Killer Cruise (Project 26 Book 11) Read online

  She would end up blacking out, only to awaken, hours later, back outside the front door of her sister’s house, her hands and face all covered in blood, and with no memory of where it was she might have gone, or what it was she might have done, but always with her appetite finally sated. This continued right up until the night Lottie awoke to find herself with the shredded, bloody carcass of a cat still in her hands.

  Although she tried her best to convince herself that she was still dreaming, and that the dead cat in her hands was just a residual part of her nightmare, it was in this moment that Lottie finally realised the truth. That this, this was what she had been feeding on all this time and that this, this was the reason why just lately all the local cats in the neighbourhood had suddenly started to disappear.

  In desperation, Lottie began trying to stop herself from going out, but when that just made the cravings worse, in the end, she just ended up giving in.

  Lottie’s only hope, and the one thing she clung to – the one thing that kept her sane – was that her bizarre cravings, along with her nightmares, were both only temporary, and that they would both finally come to an end once her pregnancy was over. The more they occurred, however, the harder it became for her to believe that.

  What was more, the harder it started to become for her to keep her night-time excursions a secret.

  Sooner or later, Lottie knew, she was going to get caught.

  What she would say then and how she might try and explain her actions, Lottie didn’t know.

  Already, people were starting to talk, in whispers, about just how many of the local cats had started to go missing. If word got out about her coming back to her sister’s house, late at night, all covered in blood, Lottie thought, it would only be a matter of time before people started putting two and two together and realising she was responsible.

  And if that happened, Lottie didn’t know what she’d do – for if her sister chucked her out, she had nowhere else left to go.

  She would just have to start trying to be more careful, Lottie thought. After all, it was only for a few more months and then hopefully, all this would be over.

  Those months could not pass quick enough.

  The sooner this baby came, Lottie thought, the sooner things could all go back to normal and the better things would be for everyone involved.

  Including her.

  ***

  Lottie was what was known as ‘a good-time girl’…or rather, that was what she had been, back before she’d managed to fall pregnant.

  Unsurprisingly, the ‘good times’ had all started to dry up more recently, coincidentally, ever since she’d first discovered she was with child.

  Right up until a few short weeks ago, Lottie had been extremely popular with all of the American servicemen and G.I’s that had come from across the pond to help them win the war. Now though, those same service men all seemed to have lost interest, almost as though those that she had once hung out with could now somehow sense she was pregnant, even though she had not yet started to show.

  Lukaas had been just one of several American servicemen with whom Lottie regularly provided ‘company’.

  He was also the one she believed was the father of her child.

  With his great, big puppy dog eyes, and his long, brown, shaggy hair – left to grow out in total disregard for the strict military regulations that all his other, fellow soldiers seemed to have to obey, almost as though somehow, for some reason, he, himself, was exempt – Lottie had fallen for Lukaas instantly the very first moment she saw him. It hadn’t taken long for him to rapidly become one of her favourites to hang around with as often as she could; not least because of the way he liked to spoil her and treat her like she was some kind of princess.

  Lukaas always made her feel like she was important, that she was special whenever she was with him, and that was something that many of his fellow G.I’s did not. Many of the others amongst his fellow soldiers could often be quite mean and cruel, knowing all too well that when they eventually returned home, they would never have to see any of the women they spent time with here ever again and so, not worrying about the consequences of their actions.

  Lukaas was different though, he was one of a kind.

  Or at least, that was what she’d always thought.

  Ever since he’d abandoned her, suddenly Lottie wasn’t so sure anymore.

  One of the reasons why she was so convinced Lukaas was the father of her child was because of the dreams. The dreams, the nightmares, had only started after the last time that she’d seen him, been intimate and had relations with him. Since this was around the same time that Lottie’s doctor had calculated she must have gotten pregnant, and there had been no one else she had slept with since, then, by rights, or at least so she told herself, there was simply no other person the father could be.

  He just had to be the father, he had to be, Lottie told herself. It simply couldn’t be anybody else.

  Lottie still remembered their last night together, and the last conversation that they’d had, just before he’d vanished from her life forever. It was almost as if it were only yesterday. Lukaas, she recalled, had asked her if she’d slept with any others apart from him – suddenly and unexpectedly because he’d never seemed all that bothered about it before – and, of course, Lottie had denied it, not really knowing what to say.

  “No, no of course not,” she’d told him, “You’re the only one for me, you know that,” Lottie had replied, not being entirely honest with him, but hoping she could fool him. Unfortunately, Lukaas wasn’t stupid, had recognised her words for the lies that they were as soon as they left her lips and unsurprisingly, had not taken her deception well.

  It wasn’t as though she wanted anybody else.

