Thoughts

Hundreds, if not thousands, of fresh bullet holes dotted the charred walls of Ryan Harley's family home. Amazingly, it was still standing after Avery Evelyn had let loose inside with a submachine gun the day before. She'd sauntered into his house with two of her goons and taunted him about Kate's death. Enraged, Ryan had attacked them. But Avery had laid him low with a cattle prod. She reminded him that there were bite marks on Kate's body. The Alpha Vampire had killed her, Avery insisted. So why didn't she and Ryan help each other out? If Ryan told her who the Alpha was, Avery could get rid of him for both Ryan and the hunters.

But once she'd realized that Ryan didn't know who the Alpha was, she'd decided he was expendable. That was why she'd tried to machine-gun him to death—and nearly brought down the house. His house and he were the last of the Harleys—except for his uncle Park Harley, a scarred vegetable wasting away at Des Pontonniers Crossing Home, a long-term-care facility. Ryan could still remember Uncle Park before the fire—a prankster with a wicked sense of humor. Before the fire that the Evelyns set. I know they did it.

Ryan did another set of push-ups. His back and chest were glistening with sweat and his arm muscles were aching. He ignored the pain and did another set of reps. He was driven. He needed endurance and strength. It was only a matter of time before Avery came back, and he had to be ready. To tear her apart.

Meanwhile, he had other things on his mind. He'd had a dream, and he never dreamed. It hadn't been so much a dream as a nightmare, and it had awakened him at 3 a.m.—the hour of the vampire—when he bolted upright, sweating and panting, as if he'd been running for hours.

In his dream, he'd been trapped in the forest, and it had been burning all around him. And the only way out was blocked by the Alpha Vampire, whose gravelly voice carried over the firestorm: "It's almost time. My time. You follow me, or you die."

The nightmare Alpha showed itself then, massive, his eyes glowing scarlet, his mouth bristling with fangs. He floated, his hiss victorious as he displayed dominance over the vampire before him—Ryan Harley, his inferior in status and strength.

In a heartbeat, Ryan shifted. He attacked, taking the Alpha head-on, attempting to fling the huge human onto his back. The Alpha swiped at Ryan's head, but Ryan flattened himself on the ground, rolling over. Assuming Ryan was displaying submission, the Alpha lowered his massive claw as he stared Ryan down. But instead of averting his gaze to accept his junior rank, Ryan bared his teeth and went for the Alpha's throat.

The Alpha roared in fury at Ryan's arrogance, rose on his hind legs, and threw back his head, keeping his neck well out of Ryan's reach. Then he brought down his front leg again, this time slashing Ryan in the flank. "I can't win this," he thought, but his vampire brain said, "Kill him. Before he kills you. Because he will. He will come at you and at you—"

"There will be many Alphas, other Alphas; each one you kill will bring another. There will be blood on your hands forever. This one, today; another one, tomorrow."

And on the Blood Moon... legions.

Humans will try to destroy you.

If they fail, an Alpha will succeed.

Ryan had jerked awake in his sleeping bag with a growl. Then, before he could forget, he strained to recall how the voice of the Alpha had sounded. Male? Female? Maybe if he could remember, he would have a clue as to the Alpha's identity. The Alpha had bitten Max Blake and was urging Max to kill with him. Once Max did that—and he would—the Alpha would own him. And it would be that much harder for Ryan to defeat the Alpha and avenge his family.

"There are a few people I'd like to kill," he thought, but no way would he put himself under the control of an Alpha he didn't even know. And besides, what he'd told Max was true: as a vampire, he, Ryan, might be a predator, but he wasn't a killer. There was a difference, and anyone who'd been born a vampire and raised by vampire parents would know that.

Max had simply been bitten, apparently at random, and if he, Ryan, didn't teach him how to deal with it, Max would wind up either under the control of the Alpha or dead.

Dead because Ryan would kill Max himself, rather than allow him to expose the existence of vampires to the humans who lived in Des Pontonniers. Max had threatened to tell Buck Evelyn everything. That was when Ryan had taken Max to see Uncle Park, to make him see that the Evelyns were ruthless killers. Eleven members of Ryan's family had died in the fire that had swept through this house six years ago. Men, women, children. Not all of them vampires.

And none of them deserving of the hideous, fiery death dealt to them by the Evelyns.

His sister, Kate, had been his Alpha after their family had been destroyed. And now she was dead. She'd been cut into pieces and left as bait to bring Ryan back to Des Pontonniers. Ryan had assumed the Evelyns had killed her, but Avery had sworn they hadn't—just before she'd tried to cut Ryan in half with a barrage of submachine-gun fire. Cold-hearted bitch. If ever someone had deserved to die...

Growling, he clenched his jaw against his fury, switching from two-armed push-ups to single-hand. He had to stay strong and fast. Or the next time the fire came, it might devour him, too.

Maybe that was what the dream had meant - he was going to be faced with a choice, and soon. He didn't like being squeezed between an unknown Alpha and the Evelyns, and having to deal with Max on top of that. Ryan needed a clan, others to make him stronger. And the only way that could happen was if he either joined the Alpha's clan as a Beta or became an Alpha himself by killing the Alpha. Right now, he was a lone vampire, and most lone vampires had short lifespans because no one was there to protect them in times of danger.

But that wasn't the entire dream, he reminded himself. "I dreamed about other Alphas coming after me. Why? It's not a crime to kill an Alpha. I'm a vampire. The way we progress in status is through challenge. If my opponent won't back down, it's within my rights to take what's mine in any way I can. Even death."

Ryan was deeply troubled. After the push-ups, he tore out of the house and jogged shirtless through the forest, aware of the scents of rabbits and squirrels, the rot of undergrowth, the piney scent of trees. He felt the blood pumping through his veins, the strength of his body, his endurance. As difficult as his life might have become, he wouldn't trade it for the relatively safer but dull, bland life as a human. He used to work off all the extra testosterone by swimming laps. That was how he had met her.

He raced up into the hills, gazing down at his home and, farther down, a few of the buildings of Des Pontonniers. Then he caught the scent of a wolf - a full, natural wolf, not a vampire. He sniffed again to make sure. What was it doing there? There hadn't been any natural wolves in Strasbourg in more than sixty years.

Then he caught the scent of Max Blake. Fresh. Recent. Max had been in the forest this morning. Doing what? Spying on me? Ryan let loose a low hiss. He wanted to shift, but he controlled himself. It was day, and you never knew who was watching. Or plotting. Like I am, he thought.