Switch of Fate 3 Read online

  A strong hand grabbed at her elbow. He spoke again. “It’s over. There aren’t any more to kill.”

  She yanked away, inexplicably angry at his words and the fact that he knew exactly what she was thinking. Gemma quickened her stride, unable to stop herself, but she tossed a look over her shoulder with her words. “Any more what?”

  The stranger’s voice came back, tight. “Slow down, I’ll tell you.”

  He made another grab for her arm, as if to guide her, but this time Gemma couldn’t shake him off. Panic flared in her belly and her heart began to race again. She slashed at his fingers with the knife, not knowing why, not caring if she cut herself, or him.

  He inhaled sharply. His hand left her elbow and he cursed. “Fuck!”

  Gemma ran from him, the night closing in on her, everything confusing her, not knowing up from down, only knowing she had to fight - fight, slash, and kill. She ran a dozen steps, ducked behind a tree, then crouched and froze, listening hard, ready for anything.

  For a second she almost laughed. Ten years ago, if she’d been lost in the forest, Gemma would have been curled up in a ball of hysterics, begging for her mama or Superman to come and save her from the beasts she would be sure were about to sink their teeth into her. Now I’m the predator. The thought made her breath hitch.

  When Mr. Sexy spoke again his voice was almost soothing, with just a touch of frustration around the edges. “I’m trying to help you.”

  But Gemma wasn’t going to fall for that. She had monsters to kill. She tightened her grip on the blade’s hilt, felt it shiver in her hand, and prepared to make her move. Mr. Sexy’s strangely familiar voice came again. “Ah, shit, here we go.”

  And that was when she struck.

  * * *

  Riot knew what was coming. She was about to try to treat him like a vampire, which meant a lot of slicing and dicing. The Fucking Cause strikes again. The fight was about to be for real, and he resented the hell out of it.

  He didn’t want to fight a woman, but if he pulled his defense so as not to hurt her, and launched no offense at all, she was liable to actually stab him. Shifters weren’t immortal; if she got him in the throat or the gut, there was always a chance he could be too shocked or injured to shift into a puma and heal himself. He took her attack seriously.

  He prepared himself, crouching, knowing she would launch herself at him, and his own knife would be coming first.

  Riot knew this Undoing wasn’t anywhere near finished. And between Cora and the mystery switch last month who’d fucked him and flown, Riot knew what his obligation as a shifter was: get her through her Prowl, that ramped-up-bloodlust time after killing a vampire. It was no joke. A switch in her Prowl who didn’t have vamps to kill might get so overcome with bloodlust that innocent people could find their way into her crosshairs. That’s when the shifters came in, again.

  The best way to distract a Prowling switch was by fucking her, but after that night with the purple switch, Riot wasn’t about to play stud for yet another stranger. The second and third ways were fighting or running her, and, from the knife flashing by his face, Riot got the sense this switch wasn’t down for wind-sprints.

  She popped out from behind a tree, coming for him, her face still familiar, but devoid of all reason. She would kill him if she could. Riot moved, but she was fast. He blocked, still not wanting to hurt her, and the blade sliced his forearm. Dammit, that’s twice. Time for that knife to go, no matter what I have to do.

  Riot moved fast to get ahead of her next blow, catching her arm and twisting her hand, grinding her bones together, plucking the knife from her grip as she fought and cursed him. He tossed it so it stuck in the bare ground at the base of a yellow pine.

  The switch cursed him again. “That’s mine!” she shouted, pulling back and kicking him in the gut. Oof. All the air was knocked out of him, he bent, trying not to fall, and that foot came again, straight for his temple.

  Riot twisted her foot, hard, but not as hard as he could, as his own blood spilled over her skin. She twisted with him, going down on one hip, yanking her foot away from him, not running, instead, scrambling on top of him. Both her hands came straight for his face, for his eyes! Riot caught her just in time and pushed with his whole body, rolling her off-balance and under him. Shades of sex, perfect. Hadn’t he said his meat-packing days were over?

