Rhine gives me a nod. “Aye, like I said. You’re somethin’ altogether different, lass.” He shrugs at Noah. “No hard feelin’s? Was just provin’ my worth, ya ken?”
Noah returns the nod in silence beside me. I cock my head, studying the guys. “What I don’t ken is what makes you think we aren’t the bad guys.”
Rhine smiles. It’s a lazy, sexy expression that I’m sure brings many a young girl to her knees. “Because you”—he casts a glance at Noah—“and he don’t add up. No’ tae mention what happened at the club. You both saved a score of humans, whilst those other two bloodsuckers escaped. And I can sense it.” He inhales, exhales. “So do ya want our help? Or are we wastin’ our time here?”
I glance up at Noah, and he gives a slight nod. I move across the room and stand directly in front of Rhine. His eyes flash interest, and strangely enough, I detect no fear. Not one ounce. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. I’ve got to know more. We can’t have their young mortal lives balancing in our hands, especially when I don’t know what the hell is going on with my own psyche. I’m as unstable as Eli. With my gaze fastened on his, I grasp his hand and hold it between both of mine. His pupils dilate, just a fraction. Then I close my eyes.
I stand in a dank brick courtyard amid tall oaks and overgrown shrubs. A stone apartment complex rises before me. A window on the second floor is open, and a ripped curtain hangs in the gaping hole. No lights are on. I can’t tell what time of day it is; no sun, no shadows. Just murky gray. A light rain falls. Shouting falls from the open window, and a thick, heavy accent trails out.
“Ya fookin’ loser!” The sound of fist connecting to bone rings out, and a slight whimpered growl follows it. “I told ya tae give me all o’ it! Dunnae ya hide the quid from me, boy!” Another punch. Another growl. “What do ya have tae say for your pathetic self? Pathetic, aye, just like your fookin’ useless mother!” A slap this time, and another. Another. A scream this time. A woman’s scream. Laughter. “Och, boy, you dinnae like your whore mum tae be slapped, aye? Too fookin’ bad, then.” Slap.
I can move, and I race toward the doorway leading into the apartment. Inside, the stairwell is cold and smelly, and I creep up the steps to the next floor. I open the door and move into a hallway lit by a single bare bulb at the end of a corridor. Beneath my feet, ratty red-and-blue-plaid carpeting. Three doors to my left, I stop and listen. The door is cracked, and I step inside.
The moment I’m inside, I see Rhine. He’s kneeling beside a woman, lying on the floor. Rhine looks a little younger than he is now. Maybe fifteen. His hair is longer, and it curls at his ears, the nape of his neck. He has a huge red welt across his porcelain cheek, and one eye is swollen and blackened, and his nose is bleeding. His lip is split and bleeding. He looks a goddamn mess.
All from the hands of his father. I know it’s his father. Rhine looks exactly like him, only his father is older, bigger, meaner. And drunk as hell. Holy shit.
Rhine is comforting his mother, who’s whimpering, sobbing. He’s shielding her from the hands of his abusive dad. God, I hate abuse. In any form.
Rhine’s father grabs him by the back of his hair and hauls him off his mother. I stare at Rhine’s face, and it’s awash with so many emotions; I feel each one. Fear. Hatred. Love. Loathing. Pain. His father yanks his head back and turns him, slamming the young Rhine against the wall. The older man holds him there by his throat.
“You dinna fook wi’ me, lad,” he says. “I’ll kill you and that whore on the floor.”
Rage illuminates Rhine’s green eyes. Just as a burst of energy surges out of him, and he uses all of his young might to throw his father off him, a figure moving so fast I almost don’t notice it hovers over the woman on the floor. He stands there, looking down, and I can only see the back of him. Tall. Broad shoulders. Dark blond hair, long, tied back.
And pulseless.
I blink. A vampire?
“What the fook are ya doin’ in my house?” Rhine’s dad yells. He shoves Rhine down and faces the newcomer. Rhine scrambles to his mom, grabs her by the shoulders, and helps her up. Rhine’s father is a big guy—easily six feet five—and the vampire is eye to eye with him. Then the drunken man glances at Rhine and his mom, then back to the vampire. He throws back his head and laughs. “Och, you fookin’ that whore? You fancy that, aye?” He laughs again, and the vampire remains silent. “You best check your cock, make sure it hasna rotted off—”
The drunk man’s words die in his throat as the vampire lunges, morphs, and piranha-like fangs drop jagged from his gums. Without a single sound, he clamps down on the man’s jugular, shakes his head a time or two, and Rhine’s father’s head comes clean off. The vampire spits it out and it rolls across the floor and stops an inch from my feet. Widened eyes filled with frozen disbelief stare up at me. Blood oozes from the torn ligaments and flesh. I fight the urge to throw up. The rest of the body on the floor begins to quake, convulse.
Rhine’s mother screams; Rhine throws his arms around her and pulls her face to his chest, guarding and shielding her, and she sobs against her son. Those haunting green eyes of his stare at the vampire, who’s now completely changed back. I can feel the pounding of Rhine’s heart as he battles his fears, and as adrenaline charges through his veins, it also rushes through mine. The vampire crosses the room and stops a foot in front of Rhine. For the first time, he speaks. I can see his face now. Chiseled jaw. Straight nose. Long lashes. Gray eyes.
“I’m sorry I had to do that,” the vampire says. “I had no choice.”
His accent is . . . not Scottish. It’s something else. Not English. Not Irish. Something I can’t place.
“Lela, ’tis me.” The vampire reaches a hand out to Rhine’s mother. Rhine slaps his hand away, and the vampire smiles. But his mother turns her head, and she gasps.
“How did you know?” she asks the vampire. She looks up at Rhine and caresses his cheek with her hand. “It’s okay, son. He willna hurt you.”
Rhine’s heart is beating hard; his breath is fast. He holds his mother tightly. He says nothing, but his eyes drift to the form of his headless father, lying crumpled and dead on the floor in a pool of blood.
“Rhine, I’ve loved your mum for as long as I can recall,” the vampire says. “And it’s pained me to see you both endure this hell. ’Tis over now. This . . . is no more.”
Rhine slowly lifts his gaze to meet the vampire’s.
The vampire reaches into the pocket of his long black trench and pulls from within a sheathed knife. Flipping the snap that keeps the blade secured, he takes it out. He shows it to Rhine. “’Tis pure silver, boy, and ’tis the only thing that will kill others like me. They’re no’ all good. Most are killers. Your father was one. Did you know that?”
Rhine, wordlessly, nods.
I’m slightly in shock. Rhine’s father was a vampire? An abusive, drunken wife- and child-beating vampire? What the hell? How is that possible? Didn’t see that one coming.
The vampire turns the blade, hilt first, and offers it to Rhine. He takes it.
“Keep it with you, boy,” the vampire says. “Straight into the heart is the fastest kill. Be sure before you use it. We’re not all killers.” The vampire casts a long, loving glance at Rhine’s mother. “You’re a fine son. Keep a watchful eye over your mum here. She loves you verra much.” He again reaches into his trench; this time, he withdraws an envelope. He hands this to Rhine as well. “Take this and go. Gather what little means something to you, and leave this hellhole. There’s enough here to buy a house, new clothes, a car, and whatever else you might need. For years.” He glances at Rhine’s dead father’s remains: a pile of ashes. “Just leave that here.”