Blood Life Seeker by Nicola Claire Read Free Book Online

Dream Walk. If I Dream Walk twice in one night, I'm out for the count for a week. Well, maybe less now that I have turned 25, but it would be several days and I just couldn't risk that.
    It was early, just after half past six according to my bedside clock. Might as well get up and embrace the day. I took a quick shower and changed and was just switching the coffee machine on when the phone rang. No one usually rings at this hour. Hmm.
    I picked it up while the smell of freshly ground coffee beans permeated the air. I was going for an Arabica bean this morning, something with a bit of zing.
    “Hello.”
    “Luce, it's Celeste.” Celeste is a Taniwha, one of Rick's Hapū and his fiancée to boot. I like Celeste, we've always got on and much more so since she and Rick became an item. Before then she was friendly, but distant. I had put it down to the fact that I was an outsider, not one of the Hapū, but now I realise she had just been jealous of my friendship with Rick. She's got him now, so I'm no longer competition. Besides, Rick and I haven't been seeing as much of each other as we used to. I no longer monopolise his time.
    “Hey you, what's up?” I asked.
    I could hear her taking a deep breath in on the other end of the line. Fortifying herself it would seem. “It's Rick, Luce. I need your help.”
    My stomach felt like it had just dropped to my feet. I may not be seeing that much of Rick right now, but he has been my best friend since I came to Auckland. I would hate for him to be in trouble, or worse, hurt.
    “What's happened, Celeste? Tell me.”
    I realised then she was crying, I could hear it in the catch of her breath, the roughness of the whisper. She was trying to hold it in, smother it, but it was there, raw, waiting to be released.
    “Celeste? You're worrying me. What's wrong?”
    “He's been so angry lately. So not my Rick. I didn't know who to turn to, Luce. I didn't know what else to do. He'll listen to you”
    “It's all right, Celeste, you've come to me now, we'll sort it out together. Why's he angry? What's happened?”
    Rick may be a shape shifter, and shape shifters have mighty fine tempers, but he's more of a hugable Taniwha than most. He's big and athletic and strong, built like a pro wrestler, well a pro-kick boxer any way, but he's all gentle kindness and heartfelt caring usually. Anger is not something you see too often on Rick. But, in saying that, I had seen a fair bit more of it than usual recently.
    “Ever since the battle and losing Rocky he's been different,” she replied.
    Rocky was a young member of the Hapū who died fighting Max, the evil vampire who came to steal me away. I had always felt Rocky's death had been my fault. It didn't help that I had witnessed it and not done anything to help him.
    “He's determined to get revenge. He's consumed by it,” Celeste continued.
    “Max is dead, Celeste. Michel killed him. There is no one else to get revenge from.”
    She laughed, a slightly bitter bark of a laugh, something so unlike Celeste's dainty, feminine titter. “He's not satisfied with just one vampire death, Luce. He wants them all dead.”
    I felt the world fall away briefly and slumped down onto the floor by the phone, my back against the wall the base unit was attached to. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath in. “He can't mean that.” My voice sounded wrong, not mine, a little restricted, strangled even. Rick wouldn't be this foolish. Wouldn't be this unkind. I may be the official vampire hunter in this city, but even I don't want them all dead. There is good in some of them, there is Light. Surely Rick can see that too?
    “He's fixated on it, Luce. It's all he thinks about, all he talks about. He's started to get a few of the younger Taniwhas on his side. He's talking them 'round. It's almost like he wants a little posse, so they can all go out hunting vampires in a group. I've never seen him like this Luce, he's a man possessed.”
    “What does Jerome say?”