  Lukaas was an excellent lover; tireless, relentless, and amongst one of the best that she had ever had. He knew how to do things with his tongue downstairs that could make her climax like she had never even imagined was even possible before – but rationing was still in place, and the one thing American servicemen always had access to was an abundance of luxury goods. Fine quality nylons, expensive chocolate, wine...Lottie had grown used to being spoilt, had started to develop some very expensive tastes, and sometimes Lukaas wasn’t always around.

  A girl had to live, after all.

  “Don’t lie to me,” he had told her, his voice still soft, but full now of hidden menace; a thinly veiled threat of violence she had never seen before hiding behind his eyes. “Don’t ever lie to me. I can smell them on you. All the other men that you’ve brought up here. I can taste them...”

  With this, Lukaas had proceeded to sniff her like a dog; lowering his head to lick and nibble at her breasts, teasing her with that long, rough tongue of his, before moving back up to her neck and kissing his way all around her body.

  “I don’t mind you’re being with others,” he had told her, “but don’t ever lie to me about it, Lottie, I mean that.”

  His hand had circled her throat.

  “Because if you lie to me again, you’ll leave me with no other choice but to kill you. I don’t mind that you fucked them, but just don’t lie to me about it…”

  He’d turned her over after that, and mounted her from behind; taking her roughly in what he always called ‘the doggy position’ – the same position he always preferred whenever he was fucking her. Earlier, they’d had sex together in the missionary position, but she had been able to tell Lukaas had not enjoyed it, found it uncomfortable, and he hadn’t lasted long.

  This time, the act seemed to go on forever, and he seemed to almost revel in the fact that he was hurting her.

  “Don’t ever lie to me,” he said again, as he pumped his seed inside of her. “Promise me you’ll never lie to me…”

  And she did.

  She said the words.

  I promise…

  Later, as Lottie collapsed down on the bed, she felt some of his seed trickling out and pooling down around her front, right between her warm, wet t
highs.

  Though Lukaas always treated her rough, he was not amongst the worst of the men she had brought up here, she thought. One of her other lovers that she had seen a few times and brought back here liked to bite her during sex, and then lick up the blood that flowed from her wounds afterwards. She had only seen him a few times, and he always paid her well in the highest quality goods, but she had never really understood what the hell was up with him and all the biting.

  The last time he had bitten her, he had bitten her so hard the bite had left a mark.

  Lukaas was staring at that mark now, she suddenly realised.

  “No more. From now on, you’re mine, only mine. You belong to me, you understand?” Lukaas said to her then, holding her head in his hands and turning her face so he could stare into her eyes, making sure she fully understood what it was he was saying to her. “No more fucking other men; no more, you understand? You can flirt with them, by all means; allow them to buy you drinks and keep you company, I can’t stop you doing that, but from now on, I want you to be mine – all mine. I don’t mind you seeing them, but I don’t want you fucking them. I want you to always, always belong to me, only to me, and no-one else, are we clear?”

  Lottie had nodded, and that had been the last time that she had ever seen him.

  It had also been the same night the dreams first started, and that was why she was now convinced that he had been the one to knock her up.

  The one who had gotten her pregnant, and then just abandoned her.

  So much for being his, she thought now.

  He had staked his claim, and then disappeared off the face of the earth.

  There was a still a chance he might come back, Lottie thought, but with each passing day, that chance seemed slimmer and slimmer.

  Elizabeth thought her a fool – had told her there was no chance he was ever coming back. Still, a small part of Lottie clung to the hope that someday soon, Lukaas might still return to her and she might yet get to share her news with him that he was going to be a father.

  If he came back, Lottie thought, maybe she could even keep the baby and they could bring it up together, rather than giving it up for adoption – but Lottie wasn’t naive; she knew that was a longshot.

  Still, it didn’t hurt to dream…

  In the weeks following that night, one by one, slowly all of Lottie’s other lovers had also started dropping off the radar. Lottie wasn’t sure what had happened to them all – and thought it entirely possible some of them might have returned home, for America had finally begun the slow process of calling back its servicemen to its shores now that the war was over. She did know for sure that at least two of them had been murdered, because she had seen their deaths reported on the front pages of the local paper.

  One of those who had been killed had been the one who liked to bite her during sex; the other, some random, anonymous serviceman that she had only seen a couple of times, but who, she remembered, always came across as shy. This was at least until he’d had a couple of drinks, whereupon he’d always turn into some kind of rampant animal in the bedroom with a habit of pinning her down and holding her there until eventually, he finally finished having his way with her.

  The death of the man who’d liked to bite her was the worst of the two.

  He had been found quite literally ripped apart, or so the papers said. Murdered in an alley; his head torn off, his eyes ripped out, his heart gone, and his mouth stuffed with garlic – the rest of his body scattered around the alley where he’d been found like so much discarded refuse.

  Lottie was convinced Lukaas was the one responsible for the killings – and thought he might have killed some of her other lovers as well – but didn’t have any proof. After his possessiveness and his behaviour the last time that she’d seen him though, she could certainly believe him capable of murder.

