Soul Hunger Read online

  Because the sun offered the Chosen protection, Mehen couldn’t figure out why Sek and Mot had left the hot, sunny climes of Egypt only to come to Phoenix, a place just as hot and sunny. Phoenix wasn’t known as the Valley of the Sun for nothing. It had sunshine eighty-five percent of the time and less than an inch of rain in any given month. Mehen would have thought relocating to England, or any other country that had more rain than sun, would have been a more strategic move.

  Collecting his jacket and sword, Mehen headed out of the meeting room. He walked down the hall in the direction of his private quarters. He probably should have gone out with Denger and Akori to feed. His body craved blood, but it was too soon. He had fed well only two nights before. He shouldn’t be feeling blood hunger yet. At least it didn’t batter at him constantly. Mehen could ignore it for now. He didn’t know why now after all these years his blood hunger demanded he take more than what he had previously needed. Hoping sleep would help take the edge off, Mehen decided it would be best to call it a night.

  Chapter Two

  Blythe Ashton looked out of her cramped cubicle and watched as the majority of her coworkers filed by on their way to the elevators. The large clock on the wall read five o’clock, quitting time, but Blythe wouldn’t be leaving with the rest of the workers.

  With a sigh, she turned back to her desk. As one of the many office assistants in a large insurance company, she had to do a lot of grunt work. When she’d applied for the job, Blythe had thought the position of office assistant would be a rewarding one within the company, allowing her to eventually work her way up the corporate ladder. Boy had she ever been wrong. The term office assistant had turned out to be just a glorified name for secretary. She spent most of her working hours either doing menial tasks or typing up lengthy reports on the computer for one of the higher-ups who should have been doing it herself. Now one of those reports forced her to work overtime. Her supervisor had dropped a large stack of papers on her desk a half hour before and told her the report had to be on her desk before Blythe left for the day.

  So here she would stay, late into the night if need be, until she finished the damn thing or she could kiss her job goodbye. Which so wasn’t an option right now. Having just gone through a messy divorce, she had a large unpaid lawyer’s bill and the extra burden of renting an apartment for herself. Blythe needed every penny she made from her much-hated job.

  As her fingers flew over her computer keyboard, Blythe grumbled to herself about the unfairness of it all. She earned a salary instead of being paid by the hour, which meant she wouldn’t see any extra money on her next paycheck for this overtime. Technically, she earned the right to take extra time off instead, but so far she hadn’t been allowed to use up any of her accumulated overtime hours. Stretching a kink out of her neck, Blythe stuck out her tongue at her computer monitor.

  Pulling her mind back to the task at hand, she spent the next three hours steadily working. When she finished the report, she sent it to one of the office printers. With it printed off and placed on her supervisor’s desk, she could finally leave. She slipped on her coat and picked up her purse before she headed for the elevator.

  In the lobby, Blythe waved to the security guard seated behind the front desk on her way out. Taking the concrete steps down to the sidewalk, she decided to splurge a little and take a taxi home instead of the bus as she usually did. At times like this she wished she could afford to own a car. After she fished her cell phone out of her purse, she called one of the local taxi companies to arrange for a pickup.

  Now November, the nights had decidedly gotten cooler. Not that Phoenix ever got cold weather, but she found it a nice relief from the sweltering summer months. As she waited for the taxi to arrive, Blythe looked up and down the street. This part of the city was mostly deserted this time of night, with little to no traffic and very few pedestrians on the sidewalk.

  Feeling as if someone watched, Blythe looked behind her. A man stood a few yards away, staring at her. Blythe moved a little farther down the sidewalk and hoped the taxi would hurry up and arrive, because the guy seriously gave her a case of the creeps. She’d never worried about it before, but she now started to think being a lone woman out on the street in the dark had not been such a good idea. She probably should have called for the taxi from the lobby and waited there for it to show up, but the time for that idea had passed. Knowing her luck, the taxi would arrive just as she got the security guard to let her back into the building.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Blythe caught sight of another man on her other side. Turning to the first guy, her unease intensified. He’d moved much closer. Blythe walked down the sidewalk a bit to put more space between them, but the second guy had also moved in closer when she hadn’t been looking. At this point they gave up all pretense of being just other pedestrians using the sidewalk. They lunged at her at the same time, forcing her to take flight in the only direction left open to her—the dark alley between the building where she worked and the one next to it.

