Night's Kiss deleted scene

BONUS! Here's a deleted scene from upcoming Night's Kiss (The Ancients series, book 2). This is a flashback to Kat's first meeting with Enkidu/Ryker (we meet Enkidu in Downbeat). Kat is Liese Steel's half-sister, adopted by the Kean family along with older sister Rey. Kat is in Meiers Corners to meet her birth parents. She's a vampire hunter. Enkidu/Ryker is an ancient vampire. Kat, when she meets him, doesn't know he's Enkidu/Ryker. She only thinks of him as the vampire king.

Note: This scene is deleted, and therefore both unedited and not canon.

Enjoy!

I’d met the vampire king the night I’d nearly died.

It was maybe five years ago, in Dallas. Late at night, in a commercial area with nobody around. I’d been hunting monsters for quite some time at that point. Max, my mentor, had been killed only a year before, but I was used to hunting alone.

At least, that’s what I told myself.

I’d been taking more and more risks, telling myself I was pushing my limits, but in truth, I missed Max.

A rogue jumped me. I easily took off his head with my practiced slice. Three more appeared. I shifted onto my toes, ready for their attack. Three was tough; I was tougher. I’d live, and I’d win.

Then four more joined them. I swallowed hard. My confidence wavered.

A dozen more rogues appeared behind them.

Nearly twenty bloodsuckers started floating toward me.

Sweat broke out under my leathers. My thudding heart sent fear-electrified blood singing through my veins. I grasped the hilts of my blades, the whooshing in my ears drowning out the footfalls of the oncoming vampire mob.

Is tonight the night?

I could’ve defended myself, blocking with Joyce and using Shredder’s curved blade for long cuts. It might’ve kept me alive longer.

I chose to go out in a fury of pure attack.

“It’s a good night to die!” Screaming my defiance, I raised both blades and hit the mob’s edge like a blender, stabbing with Joyce, slashing with Shredder. I struck down one, two, three rogues.

Revealing four times as many—waiting, now. Grinning. Too many, too sure of themselves.

They were going to play with me before they killed me.

Fear juiced my veins. Tonight’s the night. The question wasn’t whether I’d die, or even how painfully. The question was how small they’d carve me before I did.

Panting, I swung my swords threateningly.

A brute of a vamp butted in front, bald and heavily muscled, the kind who probably crocheted steel cables for fun. He licked his lips. “You’re a tasty morsel.”

This is how it ends. He reached for me…

“Halba!”

The bull roar came out of nowhere, so potent and hair-raising my legs turned to numb pegs. Halba must’ve meant halt, because the thunderous bellow not only froze me, it turned the encroaching gang of vamps to statues, including Baldie and his reaching hand.

Breath rasping in my throat, I raised my eyes.

From the shadows a couple blocks beyond the ravening gang, a giant emerged, a vampire who dwarfed even Baldie.

The giant flickered—and he stood at the far corner of the next block. Flickered. Appeared mid-block.
Flickered again, and loomed right behind the mob.

The hairs on my nape stood straight up.

I swallowed a long, cold shaft of terror. Holy halberds, that was one enormous vampire.

He made the once-terrifying predators of the gang seem like toothpicks. Even Baldie cowered at the sight of him.

Black karate pants circled lean, muscled hips. An unbuttoned dark shirt revealed a slit of bronzed, shockingly strong-looking torso. Black hair framed blood-red eyes set in a face that…shish-kebab me.

Most vampires’ skin hardened in battle, flat and thick like red-leather armor plates.

This monster? Not leather or anything half so friendly. No, his face was a steel mask, brandishing spikes for extra fear. A Samurai’s somen face plate. If the guy had been Darth Vader he couldn’t have been scarier.

I would never forget that mask, so primally terrifying it was almost beautiful. He was the Alpha vampire, with a capital A.

Or the king of all vampires.

His eyes met mine, and my stomach dropped out my legs. Next I’d feel the brunt of his will, aimed to turn my brain to mush. I braced myself. I was immune to vampire compulsion—though with him, I got the feeling mere immunity might not cut it.

