“I am moving on from Ronan,” Killean stated.
Joseph surveyed Killean again. “You are one of Ronan’s most loyal supporters.”
“I was,” Killean corrected. And I will be again. “But not anymore.”
Joseph’s gaze dipped to the scar on Killean’s chest. Killean didn’t look down at the faint white circle almost directly over his heart; he’d seen the thing too many times over the centuries.
“And why is that?” Joseph inquired.
Killean glanced away in what he hoped appeared to be shame. Acting had never been a skill of his. He’d never seen a reason to pretend about anything; he had no choice now. “I slipped up and killed.”
“You killed a human?” Joseph inquired.
Killean met Joseph’s eyes again. “Yes.”
“Ronan would forgive one slip up.”
“It was more than one.”
“Ah,” Joseph murmured as he lifted his hands from the desk and formed his fingers into a teepee beneath his chin. He studied Killean with an air of amusement. “Did you slip up, Killean, or did you give in to your desires? We may not know each other well, but I’ve never seen you with a woman, so they are not what you wanted most after maturing. Perhaps you seek pain, but I believe bloodlust and killing are what you battled over the years.”
Joseph’s attempt at trying to have some insight into him made his blood boil, but he’d thrown himself into this game, and Simone’s life depended on him playing it well. “I slipped up, and then I gave in.”
“It happens to the best of us. Once we get a taste of the power killing gives us, we only want more.” Joseph licked his lips as he lowered his hands. “It is such a rush.”
Killean’s fangs tingled as he recalled the flow of hot, fresh blood sliding down his throat along with the life force of his victims. It disgusted him, but excitement slid over his skin as the memories of those deaths danced through his mind. Though Killean would never admit it to the prick, Joseph had guessed right about him and his bloodlust.
Upon reaching maturity, all male purebred vampires experienced three things: they stopped aging, their power increased every year they grew older, and they started to want incessantly for something more. Some sought out sex as often as possible, others pain, while others craved blood or killing. Some female purebreds also experienced it, but not on the same level as the men.
When he stopped aging, Killean’s thirst for blood and killing amped up tenfold. It had taken everything he had not to give in and slaughter everyone he encountered after maturing, but the centuries-old words of his father, also a purebred, stopped him from doing so.
When he was a boy, Killean’s brother once asked their father why he didn’t kill the humans he fed on? Killean had lifted his head from the book he was reading to hear his father’s reply.
“Because killing them would make me a monster, son,” his dad replied as he ruffled his brother’s hair. “And we don’t want to be monsters, do we?”
“No, we don’t,” his brother solemnly replied, and Killean gave a brisk nod of agreement.
His father had looked back and forth between them while he continued speaking. “No matter what becomes of you when you grow older, you must never give in and kill those weaker than yourself. You must never kill a human unless it is necessary for your survival. It would make you less of a vampire. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Papa,” they replied in unison.
His father never revealed what happened to vampires who killed humans before he died, probably because they were children when he passed, but his warning guided Killean through the turbulent years of his twenties, thirties, and forties. And then, when he was fifty-two, exactly four hundred years ago, he encountered Ronan.
Ronan had taken him in and taught him more about himself and the nefarious impulses he battled. He trained Killean to focus his bloodlust on killing Savages and given him an outlet for his dark urges. With the Defenders, Killean finally found a place to belong and friends who became family over the years.
If it hadn’t been for Ronan, Killean would have eventually caved and started killing, but Ronan saved him, and Killean would always be grateful for that. And now, not only had he let his father and Ronan down after all these years, but he’d become the one thing he’d vowed never to be.
Self-loathing swelled within him, but then he recalled Simone chained to the wall and the desolation in her white-blue eyes. There had been no other choice. He may not be able to get her out of here yet, but he’d located her, and that was much more than he would have accomplished had he remained as he was. And now that he’d found her, he would get her free.
“Hmm,” Joseph murmured as strolled out from behind the desk. His eyes reddened with every step he took toward Killean. “You know, when a turned vampire becomes a Savage, they still don’t possess the ability to scent a Savage like us purebreds can.”
Killean’s shoulders went back as Joseph neared and the increasing scent of garbage wafted to him. The rotten aroma wasn’t as strong as before Killean turned into a murderer, but it was there. This ability of the pureblooded vampire was the reason he’d chosen to kill instead of trying to fake his way through this. He hadn’t known if a purebred retained their ability to scent out a Savage or not once they became one.
He still didn’t know. Just because he could detect the aroma of refuse on Joseph and the other Savages, didn’t mean all purebreds retained the trait. He might not have killed enough yet to drowned out the stench of the monsters among them.
Then Joseph stopped before him and leaned close. Hatred slithered through Killean. He was a killer now too, but this piece of shit was the reason he stood here. If Joseph had been strong enough not to give in to his impulses, if he’d never declared war against Ronan, hunters, the human race, and everything they’d always known, Simone wouldn’t be here, and neither would he.
No matter what happened, Killean wouldn’t allow this monster to live.
Joseph stopped only a couple of inches away and sniffed him. Killean managed to keep his revulsion from showing on his face as Joseph rocked on his heels, clasped his hands behind his back, and grinned.
“Well, Killean, your aroma certainly has changed.”
So, Joseph can still scent Savages even though he is one. And Joseph had murdered far more humans than Killean, so that meant the trait never vanished.
Killean killed those humans in case Joseph retained this ability, but he felt no relief that their deaths hadn’t been unnecessary. If Joseph scented a Savage on him, that made Killean one of them.
Not one of them. I will come back from this!
He told himself this repeatedly, but he didn’t know how accurate it was anymore considering he was already impatient to feed again.
Chapter Four
Joseph sauntered away from him, around the desk, and opened a door on the other side of the room. “Bring my friend some clothes,” Joseph commanded the woman standing outside the door. She hurried away as Joseph turned to another woman. “Bring us some refreshments.”
“Right away,” she murmured.
Joseph closed the door, lifted a wooden chair from the shadows beside the door, and set it at the desk and across from his chair. “Sit, Killean,” Joseph said as he walked over and settled into his chair.