  Blythe knew she was running into a trap. There was no exit at the end of the alleyway, but that didn’t stop her from trying to run. Her fight or flight instinct had kicked in and flight ended up being the big winner. Doing her best to run in heels, she took off down the alley and prayed that someone would be there who could help her.

  She skidded to a halt before she reached the back of the alley. Another man stood there, and from the evil grin on his face, he had to be with the other two who had now moved in behind her. Blythe wanted to scream for help, but she had never been a screamer and there really wouldn’t be much point. It would be a waste of breath. No one would hear her. That didn’t mean she would go down without a fight, though. As the men inched closer, hemming her in, she pulled her purse off her shoulder and put her head through it so it hung across her chest. She then slipped off both her shoes. Not as spiked as stilettos, they still had a big enough heel to do some damage if she could manage to hit one of the three men with it.

  A cold sweat ran between her breasts. Blythe slowly turned in a circle waiting to see which one of them would strike first. As they moved in closer, she could see their eyes. Something didn’t seem right about them. To her, it looked as if nothing was behind them, that their souls were gone. Even though the men grinned with sick anticipation, their eyes remained emotionless and flat.

  One of the men opened his mouth and gave Blythe a good look at the sharp fangs he had. She stumbled. This caused the three to edge even closer. When she looked at the other two, she saw they also sported fangs. Apparently she had been singled out by a group of wannabe vampires, because there could be no way those fangs were real.

  To try to keep them back, Blythe brandished her shoe menacingly at them. “Get back.”

  Just as one of the men made a grab for her, the roar of a motorcycle filled the alleyway. Distracted by the sound, Blythe looked away for a split second, which her attacker used to his advantage. He wrapped his hand around her upper arm and pulled her against him. She struggled to free herself, but it didn’t do any good. His other hand snaked out and grabbed a fistful of her hair. He yanked her head painfully to the side while his fake fangs started to descend to her exposed neck. Blythe whimpered in fear.

  The thundering roar of the motorcycle grew deafening as it shot past Blythe and her attacker. After that everything happened fast. One minute her attacker had been about to sink his teeth into her neck, and the next, he gave her a rough shove to push her away. Blythe could only stare in horror when her attacker’s body jerked and seemed to start to decompose before her eyes. The stench coming off him almost made her retch, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away. In what seemed like a matter of seconds, her attacker disintegrated, leaving only an empty pile of clothes on the ground.

  Looking up, she searched the alleyway for the other two. Now that their companion in wannabe vampirism had gone poof, they had focused their attention behind them. Blythe gasped. At the back of the alley, sitting on a flashy blue and
white motorcycle, she saw a very large man. He turned the motorcycle’s engine off and with one fluid movement got off the bike. The two men hissed and bared their fangs as he pulled off his helmet.

  Blythe’s jaw dropped. Now that he stood, she could see he had to be over six and a half feet tall, his large body all muscle. She could easily see the muscles in his thighs bunching under his jeans as he walked toward her remaining attackers. Blythe’s eyes widened when she realized he held a sword in his hand.

  Like a warrior of old, he swung the sword in front of him with natural skill. As the weapon arced in the air, the two wannabe vampires hissed and then went on the attack. The motorcycle guy stood his ground and waited for the others to come to him. The fight didn’t last long. As soon as they got within reach of his sword, he swung it toward the attackers. The first one took a sword cut across his chest, while his buddy took one across the throat.

