Besides, he was taking her home in a fashion. Nothing had changed but the method of transport and the schedule. Eventually, he would hand her over to Lincoln and Lilith in Oslo.
And by then he would have completed another of his mission parameters. He would have ensured that she was safe. Not from Adam and the bastard weaklings, but from herself.
Vengeance was the only thing keeping her alive right now. He had to change that. He needed to make her see that life as a vampire could be so much better than she knew, that from this point on, no one was going to hurt her. Never again.
He would see to that.
Tor packed his things away, carefully compartmentalising his weapons, taking his time to give both himself and Eve some space to breathe.
Did she find the heat that flared between them whenever they looked at each other, the incredible awareness, as unsettling as he did?
She was a hunter too. She had probably lived her life in a similar fashion to him, although she hadn’t been alone.
He had been trained from the outset to work alone, to maintain his distance from everyone and avoid intimacy.
They had trained him to hunt and kill his mission targets, and to withstand torture, to do whatever it took to complete his orders without feeling a shred of emotion.
Just as Eve had been trained to despise vampires, to track and slay them without remorse.
They were both products of their training, both changed by it, and he had no doubt that they were now both experiencing a sensation of weakness and vulnerability, uncertainty, because of what they were feeling.
Attraction. Desire. Passion.
A hunger so deep it consumed them.
“
T
or?”
Tor turned as her soft voice invaded his turbulent thoughts and looked across the hotel room at her where she stood by the window, one hand holding the pale curtain aside and the other arm wrapped around her waist, clutching the white towel robe over her hip. Her dark gaze remained steady on the outside world.
“How are we going to find them?”
He zipped his bag closed, carried it to the armchair near the bathroom and set it down next to Eve’s. “Did they move around when you were with them?”
She nodded. “They never stayed in the same place twice either, and their choices were very different each time. Sometimes we were in a basement, sometimes in a whole building in the countryside, and sometimes we were in a loft apartment. It was never the same sort of place, and never a similar location.”
Not good news.
He had done his share of tracking weaklings and sometimes it had taken months to find their homes. Unlike the pureblood families, weaklings didn’t have the money to buy themselves status and a comfortable, secure home, and they didn’t have the strength to defend it even if they could. His kind had hunted them mercilessly, driving them to skulk in the shadows and lurk in places most purebloods wouldn’t lower themselves to visit, ones suited to their kind.
Rats. Cockroaches. Weaklings were the worst sort of vermin.
“Did you overhear anything that gave you a clue to your next location?” He moved across the room to her. The sun was rising now and if she stood there in front of the window much longer, she was going to get more than a tan.
Tor pulled the curtain free of her hand and his thumb brushed hers. She tensed, a soft gasp escaping her at the same time as a jolt ran up his arm, a rush of heat and electricity. He tamped down the reaction and the hunger it and her proximity stirred within him, and closed the curtain, smoothing it down to make sure there were no cracks where the sun could penetrate.
“Once maybe. They didn’t talk in front of me often. They kept me away from the others.” She walked to the bed and sat on the end of it, her white robe blending into the sheets. “After I escaped them, I spent time preparing myself and tracking them while I formulated my plan to take them down. I would spy on them for information I might be able to use, but I can’t remember anything important. Nothing that could help us now.”
“Nothing at all?” Tor dragged the armchair from the corner across the room and set it in front of her. He sat in it, leaned forwards, and rested his elbows on his knees.
Her face scrunched up and she was silent for long minutes before saying, “I did hear them talking once about something, but it didn’t make sense. Something about little walls and a sanctuary in an old church.”
It was Tor’s turn to fall silent and pensive. Little walls and an old church. It was as good a clue as any, but Eve clearly didn’t recognise it as one. Section Seven mustn’t have given her many missions outside of the United Kingdom.
“I said it didn’t make sense,” she muttered and he lifted his head and shook it.
