ONE
"Ready?"
"Baby, I'm always
ready."
"Getting cocky in your old age, I
see."
"No, I just had a magnificent
teacher." I grinned at Felipe as the men behind us grumbled and
rolled their eyes. No matter how much the men moaned, though, I
knew they would do anything to protect me.
Ronin, the vampire priest who
lived in the sanctuary with Felipe and I, had taken up position at
the back of the group. He was a lover by nature, not a fighter,
always the first to lend a helping hand to those in need. He also
refused to let his flock (aka: anyone with a beating heart) go into
battle without proper spiritual protection. When I first arrived at
the sanctuary, he'd simply been a priest preaching to the masses
three nights a week at the cathedral located above the vampire
enclave. But when Father Bellini put out the call six months ago
for an elite team of vampire hunters, Ronin had stepped up without
hesitation, and he became our steadfast rock, holding the rest of
us psychotic killers together, both mentally and
spiritually.
The human male between us and
Ronin was Jax, a six-foot blond mass of muscle. He had no qualms
about being part of the trained killing force. Years before, he had
been a professional American football player. Then his younger
brother was turned into a vampire. Jax accepted his brother's new
future—after nearly killing the boy in a fit of uncontrolled
terror. Jax didn't like to talk about that night, but I heard from
Felipe that Jax's brother handed him the very stake Jax almost
thrust through his heart. Finally realizing his brother was no
threat to him or his family, Jax embraced their new future and
together they joined a very profitable security force. But Jax
craved action and as he was so big, he most often was requested by
extremely wealthy businessmen who really didn't need that much
protection. So when word went around the security forces of a less
lucrative, but more exciting position, he jumped on it.
Guarding the back were Ado and
Benton. Ado very nearly self-destructed after the death of his
former partner, Victoria. Together, they were sent to the States to
find the cause of a rash of freshly turned vampires. She had been
kidnapped while he was asleep, which eventually led to her death by
Felipe's hand. Ado, distraught and emotionally ruined, went AWOL.
Such an act was intolerable in the vampire community and he would
have been destroyed if not for the intervention by Felipe and
Father Bellini. Together, they hunted Ado down and brought him back
from the brink of oblivion. The defeated vampire found a new
purpose on the team—hunting down Victoria's kidnappers.
Benton was the other human of the
six-person group. His introduction into vampire society was less
pleasant than the rest of us, though none of us on the team had a
happy-go-lucky life to begin with. Losing Steven definitely isn't
my idea of a fun time, but my heart goes out to Benton. He was
fifteen when he met his first vampire, a scrawny, pale runaway.
Having spent a week away from home, Benton was wandering an alley
behind some restaurants well after dark, hoping to find some edible
food that had been tossed away. The young goth wannabe, clothed in
a ripped and stained black shirt and too-tight black pants, was
buried halfway in a trashcan when he heard a throat clearing behind
him. He stood up, terrified, thinking he'd been caught by a police
officer. Instead, he gazed upon a pale man dressed in a dark suit.
The man advanced on him, knocking him into unconsciousness, and
Benton spent the next two years chained in the rogue vampire's
basement with two other boys as unwilling food. When the man was
destroyed, Benton and his companions were given their freedom and
Benton pledged his life to his savior—Ado. He'd been forced to
remain behind when Ado and Victoria went to the U.S. and he was
convinced he could have helped to save Victoria from her horrid
fate had he been allowed to go.
Felipe flipped a switch on a
hand-held
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