  He’d always had a simmering anger in him, of that she was certain, even if he’d never actually shown it before until that last night they’d spent together. After what she had seen that night, however, after he had finally let his mask slip a little, Lottie now believed it was perfectly possible he could have gone after her other lovers. Maybe this was the reason he was now keeping his distance.

  Maybe it was a good thing he was gone, Lottie thought.

  At first, she had tried to convince herself that the murders were the only reason why he’d vanished – that he’d chosen to distance himself so that when he did go off after all of her former lovers, she would not be incriminated, and that he would be back again in a few weeks once the heat from the killings wore off. As more and more time continued to pass, Lottie had slowly begun to despair of ever seeing him again.

  Maybe he had somehow sensed that she was pregnant, Lottie thought, and that was why he had abandoned her.

  Some men were like that, she knew.

  Maybe he had decided to never come back to her, not because he was on the run for all the killings and did not want to implicate her, but because he couldn’t face the responsibility of being a father.

  If that were true though, it didn’t explain why he had been so possessive of her just before he left.

  Maybe everything he had ever told her had all been lies, Lottie thought. Maybe nothing he had ever told her had been the truth…

  She guessed she would never know now…

  At least, she thought, she still had her sister.

  Elizabeth had not abandoned her and maybe once Lottie had finally given birth and given up this baby growing in her belly, they might be able to work out some kind of more permanent arrangement for her staying.

  One could but hope…

  After all, what was more important than family?

  ***

  Several thousand miles away, back in his own country, Lukaas looked out across the water from where he stood on the busy docks of New York City. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, he too found his thoughts inexplicably flashing back to that last night he had spent with Lottie, shortly before he had abandoned her.

  For reasons he could not explain, he could not seem to get her off his mind of late, almost as though she had somehow found a way of getting under his skin, despite his not having seen her in almost eight weeks now.

  If he were honest, Lukaas found it more than just a little bit disturbing.

  No other bitch he’d ever been with before had ever got under his skin this much.

  He remembered their last night together – how he’d immediately smelled the foul taint of Vampyre on her from the very first moment he’d entered her room, and the way it had made him feel so angry, so full of rage, when she had blatantly turned around and lied to his face when he had asked her if she had lain with any other man.

  He’d known that she was lying to him because he had often seen her down at the club on nights when she did not know that he was there, watching, and had seen her dancing and flirting with the other servicemen, sometimes even taking them back home with her if they were lucky.

  But he also knew because he could smell their scent on her; every last goddamn one of them.

  Lukaas had no problem with her seeing other men – God knew that times were hard and he could not always be there for her – but he did mind them fucking her, and he did mind her lying to him and challenging his authority over her by doing so.

  He had marked her, made her his – and that was supposed to mean something.

  He thought that he had made it clear that he owned her and that she belonged to him, body and soul, but obviously not.

  If he had, she would never have gone with any of those other men, he thought.

  In truth, Lukaas did not mind sharing her, but what he did demand was honesty and respect.

  He had asked her a question and she had lied to him and so, he remembered, she had left him with no other option but to teach her that there were consequences for her actions.

  The worst part wasn’t even that she had lied to him if he were truly being honest – women were natural liars, sometimes they j
ust couldn’t help it.

  No, the worst part was that she had lain with one of those dirty, filthy blood sucking Vampyre and then tried to deny it.

  That was the real kick in the teeth, he thought.

  Lukaas didn’t entirely hold Lottie to blame for that. There was no way that she could’ve ever possibly known what the Vampyre was when she slept with him – but as for the Vampyre in question, well, he certainly should have known better.

  There was no way that thing could have missed the Wolf mark present on her and not recognised it for what it was – the scent left by another preternatural creature marking her as its territory. The Vampyre and Lycanthropes had been mortal enemies since long before man had first walked upon the Earth. The animosity shared between their two species went back for thousands of generations, but still there were certain boundaries that both species were supposed to respect.

  No, the Vampyre had known exactly what the score was and had obviously just decided to fuck Lottie anyway, no doubt quite pleased at itself for having gotten one over on some dumb Lycanthrope who had left its playmate unattended.

  Worse, the creature had marked her himself.

  Lukaas wasn’t having that.

  No fucking way.

  By rights, Lukaas should probably have just left well enough alone and walked away – from both Lottie and the Vampyre she had so foolishly fucked to satisfy the carnal lust that burned between all women’s thighs – but he had been angry, and so had decided there was no way he could let such a deed go unpunished.

  And so he had gone hunting…but not without first taking what he wanted from Lottie and marking her again, stronger this time, leaving her hurt and sore inside.

  He had hurt her deliberately, fucking her much harder than normal because he had wanted it to serve as a warning, and a reminder to her, of what she could expect from him if she were not honest with him in the future – if they even had a future – and had left her bleeding when he was done.