“It makes perfect sense.” Tor’s lips twitched when her eyes grew enormous, so wide the white showed all around her stunning rich brown irises. “De Wallen are the little walls, and Oude Kerk is the old church.”
“It’s a location?”
He nodded. “A viable one too if your information is recent because they’re still in Paris right now.”
“It’s not in Paris?” Her dark eyebrows dipped low above her beautiful eyes and he shook his head again.
“Amsterdam. It’s neutral ground. No pure bloodline has residence in the city, but there’s a Vehemens safe house in the countryside not far from it. A lot of pureblood vampires frequent the area you mentioned.”
She leaned forwards, her frown melting away, a glimmer of curiosity crossing her face. “Why, is it good hunting?”
Tor almost smiled again.
“It’s the red light district,” he said and her eyes grew even wider, tempting him into unleashing his smile. He swore that if she could have, she would have been blushing ten shades of red. Before she could say anything, he asked, “How long ago did you hear them talking about this?”
“A few weeks back, maybe a month. I remember it because they smelt of blood at the time and it made me focus on them more intensely. I could do nothing but stare and listen, absorbed in them.” The sour look on her face warned she hadn’t liked it. If she was as hungry as he suspected, her instincts would have hijacked her body and compelled her to feed.
Tor leaned a little closer to make sure he had all of her attention. Her eyes met his, the darkness back in them, showing him the side of her that despised those new instincts and what she had become.
She had seemed normal and at ease before mentioning blood and that moment when she had been spying on her betrayer. It gave him hope that he could convince her that feeding wasn’t something vile akin to torture and that being a vampire was the same as being human, but with added benefits, and some drawbacks.
“Eve?” he said in a low cautious tone and she blinked in response, as if pulling herself out of a daze. “How long has it been since you fed?”
“I fed at One.” She didn’t miss a beat. Her answer was out before he had even finished his question.
Tor continued carefully, not wanting to upset her or make her lash out at him. “I spoke to Oneiric. You had animal blood mixed with human blood from him. That’s not enou—”
“What?” she snapped and shot to her feet, her eyes enormous and fury pouring off her. “Human blood?”
Tor inwardly grimaced and ignored her outburst. He should have known Oneiric would keep it from her. He had probably told her that it was purely animal blood. The stronger smell would have obscured the softer fragrance of the human blood in the mix.
“That isn’t feeding. When was the last time you hunted and fed properly?” he continued and she began to pace, taking swift agitated strides across the pale carpet, making a trail between him and the hotel room door.
“I’ve never hunted.”
That took him aback. “Never?”
Eve turned away and stopped with her back to him. “I don’t want to talk about it. Tell me more about this place in Amsterdam. You think we’ll find them there?”
Tor pushed to his feet. He didn’t want to press her but this mission depended on strength, speed, and secrecy, and Eve had just announced she was a liability, in a condition far worse than he had suspected. No wonder she hadn’t been able to fend off the weaklings at the club. She was probably close to starving.
“Have you had human blood since your turning? Other than what Oneiric slipped you?” He took a step towards her and she tensed, her shoulders hunching, as if his words had lashed at her. “Eve? This is important. Have you?”
“I have… but not by choice. They made me drink it.” She turned on him, her eyes sharp and flashing crimson. “Don’t you dare think you can do the same. I’m fine on animal blood. I don’t need human blood. I won’t drink it.”
Tor backed off, his senses screaming that she was close to attacking him, her instincts driving her to protect herself. Fear and hurt rolled off her, fury mixed in with them. He bit back his desire to apologise and comfort her, and kept silent instead, giving her a moment to rein in her emotions and find calm again.
Words crawled up his throat, a confession that he would never force blood on her, would never hurt her as the other vampires had. He swallowed them back down.
He had heard reports about her sister. Lady Lilith had refused to hunt, and had only taken blood from her mate, Lincoln.
Would Eve take blood from another vampire?
Blood from a vampire would give her more strength than blood from an animal, especially if the vampire had fed well on strong humans.