  She got her legs around his midsection and squeezed, her hips lifting off the ground, bringing her body almost to vertical as Riot pushed at her, going fully defensive, thinking how sexy it would be if it weren’t painful. Still sexy.

  Riot’s body betrayed his brain, thinking it might like to try the fucking one more time, with this switch.

  As if she’d heard him, the switch dropped her pelvis to the ground, and Riot went with it, curling forward, until their faces were in line and her fighting him turned to her curling an arm around his neck and kissing him. It startled Riot so badly that for a second he didn’t know what to do, pull back or take the opportunity to pin her. Talk about fighting dirty.

  Then his choice fled. Her scent invaded him, took him over as sneakily as her tongue stole between his lips, as sweetly as her sigh slipped inside his mouth. Great Cat, she tasted good, like margaritas and lime sherbet and Granny Smith apples dipped in salted caramel, and he couldn’t get enough of her. He wanted more, wanted to get deeper. He sucked on her tongue and she tasted his like they’d been made for each other’s pleasure, there on the forest floor, in the night, after the kill.

  The grip of her legs softened, holding him close instead of hurting him, wrapping around his hips and offering up the softness of her own. Riot kept the switch’s arms restrained but she pressed forward to meet him, thrust her lush breasts against his firm chest, nipples so hard he could feel them through the thin fabric of his shirt. Riot sucked in a breath at the feeling and got another hit of her scent that sent him reeling. It was all he could do not to devour her right there, under the stars.

  When Riot came back to his senses, or back from them, it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. The squeeze around his midsection was gone altogether, and his arms weren’t holding the switch down. She was resting sweetly beneath him, her hands cradling his jaw, kissing him so tenderly Riot would swear he heard his walls quaking. She whispered softly, her eyes still closed, “Riot…”

  Riot sat up like a shot, dumping her in the dirt without meaning to.

  The switch knew his name.

  Chapter 5 - A Switch He Can’t Shake

  Gemma’s eyes flew wide as Riot pulled back from her, taking his lips away from hers. What? No! Kiss me more!

  She shook as she stared at him, recognized his face. Riot. Riot Cofield from high school. But wait… killing… she’d stabbed… something… but she was kissing Riot Cofield from high school. Had been kissing ultimate bad-boy Riot Cofield from high school, fulfilling an infinite number of abandoned fantasies.

  It had been twelve years and three months since she’d last seen him, but he looked better than ever. Dark hair flopping over one eye, tattoos everywhere, fuck-off rings on each finger, and that same bad-boy curve to his lip so that you knew what he was thinking in most situations.

  He spoke, his tone confused and guarded, holding her off with one hand to her shoulder. “You know my name… How?”

  He trailed off, the implication clear: he didn’t know hers. But he knew what the hell was going on here, more than she did, that much was obvious by his every action. “Tell me what’s going on,” she said, anger flaring now that the kissing had stopped.

  But Riot’s voice broke in, confident enough to slow her mind’s roll. “You first.”

  Gemma squirmed under Riot’s hot, hard body. Yeah, he didn’t remember her at all, that much was obvious. She had never meant to Riot what Riot had meant to her.

  “We went to high school together your senior year when my dad got stationed at Fort Bragg… ”

  Gemma had first gone to that high school in Fayetteville, North Caro
lina, on the east side of the state, at sixteen years old, and there she’d met Riot Cofield. Maybe met was a bit of an overstatement. They’d exchanged a few words, but Gemma had been quite sure that Riot hadn’t even known a little mouse like her was alive. Why would he? He’d sported a mohawk and a nose ring, she’d had glasses and books.

  Riot Cofield wore leather jackets and heavy boots and always had that one hunk of hair that flopped over his forehead and the shaved sides, shading one startling green eye. He’d had a motorcycle that the cops had impounded, and everyone said he’d broken in and stolen back. He’d been a legend. She’d been… a good student.

  Gemma did her best to focus on his face in the dark. He still didn’t remember. She didn’t expect him to. Except… Riot was staring at her with a look that seemed to her almost like… disbelief.

