Dark Needs at Night's Edge Read Free

pulse,” he said to someone unseen, his voice raised over the commotion. “She’s gone.”
    But she wasn’t! Not yet!
    Néomi was young, and there were so many things she had left to experience. She deserved to live. I’m not dying. Her hands somehow clenched. I refuse to!
    Yet as the breeze picked up once more, Néomi’s vision guttered out like a candle. No, no…still living…can’t see, can’t see…so scared.
    Rose petals caught on the wind and tumbled over her face. She could feel each cool kiss of them.
    Then…nothingness.

1
    Outside Orleans Parish
Present day
    S tay sane, act normal, he chants to himself as he strides down the rickety pier. On either side of him, water black like tar. Ahead of him, muted light from the bayou tavern. A Lore bar. A lone neon sign flickers over flat skiffs below. Music and laughter carry.
    Stay sane…need to dull the rage. Until the endtime.
    Inside. “Whiskey.” His voice is low, rough from disuse.
    The bartender’s face falls. Like last night. Others grow skittish. Can they sense that I ache to kill? The whispers around him are like metal on slate to his ragged nerves.
    â€”“Conrad Wroth, once a warlord…madder than any vampire I’ve seen in all my centuries.”
    â€”“A killer for hire. If he shows up in your town, then folks from the Lore there’ll go missing.”
    Missing? Unless I want them found.
    â€”“Heard he drains ’em so savagely…nothing’s left of their throats.”
    So I’m not fastidious.
    â€”“I heard he eats them.”
    Distorted rumors. Or is that one true?
    Tales of his insanity spreading once more. I’ve never missed a target—how insane can I be? He answers himself: Very fucking much so.
    Memories clot his mind. His victims’ memories taken from their blood toll inside him, their number always growing. Don’t know what’s real; can’t determine what’s illusion . Most of the time, he can scarcely understand his own thoughts. He doesn’t go a day without seeing some type of hallucination, striking out at shadows around him.
    A grenade with the pin pulled, they say. Only a matter of time.
    They’re right.
    Stay sane…act normal. Glass in hand, he chuckles softly on his way to a dimly lit table in the back. Normal? He’s a goddamned vampire in a bar filled with shifters, demons, and the sharp-eared fey. Christmas lights are strung up in the back—through the eye sockets of human skulls that frame a mirror. In the corner, a demoness lazily strokes her lover’s horns, visibly arousing the male. At the bar, an immense werewolf bares his fangs, bowing protectively as he tosses a small redhead behind him.
    Can’t decide if you should attack, Lykae? That’s right. I don’t smell of blood. A trick I learned.
    The couple leaves, the redhead all but carried out by the Lykae. As they exit, she peers over her shoulder, her eyes like mirrors. Then gone. Out into the night where they belong.
    Sit. Back against the wall. He adjusts the sunglasses that shade his red eyes, dirty red eyes. As he scans the room, he resists the urge to rub his palm over the back of his neck. Watched by someone unseen?
    But then, I always feel like that .
    He swoops up the drink, narrowing his eyes at his steady hand. My mind’s decayed, but my sword hand’s still true . A ruinous combination.
    He takes a liberal swallow. The drink. The whiskey dulls the need to lash out. Not that it has disappeared.
    Small things enrage him. An off look. Someone approaching too quickly. Failing to give him a wide enough berth. His fangs sharpen at the slightest provocation. As though a living thing hungers inside me. Ravenous for blood and a throat to tear. Each time he acts on the rage, others’ memories blight more of his own.
    He still has enough sanity to stalk his targets—his brothers. He will mete out