A Tale of Revenge Ch. 03

I stepped forward when he came out of the bathroom, my hand around my cross as if it gave me courage. "I need to know everything you do, how to kill them, what hurts them the worst. You've got to help me."

He smiled, a crooked smirk that barely twitched his beard-framed lips. "That's what I'm here for, beautiful. And before we are done, you are going to hate me. Get your stuff."

I quickly threw everything I had taken out back into my suitcase, leaving the pile of clothing where it lay in the bathroom. With the way this motel looked, the clothes would probably stay there until next week before anyone even thought of picking them up. He climbed into the passenger seat of my Grand Prix, settling himself in while I heaved the suitcase into the trunk and slammed it.

When I was behind the wheel, I turned to him. "My name is..."

He stopped me with a wave of his hand. "I don't want to know your name. You don't need to know mine. Makes it much easier that way. You'll probably think of several names to call me anyway in the next few weeks anyways." His lips twitched again.

"Fine." Boy he was unsettling. No intimate contact, not even names between the two of us. I hadn't even detected a glimmer of interest in his eyes when he was staring at my breasts earlier. And the note in his voice when he called me beautiful? That was just mocking. Well, if he wanted to keep it anonymous, she could do that too. "So what do I call you then?"

"Master?" his eyebrow cocked insultingly. "Sir? Okay, how about Your Highness?"

"You want some bowing and scraping done with that too?" I reached over to start the car, infuriated. If I didn't need him, I'd throw this insufferable, arrogant asshole out of my car, preferably in a big pile of vampires. That thought brought a little comfort as I put the car in reverse and backed out of the slot stopping at the exit of the parking lot to wait for him to tell me where we were going.

He waved towards the left and I pulled out, following his lazy directions toward the warehouse district. When he indicated the building he wanted me to turn into, I thought at first he'd been kidding. The place was as derelict as all the rest of the buildings in this area, probably the home for bums or gangs. He pulled a remote out of another pocket and slapped the button.

A small garage door opened up and I swung my car into it. The door shutting behind us, slammed down hard, startling me. My companion just stared at me, seeming amused at my nerves.

"Grab your stuff and let's go." I followed him through a small steel door set into the heavy concrete blocks of the tiny garage and found myself in a world unlike any that I had seen before. The warehouse was big, but not huge and every square inch of it was filled, no space wasted. Work out equipment and mats covered the floor, practice dummies set up as well as some kind of obstacle course. This explained why "his lordship" was as buff as he was. One whole end of the warehouse seemed to be set up as some kind of armory, guns hanging on the walls and equipment that I had never seen before or had any idea what it could do scattered on counters.

And there were no windows. Where the windows had been, bricks had been laid, blocking every opening and reinforced with steel embedded into the roof.

There was a staircase leading to a second floor, a loft area that I figured was where he lived. He stopped dead in front of me and I almost ran into his back.

"You can bunk down over there," he pointed towards a mattress on the floor and a small dresser crammed in the corner. "Bathroom is back there. I live up there," he nodded his head at the staircase. "You want to learn about them, right?"

I swore his eyes gentled as he asked that question as if he knew the reason that it was so important for me. I found myself nodding my head, a lump trying to close off my throat as I thought about James and that night. Of watching his changing into one of them. I'd never get over the way he looked at me, that glow, the tilt of his head. The way his tongue had run over his new sharper teeth and the smirk that lit his face as he studied me on the ground. I was food to him, nothing but food. Our love had died that night when his soul had been taken leaving him nothing but a monster.

Fingers were snapped in front of my face, drawing me out of my thoughts.

"If you want me to train you, pay attention and quit the fucking dreaming."

God, I wanted to back hand the man right then. If it weren't for James... I heaved a huge sigh and dropped my suitcase over by the thin mattress I was going to call home for as long as it took to right the wrong that bitch had done to me.

"Yes, I want to learn about them. I want to f... fucking kill them." That word had never been in my vocabulary before. But it felt empowering to say it.

"Good. Get some sleep. We start in the morning."

He went to a cupboard and grabbed some sheets and blankets and a couple of towels and dumped them on top of my suitcase. Then he headed for the stairs.

"Wait." I hurried over to him, a strange part of me not wanting to be left alone tonight. "Why me? How did you know I would find that card? What's the glow that comes from my cross? How can I k..."

He held his hand up, stopping me in mid sentence.

"You like to talk."

His tone of voice told me that he wasn't complimenting me.

"You found the crucifix. It chose you for this. When you put it on, you gave yourself to its power and to the task that it was made to do. That task is to kill the vampire."

My hand rose over the top of the gold cross that James had bought me. "This? But this is just an antique cross that James bought for me on one of his buying trips. It's just a cross."

He walked toward me, pulling the cross from my neck. As soon as his hand closed over it I wanted it back. I had to have it back against my skin. I pulled away from him. I felt an irrational urge to smash his hand until he pulled it back.

"Yeah, it's just a cross and that reaction is perfectly normal."

I looked down at the small gold cross, feeling the heat of it in my hands, the power that I could draw from it. "So because James brought me this cross, he ended up one of them?"

"No, that's Marina's way. She heard about the crucifix being found, the protector being chosen and decided to have some fun. She wants you to come after her. She plans on killing you and taking the crucifix and destroying it. Now, sleep. We start training tomorrow."

He turned and headed up the stairs, hitting the lights off on his way up.

