Vampire Mistress by Joey W Hill, now you can read online.
Prologue
MORENA Wilson had looked like Laura. Not the same color eyes or hair, but the gentle expression, the sweet, open smile. It had been a vivid, punch-in-the-gut reminder of what was starting to blur at the edges in his memory, no matter how he fought against it. He'd been right to kill Morena's murderer. It didn't matter why the vampire had taken Morena's life; she hadn't deserved death. By taking her life, the vampire had forfeited the right to his own. That was justice. A justice he'd never been able to give Laura.
Gideon stared down at the shower floor, no energy to turn on the water yet. He stood motionless on the cold, dull white tile, the yellowed and cracked caulk rough beneath his callused feet. He'd stripped off his clothes in the stall, the blood-soaked fabric falling with a wet splat, the excess oozing out, creating red-brown puddles that collected around his toes. His hair and face were covered in it, like some Stephen King nightmare. No one would know he was the hero.
But he wasn't, was he? Because it didn't matter how many of them he killed; he never got to them soon enough. Morena was still dead, just like Laura. So there were no heroes. There was just the cleanup crew. He was a goddamned janitor.
Pushing his forehead into the wall, he twisted on the cold water full blast, gritting his teeth. Jacob would say he was punishing himself like an Inquisition priest trying to wash away his sins. Gideon bared his teeth. Sometimes he hated his brother as much as he loved him. Like everything in his life, it tore his soul—what was left of it—into two rough pieces that cut his insides like jagged glass.
But then, that was what had started this whole thing tonight, hadn't it? For months, he'd been tracking and taking down vampires whose names Jacob sent him. Through whatever mysterious contacts he had, Jacob identified the vampires who'd stepped outside of the Vampire Council's rules, who were more brutal than most. However, the plain and simple fact was all vampires killed humans. Morena Wilson's death was a forcible reminder of that. Twenty-four years old, a nurse with a fiancé whose helpless rage and grief Gideon understood too well.
He shouldn't be cherry-picking these monsters, merely because his brother had become one of them.
He should be going after every single one of them. Every single one.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he slammed his fists against the wall. He hadn't expected to feel better when he'd gone off the grid to take out Trey Beauchamp. He never expected that. But he'd expected to feel . . . restored to a purpose. Instead, he kept seeing the vampire's face in those final few moments.
Trey was a hundred-and-fifty-year-old vamp who taught at a community college in the downtown area, conveniently deserted this time of night except for the type of people who kept their heads down or looked for trouble. Of all the freaking things, he taught a night class in advanced geometry, for adult students seeking engineering and architecture degrees, shit like that.
Gideon had stalked him alone. He was hunting on his own far more often these days, something he knew would piss Jacob off, but he didn't really give a damn. He was more effective this way, and it had the added bonus that he didn't have to talk to anyone else. Or worry about them getting killed.
No human could beat a vampire toe-to-toe. It was hard enough with advance planning, but time, experience and way more near misses than he deserved had taught Gideon they could be tricked, same as anyone else. Particularly if you put in the time to study their habits and schedules, and especially if they'd handicapped themselves by trying to pass as mortals. Or maybe he'd gotten that damn good at this.
Tonight he'd baited the trap with a junkie whore, about thirteen years old. All she had to do for the twenty dollars Gideon had promised her was to hit Trey up for money. When he did what Gideon expected a teacher to do—question her, try to offer her more help than the drug money she wanted—she scuttled back into her alley. That wasn't scripted, because it didn't need to be. She was jumpy as an alley cat. Trey followed her. After all, he was a vamp. He wasn't worried about her pimp getting the jump on him, because he was far stronger and faster than an oblivious mortal.
Behind him, Gideon had risen up out of a pile of boxes, where he'd posed as a sleeping wino, the scent of booze all over him. Trey whirled around, sensing the strike, so the cut of the axe had taken only half his head. He'd had his hands around Gideon's throat, his fangs bared, eyes red, when the rest came off and sprayed Gideon with blood. The junkie whimpered, but she knew that screaming attracted attention.
She wanted cash for her fix more than she wanted saving. She cowered in the corner by the Dumpster, gnawing on her fist, while Gideon cleaned his blade and tossed the body in the Dumpster, dousing it with accelerant and lighting it up.