Strangely, his red eyes cooled to a red-black, gleaming with intelligence and awareness. Almost as if he was trying to reassure me.

That actually freaked me worse.

Baldie growled, reclaiming my attention. Fight the vampire in front of you. That was Max’s advice on battling mobs. It was enough to unlock my muscles, slow my panting breath from bellows to accordion, and let my arms and brain engage.

I launched my whole body to spear Joyce through the musclebound vampire’s heart.

He sucked in a shocked breath that burbled a bit as I twisted the blade, blendering his respiratory system. One-handed, I chopped Shredder into the monster’s thick neck.

I hadn’t used enough backswing. My talwar cut halfway and hit his spine with an impact that jarred my whole body.

I breathed through the ringing ache, chafing at every second lost. Even if I managed to down Baldie, there was still the rest of the gang.

Plus King Vamp.

One fight at a time. I withdrew Joyce and swung her at the other side of his neck. Between the two swords, I managed to scissor off Baldie’s head.

Next. I looked up, expecting dozens of monsters slavering to take me.

At least half had been mown flat by King Vamp. He slashed his way through the rest as if he was batting cobwebs with talons like machetes.

Coming toward me.

My whole body went struck-by-lightning haywire. I couldn’t move a muscle.

The king was terrifyingly efficient. His monstrous claws scythed through three necks at a time. He followed up with his other hand, scooping hearts from rib cages like a truck spade digs out a tree.

He was surprisingly graceful, despite the carnage. Gliding fluidly from vamp to vamp, he dealt slaughter in a deadly ballet, his open black shirt billowing around him as he spun and twirled. Bronzed skin and an intriguing ripple of muscles flashed in the opening.

Liquid heat stirred in my pelvis, shocking the hell out of me.

Not intriguing. Scary. Remember scary.

I managed to chop one more head while he plowed through the rest of the gang. Then his dance came to a standstill.

Before me.

I swallowed a lump of dry ice. Up close, he was huge. His arms looked as strong as my whole body, his hands powerful as mallets. He stood utterly still, his swinging shirt the only remnant of his violent dance.

His burning gaze locked onto mine.

My insides erupted in bright terror. He’d gone through the gang of bloodsuckers like a pizza cutter. I’d be butter.

Fight, damn it.

I tried to lift Joyce or Shredder, but my limbs were too weak and shaky. No last-minute inspiration rose in my brain to save me. I panted through a dry throat, my breath scraping painfully. I could only stand there, trembling.

He opened his mouth to speak.

Hey tasty morsel. Let me reward you with my kiss of death. In a way, it would be a relief to get cheesy lines. He felt different from the usual monster, and I didn’t understand or like that.

And he said…

“Hello.”

His voice, when he wasn’t bellowing, was as smooth and golden as basswood honey. That single word flowed, warm and teasing, through my flesh and straight into my muscles. A shiver, hot and cold both, turned me inside out. My limbs started trembling for a new reason.

My brain tumbled into free fall. What the hell does that mean, hello? Why isn’t he attacking? I managed a stuttered, “You’re a vampire…aren’t you?” I nearly choked on my own idiocy. Of course he was. That terrifying facial mask wasn’t tied on.

His lips tipped up in a slight smile, hot-damn edible despite the mask.

My insides jumbled again, harder, steamier.

In contrast to my panting, he was barely breathing hard. Each lift of his chest parted his shirt to reveal a hint of his pectorals’ deep valley and a march of truly spectacular abdominals.

This was one powerful monster.

My heart, already hammering, kicked into overdrive, and I shivered—with lust.

Daggers and damn. My sister sometimes wondered if I was attracted to death, but this was ridiculous. What is wrong with me?

“I’m a vampire hunter.” I snarled it at myself as much as at him. “My life’s work is to kill bloodsucking monsters. Like you.” Snapping Shredder into his scabbard, I reared back with Joyce alone. Ingrained muscle memory took over.

Putting my whole body behind it, so much that I lifted from the ground, I impaled his heart—or tried to.

With King Vamp, it didn’t go like practice at all.

First, he was too tall. Instead of nailing him in the sternum and piercing his heart, I hit him somewhere north of his navel.