  Like she’d hit rewind on a scary video, the two quickly decomposed like the first, leaving only a pile of clothes on the ground to attest that they had been real. Ready to gag, Blythe looked up to meet the gaze of her rescuer. At least she hoped he was her rescuer. He still held the sword in his hand as he advanced on her with slow steps. Her breath sawed in and out of her lungs as she started to back away. He must have noticed her staring at his sword with no small amount of fear, because he slowly reached behind his head and sheathed it in something concealed under his jacket. He then held up his hands while he continued to walk toward her, smiling. Seeing he also had fangs, Blythe did what any sane woman did when her brain decides she’s had more than one too many shocks in one evening. She fell to the ground in a dead faint.

  * * * * *

  Mehen cursed under his breath when the woman dropped like a stone. Moving faster than any mortal could, he managed to catch her before her head hit the pavement. He shifted her so she sat with her upper body resting against his chest. Mehen pressed his fingers to the large vein at the side of her neck to make sure she had only fainted. Her pulse beat strong and even.

  Looking down, Mehen wondered what the hell to do with her. He couldn’t very well leave her lying on the pavement. There could be more of the undead lurking around. After encountering none the night before, it seemed strange that he would come across three of them hunting together. He’d never witnessed that before. The undead usually hunted alone. He had an additional complication that had to be dealt with. She had seen him dispatch the undead. Their demise, never a pretty sight, revealed exactly what they were—the walking dead. The mortal population had to stay ignorant of what lurked in the dark. If they ever became aware, there could be no telling how they would react. The Salem witch hunts proved what mass hysteria did to people. Dealing with another nightmare of those proportions could be someone else’s headache. He intended to head it off at the pass.

  The woman stirred in his arms but didn’t wake up. Mehen reached up and pushed a lock of her long, light brown hair off her forehead. She was pretty, but not in a glamorous sort of way. He let his gaze drift down the rest of her. Her skirt was hiked up to her mid-thigh, revealing shapely, long legs. She appeared to be slim, but not that “really skinny” that society in this day and age thought women should be. Mehen couldn’t understand why men would want their women to be that skinny. He preferred his women slim, but he didn’t want to feel as if they would break when he held them in his arms.

  He looked at her face. His gaze then shifted to the slim column of her throat. Focusing his senses, he could hear her heart beat and the blood rushing through her veins. He had to swallow when his mouth started to water and his fangs ached as he thought of what it would be like to feed from her. Her scent drew him as well, a mix of the perfume she wore and her own woman’s scent. Mehen closed his eyes briefly and drew it in. His body stirred to life. The urge to take her became as strong as the urge to feed off her blood. A small sound brought his gaze back to her face. Finding her eyes open while she stared up at him, Mehen jerked as if someone had physically punched him in the gut.

  The startling blue of her eyes mesmerized him. Mehen couldn’t pull his gaze away. He hissed when a wave of intense longing shot through his body. Sudden images of them in his bed, with her beneath him as he surged into her, filled his head. They seemed so real. He could hear the small sounds she would make as he rode her and the taste of her blood as he sank his fangs into the side of her neck at the same time. His cock grew hard inside his jeans, making them feel suddenly too tight. Why did she stir him so strongly? He’d never had this kind of reaction to a woman before.

  The woman gasped. Mehen realized he must have projected the images of them together inside his head to her. Her heart beat faster and he detected the faint smell of her arousal. But that quickly faded when she seemed to suddenly remember what had happened earlier. She opened her mouth as if to scream. Mehen quickly put his hand over her mouth and her eyes widened with fear.

  “You don’t have to be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you. I’ll take my hand away if you promise not to scream.”

  She nodded. He loosened his hand by slow degrees and started to pull it away. The woman’s hands shot up, took a firm hold of his and bit down into the side of his hand hard enough to draw blood. Cursing when she tenaciously held on with her teeth, Mehen let her go as he tried to free himself. No longer in his hold, she released him and jumped to her feet. Mehen’s gut clenched at the sight of his blood dripping down her bottom lip and onto her chin. Just the thought of her using her tongue to lick it off made his erection grow even harder.