Tor shut out that tempting, wicked thought, crushing it. Eve would never desire to bite a male like him. She was too beautiful, too pure and untainted, and too far above his rank.
“You’ll weaken if you continue to refuse to feed,” he said to fill the silence and shut out the whispered words of temptation floating around his mind, ones that goaded him into offering up his neck to her fangs.
“I’m fine,” she countered and tipped her chin up. “I’m doing just fine without human blood.”
She wasn’t and she knew it. He could spell things out for her. He could make her see just what she was getting herself into. She would hate him for it and it probably went against all of Lincoln’s rules, but he couldn’t stand by and let her kill herself.
“Do you know how long it takes for a vampire to starve to death?” Tor calmly took his seat again and swung his feet up onto the end of the bed, slumping in the armchair. He laid his hands on his bare stomach, his little fingers brushing the waist of his black jeans.
Eve shook her head.
“You know what happens in that time?” he said.
Another shake.
“You know how many vampires unsuccessfully attempt to commit suicide that way?”
She didn’t know that either.
Tor stared at her, studying her face and her figure, and how she felt on his senses, no stronger than a weakling.
Fragile. Vulnerable.
No good to him on this mission.
He needed a strong partner, one who didn’t have hunger constantly riding them, gnawing away at their insides and dampening their senses and weakening their concentration. Eve was useless to him as she stood. Even if she gorged herself on animal blood, she still wouldn’t be strong enough to fight a group of weaklings.
“It takes a vampire years to starve to death. It’s excruciating.” He tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling for a second to gather himself before bringing his gaze down to her again. “Imagine feeling your body desiccating… the pain that would cause… the agony. The insanity. There are faster and less painful ways to commit suicide if you’re serious about it.”
She glared stakes at him for that. Tor shrugged it off. He wasn’t going to apologise about any of this. He was going to give her the lesson Oneiric should have bestowed on her the moment he had realised she was starving herself.
“You hate it when I call it that, don’t you?” he said with a grim smile. “It’s the truth. You’re committing suicide, or you would be if it was possible to die from self-inflicted starvation.”
“What do you mean?” Eve sat on the end of the bed again, close to his feet. Her towel robe draped over them, warm and soft against his bare skin.
Tor stared at her, cold and emotionless, gathering that emptiness within him and holding on to it to combat the feelings beginning to stir and lurk in the depths of his heart. “Do you know what happens to a vampire’s mind when they’re starving? They go insane at first.”
“At first?” Her dark eyebrows drew together and her rosy lips compressed into a thin line.
He nodded. “Then, once the blood hunger becomes too intense, and they’re verging on death… they snap.”
Eve sat back and folded her arms across her chest. “You said they’re already insane.”
Tor nodded again.
“They don’t go crazy when they snap. Their instincts take control. They become a slave to them… mindless… driven by a dark urge to survive.” With each word he spoke her eyes grew larger, her feelings in deeper disarray, all playing out on her face as it became a picture of horror. He refused to stop and coddle her. She needed to know the truth and where she was heading. “They kill indiscriminately. They feed until they are gorged with blood and then they heal and they emerge from their bloodlust, but some never fully recover. Their mind remains cracked. Is that what you want?”
Eve shook her head and her arms fell to her sides, her hands coming to rest beside her thighs.
“So feed.” He crossed his arms and narrowed his gaze on hers, holding it and not relenting, not giving her a chance to look away and somehow avoid what he had said.
“No,” she whispered her refusal so quietly that he almost didn’t hear it.
Tor huffed. “At least eat more animal blood. You can’t live on it. Don’t think you can. You can survive on it until you’re more comfortable with yourself… but you will continue to weaken. You’re only slowing your slide towards your vampire instincts seizing control and making you feed, and when that happens, you’re going to have to be prepared to deal with the consequences. It will be bloody.”
Eve tore her gaze away from his and stared at her knees. She sat in silence for so long he was sure that she would last the day without speaking to him, and then she lifted her chin again, and looked him square in the eye.