Hit, not pierced. Because his skin resisted my blade.

Shock electrified my nerves. My blade was a plasma-cut hollow grind Damascus-like steel with cementite nanowires and carbon nanotubes and…basically, she was immensely tough, resistant to shattering, and honed to a sharp, resilient edge with a ribbon of silver behind to slice clean. She’d bested hundreds of rogues, cutting through any vampire, no matter the plating.

Yet King Vamp’s hide resisted.

He laughed, a low, dark chuckle that rippled over my skin and said how unimpressive he found me. “You’re different. I like that.”

Freaked, I pushed harder on the sword. Not a good idea. Joyce quivered with the pressure. Much more of this, and she’d snap.

And still his flesh stayed alarmingly whole.

His honeyed voice dropped into my stunned brain. “What qualifies as a bloodsucking monster?” His tone was merely conversational.

Acid reality flushed through me. I can’t destroy him. I couldn’t even hurt him. Now he’d kill me with a slash of claws, and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it.

In a final defiance, I glared up at him. “What qualifies? Bloodsucker,” I spat. “It’s all there in the name. Drinks helpless people dry.”

“Ah. You hate vampires who abuse humans.” His lips pursed, thin and mobile within the mask. “So do I.”

Suddenly, his flesh dissolved around the blade, and Joyce sank in.

I was already off-balance mentally, and now I was thrown physically as well. For the first time, my rigorous training didn’t save me.

I sank with her toward him.

In that moment, he could have simply stepped back, and I would’ve fallen. Flat on the ground, I’d be helpless to whatever he wanted to do to me. He could’ve stripped me of my clothes and my choices, as those vampires did to my sister, all those years ago. Or wound up like a snake and struck, piercing my throat with his fangs, drinking me to death, as the monsters had done to my parents.

All he did was put his hand over mine on the hilt.

Hot skin seared mine. My shocked gaze fell to our joined hands. His long fingers wrapped easily around my fist, his talons like a wreath of thorns. The heat of his skin raised my internal temperature to broil. I glanced up.

He smiled faintly.

That slight curve of lips, dusky rose in his bronzed, hardened skin, was worthy of a da Vinci oil painting. His enigmatic smile shot electric darts into my every weak point, my throat, my belly, my knees. My quivering legs buckled.

He caught me by the shoulder, one-handed. Maybe to steady me, yet it was as if his hand was a live wire.

Wild heat ignited inside me, ripping through my arm and breasts to burst in my chest as an excited heartbeat. Insanely, it lifted me and my whole body toward that glorious mouth. Wanting desperately to plaster mine to his.

His smile turned triumphant.

Sweet swords of insanity. He was a vampire. I’d made a promise to myself after the fateful night that took my parents—as long as I wasn’t dead, I’d continue to fight.

I twisted my sword in his belly. Or tried to.

Joyce wouldn’t move.

I glanced down at where she was embedded in his body. He’d hardened his flesh around her. Absolutely no blood welled around the blade.

An intriguing feathering of black hair led down from it, though.

“Fuck me,” I muttered. I was an idiot.

He released my arm. His hand rose toward my neck.

Panic choked me. He’d peel away my neck guard. Hold me with his enormous strength and bite, fangs thrusting, into my juicy, exposed throat…

Get away, get away, get away.

My feet wouldn’t respond.

His fingers touched my chin, whisper soft. He tilted my face up. His own was close and getting closer…

My racing blood thudded in my ears, my brain a raging thunderstorm, so much wild energy pulsing through me that my short hairs seemed to rise from the overload.

His mouth touched mine.

Not a kiss. Skin barely brushed skin.

Yet all the adrenaline zinging inside me exploded. My whole body short-circuited, like a hundred forked bolts striking the entire grid at once. I must have been deranged because I reached for his head—but not to shove him away.

To pull him closer.

The warmth of his breath heated my lips for another beat—and then with a low, almost inaudible growl, his body blew into smoke.

My blade dropped from my unnerved hand to clatter against the concrete as his mist streamed away.

I stood there, panting, wondering what the hell had just happened.


First pass edits are turned in on this! I'll update you as soon as I hear more.