Caretaker

  Caretaker

  By Laken Cane

  Copyright © 2018 Laken Cane

  All rights reserved.

  The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, association with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment. Ebook copies may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share with a friend, please buy an extra copy, and thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  For more information about the author, you can find her online at

  www.lakencane.com,

  www.facebook.com/laken.cane.3

  Acknowledgments

  My thanks to the amazing arc reviewers for Bloodhunter and Caretaker, and to everyone who leaves a review after release. You’re helping get these books noticed and I appreciate it! My thanks to my wonderful page managers, Shiv Crew group members, and friends. And to those who have been called upon to help me with the dreaded blurbs in the past—Racheal Chapman, Jo Dawson, Patricia Whitten, Idelisses Torres (God, I hope I’m not forgetting someone)—thank you! Racheal Chapman, thank you for your help with Caretaker’s blurb. It’s much less horrific when I can share the pain with someone else! :D Thanks to Tammy Sullivan for the amazing support and promotion. And my thanks to Shannon Harrell for the pimping. Thanks to Maria and Jo for buying every T-Shirt I put up for sale, and wearing them. :D So many of you guys are always making me smile, sending me funny messages, and supporting the hell out of me. I wish I could name every single one of you. I appreciate you so much.

  Thanks to Marguerite for the amazing, detailed reviews and for bringing readers to me, and thanks to Searcy for the stunning reviews and for the help with editing Caretaker. <3

  First 15 songs on the playlist for Caretaker, Silverlight #2

  -

  -Sleep Baby Sleep by Broods

  -Angels or Devils by Dishwalla (Live…Greetings from the Flow State)

  -In Love with a Liar by Green or Blue

  -The Sound of Silence by Disturbed

  -Wicked Game by Ursine Vulpine (ft. Annaca)

  -In Sooth by Green or Blue

  -Trouble (Stripped) by Halsey

  The Scientist by Corinne Bailey Rae

  -Follow You Down by Matthew Mayfield

  -Cannibals by Kyla La Grange

  -Make Believe by The Burned

  -Sign of the Times by Harry Styles

  -Friction by Imagine Dragons

  -Cold Winds by Matthew Mayfield

  -The One I Love by Scala and the Kolacny Brothers

  -

  From the Author

  Would you like me to send you updates and news? Join my mailing list! You can find it here (https://www.lakencane.com/contact)You can send me an email from that page as well.

  You can join me on Facebook here (https://www.facebook.com/laken.cane.3), and on Twitter here (https://twitter.com/lakencane).

  Enjoy the book, and please remember to leave a review when you’re finished!

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgments

  First 15 songs on the playlist for Caretaker, Silverlight #2

  From the Author

  BOOK ONE RECAP

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  PART TWO

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  PART THREE

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  About Laken Cane

  Laken’s books:

  BOOK ONE RECAP

  A little reminder about Bloodhunter, Silverlight book 1 and major players--

  Trinity was attacked by Amias Sato, master vampire, when he was sick with an infection that drove vampires insane. Trinity didn’t die, though. His bite awakened a power that had lain dormant inside her. She became something more. Something powerful.

  As a rare Bloodhunter, she is the only type of person in existence who can get a vampire’s scent and track him no matter where he goes. She and other hunters are the only people who can also give a vampire his true death.

  Amias gives her Silverlight, a mystical, powerful sword that can kill a vampire by cutting him anywhere on his body, defend her, and make her a badass in a fight. As Amias put it, “She will kill the world for you, Trinity.”

  Trinity comes into her power and goes through some changes as she struggles to adjust. Lust, bloodlust, lust.

  Basically, a lot of lust.

  Then the humans get scared, and the supernaturals suffer for it. Angus is beaten nearly to death and carted off to prison. Clayton, freed by the incubus for a short time, is taken back into Miriam’s control. Silverlight grows stronger.

  Important Characters:

  Angus Stark: Werebull. Angus goes to prison for kicking human ass and there was nothing Trinity could do about it.

  Amias Sato: Master vampire. Trinity’s master. The man who killed her family, gave her Silverlight, and wants to possess her.

  Clayton Wilder: Brought back from the grave by his tormentor, Miriam Crow. Becomes possessed by the incubus who threw Trinity into unbearable despair.

  Shane Copas: Shotgun slinging sexy asshole of a hunter.

  Rhys Graver: Mystery. Tall, dark, and sexy. What is he? We don’t know yet.

  Miriam Crow: Crazy bitch. Necromancer, torturer, and owner of Clayton.

  Captain Frank Crawford: Captain of the Red Valley Police Department.

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  I halted suddenly and Shane watched me, his head tilted as he listened for whatever it was that had spooked me.

  No vampires rushed out of the woods to attack us. No infecteds ran at us with need and rage and hunger, but they were there. We just had to find them.