I turned and made my bed, my thoughts whirling. I still didn't understand as much as I needed to. I had questions, so many questions with few answers forthcoming. I grabbed a pair of pajama pants and a tank top and found the bathroom. After changing, I pulled the top down, exposing the tiny fang mark on my breast. What had been an angry red wound was now almost healed. The cross hung from my neck warm against my skin. It sent a chill through me to think that James had been chosen to become a beast because of this. Why me?

I hurried out of the bathroom, not wanting to look into my own eyes anymore.

I spent most of that first night tossing and turning despite being exhausted. I'd finally fallen into an uneasy sleep just as a boot was planted firmly against my bottom, knocking me against the wall.

I blinked, bleary eyed. He stood over me, his eyes shuttered.

"If I'd been a vampire, you'd be dead by now. Get up."

The next days were full of learning, combat moves, running and jumping, gymnastics. I learned to use a bow and different caliber and makes of guns, to throw my stake, when to turn and run and when to fight. I was bruised and bloodied by my trainer, a man that I learned to hate with a passion only rivaled by my hatred of Marina. I learned to defend myself and to take offensive, to block blows and to fall without being hurt. And I learned how to hit.

By the end of the first week, I didn't think there was a muscle in my body that didn't hurt. My knuckles were bloody and I was limping. I slept each night knowing that in the morning I would be stiff and hurting and relishing the feeling. When my body hurt, when I was exhausted by training, I didn't think as much.

By the end of the second week, I could feel myself toning up, becoming stronger. I was limber and agile and very, very fast. He was still beating me on the torture range he called an obstacle course; a series of ropes to climb, walls to scale, ditches to jump, cement blocks and old cars. There were booby traps that he changed regularly so that I never knew which rope would come loose half way up or what car door was rigged to blow open if I touched it.

By the end of the third week I was fighting easily, learning moves so quickly that he would show me once and I would have it down. I knew he was impressed, even though he refused to say anything.

But it had been three weeks. He'd left at times, leaving me sets to do or stakes to throw. But I had been in this boot camp hell of his for those twenty-one days with no break, no time outside. I trained from early morning to just before supper seven days a week. I hadn't seen or heard a word of what was going on in the world. The man didn't even have a radio.

We were on the mats, going through a series of moves. I wasn't paying attention and maybe I should have been. The flat of his hand caught my chin, snapping my head back hard. I ended up on the floor with him following me down with a stake, pressing it into the vital spot between the ribs. I felt the tip of the stake break my skin.

"Dammit! Do you want to end up dead? Or worse?" He stared down into my face and I stared right back, my gaze defiant. His eyes shifted, looked down to where he still held the stake against my heart. He threw the stake down on the ground and looked back into my face.

That's when it happened. I saw it in his eyes first, the way he tipped his head, the uncertain expression that suddenly turned into heat.

There was no finesse to his movements, just lust. His mouth covered mine, his hands slid down my arms to hold on to my wrists as if I would fight him. At the first touch of his lips on mine, I felt a streak of heat bloom, pulsing through my blood. My skin felt like fire everywhere my body touched his. I struggled anyway, knowing it was what both of us needed, the fight, the rush of the predator and the prey. He pushed my arms up, gathering my slender wrists in one of his large hands. My body arched and fought, my legs scissoring under his body, trying to find purchase, a way to knock him off of me.

And all the time I was devouring his mouth as much as he was mine.

I gained enough purchase to flip him off of me, scooting back on the mat. My mouth felt raw, used and oh, so terribly hot. I couldn't seem to get enough air in my lungs. I knew I wanted him, I knew it was frustration. There was no way I could care enough about my tormentor to actually feel anything for him but hatred. But, God, I wanted him right then.

His chest was heaving too, his face flushed. I kept my eyes at shoulder level, not wanting to see what I was giving up. I had felt it against me, his cock, grinding into me. He stood suddenly and I couldn't help but see it, straining against the sweats he worked out in, long and thick. I closed my eyes and felt a tremor go through me. Lust, I needed a release.

"Get up."

I stood quickly, used to taking orders from him now.

"Let's go."

My eyes flew open and I saw him go into an offensive position. He attacked before I could think and I automatically defended myself, knocking his punch aside and countering with a kick that would have sent him backwards if it had connected. He ducked backwards, his hand rising automatically to block my next punch. He caught my ankle on my next kick and flung me backwards. I used the momentum and did a complete mid air summersault, landing lightly on my feet. We circled each other, eyeing the other, searching for weakness and openings.

I found one first. I faked a kick, ducking instead and coming up with my shoulder, hitting him hard in the stomach. It felt like I'd hit a rock. But I heard a woof come from him and then he was on his ass on the mat, looking up at me. He rubbed his tender stomach and stared at me for a moment. Then he grinned, he actually grinned. He held out his hand for me to help him up and I reached out. He weighed twice what I did and I hauled him to his feet easily.

"Okay, kid. I bought you something, it's on your bed. Go put it on and let's go get a beer."

I knew my eyes lit up. Not at the idea of a present, or even a beer. But to be going outside. To get away from this place for even an hour was sheer joy. I almost danced over to the bed to see what he had got me. And my reaction to the black leather pants, the black vest and tee shirt made him laugh. I hurried to my bathroom, jumped in a shower, eager to be away.

Maybe if I had known what he had in mind, I might not have been so eager.