He bent his head toward me, and I turned my face. He leaned so close his breath stirred the hair at my temple, and he sniffed me. With an audible snarl he raised the glass shard high above his head.

“Nathan, please, don’t,” I whispered, but I knew he’d never hear. This thing was not Nathan. It was a monster wearing my sire’s face.

He brought the shard down, and I flinched as it smashed to the floor beside my head. Warm, fresh blood sprayed across my face from his torn palm, and he gripped my chin and forced me to face him. He rasped in a language I didn’t understand, and pushed away from me.

Though I sat up quickly, he was gone before I could see him go. The only evidence that he’d been there were his bloody footprints on the stairs to the street.

Trembling, I lifted my hand as if to reach for him. It was wet with his polluted blood. Usually, the smell of Nathan’s blood comforted me. Now, something had tainted it, and the stench made me sick. I covered my nose with the collar of my shirt as I crawled to the door. The broken glass on the floor pricked my arms, but I barely felt it.

Like a zombie, I drifted up the stairs to the apartment, ignoring the blood dripping from my cut hands. My presence of mind returned enough for me to lock the door. Then I went to Nathan’s room and sat on the edge of his bed, clutching the cordless phone. I dialed automatically, my gaze fixed on a snag in the carpet near the edge of the runner.

“Harrison.” Max sounded chipper on the other end of the line. I wanted to be where he was, with no knowledge of what I’d just seen.

“It’s Carrie.” I swallowed hard, my tongue too thick for my mouth. “I need you.”

Chapter 2
Familiar Territory

The floor was cold, but the air was hot and too bright. Instinctively, Cyrus flinched from the sunlight touching his flesh.

His naked, human flesh.

How humiliating. He didn’t have the energy to rail against the indignation. Fatigue plagued his bones, and hunger gnawed his guts.

As a vampire, he’d equated his need for blood with hunger, but it had been far more than physical desire. Blood hunger was a need for emotional fulfillment, the urge to indulge the most primal drive of his kind. To kill. To control. Human hunger was sadistic in its simplicity. Purely physical agony he hadn’t felt in centuries.

What had happened to him?