  Six months ago they’d made it easy on us—the infection had killed them after about a week. It didn’t kill them forever, though, so Shane and I had to track them down and give them the true death before they rose up in months or years or centuries and brought the disease back with them.

  But over the last three months or so, the infection had begun to change once again. Vampires seemed to eventually influence and disrupt everything they touched. Even people. Maybe especially people.

  The vampires—those few that remained—were stronger than ever. They’d survived the infection.

  They were faster, stronger, meaner.

  But they weren’t immune to the disease that had struck them in the first place. They were alive and healthy, but they couldn’t eat.

  Masses of them had died.

  Shane and I couldn’t give them all—or even most of them—the true death, but we weren’t the only hunters in the world. And the hunters were taking
care of business.

  The humans had joined in to help. They couldn’t hunt or kill the way we could, but they took their shotguns and their silver and if they happened to get lucky enough to not only survive an encounter with a desperate vampire but to capture him, they dragged his silvered, mangled ass to one of the centers that had cropped up over the last six months, collected their cash for a job well done, and went back for more.

  But mostly, those humans just died.

  The infecteds might be sick and dying, but they were mad and vicious and hungry. So hungry.

  And the humans died alongside the vampires.

  Amias stepped suddenly into my path, and a millisecond before Shane pulled the trigger of his silver-loaded shotgun, the master vampire disappeared.

  He hadn’t contracted the latest round of infection—he believed himself immune, and he believed he was immune because he’d bitten me all those years ago. Something inside me had protected him, caused him to fight off the disease, and kept him from getting sick again.

  But…

  “He’s getting faster.” I gripped the hilt of my holstered Silverlight but didn’t draw her. I didn’t want to kill Amias. I mean, I did, but I didn’t.

  Not in my heart.

  If I’d gone after him with the true intent to do him harm, pain would have ripped through my body. My mind.

  “Yeah,” Shane muttered.

  Shane Copas wasn’t exactly the talkative sort.

  If the other surviving vampires became better versions of themselves post-infection, as Amias had done, and was still doing, the world was in trouble. Amias was a master, though. Not all the vampires were like Amias.

  At least that was what I kept telling myself.

  “Trinity.”

  I shivered at his voice and turned my head to find him standing right beside me. I hadn’t seen much of him in the past few weeks, which was unusual, considering I was Amias Sato’s obsession.

  Being his obsession sounded better than saying I was his servant. That he was my master.

  “Where have you been?” I demanded, then looked away at his sharply indrawn breath. I sounded like I cared.

  “I am never far from your side.” His hooded stare softened as he watched me, and a tiny smile tugged at the corners of his sensuous lips.

  “I don’t want you by my side.” I glared at him, but his expression didn’t change. “I want you helping us deal with your sick vampires.”

  Amias had been hunting with us, shocking as that might sound. He helped disable the infecteds, as the sick vampires were called, so Shane and I could give them the true death. He didn’t want those vampires coming back any more than the humans did.

  Shane rested his shotgun on his shoulder. “What do you want, Sato? We have vampires to kill.” His hard stare suggested he’d liked to have killed the one who stood in front of us, but until we understood exactly how Amias and I were linked, we wouldn’t be killing him.

  My calmness caught me off guard. Oh, if I concentrated, I could feel the rage sloshing around inside me like dirty, frenzied water, but it no longer rose up to grab me by the throat. It no longer made me lose my mind.

  I blew out a soft breath, and the vampire master’s smile widened.

  “You delight me,” he said.

  I just stared at him, cold, unflinching, deliberately controlled.

  “Let’s go,” Shane told me and turned away.

  “Wait.” Amias reached out to wrap his fingers around my wrist.

  I jerked away from his touch and stumbled back into Shane, who snaked his free arm around my waist and pointed his shotgun at Amias.

  Amias turned up his lip but didn’t even glance at my hunting partner. “I dislike your suspicion. I told you I will not hurt you.”

  “You’re a liar.” I relaxed against the sweet darkness of Shane’s body for only a few seconds before I stepped away. “You’ve hurt me plenty.”

  I guess he believed wiping out my family and leaving me to bleed out on the street wasn’t hurtful. Still, it wasn’t fear that he might hurt me that made me recoil. I jerked away because I wanted his touch.

  And that was just wrong.

  “What do you want, Amias?”

  He sighed at my anger. “I’m growing weak from hunger, Trinity. I must feed.”

  “I don’t see how this is my problem.” I noted his pallor, his dullness, and his thin, unkempt body. I frowned. “Why aren’t you feeding?” I asked, finally, reluctantly. “You’re immune to the infection.”

  “Things have changed,” he told me, his gaze dropping to the pulse in my throat. “Blood from an unclean human is like water to a vampire.”

