with me from morning till night.

I was ready to confront Stephen.

Something wicked this way comes.

This time I was talking about myself.

“Wait here,” I told Carly. “Please.”

“You sure you don’t want me there for support?”

“I’m sure,” I said. Kissing Stephen had led to me almost getting killed. It wasn’t something I wanted Carly involved with. Her being here tonight was bad enough.

She nodded. “Good luck. Give him hell.”

I grimaced. Hell wasn’t something I even wanted to consider after meeting a demon today. Slowly, I started up the stairs.

It’ll change your life forever, so you have to want it.

I wondered if Stephen said that to all the girls. But I didn’t want a kiss tonight. All I wanted was answers.

Stephen sat in the corner of the upstairs lounge on a plush red velvet chair. He watched my cautious approach as if not at all surprised to see me again.

“Samantha Day,” he greeted me. “How are you this evening?”

My mouth felt dry. Very dry. I tried to ignore how nervous I was. “I need to talk to you.”

“But you didn’t answer my question. How are you?”

“Not good,” I admitted.

“Sorry to hear that.”