  “Name,” he almost growled at her. It sounded like sex. All at once she noticed that his lean hips were still between her spread legs, and his big, heavy, strong hands were resting on her thighs. Riot Cofield’s hands were on her thighs.

  Gemma cleared her throat and tried to stay cool. “Gemma Jackson,” she said quietly.

  He froze above her, not even breathing. Trying to place her? How humiliating. She raised her chin. “It’s okay if you don’t remember. We only ever had one class together.”

  Riot’s voice came back to her in the dark. Two words, low and gravelly, swirling close to her, making her tingle. “Marine Biology.”

  Whoa. Gemma’s body reacted in a flush. He remembered.

  On the first day of school, Gemma had sat in a front-row seat of Marine Biology class, ready to learn. At the end of class she’d been gathering her books and knocked one off her desk, but a male hand had plucked it out of the air like they’d planned it, replacing it gently back on the desk. Gemma had looked up at the boy who had caught her book to see eyes as green as seaglass, partially hidden behind a flop of black hair.

  Just like that, she had fallen for Riot Cofield. She’d spent the rest of the year falling deeper, wishing he’d notice her, praying for an errant glance or greeting, but it had never happened. They’d barely spoken to each other outside of that one class.

  “Right,” she whispered, all thoughts of fighting gone. All thoughts, period.

  The shaky sound of her own voice snapped Gemma out of her fog. This wasn’t like her at all. Riot Cofield shows up out of the blue when a bunch of weird shit was happening, and all of a sudden she’s sixteen years old again?

  Gemma cleared her throat and brushed her nerves aside, trying to muster some of the spunk she was famous for as a freelance journalist, chasing stories with no promise of payment. She threw Riot a winking smile and said, “So, now that we solved that mystery, maybe you could get off me?”

  Riot laughed, and she loved that he did. In school he’d never seemed to get bothered by anything or anyone. He was forever flashing that naughty smile that said, sure, he got the joke, he was just too cool to laugh. He was born to smile that smile.

  He spun off her neatly and was up in one motion, reaching out a hand to help her up. “You promise to stop trying to kill me?”

  Shit. Gemma was reminded of what had just happened. She’d stabbed some… thing. She dug her phone out of her pocket and flipped on the flashlight app, jogging back where they had come from, holding the light high. The body had to be around here somewhere. Although she kind of hoped it wasn’t, that she had dreamed the whole thing. Yeah, that would be totally cool. Maybe she’d gotten some bad fish and it was messing with her head, making her hallucinate.

  Riot was behind her, not saying anything, just following her. Gemma touched her trembling lips, wondering at the kiss. She could still feel the warmth of his skin against her fingertips. Everything about it had been right, except for what had happened just before. The… killing.

  The light from her phone landed on a wingtip shoe, and Gemma’s stomach gave a lurch of nausea. She really had done it, then? Killed a man? With a steadying breath she let the beam of light travel higher, over his expensive jeans and designer jacket, all the way up to his face. And that’s when Gemma gasped, crouching down for a closer look. She knew it! He was a monster. Shit. Shit. Shit. Monsters existed.

  Not human, not human. Gemma chanted the thought in her mind, not sure what to do with it. Clear evidence was right in front of her, that something was going on here, and yet, her mind still didn’t want to believe it. It was too much, too terrifying. But exciting, too, her mind whispered, as her body remembered the power that had rippled through her.

  First, when she’d decided to chase the guy, when she’d given herself over to the power calling from inside her. Second when Riot had tossed her his knife. More power. When she’d stabbed she’d been strongest of all.

  And still if she didn’t get some answers soon she was going to puke all over everything. She’d killed something, and she wanted to know what!

  Gemma held herself together as she examined him… it. She’d stabbed him only minutes ago, but what was laying in front of her, in designer clothing that was not decayed, looked like a year-old carcass of a human. Not a pleasant sight, but one Gemma had seen before. Fresher bodies bothered her more, and this guy was not fresh. But he should be, dammit. “What the hell is he?” she asked no one.

