Page 8 of Dead to Rights
“Who areyou?” Noah shot back, his usual patience lacking from both his voice and his body language.
“This is Noah,” Finn interjected, stepping in before things went from heated to nuclear. “You already seem to know who I am.”
He raised an eyebrow and waited for her to fill in the missing pieces.
Her smile returned, a flash of pointed canines that barely extended past her other teeth. “I’m Karleigh.” She tilted her chin up and stretched her neck, her eyes wide and beseeching. “You really don’t remember me?”
Finn winced, his hand throbbing from her tight grip. Every time he tried to pry it away, however, she only squeezed harder.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I really don’t know who you are.”
Her nose scrunched, and her lips pursed, but she recovered quickly with a gentle pat to his forearm. “You will. Everything is going to be perfect this time. You’ll see.”
“Wait,” Noah said. “What do you meanthis time?”
Karleigh ignored him as she stared out toward the river and shook her head slowly. “I’ll be more careful this time,” she muttered, speaking more to herself than to him or Noah. “No more mistakes. I can’t make any mistakes.”
“What mistakes?” Noah demanded. He took another step toward her, only to stop short when she snapped her head up and growled. To his credit, however, he didn’t retreat. “What mistakes?” he repeated. “What did you do?”
Just to be safe, however, Finn sidestepped, placing himself between Noah and the vampire.
“Nothing,” she said a little too innocently. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Finn winced, his eyes squinting against a non-existent glare as sharp, stabbing pain lanced through his temples. Pressure built in his head, his gaze sliding in and out of focus as something from his past pressed against him.
A flash of strawberry blonde hair. Delicate but inflexible fingers gripped around his jaw. A wispy, high-pitched voice whispering into his ear.
“You’re his sire,” Noah said. It wasn’t a question. “You’re the one who turned him.”
Karleigh glared at him, every muscle in her body rigid with defiance, but she didn’t deny it. “Yes.”
Finn supposed that explained why he had been drawn to her, despite all the neon warning signs telling him to run in the opposite direction.
“You killed me.”
He figured he should probably feel some kind of way about that, and maybe it would come later. Right then, he was just relieved to finally be getting some answers after months of dark spots and hazy recollections.
“Oh, it didn’t hurt,” she assured him, stroking her fingers up and down his forearm. “I made sure of it.”
Since he didn’t remember, he’d have to take her word for it. “Why?”
“Well, it’s kind of necessary to becoming a vampire.” Outwardly, she appeared friendly and patient, but with the type of saccharine sweetness that left a bad aftertaste.
“No shit,” Noah snorted. “I think he wants to know why you turned him in the first place.”
Her eyes cut to the side and pulled together at the corners. “So we can be together, of course.”
For the first time since the conversation had started, Finn felt a flicker of irritation. “And you didn’t think I should have a say in that?”
Karleigh’s lips curled into something that could have resembled a smile if not for the frantic intensity behind her eyes—a hunger, proprietary and unsettling.
“I didn’t need to ask,” she replied, her voice low and unwavering. “I chose you.”
He finally wrested his arm from her grasp and took a step back, holding his hand out to stop her when she tried to follow. “I don’t even know you.”
Karleigh continued to smile, unfazed. “You will,” she promised, as if the future was already written. “We’re connected. Now and forever.”
Noah barked out a sharp laugh, a sound filled with disgust rather than humor. “So, you what? Picked him out of the crowd and decided to add custom upgrades like some kind of Build-A-Beau?”
