Broken Dawn - Dianne Duvall Page 0,1
so much extra time together, I would think it would be difficult for them to be apart now.”
He thought of the phone calls and Facetime chats he’d overheard. “It is. Kayla thought it would only be hard for her, but… Becca misses her, too.” Anger rose. “She called Kayla every night at first, but the other students started fucking with her about it, calling her a baby for missing her mommy and shit like that.”
Eliana frowned. “What are they—seven years old?”
“Mentally? Yes, apparently.”
Eliana made a sound of disgust. “Everyone is so eager to be ugly to each other today, so quick to pounce on every little opportunity to say something snide or just plain fucked up. I’m sick of it.”
“Me, too.” They turned down another path. A breeze ruffled Nick’s hair as his lips twitched. “Becca managed to shut some of the kids up though by feigning sympathy and telling them how sorry she was that their moms sucked ass so much that they didn’t want to speak to them.”
Eliana burst out laughing. “Way to go, Becca!”
He smiled. “Yeah. She’s strong like her mother. But the shit still gets to her. I can hear it in her voice.”
Eliana snorted. “It’s getting to me, and I’m not even the one having to deal with it.”
“Becca’s dorm mate is the worst. She seems to grab every chance she gets to make Becca feel bad. I admit I almost called Rafe and asked him to teleport me to Duke so I could give the little snot a firm talking-to.”
Eliana’s face lit up. “Ooh! Let me do it! Let me do it!” Clasping her hands together under her chin, she jumped up and down. “Please, please, please? Becca is such a sweet kid. She doesn’t deserve that crap. Let me put that mean girl in her place.”
“You can’t. Becca would recognize you and wonder why the hell you’re there.”
“Oh. True.”
When Nick had begun to suspect Becca was developing a crush on him, he’d asked Eliana to come by his place several times. Though he had never actually referred to Eliana as his girlfriend, Becca had drawn the expected conclusion and the problem had been solved.
“Ooh!” Eliana exclaimed. “I know. Get Lisette to do it. She’s a telepath, so she could read the little snot’s mind and threaten to expose all her most embarrassing secrets if she doesn’t start playing nice.”
He stared at her. “Actually, that’s not a bad idea. I’ll think about it and…” A foul stench reached him.
Eliana grimaced. “Ugh. Why is personal hygiene the first thing vampires abandon when insanity starts to kick in?”
Humans who were infected with the vampiric virus suffered progressive brain damage that rapidly eroded their impulse control and drove them insane. Fortunately, Nick and Eliana had escaped such a fate. Both had been born gifted ones with advanced DNA that granted them special gifts and protected them from the more corrosive aspects of the virus. Since they hadn’t descended into insanity when they were infected, they spent their nights hunting and slaying psychotic vampires to protect humans. And unlike the vampires, they actually enjoyed taking showers.
The stench that floated on the breeze mingled with a subtler aroma: perfume.
He shared a look with Eliana. She nodded her head in the direction of the building to their right. A security camera perched on one corner.
He whispered a curse.
Winking up at him, she stepped closer and slipped her small hand into his as they picked up their pace.
It was a ploy they had used often when hunting together on college campuses. He smiled.
The first time she had taken his hand, she had burst out laughing at the surprised look on his face. “Relax,” she’d said. “It’s just for show. If they think we’re a couple, they won’t freak out over the way we’re dressed.”
An unfortunate number of the mass shooters in the United States had garbed themselves all in black. So instead of thinking him a Goth or some guy trying to look cool or tough, people now often viewed Nick with suspicion… particularly on college campuses. But vampires tended to be creatures of habit and often preyed upon students who were too drunk or distracted to pay attention to the dangers that lurked in the shadows.
Hunting on U of H’s campus could be tricky. There were somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,400 security cameras scattered about. The last thing immortals or vampires needed was to be caught on camera. An overwhelming majority of humanity remained oblivious to the existence of