Heart of Stone - Book 2: Hearts Collide
Chapter 17 - Stone (Part 2)

Stone grimaced as pain pierced through his heart. Leaning against a brick wall, he gasped for air into his burning lungs, despite trying not to inhale the putrid stench of burning vampire flesh.

He hadn’t felt this pain since Aubree came to live at the pack house. What was wrong with her now? She was fine when he left her.

“Damn, the hell is wrong with you, man?”

Gritting his teeth, Stone pushed down the urge of shifting into his beast and ripping the punk’s head off.

Was this the best Davis could replace?

There was no way in hell that Stone would explain why he was in so much pain. The kid didn’t even know what he was exactly, and Stone wanted to keep it that way. The kid, Trey, was barely out of his teens. While he was fit and intelligent, he had one grating attitude that made Stone want to kill him if it weren’t for the fact that they needed all the help they could get.

He had to put up with the newbie slayer tonight since he insisted on hunting in the downtown core for Carina. While they hadn’t found Carina yet, they did manage to replace and kill another newborn.

The good thing about having Trey around was that he was happy to let Stone handle the vampire killing part, while he disposed of the body.

Despite the ache in his chest, Stone pulled himself away from the wall. He couldn’t show any weakness in front of the newbie—even though Davis told him to go easy on him.

Yanking the ripped, blood-soaked black T-shirt from his chest, he tossed it into the flames licking over the edge of the metal trashcan.

“Bruh, you should get a tattoo to cover that big ass scar on your back,” Trey said. “It’s nasty as fuck. How did ya get that?”

Stone turned and glared at the kid. As if he would tell him.

The punk held his arms up in mock surrender.

Stone grunted as another wave of agony coursed over him. “What good would a tattoo do when my skin gets shredded up anyway?”

The vampire had ripped up his back during the fight, but he waited until his injuries were healed before he took his shirt off. He didn’t want to explain to the newbie his healing capabilities. The less he knew, the better.

“I guess.” He dug into the pocket of his black trench coat and pulled out a small plastic cylinder. “So, what am I supposed to do with this?”

Stone held out his hand for it.

Trey looked from Stone and back at the object in his hands before he curled his fingers around it. “I’m the one who cut it off. Doesn’t that mean I get to keep it?”

“I’m the one who killed the leech, so it belongs to me,” Stone said lowly.

Reluctantly, Trey stomped toward him and handed him the small see-through cylinder. Stone looked at the severed finger before pocketing it in his black, blood-soaked shorts.

This was their proof. Their paycheck. For every vampire they killed, they cut off the index finger so it could be identified, tracked, and traced. It was more important to the government officials that they obtain proof. To Stone, it was a reminder that someone out there would receive news of the loss of a son, daughter, brother, sister, mother, or father, but he tried not to think about it that way.

Once a vampire, always a vampire. And vampires had to be eliminated. He was doing their families a favor by ending the misery before it could break their hearts.

“Thank you,” Stone said.

Grumbling, Trey shoved his hands in his pockets and returned to the burning trashcan. In the glow of the firelight, Stone saw sadness on the kid’s mahogany-toned face. The haunting look made the pain in Stone’s chest intensify.

Groaning, he looked away as he leaned against the cool surface of the wall and closed his eyes, listening to the crackle and pop of the fire, the distant sound of a passing car, and the soft scratch of claws from scurrying mice.

He reached out through his mind-link to Gavin back home. [Gawain, can you check up on Aubree?]

He wasn’t sure if Gavin would even be awake yet. The sun wouldn’t be rising for a few more hours. Still, it didn’t hurt to try and make sure everything was alright back home.

It took a few seconds for him to get a groggy reply. [She’s fine. Just crying.]

[About what?]

There was a note of hesitation in Gavin’s reply. [Rose...]

Stone’s heart clenched at the mention of Hector’s mate after what he and Hector talked about in the forest earlier that day.

What would trouble Aubree more than what Rosemary was incapable of having, and what Stone wished to deny her?

[She didn’t tell her about...]

[Pups? Yeah.] Gavin paused. [Aubree didn’t take it well.]

Groaning, Stone buried his face in his hands as he slumped against the wall. Why did Rosemary have to tell her now? Sure, Rosemary was the best candidate to speak to Aubree on the topic of pregnancies, but it should have been him to tell her why he couldn’t risk getting her pregnant. He would have told her... eventually.

[Family meeting when I come home. You, me, and Guinevere,] he told Gavin.

[Okay, Papa.]

[Get some rest.]

“You don’t look so good, man,” Trey said next to the trashcan. “You sick, or something?”

Stone pinched the bridge of his nose. “That would depend on your definition of sick.”

He looked over to see Trey’s eyebrows rise up, giving his face a ghastly, hollow appearance in the glow of the fire. “Is that a sick and twisted reference, or...?”

“We destroy vampires, Trey. What do you think?”