  “Wait,” I said, trying to understand what he was telling me. “You’re saying you’re immune to the infection but the blood of human carriers can’t nourish you?”

  “Yes,” he said, quietly, then repeated, “Things have changed.”

  I shook my head. “I won’t feed you.”

  His black stare never left my face. “You fed me once. I need your precious blood again, my love.”

  I shivered, hit abruptly by the image of him between my legs, his fangs piercing my flesh, his hands holding open my thighs.

  He lifted his nose to the air, pulling in the scent of my desire. I couldn’t hide that from him, as much as I might want to.

  It didn’t help that I hadn’t had sex since Angus had been carted away to prison, or that I was surrounded by some very passionate people. Accidental, casual touches from Shane, the hot, forbidden caress of Clayton’s stare, the sexy tilt of Rhys’s full lips, Miriam’s dark promise, and the fierce need of the vampire master…

  They made my body wake up screaming with lust.

  I wasn’t even sure why I continued to deprive myself—at least not with Shane. Clayton was off limits, the subject hadn’t exactly come up with Rhys, and Amias…no. I was full of self-disgust about what I’d done with Amias.

  My family was in the ground because of him. How could I have hot dreams about the man who’d taken their lives? How could I do that?

  But I did.

  Shane was a dick most of the time, but he was a hunter, and we were drawn to each other. And dear lord, was he hot.

  If he’d pushed the issue, I doubted sincerely that I would resist him. Thing was…he hadn’t pushed. He didn’t seem quite as affected by my body as I was by his.

  Jerk.

  Of course, that made me want him even more—but I wasn’t telling him that.

  Shane took my arm—one of those tantalizing casual touches—drawing the master’s suddenly icy stare.

  Then Amias rolled his eyes up to look at Shane, and the air became thick and heavy with tension as the two men watched each other.

  They might have stood there all night, waiting for the other to flinch, if a dozen infecteds hadn’t chosen that moment to show themselves. They raced toward us, starving, too desperate to care that they were no match for two hunters, a killing sword, and a master. Their cries made my stomach tighten with pity even as I drew Silverlight and ran to meet them.

  I hated vampires, but I hated torment even more. Even theirs. I swung Silverlight through the air, a hunter’s joy singing through my veins, and took them out of their misery for good.

  The attacks were infrequent now that so many vampires had been wiped out by the disease. Mostly Shane and I hunted for ones that had fallen down and ‘died’ so we could keep them from coming back.

  The vampires had been annihilated.

  At least most of them had. I glanced at Amias as the vampires on the ground began to disappear. They left sad, ragged piles of clothing behind, and he stared down at them, his shoulders slumped.

  He looked up and caught me watching him. “I feel your despair,” he said.

  “She needs to shake it off.” Shane slung the strap of his shotgun over his shoulder, then crossed his arms and stared down his nose at me.

  “Angus is in hell,” I snapped. “I’m going to be a little sad.”

 
; Amias took a quick step toward me, his hand out, and Shane’s blade appeared suddenly in his hand as he bumped me to the side and stood in front of me.

  “Shane,” I said, surprised. “What are you doing?”

  “Fuck.” He ran his hand over his face, then sheathed his blade. When he finally looked at me, his eyes were narrow and his frown was dark. As though his kneejerk impulse to protect me was somehow my fault.

  As I watched him, mystified, he gave me one last scowl then turned and jogged away. I didn’t try to stop him.

  “He’s been so strange lately,” I murmured, as he disappeared into the night.

  Amias shrugged. “He fights it, but it will not matter in the end.”

  I frowned. “Fights what? The need to give a shit?”

  But he was no longer interested in discussing Shane. “I must eat, Trinity.”

  “You’re not eating me.”

  “You will force me to take what I need.” He said it so softly, so politely, that it took me a minute to hear the threat in his words.

  I backed up and drew Silverlight, but though she lit up the night and prepared to end the vampire, the pain did not rip through me.

  Those days were gone, and I was sad to see them go. I no longer wanted to hurt Amias Sato. I’d gone through many changes over the last few years, and accepting the master was maybe the worst one. I hadn’t even realized it completely, but there it was.

  I squeezed Silverlight. “I may not feel the rage, and I may not want to hurt you, but I will defend myself.”

  He shrugged. “And you will receive only pain for your efforts. You cannot kill me, Trinity.”

  “So? I can deprive you of your manly parts. That’d smart a bit, wouldn’t it? Maybe take your mind off your hunger?”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “I wish you weren’t quite so difficult.”

  “And I wish I’d never met you.”

  A flash of real pain, there and gone, streaked through his eyes. “I wish that as well, my love.”

  I sheathed my sword, then turned to go, but his words stopped me before I’d gotten more than a few steps.

  “What would you do for the release of your werebull?”