Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [756]
He might have been tempted, if not for the clamoring of his thirst. Instead, once the SUV rolled away into the darkness, Reichen skulked through the thickly settled, working-class neighborhoods. He was careful to keep to the back-alley shadows, where it was easier to conceal his presence and his dark intentions. It was a blustery, rainy night in Boston, which meant far fewer loiterers on the sidewalks or standing outside the pubs sucking on cigarettes. Only a handful of the roughest and most desperate individuals had any reason to be outdoors tonight—Reichen among them.
He searched the city’s offerings with a cool eye, knowing that when he was like this, riding the far outer edge of his power, he was a predator in the meanest sense of the word. His mouth was parched, his fangs digging into his tongue. Like this, he was as deadly as the Ancient in Dragos’s hidden lair. A thirsting, savage monster.
As Reichen prowled the back of a narrow neighborhood street, the bang of a storm door drew his head sharply up. A human male in a ball cap and baggy sweats stomped down a rickety wooden porch, screaming obscenities at the older woman who appeared backlit by lights from inside the house.
“Getcha ass back here, Daniel! Do you hear me?” she shouted, loud enough for the surrounding four blocks to hear.
The young male flipped her off and kept walking while he hollered back at her. “Yeah, yeah, fuck you too, Ma! Go back to ya bottle and stay the hell outta my weed, why don’t ya! You owe me twenty bucks for the shit you stole from me!”
Reichen cocked his head, watching the human cut down a dark side road. With his head down and his mouth working absently on all the things he still wanted to say to the drunk who spawned him, the kid didn’t even notice that he wasn’t alone in the narrow alley.
He didn’t see Reichen moving in from behind; probably only sensed him as a rush of cold air at the back of his tattooed neck. Before the human had a chance to utter a single startled gasp, Reichen sprang on him.
He swiftly took him down to the cracked asphalt. Pushed the human’s chin up and to the side, baring the hammering pulse at the side of his neck. He bit in deep, and sucked in a mouthful of warm, nourishing blood. He fed hungrily, greedily, ignoring the feeble struggles of his Host. Every gulp was bitter on his tongue, and did little to quench the desert dryness of his throat.
His hunger persisted, even when the human’s resistance had ended. Reichen kept feeding. He couldn’t stop. He wasn’t even sure he knew how—one of the terrible consequences of summoning his talent.
He might have killed the man if not for the sudden awareness of cold hard steel pressing tight against the side of his head.
“The buffet is closed, asshole.”
Reichen grunted, only the dimmest flicker of recognition burning into his brain. He kept drinking, starving for more.
The hammer on the large pistol cocked with a loud metallic warning. “Back the fuck off, or you’re gonna be eating lead.”
He growled now, pissed off by the interruption and still too fevered to let up on his Host. Blood gushed over his tongue and down his throat, but the fire in his gut still burned, impossible to extinguish. He slid a feral gaze to the side to gauge the Breed male with the gun locked and loaded at his head.
“Holy hell,” the huge vampire muttered. The icy nose of the pistol fell away from his temple. “Reichen? What the fuck.”
Reichen knew this immense male with the wild tawny hair and stark green eyes. Instinct called him warrior—friend, even though his stance and tone a moment ago had conveyed deadly serious murder. It was that instinctive awareness that kept Reichen from turning on the vampire as a strong hand came down on his shoulder and physically peeled him off his prey. He was shoved back hard, and the other male grabbed the human to seal the punctures with an efficient sweep of his tongue.
Reichen watched, ass planted on the concrete, as the big Breed male palmed the human’s forehead and erased his memory