The hammering of Trey’s heart made Stone smirk.

“You’re... You’re not going to kill me... right?” Trey’s heart thumped wildly in his chest. “I mean, Davis said you were high-strung and all, but that you were safe.”

Stone straightened up and pushed himself off the wall. He took slow, deliberate steps toward the newbie. “In this business, you put your trust in two things: your gut and instinct. No one and nothing else.”

Trey stepped back from the trashcan. He began muttering curses under his breath as his eyes darted around them. There was only one way to go down the alley and that was back since Stone was blocking the path before him.

Stone paused in his tracks, knowing that he scared the kid enough. Trey looked ready to make a run for it. “Davis is right though. You’re safe with me. Much safer than if you were alone or with him. You can trust me on that.”

“H-How do I know I can trust you?” Trey asked. “You just said—”

“I wish to keep my life, Trey,” Stone said as he turned his gaze down to the metal drum as the fire began to creep down. Most of the remains were ash now. Only ten more minutes and everything would be dust. “The last human I killed earned me that scar on my back, and that death had been an accident. The Council would surely kill me if another human died at my hands—accident or otherwise.”

Trey swallowed before Stone turned his back to him.

“Clean this up when it’s done, then go home. I’ll take it from here,” Stone said.

Marching away, he wove through the alleys in search of Davis. It took about half an hour to replace the slayer, tucked away in a dark crevice as he watched the last bar close for the night.

“You need to replace Trey,” Stone told the senior slayer.

Davis had an unlit cigarette between his lips and chewed on the butt. “No can do, lycan.”

Scowling, Stone crossed his arms. “He’s a coward. He’s going to get himself killed.”

Davis narrowed his eyes at Stone as he pulled the cigarette from his lips between two fingers. “What did you do to him?”

Stone maintained a stern expression. “Nothing.”

Davis wasn’t buying it, especially when Stone grimaced after another stab of pain struck his chest. His eyes watched him in a calculating way before he lifted the cigarette back to his lips and lit the tip with a lighter. He took a drag before exhaling. “What was that all about?”

“Nothing.” Stone straightened his spine and bit back the pain.

“Doesn’t look like nothing.”

“Nothing that you need to concern yourself with.” The edge in his voice shut Davis up.

He puffed thoughtfully on his cigarette for a bit. The tip glowed brightly before dimming. Smoke curled and hovered before him as he exhaled, his jaw flexing.

When the curls of smoke blew in Stone’s direction, he pulled back. But he picked up something else on the breeze. “Think about what I said,” Stone told him as he took another step away. “Replace him as soon as you can.”

“He lost his sister to those leeches,” Davis said as Stone began to walk away. “His heart’s in it. He just needs to toughen up.”

“It’s your call, then,” Stone replied before he slipped away.

He needed to get to her before she disappeared.

He didn’t have to look hard. He found her a few minutes later as she sat on a bench in front of a fountain with her ankles crossed under her and the moonlight shining on her pale hair. She looked down at her hands in her lap, the wind tugging gently at her white dress and sending soft tresses of hair to flutter in front of her lowered face. She looked like a marble statue of a Greek or Roman goddess.

Lillian made no attempt to move or flee as he approached, even though he was certain she could sense him coming. He strained his senses in case it was a trap, but he couldn’t pick up any other sounds or scents but her own. He strode forward cautiously on silent feet.

“I knew you would replace me,” she said as he neared. “You always did have a way of replaceing me. And yet, you haven’t killed me.”

“You’re looking well,” was all he would say.

She swallowed but kept her head lowered. “I can forgive you for hurting me instead of killing me. But I can’t forgive you for killing Adranus. He was a great father.”

“Great father?” He scoffed. “How would your real father feel, knowing that you became this?”

She looked up at him with hardened eyes. “I killed my father after I became this.”

That caught Stone off-guard and he stepped back.

She looked away quickly. “He didn’t deserve the quick death I gave him after what he did to me... I didn’t mourn him at all. Not like I’m mourning now.”

Stone didn’t know what to say to that, or how to even feel about it. She had no remorse whatsoever for the man whose flesh and blood she came from, and instead loved the creature who turned her into this. A creature of the night. A soulless, blood-sucking, lifeforce-stealing monster.

If it had been any other vampire, it wouldn’t have bothered him, but for Lillian, it did stir a pain within him.

Although, that could be Aubree’s emotions getting the best of him again. It was hard to tell. She was still upset about the news and it hadn’t let up yet.

She sighed when he didn’t say anything further. “There’s a war brewing, Stone. We are tired of tiptoeing around in the shadows. Tired of losing those we call family. I’m sure you know what that’s like. But this is beyond you and me, and nothing I say will change anything.”

The hairs on the back of Stone’s neck stood on end. “Is that a threat?”

She looked up, conflict evident in her large eyes. “A warning. I am just a messenger, am I not?”