  She held out her hands as if to hold him off when he stood. “I have no idea what you did to your friends over there, and I really don’t want to know.” She nodded in the direction of what remained of the undead. “You can just let me go, and I promise not to tell anyone about the bloodsucking cult you’re involved in.”

  Mehen shook his head. “Those aren’t any friends of mine. I told you, I’m not going to hurt you.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Sure you’re not. You just carry around that sword for jollies. Are you going to use it on me? Or do you plan to bite me with those fangs of yours first then finish me off with your sword?”

  He flashed a sexy grin. “I wouldn’t mind finishing you with my sword, but it wouldn’t be the one I carry on my back. It would be the sword I carry much lower on my body. Your blood would just be an added bonus.”

  Blythe’s breath caught in her chest. Her gaze drifted down his body to the huge bulge in his crotch. She swallowed audibly. Her traitorous body went into overdrive. The man might be a loon, but Blythe’s body didn’t seem to care because it burned for his touch. Just thinking of what he had in his pants made her heart beat at a rapid pace as her pussy clenched. Blythe forced her wayward body back under control. She needed to keep her head on straight if she hoped to get away.

  He took another step closer. She backed up and then yelped when she came upon the brick wall. Realizing what she had done, Blythe tried to get herself to the center of the alleyway, but the guy moved faster than she thought possible. He somehow managed to close the distance between them in a blink of an eye. With both hands placed on the wall on either side of her head, he caged her in. His large body crowded her against the wall and she felt heat coming off him in waves. Her body responded to his closeness as the ache between her legs intensified. Blythe looked up to find him staring down at her, his eyes dark with desire.

  “What are you going to do to me?” Her voice sounded too breathy for her liking. She cleared her throat and tried again. “All I want is to go home and forget any of this happened.”

  “Don’t worry. You won’t be able to remember what happened here.”

  His deep voice held a slight accent, one she couldn’t put her finger on. “I won’t?”

  “No. For your own good I’ll make you forget. It will be as if you never saw me or the undead.”

  “The undead? Is that what they were? Is that what you are?”

  He grabbed her hand and placed it o
n his chest over his heart. “Do I feel as if I’m one of the undead?”

  “No,” Blythe answered in a whisper. He felt very much alive. His heart was beating strong beneath her hand. She resisted the urge to run her hand over the rest of his wide chest. “But you have fangs as they did.”

  “That does not make me one of the undead. My fangs are not used for stealing the souls of mortals.”

  Blythe recalled the erotic images that had flashed through her head when she first regained consciousness, images of him and her in bed while he took her with his body and his fangs. Her face grew warm just thinking about it. “No, but you do drink blood.”

  His gaze moved down her face to her throat. “Yes.”

  Not sure whether or not she liked the way he stared at her neck, Blythe brought a hand up and pulled the collar of her coat closer together. Her movement seemed to break whatever spell had come over him. He took hold of her chin and forced her to look into his eyes. Blythe felt what could only be described as a nudge inside her head. When nothing happened, it came again, only harder this time. A few seconds later he muttered a curse and released her chin.

  He plowed his hand through his hair. She then saw the bite mark she had left on his skin. Not thinking, she licked her dry lips and tasted blood, his blood. He stiffened and his eyes latched onto her mouth.

  “Sorry about your hand. I didn’t realize I had bitten you that hard.”

  He pulled his gaze back up to her eyes. Holding her stare, he brought his hand to his mouth and licked the bloodied bite marks. Blythe bit back a gasp as his flesh healed together and the teeth marks disappeared as if they had never been. Seeing that, she had to wonder if there was a slim, a very slim, possibility that he had told her the truth—that he wasn’t part of a vampire cult, and that those other men had to be the undead. She couldn’t deny the fact that they had basically turned to dust, even though her brain still tried to find some other explanation for their disintegration.