  Something rustled in the leaves behind her, footsteps, coming near her, and she jumped. Chill. All better. Certificate to prove it.

  Riot spoke, his voice tired. “A vampire.”

  Gemma threw Riot a look. Yeah, right. And yet, hadn’t she said herself that the skeezy man was a monster? She crouched and leaned closer to the body, right up next to the guy’s face so she could get a better look at his funky skin, but a glint of white in his mouth stole her attention.

  No fucking way. Gemma shook her head. Fangs? An image flashed through her mind, of a smiling face and a different sort of fangs, but she shook it off. This is nothing like that. Hell, this was nothing like anything she’d seen or heard of before. She couldn’t be seeing fangs, but then, she shouldn’t have been glowing either. And point of fact: when someone stabbed a… person… that didn’t have these needle-y fangs, they bled blood, not red light.

  So maybe, yeah, maybe these things were fangs. Her mind whispered the word to her.

  Vampire.

  No. There was no such thing as vampires. No such thing as vampires, and he didn’t have fangs, he had abnormally long canine teeth. And in fact, she should do a story on normal, everyday people, who just happen to have abnormally long canine teeth, and she would. She would do a story, and it would explain everything…

  But the thoughts faded, trailed off, died in Gemma’s head. Because deep down inside, down in that special place where she let herself doodle the initials G.V.+R.C., she knew that what Riot said was the absolute truth. Riot knew what was going on, what this was all about.

  So why wasn’t he spilling it?

  * * *

  Riot stood his ground as Gemma whirled, shining her phone’s light in his eyes. He put up a hand to block the light. “Jesus, Gemma.” Her name sounded good from his mouth. He’d remembered her name, had thought it many times over the years, but for Cat’s sake… Gemma was a switch? The shock had knocked even his own name out of his head. Of all the women in the world, why her? Gemma was sweet, curious, pretty, innocent, the girl next door. The good girl next door, one he would never touch.

  Surprised curiosity tinged her voice. “Can’t fake those green eyes. And…” Her voice lowered. “Vampires? For real?”

  Riot shook his head. Meeting a switch and explaining her destiny hadn’t been on his agenda for the evening, but here he was. And here she was, looking at him with those pretty eyes.

  He looked away, his gaze landing on the vampire. “The body,” he said. The Cause couldn’t afford to leave every carcass lying out here or the forest was going to be crawling with cops, making it that much harder to keep their job of killing vampires undetected from human eyes. Just because Riot wasn’t part of The Cause
anymore didn’t mean he had to make shit harder for them.

  Riot stepped an experimental boot on the vampire’s denim-clad leg and felt the bones crumble to dust beneath him. A nasty, decaying odor, identical to the one from the earlier body, floated up from the ground. Riot took another step, crunched another few inches of bone. This could work.

  Methodically, he worked his way up, stepping carefully to make sure he ground each section of bone down to nothing before moving on to the next. “Get his shoes off,” he told Gemma.

  She jumped to do so, pulling the fancy shoes off and using the heels to whack at the corpse’s socked feet. Riot worked his way up the vampire’s other leg to his pelvis, was about to start stomping that, when Gemma shouted. “Wait! His pockets!”

  Smart thinking. But Riot wasn’t surprised. Gemma had always been scary smart, and he had always admired that about her.

  Gemma had been a year behind him in school, sixteen to Riot’s seventeen, but had looked much younger. That was what had caught his attention at first, the second she had walked into class and sat down right in the front row with a book bag that had to be almost as big as she was. Riot had thought she was a freshman who had wandered into the wrong class. She’d been petite, fresh, enthusiastic, and it had hurt him to think she would be hurt by life, just like everyone else.

  Riot remembered the thought clearly; that he would like to protect her from life, and if she would let him try, he would do his best. But someone like her would never let someone like him touch her. If he wanted to be part of her life, he would have to change. Be good. Work hard. It was the first time since his father’s death that he’d seriously considered such a thing.