She stalked to Simon’s side. In the distance, she could just make out the faint pink rays of dawn.
I’m not going to die tonight. “What’s happening?”
Simon crept out of the room. The parking lot waited to the right. It looked deserted.
Like she didn’t know how very deceiving looks could be.
“Grim’s men?” she asked. He’d know. He had a better lock on them than she did. Sure, the link to the master was severed, but there was still a connection between his Taken.
And the guy had grown a whole freaking army.
Will they all come after me? Is this just the beginning?
The men stepped from the waning shadows. Two. Three.
A woman rose from the darkness. Another stalked to her side.
Or is this the end?
A hot wind blew against Dee’s face as she stood in the doorway. These weren’t Born vampires. All were Taken. She was stronger, even if she was newer to the Undead world. She could handle them.
Simon’s shoulder brushed hers. No, they could handle them.
Her fingers tightened around the stake.
Two more vampires appeared.
What the hell was this? Some kind of vamp convention? A human was going to look out one of those dirty windows and see them, and the local deputies would swarm this place.
It wasn’t so easy to keep things quiet when the sirens started blaring.
“You came after the wrong woman,” Dee told them, letting her voice ring out. I was so close to being happy.
Stupid. She couldn’t even have a minute’s worth of happiness. They were always going to hunt her, just as she’d hunted them. Always.
The vampires bowed their heads and turned their hands out, showing her their empty palms. Right, like vamps needed weapons to kill.
“We’re not here to fight you,” one of the women called out, not lifting her head.
“Of course. You’re just here to wish me a good freaking morning.” Hurry up, sun, rise. Stupid prediction.
“Born.”
“Slayed Grim.”
The whispers drifted to her.
Dee inched forward. Simon stayed right beside her.
“Your good old leader Grim deserved the death he got.” Actually, he’d probably deserved a much more painful death, but she didn’t exactly have the do-over option. “He was a sick freak and he needed to be put down.” Probably not what these vamps were looking to hear.
Tough. She wasn’t going to sugarcoat. Her eyes scanned the lot. Okay, that made seven total. She and Simon could take them.
“We’re not here to kill you.” The vampire still didn’t look up. Dee realized the vamps had formed a semicircle around her room. She tensed.
Simon has my back. And he did. He stood with her, strong and steady.
“Good,” she told them, determination firing her blood. “Because I’m not dying today.” No, she wouldn’t. She’d just found something to live for and she wasn’t about to give it up.
Screw off, Catalina.
“Are we?” The quiet question floated in the air.
Her brows snapped together and Dee glanced at Simon. A quick, fast glance.
Surrounded. It hit her then. Vampires surrounded her.
But Simon was one of those vamps, and she trusted him. With her life and her heart.
“Are you going to kill us?” the woman asked, still not looking Dee’s way. Her long blond hair covered her face. Dee stared at her, a chill skating its way down her spine.
“That depends.” Let’s try for some honesty. “If you’re twisted like Grim and you get off on hurting humans, then, yeah, I’ll come after you. It’s what I do.” That wouldn’t change. She’d seen too many innocents die. No way would she let a killer walk.
“And you think some vampires can live…without hurting others?”
Before, she hadn’t. But she’d been blinded by her own rage then. She was finally starting to see straight now; it had just taken dying to open her eyes. “Yeah, I do.” Her fingers were wrapped so tightly around the stake that the wood bit into her flesh.
She stared at the line of bodies and wondered who would move first. Who would attack.
Dee wouldn’t draw first blood, but she would make sure she drew the last drops.
“We waited for you.” The woman looked at her then. A long scar cut across her cheek. A scar she must have gotten long ago. In another life. “Waiting was so hard…”
“We’ve been waiting for you, Sandra Dee…” Words from that terrible night. Grim’s men. Waiting for her death.
But these vampires had been waiting, too—for what? Her eyes narrowed as she watched them.
Born.
They’d been waiting for her to free them.
The vampires began to drift away.
Simon’s hands settled on her shoulders. “I told you, Dee. Sometimes, monsters are made.”
And sometimes they were Taken.
A tear tracked down the woman’s cheek. “My son…”
That was all she had to say. Dee understood. Grim had played his twisted games with everyone.
“You won’t see me again,” the vampiress told her. “Not any of us.” Her chin lifted. Pride there. Strength. “We’re more than the evil that people think.”
But people had been fearing vampires for centuries.
And forgetting that once upon a time, vampires were people, too. She’d forgotten that. No, she hadn’t wanted to remember.
The vampires faded as the sun rose. Dee watched them, silent.
Simon stood with her as the sun inched across the sky. Dawn was such a beautiful thing. Pity she hadn’t enjoyed the sunrises more.
“We should go inside. Get some rest.”
Because another night would come. Another. Always another.
With more darkness to fight.
Dee reached for him and rubbed her fingers over the hard line of his jaw. She wouldn’t be fighting alone anymore. No, her vamp would be at her side.
She’d be at his.
The darkness could come. They’d be ready.
They’d kick ass.
Make love.
And live for-damn-ever.
Death hadn’t come for her. Catalina had been wrong.
No, maybe she’d been right. As she stared at Simon in the growing morning light, Dee knew her old life had ended. But a new life…
It waited for her.
All she had to do was reach out and take it.
She kept the stake in her right hand and curled her arm around Simon’s neck.
Then she kissed him in the sunlight. Just as she’d kiss him in the moonlight.
Sometimes, a woman had to make her own happy ending.