Page 1 of Caretaker

Chapter One

I halted suddenly and Shane watched me, his head tilted as he listened for whatever it was that had spooked me.

No vampires rushed out of the woods to attack us. No infecteds ran at us with need and rage and hunger, but they were there. We just had to find them.

Six months ago they’d made it easy on us—the infection had killed them after about a week. It didn’t kill them forever, though, so Shane and I had to track them down and give them the true death before they rose up in months or years or centuries and brought the disease back with them.

But over the last three months or so, the infection had begun to change once again. Vampires seemed to eventually influence and disrupt everything they touched. Even people. Maybe especially people.

The vampires—those few that remained—were stronger than ever. They’d survived the infection.

They were faster, stronger, meaner.

But they weren’t immune to the disease that had struck them in the first place. They were alive and healthy, but they couldn’t eat.

Masses of them had died.

Shane and I couldn’t give them all—or even most of them—the true death, but we weren’t the only hunters in the world. And the hunters were taking care of business.

The humans had joined in to help. They couldn’t hunt or kill the way we could, but they took their shotguns and their silver and if they happened to get lucky enough to not only survive an encounter with a desperate vampire but to capture him, they dragged his silvered, mangled ass to one of the centers that had cropped up over the last six months, collected their cash for a job well done, and went back for more.

But mostly, those humans just died.

The infecteds might be sick and dying, but they were mad and vicious and hungry. So hungry.

And the humans died alongside the vampires.

Amias stepped suddenly into my path, and a millisecond before Shane pulled the trigger of his silver-loaded shotgun, the master vampire disappeared.

He hadn’t contracted the latest round of infection—he believed himself immune, and he believed he was immune because he’d bitten me all those years ago. Something inside me had protected him, caused him to fight off the disease, and kept him from getting sick again.

But…

“He’s getting faster.” I gripped the hilt of my holstered Silverlight but didn’t draw her. I didn’t want to kill Amias. I mean, I did, but I didn’t.

Not in my heart.

If I’d gone after him with the true intent to do him harm, pain would have ripped through my body. My mind.

“Yeah,” Shane muttered.

Shane Copas wasn’t exactly the talkative sort.

If the other surviving vampires became better versions of themselves post-infection, as Amias had done, and was still doing, the world was in trouble. Amias was a master, though. Not all the vampires were like Amias.

At least that was what I kept telling myself.

“Trinity.”

I shivered at his voice and turned my head to find him standing right beside me. I hadn’t seen much of him in the past few weeks, which was unusual, considering I was Amias Sato’s obsession.

Being his obsession sounded better than saying I was his servant. That he was my master.

“Where have you been?” I demanded, then looked away at his sharply indrawn breath. I sounded like I cared.

“I am never far from your side.” His hooded stare softened as he watched me, and a tiny smile tugged at the corners of his sensuous lips.

“I don’t want you by my side.” I glared at him, but his expression didn’t change. “I want you helping us deal with your sick vampires.”