Page 22 of Peacemaker

Chapter Seven

There is No Peace

Amias came when I stepped into the graveyard and called him. He was fast, extraordinarily fast, but the vampires I’d killed that night weren’t much slower.

“What do you know?” I asked him.

He lifted his fingers and ran them over my cheek and my lips, then cupped my chin and leaned in to kiss me once, gently, carefully. As though he thought he might spook me.

Granted, I was still uncomfortable with the master. Maybe I wouldn’t always be, but there was too much between us for me to totally accept him. The past would not be forgotten, and the chains that bound us together were tainted with blood.

“I know,” he answered, “that I love you.”

The sun had changed him. The world outside Willow-Wisp held no appeal. He cared about nothing but his sun.

“There were vampires in the city tonight,” I told him. “Healthy vampires. Vampires that were fast, strong…abnormal. Why?”

He studied me, half his face lost in shadows. “It begins.”

“What begins?” I rubbed away the goosebumps that arose on my arms.

“Change,” he replied, almost reluctantly. “Each time we are nearly destroyed, something new happens. Some of us come back stronger than ever. Someday, we will rule the world.”

I frowned, impatient. “What do you know about these new attacks?”

“I know nothing. I’ve been here…” He shook his head and his gaze turned inward. “Sinking into the fuzzy arms of this enchanted place.”

“Amias, you can always feel your vampires. Find out what the hell is going on.”

“My vampires did not enter the city this night.” He slid back a little deeper into the darkness, and I could no longer see his eyes. “My vampires are nearly gone, Trinity. We’ve killed them, haven’t we?”

His sorrow was extreme.

I shook away my sympathy. “You can’t hide in Willow-Wisp while strange vampires attack the city.”

“Allow me to enjoy this peace for a little while longer, my love.”

“There is no peace,” I said. “Only pretense.”

“Then let me pretend.”

I could feel him pulling away from me. The distance was in his shadowed face, his polite voice, and his hidden eyes.

There would always be distance between us, wouldn’t there? I was a hunter. I hunted and killed his kind. No matter what I was to him, there would always be that dark truth.

He sighed. “I will look into it. You’re right. There is no peace. Only blood and war and fighting. It is the way of all living things.”

“But vampires are not exactly living.” My frustration was making me mean.

A flash of anger lit his voice. “I died and came back as something different. It is untrue to say I am not living.”

“I know,” I admitted. “I’m sorry. I’m just…” Scared. Frustrated. Confused.

One minute he was hiding in the shadows and the next, he was pulling me into his arms. “Feed me, and I will go discover the truth. Let me taste you, Trinity.”

“I fed you two weeks ago.” But I was tempted. There was pleasure in the feeding—for both of us.

“I crave you every second of every day,” he murmured, his lips touching my skin. “Two weeks is an eternity, and I am hungry.”